With Cassidy at Agnes Hill's house for the evening, that left Cat and Hayden alone in the house, something that didn't often happen. Rather than go out, they were thrilled to spend quiet time in the comfort of their little apartment. Cat would need more and more of that as the fall semester continued. Between the exhausting schedule of any elementary school teacher and her progressing pregnancy, she needed whatever rest she could find.
"Huh," Polly said out loud. She'd forgotten that Loretta Nesbitt was going to connect her with someone that might be interested in cleaning the Bell House. Either that or the poor woman had heard enough details that she'd run screaming; afraid of what the job might entail. That wouldn't be surprising. They were holding on for now, but one of these days Polly was going to run smack dab into a big brick wall and drop. The only reason it hadn't happened yet in the last six years was that her friends were always there to help. But they only showed up in dire situations. This was now her life and she needed someone who would be consistent.
She startled when she heard the trunk hatch open. Then Henry was getting back in the car. He grinned at her. "You're still here. No phone calls?"
"All's quiet," she said. "Now where?"
"I thought we'd go up north and find a quiet spot in a park. I have quilts in the back."
"And they said you weren't romantic."
"Who said that? I'll smack 'em around."
Polly chuckled and took his hand. "Thank you. This is a wonderful idea."
Henry's phone rang. He'd laid it on the floor between them on the ride over. Hers lay beside it.
"I don't want to answer it," he said.
Polly leaned over and picked it up. "It's Leroy."
He frowned. "My Leroy?"
"It says Leroy Forster."
"Well, answer it. He never calls."
She swiped the call open and pressed the speaker button.
"Hey, Leroy, what's up?" Henry asked.
"Hi boss. Sorry to bother you, but I got a problem."
"Yeah? What is it?"
"Well, it's kinda embarrassing, but someone broke into my truck. Stole my tools."
Henry frowned. "When did that happen?"
"Must have been last night. I haven't been outta the house all day. Just went out to the garage to go get somethin' to eat and it's a mess. I'm so sorry about this."
"Have you called the police yet?"
"No, I wanted to call you first. Ya think it's the same guys that hit Riddle?"
"Was your garage locked?"
"Well, kinda."
"What does that mean?"
"The side door isn't always locked, ya know. Nobody's ever out here. And I didn't hear anything last night, ya know. Went out drinking with some of the guys. Now, don't worry. I wasn't driving or nothing. Donnie Raymond drove me. He got me home, too. But I was probably out of it enough that I didn't hear nothing. Sorry 'bout that."
"I'm not mad about you drinking on a Friday night, bud. Call the police. They'll send someone out. I'll be over in just a bit. Polly and I are in Ames."
"Oh, sorry to interrupt your evening. Takin' the wife out on a date, huh?"
"No worries, Leroy. Call the police. We're on our way."
"They stole my damned bike, too. If I find out who did this, I'm a-gonna break some heads."
"Oh, Leroy, I'm sorry about that."
"Yeah. Spent my paychecks putting that baby back together. She's my girl."
"We'll find her."
"Like hell. She's probably in parts and pieces by now. Sure wish I hadn't been hungover this morning. I mighta wanted to go out for a ride and found this earlier."
"Call the police, then make a list of what was taken and what was damaged."
"Sorry, boss."
"We'll deal with it." Henry nodded for Polly to end the call, then he cursed. "It's not his fault."
"I know. I'm sorry." She put her hand on his knee.
"My guys have been talking about this all week. I know Leroy did his best to make sure that his tools were safe. It's not his fault."
"Are you trying to convince yourself?"
"It would be so much easier if I could blame someone, fire them and be done with it. But I can't. My guys aren't at fault."
"I hope not."
"What do you mean?" He snapped his face toward her.
"I just hope it's not someone you know. That's all."
Henry turned east toward the interstate. At least that would avoid the city streets. "It can't be. I know we've been hiring like crazy, but I'd like to think I know who I'm interviewing."
