Crooked House (14 page)

“Really
? You’ve researched the house?”

“Just what I found in the old newspapers
. There’s a lot in there about James Crook, but not a whole lot else. Nothing in the last forty years or so.”

“That’s understandable
. Dr. Crook was quite an individual – pro baseball player, war hero, respected medical pioneer.”

Robert raised his vodka tonic
. “Don’t forget bootlegger.”

“Yes, we can’t forget that.”

“Yeah,” Robert said, sipping his drink, “the man sure knew how to live.”

Udoll frowned
. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, the house
. I mean, it’s huge. And the papers mentioned all the parties, the dances, how Crook House was the social mecca of the City’s elite, that he was San Antonio’s answer to Gatsby. What do you suppose happened, he just get too big for his britches? Is that why he got caught?”

“No, I don’t think so
. Not at all.”

He said it with such seriousness that Robert put his drink down and stared, afraid he’d done something to upset Udoll.

“Getting caught should have never been an issue at all, Robert. You have to remember, San Antonio was founded by Mexicans and Germans, two cultures that never really jumped on the Prohibition bandwagon, if you know what I mean. At that time, San Antonio was the largest city in Texas, with a population of about 70,000. And out of that number, I wager you would have been hard pressed to find enough Prohibitionists to fill a jury box.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, you researched the history of the house. The newspaper version, anyway.”

“His marriage fell apart,” Robert said
. “I gather that much.”

“Yeah, I think that’s the key
. If you ask me, I think he wanted to be caught. If not consciously, certainly subconsciously. I don’t have anything to base that on, mind you, just my own supposition.”

“You’ve studied a lot about the house, haven’t you?”

Udoll shrugged.

“When did all the stories about the place being haunted start to circulate
? I looked that up too, but I can’t find anything about it. And it’s not like it’s on any of the ghost tours they offer the tourists. Is that just a Lightner thing?”

“I think so
. But really, it makes sense that there isn’t much on the house after Crook’s death. After he, um, died, the house passed to his sister, Josephine Millard. When she died – I think that was ’46 or ’47 – the house went to her daughter, Gertrude Millard, who you have to thank for your opportunity to stay in the house.”

“And was it occupied during that time?”

“Which time? You mean after Crook’s death?”

“Yeah?”

“Off and on.”

“And there are no stories of weird things going on?
” Robert tried to laugh as he said it, to keep it light. “No tales of ghosts and wailings in the night?”

Udoll smiled, again that same bland smile
. “As you said, it’s not on any of the ghost tours.”

Both men fell silent, sipping their drinks
.

Then, just as Robert thought they were done, and he was about to excuse himself, Udoll said: “May I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“What prompted you to look up the history of the house?”

Robert frowned. “Well, I was curious. I mean, I live there and all. It’s natural, right, to want to know about where you live?”

Udoll nodded slowly
. He sipped his drink and waved at a couple walking through the far side of the kitchen. He smiled at Robert, but it wasn’t the same bland smile he’d worn for Thom Horner just a few minutes before. There was sadness in his smile now. He was hoping I’d experienced something in the house, Robert thought. And then, with the same mental breath, thought: Or, maybe, he knows I’m lying.

“I’ve been in the house several times,” Udoll said abruptly
. “I never saw anything strange.” He sighed. “I suppose the stories are simply that. Just stories.”

“You sighed when you said that
. You were hoping to see something?”

“Of course.”

The man is unabashed about it, he thought. Impressive.

Robert watched Udoll’s hands
. He had neat, well-manicured nails, little white crescents that tapped nervously, anxiously, on the rim of his glass. He sounded convincing when he said the stories of Crook House were just that, stories, but those fingers told a different story. He was a man looking to say more.

Robert said, “You knew the man who lived there before me, didn’t you?”

Udoll nodded. “For many years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too. Brian Hannett was a good man. He...that wasn’t like him...what happened in that house, I mean. He wasn’t like that. You didn’t know him, I know, but I’d like for people to know that about Brian. He was happy. He was, you know, just a regular nice guy. A good teacher. A good friend.”

“
Anthony, I’m sorry, but I’m a bit confused. I was told Dr. Hannett died of a heart attack.”

Udoll shrugged
. “It was pills actually.”

“Suicide?”

“One hundred and twenty-eight Motrin, to be exact. That’s what the Medical Examiner’s toxicology report read.”

“I…I don’t understand
. Why would Thom tell me he died of a heart attack?”

It was a rhetorical question
. Robert hadn’t really expected an answer. But Udoll surprised him.

“He probably thinks he’s right
. The official cause of death is listed as heart attack.”

“But it wasn’t
? It was suicide?”

“Well, heart attack is what happens when you take a lethal dose of Motrin.”

“I’m sorry,” Robert said. “I don’t understand.”

Udoll shrugged
. “Chalk it up to another mystery of Crook House.”

Robert didn’t like that
. He sipped his drink to hide his frown. Up to now, Udoll had struck him as interesting. But now, well, the suicide of his friend, the conspiratorial connections to his house, it just seemed so unpleasant, like tabloid gossip.

“Suicides aren’t sudden things, right?” Robert asked
. “I mean, in real life, they’re usually the culmination of a long history of mental disease. I thought that was how it worked.” Robert remembered his own mother’s long slow slide into the grave. The last fourteen years of her life had been one continuous warning sign...if anybody had cared enough to notice. To Anthony Udoll, he said:  “Surely there were signs of depression or something like that. A history of suicide in his family, maybe?”

