The Witch of Agnesi (18 page)

“More in the nature of questions, my good Watson. Imagine yourself Ralph Newlin in the Sheridan’s barn. You’ve just murdered two teenagers, one of whom is your son. Why do you take the time to bury one then drive the other to Jesse Poole’s two nights later?”

Armen stroked his goatee. “Keep in mind Peyton was the one buried—a final goodbye from father to son. The burial could be seen as an act of remorse. As for why Newlin carried Edmund’s body around in his car for two days before depositing it beneath Jesse’s trailer, I chalk that up to the workings of a desperate mind.”

Bonnie nodded. “Fair enough. Any theory as to how Ali’s cobra choker got into Edmund’s pocket?”

This question caused Armen a moment of hesita-tion. “We can still assume the love affair between Ali and Edmund. She gave the necklace to Edmund as a token of her affection, and it was still in Edmund’s pocket when he stumbled upon Ralph murdering Pey-ton.” Armen drew in a long breath as if the explanation had exhausted him.

“Very neat.” She had to admire Armen’s clever-ness, if not the theory itself. “It also ties up the loose end of the incriminating e-mail. Do you really buy this theory? Keep in mind Stephanie would have to get in a car with Ralph.”

This time he didn’t hesitate. “Not so much now that I hear that part spoken aloud, although the Ralph-as- Murderer-Hypothesis might explain why Ralph didn’t report to Peterson Air Base Friday morning. If a guy has a corpse in his trunk, he doesn’t much want to go onto a restricted base where that same trunk might be searched.”

“Then why not just dump the body? East Plains has no shortage of isolated locales.”

If Armen had an answer to her question, he kept it to himself.

“I don’t want to browbeat your hypothesis into a coma, but it also fails to explain how one of Edmund’s hairs made its way into Jesse Poole’s truck—a truck that tried to run me down—not Thursday when Pey-ton, Edmund, and Stephanie supposedly died, but Friday night.”

Armen bit at his lower lip, pulling his beard into his mouth. “It keeps coming back to Edmund even after his death.”

“Seems like it.”

“Which still begs the twenty-thousand dollar ques-tion.”

You got that right.
“Who killed Edmund Sheridan?”

BONNIE EXPECTED AND RECEIVED NO WELCOME FROM her brood of animals. Euclid scolded her then displayed his pink and puckered rear end by way of raised tail and indignant departure.

“I have a good excuse,” she called after him.

The three dogs glowered when she released them from the laundry room/dog run antechamber. Hypa-tia, always the spokeswoman for the group, shook her shaggy head in disappointment.

“Give me a break, lady,” Bonnie entreated. “I spent the night in a morgue.”

The beasts would hear none of it. Bonnie had left them, not just through mealtime, but overnight. The period of shunning would be pronounced.

Bonnie poured copious amounts of dry food in their massive bowls and filled a water bowl the size of a truck tire. “Fine! I can do the silent treatment, too.” Her strident words made a lie of her proclamation. Besides, she’d never seen her four pets this angry.

She handed Armen a can of cat food and the opener. “I can’t face them a moment longer. Would you feed Euclid? I’m going to soak in a bath.”

Armen saluted her with the opener. “
Oui, Mon
Capitan
.”

Stow it, Callahan.

She was in no mood to be cheered up. She passed through the living room to the guest bedroom, which held the house’s only bathtub. A major funk sat heavily on her. She was going to need an especially hot bath to wash it off. The hot full on, she barely turned the cold tap.

As she shed her boot and her clothes, her brain con-tinued the conversation she’d had with Armen.
If not
Ralph Newlin, then who?

She slipped gingerly into the steaming water, scarcely aware of the temperature.
Ali Griffith?

Certainly, the e-mail Molly Sheridan had shared implicated Ali, but why would Ali have wanted Stepha- nie dead? Two responses presented themselves.

First, there was the heated argument in Math Anal-ysis. Could Ali have been nursing a grudge and only pretended to have forgiven Stephanie at Knowledge Bowl? If asked that question two days ago, Bonnie would have emphatically answered, “No.” That was before the e-mail. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

Bonnie turned off the water and slid down until only her head and knees remained above water. The heat felt blessedly good on her mangled foot.

