"I don't know," she said. "Henry and I are out driving around."
"Did you find something we need to deal with?"
"Well ..."
"Oh, Polly, no."
"I'm sorry, Aaron."
"Is it from the storm?"
"I don't think so. He's got a hole in his head."
"We'll get someone to you as soon as we can. Where are you?"
"It's Henry's Uncle Loren. We're down the road from his place."
"Did Henry see this?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Take care of him and we'll be right there."
"You aren't even giving me any trouble about this?"
"No," Aaron sighed. "I don't have the energy. This is going to be a long, damned night."
"I'm sorry."
"Not your problem. You find 'em, we deal with 'em."
"Thanks, Aaron."
Henry was pacing back and forth down the road. Polly walked down to join him. "How are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm fine. What did Aaron say?"
"Someone will be here soon. I'm sorry, honey."
He stopped walking. "No one liked him. He was a rotten old man. He was mean to my parents and he hated having kids around. Even when we were growing up, he said terrible things to us. Lonnie and I drove out here a couple of years ago with Christmas gifts and he didn't even open them, just flung them on the lawn and told us to go home. Said he didn't need our charity."
"How was it that he's so different than your dad?"
"I don't know if it was PTSD or what. That's probably it, but he refused to talk to anybody. He wouldn't go to the doctor and wouldn't let anyone on his land."
Henry waved his arm, motioning to the fields around them. "He owned all of this. He lived with my grandparents after he came back. I suppose Grandma and Grandpa and Loren all kind of took care of each other. After Grandpa died, Grandma stayed here until she was in bad enough shape that she had to go to a nursing home.
Henry pointed to the east. "Aunt Betty and Uncle Dick have more of the farm over there. They bought Dad's portion. He never wanted to be a farmer. But they did most of the work on Loren's portion, too, paying him rent for the fields." He chuffed out a breath. "He wouldn't let anyone in the house after Grandma was gone. No one knows what he did with all of her things."
"I can't call Dad or Aunt Betty about this. I need to tell them face to face."
"I know. Don't worry, I'll go with you." Polly had met Henry's Aunt Betty and Uncle Dick once in passing when they'd been at the house one weekend. She knew that his family had grown up around here, but had never really gotten to know much more than that. He kept warning her that his family was bigger than she knew and while she'd met some of them at the party last night, he made sure she understood those were only a small part of the group.
Henry put his arms around her and held her close. "I'm glad you're in my life."
"I love you, too."
He pushed her away from him and she looked up into his face. He was grinning. "Even if you do find my family's dead bodies."
"Stop it. It's not my fault. You're the one who drove out here."
"Yes, but if you hadn't come with me, maybe ..."
"Stop it right there. Don't you dare make me out to be the Grim Reaper. He's dead whether or not I showed up here today."
"I couldn't resist," he said, chuckling. "That was just too easy."
"Brat." She took his hand and they walked back to the truck. "So, I think this whole vacation needs to be canceled."
"I don't like it, but you're right."
"I was thinking about it and maybe we should schedule it in October before your parents leave Bellingwood for the winter. You'll be at the end of most of the big projects and you can schedule the others around our trip. Your dad will still be here to manage things when we're gone and we can be back before Halloween and all of the holidays."
"The weather would be a lot more pleasant, but some of the tourist things might be closed for the season."
"I don't care about that."
"I should know that. We'll talk more later. For now, this is going to be a really busy week."
Polly slipped her arm around his waist. "I love you."
"I love you too. Thanks for dealing with this stuff with my uncle."
Flashing lights were approaching as they arrived at Henry's truck.
"All I did was make a phone call. But I'll be here through all of this."
He hugged her. "I love you."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Later that evening, Polly and Henry pulled into the drive of his parent's home. They hadn't taken time to look at any other damage in town, since he desperately wanted to get to his Dad before the news came from somewhere else. She took his hand as they went up the steps to the front porch.
