The Witch Of Agnesi Part 12

She had to think. Alice had been having problems since the invention of rope, so Bonnie needed to isolate this particular malady. "The pedal's gone weird before."

"Had you tried fluttering it?"

The man was a mind reader. "How did you know? "How did you know?

Yes, and it even worked, but not this time."

Armen nodded, looking pensive. "Do you mind if I take a look while you take your shower?"

She shot him a mischievous smile. "Mister Callahan?"

He went red from his neck to his hairline. "I meant at the car." A smile crept onto his face. "Although-"

"Never you mind." She returned his smile. "You sure you want to get into Alice's engine? She's pretty dirty." Bonnie couldn't imagine anything she'd rather avoid than poking around the greasy innards of an old car.

"You just take your shower."

In the master bathroom, Bonnie stripped down and regarded her reflection in the vanity mirror. "You hardly qualify," Armen had said when she referred to herself as an old lady.

He couldn't mean her steelgray hair. That dropped her solidly into the old lady camp. She'd stopped dying it since Ben's death, and in the last year and a half, gray had chased off all other colors except white.

Her face, except for laugh lines around her eyes and mouth, remained as it had for the last twenty years. She was proud of those lines. Ben had liked her face, used to kiss her laugh lines, saying they were evidences of every joke he'd ever told her. She pushed that bittersweet memory aside and let her gaze travel to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and stomach.

I guess one of the benefits of starting off flat-chested is that you don't give gravity a whole lot to work with. She laid the palm of her hand on her smooth stomach. Years of hiking the mountain trails around Colorado Springs had kept her fit. Her muscled thighs and calves were proof of that. She laid the palm of her hand on her smooth stomach. Years of hiking the mountain trails around Colorado Springs had kept her fit. Her muscled thighs and calves were proof of that.

Leaning heavily on one crutch, she flexed her bicep and mugged in the mirror. Not bad. At least, she didn't have that jiggling business hanging beneath her arm. Maybe she wasn't such an old lady after all.

She decided not to inspect her backside, thinking she should quit while she was ahead. Leave well enough alone, Bonnie. Leave well enough alone, Bonnie.

It took forever and more than a little self-pity to remove the plastic boot.

After a labored effort involving sponges, wet and slippery crutches, and a lot of cursing, she emerged from the shower bedraggled but clean. She promised herself when she no longer needed the accursed crutches she'd have a ceremony to burn them. Maybe she'd give the d.a.m.n things to Rhiannon for next year's balefire.

Dressed in the same sweatshirt and jeans she'd worn for breakfast, she slid open the bedroom door. Armen stood at the kitchen sink washing his hands. Patches of grease streaked both arms and a long smear extended from his cheek, through his beard, and down his neck. A tiny speck even adorned one earlobe.

He squirted some dishwashing liquid onto a paper towel and scrubbed his elbows. He offered her a big you should be proud of me smile. "Your fuel filter was full of gook from a filthy gas tank. I pulled the filter off-little plastic and screen doohickey-rinsed it out with gasoline from your lawnmower gas can, and hooked the filter back up again. You should have seen the crud that came out."

He tapped his ear. "Listen."

At first Bonnie didn't hear anything, and then the drone of an engine rose above the other outside noises.

"Is that-?"

"Alice, the little engine that could?" He nodded, and his grin widened. "You bet your sweet bippy. I think you should get that ancient gas tank of yours flushed, or you're going have this problem again. Also, you might have a problem with your fuel pump, but we can put one of those on later."

The use of the word "we" wasn't lost on Bonnie. It felt comfortable, a good fit, at least for the moment. "You're amazing, Mister Callahan."

Armen spread wide his hands in a gesture that was supposed to indicate, "Shucks, 'twern't nothing, Ma'am."

That, coupled with the grease on his face, made him look like a five-year-old in a fake beard playing at being an adult. A part of Bonnie wanted to hobble over and throw her arms around him. She resisted the temptation. Instead, she took the paper towel from his hand. She squirted on more Dawn and worked the towel into lather.

"Hold still. You have a monster smudge on your face, and I don't want to get soap in your eye." She set her crutches against the breakfast island and took a stool. "Come here."

"Yes, ma'am." He dropped his hands to his side and closed his eyes-once again the child, this time trusting the capable hands of an adult.