"I'm sure you do. It was a stupid thought that flashed through my mind."
"You don't have stupid thoughts flashing through your mind," he said. "You're kind of intuitive about this stuff and that bothers me right now."
Polly stayed quiet as Henry took the entrance ramp. He sped up to merge into traffic, then just as quickly slowed to take the Highway-30 exit back toward Boone and home. Leroy lived southeast of Bellingwood in a small house in the country. It wasn't anything special, just a small acreage set in beside a small grove of trees. There were a few houses in the area, but none close enough to have seen any burglars.
Leroy liked the quiet and solitude.
"You aren't going to say it, are you?" Henry asked.
"Say what?"
"That I did this."
Polly did her best to hold back a grin. "Did what?"
"Sabotaged our date night by going to Hickory Park."
"But I thought you said we weren't going to Hickory Park. I didn't even put my feet on the ground. Right?"
"Whatever. You aren't going to let me live this one down, are you?"
"Would I torment you like that?"
"In a heartbeat."
"Tell you what. We'll give our dinner to Leroy. He was heading out to get something to eat and his evening has been turned upside down. When we get back to Bellingwood, we'll find something to eat."
"Yeah?"
"We can get barbecue at that new place out on the highway. I love the name — Smoking Hot Stuff. Do they have hot waitresses?"
"Now why would you think I'd know that?" He chuckled. "No hotter than anywhere else, but the food is good and they have a tenderloin on the menu."
"Have you tried it? Is it better than Joe's?"
Henry laughed. "I haven't tried it yet. Their brisket is amazing, and their cheesy potatoes are to die for."
"You've been holding out on me, buddy."
"The guys like to eat there and so do a lot of my clients." He shook his head. "Unless you're a crazy woman who has to meet at the fancy coffee shop."
"What?" Polly was confused.
"Sorry. I was thinking about Lillybeth Anderson. I don't even know why I said that. She has to be hurting right now. That was wrong of me."
"I was going to ask. Have you heard anything from her since I found her husband's body?"
"No. I don't know what's going to happen over there if she tries to dump that place before we finish it. I have never, in my life, been so up and down. If I'd known this was what she'd do, I never would have agreed to the project."
"How could you possibly know that?"
"Hindsight. She didn't seem like a flake. Have you heard anything from Tab?"
"Not yet. It is weird, though. You never met her husband, right?"
Henry shook his head. "And she rarely talked about him. I don't know if he was involved in the planning. I met with her, I met with her and her mother, but neither of them said a word about the husband. I was beginning to believe he was a figment of their imagination."
"No longer living, but not a figment," Polly said. "I wish she'd been around more so we could have gotten to know her. She seemed aloof. And Simon really liked her mother. There's just something strange going on there all around."
He turned north toward Bellingwood. "People aren't as normal as we are."
"Normal people could eat barbecue in Ames."
"You got me there," Henry said as he turned eas
t off the highway. "I'm going to have to call Conyers and screw up his night. They're going to raise our rates if this keeps up." He smacked his steering wheel. "Damn it. Why?"
"They'll figure this out."
"Who will figure this out? So far, three people I know have been hit and no one is any closer to figuring this out than they were a week ago. How many more of my guys are going to lose tools and stuff?"
"I know. But it can't go on forever. You know that."
"I'm being mad. It's better to be mad now than in front of Leroy. I have two more minutes of mad in me."
"Okay." Polly nodded and then bit her lip. Henry didn't get angry very often and it was better to just let him work it out. If she tried to push, it just frustrated them both.
A Bellingwood police car was already in Leroy's driveway when they arrived.
"At least there isn't a body," she whispered. "The police beat me here."
Henry laughed out loud. "I love you, Polly Giller." He was still laughing when he got out of his car.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"Find a way for me to skip church this morning," Polly whispered. Henry was awake. She'd heard his breathing change fifteen minutes ago.
"Make the decision. It’s fine with me," he said.
