The Witch Of Agnesi Part 5

Armen wrinkled his nose then pushed his lunch to the far side of the table. He turned a mischievous face her way. "I thought perhaps it might only be that mud sandwich you've wisely decided not to eat."

She squinted at him trying to decide if she would kick him under the table. "You picked a bad time to disparage hummus and pinion nut sandwiches, mister. They're my favorite. Besides, what are you doing at this lunch? I thought you ate Junior High."

"I usually do, but I'm a free man for this entire period. The seventh grade is on an Art field trip, so I decided to see how the big teachers lived."

"Are you impressed?"

His smile returned, this time crinkling the corners of his blue eyes. "I think I am."

He's flirting with me!

Armen reached out and touched her hand. His fingers were cool to the touch. She thought to pull away but decided not to.

"Do vegetarians drink coffee?" he asked.

The question caught her off guard. "What?"

"Coffee. You know, the brown stuff grown-ups get to drink."

She sat back to see if he was making fun of her, but his face gave nothing away. "I can't speak for every vegetarian, but I've been known to drink the occasional cup."

"Black, I'll bet."

"Well, yes, how did you know?"

"That's how I like it." He took his hand off hers.

"Would you have coffee with me this evening? Black, of course."

A date?

She stared at him, too dumfounded to speak. She hadn't even considered seeing a man socially since her Ben died eighteen months ago. She was fifty-three for heaven's sake, certainly didn't need this complication in her well ordered life. Her brain had already settled the issue but failed to inform her mouth. "Where?"

"I know a place in the Springs, Capulets. Deep up-holstered chairs, antique tables. Can I pick you up at your home?"

She panicked, thinking of a date coming to her door as if she were some school girl-and then taking her home again. "I'll meet you there. What time?"

"Seven?"

"Seven sounds fine." What in the h.e.l.l have I done? What in the h.e.l.l have I done?

BONNIE FIDGETED UNCOMFORTABLY ON THE STEEL risers of the gymnasium. All around her, the student body of East Plains Junior/Senior High did the same.

The normal rise and fall of five hundred collective voices seemed muted, as if no one dared to speak above a whisper.

Down on the gym floor, an ancient oak podium stood in isolated relief against the purple and yellow paint of the basketball court. The podium sported the screaming image of a Thunder Hawk, the school mascot. Talons extended, the hawk looked as if it had been frozen just moments before it made a kill.

Followed by Princ.i.p.al Whittaker, Superintendent Xavier Divine entered the gym. They both halted at the podium. In contrast to the hawk, Divine appeared docile, almost frightened. He could easily have been the mascot's intended prey.

Divine unwound the microphone from its goose-neck and stepped in front of the podium. "Students and staff of East Plains, I regret the need to inform you of a tragedy."

Bonnie felt her chest tighten.

"Stephanie Templeton, Senior cla.s.s President, captain of the Knowledge Bowl team, died early this morning."

"What?" Bonnie said louder than she meant to.

Heads turned in her direction. Divine stared at her from the gym floor and frowned.

"Sorry," she mouthed. She'd been expecting news of Peyton Newlin, had steeled herself for the worst. But Stephanie? Bonnie shook her head as if to refute this bolt out of the blue.

"Announcements concerning funeral plans will be posted in the Gazette and the East Plains Register. The family asks that phone calls be held to a minimum. Please respect their wishes in this hour of sorrow." He handed the microphone to Lloyd.

Islands of grief erupted around Bonnie. Students wept openly, cursed out loud. A trio of girls with Stephanie Templeton blond hair clutched at one another, their faces leaking water. A freshman boy from Bonnie's Algebra One cla.s.s, his face an empty mask, hammered his fist into the steel seat again and again.

Lloyd's voice insinuated itself into Bonnie's anguish. ". . . are in the building if you need to talk to a counselor. For those of you wanting to go home, the busses have arrived." His eyes met Bonnie's, and he signaled her to join him at the far end of the gym.

As Bonnie made her way down to the gym floor, she came face to face with Diane Wynn, the school librarian. The woman's cheeks were wet, her eyes redrimmed. "That poor girl. She was like a ray of sunshine, so beautiful. Do you have any idea what happened?"

Bonnie shook her head and pulled the relative stranger into an embrace. They wept together. Students clearing the stands patted their shoulders and backs and moved on.

"I've got to go, Diane," Bonnie whispered into the librarian's hair, and pulled back. "Lloyd's waiting on me. Are you going to be okay?"

The woman sniffled and offered a frenetic nod.

"I'll be fine. I'm going to go home and hold my little boy. I might never let him go."

"Give him a hug for me."

Lloyd waited by the wrestling loft stairs. When she approached, he started walking up to the loft.

She followed.

He moved to the back of the loft and sat heavily onto a weight bench. "I've got to get out to the busses, but I have to tell you a few things before I go." He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

She joined him on the bench.

"Just before dawn a man walking his dog discovered Stephanie's body in a gully near Fulton Hill."

The world suddenly shrank to one isolated weight bench. Bonnie's hands went to her mouth. "Stephanie went home with her mother. What was she doing on Fulton Hill in the middle of the night? That's a good five miles from her house."

Lloyd gripped her hands in his. "I can't answer that question, Bon, but Franklin Valsecci wants you to call him. He's hoping you'll remember anything that might explain the girl's murder."

"Murder? They know that for sure?"

He squeezed her hands until she met his eyes.

"The back of her head was crushed. They found a b.l.o.o.d.y baseball bat near the body."

BONNIE STRADDLED THE WEIGHT BENCH STARING AT her cell phone. She sat alone in the loft. From the absence of noise below she might be the only one left in the entire gym.

