The Witch of Agnesi (21 page)

She noted that Peyton would have been fourteen in a few days.

I think I knew that.

The young genius’s grades, also enclosed, were cer-tainly no surprise. He’d garnered nothing but A’s in all four of the schools he’d attended. He’d skipped second, fifth, and sixth grades shooting from fourth into sev-enth at a Kennedy Junior High in Norfolk, Virginia.

As she read through this stark biography, a deep melancholy came to rest on her. Was there anything in this bare-bones outline which would help her remem-ber the essence of the troubled child, or the even more troubled family that brought him into the world? If there was, she didn’t see it. She shut the folder and handed it and the other two back to Freddy.

He took them without comment.

As Bonnie exited his office, they grunted their farewells. She turned the corner leading to her room. Carlita Sanchez, her books clutched to her breast, strode in from the gym hallway. They met at the door.

“Good morning, Missus P.” The girl sing-sang the words, smiling like the proverbial canary-eating cat.

Bonnie had a sinking feeling what was coming. “Good morning to you, too, Carlita.”

“Hanging with Mister Callahan is doing you good.

You’re five minutes early.” She tapped her imaginary watch. Her sly smile widened.

Bonnie didn’t need to ask how her weekend with Armen had become common knowledge, or at least Carlita Sanchez knowledge. Bonnie had worked in East Plains long enough to know that nothing remained a secret for long. By noon there would be alumni from ten years back who would know she spent the night at Armen’s.

“Put a sock in it, Carlita.”

“Whatever you say, Missus P.” Carlita held the door so Bonnie could maneuver through on her crutches.

Bonnie had more on her mind than small town gos-sip. In the early meeting, Lloyd told her he’d considered closing school for a day or two, but the Divine Pain in the Ass made the executive decision that life must go on even if, for some, it had ended abruptly. For once Bonnie agreed with Mr. Potato Head. A day or even a week wouldn’t put a dent in the horror this community had experienced. The students might as well be here at school where they could at least commiserate with their friends.

Bonnie hobbled to her desk and draped her fanny pack on the chair. “Get out Friday’s homework.”

Several students groaned, including Salvador, who normally was a hard worker. A quick scan of the room made it clear a significant fraction of her students was missing. Ali Griffith was in that number.
I suppose
that’s to be expected.

“And do we have an alternate suggestion to the perusal of Friday’s homework?”

Rebecca Weber, a slim black girl with a penchant for goofing off, raised her hand. “How about The Witch of Agnesi story?”

Bonnie’s initial reaction was to perversely deny the request because acquiescing would mean relinquishing control. The random thought struck her as petty and mean-spirited. Her saner self prevailed.
You’re going
to have to re-teach today’s lesson no matter what.
There’s just too damn many of them gone.
Besides, hadn’t Bonnie herself asked for an alternative sugges-tion? A psychiatrist would probably point out she had been looking for an out.

Truth was she really hadn’t the heart or the energy to push the children through the next unit. “All right, Rebecca, here comes the story of The Witch of Agnesi right smack at your face. But first, in order to under-stand how The Witch of Agnesi curve got its name, you need to know a little about an extraordinary woman Mathematician. Maria Gaetana Agnesi was born in 1718 in Milan, Italy. A child prodigy, she could speak fluent French by the age of five and had mastered Latin, Hebrew, and Greek along with several modern lan-guages by the time she’d reached nine.”

Salvador, who could speak three languages, raised his hand. “Missus Pinkwater, I thought women weren’t educated at that time.”

Sally, you have a great career ahead of you as a
straight man.
“Right you are, Salvador, but Maria was an exception for two reasons. First of all, sections of Italy, particularly Bologna, were emerging as intellec- tual centers where traditional ideas about women were being challenged. More importantly, her father was the Professor of Mathematics at the University of Bo-logna, and unlike many scholars of his time, believed women, especially his daughter, the intellectual equals of men.”

Her foot and the palms of her hands made protes-tations concerning her damned crutches. “Salvador, bring me my desk chair, please.”

The boy rolled the chair from the back of the room. She handed him the crutches and sat. “Thank you, my fine young gentleman.”

He made an exaggerated bow and returned to his seat.

She settled into the chair, mentally restringing the threads of her tale. “So precocious was Maria, her fa-ther insisted she hostess and participate in round-table discussions with some of the great minds of Enlighten-ment Italy. Even though Maria was shy by nature, she held her own with these heavyweights.”

