He knows. He knows. He knows, Jennifer thought frantically.
Why did she assume that? Because nothing else could have brought such a stony expression to her husband’s face.
“What did you do this afternoon, after work?” Clint asked. It was an odd question—innocent enough on the surface, but pointedly interrogative.
“I went out to see Maxine Taylor—the mother of that girl who went missing back in the nineties.”
Clint didn't respond at all. He set his briefcase down in the hall, and took off his sport coat. Without looking at her, he removed a hanger from the closet—the one that Deborah had filled with dead animals. He hung the sport coat on the hanger and hung them both inside the closet.
Maybe it’s something else, she speculated. Maybe he got fired. And although she felt guilty for the thought, she hoped it might be that instead. Anything but the other possibility.
“Mrs. Taylor told me a little about her daughter and David Vennekamp,” Jennifer elaborated, as if Clint had asked. “It seems that David was kind of a doormat suitor. This makes me think that maybe David had some motive to see the girl disappear, too.”
“I don’t want to hear about what went on between David Vennekamp and that missing girl twenty years ago. I don’t want to hear about Tom Jarvis screwing high school girls back when he was a teacher. I want to know about you, Jennifer. I want to know what you’ve been doing.”
“But…But I told you,” she said weakly.
“That’s not what I mean. You know what I mean.”
Jennifer found herself struck speechless. The blood seemed to rush out of her head. She could have sworn that for a brief moment, the room around her started to spin. She paused and caught her breath, forced herself to be calm.
She had known Clint for fifteen years, had been with him for almost as long. In all that time, her husband had never accused her of infidelity. Sure, he displayed normal male protectiveness from time-to-time, like when Tom Jarvis asked her to lunch and excluded him; but his focus was always on the behavior of the other man. Clint had always seemed to assume that she resisted them by reflex—that deflecting the futile advances of innumerable men was part of her lot as an attractive woman.
This was the first time that he had ever challenged her conduct so directly.
This could only mean one thing: Jim Lindsay had finally followed through on his threats. Jim had decided to exercise his nuclear option. He had revealed what happened that night in his living room.
Now Clint was fishing around in his pants pocket. He withdrew his cell phone.
“Look at this text message!” Clint said, handing her the cell phone.
The message read:
“Do you know what your wife was doing after the company holiday party two years ago? Do you know who she went home with? Do you know why she stays in the job even though she hates it?”
“This isn’t the first message I received about you,” Clint said, taking back the cell phone. “But the others were all vague accusations, stuff you could say about anyone. I wrote them all off as more nonsense from Deborah Vennekamp. I didn't say anything to you about them, because I’ve been hoping that this stuff would all die down and go away.
“Then I got this one, and I understood that Deborah Vennekamp couldn’t have been the one behind the messages: I don’t think that Deborah Vennekamp had any way of knowing about the holiday party you attended two years ago, the one you attended without me. And how could Deborah Vennekamp possibly know that you don’t like your job?
“Then I tried to call you but you didn't answer. And I called my mom and I found out that you’d left Connor with her a few extra hours—on a night when you knew that I’d be out of town. So I naturally have to wonder, Jennifer, what the hell is going on?”
“I saw that you had called,” Jennifer said. “I was with Maxine Taylor. I’d left my cell phone in my car. I tried to call you back later, but you didn't answer, did you? And Connor’s extra time with Gladys—with your mother—was her idea, not mine.”
“I don’t want to get hung up in the fine print, here, Jen. If my mom decided on her own initiative to spend extra time with Connor, well, fine. And you’re right about another thing: I didn't answer when you tried to call me back. I—I didn't think I could talk to you just then.
“What I need right now is for you to draw out the big picture for me.” He tapped the screen of his cell phone. “Because somebody knows an awful lot about you, and that same somebody is claiming that you’ve got something going on with some guy out there. And you have yet to deny it,” he added pointedly.
Jennifer felt herself begin to tremble. What to do next? If Jim was willing to go this far, then the next step would be for him to send the video. For all Jennifer knew, he might already have sent the digital file; it might be waiting in the inbox of Clint’s work email account right now.
“Usually when the other man or the other woman decides to tell the spouse,” Clint said, “it’s because the relationship has been broken off on them, and they’re not happy about it. So the first thing I need for you to do, Jen, is to tell me exactly what is going on and exactly what you did. Did you sleep with somebody at Ohio Excel Logistics? Or someone else? Tom Jarvis, maybe? Or what about the band guy—Chris Whitaker? Don’t lie to me, Jen.”
Jennifer sighed, still horribly frightened of the abyss that lay before her—before them both. But now she was resigned to the fact that she would have to face it.
“Come into the living room, Clint. Connor is upstairs taking a nap and I don’t want to wake him up. I’ll tell you everything, Clint, though I want you to know, before I even begin, that it isn’t quite what you think.”
He followed her, still saying nothing, and she told him the story of that night at the company holiday party two years ago—how she had been feeling lonely and more than a little resentful.
