Diane Greenwood Muir - Bellingwood 05 - Life Between the Lines (27 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Inside the shed, Polly pulled work gloves off her fingers. She and Eliseo had just finished stacking the last of the lumber from the Haunted House set and headed back to the auditorium. Henry and Jeff were hanging lights from the ceiling in the auditorium and the tables were in place. Jeff had purchased six immense gold and silver masks to hang from the ceiling and several large standing masks to be placed strategically around the room.

She was steaming the wrinkles and folds out of dark blue tablecloths when she
saw Aaron in the doorway.

“What’s up?” She joined him in the hall.

“I know you’re busy and I should have called, but could I have a few minutes of your time?”

“Sure.” Polly strode across the room to tell Eliseo that she was going to be gone for a while. He nodded and smiled. Polly wondered if he assumed she’d never come back. Something was always interrupting her.

When she went back into the hallway, she was surprised to see Genie and Kevin Campbell there.

“You don’t have school today?” she asked him.

“I took the day off,” he replied. “My mind has been so distracted this week, I couldn’t concentrate on classes. When the Sheriff called to tell me that a friend of my father’s wanted to meet us, mom and I decided to do it as quickly as possible.”

“Would you all like to come up to my apartment? I can call Ben and ask him to join us there.”

Aaron nodded, “That might be best.”

“Come on up. I’ll put a pot of coffee on.”

They followed Polly to her apartment. As had become her habit lately, she glanced back at Grey Linder’s room while she unlocked her front door. He was peeking out again. She could have sworn she saw shock on his face before he quietly pressed the door shut.

“Please make yourself comfortable. I’ll call Ben and make the coffee. Aaron, could I see you in the kitchen?”

He followed her and filled the coffee pot with water while she dialed Ben’s number.

“Good morning, Miss Giller! I’ve just returned from a wonderful breakfast at your diner and a brisk walk around this lovely town
. What do you have for me?”

“I have Genie and Kevin Campbell in my apartment and they would like to meet you. Do you have time?”

“That would be wonderful! I will be right there.”

“The door is unlocked. Come on in, you don’t need to knock,” she said. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

Then she turned to Aaron and quietly said, “I don’t know what is going on with Grey Linder in the back room, but he has been watching everything I do. He peeks through the door and just now I am certain he was shocked when he saw the Campbells.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to do, Polly. I have no reason to bother him. Curiosity isn’t an offense yet.”

“I know, but I think there is something weird about him. Can I talk you into checking on him to make sure he’s okay? He’s gotten thinner and his face is starting to match his first name. I don’t know if he’s drinking or dying or what.”

Aaron took a deep breath. “I don’t suppose a friendly check in would hurt. I will knock on his door.”

“Thank you.”

He left the apartment and she finished making coffee.
“Do either of you like cream or sugar in your coffee?” she asked.

“Yes please,” Genie Campbell said. “Can I help you?”

“No, I have it, but thank you,” Polly replied.

Ben Seafold walked in the front door and his presence immediately filled the room. Before Polly could make her way to them, he approached the Campbell’s with his hand out.

“Hello!” He took Kevin Campbell’s hand. “Son, even if I didn’t know you were Thomas Zeller’s boy, I would have recognized him in you. You have his eyes and my goodness, you have your beautiful mother’s cheekbones. You must be Nelly.”

“Once upon a time I was Thomas’s Nelly, but today I am Genie Campbell,” she said, standing to greet him.

“I’m sorry. Miss Polly told me that was your name now. I’m awfully glad to meet the two of you. I only wish Thomas were here to join us. He loved you very much.”

“I wish he were here as well,” she said. “Until Miss Giller showed us the code in his books, I assumed he no longer cared.”

“He never stopped thinking about you or looking for you. Polly, do you have that last set of pictures?”

“Yes!” she said, “I forgot that you hadn’t seen them yet.” She brought a tray over and set it down on the coffee table in front of them, then went back for her laptop. She quickly logged on and brought up the files they had found the other day. Polly sat on the floor on the other side of the table and showed the Campbells the photographs Thomas had taken of them in Jewell.

“He found us.” Genie Campbell breathed through her words. “Why didn’t he say something?”

“If I know my friend, he was trying to come up with a good plan to meet you. He wouldn’t have wanted to surprise you on the street or make you feel as if he was threatening you.”

Polly heard sirens coming through town toward Sycamore House. She jumped up when they stopped outside her home. “What in the world?”

Both she and Ben arrived at her front door at the same time. Grey Linder’s door was open and Aaron was bent over a body on the floor. She ran across the hall to see Aaron doing chest compressions.

“What did you do to him?” she asked.

“He took one look at me and had a heart attack.” Aaron nodded around the room. “I think he’s been drinking himself into a stupor for quite a while.”

“Can I help?”

“Just move out of the way so Sarah can take over for me here.”

Polly jumped back when she realized the EMTs were coming across the large open hallway. Sarah smiled at her. “Really, Polly. An elevator, please!”

“I’m going to tell Jeff that we can only put young, healthy people up on this floor. Anyone that looks like they might need you will be in the addition. I promise!”

Aaron stood up and moved into the hall with Polly.

“Did he say anything before he passed out?” Polly asked.

