Adele started talking crochet before she even hit the seat and was polling the people at her table to find out if they were crochet novices or experienced. She was using her hat and beads as examples of crochet embellishment.

Jym and Jeen Wolf, the knitting couple, were holding court at another table. The jeans and tucked-in tee shirts with clever sayings seemed to be their uniform. Jym appeared very animated and friendly. I envied their perfect posture. They passed around a mint green baby sweater as the iced tea circulated the other way. They both nodded a greeting as I passed. Jeen snagged me and whispered that Sergeant French had stopped her on the way to lunch to ask her a few questions about where she was during the s’more time and what her relationship with Izabelle was. “He’s convinced somebody was on the beach with her. Can’t you do something to get whoever it was to come forward, so he leaves the rest of us alone?” I told her I’d see what I could do.

Mason greeted me as I reached his table. I wondered if his tablemates had any idea of his day job. The kimono-style jacket and loose cotton pants hardly looked like lawyer wear. I heard a snippet of the conversation, which seemed to be about yoga versus tai chi. “In yoga,” Mason explained, “you hold a pose, while in tai chi, which incidentally is a martial art, you flow through poses almost like a slow-motion dance. Breathing is important in both of them.” It was obvious that Mason was serious about the tai chi. He really did make an effort to balance his life.

Dinah seemed even more energized as she talked to the group at her table. Her spiky salt-and-pepper hair seemed to exemplify her enthusiasm. She had been so excited about this weekend and working with people who wanted to be there instead of her usual freshmen who had to be present. I doubted she even noticed me go by.

Bennett had everyone at his table laughing. As I got close enough to hear what was going on, he was finishing an anecdote about his show. His group seemed to be hanging on every word. Not a big surprise, really; he was an actor, and being able to tell a good story was a given.

Sheila was at the last table. I felt for her when I saw the way her eyebrows were knit together. Being the host was not her kind of activity. But then this weekend had turned out to be a lot different than she’d expected. It was supposed to be a change from her busy life. But rooming with Adele and now helping her with the workshops were all pressure. Hesitantly, she showed off the scarf in shades of blues and lavender she was wearing. I knew right away it was one she’d made. The dreamy look similar to an Impressionist painting was as good as a trademark. It was no wonder she sold so many. Each one was different and exquisite. Miss Lavender Pants looked over from Bennett’s table and almost drooled over the scarf.

I leaned against the partition that separated the entrance area from the dining room after I passed Commander Blaine’s table. He was demonstrating how to make a swan out of one of the cloth napkins while talking about his workshop and how much fun it was going to be. He had everyone at the table abandoning their food and following along. I watched as he bustled around the table, coaching the napkin folders.

I was distracted by a ruckus at Adele’s table and went over to investigate. “I thought Izabelle Landers was supposed to be here,” a woman said to me as I approached.

I sighed and tried to explain in a concerned, hushed voice, but I’d said the same thing so many times it was impossible not to make it come out like a recording. The woman’s eyes widened with distress.

“What about her world premiere workshop? I love her Subtle Touch of Crochet and I was so looking forward to her new fusion craft. What with the fog delaying everything, this weekend just isn’t like the other years.”

“Trust me, you’re not missing a thing,” Adele interjected. I gave her a sharp look and took over.

“What Adele means is that the workshops she and Sheila are going to put on will be so exceptional you won’t feel like you missed anything.” The woman accepted the comment and Adele stared at me with her mouth open.

“Pink, thanks for the vote of confidence. You really mean it, right?”

I muttered a positive answer as I glanced up and looked out the window. I noticed the housekeeping crew pushing their cart down the walkway. I might be only an amateur sleuth, but I wasn’t giving up investigating. What was it Sergeant French had said when he was trying to convince me that the shadow in Izabelle’s room had been a crow? After the alleged bird had knocked the manuscript pages under the bed, he thought the cleaning crew had found them when they were doing the room and put them in an orderly stack on the night table.

Well, now was my chance to check it out. I left the dining hall and caught up with the crew down the walkway.

“Excuse me, but which of you did the rooms in Lodge?” I said. The group eyed me warily before two women put up their hands in acknowledgment. I suppose they were expecting me to complain or accuse them of something.

I did my best to short-circuit that fear by thanking them for the nice job on my room. The tension left their faces and they smiled.

“I wanted to ask you about another room. It had a stack of plastic containers with a lot of yarn.”

One of the women nodded. “The one with the already made bed. Yes.”

I didn’t want to tell her it was more accurately not slept in, because the resident was dead, so I just nodded as an answer.

“Did you find a lot of papers under the bed and put them on the night table?”

One of the women nodded. “Papers? You mean like a stack about this big?” She held her thumb and forefinger out in a space that would hold maybe one hundred sheets, in the ballpark of what I was asking about.

I attempted to keep the surprise out of my face. Maybe I was going to owe Sergeant French a mental apology. “You found them under the bed?”

And maybe not.

She shook her head. “I didn’t find them anywhere. I get it. This is a setup. You’re trying to get me to incriminate myself. I didn’t let that man in the room even though he said he just wanted to drop something off. I took the pile of papers from him. I’d already picked some off the floor and put them on the night table. I just added the ones he gave me to them.”

“Some guy brought the papers?”

“Okay, I know it’s against the rules. We’re not supposed to let anyone in without having them show us their key. And I didn’t let him in,” the housekeeper said. The rest of her group had started to move on, and she looked like she was planning to join them.

I had to come up with something to get more details. Think fast, I ordered myself, mentally running through the table of contents of the Average Joe book. What it said was that sometimes the basic truth worked best.

“Wait,” I said as she turned to join the rest of the crew. “The room I’m talking about. Well, that woman is dead. She died on the beach yesterday.”

The girl’s face fell and she seemed in more of a hurry to leave, so I started to talk faster. “Everybody thinks it was an accident, that she was allergic to the peanut butter in the gourmet s’mores.”

“Peanut butter in s’mores? I’ve never heard of that. There is a lot of s’more business up here. Every group seems to make them in the fire circle, but they just go the usual way. So, she got sick from the campfire treats and-” She shrugged.

“I think she might have had help eating them and I’m investigating. So finding out who the man with the papers is is important.”

The girl’s mouth quivered. “You mean like in that old TV show where that woman who lived in Vermont or somewhere always was smarter than the cops?”

“Sort of like that.” As I watched the quiver turn into a giggle, I got annoyed. “I’ll have you know I have successfully investigated a number of murders.”