1120 Dunham Drive: A Clint & Jennifer Huber Mystery

by Edward Trimnell

  “That’s really brave,” she said into the darkness. “You ring my doorbell and you run away. You leave dead animals and stupid messages on my porch. Well, I want you to know that I’m not afraid of you. I also want you to know that I know who you are. And unless you stop this now, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble. So why don’t you just stop all this?”

  Silence. In the still of this early morning hour, the front yard took on an eerie appearance, even with the multiple outside floodlights. The trees and shrubs further out in the yard were impenetrable shadows. The dew glistened on the grass, where more shadows played.

  “Do you hear me?” she said. Every hair on her body seemed to be standing up now, but she did not care. It was time for this to stop.

  There was a rustling in one of the shrubs toward the far edge of the front yard. That area was beyond the full intensity of the floodlights, but there was enough illumination for her eyes to detect traces of movement.

  “Who’s there?” she called out. When the unseen intruder refused to answer, she was torn between two competing convictions. First there was the belief that she had made a mistake, confronting the intruder alone like this. That was followed by anger: This was nothing more than an elaborate charade concocted by either Deborah Vennekamp or Jim Lindsay, neither of whom intimidated her in real life.

  “I have a gun,” she said. But this bluff did not, she knew, sound convincing. She was backlit by the front porch lights, and both of her hands would be visible. If she truly had a gun, she would have brandished it by now.

  There was more movement, and then a figure stepped out of the shadows. Jennifer squinted in the poor light, expecting to see the face of one of her two known tormentors.

  What she saw instead did not resemble a person at all. She gasped, and shrank back toward the still open front doorway.

  Her first association was the Minotaur of ancient Greek mythology. Two massive horns emerged from the darkness, and below them the snout of a bull, its mouth contorted in an unnatural grimace. All of this was atop a human frame, though that frame was clad in a single dark, flowing robe that obscured any indication of age or gender. The bull’s head also made it difficult for her to accurately assess its height.

  She now saw that this, too, was an elaborately structured illusion: It was not a minotaur at all—but a person clad in a robe and a realistic mask.

  “Who are you?” she shouted.

  The bull’s head swung slowly from side to side, its gaping mouth unwavering. The message was clear: The person beneath the mask was not going to be tricked into self-identification.

  What followed was a pregnant moment, as Jennifer watched the person in the bull mask, and the other party presumably watched her, through eyes that were hidden beneath the mask.

  Then the figure reached into the robe and withdrew a cylindrical object. Jennifer noticed that the person was wearing gloves, though her attention was focused on the object in his/her right hand.

  A second later the object came hurtling toward her. The throw had come without any warning. Jennifer dodged to one side, and was aware of the sound of breaking glass and a few drops of wetness on the bare skin of her neck.

  It had been a bottle—filled with what appeared to be blood. The blood ran down the porch column beside her. The glass was everywhere: on the porch, in the patch of lawn immediately surrounding her, and likely on the surface of her robe as well.

  The blood was everywhere, too. Suddenly nauseated, she frantically wiped away the drops of it that had splattered on her skin. She could smell its coppery odor; and a million questions were running through her mind: Where did the blood come from—was it human or animal?

  She began saying, “No, no, no,”—over and over again. But no one was listening, of course. Her breaths came quickly now; she feared that she might be going into shock—or in danger of going into shock.

  Don’t cry, she thought. Don’t let him—or her—see you cry. Try to regain control of yourself.

  The surprise of the thrown bottle, the broken glass, and the blood had temporarily distracted her, she now grasped with fresh panic. The bottle might have been hurled as a distraction, to make her vulnerable to an attack.

  She forced herself to look away from the blood and broken glass that surrounded her—the blood that had smeared part of her neck and one hand. A fatal blow might be coming any second, after all.

  But none came. As Jennifer struggled to control her breathing, she reached the conclusion that the space immediately around her was empty. Her enemy had not rushed her, or she would already have been struck.

  She looked back out into the front yard: The intruder in the bull mask was gone. The thrown bottle had not been a prelude to a more brutal assault, but simply a way of distracting her so that the person could flee unseen.

  The panic was coming back to her now, and behind it, a litany of the steps that she had to take if she wanted to maintain her sanity and composure.

  I’ve got to clean myself up. I have to get inside. I have to call the police.

  And what about Connor? Is he still asleep? I hope so.

  She would do all those things: she would wipe the blood from her skin and call the Mydale Police Department back to her house once again. Most of all she would check on her son.

  But before that, she allowed herself a moment to consider what had happened tonight: The person out in the bushes had been trying to break her, to make her feel unsafe in her own home.

  Deborah Vennekamp would doubtless have another alibi. And she could not tell the police—nor anyone—that Jim Lindsay might have been involved.

  She wrapped her arms around her body and trembled, finally giving in to the urge to sob.

  What was she going to do?

  19

  Connor mercifully slept through his mother’s ordeal. Once again, Jennifer was thankful that her son was a heavy sleeper.

  When she came back inside the house, she had locked and bolted the door. Having returned from her son’s room, she double-checked both the knob lock and the deadbolt.

