All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) (20 page)

Polly laughed. "I think every kid does."

"So what are we looking for down here?"
Sylvie asked.

"Well, I want to drag
the two green
chairs
over
to the stairway
so the guys can carry them up for me tomorrow. We're
going to have to haul stuff off them and stack it up somewhere else. Then, I
would like to find the boxes with my winter clothes. It's going to get cold
pretty soon.
”

They'd already taken the tour. The boys had the run of
the place with strict orders to leave the upstairs bathroom alone
and t
hey seemed
appropriately intimidated by the crime scene tape which sealed the door shut.

"There's so much space here, Polly. I can't
imagine only one person living in this place!"

"Oh, I hope it doesn't take long for things to
get busy. If I have my way, the place will be full all day long and then, if I
can get a few artists to come live in the rooms upstairs, it will never be
completely quiet. I'll probably miss all of this alone time."
Then she said
,
"Not that I've had very much.
With all the
noise
of construction
, I find that I like my
weekends."

"Mom!
Miss Polly! You have to come see what we found!"
Andrew and Jason were messing around in one of the back rooms of the basement
space. Polly had given them a couple of flashlights and their mother had
admonished them to be careful.

"Hold on a second, boys." Polly turned on a
Coleman Lantern she had and handed Sylvie another large flashlight. They wove
through two smaller rooms until they got to what looked like a crawlspace.

"What's in there?" Sylvie asked.

"It's another big room," Andrew said,
"but you have to crawl through this part first." He got down on his
hands and knees and crawled into the space. He turned around and shone his
flashlight back out at them. "Come on! It's no big deal. It's not like
there are rats or anything down here."

Sylvie looked at Polly with a smirk on her face,
"Yeah. I want to get into a small space behind my son, who thinks rats are
cool because it's not like there are any down here." She sighed.
“Alright.
Here I
go." Down
on
her hands and knees she went, then sat up and slipped
her flashlight into her waistband and began crawling through the hole.

"It's cool, Polly. The crawlspace is only about
three and a half feet long."

Polly got down, and pushed the lantern in front of her
while she crawled through to the other side.

The crawlspace opened up into a room, eight feet square.
There didn't seem to be any light other than the lantern she had and the three
flashlights. Crates lined the outer edges of the room, stacked three and four
high. At the opposite end of the room from the crawlspace was another full size
door Jason
was attempting
to open.

"What is this place?" she asked and turned
to the crates at her right. Lifting the top one to the floor, she began
rifling
through
it.

Sylvie had walked over to where Jason was trying to
pick the lock on the door and then tapped on it. There was a dull thud.
"Jason, honey.
I
don't think anything is behind this door. It sounds like it's been walled up.

"Well, why didn't they take the door out?"
he asked.

Sylvie turned around a couple of times. "This
door would face the old gymnasium. I don't remember there being an entrance to
the basement out there, but I suppose at one time there could have been." Then
she said, "What are you finding, Polly?"

Polly said, "It's the weirdest thing. It looks
like detritus from kids' lockers. I can't tell if this was stuff left behind at
the end of the year, lost items, or what? But there
are scores of crates in here and
I can't believe there hasn't been more damage."

"You know what?" Sylvie said. "I think
this was an old root cellar. They closed it up long before I was around. Something
tells me it was before I was even born. Kids used to talk about it being down
here, but I don't remember anyone ever knowing where it was. And I NEVER came
down to the basement, it was way too creepy. Those old boilers made weird
sounds and I didn't like the janitors ... I mean, custodians."

She started peeking through some of the crates, then
heard Andrew say, "Look! Cool!" He pulled a microscope out of one of
the crates. "Can I have it mom?"

"These things aren't ours, honey. Let's
wait
before we
start taking stuff out of here."

A muffled sound came through the crawlway. "Oh!"
Polly said, "That's the door chime. I'll be back. I don't think I need a
light to get out, so I'll leave the lantern."

She crawled back into the main portion of the basement
and ran for the stairs. When she arrived at the top, she opened the door to
find Aaron Merritt standing there.

"Aaron! What are you doing here today?"

He was dressed in jeans, so she was fairly certain it
was nothing official.

"I wanted to return your key. I don't need it any
longer. I've got my son in law in the Wrangler and we're going to do some
fishing, while the womenfolk," he chuckled, "are talking about
babies."

"Are you in a real hurry?" Polly asked.

"No, I don't suppose so. We needed to get out of
the house. Is something up?"

He pulled the key out of his pocket and handed it to
Polly. As she walked over to the newel post, she said, "Well, I found
something interesting in the basement. Actually, Andrew and Jason Donovan found
it. There's a room tucked away i
n the
back and it's filled with …
" Polly
gasped as she looked in the space in the newel post. Then, she shut her eyes
and thought for a moment.

"No, I’m right. There were two left."

"Two what, Polly?"
Aaron asked.

"There were two keys left in here when I gave one
to you and Danny Boylston. Now there's only one. I don't know who could have
been in here and taken it since Wednesday. There's been no one around!" She
took the remai
ning key out and pocketed
both.

"Oh, I hate that," she said. "When was
someone around to take a key and why would they want one? I mean, this place is
wide open all week long."

Aaron said, "Why don't we call a locksmith. I can
have someone here right away. I don't want you in this place alone without
knowing
where your keys are
. Are all the doors keyed to the same lock?" He
asked.