On one hand, yes, it had been only a silly corporate holiday party. On the other hand, though, her attendance had been more or less necessary for the good of her career; and it wasn't unreasonable for her to assume that her husband would be there with her, supporting her.
She told him how Jim Lindsay, a member of the company’s management team whom she’d barely known back then, had come across as authoritative and gallant. Talking to her at the party, there had been no hint of the creepy, manipulative man he would reveal himself to be later.
She recounted to Clint how Jim had innocently offered to drive her home; and then there had been the ruse: an advance look at the company’s new organization chart.
Sure, she had been a little hesitant to go to his house; but they were both adults—and he knew she was married.
Then there had been an instant of weakness—no, not even that (she had never desired Jim in any significant way)—an instant of letting her guard down. For a few seconds she had dropped her defenses, and Jim had exploited that moment. And that moment had ultimately given him the means to control her.
Clint continued to listen silently, mostly looking at the floor rather than her, as Jennifer covered the rest: Angela’s constant sniping and insinuations, Jim’s spying and sexual harassment.
“But I never let him lay a hand on me,” she said. “Well, not after those few seconds in his house two years ago.”
Clint nodded. It was not necessarily a nod of agreement, but rather a nod to say, “I heard you.”
“So why do you think he told me now?” Clint asked, his face still nearly expressionless. “This guy apparently thought he had the perfect setup. But it would only last so long as he refrained from pulling the trigger, right? Now that he’s revealed your big secret, he can’t blackmail you anymore.”
“He saw that I wasn't going to sleep with him,” Jennifer said. “He’s been after me for two years, and I’ve just kept turning him down.”
“Hmm.” She thought she detected skepticism in Clint’s response. Perhaps she had overplayed her hand, tried too hard to portray herself as the besieged but virtuous wife. A
fter all, there was a video out there of her kissing another man, even if it had been for only a few seconds.
“Do you believe me, Clint? I need to know that you believe me.”
He sighed. “I think so. But for nearly two years you didn't tell me. You could have come to me that very night and told me what happened. I would have been upset, sure, but we could have worked it out.”
“I know that Clint, and I wanted to tell you, but there never seemed to be a good time. We were having—problems back then—and—”
“Yes, apparently we were.”
“That’s not what I meant. I meant that it wasn't a good time to tell you about something that had no significance, anyway. And after that, it became even harder to bring it up.”
“Harder than going into that office everyday for two years and dealing with a man who was blackmailing you, harassing you, and another boss who was constantly beating you down?” Clint shook his head. “Seems to me it would have been a lot easier to bite the bullet and tell me. As it turned out, I found out anyway, didn't I? So you put yourself through all that for nothing.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“I am right. And the problem that we have here is bigger than some man making a pass at you, and you letting your defenses down long enough for him to touch you. The problem is that you didn't tell me. You had two years, and you didn't tell me. I had to find out not from you, but from the man whose house you entered that night without my knowledge.”
“I’m sorry,” Jennifer said, suddenly feeling the full burden of the secret that she had carried for two years. “So now what? Can you forgive me? Can we move on?”
“I can forgive you,” Clint said. “The bigger problem is forgetting—the moving on part.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, Jen. I gave you two years with this little secret of yours—or rather you took it for yourself. Now you’re going to have to give me a while to think about this, about what it means for me—and us.” He stood up. “Right now I just want to go upstairs and see Connor. I want to see my son.”
She let him go. Fifteen minutes later he came downstairs with Connor in tow. Connor had had an after-school snack, but the boy claimed to be ravenous. Clint suggested Chinese food, and Connor practically jumped up and down at the idea.
“Wang-Fu! Wang-Fu!” he shouted.
Wang-Fu was a local Chinese restaurant that offered traditional Chinese, and Chinese fusion cuisine. Wang-Fu’s also offered home delivery. Jennifer called and ordered several of their usual favorites.
Throughout their meal, Clint talked nonstop with Connor while seeming to studiously avoid eye contact with her.
“Hey, Mommy’s here, too,” she said at one point during the dinner of moo goo gai pan and sweet-and-sour pork.
Connor gave her a brief look of astonishment in response. He was far too young to detect the tension between his parents. Clint looked at her only briefly then, his face still blank, as if he were staring through her. Then he looked away.
She put Connor to bed barely an hour later. She was about to turn in herself, but she found Clint already sacked out on the living room couch. He had pulled a spare blanket and pillow from the downstairs closet.
“I’ve got to leave early tomorrow morning,” he said. “Columbus again. This way I won’t wake you up.”
“It’s not as if I sleep in every morning.”
“Yeah, well. To tell you the truth, I could use a bit of time alone tonight. I need to think.”
She knelt down and squeezed his shoulder.
“Please don’t do this to me, Clint. Please don't shut me out. I’ve told you everything.”
“Maybe—but only because of that text message I received. You had planned never to tell me, to keep the whole thing a secret. Isn’t that right?”
She didn't know how to respond. The truth was that she had intended to keep the whole situation with Jim Lindsay a secret, to deal with it by herself.
And why not? What possible good could it do him to know about it?
