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.