Witch Water (2 page)

Fanshawe doubted it but he was entertained
by the thought. “I’ll have to sit on it sometime, and feel closer
to history.”

The bald man let out a crotchety laugh, then
extended his hand. “I’m Bill Baxter. Would you be—”

“Stew Fanshawe,” Fanshawe said and shook
hands.

“Glad to have you, Mr. Fanshawe. Follow me
up and I’ll show you your room. I hope you’ll be pleased—when you
booked online, the suite you wanted was unavailable—”

“Yeah, but that’s no big deal,” Fanshawe
said and began to follow Baxter’s stout frame up a curving
stairwell.

“No, but I was about to say, the man who’d
booked it previously…left earlier than we expected, so the room is
yours.”

“That’s great,” but Fanshawe had detected
something odd about Baxter’s revelation, a pause, a hesitation that
seemed undue.
Why didn’t he just say the guy checked out
early?

The heavily carpeted fourth-floor hall stood
as rife with antique furniture as the rest of the hotel. Ensconced
marble busts seemed to take brooding stock of him as Fanshawe
passed. Baxter led him through an immaculate nine-paneled door into
a plush two-chamber suite which could have passed for the rooms of
a Colonial governor or eighteenth-century plantation owner: aged
paneling, a carven-mantled fireplace, faux candles in genuine
Sheffield holders, ornately tasseled throw carpets, etc. A
wood-stained armoire occupied one corner, with fine brass fixtures.
The bed was a great high four-poster without veils.

“This really is something,” Fanshawe
complimented. He felt already at ease by the place. A glance
through a dormer window showed him sharp sunlight bathing the
cobblestones and store-faces below, while a cushioned bow window on
the wall perpendicular revealed mellow green hills, a grassy rise
of hillocks, and, beyond, the fringe of the forest belt. The sights
calmed Fanshawe faster than a Xanax. “I couldn’t ask for a better
room,” he finally said. “It’s just the change of surroundings I
need.”

Baxter grinned, thumbing out of date
suspenders. “A city fella, I take it?”

“New York, New York.”

“No surprise, sir. Lotta city folks come to
Haver-Towne for a quick weekend getaway. No rat race here, no road
rage, none of that nonsense. Just quiet nights, fresh air, the
great outdoors…”

Fanshawe smiled involuntarily. “You sound
exactly like my therapist, Mr. Baxter.”

“We ain’t got those here either!” the
proprietor laughed, but then his voice quieted. “Oh, and don’t
worry. We’re very tight-lipped here. Your secret’s safe with
us.”

Fanshawe’s eyes snapped to him; he gulped.
“Secret?”

“Well, I read
Forbes,
the
WSJ,
and such, and see your picture on occasion, yes, sir. It’s exciting
to have someone famous choose our hotel. Just want you to know that
your privacy will be respected like nobody’s business.”

Fanshawe released a relieving breath. What
had he been thinking?
Buddy, if you knew MY secret, you’d
probably call the cops and have me thrown out on my
ass.
 ”Thanks very much. But I wouldn’t exactly call myself
famous. I’m just a financier, not a sports star.”

“Oh, we get them too, ’specially in the
winter. That man A-Rod, I don’t care
what
the papers say,
he’s a
dang
nice guy. Now, if you’d care to give me your car
keys, I’ll have someone bring up your bags.”

Fanshawe relinquished the keys. “It’s the
black Audi. Thanks.”

Baxter turned for the door. “If you need
anything, just ring the desk. And be sure to have a look at our
relic displays downstairs once you’ve settled in.”

“Relic displays? What kind of r—”

But Baxter had left faster than a blink.
Relics? He must mean Colonial knickknacks. Fanshawe took a slow
walk through both rooms, maintaining approval. He ran his hand over
a lyre-back chair, then peeked through more rich, velvety drapes
over the bedroom’s most westward window, to see still more
luxuriant hills: a comforting vision. “Thank God,” he whispered,
his face to the curtain-edge. “Not a single window to be seen. No
target-object access…
”

More of the room’s details stole his
attention. A miniature wheel-clock ticked from a relief nook in the
wall; a statuette of a Minute Man stood poised, bayoneted musket at
the ready; a small vase spouted delicate roses fashioned from
paper-thin curls of crimson glass.
Cool,
he thought. But
next he was eyeing a framed engraving, or maybe it was an old
tintype: a rather creepy manor house drenched in moonlight.
Fanshawe moved his face closer, for it seemed that a thin, bent
figure was climbing into a first-floor window. Was there also the
tiniest image of a nude woman inside, screaming at the figure’s
appearance?

