Diane Greenwood Muir - Bellingwood 05 - Life Between the Lines (18 page)

“How are you doing?” Anita asked, startling Polly.

“I’m good. How about you?”

“Thomas has a lot of information here, but there’s nothing that points to one person and says, ‘This is Douglas Winters.’ What are you working on?”

“I have the photographs figured out and I’m just trying to get a read on the boy and his mother. It looks like Thomas received a picture from them just after they left a town. I was going to dig into the last stanza.
Thomas put education stuff in the first folder of each stanza, so that’s where I’ve been stuck.”

“There’s a manuscript in each stanza too.” Anita said.

Polly thought for a moment. “That’s it! He had five novels published before he dried out. I’ll bet every one of them is set in one of these little towns that she lived in. He probably spent time there, researching his novel and tracking down information on the two of them. Writing a book would have given him a lot of leeway in a small community. When he was here, people were always talking to him, telling him …” she slowed down.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Anita asked.

“He was looking for them here in Bellingwood,” Polly responded. “But there’s no photograph of them here. What made him come here? The boy would be about forty-four and his mother would be in her late sixties if she was still alive.

“What’s in the last folder?”

Polly’s heart started to race a little bit and she felt her cheeks get warm. This was exciting. They were getting close to something, she just didn’t know what it was yet.

The photo in stanza four was of the boy as a college graduate, standing with his mother. There were records of his high school graduation and then he attended college in Augusta, Georgia. Polly looked at a map. He hadn’t gone too far from his mother. She wondered if he had lived at home and commuted. The information was probably there.

She opened the last stanza file and clicked to the first folder. There would probably be no more education information, so she wondered what she would find. The photo was of a young man in a suit, his mother at his side. They were standing in front of a school building. Guy Brothers. He was employed as a fourth-grade teacher in Soda Springs, Idaho. She found employment records until nineteen ninety-four and that was the last of the information. She quickly opened another folder. There was a rental agreement for a condominium to Guy and Lenore Brothers. It ended in nineteen ninety-four as well.

Polly sat back and slumped in her chair.

“What did you find?” Anita asked.

“The information stops in nineteen ninety-four,” Polly said, “but this is an outline of their lives.”

Anita looked at it. “Do you see what I’m seeing?” she asked.

“Apparently not. What?”

“Look at those names. People always tell you something about themselves.”

“Well, the first names are all
characters from Poe’s writings.”

“No. The last names.
McCall, Singer, Clark, White, Brothers. Ring a bell?”

Polly was puzzled. She had no idea what Anita was trying to get across to her.
“I don’t get it.”

“Sewing. Those are all names that have to do with sewing. They are patterns, thread, and machines. I’ll bet the woman was a seamstress.”

“Do you think she is still doing that?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if she is in some form or other. She’s probably close to retirement by now, but yes.”

“That’s a clue!” Polly said.

“It’s a little vague, but it is some place to start.”

“The son is a teacher and she is a seamstress. If they lived in Bellingwood, that shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. We just need to ask the right questions.”

“Were those the questions Thomas was asking around town?”

Polly nodded. “He did talk about going to Andrew’s band recital with me at the elementary school.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I need to think about this some more.”

“Well, you’ve given me enough to work on tomorrow. Have you looked at the time?”

It was six-thirty. Polly couldn’t believe she hadn’t heard from Henry about supper. When she looked for her phone, she realized that she’d left it upstairs. She was going to be in so much trouble with him. She was surprised that he wasn’t already knocking on the door, looking for her.

“I’m sorry I kept you so long,” she said.

“It’s no big deal. I usually stay late when I’m working on a project. It was nice having someone in the room with me. I’ll call you tomorrow if I come up with anything else.”

Polly shut down her laptop. “Thanks for letting me get involved with this. I feel a lot better knowing that I might be helping him at least a little bit.”

