Out of the Shadows (Bellingwood Book 12) (8 page)

"Just a girl at school."

This was going to be like pulling teeth.

"Is Libby in your class?"

"No, she's a sophomore."

"Does she live in Boone?"

"Nah. Bellingwood. That's why I knew I could do her mom's oil change another day."

Polly shook her head. "So you got yourself in trouble because you were doing a good deed and then you couldn't tell me that?"

"When you called, they were right there and I didn't want to sound like I was doing anything special. Her mom was embarrassed. They don't have very much money and the car is a wreck. It needs a lot of work. But I told her that I can do the labor if she buys the parts. It will be cheaper that way."

"Do you like working on cars?" Polly asked.

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you say something before? You know Henry and Nate are rebuilding those Woodies." She couldn't imagine how much they'd missed out on with Heath because he refused to talk to them.

He huffed. "I didn't want to bother them. They wouldn’t want me around."

"You kids are such dopes." Polly ran her hand through her hair. "Of course they would. Don't you realize how much fun it is for us to share what we know with you? Sometimes I want to hang you out a window by your toes."

"I'd probably deserve it," he said under his breath.

"Stop that. You don't deserve any such thing. You have to talk to Henry about the car thing, but I want to return to Libby. Is she a good friend of yours?"

Heath shook his head. "You aren’t letting that go, are you?"

"Well, I'm Polly. I like to know these things. Do you want to ask her out?"

"Her mom won't let her date until she's sixteen and besides, I don't even have a car."

"Oh Heath," Polly said. "This is Bellingwood. You can practically walk everywhere in town. But if her Mom says she can't date, that kills that. What about school dances and things like that?"

"No car. Remember? Would you let me borrow your truck?"

"If it was special I would. But why don't you ask her to help with the Halloween things at Sycamore House and see if her mother will let her come to the party next Saturday." Polly paused. "Unless of course you don't want to ask her out."

They had arrived at the point she usually turned around, in front of the winery. She turned him toward the hotel. They could make it home faster by taking the sidewalk along the highway.

"I dunno."

"Ask. For all the communication options you kids have these days, no one talks to each other. Don't text or email or Facebook her. Ask her in school tomorrow. Face to face. We need tons more help with the Haunted House. Both of you could be doing things there."

"We'll see."

Polly put her hand on his forearm. "How much do you hate working down at the barn?"

"I don't hate it," he said.

"Okay, how much would you give to not work there ever again?"

"Just about anything. The horses are okay, but it's all gross down there. Everything I do is gross. And I don't think Jason likes me. Who could blame him? It's not his fault. I was a jerk. Eliseo's cool, though. I don't mind working for him."

"That's funny, though," Polly said. "Eliseo is introducing more and more horse-powered equipment. There isn't much down there that uses a motor or engine."

He shook his head. "Nothing at all."

"You should have talked to me about this," she said.

"Hayden says I can do anything for a couple of years and I owe you guys big-time. You didn't have to take me in. And I need to make money so I can buy a car. Even if I could find a place to put an old beater together. I could make it nice."

They crossed the highway and approached the front door of Sycamore House.

"You have to start talking to us," Polly said. "I'm totally serious. You don't have to put up with a job that you hate because you feel like you owe me. Find something you enjoy. Life doesn't have to be a struggle and you certainly don't have to be a martyr to live in it. You can have some fun, too."

"It's a lot better than it was. I don't want to complain. At least you guys aren't screaming at me all the time."

"We try not to do a lot of screaming around here. Sometimes I freak out, but I try to keep that to a minimum."

Heath opened the front door and waited as she and the dogs went in. "Thanks," he said.

"For what?"

"For letting me explain and not jumping to the conclusion that I was getting into trouble again. I figured that's what you assumed."

"Honestly, I was only mad that you didn't call first. The whole getting into trouble assumption would have come if you hadn't shown up for dinner."

He smiled at her. "Well, thanks."

CHAPTER EIGHT

It surprised Polly to see Alistair Greyson walk past her window. She caught up with him outside the main office door. "Good morning," she said. "What are you doing here?"

He gave her a slight bow of the head. "The sweetest of mornings to you, Miss Polly. It is good to see you." Grey gestured to the side door. "Master Denis and I will spend two hours in the great outdoors. Your beautiful backyard, the sun shining on our faces and friendly conversation is a perfect antidote for a young man confined to a wheel chair." He smiled. "It has the added benefit of offering a moment of relief to Mrs. Morrow, a woman of great generosity of spirit."

"Do you have a minute for me?" she asked.

"Oh, my dear. I have more than mere minutes for you. How might I be of assistance?"

They walked into the lounge and she pointed to a chair, then sat down in another next to him. "First of all, do you need any help at the inn? Heath isn’t cut out to work in a barn and he's miserable."