“I did, Clint. But only because I knew that it would hurt you—hurt us. And for what? Nothing happened between Jim and me—nothing, really. I told you that.”
“So you say.”
“And I’m telling you the truth, Clint. Come upstairs with me tonight. Let’s make love. Let’s put this all behind us.”
“You lied, Jen. And even though you could technically say that you simply didn't tell me, an omission like that amounts to a lie. And I can’t help thinking—what else have you not told me over the years?”
“Nothing.”
“Jim Lindsay was the only one, wasn't he? That’s what I’m getting at. I know you’ve had plenty of chances over the years. I see the way men look at you.”
These words wounded her profoundly, and she drew her hand away from him. She had never betrayed him in that way—and never would.
She knew that she had made plenty of mistakes—first in accepting a ride from Jim Lindsay, and then in following him inside his house. Then she had failed to tell Clint what had happened.
But however misguided she had been, her overriding aim had been to protect her marriage—to protect her family. Now Clint was implying that she was a cliché of an adulterous housewife, like the kind that had recently become the fare of reality shows on cable television.
Jennifer couldn't respond. In that moment, she felt like she didn't know the man on the couch, as if someone had replaced her husband with a stranger.
She went upstairs and climbed into bed. She watched the clock and waited for him to come join her. Surely he didn't really intend to spend the whole night on the couch.
Shortly after 1 a.m., Jennifer resigned herself to the fact that Clint wasn't going to join her in bed—at least not tonight. She allowed herself to drift into a troubled sleep.
53
The next morning, Jennifer wasted no time in confronting Jim Lindsay.
She had awakened to find Clint already on the road to Columbus, his pillow and blanket stowed back in the closet.
He left her a note on the kitchen counter: “Back the day after tomorrow.”
What had Jim Lindsay done? What had she allowed him to do?
As she headed across the main open office space of Ohio Excel Logistics on the way to Jim’s private office, she was oblivious of all professional propriety, oblivious of the fact that Jim was her boss—her boss’s boss. At present, he was nothing but a man who had dabbled carelessly and vindictively in her private life, and quite possibly ruined it.
Jim looked up from his desk as she approached, and he watched her through the glass wall of his enclosure. He had been talking on his desk telephone, and she heard him say, “I’ll have to call you back,” as she entered without knocking.
“What?” Jim said. Over the past two years Jennifer had entered this space as infrequently as possible. Now she had just barged in without summons.
“Don’t ‘what’ me. You know damn good and well ‘what’.”
“No,” Jim said, “really, I don’t.”
She saw his eyes flick past her: He was probably gauging the reaction from around the larger room beyond his office. The walls of his private office were reasonably soundproof; but many people would have taken note of Jennifer’s entry.
“So how about you calm down and tell me,” he said. “What the hell is this?”
She decided to play along—knowing that this would be the last time she would ever follow along in any game with Jim Lindsay. She told him about the text message, gave him a sanitized version of her argument with Clint.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” Jim said calmly. “And first of all, I want you to know that it wasn't me who sent that text message.”
“Do you think I’m stupid, Jim? Of course it was you—or someone sent it at your behest.”
“No,” he said as if explaining something painfully obvious to a small child. “I haven’t sent your husband any text messages, any emails, or
any phone calls. Nor have I instructed others to do so.”
“You’re lying!”
“Jen: Think about it for a second. The little thing we had going—oh, I know you don’t like to think of it that way—the little situation between us—it was based on the premise that you need to finish what you started. And I was holding that little secret over your head until you came around. My intention was to get you to come through. I never wanted to harm your marriage, however mismatched you and Clint might be. But I knew—and I’ve always known—that the card I had could be played only one time, and then it would cease to function. Do you get what I’m saying?”
In spite of herself, Jennifer nodded. Jim was making essentially the same argument that Clint had made, that she had made to herself, truth be told: The value of any blackmail always lies in the potential damage that can be done, the avoidance of which incentivizes the victim’s cooperation. Once the blackmail threat is followed through, the victim has no more incentive to cooperate.
Therefore, Jim had spent his ammunition and gained nothing, when he had no immediate reason to do so. They both knew that he could have kept her strung along for years. And who knows? Maybe she would have given into him just once, in a moment of weakness, or out of sheer exhaustion.
No, she would never do that. But Jim would believe, or at least hope, that she would.
Now, on the other hand, Jim had created a liability for himself. Jennifer was now free to leave the company, free to file a sexual harassment complaint—free to sic her vengeful husband on her lecherous, scheming boss.
These were all fair questions; but she was done talking to Jim Lindsay.
“I didn't do it,” he repeated. “Why would I do it and then lie about it?”
“Maybe you didn't,” she allowed. “And maybe you did, but now you’re having second thoughts about it. But in any case, you’re the one who created the problem for me to begin with. I’ll be turning in my resignation by the end of the week. I’d walk out this minute, if it weren’t for fear that the company would try to take away my vacation days, or some other petty act of retribution.
1120 Dunham Drive: A Clint & Jennifer Huber Mystery Page 30