Diane Greenwood Muir - Bellingwood 05 - Life Between the Lines (13 page)

“Sorry guys,” she said. “I thought about proposing to Henry and it made me laugh. He’d kill me. As much as he says that we can do things our own way, he’s still pretty traditional.”

The animals listened as she spoke and she leaned forward to scratch Luke’s ears. Leia had curled up beside him and reached out a paw. Polly took it in her hand, feeling the warmth radiate from it. She released it and rubbed her hand down Leia’s back, swirling her tail around before sitting back again.

“What’s my problem?” she asked them. “I don’t think I’m ready to settle down. It’s not like I’m looking for anyone else, but I’m not finished being Polly Giller yet. I like waking up in the mo
rning alone with you guys. Sure, there are times I’d like to have Henry here and I think I’d like to snuggle with him in the mornings, but not all the time. I’m not ready to give that up. Am I being selfish?”

The cats blinked at her and then curled back in on themselves.

“You are absolutely no help,” she scolded. “And I don’t know who else to talk to about this. The girls all think I should be married. I know that Aaron and Henry would like to have me married because they think I’d be safe that way. Stupid men.”

Her phone buzzed again,
“Hey. You there?”
It was Henry.

She looked at the list of texts. Whoops. She’d forgotten to respond
. “Sorry. Got caught up in something. I love you too. Doing lunch with the girls today. You weren’t planning on going with me tonight, were you?”

“Nope. Not tonight. If I don’t talk to you before, drive safe and text me when you’re there and when you’re leaving.”

“I will. I promise. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

She opened her video chat program and dialed Jeff’s computer. He was sitting at his desk. “What’s up, Polly?”

“I’m working upstairs this morning and then I have lunch with the girls at Davey’s
. Are you okay without me?”

“
I’m fine. There are a couple of meetings going on, but nothing catastrophic. What’s up in the kitchen?”

She chuckled. “We had a little vandalism again last night. Did you get another email?”

“Oh, I just got in, I haven’t looked yet. Just a second.”

She watched him peering at his computer screen, then he said. “Yeah. I got another one. It says,
‘Pretty rocks for a pretty girl
.’ That sounds creepy, Polly.”

“I know,” she said. “He threw three rocks through the glass panes. I have no idea what’s going on.”

“Do you want me to call Ken?”

“I called last night. They sent someone over
and there’s nothing they can do. We don’t have enough information.”

“Should I call about the glass?”

“Henry already did. They’ll be here tomorrow.”

“Well thanks, I feel totally helpless right now. I don’t like that.”

“Neither do I, but what can we do?”

“What are you working on?” he asked, “See, I changed the subject. Did that help?”

“It did,” she said. “I have an idea about these files that Thomas gave me, but if I don’t get working on them, I’m going to run out of time. I’ve already wasted too much time this morning being a girl.”

“Being a girl?” he asked.

“Yeah. Worrying about silly stuff. Now I’m going to get to work. If you need me, holler.”

“Cool. See you later.”

He clicked off and his image left the screen. Polly pulled the book closer to her and did a quick search for Edgar Allan Poe online. When the amount of information overwhelmed her, she opened up the book. This was going to take a while.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

One more story or poem by Poe and Polly was going to moan. She was tired of this. She’d read
Tamerlane
and
The Gold Bug
, some of his poems, and had gotten lost in a few of her favorite stories, but she couldn’t make sense of how to associate these files with what she was reading.

She
had been interrupted several times. Sheriff Merritt released the crime scene and she had to wait for a cleanup crew to deal with the room. He’d found nothing to incriminate anyone on Thomas’s laptop, so Polly let Natalie Dormand know that the it was coming back. The woman seemed glad to hear it, but looked wan and weary. She asked Polly if there was a possibility of her staying for several more days so Polly sent her to Jeff.

Her first look at the middle bedroom had
been when she’d opened the door for the cleanup crew. Her heart fell. She knew the mattress would need to be replaced, but the beautiful writing desk had been smashed in the struggle and there was blood spattered on the rug and the floor. The crew leader assured her that the floor would be fully cleaned up and asked how she wanted to deal with the rug. She told him that everything could be replaced and to simply get rid of it, hoping that would make his job easier. They had donned their protective suits and gone to work. She went back to her apartment and collapsed on the sofa.

“It has to be easier than this, Obiwan,” she said, stroking his head. He was lying beside her, his head in her lap
, his tail wagging. “You want to go outside, don’t you.”

