by Angela Zeman
Mr. Drexel brightened for a second, but the look faded. “That was lucky, yes. I thought I’d won everything. Everything,” he repeated.
“But you didn’t,” stated Mrs. Risk flatly.
A spasm of anger flashed across his face. “No,” he said shortly, and he turned away from her.
Detective Michael Hahn pulled his captive’s arms together behind his back, to handcuff him. The crowd sprang into angry life. The detective pushed Drexel before him, using broad shoulders to wedge their way through the enclosing masses. Despite the detective’s best efforts, a few fists and feet found their way to Matthew’s executive anatomy.
Then a high quavery voice interrupted the growing uproar from over the loud speaker. It was Aisa Garrett. He was standing up on the mayor’s platform and being steadied by the mayor’s grip on his elbow. He may have looked frail, but he was certainly alive.
“Stop it now, everyone. Stop it,” commanded Aisa Garrett. “He was more unsuccessful than you know, about murdering me, anyway.”
The villagers, after a moment of gaping at this apparition of a dead man, cheered. “Aisa!” they shouted.
Aisa held up an arm and waved. “Listen,” he croaked at them. Mayor Harper rapped on his table. “Listen—thank you mayor—listen, folks. I want to tell you how much I regret letting this greedy son of a bitch get away with his…his scheme, but I swear I’ll make it up to you all, as much as I can make it up to anybody. That carpenter’s wife will be supported for life and her kids are going to college.” A few cheered, but mostly faces looked grave. Silence spread through the crowd.
“I know,” Aisa said after a pause. “I agree with you. Money doesn’t replace a husband and father. I agree with you all. I’ll clean up the water thing, I’ll be in charge of it myself, this time.” He sighed. “I guess I’ll also be looking for somebody to take my place…” he grimaced. “I’m getting too old to look after things, if a trick like that can be played right under my nose. I’m more sorry than I can say.” He lifted a hand, turned, and then got lost in the milling, agitated crowd.
Detective Hahn resumed charge of his prisoner’s exit and people shuffled away to mull over the many shocks they’d absorbed. Skip melted away from sight as if aided by a witch. Which he had been.
They made a mellow, subdued party under the trees, sipping Aisa Garrett’s excellent red zinfandel—Aisa Garrett, Rachel, and Mrs. Risk…the witch…in painted aluminum lawn chairs. Ernie and Skip sat sprawled out in the grass.
“As agreed, I’ll reimburse everybody for the debts incurred on—ah—Phantom’s behalf, Skip,” said Aisa. “Including the mortgage on the property. I guess I wouldn’t mind moving next door to Mrs. Risk.” He chuckled. “Maybe Ernie’ll build me a house, what’d’ya think, Ernie? Fireproofed, though.”
Ernie lifted a glass to Aisa and nodded.
Skip flushed. “I don’t think it’s right that you pay anything, Mr. Garrett.”
“Don’t be silly, Skip,” said the witch sharply. “He’s fulfilling his part of a bargain we made, one you know nothing about. You certainly couldn’t pay, regardless. The gas leak, after all, was the root of the problem. And Aisa’s entirely correct to assume the liabilities acquired by not personally overseeing the clean-up to its completion. It was his error—and his responsibility. Taking care of the carpenter’s widow isn’t, but Aisa’s a good man.”
Aisa smiled at her for that. He patted Skip on the arm. “She’d figured out what Matthew was doing, and made a very shrewd guess as to what he had in mind to do next. Saved my life, by god. It’s just money, boy. But that’s something you’ll find out, I’m sure. Speaking of which, I don’t want to be indelicate, but what was it exactly that you were going to get out of this?”
Ernie spoke up, surprising everyone. “My guess is, the insurance payoff. The house that burned down was probably full of nothing except Skip’s imagination. If he’d actually taken out a real insurance policy, the amount would’ve come to a sizable bit more than the total of the debts Mark—uh, Skip…can’t quite get used to that other name yet, sorry—that Skip owed after the fire.”
“Uh, yeah, Mr. Garrett. That’s about it.” Skip cast an anxious glance at the witch, but she added nothing.
“Instead, he loses his fifty grand,” put in Rachel with a grin. “But now he’s so much smarter.” She winked at Skip.
