Crooked House

by Joe McKinney

  “I thought that might raise an eyebrow. It’s true, though. Fourteen deaths, and I’ve seen each and every death certificate. That’s above and beyond the two suicides mind you. Strokes and seizures account for most of the deaths, but one woman – this was in 1949 – slipped in the upstairs bathroom, hit her head on the edge of the tub, and drowned. Another man, in June 1984, died of an allergic reaction to a brown recluse bite. Sixteen deaths in eighty years is a little more than a statistical blip, wouldn’t you say?”

  Robert nodded.

  “Of course, there’s no way of knowing just how many natural deaths we can pin on Crook House. The Millard family cycled quite a few relatives through the house before turning it over to Lightner. None of them stayed long. It’s possible that some died later, from cancers and whatnot, after leaving the house.”

  “I don’t know if I’m really all that comfortable with this talk of Crook House giving my family cancer,” Robert said.

  Udoll seemed surprised, and Robert recognized the look right away. Academics, like cops or paramedics, had a way of talking about unpleasant facts with an impersonal detachment that could be unsettling at parties, and they were often surprised when people reacted emotionally to what they had to say. It was the first time, though, that Robert had been on the receiving end of that reaction.

  “I’m sorry,” Udoll said. “I hadn’t intended to...I didn’t mean...”

  “It’s okay,” Robert said. “Really, it’s all right. I’m just a bit sensitive these days. Tell me. You’ve done a lot of research on the house. That’s obvious. What’s your theory?”

  “About what?”

  “About why, I mean. You said yourself the Millard family has cycled a lot of relatives through the house. Surely not every single one of them has died some nasty death. And Lightner has put a few professors through there, too. Brian Hannett wasn’t the first. But you don’t see ghost tours coming by Crook House, and not even the folks here at Lightner seem to know much about it. Thom Horner had only the vaguest sense of its history, and he appears to know more than most.”

  “I think you’re right about that,” Udoll said. “Not everybody who stays in Crook House seems to suffer as a result.”

  “So why do a few? What’s different about them?”

  Udoll had looked at him strangely then, for they were done with the pretense that this was just a conversation about history and idle speculation about ghosts. Udoll believed, that was obvious from the look in his eyes, and Robert was pretty sure that same belief was just as obvious in his own eyes.

  “I think,” Udoll said slowly, “that certain people are like the light sockets in your walls, and whatever is in that house, is like a plug. Certain people are just made to connect with it.”

  “But why?”

  “Who knows? A predisposition toward depression, maybe. There are plenty of documented instances of depression in the Millard family.”

  “But none in Brian Hannett. You told me that.”

  “That’s true.”

  “There is mine, though,” Robert said. Udoll waited for him to go on. “My mother.”

  “I think that, maybe, Crook House is not good for you, Robert. And if it’s not good for you, chances are it won’t be good for your family, either. Not from what I’ve seen.”

  The phone rang, startling Robert out of his thoughts. He was still holding the bat, and a glance at the clock told him he’d been thinking about his conversation with Udoll for the last two hours.

  The phone rang again and he set the bat down. He figured it was Sarah. He’d been an ass to her, he knew that, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. It was exactly like yesterday, down in the entranceway, right before they left for the party. He was aware of what was going on, but he couldn’t stop it, and he couldn’t control it either.

  The phone rang again.

  “I’m coming,” he said, and picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Is Sarah there?” A man’s voice, clipped and harsh.

  “No. Who’s this?”

  “You that college professor she married?”

  “Who is this?” Robert said again, though he thought he knew, even before Jay Carroll said his name. “How’d you get this number?” he said.

  “Look, I’ll make this quick,” Jay said. “I got a letter from my attorney here saying that I need to get a blood test from Angela to prove paternity. He said he sent you a copy of the letter, too.”

  “We received the letter.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  A pause.

  “So, when are you gonna do that blood test? Take you ten minutes at a clinic.”