He
jumped off the couch and ran for the bedroom, so she followed and they went outside. Obiwan took off for the tree line. It was one of his favorite places to explore. Polly followed more slowly, her mind still trying to figure out Thomas’s puzzle. He should have given her some clue. She stopped and shut her eyes, thinking back to one of their conversations.

He’d come down to the horse pen, watching Polly exercise Daisy. Eliseo had gone to Boone for supplies and she was glad for the company. Thomas didn’t seem to want anything, he was just watching the horse. When she released Daisy into the pasture, she came back to stand beside him.

“Do you ever want children, Polly?” he’d asked her.

“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“I was watching the time you take with your horses. You have to really exert control over them or they’d take over. Do you suppose it’s that way with kids, too?”

She had laughed. That was one of the things that
scared her about being responsible for a child. Polly knew she had a strong personality and was terrified of trying to find the balance between being too harsh and being too lenient. She didn’t figure a child would have a chance in her crazy life.

“Why do you laugh?” he’d asked.

“Raising a kid scares me to death. When I see what Sylvie has done with her boys, I’m so proud of her I can’t stand it. But she worries over them all the time and I’m not ready for that.”

“You’d be great at it,” he said.

“I don’t know. It just seems overwhelming. What about you?”

He’d gone quiet, then said, “Polly
, I was such a mess that I would have devastated children. My Nelly? Any child would be lucky to have her for a mother.”

“Have you ever
searched for her?”

Thomas didn’t respond. He just looked off into the pasture and watched Nat and Demi bouncing around, nipping at each other. Polly let out a whistle, one that Eliseo had taught her, and caught their attention. They stopped what they were doing and wandered to the pile of hay.

“See, you’d make a great mother,” he said to her.

“They’re horses. I won’t have to pay for therapy when
they get older.”

He’d gotten quiet and they walked back up to Sycamore House together. He didn’t seem to want to be alone that day, so she had taken time to talk to him and listen to what he had to say.

Polly came back to reality and looked for Obiwan. He was sniffing in and around the trees. She whistled and he ran to her. “I feel better about letting you run without a leash,” she said to him. “I appreciate you being so obedient.” She crouched down and hugged him. “You’re a good dog. Let’s go on in.”

They went upstairs and she checked the time. It was only eleven forty-five, so she sat back down and opened the book again, remembering another conversatio
n she and Thomas had about Poe. She’d asked him which single piece was his favorite.

He’d laughed. “Everyone thinks that
The Raven
is his best piece. It’s probably his most popular, but I’m partial to
Annabel Lee
. There is so much love in that poem.” He’d paused and his face grew sad. “And so much loss. When I lost my love, I read that poem over and over again. It felt like the angels had stolen her from me. She didn’t have a sepulchre by the sea, no place I could go to mourn. The only place I could let it out was in my books.”

Polly started. It had to be
Annabel Lee
. She opened the book and began reading the poem. This had to be it. Now what was he doing with it? How did he associate this with the files on the drive? And for that matter, why had he turned this into a puzzle?

Then, she saw it at the bottom corner of the page. Someone, it had to have been Thomas, had drawn an itty bitty heart in pencil. Not enough to cause her to open to that page, but enough to tell her that she was on the right track.

She did a quick search online and found the poem, then copied it into her note program. Then Polly turned back to the folder on her laptop. There were thirty-three files at the top level … that matched to the thirty-three lines in the poem. She was getting closer. This had to be it. She could feel the excitement building.

Her phone’s alarm buzzed at her. What in the world? She checked it and saw that her calendar app was reminding her to meet everyone for lunch in fifteen minutes.

“Dammit.” She slammed the laptop lid down, pushed her phone into her back pocket, and strode to the front door. The animals looked up, cat eyes blinking sleepily at her. Obiwan followed her to the door, hopeful to go with her.

“No, you can’t go. But why don’t you all try to figure out Thomas’s puzzle for me, okay?” She scratched Obiwan’s head and slipped out the front door, leaving him behind.

Two members of the cleaning crew were hauling large plastic bags down the steps. They smiled at her apologetically. What a horrible job.

She stopped in to see Jeff in his office, “I’m going to Davey’s to have lunch with the girls.”

He laughed at her. “The girls? Do you know how that sounds?”

“I know, I know … a bunch of hens. Is everything going okay? Do you need me?”

“Nope. It’s all good. Have fun.”

The door of the classroom across the hall was closed. She could never remember what group was meeting where, but Jeff kept the place busy. She picked up the pace and cut throug
h the kitchen out to her garage.

