All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) (26 page)

"You're welcome, Ben." Polly found her voice
again.

After they heard the men go up the steps, she wilted a
little and said, "Thanks Andy, I had no idea how to respond. The only
words I had in my head were Stu telling us not to tell anyone."

Beryl opened up the refrigerator. "Well, what
shall we have for lunch today?"

Polly walked over and stood beside her. "I should
have lunchmeat in there and I made a fresh loaf of bread last night.
Sandwiches?"

"That sounds great!" Sylvie responded. "I
have chips here in the cupboard."

Before long, they'd assembled lunch and were sitting
at the back table.

Henry walked into the kitchen and grinned. "Of
course," he said. "The musketeers are here when the cops show up. I
think it is you guys causing all the trouble for Polly. Until you showed up,
everything was just fine." He pulled up a chair at the other end of the
table,
then
turned to Polly.

"Don't mind me. I'm about to get myself into huge
trouble."

Stricken, her eyes pleaded with him to say nothing,
but he ignored her.

"Did she tell you yet who was here this morning
when I arrived?" he asked, looking at Lydia.

"That apology?"
Polly remarked, "Is off the table. You can't be
trusted." She tossed her sandwich on her plate and stood up. "It's no
big deal," she said as she walked over to the cooler and pulled out a Diet
Mountain Dew.

"Yeah, that no big deal nearly got Doug's head
bashed in with a rolling pin as I understand it," Henry said.

"What?" Lydia asked. "What happened?"

"Damn it," Polly cursed and stalked out into
the hallway.

"Polly! Come back here." Beryl called after
her.

"I did
this,
I'll take care
of it." Henry said.

"Why is she so angry? Who showed up this
morning?" Lydia pressed.

"I think it's her old boyfriend from Boston. She
sent him away, but he had her pretty worked up and she jumped down my throat
when I confronted her about it." Henry responded. He got up and walked out
to the hallway where Polly was pacing.

"You couldn't keep your damned mouth shut, could
you? When did this become your business and who in the hell do you think you
are spreading my business around like manure?" She
was furious.

"Polly, they're your friends. Honestly, I
couldn't imagine you hadn't already told them. You guys spent most of the
morning together."

"Well, what if I wanted to deal with this and get
him sent on his way? I don't get to do that now, do I? I'm so glad you have it
all figured out for me." She stalked to the other end of the hallway and
slammed the side doors open. She stepped out on the back stoop, then spun back
to face him. He'd been following pretty closely.

"Now, I have to explain myself to them and for
some reason, I feel like you are asking me to explain myself to you and all I
want to do is make this go away. If this is what your friendship means, I want
nothing to do with it."

"Alright, I get it. I stuck my nose in
where it didn’t belong
. What can I do?"

"Not a damned thing right now. You're an ass. It
might help both of us if you just leave me alone." When he hesitated, she
said, "And by leave me alone, I mean get out of my face so I don't have to
see you." She fluttered her fingers at the inside hallway. "Go away. I
don't want to discuss this any longer with you!"

"Really?
We can't talk about this?" he asked.

"Not right now," she hissed. "I'm so
angry at you I want to throw a rock at your head. Be gone!" She flicked
her fingers again and he looked like he was in pain, but turned around and
headed for the steps. After he walked
upstairs
, she took a deep breath and then another. Then Polly
set her shoulders and shut her eyes. She did not want to listen to her
friends
press her on this issue, but she knew she couldn't
run away, so she gathered herself, pulled the door shut and walked back to the
kitchen.

Beryl looked up when she came in. "Damn girl, you
got some spitfire in you! I think Henry might feel like he started draining
testosterone away after that encounter. I hope he can get the wound closed or
he'll be singing with the women come Sunday morning!"

Polly couldn't help it, she laughed uproariously.

"Are you kidding me?" she asked with a
snort, "That's what you have to say? You are insane. And thank you."

Lydia came up to her and patted her on the back.
"Alright," she said, "Let's get back to work and see if we can
crack any more cases wide open."

Stopping what she was doing, Polly coughed to get
everyone’s attention.
"You're going
to let me get away with not telling you what happened?" she asked.

None of them said a word; they kept moving items
around and talking about
the pieces
they were seeing. Beryl was shooting a picture of a
Mickey Mouse
Pez
dispenser while Sylvie waited to bring it to Polly
for input, Lydia was looking at a little pink sweater and Andy was putting away
a Newsweek magazine from 1984 which had already been photographed and
inventoried. She pulled out a can of hairspray and giggled, "Some little
girl didn't have a chance to put her hair back together that day."

Lydia looked up, "You know, there is nothing
worth anything in these crates. It's as if the thief deliberately took things
that weren't terribly important. That's probably why he or she was able to get
away with it. No one paid much attention to what they lost."

Sylvie responded, "And if it was something
bigger, we assumed a classmate had taken it. I was annoyed when my jacket was
gone, but
I
couldn
't prove
anything,
so I moved on."

Polly stood up, "Alright.
Fine.
I get it."