  “We’re not going to comply with that request, Jay.”

  “You’re not going to comply? Didn’t you hear me, it’s an order from my attorney?”

  “I heard you fine, Jay. And I read his letter. But an attorney is just that, an attorney. They don’t have the authority to order dinner, much less demand an unnecessary medical procedure be carried out on an eleven-year-old little girl. Only a judge can order that, and I don’t think there’s a judge – even a Florida one – irresponsible enough to grant your motion for a blood test on my daughter.”

  “You’re going to comply, mother fucker,” Jay said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  Robert turned the bat over so he could see the Louisville Slugger label branded into the wood. He tightened his grip on its handle.

  “Jay, what are you doing now?” he said. “Are you threatening me?”

  “You’re the English professor, you tell me. You heard any specific threats come out of my mouth? What I’m doing now is telling you that you will comply. You will take that girl for a blood test, and you will make the results available to my attorney. That’s what you’re gonna do.”

  Robert’s vision was threaded with little red lines. His breathing had become raspy, his face flushed with heat. The anger was spreading through him, taking him over. His hands were cold, then hot. And he was sweating. He gripped the bat tighter.

  “Jay,” he said, and his tone was oddly glassy, steady, “this is what’s going to happen now. I’m going to hang up, and when I do, you are going to make damn sure that you and your attorney stay as far away from my family as you can get. You will not ever darken my door again.”

  “Yeah, don’t be too sure, Doc. I got something here that’s gonna change your mind, something you need to see.”

  “Good-bye, Jay.”

  Jay said something else, but it was lost when Robert cut the connection.

  He put the phone down on his desk and stared around the room, and as he stood there, his rage overwhelming him, he felt he could hear water moving in Crook House’s pipes. He could hear the hum of the air conditioner. He could hear a woman thrashing in the bathtub down the hall, and the echoes of the footsteps of long-dead suicides. Crook House was alive to him, open to him, and he could hear every part of it, feel every part.

  He could feel the beating of its hideous heart.

  December 23

  Robert had two appointments the next morning, one with Thom Horner at 9:30 and the other with Rachel Dodson, the division chair, at 11:00. He missed them both. Didn’t even bother to call.

  Thom called him around ten o’clock. Robert saw his number come up on the caller ID, but he didn’t bother to pick it up. Instead, he sat in his office, thinking about everything Anthony Udoll had told him, and about Jay Carroll, and about how broke he was and all the bills he still had to pay and the misery of always being behind the eight ball.

  He thought about Sarah, too.

  Jesus, why did it have to hurt this bad? Marriage shouldn’t be a chore.

  But Sarah, true to her word, had gone out and bought three Samsung camcorders at about $120 each. They looked like iPhones, but weren’t as heavy. She’d put one in Angela’s room, down in the corner along the back wall, where it could supposedly capture the entire room. She did the same in the sitting room at the top of the stairs, and she’d asked
if she could put one in Robert’s study, which he’d flat out refused to allow. If she wanted to bankrupt them with her stupid little projects that was fine, but there was a line he wouldn’t let her cross, no matter how much she begged him. Instead she taped it to the wall in the hall outside of the sitting room. That area, she claimed, was the hot spot, might as well focus her efforts there.

  Well, she could focus her efforts on the back of his ass for all he cared. She wasn’t going to see anything anyway.

  She’d linked the camcorders to her laptop downstairs in their bedroom and was running them in a continuous loop. If anything happened – something he’d laughed out loud about – she could go back and save the footage. When he came downstairs for breakfast that morning she was already at her laptop, watching the video feed.

  He didn’t bother to explain where he was going or what he was going to spend the day doing, and she didn’t ask. So he went upstairs and sat at his desk and thought about all the crap that he had to deal with.

  Sometime later, the doorbell chimed.

  He waited until the doorbell chimed again and shouted, “Hey, somebody get the door!”

  The doorbell went off again.

