Where the Summer Ends - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,147
changed a few details, and she changed a few names. She played the part of Cass in the highly revised account she gave us of this house. She and her Libby were medical secretaries. They had access to patients’ records, and they knew various prominent citizens who had certain sexual quirks. Knowing their particular weaknesses, it was simple enough to lure them out here for an odd orgy or two— black magic, S&M, any sort of kink their secret selves desired. Then there were the hidden mikes and camera, the two-way mirrors. Made for some lovely footage. Here’s a respected publisher who likes to dress up in women’s clothing and be whipped, here’s a noted doctor who prefers to give enemas to submissive girls. Maybe just a Baptist preacher who can’t get a blow job from his wife. They knew about them, and preyed on them.
“But they needed another girl—another feminine one for their fantasies—delivered orgies. So they brought in a third girl—and that was a crowd. Cass—Gayle—liked her better than Libby, and Libby got jealous. She was going to blow the whistle on the entire operation, unless the other girl was sent away. But that was too dangerous, and Gayle was growing tired of Libby. They had a special black sabbath orgy that night, and when it was over they gave Libby an injection of insulin. Your friend, Dr Royce Blaine, didn’t give any trouble over signing the death certificate; after all, he was in the photos. Later, when Gayle grew tired of Tina, she married Dr Blaine—probably saved her life; his too, maybe.”
“But why did Mrs Corrington call you in on this?” Russ wondered if he could jump the older man.
“Because she really did think she was being haunted. Nothing more than a nuisance, but it preyed on her nerves. So she made up this plausible story, and she reckoned I’d perform some magical miracle, just like the heroes in my stories. But she didn’t reckon on how good a researcher I was. I got suspicious—you know: ‘Doctor, I have this friend...’ and it didn’t take long to dig out the facts. It happened while you were off in New York.”
“So then?”
“Well, I wrote down my findings, made a carbon for you, then set out for another talk with Gayle Corrington. Of course, then I didn’t know about the blackmail angle—I just wanted to confront Gayle with the fact that I knew her part in the story was more than just an innocent bystander.
“She followed me after I left her house, ran me off the road into the lake. By then I knew about the blackmail—she was too upset with me to lie convincingly that night—so I thought I’d just lie doggo for a few days and see what happened. I destroyed my notes, but that little bastard Brooke Hamilton beat me to my office and stole your carbon of the chapter rough. I caught up with him last night, made him tell me where he’d hidden everything, then destroyed it all—and that little shit. In the meantime, Gayle knew of my carbons, so she was checking out my house, and afterward yours. You walked in on her at my house, and she thought she’d killed you. That’s two mistakes. You should have seen her expression when she walked in here afterward. Thought she’d seen a real ghost this time.”
“Just Uncle Dudley in a monster suit.”
“Just like one of my old thrillers. No ghosts. Just greed. And a guilty conscience that made ghosts out of chance phenomena.”
“Now what?”
“I take over the racket, that’s all. After a little persuasion, Gayle told me what I already knew—that the films and tapes were all hidden in a little safe here beneath the raised hearth. I’ve got enough on some of our city’s finest and wealthiest to retire in style. I’ll just make an appearance later on today, say I was knocked for a loop by my accident, took a day or two wandering around the lakeside to remember who I was.”
“What about me?”
“Now that does bother me, Russ. I hadn’t counted on your dropping in like this. I think you’ll be the drugged-out killer in the story—the one who conveniently takes his life when he realizes what he’s done.”
“Saunders won’t buy that.”
“Sure he will. You’ve been walking around town with a screw loose ever since your wife died—before that maybe. You were the one who blew her diagnosis when she complained of chronic headaches.”