The closeness of him made her uneasy, lent a slight tremble to her hand. More than once while she tended him she had to swallow. He must have felt her hand shake, but never did he open his eyes or change his expression. She saved the earlobe for last and gave a token to the voice that wanted her to take him in her arms.

She kissed the clean earlobe and whispered, "Thank you."

He stepped back and opened his eyes. "You're welcome, Bonnie."

The way he said her name made her shiver. The saying held the promise of intimacy, of shared confidences and laughter. For a long moment they stood there, captive in one another's gaze. Then the moment pa.s.sed. The look she offered him was a mixture of apology and embarra.s.sment. The look he returned said he understood.

He handed her the crutches. "Come on. Let's get you reacquainted with Alice."

BONNIE AND ARMEN PULLED ALICE INTO THE SCHOOL parking lot around ten-thirty. The plan was to first swing by the school and pick up the f.a.n.n.y pack. Even if Armen didn't see the point of cell phones, Bonnie couldn't go another day without hers. Once she had her phone, she'd sit down and call Wendy Newlin, make sure the woman was okay, maybe even drop in if Wendy needed company. Later, they'd go see Donna Poole at the hospice.

When they reached Bonnie's cla.s.sroom the phone was ringing. Bonnie surprised herself with how fast she could motor on her new crutches, beating Armen across the room to her desk. She latched onto the phone a split second before Armen could apprehend it. She stuck out her tongue at him and raised the phone to her ear. "City Dump."

"Nice." Franklin Valsecci chuckled. "You're developing a sense of humor."

"I've always had a sense of humor, youngster. You've just never appreciated it." She leaned the crutches against the desk and sat atop it. The effort left her breathless. "What can I do you for?"

"Just being a responsible civil servant and following up on last night's incident."

"Tell me you're not at Jade Hill. Franklin, don't you have any kind of social life?"

"Thank you so much for that cruel and unnecessary intrusion into my business. Especially since I'm taking time out of my demanding schedule to keep you in the loop." He sighed, a long drawn out affair that spoke of long hours and little sleep. "Yes, I'm here at the precinct. Missus P, I've got what might be a double homicide on my hands-if you consider a worse case scenario with Peyton Newlin. Now, if you're not interested in what I've got to say . . ."

She shifted the phone to her other ear. "Hold on. Of course I'm interested. Would it help if I said I'm sorry?"

"I'm not certain. You haven't said it yet."

It was her turn to sigh. "I'm sorry. Sheesh. You're a fine one to talk about a sense of humor."

A long silence hung in the air. "I guess that's as good as I'm going to get. Okay, here it is. You got my message last night?"

"Uh huh."

"Like I said on the message, we only took Jesse Poole in for questioning since he had a slew of witnesses who swear he never left the hospital. We had to let him go."

Bonnie shifted uneasily on the desktop, unable to get comfortable. She didn't want to hear where this conversation was going. "But I saw him. I'd know that truck anywhere."

"I believe you, but I've got a problem. The truck was in the parking lot when we came for Jesse. So here's the million dollar question. Did you actually see the driver of the vehicle?"

She felt heat rise to her cheeks. Armen gave her an inquiring look, but she held back any questions with a wave of her hand. "The cab was dark and a bright light was shining in my eyes. I didn't see the driver."

Franklin must have heard the despair in her voice because he came back quickly. "Don't open a vein just yet. How about the license plate?"

Images came floating back from the previous night. One-by-one, Bonnie pinned them on the bulletin board of her memory like snapshots from a field trip. A green and white rectangle bearing the characters BCKDRFT stood out in one of the photographs. "I saw it! G.o.d d.a.m.n, I saw it! BCKDRFT."

"I don't mean to malign the much vaunted Pink-water memory, but are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

He exhaled, again long and with feeling. "All right. We'll bring in the truck, check it out. For now I'll use your verbal testimony, but it would help if you came down and did some paperwork. You up to it?"

"Absolutely." Suddenly, the world felt like it was turning on greased grooves. "I have to be in town later this morning to see Donna Poole."

"Jesse's mother?"

She bit her lip to keep from mouthing off and saying, No, some other Donna Poole. "Why yes, the very same, dear boy."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea." He sounded genuinely concerned, like she intended to take up lion taming.

"Truth be told, I'm not so sure either, but I'm still going. I guess it has something to do with a dying woman's request."

