I think they all figured out the knife was the weapon, but they all guessed incorrectly, letting me reveal the final piece of evidence.

“That was pretty good,” Cougar said, making me think he would offer a cub the same encouragement for almost catching a bunny or some other small edible.

“Yes,” Conan agreed. “But our way of playing the game is better.”

“You all play a different version of Murder?” I asked.

They nodded.

I considered making an excuse to stay in my suite for a few hours. Then I considered that this was good practice for entertaining lodgers on a rainy day. Not that I would be expected to play games with my lodgers. I would be expected to provide drinks and snacks and fight with the rabbit ears that provided sketchy TV reception in this kind of weather since there was bound to be someone who preferred television over board games.

“Why don’t you set things up for your version of the game while I see what I can rustle up for snacks?” That suggestion went over well and gave me an excuse to retreat for a few minutes.

I was pondering what I had available that would feed two carnivores and two omnivores when the phone rang.

“The Jumble, Vicki speaking.”

“It’s Julian. How are you doing out there?”

“Since I’m not planning to leave until I run out of food or the rain stops, I’m doing pretty well. Aggie, the boys, and I are about to play the terra indigene version of Murder.”

“Oh.” A single word followed by the slightest pause. “Well, I’m glad you’re not on your own there in the storm.”

Something in his voice. It suddenly occurred to me that Julian might be lonely. He lived in one of the Mill Creek Cabins, but he was the only tenant. That meant he was as isolated there as I was at The Jumble. Of course, if the roads were passable and he could reach the village, he could rent one of Ineke’s rooms for a night to avoid being alone.

“I don’t know what the main roads are like or if my access road is passable, but if you’d like to join us . . .” I did have two guest suites on the second floor of the main building, so I could offer him a place to stay instead of going out on slick roads after dark. And since I’d already said Aggie and the boys were here, he wouldn’t mistake the offer as more than an invitation for friendly company.

“I’d like that. Is there anything I can pick up since I can stop at Pops’s store before I leave Sproing?”

“You’re already in the village? Are you sure you want to come out in this weather?”

“I’m sure.”

I wasn’t sure I would brave the roads today for anything less than an emergency, but I took him at his word and considered what I was going to run out of by tomorrow morning. “Bread, milk, sandwich fixings?”

“Got it. I’ll see you in a little while.”

The larder was a little more bare than I’d thought, even for snacks. I cut up some carrots, cut some cheddar cheese into squares, and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I eyed the jar of sweet pickles but put them back unopened.

There were good reasons why, unlike Ineke, I didn’t include meals with the cabin rentals—or with the suites upstairs for that matter. Use of the kitchen? Yes. Me putting out more than snacks? Not a chance. Since Aggie and the boys were more of a mind to eat whatever was available and hadn’t yet acquired any discernment about what foods were a good or bad combination, they were quite happy with what I brought out.

I hadn’t been gone that long, but they had rummaged through all the supplies and toys I had purchased and had transformed the Murder game.

The original board was in the center of the table, but the rooms now had labels that matched the downstairs rooms in The Jumble, even if the layout couldn’t match. They had taken sheets of colored construction paper and added green woodland on three sides of the board. On the fourth side, they had snugged three little houses together to represent the lakeside cabins, added a strip of tan paper to represent the beach and, finally, blue paper to represent the lake. Aggie was busy making strips of squares that matched the size of the squares on the board, while Conan carefully secured the strips to the construction paper to indicate paths in the woods and paths from the kitchen down to the cabins and the lake. Cougar had found the sets of little plastic toys and created a cluster of trees on each of the green sheets of paper. There were farm animals—cow, pig, chicken, horse—scattered on the papers, positioned next to squares. There were also foxes, hawks, owls, a family of deer, and a moose. And there was a wolf and a coyote.

The bear, cougar, and crow were set on three of the places where players started the game. As for the people . . .

“Look!” Aggie beamed at me as she paused in her square making to hold up a figure in a police uniform. “It’s a teeny Grimshaw. And here is a teeny Vicki!”

They were plastic figures that had come out of molds. They had no relevance to the real world. It still gave me a thrill to see that teeny Vicki was just as tall as teeny Grimshaw.

Teeny Vicki was also placed on the game board in a starting position. Teeny Grimshaw was in the library. I had no idea why. Other teeny people included a dark-haired man dressed in casual business attire that made me think of Julian. There was a man in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck and a woman in a nurse’s uniform. There was a woman wearing an apron, like a short-order cook. There was a curvy, dark-haired woman in a business suit. And a man in a business suit. Except for teeny Grimshaw, the other people were placed on the edges of the board, as if they weren’t part of the game yet. Except for the woman in the long blue dress who was placed in the center of the blue paper that represented the lake.

I didn’t have to ask who she was.

But there was one other creature on the board. I put down the tray of snacks and picked up one of my fuzzy white socks. It had been stuffed with a partial roll of toilet paper. The sock now had frowny eyes drawn on with a permanent black marker, as well as a mouth full of a ghastly number of teeth, and arms that ended with paw-hands that had serious claws.

“What is this?” I asked.

“That’s the Elder,” Aggie said, taking it from me and replacing it on the board.

I would never be able to wear that sock without either stepping on an Elder or looking down and seeing that face looking up at me.

Besides the die that was rolled for movement, there was another pair of dice that, I was told, was used for a number of things. And there was a small stack of cards made from index cards that had been cut in half. Since those were turned over and placed in the center of the board where the envelope with the answers usually resided, they weren’t part of the human version of the game. Then again, neither were the question marks that were randomly placed on some of the squares, both on the board and on the newly created paths.

We had our snacks while Aggie and the boys finished making the pieces for their version of the game. I took the dishes back to the kitchen and returned to the social room with a pitcher of cold water and several plastic glasses.

“We’re ready to play,” Aggie said.

Cougar wrinkled his lips, revealing his mismatched teeth, and said, “Heh-heh-heh-heh.”

Oh golly. Did I really want to play a game that made Cougar that gleeful?

I gave them my brightest smile. “Alrighty! Let’s—” I heard a car pull up and headed for the front door. “That must be Julian.” I heard two car doors close, then two more, and hesitated. Maybe that wasn’t Julian. Maybe it was someone else, someone who thought I would be alone here.

I was aware of Conan coming up behind me and Cougar moving past me toward the front door.

The doorbell rang.

CHAPTER 37

Grimshaw

Watersday, Juin 24

Grimshaw glanced in the rearview mirror at the two bags of groceries and the three large pizzas filling up the back seat of the cruiser before focusing on the wet road. “You expecting Vicki DeVine to live on pizza for the next few days?” Or few weeks?

“She said Aggie and the boys were staying with her during the storm,” Julian replied. “I wanted to make sure she had enough food in the house.”

He wasn’t sure pizza would be the best choice of food for a Bear and Panther, but he didn’t argue. Besides, he liked pizza.