All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood)

by Diane Greenwood Muir

  "Being young and stupid, the only thing he could think to do was to try to hide the evidence. He dragged them into the trees, went back to his truck and got an old shovel, then dug a deep hole and buried them and everything they had with them. He drove away, tossed the shovel in the Des Moines River, then came home. All he had to do was roll back into his driveway, sneak back into the house and get up the next morning like nothing had happened.

  "For a while he thought he'd pulled something off. He had a secret that no one else had, but you all saw what that did to him. It destroyed him, though he couldn't tell anyone why.

  "He left after graduation and headed for Florida. After his parents moved away, then died, he thought about coming home. He had changed his appearance, so was fairly certain no one would recognize him. He changed his name, moved to Boone, and started doing odd jobs and household repairs. In the early nineties, he got a job working for a construction company and then one year, probably 1995 or so, they got the contract to clear the land and put up a development right where he had buried the girls. He knew the bodies would be found, so before the process started, he dug them up."

  Andy looked at the others in the room, who nodded. She put a piece of chicken on his plate and said, "Would you like something more? You're doing well so far, Aaron."

  He picked up the plate, looked over at the bar and said, "Oh, no problem. I can get it." He stood up and walked over, while the rest looked around in confusion.

  "How did that happen?" Beryl asked. "He was doing so well and then he left us! Oh, hurry back, Mr. Storyteller. We're not finished with you yet," she sang out.

  "Oh, let's all get a quick refill," Polly said, "I could use some more wine. Especially since I'm not driving tonight," and she winked at Sylvie.

  "Drink up, Polly. I'll get you home. Tomorrow morning is your own problem," Sylvie chuckled.

  Lydia stayed on the couch with her knees tucked up underneath her.

  "Are you alright, Lydia?" Sylvie asked.

  "I feel like I'm hearing a horrible story about someone else. But, I knew those girls and I knew Buddy. I didn't recognize him as Marvin Davis. How did I miss that?"

  "We all missed it," Andy said. "He was in my class. I should have recognized him right away, but I didn't."

  "Oh, girls, who knows why we missed it. But, honestly, why would we have ever expected him to come back to town? After he left and everyone lost track of him there's no way we would look for him again. He got so weird his senior year no one wanted to hang out with him anyway. No one missed him when he left," Beryl said.

  With their plates and glasses refilled, everyone returned to their seats.

  Polly asked Lydia, "Are you sure there isn't anything else you'd like? Some more wine? I'll get it for you." She stood back up and took Lydia's glass from her, walked back to the bar, refilled it and returned it.

  "Thank you, Polly." She put her hand over Aaron's, "Alright, dear. Talk and eat. Talk and eat. Just like we taught you when the kids were little."

  He laughed and took another bite. Deliberately speaking with a mouth filled with potatoes, he mumbled, "But you told us not to talk with our mouths full!"

  Then he winked at his wife, swallowed, and began again.

  "Marvin … or Buddy, heard that the school here in Bellingwood was closed and boarded up.

  Aaron stopped, "Oh, and this part makes sense after talking with Mr. Leon yesterday. We went through yearbooks together and he pointed out some of the boys who spent time with him, working on small projects around the school. He gave them a little extra spending money if he thought they needed it. He thought Buddy needed it because he seemed to be so far out of his league with Kellie Stevens and then after the twins’ disappearance, he felt badly for the kid, so he let him spend time in the boiler room when he couldn't sit through another class.”

  He nodded, while thinking. "He said he did that with several boys over the years, just to give them a little extra push in their lives so they wouldn't feel quite so alone."

  Lydia interjected, "See. I knew that old guy wasn't so bad. Now, we're going to have to find a way to help him out."

  "I'm not sure he's going to be very excited about you helping him out, Lydia," Aaron said.

  "Like she'll give him a choice," Beryl laughed. "She's already talking about ways we can all get in there and start hauling crap out. I'm going to have to buy a haz-mat suit before she gets me in there."

  "We'll get you all haz-mat suits," Aaron said. "It's probably not sanitary. There's at least twenty years of filth and stuff built up." He turned to his wife, "Don't you go in there before talking to me, okay?"