  Her hands were still shaking as she called the Mydale Police Department, dialing 911. Although the immediate danger was probably gone, she didn't feel guilty about using the emergency system.

  She walked outside to wait for the police. As she had done after the dead cat incident, she exited by opening the overhead garage door.

  A Mydale P.D. cruiser showed up roughly ten minutes later. She had expected both Marx and Dennison, but only Dennison was in the car. She wondered why the chief of police preferred to work the night shift.

  “Yes, me again,” Dennison said. Then, as if reading her mind: “I’m an insomniac. That’s why I’m out on patrol so much. Then there’s the fact that we have a small department. I’ve got Marx and three other officers. This gig isn’t a desk job, not as police chief positions usually go. The tradeoff is that there isn’t much crime. But whoever is bothering you seems to be doing his best to change that. What was it this time, Mrs. Huber?”

  Chief Dennison listened and took notes as she told her story: the ringing doorbell, the bull’s head, the bottle of blood.

  Dennison wanted to see the newest desecration of their property, so she walked with him to the porch. For the second time in as many weeks, the front of their home had been splashed with blood. Clint had repainted the door only two days ago. The removal of all of the cat’s blood had cost them more than two hundred dollars. Now they had another biohazard mess on their front porch.

  The chief donned a pair of surgical gloves, then knelt to take samples of the blood. Using a brush from his evidence kit, he swept some of the glass fragments into an envelope.

  “I’m not hopeful about getting any fingerprints from these fragments, but well, we might get lucky,” he explained.

  “Yes,” she said wearily. “We could use some luck.”

  She followed him back to his squad car.

  “I have to say, Mrs. Huber, that was quite some story you told: A mysterio
us stranger in the night wearing a bull’s head mask throws a bottle of blood at you, then disappears back into the night. Yes, I believe you: The evidence is all around, and you don’t strike me as the sort of person who would invent a convoluted hoax like this: You don’t fit the profile of the neurotic attention-seeker, most of whom are obscure loners. I’m just saying, it’s unusual. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “It is unusual,” she agreed. “And for what it’s worth, I’ve never seen anything like this, either.”

  “I suppose that you still believe Deborah Vennekamp to be behind all of this.”

  Jennifer hesitated only slightly before answering, “Yes, absolutely.”

  “You know, Mrs. Huber,” Dennison said thoughtfully. “I’ve been a cop for a lot of years now—probably since around the time you were born. You do this work for that long, and you develop instincts about what people tell you.”

  “You think that I’m lying?”

  Dennison sighed. “No, Mrs. Huber. But I do have a feeling that you’re omitting something. I think you have another suspect in mind, but you aren’t mentioning his or her name for some reason—because you want to protect him or her, or because it’s ‘complicated’.”

  Jennifer paused to think about that: Yes, the reasons behind her failure to name Jim Lindsay as a suspect were certainly “complicated”.

  “There’s no one else I can think of,” she finally said. “You’ll have to excuse me. This has all been very stressful. I’m—I’m not at my best right now.”

  “I understand,” Dennison said simply. He clearly did not believe her, but he could not push the matter further without crossing some lines.

  “We’ll of course verify Mrs. Vennekamp’s whereabouts once again; but I think we both know what the result of that is going to be: We’re going to find out that she spent the night with her husband in the hospice, just like she did the night that someone threw the cat on your porch.”

  Jennifer shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Anyway, I’ll instruct Marx to drive by your place a few times during the day today, and make another few passes tonight. Whoever did this will probably lay low for awhile; but you never know: We might get lucky.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I really appreciate that.”

  “One more thing: I’ll send these blood samples to the lab, and let you know if their origin is human or animal. In the meantime, would you like me to take you to the hospital? Did you get any in your mouth, eyes, or nasal passages?”

  “No thank you, Chief,” she replied. “It splashed a little on my neck and upper chest area, but not on my face, nor near any cuts. I was able to wipe it off pretty easily, then I soaked a washcloth with rubbing alcohol and cleaned myself off again.”

  “Okay, then. I’m just covering all the bases.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dennison sighed wearily. “Try to have a good day, Mrs. Huber. I’ll be in touch.”

  After Dennison left, she called Clint on his cell phone, waking him up in his hotel room in Milwaukee. By this time it was no longer quite the middle of the night, but it was earlier than almost anyone would get up, under normal circumstances.

  “Jen,” he said blearily on the third ring. “What’s wrong?”

  She told him. Before she had even finished her story, he interrupted with promises to leave immediately. He still had a half-day’s worth of training left, but Glutz Machinery would simply have to send him to the Stanislaus facility again. Or he would have to make due without whatever knowledge was to be imparted during the final half day.

  “No. Stay there,” she told him. “Stay there and finish your training. There is nothing you can do back here. The Mydale Police Department is already looking into this; and Dennison is going to send a patrol car by the house several times today and tonight.”

  “Well, the Mydale Police Department hasn't done a very good job of getting to the bottom of any of this, have they?”

  “Clint, do you think that you can do better? I appreciate your offer to return immediately, but there’s nothing you can do. I just—I guess I just needed to talk to you, after all this happened.”

