The rest of the drive home was thankfully uneventful. The man at the gas station—the one who had intervened—briefly asked Jennifer if she was all right. Jennifer assured him that she was. The stranger could not resist a small attempt at prying.
“What was that all about, ma’am?” he asked, once Deborah was safely away.
When Jennifer replied that it was a long story, the man merely whistled and said, “Yep, it sure looked that way. You have a good day now—good as you can.”
Connor was still understandably shaken when they arrived home. Deborah’s appearance in his grandparents’ back yard might have been dismissed as imagination; but there was no doubt regarding what had occurred at the gas station.
Jennifer hurried Connor upstairs to his room. She put a frozen lasagna on the counter and set the oven’s preheat function for 400 degrees.
Then she walked around the first floor of the house and methodically checked every window and every door to make sure that these openings were properly secured. Deborah’s threats had left little room for interpretation. The woman meant to come after her family again—and probably more aggressively next time. Richard’s moderating influence was now gone, and Deborah’s grief would make her even more vengeful.
As she checked the deadbolt on the front door for what was likely the third time, she considered calling Roy Dennison.
But what could she actually tell him? What proof did she have? The only bits of evidence she had on her side were Deborah’s unsubstantiated appearance in a back yard in Cincinnati, and a verbal confrontation at a Sunoco station, a public location to which neither she nor Deborah could claim special rights.
Plus there was the fact that Deborah had lost her husband only recently—this morning, she had said.
No, Roy Dennison would be a waste of time. He would write off the altercation as yet another catfight between two mutually antagonistic women. Dennison and the Mydale Police Department would be of no help until it was already too late.
She was on her own—at least for tonight, and possibly for much longer, depending on the outcome of her current marital troubles. Clint believed that she had lied to him, and (for all she knew) he now believed that she had been unfaithful, too. Certainly men and women had ended their marriages for less.
So this might be the calm before the storm—a final interregnum before the end of what had become the most important relationship in her life.
And at the same time, there was another, even more sinister possibility to consider. She remembered what Deborah had said toward the end of their heated exchange. Deborah had referred to Josie as a “little bitch” who had “deserved to die”—then said that the girl “deserved to end up in that basement.”
Would that technically qualify as an admission of murder? Jennifer didn’t know. But the conclusions were obvious and inevitable.
The floor of her basement—the basement that had been Deborah Vennekamp’s until very recently, was made not of concrete but of packed earth. And there was that little room in one corner of the basement, the one that a younger and healthier Richard Vennekamp had built for the storage of miscellaneous materials.
Had Deborah admitted to her this afternoon that Josie Taylor’s body was buried in the basement? That was certainly what her words added up to mean, by any reasonable measure. No excessive speculation required.
Surely Deborah wouldn't give herself away so easily. But then: Deborah was obviously teetering on the edge of insanity, even more so than usual.
Jennifer’s thoughts were interrupted when her cell phone rang: Clint.
“Hey,” she said. “How is Columbus?”
“Same as always,” he answered.
“How did your sales calls go?”
“They went,” he said. “One of them might turn into an order. We’ll see. Any problems back there?”
For a moment she was about to tell Clint everything—about the “scary lady” making an appearance in his parents’ back yard, about her confrontation with Deborah Vennekamp at the Sunoco station, and finally—about her renewed suspicions regarding what—who—might be beneath the dirt floor of the basement.
Then she decided to tell Clint none of this. It could wait. They had more urgent matters between them. True, Deborah Vennekamp was crazy, but she was the same crazy woman who had bedeviled them for weeks now. And while Josie’s murder (if Deborah had indeed admitted to it) was tragic, the girl had been dead for twenty years. She could wait also. She would have to wait.
“Clint,” she said. “We need to talk.”
“We are talking.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, Jen, I don’t know what you mean. You had two years to tell me about your little make-out session with your boss. Two years. But you decided to wait until the other guy sent me a text message. I had to hear about it from him, not you.”
Clint’s rebuke stung. But it wasn't completely accurate.
“It wasn't a ‘make-out session’!” she protested.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen the video yet. Anyway, Jen. It’s been a long day. Do you think I slept well on the couch?”
“You could have slept in your own bed.”
“No—last night, I couldn't. It’s been a long day and I’m really tired. Call me if there are any emergencies. Otherwise, I’ll see you the day after tomorrow, when I get home.”
“And then we’ll talk?”
“Like I said: we’re talking now.”
With that she said goodbye. There was no sense in going around in circles. She would never be able to convince him over the telephone, with him in a hotel room.
Unlike the stereotypical jealous husband, Clint wasn't going ballistic. She would have almost welcomed an angry outburst on his part. Instead, he was coldly shutting her out.
That night Jennifer slept fitfully. She thought of her husband, who was absent both in spirit and in body.
She also found herself thinking about Deborah’s obvious reference. Had her tormenter intended it to be a challenge, a taunt?
Before she drifted off to sleep, her last thought was that she and Clint, longtime renters, had never owned a shovel.
57
Jennifer awoke early the next morning, and walked down the stairs into the basement.