What about the scholarship?
Of the four students, Ali Griffith was the only one who actually needed col-lege assistance. Each of the other three—the other dead three—came from well-to-do families. Even without the free ride the Sullivan scholarship afforded, they could attend any school which accepted their ap-plication.

Tarot be damned, Rhiannon had seemed awfully
sure Ali would win.
This business of witchcraft put an entirely new spin on things. Bonnie had always as-sumed Rhiannon’s and Ali’s religious affiliation benign. But had she been naïve? Witches, at least in literature and the movies, weren’t especially known for their for-giveness or compassion.

Play it out, Bonnie. You would have made Armen
do it.

Ali gets a love-besotted Edmund to slay Stephanie. Peyton flips out when he learns of Stephanie’s death. Edmund is forced to kill his friend and bury him behind the barn. Edmund is now frantic and perhaps more than a little unbalanced. Using Jesse Poole’s truck, he drives to see Ali on Beltane night. For one reason or another, she sends him away, later claiming that Poole was the one driving the truck. Now despondent and angry, Edmund comes upon a stranded math teacher walking through the desert. In his
angst
, he decides to have some fun with her.

Good up to a point. However, it presupposes Ed-mund
overcame his grief, relented on his plan to kill
the world’s greatest math teacher, and returned the
truck. Why?
The last was indisputable. After all, the truck was returned.

Then what?

Did Ali decide Edmund was unreliable and do him in to protect herself?

An image of Edmund’s body lying beneath Poole’s trailer sprang into Bonnie’s mind—Samurai written on the sole of the right sneaker.

The writer of the nefarious e-mail had called Ed-mund Samurai, but Bonnie was certain that wasn’t the first time she’d heard the nickname used in conjunction with Edmund Sheridan. Frame by frame she played back the minutes since Thursday morning, and a minor incident, one she would never have considered impor-tant, sprang onto center stage.

At Knowledge Bowl, before the competition start-ed, the team had gathered around the tally board. Ali Griffith insulted Edmund, and he said, “You know you love me. Don’t hide your true feelings behind this hos-tile façade.”

Ali responded, “In your dreams, Samurai.”

Samurai again, and by Ali Griffith.
The Law of Parsimony demanded Bonnie connect these incidents together, especially in light of the fact that the e-mail—presumably Ali’s e-mail—containing the same nickname would be fired off not three hours later.

Still, doubt nagged at Bonnie. Would Ali be so careless as to make such incredible blunders—first, the incriminating e-mail then a gaff as serious as leaving her cobra choker in Edmund’s pocket? Was the girl insane as well as stupid?

Bonnie slapped the water in answer to her own question.
No, Goddamit. Unlike Edmund Sheridan,
I know this child, have known her and her family for a
decade. Despite circumstantial evidence, Ali Griffith
is neither a fool nor a conspirator in a murder. I feel it
in the pit of my stomach.

Someone was trying to not only frame Jesse Poole, but was sizing up Ali Griffith as well.

A knock sounded on the door. “Bonnie, phone call for you.”

“If it’s not Jesse, tell them I’m indisposed.”

“I think you might want to take this.”

Why can’t men take no for an answer?
“Not now, please!” Then realizing she was yelling at the wrong per-son, she lowered her voice. “Say I’ll call them back.”

Armen’s voice faded as he carried the phone and his conversation away from the bathroom door.

Her new-found conviction of Ali Griffith’s inno-cence animated her. She grabbed a loofah and a bar of soap and scrubbed her knees and elbows until they glowed pink.

Another knock sounded on the door. “Me again.”

Well, thank God for that. I wouldn’t want a
stranger knocking on the door while I’m naked as a
plucked chicken.
“Did you tell them I’d call back?”

Armen hesitated. “Let me go on record as declar-ing I told you to take the call then did as you bade me and suggested you would call them back.”

Uh oh.
“Armen, who was on the line?”

“Rhiannon Griffith and she had a suggestion of her own, mostly anatomical, as to what you could do with your call-back. She’s on her way.”

