Pleating for Mercy (15 page)

I pulled out another bolt of muslin and flipped the page of my sketchbook to the bridesmaids’ designs.

“I go to school with Holly Kincaid,” she said.

I slipped my glasses off and gave the lenses a quick wipe. “Who?”

“Holly Kincaid. Your friend who was here, Josie, who’s marrying Nate Kincaid? That’s my friend Holly’s uncle.”

“Ah, Miriam’s daughter.”

She nodded.

“And Miriam is Nate’s sister, and Nate’s marrying Josie, so Josie will be your friend’s aunt.” Small town equaled small world. Six degrees—or fewer—of separation worked for more than just Kevin Bacon.

“Yeah.”

“You and Holly are good friends?” I asked.

“BFFs.”

I absently loaded spools of thread onto a thread rack I’d hung on the wall as we chatted, wondering if Gracie had any insight into why Miriam had dropped out of the wedding. “I heard that Miriam was supposed to be in the wedding, but now she isn’t.”

Her smooth brow furrowed. “Yeah, that was weird. First she was the maid of honor. Then she wasn’t. She went a little cuckoo.”

“Cuckoo how?”

She dropped a few buttons into the mason jar. “Like now she wants to know exactly where Holly is
all
the time. Holly lost her cell phone and has to pay for a replacement, but Ms. Kincaid got her a new one and said she can work it off, but Holly has to take pictures of where she’s at and send them to her mom. She won’t let her stay out past ten o’clock anymore. Stuff like that.”

That all sounded like fairly reasonable mom behavior to me, but if it was out of the ordinary for Miriam, then I wondered what had caused it. Something must have happened to set her off.

Maybe Josie hadn’t really
wanted
Miriam in the wedding. She’d said they got along, but did they really?

If they didn’t get along, had Josie forced Miriam out, opening it up for Nell to step in? If Miriam was as prideful as the other Kincaids, maybe she harbored some bitterness over being forced out of the wedding.

Could she have taken her anger out on Nell?

My imagination was getting the better of me. Miriam hadn’t been in Buttons & Bows—or had she? I remembered thinking for a second that I’d seen her before I’d realized it was Mrs. Kincaid. What if it had been Miriam after all? Could she have darted in, hoping to blend in with the crowd, just to find a murder weapon to use on Nell later?

“Holly doesn’t know why her mom dropped out?”

She shrugged. “She might.”

Two things I’d learned about Gracie already: she wasn’t shy and she definitely had opinions. “Do
you
have a theory?”

She nodded. “I think maybe she’s jealous.”

Interesting. Jealousy was a spin-off of the motive I’d already thought of. My reasoning was sketchy since I didn’t really know them, but Gracie would have more insight. “Jealous of Josie?”

“Yeah, totally,” she said. “You know Mrs. Kincaid? The grandmother, I mean?”

“I think everybody in town knows Lori Kincaid.”

“Yeah, well, when Miss Miriam left her husband, Mrs. Kincaid sided with
him
in the divorce.” She huffed indignantly. “Shouldn’t she have sided with her own daughter? I mean, that’s just wrong.”

It did sound wrong, but there were always two sides to a story, and this particular version was twice removed, so it definitely needed to be taken with a grain of salt.

“A mother should be there for her daughter, right?” I nodded, but it was clear she’d already answered that question for herself when she said wistfully, “I think she totally should be. Always. Why have a baby if you’re not going to be there for her? Period and the end.”

“Mrs. Kincaid wasn’t there for Miriam?”

Gracie plucked a few more buttons from the floor and dropped them into the jar. “Nope. Not even close.”

“Or for Holly?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Holly’s dad wouldn’t move out of their house, so Miss Miriam left instead. Took Holly and moved into”—she made air quotes—“ ‘the castle.’ That’s what we call it because of the moat and bridge and everything.”

“You nailed it. The Kincaids’ mansion looks like a big ol’ stone castle. Or a fortress.” I perched on the edge of the stool, leaning my elbows on the cutting table, completely sucked in by Gracie’s story. “So what happened?”

“Well, Mrs. Kincaid, the grandmother, I mean, wouldn’t let them stay at the castle. She actually kicked them out. Can you believe that? Holly said she heard Mrs. Kincaid tell her mom that she couldn’t put her head in the sand and hide. She had to face things head-on. ‘Go back to your husband,’ she told her.”