Lonnie opened the door and looked at the two of them with confusion on her face, "What are you doing here?"
"We need to talk to Mom and Dad," Henry said.
Her confusion turned to fear. "Did something happen?"
"It will be okay," he said, nodding slightly. "But yeah."
"They're in the back yard. We've been cleaning up since we got home. I just got back from checking on Mrs. Naylor. She lost a basement window, but she's fine."
"Why are you here, Henry?" Bill Sturtz asked as he came in the front room, followed closely by his wife. "We saw your truck pull in."
"We went out to check on Uncle Loren." Henry stepped forward, dropping Polly's hand. "Dad, he's been killed."
"By the storm? What happened out there?"
Marie wrapped her arm around her husband's arm, waiting for Henry to respond.
He took a deep breath. "It wasn't the storm. Someone shot him. We found him in his truck about a half mile down the road from his house."
"Oh Bill," Marie said.
"What did that damned fool get himself into?" Bill gripped the back of the rocking chair. "Does Betty know yet?"
"No, I thought you might want to go with me to tell her."
"Let your mother and me do it. You have enough other things to worry about. Who did you call, Aaron or Ken Wallers?"
Henry gave his dad a slight smile. "You haven't been around enough to know that when Polly finds someone, she calls Aaron. So, the Sheriff has this."
"You are quite the young woman," Bill said. "I suppose I'm glad that it was you who found him."
"I'm so sorry for your loss," Polly said.
"I'd always hoped he might come around and be part of the family again. I guess we won't have that chance now."
Lonnie had separated herself from the group and taken a seat on the sofa, so Polly went over to sit beside her. "Are you okay?"
The girl shrugged. "Yeah. It's strange to think about someone like him dying. I thought he'd be mean forever." She looked at her parents. "We need to get his cats and dog. And there are all of those chickens, too. I hope they're all safe after the storm."
"I forgot about those," Bill said. "We'll go over to Betty's and then check the house."
"Stu Decker was going to give you a call so you could let them into the house," Henry said. "I told him about the animals and he said he'd wait for one of us to show up."
Bill took a breath. "Okay. Let's do it this way. You and Lonnie and Polly go to the house. Marie and I will head over to Betty and Dick's to tell them what happened."
On the way back out of town, Henry half-turned to Lonnie in the back seat of his truck. "Do you remember what the name of Loren's dog was?"
"It's Duke or Prince or something like that, isn't it? And he's got a houseful of cats."
"We can put food down and make sure there's plenty of water," Henry said. "I'm not taking a bunch of cats back to our house until we know what we have going on with them."
"I'm sorry about your honeymoon," Lonnie said. "You two deserve to get out of town for a while."
Henry snickered. "Polly has been trying to talk me out of this trip for the last three weeks. If I didn't know better ..."
"Hey!" he said. "That's not what I was going to say. I was going to accuse you of having a premonition about it."
Polly shuddered. "I don't like that idea any more than causing it. I just didn't think this was a good time to go. There are so many things happening around here."
"There are always things happening around here."
Lonnie leaned forward. "Do you think Dad is sad that Uncle Loren died?"
"I don't know," Henry said and put his hand on the back of the seat, trying to reach her. "How about you?"
"He was a crusty old bastard. I don't think anybody should die like that, but I don't feel like his death is going to change anything for me. Is that awful, Polly? I feel kind of guilty for not being more upset by this."
Polly squirmed so she could turn in her seatbelt. "When Dad died, I felt guilty that I wasn't home, but Mary told me that I couldn't do that. I'd done nothing wrong and Dad was thrilled that I was happy. She talked to me a lot about guilt. About thinking through decisions before I made them. If I was going to feel guilty, I needed to not do it and if I was going to go ahead and do something, I needed to do it with a clear conscience and not look back and feel guilty since I'd made a decision in good faith."
