Witch Water

manager.

“Hi, Artie, it’s me.”

“Oh, nice of you to give us a call,” came some obvious sarcasm. “Are you all right?”

“Of course—”

“So where are you? Hagerstown?”

“Haver-towne,” Fanshawe corrected.

“Oh, I’ve heard of it! Are you all right?”

“No assassins have knocked me off yet.”

“Funny. You know, you could at least touch base with us once a day. You’re turning our hair gray.”

“You’re already gray, Artie—prematurely. No offense.”

“Oh, none taken!”

“Look, I’ve got a wild bug up my—”

“Really? You?”

Fanshawe chuckled. “I want you to have the research people check something out for me. I want to know about a guy named Eldred Karswell—”

“Who’s he?”

“Just…a guy. He drives an old black Cadillac,” and then Fanshawe read off the vehicle’s license plate number.

Artie sighed through a pause. “Got it. Not gonna tell me the deal with the guy—this…Karswell?”

Fanshawe smiled. “No. Just run a make on him because…well, because I’m the boss.” Fanshawe didn’t want to reveal that Karswell had actually been murdered, or at least killed, if the police were wrong. Artie would go ballistic… They would find out soon enough.

“I’m hearing you loud and clear…boss.”

“Good. Just ring me on my cell when you’ve got it, okay?”

“Sure. Say, aren’t you going to ask how things are going with all your astronomically successful businesses?”

“I don’t have to ask, because I have the utmost confidence in you.” Fanshawe liked Artie but he just didn’t feel like talking right now. “Thanks, Artie. Take the office out on the company card tonight. Anyplace you want.”

“Uh…”

“A simple thank you will suffice.”

“Uh, thanks, boss!”

“Later, Artie.”

“Yeah, sure, I—”

Fanshawe hung up, feeling satisfied in some inexpressible way. He couldn’t imagine what goaded his curiosity about Karswell, but then there were a number of things he felt intensely curious about in Haver-Towne, things that wouldn’t ordinarily pique him. It’s because my life has changed now…for the better. I’m essentially retired; my managers run my businesses, so I need new interests, and with that he began to walk. He’d done lots of walking since he’d arrived, and he found that he liked it. It cleared his head…

He began to walk back toward the trails.

It occurred to him that police might still be around. I hope they don’t think I had something to do with it… Still, he felt like a criminal returning to the scene of the crime. But he couldn’t quell the urge to see the trails again, and the scenery off the most elevated of the hillocks. He didn’t think for a minute there was a subconscious motive, the joggers, for instance. After what they saw today, they’ll NEVER come back out here. Before he knew it, he was ascending the hillocks.

No surprise there, he thought when he saw that the trail where Karswell’s body had been found was cordoned off completely with yellow tape. Only when he discerned that the police had left did he realize how unwise coming here might be. Whoever killed Karswell might still be out here…

But how likely was that?

At any rate, Fanshawe wasn’t convinced it had been murder, missing wallet or not. The Wild Animal Theory seemed much more plausible; then someone coming along afterward (someone disreputable, of course) could easily have taken Karswell’s wallet after the fact.

I don’t know…

The sun was descending, drawing smoldering orange light across the horizon. The vision was spectacular, and he realized then it had been ages since he’d seen such a sunset—just one more of nature’s wonders he’d been deprived of in New York. They’re all back in the Rat Race, but here I am, watching the sun set on Witches Hill… It almost seemed funny.

Sometime later, once darkness had drained into the hills, Fanshawe had turned.

Toward town.

That daze he’d felt earlier only magnified. It was as though the glittering lights of the Haver-Towne had puppeted him, had made him turn, like a hypnotist’s pocket watch. Fanshawe’s guts sunk; he knew what was behind the impulse.

The windows.

Was it this perverse desire that had been brewing in him all day, without his conscious recognition? In the past, too, he could remember times when his obsession had taken him out with seemingly no volition of his own. His eyes locked on the Travelodge, and its neat, enticing rows of picture-glass windows. Useless, he reminded himself. The joke’s on me. Even if he had come up here with the subconscious intent of peeping, he already knew he was too far away to see anything.

Then a noxious question slipped into his mind. Yeah, but what would I do—right now, right this second—if I had a pair of binoculars on me?

His guts sunk further when still another impulse fed his hand into his jacket pocket. In a hushed shock, his fingers touched something, then gripped it.

He grit his teeth, his eyelids reduced to slits, when he withdrew his hand and found it gripping the looking- glass from the inn. He held it as though he were holding a rancid body part. It felt heavier than it should, like a bar of solid metal.

Oh my God, my God, what have I done?

There was only one way to explain the device’s presence in his pocket…

I put it there, without ever realizing it…

After all, he had been looking at it over the past few days. How would I do that and not remember it? Am I that oblivious? Indeed, it seemed that his id had overruled his conscious will and prompted him to steal the instrument. He didn’t have to wonder what for…

His hand shook as he held the looking-glass. I’m not crazy, he convinced himself. I KNOW I’m not crazy. I’m just a little wrung out, that’s all. I’m in a strange place where I don’t know anybody, and now I’m suffering from some delayed-stress thing… His chest felt tight when he raised his hand and stared at the looking-glass.

I WANT to scope some windows, but I’m NOT going to, he determined. What I’m going to do instead is go back to the inn and put this damn glass back in the damn display case.

He turned on his feet, then began to walk back down the grass-lined path which would lead him back to the inn. In twenty minutes I’ll be in my room, he thought, and this ridiculous looking-glass will be back where it belongs.

That’s when his will began to fade. He sensed himself continuing to walk, but was cognizant of nothing else. He heard his feet crunching gravel on the trails, and he sensed some aspect of excitement but he couldn’t grasp that aspect’s nature, save that it seemed very far away.

As the night-sounds of crickets gained dominion over his surroundings, a drone entered his head…

Next thing he knew, his heart was racing, and his right eye felt dry from being open so long. The most delicious images swirled in the back of his mind. No, Fanshawe had not returned to the hotel—