“Deb,” he gave the keys another jangle. “I really need to leave if I’m going to get done and back home at a reasonable hour. Big day tomorrow. Mike and Tony and I need to have the truck loaded up by 6:30 a.m. for that big job north of town. You remember: the one I told you about the other day. So I need to get going.”
And so she finally gave her assent and let him go. Permission granted, he practically bolted out of the living room, out the front door, and into the night.
She heard the front door of the house close behind him.
Then she heard Richard start up his toy of a car. The anger welled up inside her.
I’ll kill that bitch. The thought washed over her in a violent, unstoppable wave.
She did not even know who the other woman was—not yet. But that would change.
If I can discover who she is, I’ll kill her, Then whatever happens will happen. Let the chips fall where they may.
She imagined the other woman in front of her now, as she often had of late. Sometimes the other woman was a trashy-looking blonde, sometimes she was a brunette or a redhead.
Details like her height and hair color weren’t important. What was important was that she was young and permissive, and she had captured Richard’s attentions.
Then Deborah imagined herself killing that other woman. She wouldn't do it with one of Richard’s guns. Oh, no—that would be too quick and impersonal. The little tramp who was knowingly sleeping with a married man—her husband—wouldn't deserve such a quick exit.
Deborah would go after her with one of Richard’s hammers instead. First she would knock the tramp out with the blunt, rounded end of the hammer.
Then she would use the clawed end on her pretty, smirking, youthful face.
Using the clawed end, she would work her way down. By the time she was done, the object of Richard’s fascination would be completely obliterated.
She shook her head, repelled and a little ashamed, at the images that filled her mind. But they were images that Richard and the little tramp had put there.
And if it ever happened for real, she could honestly say that they had driven her to it.
This wasn't the way a family was supposed to function, of course. Television families were nothing like this. And maybe it was silly to idealize them simply because they were on television, but someone had thought them up, right? So that meant that the ideal existed, somewhere.
Deborah had watched a lot of television during her youth, and she loved the family-based sitcoms—even the ones that were already dated by the time she came along, like My Three Sons, The Andy Griffith Show, and Leave It to Beaver.
But the one that she most loved was The Brady Bunch. The premise of the sitcom was two single parents, each with three children of their own, marrying to form a mixed family—three boys and three girls.
Yes, it was all a little too coincidental and fortuitous; but it was nice to think about, wasn't it? It was nice to think that life could be like that—should be like that.
That was why she had named her daughter Marcia, after the oldest daughter in the sitcom. She would have named David for the show’s oldest boy, Greg, but Richard had objected. He said it was dumb; naming your children for characters in sitcoms. Besides, he wanted to name his son after his grandfather, who had died during Richard’s youth.
So when their daughter was born (almost exactly a year after David) she had presented the name Marcia without telling Richard its true source. Deborah had told her husband that Marcia was the name of a favorite aunt.
“I don’t remember you ever mentioning an Aunt Marcia,” Richard had said, with only a small trace of suspicion in his voice. Clearly, Richard had forgotten about the controversy over David’s name.
In the end he had acquiesced without too many questions. Richard had created a namesake for his beloved grandfather, David Vennekamp. More leeway could be granted on the naming of his daughter.
Deborah walked carefully into the foyer of the house, where the front door opened into the night, and the stairs led to the second floor. Placing her hand on the doorknob, she briefly contemplated going after Richard; maybe she could still find him. Maybe she would bring a gun and a hammer.
She would use the gun to hold Richard at bay (but oh, she would never shoot him, not even after all he had done, oh no), and then she would use the hammer to dismantle Richard’s little tramp—blow by blow, and chunk of flesh by chunk of flesh.
Then she thought of the myriad holes in her plan. She would have to shoot Richard if he were present, because Richard would try to stop her.
And maybe she should shoot Richard. She thought about the father figure in The Brady Bunch, Mike Brady. Would Mike Brady screw his secretary? Or some little tramp that he met on a construction site? Of course not.
At least she had her children, right? She would kill to protect them, too, even as she would kill to protect her marriage.
Her son, David, was agreeable enough at home, but Deborah recognized that something about the boy was not quite right. A boy his age should have friends. But David had no friends. Sometimes she quizzed him about the kids at Mydale High School. Each time, she hoped (in vain) that David would tell her about his circle of friends—nice kids who would accompany her son to football games and other wholesome activities. Maybe even a date once in a while.
Yes, that would be all right. David was a grown man now, more or less. She could abide him having an interest in a girl—so long as she wasn't a little tramp.
Then there was Marcia. Marcia got good grades; she seemed to be the brighter of the two. But Marcia was deceitful. Even as a little girl, she had caught Marcia in numerous petty lies about toys and cookies and messes. Now Marcia was sixteen; and Deborah had a feeling that she was still telling lies—but now her lies were sophisticated enough to avoid detection.
Thirty minutes later, Deborah was still pacing around the first floor of the house. The children were still in their rooms, doing heaven knows what. Richard was still gone.
