All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) (44 page)

Billy came into the kitchen, carrying twelve-packs of
Pepsi. "Is it all right if they drink soda tonight, or would you rather
they have something else?"
he asked
Sylvie.

She
smiled at
him, "Thanks, Billy, but soda will be
great
. It's not a school night and they're here to have
fun."

"Polly," she asked, "would you like to
ride over with me?"

"Sure!" Polly responded, "I'm ready to
go. It feels weird not to take something, though."

"I told you before," Sylvie said,
"these ladies don't care whether we bring anything or not, so let's go."

When they arrived at Lydia's house, they discovered
they were the last ones there. The fire downstairs was already going and the
bar was filled with platters of food, from snacks with dips to fried chicken. A
buffet warmer held mashed potatoes, gravy and beans. Beryl
stood
up from
behind the bar as Polly walked toward it.

"Comfort food anyone?" She asked, holding
two bottles of wine in her hands.

"Wow. That's some serious comfort going on
here," laughed Sylvie.

Lydia walked down the steps with a basket of sliced
bread and Andy followed, carrying two plates of cookies and bars.

"Is this for us?" Polly asked.

"Aaron will be home in a bit and he knows he
doesn't get to go hide until he has told us everything, so I thought it would
be nice if I plied him with food. These are his favorites." Lydia
put the basket of bread down and waved her hand over
the food
, "Not that it won't be
obvious or anythi
ng!

"Thanks so much for coming over," she
continued. "I didn't want to be alone in this house with nothing to do
tonight
."

Beryl
scooped a finger full of mashed potatoes from the side
of the dish
, "This is what happens
when she has nothing to do.
I vote we
strip her of all her…
" she paused
and leered a little, "
ummm
, other
activities. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Then she'll have nothing to
do but cook good food for us."

"I'm fine with that, too!" Andy said.

"Who wants wine?" Beryl asked.

Affirmatives all around and Beryl opened the bottles
and began pouring.

"Shall we wait for Aaron?" Andy asked.

"I'm right here," he responded, coming in
the sliding glass door. He glanced at the bar and then at his wife,
"Alright. What do you
want?
"

He looked around the room, "You girls
should
know I
never get this food unless she's about to ask for something I probably don't
want to give her."

"Lucky for you, you give me everything I want or
you'd never fit in your uniform!" Lydia laughed and hugged her husband.

"I bet you want information. I'm not going to
leave this basement alive without telling you what happened today, am I?"

They filled their plates and sat in chairs and on the
sofa in front of the crackling fire. No one spoke for a few minutes as they ate
chicken and drank wine.

Beryl broke the silence, "Say, did you all hear
they arrested some guy for the murder of those girls
forty
years ago?
I wonder how that all worked out."

Polly picked up on the not-so-subtle hint, "Well,
after that kid pulled dried up bones down on his head in this poor girl's
construction zone of a home, you'd think they might release a few details."

Beryl said, "I heard that the Sheriff who
arrested him is stingy with those things and has to be bribed with fried
chicken and it c
an't be anybody's fried
chicken …
" she looked at Aaron,
"or can it? Because I'm willing to go to Hy-Vee and pick up their chicken
if that would get your lips a
flappin
'."

He scowled.
"No.
Only Lydia's.
Her chicken
is
the only chicken that counts and we don't need to be letting the world in on
that secret, either, got it?"

Beryl smirked, "Secret? I have nothing to say,
but how long are you going to make us wait for the details?"

Andy got up and walked over to the bar, picked up the
platter of chicken and walked back to the group. She waved it a couple of times
in front of Aaron's face, fanning the scent toward him,
then
sat down in her seat. "I'm holding it hostage. Every
part of the story you tell me will earn you another piece of chicken. If we aren't
satisfied, we're eating it all ourselves." She picked up a wing and ripped
it apart, then began tearing the meat off. "Like that," she said.

"Okay, fine," Aaron
relented
.
"I'm not stupid enough to hold out on you girls, but I am enjoying my
dinner. Give the poor old guy a break!"

Andy picked up a leg and dangled it in front of
Sylvie. "Don't you need another piece, girlfriend?" Sylvie took it
from her, gri
nned at Aaron and began
eating.

Beryl walked over to the platter, looked down and took
a piece, glanced at Polly, took another and then dropped it on her plate. "We're
emptying the platter, big guy.
Spill."

Aaron shook his head and looked piteously at his wife.
"Don't look at me," she said. "I'm not sure how you thought you
could come home this evening and not tell us what happened today."

"But, you made chicken!" he pleaded.

"I certainly did," she said. "And I
invited everyone over to watch you fall apart because of my magic. Now talk."

Aaron set his plate down and sipped from his glass. He
sat back
,
closed his eyes, rolled his head, stretch
ed
his neck and
slung his arm over the back of the couch. He leaned his head back,
then
stretched his legs out in front of him. Each of the
girls watched as he attempted to elongate the time. He opened one eye to peek
at them, then chuckled and said, "Fine."

Sitting up straight in the couch, he began telling
them the story.

