The Witch Of Agnesi Part 17

"I lied to the policeman."

Well, that's certainly unexpected.

Bonnie tugged at her ear trying to draft her next sentence and the right tone of voice to go with it. "Run that by me again with a tad more detail."

"Missus P, I know he had nothing to do with Stephanie's murder. He may be screwy and immature, but he's no murderer."

In a back-a.s.sward sort of way, Ali's blurted a.s.sertions eased Bonnie's growing concern. "Relax, Ali. I don't think Peyton had anything to do with Stephanie's murder."

"I'm not talking about Peyton. He loved Stephanie."

"Then who . . . ?" No sooner had the words cleared her lips than she knew the answer. "Edmund?"

"I didn't exactly lie. I just kept something from Officer Valsecci. I didn't want to get Edmund in trouble."

Holy s.h.i.t.

"What exactly did you hold back?" She struggled to keep the anxiety out of her voice. No point in telling this already upset girl that Edmund fit, in unknown ways, into the Peyton Newlin puzzle. Was he also a cornerpiece in Stephanie's death?

"Do you remember how angry Stephanie was with Peyton the night of the compet.i.tion?" Ali asked.

"Uh huh. She felt Peyton was the reason we played poorly, but she changed her mind. By the time I came outside she was blaming herself."

"There's a reason for her change of heart."

Bonnie was losing patience with this piecemeal form of revelation. Why wouldn't Ali just say what she wanted to say? "Edmund told her something?"

"All the way to the parking lot, Stephanie went on about how Peyton had let us down. By the time we reached the van she wanted to strangle him. I'd never seen her so mad. Edmund took her aside, and in a heartbeat she came back crying."

Connections formed in Bonnie's mind so fast she could barely speak. She shunted them aside and asked, "Do you know what Edmund told Stephanie?"

"Not really. Just before you showed up, Edmund reminded Stephanie about some promise. He made a special point that Stephanie say nothing to you."

"To me?" Bonnie wasn't exactly sure why that bothered her so much.

Let it go, you big baby. You're a grownup, remember? "Looking back, what do you guess Edmund told her?" "Looking back, what do you guess Edmund told her?"

"Once Peyton turned up missing, I figured it had to do with him running away and the reasons he did it."

I'm figuring the same thing. "But you didn't tell any of this to Officer Valsecci?" "But you didn't tell any of this to Officer Valsecci?"

"I didn't think the two things were related. You know, Peyton's disappearance and Stephanie's murder. I didn't want to get Edmund in trouble. Now I'm not so sure."

Well, I'm d.a.m.n well sure. The boy's standing hip deep in bad Kim Chi. "Ali, Sergeant Valsecci needs to know this stuff." "Ali, Sergeant Valsecci needs to know this stuff."

Armen turned onto East Plains Road. They'd be at Edmund's in a matter of minutes.

"Is there anything else you haven't told me?"

"I don't think so." Ali let some time pa.s.s before she spoke again. "Missus P?"

Uh oh. I don't like the sound of that Missus P. "Ali G?" "Ali G?"

"About that business of not telling me about Stephanie. Do you figure you owe me . . . just a little?"

There was something sleazy and manipulative in the way Ali was using the death of her friend to finagle a favor. You said you would take whatever the girl dished out. You said you would take whatever the girl dished out. "You want me to smooth the waters with Sergeant Valsecci?" "You want me to smooth the waters with Sergeant Valsecci?"

"Would you?"

Again she sounded more like a little girl than a woman, but this time the effect was studied. While Bonnie considered her reply, the blue and red fortress that was East Plains Junior/Senior High School pa.s.sed by on the left. The next left turn would be Belleview, the road to Edmund's.

What the h.e.l.l, why not? "Look, I'm heading out to the Sheridan place. I'll get a hold of Valsecci when I'm done there." "Look, I'm heading out to the Sheridan place. I'll get a hold of Valsecci when I'm done there."

"You're going to Edmund's?"

Something in the way Ali asked the question made Bonnie wary. You shouldn't have told her, Pinkwater. What a blabbermouth you are. You shouldn't have told her, Pinkwater. What a blabbermouth you are. A mental picture of Ali phoning Edmund to warn him sprang fullblown into her mind. A mental picture of Ali phoning Edmund to warn him sprang fullblown into her mind.

"It has nothing to do with you, or what you've told me. I just need to ask Edmund some questions about the time after Stephanie's mom took the two of you home."

Armen turned onto Belleview. In the distance, the TV antenna rising above the Sheridan's chimney looked like a stick man dancing against the slate of the afternoon sky.