She chuckled. "I know. It's a little preachy. But that was a huge eye opener for me. I had made all of the right decisions for my life up to that point. In fact, I'd made most of them with Dad as my cheerleader. I couldn't feel guilty because I wasn't there when a horrible accident took his life."
"Okay?" Lonnie said. It was obvious that while she understood what Polly was saying, that didn't answer her question.
"Yeah, the point." Polly chuckled and patted Lonnie's hand. The girl wasn't that much younger, but because she was Henry's sister, Polly felt like she was so much older and wiser. "Anyway … you've lived your life without him in it because he was a mean old man. You've made decisions about your relationship with him based on what he allowed. You did it in good faith. You can't feel guilty that he wasn't a bigger part of your life and that your life won't be scarred by his death. Guilt won't fix your relationship or make him be alive, it will just eat away at you."
"I get that. But it really makes you think about things."
"Yes it does," Polly acknowledged.
Lonnie tapped her brother's arm, "I love you, Henry. You're a really great brother."
"I love you, too. What brought that on?"
"I don't know. I just don't want something bad to happen to one of us and not have said it."
"Stop it, silly girl. Nothing bad is going to happen."
"Well, something did and Loren never told his brother and sister that he loved them. He died a mean, miserable man and was all alone."
They turned onto the gravel road and still saw flashing lights down the road.
"Should we see if Decker is still there?" Henry asked.
"Probably a good idea," Polly said.
He pulled forward and was waved over to the side by a deputy they didn't recognize.
Henry rolled his window down. "Is Deputy Decker here? I'm Henry Sturtz."
"Oh, sure. I'll get him."
The young woman jogged down the road and into the ditch. A few minutes later, Stu Decker strode back to meet them. "Hello, Henry. Polly," he said, peering in the truck.
"We're going to the house to take care of Loren's animals. Did you want to get in there for any reason?"
"If you'd open it up for us, that would be terrific."
"Dad should be coming down the road pretty soon. He's going on to my Aunt Betty's to tell her. Will you let him through?"
The deputy nodded and said, "I'm very sorry for your loss. Deputy Hudson will follow you back. Tell her if you think someone was inside the place and if it has any bearing on this. We don't yet know why he was killed."
Henry chuckled. "I don't know if we'll be able to tell you much. The last time I was in that house, my grandmother was still alive. Uncle Loren wouldn't let any of us in after she died."
"Well, maybe you'll see something out of place."
"Sure," Henry said. "We're going to take his dog and feed his cats. There might be a lot of them there."
Stu Decker laughed. "Oh, Hudson'll love that. We already accuse her of being the crazy cat lady."
He patted the side of Henry's truck as he walked away. Rather than try to turn around in the road with all of the emergency vehicles there, Henry backed down and swung into the driveway, illuminating the cluttered front yard and dilapidated house.
"I can't tell if this mess is from the storm or if it's just Uncle Loren's junk," he said, getting out of the truck. He stopped and stood in the doorway of the truck. "Let me go first and see what that dog is going to do. No sense all of us getting attacked."
Polly reached in the glove compartment and said, "Just a second." She pulled out a bag of dog treats. "Here, take these. They'll help."
"What in the world?"
"I put them everywhere. Sometimes Obiwan needs a little extra encouragement."
He opened the bag and headed for the front door, leaving the truck running and lights on. As he reached for the door handle, another vehicle pulled in beside the truck and everything lit up as Deputy Hudson turned on all she had. Henry shaded his eyes and waved, then opened the door. In just a few moments, inside lights came on and he stepped back out, a large black and tan Rottweiler standing beside him.
Hudson turned her lights down, leaving the headlights beaming and got out of the car. "Is the dog safe?" she asked.
Henry put a treat in his hand and the dog sniffed, then ate it and wagged his tail.
"I think he's fine. Probably glad to see someone."
"Does it look like anyone broke in?" she asked.
Polly and Lonnie got out of the truck and followed her.
"If they did, they didn't have to break anything. The door has probably never been locked."
