All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) (10 page)

Marvin carried another cup and walked over to hand it
to Jerry, who had his hand out, then stepped back.

Polly smiled back at Billy and he walked over to kneel
in front of Doug. Jerry knelt down and pressed the coffee cup into Doug’s hand.
"Drink the coffee, Doug. Eat a cookie."

Doug shook himself a little and looked up at Jerry.
"Coffee?
Ok
ay
."

Billy set a napkin with three cookies on Doug's leg. Doug
took a drink of coffee and looked around the large hallway.

"Did I really pull bones out of that
ceiling?" he asked.

"You really did, dude," said Billy. "That's
so cool!"

Polly chuckled. She was only ten
or twelve
years
older than those boys, but they seemed so much younger. Both were good kids.
She thought it was great Jerry was teaching them a trade. He treated them like
they were his own sons and both boys seemed to like him a lot.

She heard the door
open
and got up again. Walking down the stairs, she hoped
it was Lydia's husband. No one else needed to be here now. When she got to the
front door and opened it, both Lydia and Aaron were waiting there.

"Polly," Lydia said, "I don't believe
you've met my sweet-ums yet, have you!"

Aaron looked down at his wife.
He
was a tall man, probably about 6'1," with a big barrel chest and immense
forearms.
He didn't look like any
sweet-ums Polly had ever met and it didn't seem as if he necessarily
appreciated the affectionate banter.

"What have I told you about using those phrases,
woman," he said to his wife as he grinned at her.

"You've told me that I'll be in trouble
later," she said, and then in an aside to Polly, "That's why I keep
using them. I like being in trouble."

Polly giggled and felt a little uncomfortable. This
seemed inappropriate for the momentous occurrence upstairs, but it also seemed
as if there
was
no stopping the woman.

"I don't ever take her with me when I have a
crime scene, because this is her behavior," Aaron said. "She
embarrasses the hell out of me, so it’s easier to leave her at home!"

Lydia patted his backside and said, "I think all
of the excitement is upstairs,
pookie
. Go do your
thing. I'll be down here telling Polly all about the trouble you like to give
me."

Aaron shook his head and walked away. He went upstairs
and Polly could hear him greeting the men gathered in front of the bathroom
door. She desperately wanted to be up there
seeing
everything going on
, but didn't know what
to do with Lydia.

"Oh, go on," Lydia said. "I know you
want to be up there. I'll sit down here in the kitchen twiddling my thumbs. I
do know better than to be involved in anything Aaron is doing. I only pick on
him for the effect."

"Really?
Are you sure?" Polly asked.

"Absolutely.
Go. I'll be fine."

Polly ran up the stairs and heard Aaron Merritt
telling the workmen they might as well go home. They weren't going to be doing
anything else today. A few of the men broke off from their clusters and headed
downstairs to get their things. Doug was still sitting on the floor and Billy
was hanging pretty close to his friend. Jerry and Aaron were talking.

"No," Jerry said, "After Doug and I
came blasting out of there, no one else went in. Polly and I looked in at the
mess, but we didn't go beyond the door."

"Alright then," Aaron responded. "I'm
going to call DCI and have
them
get someone over
here. I want to talk to Doug and make sure you and he have given a statement. Then
you can get out of here and he can get cleaned up. Make sure the kid is ok
ay
, though
,
before you
send him home to his mama. I
don't want
her worrying
."

Aaron st
epped
back toward Polly and punched a button on his phone. She
was close enough to hear a woman’s voice on the other
end say, “Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation, how may I help you?”

Well, at least she knew who DCI was now.

"Hey Arlene, Can I talk to Digger?
” Aaron asked, then paused for her response, “
Oh, alright. Put me through."

He turned to Polly. "You know, this is going to
take a while. You might want to pack some things up and if I know my Lydia, the
reason she is here is to t
ake you back to
our house. You’ll
need somewhere else to
sleep tonight."

"Hey buddy!" he said back into his phone. "I
have some old bones over here and I need a team to
come
clean things up and check it out."

He listened for a moment, "Yep. As soon as
possible, I guess. Somebody pulled the ceiling out of the old school building
and it l
ooks like a couple of bodies.

"Oh crap!" he blurted. "I know whose
bodies these are. Crap. Crap.
Crap. Crap.
Dammit. I don't want to have to deal with
this.

"Digger, get a team over here as soon as
possible. Yeah. This is an old, ugly case and I'm going to need everything done
right so we can figure out what happened."

He listened again and said, "
Thanks,
buddy. And by the way, it's time for you and Ellen to
come back to dinner. Is it ok
ay
if I have Lydia call your wife?

"Tha
nks
again. I'll see you later."
Aaron
put his phone back in its holster on his belt, then turned to Jerry.

"I want to
let you
go home, but we're going to wait
for DCI. They'll check the two of you over to make sure nothing
important
fell
on you and then one of their
people
will listen to your story and get it written down. They
should be here in a half hour or so.
”

He looked at Polly in apology.
"Polly. I need a key to the place. And you're
going to have to go home with Lydia. But, before you do, I want you to meet the
guys from DCI so you know who will be wandering around your
home
. Why don't
you go ahead and pack up any things you might need for a couple of days."