“This is the easy stuff. And you helped me organize things once you told me about the poem. I’m going to go home and read some more of Poe’s writings. You never know what else will show up.”

They went out into the foyer and there were a few people moving in and out of the auditorium.

“It’s a wedding,” she said quietly to Anita. “Jeff tells me it is a theme wedding, ‘The Legend of Zelda.’”

“Really? That’s so cool.

As soon as Anita was out the front door, Polly ran up to her apartment. She quickly turned to the kitchen and saw her phone on the counter and then realized she wasn’t alone in the room.

“I’m sorry!” she said. “I got caught up in Thomas’s files in the conference room and I left my phone up here!”

Henry was sitting on the sofa holding the television remote.

“I found your phone and your very lonely animals. Obiwan and I have already had a walk. He told me you were getting way too involved. I had to agree with him.”

“But you can’t believe what we figured out.” She flopped down on the sofa beside him and set the laptop on the coffee table. “He had a son. His old girlfriend changed their names every few years and moved to a completely different part of the country. They may have come to Bellingwood. That’s why Thomas was here!”

“Whoa,” he said. “Slow down.”

Polly took a breath and then said, “I’m starving and you and Jeff ate all the leftovers.” She stuck her lower lip out. “What are you going to feed me?”

“I had a busy day, too!” he said. “And then I couldn’t find you and that stressed me out.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to do that. I’m so sorry.”

“
It’s really okay,” he said. “When I couldn’t reach you, I called Jeff. He told me what you were doing.”

She swatted his arm. “So I’m starving and I want to tell you everything from today. Feed me!”

“I’ll drive. You point the way. We can go wherever you want to go. I have plenty of gas, the moon’s the limit.”

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

“Oh no! I’m late!” she announced to the animals sitting on her bed while she attempted to hurry into her dress. Nate and Henry had come up with a plot to take her and Joss out for dinner. She knew they wanted nothing more than to drive Nate’s car. Women and food were secondary benefits for the evening.

Just as she slipped her right foot into a black two inch heel, she thought about Nate’s
two-door car. She’d be in the back seat.

“Blast and damn,” she said. “I’m late and I’m wearing the wrong clothes.”

Polly flung her closet door open and peered at the hanging clothes. “I’m not that girl,” she muttered. “I have plenty to wear. I’m not trying to impress anyone. Find something now, Giller.”

She quickly landed on a blue and black striped sweater and yanked a pair of black pants off a hanger. A few minutes later, she was dressed. She fluffed her hair and gathered up her phone and a wallet. “Do I need anything else?”

The cats had fallen asleep by her pillow, but Obiwan was still watching intently as she shut her eyes to think. Her dog thumped his tail on the bed and when she reached over to rub his head, turned onto his back. “I don’t have time for that,” but rubbed his belly anyway. “Now, be good and I’ll be back later.” She opened the door to the driveway just as Nate’s car pulled in.

Joss opened the passenger door
and Henry crawled out. “If we sit in the back, we can act like high school kids,” he said.

“You aren’t sitting up front to talk about cars with Nate?” she asked, astounded.

“Not tonight. It’s a date. Remember?”

Polly shook her head. “I’m a little surprised you did.”

Joss laughed at them. “Don’t let him fool you, Polly. He and Nate took the car out this morning and spent time in the shop. He can probably afford to give you a little attention tonight.”

Henry held the seat up while Polly crawled in behind Nate. He sat beside her and winked, then put his arm around her and drew her close to him. She slid across the vinyl on the seat and was practically in his lap before she put her hands out to stop herself.

“Stop that! Seatbelts!” she laughed.

“I think we have a seatbelt right here in the middle for you,” he said, waving the ends at her. “You can’t get away that easily.”

Joss had stepped back into the front seat and pulled the door shut. “You two be good back there. This car might have seen some action in its early days, but it is older than we are. We don’t want to give it a heart attack.”

Nate hadn’t said anything while all of this was going on, but Polly saw his shoulders shake as he quietly chuckled.

