Threads of Suspicion(109)

“She had other guys on her line. I was lower down her priority list, but she kept coming back. I started getting worried about how Jenna was going to play Lynne, cause problems from the other direction since I wasn’t falling in line. Jenna was just starting to drop hints that direction when she disappeared. Had it gone on another few months, I would have been fighting a battle against the damage she was doing on that front. I can’t say I wasn’t relieved Jenna was gone, even as horrible as that sounds.”

“Lynne’s someone I imagine you instinctively want to protect,” Evie remarked, “and you saw trouble coming. I’ve got no problem with your instincts, Jim. They were the right ones, given what I’m learning about Jenna.”

“Thanks.” He thoughtfully turned his coffee mug between his hands. “I may not be the smart college guy, but I can hold my own with your psychology-trained graduate. I’ve seen a lot of soap operas play out here, having spent my middle school years doing homework at the side table over there, and my high school after hours on the cash register. I’ve seen the college crowds come and go. Jenna was rare, unique—and not in a good way, I’m afraid. She was probably the most calculating for how to play a guy of anyone I ever saw up close.

“This is the coffee crowd,” he explained, with a gesture to the room. “Come evenings, this place will be crowded and the music loud, and we’ll be hauling in folding chairs so you’re not sitting on the floor. The ones who drink the beers get emotional; that’s the other side of campus. This is the subtle crowd, weighing tone of voice and choice of words. ‘How do I want this next conversation to go?’ Jenna had the good-girl wrapper. Didn’t drink or smoke, cry about her weight, make a scene. She was smart, came with a pretty smile—and the guys fell over like bowling pins. I don’t think many people noticed the real Jenna. Candy did. I did. And surprisingly, I think to some extent Steve did.

“He wouldn’t say much, but he had her pegged and wasn’t letting her set the agenda. Jenna wanted the proposal, the engagement ring, and Steve wasn’t going to give in to her on when that should happen. She was subtly suggesting she might move on, lining up his possible replacements. She didn’t get the fact Steve was the adult in the relationship, while she was still immaturely playing high school pecking order. My sense of it is he really loved her or he would have given her the shock of her life and let her go. He was willing to put in the time for her to grow up, but he had his work cut out for him. She was playing other guys right up until the day she vanished, and that has always left a queasy feeling in my gut.”

“Did Lynne know Jenna was pushing your buttons?”

He recoiled, shaking his head. “No. No, she didn’t realize what was going on. Lynne . . . well, she just doesn’t catch on to subtle. Innuendos go right by her. Even actual rudeness often registers only as someone being abrupt. She hadn’t known what Jenna was doing, and her true friends were sympathetic, patting my arm, doing what they could to edge Lynne’s time away from Jenna. But most of them were state college, not Brighton, and weren’t around as much as Jenna. On the surface, Jenna was Lynne’s friend, and Lynne couldn’t see deeper than that.”

“When did you last see Jenna?”

“You mind if we shift to the music store? There’s an office in back.”

He wanted a smoke, she realized, fidgeting rippling his fingers. A good guy with a vice he’d want to hide from this very green, nothing-as-crass-as-nicotine college crowd. “No problem. Lead the way.”

David had been deliberate in not making it seem like two on one. Evie caught his eye with a tiny shake of her head as she passed, and left him to fill the time spending more money on music for his girl.

The back office was a desk and two mostly comfortable chairs tucked in behind boxes neatly shelved floor to ceiling. “I saw Jenna the night she disappeared,” Jim told her.

Evie sincerely hoped her phone recording in her pocket was doing its job. She settled into one of the chairs, forced herself to relax, and simply waited for what he might be willing to say next.

Jim opened a desk drawer, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, held it up till she shook her head with a smile, then lit one for himself. “It was after the concert. It’s a huge, Mount Everest kind of Friday night for Lynne, with Triple M playing and Maggie herself in Lynne’s dressing room. Lynne cleaned that dressing room and adjoining bathroom for a good six extra hours on her own time, fussed over every towel, handpicked flowers for the bouquet on the dressing room table, polished every surface until it shone. She had to make sure everything was perfect for Maggie.