Diane Greenwood Muir - Bellingwood 06 - A Season of Change (2 page)

Polly grinned at him. “He is pretty cool, isn’t he.” She put her hand on top of his under the table, running her thumb across his fingers.

The evening progressed from course to course and each round of clues drew them closer to the possible suspect. Annalise continued to refuse food while drinking more wine. She finally chose to eat something when the main course arrived - a ham, diced tomato and cheese topped chicken breast.

Sylvie was amazing. Having her as Sycamore House’s chef was a coup that Polly couldn’t believe she’d pulled off. When they’d first met, the woman worked as a clerk in the small downtown grocery store, raising two sons on what little she made. More than a year later, she was finishing a culinary program in Des Moines and fending off as many customers as she accepted. It wouldn’t be long before the kitchen at Sycamore House was bustling every day of the week.

“I knew her when,” Polly said.

“What?” Henry asked.

“I was just thinking about how great Sylvie is,” she said with a smile. “It’s fun watching her grow into herself.”

He leaned back in his chair and put his arm around her. “You’ve got a good eye for talent.”

Ryan leaned across the table. “You’d better be careful that we don’t steal her out from under you. This meal is terrific.”

“Good luck with that, boys,” Henry said and stood up. “I think that we’ve waited much too long this evening to expose the murderer. I find that I must accuse Mr. Kenneth Wallers of stabbing poor Gregory. If you will notice, there is a knife under his chair.”

“That’s a lie!” Ken cried out and stood. “It was planted by the real killer, who must be you. No one else in the room knew that it was there.”

“It is quite plain to see,” Henry argued. “Just because no one else noticed it is no fault of mine, but theirs. You stand accused sir, what say you?”

“I say I am innocent and stand behind my own accusation. It was you who beat the poor man to death.”

“‘Twas not me and besides, the beatings couldn’t have been what killed him.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Lydia said. “If neither of you is the killer, then maybe it is someone else. Let us share what we know and flush out the truth!”

Each person shared the information they had and Polly began to wonder if maybe Henry wasn’t right. Ken Wallers’ character very well could have been the murderer. The girls cleared the dinner plates and brought out small dishes of raspberry sorbet. Annalise Stephens finished hers before the others began and Patrick nonchalantly switched dishes with her so she could have his as well. He put his hand on the back of her chair and quietly stroked her neck while they continued to talk about the murder of the evening.

Lydia stood up and said, “Before we have our final dessert, I would like to thank you all for joining us. It is time to uncover the villain. Please reveal your final clues.”

Each person shared their information and Henry stood again. “I must insist that the person who stabbed Gregory is none other than Ken Wallers. He is the murderer and can deny it no longer!”

“Ahh,” Ken said, “but I didn’t kill him.” He bent down and picked up the knife that had remained under his seat. He flipped it over in his hands a couple of times and then pointed the blade at Henry. “I might have stabbed him, but it was you who murdered the poor man with your beatings. Maude saw the blood on the sleeve of your shirt - blood which would have transferred to you from the stab wounds as you smashed his face with a wine bottle. The final hit on his head was the cause of his death.”

Henry bowed. “You have found me out. He defamed my beautiful bride and I could no longer bear his slanderous words. I am not ashamed, nor will I apologize. The man’s words were heinous and he deserved to die. What was
your
reason for thrusting a knife into his body?”

“The dandy attempted to molest my wife.” Maude chuckled beside her husband and took his hand. “She warned him to stay away, but he
wouldn’t stop. You each observed him mauling her in the corridor. Would you have done anything differently?”

With that, the room burst into applause and Deena and Meryl brought out plates filled with brownie and cream cheese bars, chocolate chip cookies and pound cake with raspberry sauce.

“I don’t want you to go home hungry tonight,” Lydia said. “Thank you to Sylvie Donovan for her fine work today. She has outdone anything I could have served.”

Sylvie had the grace to look embarrassed, but nodded her thanks at the applause.