“He did.”

She waited a beat and when she realized that he wasn’t going to tell her anything more, she pushed at him with her shoulder, “Well what did he say?”

Aaron rolled his eyes at her, “He pointed at your apartment and told me she was innocent. Then, down he went. Thankfully I have the reflexes of a fox and caught him before he hit his head on anything or broke something while falling.”

She chuckled, “I’ll be sure to tell Lydia that you are her fox. What do you suppose he meant by that?”

“I have an idea or two.”

Polly hated it when he withheld information, so she pressed
him. “Do you think he killed that policeman in San Francisco?”

“Now don’t be putting words in my mouth, Polly Giller. I didn’t say that at all.”

“Why do you suppose he was here in Bellingwood at the same time as Thomas Zeller? And why didn’t Thomas recognize him?”

Aaron glanced down at the man as the EMTs pushed the gurney past them. “Look at him. That was forty-five years ago. I would bet that he looks nothing like his younger self.”

“So you do think that’s him.”

The Sheriff grinned at her. “I don’t think anything until I have more information. Now, I’m going to leave you with the Campbells. I have phone calls to make. Some of us are working on a Friday morning,” he taunted as he started to walk away.

“Hey,” she followed him and took his arm. “This is your fault.”

Aaron stopped at the stairway and grinned back at her. “You are an easy target, Polly Giller. I’ll talk to you later.”

She went back into her apartment and was glad to see that Ben, Kevin and Genie were talking.

“What happened?” Genie asked.

“The man across the hall had a heart attack. Did you ever hear of a man named Grey Linder?”

Ben Seafold turned back to Genie, waiting to see if she recognized the name.

“He’s a poet, isn’t he?” Kevin asked. “He wrote some dark stuff back in the nineties, but I haven’t heard anything about him since then. It wasn’t very good, but people bought his book because it fed their angst.”

Ben laughed, “I can’t believe you remember that, son.”

“I was going through a poetry phase of my own and thought I ought to pay attention to my contemporaries.”

Polly sat back down on the floor and browsed the internet. When she found what she wanted, she turned it toward Genie Campbell. “Do you recognize him?”

The woman’s face lost all of its color and she reached out and grabbed her son’s hand.

“What is it mom? That’s Grey Linder. Do you know him?”

“That’s Douglas Winters,” she gasped.

Polly sighed, “I thought so. How did you recognize him when Thomas didn’t?”

“Thomas didn’t spend any time with Doug. He and I were together before Thomas got to San Francisco and Doug didn’t like Thomas very much. Said he was a punk and a hack. I did my best to keep them apart, so I doubt that they spent more than a few hours in the same room.”

“How did you end up in the same place with
him that day?”

“Thomas and I had a fight that morning. It was all my fault. I had just found out I was pregnant and I wanted him to leave the Haight with me. I was ready to get clean so the baby would have a good life. Thomas was still young and enamored with the Bohemian lifestyle. He wasn’t ready to clean up and still needed to sow his wild oats. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was carrying his baby, so I went to Douglas. He owed me enough money for a bus ticket out of there.”

She dropped her head. “Then, we also had a terrible fight. I just couldn’t win. He didn’t have the money. He told me that all he had to do was get out on the street and sell some of the weed he’d been growing. I was so mad. Then all of a sudden the world erupted. A cop broke down the front door, screaming and waving his gun around. I was already out the back door when I heard the shot. I hadn’t gotten two houses away and they were talking about a cop being killed. Everyone knew I was there, so I kept running.”

“You didn’t run with Douglas Winters?”

“Oh no. I wanted nothing to do with him. I hitched a couple of rides out of town and decided to re-start my life.”

Polly looked at Genie and asked, “Do you think he would have killed Thomas?”

The woman was shocked, then said, “I suppose he could have, but I’d be surprised. Douglas wasn’t a killer. He had a gun in the house to protect his weed. He kept it in the stupid pocket of that reclining chair he sat in all the time. I think the shooting was purely reflex that day and he’s been hiding ever since.”

“Well, if he thought Thomas was going to rat him out, would he have killed to save his skin?

Genie thought about it before she spoke. “I don’t know anything for sure, but I wonder if he realized that Thomas was looking for me. He wouldn’t have killed him before Thomas found me.”

Polly excused herself and went out into the hallway and called Aaron.

“I’m tired of hauling people out of Sycamore House, Polly,” he laughed.

“Hopefully the last one isn’t dead.”

There was no response.

“Oh Aaron, tell me he’s not dead.”

“I’m just messing with you. They’re working on him. But he hasn’t died yet. What’s up?”

“I showed his picture to Genie Campbell and she identified him as Douglas Winters. I thought you might want to know that. And she doesn’t think that he killed Thomas Zeller.”

“I don’t either,” Aaron replied. “Grey Linder is frail and was very drunk that night. That kind of drunk doesn’t happen in an hour and we didn’t find any blood in his room either. Thanks for asking, though. It makes my next phone calls easier.”

“Next phone calls?”

“I’m calling San Francisco. With Winters in the hospital and Eleanor Farber, or whatever she calls herself here in Iowa, they might want to send someone out to get this cleaned up. But don’t say anything yet, okay?”

“I won’t.”