He smiled nervously back at her, then frowned. “Just who are you, anyway?”
She made a mocking face. “Oh, like you, just somebody who’s in the process of being made smarter.” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Like, an apprentice ‘witch.’” She grinned at him again. He looked at Mrs. Risk uncertainly, but she was busy refilling glasses.
“Oh, ho.” Aisa Garrett’s bushy brows elevated as he finished some mental figuring. He nodded. “Would’ve been a nice return on your investment, boy. But you’re lucky I was your ‘insurance policy.’ This lovely lady kept you from a sure jail sentence by preventing you from defrauding an insurance company.”
“Yes, that was the one poorly conceived part of your plan, Skip,” said the witch. “Insurance companies are notoriously curious about large claims. They would have conducted a thorough investigation and would have exposed your entire game.”
“I’m surprised a sharp young boy like you wouldn’t have known that,” put in Aisa with a grin at Skip. “But give him some credit, my dear. Except for that one major blunder that would’ve destroyed his plan and changed his entire life, he did pull off the rest of it with some panache, after all. He showed some sound technical thinking.”
The witch gave an incredulous snort that sounded odd from her elegant nose.
Ernie stretched out on the grass and poured himself more wine. He was grinning to himself.
The witch prodded him with a toe. “What are you so complacent about? You’re not going to broadcast the news about Skip’s confidence trick all over the village, are you? He could still be arrested for attempting to defraud. At the very least, it could ruin his chances with his young woman. Why spoil a lesson well learned?”
“Me? Hell, no. Besides, the ones who’d believe me are the same ones who’d never speak to me again for busting their dreams of how close they got to being buddies with Phantom. Uh, uh. I was just thinking how right I was about you all along.”
The witch tucked her bare feet under her black gauze dress and straightened her back. “In what way could that be, Mr. Block?”
“What I told Mark—Skip—here, about how great you are and how you give people a hand, was only half of what I always thought. You are one, excuse me, hell of a good-lookin’ woman who’s as sharp as a tack and no fool, either. I can see why you get yourself up in black like that, scaring the bejeezus outa the idiots in the area. You need some kinda protection, livin’ way out here all alone like you do, fishing and lobstering for a living. Oh, I saw the pots and tackle, and the diving gear, too. No use pretending.”
The witch looked at Aisa in alarm.
He chuckled. “That’s wonderful. That’s just wonderful. A fisherwoman!” Aisa’s chuckles escalated into a wheezing howl. “God, I’m sorry Ernie. It’s just that—” He howled some more, helplessly.
Aisa wiped his eyes as he finally calmed down. “Well, that was wonderful, as I say. But my dear man, I regret to inform you that she most definitely does not fish for a living.”
“What does she do, then?” asked Skip, bewildered.
“None of your business,” snapped the witch. Color was high on her sharp cheekbones.
Unfazed, Ernie stubbornly continued. “Well, I still say, you are one hell of a woman. I’d give anything to be good enough for you, but frankly, ma’am, I’m not. And I don’t know any who is. If I do, I’ll run him over your way, but until then, I claim the privilege of bein’ at your service any time.” He drank the rest of his wine in heady triumph.
The witch looked to the heavens and sighed. “Dear Lord,” she said.
THE WITCH AND THE VAMPIRE
“I
T MUST BE so cool to, like, call up Forces of Evil when you want something done.” Daniel’s face glowed as he contemplated mastering evil forces.
“‘Forces of Evil?’ Is that a comic book? Besides, if something’s evil, what’d’you think it would do for anybody?” Rachel handed the teenager a scathing look along with a carton of styrofoam pumpkins. He began clumping the pumpkins absentmindedly onto the middle window shelf.
Rachel knocked them back into the box with a sweep of her hand. “That’s no display. That’s a mess.”
Without resentment he began replacing the pumpkins in more attractive groupings, arranging potted plants between them. “Sorry. It’s just that you’re such a—a source. I never realized it before.”
“Source? Of evil forces?”
“Of information. I want to know what witches do.”
Rachel stopped pyramiding pots of bronze chrysanthemums around a tall ceramic black cat, turned to her assistant and scowled. “Like what?”
