All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) (39 page)

Ray and Jon, true to their word, picked her up Monday
morning and helped her get through the day at the police station. Aaron had
been on the phone with them several times, and sent two of his deputies to
Kansas City to pick up the SUV. She gave her statement to different people
during a very long day and again on Tuesday, but by the end of Tuesday they
assured her there was enough information to keep Joey in prison for a while. His
mother hired lawyers for him, while his father stayed completely away from the
situation.

Polly had gotten her cellphone back and her first call
was from Joey's mother who begged h
er to
see his side of the story
and understand
his need for Polly. She couldn't seem to comprehend that Joey had done anything
wrong in bringing Polly back to Boston. The
detective
who had been
interviewing her at the time the call came in, listened to the conversation
with laughter in his eyes and a smirk on his face.

"She'd be great on the witness stand," he
laughed. "Not that
Delancy's
attorney
would be stupid enough to allow that to happen. If someone offers her the
opportunity to speak for her son, she'll get him a certain sentence to the
crazy house. That boy didn't have a chance, did
he!
"

When all was said and done, Polly felt like she was
truly finished with the city. She scheduled the flight for Thursday when
everyone was busy so she could quietly leave town. A quick flight change in
Chicago and she would be in Des Moines before five o'clock.

The flights were uneventful. Polly pulled her luggage
from the overhead compartment when they landed in Des Moines and entered the
terminal. Lydia had begged to be allowed to come get her and when Lydia saw
her, she ran to her for a hug.

"I'm sorry no one else came with me. I thought
maybe we could go out for dinner and make a big spectacle of having you back,
but it seems like
everyone had things
going on
!" Lydia exclaimed.

"Oh, please Lydia," Polly responded.
"I'm so glad to be back in the Midwest and on my way home I don't know
what to say. I'm glad to see you and know everyone here is alright. I was
worried about Doug and his mom being upset at me and what a mess Joey had made
of everything. It will be good to get home, see everyone and look in their
faces and reassure myself they don’t hate me."

"Polly, you have nothing to worry about. Good
heavens, nearly everyone has a nut somewhere in their past. Yours just happened
to show up and get public with it. No one blames you for his actions. In fact,
we all wondered what else we might have done to help you avoid this.
But, no worries.
It's
in the past now and
you've got a school
to finish!"

"Have they heard anything more about the murder
of those two girls, Kellie and Jill?" Polly asked.

"Not yet, but Aaron says he has some thoughts.
He's keeping it close to his chest until they get more information back from
the DCI. Waiting on them is like waiting for water to boil. It's going to
happen when it happens and if you worry too much over it, time seems to slow
down.

"Oh
!"
Lydia went on, "Aaron did finally corner old Doug Leon. He went to Joe's
Diner yesterday for breakfast like he always does and my old man was sitting
there waiting for him. They went back to his apartment and sure enough, it was
a hoarder's paradise. All of the trash and things he'd picked up over the last
twenty years were in there. He hadn't heard Aaron knocking on the door, it's so
well insulated, and the doorbell had quit working years ago.

"It was a classic story.
Piles
of newspaper and magazines, stacks of paper and plastic bottles everywhere.
There was a small path leading from the door to the
living room. Mr. Leon
is
living in a very tiny amount of space.

"But, they had a long talk
. Mr. Leon assured Aaron he never stole anything, but
he did pick up everything if it was left around for very long. It seems as if
he hadn't been too out of control while working at the school. He picked things
up and created a crate for them every year. When they closed the building down
in 1992, he was pretty upset about losing his stash, but I guess that before
too long, he'd started another one in his apartment and that brings us to today.

"What about the jacket and shirt?" Polly
pressed.

"He doesn't know anything about that. He was
confident that each crate was specific to one year. He said he was pretty
obsessive about that," Lydia responded.

"Did anyone else know about the room?"

"Yes," Lydia replied, "From what Aaron
says, there were several high school kids who spent time down there. Mr. Leon
doesn't remember them well, but they're planning to meet at the library
tomorrow to look through old yearbooks. There's some reason my husband believes
that coat is connected to the bodies found in your bathroom, but he hasn't seen
fit to tell me what it is."

The two of them talked about Polly's time in Boston
and got caug
ht up on news from
Bellingwood.

"
I can
hardly wait to get home," Polly said. They had turned
west
on to the
county road leading to town. “
Everything
looks familiar to me again. Like it is where I belong. Like the road is taking
me home.”

"
It won’t
be long now,” Lydia said. “
I think some
of the guys are still working. Henry had last minute things he was trying to
finish before you got home
and t
here's plenty of food in the cooler. More than a few
people wanted to make sure you knew how glad we were that you had moved into
town and how bad we felt
we welcomed you
to Bellingwood with death
."

"Oh, Lydia, I haven't been able to get my head
wrapped around how people out here are so friendly. That's so nice!" Polly
said.

"And you know Andy. She has everything marked and
labeled and organized. She'll take care of returning all the dishes for you
, so you have nothing to worry about
."

Polly shook her head. "I can't believe how lucky
I was to land in Bellingwood. It could have been any other place in Iowa..."

"And you would have gotten the same type of
treatment, my dear. You would have gotten the same type of treatment." Lydia
responded.

She pulled into the driveway and parked in front of
the front steps, letting Polly out.

