Diane Greenwood Muir - Bellingwood 06 - A Season of Change (20 page)

“So did you have the long talk with him? Tell me what happened?”

“You aren’t even going to believe it,” Polly said. “And if you tell Andy, I will kill you, but …” she pulled the ring out of her pocket and slipped it onto her finger.

Joss took a breath and Polly stopped her. “Don’t you dare squeal or yell or anything. She can’t know yet.”

“But, this is wonderful. After all of that turmoil and now you’re engaged? I can’t stand not doing something.” Joss grabbed her into a hug. “When are you getting married? Have you set a date? Where are you going to live? Is he moving into Sycamore House?”

“I have no date yet and yes, we’re going to re-do the upper level at Sycamore House. But that’s all I’m going to tell you because you don’t know anything. Right?”

Joss straightened up and managed to achieve a poker face. “I know nothing. But when can I talk about it?”

“I’ll tell Lydia and Beryl and Andy tomorrow. I promise. Then, I don’t care who else knows.”

“Whew. I wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer than that.”

When they got back to Sycamore House, Andrew took Rebecca’s books to her and then came back upstairs. He watched television while Polly dressed for the evening out. She made sure the ring was back on her finger when Henry picked her up.

“I’m a little nervous about seeing your parents tonight, Henry. I hope they approve.”

“Oh come on, you know better than that.”

“They don’t know me very well.”

“They know I love you and they’ll be very glad that I’m happy. Now stop worrying.”

He dropped her off at the front door. The parking lot was packed. She waited for him to join her and they went inside. His parents showed up soon after and while they were waiting for a table, Polly’s worst nightmare walked in the door. Aaron and Lydia Merritt came in with Len, Andy, and Beryl.

“Bill and Marie, it’s so good to have you back in town,” Lydia said, rushing over to give them a hug. “When did you get home?”

“Just today,” Marie said. “It really did feel good to drive into town and know I was staying for a while. I love not facing winter in Iowa, but I missed everyone.”

“Are you having an intimate dinner or should we get a table for everyone?” Lydia asked.

Polly took Henry’s hand and squeezed it. He looked down at her and grinned. “Whatever you want to do,” he laughed.

She shrugged, while Bill and Aaron shook hands and then strode over to the hostess.

“It’s going to take a few more minutes for a large table, but we won’t starve,” Bill said when they returned. “Have you found the murderer yet, Sheriff?” he asked Aaron.

“We have some leads,” Aaron said. “We’re still waiting to find out how he was actually killed. He was beaten and stabbed.”

“Someone sure wanted that poor boy dead,” Bill said. “Don’t you always look at the wife first?”

Aaron smiled. “We do. We’re not ruling anyone out yet.”

“Surely she wouldn’t be so stupid as to put that little boy in harm’s way, would she?” Lydia asked. “If she went to jail, he’d have no one.”

Beryl stepped into the conversation, “I think you should look a little more closely at that horrible girl who married Patrick Stephens. Have you met that Simon character? She says he’s her brother, but that is one strange sibling relationship. I think there’s something more going on between the two of them.”

“Beryl!” Lydia exclaimed. “That’s not nice. Besides, when did you see them together?”

“I get out every once in a while!” Beryl laughed. “Actually, I met all of them here for lunch last Friday. The boys want me to paint a large mural in the lodge whenever our Henry here gets the thing built. They seem to think that I’m famous or something. At least that’s what Anna-bitch kept telling her boyfriend.”

“Beryl, stop it,” Lydia said. “You are making a terrible assumption. Don’t spread those kinds of rumors.”

Beryl looked properly chastened and then grinned and tweaked Aaron’s cheek. “You investigate the two of them, Sheriff Merritt. I’ll bet you find that things aren’t quite as they seem.”

“I’m doing what I can, Beryl.” Aaron’s face turned red and he took a step back, then said to his wife, “Your friend is embarrassing me again. Make her stop it.”

Marie said to Polly. “I really did miss Bellingwood,” she said. “These people are much more fun than I remembered.”

The hostess beckoned to Aaron and the group followed her into the dining room. Lydia held back to walk in with Polly. “You’re awfully quiet this evening.”

“I’ll get over it,” Polly said. “Don’t worry.” She smiled at Lydia and linked her arm in Henry’s, making sure to keep her ring hand out of sight.

The waitress
took their orders and delivered drinks when Henry took Polly’s arm and stood up with her. “Polly and I have an announcement to make. We planned to tell my parents tonight, but since you are all part of our family, I’m glad everyone is here.”

Lydia was seated beside Polly and grabbed her left hand and held on to it. Every face around the table was expectant and Beryl’s eyes lit with mirth.

