All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) (13 page)

"Alright, fine," said Andy. "I'll drive
by myself and head home
from the
restaurant
."

"You wanted to bring the party back here,
didn’t
ya
,
dollface
?" asked
Beryl, sidling up to Andy. "I know you. You thought you'd get me all
drunked
up and have your way with me in Lydia's comfy bed
upstairs."

"Oh!" snorted Andy. "You're impossible.
It's a good thing I love you. Now get, before I kick your ass."

"Kick my ass? You and ..." Beryl looked at
her friend.
"Yeah.
You could take me. It's happened before."

She picked up her purse and headed back out the front
door. Both she and Andy had parked in the half-circle driveway in front of the
house. Polly ran upstairs to get her wallet and her phone. She saw there had
been two missed calls, but didn't take the time to look at the numbers. She
jammed it in the back pocket of her jeans and ran back down the steps. Lydia
was waiting at the bottom and
they went
to the lower level together.

"You know, I could drive if you want to ride back
with Aaron," Polly said.

"Oh, no.
I don't even know if he'll be coming back here for a
while. They're still at the school. He's making them work longer hours so you
can get back in there. Otherwise, those kids would find a way to keep you out
of there for a month." She chuckled. "Okay, maybe not that long, but
he's pushing for you!"

They picked Beryl up and then went on to Davey's. Polly
had driven past the restaurant, but hadn't taken the time to explore. For that
matter, she hadn't taken time to explore much in Bellingwood. She'd run into
the grocery store once to pick up some essentials, but had found she liked
the
Hy-Vee
store
in Boone. She missed the variety she'd
found
in the
supermarkets in Boston, but even there, most of her shopping was done in small
local grocery stores.

Lydia opened the immense
door. It was covered in
red quilted
vinyl. The foyer was
dimly lit and the carpet on the floor was dark. Polly could only imagine that
if smoking inside restaurants was still legal, heavy smoke would pour out when
they opened the next door. When they pulled those wooden doors open, she was
pleasantly surprised to see a beautifully finished counter for the register. There
was nice blue carpet on the floor and she looked into the main dining room. Quite
a few tables were filled. The hostess recognized Lydia and said, "Aaron is
already here. Let me take you to his table."

Lydia
remarked
, "Andy is going to be right behind us, will you
let her know where we're sitting?"

"Of course, Mrs. Merritt.
Right this way."

She showed them to a round table. Aaron was talking
across it to a couple at another table. When he saw them come in the door and
head for
him
, he stood up. Lydia went over to sit beside him and
he pulled her into a hug. "Did it finally hit you?" he asked.

"Yes. You knew it would." Then, she looked
at Beryl. "Did he call you?"

"Absolutely not,"
came
the response.
"He texted me."

Andy came up to the table.
"Who
texted you?"

"While you were delivering Sarah to her sister's
house, Mr. Hot
S
tuff over there texted me to go make his wife cry so
she could get it all out and get over it."

"I did not!" Aaron exclaimed.

"Well, those may not have been your words, but we
all know that was your intent. You certainly don't want to have to deal with
those tears." Beryl said.

Aaron pulled a chair out for his wife,
then
waited while the other three sat down. "I got
soft drinks for everyone. Polly, she's bringing you coffee, because the boys
say you drink a ton of it. If you want something else, though, just say so. Soup
should be here in a minute and the special is some weird chicken thing."

Lydia interrupted, "B
y weird chicken thing, he means it's not steak. We'll
ask again when Amber gets here."

Amber was pregnant … very pregnant. She waddled to
their table carrying a tray of drinks. When she put coffee in front of Polly,
she asked, "Did you want something else? Sheriff Merritt wasn't sure."

"This will be fine," Polly said. "Thank
you."

"Does anyone else want something different to
drink," Amber looked around the table and her eyes stopped on Beryl.

"Oh, yes, I do, sweetie! Let's see, what shall I
have tonight?
” After thinking for a
moment, she said
,
“Andy
, this
one's for you, since you got me all hot and bothered back at Lydia's
house,"
then turned back to Amber
. "I'd like to order a Red-Headed Slut."

Amber giggled and said, "Oh, I can't wait to tell
him!" She started to walk away,
then
turned back. "I'll
be right back with your soup."

Beryl
watched
Amber waddle away and said,
"As long
as she doesn't give birth between here and the kitchen, we're gonna be
fine." Then, she leaned back in her seat and stretched her arms open wide.
"I can't imagine being pregnant and waiting table
s
. Someone needs
to help that girl out!"

Everyone looked at her.

"Oh. Me? I should help her out? What am I
supposed to do?"

Andy muttered, "Shut
ting
up would be
a great place to start."

"Hey!" Beryl laughed
, then thought about it and said, “
You're probably right. I think I will."

"Yeah," Andy retorted, "
I’ll believe
that when I hear the silence."

Beryl dramatically went through the motion of zipping
her lips shut and sat back in her seat. Polly watched Aaron to see his
response. He hadn't paid one bit of attention to Beryl’s antics. While Beryl
was
chatting
it up with the world, he
had
leaned into
his wife and was talking quietly with her. Polly saw tears threatening Lydia's
eyes and she leaned on her husband's shoulder as he pulled her chair closer to
his and put his arm around her.

Then, Beryl unzipped her mouth.

