Since She Went Away(35)
“That’s fine,” she said. “I’ve had kind of a long day too. But I only had a salad for lunch, so I’m going to make grilled cheese or something.” She threw out one of his favorites, hoping to see if he might go for it. But he didn’t respond. He pulled the covers tighter around his body, returning to his cocoon. “If you want something later, just let me know.”
He grunted again. She backed away and slipped out of the room, leaving him to his misery.
? ? ?
But Jenna didn’t make anything.
She changed her clothes in the bedroom, kicking off her shoes and peeling off the scrubs and then changing into a pair of yoga pants and a favorite University of Kentucky basketball sweatshirt. On her way through the kitchen, she grabbed some carrots and a tub of feta cheese dip and carried them to the spare bedroom she used as an office. She kept a desk in there, a laptop, and a filing cabinet. She also kept the closet stuffed with summer clothes and papers she couldn’t justify getting rid of. She placed the dip and the carrots on the desk and signed on to the computer.
Jenna always felt dirty when she did it. Almost as if she were logging on to look at pornography. In a way, she was. Before Celia disappeared, Jenna never realized an entire world existed online devoted to news and theories about missing persons cases and unsolved crimes. It made sense once she thought about it—there was something on the Internet for everybody. Every fetish, every hobby, every obscure interest or wish.
In the first weeks after Celia’s disappearance, Jenna found herself visiting the sites simply hoping for more information. The police only talked about so much, and the media, national and local, devoted only a certain amount of time and energy to any one case. And the reporters and journalists selected only the juiciest details to share, the ones that played best on a national stage.
But the Web sites and message boards struck the right balance. Yes, crazies and rumormongers jumped into every conversation, spinning the most outrageous theories possible, including alien abduction, satanic cults, and government conspiracy. But that was the lunatic fringe. A lot of people on the sites seemed to want to help. They approached the scant evidence with a logical mind-set and offered constructive ideas that managed to make Jenna feel comforted. She never knew what the police were doing or thinking, but she imagined they were tracing some of the same connections, no doubt with more thoroughness and more practical experience than the amateur sleuths on the Web.
Jenna went to the Dealey Society page first. They kept their breaking news section current, and the message boards were always active. A thread, dedicated to Celia’s case, received constant traffic and updates from members. Jenna posted from time to time. If a thread or a conversation was going in an interesting direction, and she wanted the discussion to keep going, she would jump in and ask something pointed to keep things in motion. In an effort to avoid a flood of private messages and possible attacks, she used a pseudonym, Polly Baker, a name she chose at random, and she tried to never reveal anything that would let others know how close to the case she really was. When she clicked on the thread about Celia, a cascade of new information unrolled before her. Understandably so. A number of things had happened in the last couple of days, and everybody wanted to offer their opinions about them.
People went after Reena Huffman, calling her a sensationalistic hack who exploited the tragedies and vulnerabilities of crime victims. A few people dissented, defending her and giving her credit for keeping victims’ stories in the news. But it wasn’t a majority opinion.
A number of people talked about Jenna and her f-bomb on Reena’s show. For the most part, the commenters sided with Jenna. Either they found her outburst funny or they took Reena to task for sticking a microphone in her face in the midst of tragedy, never mind the fact that it wasn’t Reena who held the microphone. It was Becky, her local minion. A few people openly wondered about Jenna, picking up on Reena’s comments from the previous night. Some even speculated that Jenna should be a suspect, that she might have killed her friend for some reason no one knew yet.
Jenna had seen those comments before, but they always hit her like a slap. To be thought capable of murder, even by the craziest of the crazy. To wonder how many people in Hawks Mill suspected her of a deeper, more sinister involvement. A convulsive shiver passed through her body, the equivalent of stepping on a slug while barefoot.
Was that part of the deal with the patient at work?
He attributed it to her “foul mouth,” but what if it was something more? Some darker crime others suspected her of committing? And if that was the case, what if they never really found out what had happened to Celia? Would she live under that cloud forever? And when would it leak over and affect Jared’s life as well?
She navigated away from that section. She couldn’t give in to it, couldn’t let the poisonous thoughts of others seep inside her head. She clicked the mouse a few times with her right hand and grabbed a couple of carrots with her left. Advanced multitasking, she and Jared called it. Eating while using the computer.
And then there was an entire thread devoted to the earring being found. New messages popped up in that thread every few seconds. The dominant theory seemed to be that Benjamin Ludlow was the guy who followed Celia. He killed her and held on to the earring until he needed the money and tried to pawn it. People called him scum, homeless, vagrant, worthless, and a hundred other names.
Jenna sat back. For a moment, just a moment, she felt a kinship with Benjamin Ludlow. He was being tried in the court of the Internet. A message board and a group of mostly anonymous posters as judge, jury, and executioner.