“It seems a little large for one person,” Stryker observed.
“Not really I have a son in college now who stays here over breaks. And now and then a niece comes to visit. So the spare rooms are handy.”
“Well, what happened after you moved in?”
She wrinkled her forehead. “Just… well, a series of things. Just strange things…
“Lights wouldn’t stay on or off. I used to think I was just getting absent-minded, but then I began to pay careful attention. Like I’d go off to a movie, then come back and find the carport light off — when the switch was inside. It really scared me. There’s other houses closer now, but this is a rural area pretty much. Prissy’s company, but I don’t know if she could fight off a prowler. I keep a gun.”
“Has an electrician ever checked your wiring?”
“No. It was OK’ed originally, of course.”
“Can anyone break in without your having realized it?”
“No. You see, I’m worried about break-ins, as I say I’ve got double locks on all the doors, and the windows have special locks. Someone would have to break the glass, or pry open the woodwork around the doors — leave marks. That’s never happened.
“And other things seem to turn on and off. My electric toothbrush, for instance. I told my son and he laughed — then one night the light beside his bed flashed off.”
“Presumably you could trace all this to electrical disturbances,” Russ pointed out.
Gayle gestured toward the corner of the living room. “All right. See that wind-up Victrola? No electricity. Yet the damn thing turns itself on. Several times at night I’ve heard it playing — that old song, you know…”
She sang a line or two: “Come back, blue lady come back. Don’t be blue anymore…”
Stryker quickly moved to the machine. It was an old Victrola walnut veneer console model, with speaker and record storage in the lower cabinet. He lifted the hinged lid. It was heavy. Inside, the huge tonearm was swomg back on its pivot.
“Do you keep a record on the turntable normally?”
“Yes. I like to show the thing off. But I’m certain I haven’t left ‘Blue Skirt Waltz’ on every time.”
“It’s on now.”
“Yes, I leave it there now.”
“Why not get rid of the record as an experiment?”
“What could I think if I found it back again?”
Stryker grinned. He moved the starting lever with his finger. The turntable began to spin.
“You keep this thing wound?” Russ asked.
“Yes,” Gayle answered uneasily Curtiss swung the hinged tonearm down, rested the thick steel needle on the shellac disc.
I dream of that flight with you
Darling, when first we met…
“Turn it off again — please!”
Stryker hastily complied. “Just wanted to see what was involved in turning it on.”
“Sorry,” Gayle apologized. “The thing has gotten on my nerves, I guess. How about refills all around?”
“Fine,” Stryker agreed, taking a final chew on his lime twist.
When their hostess had disappeared into the kitchen with their glasses, he murmured aside to Mandarin: “What do you think?”
Russ shrugged. “What can I say from a few minutes talking, listening to her? There’s no blatant elevation of her porcelain titer, if that’s what you mean.”
“What’s that mean?” the writer asked, annoyed.
“She doesn’t come on as an outright crock.”
Stryker’s mustache twitched. “Think I’ll write that down.”
He did.
“Useful for rounds,” Russ explained in apology.
“What about the occult angle? So far I’m betting on screwy electrical wiring and vibrations from passing trucks or something.”
Stryker started to reply, but then Gayle Corrington rustled back, three glasses and a wedge of cheese on a tray.
“I’ve been told most of this can be explained by wiring problems or vibrations,” she was saying. “Like when the house settles on its foundation.”
Russ accepted his drink with aplomb — wondering if she had overheard.
“But I asked the real estate man about that,” she went on, “and he told me the house rests on bedrock. You’ve seen the limestone outcroppings in the yard. They even had to use dynamite putting down the foundation footings.”
“Is there a cellar?”
“No. Not even a crawl space. But I have storage in the carport and in the spare rooms. There’s a gardening shed out back, you’ll notice — by the crepe myrtle. Libby liked to garden. All these roses were her doing. I pay a man from the nursery to keep them up for me. Seems like Libby would be sad if I just let them go to pot.”
“Do you feel like Libby is still here?” Russ asked casually.
She hadn’t missed the implication, and Russ wished again Curtiss hadn’t introduced him as a psychiatrist. “Well, yes,” she answered cautiously. “I hope that doesn’t sound neurotic.”
“Has anything happened that you feel can’t be explained — well, by the usual explanations?” Curtiss asked, steering the interview toward safer waters.
“Poltergeist phenomena, you mean? Well, I’ve only touched on that. One night the phone cord started swinging back and forth. All by itself— nothing near it. I was sitting out here reading when I saw that happen. Then my maid was here one afternoon when all the paper cups dropped out of the dispenser and started rolling up and down the kitchen counter. Another night that brass table lamp there started rocking back and forth on its base — just like someone had struck it. Of course, I was the only one here. Christ, I felt like yelling, ‘Libby! Cut it out!”’
“Is there much truck traffic on the highway out front?” Stryker asked. “Stone transmits vibrations a long way, and if the house rests on bedrock…”
“No truck traffic to speak of — not since the Interstates were completed through Knoxville. Maybe a pickup or that sort of thing drives by. I’ve thought of that angle, too.
“But, darn it — there’s too many other things.” Her face seemed defiant. She’s thought a lot about this, Russ surmised — and now that she’s decided to tell someone else about it, she doesn’t want to be taken for a credulous fool.
“Like my television.” She pointed to the color portable resting on one end of the long raised hearth. “If you’ve ever tried to lug one of these things around, you know how portable they really are. I keep it here because I can watch it either from that chair or when I’m out sunning on the patio. Twice though I’ve come back and found it’s somehow slid down the hearth a foot or so. I noticed because the picture was blocked by the edge of that end table when I tried to watch from my lounge chair on the patio. And I know the other furniture wasn’t out of place, because I line the set up with that cracked brick there — so I know I can see it from the patio, in case I’ve moved it around someplace else. Both times it was several inches past that brick.”
Russ examined the set, a recent portable model. One edge of its simulated walnut chassis was lined up one row of bricks down from where a crack caused by heat expansion crossed the hearth. He pushed at the set experimentally. It wouldn’t slide.
“Tell me truck vibrations were responsible for this” Gayle challenged.
“Your cleaning maid…”
“Had not been in either time. Nor had anyone else in the time between when I noticed it and when I’d last watched it from outside.”
“No one else that you knew of.”
“No one at all. I could have told if there’d been a break-in. Besides, a burglar would have stolen the darn thing.”
Russ smoothed his mustache thoughtfully. Stryker was scribbling energetically on his notepad.