“But before I go, I want you to know that I’m going to have a long talk with HR; and I’m going to lay everything out on the table for them—everything you’ve done over the past two years. And we’ll see how things go for you around here after that.”
“Go ahead,” he taunted. “I’ve been at this company for twenty years, and my record here is without blemish. The bottom line is this: The company will see you as a disgruntled ex-employee, and it will see me as a twenty-year employee in good standing. Not to mention a member of the management team. Do you really think you’re going to sabotage me on the way out? You have no proof of any of this. You might cause me a thirty-minute meeting with HR to explain away your allegations as the final bomb-throwing gesture of a bitter ex-employee. I’ll explain that your performance had deteriorated of late, and you quit because you figured you’d eventually be fired.”
“They won’t believe you,” Jennifer said.
But the truth was: she wasn't so sure.
“And you think they’ll believe you? And here’s something else for you to think about: I still have my video of your little performance. I can still send it to your darling husband.”
Yes, the video: If Jim was telling the truth, then the incriminating video clip hadn’t been sent to Clint yet.
Despite last night’s revelations, she would strongly prefer that Clint never see the tangible evidence of her mistake. Even though he knew the truth, those ten seconds of footage could only make matters worse between them.
Nevertheless, she had no choice but to call Jim Lindsay’s bluff.
Jennifer said as she stood to leave: “It doesn't matter. My husband already knows.”
Jennifer somehow managed to exit Jim’s office and walk to her desk, conscious, as always, of the eyes that were upon her, of the constant churning of the rumor mill.
Well, let the rumor mill churn: She wouldn't be here much longer, and the rumor mill could churn in her absence.
She was aware of one person’s gaze in particular: Angela, who was already seated and settled in for the morning, watched her with particular interest. The hint of a smile played on her team leader’s lips. Angela had caught her in a moment of embarrassment yet again.
Angela looked away without saying anything as Jennifer sat down.
Something about this morning’s confrontation with Jim bothered Jennifer: Her plan had been to call Jim out after he had done his worst; but Jim had denied sending the text message, presenting a logical argument to support his claim of innocence.
What disturbed her now was a possibility that opened up an entirely new set of questions: What if Jim had been telling the truth?
54
The bad luck for the day was piling up: When Jennifer left the parking lot of Ohio Excel Logistics, she noticed that her fuel gage was poised precariously between the one-eighth tank and empty mark.
Oh well, she thought. I’ll have to monitor that. It wouldn't be a good day to run out of gas, with Clint out of town and the two of us barely on speaking terms, anyway.
Gladys had taken Connor on another “field trip” today: Connor was helping his grandmother plant a rose garden, or at least that was what Gladys said. (Jennifer had to wonder how much help a six-year-old could really be.)
When Jennifer arrived at the house of Clint’s parents, Gladys answered the door and invited her in.
She looked around in the small living room for Connor. He was nowhere to be seen. This struck her as unusual—but not yet alarming. Connor was safe here, after all, in his grandparents’ care.
Jennifer’s mother-in-law was still wearing the clothes that she had worn for her gardening project. She wore a scarf over her head to protect her face from the sun.
“Where’s Connor?” Jennifer asked, eager to see her son.
“He’s in his room,” Gladys explained.
The room she was referring to had actually been Clint’s bedroom many years ago. Connor used it when he spent the night with his grandparents.
“I’m afraid he had a bit of a scare earlier,” Gladys went on.
“A scare?” Now Jennifer was alarmed.
“It’s nothing,” Gladys explained. “Connor is perfectly fine.”
“What happened?”
“Well, it was kind of unusual,” Gladys began. “We were digging out places for my new rose bushes. You know that I always like to plant them in the early fall like this, so they’ll be ready to bloom in the spring. I was digging and Connor was helping me. His grandfather was tinkering in the tool shed—you know that man never did like gardening.
“So anyway, I walked back to the house to get a bag of fertilizer, and Ralph, like I said, was in the tool shed. So for a few minutes Connor was by himself back there. It should have been perfectly safe, you know. There is never any crime in this neighborhood, and everyone keeps their dogs tied up. We have leash laws.”
Jennifer restrained her impatience. That was Gladys’s way. Her mind worked like the Internet—she could never tell a story without many related tangents and segues.
“So I was returning from the garage to the backyard when I heard Connor scream. Then he began shouting, ‘scary lady!’, ‘scary lady!’”
Jennifer felt a shaft of icy dread run through her. ‘Scary lady’ was a fitting description for Deborah Vennekamp.
She and Clint had finally given the latter’s parents a high-level summary of their troubles with Deborah Vennekamp, minus many of the details. Clint had mostly handled those explanations.
“I believe that Clint told you that we’ve been harassed by the former owners of our house—or one of them, anyway.” Jennifer said.
“Yes, that’s what Clint said. But you don’t think—”
“You would be surprised at what Deborah Vennekamp is capable of.”
Jennifer assumed that Clint had spared his mother the gory details—the dead animals in the front closet, the blood on the porch. That was the sort of thing that would upset Gladys, so her son wouldn't have wanted to worry her unnecessarily. Much like she hadn't wanted to worry Clint unnecessarily about Jim Lindsay.
