All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) (41 page)

The puppy panted and shivered under her hand. Before
she could pull it away, he licked it again.

"So, that's a promise? You'll be good today,
Obiwan?" she asked.

He stood up and wagged his entire body.

Polly ruffled the fur on his neck and said,
"Alright. Well, then. Let's get going!"

The two of them walked out to the foyer and out the
front door. Doug and Billy pulled into the lot and jumped out of Doug's car.

"How was he, Polly? Did he cry all night or
anything?" Doug asked.

"No, was he supposed to?"

"Oh, no, I just wanted to make sure you guys were
fine."

"We were absolutely
great
, weren't
we, Obiwan," she said to the dog. "We've already walked the perimeter
of the building once this morning and were about to head back to the creek
before everyone
arrives
and
gets
started. What are
you two working on today?"

"We're back in the bathrooms first thing this
morning," Billy said. "Doug wasn't too sure about it, but," he
punched his friend in the arm, "we decided he wasn't going to be a scared
wimp, so he got to go in first. We're nearly done up there. After that, we'll
be back in the auditorium to finish wiring the place."

"Great. It looks like I'm back on stage today
with the girls. See you guys later."

Polly took off at a slow trot around the side of the
school with Obiwan following close behind her. They headed for the creek which
ran through the edge of Bellingwood behind the school. It was never very full,
but big Sycamores lined the banks. There was a beautiful grove of them that she
could see from her windows, so today she thought she might go exploring.

Obiwan began sniffing around and marking trees and
bushes, rocks and grass as the two enjoyed being out. The sun was coming up and
it occurred to Polly that Sunday would mark the end of Daylight Savings time.
More sunshine in the morning and
less in the evening.
Fabulous.
The sunrise
was spectacular, filled with pinks and oranges and deep reds. "So, you're
going to make m
e be outside in the
morning, eh.
I might have to start
bringing my camera with me."

They continued to walk the outer boundaries of the
land on which the school resided, stopping every so often so the dog could
again leave his mark. Polly hoped that would help as he began to explore his
territory. She watched more and more vehicles arrive and figured they should
probably head back in and say hello.

She walked back in the front door to the sounds of
people talking and clattering around. Saws were humming, hammers pounding,
electric nail guns slamming. Polly leaned on the door sill and smiled. It would
be fine with her if these were the sounds she was greeted with every time she
opened her front door. Obiwan barked as Leroy came around from where Henry's
makeshift shop was and headed up the steps.

"You're going to have to get used to people,
Obiwan. There will be plenty of them showing up around here, I hope. Let's go
upstairs and see who is here." Keeping him on the leash, she started up
the steps. He followed her, then ran ahead of her and attempted to pull her
after him.
"Oh no you don't, Obiwan.
I'm the alpha on this team." He stopped on the
step, turned arou
nd and looked at her and
waited
since she'd pulled the leash taut
and he could no longer move. As soon as she got closer, he took off again and
she stopped him. "Stop, Obiwan,
"
she
commanded in her sternest voice.
He sat
down on the next step and waited for her.

"Yep, we have some training to work out, don't
we?
But, we'll
both get there, I promise." She ruffled his fur again and walked into the
first classroom. Obiwan greeted the workers and moved from person to person
waiting long enough for a scratch or a rub. They all greeted Polly and
then
went back
to work
,
so she headed back
dowstairs
. Stu Decker
was walking in the front door. "Right on time," she thought to
herself.

"Did you have a nice evening, Polly?" he
asked, then knelt down to look at the dog.

"It was a great evening. I'm so glad you were
there. Your wife seems very nice." Polly responded.

"Thanks. I love her." He stood up. "Well,
I suppose I had better get things opened up. The girls said they were going to
be in early today. They want to get this project finished." She followed
him as he walked to the stage door, pulling out his keys. "By the way,
what do you think you're going to do with all the stuff?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied.
"If we can get it back to
anyone who wants it, great.
Otherwise, Beryl had a good idea about donating money from an auction to a
local charity. Maybe I'll keep a few things to display around here. Who knows?"

He unlocked the door, walked in and flipped on the
light. "Would you like some coffee?" he asked.

"Oh! I'll get it," she said and turned
around to the counter, pouring out two cups of coffee and carrying them up the
steps. Obiwan seemed content to be on the leash with her and until she was more
comfortable with him being around, that was right where he was staying. She
handed a cup off to the
deputy
and walked around the room. They were right. Most of
the crates were now filled with bags and had been tagged. They might even
finish the job today.

Sounds of laughter accompanied footfalls on the floor
outside the auditorium and grew louder as Polly's friends approached the stage
door. "We're here!" Beryl cried out. Lydia and Andy were with her. "Sylvie
will be here after lunch. She's working at the store until then."

It took a few moments for everyone to get their coats
off, pat the dog and get their coffee, but before too long they were all
working steadily away. The morning passed and after lunch, Sylvie joined them
on stage.

"Have you decided what you're going to do with
all of this, Polly?" she asked.

"Do any of you have a good idea for a charity? I
don't know how much we'd
raise
, but there are
some pretty cool pieces here and if we did an online auction, too, I suspect we
could make some decent money." Polly said.

Lydia commented, "You know, Polly. The library is
in desperate need of some work. The old building could use help."

Polly perked up, "The library? Of course! Why
didn't I think of that! Does anyone else have a better idea?"

