Reflecting Love's Charms (Bellingwood Book 14) (12 page)

"What's wrong?"

"Damned computer. I keep telling them that if they want me to be a goddess, I need the proper tools. But those idiot IT boys think they know more than the cute girl. Because obviously, I'm an airhead."

Polly laughed again. Anita was far from being an airhead and those who treated her poorly would likely find themselves in a basement room, pecking away on old Royal manual typewriters.

"There," Anita said. "I let it know who's the boss. Now, give me a minute to log in and find what you need. Are you going to invite me up to see this place someday?"

"You're welcome to come any time," Polly said. "If you want to see it while things are in chaos, come now. If you want to see it when it's all finished, though, that could take some time."

"I heard some of the boys say there was a tunnel leading back to the house. Is that true?"

Polly nodded, caught herself and said, "It sure is. We're hoping to have that opened up in the next week or so. Some kids from the university are working to make sure it's safe and to make sure that they've found anything of importance. There's another room filled with empty bottles and barrels. They may not find anything else, but at this point, who knows."

"Here we go," Anita said. "They know that it was a male, probably in his late twenties or early thirties. Yada, yada, yada. Here it is. Two bullet holes. One in his skull and the other would have gone through his chest. One of the comments here is that it looked like an execution. Wow, Polly. You certainly find them."

"Is there any way of knowing when his death occurred? Was it really a hundred years ago?" Polly asked.

Anita took a moment and said, "They are waiting on more tests, but initial estimates point to the early nineteen hundreds."

"Do they have genealogical information on Franklin Bell to compare this to?"

"They sure do," Anita said. "There's a note here. They've sent out requests for any photographs of the Bell family to the Bellingwood library, our newspaper here, and the genealogical society in Boone, too. A student is going to attempt a skull reconstruction. That's kinda cool. I think that's all for now."

"That's great," Polly said. "Two bullet wounds. Do they know what kind of bullets?"

"Hmmm," Anita said. "Reading. Reading. No, they have the bullets, but haven’t finished identifying them yet. There's another note about looking for some historical weapons. Guess that one hasn't been answered yet."

"That's fine. Makes sense. Thank you so much."

"No problem. Do you need anything else? Wanna talk to Sheriff Merritt?"

"I've talked to him enough this week. But Anita..." Polly stopped. She was probably going too far now. "Can you tell me anything about the girl I found on the highway?"

"I can't," Anita said.

"Because you'll get in trouble?"

"Well, that and because we don't know anything yet. They scheduled the autopsy, but then the coroner broke her hand in a softball game."

"Ouch. That probably sets you back."

"We aren't all that busy," Anita said, "but yeah. It's too bad. We all hate it when we know there's a family out there who has no idea what happened to their kid."

"So you don't know if she's from around here?"

"We don't yet. Nobody's reported her missing and I have a program watching the regional missing person reports."

Polly took a breath. Something had been preying on her mind and though it was probably preposterous, it wouldn't hurt to say it out loud. "Have you looked at reports from Ohio?"

"Why Ohio?" Anita asked, then she made a sound in her throat. "Oh. That's a good idea. It’s doubtful, but we shouldn’t rule it out."

"If he's everything that Stephanie says he is, I wouldn't put it past him," Polly said. "And if this is real, I need to stop begging Stephanie to come back. She's right and should stay far, far away from here until we catch him."

"We?" Anita asked. "That kind of talk will have Aaron dropping you into protective custody."

"Whatever. But if it is true, that means their father is already in Iowa and looking for them. He's not a nice man."

" I'll talk to Aaron and let him know what you said." Anita took a breath. "Polly, we really need to talk to Stephanie if he's in town, though. She's the only one who can tell us anything that would give us a clue on how to track him down."

"You're right, but that will be a difficult conversation to have with her. She's worked so hard to put him out of her head and has done everything she can to reduce his exposure to Kayla. I hate asking her to remember details about the man who treated her so badly."

"We can have a counselor here if that will help," Anita said.

"She has a therapist and Jeff is her rock. I don't know what I can do, but I'll try."

"Let me know when you're giving tours at the whiskey house," Anita said. "You always have interesting things going on in your life."

"I do wish it were quieter some days."

"Stay out of trouble. If Aaron needs anything more, I'll have him contact you."

Anita hung up and Polly stood there, staring at the ground. She almost wanted that poor girl she found on the highway to have been killed by Stephanie's father. That would mean there was only one deranged killer around. If it was anything else, well, she didn't want to consider that possibility.

CHAPTER TWELVE

No matter how much Andrew whined about blisters on his hands or Rebecca pleaded to just be allowed some free time since she worked so hard at school during the day, they were going over to the Bell House with Polly. They'd been under orders to finish their homework as soon as they got home from school and then they were expected to help.

There was no arguing with Polly. She wasn't leaving them alone and she needed as many hands to work as possible. Sylvie was all for it and brought work clothes every day for her son, knowing that if she didn’t, he’d find a way to leave them at school to get out of helping.

