If the girl dies or loses the baby . .
Bonnie refused to consider the prospect. In the back of her mind was the very real possibility that her insistent questions brought about the girl’s miscarriage.
One thing at a time, Pinkwater. Just hope these guys know their stuff.
Lloyd took her hand. His eyes were shut.
He’s praying.
She shut her eyes as well. God, don’t let my stupidity be the cause of hurt on this sweet child or her baby. If You’ve got to punish someone, let it be me.
Not accustomed to praying, Bonnie found she couldn’t keep her eyes closed. Not five feet away Nicky Bordeleaux, part-time EMT and full-time rancher attended to Seneca. He and another volunteer had cut off her blue jeans, and Caleb had removed the girl’s panties. Thank God, there was very little blood. Seneca’s collar was open, and a wet cloth had been placed across her forehead.
Maybe. Bonnie let a spark of hope illuminate her darkness.
“I’m no expert,” Nicky whispered loud enough for Bonnie to hear, “but I think she’s going to be all right. The bleeding stopped before you got here. Mind me; she still needs to go to the hospital.”
“What about the baby?” Caleb asked.
Nicky spread wide his hands. “I got no way of knowing that with the equipment I got here. I say we haul ass into the Springs.”
“Let’s do it.” Caleb stood and moved out of the way as a flat-board stretcher was laid alongside the girl. He stepped across the station and came back with a blanket.
With a practiced motion, the two part-time firemen slid the girl onto the stretcher and Caleb covered her. Nicky nodded to the rear door of the station wagon that served as the station’s ambulance. “Open her up.”
Caleb did as he was told and the stretcher was slid into the ambulance. Nicky hightailed around to the driver’s side of the vehicle, while the other EMT and Caleb climbed into the back. The young husband offered a tired smile to Bonnie.
“You want to follow the ambulance to the hospital?” Lloyd asked.
Bonnie swallowed and shook her head. “Let’s give this little family some space.”
Lloyd helped her stand. “This isn’t your fault.”
“I know.” And she mostly believed the words. She took hold of Lloyd’s arm. “Let’s go.”
By the time they reached the Subaru, through sheer force of will, Bonnie convinced herself that Seneca would be okay.
Lloyd held the car door. “Never a dull moment with you, Pinkwater.”
Bonnie sat and peered up at her friend, grateful for his attempt to cheer her up. “Yep, I’m a walking party.”
Lloyd shut the door and was next to Bonnie before he turned to her. “Want to hear something I’m not particularly proud of?”
Bonnie drew in a deep breath and released it. “Sure, I’m not too high on one Bonnie Pinkwater at the moment. Might do me good to hear your tale of woe.”
Her friend shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong. I was concerned about Seneca, but for a goodly portion of time, I couldn’t put what Seneca said about Jason out of my mind.” Lloyd stuffed a pinch of chew in his lower lip and started up the Subaru. He pulled out of the fire station lot heading back down East Plains Highway toward the school.
Strangely enough, Lloyd’s confession did cheer her up. She jumped at the chance to talk about Seneca’s revelation. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to take the lead.
Lloyd must have read her mind. “I can’t stop wondering if Leo told Jason of his plan to out him with Rattlesnake.”
Bonnie nodded. She let her mind steer her into familiar paths of logic. “What if we assume he had, or at least that Jason had reason to believe Leo would reveal their secret?”
“The young pastor has a lot invested in his new life, been working at it for three years. Leo’s revelation would have been a major turd in the Jason Dobbs punch bowl.”
Bonnie felt as if a weight were falling from her shoulders as she threw herself into the discussion. “You’re telling me. Then there’s that whole business with the fist-fight between Jason and his dad.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
Bonnie gaped incredulously at her principal. “Don’t even go there, Whittaker. I’d bet my house the two of them tussled not twenty minutes before we graced them with our presence. What’s more, you know it, too.”
“Okay, I’ll give you this one. The question is, what did they fight about?”
“I’ll give you ten guesses, but I’ll bet you get it on the first one. And his initials are L.Q.”