“Like cast spells, order demons around, dig up freshly buried bodies in cemeteries—”
“Freshly buried bodies?” Distracted, she re-anchored her mop of dark curls with a wide knitted band, then returned to the chore of readying her flower shop for the day’s trade.
“Oh, yeah! To drain their blood for potions! Or, like, would they hold a séance over a really old grave to communicate with spirits?” He shrugged. “I don’t know what they do, that’s why I’m asking you.” His face was bright with expectation. “And by the way, do those stupid Ouija boards really work?”
“And why would I know?” she asked, knowing very well the answer.
“Because you’re like best buds with Mrs. Risk. The Witch.”
Mrs. Risk had been known as the Witch of Wyndham-by-the-Sea long before Rachel had been brought to the Long Island village three years ago as the bride of Ike Elias, the fishmonger. When he’d died under suspicious circumstances a year later, Mrs. Risk had taken Rachel under her wing—uninvited—to teach her ‘better methods of survival than murder.’
The mentorship had flourished, although it wasn’t without its prickly moments between their two forceful personalities. Rachel now occasionally called herself an ‘apprentice witch’, tongue-in-cheek to tease her apprehensive neighbors.
Rachel poked and fluffed at the blossoms she’d banked against the door to block it open. The glorious Indian summer sun entered and gilded everything in the shop. “Do these questions have anything to do with the fact that Halloween is a few days away?”
“Well…” Daniel’s uncharacteristic shyness pulled Rachel’s attention away from her displays.
“What?” she prodded.
“People figure I have connections, you know? They get expectations when they find out that I’m like your right hand man around here. Sometimes they think I’m in on the, uh, witch-stuff.” He ducked his head as if suddenly concerned about the unswept condition of the floor near his feet. He grabbed a broom and started sweeping with virtuous energy.
Rachel studied him through narrowed eyes, hands on hips. Although he was only a high school junior, he’d named himself truly as her right hand man. Since she’d hired him, he’d made himself indispensable. He was smart, enthusiastic, hard working, and incapable of dishonesty. He even loved flowers. And he’d made the varsity football team this year. Short, but quick on his feet. With his tilted hazel eyes and quirky grin, he was growing into a girl magnet.
From her lofty position of five years his elder, she speculated whether some high school princess was responsible for Daniel’s sudden interest in witchcraft.
Just then, Mayor Harold Harper of Wyndham-by-the-Sea stepped into the open doorway, filling it with his short blocky body. Before he could launch his usual ‘I’m-a-square-guy’ politician’s grin, Rachel noticed his tension and hoped she knew its source. Elections loomed in early November and for the first time in two decades, he had a fight on his hands. His opponent, Ms. Audrey Green, former head of Wyndham’s School Board, had mustered strong support among certain of the villagers.
“Sweetheart, how ya doin’!” He stepped inside the door, took one of her hands and stretched to buss the taller Rachel’s cheek. She submitted, but with distaste. Her vote was earmarked for Ms. Green.
“Any roses today?” He dropped her hand and glanced around at the mums, ivy-draped pumpkins, Indian corn, and dried flower wreaths.
“Always,” said Rachel. “What color?”
“Red. How much?”
“Forty a dozen.”
He winced. “Okay. Free delivery to my house?”
“Sure,” put in Daniel. “When?”
“Right now?”
Rachel grinned. “Sounds urgent. Mrs. Harper catch you kissing a babe instead of a baby, Mayor?”
“Never mind. Just give me a card to put in with the flowers.”
She waved a hand at the card rack. He picked one, scribbled something, and sealed the envelope before handing it to Daniel, with two twenties. Rachel noticed he hadn’t included tax, and sighed, nodding to Daniel to go ahead and ring it up. The mayor was accustomed to claiming privileges that weren’t his to claim.
At this moment, Mrs. Risk entered the shop, striding long-legged in the impatient way she had, black skirts swirling at her slim ankles. On her arm was the basket containing her cat, Jezebel, who liked to ride along on Mrs. Risk’s walks.
Rachel giggled. “Lucky you dropped in. Daniel’s got some questions for you.”
Mrs. Risk beamed at Daniel. “Oh, yes? And what are they?”
