Crooked House

by Joe McKinney

  The smell of smoke of was gone, as too was the whispering.

  When had that stopped? He searched his memory, but couldn’t remember.

  He looked around the room again. Like the rest of Crook House’s interior, it was aristocratic and elegant, perhaps even more so than the rest of the house. It spoke in whispers of soft blue and cream, with hints of raspberry pink accenting the cushions of the delicate chairs and the powder blue lampshades. Definitely a woman’s retreat, he thought.

  “Fucking bitch,” he muttered.

  He froze.

  Where in the hell had that come from?

  He stood up straight and scratched at his neck. He sniffed the air. The smell of smoke was back. Robert frowned. He could almost – no, no he could, he did – hear wood crackling and hissing. A fire. That’s what she did, the fucking bitch. That fucking bitch. You build up a home for them, a family, you work yourself to the bone day and night, day and night, when you’re sick, when you’re tired, when your head’s so fucking full of worries that you think you’re going to blow a vein in your neck, you still work because you’re the man and it’s your job and you do it and you do it and you do it, again and again. And then the bitch, that fucking bitch, she goes and loses her fucking mind and strangles your babies and burns your house and you come home to nothing because it’s all been for nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing –

  There was a snap.

  Robert shook himself, and looked down at his hands. The back of the chair he’d been holding was in bits, a busted piece of it in each hand.

  “Oh God.” He dropped the busted chair. He was breathing hard, his skin flushed with heat. With his sense of alarm mounting he backed out of the room and stopped in the hallway, looking at the door.

  The anger he’d felt inside still clung to him. Like smoke.

  He shook his head, trying to make it go away. He squeezed his eyes shut. His squeezed his fists so tightly his hands shook. He even beat his fists against his thighs, like he could pound the bad feelings away. But he couldn’t shake them.

  “Robert?”

  He jumped. He turned toward the landing and saw Sarah standing there in her T-shirt and panties and bare feet.

  “What are doing up here?” she said, her voice heavy with sleep. “I thought I heard you yelling. Were you yelling?”

  All he could manage was to shake his head.

  She sniffled and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Well, come on. Let’s go back to bed.” She motioned for him to follow. Robert paused only long enough to glance again at the sitting room, and then quickly went after her.

  December 19

  The next morning, the three of them sat down in the breakfast nook over a meal of the fruit and oatmeal bars left over from their road trip. Robert was drained. He hadn’t slept well. Or at all, really, and his exhaustion left him irritable and anxious. But Sarah and Angela were chattering away about the busy day ahead of them, and that part was good. It calmed him, listening to Angela giggle.

  He liked this room. There were no window treatments, and the sunshine came pouring in. There were a few formal accents, like an ornately wrought chandelier and a huge Oriental rug dominated by shades of blue that were matched in the sectioned, boarded ceiling, but in the main it seemed designed for peaceful family meals. This room, Robert guessed, rather than the stuffy dining room in the east wing, must have been where James Crook and his doomed family shared their meals.

  Oh Christ, he told himself. Stop it.

  Here, in the light of day, sitting in a comfortable wing chair and eating an oatmeal chocolate-chip bar, he found it hard to linger on the events of the night before. The anxiety he’d experienced in the upstairs sitting room seemed remote now, almost dreamlike. Last night, suffused with dread, he’d nearly convinced himself that the sensations he’d experienced were of a supernatural persuasion, ghostly, beyond the grave, all that nonsense. Certainly, he’d gone back to bed thinking that. But now, surrounded by his family and smiling when they laughed, that earlier conviction seemed foolish. What had Scrooge said of Marley’s ghost, that surely there was more of gravy to him than the grave? He was an undigested chunk of potato. Something like that. Robert had simply been tired. Plus, there was so much on his mind, so many problems on his plate. Between all that, and the stress of moving and driving all day, was it any wonder he’d let himself get so worked up?

  Of course, he told himself. It was that and nothing more.

  Feeling a little better, he helped Sarah make a list of the things she would have to take care of. She was going to have a busy day, and as he had to be in meetings most of the morning, he wouldn’t be much help. The movers were due at eight, and dealing with them was going to be her job. Plus, they needed groceries, and arrangements would have to be made for Angela to start school the following semester. With Christmas only a week away, they were fast running out of time to get it all done.

  “You’ll be home around what?” Sarah asked.

  “I don’t know. A little after lunch, I guess. Maybe around two.”

  “Okay.” She glanced at the clock on her phone and said, “You better get going. It’s almost eight now.”

  He looked at her phone and saw he had eleven minutes to be in Thom Horner’s office. He kissed her, kissed Angela on top of her head, and hustled out to his car. Luckily, the campus was nearly deserted and he didn’t have any trouble finding a parking spot close to Lightner’s academic offices. From there he moved from one meeting after another. He was introduced to a dizzying array of people and he managed to forget the names of all of them as soon as they were out of sight.

  Thom told him not to worry about it. “It’s a small school,” he said. “Within a few weeks, you’ll know just about everybody from the gardeners to the president.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I know you will.”