Lloyd waved his hand as if Bonnie was missing the point. “But what in particular got Harold so riled up that he felt compelled to punch his boy? I can’t see him laying into Jason just because his son brings up Leo Quinn’s name. Hell in a bucket, Bon, they had to speak of Leo. They were planning his funeral, for Pete’s sake.”
Bonnie laid a hand on Lloyd’s arm. “Squeeze into this one. Jason confesses to his father that he’s killed Leo to shut him up about the whole Rattlesnake thing. Jason’s crazy with anxiety and grief. He plans to make a clean breast of it.”
Lloyd’s head performed the agreement nod. “Dad loses his cool and tries to talk Jason out of doing anything rash.”
“Jason and Dad fall into harsh words, maybe hypocrite, maybe asshole.”
“You’re really getting into this.”
“Hell, I’m barely started. Now the words between Jason and Papa escalate into real heat. A little pushing. A little shoving. Shoot, Lloyd, Jason may even have taken the first swing, and now Daddy loses any semblance of cool. He brings it to Junior and the rest is church history.”
For a long moment, Lloyd worked the lump of tobacco in his lower lip, obviously mulling over their mutual theory. “I got a problem or two.”
Bonnie had to admit, she was also having her own doubts. “Hit me with your best shot.”
“Let’s go all the way back to Jason killing Leo.”
“Barbed wire?”
Lloyd pursed his lips. “Barbed wire. And naked. I can’t see Jason tying his naked friend to a fence just so he can kill him. I mean, why go to all that trouble?”
Why, indeed?
“A reason doesn’t immediately come to mind. But if Jason did tie him up, then we’re no longer talking a crime of passion but a premeditated killing.”
Lloyd gave her a sideways glance before returning his gaze to the road. “Okay, now add this to the mix. I can’t see Leo letting Jason hog-tie him to no barbed-wire fence.”
“Another tussle, maybe Jason wins this one.”
“Nope. You told me yourself there were no signs of a fight anywhere on Leo’s person. No black eye. No bloody lip. Bon, you or anybody tries to truss me up naked to barbed wire, you better be ready for the fight of your life. Leo would be no different. He was a scrapper, if nothing else.”
“All right, point taken. What about your second problem?”
“We got a dead rodeo clown. How does Jason Dobbs, youth pastor of Saved by the Blood Pentecostal Tabernacle, fit into the murder of a rodeo clown in a port-a-potty behind a beer tent at the El Paso County Fair?”
Bonnie sighed an I’ll-go-you-one-better sigh. “I got two other questions for you.”
“Fire away.”
“First, I’m sure by now Byron’s had time to compare the bullets from the Furby shooting with those taken from Leo.”
Lloyd’s eyes widened as he obviously considered the possibility. “And if they’re from the same gun?”
Bonnie let her head rock into a slow nod. “If they are, then we have one killer, who had something against both Leo Quinn and Dwight Furby.”
“Witherspoon?”
“Maybe, but consider this, as well. Didn’t Jason Dobbs tell us last night that he hadn’t been in contact with Leo?”
Again, Lloyd’s face registered surprised understanding. “He sure as blazes did, but—”
“But Seneca said Jason got hold of Leo not two months ago and put the final
kibosh on their love affair. And that makes Jason Dobbs a liar.”
By the time Bonnie got back to her hacienda in Black Forest, it was close to five o’clock. She and Lloyd had driven to the school to pick up his truck, and thankfully Superintendent Xavier Divine had skedaddled for parts unknown. She said her good-byes and agreed to pick up Lloyd for the fair later that night. Truth be told, he’d volunteered to come for her, but she lived in the opposite direction from the El Paso fairgrounds. It made absolutely no sense for the man to drive to hell and gone just to assuage his knightly proclivities, sweet as they were.
Besides, he’d be providing the inadvertent entertainment soon enough. Bonnie let a minor wave of guilt wash over her. Despite the day’s events, and Lloyd’s sad situation, she couldn’t help but view the coming evening with a supersized portion of giddiness.
Marjorie Whittaker, what the hell are you up to?
For that matter what was Lloyd planning? Would he introduce Bonnie to Marjorie’s boy-toy lover? Bonnie pictured Marjorie in a skintight T-shirt that read, STRANGERS HAVE THE BEST CANDY. Was the previous Mrs. Whittaker undergoing some midlife crisis that involved tattoos and multiple body piercings?
