Crooked House (7 page)

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 bucket. “Hey, did you at least ask Sarah what she thought about a job?”

“I ment
ioned 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 j
utted 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 Antoni
o
Ligh
t
. 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, who
se 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, wh
ich 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 th
e
Light’
s
rival, the
San Antoni
o
Express-New
s
, 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.

*

When he got home he called out to
Sarah from the entryway but got no answer. She was home though, he was pretty sure of that. The movers had come and gone, and they’d left her Buick. He frowned at the oil stain the heap had already managed to leave on the flagstone drive, and he was still frowning as he went inside, where leaning piles of boxes lined the walls below both staircases. God, they were a mess. Thinking back to the old-fashioned headlines he’d been reading in th
e
Ligh
t
’s society pages, he could almost see the story:

FLORIDA WHITE TRASH INVADES ONE OF

SAN ANTONIO’S FINEST HOMES!

Neighbors Aghast

But the next instant he heard dishes clanking in the kitchen, and the smile left his face.

“
Sarah?”

No answer.

He made his way to the back of the house. Sarah and Angela were in the kitchen, Angela stacking hand towels in one of the three pantries while Sarah stacked plates in the cabinets.

“Hi,” he said.

Sarah didn’t say anything. Instead she looked over at Angela and gestured for the child to leave. Angela left the pantry and touched Robert’s arm on the way out. “Hi, Daddy.”

“Hi, Baby.”

She broke into a run, yelling “Bye, Daddy,” as she hustled out.

“Bye,” he said.

He turned to Sarah.

She was looking at him, her expression dark and full of menace
. She waited for a second, and when he didn’t say anything, spread her arms wide. “Well, what the hell?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Where in the hell were you? I tried calling you all afternoon.”

“I put my phone on silent for the meetings.”