"Forty years ago, Buddy and Kellie
snuck
out one
night after everyone had gone to bed. They were going to Boone to walk the
rails. Jill caught them leaving, so decided to go with them. Buddy had rolled
his truck away from his house and the girls had walked
out to the highway to meet up with him so no one would hear the vehicle. They
were walking along
the tracks
when a train came through. It scared them and they
jumped off, but Kellie tripped and began rolling down a hill. She hit her head
and had died by the time they got to her.

"Jill started screaming at Buddy, accusing him of
doing
it
on purpose. He was in a panic because no one knew where they were and he
could see Kellie was beyond help. Jill continued to yell and scream at him,
hitting him
on his
back as he bent over his girlfriend. He says he lost
it, picked up a rock and slammed her in the head. She crumpled and before he
knew what had happened, he had two dead girls on his hands.

"Being young and stupid, the only thing he could
think to do was to try to hide the evidence. He dragged them into the trees,
went back to his truck and got an old shovel, then dug a deep hole and buried
them and everything they had with them. He drove away, tossed the shovel in the
Des Moines
River
,
then
came home. All he
had to do was roll back into his driveway, sneak back into the house and get up
the next morning like nothing had happened.

"For a while he thought he'd pulled something
off. He had a secret that no one else had, but you all saw what that did to
him. It destroyed him, though he couldn't tell anyone why.

"He left after graduation and headed for Florida.
After his parents moved away, then died, he thought about coming home. He had
changed his appearance, so was fairly certain no one would recognize him. He changed
his name, moved to Boone, and started doing odd jobs and household repairs. In
the early nineties, he got a job working for a construction company and then
one year, probably 1995 or so, they got the contract to clear the land and put
up a development right where he had buried the girls. He knew the bodies would
be found, so before the process started, he dug
them up
."

Andy looked at the others in the room, who nodded. She
put a piece of chicken on his plate and said, "Would you like something
more? You're doing well so far, Aaron."

He picked up the plate, looked over at the bar and
said, "Oh, no problem. I can get it." He stood up and walked over,
while the rest looked around in confusion.

"How did that happen?" Beryl asked. "He
was doing so
well
and then he left us! Oh, hurry back, Mr. Storyteller.
We're not finished with you yet," she sang out.

"Oh, let's all get a quick refill," Polly
said, "I could use some more wine. Especially since I'm not driving
tonight," and she winked at Sylvie.

"Drink up, Polly. I'll get you home. Tomorrow
morning is your own problem," Sylvie chuckled.

Lydia stayed on the couch with her knees tucked up
underneath her.

"Are you alright, Lydia?" Sylvie asked.

"I feel like I'm hearing a horrible story about
someone else. But, I knew those girls and I knew Buddy. I didn't recognize him
as Marvin Davis. How did I miss that?"

"We all missed it," Andy said. "He was
in my class. I should have recognized him right away, but I didn't."

"Oh, girls, who knows why we
missed it.
But, honestly, why
would we have ever expected him to come back to town? After he left and everyone
lost track of him there's no way we would look for him again. He got so weird
his senior year no one wanted to hang out with him anyway. No one missed him
when he left," Beryl said.

With their plates and glasses refilled, everyone
returned to their seats.

Polly asked Lydia, "Are you sure there isn't
anything else you'd like? Some more wine? I'll get it for you." She stood
back up and took Lydia's glass from her, walked back to the bar, refilled it
and returned it.

"Thank you, Polly." She put her hand over
Aaron's, "Alright, dear. Talk and eat. Talk and eat.
Just
like we taught you when the kids were little."

He laughed and took another bite. Deliberately
speaking with a mouth filled with potatoes, he mumbled, "But you told us
not to talk with our mouths full!"

Then he winked at his wife, swallowed
,
and began
again.

"
Marvin …
or
Buddy,
heard that the school here in Bellingwood was closed
and boarded up.

Aaron stopped, "Oh, and this part makes sense
after talking with Mr. Leon yesterday. We went through yearbooks together and
he pointed out some of the boys
who spent
time
with him, working on small projects
around the school. He gave them a little extra spending money if he thought
they needed it. He thought Buddy needed it because he seemed to be so far out
of his league with Kellie Stevens and then after
the twins’ disappearance
, he felt
badly for the kid, so he let him spend time in the boiler room when he couldn't
sit through another class.”

He nodded, while thinking. "He said he did that
with several boys over the years, just to give them a little extra push in
their lives so they wouldn't feel quite so alone."

Lydia interjected, "See. I knew that old guy
wasn't so bad. Now, we're going to have to find a way to help him out."

"I'm not sure he's going to be very excited about
you helping him out, Lydia," Aaron said.

"Like she'll give him a choice," Beryl
laughed. "She's already talking about ways we can all get in there and
start hauling crap out. I'm going to have to buy a
haz
-mat suit before she gets me in there."

"We'll get you all
haz
-mat
suits," Aaron said. "It's probably not sanitary. There's at least
twenty years of filth and stuff built up." He turned to his wife,
"Don't you go in there before talking to me, okay?"

"Alright," she acquiesced. "But we are
going in and we're going to get him back into the world. Deal with it."

"Anyway," Aaron continued, "Mr. Leon
remembers that Buddy did know about that extra room under the school. He pulled
old comic books and other books out of crates and sat down there reading when
he couldn't handle being in class."

"I can't believe people let him get away with
that!" Andy exclaimed, "If I hadn't been in class, they'd have called
my parents."