The Witch of Agnesi (3 page)

He signaled Edmund over. “I’m going to need a description of the pickup.” He led the boy outside through the double doors.

Colonel Newlin watched them leave then turned back to her, his face a rigid mask. “I want to apologize for my wife. She’s been under a lot of strain lately. So has Peyton.” He obviously wasn’t comfortable apologizing.

Thanks to you.
She rejected telling this bully just what she thought of him. The best thing she could do for the Newlin family would be to inform Social Services. “I have to get my remaining student home.”

When she tried to walk away, Newlin laid hold of her upper arm.

“Don’t much like me, do you?”

Bonnie eyed the callused hand on her arm. “It’s not my place to like or dislike you. I’m more concerned about your boy.” The curt answer was out of her mouth before she could apprehend it.

He raised both of his hands and stepped back, making a show of letting go of her arm. “You’ve been talking with my wife.”

“We talked.” She stared him full in the face.

“Now if you’ll excuse me.” Without a look back, she strode across the vestibule toward the stairs leading up to Jeffers’ office.

“You women, you all stick together,” Newlin called.

Eat shit and die, you son of a bitch.

In the office, Jeffers and the pair of female custodians who’d searched the building stood praying, holding hands in the center of the room. As she entered, all three supplicants looked in her direction.

Bonnie tugged at her ear, embarrassed to interrupt. “I’ve got to go. I need to take Edmund home.”

The trio made no motion to break their prayer circle. Jeffers lowered his head. “We ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

He drew the two women into a group embrace then pulled back. “You ladies talk to the officer then go on home. I’ll lock up.”

The two women, both in overalls, smiled at Bonnie as they filed past—the smile of folks in the recent company of God.

Jeffers sat on the rim of the gray-steel desk and removed his orange bow tie. “I still think the boy ran away. No one, besides the Chinese boy, saw this red pickup or its occupants.”

“Korean.”

“What?”

“Edmund’s Korean.” She sat next to him on the desk. “I want to believe Peyton’s just out there being stupid. Certainly, the time constraints bear that out. From the time between when I last saw the boy and when I sent Edmund to find him, the school was packed with students. Someone would have noticed Peyton struggling with his captors. And yet . . .”

“You can’t let go of the off chance.”

She rubbed her eyes. “Not while there still is an off chance.”

He took her arm and led her out of the office. “Go home, Missus Pinkwater.”

“Splendid idea.”

Edmund stood at the bottom of the stairs. “I can go. I gave my statement to the cop.”

Bonnie looked around for Franklin but didn’t see him.

As if he read her mind, Edmund said, “The cop and Peyton’s dad are in the auditorium. Can we go now?”

She nodded.

By the time she dropped Edmund Sheridan off at the school, it was tenthirty. The Richter seven headache, which had left her that morning, had returned and now raged at eight.

THE NEXT DAY, BONNIE PASSED THROUGH THE OFFICE on the way to her morning class.

“Bon, can I see you for a moment?” Principal Lloyd Whittaker stood at his office door, only his head poking out.

She wished she’d gone another way, not liking the tone of Lloyd’s voice. She came through the swinging gate, around the office counter, and passed Doris, the office secretary.

“Divine,” Doris mouthed and pointed with her thumb.

Bonnie’s heart sank. She hated Superintendent Xavier Divine and was sure the feeling was mutual. To her, he would always be The Divine Pain in the Ass. It wouldn’t surprise her if he knew of his
nom de plume
.

As she came through Lloyd’s door she painted a smile onto her face. “Good morning, Lloyd.” She fixed a seated Divine with the frozen smile. “Superintendent Divine.”

Xavier Divine was an unremarkable little man except for one overriding feature. He possessed an enormous bald head. It was this feature he now wagged in Bonnie’s direction. “I received a disturbing phone call this morning from the Newlins.”

Bonnie held her breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Divine sat up in the burgundy overstuffed chair.

“They claim that in the midst of their agony over their missing child you were rude and impertinent.”

Impertinent? What am I, his valet?

Bonnie tried to remember any impertinent behavior. Not only couldn’t she recall any, she wasn’t certain how anyone beside an underling could even be impertinent. And she didn’t consider herself anyone’s underling.

“Did the call come from Missus or Colonel Newlin?”

“The Colonel.”

“I’m not surprised. The man’s a sphincter muscle.”

Divine’s face flushed, increasing the illusion he might be Mr. Potato Head. “The man is a national hero, twice decorated by the President himself.”