"I'll go one step further and declare it a really bad idea. From what I understand, the last time you saw Jesse Poole at school he wanted to knock your block off. He's not going to feel any more kindly toward you after I confiscate his truck."

She stretched to work out a kink in her back, and Armen rubbed between her shoulder-blades.

"Would you feel better if I told you I wasn't going alone?"

"Only marginally. Who's going with you?"

Suddenly, she didn't want to tell him-as if admitting to Armen's a.s.sistance was tantamount to admitting something was going on between them. "Just someone."

"I don't have time for this. You're going to do what you want no matter what I say, aren't you?"

"Like ninth-graders love to say, 'You're not the boss of me'."

"Uh huh, be careful, Missus P."

"Get a girlfriend, youngster."

Franklin hung up.

Still stroking the tender spot between her shoulder-blades, Armen sat down beside her. "Now what?"

Bonnie wanted to forget all the promises she made and just enjoy the feel of Armen's soothing hand. But I've got miles to go before I sleep. But I've got miles to go before I sleep. "Another call and we're out of here." "Another call and we're out of here."

She punched in Wendy Newlin's number. She let it ring six then seven then eight times and was just about to give up when a sleepy voice answered.

"Newlins."

Bonnie checked her cla.s.s clock-close to eleven. It wasn't unreasonable for the woman to just be getting up considering the condition she'd been in the previous night. "Wendy. It's Bonnie Pinkwater."

"Bonnie?" Wendy spoke the word as if trying to make sense of it. "Forgive me. I'm wearing a swollen head this morning. It feels like it belongs to somebody else."

"Well, I'm not a hundred percent myself." Bonnie recounted her evening, ending with collapsing in front of Rhiannon Griffith.

"Jesus Christ! What are you doing running around? You should be in bed."

Bonnie was just about to protest and explain she felt almost human when she heard a crash come across the phone line.

A startled male voice exclaimed, "s.h.i.t."

A long silence followed before either Bonnie or Wendy spoke. Finally, Bonnie broke in with a whisper. "Has Ralph come home?"

Again, an awkward silence.

"Yes," Wendy stammered. "He cruised in early this morning, but so far everything is okay. We've put our differences behind us. We've both agreed the important thing right now is to get Peyton back."

Wendy spoke as if she desperately needed Bonnie to believe something for which her voice carried no conviction.

Bonnie lowered her voice below her previous whisper. "Is he right next to you?"

"Absolutely." Wendy answered brightly, as if the question might have been, "Are you fond of pound cake?" "Do you want me to come over?"

Wendy sighed. "He's left the room. Please don't come here. It will only set things off again. I can take care of myself."

Like h.e.l.l you can.

But the idea of storming out to the Newlin place after Wendy told her to stay away felt ludicrous. In no imagined permutation of events did things come out anything but disastrous. "I'm going to call back in a couple of hours. If I don't hear from you, consider me the cavalry, and I'll be on my white horse. Also, let me give you my cell phone number."

She rattled it off. "Things get crazy, you get out of there and tell me where to find you. Deal?"

"Deal. I was right about you. I'm lucky to call you a friend."

Bonnie let loose with one of those dry two-syllable chuckles which live on the opposite side of the solar system from honest laughter. "d.a.m.n right, and don't you forget it."

"I've got to go."

"Remember what I said." She felt like she was talking to a child.

"I will." Wendy hung up.

Bonnie sat for a time staring at the phone in her hand before she looked up and met Armen's eyes. "Let's get out of here. I need to move so I can think." She clipped on her f.a.n.n.y pack, fitted the crutches to her hands and was halfway across the room before she realized Armen wasn't with her. She pivoted and caught him shaking his head.

"What?" she asked impatiently.

"From what I heard, Missus Newlin told you her husband showed up at their ranch this morning." As he did when he was trying to dope out the problem with Alice, Armen chewed on his lower lip and the beard surrounding it.

Why doesn't he just say what's on his mind? Bonnie inhaled to keep her impatience from showing. "Yep, that's what she said. What of it?" Bonnie inhaled to keep her impatience from showing. "Yep, that's what she said. What of it?"

Armen crossed the room weaving his way between student desks. He strode ahead and held the cla.s.sroom door. "Let's walk while we talk."

Once she cleared into the hallway, he was beside her, keeping pace.