Caught. Part 36

"I've got nothing to say to you."

She found a spot, pulled in, turned off the engine. "Too bad. Come down. I'm in the lobby. I'm not leaving until you do."

Wendy hung up. The Paramus Marriott Courtyard was scenically located on both Route 17 and the Garden State Parkway. Room views featured either a P. C. Richard electronics store or a window-less warehouse store called Syms, with a quasi-bragging sign that read: AN EDUCATED CONSUMER IS OUR BEST CUSTOMER.

A vacation spot this was not.

Wendy entered the hotel. She waited in a lobby of beige--a sea of beige walls really, countered by a dull forest green carpet, a room enmeshed in the blandest of bland colors, hues so plain they screamed that the hotel was competent and fine, but expect absolutely no frills. Issues of USA Today USA Today were scattered about the coffee table. Wendy glanced at the headline and checked out a reader survey. were scattered about the coffee table. Wendy glanced at the headline and checked out a reader survey.

Jenna appeared five minutes later. She wore an oversize sweat-shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail, making her already-high cheekbones look sharp enough to slice.

"Did you come here to gloat?" Jenna asked.

"Yes, Jenna, that's exactly why I came here. I was sitting at home this morning, thinking about a dead girl found in the woods, and I said to myself, 'You know what would be great right now? The icing on the cake? A little gloating.' So that's why I'm here. Oh, and after this I'm going to go to the pound to kick a puppy."

Jenna sat down. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

Wendy thought about last night, about something as inane as Project Graduation, and how Jenna and Noel Wheeler should have been there, how much they probably wished now that they could have attended. "I'm sorry too. I imagine this has all been hard on you."

Jenna shrugged. "Every time I want to feel sorry for myself, I think about Ted and Marcia. You know what I mean?"

"I do."

Silence.

"I heard you're moving," Wendy said.

"Who did you hear that from?"

"It's a small town."

Jenna smiled without a trace of joy. "Aren't they all? Yes, we're moving. Noel is going to be chief of cardiac surgery at Cincinnati Memorial Hospital."

"That was quick."

"He's very much in demand. But the truth is, we started planning this months ago."

"When you first started defending Dan?"

Again she tried to smile. "Let's just say that didn't help our standing in the community," she said. "We hoped to stay until the end of the school year--so Amanda could graduate with her cla.s.s. But I guess that's not meant to be."

"I'm sorry."

"Again, Ted and Marcia. This isn't that big of a deal."

Wendy guessed not.

"So why are you here, Wendy?"

"You defended Dan."

"Yep."

"I mean, from start to end. When the show first aired. You seemed so sure that he was innocent. And last time we talked you said that I destroyed an innocent man."

"So what do you want me to say--my bad? I was wrong, you were right?"

"Were you?"

"Was I what?"

"Were you wrong?"

Jenna just stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Do you think Dan killed Haley?"

The lobby fell silent. Jenna looked as though she was about to respond but she shook her head instead.

"I don't understand. You think he's innocent?"

Wendy wasn't sure how to reply to that one. "I think there are still some pieces missing."

"Like what?"

"That's what I'm here to find out."

Jenna looked at her as though expecting more. Now it was Wendy who looked away. Jenna deserved a better answer. So far, Wendy had handled this whole case as a reporter. But maybe she was more than that here. Maybe it was time to come clean, admit the truth, say it out loud.

"I'm going to confess something to you, okay?"

Jenna nodded, waited.

"I work with facts, not intuition. Intuition usually just screws me up. Do you know what I mean?"

"More than you can imagine."

There were tears in Jenna's eyes now. Wendy imagined that they were in hers too.

"Factually I knew that I had Dan nailed. He tried to seduce my imaginary thirteen-year-old girl online. He showed up at the house. There was all that stuff in his house and on his computer. Even his job--I can't tell you how many of these creeps work with teenagers, supposedly helping them. It all added up. And yet my intuition kept screaming that something was wrong."

"You sounded pretty certain when we spoke."

"Almost too certain, don't you think?"

Jenna considered that and a small smile came to her face. "Like me, when you think about it--both of us so sure. Of course, one of us had to be wrong. But now I think the truth is, you can never be certain about another person. Obvious, but I think I needed a reminder. Do you remember how I said that Dan was secretive?"

"Yes."

"Maybe you were right about why. He kept something from me. I knew that. We all do that, don't we? No one knows us entirely. In the end, it's kind of a cliche, but maybe you never really know a person."

