“Anything. Just tell me.”
“Your part will be to get your men together and let it be known all over town that you’re continuing. You’ve got to finish building that house. That’s imperative. Let me speak to Michael, I’ll arrange it. We won’t proceed entirely without police sanction.”
The color drained from Skip’s face. “I can’t. The men’ll be hurt. Maybe killed.”
“No, they won’t. Can you believe me when I say that I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize anyone? Besides, our obliging murderer seems fond of sending you warning notes before taking any action. I doubt he’ll change his habits now.”
“That makes sense,” said Skip in a faint voice. He studied her face — the sharp cheekbones, the glittering black eyes. Looking at her, he found it easy to believe she was a witch. And Rachel sitting close by had that same look of... of power. He felt the force of both women’s personalities as if they were live things separate from the women themselves.
He didn’t know whether she was or wasn’t a witch, or even what a witch was, but he decided to trust her. Why he felt that way, he couldn’t say. But he did.
“Okay.” He got to his feet. “Anything else?”
She smiled at his sudden capitulation. Then her smile turned grim. “I’ll let you know.”
He wrote down for her his post office box number, his real home address, and his car phone number, and then left to do as she’d instructed.
By noon the next day, Skip had the homicide detective’s permission and the men were back at work, nervous but happy to be earning again. Skip had new, sealed, bottled water trucked in.
For her part, Mrs. Risk wasted no time in surveying the property from all sides to see if she could spot what had set this particular piece of land apart from all others in the murderer’s mind.
She visited the sprawling property that bordered the west of Phantom’s lot — a shuttered summer residence. The caretaker, interrupted at lunch in his small house on a corner of the property, confirmed what she already knew of the history of the place and his duties, which were few, judging by the seedy condition of the place. She gave him some terse advice about neglected upkeep and left.
A half-mile farther west, the water scooped inland between two jutting fingers of protective land, forming Wyndham’s sheltered port. The village’s one big industry, North Shore Industries Corporation, occupied the harbor side of the eastern finger of land. Although situated on the water, NSIC was discreetly tucked back behind some shielding pines and shared the port with a public dock for pleasure boaters; Wyndham’s only large hotel and restaurant establishment, Harrington’s; and other, smaller enterprises. The focus of Wyndham’s village life and its tourist attractions centered on the port area.
The port provided a convenient access for small tankers to offload heating oil and gas at NSIC, which stored the oil and gas before selling it to all Long Island.
Mrs. Risk remembered how NSIC’s docks and extensive storage facilities had once been an ill-kept eyesore, spoiling the beautiful coastline and fouling the water until the company changed hands ten years ago. The new owner, Aisa Garrett, had proceeded not only to repair and update North Shore’s facility and operations, but also to rectify the damage done to the coastline. He’d exceeded both environmental standards and the aesthetic hopes of the tourist-dependent community. His stockholders had screamed, but Mr. Garrett had persevered, serenely oblivious to their protests. Now NSIC’s taxes almost singlehandedly supported Wyndham’s excellent school and cultural assets. Mr. Garrett was a beloved man in the village.
Not so beloved was Mr. Drexel, the Village Board trustee and acknowledged heir of the widowed and childless Aisa Garrett. Because of Aisa’s renown, however, he enjoyed the status of near-royalty in the village. A high society maven and aspiring jet-setter, he made no secret of his opinion of Wyndham as provincial and boring compared to the urban delights available to a man of his stature in Manhattan. Because of his pompous, superior airs, he’d been despised by the villagers in the beginning, but time and familiarity, plus the miracles he’d achieved in carrying out Aisa’s cleanup of NSIC, had brought tolerance on both sides.
Mrs. Risk gazed across the now pleasant vista of North Shore Industries Corporation as she recalled its history.
She returned to her own property. Skip would’ve been astonished to see her don a three-eighths inch thick full wet suit. The water in the Sound was cold even at the warmest time of year, however, and the insulation was necessary. She slid into the water and maneuvered herself into a buoyancy control vest and a small compressed-air tank, then skillfully submerged, intent on examining the coast of Skip’s property from underwater. Something had to be unique about this property, and she was determined to find out what that could be.
After nearly an hour’s close examination of the beach’s edge bordering Phantom’s land, the only feature of interest she discovered was a thermocline, an icy current of water within warmer water. She spotted it by the distortion it caused to her vision, much like the shimmery image gasoline vapors make when rising from a hot pavement. It flowed perversely, against the current, flush against a shelf of land, emerging from a crevasse a few feet below the water’s surface.
As she drifted, only shallowly submerged, she pulled the scuba regulator out of her mouth. She pushed her face into the chill flow and tasted it. Not the foul-water taste of Phantom’s well. No, and not only that, it wasn’t salty, either. It was pure, fresh water rushing fiercely through the saltwater Sound, an underwater spring escaping from somewhere beneath Phantom’s back lawn.
The spring would provide a delightful alternative to the fouled well water for whoever lived on the land someday. When the killing stopped.
The spring made the property more desirable, and solved Phantom’s water problem, but as a motive for murder, it hardly qualified.
She took a sample for testing anyway. When she gave it to Rachel so she could take it to a lab, she added a sample of the well water, to be thorough.
After that, she dressed carefully in her best clothes. Aisa Garrett was an old friend of hers, and unfailingly delighted to be imposed upon. She began walking down the beach towards North Shore Industries. It was time to impose.
“You’re looking handsome, Aisa,” said Mrs. Risk with a slow smile.
“For a seventy-one-year-old, you mean. Yes, I’m sure I do, underneath all these wrinkles. How perceptive of you to notice.” He leaned forward in his desk chair and grinned up at her mischievously from beneath grizzled eyebrows.
“Would you like some wine?” he asked. “I recently laid in some vintages that might interest you, although my doctor has restricted me to two pitchers a day of that boring stuff there.” He flapped a disdainful hand at a carafe of water on his desk.
The witch laughed and shook her head. “My condolences. Not now, thank you.”
He patted her smooth brown fingers with a hand that was gnarled with arthritis and freckled from spending long sunny afternoons fishing, an addiction he was able to indulge because of Matthew Drexel’s efficiency. Drexel ran the place smoothly under Aisa’s blissfully semiretired supervision, which explained why Aisa always had time for Mrs. Risk’s impositions.
“I know you never visit without a reason, so let’s get what I can do for you out of the way so we can socialize, my dear.”
“For what will you permit me to ask, Aisa?” She perched familiarly on the edge of his desk.
“Anything your heart desires; I’m too old to worry about the consequences. Now you’ve got me breathless with anticipation. What new trouble are you stirring up?”