I’d kept up with a lot of the town gossip during my years away, but I’d somehow missed the story of Miriam’s messy divorce. “But she must have had a good reason for wanting out of the marriage, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Holly’s dad’s a jerk. Doesn’t come around, never goes to her soccer games, calls her mom names. Miss Miriam couldn’t get to any of her money. That’s why Miss Miriam asked my dad for help. They stayed with us till he helped them get into an apartment.”

“It’s a good thing you were there to help,” I said. Glimpsing behind a family’s closed door was like reality television: you couldn’t predict what would happen and there was always a surprise around the corner. The Kincaids were no exception.

Neither were the Cassidys.

I couldn’t imagine what Miriam must have felt, but I’d lost the connection to what this story had to do with Miriam’s being jealous. If there was one. “So what’s your theory about the wedding?”

“Oh! Right.” She dropped a few more buttons into the first jar, added a length of ribbon to the second jar, and a hunk of glass to the bag. “When Mrs. Kincaid found out Holly and her mom moved in with us, she totally wigged out.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know, but
I
think Miss Miriam dropped out of the wedding because she’s jealous that her brother and your friend are in love and that Mrs. Kincaid is so happy about it when she wouldn’t even help her get divorced from Holly’s dad.”

I had to admit it was a good theory, but it seemed too thin. I came back to
why?
Questions and answers funneled through my mind.

Why would Lori Kincaid refuse to help her daughter during her divorce?

One: Gracie’s understanding of the marriage was simplistic, one-sided, and painted Miriam as the victim, but if the husband had been betrayed by Miriam, Mrs. Kincaid’s allegiance might make sense.

Or two: Appearances were big to the Kincaids and divorce would be a big ol’ black spot. Bullying worked with schoolkids, but it also worked with adults. Mrs. Kincaid may have sided with Miriam’s husband in order to try to coerce Miriam back into the marriage.

Why wouldn’t Miriam be glad for Nate and Josie? Their happiness had nothing to do with her. But I knew from the fashion world and the cutthroat modeling business that jealousy was ugly and had more to do with a person’s insecurities than anything else. Did the thought of her brother’s picture-perfect wedding highlight her own failed marriage and divorce?

And three: Why would Lori Kincaid have been so upset about Will Flores stepping in to help his daughter’s friend and her mother?

Miriam moving in, even briefly, with someone else made it pretty clear to anyone who cared—which meant all of the gossipmongers in Bliss—that there was definitely trouble in Kincaid paradise. And that she’d turned to outsiders instead of her own family.

Another idea popped into my head. Oh, no. I fiddled with the pincushion, lining the pins up in neat rows, hoping the thought might disappear.

It didn’t.

What if the problem was that Will Flores and Miriam weren’t just friends? What if there was something going on between them . . . and it was happening right under poor Mrs. Flores’s nose?

That would have been bad. A double black spot on the Kincaids’ reputation.

I suddenly had the unmistakable feeling I was being watched. Gracie was focused on fishing out chunks of glass from the pile in front of her, steadily dropping buttons into the mason jar. There was no sign of Meemaw.

So why—?

A loose floorboard creaked in the front room.

I whipped around, caught a glimpse of a woman, and nearly fell off the stool.

Zinnia James, one of the women who’d come into Buttons & Bows the day Nell had died, stood on the threshold of the French doors.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said.

I looked past her, wondering why the bells on the door hadn’t chimed.

She followed my gaze. “It was open.”

Gracie hopped up. “I’ll get it.” She scurried past Mrs. James and pushed the door closed.

Mrs. James spread her arms, palms up. “You
are
open?”

I shook off the chill that had crept up my neck, hurrying to her and taking one of her hands in both of mine so she wouldn’t leave. “Oh, yes, of course!”

The cool, papery feel of her skin made me take a closer look at her. She had a heavy hand with her makeup and her silver hair was styled in a big Texas ’do. I could see that she was actively working to stave off aging. The indentation of fine lines curved around both sides of her mouth and her eyes, but her skin pulled tight over her bones and her forehead was smoother than mine.

