by Joe McKinney
“We love it,” Robert assured him.
“Good. No ghosts, right?”
“Of course not. The place is absolutely wonderful. It’s everything you promised, Thom, and more.”
Robert smiled, even managed to laugh, but a little voice inside him challenged that confidence. Nothing in his life had ever forced him to question the existence of something other than his commonplace reality. And yet, what could he make of the last few days? What could he say about that room at the top of the stairs, of the smell of smoke inside Angela’s room? What could he say about the crazy fits of anger that came over him? It was a painful thing to admit that he might not be right in the head – too painful, in fact, to admit just now, in the light of day, in front of all these people.
Thom patted him on the shoulder. “Excellent. We need to get you a drink.”
“Yeah, that’d be great.”
There was a bar set up on the back patio and a punch bowl beside that. “I’d steer clear of that if you’re the one driving home,” Thom said. “Kathy Anson is, uh, famous for her Christmas cheer when it comes to the punch, if you know what I mean.”
Robert chuckled. “Yeah, I think I get it.”
He went for a glass of red wine instead and the two of them moved around the enormous patio making small talk with the other guests, most of whom seemed to have already gotten pretty deep into Kathy Anson’s famous Christmas punch.
Then Thom touched him on the shoulder and said, “Hey, this is somebody you need to meet.” Thom lead him over to a pretty young woman in a black knee-length dress with black heels and great legs and a head of blonde hair that was a wave spilling over her shoulders. She looked to be in her late twenties, early thirties maybe, and Robert’s first thought was that she was some promising young Ph.D. candidate Thom had taken under his wing. “Jean,” Thom said, “this is Robert Bell, our new guy. Robert, I want you to meet Jean Bernall. Jean is the one who set you guys up with your babysitter. “
“Oh, that’s right,” Robert said. “We owe you big for that.”
“Oh, it’s my pleasure,” she said, and touched the back of Robert’s wrist. “Trust me, I’ve got three little wolves myself. I know the importance of a reliable sitter. The high school girl we tried before Kaylie, as soon as my boys saw her the youngest asked, ‘Are you even a grown-up?’”
“Oh no,” Robert said.
“My boys ate her alive. So trust me, I get it about the babysitter.”
Robert nodded. Three boys and she still looks like that, he thought. I bet the other moms hate her.
“Robert,” Thom said, “Jean is also one of the leading authorities in the country on – ”
“On Jack London,” Robert said. “Yes, I know. I’ve read your books.”
“You have?” Robert sensed her stiffen, as though bracing for poisoned flattery. Robert recognized the look from every conference and every office party he’d ever attended. English faculties at American universities, with all their petty jealousies and back stabbing, were a lot like shark tanks, and it didn’t take one long to develop a keen ear for contempt and derision masquerading as casual compliments from one’s colleagues.
He saw the look of suspicion and moved quickly to dispel it.
“Absolutely. I thoughtOf Snow and Gold: Jack London and the Commercialization of American Literature was brilliant. Your thesis that London was sort of the nexus of popular fiction and literary fiction, bringing them together and legitimizing each to the other was fantastic. I had always thought that role belonged to Mark Twain, but you developed the argument for London so clearly I was, well, you won me over.”
Abruptly, her smile returned.
“Thank you. That’s sweet.” She was drinking a white wine. She took a quick sip and said, “You know, your comment about Twain is a perceptive one. He was a mentor, of sorts, for London. Not like Hawthorne was for Melville, of course, but there are several letters between them in which London asks him for advice on how much he should be making for magazine articles and stories, things like that. London could be very direct when it came to money.”
Thom rattled the ice in his glass. “Which reminds me,” he said. Robert and Jean looked at him. “Would you two excuse me for a minute? I’m empty here.”
Robert nodded, and went back to talking with Jean Bernall about Jack London. She was fascinating, and her passion for London’s writings made him wonder if there wasn’t a note of schoolgirl crush buried under all that enthusiasm. But the quality of her scholarship was incontrovertible, and listening to her talk, he could tell that she must be an especially vibrant presence in the classroom. That was something he knew he did not possess. Or, rather, had possessed at one time, but had lost somewhere along the way.
They talked until their glasses were empty and went into the kitchen, for the evening had turned a little too chilly for Jean. There was more wine inside, and they poured and talked, drank and talked, Robert really starting to enjoy himself.
And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Thom and Sarah talking in a corner of the living room. Sarah had her back against the wall, and she looked upset. She looked really upset, near tears, in fact. Thom was standing over her, and his expression was serious, stern even. Frowning, Robert trailed off mid-sentence.
Jean followed his gaze and said, “Is there a problem, Robert?”
“What? Oh, no. Listen, can I introduce you to my wife?”
He gestured toward Thom and Sarah.
“Sure,” she said.
Sarah saw them coming and broke away from Thom right away. After their fight earlier in the evening, Robert was surprised to see the look of relief on her face, like she was actually glad to see him.
“Everything going all right?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Thom said. “Just fine.”
Sarah looked strangely blank. Robert tried but couldn’t read her expression. Then she glanced at Jean and smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Sarah, Robert’s wife. He never introduces me to his friends.”