  When they finished their meetings Thom took him to lunch, hamburgers and fries at a little place just off Brackenridge Park, a bucket of beer between them.

  “So how’s it going with the house? What does Sarah think of it?”

  “I don’t know if she’s really had a chance to see much of it yet. We got in late last night, and the power was out most of the night. And today she’s gonna be dealing with the movers. They should probably be there now.”

  “Well, she’s a good one, Robert. I hope she likes the house. I have to admit, I really wanted to impress you guys with it. And the timing, while unfortunate, couldn’t have been better.”

  Robert frowned at that. “What do you mean?”

  “About what?”

  “What do you mean, the timing was unfortunate?”

  “Well, um…” He shrugged. “The houses have to be, you know, vacated before we can rent them out to somebody new.”

  “Vacated?”

  “Yeah, you know, the previous occupant…well, he died.”

  “In the house?”

  Thom shrugged again. “Yeah.”

  “Who was he?”

  “His name was Brian Hannett. He was one of our English faculty. Poor guy, he was only sixty-three. But, you know, he smoked, and he was kind of overweight. His heart attack didn’t surprise me much. He’d only been in the house for about a month when it happened.”

  Robert was stunned. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “That he died in the house.”

  “I…Robert, I don’t get it. What was there to tell?”

  “That he…that he…” Oh Christ, he was making a fool of himself. He shook his head. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry, Thom. I just…I don’t know. I guess it kind of freaked me out, the idea of somebody dying in my house.”

  Thom laughed. “Where did you think all those books in your library came from?” Robert didn’t say anything. “You’re acting mighty strange, Robert. I never took you for the superstitious sort.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Okay. Whatever you say.” He popped one of the beers from their bu
cket. “Hey, did you at least ask Sarah what she thought about a job?”

  “I mentioned it,” Robert said. Actually, he’d mentioned it several times, but she never really gave him a straight answer on it. They always wound up on some other subject every time he tried to bring it up. “These last few days have been so busy. We haven’t really had a chance to talk about it too much.”

  “Well, I’d definitely like to work with her again. You tell her that. Better yet, you mind if I call her, you know, once you guys get settled?”

  “Sure,” Robert said. “Once we get settled. That’d be great.”

  They finished lunch and headed back to campus. It was still early, before one. Briefly, Robert thought about going home. Sarah almost certainly had her hands full; she’d be grateful for some extra help. But his lunch with Thom, and especially the bit about the latest resident dying in the home, had got him thinking again of the man who built Crook House. And besides, a little light research at Lightener’s library would be a great way to get comfortable with his new resources, something he was going to have to do anyway. Might as well be now, while he had the time.

  The Thomas South Library looked like something designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, all flat surfaces and sectionals that jutted over wide green lawns. Basically lots of glass-walled rooms overlooking lots of grass. He had to run his new faculty ID through the key reader at the turnstiles to get in, and when it worked he nodded with approval. From there he passed through a long reading room filled with empty red couches and oversized armchairs, floor to ceiling windows on either side to let in the natural light. At the far end of the reading room was a staircase that curled up a mural-covered wall featuring scenes of student life among the Lightner Tigers. He went up it, impressed already by the place, and found the research stations. Once there he settled in behind a computer and got busy.

  There was plenty on James Crook, though none of it was academically in-depth, mostly newspaper-type stuff, and most of that from the society pages of a now-defunct paper called the San AntonioLight. He skimmed several articles, and eventually worked up a slim biography for the man, the main details of which he transcribed onto a yellow legal pad borrowed from the pasty-skinned undergrad at the checkout desk.

  Born poor to cotton-farming parents in South Texas, James Crook nonetheless finished high school and even went on to play baseball for the University of Texas at Austin. And he was good enough with the bat to go on beyond that, playing four years in the minors before the start of World War I gave him something else to do.

  Explains the baseball stuff in the study, he thought.

  Serving with the Army in France, he rose to the rank of Captain before getting wounded at the Marne and shipped off to a hospital in Bristol, where he met Miss Emily Durham, youngest daughter of a successful English doctor.

  He’d evidently got on well with not only Emily but her father as well, for he left England with a new bride and a new focus for his career. At the age of thirty-two, with his wife’s money to back him, he enrolled at the newly minted Baylor College of Dentistry and became one of the first professionally licensed dentists in San Antonio.

  Little was said of his bootlegging activities, though from the young couple’s sudden flowering in the society pages, Robert guessed the good doctor was deep into rum running by 1923 or ’24. One entry in particular made him smile, a gossip column from the San Antonio Light dated March 14, 1926:

  GAY CELEBRATION AS

  DR. JAMES CROOK UNVEILS LAVISH

  NEW RESIDENCE IN OLMOS PARK

  Mayor Joseph Tobin and

  Senator Bryan Kellogg’s Mother Attend the Party

  By Michael Anson, Society Editor

  San Antonio has seen the building of many beautiful estates over the years, but none as impressive as that of Dr. James Crook, who in recent years has risen, along with his beautiful young wife, Emily, formerly of Bristol, England, to the fore of San Antonio society.

