Yarn to Go by Betty Hechtman

someone in my group?” I said. I was surprised and defensive and said it couldn’t possibly be one of them. They all seemed so nice. He rolled his eyes.
    “Sometimes something happens to nice people and suddenly they’re not so nice.” He looked at me. “What about you? Do you have some of those sharp needles?”
    “Are you kidding? I barely know how to knit,” I said, trying to avoid a direct answer. But he was good and picked up on it.
    “So, you’re saying you don’t have any needles like that?” he said. Something in his voice made me uneasy.
    “You don’t honestly think that I—”
    “Just answer the question,” he said, interrupting.
    What I did next did not please him. I’d learned something when I’d done temp work at the detective agency. As much as Lieutenant Borgnine was trying to assert his authority, I wasn’t really under any obligation to answer his question or stay there.
    “That’s really all I have to say,” I said, getting out of the chair and heading for the door.

9

    “DON’T YOU SEE? THEY THINK ONE OF US DID IT,” Bree squealed. I’d just walked back into the meeting room and told Kris that Lieutenant Borgnine was waiting to talk to her. As Kris headed to the door, she stopped when she got close and dropped her voice.
    “I did the best I could to keep them knitting and calm, but I’m afraid the natives are freaking out.” Kris looked back as Bree continued.
    “What if it is one of us?” Bree looked around at the group. “And then one by one we start disappearing. Like that Agatha Christie story.” She jumped up. “I don’t care what that police guy says. I’m leaving.” She made a rush toward the door Kris had just gone out of.
    “If you leave, it’s going to make you look guilty,” Scott said. The sound of a male voice startled us. “If I were a cop and one of this group bolted, I’d chase after her.”
    Bree looked stricken. “What would my boys do if I went to jail?” She started to cry. All the commotion made Olivia stop thinking about whatever seemed to be continually on her mind and she went over to Bree to comfort her, though with a few prickly comments.
    They all wanted to know what Lieutenant Borgnine had asked me and seemed apprehensive about their own turn with him. Even Lucinda seemed worried.
    “Do you think he’s checked up on us already?” she said, rocking her head with concern. “Tag doesn’t know, but I have a few outstanding parking tickets.” Poor Lucinda. Tag would definitely throw a fit about unpaid parking tickets. In his detail-oriented world, you never left anything like that hanging.
    “Isn’t Tag your husband?” Scott said. “If my wife had a few parking tickets I wouldn’t have a conniption fit.”
    “You don’t know Tag,” Lucinda said. Scott still seemed confused, and Lucinda tried to explain that Tag had been an engineer, and everything he did had to be perfect, just so. Every
i
dotted and
t
crossed.
    Olivia had gone back to working on her knitting. She seemed to go off in her own world again and looked lost in her stitches.
    “Didn’t Edie say something about a romantic story with you two on the cover of the menu at your restaurant?” Melissa said. “Something about high school sweethearts who reconnected?”
    I heard Lucinda suck in her breath. No way did she want it out there to anyone besides me that their ending wasn’t totally happily ever after. “Forget I mentioned anything,” Lucinda said.
    “So are you going to tell us what that cop asked you?” Sissy said, seeming agitated. “I’d like to know what to expect.” She stopped and swallowed.
    “I think we should be questioned together,” her mother said. “Sissy, you’re likely to say the wrong thing.”
    Sissy flashed her eyes. “Me say the wrong thing? You wrote the book on that. When you came to school with me in third grade, didn’t I tell you not to say that I hated math? And what did you say, first thing? ‘Miss Quinn, my daughter