“Yes, I know,” Jean said. “I’m Jean Bernall. We spoke on the phone.”
“Oh!” Sarah was beaming now, and the change had happened so quickly Robert barely had time to process it. “Listen, Jean, I am so stealing your babysitter.”
“Isn’t Kaylie fantastic?”
“She’s wonderful. You should have seen the way she and Angela got on.”
“Well, you can have her on the weekends, but I need her on Wednesdays and Thursdays. I’m the secretary for our PTA and a volunteer for Jack’s Boy Scout troop, and it seems like every week we’ve got one or the other.”
“I know what you mean. I have so wanted to talk to somebody about the school. Do you mind if we go get a drink? I’ve got about a million questions.”
And without another word to him Sarah led Jean Bernall back to the bar and out of earshot. Robert watched her go, feeling more than a little confused. He turned back to Thom and said, “What were you guys talking about?”
“Hmm? Oh, you mean before you guys came over?”
Robert nodded.
“Well, I figured I would try again to get her to come back to work for me. I’m afraid that didn’t go well. I wasn’t trying to make her angry.”
“I don’t know why she gets like that.”
“You don’t?”
“No. Why, do you?”
Thom let out a sigh. Robert recognized the gesture. He was about to get a lecture on life. Thom said, “I should have seen it, but then, I can be kind of dense about these things. I’m surprised you have figured it out yet, though.”
“Figured what out?”
“Robert, look around you. We’re surrounded by some of the most well educated people in the country. We may be nothing but a bunch of rollicking drunks in real life, but we can look at our diplomas on the wall and feel a certain sort of elitism over the rest of society. We’re part of a cabal, if you will. When you met Sarah, she was a secretary for people like us. On the fringes of our world, but not a part
of it. But now, showing up here with you, as yourwife, she can interact with them on their level. She’s part of the club. They can see her as a social equal, even though she doesn’t have the diplomas. How do you think it would make her feel going back to being their secretary?”
Robert didn’t have an answer for him. Thom had thrown a light on a part of his wife’s psychology that had completely escaped his notice. It was humbling.
Thom patted him on the shoulder again. “Something to think about, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“Listen, there’s someone else I want you to meet.”
Thom took him into the kitchen, where a small, chubby, red-faced man in a black suit was cutting up limes for a vodka tonic.
“Robert, I want you to meet Anthony Udoll, from the History Department. Tony, this is Robert Bell. I’ve just put him into Crook House. Robert, Tony here specializes in San Antonio history, and he is, from what I’ve gathered, the expert on Crook House. Thought you guys might like to compare notes about your haunted house.”
Udoll smiled blandly at Thom, the look of a man who knows he’s being mocked and has grown used to it. He caught Robert’s eye for just a moment, but it was enough for Robert to see something there. A note of curiosity, maybe? A question? Is it true, all they say about Crook House?
But if in fact he had seen anything, the look was gone now. Udoll was still smiling blandly at Thom, a small paring knife in his hand poised a few inches above a rather puny looking lime. Then Udoll, who to Robert looked like a neat, tidy little man, like an art dealer or a hotel manager, seemed to realize he was still holding the knife. He put it down and wiped his hands with a towel and extended his right toward Robert.
“It’s so good to meet you, Dr. Bell.”
The two men shook hands, and Thom excused himself, leaving the two of them to, as he put, talk about ghoulies and ghosties and all the things that go bump in the night.
“You can call me Anthony,” Udoll said.
“Anthony, okay.”
“Yeah, only our exalted leader there calls me Tony. I’ve told him before it’s Anthony, but he just blinks at me and then goes right on with whatever he’s talking about. How about you, are you Robert or Bob?”
“Robert.”
“Ah, good. So you know my pain, I’m sure.”
“All too well.”
“Can I interest you in a vodka tonic? I’ve been told I make a good one.”
Robert tossed back the last of his wine and said, “Sure, I’ll have one.”
Udoll mixed a second drink, cut off another wedge of lime, and hooked it to the corner of Robert’s drink. “Here you go.” He raised his own glass. “To Crook House,” he said. “May it stand for eighty more.”
Robert chuckled. He liked Udoll already.
Udoll put his drink down – careful, Robert observed, to keep it on a napkin – and said, “So tell me, what do you think of Crook House so far? You’ve been in it for, what, about a week now?”
“About that. It’s nice, I guess. It’s big.”
“It’s a ghastly rock pile, if you ask me.”
Robert nearly choked on his drink. He looked at Udoll, wondering if he was making a joke or not. But evidently he wasn’t, for he wasn’t smiling.
“It’s the way the thing got cobbled together after the fire,” Udoll said by way of explanation. “It confuses the eye, makes you feel like the whole thing’s just a little off center. You know what I mean?”
Robert remembered the first time he’d stood on the front steps of Crook House and stared up at the structure, the vertigo he’d felt, the queasy, almost seasick sort of unease. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said. “It’s like it’s crooked.”
“Truth in advertising,” Udoll said. “I guess Thom told you about the fire.”
“Yeah, he told me about it when he was showing the house. He got some of his facts wrong, though. Dates, mainly.”
“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 cour
se.”
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?”