“Newlin abuses his wife and son. Missus Newlin told me herself Peyton ran away because of him. I intend to report the good Colonel to Social Services the millisecond I leave this office.” She chided herself on so blatantly pushing Divine’s buttons, but enjoyed watching him struggle with his natural urge to deny her anything she wanted to do.

Fortunately, the Divine Pain in the Ass knew too much school law to do any such thing. If a teacher as much as suspected abuse it was not only correct for her to report it, she was bound by law to do so. Any administrator who even hinted she should cover it up was committing a felony.

She decided she’d throw him a bone. “The competition had ended and Peyton was already in his mother’s care when he disappeared.”

Divine turned to Lloyd. “Is this true?”

“If Missus Pinkwater says it’s true, I believe her.”

Divine noticeably relaxed. He sank back into the overstuffed chair, his fingers steepled beneath his double chin. The effect made his head appear like Humpty Dumpty perched atop a finger wall. “This still doesn’t excuse a member of East Plains’ staff being rude to a parent, but given the extenuating circumstances . . .” He spread wide his hands.

For an agonizing moment, Bonnie thought he might even wink at her.
No, dear God, don’t let it happen.

Mercifully, he stood without winking. “Keep me informed of any progress in locating the boy.” To the friction zing of his salmon-pink corduroy pants, the Divine Pain in the Ass waddled from the office.

“Why do you do that?” Lloyd sat down behind his desk.

She fell into the still warm chair. “Do what?”

“Go out of your way to antagonize our mutual straw-boss.”

“I didn’t start out meaning to make him mad. It just happened. I think it’s a gift.”

“It’s a gift that’s going to get us both fired one of these days.”

“I, for one, hope that day is a long time coming. I kind of like working here.” She flashed him a toothy grin. “Maybe it’s the principal.” She got up to leave.

“Hold on.” He stayed her with an outstretched palm. “Our local constable, Deputy Fishlock, came by my place this morning.”

She sat down. “About Peyton?”

“About Jesse Poole. Sheriffs stopped at his trailer last night, but he wasn’t home. I guess some teacher recommended they check Saint Francis Hospice so the Springs’ police went there. They found Jesse’s truck parked outside and the boy in visiting his mother.”

Bonnie pictured Jesse Poole with his hair-trigger temper when the police barged into his mother’s hospice room in the middle of the night. “Oh no!”

“Oh, yes. Jesse went ballistic. The staff came to his rescue telling the police he’d been there all evening. That would have been the end of it had it not been for Jesse’s bloody shirt.”

“He didn’t tell them it was Peyton’s blood?”

“As a matter of fact he did, claimed it got there when he bloodied the boy’s nose earlier that day.”

“Did they arrest Jesse?”

Lloyd shook his head. “Not with five members of the hospice staff giving him an alibi. They questioned him and left.”

Bonnie checked her watch. “I’ve got to fly. I need to report Colonel Newlin to the counselor and get to class.”

She left Lloyd’s office thinking she should be glad Jesse wasn’t involved in Peyton’s disappearance. Maybe Peyton did just run off on his own. So why did she have this uneasy feeling the world smelled of fish?

CHAPTER 3

A
SEA OF BRAIDED, HALF-SHAVED, AND blue-tinted heads bobbed between Bonnie and the counselor’s office. The crowding reminded her just how much East Plains had changed in two years. Time was when she shared these morning halls with about half this many faces, and she knew all their names. Now, strangers stared back at her.

She reached the office of Counselor Freddy Daven-port feeling decidedly melancholy. Thank God it was Friday.

Seated in an obviously overburdened desk chair, Freddy Davenport sprawled at the lunch table that served as his desk, fingers laced across his substantial stomach. His double chins rested on a seedy turtleneck pullover which fit him like a sausage skin. Open bowls of Jolly Ranchers and Tootsie Rolls sat on twin beige file cabinets. Discarded candy wrappers littered the floor. Soda-pop cans filled the trash. Across a cookie-crumb covered carpet a dilapidated tan sofa listed.

Lollipop protruding from his face, Freddy hoisted his bulk from the desk chair. “Bonnie, as I live and draw labored breath.” He signaled for her to sit and swept a Butterfinger wrapper from the sofa.

She felt the upholstery to see if it was sticky and decided to stand. “Does the janitor know this room exists?”

With a grunt, Freddy lowered his considerable bulk back into the chair. It creaked under the weight. He spread wide his pudgy hands. “What you see here isn’t the neglect of our fine custodial staff. I met with my student counselors this morning. Sugar was the order of the day.”

He gave her an up-from-under glance. “I’ll go out on a limb and predict this isn’t the social call I hoped it would be.”