CHAPTER 15

R
HIANNON GRIFFITH FILLED THE DOORWAY. Bonnie couldn’t remember the woman ever looking so formidable. The witch’s long red fingernails appeared positively lethal, as if they’d been filed to a point. Her black tresses framed a face dark and angry like a storm getting ready to explode on an unsuspecting mountain town.

And I’m that tiny town.

“Rhiannon, won’t you come in?” Although Bonnie tried to maintain her equanimity, her voice shook.

Rhiannon pushed into the living room. Once in, she wheeled on Bonnie, finger pointing directly at her face. “You are one treacherous bitch. Do you know they took my daughter away?”

Bonnie had expected this proclamation since she learned Rhiannon was en-route. Appropriate responses had auditioned across the stage of her brain for the last forty-five minutes without a clear-cut winner. Now that Rhiannon was here in the flesh, they all seemed lame.

“I’m sorry,” she offered feebly.

As if she’d never heard the word before, Rhiannon shouted, “Sorry? That doesn’t cut it by half, Pinkwa-ter. You made promises to Ali. Promises you broke the first chance you got.”

Bonnie felt her anger rise with every accusing word.
No more Missus nice Pinkwater.

“Horse pucky, Rhiannon. Short of telling lies, I did everything I could to protect Ali. Do you even have the faintest clue concerning the circumstantial evidence stacked against your daughter?”

“I know a snake in the grass when I see one.” Men-acingly, Rhiannon halved the distance between them.

Bonnie cast about, wondering why none of her ani-mals were coming to her aid.
Oh, yeah, they’re torqued
at me, too. Well, screw this.
Bonnie swung up a crutch and jabbed it into Rhiannon’s ample chest, pushing the woman back.

“Don’t do anything stupid, witchy woman.”

Rhiannon slapped at the impediment. “The only stupid thing I’ve ever done is mistake you for a friend.”

“Glad to help you clear up that misunderstanding.”

“Chamomile tea, anyone?” Armen emerged out of the kitchen holding a rattan serving tray. Perched atop were three cups, a small ceramic tea pot, and the honey jar.

Bonnie knew he’d been up to something in the kitchen, but had forgotten about him in the anxiety be-fore and the animosity after Rhiannon’s arrival.

“Armen?”

If ever there was an inappropriate time for an intru-sion, this was it. No way did she want this woman to stay any longer than was necessary.

For her part, Rhiannon just stared at Armen as if he’d asked her was she in the mood for a quick bikini waxing.

Armen stepped between the two women nudging Bonnie’s crutch aside. “What say we have a seat and talk before we bring out the weapons of mass destruc-tion? You two can always kill each other later, but the tea won’t keep.”

Bonnie coldly eyed Rhiannon, expecting the woman to shove past Armen and come after her. Much to her surprise, Rhiannon nodded.

What the hell is going on in that pagan brain of
yours?

Her face still a mask of stone, Rhiannon said, “I can tell you what I think of you and drink tea at the same time.” Rhiannon backed away from Armen and took a seat on the sofa behind her. She folded her hands in her lap, the knuckles white with the effort.

Somehow the woman’s assertion seemed a slam against Bonnie’s intelligence, as if the infernal witch was suggesting the simultaneous acts of drinking tea and arguing were somehow beyond Bonnie’s capabilities.

“I can stand a cup of tea if she can.”

“Well, good, it’s a start.”

Armen set the tea tray on the coffee table in front of Rhiannon. He returned for Bonnie and led her around the table to the far end of the sofa. Taking her crutches, he helped her sit. He turned a reasonable face toward Rhiannon. “You know, Missus Griffith, it’s funny you being angry with Bonnie about your daughter.”

From the look on her face, Rhiannon was having trouble finding anything funny about Bonnie, and right now wasn’t in the mood to try. “What are you talking about?”

Armen knelt before the tea service and poured three cups of the pale amber tea before he spoke. He slid one to each of the two women. “Just last night she was angry with me because I was arguing for your daughter’s guilt in the murder of Stephanie Templeton. Bonnie felt that Ali was far too intelligent and compassionate to do any such thing.” He delivered the self-damning remarks in his oh-so-reasonable voice.

