1120 Dunham Drive: A Clint & Jennifer Huber Mystery Read online

  “What do you have behind your back, ma’am? What are you holding?” Lonny asked.

  The slightest hint of a smile crept onto Mrs. Vennekamp’s face.

  “My house, shitbird,” she said.

  Lonny allowed himself a few seconds to assess the situation. This woman was clearly off her rocker. And she was obviously holding something behind her back. She might be a small, late middle-aged woman, but she could easily plunge a dagger into his throat, or aim a gun, if she had one.

  No inspection is worth this, he thought.

  He looked quickly around the darkened, panel-enclosed room that Mrs. Vennekamp was occupying. There were odds and ends on the floor—paint cans, bricks, pallets. There was nothing in here that really needed to be inspected, was there?

  I should simply leave, Lonny thought. I should pack up right now and get out of here.

  But that would mean forfeiting the inspection fee, and possibly alienating Tom Jarvis, who sent as much business Lonny’s way as any other realtor. Besides, he really didn't know that this woman was holding some sort of a weapon behind her back. She might be holding nothing more than a family memento that she’d retrieved from the basement. She might be holding nothing at all. Mrs. Vennekamp might be completely bluffing him.

  Lonny backed away from the tiny enclosed space. He decided to switch gears.

  “You’re right, Mrs. Vennekamp. This is your house. And if you’ll let me inspect the rest of the basement, I’ll leave you to your lonesome in this room. Do we have a deal?”

  Mrs. Vennekamp made no response, but nor did she further protest or threaten him.

  Lonny made quick work of the remaining portion of the house inspection. He made sure that all of the requisite pipes were securely connected to the water heater and there were no leaks. He did check one corner of the basement with the moisture meter—but only one corner (and the corner farthest from the panel enclosure). Then he ran his flashlight across the ceiling.

  No issues! Pass!

  “I’m going back upstairs, Mrs. Vennekamp!” he called out, backing up the steps. For a brief moment he imagined Mrs. Vennekamp as a crazed apparition of a woman, roaring out of the darkened little room with a raised butcher knife and glistening eyes.

  But Mrs. Vennekamp remained where he had found her. Her eyes followed him up the stairs, but she did not molest him beyond that.

  Finally back out in his van, Lonny asked himself the obvious questions. He spoke aloud, as was his habit at times, and a permissible self-indulgence for man who works alone.

  “What the hell happened back there? Was that woman frigging bonkers, or what?”

  And then he silently asked himself another question: What difference did it make? He had completed most all of the home inspection by the book, Mrs. Vennekamp’s intrusion notwithstanding. He could complain, of course—but that would only come back on him in the form of lost business in the future.

  Moreover, what could he really prove? He and Mrs. Vennekamp had been the only people in that house. No one had witnessed their exchange.

  “Forget about it, Lonny!” he said to himself, starting up the van. “You’ll never see that crazy old woman again!”

  Backing out of the driveway, he reflected that there was actually a silver lining here: Lonny’s softball and drinking buddies were always telling stories about their jobs. One member of his crowd was a cop, another a firefighter. But Lonny’s line of work seldom produced anything but bland monotony, pleasant and undemanding though it usually was.

  Lonny put the van in gear and drove away from 1120 Dunham Drive. As he stepped down on the van’s accelerator, he was laughing.

  He finally had a work-related story worth telling his buddies.

  8

  Clint and Jennifer were more than pleased to hear that the house had passed the inspection with flying colors.

  “There’s one minor issue,” Jarvis told them over the phone. “A window that might be a problem a few years down the road. But nothing worth making a stink about at this point. I assume that you two are still anxious to close on the house as soon as possible.”

  “Uh, yeah. Can you schedule the closing for tomorrow?” Jennifer asked.

  “Okay,” Jarvis laughed. “I get it.”

  “No more problems from Mrs. Vennekamp?” Clint asked.

  “Officially, no. I detect some tension between the Vennekamps; but that’s their problem. Mr. Vennekamp appears to be in charge still. Richard and Deborah Vennekamp have officially accepted your offer, and our next step is the closing. Now, let’s not jinx things.”

