Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 40, No. 6, June, 1995

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?”

“As you yourself mentioned, you’ve reached the age of seventy-one. How high a price would you pay to live somewhat longer? I’m here to save your life, Aisa.”

“Again?” At first he chuckled, then he examined her expression and sighed.

Soon, NSIC’s resident corporate lawyer scurried into Aisa Garrett’s office, whisking past Mr. Garrett’s astonished personal secretary without troubling to be announced. Then the presence of the secretary herself was demanded. The secretary, a good-hearted, loyal woman, rushed to obey.

It was some time before Mrs. Risk emerged from the administrative offices, but when she did, she looked contented. She promised to return to sample Aisa’s wine at a not too distant date in the future and left. The whole event was a matter of some speculation among the outer office staff but was totally forgotten after the next Thursday evening. Because on Thursday night, Mr. Garrett died.

Those who remembered the witch’s close friendship with the old man and who might have attempted to console her were kept at bay by a new, enraged aspect of her solitude. She seemed to have tucked her grief deep within herself as she grimly pursued her inquiries.

The entire village mourned. Mr. Drexel was now considered by the village — although unofficially, until the formal reading of the will — to be the new majority stockholder, president, CEO, and chairman of North Shore Industries Corporation. As a result, he became too busy to bother about the rock star’s house any further. The rest of the village trustees understood find carried on without him.

On-site, Skip remained oblivious to everything but the completion of the house. Feverish with anxiety, he worked side by side with Ernie’s men, surprising them with his expertise, keeping an eye on possible dangers, and at the same time hastening the project to its end. He couldn’t wait for it to be finished. The whole scheme seemed to stretch somehow into a surrealistically endless time frame, like a nightmare.

But days were crossed off the calendar and work was accomplished at record speed. Occasionally, Skip raised his eyes from some task to see the witch strolling purposefully across the beach or road, but although he worked on-site from predawn until long after sundown, she never visited him. He was curious about her activities and their results, but a reluctance to discuss the matter kept him from going to her house and asking.