"So you were wrong this whole time?"

Jenna chewed on her lip for a moment. "I look back now. I think about his secretiveness. I thought it had something to do with being an orphan, you know? The obvious trust issues. I thought that's what ultimately drove us apart. But now I wonder."

"Wonder what?"

A tear rolled down her cheek. "I wonder if it was more, if something bad happened to him. I wonder if there was a darkness there, inside of him."

Jenna stood and crossed the room. There was a coffee urn. She grabbed a Styrofoam cup and filled it. Wendy rose and followed her. She got some coffee too. When they returned to their seats, it was as though the moment had pa.s.sed. Wendy was okay with that. She had dealt with the intuition part. It was time to return to the facts.

"When we met last time, you said something about Princeton. That something happened to him when he was there."

"Right, so?"

"So I'd like to look into that."

Jenna looked confused. "You think Princeton has something to do with all this?"

Wendy really didn't want to get into it. "I'm just following up."

"I don't understand. What could his college years have to do with anything?"

"It's just an aspect of the case I need to know about."

"Why?"

"Can you just trust me on this one, Jenna? You were the one who raised it last time we talked. You said something happened to him in college. I want to know what."

She didn't answer for a few moments. Then: "I don't know. That was part of the secretiveness--maybe the biggest part, now that I think about it. That's why I mentioned it to you."

"And you have no idea what it was?"

"Not really. I mean, it ended up not making much sense."

"Could you at least tell me about it?"

"I don't see the point."

"Humor me, okay?"

Jenna brought the coffee up to her mouth, blew on it, took a small sip. "Okay, when we first started going out, he'd disappear every other Sat.u.r.day. I don't want to make it sound as cryptic as all that. But he'd just take off and not say where he was going."

"I a.s.sume you asked?"

"I did. He explained to me early in the relationship that this was something he did and that it was his private time. He said it was nothing to worry about, but he wanted me to understand he needed to do it."

She stopped talking.

"What did you make of that?"

"I was in love," Jenna said simply. "So at first, I rationalized it. Some guys play golf, I told myself. Some guys bowl or meet the boys in a bar or whatever. Dan was ent.i.tled to his time. He was so attentive in every other way. So I simply let it go."

The lobby door opened. A family of five staggered in and approached the front desk. The man gave their name and handed the receptionist his credit card.

"You said 'at first,' " Wendy said.

"Yes. Well, more than simply at first. I think we'd been married a year when I pushed him on it. Dan said not to worry, it was no big deal. But now it was, of course. The curiosity was eating me up. So one Sat.u.r.day, I followed him."

Her voice drifted off and a small smile came to her face.

"What?"

"I've never told anyone this. Not even Dan."

Wendy sat back, gave her room. She took a sip of her coffee and tried to make herself look as nonthreatening as possible.

"Anyway there isn't that much more to the story. I followed him for about an hour, hour and a half. He got off at the exit for Princeton. He parked in town. He went into a coffee shop. I felt so silly following him. He sat by himself for maybe ten minutes. I kept waiting for the other woman to show up. I imagined she was some s.e.xy college professor, you know, with gla.s.ses and dark black hair. But n.o.body showed up. Dan finished his coffee and got up. He started walking down the block. It was so weird, following him like that. I mean, I loved this man. You have no idea how much. And yet, like I said, there was something about him I couldn't reach and now I'm skulking around, trying to keep out of sight, and I'm feeling like now, finally, I'm close to learning the truth. And it's terrifying me."

Again Jenna lifted the cup to her lips.

"So where did he go?"

"Two blocks away, there was a lovely old Victorian home. It was in the heart of faculty housing. He knocked on the door and entered. He stayed an hour and left. He walked back to town, got in his car, and drove back."

The hotel receptionist told the family that check-in wasn't until four PM. The father pleaded for an earlier time. The receptionist remained firm.

"So whose house was it?"

"That's the funny thing. It belonged to the dean of students. A man named Stephen Slotnick. He was divorced at the time. He lived there with his two kids."

"So why would he visit him?"

"I have no idea. I never asked. That was it. I never raised it with him. He wasn't having an affair. It was his secret. If he wanted to tell me, he would."

"And he never did?"

"Never."

They drank coffee, both lost in their own thoughts.

"You have nothing to feel guilty about," Jenna said.

"I don't."

"Dan is dead. One thing we had in common, neither of us believed in an afterlife. Dead is dead. He wouldn't care about being rehabilitated now."

"I'm not trying to do that either."