  "Alright," she acquiesced. "But we are going in and we're going to get him back into the world. Deal with it."

  "Anyway," Aaron continued, "Mr. Leon remembers that Buddy did know about that extra room under the school. He pulled old comic books and other books out of crates and sat down there reading when he couldn't handle being in class."

  "I can't believe people let him get away with that!" Andy exclaimed, "If I hadn't been in class, they'd have called my parents."

  "Well," Lydia said, "They probably did call his parents, but those two didn't have any idea what to do with their son. They couldn't believe he was such a mess because his girlfriend and her sister were gone. Since everyone assumed they'd been kidnapped for whatever reason, they figured Buddy felt bad because he hadn't been around to protect them."

  "Now, back to Buddy's story," Polly said, waving off commentary from her friends.

  Aaron continued. "Buddy knew how to get in and out of that school. He'd been over it many times with Mr. Leon and then on his own. No one ever paid any attention to him. They ignored him because they didn't want to deal with his grief, so he had free access to the school. He pried the door open back by the stage and left it that way, watching it for several weeks to see if anyone noticed. No one did."

  "What in the hell had he done with the bodies?" Beryl asked. "That's creepy!"

  "They were just bones by the time he pulled them out of the ground," Aaron said. "He bought a couple of big plastic tubs and stowed them in his garage. Who would pay any attention to that?"

  "When he realized that no one investigated the opened door at the school, he took the tubs in and spent the next couple of months sealing the bones into the ceiling of the upstairs bathroom where Doug found them. He said he rinsed out the tubs and still uses them for storage."

  "Then why did he put his coat down in the crate? I assume that was his coat and t-shirt?" Polly asked.

  "I'm not sure exactly what his reasoning was behind that. I asked him and he stammered around a little bit about it. He'd worn the coat every time he came up here to work on the ceiling and he changed out of the t-shirt the night he finished the project so that he could leave it all behind. He found the crate of stuff from his senior year and stowed it in there, thinking it was safe. Then, he left the school, figuring he'd never see any of this again.

  "Five years ago he hoped it had been long enough and moved back into town. He was right. No one recognized him and we accepted him as Marvin Davis. He made friends, getting to know some of his old classmates and was glad to be back.

  "Until this last summer when Polly bought the school. The poor guy said he hoped he’d be dead before anyone got back in that school. When he found out that Henry was going to be doing the wood working and floors, he had enough background to apply for a job. I think at some point he knew it was nearly over and he wanted to be on site when everything fell apart around him.

  "He nearly confessed to you, Polly, when he was talking to you in the kitchen about death. But things happened so fast, that it didn't seem to be the right time. He’s also the one who took the key. He told me that he opened the newel post that day they were dropping off the boards for the flooring. I think he was rather startled when the lock was changed so quickly. And then no one suspected him, so he kept working.”

  Beryl snarled, "I want to know how he lived with himself
for the last forty years. I know I couldn't if I had done something like that."

  "Let's hope you never have to find out, honey," Lydia said.

  "What's going to happen to him now?" Sylvie asked.

  "Well, the county is going to press charges for Jill's death, for sure. They'll probably go ahead and press forward on Kellie's death, but he didn't seem to be lying. In fact, I think he was glad to get it all out and be finished. They couldn't have saved Kellie's life, so I didn't recommend negligent homicide or anything there." Aaron responded.

  "What about Linda and Sandy? Have you told them yet?" Andy asked. "I should probably go see them."

  "We have a counselor meeting with them tomorrow afternoon. They know it was Buddy ... or Marvin, now." Aaron said, "The remains will be released to them next week."

  "They will probably appreciate your help planning the memorial service, honey," Lydia said to Andy.

  "Alright," Andy responded. "I’ll give Sandy a call tomorrow night after this is all over. Oh, what a mess this turned out to be."

  Beryl stood up and went to the bar, returning with wine bottles. She refilled Polly's and Lydia's. Sylvie and Andy both refused any more, then she poured the rest of the open bottle in her glass and set the other on the table.