Bonnie nodded to Rebecca. “Keep in mind, while all of this was happening, Maria Agnesi was younger than you are right now. For the next decade and a half this would be the reality in which Maria Agnesi resided.”

Bonnie paused for dramatic effect and noted with sat-isfaction that several students actually leaned forward.

Gotcha.

“By thirty, Maria had published one of the most important mathematical treatises of her day, Analytical Institutions, a two-volume work on Integral and Dif-ferential Calculus and Real Analysis.”

Bonnie put her hands together and slowly spread them apart. When the space had grown to about ten inches, she said, “We’re talking huge math books here. Be grateful you don’t have to carry those monsters around in your backpacks.”

A few students laughed, albeit weakly.

What the hell. At least some of them think you’re
witty.
“The book ranged over much of the mathemati-cal topics of the day, but for the most part the hundreds of pages have been forgotten. What is remembered is a tiny section on parametrically defined curves.”

“The Witch of Agnesi,” Salvador said.

Right on time, Salvador.
Bonnie nodded. “The Witch of Agnesi.” She signaled for him to help her stand and hand her the crutches. Once at the black-board, she wrote the Cartesian equation

Bonnie underlined the equation. “Maria wasn’t the first person to study this curve and its paramet-ric relatives. A century before, the famous French Mathematician Pierre de Fermat, in his posthumously published treatise,
Isogoge ad Locus Planos et Solidos
, had given the curve the Italian name
versiera
, which simply means a curve that turns.”

She swung round to face the class. “And here’s where the story takes an excursion into the bizarre.” She rubbed her hands together and retook her seat.

“Maria used the same name that Fermat had used,
versiera
, when she spoke of the curve in her Analytic Institutions. She embellished and extended Fermat’s ideas, making large portions of the Mathematics her own.”

Again, Bonnie paused, relishing the hold she now had on the children. When she thought she’d tor-tured them long enough, she went on. “Now the scene shifts some fifty years hence. Maria Agnesi is dead. John Colson, a British Mathematician and linguist at Cambridge University, decides to translate Analytic In-stitutions into English.”

Bonnie wrote the word
versiera
on the blackboard and underlined it. “He did an admirable job except for this one word.”

Next to
versiera
she wrote
aversiera
and underlined the new word as well. “He mistook
versiera
for this almost identical cousin . . . with disastrous results. For, you see, this second word, although it differs from the first by only one letter, has an entirely different mean-ing. The word
aversiera
means bride of the devil.”

“A witch,” Rebecca said.

Bonnie nodded with satisfaction. “You betcha. And Maria, being dead, isn’t around to correct the mis-take. Thus, this innocent turning curve is dubbed . . .” She spread wide her hands, inviting her class to finish the sentence.

Almost to a child, they called out, “The Witch of Agnesi.”

“The infamous Witch of Agnesi. Over the years, this appellation has become so intertwined with Maria Agnesi herself that many later thought Maria was a witch who named the curve because of some perversity in her nature. That was the unkindest cut of all.”

Bonnie let her last statement hang in the air, hoping for a response.

Moments later Salvador raised his hand. “Why?”

Bless you, dear boy.

“Because Maria’s fondest wish, one which her scholarly father denied her, was to become a nun. As it was, she spent a goodly portion of her life in the service of Bologna’s poor and sick. Maria would have been ap-palled to learn her curve had been so named.”

In no mood to redirect the energy back to class-work, Bonnie spent the remaining time answering questions about Maria Agnesi and Colson’s unfortu-nate translation of her work. When the bell finally rang, she rationalized the wasted time by telling herself the story would help her students remember the curve and how to graph it.

When the last student exited the room, she realized that another day had passed where she failed to give homework.

And so it goes.

She forgave herself the lapse. Fortunately, Friday’s homework was still on tap to go over Tuesday morning. Besides, the entire business of homework and paramet-ric curves seemed to pale in comparison to the tragedies of the past few days. She knew this attitude, so unlike her, would pass, but it also served to point out just one more bit of collateral damage the murders had thrust upon her world.

A selfish way to think of it, but what the hell, I
suppose most of us believe the world revolves around
ourselves.
Irrationally, she cast the blame for her wast-ed Math Analysis Class on Edmund’s Wicked Little Witch.