I’d rather show than tell you, Lloyd had said. Hell’s bells, what could possibly be at the fair that would explain Marjorie and her sudden escape from a marriage of thirty-plus years?
Boil me in oil, thought Bonnie, I can’t wait.
Hypatia, the golden retriever, licked Bonnie’s hand, and she scrubbed a fist across the dog’s brow. “Big doings tonight, sweetie pie. Mommy is all awash in morbid anticipation.”
Absentmindedly, Bonnie opened cans of dog and cat food. Euclid, the black Burmese, jumped onto the breakfast island to sneak a preview morsel. It was a testament to Bonnie’s preoccupation that she didn’t immediately sweep the cat airborne.
After putting out the food, Bonnie sat on the family room floor, her back to the front of the couch. She dragged a small dry erase board and a marker from under the couch and set it on her lap. The plan was to get started on the eulogy, maybe do an outline. Now that she’d finally come to grips with the fact that what happened to Seneca wasn’t her fault, she fallen into a new set of worries. After all, she had less than fifteen hours until she had to deliver the damnable speech.
Bonnie wrote Leo Quinn across the top of the board. Immediately, she realized the problem wasn’t what to say, but what to leave out. She could easily do a half hour delineating the impact Leo had on the school, the people, and the community of East Plains. The boy was an athlete, a scholar, a beloved son, a good friend, an imp capable of inventive mischief, and a brave individual who stood up for what he believed even when it cost him everything.
She also knew the temperament of the good folks of East Plains. If I know what’s good for me, I’d better limit this talk to no more than ten minutes, or I’m going have their eyeballs glazing over.
Bonnie wrote, erased, then rewrote several beginnings to her speech before she brought the sleeve of her blouse to bear and expunged the entire mess with an exasperated swipe. Hypatia plopped down beside Bonnie and nosed at the whiteboard.
“Mommy’s not having any luck, sweet girl.”
Just give in, Pinkwater. You know damn well what you’d rather be analyzing.
Taking pen in hand, Bonnie wrote Who Killed Leo Quinn? at the top of the whiteboard and underlined it twice.
The phone in the kitchen rang.
Bonnie grunted as she hoisted herself to her feet. The phone rang again. “I’m coming, already.” She fought her way through a canine obstacle course.
“Ladies, do you mind?” Bonnie reached the phone on the third ring. “Pinkwater’s.”
“Missus Pinkwater, this is Wilma Trotter.”
The woman’s voice brought a parade of images into Bonnie’s mind. A thin, almost emaciated woman with one good eye and the pirate eye patch to show it off. A quick mind in almost complete camouflage hidden behind a latter-day hippie persona. The woman raised bees, ate only organic, and yet snorted down a single shot of Wild Turkey with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Then there was the walking stick.
“What can I do for you, Wilma?”
“How ‘bout stopping by for a moment this evening.”
Bonnie was about to beg out of the offer, maybe even explain about going to the fair when she stopped short. A younger, slimmer Mo Witherspoon, a senior at East Plains, loomed large in her mind. The young ape had his leg propped on a split rail fence, and he was holding court with Dwight Furby and another young ne’er-do-well. The other boy was Gabriel Trotter.
“Wilma, does this have anything to do with Moses Witherspoon?”
A long moment passed before the woman at the other end of the phone line spoke. “You still can read my mind, Pinkwater. How’d you know?”
“Not important. Could I come by right now?”
CHAPTER 11
WILMA TROTTER OPENED THE ALUMINUM DOOR ON THE trailer after the first knock. She wore a tie-dyed T-shirt and a pair of coveralls resplendent with patches of Art Crumb characters—Doo-Dah Man, Mister Natural, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. String-bean thin and tall, with wispy blond-gray hair, the woman myopically regarded Bonnie with one good eye, the other covered by an eye patch sporting the image of a magic mushroom. Wilma leaned heavily onto a shoulder-high walking stick whose knob was carved into the likeness of Timothy Leary.
Welcome to the twenty-first century, Wilma, my dear.
“Well, get yourself in here, Pinkwater. I made some rooibos tea.”