Grey smiled at her. "I believe you are making things too easy on the boy. He's turning into a young man. Do you not think he can find an afternoon job on his own?"

Polly sat back, surprised at his words. It hadn't occurred to her that she might be doing this all wrong. If there was a person in her life and she could help them, she just did it. But Grey was right. She needed to back off and let Heath look for a job on his own. He'd probably find something he enjoyed.

"Okay," she said, nodding. "Wow, you're right. Thank you."

"That was simpler than I expected. You indicated that was the first query, did you have another?"

" I don't know if you can help or not," she said. "But it hit me in the middle of the night that maybe you'd know something."

"About?"

"About the person I found in the field back here on Saturday. Lydia tells me that no one in Bellingwood is missing and maybe Aaron found something out yesterday, but I'm pretty sure I would have heard from him by now. Then I wondered if maybe they'd stayed at the inn. Have you had anything strange happen there lately?"

Grey paused and then spoke. "That's very interesting. We have a young man who has been with us for several weeks. He rented the room until the end of the month."

"Is he missing?"

"I wouldn't have thought so. He has been in and out, staying away for a day or more at a time. He asked us not to clean his room unless he called first, so I put it out of my mind. But now that you speak of it, we have not been asked to clean in quite some time and I do not believe that I've seen his car in that same amount of time."

"What’s his name?" Polly asked.

"Jeremy Booten. What a pity if your young man in the field was our guest. Do you suppose it might be?'

"I'd bet everything I have. Did you talk to him much?"

Grey grinned at her. "Why of course I did. You know how I enjoy meeting the good people that cross my path. Jeremy Booten was quite interesting. He's working on his first novel and was researching haunted places throughout central Iowa. As a budding photographer, he also carried expensive camera gear. He thought that if he was quite fortunate, he might run into a few ghosts that would allow him to take their picture."

"You're kidding, right?" Polly asked. Her laugh was stilted. This was nuts.

Grey tilted his head. "I fear that I am not. He spent a good deal of money on his gear and insisted that he was not leaving Iowa until he found the proof that he looked for." He turned his wrist to look at his watch. "As many minutes as I would like to offer to you, I must relieve Mrs. Morrow. She is taking a much needed respite and I do not want to make her late. If you have other questions for me, might we continue this at another time?"

"That's all I had." Polly stood up and waited as Grey pushed himself out of the chair. "Is your knee getting any better?"

"Good days and bad days. This is not the worst of the bad days, so I shall not complain, but move on until another good day. Thank you for asking."

When Polly got back into the office, she opened her phone to call the sheriff's office in Boone. Maybe if she didn't call Aaron directly, she wouldn't frighten him into believing there was another body.

"Boone County Sheriff, this is Anita, may I help you?"

"Hi Anita, this is Polly Giller in Bellingwood. What are you doing answering the phone?"

Polly had gotten to know Anita Banks, Sheriff Merritt's favorite tech goddess, last year. She'd hoped that a relationship might develop between Anita and Doug Randall, but the poor boy had never gotten his act together and they'd gone their separate ways.

"I don't know why the phone rolled to me," Anita said. "Things must be busy up front. Do you need to speak with Sheriff Merritt? It's not another body, is it?"

"That's why I called the office," Polly replied. "I hoped to avoid that question. Guess if it's me, that's going to be the assumption, isn't it!"

"I'm sorry," Anita said.

Polly laughed. "Nothing to be sorry about. It's my reputation and I can't change it. But no, there isn't a body. I might have information on the person I found last Saturday, though. Have you guys gotten anything?"

Anita whispered. "You know I'm not supposed to tell you, but they’re still waiting for tests. Those crazy television shows always make it look like information comes back from laboratories and coroners overnight. Everybody is working, but that's all that's going on. Sheriff Merritt isn't going to like it if you solve his case again. You have a better track record than any of the deputies."

"I try to tell him everything first," Polly said. "I don't want him to be mad at me."

"He never is. But no one wants to take your cases. You always show them up."

"Big babies," Polly said. "Maybe I’ll get my Private Investigator license and then they'll have to put up with me in their faces."

"That would be hilarious. I'm afraid you'd give Sheriff Merritt a heart attack, though."

"And his wife, too," Polly said. "She'd have my head. That makes me think. Halloween is coming up. Are you going to come to the Masquerade Ball again?"

"I don't know," Anita said. "I had fun and I love dressing up, but I'm not dating anyone right now and I don't want to come by myself."

"That boy is an idiot," Polly said.

Anita chuckled. "Doug? He just doesn't have any experience. He's such a nice guy, but I had to do the work. Once I stopped, he went away. And then he was embarrassed when he realized that he'd let me fade off into the sunset."