J. J. stood to shake Sylvie’s hand and the others in the room followed suit. After mingling, the party broke up and everyone went home.

When Henry pulled up in front of Polly’s garage door, she yawned. “That was fun.”

“Lydia knows how to throw a party.”

“How much is Annalise Stephens involved in the winery?” Polly asked.

“She and Patrick live in Ames, so she doesn’t come up very often if she can help it. However, I believe her brother has moved in and she wants him to work for Bruce Victor.”

“Bruce Victor?”

“He’s the winemaker. Lived in town a few years, I guess. Now that they’re ready to go public with the wine, he’s going to need more help.”

“I liked what I tasted tonight. I couldn’t tell you if it was different from anyone else’s, but it was good.”

“No kidding,” Henry said. “You drank quite a bit. Will you be hung over in the morning?”

“Not as bad as Annalise. At least I ate dinner. I thought she was going to completely wig out on J. J. tonight.”

“Yeah. That has to be a lot of fun for them.” He leaned in and kissed her. “Do you have to walk Obiwan tonight? I could come up and help with that.”

“Nope. Andrew and Jason spent the evening with Doug and Billy. They promised to take him out. All I have to do is drop into bed. Kiss me again?”

He kissed her and then pulled her close.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” she said when they broke apart.

“You go on up to bed and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, Henry.” She leaned over, kissed him again, then got out of the truck and went to the door. She wondered what it would be like if he never had to drive away again. What if his truck were parked next to hers every night?
Polly shook her head to clear those thoughts away. Maybe someday they’d fix that.

CHAPTER TWO

Spending the day clearing the basement of the caretaker’s house at the hotel had worn Polly out. Because she couldn’t stand the idea of tossing something that might be important, stacks and stacks of boxes filled with old counter receipts and paperwork were checked before they were taken to the dumpster. She’d gone up and down the stairs too many times, but the boxes were finally gone.

That only made a small dent in the clutter. Broken bed frames and cracked mirrors, boxes of faucets and bathroom fixtures, chipped lamps and three-legged chairs filled the rooms. It was the Isle of Misfit Hotel Furnishings. After making sure there was nothing worth saving, she called it a day and headed home.

Polly flopped on the couch in her apartment, kicking her shoes off before snuggling into a corner. When the boys got here, they could take Obiwan outside. She pulled a blanket off the back of the sofa. When the dog looked at her pitifully, pleading for attention, Polly nodded and he crawled up on her hip. She put her hand on his neck and relaxed.

“Polly? Polly? Are you sick?”

Polly opened her eyes to see Jason and Andrew standing over her.

“No, I’m not sick, boys.” She laughed at the looks in their eyes. “Just taking a nap. It was a long day.” The cats weren’t happy to be dislodged when she sat up. “How was school?”

“It was okay,” Andrew said and sat down beside her.

“Just okay?” Something wasn’t right. Andrew was always full of energy and school was one of his favorite things.

“Just okay.” He shrugged and picked up the remote control, flipping through channels on the television.

Polly looked at his older brother, who said, “He’s been like this all the way over here. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Why don’t you take Obiwan to the barn with you?” She nodded to the dog. “I’m sure Eliseo is there.”

Jason put his coat back on and patted his leg, “Come on Obiwan, your mom wants us to leave so she can interrogate Andrew.” He smirked at her and left by the front door, with the dog trailing close behind him.

“Are you going to interrogate me, Polly?” Andrew asked.

“No sweetie. I’m not. If you have something you want to tell me, I’ll listen. Otherwise, I thought we might bake cookies.”

“Okay, because I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Have you talked to your mom?”

“No.”

“Should you talk to your mom?”

“No.” His lower lip came out and he hunched down on the sofa, then reached up and brought Luke down to the cushion beside him.

“Then what should we make today? Chocolate chip? Molasses? Monster Cookies?”

“I don’t know. Nothing.” He looked up at her. “Whatever.”

“I guess I will make something up if you have no preference. I’m thinking about avocado and strawberry cookies with cherry, banana, and garlic frosting.” Polly walked into the kitchen and began pulling out ingredients.