  I needed to hear your voice, she thought but did not say. I needed you to make me feel safe.

  On her way to work the next morning, tired from the lack of sleep and still jumpy from the shocks of the previous night, Jennifer came to a realization: The police could not help her so long as there was a suspect whom she could not name.

  And she did not really believe that Jim Lindsay, for all his vindictiveness, would have thrown a dead cat on her porch, or hurled a bottle of blood at her. His vendetta against her was sexual in nature; and all of his attempts to dominate her thus far had had sexual overtones.

  It was Deborah Vennekamp who was obsessed with her home—which she still considered to be her home, apparently.

  But still. She needed to eliminate Jim Lindsay as a suspect. And there was only one way to do that: She would have to confront him.

  As she drove down the highway, she suffered from an acute anxiety that she knew to be ridiculous: If she dared to look into the other cars around her on the highway, one of them would be driven by a figure in a bull’s mask.

  That would truly drive her mad, cause her to lose control of her own vehicle. So she drove with her eyes locked on the road, studiously avoiding any glimpse into the interiors of the cars and trucks around her.

  She had put on a front until she dropped off Connor at school, masking her fear and weariness with an artificial chirpiness that even a six-year-old could see through. “Are you okay, Mommy?” Connor had asked. “I’m fine,” she’d lied to her son. “Have a great day at school, Con-O!”

  Whoever it was, they were now invading every aspect of her life with their hatred of her and her family. Even her relationship with her son was not beyond the grasp of the animal butcher, the minotaur.

  Damn Deborah Vennekamp, she thought. Or damn Jim Lindsay. Whichever of them is responsible.

  In the parking lot of Ohio Excel Logistics, Jennifer felt her body begin to shake. Was this delayed shock—the clinical variety? Or was it merely the ordinary shakes, the product of a nasty scare and sleep deprivation?

  She walked into the office, and went not to her desk, but straight to Jim Lindsay’s office. It was empty. There was a sign on the door, indicating that he was out of town until tomorrow.

  What did that mean? Walking back to her desk, she noticed Angela watching her from across the room. She thought that she detected a few surreptitious stares from other people as well. Was Angela the only one who believed that she was sleeping with Jim Lindsay? Probably not. Many people would have seen them dancing together at the holiday party two years ago. With that bit of circumstantial evidence as kindling, it wouldn't take much to ignite the rumor mill.

  Angela openly stared at Jennifer while she closed the final distance to her desk. Her team leader’s lips were pursed; she was dying to speak, only she was waiting for Jennifer to come within earshot.

  Jennifer didn't want to talk to Angela. But Angela would know Jim’s schedule. She would be able to confirm that Jim had been out of town this morning.

  “Is Jim out of town?” Jennifer asked, before Angela could launch whatever acerbic comment she had prepared.

  Jennifer’s deliberate preemption caught Angela momentarily off guard.

  “Yes,” she answered, “as a matter of fact. He left for Detroit with two of the other managers. They’ve got some meetings at Ford and GM.”

  “Are you sure?” Jennifer knew that both the tone and the question were all wrong; she sounded too anxious. But she had to be certain. “Jim was in Detroit last night?”

  “You know,” Angela said icily. “You seem very interested in Jim’s whereabouts. You could be a bit less transparent.”

  Angela was right: She had just incriminated herself, hadn’t she? Just like on the night of the holiday party.

  She tried to think of an excuse; but her mind was clouded wi
th thoughts of dead animals on her porch and in her front hall closet; of minotaurs who hurled blood at her in the middle of the night.

  “Why do you care?” Angela asked, her tone suggesting that she knew exactly why Jennifer cared.

  “I can’t tell you,” Jennifer said. Daring to openly ignore Angela, she sat down at her computer and pushed the machine’s power button.

  Angela didn't seem to know how to best utilize what Jennifer had put before her. No doubt she would come up with something in time. For now, though, Angela merely shook her head in disapproval and turned her attention back to her own work.

  Jennifer didn't care about Angela at the moment. She would likewise delay consideration of the consequences of her numerous faux pas this morning. The significance of Jim’s out-of-state business trip was far more important.

  So the person behind the bull mask hadn’t been Jim Lindsay. It had been Deborah Vennekamp, after all.

  She recalled what Chief Dennison had told her about Deborah Vennekamp’s “alibi” following the previous incident. Jennifer wasn't convinced that a visitor’s log at a hospice proved anything. There were any number of ways that Deborah Vennekamp could have beaten that system, which was designed to protect sick people—not to keep track of sociopaths.

  The Mydale police were solicitous enough, but Chief Dennison was convinced of Deborah Vennekamp’s innocence. He would utter comforting words, he would carry out his perfunctory investigations; but he refused to focus on the person who was obviously targeting her family.

  Eventually Deborah Vennekamp would strike again—and again. Each time she would escalate, raise the stakes. The next time she might not be content with low-grade vandalism. She might start a fire. She might harm Connor.

  She might harm Connor.

  It would be up to her and her husband, then, to protect themselves. She would have to find out more about Deborah Vennekamp—and she would have to confront her.

  20