Turning back to those still standing around, Aaron
said,
"The rest of you need to leave
now unless you have something important to tell me."

The few men who were
there
took the hint and headed
downstairs. In a couple of minutes the parking lot was empty.

Polly went into her room, shut the door and sat down
on her bed. 'Dammit' was right. She felt like she'd barely gotten started and
now everything was in an uproar. She wanted to throw something, so she grabbed
a pillow and flung it across the room. That didn't help, so she
opened her
overnight
bag and began flinging things into it. She picked up the purple underwear and
laugh
ed
a
loud. She tossed them in, then walked back across the hall to the
bathroom and pulled out her travel kit. It went in on top of the clothing and
she zipped it shut.

"Well, that didn't take very much time," she
thought and looked at her watch.
Half
an
hour, huh
?
She had
another fifteen minutes before people started kicking her out of her house.

It had taken a while, but this schoolhouse was
starting to feel like it was hers. All of a sudden she realized she couldn't
stand the thought of people walking around here with everything in such a mess.
She
gathered
the towels and draped them over the shower door,
rinsed down the sink and ran the scrubber around the toilet.

Then, she walked back across the hall, barely
acknowledg
ing
the people there and shut the door to her room behind
her. She picked the pillow up off the floor where she’d thrown it and
straightened the bed. She stacked the laundry baskets in the corner of the room
and arranged everything on the floor beside her bed as neatly as possible.

A
s she opened
the door to walk back out with her bag, she saw five people come up the stairs.
Great.
They were
here and she had to leave
.

As soon as she thought those words, she realized she
was being
pissy
. But, who wouldn't be? There were skeletons in her
bathroom and strange people were kicking her out of her home.
Pissy
was going to be
her
privilege
.
At least for a few minutes.

She stood in her doorway and watched them take over. Aaron
excused himself and walked
toward
her. "Polly, I'd like you to meet Danny
Boylston. He's going to be in charge of this whole thing," he said as he
waved his hand back at the bathroom.

"Danny," Aaron called out. "I'd like
you to meet the new owner of the school, Polly Giller. This is her place and
she should know who you are before you start tearing through her stuff."

Danny
Boylston
was even taller than Aaron and thin as a rail. He had
jet black hair and dark black eyes
which
looked almost sad, like a bloodhound’s eyes, Polly
thought. She dropped her bag and put her hand out to shake his. His fingers
were as long as he was tall, but his grip was firm and warm.

"Nice to meet you, Polly.
I'm sorry it is under such messy circumstances. We'll
do our best to be efficient and get out of your way as quickly as possible."

"Alright," she responded. "I guess
that's all I can ask for."

Without any further conversation, he turned around and
walked back to the bathroom. One of the women was checking Doug
over
, brushing
some of the dust and particles off into a bag. Finally she motioned to another
woman, who spoke quietly to Doug, then looked up. "Is there anywhere I can
go to talk to the kid?" she asked.

Polly looked at Aaron, who nodded
at her
. "I
suppose the only place with chairs and a table w
ould be the kitchen,” she said.
“
There's
coffee there, if you want it, but I'm going to turn
it
off before I
leave."

"That will be fine. Doug?" and she motioned
for Doug to follow. He picked up his coffee cup and stuffed the napkin he'd
been gripping inside it. Polly walked over to him and took the cup out of his
hand. "You'll be alright. You have nothing to be freaked out over at this
point, am I right?" she asked.

"I guess. I've never been interviewed by a cop
before," he said.

"And you've never had bones fall out of the
ceiling before either," Polly said. "You got through that, you'll get
through this. And I'm going to get you and Billy a steak dinner in Ames when
this is over. I promise."

Doug laughed,
then
shook his head.

"What?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing.
I was
only
thinking about purple ..."

"Stop it!" She laughed. "You already
got me into a ton of grief." She punched him lightly on his arm. "Now,
go. Get this over with and then go home and get a shower."

She followed the two downstairs where Lydia met them.

"Are you ready to go, Polly?" she asked.

"I need to clean up the coffee pot when they're
done," Polly said.

"I've already taken care of
it
. I poured the
rest of the coffee into the two big thermoses you have and those are on the
table with the cookies. It will be fine until tomorrow."

Aaron Merritt had also come back down the steps. "Lydia,
I told her you wouldn't let her stay anywhere but our house. Was I right?"

"Oh, you know me so well,
punkin
'," she said. "Come on, Polly, we're taking
your truck. And Aaron promises to tell us everything when he gets home for
supper, doesn't he!"

He chuckled,
then
sobered as he
said, "I'm sure I already know who it is, Lydia. You aren't going to like
it."

Her face fell, "You're serious, aren't you,
Aaron."

"Yes, I think I am. I'll know more when we get information
from DCI, but that's what I'm thinking. It looks like we've finally found them."

"Oh dammit, Aaron.
Everyone was normal again. It took thirty years for
that family to start living. I don't know whether this will help or make them
miserable."