Beryl said, "There are always a bunch of things
in town that need money. Some of them have better patronage than others. You
just need to pick one and do it. Lydia, who is on the library board that we can
introduce to Polly?"

"We'll find someone. But, that's a good
idea." Lydia said.

All of them worked and chattered about things they
found in the crates. Knowing now who had picked the items up made their task
more interesting as they attempted to discern why a particular item caught his
eye. Today, Polly logged a retainer that seemed to be from some time in the
eighties, and a couple of cassette tapes that had been recorded. One of them
was marked, "For Mindy. I Love You. Ted." She wanted to put that in a
cassette player and see what the poor guy had thought would fill his lady
love's heart.

Polly was curious about the single saddle shoe. Lydia
thought the things in th
at crate had to
be from the mid-
seventies, everyone wore
saddle shoes for a while. There was a pair of spats tucked inside a band cap,
more t-shirts and a well-worn copy of
Jonathan
Livingston Seagull
that Beryl cackled
over. There were a number of books that had been bagged up and logged, some had
names on the inside and there were even a few with library card envelopes
sealed to the inside cover. Polly couldn't believe she was the curator for such
an interesting collection of items. Once they got everything dated, this would
be a fascinating look at pop culture from the latter part of the twentieth
century.

They worked and all of a sudden, Obiwan barked. It
made everyone on stage jump. No one had been paying attention to anything other
than their task. Aaron was walking up onto the stage with a grim look on his
face.

"What's up, Aaron?" Lydia asked.

He shut the door behind him and said, "We're
certain
the
murderer is working here at the school. The only way to know for sure is to
fingerprint everyone, but we can't do that, so we need to get a little
creative."

"How do you know that?" Polly asked. Her
stomach flipped upside down and instinctively she reached down and picked
Obiwan up to her lap. There had been a murderer in and out of her school for
the last month or so working in her space and seeing how she lived.

"You also need to know that the coat and t-shirt
you found was probably his as well. We matched fingerprints from the girls'
purses and some that we found on their bones to an old key found in that coat."

"But, you have no idea who it is?" This came
from Sylvie. All of the women had stopped working and set their items back down
in front of them. They
gathered around
Aaron and Stu
.

"We're becoming more and more certain it was
Buddy Landers, but somehow he has become someone else. We don't know when or
how that happened. We have no record of him after he left here in the seventies
and there are no fingerprints on file anywhere that match to the ones we've
got. Since his parents are gone, we've got nothing. But, we have also taken
some fingerprints from around here and he's on site.

"Polly, I
would
guess he's also the one who took
your key and tried to get in the front door. His fingerprints were all over
that lock.

Polly shuddered. "Alright, I'm not going to
complain any more about your insistence that Doug and Billy stay here or that
you made me spend some nights at
y
our house. I can't believe he's been so close to all
of this. Why would he come back here now? And why would he stick around once
the bodies were found?"

"My guess is that he's made his home here and
after all these years, he doesn't want to give that up again."

"Oh, the poor boy," said Lydia.

Aaron scowled at her. "Stop it. He killed two
girls, two girls that you knew very well. Then, he hid it and got away with it
for forty years. Don't you think they should have some justice?"

"But, still.
That poor boy.
Just think about what he has had to live with. He had
to run away and leave his family. When they died, he wasn't around. Then he
comes back here with a new name and a new life wanting to be part of a
community that he loved all those years and," she sighed, "that poor
boy."

This time it was Beryl who scowled at her friend,
"Poor boy,
my
ass. He's my age. He's had forty years of living free
while those two girls were dead and their family didn't have the opportunity to
watch them grow up and have kiddos of their own. Think about Linda and Sandy. They've
missed having a great big family because of him and he wasn't man enough to
admit what he did.

"Think about all those lies he told and how many
people felt sorry for him and pitied him and helped him. He spent an entire
year finishing his schooling with everyone thinking he was some poor lost soul
whose girlfriend had run away from him.
Poor boy?
Not in my book."

Andy was quiet,
then
said, "We
can't tell Linda and Sandy until we know for sure."

Aaron interjected, "We can't tell anyone until we
know for sure. The only reason I'm here this afternoon telling you is that I
need your help."

"How can we help," Polly was puzzled.

"Nearly everyone drinks coffee around here. We
need to identify some cups and get them taken away for analysis. I brought a
big box of cookies up from the Dutch Bakery in Boone. They're on the counter. Polly,
what if you were to invite small groups of the workers to come in and have some
coffee and cookies. We'll change out the trash and at least start limiting the
possibilities."

"Oh!"
she
exclaimed. "I can do that!
Girls,
are you ready to be hostesses?"

"Any way you can separate the cups so I can more
closely identify them will be great," he said.

"We're on it big guy," Beryl laughed. "I
have an idea." She opened up her bag and pulled out some Sharpie markers. "Let's
get busy, girls!"

Polly went upstairs to the bathroom where Doug and
Billy were working. She invited the team down for cookies. Jerry Allen looked
at her oddly, but it was close enough to a break time, he scooted
them
out and
downstairs, following behind his people. Everyone was interested in the new dog
and between the cookies and petting Obiwan, the time went quickly. She moved
around from room to room, gathering Henry's group, then the team putting
drywall up and finally the group that was tearing up the yard behind the
kitchen.