“You’re awfully quiet,” she remarked.

“Just waiting for everyone to get where they belong so we can hit the highway.”

“Where are we going to dinner?”

“There’s a place I want you to try in Fort Dodge,” Nate said. “They have your favorite.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see.”

Joss turned around and smiled at them. “He won’t tell me where we’re going, but if it’s what I think, we’re all really overdressed.”

“Then I’m glad I didn’t wear the dress I had on first. It would have been embarrassing trying to get in this back seat. And by the way,” Polly said as she swatted Nate on the shoulder, “I was afraid I was going to be late. What took you guys so long?”

“It’s her fault,” he said, nodding at Joss.

“Uh huh. My fault. I’m not the one who walked around the house twice because my wallet and keys were missing. If you had looked where I told you to look, you wouldn’t have had to rush.”

“If you had picked them up and brought them to me like a good little wife, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“If you wanted a good little wife, you should have chosen someone else. At least then your mother wouldn’t
have had to worry about your underwear.”

“What?” Polly sputtered.
             

“When we were first married, his mother was shocked that I bought his underwear.
I couldn’t believe we were even having the conversation. Mr. Man, here, was wearing really ratty stuff. I’m guessing that she bought it for him when he left for college. He thought it was fine and told me I was weird when I started replacing it with new. She has some strange ideas about what I should and shouldn’t do for her little Nate. Sometimes I think she’s glad he found a wife and other times I think she’s mad because he won’t come home and live with her.”

“Are you an only child?” Polly asked.

“No, but I’m the youngest,” he sounded grumpy.

“By how many years?”

“My twin sisters are fifteen years older. I was a surprise.”

“Wow. That was a surprise.”

“They both live around mom and have tons of kids to keep her occupied, but she …”

“She doesn’t think anyone can take care of her little boy like she can,” Joss finished for him.

“Is your dad still alive?” Polly asked.

“Yes. I
told him that he can move out here any time. He threatens to take me up on it when she gets pushy. He golfs a lot.”

“Do you golf?” Henry asked.

“Oh, good heavens, no,” Nate responded. He glanced around at Henry. “I tipped a golf cart over once with Dad in it. Spilled him out in front of all his buddies. They told him they’d never seen anything quite like that before and the golf pro said he didn’t know it was even possible. Dad never took me golfing again.”

“Is that
what started you with cars?” Henry was laughing.

“No, I dumped Dad when I was in high school. I was in seventh grade when he told me I had to find my own way to pay for a car if I wanted one. Then he offered to help me rebuild an old Buick. All I had to do was work for the parts. By the time I got my license, I had a car. I was the coolest dude in high school.”

They drove into a parking lot and Nate stopped. “Here we are,” he announced.

“It’s an old drive-in,” Polly leaned forward in her seat to look out the front window.

“There’s a car show here on Friday nights during the summer,” Nate shrugged. “But it was a nice drive and we got to know each other better, right? And besides, they have great tenderloins.”

“Sure honey,” Joss said. “Now get moving and help Polly out of the back seat. You need to redeem yourself.”

The food was good and they sat talking at the table.

“Have you heard anything more about Thomas Zeller’s killer?” Nate asked. “Everyone has been talking about it all week.”

Polly shook her head. “Nothing much.” Then she looked up, “But, I haven’t told you what we found on his flash drive. I think he had a son and they might live around Bellingwood.”

“Really!” Joss said.

Polly explained about the Edgar Allan Poe association and how they discovered that she changed their names over the years.

“I figure there had to be one more name change at least,” she said. “I can’t find the last set of names anywhere. Can you believe they’ve managed to recreate themselves that many times? It can’t be easy, especially now that everything is computerized.”

“The Internet took off in the mid-nineties, so up until that point, records weren’t digitized,” Joss said. “It would be a lot harder now than it was then.”

“And what if he ever decided to have a family? He couldn’t make them uproot their lives every five or six years.”

