A Stitch In Crime

wait until you talk to her next of kin.”

Barry seemed pleased when I said I would definitely take what he said into consideration. Then he signed off after telling me how much he missed me.

“He just wants to protect you,” Dinah said when I flipped my phone shut. It was pointless to try and keep our conversation private. Besides, Dinah knew all my business anyway.

“The trouble is,” I said, putting my phone away, “he makes it so I can’t discuss things with him. I can just imagine what he’d say if I told him someone was in the room when we got here and went out the window. And he’d get crazy if I told him we thought that what we’d just read on Izabelle’s computer made it sound like she was planning to do something that would cause trouble.”

“We do?” Dinah said.

“Sure, look at it. It sounds like some person is telling her not to do something rashly.” Dinah read it again and nodded in agreement.

“I wonder what ITA is?” she said.

I looked at it again, too. “I bet the A stands for anonymous. Like Alcoholics Anonymous. They always give people sponsors.”

“And the I probably stands for independent or international,” Dinah said. “All we have to do is figure out the T.”

For a few minutes Dinah and I thought of words beginning with T that might go with Anonymous and Independent or International. We got teetotalers, tap dancers, taskmasters, tastemakers, tattletales, techies and taxi drivers before we gave up.

“Let’s check Izabelle’s favorite Web sites. Maybe that will give us a clue,” Dinah said, clicking on a button on the computer.

A list came up. A number of the Web sites had to do with crochet, but one popped out at me. I told Dinah to click on it. When the opening page loaded and I read it over, I nodded toward the screen.

“You realize what this means,” I said as we looked at the home page of peanutallergies.com. “She knew she was allergic to peanuts. It wasn’t a sudden allergic reaction.”

“Then why would she eat a s’more laced with peanut butter?” Dinah said. I flipped through some more screens that described first aid maneuvers. I pointed at the screen.

We both looked at the slender cylinder with the designation EpiPen. Underneath was a diagram of how to use it. Apparently you stabbed it in your thigh if you had a reaction to something and it would keep you going until you could get further help. The lime green pouch bag was still hanging on my wrist. I reeled it in and turned it upside down. A cell phone fell out along with a match of what we were looking at on the screen.

“Hmm, one more thing that proves she was aware of her allergy and had taken precautions,” Dinah said, examining the EpiPen.

I checked the cell phone; the battery was completely dead. “Then how did she die from an allergy attack?”

CHAPTER 11

THE WHOLE GROUP WAS ALREADY AT BREAKFAST when I came into the dining hall. Outside, the sky was an overcast white with haze in the air, but when I stopped at the registration desk, the clerk assured me it was completely normal and not the beginning of another fog emergency. The redheaded clerk had finally gone home, and this morning two women were manning the desk. They gave me a pile of phone messages. They were all from people who were on their way and wanted to make sure I knew they were coming. Now that the operations of Asilomar were back to normal, there were pots of coffee on the table and the smell of pancakes and maple syrup in the air.

Only Commander Blaine seemed disappointed that breakfast apparently was going along without his help. I heard him comment to Dinah, who was sitting across the table, that if it had been up to him, he’d have set up the breakfast buffet style, with lots of choices for pancake toppings besides the mundane, overly sweet syrup that was the only option.

The knitting couple, Jym and Jeen Wolf, were at the same table, wearing matching tee shirts with the saying Born to Knit. They greeted me with enthusiastic smiles and asked about the status of the retreaters. I held up the handful of messages in answer. Miss Lavender Pants and her brother and sister-in-law were next to the Wolfs. Miss Lavender Pants seemed happy that the real workshops were going to begin, and hoped there would be no more incidents like Adele’s big scene.

Mason waved me over to the next table and pulled out a chair in anticipation. Apparently, he’d brought a wardrobe of loose-fitting pants and kimono jackets. Today’s outfit was navy blue with an olive green tee shirt underneath. Only his smile was the same.

“Hey, Sunshine,” he said in a reassuring tone. “If you need any help, just give me a nudge.” He and Dinah were the only ones who knew Izabelle was dead. After what I’d found in Izabelle’s room, I’d gone to talk to Mason. I had tried to get Dinah to come with me-maybe more as a chaperone than anything else-but she was more interested in going to bed. After what I’d been through, I was too wired to sleep anyway.

I had felt a little odd knocking at Mason’s door both because it was late and because the rooms didn’t have any space for socializing. But I wanted to run our experiences in Izabelle’s room past him. Since he was a criminal attorney, I wanted to hear his take on things.

When Mason answered the door, it was obvious he’d been sleeping. I don’t know why I was surprised. There wasn’t much else to do in the small, televison-free rooms. His eyes were glazed and his hair was all tousled. The unfocused look on his face changed to a slightly surprised smile when he saw it was me.

“What’s up, Sunshine?” I was relieved he didn’t make some smarmy remark. I knew he might be thinking it, but at least he didn’t say anything. He was clearly waiting to see what move I was going to make. He’d made it clear he was ready, willing and more than able to step into the boyfriend slot, but had left it up to me to give the okay.

“I need some advice,” I said. Was there just a little disappointment in his eyes as his smile went down a notch?

“C’mon in.” He stepped aside and shut the door behind me. I swallowed when I saw his room was smaller than mine and had only one single bed. “Sorry there’s no chair,” he said, pulling the covers up over the small bed. We both sat down.

I usually felt very comfortable with Mason. There was something about the way he handled things, like coming by helicopter when I got detained on Catalina. And he was always such a good sport, like coming on this weekend and teaching tai chi. And I liked the way he’d said that there was always fun where I was. He hadn’t even minded the fog.

Only this time what I felt had nothing to do with comfort. I tried not to look at his pajamas or what he wore as pajamas-a tee shirt and soft knit pants. I realized I’d never seen his bare feet before. Or realized how big his feet were. I tore my eyes away and glanced around the room, trying to ignore the faint smell of his cologne.

I didn’t know where to look when I talked to him. Definitely not the same as talking to Mason in a suit. I told him about finding Izabelle and what they thought was the cause of death. I moved on to Dinah’s and my walk to the beach. When I got to the part about going in Izabelle’s room and someone being in there, and then mentioned what we had found, he sat forward a little.

This was what I loved about Mason. He didn’t discount what I said or tell me to leave it alone or that I had murder on the brain.

“So, I gather you aren’t so sure it was an accident?”

“Right,” I said. “But I really don’t want it to be homicide. I mean, what a perfect crime, but I don’t want it to be a crime. I wanted this weekend to be crime-free. Mrs. Shedd can’t blame me for the fog, but it still looks bad that the one weekend she puts me in charge of is the one when there’s a fog emergency. She can’t count what happened to Izabelle as my fault, either, but someone getting sick and dying doesn’t look as bad as someone getting killed.”

“I think I have an answer,” Mason said. “Here’s a problem for a murder scenario. S’mores aren’t like cyanide.