There was a difference between the two, of course; but wasn't it true to say that everyone held back certain details from those they loved? Everyone told white lies.
“Well, I marched back there with Connor,” Gladys went on. “He was still crying, you see, and I called Ralph out of the tool shed. The three of us walked all around the perimeter of the yard. We didn't see anyone. Certainly no ‘scary lady’.”
“If I would have seen that woman I would have walloped her one!” she heard Ralph say. Clint’s father had entered through the back door while Gladys was telling her story. “Nobody scares my grandson and gets away with it.” Ralph was partly joking, of course. He wasn't the type of man who would strike a woman. But he was very protective of Connor and other members of his family.
Like his wife, Ralph was still wearing the clothes of his afternoon chores. He was a tall man with bristly black and grey hair, an older version of Clint.
“I don’t think there was anyone back there, though,” Ralph continued. “If there was, they would have had to be pretty sneaky. I think we would have seen ‘em.”
“What do you think Connor saw, then?”
Ralph shrugged. “Who knows? You know, it isn’t that uncommon for a boy that age to see things that aren’t there. And he also said that he only saw the ‘scary lady’ for a brief second—in among the little stand of pine trees near the back of the yard. It’s been a windy afternoon, and the branches might have been blowing. I can see how that would make a kid see something that wasn't there.”
“Especially if he’s in a suggestible state to begin with,” Gladys said. “Connor does like reading that book about monsters, doesn't he?”
Gladys was referring to Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. Published in 1963, Where the Wild Things Are was an illustrated story about a young boy who journeys to a land inhabited by fantastic creatures. A perennial favorite, the book
had been popular during Jennifer and Clint’s youth, more than two decades after its original publication. Connor and his friends also loved the story; it had timeless appeal.
But perhaps Gladys had a point: a book like that could also make a child suggestible, and prone to see things that weren’t there.
The three of them went to retrieve Connor from the bedroom. Even in the comforting presence of two grandparents and one parent, the boy was visibly upset. He was no longer crying, but his eyes were still swollen.
“I saw a scary lady, Mommy!” he exclaimed at Jennifer. “Out there in the back yard!”
“I’d better get him home,” Jennifer said. “Thanks again for watching him.”
“Oh that’s no problem at all.” Gladys knelt and gave her grandson’s cheek a gentle pinch. “Thank you for helping Grandma today, Connor. I had fun. I’m sorry about all the commotion.”
“He’ll be fine,” Ralph said. He tousled the boy’s hair. “Connor’s not afraid of anything.”
But during the drive home, it was clear that Connor was afraid of something.
“What did you see?” Jennifer prompted. “Can you tell me about the scary lady?”
“She was really scary,” Connor replied shakily, stating the obvious.
“Scary like a witch?” Jennifer didn't want to plant suggestions in her son’s mind; she thought again about the suggestibility of a child, and Connor’s enthusiasm for Where the Wild Things Are.
“No,” Connor said with certainty. “She wasn't a witch. But she was—I don’t know—it’s like she was mad at me or something. Like she wanted to kill me!”
This response chilled Jennifer. She wondered if she should call the police. But no, that route would be a dead end. Ralph and Gladys had seen nothing in their back yard; and she had only the word of a six-year-old to go on.
It might have been a hallucination, as Ralph had suggested; but Jennifer thought that such a coincidence would be a bit too—well, coincidental.
Hadn’t she suspected Deborah Vennekamp of following her to Clint’s parents’ house in the past? And if Deborah Vennekamp didn't qualify as a “scary lady”—then who did?
55
Barely a mile down the highway, Jennifer noticed the fuel light aglow on the vehicle’s dashboard. She didn't have any choice: She was going to have to stop for gas.
She found a Sunoco station two exits down the highway. Connor still seemed shell-shocked. She hated to leave him alone, but there was no choice. She had to fill the gas tank.
“This will only take a minute,” Jennifer said, parking beside one of the pumps. “I’m going to step out and put some gas in the car, okay?”
Connor looked at her pleadingly.
“I’ll be right here,” she assured him. “Right beside the car.”
Jennifer unbuckled her seat belt, stepped out of the car, and began the procedures for refueling.
This task had never struck her as particularly lengthy before; but now each step seemed to stretch out for an eternity. She swiped her VISA card, and allowed the machine to guide her through a series of prompts and push-button responses. Finally she was pumping gas into the tank. She kept half of her attention devoted to Connor as she did so.
She turned her back to Connor when she replaced the gasoline nozzle in its carriage. That was when she heard Connor scream.
Jennifer whirled around and pulled open the driver’s side door. She ducked her head inside and verified that Connor was still in the front passenger’s seat, his seat belt still buckled.
“What?”
“The scary lady’s back!” Connor sobbed.
For an instant she grasped at the notion that her son might be suffering from temporary delusions, or at the very least an imagination stuck in overdrive. They were at a gas station—a more or less public place—and Connor claimed to have just seen the same “scary lady” who had supposedly terrorized him in Ralph and Gladys’s back yard.
Then she suddenly became aware of another presence—very near to her but just beyond her peripheral range of vision.