No…,
because he blinked and saw that
the “figure” was just an oddly shaped bush. There must’ve been dust
or something in Fanshawe’s eye.

He wasn’t sure what impelled him to look
upward, but when he did, his eyes found an oblong panel in the
ceiling.
Trapdoor?
he wondered. More than likely, either an
access way or an attic. Next, he found himself scanning an in-wall
bookshelf, noticing the gilded spines of tomes that appeared to be
very old but actually weren’t when he took some out. They were
merely “classic” editions of Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorn,
Edgar Allen Poe, and the like, made to
look
old. However,
lower on the shelf…

Hmm…

The next book he picked was no “classic” but
instead a calfskin-bound smaller-format book with a faded cover.
Ye Witch-Tryalls of Haver-Towne.
Fanshawe’s eyes narrowed
when he carefully flipped to the copyright page and found the
printing date: 1699. Immediately, he felt an abstract wallop nearly
like a physical blow.
This is REALLY old.
It must be quite
valuable, so why was it sitting here? He flipped through pages fine
as rice paper, noticing the tight, antique type-style of the day,
with all nouns capitalized and very often the word “ye” used for
“the.” One page was an elaborate engraving, with the heading: “Ye
Arrest of Jacob Wraxall by High-Sheriff Patten.” The plate depicted
a stout man with a star-shaped badge and a tri-cornered hat,
solemn-faced, escorting a thin older man toward a Colonial
gaol-house. The prisoner wore buckled shoes, knee breeches, and a
pleated tunic front; the expression on his Van Dyked face could
only be described as sinister.

Fanshawe couldn’t guess why the engraving
had so captivated him. He sat down on the bed to examine the plate
more intently. In the rendition, the prisoner’s wrists were
shackled behind his back…

Fanshawe stared open-mouthed but it was no
longer the plate he was seeing, it was his not-too-distant past,
when he himself assumed a position similar to that of the prisoner.
It was handcuffs not shackles which immobilized his wrists, and a
police cruiser, not a gaol-house that he was being shoved toward.
“You have the right to remain silent,” he was told by the New York
cop who grasped his arm too hard. Venom hissed out with the
universal words, a repressed disgust. “I got more important things
to do than waste time on a pervert.” Fanshawe was jammed into the
caged back seat; the door slammed in his face. He couldn’t recall
his precise thoughts at that time, only a harrowing numbness. When
the cop drove out of the alley, faces scowled at him from several
lit windows. Fanshawe felt boneless sitting there.

The cop grimaced over his shoulder. “You
ought to be ashamed of yourself. Successful guy like you pulling a
scumbag move like that? I just don’t get it. What the hell is
wrong
with people?”

Through the passenger window, Fanshawe saw
several homeless men standing around a garbage can. One of them
looked right at him and grinned.

“Too bad times have changed. Thirty years
ago, you would’ve gotten a go-round—the good old night-stick
shampoo. I’ll bet it was a little girl you were peeping on,” the
cop said, “or a little boy.”

“No!” Fanshawe blurted. “It was…a woman, an
adult woman.”

“Oh, so I guess that makes it all right,
huh? I need to be busting crack dealers and guys pulling bank jobs,
not fucking around with pieces of shit like you.”

The cruiser pulled out onto Amsterdam
Avenue; suddenly a million lights seemed to blink in Fanshawe’s
face. He sat forlorn, his wrists aching.
Yeah,
he thought.
A piece of shit like me…

The grim vision shattered at the click of
the door. Fanshawe glanced up abruptly at the attractive woman
smiling at him from the doorway. Her shoulders slumped from the
weight of his luggage. “Mr. Fanshawe, I presume?”

“Yes—oh, here. Let me get those. The big
one’s pretty heavy. I thought he’d be sending some brawny
bellhop.”

“Oh, don’t bother, sir. Believe it or not, I
like hauling luggage. At my age I need all the exercise I can
get.”