“I asked Polly to marry me last Saturday night and she said yes. We don’t have any details about the wedding, but as soon as I can renovate the top floor of Sycamore House so that the entire thing is ours, we will have a real home to live in.”

He looked at Polly and she said, “I guess all it took was the question.”

They sat down again and Marie Sturtz rose from the seat she’d taken beside her son. She came around to Polly’s chair and gave her a hug. “We’re glad you said yes. You and Henry have so much fun together, how could you not be with each other for the rest of your lives.”

“Well, this calls for champagne and a toast,” Beryl announced. “I will be back in just a moment. You,” she pointed to Aaron. “You’re with me. I can’t carry all of the glasses.” She stood up and put her napkin back on the table and then pulled Aaron out of his chair. As she walked past Polly, she leaned in and said, “If I’d ever landed one as wonderful as this one, I’d be happily married with a passel of kids.”

“I don’t buy that for a moment,” Polly laughed, “but thank you.”

“Okay, I’d be happily married. There might have been one kid.” Beryl took Aaron’s arm and led him back to the bar. Andy was sitting beside Lydia and reached across to look at Polly’s hand. “It’s a beautiful ring. I’m so happy for you.”

“When were you going to tell me?” Lydia asked.

“Tomorrow. I promise!” Polly said. “We were going to have dinner with Henry’s parents tonight and then I was going to call you in the morning. Really!”

Lydia put her arm around Polly’s shoulders. “I know. I was just teasing. And now I can quit worrying about you living all alone in that big old building.”

“Lydia Merritt, are you kidding me?”

“What do you mean?” Lydia frowned at Polly. “Don’t give me that. I can worry. You’ve been through a lot over there and with all of this vandalism, I worry even more.”

“What vandalism?” Marie asked.

“Somebody is threatening Polly and they think it’s because of her relationship with Henry,” Lydia said. “They’ve thrown paint on the building, broken windows, and just last weekend they let the animals out of the barn. Who knows what will happen next.”

“And you have no idea who it is?” Bill asked.

Polly shook her head. “Henry used to call me Pretty Girl, and they kept using that in the emails they were sending. Now it sounds like someone is jealous that I’m in his life. The thing is, there was a long period of time between the events. They broke the windows and threw paint last fall and then it just started again a couple of weeks ago.”

“It sounds like someone who was home on fall and spring break,” Marie said. “Maybe a teacher or someone in school.” She reached out and gripped Henry’s forearm. “Do you think it could be …?”

“Mom, she wouldn’t and besides she teaches in Georgia.”

“But her dad has been sick. Maybe she came home for fall break and now for spring break.”

“But she was home for Christmas and nothing happened then.”

“Okay, maybe not. It was just a thought.”

“Who?” Polly asked.

“It was a girl Henry dated a long time ago. Nan Leadenhall. They were pretty serious for a while.”

“Here’s the bubbly!” Beryl announced. She was followed by two waiters bearing glass flutes while she and Aaron carried bottles of champagne to the table. Davey came up behind them and clapped Henry on his back.

“Congratulations to the happy couple. If you’ll allow me,” he said to Beryl. “I would be happy to pour.”

He opened the bottles and soon each person at the table was lifting a glass. “Congratulations,” Aaron said. “We wish you great joy and happiness in the years to come. And Henry? You’ve got your work cut out for you with this one. I, for one, am glad you will be there to keep her safe and out of trouble.”

Before Polly could protest, there were calls of “Hear, hear,” and they were toasting over and over again. She wanted to ask more questions about Henry’s old girlfriend, but the tide had turned for the evening and she was going to have to wait
.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

“Good-bye, sweetie. Have a great day.” Rebecca jumped out of the truck and headed into the school building. The little girl had been sleeping in her mother’s room, giving Polly a few more quiet nights. She didn’t want to think about what might be coming. Today wasn’t the time for that. There were plenty of other things on her mind this morning.

Henry had dropped Polly off last night and then gone home to discuss plans for the future with his parents. If they were going to get married this week, he
wanted to iron out details regarding the house. He also needed to call his sister before she heard it from anyone else. Bellingwood was still a very small town and Lonnie had plenty of friends who would hear the news by the next morning. Polly hadn’t had an opportunity to ask more questions about Nan Leadenhall and that frustrated her, so she planned to go over to the winery worksite and corner him. It wasn’t that she was jealous, but if this person still had a thing for Henry, she’d be a prime suspect for the vandalism at Sycamore House.

She heard the school bell ring and snapped back to reality. Just as she was pulling the truck into reverse, she stopped and waited while Sylvie drove into a parking space and the boys tore out of the car, running for the building. Sylvie jumped out to follow them and Polly rolled the window down.