Bonnie had to stifle a laugh.
Callahan, you are a pip.

Rhiannon looked from Armen to Bonnie and back to Armen, appearing, for all the world, like a woman stranded between opposing emotions. No doubt she was reluctant to transfer her anger from Bonnie to Armen, but she bore all the hallmarks of someone dying to learn more about the previous night’s conversation. Her mouth hung open in mute testimony to her dilemma.

Armen gestured to the teacup closest to the witch. “Honey?”

Rhiannon ignored the question, turning slowly toward Bonnie. “Is that the truth, Pinkwater, or is this man just trying to save your crippled butt?”

Bonnie slapped the coffee table hard, slopping tea from all three cups. “First of all, Rhiannon, the day I need someone to protect me from you will be a hot day in Siberia, but in answer to your question, no.”

“I thought as much.”

“I never got mad at Armen.” Bonnie knew this was a bad time to be messing with Rhiannon’s mind, but she couldn’t resist. The pagan maniac had it coming.

A long silence hung in the air. Rhiannon took a deep breath and exhaled it before she spoke. “You know what I mean.”

“In that case, yes. I argued that your daughter didn’t commit murder or even conspire to commit murder.”

Rhiannon looked as if she might let her guard down. Instead, she took a sip from her tea. “Of course not, Stephanie was her friend.” Staring hard at Armen, she said the words as though only an idiot would think otherwise.

Armen stirred honey into his tea, the process seem-ingly demanding every shred of his attention. “Ali’s immediate problem isn’t the death of Stephanie. There’s material and circumstantial evidence linking her to two other deaths.”

“What other deaths?” Rhiannon almost dropped her cup in her haste to set it down.

Bonnie peered at the woman, trying to decide if Rhi-annon was being straight with her. Edmund she could understand, but how could she not know about Peyton?

“You haven’t seen the news or read the paper?”

Rhiannon shook her head. “We disconnect the TV during Beltane.”

Armen hesitated, chewing his beard and lower lip. “Peyton Newlin and Edmund Sheridan are dead.”

Rhiannon’s already pale face went incrementally whiter. “My God!”

Bonnie ushered away the random thought which found this exclamation inappropriate for a member of the Wicca persuasion.

“There’s more.”

She walked Rhiannon through the events of the past twenty-four hours, emphasizing the damning e-mail and the cobra necklace.

Rhiannon fell back into the sofa. She blinked fu-riously, either keeping tears at bay or in shock. “Ali didn’t write any e-mails Thursday night. She was up half the night helping me get the white-petal altar ready and pile wood for the balefire. But—”

“But what?” The question shot out of Bonnie’s mouth like it had a life of its own.

Rhiannon shook her head. “Nothing. I was just thinking my baby’s in real trouble.”

Oh, what a tangled web we weave.
Bonnie gave the woman a long look before she spoke. “Rhiannon, you’ve no reason to trust me, but I promise you, what-ever you say here stays here.”

“You have my word as well,” Armen quickly added.

Rhiannon rocked forward, her elbows resting against her knees. She turned an anxious gaze toward Bonnie. “I’ve got to be stupid to trust you again.” She took a long breath. “Before I tell you anything, you need to know that Ali would never do harm. It goes against everything she believes in.”

Bonnie didn’t know how to respond to Rhiannon’s assertion, so she merely nodded.

Rhiannon transferred her gaze from Bonnie to Armen and back to Bonnie again. After another long pause she returned the nod. “It must’ve been four-thirty Friday morning . . . I’d been sleeping about an hour when, for some reason, I came fully awake. As I went down the hall, I checked Ali’s room. Her bed was empty. I assumed she was just downstairs so I checked the kitchen and the altar room.”

When Rhiannon hesitated again, Armen said, “But she wasn’t anywhere in the house?”

Rhiannon gave Armen an annoyed glance and shook her head. “Not fifteen minutes later, the front door opened, and Ali came in. She said she was restless about Beltane and had taken a walk out to the balefire pyre. We both went back to bed.”

“Naturally, you believed her.” Bonnie exhaled, not sure what she believed.

