by Angela Zeman
He’d driven her home, only letting her escape after ransoming herself with dozens of sweet-tasting, tender kisses. She’d whispered in his ear that she loved him, but by then he’d become so sunken in misery that he hardly heard her. Would he ever see her again? Only luck would decide.
After topping off his gas tank at the self-service station, he’d begun the trek to Atlantic City in New Jersey. He’d had plenty of time to think, then. To worry.
An apprentice carpenter’s salary was better than a gas station attendant’s, and he wouldn’t be an apprentice forever, but the fortunes of those in the building trades rose and fell with roller-coaster irregularity. What could he give her besides babies and bills and a sorry little house in mid-island? She only worked as a cashier now because she thought she was too old to be totally dependent on her parents. He certainly wouldn’t want her to keep working when the babies came.
She had soft hands, soft lips, a soft voice, and soft skin, like a princess. Skip had seen what a penny-pinching life took out of a woman. How it roughened their skin. Harshed-up their voices. Worry could squeeze the sweetness right out of a woman’s nature. He’d seen it happen to his mother. He wouldn’t risk that happening to his Alexia.
He remembered patting the rolled up savings that made a thick ball in his pocket before gripping the steering wheel with the white knuckled fists of determination.
Seven hours later, he’d found himself counting out with the house manager…twenty thousand, twenty thousand five hundred…in a voice hoarse from shouting at the dice, lack of sleep, and too many coffees alternated with whiskeys.
At the end of the count, he breathed deep to steady himself, then rolled it all up into four bundles which he shoved deep into his pockets. He walked out of the casino, across the boardwalk, onto the sand, then leaned against a piling and inhaled the salt air, ridding his lungs of stale smoke and bar fumes.
Fifty thousand dollars. His shocked elation made him dizzy—until he suddenly remembered Alexia’s last birthday present from her parents…the sticker price for that little convertible came to double what Skip paid in a year for his apartment. His precious goal, which for a few seconds he’d imagined won, slipped tortuously far from his grasp—again.
Fifty thousand dollars might seem a fortune to Skip, but to Alexia…he knew it wouldn’t be enough. He glanced swiftly up at the sky after that admission, ducking in case of retribution for ingratitude, because he’d lit a candle in church before coming.
Well—that’s it, he thought. And he meant it.
No longer despairing, feeling only numb from hopelessness, he walked off down the beach to work a few kinks out of his cramped muscles…in preparation for diving, once and forever, into the water that beckoned beyond the pilings.
And it was while he was walking that he got it. The whole idea. It burst into his head full grown, bypassing babyhood and adolescence. It stopped him dead in his tracks. He spent several minutes examining it up and down and backwards and inside out…but found no flaws. And so he drove home…
The next day the homicide detective told Skip that the bullet was a common .303 used in hunting rifles. Though the killing was tragic, it probably was a hunting accident. The woods around Phantom’s long vacant property were known to be full of small game. Lots of hunters in the area, more than usual in the last few economically lean years. The perpetrator would possibly never be discovered.
Skip explained all this to Ernie and Ernie’s crew. Even though the men were understandably upset at the loss of their friend, several shoulders lowered in an easing of tension at hearing that it could’ve been a hunting accident, and work resumed.
After few more days, the crews were working up to speed again and the shock faded.
Then, a week later, Ernie stepped into an animal trap. Ernie, a normally soft spoken man, screamed in a shrill agony that caused the men to drop their tools and run to him from all over the site. The trap, an old iron one that Ernie swore hadn’t been there the day before, was big enough to incapacitate a full grown bear. Although the rusted jaws could’ve severed his leg, Ernie was lucky to be wearing work boots that limited the damage to broken bones.
As the ambulance trundled an agonized but sedated Ernie to St. Charles Hospital, the men stared at each other with white faces. Skip was speechless. Without being told, Ernie’s assistant, using Skip’s car phone, called the constable, who immediately called homicide again.
…After much discussion, even Skip had to admit that the detective’s theory—that it was only more hunting equipment, long forgotten and overlooked by Ernie’s crew—was somewhat reasonable.