“I’ll be right back,” Sylvie said. “I have to explain why we’re late.” She followed Jason and Andrew and Polly waited. In a few minutes, Sylvie was back and climbed in beside Polly. She didn’t say anything, just turned in the seat and looked at her friend.

“What?” Polly asked, laughing.

“Don’t give me that. You have something to tell me and you’d better start talking.”

“So, why were you late this morning?” She smiled inside. This was probably more fun than she should be having with her friend.

“Because I overslept. I was in the kitchen last night working on a sauce and stayed up too late. Don’t you dare avoid the question. What is that on your finger?”

Polly spread the fingers of her right hand out and then turned it upside down. “I took a shower this morning. There’s nothing there.”

“I get a text from Lydia asking if I can cater an engagement party for you and you’re going to play games?”

Polly held her left hand out for Sylvie to see. “He asked me Saturday night and he gave me blueprints, too. The man knows the way to my heart.”

“Blueprints? What are the two of you going to build now?”

“It’s the redesign of the upper level at Sycamore House so we can make it into a home.”

“That’s terrific, Polly. I’m happy for you. If you have to be married to anyone, it might as well be Henry.”

“What in the world do you mean by that?” Polly asked.

“Oh, nothing. I’m tired of men. I have a couple of kids in class with me who are awfully chauvinistic. How this still happens generation after generation I’ll never know, but one of these days I’m going to sit them down and make them cry.”

“At least Henry isn’t like that.”

“You’re right. He’s one of the good ones. I didn’t say anything to Jason and Andrew. I figured you might want to tell them.”

“It nearly killed me not to tell you yesterday, but I wanted to tell his parents first and then Lydia and everyone showed up at dinner and it was out.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Polly looked at Sylvie. “You’ve lived here all your life, right?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Do you remember Henry dating someone called Nan Leadenhall?”

“Of course. Everyone thought they were going to get married. I don’t know what happened between the two of them, but they were together forever. Why do you ask?”

“His mom brought her name up last night when I asked about people in his life who might have vandalized Sycamore House.”

“I heard she left town. Maybe somewhere south, like Alabama or even Florida.”

“Georgia.”

“Yes, that’s it. She’s a teacher. Science or something like that.”

“Would it surprise you if she was the vandal? Was she obsessive over Henry?”

“I really don’t know, Polly. I know she’s from Bellingwood, but she’s younger than me and maybe even a couple of years younger than Henry. I think they started dating in college. She got a teaching job, maybe in Ames or Boone, and then when they broke up, she moved out of state. I just didn’t know her that well. I was busy raising my boys by that point.”

“Okay. I had to ask.”
             

“I’m sorry I can’t help you. Andy might know more. She probably had Nan in classes in high school.”

“You don’t know anything about her family?”

“I think her dad has cancer and her mom works in an office. Either a lawyer or insurance or something.”

“Thanks. I’ll just make Henry tell me about her.”

Sylvie laughed, “He probably knows her as well as anyone.”

“Aren’t you going to be late?” Polly asked.

“No, and I have a huge favor. I completely forgot that we are making dinner tonight for one of my classes. Could you keep Andrew and Jason with you?” Sylvie grimaced, then said. “You probably don’t want to do that, though, do you. I didn’t think about you wanting to spend time with Henry.”

“Sure they can stay. I have no plans. Rebecca and Andrew can study and play together and if Henry’s around, he always finds something to do with Jason. Maybe they can start looking at the upstairs renovation.”

“Thank you. I don’t know how late I’ll be, but I’ll let you know.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll have dinner in the kitchen downstairs and invite Sarah and Rebecca to join us.”

“That’s a wonderful thing you’re doing, Polly.”

Polly sighed. “Everyone keeps saying that. Any of you would do it if you had the time and the space. I have both of those things.” She waved it off. “Really, no big deal.”

“It’s still pretty wonderful.” Sylvie put her hand on the door handle. “Thanks for keeping my boys and I guess we’re going to have an engagement party one of these days.” She grinned and got out of the truck.

Polly waved. With any luck, this engagement was already half over and they’d be married before anyone knew what hit them.

She drove over to the worksite and was surprised to see flashing lights as she rounded the corner. What now? Polly drove in and parked beside Henry’s trailer. Everyone was standing outside and Aaron’s SUV was parked in front of one of the entrances to the vineyard.

“What’s going on?” she asked Henry when she got out of her truck.

“Wayne Phillips found the winery’s second utility vehicle this morning. They think it might have been used in the murder.”