There was a small chuckle behind her and she ignored him, warming butter in the microwave. As she pulled the cover off the mixer, she quickly glanced to the couch and saw Andrew with his face buried in Luke’s chest. She wondered whether the boy was laughing at her or crying. She measured sugar and butter into the mixer and turned it on, then went back into the living room.

“Andrew, what’s going on?”

“You wouldn’t make those horrible cookies just because I’m being a brat, would you?” He looked up and his eyes were red and filled with tears.

“Oh, honey. Of course I wouldn’t! I’m making chocolate chip cookies. Come on over and talk to me while I work. You can help me scoop them onto the cookie sheets.”

“But I don’t want to talk about what happened at school today.”

“That’s fine. We can talk about whatever is on your mind. Tell me about some of the words you’re learning.”

“They’re all easy. I hate spelling.”

“Hmmm.” Polly flipped the oven on to preheat and measured out the dry ingredients.

“I always get my work done fast so I can read. The teacher doesn’t care.”

Polly folded the chocolate chips into the batter and then scooped a teaspoonful out and handed it to Andrew. His eyes lit up as he took it from her.

“Go get your notebook and a pencil,” Polly said and pointed at Andrew’s backpack. He carefully set the spoon on the table and ran over to get what she asked for.

When he came back to the counter, she said, “Okay. Can you spell sesquipedalianist?”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll tell you, but first I want you to sound out the word and try it on your own.” She pointed at the notebook. “Go ahead. Try it.”

Andrew asked her to say it for him twice more, and then worked at it for a few minutes. When he turned the notebook around for her to read, he’d done pretty well. She corrected the ‘i’ to an ‘e’ between the ‘p’ and ‘d.’

“What does it mean?” he asked.

“See if you can find a word in there that you recognize.”

He pondered it for a moment and said, “Pedal.”

“That’s right. Now, if you think about the fact that this is a Latin word, what do you think ‘ped’ might mean? What do you use to push a pedal?”

“Your foot!”

“Exactly. Now, you don’t know this yet, but ‘sesqui’ means ‘one and a half.’ So, sesquiped means one and a half feet. This word means a person who uses foot and a half long words or long words.”

Andrew spun the notebook around and wrote the word out correctly twice more, then wrote down the definition.

“I’m taking this in to Miss Albert tomorrow. I wonder if she knows what it means.”

“She probably does, but you can surprise her with your new word.”

Polly put the first tray of cookies in the oven and pressed the timer, then began scooping balls of dough onto the next tray. “So nothing other than boring spelling words at school these days? You aren’t learning anything?”

He shrugged. “Oh, we’re learning stuff. It’s just all stupid.”

This was new behavior for Andrew and Polly felt awful that he was being so morose. She wished he would just tell her what was on his mind, but didn’t know how to get any more from him without pushing. She took out two more spoons and scooped a bit for each of them.

When she handed one to Andrew, he looked up at her. “You’re trying to bribe me into telling you why I’m upset.”

“Maybe.” She grinned and put the spoon in her mouth, then licked it clean.

“I’m not going to tell you. I promised. I can’t tell anybody.”

“Okay then. It was a promise. But, you have to tell me that you won’t get into trouble because of this promise, right?”

He hesitated and then quietly said, “No. I won’t get in trouble.”

“If you need help, will you tell someone? Me or your mom?”

“I don’t need help.” He put the spoon on the counter and walked away, his feet dragging across the floor as he went back into the living room. He flopped on the couch and clicked through channels repeatedly until she couldn’t stand it.

“Andrew,” Polly scolded. “Find a channel and settle on it or put the remote down.”

He looked at her in surprise and then at the remote in his hand as if it were the first time he’d seen it. He turned everything off and put the remote on the coffee table.

“Polly?”

“Yes, Andrew.”

“Could you come here a minute?”

She checked the timer on the cookies. This was close. She took a deep breath, pulled the cookie sheet out and set it on a cooling tray. These would be extra gooey. Then she went out to the living room and sat in the chair closest to Andrew.