The lot, he remembered Conrad saying, had stood vacant for years. The men agreed with the detective, although he could tell they were uneasy about it. He didn’t blame them. He wasn’t too convinced, himself, but at least Ernie would definitely be okay, suffering only a broken leg…unlike the poor carpenter. After an hour’s milling and an early lunch, the men returned to work. It sure was a puzzle.
A few days later, Skip ‘heard’ from his boss.
Skip called an impromptu meeting at the mayor’s office. After off-handedly pointing out the report of Phantom’s whereabouts in the Newsday newspaper (Liz Smith’s column) to Mayor Harper, Mr. Drexel, Doctor Villas, Mr. Harder Sr., the nice-looking Ms. Bellwood, Conrad, and Ernie’s assistant, Skip showed them the message Phantom had faxed direct from Eastern Europe where he was doing benefits for the newly formed ex-Soviet Satellite countries..
The lengthy communication, typed in faded, ‘foreign looking’ letters, complimented his manager, Mark Daniels, and the people working so hard from the village of Wyndham-by-the-Sea, for their quick work in carrying out his—Phantom’s—wishes.
However—and it was a big however—Phantom stated that he was walking a mental and physical tightrope that could snap at any time, so he’d be flying direct to Wyndham in his private jet from the location of the last gig on his tour.
‘Mark’ must speed up work even more, and arrange safe shipment of his furniture, art collection, sound equipment, etc., from where they were presently being stored so that all would be in place for his arrival. Phantom’s tour was at a particularly manic stage. In lieu of transferring funds from bank to bank—a nightmarish tangle of transactions when attempted from deep within the Eastern Bloc—he promised to settle all accounts fully the day he arrived. Then from that point, Phantom stated, he looked forward to the complete rest and total quiet promised him by the villagers of beautiful Wyndham-by-the-Sea. “See you all soon. Phantom.”
Mr. Harder and Mr. Arsdale, who’d jointly been pressing Skip for additional deposits and signed papers, retreated in awe. ‘All accounts settled fully’…the words floated in the air like the promise of paradise. With a flourish, Skip wrote out another draft on the borrowed bank funds and handed it to Ernie’s assistant.
“To hire new crews?” asked the assistant.
Skip nodded gravely.
“You got it, boss,” he said, and he marched smartly out of the mayor’s office to notify Ernie and collect more men.
Conrad prodded his father with an elbow and Mr. Harder, Sr., cleared his throat. “Well, I hate to bother you, Mark, but you know, we haven’t closed on this property yet. Strictly speaking, the owners have every right—”
Before he could finish speaking, Skip wrote out a check to ‘cash’, for $10,000. Word had trickled back to Skip through the sub-contractors and thus through Ernie that Mr. Harder himself was the absent unnamed owner, but Skip felt no need to mention it. He handed the check to Mr. Harder, Sr. “As an extra bonus,” Skip said, “for the property owners, for their kind cooperation. This doesn’t go into escrow, and it doesn’t apply to the purchase price. Do you think it’ll help their patience any?” Now Skip had $10,450 left of his original bankroll and owed the bank an astronomical amount of money.
“Oh,” Mr. Harder, Sr., said. He laughed nervously, taken aback. “Well, hey…” He slid it into an inner breast pocket of his jacket. �
��Thank you, Mr. Daniels,” he said with dignity. He and Conrad left the office smiling. Skip shook hands with the remaining board members and left. Everybody was happy.
Ernie returned to work the next day in a wheelchair, defying his doctor’s command to rest. Two hard driving, back breaking weeks passed, during which time the foundation was filled, the shell of the house was finished, the stucco was beginning to be applied, work on the fence circling the property (with electronic sensors in the gate and an intercom system) was completed, and the terra cotta roofing had arrived. Drywallers and decorators swarmed the interior.
Best of all, the plumbers finished hooking up the septic system, which perked up the entire exhausted crew. Port-o-lets can become downright uncivilized when accommodating so many users.