“I’m sorry, he found what?”

“He thought that Bruce had driven the second one home. Yesterday, they discovered that it wasn’t there, so Wayne searched the property. It was dropped over a ravine.”

Polly dropped her voice. “Doesn’t it seem awfully convenient that he keeps finding more clues to this murder? First all of the blood in the vineyard and now a utility vehicle?”

“I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way, but he
is
the one who is out there all the time.”

“Well, I think it’s weird.”

Pretty soon, a flatbed pickup truck came out with a small red cart on the back. The front lights were broken out and the frame had been badly dented.

“That’s been out there for a few days,” Polly said. “It’s rained and snowed and everything else. They’ll need one of those television CSI teams to get any clues.”

Aaron had come up to stand beside them as they watched the truck drive away. “We have pretty good people. They’re the ones who figured out that we needed to look for this vehicle.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Aaron took her arm and walked back toward her truck with Henry following them. “Only because I promised to let you know and because I trust that you won’t tell the world. Bruce Victor was stabbed and then run over by this vehicle. Then they dumped it off into the ravine.”

“That’s a lot of work to kill one person. The murderer could have been caught at any point,” Polly said.

“Probably not,” Henry responded. “Wayne and Bruce were here, but there won’t be any other workers onsite until it gets warmer.” He waved toward the tree line surrounding the vineyard. “That wooded area would be good protection for anyone who was in here.”

“I suppose. It just seems
nuts that one person could it all.”

“Maybe it wasn’t one person,” Henry said. “If it was Victor’s wife, you said she was with some guy from Missouri the other day in Boone.”

“What?” Aaron asked. “You saw something?”

“Oh crap. I was going to tell you about it, but the last couple of days have been nuts.” Polly winked at Henry. “Sometimes life takes precedence over death.”

“What did you see?”

“Just a sec,” she said and got in her truck. Polly dug around in the console until she found the napkin and jumped back down, handing it to Aaron. “Rebecca and I were shopping for her mom and we saw Lori Victor in the parking lot with some guy. I followed him until I could get the license plate number. It’s a Missouri plate and those two were acting really strange. It was also weird that as much as she told me how badly her son needed her, she was there without him. The guy said his name was …” Polly had to stop and think. “Barry something. It was a weird last name. Manush. That was it. Barry Manush.”

“It’s probably nothing,” Aaron said, but stuck the napkin into a pocket. “I’ll check it out, though.”

“Lori wasn’t
happy that I saw her and I know that I caught him off guard. He didn’t want to tell me his name.” She thought for a moment, “Wait. Isn’t Annalise Stephens from Missouri?”

Aaron laughed out loud. “Polly, six million people live in Missouri. Just because two people come from the same state doesn’t mean they know each other.”

She swatted his arm. “Fine. But if you find out that they are from the same town, you owe me big.”

“I probably already owe you,” he laughed. “But if they are, I will walk you down the aisle at your wedding.”

“You’re gonna have to do better than that,” she said. “I can walk myself down the aisle. No one is giving me away.”

“Then you come up with whatever payment you think is appropriate.”

“You do know that Lori and Patrick were dating before Annalise showed up, don’t you?”

“Really,” he said. “That’s interesting.” He started to turn away then looked back. “I would walk you down the aisle, you know. I feel like a proud dad.”

“Thanks Aaron. You’re very sweet.”

When Aaron reached his vehicle, Polly spun on Henry. “Why haven’t you told me about her yet?”

“No good morning kiss or even an ‘I love you’?” he asked.

Polly kissed his cheek and said, “Good morning. Now why haven’t we ever talked about this Leadenhall chick? Especially since someone has been coming after me?”

“It isn’t Nan,” he said.

“Well, your mother thought it might be, so don’t blow this off.”

“Mom wasn’t thinking, Polly.”

“Why are you so cavalier? And why
haven’t you talked about her before?” Polly was desperately trying to keep herself in control, but she couldn’t help that her voice was rising. And Henry remained calm. That infuriated her more than anything.

“There’s nothing to talk about. It’s in the past. I love you and I have since the day I met you.”

“Past. Schmast,” Polly spat. “Our past is still part of our lives. I don’t understand you right now. You’ve been as upset as me over all this vandalism and when a potential suspect is offered up, you act like it’s no big deal. You won’t even consider answering questions about her. What in the hell is going on?”

“First of all, nothing is going on. Secondly, Nan wouldn’t do this. Third … oh Polly, I don’t know what else to say. Of course I’m worried about the vandalism and I’m upset that it has something to do with me. I’ve been racking my brains trying to come up with who it might be and I’ve got nothing. It doesn’t make any sense.”