It was with this mind set, eraser in hand, she turned back to her blackboard and prepared to expunge both
versiera
and
aversiera
in one broad stroke. Her hand froze just inches from its target. Bonnie studied the pair of words, and a grin spread across her face.

“Of course.” She chuckled. “I know you now, my Wicked Little Witch.”

CHAPTER 18

A
RMEN SHOT BONNIE AN UNEASY GLANCE. “All right, here we are, my Robin to your Bat-man. Now I want that explanation. I don’t even know where we’re going. And I hope to God you’re right about someone covering my class.” He slowed Alice for the stop sign at East Plains and Belleview.

Bonnie waved an impatient hand urging him to turn left. “Stop worrying and convince this ancient jalopy to give us just a little more speed.” She bit back a sudden urge to tell him to turn around and head back to school. In the classroom her reasoning seemed flaw-less; now she wasn’t so sure.

Armen must have seen the look of uncertainty on her face. “Bonnie?”

No, dammit. I’m right.

“All right, hang on. First of all, the key to unlocking this string of murders resides in the person of the Wicked Little Witch. If she didn’t actually commit murder, she certainly urged Edmund to do his worst.”

“You’ll get no argument from me there. I just don’t see—”

Splaying her fingers, she cut him off. “Bear with me, Mister Mouse. Our problem all along was that we couldn’t see the forest for the witches. We’re lousy with them—Ali, Rhiannon, not to mention Winston and the rest of the Beltane bunch. You couldn’t swing a black cat for the past couple of days and not smack a witch upside the head.” She hesitated, hoping Armen would at least acknowledge her witticism with a grunt.

A smile played at the corner of his mouth, but he extinguished it. “I’m listening.”

“The waters got further muddied when this Wicked Little Witch started electronically penning missives to Edmund urging him to hang tough and promising him the moon.” Feeling she was on a roll, Bonnie hurried on before Armen could interrupt. “I went round and round trying to dope out who this female Iago might be.”

She held up the thumb of her left hand. “Of course, Ali came to mind, but I just didn’t buy it.”

“What about the missing time Thursday night?”

“Ali did what she claimed. She didn’t have time for anything else. She walked out to the bale pyre, maybe stood looking at the night sky, then came back to the house.” Bonnie laid a hand on Armen’s knee. “It’s too damn far, Armen! Ali wasn’t gone long enough to trek to either Fulton Hill or the Sheridan barn, not if she participated in any meaningful way in the murders of Stephanie or Peyton. A round trip to and from either one of those places would take an hour at least, and that’s just for the driving.”

Armen presented her with a skeptical face. “
If
we believe Rhiannon’s estimation of how long the girl was absent from the house.”

“Which I do. I mean, why tell us at all about Ali’s nocturnal sojourn then lie about the details? All she needed to do is keep the whole story to herself.”

“Uh huh.” Armen didn’t sound entirely convinced, but he didn’t argue.

I guess that’s as good as I’m going to get.
“Next, I fixated on Molly, Edmund’s sister. Did the girl just create the persona of Your Wicked Little Witch, write those e-mails herself? Edmund’s poisoning certainly seems to point to Molly. Poisoning is an intimate meth-od of murder. The probability is Edmund knew his murderer, took the lethal drink or food right from his killer’s hand. Edmund trusted this person—much as he trusted his sister.”

“How could she get Edmund’s body—?”

“Under the trailer? That’s not my problem. I think that girl is as resourceful as she is strong. On top of that, did I mention she played wheelchair softball?”

The car started to fishtail on the rutted country road, and Armen swerved into the skid. By the time he’d fin-ished with the maneuver, his hands were shaking.

“Settle down, Mister Mouse. We need speed, but above all get us there in one piece.”

Armen drew a deep breath and muttered, “Of course, I still don’t know where in creation
there
is.”

“I’m getting to that. Just take Belleview to hell and gone, as if you’re going to Edmund’s house.” She waved toward the road ahead.

He laughed ruefully. “Your wish is my command, Princess Bonita. Don’t worry, I won’t wrap us around a tree, mainly because there are blessed few trees out here on the great American desert.” He gave her a sidelong glance as if to say, “How long do you think I’m going to put up with being treated like one of your students?”

Bonnie rubbed his shoulder. “I remember this handsome gentleman whose mother told fortunes in Armenia. He made me guess at his origins rather than tell me outright. Said it would feel better in the end.”