Most of it was just adolescent complaining, but sometimes Polly wanted to put her hands over her ears and sing loudly to avoid hearing one more whiny voice. Maybe she should just try that someday. Today, though, she'd ordered them to change clothes. She wasn't putting up with their noise any longer. Andrew was shocked. Polly didn't often yell at him. That was okay, she'd work with the shock for a while. When it wore off, she'd try something different. Rebecca was learning where Polly's limits were. There were times she pushed past them, but this afternoon she acquiesced. Polly knew that it probably had a lot to do with Kayla being gone. The phone call last night had, at the same time, made Rebecca feel both better and worse.

When the kids joined her in the dining room in their work clothes, she hustled them down the back steps and out the door to the truck.

"What are we doing today?"

"Working on the porch with Henry, and I want to finish cleaning all of the junk out of the yard so Eliseo can bring the tiller over and start making grass grow again."

"I get the wheel barrow," Rebecca said.

"Ah man," Andrew whined. "That means I have to pick up the junk."

"I think you both pick up junk," Polly said. "We have plenty of gloves."

"I want the pink ones," Rebecca called out.

Polly watched Andrew in the rear view mirror. He nearly opened his mouth to argue, then clamped it shut. He caught her eye and grinned. "I get the black ones."

She pulled into the driveway and waved at Heath, who was rolling Henry's portable air compressor across the lawn. Polly was unnerved at the speed with which Henry sent nails into boards with his nail gun. The first few times she'd been around him, she backed off, sure that one was going to fly out and nail her right in the heart. Henry hadn't argued or done anything other than wait for her to live through the experience a few times. It was still strange to see him travel down a board at such high speed, but at least she was comfortable letting Andrew and Rebecca work in his vicinity.

He'd asked about her father's nail guns, showing her the boxes where they were stored. She didn't have a memory of her dad using them when she was in the workshop, but as she'd grown older, she was generally too busy to spend much time there.

Andrew saw people at the back of the house and took off running before she could stop him. "Go ahead," Polly said to Rebecca. "They found another room this morning. I haven't talked to them since earlier today. Maybe you'll learn something new."

Rebecca ran to follow Andrew, and Polly wandered over to the porch. "Hey there, hotstuff," she said, hooking her arm into Henry's. "How was the rest of your day?"

He shook his head. "Randy punched a hole in a wall because he was jacking around with a two by four, then Ernie drove over a pile of wood, popped two tires, and managed to spit something up that poked a hole in a gas tank."

"Crap!" she exclaimed. "Are they fired?"

"Not today," he said with a grimace. "Mark thinks it was just a full moon. I'm about done with Randy, though. He's starting to cost me money."

"Ernie?"

Henry shrugged. "Bad day for him. He felt terrible. Then, when I was driving over here, Dad called and said that Mom saw a doctor today and he's worried about her blood pressure. That's got everyone in an uproar because Jessie thinks it's Molly's fault."

Polly slipped her hand down to take his, stoking the top of it with her thumb. "I'm sorry. What does your mom say?"

"That she'll figure this out and nobody is taking Molly away from her."

"Is your dad upset?"

Henry huffed out a breath. "Probably more than Mom. He started talking about moving back to Arizona and said something about this not happening if they'd been there."

"Oh no," Polly said. "That made you feel really guilty, didn't it."

"Gah." Henry sat down on a floor joist. "I love having them be part of the business, but I want them to be around for a long time. If being here for me shortens those years, I'll make changes right now."

Polly stood over him, still holding his hand. "Have you talked to your mother about this?"

He shook his head.

"So you don't know what her doctor said. You don't know how bad this is or anything."

"Hmph," he said. "No."

"It could just be that she needs to take medication and better care of herself, right?"

Henry didn't say anything.

"Right?"

He looked up. "I let Dad scare me. But I want her to be okay for a long time."

"Do you want to go talk to her?"

He nodded at the porch. "I need to work on this."

"Can I go talk to her?"

Henry stood back up. "Is it crazy of me to want you to fix this?"

Polly chuckled. "Not at all. You keep an eye on the kids. Don't let them bother the people out back too much and make them clean up the rest of this yard. It shouldn't take them any longer than an hour to finish. I'm going to take a ride over to the house and see for myself how Marie is doing. And then, if everything is okay, I'm going to go out to the shop and calm your father down. I'll let you know what I find out."

"It's just high blood pressure, right?" he asked plaintively.

"Right." Polly reached up and kissed his cheek. "And thank you for letting me stick my nose in this."

He kissed her cheek. "Go, before I realize how ridiculous I'm being and make you stay here."

She ran for her truck, waved and backed out of the driveway. This was probably one of the sillier things she'd done lately. Marie was going to think they'd all lost their minds. Family was so strange. They could yell at each other about the oddest things, but when it came to having a frank conversation about something like high blood pressure, that was too difficult.