"Honestly, no. I had the rest of the doors keyed
differently because I didn't want anyone coming in without me knowing. This key
only unlocks the front door. Maybe I forgot and gave someone else a key and
didn't count correctly."

"
It's
okay, Polly.
We'll
get a locksmith here and he'll make new keys for you. Then, I'll call Boylston
and tell hi
m he needs to see you before he
can g
et in
again. It’s no big deal.
Give me a minute
to make some calls and then you can tell me what you found in the
basement." Aaron walked outside and put his cell
phone to his
ear. Polly went back downstairs and over to the crawlspace.

"Sylvie? Can you
hear me?" she called.

In a few moments, she
heard, "Yes. What's up?

"Aaron Merritt is here. I'm going to bring him
down to see what we've found. You know you don't have to stay in there if you
don't want to."

Sylvie responded, "Oh, we're fine. I've told t
he boys to make sure things go
back in the crate they’ve removed them from. I think
there might be some kind of organization with it, but I haven't figured out
what it is."

"Alright.
We'll be in there in a few minutes."

Polly went back upstairs as Aaron was walking up the
outside
steps
with a big, blonde young man.

"Polly," Aaron said, then gestured to the
young man, "I'd like you to meet my son-in-law, Brian Erikson. Brian, this
is Polly Giller."

Brian stuck his hand out to shake hers and she found
her hand enveloped in an immense, warm paw. His hands were calloused and strong
and his face was ruddy. He had bright blue eyes filled with laughter.

She looked at him an
d then
she
said, "Don't tell me. Y
ou know, too."

"No ma'am. I don't know
anything about
anything,"
he said.

Aaron clapped him on his back. "That's the smarte
st thing any man can ever say, e
specially when the alternative is walking into a trap."

Polly shook her head and backed up into the school.

Aaron said, "Lance Alston is going to be here in
twenty minutes or so to change the locks on this door. He said he should be
able to re-core the cylinder. He'll make keys for you and you'll be ready to go.

"So," he went on, "what did the boys
find?"

"Well, there's a crawlway back into what might
have been an old root cellar and there are some things in crates back there
that don't make much sense to me."

"What kind of things, Polly?"

"It looks like items that belonged to kids
through the years. I can't imagine all of this stuff was left in lockers at the
end of the
school
year. Why would anyone want to keep it?"

She gestured through the basement door and the two men
went down the steps.

Polly crossed in front of them and wove her way
through the boxes and furniture to the crawlway. "Sylvie?"

"We're still here, Polly."

"Aaron and Brian are coming in." Polly
yelled.

Brian got down on his knees and crawled into the
space.

Aaron looked around. "
Hmmm, n
o one
would have seen this when the boilers were sitting here," he
remarked
.

"Okay," Polly responded. "I wasn't sure
what was up."

Aaron picked up an old piece of plywood. "I'll
bet the boys pulled this off the wall to find the space."

He indicated Polly should go on through, so she did
and he followed closely behind her. When they stood up, Jason and Andrew were
still carefully digging through crates. Sylvie, though, was holding a jacket
and had a strange look on her face.

"What's that, Sylvie?" Polly asked.

"It's my jacket. I didn't leave it in my locker. It
was stolen." she said.

"Are you sure it's yours?" Aaron asked.

"I'm sure." She put her hand in a pocket and
pulled out a small plastic case, with what looked to be a picture of a boy band
on its face. "This was a Christmas gift and I carried my lip gloss in
it." She unzipped it and sure enough, several tubes were inside.

"I also found two CDs in the same crate with Barb
Pierce's name inside the case. She would never have left them in her locker
after school was out. She was particular about her CDs." Sylvie thought
for a moment. "I think someone was stealing from us and these crates are
from different years. I'll bet if we get it figured out, we'll find a long
history in here."

"Okay, boys," Aaron said
, air chuffing out of his lungs
. "I need you to stop playing in the crates."

Both boys looked chagrined, but stopped what they were
doing.

"Polly, I know you didn't expect all of this when
you bought this old school, but I'm going to bring in some people to run tests
on
these things and
see what's going on. It does seem odd there is such a
large collection down here and I want to make sure it's all normal stuff. What
a historical treasure, though. I'll bet there are years and years of items. The
statute of limitations on theft is only three years, so I suppose we aren't
going to prosecute anyone."

"Sheriff,
”
Polly said.
“A
fter you’ve
done all the investigating down here you need to do
, we could probably haul these crates up to the
auditorium and let people look through them. Maybe we could get them organized
by their decade and photographed and see what we find!"

"That's a great idea. I know a few people who
might enjoy doing just that. I’m sorry boys, but I have to get
everyone out. Take your flashlights with you."

Sylvie was still holding her jacket. "Sylvie. I
promi
se
you'll get that back,” Aaron said.

"No, I was thinking about the day I discovered it
was gone. I had to ask for a ride home because it was so cold and I didn't have
a coat. Principal Mayfair was going to take me, but luckily Crystal Jensen
overheard and took me home. Mom and I had to go out that night to buy a new
coat for me. We couldn't afford another sch
ool
jacket. I can't believe it’s
here. I
never thought I'd see it again. I assumed someone else was wearing it. Weird."
She laid the jacket back on top of a crate and followed her sons out of the
room.