Bonnie shook her head. “Sharp as ever. Nothing gets past you.”

Despite his slovenliness and his proclivity for sending students into glucose comas, he’d been a find for East Plains. The school went through five counselors in seven years, most of whose back sides she been happy to see in her rearview mirror. Freddy had come to East Plains via law enforcement. After a career as a probation officer, he’d decided he could better serve humanity and himself if he worked with students before they got into trouble.

Bonnie liked his ample back side and the rest of him from the beginning. “I need to report suspected spouse and child abuse.”

Freddy’s aspect went from jovial host to let’sget-down-to-business. He opened a long file drawer, removed a legal pad and held it out to her. “Give me everything you know or suspect. Include all specifics and everyone you’ve talked to.”

She refused the pad. “It’s not much. Can’t I just tell you?”

“Certainly.” He snatched a pen from under a pile of red licorice and clicked it. “Shoot.”

She told him of her evening, ending with the note from Mrs. Newlin.

When he finished writing, he leaned back in his chair and tapped his pen on the lollipop stick protruding from the corner of his mouth. “Peyton’s name keeps coming up. I wasn’t surprised to hear Jesse Poole thrashed him. Yesterday, Jesse sat on that very couch in a rage because Peyton said unkind things about Jesse’s mother.”

“What sort of things?”

Freddy bit at his lip and shook his head. “Sorry, Bon. If I started quoting students’ private revelations I couldn’t convince them to talk to me.”

“Have you told Lloyd?”

“Not even Lloyd.” He spread wide his sausage fingers. “I live and die by the confidences I keep.”

“Can you at least tell me the time Jesse left here?”

“Nine-ten, maybe a little later.”

The timing felt out of kilter. Five minutes after leaving Freddy’s office Jesse had already caught up with Peyton and was pounding him. Peyton’s mother drove him to school that morning, and Bonnie met the boy getting out of his mother’s SUV. They’d walked together to the library. How had Peyton found time to piss off Jesse Poole?

“I know I’m getting dangerously close to confidentiality, but had Peyton insulted Jesse’s mother the day before?”

Freddy shook his head, wagging his lollipop stick like a miniature baton. “That morning, in fact, just before Jesse came to see me. We have an agreement, Jesse and I. He comes to me whenever he thinks he might lose his cool. Not a bad boy. He just needs some coping skills.”

Don’t we all?
“Why didn’t you inform Lloyd?” She immediately regretted her accusatory tone.

Freddy didn’t seem to take offence. “I tried to alert him to the possibility of trouble, but when I called the office Lloyd was gone, and the vice principal was out of the building as well. By the time Lloyd returned, Jesse had already tracked down Peyton and administered instant karma.”

Freddy put on an apologetic face. “The rest, as the poet was fond of saying, is history.”

The first bell of the day rang.

Freddy walked her to the door. “Do you have Stephanie Templeton, Edmund Sheridan, or Ali Griffith in your first hour class?”

“All three.”

“Could you send them to me when it’s convenient?”

Bonnie frowned. One of her pet peeves centered on nurses and counselors pulling students out of class, sometimes for trivial matters. “Is this really important?”

“It could be for them.”

“Can I get a hint of why?”

He rubbed his hands together. “Do you remember a former student named J. D. Sullivan?”

At first the name didn’t ring any bells. Then it came to her. “Must be fifteen years ago. Sure, Josh Sullivan, good Mathematician. A little weak on logic. He went to school somewhere in California.”

“That’s him. Made a bundle in electronics and is feeling philanthropic. He’s interested in funding a scholarship exclusively for East Plains’ students. He contacted me last week.”

A smile crept up from her belly to her face. “Stephanie, Edmund, and Ali are candidates?”

Freddy nodded. “I got them in here earlier this week, but I need to tell them they made the cut. Out of the baker’s dozen of students I sent to Sullivan, he’s winnowed it down to four finalists.”

“You only mentioned three.”

“The remaining finalist was in here yesterday, and I told him the good news.” Freddy hesitated, looking uncomfortable. “Our missing genius, Peyton Newlin, is the fourth.”

BONNIE ARRIVED FIVE MINUTES LATE TO HER FIRST period, in time to catch her aide dropping the attendance slip into the wire door basket.

Wide eyed, hands on her hips, Carlita Sanchez glared openly at Bonnie.

“What?” she asked, knowing full well what was on the girl’s mind.

“You were doing so good. Fourteen days in a row on time. And now.” She tapped a non-existent watch.

“Don’t start with me, Carlita. I had a bad day yesterday followed by a worse night.”