It only took a few minutes to get across town. Polly drove into the parking area of the shop and turned off her truck, then took a breath. She headed for the back door of the house and stopped when she saw Molly and Marie in the back yard. Molly was in a cute little swimsuit, playing in a sandbox that Bill had made two weeks ago. Marie looked up from her lawn chair when she heard Polly's footsteps in the grass.

"Polly!" the little girl screamed.

Marie helped Molly get out of the box and released her to run to Polly. "What are you doing here today?" Marie asked as Polly bent down to scoop up Jessie's daughter.

Polly brushed sand from Molly's bottom and then kissed her cheek. "How are you?"

"Sand." Molly pointed at the sandbox.

"Do you want to go back in?"

Molly shook her head and snuggled into Polly's neck.

"I guess she wants a hug," Marie said. "Do you have a minute to sit?"

"I'm here because your husband and son are worried," Polly said. She took the arm of a second lawn chair and dragged it over to the sandbox.

"About me?" Marie asked. "Because of the doctor's appointment?" She rolled her eyes. "Those men."

"Bill seems to think that if you'd gone to Arizona, this wouldn't be a problem and now Henry's worried that you're going to die an early death."

Marie laughed out loud. "And neither one of them had the courage to talk to me about it. I tried to tell Bill that it was no big deal, but he is intent on worrying about me. My parents have high blood pressure and so does my brother. It was bound to happen. I don't know how I've done so well for as long as I did. We'll start the medication; I'll check it regularly and make a few alterations in my lifestyle and then move forward."

"I told Henry that he was worrying too much, but one of us needed to talk to you or he wouldn't sleep tonight. It's bad enough when I don't sleep, but that's not normal for him."

"He could sleep through anything," Marie said.

Molly settled down into Polly's lap and leaned against her, putting her thumb into her mouth. Polly looked up at Marie.

"Honey, thumb," Marie said.

When Molly didn't remove it, Marie nodded at Polly, who gently tugged the thumb out of the little girl's mouth. Molly resolutely put it right back in and Polly took it out again, then held her hand. She tried not to chuckle at the pouty lip that popped out, but before long, Molly relaxed against her again.

"Her nap was disturbed because of my appointment," Marie said. "I tried to schedule it so as to not disrupt her, but they just didn't have another time."

"Everything else is okay?" Polly asked.

"Healthy as an old lady horse. I told Bill that nothing was prying me away from this little girl. For heaven's sake, she's the one who keeps me so healthy. I haven't been so active since Lonnie and Henry were kids. I'm going to miss having a baby around as this one grows up. She changes so much."

Marie was always so careful about not making them feel guilty for not having babies, but every once in a while, Polly felt a little guilt for depriving her mother-in-law of the joy of being a grandmother.

"I understand you had some excitement at the new house," Marie said. "Henry told us that there was an old whiskey still down there."

"This morning they opened a new underground room and found barrels and empty bottles." Polly grinned. "They also found some labels that Franklin Bell must have had printed. It's strange to think that my house was part of history. We read about Prohibition and here I am finding it."

"You should talk to my father sometime." Marie’s parents were world travelers. Polly had only met them a couple of times, though they had a home in Bellingwood.

"He isn't old enough to have been alive when the Bell House was built," Polly said.

"No, but
his
parents were. And they were a bunch of story tellers. If you get him started, he'll probably have plenty to tell you about the early days of Bellingwood."

Polly chuckled. "That would be great. Are they coming back for the Sesquicentennial?"

"They wouldn't miss it. Mom will dig out her bonnet and skirt and Dad will regale the city with tales; half made up and the other half true. You have to guess which is which and more than likely he doesn't even know any longer. But honey, didn't Henry tell you they were coming home this week? They want to meet your family and when I told them Rebecca's birthday party was on Sunday, they moved up their travel plans. I asked Henry to invite you all over to dinner Saturday night."

Polly had a hard time keeping her laughter in check, not wanting to wake Molly. The little girl had turned into a cuddly, warm ball on her lap and as long as Marie didn't say anything, Polly was going to continue to keep the child quiet.

"That's why he didn't have a problem with me coming over to talk to you about your high blood pressure," Polly said.

"What do you mean?"

"Because he had completely forgotten to tell me about the invitation and by making you do it, he knows I'll have calmed down by the time I see him again." Laughter rumbled in her chest and Molly squirmed against it, then settled back in to sleep.

"I'm so sorry," Marie said. "I should have called you myself, but it all happened yesterday and he stopped by this morning. I just assumed he said something."

"Please don't worry." Polly smiled. "I'm not upset. I'm looking forward to seeing your parents again. Can I bring anything?"

Marie shook her head. "Of course not. Mom and I have a great time in the kitchen together. She'll want to make something exotic and I won't have nearly the ingredients for it, but she'll make it up as she goes. Dad will hold court in the living room. I can almost see him striding up and down the length of it as he engages everyone in his stories. Bill will hide upstairs until he absolutely has to come down."