CHAPTER 11
THE WHOLE GROUP WAS ALREADY AT BREAKFAST when I came into the dining hall. Outside, the sky was an overcast white with haze in the air, but when I stopped at the registration desk, the clerk assured me it was completely normal and not the beginning of another fog emergency. The redheaded clerk had finally gone home, and this morning two women were manning the desk. They gave me a pile of phone messages. They were all from people who were on their way and wanted to make sure I knew they were coming. Now that the operations of Asilomar were back to normal, there were pots of coffee on the table and the smell of pancakes and maple syrup in the air.
Only Commander Blaine seemed disappointed that breakfast apparently was going along without his help. I heard him comment to Dinah, who was sitting across the table, that if it had been up to him, he’d have set up the breakfast buffet style, with lots of choices for pancake toppings besides the mundane, overly sweet syrup that was the only option.
The knitting couple, Jym and Jeen Wolf, were at the same table, wearing matching tee shirts with the saying Born to Knit. They greeted me with enthusiastic smiles and asked about the status of the retreaters. I held up the handful of messages in answer. Miss Lavender Pants and her brother and sister-in-law were next to the Wolfs. Miss Lavender Pants seemed happy that the real workshops were going to begin, and hoped there would be no more incidents like Adele’s big scene.
Mason waved me over to the next table and pulled out a chair in anticipation. Apparently, he’d brought a wardrobe of loose-fitting pants and kimono jackets. Today’s outfit was navy blue with an olive green tee shirt underneath. Only his smile was the same.
“Hey, Sunshine,” he said in a reassuring tone. “If you need any help, just give me a nudge.” He and Dinah were the only ones who knew Izabelle was dead. After what I’d found in Izabelle’s room, I’d gone to talk to Mason. I had tried to get Dinah to come with me-maybe more as a chaperone than anything else-but she was more interested in going to bed. After what I’d been through, I was too wired to sleep anyway.
I had felt a little odd knocking at Mason’s door both because it was late and because the rooms didn’t have any space for socializing. But I wanted to run our experiences in Izabelle’s room past him. Since he was a criminal attorney, I wanted to hear his take on things.
When Mason answered the door, it was obvious he’d been sleeping. I don’t know why I was surprised. There wasn’t much else to do in the small, televison-free rooms. His eyes were glazed and his hair was all tousled. The unfocused look on his face changed to a slightly surprised smile when he saw it was me.
“What’s up, Sunshine?” I was relieved he didn’t make some smarmy remark. I knew he might be thinking it, but at least he didn’t say anything. He was clearly waiting to see what move I was going to make. He’d made it clear he was ready, willing and more than able to step into the boyfriend slot, but had left it up to me to give the okay.
“I need some advice,” I said. Was there just a little disappointment in his eyes as his smile went down a notch?
“C’mon in.” He stepped aside and shut the door behind me. I swallowed when I saw his room was smaller than mine and had only one single bed. “Sorry there’s no chair,” he said, pulling the covers up over the small bed. We both sat down.
I usually felt very comfortable with Mason. There was something about the way he handled things, like coming by helicopter when I got detained on Catalina. And he was always such a good sport, like coming on this weekend and teaching tai chi. And I liked the way he’d said that there was always fun where I was. He hadn’t even minded the fog.
Only this time what I felt had nothing to do with comfort. I tried not to look at his pajamas or what he wore as pajamas-a tee shirt and soft knit pants. I realized I’d never seen his bare feet before. Or realized how big his feet were. I tore my eyes away and glanced around the room, trying to ignore the faint smell of his cologne.
I didn’t know where to look when I talked to him. Definitely not the same as talking to Mason in a suit. I told him about finding Izabelle and what they thought was the cause of death. I moved on to Dinah’s and my walk to the beach. When I got to the part about going in Izabelle’s room and someone being in there, and then mentioned what we had found, he sat forward a little.
This was what I loved about Mason. He didn’t discount what I said or tell me to leave it alone or that I had murder on the brain.
“So, I gather you aren’t so sure it was an accident?”
“Right,” I said. “But I really don’t want it to be homicide. I mean, what a perfect crime, but I don’t want it to be a crime. I wanted this weekend to be crime-free. Mrs. Shedd can’t blame me for the fog, but it still looks bad that the one weekend she puts me in charge of is the one when there’s a fog emergency. She can’t count what happened to Izabelle as my fault, either, but someone getting sick and dying doesn’t look as bad as someone getting killed.”
“I think I have an answer,” Mason said. “Here’s a problem for a murder scenario. S’mores aren’t like cyanide. You can’t mix them with something. You know the one about you can get a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink? Well, somebody could have handed the s’more to Izabelle, but they couldn’t have made her eat it. She must have picked up the wrong bag, or maybe it was mismarked. Feel better?”
“Yes,” I said, sighing in relief.
“As for the person in the room, I don’t have enough information to give you an answer. But it’s probably something stupid like someone who couldn’t wait for her book to come out and wanted to see it. So, there you are, no murder this weekend.”
I turned toward him, ready to give him a thank-you hug, but I stopped short. Along with his other attributes, Mason had a high cuddle quotient. And it would have been all too easy to let the hug morph into curling up next to him.
“Got to go,” I said, my voice cracking, as I jumped off the bed and made it to the doorway in two steps. I heard Mason chuckling behind me, and I bet he’d had the same smile then as he was wearing here now at breakfast.
Mason reached for the coffee pot and poured me a cup as I glanced around the table. Sheila was sitting next to Adele. I think their sharing a room was really getting to Sheila. Her shoulders were hunched and she was crocheting in her lap. It was therapeutic crochet. I doubted she even knew what she was making or cared if her stitches were all over the place. This was about the meditative quality. Besides, she knew she could rip it out later.
When Adele turned to hang her jacket on the back of her chair, I saw something that made me jump. “Where did you get that?” I said, pointing as she held a pouch purse with the strap hanging down.
Adele reacted with a funny look, and I realized I might have sounded a little frantic. She set it in the middle of the table with a gesture that implied it was there for me to admire. Hers was red and the flowers were white, but the style was identical to the bag I’d found in the plants. “What do you think? I made it, Pink.” Dinah looked over from the other table, and when she saw the purse, her eyes widened. “If you want, I can help you make one,” Adele said. “The directions are in Izabelle’s book. She used some glow-in-the-dark stuff for the flowers, but I just went for the sport-weight yarn I’d used for the bag.” At the mention of Izabelle’s name, Jym asked how she was doing.
I took a deep breath. I wasn’t looking forward to what I had to do. Everyone turned toward me, waiting for an answer, which confirmed that no one knew yet. I was still composing my thoughts when Bennett and Nora came in and went to the neighboring table, and momentarily the attention turned to them. Even if nobody exactly recognized him, he had a kind of magnetism that drew your eyes to him. His manner was gentlemanly as he pulled out a chair for his wife and gestured for her to sit. I was glad she’d decided to give the dining hall food a try after all. Bennett made a little nod of greeting to the group, and then everyone turned back to me.