“None that I’m aware of,” Udoll said
. “And there were none of the classic warning signs of depression like you mentioned.” Udoll shrugged helplessly. “He was a good man, one of the most level-headed, well-adjusted men I’ve ever known.”

“I see.”

“But there at the end...Ah, I got so worried about him. That last month, I thought he was mad at me or something. He stopped calling. He stopped e-mailing me. I went over there a few times, and he acted like he barely knew me. I tried to convince myself he was just being a jerk, that he’d snap of it and apologize, but at the same time there was a part of me that just didn’t believe that. He didn’t look well. In the back of my mind I knew something was wrong. I just didn’t listen.” He paused for a long time, looking down at his drink. “It’s awful looking at one’s hands and still being able to see the dirt from where you buried your best friend.”

Robert took another drink, surprised to find he’d reached the bottom of the glass.

“There is one thing...” Udoll said.

“Yes?”

“Brian called me one night. He was delirious. He sounded crazed. He kept saying something about the room at the top of the – “ Udoll broke off there. Evidently he saw the distress on Robert’s face and licked his lips. He put his drink down and got so close to Robert that, under different circumstances, he would have found creepy. “Ah!” he said. “So you have seen something in Crook House. You have, haven’t you?”

“No,” Robert said, waving his question away
. “No, nothing.”

“Will you tell me about it
? Please.”

Robert realized then that they had been talking around this point for the last fifteen minutes, that this was the truth both of them wanted
– no, needed – to tell.

Robert held out his empty glass.

“Give me a refill first?”

Udoll took his glass
. “Absolutely.”

*

Back at Crook House, Kaylie Ross sat on the couch sharing a bowl of microwave popcorn with Angela. On the TV, George C. Scott was playing the part of Scrooge, cowering before the chained ghost of Marley. “I wear the chain I forged in life,” Marley intoned. “I made it link by link and yard by yard. Is it patent strange to you, or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was as full, as heavy, and as long as this seven Christmas Eves ago. You have labored on it since. It is a ponderous chain!”

The words echoed around the room.

“Wow,” Kaylie said. She laughed at the goosebumps on her arms and fell back against the couch.

“Yeah,” Angela said
. She swallowed. “Wow is right.”

Kaylie glanced down at her
. She had a pillow pulled up under her chin, her eyes wide and glowing blue from the light of the TV. “Is it too scary? You want to watch something else?”

Angela shook her head
. On the TV, Marley rattled his chains and sent George C. Scott scurrying behind his chair.

Kaylie put a hand on Angela’s knee and smiled
. “You sure it’s not too scary?”

Angela shook her head again.

Kaylie grabbed the remote and paused it. “Okay,” she said. “Too scary.”

“No, really, it’s okay,” Angela said
. She was a cute kid, trying to be brave like that, and Kaylie liked her. As far as babysitting jobs went, this one was pretty good.

“You sure
? It’s scaring me too. Let’s watch something different.”

“No, I’m okay,” Angela said
. “I’m just gonna go get a drink. You want another Coke?”

“Nah, thanks though.
” Angela jumped off the couch and headed for the kitchen. “Hey,” Kaylie yelled after her, “you want to watc
h
A Christmas Stor
y
?”

“Okay
. I’ll be right back.”

Definitely scared her, Kaylie thought, turning back to the TV
. She’d never seen this version o
f
A Christmas Caro
l
before, and she wasn’t lying when she told Angela it’d scared her too. The guy who played Marley was really creepy.

She flipped through the channels, past all the usual Christmas movies
. For a moment, she toggled back and forth between Bill Murray i
n
Scrooged
!
and Ralphie getting his mouth washed out with Lifebuoybefore finally settling o
n
A Christmas Stor
y
. She’d seen it a million times, but at least there were no ghosts.

Kaylie checked her Facebook on her phone and commented on a couple of posts, only half watching the movie
. She didn’t need to, really. She could do the entire script by rote. Ten or maybe fifteen minutes went by before she realized that Angela hadn’t come back from the kitchen.

“Hey Angela, you okay in there?”

She waited, and when Angela didn’t answer, she got off the couch and headed down the hallway toward the kitchen.

Angela wasn’t there.

Bathroom probably, she thought, and tried to remember where that was. The house was so damn big.

Kaylie followed the hall out to the entranceway and paused
. “Angela?” she called out. “Angela, where are you?” She looked down the length of the east wing, then up the two enormous staircases that seemed to hug the entranceway like powerful arms. The image gave her the creeps. This whole house did, really. She’d sensed it before, but it was really strong now, here, at the foot of the stairs. Growing up she’d always been sensitive to such things. That was how her Mom had put it, sensitive. Not in any sort of weird Stephen King kind of way, but still totally sensitive, so much so that it frightened her sometimes.

As a little girl, her parents would take her to see her great-grandmother in the nursing home
. The woman was ninety-seven at the time, bedridden, feeding through a tube. She never spoke, just laid there, a total veg. For a restless little girl of ten there was nothing to do but run the errands, getting her parents Cokes from the cafeteria, taking bags out to the car, stuff like that. Ten minutes of listening to her Grand Nana pulling air through a tube was usually all it took before Kaylie was ready to run any errand they could invent for her.