Wally stepped forward and talked quietly to Holly. She sat in a chair by the door and mangled her apron in her lap.

She jumped up as Mac and Kirk came back into the room. She gasped when she saw his cuts and bruises and he quietly reassured her that he was fine.

He put his arm around her and they stepped out into the hallway.

Vi waved Mac over to the couch and imperiously patted the spot next to her. He glanced at me and sheepishly sat with her.

“Now tell us the story,” Vi demanded.

Mom nodded, and the rest of the crowd murmured agreement.

Mac wasn’t used to reporting to civilians on his cases, but he did an admirable job of reassuring them that everything was wrapped up without giving away too much.

“Emmett and Linda were involved in a stolen cell phone ring,” Mac began.

“Linda?” Mom asked.

“Rose! Let the man tell his story,” Vi said.

“Yes, Linda. She needed money to keep the inn going,” Mac said. “Apparently there were a lot of necessary repairs and they don’t have the kind of steady business to support costly renovations.”

I remembered how proud Linda was of the antiques and artwork. She must have been desperate to save it all.

“When Clarissa moved here after her father died, it became clear that she had the majority stake in ownership and that her vision for the future of the castle was very different from Linda’s.”

Isabel shook her head and her mouth pulled down into a frown.

“Her father, David, had loaned some money to Linda back when they first opened and that gave him the majority ownership. He had promised to keep it as a handshake deal, but Clarissa got wind of it and made him formalize the agreement.”

Mac nodded thanks to Wally, who handed him a mug of hot coffee.

“Emmett told us he thought Linda may have killed Clarissa because that fight they had on Wednesday was about selling off some of the art work and antiques to fund Clarissa’s spa project.” Mac turned to where I stood next to Mom and Dad. “He didn’t tell us the whole story—he knew what the meeting was about because Linda told him they would have to get a good price for the cell phones so she could buy Clarissa off.”

“Linda found me in the turret room with Duchess.” Vi interrupted Mac’s story. “She thought I was trying to get information from the cat, but I wasn’t. Duchess had just come in the room and I was petting her, but not trying to interview her.”

Vi made sure we were all listening.

“I think she tried to kill me because she thought I knew she had killed Clarissa. The cat must have been in the room at the time.” Vi turned to Mac. “She did tell me she was shocked when she came downstairs and found a police officer staying for the weekend. She didn’t tell me she was shocked in a bad way. But she must have seen the whole thing unraveling when you and Clyde identified yourselves as police.”

41

The next couple of hours were filled with activity. The snowplow arrived and cleared the road and the parking lot. The police van took Clarissa’s body away. Mac and I spent an hour with Pete Harris sharing all of our evidence and he took Linda into custody.

By early evening, the inn had cleared out. The knitters couldn’t wait to load up their bags of yarn and knitting goodies. Lucille had won the yarn-bombing award for her piano cozy. She and Seth had spent well over an hour that afternoon covering the baby grand piano in a neon-colored knitted monstrosity. Lucille said she had called ahead to get the measurements and the piece fit the piano perfectly. I secretly thought the woman needed to get out more and resolved to be sure Mom and Vi invited her over more often. Tiny scarves for chess pieces were one thing, but this was truly impressive.

We had decided to stay one more night to give Vi a little more rest before packing and driving back home. Of course, we all had to pretend that it had nothing to do with her near-death experience.

The big surprise of the afternoon was Tina. She finally admitted to being in Clarissa’s room the night she died—the presence of actual police and a suspect in custody must have convinced her to tell her story. No one was more shocked than Jessica to learn that Tina was Clarissa’s half-sister. David Carlisle, Clarissa’s father, had had a relationship after his divorce but never claimed the child until he found out he had terminal cancer. He located Tina and promised he would leave her half his estate in his will. When he died, the will left everything to Clarissa. Tina suspected Clarissa had managed to destroy the new will. Tina had joined the knitter’s workshop to continue to put pressure on Clarissa to do the right thing and to get closer to Linda and Jessica in case she needed their help in obtaining her inheritance.

René and Jessica had gone to the police station to help Linda procure a lawyer. Unfortunately for her lawyer, she’d admitted that Clarissa taunted her about selling her favorite paintings to pay for the spa, and Linda hit her over the head with the Maglite. A good attorney might be able to get her a reduced sentence for that, arguing temporary insanity. But the calculated strangling and then the attempted murder of Vi would be harder to talk her way through.

Mac had warned René that he needed to tell Jessica the truth about his past, but agreed that maybe he should wait until Jessica felt less blindsided by her mother’s criminal activities and the news of a new cousin. Wally had taken over management duties until Jessica was ready to return to work.

“I don’t understand how the cable needle ended up in Clarissa’s room,” Mom said.

I shrugged. “Linda may have put it there to cast suspicion on the knitters, or even specifically Isabel, knowing that Isabel and Clarissa hated each other.”

Putting all the reports together, it sounded like Clarissa had had a busy evening before Linda hit her in the head. René had been there, Tina had been there, and I suspected Emmett had also paid a visit. Probably only Duchess knew how many visitors Clarissa had received. It was up to the Kalamazoo Police Department to sort out all the stories.

I had just rested my head on Mac’s shoulder and closed my eyes for a moment when I heard thump, thump, rattle, thump down the stairs. I sat forward, as did everyone else, and we watched the door.

“It’s the ghost,” Vi breathed.

“Good grief, Vi,” Dad said. “There’s no ghost.”

We heard rattle, smack, and shhh-ing noises. Mac stood up and took a step toward the door. A small box rolled into view. Duchess followed right behind and batted it into the room like a kitty hockey player. It didn’t slide as well on the carpet as it must have on the wood floor of the hallway. She turned her golden eyes toward Seth. Abandoning her toy, she prowled toward him, leaped into his lap, and settled in, purring.

Mac’s eyes had gotten big and he strode to the box, picked it up, and stuffed it into his jeans pocket.

Lucille cleared her throat and gave Mac a little nod. Mac humphed, grabbed my hand, and pulled me into the hallway. He held a finger to his lips as he led me toward the back of the hotel and the now vacant library.

“Mac, what are you doing?”

I thought I heard footsteps behind us.

He dragged me into the library and softly shut the door. He pulled out the little box. My palms broke out in a sweat and the roar in my ears made me dizzy. I wasn’t ready for a proposal. Mac took my hand and dropped the box into it.

“What’s this?” I said.

“Open it.” Mac stepped back to watch.

I eased the ribbon off the box and peered inside. My whole body relaxed when I saw what it contained. A beautiful pair of knitted seashell earrings nestled on blue tissue paper. There was a little pearl bead right in the center of each one.