She turned to see Deborah Vennekamp standing less than two feet from her, in the space between her car and the island of gasoline pumps.
From this distance, Jennifer could see the pores in the other woman’s skin. She could smell her breath, which was sour, as if Deborah had gone for some time without taking care of basic hygiene. There were flecks of saliva on her lips. Deborah was breathing hard, and she was clenching and unclenching her hands, making them into fists and then opening them again.
“What do you want?” Jennifer asked, hoping desperately that her fear was not too transparent. Deborah was more than twenty years her senior, and no larger than her. Jennifer was probably much stronger. But Deborah, Jennifer sensed, was willing to do anything without hesitation. Jennifer didn't know if she had reached that point herself yet.
“My Richard is dead,” Deborah exhaled in a waft of sour breath. “You killed him.”
“I didn’t kill your husband,” Jennifer shot back. “Cancer killed him. I’m sorry for your loss, but—”
“You killed him!” Deborah’s voice rose to a shriek.
From inside the car, Jennifer could hear Connor sobbing. There was no doubt about who the scary lady was. And the scary lady was back.
“You’ve distracted me so horribly, with your piggish insistence on taking our house. I—I haven’t been able to give Richard the attention he needs. I haven’t been able to make him better. And then the hospice called me this morning with the horrible news.”
With this Deborah began to sob. Jennifer was now in the presence of two sobbing parties—her son, still inside the car, and this horrible woman.
For an instant she felt a rush of sympathy for Deborah Vennekamp. Deborah was vindictive, possibly violent, and probably crazy—by some definition or another—but her grief was real.
Jennifer stepped forward.
“I’m s—sorry for your loss, Mrs. Vennekamp. Really I am.”
Jennifer was about to place her hand on Deborah’s shoulder, a gesture of both reconciliation and sympathy. Jennifer had no intention of moving out of the house at 1120 Dunham Drive in order to appease Deborah Vennekamp. The house rightly belonged to her and Clint now; and besides, what would Deborah Vennekamp do with it, anyway? She was now a widow whose children had grown and begun lives of their own, such as they were.
But perhaps she could demonstrate her commiseration with this strange woman. Perhaps that would be the beginnings of a truce.
“Don’t touch me!” Deborah shouted when Jennifer’s hand was only an inch from her shoulder. Deborah flinched as if Jennifer were about to touch her with a hot iron. “I don’t want your sympathy!”
Jennifer shrank back, defeated. “Then what do you want, Mrs. Vennekamp? Tell me that. Tell me what it will take to make you leave us alone. And don’t even mention the house, because that’s a closed issue. The house is legally ours. We’re paying the mortgage and our bank holds the title.”
“Oh, you’ll pay, all right! In ways that you can’t imagine!” Deborah screamed. Then, more quietly. “All of you will pay.”
“Mrs. Vennekamp, what have I ever done to you?” She had tried to reason with Deborah in the past, and had failed. But maybe it was worth another try.
“Do you think I don't know what you’ve been doing? You’ve been following me.”
“I haven’t been following you. On the contrary: It’s you who have been following me.”
“You think you’re clever, don't you? You went to see Maxine Taylor just the other day, didn't you?”
This revelation further chilled Jennifer. She thought: Deborah really has been following me.
“Why should that be any concern of yours? And how do you have such perfect knowledge of my whereabouts?”
But Deborah continued her pattern of exclaiming rather than answering, or even interacting. She leaned close to Jennifer and said:
“That little bitch deserved to die. She deserved
to end up in that basement.”
“Is there a problem here, ladies? Y’all are makin’ quite a ruckus, aren’t you?”
Standing behind Deborah now was a tall, burly man with broad shoulders and a thick waist. The stranger was in that indeterminate age range between thirty-five and forty-six or -seven.
He had rough skin and a shaggy mustache. The man was wearing a blue jean jacket and a green John Deere cap. He might have been a truck driver, or a factory worker who had stopped at the Sunoco station on his way home from the day shift.
Deborah whirled on the man, teeth bared. This caused the stranger to raise his eyebrows and step back just a bit. He was clearly taken aback, and felt the need to reappraise this woman and the overall situation.
But it was clear that Deborah Vennekamp—if she spooked him a little—did not intimidate him.
The man exchanged a knowing glance with Jennifer, who gave him her best, “help me, please” look.
“Is there a problem here?” the man repeated. “There sure seems to be.”
Deborah gave the interloper a defiant sound, sucking in air between her bare teeth. This gesture had a diminished effect; the man was now over his startlement at this strange woman.
He squared his shoulders and stood his ground. He was not physically threatening Deborah, but he was letting her know that if it came to that, he would be more than prepared to do what was necessary.
“Ma’am, I think you need to let this woman go on her way. You can see that she has a child in her car. No one needs trouble like this.”
Recognizing that she was outnumbered, Deborah slipped past the man and away. She gave Jennifer’s benefactor no further acknowledgement; but she gave Jennifer a scowl and a parting remark.
“You’ll be sorry. You’ll be sorry for everything you’ve done.”
56
1120 Dunham Drive: A Clint & Jennifer Huber Mystery Page 31