Part 26 (1/2)
”The study's a mess, I'm afraid,” she apologized, closing the door on an agreeably unkempt room that seemed chiefly cluttered with fas.h.i.+on magazines and bits of dress material. ”And the spare bedroom I only use for storage.” She indicated the adjoining room, but did not offer to open it. ”My son sleeps here when he's home.”
”You keep it locked?” Russ asked, noting the outdoor-type lock. ”No.” Gayle hastily turned the k.n.o.b for them, opened the door on a room cluttered with far more of the same as her study. There was a chain lock inside, another door on the outside wall. ”As you see, this room has a private entrance. This is the room they rented out.”
”Their boarder must have felt threatened,” Russ remarked. He received a frown that made him regret his levity.
”These are the bedrooms.” She turned to the hallway opposite. ”This was Ca.s.s's.” A rather masculine room with knotty pine panelling, a large bra.s.s bed, cherry furnis.h.i.+ngs, and an oriental throw rug on the hardwood floor. ”And this was Libby's.” Blue walls, white ceiling, white deep-pile carpet, queen-sized bed with a blue quilted spread touching the floor on three sides. In both rooms sliding gla.s.s doors opened onto the backyard.
”Where do you sleep?” Russ wanted to know.
”In the other bedroom. I find this one a bit too frilly”
”Have you ever, well, seen anything-any sort of, say, spiritual manifestations?” Stryker asked.
”Myself, no,” Gayle told them. ”Though there are a few things. My niece was staying with me one night not long after I'd moved in-sleeping in Libby's room. Next morning she said to me: 'Gayle, that room is haunted. All night I kept waking up thinking someone else was there with me.' I laughed, but she was serious.”
”Is that when you started thinking in terms of ghosts?”
”Well, there had been a few things before that,” she admitted. ”But I suppose that was when I really started noticing things.”
Russ chalked up a point for his side.
”But another time a friend of mine dropped by to visit. I was out of town, so no one answered her ring. Anyway, she heard voices and figured I was in back watching tv, with the set drowning out the doorbell. So she walked around back. I wasn't here, of course. No one was here. And when she looked inside from the patio, she could see that my set was turned off. She was rather puzzled when she told me about it. I told her a radio was left on-only that wasn't true.”
”The dog ever act strangely?” Stryker asked.
”Not really. A few times she seems a little nervous is all. She's a good watchdog though-barks at strangers. That's one reason why I don't suspect prowlers. Prissy lets me know when something's going on that she doesn't like.
”Aside from that, the only other thing I can think of is one night when my son was here alone. I got back late and he was sitting in the living room awake. Said he'd seen a sort of blue mist taking shape in the darkness of his bedroom-like a naked woman. Well, the only mist was the smoke you could still smell from the pot party he and his friends had had here earlier. We had a long talk about that little matter.”
Stryker studied his notepad. ”I'd like to suggest a minor experiment of sorts, if you don't mind. I'd like for Russ and myself to take a turn just sitting alone in Libby's room for a few minutes. See what impressions we have-if any.”
”I'll take first watch,” Russ decided, at their hostess's expression of consent.
Curtiss shot him a warning glance and returned with Gayle to the living room.
Waiting until they were around the corner, Mandarin stepped into the room now occupied by Gayle Corrington. Ca.s.s's room. There was a scent of perfume and such, a soft aura of femininity that he hadn't noticed from the hallway. It softened the masculine feel of the room somewhat, gave it sort of a ski lodge atmosphere. The bedroom had the look of having been recently straightened for company's inspection. As was the case. There were crescent scratches about three feet up on the corner panelling next to the head of the bed, and Russ guessed that the pump shotgun did not usually hang from brackets on the bedroom wall as it did now.
The bathroom was out of Nero's mountain retreat. Big enough to play tennis in, with synthetic-fur rugs scattered on the slate-tiled floor, and with a dressing table and elaborate toilet fixtures that matched the tiles and included a bidet. A cross between a boudoir and the Roman baths. The sunken tub was a round affair and like an indoor pool. Russ wondered if the mirror on the ceiling fogged up when things got hot.
