A Custom Fit Crime by Melissa Bourbon

like either of us had anything to do with this. We didn’t kill anyone. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but will that hillbilly sheriff and his deputy dog listen? I can’t wait to leave.”
    The disdainful look she gave the room Raylene and Hattie had spent days on end decorating made my gut clench. “I mean, seriously, I didn’t want Michel dead! He helped us create our portfolios. He worked with that photographer until he got it all right. I didn’t want him dead.” She looked at Barbi. “Did you?”
    Barbi shook her head. “Not me, no way.”
    All of us moved our attention from Esmeralda to Barbi and back.
    Lindy caught my gaze and raised her eyebrows. I got the feeling she didn’t know if she should let them continue ranting, or if she should rein them in.
    I voted for reining them in. “Someone killed him,” I said. “Maybe someone here knows something.”
    “We didn’t want him dead,” Esmeralda said. “He made his samples for us.” She whipped her head Midori’s way. “And everything he designed hung perfectly. No weird hemlines or heavy stuff. None of those weird frogs,” she said, referring to the closures Midori often favored on her Asian-inspired pieces. “And no kimono wraparound things. Michel was hip.”
    Midori’s jaw went slack for a split second, and then she stood up, tossing the gown she’d been doing handwork on to the back of the Victorian couch. She looked ready to spit fire at the teenage models. “How do you—”
    I jumped up. “Everyone just needs to take a deep breath and simmer down,” I said, wanting to throttle Esmeralda myself. She’d crossed a line when she and Barbi had been in my workroom, and now she was destroying the line altogether with her attacks. Midori’s designs blended cultures and styles. They could be worn by every woman, not just rail-thin seventeen-year-old twigs who had to have a minimum height requirement of five ten. “Beaulieu’s death is horrible,” I said, trying to simmer down myself, “but getting ugly with each other isn’t going to bring him back, and it’s not going to change the fact that you have to stay here awhile longer. The article—”
    A guttural noise from Lindy cut me off. “My editor’s thinking of killing the article,” she said.
    There it was. Nana’d asked me if they’d go with the story given that one of the designers was now dead. The answer was no.
    Midori flattened both of her hands on the table, her porcelain skin blushing an angry red. “That is not fair. It’s not our fault Beaulieu died! I’ve worked too hard for this.” She flapped one hand in the air, vaguely waving at me. “ We’ve worked too hard for this. I am very sorry this happened to him,” she continued, her gentle Japanese accent coloring her words slightly, “but I do not think I— we —should be punished because of it. Make the article about the two of us. Women designers taking on the DFW Metroplex fashion world.” She rolled her hand, directing her attention to Lindy. “You’re the journalist, surely you can figure out how to keep the story alive. Don’t you write for other papers and magazines?”
    Lindy scribbled in a spiral notebook. “I do, and believe me, I’m trying. I like that idea, too,” she said. “It’s a good angle. Michel said he had some other leads for me, but now those are gone.”
    It hadn’t occurred to me until now that Midori, the models, and I weren’t the only ones losing out from Beaulieu’s death. Lindy and Quinton lost the opportunity, too.
    “That could work,” Lindy muttered. “You have to have something unique to be noticed.”
    “Same with modeling,” Esmeralda said.
    “You could do a tribute to Beaulieu,” Zoe suggested. Bless her heart, she was a true Southern woman, trying her best to be conciliatory. Problem was, while Beaulieu’s work was good, I didn’t think it would fly as a special feature.
    Lindy shook her head. “I can do a mention, but D isn’t in the