Bonnie damn well knew it wouldn’t do any good to explain that she hated rooibos tea. With a little under an hour before she was to pick up Lloyd, Bonnie had no time to argue with a refugee from the sixties about beverage preferences. Best to just let the woman entertain in her own eccentric fashion. Bonnie followed Wilma into her tiny kitchen and plopped down at a powder blue paisley dinette set. As a centerpiece, a Bullwinkle the Moose vase held a plastic bird-of-paradise flower and a pinwheel.
Wilma set down two steaming cups of tea and, using her walking stick, carefully lowered herself onto a dinette chair.
Bonnie adopted the receptive audience pose.
Wilma dabbed her finger into the tea, and unselfconsciously lifted the eye patch. She swabbed the rim of her sunken eye with the reddish-brown liquid. With her finger still beneath the patch, she fixed Bonnie with the good orb. “I didn’t know who else to turn to. Don’t know who else I could trust.” She let the patch fall back into place.
Bonnie could see what the woman was hinting at and felt the need to establish some ground rules before Wilma went any further. “With all that’s happened, Wilma, I can’t make any promises. People have died.”
“You think I don’t know that?” A momentary scowl was quickly replaced by a look of resignation and remorse. “Oh, hell, do what you got to do. You’ve always treated Gabe fairly.”
“And I always will. Now, what’s going on?”
“Witherspoon’s Trans Am screamed into my yard about nine o’clock last night.”
The Ol’ Spoonmaster wasted no time getting here from the fair. “How did he look?”
“Like the Grim Reaper had sent him picture postcards from hell. Did my heart good to see the little bastard so shook up.”
Bonnie suddenly remembered why she’d always been so fond of Wilma. For a woman with a will-o’-the-wisp exterior, she could be rock solid when she put her mind to it. “And Gabe?” Bonnie asked.
Wilma splayed her fingers traffic-cop style, indicating Bonnie needed to keep quiet for a bit. “Back up, Pinkwater. I’ll get to all that.”
“Take your time.”
“I damn well mean to. First thing, even before Witherspoon brought his ugly puss to my door, Gabe had been acting strange. Jumpy. Preoccupied.”
“Uh-huh. Since when?”
“Since he went out driving with Mister Spoon and that moron Furby.”
Bonnie felt the hair on the back of her neck rise up. “Are we talking
Saturday night?”
Wilma nodded. “Got in late, too. I was down for the night when he got back, so I don’t know what time it was, but he stayed in his room pretty much all the next day, took the newspaper in there with him.” The woman took a large slurp of her tea seemingly to give herself time to organize her narrative.
Bonnie seized the opportunity to stir the cauldron a mite. “You know about Furby?”
Wilma cocked her head and gave over a quizzical one-eyed stare. “What about him?”
“Dead, murdered last night.” Bonnie told Wilma an abbreviated version of the port-a-potty killing, including her suspicion that Witherspoon was somehow connected to the murder.
The color drained from Wilma Trotter’s already pale face. “Oh, shit. Don’t tell me that, Pinkwater. My Gabe’s gone off with that numbskull.”
“Did Gabe say where they were going?”
Wilma slowly shook her head. “Not for lack of me asking, but I might as well have been shouting at a bird-bath.”
“And he’s been gone since last night?”
“Yep, and that ain’t the worst of it. Before the two of them took off, I heard them talking in Gabe’s room.”
Bonnie resisted the urge to speak. Wilma had opened the floodgates. All Bonnie would have to do was let it all wash over her. She nodded for Wilma to continue.
“Well, the day before I had read in the paper—after I got it back from Gabe—about that homosexual getting himself killed last Saturday. The one who gave the speech at Gabe’s graduation.”
“Leo Quinn.”
“That’s the one. Like I said, I read about it in the paper. I mean how and where he was shot, how they found him all naked, everything.”
“And?”
“I couldn’t hear exactly what Gabe and Witherspoon were saying, just stems and seeds, if you know what I mean.”
Bonnie found herself growing impatient with the woman’s roundabout approach. “But you did hear something?”
“I sure did. More than once they talked about something the three of them did out on Squirrel Creek Road.”
Irrational Numbers Page 10