A face-lift
and
Botox. I’d seen women far younger than Mrs. James have that frozen-in-time look, the skin so taut it looked unnatural. I didn’t know what Mrs. James had looked like before cosmetic surgery and treatment, but it felt like I was looking at a cloned version of her true self.

“I couldn’t help but overhear you discussing Miriam Kincaid’s divorce. The first in the family, I believe,” she said.

“Gracie was telling me about it. She’s friends with Holly Kincaid,” I said, wondering just how long Mrs. James had been standing there. “I was just curious why Miriam isn’t in her brother’s wedding and—”

“That’s easy enough to answer,” she interrupted. “Keith Kincaid always had political aspirations, but he’s been too indiscreet over the years to run for office.”

She came closer, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m going to let you both in on a little secret—as a senator’s wife, you know.”

I did a mental head slap of realization. Of course. Her husband was longtime Republican Texas senator Jeb James. I
knew
she seemed familiar. I’d forgotten they lived in Bliss.

Gracie stood wide-eyed, stock-still, and expectant, as if the secrets of the world were about to be revealed.

“Squeaky clean before you get into office, that’s the golden rule. After you’re elected, you can do whatever you want. People are more reluctant to admit they were wrong once they’ve voted someone into office. They’re more willing to forgive, shall we say, indiscretions.”

Mrs. James rattled on. “Lori hung her hopes on her children, but that was a losing proposition. Nate had no interest in politics. Derek’s a wild card—too unpredictable. And Miriam? Well, she was always the black sheep of the family. She tried to fit in by marrying that newmoney Dallas boy, Jim Dexter, which, as you know, didn’t work.

“I suspect that Miriam’s walkout has nothing to do with Nate or his bride, and everything to do with retribution. Lori never hid how she felt about the divorce. In her world, if there are problems in a marriage, you turn a blind eye or deal with it behind closed doors. Addressing it in public isn’t an option. Nor is the dissolution of a marriage.”

Her explanation left Nate and Josie as unintended casualties of passive-aggressive payback. It also made complete sense. Another thread I could mull over as I sewed through the night.

“There is something else,” she said, turning to Gracie. “You’re Will Flores’s girl?”

Gracie nodded. Mrs. James’s observations of her friend’s family had her looking a little unsteady.

“I mean no offense by this, my dear, and believe me, the irony of what I’m about to say isn’t lost on me, but the same people who are willing to turn a blind eye to a public figure’s . . . extracurricular activities, shall we say?—and who are good, churchgoing folks—are often the first to deem another’s actions immoral.”

Oh, boy, I didn’t like the sound of this. I was quickly learning that the senator’s wife was brutally honest—and blunt—not typical Southern attributes. Personally, I liked that about her, but the stab of anxiety in my gut had me wary. “Mrs. James—”

“That you were born out of wedlock doesn’t bother some folks—”

My brain hiccupped on Gracie’s birth, but it stopped working altogether when I saw the color drain from Gracie’s face.

“—and while a political candidate can speak out for the homeless and stand up for health insurance, close personal relationships with reprobates are less than desirable.”

Reprobates like Will Flores. From Gracie’s stare, I guessed she didn’t understand what Mrs. James was saying. Thankfully.

But the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as the senator’s wife kept on. “An illicit affair resulting in a—”

“Mrs. James,” I snapped.

“—resulting in such a lovely girl as you, but nonetheless, outside of marriage vows, would not look good for the Kincaid family.”

“
Miriam
isn’t Gracie’s mother,” I said.

“Makes no difference in the eyes of the righteous. Miriam Kincaid involved with someone like William Flores—”

Gracie sprang off the stool. “My dad’s not reprobative or . . . or whatever you said!”

“Simmer down, child,” Mrs. James said, waving her hand as if she were fanning a flame. “Of course he’s not. I’m merely alerting you of how some people think.” She shot a pointed look my way. “You know what I mean, Harlow, dear, don’t you? Being related to Butch Cassidy and all. Talk about reprobates.”

I blinked, my tongue frozen in my mouth. Not many people were direct about the less than reputable side of Butch Cassidy and his Hole-in-the-Wall Gang—and my family’s connection to them. I had to give Mrs. James credit. She didn’t play games or beat around the bush like so many Southerners did. “We like to focus on the good in my great-great-great-granddaddy.”