Vi huffed and turned her attention to Lucille. I noticed Mac kept his eyes on his plate and didn’t engage in the knitting conversation. I put my hand over his on the table.

“Do you like intarsia?” Vi asked Lucille.

“I’m more of a cables-and-lace kind of gal,” Lucille said.

Vi slapped her on the back. “I knew I liked you. Maybe we can get Isabel to skip the intarsia.”

“Given that her most recent pattern book is all intarsia, I doubt it,” Mom said and narrowed her eyes at Vi.

“So what’s with all the socks on the furniture?” Seth said after returning from his second trip to the buffet.

“That’s the yarn bombing. It’s a hoot!” Vi said.

“That reminds me, Violet,” Lucille said. “I brought a few items with me. Will Wally help me put them up?”

Vi shook her head. “No, you want Kirk. He’s got a ladder. Unless you want to bomb a low-lying area, which is fine but not as showy . . .”

“I’ll help, Mrs. McKenzie,” Seth said.

“Thank you, Seth.” Lucille smiled at him. They had become close over the past couple of months. Seth had moved in with me just before Thanksgiving, and Mac’s mother discovered that Seth would eat just about anything. The two of them bonded over her desire to bake and Seth’s desire to eat.

Mac put his hand on my back and whispered, “Ready to go?”

I nodded.

Mac pushed his chair back while gulping the last of his coffee. “Clyde and I have some work to do this morning. We’ll see you all at lunch.”

“I hope you’ll think about what I said, Phillip,” Lucille said as we stood.

Mac’s face turned a bit pink and he clamped his lips together. He gave her a curt nod, grabbed my hand, and pulled me toward the door.

“What was that about?” I said while jogging to keep up.

“You aren’t the only one with an interfering family,” Mac said.

23

Wally rushed up to us as we exited the dining room. “Detective McKenzie! Detective Harris is on the phone—he needs to speak with you.”

Mac and I followed him to the front desk.

Wally silently handed the phone to Mac.

“Pete? What’s up?” Mac said.

Wally and I watched Mac as he listened.

“I’m not surprised. No, that’s fine. We’ll see what we can do from our end.”

Mac caught my eye and gave a small shake of his head.

“Okay. Yup. We’ll see.”

Mac hung up and Wally and I almost pounced on him.

“They can’t get through. The tree that came down took some power lines with it.” Mac grimaced. “I’m glad Kirk and I didn’t touch it or wander around too much in the vicinity.”

“So, are they going to clear the tree?” Wally asked.

Mac nodded once. “They have to get the power company out to secure the lines and then they’ll have to cut the tree into pieces to move it. It might take a while. They’re dealing with power outages all across Southwestern Michigan.”

Wally left us in the reception area and went to herd the knitters into the lounge for the big reveal of more yarn bombing.

We sat on one of the comfy couches that graced the entryway. I looked out at the white landscape, the trees outlined in snow, and the drifts that had piled up outside. After a few minutes we heard them noisily make their way to the library.

I wondered how long we would be stuck here with our families and the progressively more anxious knitters. “What was your mother talking about?” I said.

“Nothing. We had a little argument last night.”

“What about?”

Mac sighed. “About you.”

I opened my mouth to speak and we heard a shriek from down the hall followed by screams and exclamations from multiple voices.

I got to the hallway before Mac and we both raced to the workshop room.

The knitters were crowded around a pile of yarn, talking and pointing and wringing their hands. Yarn and needles lay on the floor near the chairs as if they had all jumped up and flung their projects down. It must be something serious.

Isabel gestured at everyone to stand back.

“What’s going on?” I said over the noise.

Isabel pointed a shaky finger at a pile of yarn.

I stepped closer and saw what was causing the ruckus. A Maglite sat halfway buried by the yarn. A brownish-red substance covered the side and part of the bulb. Of course, without a crime lab, we couldn’t be sure, but I was convinced that this was the murder weapon.

Mac held his arm out to keep everyone back and knelt down to examine the flashlight. He pulled out his cell phone and took a picture and then asked the knitters if anyone had a large paper bag. Isabel opened a box in the corner of the room and pulled out a folded shopping bag.

“Can I use one of these?” Mac asked, pointing to a box of zippered plastic freezer bags that sat on the coffee table. According to Vi, knitters stored projects in plastic bags to protect the yarn from dust and moths.

Isabel nodded and handed him the now open shopping bag.

Mac used the plastic bag as a glove and gingerly picked up the flashlight and yarn. He placed it in the paper sack, turned the plastic bag inside out and stuffed it in along the side of the paper one.

“We’ll need to keep the yarn for evidence,” Mac said.

“Evidence?” Isabel squeaked.

“It looks like you just found the murder weapon.”

A murmur went through the crowd, punctuated by Vi’s “I knew it!”

Selma covered her mouth, her eyes large. Mavis clutched Selma’s hand. Amy and Heather backed away from the bag of yarn while Vi and Mom stepped closer to it.

“At least the murderer hid it with the acrylic,” Tina said. “If they had put it in with the silk-mohair there might be another murder.”

Nervous chuckles spread among the group.

“How could this happen?” Selma asked. “I thought the room was locked up at night.” Her face was pale and I worried she might faint.

“Unless it was one of us,” Mavis said. She glowered at Vi and then turned angry eyes on Isabel.

“It doesn’t matter who it is!” Selma said. “We’re all stuck here with a murderer. We could all be dead by the end of the weekend just like that Agatha Christie story.”

Mom went to Selma and patted her on the back. She talked quietly to her and I saw Selma’s shoulders relax.

“Was the room locked?” I asked Isabel.

Isabel tore her gaze from Selma and looked at me. “I haven’t locked it the whole time we’ve been here.” Isabel held her hands out. “I didn’t see the point. We’re the only guests, and it’s not like there’s a black market for knitting supplies.”

The knitters murmured agreement and Mavis humphed.

“Clyde and I will take the light and yarn and store it in case we need to send it to a lab,” Mac said.

“If we ever get out of here,” Selma said.

“The snow will melt eventually,” Mom said in her “look at the bright side” voice. “In the meantime, we should enjoy the time we have to knit.” She went back to her seat and pointedly picked up her needles.

Mom was a professional worrier, but she also was great in a crisis. It was one of her many contradictions.

The rest of them also returned to their seats and rescued their projects from the floor.

Mac spoke quietly to Isabel, who nodded and darted glances at her group.

“Okay, ladies,” she began. “Let’s try to get back to work.” Her hands shook as she picked up her needles and yarn.

We left the workshop room with the offending flashlight and yarn. Mac gestured up the stairs.

“I want to put this somewhere safe,” he said.

We walked down the hallway to the room he shared with Lucille. He pulled the old-fashioned key from his pocket and slid it into the lock. I couldn’t remember the last time I used a key at a hotel. The sound of a real lock is more satisfying than the beeps of the key-card locks so many hotels use.