“Is the mother still on the hook for the murder?”

“I think it’s a matter of her coming forward and explaining things,” Polly said. “But she wouldn’t know that if sh
e’s been hiding all these years.”

“Have you read his books?” Joss asked.

“I have them all. They are pretty sad, aren’t they?” Polly pushed her plate away and sat back in her chair.

“It’s like the detective is living half a life. He lost the best part of himself after
his love died.” Joss sighed and her eyes grew sad.

“Oh, good heavens, stop with the great tragedy stuff,” Nate exclaimed. “It’s a fictional character.”

“Well, it’s still sad. Especially if he wrote that way because he couldn’t find his own love,” Joss swatted her husband’s knee. “And you be nice.”

“What makes you think they live
near here?” Nate asked Polly.

“When he was writing those early books, they were always located in towns where she had lived. She sent a picture after
they moved and then he went looking for traces of her. While he was researching the next book, he was also gathering information on her and her son.”

“So he found out their names.”

“It was pretty easy. The first names were always characters from one of Poe’s literary works and the last name had something to do with sewing. I figure she was a seamstress of some sort. That’s probably how she made a living for them.”

Nate looked at her, his eyes scrunched together. “How old a fellow do you think he is?”

“He was born in nineteen sixty-nine, so he’d be forty-four.”

“And his mother?”

“She’s maybe sixty-eight. She was older than Thomas.”

“Huh,” he said, pursing his lips and wrinkling his forehead. Nate turned to his wife. “Do you know who that sounds like?”

She peered at him over her water glass. “But, the parameters don’t fit exactly. I don’t know what her first name is, but her last name doesn’t have anything to do with sewing and his first name is mundane.” Then she looked across the table at Polly. “You met him last summer. Kevin Campbell from Jewell. He was on the committee for the literary competition.”

“The guy who wanted us to know how wonderful his student’s piece was? That guy?” Polly asked. “
He’d be about the right age.”

“He’s got a wife and a couple of daughters and I think his mother lives with them. She’s a lot older, but she made costumes for plays at his school. In fact, she did the costumes for the community theater, too.” Nate said.

“But you’re right, the names don’t work out,” Polly slumped her shoulders. “He was kind of odd, too.”

“You haven’t seen anything,” Nate laughed. “You should see him on …” he spun his head toward his wife. “That’s tomorrow night! We should take them. He’ll be reading the same thing that he does every year.”

“What’s tomorrow night?” Henry asked.

“And it’s Poe!” Joss exclaimed. “Every year he reads
The Raven
.”

“What’s tomorrow night?” Polly pressed.

“His Speech teams and Thespians always do a drama night. The One-Act kids perform and then do a couple of spooky things for Halloween. Every year he performs
The Raven
to close the show. It’s really terrific.”

“Would you go with me?” Polly asked Henry. He nodded yes. “Would you guys take us?” she asked the Mikkels’.

“Of course!” Joss said. ” I want to watch it all happen!”

“But I’m still not convinced,” Polly said. “His name should be something a little more Victorian than Kevin, don’t you think?”

Henry was tapping away at his cell phone. He held it up so she could see it.

“Campbell Lock-Stitch Sewing Machine.” Polly took a breath and held it with her hand over her mouth.

She exhaled and said, “Thomas was so close!” Her eyes filled with tears. “He was so close. This breaks my heart.”

“We don’t even know if it’s them,” Henry said, taking her hand. “You can’t get excited until you know for sure.”

“It’s them,” she said. “It has to be.”

“There are a lot of things that need to be just right for it to be them. You can’t say anything to anyone about this,” he warned.

“What do you mean? Who am I going to tell?”

“
What if the person who killed Thomas did it because of this policeman’s murder forty some years ago? What if they’re still around? What if they don’t want Thomas’s old girlfriend to come forward and expose them? What if they kill her or kill Kevin and then we find out it wasn’t them at all?”