"Thank you, Missus Pinkwater. I knew I could count on you."

My full name? My, my, she's laying it on thick. "I've got to go, honey." "I've got to go, honey."

"I'll try to slow mother up on that curse."

"You do that. I've got no desire to lose my hair or grow another limb. See you later."

As Bonnie turned off her phone, Armen brought Alice to a stop. "You want to tell me what's going on? You look like you just swallowed a lemon."

"Two lemons, Callahan-one Asian, the other pagan. Okay, let me lay it out for you." She ran down what Ali had told her and her final impression of the girl. "What do you think?"

All through the telling Armen had grown increasingly animated. His ears were pink and looked like they were getting ready to twitch. "You want the conservative opinion, or the gonzo gut reaction?"

"Both."

"Conservative first. Let's put aside your feelings about Ali Griffith and concentrate on this business with Edmund. Also, let's not allow our other suspicions about the boy to color our judgment."

"Wow. I've always been a sucker for an articulate man." She fanned the front of her face as if she might faint. "Speak on, MacDuff."

"Then you hush, Lady Macbeth. Here's the bottom line. We don't know what Edmund said to Stephanie, but it might have been something as innocent as telling her about the abusive situation in Peyton's home. To a young girl with a strong sense of justice this alone could have brought on tears and made her forgive the boy."

Bonnie had to admit she loved the sound of this Science teacher's voice. "Now give me your gonzo take."

He laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. "Edmund Sheridan knew all and told all. He knew before he entered that school Peyton meant to run away. He probably helped the boy genius escape. He came back later and picked him up."

"Then Edmund deceived me from the beginning. It also explains why he hung around the Academy."

Armen nodded, his face grave. "He wanted to keep an eye on you and make darn sure Peyton wasn't found. Now we come to the business of Stephanie Templeton."

Bonnie's heart sank with the direction the logic was taking them. "Edmund had second thoughts about Stephanie's trustworthiness. He killed her to shut her up."

She shook her head as if by doing so she could negate this line of reasoning. "It seems far too severe a solution. We're talking about a teenager running away, not Mafia secrets. And where was Peyton in the middle of all of this? Surely he wouldn't stand by and let harm come to Stephanie."

Armen waved an impatient hand. "Slow down. It didn't have to be planned. Try this scenario. Edmund and Stephanie agree to meet later that evening to further discuss Peyton's situation. They have a disagreement. Things get out of hand. Edmund kills Stephanie."

"With a baseball bat? And where is Peyton during all of this?"

Armen stroked his beard. "Fulton Hill. Stephanie rode there with Edmund to see Peyton."

She shook her head so violently her foot protested.

"That still makes Peyton Newlin an accomplice to Stephanie's murderer. I don't believe it."

Armen spread wide his hands, once again the reasonable man, this time giving the problem back to her.

"You have a more likely scenario?"

Bonnie wanted to scream. She could feel the elements of this conundrum circulating about her brain, but somehow she was still missing something key to finding a solution.

"No, d.a.m.n it." She nodded toward Edmund's house. "But I think some of our answers are in there."

He took hold of her upper arm. "If I'm right, we're talking about confronting a murderer on his own turf."

"Turf?" She formed her mouth around the ludicrous sounding word and laughed. "Armen, this isn't West Side Story West Side Story, and you're not Officer Krapski."

"That's Krupke and don't change the subject." Armen grabbed the top of his head like it might explode. "You know, you might be one of the most exasperating women I've ever grown fond of. Have you considered this boy may have already tried to kill you?"

The smile froze on her face. She couldn't laugh this question away. "Yes, it's occurred to me Edmund might be the driver that tried to run me down."

Armen had laid his hand in the s.p.a.ce between them, and she covered it with her own. "I have to do this, Armen. If it was Edmund, I'll know it when I speak to him."

He nodded. "No chance of calling Valsecci? You did tell Ali you would."

"I didn't say when."

"I'M REMINDED OF WHAT BROWNING HAD TO SAY about one unfortunate Scottish mousey." Armen ground to a halt in the Sheridan's driveway and turned off the ignition. He offered Bonnie a sympathetic half-smile.

"The best laid plans of mice and math teachers." She stared down a long empty driveway of pink peagravel extending to an equally empty graveled rear courtyard. Past the courtyard, framed in the green embrace of a stand of ma.s.sive cottonwoods, stood a traditionally painted red and white barn. Not a hint of a vehicle was in evidence, not even a bicycle. No light came from the white-paneled two-story farm house.