"It's like there should be a class in junior high about how to properly court a girl," Polly said with a sigh. "Not sex ed, but how to talk to a girl and what to do about her parents and how to be respectful and all that."

"For girls too," Anita said.

"You're right." Polly laughed out loud. "Maybe that's what I need to do. Teach etiquette courses. I can bring Mark Ogden in to teach everyone how to dance and ..." She stopped herself. "Yeah. Can you transfer me to Aaron?"

"Absolutely. And Polly?"

"Yes?"

"If Doug ever gets his act together and asks me out again, I'd go. I like him."

Polly processed on that information. She wasn't sure how she would use it, but there had to be a way. "That's good to know," she said. "Maybe we can convince him to pull his head out of his backside."

"I'll send you through to Sheriff Merritt. Just a moment." With that Anita was gone and Polly heard the BeeGees coming through her phone.

"Anita tells me you have no body," Aaron said, interrupting the song.

"No, but I might have some information for you. I spoke with Grey and there is a guest who hasn't been back to his room for a while. The young man does go out and about and asked them not to clean the room until he called for it, but it's probably been longer than it should be."

"That's interesting," Aaron said. "Do you have his information?"

Polly had already pulled it up on her screen. "Of course. His name is Jeremy Booten. He drives a red 2002 Honda Accord and he's from Duluth. Grey said he's in central Iowa to write a story about haunted houses. He could tell you more since he talked to the kid. He's a photographer and author."

"Is the car out at the inn?" Aaron asked.

"I don't think so."

"Even more interesting. But then we haven't been looking for that car. With this information, we'll be able to dig deeper into who the kid is. At least we'll be able to say for sure if it's him or not. Thanks, Polly."

"Anita says that I embarrass your other deputies and they won't take my cases because I always show them up. I don't mean to do that."

He laughed. "They do whatever they need to do and so do you, Polly. Don't feel bad about being in the middle of these things. I've learned that you can't help it. Things come at you and there's nothing you can do. It's easier for everyone if I let it play out. Now, don't think for a minute that I approve of you doing anything that puts your life in danger. But just this little piece of information moved the case forward quite a few steps. That's helpful and thank you."

"Okay," she said. "I like your people and don't want them to hate me because I'm just doing my Polly thing."

"You're doing fine. Now let me get this information where it belongs and maybe we can find out what happened."

~~~

Polly spun in her chair at the sound of tapping on her outside window. Lydia and Andy waved as they passed by on their way to the storage shed, probably to check on the Halloween sets and props. She couldn't wait to see what Lydia was adding this year. Last Halloween, they'd added a living head on a table. Doug Randall had enjoyed frightening people by opening his eyes and screaming at them. The illusion hadn't taken that much to create, but it had garnered some great attention.

She still couldn't believe how much pleasure Lydia took in this project. Three hundred and sixty-four days out of the year, the woman did everything in her power to care for people. This one day, she let her wicked sense of humor take over to scare the wits out of young and old alike.

"I'll be out in the shed," Polly told Stephanie on her way out of the office.

Stephanie smiled and nodded. Polly chuckled. Stephanie didn't care where she was or what she was doing. In fact, most of the time, the girl had no idea. If she needed Polly, she called her cell phone.

The door to the shed was propped open and Polly couldn't see her friends, so she crept in and stood quietly, hoping to hear where they might be. When she identified their location, she tip-toed toward them. Lydia was head down in a box of props while Andy was separating set pieces from each other, looking them over.

"Boo!" she yelled.

Both women jumped and Lydia cursed.

"Why would you do that to me?" Lydia asked. "How would you explain to Aaron that you’d given me a heart attack?"

Andy had taken a seat on a stack of boxes, glaring at Polly.

"What?" Polly asked. "It had to be done."

"I don't think so," Andy replied. "That was rotten. But at least I'm breathing again. What are you doing out here?"

"Do you need help?"

Lydia shook her head. "Not today. We're taking stock and checking to make sure things are ready to go. If we need to make any repairs, I want to be sure to have plenty of supplies on hand."

They had less than a week to pull this off. The crew would pull things out of storage Sunday afternoon and then the main foyer of Sycamore House would transform little by little until Saturday evening when trick-or-treaters and their families arrived to tour the Haunted House. Since Halloween was on Saturday this year, they planned to attempt both the Haunted House and the Masquerade Ball on the same night. Jeff insisted it could work. People would go through the Haunted House and either leave or enter the auditorium for the rest of the festivities. It made Polly's head spin. But there were more people than ever who were digging in to make sure that both events were successful.

"What are you doing this afternoon?" Andy asked.

"Not much. But I do have a question for you," Polly said.

Andy was peering at the front of one of the flats. "We need more black paint. Some of these are scuffed."