Before Rhiannon could respond, Bonnie’s cell phone rang in the kitchen. Armen was up and out of the room before the third ring. When he returned, he held Alice’s keys in his hand. “Jesse Poole. It seems the redoubtable Sergeant Valsecci is done with our beamish boy for now.”

Rhiannon gave Bonnie a questioning look.

“It’s a long story.” Bonnie gathered her crutches and stood. “The short version is that we are picking up Jesse from Colorado Springs and bringing him back here. Why don’t you come along?”

THE STRETCH OF HIGHWAY FROM BLACK FOREST TO Colorado Springs was getting to seem like an old friend. Bonnie had lost count of how many times she traveled this particular twenty miles in the last two days. She adjusted her walking boot and turned back to Rhian-non in Alice’s back seat.

“Rhiannon, forgive me for asking . . . I know you were angry with me, but landing on me with both feet could have waited. Why didn’t you go with your daughter to Jade Hill?”

Rhiannon looked out the side window, apparently unable to meet Bonnie’s eyes. “Ali asked her Uncle Winston to go with her. He’s the lawyer after all. She said I would just get angry and make things worse.”

A smile crept onto Bonnie’s lips. “Now why would she ever think that?”

A hint of a smile appeared on Rhiannon’s face as well. “Beats me, I’m not sure where she gets these odd-ball ideas.”

“What happened when the police arrived?” Armen asked without taking his eyes off the road.

Rhiannon tapped her cheek with her long red fin-gernails. “First of all, they wouldn’t answer any of my questions. They just kept saying Officer Valsecci wanted to speak with Ali concerning a murder. I just assumed it was Stephanie’s.”

Bonnie studied Rhiannon’s face wondering how much she could trust the woman. After all, if Ali was guilty, wouldn’t Rhiannon lie to protect her daughter? Then again, she’d been forthcoming concerning Ali’s disappearance Friday morning.

Armen’s right. I’m not much good at this read-ing
people business. You’d think I’d have better people
skills after thirty years of teaching.
She decided to test the waters by throwing Rhiannon some rope.

“I’m going to need you to resist giving in to your tem-per and consider the next question carefully. Did anyone besides Ali see Jesse Poole’s truck Friday evening?”

Rhiannon’s face clouded over. Bonnie could see Rhiannon’s indignation rising to the surface as the woman understood the implications of the question. Silence hung heavy in the car. Highway Eighty-Four gave way to Platte Avenue, and they entered Colorado Springs proper.

“Ali was the only one to see the truck.” Each word was spoken with measured precision, as if Rhiannon didn’t trust her voice or her temper.

Strangely enough, this admission went a long way toward easing Bonnie’s mind. A simple lie would have corroborated Ali’s story, but Rhiannon didn’t fall into that trap.

Just one more question.
“Did Ali come home Thursday night still wearing the cobra necklace?”

Rhiannon frowned, looking not so much angry as disappointed. “I see where you’re going with this. Ali wore that damn cobra necklace all Thursday night while we worked on the altar and the balefire. She didn’t give Edmund that necklace, Pinkwater. He must have stolen it when he broke into our house.”

Bonnie and Armen exchanged glances. She re-membered his assertion the break-in was a fiction. He shrugged.

Why would Edmund risk being seen in the stolen
truck just to purloin a necklace whose only purpose so
far has been to implicate Ali in his very own murder?
From the look on Armen’s face, he was thinking close to the same thing.

“Forgive me, Missus Griffith, but I need to ask,” Armen said. “Was your daughter involved romanti-cally with Edmund Sheridan?”

Rhiannon shook her head vehemently. “Absolutely not! She considered Edmund immature. The boy has had a crush on her since . . .well since forever, but she’s never reciprocated. I know my daughter.”

Rhiannon’s last assertion seemed to beg the ques-tion. Bonnie had talked to hundreds, maybe thousands of parents in her career, and whenever she heard one claiming to definitively know their child, just the op-posite often proved to be the case.

Tears welled in Rhiannon’s eyes.

She’s scared to death she maybe doesn’t know Ali
at all.
Bonnie laid a hand on Rhiannon’s knee. “I be-lieve you, and what’s more I believe Ali told the truth about the break-in.”