She felt the anger, a hot trembling rage, ripple through her entire being. Before she had time to think, she was in the garage, and in the corner of the room where Richard stored the tools that he kept for home use.
There was a plywood workbench, a large tool chest, and a pegboard for hanging items. Without giving the matter too much thought, she plucked a hammer off the pegboard and went back inside the house.
She opened the front door. Then she stepped outside and sat on the stoop, so as to give herself a few minutes to think. Her car, a silver Honda Accord, sat in the driveway.
She could take the hammer and go look for them. She could put an end to all of this tonight. Set matters right.
When something solid nudged her calf, she nearly screamed aloud. It was the neighbor’s cat, a black female that they named Mitsy or Missy, or something like that.
Deborah didn't like cats. And she especially didn't like Mitsy or Missy, because she didn't like the neighbor woman.
The neighbor woman was in her late twenties and she took aerobics classes. Sometimes Deborah would see her going to or returning from her classes wearing spandex leotards, or shorts and a tight, clingy tee shirt. Sometimes Richard would see her, too, and he would take the opportunity to flirt with her, asking stupid, leading questions that were obviously corny to everyone but him.
Holding that thought, Deborah brought the hammer down on Mitsy or Missy’s head in one swift, sudden motion. The cat had no time to dodge or fight back—or even to cry out.
The limp body lay before her, inert. Deborah was almost surprised that a single blow could kill a cat so easily. Then she considered the relative sizes involved: the size of a cat’s skull, and the head of the hammer.
Deborah looked nervously around. The house next door, home of Mitsy or Missy (and the woman with the leotards, Janet was her name) was dark and quiet. Janet must be out tonight with her husband.
None of this was fair. If Richard hadn’t been doing what he was doing, then she w
ouldn't have killed the cat. It was a dirty, rotten thing to do, really, even if Janet did attract her husband’s attention.
Of course, Janet could always dress more modestly, couldn't she…?
Deborah struck the inert carcass at her feet again. And then again. Then a third time and a fourth.
None of this was fair, what they were driving her to do.
By the time she came to, Mitsy or Missy was barely recognizable as a cat—or the carcass of a cat.
Deborah looked around again to make sure that no one had been spying on her. (And wouldn't some of the neighbors simply love to catch her in the act of doing something naughty? Then they could laugh behind her back and make sarcastic remarks. They would say that Richard Vennekamp preferred the company of women other than his wife because his wife was a cat killer. A cat mutilator.)
Deborah sighed. Without meaning to, she had made a real mess for herself. Absolutely none of this was fair. Richard was out having fun with his tramp, and here she was, forced to clean up a mess that they had forced her to create, by pushing her over the line.
Richard finally arrived home an hour later, whistling. Once again, he displayed that practiced nonchalance.
But he did notice the wet spot on the front walkway where the remains of the cat had been.
“Oh,” said Deborah, “one of the local dogs passing through. It was—”
“Ah,” Richard said, as if no further explanation were required. The neighborhood at that time did indeed include quite a few dog owners who were inconsiderate, and allowed their pets to roam the neighborhood unleashed and untethered. On more than one occasion, Richard had cursed aloud upon discovering one of their piles while doing lawn work.
Richard did not touch his wife, did not volunteer any elaboration about the “paperwork” that had been so urgent. Even as Deborah continued to be haunted by images of her husband and the little tramp, she could not help wondering if her explanation regarding the mess on the front walkway had been entirely convincing.
It was dark out there, after all: Had she neglected any blood spatters, any tufts of black fur?
Then there was the carcass itself—or what was left of it. She had wrapped the animal’s body in a black garbage bag and buried it deep within the jumble of bags and loose garbage that were already in one of the garage’s two main trashcans.
Luckily, the Rumpke garbage truck would come tomorrow morning. Richard would take the cans down to the end of the driveway before leaving for work, as he always did. Hopefully he wouldn't dig through the garbage. (Ridiculous—why would he do that?) Hopefully there would be no smell. (There wouldn't be a smell; the outside temperature was only in the mid-sixties, and the cat would be in the garbage can for less than twelve hours.)
Richard helped himself to a beer from the refrigerator and sat before the television, where CNN was still replaying footage of the downed Blackhawk helicopter in Somalia. Richard’s distracted gaze, and absence of any reaction to the contents of the broadcast revealed that his mind was elsewhere.
Deborah remained seated at the kitchen table; she did not want to be in the same room with her husband now—both because of what he had done and because of what she had done.
Both David and Marcia had remained in their rooms throughout her discussions with Richard, Richard’s absence with the little tramp, the murder of the neighbor’s cat, and Richard’s return.
What were David and Marcia doing up there, all by themselves? she wondered. What secrets were her so-much-less-than perfect children keeping?
29
When she arrived home, Jennifer thanked Gladys for watching Connor. Then she fell back on that old parental standby: She turned the television to afternoon cartoons, and allowed her son free rein.
She needed to call her cell phone company for a trace on the last incoming call, and she suspected that this might take awhile. To her surprise, it didn't take long at all; but the information the phone company rep gave her wasn't very helpful.