The Junior girl’s coffee-colored face darkened. “I heard about the fight. Peyton shouldn’t talk trash about Jesse’s mom. That ain’t right.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” She needed to get past this little Hispanic gatekeeper and start her class. “How many do we have gone today?”

She slipped past the girl into the room.

“A bunch,” Carlita whispered, walking behind.

“Ali Griffith, Dorry Tomms, Stephanie Templeton, Edmund Sheridan, Billy Quintana.”

Bonnie scanned the empty desks. “Have you called the library to see if Edmund’s down there?”

“Of course.” She gave Bonnie a look that asked if she thought her mentally challenged. “First thing I did.”

“All right, have a seat.” The entire Knowledge Bowl team gone? That wasn’t like them. She took a breath and faced her class. “Take out last night’s homework.”

Salvador, a serious young man in front-seat-center raised his hand. “Missus P, you didn’t give us any home-work.”

She remembered the fight. It was fast becoming the gift that kept on giving. “Fair enough. Let’s correct that right now.” She ignored the groans and wrote the previous night’s assignment on the board.

When she turned around, a girl in the back of the room had her hand raised. “How about the story you were going to tell yesterday?”

First Carlita, now this child. When had the inmates
gotten control of the asylum?

“Maybe after we’ve covered the math. I’m not making any promises. Let’s concentrate on The Witch of Agnesi and its parametric cousins.”

The next hour and ten minutes she put her students through their paces, changing the parameters of the dual equations, noting the corresponding changes in the graphs. When at last they all came up for air, she laid down her chalk. Perhaps Marie Agnesi’s story would solidify the Mathematics in their minds.

“Okay, I believe the question was how The Witch of Agnesi got its name.”

A knock sounded on her door. Lloyd Whittaker poked his head in the room, his face ashen. “Can I see you in the hall for a moment?”

From the back of the room someone whispered, “Not again.”

She didn’t even try to identify the whisperer. She excused herself and joined Lloyd outside her door. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t go into specifics right now, but Superintendent Divine is going to hold an emergency assembly the last fifteen minutes of fourth period.”

Her heart raced. “Is this about Peyton?”

Lloyd wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“Not exactly.” He glanced up and down the hallway looking uncomfortable.

He’s not going to tell me.
She stared impatiently at her long time friend. “Come on, Lloyd, what’s this all about?”

He drew a long breath and released it in a sigh. “Bon, don’t make me say any more than I have to. Now please go back in your class and inform them of the assembly.”

Anger replaced impatience. Her Imp of the Perverse prodded her to push Lloyd. “You’re scaring me, Lloyd. Can you at least give me a hint?”

His face grew hard. He took her hands in his. “No, I can’t give you a hint. Stop asking me to give you special treatment.” He gave her hands a squeeze and walked away.

As she stood staring at his departing back she heard him whisper, “Shit, shit, shit.”

BONNIE’S CHEST ACHED.

She stared at her hummus and pinion nut sandwich. Unable to swallow the bite she’d taken, she spit into her napkin and folded it. All around, the voices of her colleagues echoed through the teacher’s lounge. Behind her at the other long table, a pair of new teachers laughed. Angry tears clouded her vision. Indistinct noises echoed across her senses but couldn’t penetrate her personal fog.

“Mind if I join you?” a voice behind her asked.

Bonnie blinked at her tears trying to put a face to her intruder.

Armen Callahan, the new Science teacher, stood above her, holding a blue plastic tray with both hands. She’d seen him in the halls dozens of times, but since he taught Junior High they hadn’t said more than a score of words to one another. As always he wore a sweater vest over a long-sleeved white dress shirt and a tie emblazoned with cartoon characters. This time the sweater was robin egg blue and the cartoon Marvin the Martian. Armen’s gray hair and goatee were impeccably groomed. From the patient expression on his tanned face, he looked content to stand there until she gave him permission to sit.

She moved aside her sandwich wrapper. “Not at all.”

Armen slid his tray onto the table. “I’m not really sure what this is.” He nodded a smiling face toward a mound of mashed potatoes smothered in white gravy. Gray irregular lumps of meat speckled the gravy, giving the mound a vaguely lunar appearance.

“Have you tried this stuff?” He ran a hand through his hair looking as if he might be afraid of the unsavory meal.

She smiled in spite of herself. “I’m a vegetarian.”

“A sad one I think.” He reached a thumb toward her face and gently brushed away the tear.

He reddened. “Excuse me. I’m not usually so forward.”

Heat rose to her cheeks. She let her gaze travel the lounge seeing if anyone noticed. Everyone sat ensconced in their own little worlds.

“I’ll be okay. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

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.”