But when the well was dug, and a pump rigged to provide a convenient on-site source of water for the men, the water tasted so odd that the men avoided it. Several of the crew worried what Phantom would think of the taste, but Skip had no time to deal with it. He just resumed deliveries of bottled water, and moved his attention to other, more urgent, matters.
Summer arrived and the days warmed enough to become uncomfortable for the hard working crews. One sweating plasterer was filling a thermos at the stand of icy bottled water when the skidding, gravel-flinging arrival of Skip’s truck startled him. He froze in astonishment as Skip sprinted towards him and knocked his thermos to the ground.
“Did you drink any of that water?” Skip shouted into the plasterer’s face.
“Uh…no,” he said. “Not yet.”
“Who did?” Skip turned and screamed to the halted, staring work crew scattered all over the large house, “Did any of you drink this water?”
It turned out that a few had. Skip called an ambulance, shouting instructions into his car phone. A few of the men began rubbing their bellies and grimacing. By the time the ambulance arrived, eight men were vomiting and needed no urging to go to the hospital. Skip drove the overflow from the crowded ambulance in his truck. He looked ten years older by the time they pulled up to St. Charles Hospital’s Emergency entrance.
The waiting attendants whisked the by now seriously ailing men in to the doctors who’d been warned and were standing by. Then Skip turned around and drove back to those waiting at the building site. They wanted some answers. So did he.
He pulled in right behind the homicide detective and the constable. The detective just gazed at Skip and shook his head. He sent a water sample in to the lab for immediate testing, taped up the remaining bottles, then left the constable in charge. After all, no one had died. Yet. This time.
Ernie, who was getting around on crutches now, sat down heavily on the hood of Skip’s pickup truck. The men gathered around. A white faced Skip stared at the bewildered men.
“How’d you know?” Ernie finally asked, voicing one of the main questions on everybody’s mind. The other questions were ‘who’, ‘how’, and ‘why,’ but not many of them really thought Skip, who they all liked, would know the answers to these.
Skip’s pale lips moved before any words emerged. When they did come out, they sounded parched and shaken. “I visited the site this morning early, way before the rest of you were due. Took a drink. It felt odd in my stomach. Traveling with Phantom so much, you learn to recognize bad water…stuff like that. Made myself throw it up. Figured you guys didn’t need to get sick, too—came as fast as I…” he was unable to finish. He swallowed hard. It’d taken him the entire drive from his house to the property to dream up that explanation.
He looked around him. The men seemed convinced. Before they moved back towards their unfinished work, a few punched him sympathetically in the bicep, which brought a choked feeling to Skip’s throat that had nothing to do with dust.
Just then, the constable ambled over towards Skip and Ernie, a troubled look on his face. “Got it over the car radio. The lab nailed it soon enough to save the guys, thank God…sodium triouroaetate.”
“Uh, what?” asked Skip.
“Pest control. Rat killer. Used to call it ‘Tri-Zan.’ All the waterfront industries used it to control the rat population back in the early ’50’s, until it got banned,” said the constable. “Pathologist said they hadn’t seen the stuff in decades. But with the location, and the symptoms, an old guy in the lab thought of it right away. Lucky he did.”
Ernie explained to Skip, “This used to be a big shipbuilding region. Where there’s water and ships, there’s rats. I remember now that the stuff damn near killed off the whole town, years ago. Real disaster. Takes just a tiny bit…”
The constable nodded. “You probably saved the lives of every one of those guys who drank any. Odorless, and practically tasteless.”
Involuntarily, the three of them looked up at the sun nearly directly above them. It would be noon in less than an hour, and the air palpitated with heat. Everyone would have taken some water at one time or another.
“My God. My God.” Skip sat down hard on the hood next to Ernie, his eyes huge with horror. After a few moments, he stood up again. “Send ’em all home, Ernie.”
Ernie struggled to his feet, fumbled for his crutches. “What?”
“You heard it, send ’em home. Now. Stop the work.”