  "Polly, you certainly have stirred this town up in the last few weeks," she said.

  "I don't know what to say to that. Sometimes it felt as if I opened a closet door and everything fell out on top of me!"

  Beryl lifted her glass, "Well at least you weren't the one under those bones!" She shuddered.

  Lydia turned her body so she could snuggle into her husband, "Like it or not, Bellingwood is better for knowing this little mystery is solved. I bet everyone in town had pretty much forgotten about it except for Linda and Sandy, and now they can have closure and people around here can support them one more time.

  "Andy, you'll let us know how we can help, right?" she asked.

  Andy was staring off into space, running her index finger around the rim of her practically empty wine glass. "What?" she said. "Oh. Sure. I don't know what they'll want to do, but hopefully they will let us do something nice for them. There are still plenty of folks around who remember those girls."

  "Do you have coffee made, Lydia?" Andy asked.

  Lydia moved to get off the couch, "No, but I can make some up in a hurry."

  "No, you sit. It's all over here at the bar, isn't it?"

  "Yep. The coffee is in the refrigerator and you know where the pot is." Lydia tucked herself back in beside Aaron. "How was the chicken, sweet-ums?" she asked.

  "You know it was wonderful." He reached over to take another piece from the platter Andy had placed on the table.

  "Oh, no you don't!" exclaimed Lydia.

  "What? I told you everything!" he whimpered.

  "You've eaten three pieces of that stuff and two helpings of everything else. You are going to be miserable when you go to bed and I don't want to listen to your moaning all night."

  Aaron put his plate on the table and slumped back in his seat. "Fine," he moped. "Just fine. Will you let me have some dessert?"

  "I've got it!" Polly jumped out of her seat and went to the bar. She picked up the two platters of goodies and brought them back to the table, which was filled with the dinner plates. Beryl stood up to clear things off for a space and the two of them carried the dirty plates and the chicken platter upstairs.

  "Don't worry, Lydia!" Beryl called back down. "We're not going to do the dishes or anything like that. We'll just get these out of the way."

  Upstairs, they scraped the dishes and placed them into the sink. They headed back for the stairway and Beryl caught Polly's arm.

  "We're all glad you are here, but you're going to be good for Lydia. She needs some young friends around who don't treat her like a big important town matriarch. She's gotten comfortable with you and I like it. You're not like a daughter to her, even if she says that. It's not true. You're a friend. She needs more of those. Let her take care of you when you need it, but tell her to back off when you're done. Okay?"

  "Alright," Polly said, hesitantly. "I think I get it."

  "Good," Beryl replied, "I intend to keep you around for a while because I like you too." She suddenly pulled Polly into a hug, then released her and acted as if she were racing her back down the steps.

  "I won!" she called out when she hit the last step. "Is that coffee done yet, Andy?"

  "What? No more wine for you?" Andy asked.

  "If I had any more wine, old fart over there would make me do something I didn't want to do." Beryl grinned.

  "Yeah?" Aaron asked. "Like what?"

  "Like let you drive me home or make me sleep upstairs or some other horrible thing," she retorted.

  Lydia started to speak and Beryl interrupted her. "No, none of us are spending the night here tonight. We'll sit around and eat your goodies and drink coffee and then go home to our nice little houses. You've had your sad day cooking marathon and now your sweet-ums is home for the night, so when we've stuffed sugar in our tummies and cleaned up the mess, we'll leave you two to run around the house nekkid or something."

  Aaron dropped his head in his hands, "I didn't marry all of these women, how is it they are in my life?" he mumbled.

  "What was that, Aaron?" Polly asked.

  "Nothing. It's just that Lydia's friend list keeps growing and none of you have burly men around to keep me sane. Will one of you try to find a man in the next few months, please?" he begged.

  Beryl's eyes rolled, "Well y'all know it isn't gonna be me. There isn't a man this side of the Atlantic that I'd tolerate in my house."

  Andy and Sylvie both giggled into their coffee.

  "What are you two giggling about?" she asked.