  “God damn it,” he muttered. He went to the top of the stairs. “Hey Angela, answer the door.”

  The doorbell again. This time, four rings in rapid succession. Whoever it was was impatient. And knew somebody was home.

  “God damn it.”

  Robert went downstairs and opened the door. He winced at the sunlight. The man standing there was thick, but not fat, and holding a manila envelope in his hands. He wore jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, open at the neck, with a shark tooth hanging from a leather necklace, and ratty old boat shoes. His hair was curly, but thinning, like a man of middle age still trying to pass for his early twenties. Behind him, in the drive, was an econo-size rental car.

  “Jay? What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Well, I was feeling jealous there for a bit. I mean, the size of this place. But then you answer the door and well, buddy, I don’t know how to say this, but you look like warmed over shit. What’s that wrong with your neck there?”

  Robert touched an itchy spot at the top of his collar and felt the bump and rough spot where the ringworm had started to spread up his neck. Up to then, he’d been able to keep it hidden under the collars of his shirts, but now, he was wearing just a T-shirt and an old pair of jeans. He hadn’t shaved or showered since the morning of the party two days ago, and he was pretty sure Jay was being generous when he said he looked like shit.

  “What do you want, Jay?”

  “I told you what I want. Seriously dude, you all right? You’re looking like something that got tossed out the back of a Mexican whorehouse.”

  “What the fuck do you care what I look like?”

  Jay Carroll stiffened. “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t. You know, on the phone, the way you smarted off to me, I figured you for one of those guys who’d be a real pussy in person. But you’re not, are you? You got some balls on you, even if you do look like shit.”

  “What do you want, Jay? I’m about to call the cops.”

  Jay laughed. “You don’t need to do that. I just came over to make sure you take my kid to get that blood test.”

  “She’s not your kid. And I told you that wasn’t gonna happen.”

  “Yeah, I know you did. That’s why I brought you this.”

  He held out the manila envelope. Robert looked at it, then at Jay.

  “What’s that?”

  “This?” Jay extended the envelope. “This is why you’re gonna take Angela for a blood test.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Why don’t you take a look and see?”

  “What’s in it, Jay? I’m about to close this door.”

  Jay reached into the envelope and pulled out a single piece of paper. “You’ve seen that before, I guess.”

  Robert saw the letterhead of Thomas Kraft and recognized it right away as the same letter Sarah had showed him in their bedroom back in Florida the day before they’d left for San Antonio. Except this letter had the line about Jay having “documentary proof that the birth mother is morally unfit to raise a teenage girl” highlighted. In the margins, in red pen, Jay had written “Merry Christmas!”

  “What the hell’s this supposed to mean?” Robert said, holding the letter back out for Jay to take.

  “You keep that,” Jay said. “And you keep this too.” He held out the manila envelope to Robert, but Robert refused to take it. He dropped it at his Robert’s feet. “Take that into your fancy study there and watch what’s inside. After you watch it, you call me and tell me when you’re gonna take that girl to get her blood test.”

  Robert didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of picking up the envelope. He didn’t even look at it.

  “Tell me what’s in it, Jay.”

  “A movie. A DVD, actually.”

  “A movie?”

  “Yep. You watch that, and then you call me and tell me what you think.”

  “What kind of game are you playing, Jay?”

  “One where I got all the cards, Doc. I promise you that.” He turned and walked back to his car, but stopped before opening the door. “Oh, that DVD you got there, that’s just the part of the movie I figured you’d really want to see. If you want to watch the rest of it, I’ve got it on VHS.”

  Robert just stared at him.

  “I’ll be hearing from you, Doc. My number’s taped to the disc.”

  Jay saluted him and got in the car and backed out.

  Robert watched him go, and made sure he was long gone before he bent down and picked up the envelope.

  *

  Robert slid the DVD into his laptop and sat back in his chair.