She lay there, still and silent. Was he kidding? Minutes passed and he turned to wrap his arms around her and draw her close. She felt his breath against the back of her head, soft and warm.
Polly relaxed against him. If his plan was to make her be the bad guy, she was a master at this game. "I'll text Cat and tell her that she and Hayden are in charge of getting the kids ready and out the door."
"Perfect," he whispered.
"Elijah won't mind if we miss his first Sunday accompanying the choir."
"Yeah, he’s a big boy. It's time for him to start toughening up anyway, right? We won't be there every time he performs. He should learn how to do it on his own. Today's a good day to start."
Polly twisted and turned until she faced him. "You're no fun. You are supposed to be the pragmatic, sensible one."
"I'm an enigma."
"You're something, that's for sure."
"We were out late last night," he whined. "I like the idea of sleeping in with you."
"Poor baby." She stroked the side of his head. My goodness, but she loved this man.
They'd been at Leroy Forster's house until nearly ten o'clock, taking pictures of the damage, putting together a list of everything that had been stolen, and chatting with Ken Wallers. She ended up giving Leroy their meals from Hickory Park, something he was thrilled to have. He wasn't leaving his house any time soon, not even to get something to eat. Between cleaning up the mess in his garage and worrying that the thief might return, it was going to be hard to pry him out of there on Monday morning when it was time to go to work.
They were both starving, but they needed to pick Cassidy up. Polly had called Elva to tell her why they were going to be late to get the boys, and within minutes, Eliseo called, offering to get them home.
When they stopped at Agnes Hill's house, she'd come outside with a sleepy Cassidy and a small satchel. She'd made up chicken salad sandwiches and had placed two fresh tomatoes in the bag.
Even though Cassidy looked sleepy when she got into the car, she chattered a million miles a minute all the way home, telling them about the games she'd played with Agnes, the supper they made together and how she helped pull weeds. Polly wasn't so sure how successful that endeavor was. Unless Agnes kept a close eye on the little girl, who knew what she might pull out of the ground.
The boys were excited to talk about their evening at Elva's house, playing with their friends and the multitude of animals. When the boys visited the Johnson's, they knew they were expected to pitch in and help. They didn't do it often enough to resent the work and looked forward to doing new things, especially with the new animals that lived there.
Henry stretched, reaching his hands out behind Polly's back. When he finished he pulled her against him even tighter. "Don't make me do this."
"You can stay home," she said, sounding as much like a martyr as she could. "It's fine. I'll take the kids to church and I won't tell them that their father is a slug who would rather lie around in bed all day on a Sunday than spend time with them."
He chuckled. "That isn't exactly what I said." He dropped his voice to a whisper. "Do you ever miss those quiet mornings at Sycamore House when there were no kids in our lives?"
"That was what, two months out of our marriage?"
"I guess," he said with a laugh. He promptly pulled his arms out from underneath her body, spinning her onto her back. "Somebody had better get into the shower."
"I'll go first. You can stay in bed and cuddle with the cats."
"We could both go at the same time," Henry said, waggling his eyes.
Polly brought her feet up and pushed at his hips. The move surprised him and he caught himself just as he fell over the side of the bed.
"What was that for?"
"Getting you moving. If we share a shower it takes longer. Move, move, move."
~~~
So many people their age sat in the fellowship hall drinking coffee while their children attended Sunday School that Pastor Dunlap bought mobile room dividers, sectioned off their area, and assigned himself as their teacher. It had been subtle enough that no one could figure out how to refuse him, so now, here they were studying the book of Esther in the Old Testament. Polly liked the character. A strong person dropped into a role where she could have hidden away and been a nobody or do exactly what she did and choose to save her people.
Lester Dunlap and his wife, Ruth, were good people. They had three children, Chris, Karen, and Cathy. Chris had never really been part of the church. He was in college when they moved to Bellingwood. That had to be hard on a kid. Karen had graduated the year after Heath and was attending college in Minnesota somewhere. Cathy was a sophomore in high school, a year younger than Rebecca. She was a quiet girl and though she was part of the youth group and participated in church activities, her group of friends was very different than Rebecca's. It took all kinds, right?
