Free A Fitting End: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery by Melissa Bourbon

been a little distracted by murder, this morning.”
    George and Buckley both turned to stare at me. “Murder?” they said, echoing each other.
    I nodded, feeling a little like the town crier. My only consolation was that the whole thing would be reported by Rebecca Quiñones on the midday news. “The golf pro from Bliss Country Club. They found him dead this morning.”
    “Are you sure it was murder?” George asked, rubbing his biceps. I got the distinct impression he was trying to make me look at them, like I’d find the bulging muscles enticing. I rolled my eyes and he stopped, apparently getting the message that he wasn’t my cup of sweet tea. “Damn murder epidemic around here,” he said. His eyes glinted and his lips twitched. “Too bad he didn’t leave a grieving widow.”
    Will leveled a disbelieving look at George. “Nice, Taylor. Guy’s not even six feet under yet.”
    “I don’t have women flocking to me to get their damn wrinkles annihilated like Buck,” he shot back. “Or repair work to be done.” He winked at me and I bristled. Will and I weren’t even officially dating, but apparently George Taylor thought we were. “I have to seize every opportunity that comes along.”
    “Get off it. You have no shortage of female companionship,” Buckley said lightly, but his eyes were wide and he looked shaken. “Poor bastard.”
    I was pretty sure he was talking about Macon Vance, and not George Taylor.
    Buckley cleared his throat and gave George a crooked, if sad, grin. “And if you ever want to learn to give treatments to women—”
    George scoffed, good and loud. “No thanks. I’ll take ’em when you’re done with ’em.”
    I shook my head, amazed at men and their ability to bury their emotions, as I raised puzzled eyebrows at Will.
    “Cosmetic surgery,” he mouthed.
    Ahhh. Now I understood what I was missing. George liked the women after Buckley was done making sure they were wrinkle free. My fingers fluttered over my forehead. I was still relatively wrinkle free, but one day I wouldn’t be. I preferred the unadulterated face, but I filed away Buckley Hughes’s name… just in case.
    Will bent down to grab hold of the armoire again. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get this done.” The three men tilted the antique to its side again. “One. Two…” On three, a warm breeze swirled past me for the third time and encircled them as they lifted.
    “Did it get lighter?” George asked, sounding puzzled.
    “Sure seems to have.” Buckley took away one hand to prove the point. “Much lighter.”
    I smiled to myself. Meemaw to the rescue.
    The men practically glided through the dining room, down the two steps into the front room of Buttons & Bows, and in no time they’d situated the armoire against the north wall. Anyone coming up the walk to my shop who happened to glance in the picture window would see the stately nineteenth-century pine piece. Every time I looked at it, I’d think of my great-grandmother.
    “How’d Vance die?” the doctor asked after I’d offered them iced tea.
    Guilt at being connected to the murder weapon wound through me. “He was stabbed,” I said after swallowing the lump in my throat. I kept on the down low the fact that my sewing shears had been used.
    “We just played a foursome last week. Poor bastard,” he muttered again.
    We sat in silence for a good minute, each of us thinking about poor Macon Vance. Player or not, he surely hadn’t deserved to die.
    “Anything else you need moved while we’re here?” Will asked after a spell.
    I hadn’t planned on imposing anymore, but since he’d asked… “Texana’s old trunk is up there,” I said. It was a conversation piece, as well as a bit of my family’s history. From what I remembered of the stories, it was possible it had belonged to one of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, if not Butch Cassidy himself.
    They hightailed it back upstairs, and within a few minutes, they were situating the oak-slatted,