The comment seemed odd or self-conscious.
Fanshawe doubted she could be more than mid-thirties. “I’m Abbie,
Mr. Baxter’s daughter,” she told him and hefted the larger of the
bags up on the bed. As she did so, hair which at the same time
seemed blond and auburn danced before her face. She dressed
casually in faded jeans, sneakers, and a plain blouse, yet under
the nondescript apparel, Fanshawe sensed a curvaceous and even
exotic physique.
Don’t eyeball her, you scumbag,
he groaned
at himself, for when she leaned over to situate the big suitcase,
his gaze zoomed in on ample, fresh-white cleavage. He snapped his
eyes away.

“Well, thanks for bringing the bags,
Abbie.”

“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Fanshawe—”

“Stew,” he corrected and shook her hand. Her
shake was firm, her hand delicate yet mildly callused, no doubt
from her share of hard work. He found the dichotomy bizarrely
arousing. The graceful hands revealed no signs of wedding rings.
When he attempted to tip her, she refused.

“I hope you like our hotel. We go out of our
way to offer guests something a little more interesting. Most
places these days are kind of stiff and sterile.”

“It’s gorgeous. The furniture, the
treatments, that whole Colonial feel.”

“Um-hmm.” Next, Abbie raised his laptop case
to the bed but she flinched when a magazine flipped out of a side
pocket. “Oops.” When she bent to pick it up, Fanshawe’s eyes darted
once more to her cleavage. He bit his lip.

The magazine was
Fortune 500,
and on
the cover was Fanshawe’s face. “Stewart Fanshawe: Miracle Man” read
the cover line.

Abbie smiled, and replaced the magazine.
“Don’t worry, your—”

“My secret’s safe with you,” Fanshawe tacked
on. “Yes, your father said the same thing and, believe me, I
appreciate it.”

“I’ve seen you on TV a few times, that stock
program that runs all day on cable. You must get recognized a lot
on the street.”

“No, not really. Financial folks stay pretty
much under the radar. In New York, everyone’s on constant watch for
movie stars, not ticker jockeys or CEOs.”

“Well, it’s really cool to have a big
financial guy stay with us.”

Really cool? You should see my psych
profile.
Fanshawe laughed. “More like a big
lucky
guy.
All I did was consolidate some failing tech companies, and they
turned into winners. Then I branched out from there.”

“That’s quite an achievement.” She seemed
delighted to add, “Oh, and my father owns some of your stock.”

“God
bless
him!”

Now Abbie was slowly walking about the
bedroom, touching up with a dust cloth. “What brings you out our
way?”

Fanshawe didn’t feel the least uncomfortable
answering, “I’m on what my therapist calls a respite. Just looking
around at first, trying to find a place to relax for six months or
so.”

“Well, most of our guests love it here,
mostly tourists but we also get lots of visitors from Boston, New
York, and Manchester, and some smaller conventions and business
conferences.”

“I just happened to run across an article
about Haver-Towne in one of the travel mags—” but then a reminder
seemed to blare in his head. “Oh, yeah. I wanted to tell you”—he
picked up the old book he’d been flipping through. “This must be
here by mistake. I couldn’t believe it when I looked at the
copyright date.”

Abbie squinted, took the book, and showed
recognition. “Oh, that’s right. We usually keep it downstairs in
one of the display cases but very recently a guest asked to borrow
it.”

“It must be worth a fortune.”

“Not as much as you think; it’s in pretty
poor condition. But it’s much more valuable here because it deals
with some of the history of the town. More and more, people seem to
be interested in things from the old days.”

“Witch trials?” Fanshawe questioned.

Abbie mocked an ominous expression. “The
first major witch trials in America happened here. They pre-date
Salem by twenty years.”

“Ah. That explains the ‘Salem of New
Hampshire’ line outside.”

“Well, that was my father’s idea, but, yeah,
exactly. Look here—”

Abbie took him to the front room and steered
him toward one of the windows. She held back the curtain for him;
Fanshawe saw the main drag out front. “See the pillory?”

“Yeah, I noticed it when I was driving
up.”

“That’s one of the originals, and a
lot
 of people spent some hard times in it.” She vaguely
touched his shoulder as she led him to the westward bow window with
the cushioned seat. “And there…” She pointed.

Fanshawe peered, noticing the rise of
hillocks and their most prominent elevation. He made the deduction
based on her previous remarks, “Let me guess.
Hangman’s
Hill?”

Abbie sounded mirthful. “Close.
Witches
 Hill. No one was hanged there, or burned at the
stake. But that is where all the witches and warlocks were
executed.”