A smile flickered at the corner of Armen’s lips. “
Touché
. Fair enough, I’ll play. So this Molly is strong enough to do serious damage with a baseball bat?”

“Plenty strong. Hell, she could probably take out the both of us without working up a sweat. But none of that matters. The real problem with Molly as a sus-pect is that she’s another one telling the truth, this time about the girlfriend—Your Wicked Little Witch again. Her mother all but verified that. She didn’t disagree with Molly’s assertion of a love interest, just who that love interest might be.”

“And you know who the love of Edmund’s life was?”

“Stay with me.” When he continued looking skep-tical, she said, “In the middle of all this witchcraft there were two more witches—one the product of a medieval mistranslation, the other a comic book character.” She retold the story of Marie Agnesi and how a simple turn-ing curve became the bride of the devil.

Armen squinted at her. “That is peculiar, but I still don’t see the connection to these murders.”

“Neither did I.” Bonnie kept one eye on Armen and the other on the unpredictable rutted road. She didn’t relish the ignominy of ending up in a ditch. “Some-thing had been nagging at me, something I’d heard, but for one reason or another it never registered. Then, just as I was about to erase
versiera
and
aversiera
from my blackboard, I saw it. Once again, one word had been substituted for another and that simple substitu-tion changed everything.”

“You’ve lost me again.”

Bonnie slowed her breathing trying to force her mind into teacher mode. As was always the case, it wasn’t enough for the good teacher to understand a process. The good teacher had to select the perfect pedagogy to make the process plain to the listener as well.

“Go back with me to Edmund’s bedroom. Remem-ber all that comic book talk that began with Herbie Popsicle?”

“Herbie Popnecker.”

She waved away the correction. “Whatever. Before long you and Molly were discussing the ins and outs of Edmund’s collection.”

Armen nodded. “Uh huh. She mentioned Over-street, the comic book register, and Edmund’s primo collection he kept in a dehumidifying safe.”

Good man! Cut right to the chase.
“Exactly. Do you remember Molly claiming Edmund would sell ev-erything if the price was right?”

This time Armen shook his head, taking on the smug look of someone who remembered a choice bit the teacher had forgotten. “I remember her saying he’d sell almost everything. There was a run of five mint condition Harvey comic books she said he would never part with.”

“Right again.” She slapped his arm and immedi-ately regretted it.
Don’t distract the man while he’s
driving.

For his part, Armen just smiled. “Thank you, Mis-sus Pinkwater.” He adopted the sing-song voice of a kindergarten child.

“You’re welcome, Master Callahan.”
My God, in
the space of four days this man has got you all turned
inside out. You’re not a schoolgirl, Pinkwater. Get a
grip.

Her hand made its way back to his shoulder like it belonged there. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the comics in question were the first five issues of
Casper the Friendly Ghost
. As I recall, Molly was incredulous he would put any stock in these books be-yond their worth and the fact he’d made a great deal on them.”

“Considering the other more important pieces in his collection, I could see her point.”

“Yes, important.”

She swallowed a sarcastic remark concerning comic books and their relative significance in the world. Be-sides, there was something endearing in a man who wore a white goatee and yet still held on to a few child-ish values.

“And it was at that juncture we both missed the real reason why Edmund cherished these particular books.”

“The real reason?” He said the words like she was about to spring the punch line of a joke on him.

“Yes, the real reason.” She stuck out her tongue at him. “You missed it because you were focused on the other books in this magical vault of Edmund’s, and I missed it because I was being lulled into a fugue state by a barrage of comic book talk.”

“I have to presume Edmund being enamored with
Casper the Friendly Ghost
falls short of this so-called real reason.”

Bonnie resisted the temptation to pinch the shoul-der she was caressing. “And I’ll presume you’re being deliberately obtuse. The subject is witches, Callahan, witches. Here’s where our one-word-can-make-all-the-difference confusion raises its less than beautiful head. In the phrase Wicked Little Witch change Wicked to Good.”

She watched his face as the realization dawned on him. She had to admit, it was a face she could get used to.

“The poster above the computer,” he said, letting each word fall slowly from his mouth. “It pictured not only Casper the Friendly Ghost but also Casper’s best friend, a Good Little Witch. The same Good Little Witch who was introduced in those mint condition

Harvey comics.”