Swallowing the rest of his drink, he stepped into the guest room. Libby's room. This would, of course, be the Blue Room in one of those sprawling mansions where pulp mysteries had a habit of placing their murders. Come to think of it, hadn't he seen an old '30s movie called something like The Secret of the Blue Room?
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he crunched an ice cube and studied the room about him. Very feminine-though the brightness of the patio outside kept it from becoming cloying. It had a comfortable feel about it, he decided-not the disused sensation that generally hangs over a guest room. There was just a hint of perfume still lingering-probably Gayle kept clothes in the closet here.
Russ resisted the temptation to lie down. Glancing outside, he reflected that, when drawn, the blue curtains would fill the room with blue light. Might be a point worth bringing up to Curtiss, in case the old fellow got too excited over ectoplasm and the like. Aside from that, Russ decided that the room was as thoroughly unhaunted as any bedroom he'd ever sat in.
Giving it up at length, he ambled back to the living room.
Stryker was just closing his notepad. Either he'd got another drink, or else he'd been too interested to do more than sip his gin and tonic. At Mandarin's entry, he excused himself and strode off for the bedroom.
Gayle's face was a trifle flushed, her manner somewhat nervous. Russ wondered whether it was the liquor, or if he'd broken in on something. She had that familiar edgy look of a patient after an hour of soul-bearing on the a.n.a.lyst's couch. As he thought about it, Russ agreed that this interview must be a similar strain for her.
”You've eaten your ice cubes,” she observed. ”Shall I get you another?”
Russ swallowed a mouthful of salted nuts. ”Thank you- but I've got to drive.”
She made a wry face. ”You look big enough to hold another few. A light one,then?”
”h.e.l.l, why not. A light one, please.” Probably she would feel more at ease if she supposed his psychiatric powers were disarmed by bourbon.
He paced about the living room while she saw to his gla.s.s. Coming to the fireplace, he studied the beautifully engraved shotgun that hung there. It was a Parker. Russ started to touch it.
”That's loaded.”
He jerked back his hand like a scolded kid. ”Sorry. Just wanted to get the feel of an engraved Parker double-barrel. That's some gun you have to decorate your fireplace with.”
”Thank you. I know.” She handed him his drink.
”Don't you worry about keeping a loaded shotgun in your living room?” The drink was at least equal to its predecessors.
”I'd worry more with an empty one. I'm alone here at night, and there aren't many neighbors. Besides, there aren't any kids around who might get in trouble with it.”
”I'd think a woman would prefer something easier to handle than a shotgun.”
”Come out on the skeet range with me sometime, and I'll show you something.”
Mandarin must have looked properly chastened. With a quick grin Gayle drew down the weapon, opened the breech, and extracted two red sh.e.l.ls. ”Here.” She handed the shotgun to him.
”Double Ought,” Russ observed, closing the breech.
”It's not for shooting starlings.”
He sighted along the barrel a few times, gave it back. Briskly she replaced the sh.e.l.ls and returned it to its mounting.
”Might I ask what you do, Mrs Corrington?”
”Gayle. I a.s.sume you mean for a living. I own and manage a mixed bag of fas.h.i.+on stores-two here in Knoxville, plus a resort wear shop in Gatlinburg, and a boutique on the Strip by the University. So you see, Doctor, not all working girls fall into the nurse or secretary system of things.”
”Russ. No, of course not. Some of them make excellent psychiatrists.”
She softened again. ”Sorry for coming on strong for women's lib. Just that you find yourself a little defensive after being questioned for an hour.”
”Sorry about that.” Russ decided not to remind her that this was at her own invitation. ”But this has been extremely interesting, and Curtiss is like a bloodhound on a fresh trail.
”But how do you feel about this, Gayle?” Do you believe a poltergeist or some sort of spirit has attached itself to the house?”
She gave him a freckled frown and shrugged her shoulders. No, Russ concluded, she wasn't wearing some sort of backless bra beneath her gown-not that she needed one.
”Well, I can't really say. I mean, there's just been so many things happening that I can't explain. No, I don't believe in witches and vampires and ghosts all draped in bedsheets, if that's what you mean. But some of the books I've read explain poltergeists on an ESP basis-telekinesis or something on that order.”
”Do you believe in ESP?”