  He caught a glimpse of a woman with platinum blonde hair, naked on a bed, with a man’s cum all over her tits. Above her was the man responsible, a rail-skinny guy with an enormous penis. He was stroking it, breathing hard, smiling like he’d just won a gold medal.

  “Oh Jesus,” Robert said.

  The hairstyle, the video quality, everything about it was out of date and low budget. Robert curled his lip in disgust, even as he felt a stirring in his crotch. He wasn’t above porn. He’d watched it a few times, even bought some, ages ago. But it had always struck him, even when done up fancy with beautiful actresses and expensive equipment, as brutal and pathetic and kind of ridiculous. He had no taste for it.

  He reached forward to eject the DVD when the scene changed to the same rail-skinny guy, maybe nineteen or twenty, now driving a late ‘90s Ford pickup down an empty back alley in some nondescript warehouse district. The guy was reading a map while driving, trying to look lost, even though he clearly couldn’t act his way out of a wet paper bag.

  Then the camera panned over to a girl in a red sundress and cowboy boots standing on the side of the road. She looked helpless, just as lost as our ostensible hero.

  Robert leaned forward again, holding the sides of the laptop in his hands.

  The girl in the red sundress, that was Sarah! Ten years younger, a little thinner, her hair different, but that was Sarah!

  Oh God, Robert thought. He felt like he was going to be sick.

  “You lost?” the dude said.

  “Can you help me?” Sarah said. Her Southern belle accent was terrible. “My car had a flat back over there. I’d do just about anything if you could help me.”

  A closeup of the dude, he looks interested.

  Cut to: a scene of the dude getting out of the truck. He’s wearing an outfit that makes him look like an urban cowboy straight out of Central Casting. He’s got the gaudy Western shirt, the tight jeans, the huge belt buckle, the whole nine yards. Robert – dimly –gets why the wordsBack in the Saddle 4 is written in red ink on the front of the DVD. And for a moment he’d thought it’d be an Aerosmith concert. Ha!

  On the video, the dude gets out and leans against his truck. He likes what he’s looking at.
<
br />   Cut to: Sarah. She likes getting looked at.

  The dude: “You know what’s wrong with your car?”

  Sarah: “No idea.” She turned a big pair of doe eyes up at the camera. “I guess it got rode too hard.”

  “Well that’s just a shame, ma’am,” the dude said.

  Then Robert watched in horror as his wife muddled her way through a few more lines of bad dialogue before climbing into the bed of the truck and proceeding to fuck the rail-skinny dude like a three-dollar whore. He watched her grunt and shove, push and moan, taking the skinny dude with the enormous cock like she was born to do it, before finally kneeling in front of him and getting the full blast of his gunk all over her face.

  To Robert – and after ten years of marriage he thought he knew her pretty damn well – it looked like she actually enjoyed it.

  *

  Together, Sarah and Angela made a dinner of fettuccini Alfredo with ham and broccoli and ate it in the breakfast nook. Though it was obvious she wanted to, Angela hadn’t asked what was wrong with Daddy, and Sarah was grateful for that. She just didn’t have the energy right now to explain what was going on to her daughter. In fact, she wasn’t all that sure she could explain it to herself at the moment. She knew only that the good life she thought she had was crumbling and slipping between her fingers.

  And that Robert had, apparently, finally cracked.

  The last few days, since all the weird stuff started happening around the house, she’d looked for excuses to get away, and take Angela with her. They’d taken advantage of the nice weather today and gone exploring on the Riverwalk downtown and window-shopping at the Quarry Market, finally coming back to the house a little before five. She’d called for Robert, hoping that perhaps a little time to himself would mellow him out, but she and Angela both froze when they heard him upstairs, roaring and bellowing, knocking things over. It sounded like he was in his office, but at least once she’d heard him stamping his feet and sobbing as he marched down the east wing. She heard him arguing with himself, singing to himself, even yelling a few times. She thought maybe he was drunk. But drunk or not, he’d clearly gone over the edge.