  “No sir,” Clint said. “Not on your life.”

  Jarvis was able to pull the closing together in only two weeks—remarkably fast for the habitually glacial real estate industry. The joint meeting between the buyers, sellers, and associated parties was scheduled for one evening in late August, in the office of Jarvis Realty.

  The Hubers arrived early and sat with Tom Jarvis in the realty office’s main meeting room, and waited for the others. The representative from the title company, Belinda Davies, arrived five minutes before the appointed time.

  Ms. Davies, a platinum blonde in her late forties, drifted into the room on a waft of perfume, carrying an armload of folders. Jarvis had warned the Hubers that both they and the Vennekamps were going to be signing a lot of documents today. “Be prepared for wrist and finger cramps,” the realtor had told them.

  The closing had been scheduled for 7:00 p.m. It was 7:12 when Belinda Davies smiled awkwardly and asked: “Has anyone heard from the Vennekamps?”

  “There they are,” Jarvis said, swiveling around in his chair and indicating the parking lot. The outer wall of the meeting room was all windows, and it afforded a clear view of the couple exiting the metallic blue Ford Taurus in the parking lot. Jennifer recognized the Vennekamps from the portrait she had seen in their house, though both were much changed.

  They had aged, obviously, but the transformations ran deeper. Richard Vennekamp’s previously blond hair was thin and white, his exposed scalp a mass of blemishes. Jennifer didn't know if these were a result of his cancer, or simply aging. Richard walked with difficulty, supported by a cane.

  Deborah Vennekamp had aged less radically since the portrait had been taken, but the face of the woman in the parking lot did not belong to the cheerful woman who posed for that long-ago portrait. Her lips showed not the faintest trace of a smile, nor levity. Her eyes were locked straight ahead. What did they call that? Oh yes: the thousand-yard stare.

  Richard was wearing a pair of dress slacks, a dress shirt, and a blue blazer that hung on his thin frame. (He had also lost a lot of weight.) Deborah was wearing a wool skirt that had to be uncomfortably hot in the muggy, late summer twilight. On the lapel of her tan corduroy blazer was a large button with writing on it.

  As the couple approached the main entrance of the realty office, Richard Vennekamp leaned on his wife for support.

  He must be receiving regular chemo treatments, Jennifer thought. One of her great uncles, a man she had barely known, had died of esophageal cancer during her high school years. She had seen the uncle during his chemotherapy phase, and he had looked a lot like Richard Vennekamp: weak, drained, and in visible discomfort.

  I hope we’re doing the right thing, Jennifer thought. But wasn't it clear that the Vennekamps had to sell the house, given Richard’s condition?

  The Vennekamps passed out of view and the bell hanging over the front entrance jingled. Acting as host, Tom Jarvis stood and walked to the doorway of the meeting room. He smiled expansively and beckoned the Vennekamps forward.

  The couple walked in, and Jarvis helped Richard Vennekamp into the seat nearest the door. No one mentioned the fact that the Vennekamps had arrived late.

  Deborah Vennekamp sat down directly across from Jennifer. Now Jennifer could read the letters that were printed on her lapel button:

  “Question? Ask your friendly Mydale Public Library Librarian!”

  A librarian
, Jennifer thought. How difficult can she be? In Jennifer’s experience, librarians were among the gentlest, most soft-spoken people in the world. It wasn't a profession that attracted the strong-willed or the confrontational.

  Tom Jarvis began making the introductions around the room. He was introducing Belinda Davies to Richard when Jennifer heard the whispered profanity.

  “Shitbird!” she thought she heard Deborah Vennekamp hiss, as the woman stared directly at her. Deborah’s stare was unblinking, nearly catatonic. Her lips were pursed tightly together.

  “Excuse me?” Jennifer asked shakily. She wondered if anyone else in the room might have heard it. Then she realized that Jarvis, Belinda Davies, Clint, and Richard Vennekamp were distracted by the other introductions. Deborah and Jennifer were momentarily alone at the far end of the table. The older woman continued to stare silently at Jennifer, offering no explanation.