The last incoming call had come from a number that was associated with a pay-by-the-minute, disposable cell phone—the kind that can be purchased from Walmart, Target, and any number of online vendors. Whoever had bought the cell phone could have easily covered his or her tracks by paying for it in cash, the phone company rep explained. While the FBI or the NSA might be able to uncover the phone’s owner, it was beyond the resources of a casual search, or even local law enforcement.
Jennifer thanked the rep and hung up. Deborah Vennekamp had outwitted her again, as had Jim Lindsay.
“You did what?” Clint asked, when she told him about her activities earlier in the afternoon. “I thought we agreed that we were going to stay away from the Vennekamps—per the instructions of the Mydale chief of police, no less.”
“We agreed that we were going to stay away from Deborah,” Jennifer said.
“It amounts to the same thing, Jen. You know it does.”
She had decided that it would be a mistake to keep more secrets from him (even though she still felt incapable of revealing her one big secret). Clint didn't seem to understand why this matter with Deborah Vennekamp was so disturbing to her on such a personal level. It was more than the mere aggravation or the harassment.
Clint obviously saw the problem in solely existential terms: Deborah Vennekamp was an external nuisance—and his objective was merely to make her go away, as simply and as painlessly as possible. That was why he steadfastly avoided an escalation of the conflict, and placed his faith in impersonal solutions like a new security system.
For Jennifer, meanwhile, Deborah Vennekamp had become part of a much larger complex of problems—people who were trying to mess with her, to disturb her peace. It was almost as if the Vennekamp woman were in league with Jim Lindsay and Angela Bauer.
That was an absurd notion, of course; but it was one she couldn't quite shake. And today Jim had made this subconscious impression even more acute, by showing up at Marcia Vennekamp’s apartment. (Jennifer had, of course, omitted this episode when she recounted the afternoon’s events for her husband.)
“I’ve already got some quotes on state-of-the-art security systems,” Clint said. “Give me just a few more days and I’ll have something in place.”
There you go again, she thought. With your blind trust in security systems, as if you could write a check and buy our way out of this.
“I don’t think a security system is going to do it,” Jennifer said quietly.
She had to tread carefully, or this moment could erupt into a real argument. They didn't see eye-to-eye here; and for a second she had the notion that rather than the two of them, it was their two fathers who were arguing about the best course of action: Her aggressive attorney father, Hank Riley, versus Clint’s good-natured, easygoing, blue-collar father, Ralph.
Ever since she had first met Ralph Huber, when she and Clint had started dating in college, she had never known the machinist to lose his temper. Her father, on the other hand, lost his temper multiple times per week. There was always someone whom he was going to “straighten out”.
“So what do you suggest we do?” Clint countered. “The police have told us to stay away from this woman. Her husband is incapacitated with cancer, and I can’t exactly walk up to her and punch her in the nose.”
“I don’t want you to punch her in the nose.” However, the idea did have its charms, Jennifer thought, mildly ashamed of herself.
“So the security system is the best idea I can think of,” Clint said. “I don’t think you’re going to accomplish anything with this amateur snooping of yours, Jen.”
“What do you mean, ‘amateur’?”
He smiled. “You mean to tell me that I married a trained private investigator, and nobody told me?”
“No. Of course not.” However, she did have a recollection of her father mentioning—on at least one occasion during her girlhood—that law firms routinely hired private investigators. Most of the time, their work was far removed from the exploits of t
he fictionalized PIs of Hollywood. What PIs often did was gather information that might be useful to someone who was building a legal case.
And that’s exactly what she had been doing this afternoon—or trying to do.
“I’m frustrated by all this,” Clint said. “And I know that you are, too. But we can outlast this woman. She’ll eventually go away, and then we’ll have our lives back.”
“I suppose,” Jennifer said.
At least Clint had not extracted a promise from her to cease and desist her private investigation around the perimeter of Deborah Vennekamp’s life. Though Clint obviously disapproved, as long as she didn't violate Chief Dennison’s order to stay away from Deborah, this might fall under the don’t-ask-don’t-tell gray area that they allowed each other in regard to certain things.
Though certainly, she reminded herself, that grey area would not cover her ill-considered ride to Jim Lindsay’s house following the holiday party.
30
The next day, there were no repercussions resulting from her lie to Angela, and her early departure from work. Jim Lindsay’s implied threat to expose her deception had been a mere bluff, after all.
Had he made an issue of the matter, Jim would have also risked exposing incriminating evidence about himself. As she had suspected, Jim Lindsay was craftier than that. Yesterday’s surprise appearance at Tandy Lakes was just another attempt to pressure her into bed.
She wasn't worried about Angela or human resources. But she was disturbed by Jim’s suggestion that he might break their stalemate by preemptively sending the video clip to her husband.
She had to come clean with Clint. He would understand—provided that he heard it first from her, and she had time to explain.
“How’s your stomach?” Angela asked, sitting down at her desk.
“Better, thank you.”
1120 Dunham Drive: A Clint & Jennifer Huber Mystery Page 18