She nodded. “Indeed. A Good Little Witch named Wendy.”

ALICE TOOK THE TURN AT COYOTE ROAD LIKE SHE WAS made for poorly maintained country roads.
Good girl.
Just get us to that misplaced hacienda, and I’ll buy you
all the oil you can drink.

“If I’m right, all of the children’s deaths have noth-ing to do with the scholarship or Thursday morning’s fight, or even Peyton’s apparent abduction.”

“Was Peyton abducted? From all indications, he went willingly to Edmund’s barn.”

“If we add Wendy to the equation, the explanation of how he got to that barn is simplified.”

Again, the light of comprehension shone in Armen’s face. “Peyton was in her car when she drove away.”

She nodded the slow nod of the righteous. “It’s entirely possible he was somewhere on the Evangelical Academy’s grounds, but it makes more sense he sim-ply snuck around into her SUV, climbed in, and stayed hidden. Wendy and Peyton planned his disappearance before she arrived at the Academy, which explains why he became so distracted when she showed up.”

Armen raised both hands as if to make a point then, much to Bonnie’s relief, put them back on the wheel. “Why hide Peyton at all? Why fake his running away?”

Why, indeed?

As they sped down Coyote Road, Bonnie’s stomach tightened. She dreaded what she might find at Wendy’s house. Suddenly, a very large portion of her psyche hoped her reasoning was a pile of cow manure. Still, the momentum of her argument pushed her on.

“Let me answer your pair of questions with a pair of my own. Who’s been the villain in this Passion Play from the very beginning? Who also seems to have fallen off the face of the earth even though both the military and civilian police are diligently searching for him?”

A tight knowing smile formed on Armen’s lips. “The good Colonel.”

“I don’t know about the good part, but yes, Colonel Ralph Newlin. If I’m right, all this death and misery can be traced back to that sphincter in Air Force blue, and a plan to put a permanent end to a nightmare marriage.”

“With Edmund Sheridan’s help?”

“You betcha.” Bonnie resisted the urge to punctuate her remark with a punch to his arm. “In a misguided effort to comfort Stephanie, Edmund said something in-criminating to Stephanie. Wendy had to get rid of her.”

Armen chewed his lower lip and beard, his head nodding. “And that very night Stephanie Templeton would die on Fulton Hill. Shoot, you don’t have to play baseball to get your hands easily on a baseball bat. Not if your husband plays softball.”

“Let’s take it from the beginning. From early Thursday morning, things start to go wrong.” Bonnie tugged at her ear, sorting through the events of that not-so- long-ago morning. “Edmund tries unsuccessfully to get Peyton in a fight.”

“Yeah, why do that? Edmund was Peyton’s best friend.”

“Because he
was
Peyton’s best friend. I’m sure in Edmund’s mind he was doing Peyton a favor.” She turned to face Armen. “The deal was to get Peyton out of the way.”

When Armen looked like he might interrupt again, Bonnie said, “I got a theory about that, too. For now, just hang with me. If Peyton gets in a fight, he gets his thin ass suspended. His father would be pissed, so Ed-mund could suggest, with Wendy’s approval, he lay low in the Sheridan barn. The boy is gone for any homicide that would take place.”

Open-mouthed, Armen nodded in agreement. “That would be a lot simpler than spiriting Peyton away from a Knowledge Bowl competition. But Peyton refused to fight back.”

The double row of poplars lining the Newlin driveway loomed in the distance like dark mountains against the morning sky. Bonnie took a long shud-dering breath to still her voice. “If it wasn’t for that unplanned-for choice, Stephanie Templeton would still be alive and by consequence Peyton, when he learned of Stephanie’s death.”

“All right, let’s say I buy it. That still doesn’t ex-plain why Peyton was secreted off to the Sheridan’s barn in the first place.”

“Do you remember much from child psychology classes about dysfunctional families, particularly ones where one or both of the parents are physically or sexu-ally abusive.”

Armen pursed his lips in concentration. “I re-member the secrecy, the one parent who becomes the enabler, the good child who masks the troubled family by being exemplary.”

“I’m thinking more of the relationships within the family rather than the family’s structure
per se
, espe-cially, the child’s relationship to the abuser.”

Armen sighed deeply. “Often, the child will be closer to the abusive parent than he is to the non-abu-sive parent.”