“What’s up?”

“I can’t tell you anything, but if you sat here while I told Luke, would that be cheating?”

She wasn’t sure whether to hug him or laugh, but she sat still, holding her breath. She thought as quickly as she could and then said, “I don’t know if it’s cheating or not, but Luke is a pretty good listener and sometimes we just have to get things out in the open. I’ll lean back in the chair and make sure that Luke doesn’t run away while you talk to him. How does that sound?”

The cat had curled up at the other end of the sofa and Andrew reached over and scooped him up in his arms. She heard Andrew murmuring into the cat’s neck and hoped that he would speak up, or this wasn’t going to work.

“I was just telling Luke that he needed to listen very carefully because I was only going to say it once,” Andrew announced.

“I’m sure he understands. He’s a good boy. He and I have had a lot of talks this year.”

Andrew held Luke in his arms and said, “Luke. I have a friend. Her name is Rebecca and she didn’t come to school until after lunch today. When I asked her why she was late, she told me that she wasn’t supposed to tell anybody.”

Andrew stopped talking as if he was waiting for Polly to ask a question, but she remained silent. He seemed to recognize that she wasn’t going to push him and he continued. “She’d been crying a lot. When Miss Albert asked why she was crying, she said her mom was sick.”

Polly held her breath. She wasn’t sure what to expect next, but didn’t want to stop the story. Luke was beginning to squirm a little and before she knew it, he jumped out of Andrew’s hands and took off for the bedroom.

“Polly?”

“Yes Andrew.”

“I’m just going to tell you.”

Polly didn’t say anything, but sat forward in her seat.

“I asked Rebecca what was wrong with her mom and she told me that her mom was really sick and that her boyfriend just took off and didn’t care whether she got out of bed or not.”

“Is he mean to them?”

“Well, he’s not very nice to Rebecca, but I think he hurts her mom sometimes. I’m not supposed to tell anyone because her mom made her promise not to say anything.”

“Oh Andrew. I’m sorry. Do you know how long she’s been sick?”

He shook his head. “No, and Rebecca said she’s worried.”

“Is she seeing a doctor? We need to get her some help.”

He looked up at her in shock. “No! I promised I wouldn’t tell.”

“But if she’s sick and the boyfriend isn’t there to help her, who will? We’re supposed to take care of each other.”

“I know.” He looked down at the floor. “But she’ll never trust me again if I tell someone else. She’s my best friend!”

Polly smiled and took his hand, “Tell me what you like about her. What makes her your best friend.”

He pulled his hand back and sat straight up on the sofa, his face lightening up and becoming animated. “She’s awesome and she loves to draw. Sometimes she’ll draw pictures about the stories I write.”

Andrew jumped off the sofa and ran over to his backpack. He pulled out a notebook and ran back, dropping it in Polly’s lap. “Look. You’ll see.”

Polly opened the notebook and flipped through a few pages of stories until she came to an illustration. It was a beautifully rendered image of a zombie walking down an empty street. The walls of the buildings were cracked and crumbling and the street behind the zombie was filled with potholes. Everything in front of the zombie was still pristine. The girl understood the story very well.

“This is really terrific, Andrew. I’m impressed!”

“I know! She’s the only person who wants to read my stories. And she’s pretty and she’s smart. She knows about as many words as I do. She is really good in math, too, and helps me figure things out when I don’t get it.”

“She sounds pretty wonderful. How come I haven’t met her?”

“Her mom won’t let her go anywhere after school. She always picks her up and they go home.”

“Does she have any sisters or brothers?”

“Rebecca said her baby brother died a few years ago. He was really sick, too.” Andrew looked up with worried eyes, “Is her mom going to die?”

“I don’t know, honey. Only a doctor can tell us that.” Polly patted his knee and then handed the notebook back to him. “Has Rebecca always lived in Bellingwood? Have you two been friends for a long time?”

“She moved in just before school started. She doesn’t like very many people.”