Mayor Harper twisted to face Mrs. Risk. To Rachel’s surprise, she saw relief wash over his features. “Sweet—I mean, ah, Mrs. Risk! Hoped I’d run into you this morning!”
Mrs. Risk’s eyelids drooped at once over onyx eyes gleaming with suspicion. Rachel and Daniel gaped at the unnatural warmth of Harper’s greeting. Mrs. Risk extended her long fingers to the mayor to ward off his kiss. He shook them awkwardly, then dropped them as if they were too hot.
“I’m having a rally tonight, casual, out on Harrington’s dock. Music, drinks, a few peanuts and chips. Whole village’s invited. I—ah—thought you might consider attending as my guest of honor. Maybe—ah, say a few words.”
“On your behalf?” asked Mrs. Risk. “For the election?”
“Well. Of course. If you—ah—that’s the idea. Yes.” He fidgeted, which looked odd for a man of his age and bulk. He swallowed hard, shook his head as if trying to squeeze out more words, then finally croaked, “I’d really appreciate it.”
Rachel and Daniel stared. His Honor was known for asking favors, but never from Mrs. Risk, about whom he often broadcast nasty speculations. Indeed, Mrs. Risk often directed uncomfortable attention towards His Honor—against which he always took an ‘injured innocence’ stance. Mrs. Risk contemplated Harper. The silence grew.
“Yes, well.” He exhaled through pursed lips. “What say, huh?” This was almost begging.
He must need her support desperately, guessed Rachel.
Just before the silence stretched to an unbearable length, Mrs. Risk relented. “Sounds lovely. Thank you for your invitation, Harry.” He hated to be called Harry. “But no.”
“Oh, you’ve other plans,” he said, waving a thick paw through the air as if dismissing any plans she might have as insignificant. “I could—”
“No, I’m not busy this evening. I could be there. However, I support your opponent, Ms. Green. If I attend your event, I will say as much to your other guests, loudly and often. If you can accept those circumstances, I’d be happy to attend.”
Harper ground his teeth together. “What do you have against me being Wyndham’s mayor again?”
“Why, Harry!” Her eyebrows arched as if in surprise at such a question. “I have so little time this morning, but since you ask: your fondness for commercializing any aspect of Wyndham to swell your salary, even if it downgrades the quality of our life, our wildlife, or our environment. Or—care to discuss your greed for payoffs and extrava
gant perks?”
The glowering Mayor quivered where he stood, his complexion evolving from red to deep purple. Rachel wondered if his head was going to explode.
Then abruptly his color receded. He aimed a stumpy finger at a pile of tiny tagged cellophane-wrapped bags of grassy material that lay next to the cash register. “WHAT,” he bellowed at Rachel, “IS THAT?”
Rachel blinked, disoriented by the sudden change of subject. She looked where he pointed. “The herbs? They’re…they’re herbs,” she finished helplessly.
“You’re promoting witchcraft!” he boomed, an evangelistic note in his pronouncement.
“No I’m not. Besides, what if I did? It’s Halloween,” said Rachel. “I AM in a business that’s heavily into holidays.”
“You’re responsible for this,” he accused Mrs. Risk with a sneer.
“Yes, I supplied the herbs,” she agreed. “What of it?”
Rachel shook her head. “I asked her to bundle up a variety of herbs for me, with explanatory labels. She did it as a favor.”
Mrs. Risk said, “It’s herbology, not witchcraft, if that’s your objection. To offer others an opportunity to sample in a small way the benefits of a natural life as opposed to employing polluting chemicals—”
“Don’t sell me your hokey ‘natural’ shtick,” growled Harper. “Ordinarily I look the other way when you push your UNnatural weeds, or creepy advice on my people, but this season—” and to everyone’s amazement, he shivered ostentatiously.
“It isn’t just me, either,” he continued. “Everyone feels it. They’re all going around looking over their shoulders and jumping if somebody talks too loud.”
“I’ve noticed it, too,” put in Daniel. Mrs. Risk looked skeptically at Daniel.
“But why?” Rachel asked.
Mayor Harper started to answer, but Daniel interrupted, “Guys are saying that strange things’ve been happening ever since that meteor shower we had a few nights back.”