"See, Polly. That's why our girl has so much
energy to take care of everyone else," and she zipped her lips shut again.

Another waiter brought the soup out and passed it
around the table. As he left, Amber brought Beryl's drink to her. She set it
down on the table and then wandered to the other side to watch Beryl. The
entire table focused on her first sip.

Beryl picked the glass up and bumped it against her
closed lips. She grinned,
then
unzipped her
lips. "Oh, I forgot," she said and took a drink. She swirled it
around in her mouth, raised her eyes as if contemplating the ceiling. She
swallowed and emphasized it with a gulp. "Hmmm," she said. "Let
me try another sip."

She went through the same motions again. S
he set the glass down and got up out of her seat. Andy
grabbed Polly's arm, "Come on, you don't want to miss this."

They followed Beryl to the bar which was back through
the front entry. There was an absolutely adorable young man behind the bar, who
looked up at them as they entered.

Beryl sat down on a stool in front of him and said,
"Alright, who told you?"

His head pulled back and his eyes got big, "I'm
sorry, ma'am. What?"

"Who told you?"

"Who told me what?"

By this time, several more people had gathered around.
Andy poked Polly and pointed at a man in his
fifties
. "That's
Davey." Polly nodded and turned back to the bar.

"Where did you learn how to make a
R
ed-
H
eaded
S
lut?"
Beryl asked the boy. "No one in this town has ever made one of those
before."

His shoulders went back and he got a little cocky.
"That's because I'm not from around here." he said.

"It was perfect and I want to know how you knew
what to do," she asked.

"Maybe a bartender needs to keep his
secrets," he retorted.

Beryl turned on Davey. "Did you tell him about
me?"

"I did not," Davey said. "I did tell
him to be ready for anything, though."

"So you're ready for anything," she said,
flipping back to the bartender.

"I guess I am! If we have the liquor in stock to
make what you want, I can make anything. I guarantee it."

"Well!" Beryl huffed and spun around on her
stool. She walked out of the bar and back into the restaurant.

Polly walked
up
to the bar and said, "Okay, how did you do that?"

"Don't tell her," he said, "But I'm not
stupid. I actually had heard about her from some other patrons. They've been
asking me all week if Beryl had come in yet. I brought insurance." He
reached under the bar and pulled out a computer tablet. I have the whole
internet here. I can make any drink she asks for and I can make it
perfectly."

He laughed out loud as he put the tablet back under
the bar. Polly and Andy chuckled as they joined the others at the table.

"Well
,
what's so funny," Beryl asked, continuing her huff.

"You are, my dear." Andy said. "You've
been trumped by a very young, very smart man. I never thought I'd live to see
the day."

"Whatever." Beryl
pushed the drink away. "Well, that's no fun now.
Here Polly, you drink it."

Polly looked at the women, then picked the drink up
and took a sip. "Whoa! That's good!" she said. "What's in it?"

"Peach
s
chnapps,
Jagermeister
and
cranberry j
uice."
Beryl responded. "The little runt got the recipe exactly right, too."

Amber came back and took their orders. The weird
chicken stuff was Chicken
Marsala
and Polly
gladly ordered it. As expected, Sheriff Merritt had a steak, while Lydia
ordered a salad. Beryl and Andy both had pasta dishes and ordered wine.

As they waited for their food to arrive, Polly asked,
"Aaron, how were you able to verify the remains were those of Jill and
Kellie Stevens?"

"Believe it or not, their purses were with them
up there. Whoever killed them must have gathered everything they had and then
put it up in the ceiling."

"How in the world did someone have time to re-do
the bathroom so no one noticed it was different?" asked Andy.

"We don't know all of the details yet. We're
going to have to go back through school records and talk to people who were in
charge back then. I hope we're able to find everyone. Forty years is a long
time to wait before returning to an investigation. But, we've got an awful lot
of reports from those days. We'll start there. They talked to practically
everyone in town, so there should be some good memories written down. I've
already got Melanie pulling up the boxes from the basement and DCI is pulling
out their documentation. I've talked to the State Patrol and we'll get it all
coordinated. Everyone has something and I'm telling you that somewhere there is
a clue we need
in order
to figure out
what
happened
to those girls.

"Did they talk to you girls that summer?" he
asked.

Lydia responded first, "Since I was in Wyoming,
they didn't have much to ask me, except who the girls were friends with and if
they'd ever talked about anyone strange hanging around. There wasn't much to
tell. All of my friends were their friends."

Beryl said, "Sure, they talked to me, but I
didn't pay too much attention to those girls. I was a little caught up in my
artsy-fartsy self and didn't engage with people if I could help it. If Lydia
hadn't made sure I got out and around people every once in a while, I might
have been a terribly boring human being!"

"I was friends with Sarah, so I spent a lot of
time with the family that summer," Andy reflected. "It was worse than
you can even imagine. Her mom sat in the front room in a blue chair, staring
off into space. When Linda or Sarah would try to get her to eat or drink
something, she would do what they asked and then go back into the silence. Their
dad wasn't much better. At least he could leave the house for a while to go to
work. After the first week they'd been gone, he didn't know what else to do.
His wife was broken and he couldn't help. The police seemed to spend a lot of
time there for a while, but then, there was only one detective who continued to
show up on a regular basis and then after a while, even he didn't know what
else to do to help look for the girls. They'd done everything they could.