  She couldn’t really have said that, could she? I must have been hearing things.

  “Mrs. Huber,” Jarvis said, distracting her. “You’ve already met Ms. Davies. This is Richard and Deborah Vennekamp.”

  She had already heard Richard Vennekamp explain that he couldn’t stand for introductions, but he explained again.

  “Sorry,” he wheezed. “Hard to stand up. Glad to meet you, though.”

  “I’m glad to meet you, too, Mr. Vennekamp.”

  Jennifer detected not the slightest hint of malice or mental imbalance in the face of Richard Vennekamp. He gamely leaned across the table and shook Jennifer’s hand, despite his visible discomfort. He even made the effort to smile at her, in fact.

  He’s just a normal man, thought Jennifer. A normal man who has been dealt a very bad situation.

  She noticed that Jarvis had not directly introduced Deborah Vennekamp to anyone yet. Was the realtor afraid of her?

  Well, I’m not going to be afraid of her. A librarian, after all. And we are buying her house…

  “Mrs. Vennekamp, I presume,” Jennifer said. She rose and extended her hand in Deborah’s direction.

  The other woman kept her hands folded in her lap. She briefly regarded Jennifer’s hand, then flinched and turned away as if it were something disgusting, something covered in dirt or excrement.

  She heard Tom Jarvis clear his throat. The realtor looked at Jennifer and discreetly shook his head. Leave her well enough alone, was the message that Jarvis seemed to be conveying.

  “Anyway,” Jarvis said. “We’ve got a lot of signatures to gather this evening, but we can hopefully have everyone out of here by eight thirty.”

  What followed was an endless succession of documents. The papers were removed from various folders and envelopes, then circulated around the table for signatures. The Vennekamps and the Hubers had to sign almost all of them; many others also required the signatures of Jarvis and Belinda Davies.

  They were interrupted when Jarvis’s twenty-something administrative assistant entered with a cart bearing a tray of finger sandwiches and an ice bucket containing bottled water, and several varieties of soft drinks.

  “So,” Belinda Davies addressed the Hubers as the administrative assistant was placing the refreshments in the center of the table, “are the two of you excited?”

  “Yes indeed,” Clint said. Jennifer noted—not for the first time—that Clint seemed to have warmed considerably to the idea of home ownership as the pieces of the transaction had fallen into place during the preceding weeks. “We’ve been living in rented places ever since we were married. It’ll be great to have a place of our own that we can call home.”

  “Do you have any children?” Belinda Davies asked.

  “One,” Clint answered. “Connor. Six years old.”

  “How nice. Every child appreciates a back yard to play in. Especially little boys.”

  “And we’re going to get a cat!” Jennifer interjected, with more enthusiasm than would ordinarily accompany such a declaration.

  Clint rolled his eyes and groaned aloud. “Ugh, cats!”

  Jarvis laughed. “I detect that only one half of the Huber couple is a cat-lover.”

  “I’ve never liked cats,” Clint admitted. “Nothing against the little critters, mind you. I’ve just never wanted one.”

  “But I absolutely love them,” Jennifer said, leaning into her husband. She thought: This is the closing for my first home. That woman across the table is not going to ruin it, whatever her problem is. “Do you remember that cat my roommates and I kept in college? Mr. Patches?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Clint said. “I remember Mr. Patches. He hated me. I still have scars on my shin.”

  “Mr. Patches was only being protective,” Jennifer said.

  “The damn cat nearly took my leg off.”

  This last comment elicited laughter from around the room. Jennifer noticed that even Richard gave Clint an obligatory smile.

  Deborah Vennekamp, though, gave no reaction. Her hands were spread out on the table, palms down. She was looking down at the space between them, even though that space was only a blank tabletop.

  Still more documents were brought out to be read aloud and explained, then signed and initialed. Throughout this process, Belinda Davies’ cell phone chirped numerous times. Each time, she checked it but did not answer it.