“You can’t do that, we got a killer schedule as it is. We can’t lose—”
Just then, a caravan of cars pulled in behind Skip’s truck, led by the battered Chevrolet driven by the homicide detective. Doors slammed and a crowd of people bustled towards them, joined, Skip was startled to see, by the witch, who walked briskly in from the fringe of trees that separated her property from Phantom’s. He waited uneasily. Had they all figured it out? Was his cover blown? The crew, seeing the new arrivals, stopped work again and drifted curiously towards Ernie and Skip.
Ernie had his crutches under control now and he stood at Skip’s side. The men gathered behind Ernie. To Skip’s surprise, at the witch’s arrival, Ernie tipped his hat to her like a guy in an old movie. “Ma’am,” he heard Ernie murmur to her. She nodded back, rewarding Ernie with a wry smile, but said nothing.
Mr. Arsdale, the banker, who was at the front of the crowd with the detective, started barking at Skip like a nervous terrier: “We heard about the ruckus up at the hospital from Dr. Villas. He said mass murder was taking place here. We won’t—” The detective stopped Mr. Arsdale with a pained look and an upraised palm. The banker subsided immediately, but cast round-eyed appeals among the other Trustees for support. He didn’t get any.
The mayor and every Village Trustee except Dr. Villas were present, plus some others Skip didn’t know.
Now the homicide detective asked in a polite, but firm, manner how ‘Mark’ had come to the conclusion ahead of everybody else that the bottled water was poisoned. The group hovered close, anxious to hear. Skip repeated his story.
When he finished, the mayor led the shouted protests to the detective that ‘Mark’s’ explanation was a good one, made sense, and didn’t he think—the detective interrupted the mayor’s suggestion of what to think and said, “We’re going to have to close down the activity here until some explanation is found for this water contamination.”
“Yes,” said Ms. Bellwood, the bookstore lady, her gentle voice unusually sharp in her vehemence. “No lives are worth any amount of financial benefit. We must stop this…this…” she halted, speechless with anxiety.
“You got it,” said Skip in a flat voice. She exhaled and smiled gratefully at him.
Some people were unhappy to hear that. Many in the crowd shrieked reasons at the detective explaining why it was a bad idea. The detective remained as polite, but as firm, as before.
“We can’t afford—” bellowed the mayor.
“—we can’t afford to risk any more lives,” interrupted the detective. “I’m considering this poisoning intentional until I find out different. If a man hadn’t already lost his life here, and Ernie nearly lost his leg, it’d be a little different. But as it stands—”
; The clamor was deafening.
“We’re willing to work,” shouted a few of the sub-contractors, earning Skip’s gratitude, but increasing his anxiety.
“We’re not idiots, we just won’t—” began Ernie.
“—won’t do what? Could you have predicted that animal trap? The rifle bullet?” The detective looked at the crew with compassion. He knew that many of them hadn’t had work for months. This project was invaluable to them. To the whole village. He sighed. “I know it’s hard, but surely you can see that the men here are endangered. Until we find out what that danger is, they’ve got to stay away.”
Ernie subsided, but looked frustrated.
“But they’re working to a deadline,” wailed Mr. Harder, Sr., flushing with the heat in his three piece suit.
The detective shot him an uncomplimentary look without bothering to answer.
“I think,” began Mr. Drexel, immediately reducing everyone to respectful attention, “I think that the detective’s right, Mayor Harper. I think we can do no less for these men. I’m sure this Phantom will understand. He seems to be a compassionate enough fellow, doing all these benefits.”
Mrs. Risk suddenly spoke, startling everyone. They’d nearly forgotten she was there. “I believe Mr. Drexel expresses a valid observation about Phantom. In addition, Detective Hahn has the authority to enforce his request, unless I’m mistaken. He’s being gracious, but I don’t think you’re actually being given a choice. Am I correct, Michael?”
The detective nodded. “That’s the way it is, folks. The lady’s right. Break it up now. You men get your gear together. I know you’ll want your tools in case you get another job, and I’m going to have to inspect everything taken from the site.”
“Jeez,” muttered Ernie’s assistant, but he began collecting tools.
The crowd climbed back into their cars, murmuring among themselves, wondering what was going to happen and how long the hold-up would last. Detective Michael Hahn turned to thank the witch for her help, but discovered she’d already gone.