She stood on the edge of the little corner room with a flashlight. She had no intention of digging now, of course. (And anyway, she had nothing to dig with.) But she needed to take the measure of herself—to estimate whether or not she could do it.
Her entire life was falling apart: Her career was in shambles. In the final analysis, she had endured two years of Angela’s bullying and Jim’s harassment for nothing. The secret that she had tried to keep from becoming a wedge in her marriage had found its way in, nonetheless. Her husband, meanwhile, was all but estranged from her—a condition she had never known, since their earliest days as a couple back in college.
And then there was Deborah Vennekamp: Deborah wasn't backing down, wasn't letting go of the house that she could no longer live in. But Deborah might have inadvertently given Jennifer the means to destroy her.
What if the body of Josie Taylor was buried in this little room? she thought. That would be material evidence that Roy Dennison could not ignore. Deborah would be immediately arrested, and tried for murder shortly thereafter.
Clint would finally grasp the seriousness of the threat that she had been trying to shield their family from, with her “amateur sleuthing” and afternoon “investigations”.
Maybe that knowledge would give Clint some perspective—and he wouldn't be so preoccupied with what amounted to Jim Lindsay copping a feel and stealing a kiss one night two years ago.
And there was another factor, as well, that was baser and more territorial: This was her house, and she could not spend another night under this roof without knowing the truth.
She walked back upstairs, daydreaming. She nearly jumped when her son called out, “Mommy!” The boy was happy and wide awake. Co
nnor still enjoyed the first grade, and rousing him from bed was not the chore that it was with many children—that it had been with her at the same age.
If Connor suffered any lingering ill effects from yesterday’s encounters with the “scary lady”, aka Deborah Vennekamp, aka the previous owner of their home, he showed none of them. Such was the resilience of a six-year-old.
Ironically, it was Connor’s much older mother who was the more fragile of the two. For a second, she had imagined her son as a knife-wielding Deborah Vennekamp.
“What were you doing down in the basement, Mommy?”
“Nothing,” she replied, more sharply than she’d intended. “There’s nothing down in the basement.”
This comment was unnecessary, perhaps, but she didn't want Connor to develop an interest in the basement—not until she knew for sure that there was nothing—no one—down there.
“Don’t ever play on those steps,” she said. Not that he ever had, to the best of her knowledge.
She considered Connor, the basement, the day’s schedule: A plan began to crystallize.
“Say, Connor, how would you like to spend some time with Grandma this afternoon?”
“I see Grandma every day,” Connor replied, puzzled.
“Well, how would you like to do something special with Grandma this afternoon? Like Chuck E. Cheese’s?”
“Yay!” Connor said, practically jumping up and down. Connor loved Chuck E. Cheese’s—a pizza chain whose mascot was an anthropomorphic mouse.
“I thought so. Mommy’s going to give you some money to give to Grandma for Chuck E. Cheese’s. Can you keep it safe during school today, and then remember to give it to Grandma?”
Connor took great pains to convince Jennifer that yes, he could handle that.
She dropped Connor off at school, then called Gladys on the way to Ohio Excel Logistics.
“Gladys! Hi, I have a favor to ask.”
The request wasn't completely out of the blue. Gladys had previously offered to take Connor to Chuck E. Cheese’s one afternoon. Jennifer’s mother would have wanted no part of such an outing, but Gladys was more adventurous.
“That would be fine, Jen, if you have to work late. And I think it would be a nice change of pace for Connor. Especially after yesterday. Are you sure that woman won’t do anything drastic?”
Jennifer had given Gladys a summary of what had transpired at the Sunoco station the previous day, for two reasons: First, she wanted Gladys to be on the lookout, just in case Deborah tried to follow Connor and his grandmother. Secondly, Connor would inevitably give Gladys his own account of the unpleasant event.
For now, she did not mention Deborah’s remark about the basement. If Jennifer’s suspicions were correct, everyone would know the truth about that soon enough.
“I don’t think she’ll bother you or Connor anymore,” Jennifer said. “At least not in a public place.”
And while you could never tell what a crazy person might do, Jennifer believed this to be true. From the beginning, Deborah’s negative attentions had overwhelmingly fallen on Jennifer, the new matron of 1120 Dunham Drive. Deborah had shown minimal interest in Clint; and her appearances yesterday had been aimed at Jennifer, in one way or another. But Jennifer was troubled by Deborah’s presence at her in-laws.
If our luck will only hold out for one more afternoon, Jennifer thought. If there is a body in that basement, then Deborah Vennekamp will become a law enforcement problem, whether Roy Dennison likes it or not.
“I gave Connor two twenties for the pizza,” Jennifer said. “Why don’t you take Ralph along, too?”
“That wasn't necessary,” Gladys said.
After a bit more back-and-forth, Jennifer convinced Gladys to accept the two twenty-dollar bills, and to take Ralph along, too. That would place both her son and her in-laws in a public place for most of the afternoon, while she went about her potentially grisly task in the basement.
She might have skipped work, she thought, as she pulled into the parking lot of her employer. After all, she didn't intend to work here much longer.