"Do you remember the dog's name?" Polly asked Lonnie, who shrugged.
"Duke!" Polly said and got no response. "Prince, come here." That didn't elicit a response either. "One more," she said. "Come here, King." The dog looked at her, but didn't move.
"Henry?" she said and he just looked at her and shook his head.
"I've got nothing."
Polly bent over and looked under the dog, then said, "Duchess?" The dog glanced at the bag of treats in Henry's hand, then walked off the porch and over to Polly.
"Really?" Henry asked "Duchess?"
"She's not a boy," Polly said, laughing. "You're useless."
"Mr. Sturtz?" Deputy Hudson stepped back out onto the porch. "Can you tell me if everything looks to be in order?" Two orange tabby cats were weaving around her legs.
Henry zipped the bag shut and tossed it at Polly, who handed it to Lonnie. "You wanna do this?" she asked.
"Are you sure she's okay?"
Polly stroked the dog's neck and rubbed her ears, causing the dog's tongue to flop out as she panted. "She'll be fine. Try a treat or two and call her by name. Keep talking to her in a normal tone of voice." She'd only had Obiwan for a year and a half and was baffled to find that she was the expert.
Henry had gone inside the house and Polly wandered over to the porch and up the steps, keeping an eye on Lonnie and the dog. She checked inside and when she looked back at Lonnie, smiled to see her squat down and accept the dog licking her face.
"She likes me!" Lonnie said excitedly.
"Just keep talking to her," Polly said. "You're doing great." She stepped in and looked around, then wondered if anything in the living room had changed since Henry's grandparents had lived there. The rug on the hard wood floor was worn and tattered, the drapes on the windows had been hung in the fifties. White sheers behind the drapes had been washed but the drapes hadn't been dry-cleaned in years. An old blue sofa and two wing chairs sat where they'd probably been placed by Loren's mother. The cushions were flat and the nap on the
material was worn thin. The room was neat and tidy, not at all what she expected. Things were old, but Polly figured he'd been comfortable in a place that was very familiar to him. He kept it as his mother had kept it.
Henry and Deputy Hudson walked back into the living room.
"This is cleaner than I expected," Polly said.
"The whole house is like this. He just didn't take care of the outside," Henry replied. "It wouldn't be that difficult to bring this house back into shape."
He handed her a large envelope. "We need to get this to Dad. It's Uncle Loren's will. I was afraid he hadn't made one out. It looks like he wrote this when Grandma and Grandpa made theirs. At least he kept everything in the family."
"What about the rest of the cats?"
"We found four more upstairs," Henry said. "I've put food out in the kitchen and we'll come back in the daylight and figure out what to do with them."
"Lonnie has the dog pretty well covered. Will your parents mind if she stays there or should we offer to take her home?"
"They won't care. And if Lonnie likes the dog, they should stay together. I'm going to step outside and call Dad. He's not going to believe this."
"The house is clean," the deputy said. "We'll look through the rest of the out buildings tonight. If we find anything we'll let you know."
Henry handed her a business card. "Call either Dad or me if you need anything. Our numbers are on there. I'm sure Aunt Betty can answer questions too."
"Thank you," she said, pocketing the card, then turned toward the yard in front. "Has it always looked this way?"
Henry and Lonnie both burst out laughing. He walked over and picked up an old rusted watering can. "As long as I can remember, this was sitting on that table over there. Probably just where Grandma left it the last time she used it. Uncle Loren always put it back if it blew off. I thought he'd nailed it down. I guess not." Henry carried it over to the table and ran his hand over the spout. "Yes, it's always looked this way." He pointed to a building and said, "That's the chicken coop and over there is where Grandpa kept his tools. The bigger building was his workshop. I have no idea what Uncle Loren did with any of those buildings. I think Uncle Dick stores a tractor in the barn there, but it's been a while since I paid any attention to that."
Tomorrow's Promises (Bellingwood Book 7) Page 10