Stephanie's death kept circling in her mind, but not far removed spun Peyton Newlin's disappearance. There had to be a connection.

She punched in Franklin's office number.

He picked up on the second ring. "Valsecci."

"It's Bonnie. You wanted to talk with me?"

"I just need to pick your brain a bit. Tell me what you can of Stephanie Templeton."

Stephanie's face swam in a sea of images-flipping long blond hair over a bare shoulder, the smell of too much perfume, the valley-girl voice which belied her intelligent mind, the teary girl who blamed herself for not bringing home a Knowledge Bowl trophy.

"East Plains will survive." That's what she told Stephanie. d.a.m.n it, girl, what were you doing on Ful-ton Hill in the middle of the night? d.a.m.n it, girl, what were you doing on Ful-ton Hill in the middle of the night?

And why Fulton Hill? The place was as steep and uninviting as the surface of the moon. More a small mountain, the hill was scarred by dozens of parallel cement-hard erosion gullies, some deep enough to swal-low a car-and now a young girl's body.

"Missus P?" Franklin's voice sounded in Bonnie's ear.

"Sorry. I was wool gathering." Bonnie breathed deep. "Stephanie Templeton? A good student, tem-peramental. Occasionally affected the manner of a ditz but had a practical head on her shoulders. A bit of a prima donna. She was captain of my Knowledge Bowl team. I'll miss her more than I can say."

"What was her relationship with Jesse Poole?"

Bonnie searched her mind for any time she'd seen the two together. "I don't think they had any. They didn't exactly travel in the same circles."

"How about her relationship with Peyton Newlin?"

"Different story. Those two crossed one another's paths constantly. He was in her Math a.n.a.lysis cla.s.s, although he did independent study in Calculus."

Franklin whistled. "A thirteen year old doing Cal-culus? I'll bet a lot of math students resented him. Did Stephanie?"

Bonnie considered the question. "I don't think she did. If anything, Stephanie felt sorry for Peyton."

"Why so?"

"He was like a fish with a moped. He had the equipment but wasn't sure how to use it. She took him under her wing. As much as she could, she tried to shield him from being picked on, which wasn't easy. Peyton Newlin could be a little s.h.i.t. However-"

"However?"

"It's probably nothing. Last night, Stephanie got upset when we didn't leave with a trophy. She snapped at Peyton and stormed out of the auditorium. She re-gretted it immediately. The next time I saw her she was crying about it. Called herself a b.i.t.c.h."

"Anything else?"

"This morning the counselor told me Peyton as well as Stephanie, Ali, and Edmund were all finalists for the same scholarship." She told him of J.D. Sullivan.

Papers rustled from Franklin's end. "Edmund Sheridan? The same Asian boy from last night?"

"The same."

"What can you tell me about him?"

"The Sheridans, a well-to-do couple, adopted Ed-mund, and his older sister Molly, about ten years ago and brought them over here from Korea. Molly had an accident, developed spinal problems, and has been wheelchair-bound since she was nine. Edmund is very protective of her." Bonnie tugged at her ear trying to think of anything of interest. "Edmund is in Calcu-lus with Peyton. The two are best friends. Edmund's always over at the Newlin place reading comic books, playing electronic or role-playing games."

"And how about this Ali Griffith?"

"She's a witch."

"Come again."

"Ali Griffith and her mother Rhiannon head up a coven. I've known the mother for a good five years, but she's a weird one. We haven't always gotten along. Ali dresses in black, and wears odd jewelry. She's never been anything but a sweetie with me, but I hear she doesn't take c.r.a.p from anyone who gives her trouble about her beliefs. Even the goat-ropers steer clear of her. Peyton, Edmund, Stephanie, and Ali make up the Knowledge Bowl Team and were all at the church last night."

"This is getting almost incestuous, all on the Knowledge Bowl team, all in the running for a choice scholarship-"

"And all absent from school today."

"Now that is worthy of note. I owe it to myself to pay the Griffiths and Sheridans a visit."

"Do you think there's a connection between Pey-ton's disappearance and Stephanie's death?"

"I bet you do."

She felt heat rise to her cheeks. This former student could read her too easily. "It occurred to me."

"It occurred to me, too."

Come on, Franklin, you can do better than that.

After a long awkward silence, he said, "Listen, I've got a lot to do."

Not so fast, youngster. "I've got a few questions of my own." "I've got a few questions of my own."

"Nothing doing, Missus P. We're talking murder here and this is an ongoing investigation."

"And I'm part of it." She went on before he could object further. "About nine last night, Missus Tem-pleton picked up Ali Griffith and Stephanie from the Academy. I a.s.sume you talked to the parents. What time did the Templetons get home?"

"They dropped off the Griffith girl and made it home about ten o'clock. Let me save you the trouble of asking. Both the mother and daughter were tired and went to bed right away. Lights off before ten-thirty."

What in h.e.l.l makes an exhausted girl leave her bed and travel five miles to her death?

"Did Stephanie die at Fulton Hill, or did her killer dump her body there?" She expected him to try to put her off and geared herself up to be good and p.i.s.sy.

"From the amount of blood found, our people have determined she died at the hill. Now, that's enough. If you think of anything else give me a call." He hung up.

Think of anything else?

h.e.l.l, a dozen thoughts flashed across her mind. The last of which was Wendy Newlin racing away down Pe-terson Avenue in her silver SUV, too scared to confront her husband. What kind of night did that poor woman have? First her son runs off then her son of a b.i.t.c.h husband comes home? Too bad it couldn't be the other way around.

Bonnie checked her watch. Four o'clock straight up. She had three hours until she promised to meet Armen. The thought sent a shiver through her. She certainly wasn't going to sit around and be a nervous ninny until then.