"What dear?" Lydia asked.

"I was mean to Henry. But, he shouldn't have said
anything. It wasn't his story to talk about. I would have told you when I was
ready. I wasn't ready yet." The slight whine in her voice annoyed Polly,
but she couldn't rid herself of it.

"You're absolutely right. Henry shouldn't have
said anything. He's a dumb, stupid man," Lydia responded.

"And you told him so in no uncertain terms,"
Beryl laughed.

Sylvie turned to Andy. "She scared
me
and I was far away!"

Andy giggled. "Yep, I guess we know who the scary
one is in the bunch. We're
siccing
her on men we
want to send screaming home to their mamas."

"Hey!" Polly laughed. "I'm not
that
mean."

"Do you want us to go ask Henry?" Beryl
asked.

"Fine.
I was
pissed
off and I was
mean."

"Oh, we got that. And we're not going near the
conversation.
At least
not without chocolate."
Andy
laughed.

Lydia said, "We understand that you don't want to
talk about this right now. You don't know any of us well enough to trust with
it, much less all of us as a group. It's your story and when you're ready to
talk, whomever you choose to talk about it with will listen."

Polly stood up and smiled. "I'll be right
back." She left the stage and walked into the kitchen and returned with a
large bowl of chocolate candy.

"Here," she said. "First of all, I'm
sorry you guys got splattered. I'll deal with Henry and his bad behavior later."

She passed the bowl around.

"Why do you have all of this candy?" Beryl
asked.

"Um, hello?
Tomorrow night is Halloween," Polly said.

"You're going to open the school for kids?"
Andy asked. "No one knows that or it would have been a big deal!"

"No, I'm not going to open up or anything, but
just in case kids show up, shouldn't I be ready?" Polly said.

"Well, you won't be if we eat everything this
afternoon. So, is this going to be a long conversation?" Andy queried.

Polly sighed then looked at Lydia. "Did you tell
them about the phone call last week?"

"Oh honey, no!" Lydia was shocked.

"Really?
Alright, well, here's the deal." Polly repeated
the story she had told Lydia and Aaron the morning Joey had interrupted their
breakfast, then went on.

"This morning, Joey showed up here at the school.
I don't know how he tracked me down. I didn't tell anyone in Boston where I was
going. It completely freaks me out that he found me, but I sent him to Boone to
get a hotel room because it doesn't look like he's going anywhere until we talk
this out.
”

Andy interrupted. "You do know your purchase of
this place is public record, don't you. All he had to do was a little bit of
searching and he could easily find you."

Polly looked up. "And he knew Sheriff Merritt's
name since he answered my phone that day, so he knew what county to look in. Alright,
while that's creepy, at least it makes sense."

"How long has he been around?" Beryl asked.

"Well, he said he flew in yesterday and got a
hotel in Des Moines, then drove up here early this morning. That sounds about
right. He gets something in his head and then charges off and does it."

She looked around at her friends, "I don't want
to go out tonight, but I've got to deal with him or he'll be up here haunting
me all the time. He doesn't take no for an answer."

"Is he the reason you left Boston?" Sylvie asked
quietly.

"I guess he is. It's not like I was planning to
stay there forever. I knew someday I was coming back to Iowa. But, before all
of that happened, I had planned on being out there a few more years. I like it
there a lot and I
have
good friends
there
. I had a great job and I adore
exploring all the history. But, I was getting tired of the noise of the city
and was ready to be back where people thought about others every once in a
while.

"I wasn't here when Mary died and I wasn't here
when Dad died. Those were awful phone calls
to get, knowing
I
hadn't had a chance to tell them one more time how much I loved them.
Especially Mary.
She
took such good care of me when I was young. I suppose I told Dad every time we
were on the phone, but it was still hard closing out his house, knowing I'd
missed the fun part of his life after he quit farming.

"We had talked a lot about when I found the right
guy and had kids. We talked about me coming back here and living close by so he
could make toys for them. He'd bought plans to build beds and changing tables."

Polly giggled, "It's probably just as well he
didn't find out I wasn't in a hurry to get married and have kids. He'd have
been disappointed."

"No, he wouldn't have," Lydia said. "He'd
be happy to have you around, no matter what you were doing."

"Well, this place is kind of my response to him,
I guess. And as mad as I get at Henry, he's a lot like Dad. The glint he gets
in his eye when he talks about making things out of wood is so much like Dad. Damn.
I'm going to have to apologize to that stupid man again."

"Again?
You ripped his balls off twice today?" Beryl
looked shocked.

"Yeah.
He got all up in my business this morning when he
walked in on me talking to Joey."

"Wow," Beryl said, "He's dumber than I
thought. Most men would only set themselves up for that abuse once in a day."

"He's not so dumb,"
came
a voice from the auditorium floor. Polly pulled back
the curtain to see who was there. It was Henry. He continued, "It got you
talking to your friends. Don't forget ladies, I have a younger sister who lives
to torment me. These balls are made of pure titanium." He chuckled, turned
around and left the hall.