Try as she might, Bonnie heard no sound coming from within. "Maybe the Sheridans are just sleeping?"

"It's possible." Armen found a way to say the short sentence and have it mean just the opposite. "There's only one way to find out."

"Right." This might even be better. No telling what they might find even with a quick look around.

"Would you give the front door a knock?"

By the time she'd exited and s.n.a.t.c.hed up her crutches, Armen was already at the white screen door rapping away. There seemed no point in joining him if no one was home. She left him to his task and hobbled up the driveway toward the rear of the house.

The centerpiece of the courtyard was a white wishing well surrounded by an ap.r.o.n of yellow petunias. Small hillocks of pansies, snapdragons, and petunias defined the two borders of the yard not already defined by the house and barn. Someone had put in a lot of work planting and weeding these small berms. Bonnie was reminded of the fact that the Sheridans were a retired couple.

When I retire, I'll have gardens like these. She'd told herself this lie before when confronted by other enviable gardens. It was a lie that felt better every time she told it. She'd told herself this lie before when confronted by other enviable gardens. It was a lie that felt better every time she told it.

A triple switchback of wooden ramps led from the rear screen door to the ground. At the base of the ramp, grooves had been worn into the hard-packed earth and gravel where a pair of thin wheelchair tires had attacked the ramp over the years-a wheelchair belonging to Molly, Edmund Sheridan's sister.

Bonnie headed for the barn. If Peyton had stayed with Edmund, that would be the perfect place to hide. With effort and prerequisite cursing, she slid open the heavy wooden door. Although the barn hosted six horse stalls-three to each side of a wide dirt aisle-the absence of the musky smell of horse told a tale of long disuse as a paddock. No tack hung on the walls.

The Sheridans probably got rid of their horses after Molly's accident.

Before she'd taken half a dozen steps, Armen joined her. "No one home, which is just as well for a pair of amateur burglars."

"I have no intention of burgling. I just want to look around."

"Uh huh. If I'd had known you were into breaking and entering, I'd have asked you out for coffee long ago." He pointed with his chin to the far stall on the right. "Something's in that one."

He strode past her to stand tall on the first rail of the galvanized steel gate. "h.e.l.lo. A sleeping bag."

By the time Bonnie hobbled to the gate, Armen was rooting around in the stall. He rejoined her holding a white strip of cloth or paper. "I think it's athletic tape."

She took the strip and laid it in one palm. "Not athletic, medical. See the diagonal folds? This was once a b.u.t.terfly suture. Peyton had one on his face."

Armen chewed his beard and lower lip. "Not any more."

"The boy probably came here Thursday night." She pocketed the tape. "I've been such a blockhead. Everybody-Franklin, you, Keene-you all tried to tell me Peyton had a hand in Stephanie's murder. I wouldn't hear of it. d.a.m.n, I thought I knew that boy."

Jesse Poole was right. I don't know s.h.i.t.

A standard sized door equipped with a bra.s.s dead bolt broke the symmetry of the barn's rear wall. The bolt had been thrown open. "This is most likely the way Edmund let Peyton in. The pair could come and go at will. Anyone in the house would stay clueless."

Bonnie swung wide the door. A weedy path of sand and gravel led away from the barn and into a stand of cottonwoods. From somewhere lost in the trees came the skittering sounds and clean smell of rushing water-a small creek probably. Insects and birds chirped. The last dying gasps of afternoon sunlight fell dappled through tree branches.

A slurry of shallow footprints gathered at the barn door and disappeared into the trees. Through the middle of the footprints a wide swath of smooth dirt ran in the same direction.

"Someone tried to erase their footprints," Armen said.

Bonnie stooped to get a closer look, inching herself down on one crutch. "They sure did a poor job of it. Most of the footprints are still here."

Armen took her by the arm and helped her up. "We may have stopped them in the act," he whispered. "They could be watching us from those trees right now."

Bonnie felt exposed standing in the doorway. She stepped back, shut the door, and threw the bolt. Gloom reintroduced itself into the rear of the barn. "We probably ought not to disturb the footprints. Keene and Franklin will want to see them."

"I couldn't agree more." Armen shivered, though the heat in the barn seemed more than adequate.

Bonnie pivoted on her crutches.

Molly Sheridan, Edmund's sister, sat in her wheel-chair, blocking the entrance to the barn. She had a shotgun leveled in their direction, and from the way she held it she knew what she was doing. "Come out of there, both of you. Put your hands where I can see them."