"Do you want to come in for a minute?" Polly
asked. “
I'm sure if the guys are still
here, there's coffee.
”

"Sure!" Lydia said. "I'll be right in. Why
don't you go on upstairs, dump your stuff in your room and I'll pour a couple
of cups in the kitchen and wait for you."

Polly went in and headed right up the
steps
. When she
got to the
first
landing she
looked
around, taking in the familiarity of the place
. One of these days she needed to spend some quiet time and come up
with a name for the
school
. She had fallen in love with every square inch of it,
even the bathroom with its crumbled ceiling. This was her home
now
.

She made her way up the second flight of steps and heard
noise coming from the apartment. Polly wondered if they had gotten the flooring
finished while she was gone. Maybe she'd peek in and see.

She
opened the
main door to her apartment. The floor in the entryway looked amazing. Then, she
heard rustling as Lydia came up and stood beside her. "They did a
beautiful job with this didn't they? You can go on in. Henry has been letting
people walk on it since last night."

Polly walked through her new entryway into what would
be the living room and blinked.

"Welcome home, Polly," Lydia said.

At that, the room exploded with people and noise. Her
furniture had been carried up from the basement
and arranged in her apartment and i
t
seemed like everyone she had met was coming out of the bedroom, in from the bathroom,
up from behind furniture and around corners.

They converged on her, hugging and shaking her hand.
All she could do was laugh and before she knew it, tears began to spurt from
her eyes. Helen and Frank Randall pulled her into a tight hug. "We're awfully
glad you're back and safe, Polly. Doug would have been destroyed if anything
had happened to you."

Polly held on for a moment until Helen released her.
Doug was standing beside his parents.

"How are you doing, Doug?" Polly asked.

"Oh, I'm fine.
Heck, that
was clear last Sunday! But, Dad can't make me do
anything and I’m getting out of all sorts of work." He laughed
and then
hugged
her.

Polly waded through the morass of people to Aaron, who
said, "I'm glad you're alright, Polly girl. You shouldn't work so hard to
give an old man a heart attack."

"Thank you for everything, Aaron.
For everything."

"Your truck will be back tomorrow. I'm sorry it
wasn't here today, but the boys down in Boone told me they needed to check a
few more things
on it
."

"I didn't think I was ever going to see it again.
That was one of Dad's favorite purchases. He'd waited for years to buy a brand
new truck." Polly's emotions were running so high, she began to cry again.
She looked up at Aaron, whose face had turned a little pink. He kept his arm
around her and looked over her head for his wife
, who
smiled and waved at him and
continued with her conversation, turning her back so she didn't have to see his
pleading eyes.

Polly blubbered a little and Aaron reached in his back
pocket for his handkerchief. "Here, keep this. You might not be done
blubbering yet
this
evening." He pressed it into her hand and steered her toward another
cluster
of people waiting to greet her.

She finally made her
way into the kitchen. Several card tables were set out with drinks and cake,
appetizers and other goodies. Beryl looked up from the cake she was cutting,
dropped the knife on the table and rushed to hug Polly.

"I told Lydia we
were coming to get you back if you weren't on that plane today. I have friends
in Boston too, you know and I was ready to call them all to make sure you were
alright out there. Then, Lydia told me you mentioned something about hot
Italian boys and I figured you had it covered."

Polly blushed. She remembered her comments to Drea in
her exhausted, drunken state about her friend's older brother. Drea had only
teased her about it a few times, ensuring that Polly would never forget she had
exposed her unspoken passion for Ray.

"OH!" Beryl exclaimed,
then
poked Polly's hot cheek. "I may want to hear
more about your hot Italian boys!"

"Stop it," Polly sputtered, "Sheesh."

Andy and Sylvie were in the kitchen, chuckling as they
watched the encounter. Both women hugged her and welcomed her home.

Sylvie said, "Lydia wouldn't let anyone but us
deal with your bedroom and clothes. Tell us if you want some help rearranging
things, would you? We did what we could, but don't know what you want."

"Oh, you guys. This is too much! I can't
believe what you've done here,” Polly said.

"Henry was all worried about scratching the floor
up because we were moving too fast, so the furniture is up on heavy felt pieces
and if you look, no one has any shoes on," Andy said.

Polly looked around at the feet of the people in her
apartment and laughed. "That's hilarious!" she said. "I spent
the last few days with my friend, Drea, who won't let anyone into her apartment
with their shoes on. She worries about her white carpet. I will never have
white carpet because of that." She glanced around and said, "So,
where are all of the shoes?"

"Downstairs in the auditorium, all locked up
tight. The Sheriff wouldn't let us in there because of the crates on the stage
unless he or Stu was there to make sure no one bothered them," Andy said,
"Did you see Stu out there? He brought his cute little wife along. He's
the sweetest thing ever."

"Have you guys done any more work on the
crates?" Polly asked as she peered around the people looking for Stu. He
caught her eye and waved.

"We sure have. I suspect we're about 80%
finished. Oh!" she exclaimed. "Aaron says that when we're done and if
we haven't found anything else, the crates are probably yours to deal with
since they came with the school and there wasn't any theft involved."

"What are you going to do with all of those
things?" Sylvie asked.

Polly thought about it a moment and said, "I
hadn't given that any thought at all. I
dunno
."