  Andy replied, "Well, I, for one, was thinking about a burly Russian man trying to wrangle you into obedience. It made me laugh. A lot." And the whole room burst out into giggles.

  "And you, smart stuff?" Beryl asked Sylvie.

  "Honestly, I was thinking that I didn't want a man in my life either. I have two boys and that is plenty of testosterone for me. But, I like the Russian man image better."

  The rest of the evening passed as the women laughed at their war stories from old dates. Aaron fell asleep sometime after his third glass of wine.

  At ten o'clock, Sylvie said, "I need to get the boys home. Are you about ready to go, Polly?"

  "I sure am," Polly said. "Let's get some more of this stuff upstairs."

  "No way," Lydia replied. "I've got this. I'll leave the old man here while I clean and then stir him when it's time to head upstairs."

  Aaron growled, "The old man is awake. I'll help you take the stuff up."

  "Everyone grab a handful," Beryl called out. "It will be done in one trip that way, then we can all go home guilt free."

  The lights were all on at the school when they drove up and Sylvie said, "I love seeing it all lit up like this again. Thanks for doing this, Polly."

  "Wait until you see all of the plans I have for it. We're going to have a great time!" Polly replied.

  They went inside and both dogs rushed to greet them at the front door. Obiwan jumped into Polly's arms and she carried him around the steps. The boys were sprawled out on the floor in front of the kitchen, playing video games on laptops and handhelds. Plates and cups and wrappers were scattered on the counter.

  Doug leaped up and said, "Oh! You're back! Did you guys have a good time?"

  "Not as good a time as it looks like you had!" Polly said.

  Andrew ran up to his mom, who reached out to hug him close. "This was the best, mom. Can we do it again?"

  "I'm sure we'll figure something out. I'm glad you guys had fun. Now, let's get this mess cleaned up and we'll head home. You have to get up and go to church in the morning!"

  Jason looked up from the game he was playing, "Aw, mom. I'm not done yet. Can't we stay a little longer?"

  "Nope, not tonight, Jason. Save your game and let's g
et going. Don't argue with me."

  He was obviously accustomed to that tone of voice and rapidly did as she asked. The six of them gathered the trash and Sylvie's dishes, making quick work of the kitchen. Doug and Billy gathered up their things.

  Billy said to Polly, "I've had a good time hanging out here. I think you've got a good thing going. Thanks for letting us play here with our friends."

  She squeezed his shoulder. "Thank you." Polly pulled cash out of her purse and Billy stopped her. "No, me and Doug talked about this. We're not taking your money. We have as much fun as anyone and you let us bring our friends over here, so we still owe you."

  "Alright, then. But, I haven't forgotten about dinner!" she said as everyone walked to the front door. Big Jack leaped out of the door as soon as it was open and Obiwan tried to follow. Polly grabbed his collar and held on.

  They said their goodnights and drove away. Polly shut the front door and walked around, turning lights off. She and Obiwan walked up the stairs and into her apartment.

  "This has been a wild few weeks, little guy. What say we have a nice, calm day tomorrow? Would that be alright?"

  He licked her face in affirmation.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Yes! Yes! I’m up!” Polly felt a cold tongue on her face and opened her eyes. Obiwan was lying beside her in the bed.

  "How did? Oh, I forgot! Oh dear!" She sat straight up and looked around the room. Nothing was out of place and the door was shut. The dog tucked himself in beside her and looked up expectantly. "You slept here all night, didn't you?" He stood up in the bed and she ran her hand down his back several times, then pulled his bottom close to hers so he was sitting beside her. "Well, as long as you can be good, I guess there's no reason for you to sleep in the kennel."

  By now both of them were fully awake and she stood up. "It's supposed to be a beautiful day. Let's take a long walk this morning by the creek, okay?"

  He wagged his tail and she picked him up and set him on the floor as she pulled on jeans and a t-shirt. She put a flannel shirt on over that and then tugged a sweatshirt over her head. Thick socks and her hiking boots went on and Polly snagged ear muffs and a pair of gloves out of a box on her floor. "I'm ready now and I think you have everything you need. Let's go."