Rebecca wouldn't say much; she knew Polly didn't like her to gossip about people, but there was something about the youngest Dunlap girl that drove Rebecca a little crazy. It might have been the obvious sense of entitlement that Cathy portrayed. She often sat in the back of the church and tittered with her friends. No matter what people did or said to try to get the kids to hush, it had continued like this for years. It was never enough to make a scene about, but it happened.
While they waited for class to start, Bob Atherton spoke up. "Heard on the radio last night that one of your guys was robbed, Henry."
Henry nodded. "I wish I knew how to stop this. No matter what they've done to protect themselves, it's not enough."
"Insurance isn't going to like you much. Who's got your policy, Conyers?"
"He's a good man," Henry said.
"Some of those that got hit don't have all that great of insurance," Bob said. "It's a real shame."
"Who all has been hit?" Dave Butterfield asked. He and his wife, Janice, had twins who were Caleb's age. They had another boy who was a year younger than Cassidy and a six-month-old sitting in her carrier beside Janice at the table. Dave owned an investment company in town and Janice worked part-time as an accountant for Debbie Lawson's firm - mostly during tax season.
Bob replied. "Let's see. First one was Bill Baker. Then it was Marty and Lynn Farber. Who else?"
Nate Mikkels spoke up. "Dean Masters and Vinnie Carver. He's out north of town. He was furious. They broke out a back window to get in and the next morning it rained before he got up, soaked his whole worktable."
"Carver's father-in-law got hit too," Bob said. "Then that new guy, Gavin Riddle. He works for you, right, Henry?"
Henry nodded. "And Uncle Dick."
"Yeah, that's right," Bob said. "It seems like we're missing a couple. But there's no pattern that I c
an see. They're going after random folks."
"Bennie and Jules Farrow," Sylvie said. "She was pretty upset the morning after. Said she wasn't going home until Bennie bought a big, loud dog."
"And Drew Dilmeyer." That came from Benji Davis. He and his wife Sandy had a little boy, Will, who had already faced cancer at a very young age. Benji was a lawyer and Sandy a work-from-home architect. She came out on Sunday nights once in a while to eat pizza with Polly and the others, but she was pregnant again and her life was pretty busy.
Henry stiffened in his seat.
"What?" Polly whispered.
He reached forward and took the pencil she'd set beside her Bible, then scratched a note on the handout they were using. "I'm the pattern."
Polly turned and frowned at him, mouthing, "What?"
He nodded, his eyes trying to make her understand. He wrote again. "Every single person on that list. I'm the link. I either built their house, put up an outbuilding, renovated something, or else they work for me. Then, there's Uncle Dick. I'm the point of convergence."
"No way," she wrote back. "There has to be something else. Why would thieves focus on your clients and employees?"
He shook his head, his lips set in a flat line. Then he flipped the paper over, numbered a list and wrote down the names they'd just heard. Beside each name, he specified the work he'd done for them. He finished the list with Gavin Riddle, Dick Mercer, and Leroy Forster. Then he wrote the number ten, circled it and wrote, "Who's next?"
Pastor Dunlap walked in and took the open seat beside Polly. She reached over, flipped the handout back over and put her hand on Henry's knee. This had to wait, though she knew he'd be thinking of nothing else all morning.
After Sunday School finished, she took off to find Cassidy. The boys knew where they needed to be, and Cassidy could probably find her way to the sanctuary, but there was no reason to tempt fate. She left Henry with Eliseo and Sylvie, hoping they'd distract him from his thoughts.
He was a million miles away through the service and she prodded him back to awareness when the kids' choir sang. Elijah did a good job as their accompanist. When the director released the kids back to their families, he slid in between her and Henry, suddenly shy at any attention that might come his way.
The Sounds of Home Page 14
