“Yes. There are some small rooms down there that used to be servant quarters. Mrs. Garrett remodeled them a few years back after a blizzard that had the staff living four or five to a room and the guests doubling up during a three-day snow-in.”

Three days! I hoped we’d be done with this case and onto another hotel well before that.

“Other than you and the four staff members, it was just Linda and Jessica Garrett?” Mac asked. “Is that enough people to handle all these guests?”

“Jessica didn’t expect it to be very long. We didn’t anticipate the storm to be as bad as it’s been.” He gave a small shrug. “Plus there was Clarissa. She would have pitched in if we needed her. She’s only been here for about six months but she knows everyone’s job. She spent time with each department when she started so she could get a feel for how things worked.”

“Sounds like she was really dedicated to her job,” Mac said.

Wally snorted and then slapped his hand over his mouth. He stared at us with wide eyes.

Mac tilted his head and gave Wally an “out with it” look.

“Shortly after she finished ‘learning’ the departments”—he made quotation marks in the air and narrowed his eyes—“she cut staff by twenty-five percent. She said everyone could be much more efficient and we didn’t need so many people working here.”

Mac glanced at me and raised an eyebrow.

“That can’t have gone over very well with the staff,” I said.

Wally shook his head, and crossed his arms. “Mrs. Garrett was against it. She feels like the hotel is part of the community and didn’t want to let those people go. She knew that they all had families to support.” Wally’s voice got louder as he spoke. “But Ms. Carlisle inundated her with charts and numbers and told her the place couldn’t support such a large staff. She wanted to expand the spa services and thought the other departments needed to be more efficient.”

Wally glanced from Mac to me.

He lowered his voice. “I probably shouldn’t talk about this anymore. Mrs. Garrett knows a lot more about it. She can tell you what happened.”

“Anything you’ve seen or heard could help us, Wally,” I said.

“That’s it.” He held his hand up to ward off any more questions. “I don’t know anything else.” He sat back and glanced at his watch. “I should go see whether Kirk has made any progress on the generator.”

He hopped up and made a hasty exit.

“That was strange,” I said. “It’s like he suddenly realized what he was saying. It doesn’t sound like things were running smoothly here between Clarissa and her family.”

Mac shook his head. “I think we need to talk to the Garretts as well as the knitters.”

We found Jessica in the kitchen talking to René. The room was bright and clean with stainless steel appliances and white countertops. It looked more like a high-end New York kitchen than a Victorian castle kitchen. Their voices were low and urgent and stopped abruptly when we approached.

Jessica’s smile stopped short of her eyes. “I hear you’re looking for me.”

Mac glanced at me as if to say, “Wally was quick.”

“We’re talking to everyone who might have seen what happened last evening,” he said.

She nodded and gestured toward the dining room, which was empty.

I led them to a table away from the windows and we sat.

“You don’t think one of the knitters could have harmed her, do you?” Jessica said.

Mac took a deep breath. “Someone murdered your cousin, Ms. Garrett. If it wasn’t one of the knitters, it was one of your staff. Given the blizzard last night, we can hardly assume this was the work of a stranger.”

Jessica rubbed her arms and shivered. “I just . . . I can’t imagine any of the knitters doing this.”

“But you can imagine your staff doing this?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I didn’t mean that. It’s just that the cable needle kind of points to a knitter, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe,” I said. “There must be a bunch of those needles lying around and the workshop room wasn’t locked.”

Jessica shook her head. “The needle was Isabel’s.”

“How could you tell?” Mac said.

“It’s one of the needles she had made for the class,” Jessica said. “It’s designed by a very exclusive knitting needle company. They use airplane-grade metals and hand-tool their needles. Isabel has raved about them on her review blog enough that they send her samples all the time.”

“You could tell just by looking at it that it’s one of hers?” I asked. I remembered her hesitation when I asked her about it the night before.

Jessica nodded. “She had them make purple ones and most people here have plastic cable needles that aren’t curved like that.”

“You said she had them made for the workshop?” Mac said. “So, does everyone have one?”

“No, she hasn’t passed them out yet. In fact, I don’t think anyone knows that there is more than one. She used it to demonstrate during class yesterday and she planned to give them all their own as part of the goody bag at the end of the workshop.”

“Why didn’t you say anything last night when you saw the needle?” I asked. “Do you think Isabel could have killed your cousin?”

Jessica was already shaking her head. “No, I don’t think that. That’s what I’m trying to say. But I was worried that it would look bad for Isabel.”

Jessica took a deep breath and looked at us.

“Clarissa was not a nice person,” she began. “Frankly, I couldn’t stand her. She spent most of our childhood trying to one-up me and criticized everything I did. By the time we got to high school, she was the classic mean girl with a posse of supporters.”

Jessica closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “Isabel and I were good friends in high school. That’s why she has this workshop every year here. At first, we were doing her a favor, but now that she’s famous through her blog and her designs, she actually brings us business throughout the year.” She looked at the tablecloth and traced the pattern in the fabric. “She’s still one of my closest friends. She knew that Clarissa was back in town and we talked about canceling the workshop. Isabel and Clarissa never got along.”

She looked up to meet our eyes. “But Isabel isn’t a killer. She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever known. And she’s a successful businesswoman now. There is nothing Clarissa could do to hurt her.” Her voice broke on the last words and her eyes filled with tears.

She took a shaky breath and continued. “Truly, if Isabel was going to kill Clarissa, she would have done it years ago. She said to me just before she came that the best revenge is to lead a happy life. There’s no way she would throw it all away over an old grudge.”

Mac leaned forward.

“What old grudge?” he asked. “What happened between them?”

Jessica shook her head. “She’ll tell you if you ask. She doesn’t have anything to hide, but she’s my friend and I’m not going to share her story with you.”

“Is it about Mavis’s daughter, Teresa?” I asked.

Jessica drew in a quick breath. “How do you know about that?”

I shrugged. “People talk.”

Jessica sat back and crossed her arms. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

I looked at Mac, wondering how he would handle this. In his normal life, he probably wouldn’t let Jessica slide. But this was an unusual situation. He only had the authority that he had given himself. We expected to be able to get the police involved shortly, and no one was leaving the hotel anytime soon.

I saw the struggle pass quickly over his face and then he relaxed.

I let out a breath of air and sat back in my chair.

“Okay, Ms. Garrett. We’ll talk to Isabel,” Mac said. “Do you have anything else you’d like to add?”

Jessica shook her head and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.