The parking lot at Davey’s wasn’t as busy as usual, and Polly assumed most of the lunch crowd was already back to work. She parked by Lydia’s Jeep and looked
up when she heard a car roar into the lot. Sylvie pulled up beside her and jumped out.

“Am I late?” she asked. “I got caught behind this fool of a woman. Fifty-two miles an hour. Are you kidding me with this?”

Polly snorted with laughter. “I just got here. You aren’t late and besides, is there a schedule I don’t know about?”

Sylvie pulled her bag out of the back seat. “I guess not, but I wanted to scream. There is never any traffic on this road and the day I get behind someone who won’t even go the speed limit, there are tractors and pickups and … well, everyone coming at us.”

“Maybe you need a drink,” Polly said.

“I’d love one, but I have a meeting at three and I don’t think this bride’s mother would appreciate a drunken chef.”

Polly took Sylvie’s arm. “How was Jason this morning?”

“He was fine. Not terribly happy with having to go to school, but I didn’t give him any option. He knows that if he fakes being sick, he can’t work in the barn. That’s been a wonderful motivator. I don’t know what
he’ll do when he’s really sick.”

She looked up at Polly. “I don’t know what I’m going to do when either of them are sick. I hadn’t thought about that. They’re always so healthy. Now that I’m out of town, how will I take care of them?”

“Stop it,” Polly scolded. “They’ll come over and hang out on my couch with the animals. I can feed them fluids and keep them warm. You never have to worry about that.”

Sylvie squeezed Polly’s arm, “I don’t know what I’d do without you. Who needs a husband when I have a friend like you?”

“Exactly,” Polly agreed. “Who needs one of those?” She realized that she missed hanging out with these women. They gave her all sorts of confidence. Sylvie raised two boys on her own. Beryl had kicked one husband out, buried another and loved being single. Andy was dating someone after spending several years alone. She’d loved her husband and then loved being single. It gave her time to do all the things she enjoyed doing.

Lydia was the only one of them who was still happily married and now that her kids were mostly gone, she and Aaron
had a good life together. He didn’t get in the way of the wild things she enjoyed doing and when she needed him, he was there. For that matter, Lydia took care of him when he needed her, too. They had figured out how to be independent and together all at the same time. Polly wasn’t sure how they’d worked it out, but assumed it had something to do with many years of trial and error.

Beryl was waving madly from a table in the dining room. She was
nearly out of her seat when Polly saw her and waved back.

“We’re with them,” she said to the hostess, who smiled and nodded and
allowed them to find their own way to the table.

“It’s about time,” Beryl said. “I thought you were going to be late.”

“We’re not late,” Polly said, “And besides, that late stuff nearly made Sylvie have a heart attack on the way back here. Am I right?” She poked Sylvie, who laughed as she sat down by Andy.

“No, it was the slowpoke that nearly made me have a keel over. I’m not sure why I was so worried about getting here on time, but she had me all worked up.”

“What’s the special today?” Polly asked.

Andy responded. “It’s a steak and pepper salad. It sounds really good. That’s what I’m having.”

“Gotta watch your weight, eh?” Beryl asked, flicking a bag of crackers at her friend.

“Exactly,” Andy said. “I don’t want to start looking like you.”

“Hey there,” Beryl laughed. “You could only pray for a figure like this.” Beryl was stick thin. She was one of those women who had made it through her fifties and into her sixties without ever worrying about her weight.

“I hate you,” Andy said. “You’re the bane of my existence.”

“You’d have a boring existence without me, old lady,” Beryl snapped. She turned to Polly, “Guess what we did yesterday?”

“I have no idea,” Polly looked at Lydia, who shrugged.

“We went to Ames.”             

“Okay?” Polly pressed.

“We went to Ames because Andy had to take flowers to her daughter’s apartment for the winter. Apparently, Amy is really good with these things. But then, guess what else we did?”

“Ummm, you went to a strip club?” Polly asked.

“That would have been better.” Beryl turned to Andy. “Why don’t you ever think of interesting things like that for us to do.”

Andy rolled her eyes and waved her right hand for Beryl to get on with it.

“We went to the Iowa State theater department to check out their costumes for your ball. I think we’re on it. We’ll be beautiful! But Andy didn’t like the corset.”

“They’re horrible!” Andy said.

“I kind of like it,” Polly laughed. “I feel all put together.”

“You wouldn’t want to stay in it very long. Especially when you’re my age,” Andy complained.