She would submit her resignation within a number of days, after working out the best way to handle the HR complaint. It might be beneficial to file a complaint against Jim before she resigned. That would mean more time on the job with him, but it also might mean a better severance package. If she quit today, she would take with her only her vacation pay and the portion of her 401K that was already vested. This wasn't a step to take lightly, without some strategizing.
But there was another factor, as well: This afternoon she planned to dig a hole in the floor of her basement, in an area where she had reason to believe a corpse might be buried.
This was no small matter, to be sure; and it would take her a while to build up to it. The eight or nine hours that comprised the workday would hopefully be sufficient. They would have to be sufficient.
Late in the afternoon, as she was about to gather her things and leave for the day, Angela suddenly spoke to her. Angela had been trying to talk to her all day, she sensed, but Jennifer had successfully dodged her thus far.
“How about we talk for a few minutes,” Angela said. “In private.”
As was always the case, this was a command—not a suggestion.
Jennifer glanced involuntarily at the clock. She no longer cared if Angela thought she was a clock-watcher. What difference could that possibly make, now that she was planning to quit? She had a lot to do this afternoon and this evening, and a limited amount of time in which to accomplish it.
“Don’t worry,” Angela assured her. “This won’t take long.”
So she followed Angela to a private meeting room. After Angela closed the door behind them, they sat on opposite sides of a little table.
Jennifer did her best to maintain a poker face. This wasn't as difficult as it usually was in meetings with her boss. She had other, weightier matters on her mind.
“You seem unusually stressed over the past few days,” Angela said.
“What do you mean?”
But Jennifer knew exactly what she meant, of course: Her marriage was threatened; she and her husband had been the victims of a sordid blackmail plot. The previous owner of her house was terrorizing her and her family.
There might be a body in her basement; and this afternoon she would dig for it.
There was plenty for Jennifer to be “stressed” about; and she wasn't surprised to learn that Angela had noticed something awry.
“Because if there is anything wrong, I want you to feel free to talk to me about it. I know that we haven’t always gotten along so well, but there should be a certain bond of camaraderie between us, don’t you think? After all, we’re both women in a man’s world.”
This struck Jennifer as more of a cliché than anything: The staff of Ohio Excel Logistics was around fifty percent female, and women made up a similar portion of the management. But she let Angela continue. It made no sense to strike at an adversary who was offering an olive branch—which was what this appeared to be. Maybe.
“Of course,” Angela went on, “your life is really nothing like mine—outside of work, that is. You’ve got a tall, good-looking husband who adores you. You’re a mother, an option which closes off a little more for me each year.”
Jennifer involuntarily stiffened. This wasn't an olive branch, whatever it was. This was the same old routine: the bitter ex-wallflower who was envious of the ex-cheerleader.
“What’s this about, Angela?”
“What this is about is that you seem upset.”
Suddenly Jennifer’s resistance broke. She was carrying too many secrets. They overwhelmed her.
“All right. You might as well know. I’ve decided to leave the company—but not before I go after Jim Lindsay.”
Jennifer then launched into an overview account of her two-year battle with Jim. She told Angela everything, more or less—about the anonymous text messages that Clint received, about the video, about Jim’s attempts
to blackmail her into bed.
Angela listened raptly; but Jennifer noted that the woman seated across the table from her showed little or no surprise.
“I never knew,” Angela said slowly. “I knew about you leaving with Jim that night after the holiday party. I saw you, you know. But I never knew that there was a video. Hmm. I wish I had known.”
Angela stared at her across the short, intimate expanse of the table. She was smiling.
Why the smile?
And then the entire picture became clear to Jennifer, almost like an epiphany: the earnestness of Jim’s denial, the odd timing of the revelation to her husband, the reason why the video had thus far been withheld: Jim hadn’t sent those text messages to Clint, and neither had Deborah Vennekamp.
Angela had sent them.
“Oh, my,” Jennifer said. “It was you, wasn't it?”
Angela shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jennifer.” But Angela’s expression and body language said otherwise.
Jennifer stood up from the table. This meeting was over. She was leaving.
“I’m going to tell human resources about this.”
“Why don’t you just do that,” Angela said calmly.
Yes, Jennifer thought. She could tell human resources, but without proof, they would never believe her. It would be exactly like trying to convince Roy Dennison that Deborah Vennekamp was a legitimate threat, and not just an eccentric crank.
Here at work, as elsewhere, she would have to fight her own battles.
58
There was a Home Depot on one of the exits along the route home. Jennifer had never purchased a shovel before, but she reasoned that it couldn't be too complicated.
She selected a digging shovel with a 49-inch fiberglass handle. The shovel was manufactured by a company called Razorback. Jennifer’s purchase came to $27.93 with tax.
As she walked through the aisles of Home Depot, she several times had the impression that someone was following her. Once she could have sworn she saw Deborah Vennekamp from the corner of her eye. The older woman appeared to duck behind the shelves of the adjacent aisle just as Jennifer was turning. But when she walked around to the other aisle and looked, she saw a harmless-looking woman around her own age with two children in tow. The woman gave Jennifer a blank, but innocent stare.
1120 Dunham Drive: A Clint & Jennifer Huber Mystery Page 32