  Dr. Crook, who makes no apologies for his rapid rise in fortunes these past few years, reportedly put more than $200,000 into the building of Crook House – though this reporter can attest that the artistic sense of Mrs. Crook is on full display at the home, and the works of art decorating its walls and the furnishings adorning the many elegant rooms almost certainly amount to double or even three times the cost of the home.

  When this reporter asked Dr. Crook, whose social contacts are rumored to range from the English aristocracy to the likes of Al Capone, if the opening of his new mansion meant that he was retiring from dentistry in order to pursue his other business ventures, Dr. Crook modestly stated that only time would tell. “I’m still a young man,” he said, “and the world is full of possibilities. These last few years have been mighty good to me, but it may not always be so, if you know what I mean. A man has to have something to fall back on. That’s just common sense.”

  One can only hope Dr. Crook’s star continues to shine, for he certainly knows how to throw a wonderful party. With catering by Walther Guenther and music by the Bob Parkes Orchestra, guests were treated to...

  With a chuckle, Robert printed the article. Amazing, he thought, how transparent the references to bootlegging were in the press of the day, and how amazing that everyone seemed not only to tolerate the success of a criminal, but also celebrate it. How very American.

  There were plenty more entries from the society pages, which clearly loved James Crook, but there was surprisingly little about his wife. Indeed, by late 1927, the articles seemed to have stopped mentioning her altogether. He found that curious until he happened upon an article from theLight’s rival, the San AntonioExpress-News, dated March 11, 1928:

  SAN ANTONIO DOCTOR CONVICTED OF

  VOLSTEAD ACT VIOLATIONS

  Dr. James Crook Sentenced to Four Years in

  Federal Prison in Beaumont

  Dr. James Crook, a former Army officer, decorated war hero, professional baseball player, and pioneer in dentistry, was convicted yesterday in federal court of eighty-six separate violations of the Volstead Act and fourteen counts of tax evasion.

  Federal judge Roland G. Gantz sentenced Crook to forty-eight months in the United States Penitentiary in Beaumont for his crimes. Judge Gantz allowed Crook one week to put his affairs in order before starting his sentence. Friends of Dr. Crook said that he will almost certainly use that time to provide for the care and maintenance of his wife, Emily, and sons James Jr., five, and Waylon, three, who will continue to reside in Dr. Crook’s immense estate in Olmos Park.

  Friends of the Crook family said that Mrs. Crook has been in poor health these last two years. Dr. Marshall Evans, a close family friend and family doctor, stated that Mrs. Crook suffers from a temporary nervous depression, with a tendency toward hysterical tendencies brought on by the unfortunate events of her husband’s trial. He has recommended a rest cure, which she’ll be taking at the family home in Olmos Park...

  There was more, but the reference to the rest cure shocked Robert to the point he couldn’t read anymore. He was no great fan of Charlotte Perkins Gilman – though he’d taught her often enough in his American Short Fiction class – but he was familiar enough with her work to recognize the rest cure as the same horrible confinement suffered by the narrator of Gilman’s masterpiece “The Yellow Wallpaper.” He couldn’t suppress the shiver that ran down his spine at the thought of that poor woman, confined up there in that sitting room with her mounting psychosis and feelings of utter helplessness. What a hell she must have lived in that house. And what of her children, the two boys, James Jr. and Waylon? How must they have suffered to see their father stripped of his glory and their mother sinking into insanity?

  That fucking bitch. You build a home for them…

  And then they strangle your babies…

  He leaned back in his chair and let out the breath he’d been holding.

  Oh God, he thought. What sort of mess had he found his way into?

  It took some time before he could read on, but eventually
he came to another article, this one dated April 5, 1930, mentioning in just four spare lines that the once palatial estate of Crook House had burned, killing Emily Crook and her two sons.

  A follow-up piece from January 8, 1931, stated that James Crook’s 48 month sentence had been probated due to his deteriorating physical and mental condition, brought on, the article’s author conjectured, by the recent death of the doctor’s wife and two sons in a house fire in San Antonio.

  The final reference he found to Crook was dated December 26, 1931, an obituary. Robert scanned the article, but was surprised to see that it made no mention of the cause of death. Something as salacious as the death of a former rumrunner should have been front-page material. But nothing in that vein was said. The article did mention the rebuilding of Crook House, but only in passing. Robert wondered if the emotional climate of the country at the time of Crook’s death had something to do with the way his death was reported in the papers. The Great Depression had set in to stay by that point. Maybe references to the fall of wealthy men, or to the destruction of families, hit a bit too close to the heart and hearth for most readers to endure. Maybe, he thought.

  Robert stood up and stretched. His back ached and his eyes were tired. It was then that he happened to glance at the clock on the wall behind him.

  Past eight!

  “Oh shit,” he said, and groaned aloud, wondering how in the hell seven hours had just slipped right by him.

  Sarah was going to be pissed.

  He logged off the machine, gathered his stuff, and hurried outside. It had gotten dark and the night air was cold, His breath misted in front of his face as he ran to the car. How in the hell was he going to explain this?

  He wasn’t sure he could.