  “You know,” Tom Jarvis said (he had done the lion’s share of the talking thus far), “I think we could all use a break.” The realtor glanced at the wall clock at the front of the meeting room. It was already past eight o’clock. His promise to have everyone on their way home before 8:30 would likely not be fulfilled. “How about we take ten minutes, then meet back here and finish up?”

  This suggestion was greeted with general agreement—most of all from Belinda Davies, who hurried out of the meeting room, cell phone in hand.

  After making a quick stop in the restroom and at the water fountain, Jennifer saw her husband leaning in the overhang of the building’s front stoop, just outside the glass double doors of the entrance. She walked outside and joined him.

  “What do you think?” she asked, taking his hand. “Our first house is almost a reality?”

  Clint nodded. He looked quickly around the parking lot, to make sure that no one was eavesdropping on them. “Let’s be grateful that Deborah Vennekamp didn't stage a last-minute protest and ruin the whole thing. I have the feeling that there is a lot of conflict between the Vennekamps right now, and that Tom Jarvis is aware of it but not sharing. Did you notice how he’s been avoiding Mrs. Vennekamp? He didn't even introduce her.”

  “I noticed. And you should have heard what she called me.”

  Clint seemed surprised. Apparently Mrs. Vennekamp had managed to utter her insult at just the right volume—so that Jennifer would hear it, but no one else.

  She told Clint what Deborah Vennekamp had called her. Clint shook his head in disbelief.

  “Incredible. Do you want me to say something to her? Or to Jarvis?”

  “No,” Jennifer answered emphatically. “Let’s just get this over with. Did you notice the button on Mrs. Vennekamp’s lapel? She’s a librarian, for goodness sake. She’s no threat to anyone—just a bitter woman who is having a difficult time adjusting to her new reality.”

  “I’ll say. Anyhow, I’m going to make a quick pit stop in the restroom before we wrap this up. I’ll meet you back there, okay?”

  Jennifer walked back to the meeting room alone, expecting that she and Clint would be the last ones to return to the closing. She was mistaken, however. When she entered the meeting room, Jennifer found herself alone with Mrs. Vennekamp.

  She considered turning around and walking back out. That would be easy enough to do. The others would return within a few minutes; and she could simply wait in the hallway until then.

  Then she reconsidered. That would be cowardly, and more than a little silly. She was allowing this woman—this middle-aged librarian—to intimidate her. Or maybe she was merely intimidating herself. What could Deborah Vennekamp actually do to her, other th
an stare at her and call her a “shitbird”?

  Then she thought again of Ohio Excel Logistics, of the petty blackmail scheme that she had allowed herself to fall into.

  That cinched her resolve. Jennifer strode deliberately into the meeting room and took her seat directly across from Deborah Vennekamp. Deborah Vennekamp did not look at her. As before, she stared at the tabletop.

  “Well,” Jennifer said, in an almost defiant attempt to make small talk, “this is almost over.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Deborah Vennekamp answered in a low, deliberate voice that was little more than a whisper. “This isn’t over at all.” Deborah continued to look downward, at the space between her outstretched hands.

  “What do you mean by that?” Jennifer asked, in feigned ignorance. “There are only a few more documents to sign, based on what Mr. Jarvis said.”

  Deborah looked up from the tabletop and stared directly at Jennifer.

  “It’s our house. It will always be our house.”

  Jennifer was genuinely shaken now. For the first time, she allowed herself to consider the notion that Deborah Vennekamp might be something more than an ordinary woman with a sick husband and a neurotic attachment to a house.

  Then Belinda Davies drifted in, all smiles and bounce. Tom Jarvis followed closely behind her. He must have sensed that something was wrong at the far end of the table.

  “Anything wrong, Jennifer?”

  Jennifer forced herself to smile. No matter what Deborah Vennekamp said, this was almost over.

  “No, Tom. Nothing’s wrong at all.”

  They left the closing with the house keys in hand. The house was officially theirs.

  “What do you think,” Jennifer suggested on the ride home, “do you think we should stop by tonight, just to check the place out?”

  Clint laughed and reached across the front center console of the minivan to squeeze her hand. “I understand your enthusiasm,” he said, “but we have to pick up Connor from my parents’ house.”