by Carol Cox
Kate’s breath quickened. The professor’s manner seemed open enough, but she felt an underlying tension that set her on her guard and changed her mind about talking with him in his office as she’d originally planned.
She looked around and spotted several wrought-iron benches scattered across the picture-perfect lawn. “Why don’t we sit over there? No one is around right now, and it would be a fairly private spot.”
One corner of the professor’s mouth twitched, and Kate felt sure he understood her reluctance to meet with him alone.
They picked their way across the pristine lawn. Kate couldn’t shake the feeling that someone would come out of one of the buildings at any moment and scold her for marring it.
When they had settled on one of the benches, she turned to face Dr. White. “What is it that you need help with?”
He let his hands dangle between his knees and linked his fingers loosely together. He stared down at his hands for so long that Kate thought he might have forgotten she was there. Finally he looked up again. “You said you were from Copper Mill, right?”
Kate nodded.
Dr. White chewed on his bottom lip as if trying to decide what to say. “When I got to my office this morning, I found a voice mail left yesterday afternoon by a reporter from your local paper, saying that she’d like to talk to me. I had more important things to do at the time, so I didn’t return the call.
“She called again this morning while I was grading some student papers.” He gulped and added in a tone of disbelief, “She came right out and wanted to know if I had something to do with Casey Barnes winding up in the hospital.”
Kate sucked in her breath. “What did you tell her?”
“The truth,” he stated flatly. “I told her I had nothing to do with it.” He watched Kate closely, as if assessing her reaction. A moment later, his shoulders sagged. “She didn’t believe me either.”
Kate wrestled with her feelings, then said, “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure what to believe.”
The professor folded his arms across his chest and looked away. “You told me you were looking into a matter concerning Casey. I can only surmise that it has to do with this situation.”
When Kate didn’t deny it, he went on. “As I told you when we spoke on the phone, Casey was a student of mine last semester. I don’t know what she’s been telling people or what this reporter thinks really happened, but it sounds like she’s making me out to be some kind of predator. The truth is, she’s the one who’s been pursuing me.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kate frowned. That was just the kind of thing that a perpetrator would say to try to hide his guilt. Or the kind of claim an innocent man would make, she added in an attempt to view the statement without prejudice.
On top of that, Casey was young and attractive, and the professor...well, to put it kindly, he was not a prepossessing figure. But then, neither was Martin Chandler. Maybe Casey tended to be drawn to the more academic type.
“Why don’t you tell me about it?” Kate said. “I’d like to hear your version of what happened.”
Dr. White crossed one knee over the other and scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “She used to come to my office asking for help with her studies. Then she started asking for advice and coming around just so she could talk to me. I got the feeling that she didn’t have many friends, and the only relative who lived in the area was her great-grandfather. She used to visit him every so often.”
He tilted his head back to look up at the sky overhead and squinted in the sunlight. “She just seemed like a lonely sort of girl who needed someone to listen to her. So I did. I guess I thought she saw me as a kind of a father figure.”
One foot jiggled up and down as he spoke. “It wouldn’t have been the brightest thing to do, under most circumstances, but she seemed like a nice person. I thought she was just looking for someone to show a bit of friendly interest.”
Kate nodded, thinking that a term like friendly interest could be taken in more than one way.
“I should have seen the warning signs,” he went on, “but I have to admit I didn’t. And that wasn’t bright on my part either. Casey came around more and more often and started talking about some pretty personal issues.” A dull red flush rose above his shirt collar.
“I felt a little uncomfortable with that, but I told myself that the semester would be ending soon. I was sure it would all be over with and things would be back to normal after Christmas break. Looking back, I probably should have put a definite stop to it right then, but I really thought she’d forget about it and move on by the first of the year. But...”
He lapsed into silence again.
“But...?” Kate prompted.
“I didn’t have Casey in any of my classes when the new semester started in January, but she still came by my office several times a week. Then she started bringing me gifts. One time it was a book on philosophy, then it was a pocket organizer. A few weeks ago, she showed up with a sweater.”
Kate put her fingers to her lips, trying to align this version of Casey with the girl she had seen in the hospital. “That sounds a little personal for a student-teacher relationship.”
“Don’t I know it!” The words burst forth from his lips with force. “That was when I knew I’d let it go on too long. I told her she had to stop coming around.” He shot a quick glance at Kate, then looked at the ground. “She didn’t take it well.”
“What do you mean?”
“She went into hysterics and said she thought I cared about her. Well, I did care, but obviously not in the way she meant.”
“So did she stop visiting you?”
The professor shook his head. “She quit coming by, but she started calling me at my office. If I wasn’t in when she called, she’d leave emotional voice messages begging me to see her again. She started sounding more and more desperate, and I was beginning to worry that she might even do something to harm herself.”
“And you kept this to yourself?” Kate sputtered. “You didn’t report it to anyone?”
“No.” He looked at Kate, then glanced away.
“What about the voice mails? Do you still have them?”
He shook his head again, refusing to meet her eyes. “I deleted them.”
A gasp escaped Kate’s lips. “Let me get this straight. You have a young girl who is obviously distraught, who you think is emotionally fragile enough to do something drastic, and yet you keep this information to yourself and don’t even save a record of her calls begging for help? Why?”
The professor twisted his fingers together. “I don’t know...I guess it was partly because I’d let this whole thing go on so long and partly because I knew how it would sound if word of her infatuation with me got out. You hear so many reports these days of misconduct between teachers and their students. I didn’t want to chance being cast in that light.”
“But now...”
“Yeah.” Dr. White bowed his head. “That’s exactly the position I’m in.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Keeping quiet hasn’t done you any favors up to now,” Kate said briskly. “I know you were out at the campground. I think you’d better tell me what happened there.”
The professor’s foot jiggled more rapidly. “I had an all-day meeting with some other educators in Pine Ridge last Friday. During the lunch break, I got a call on my cell phone from Casey. I almost decided not to answer when I saw her number, but she’d been sounding so on edge lately, I was afraid to ignore her.”
He took a long, slow breath, and Kate could see his Adam’s apple bob up and down when he swallowed. “I could tell right away that something was wrong. She sounded frantic...Said she’d been driving around trying to think about what she needed to do, and her car had broken down at a campground somewhere near Copper Mill. Going off down some unfamiliar back road sounded just like the kind of crazy thing a girl her age would do, so I had no reason not to believe her.”
Kate lifted
an eyebrow but kept her opinions of his take on the intelligence of young women to herself.
“I knew she was too far from Chattanooga to get help from anyone at the college, so I agreed to stop by after I left the meeting and see if I could help her get the car started again. She gave me directions, and that was that. Or so I thought.”
He scrubbed at his face with the palm of his hand. “But when I got there, it was a different story. As soon as I got out of my car, she told me I had to make a decision. She said she knew we were supposed to be together, and it was time I realized it too.”
Kate blinked at this twist in the story. “And what did you tell her?”
“I said it was a crazy idea, that she needed to start looking at guys her own age and get on with her life.”
“How did she take that?”
The professor drew in a deep breath and let it out in a long, slow sigh. “She gave me an ultimatum: I could go away with her, or she’d call my wife and tell her we’ve been having an affair.”
He wiped a bead of perspiration off his forehead with the back of his hand. “My wife and I have been having trouble, and we’re just beginning to get our marriage back on track. If she hears about this, it will ruin everything.”
Kate’s pulse pounded in her temples. An ultimatum like that would put an immense amount of pressure on a man. Enough to make him snap and lose control?
The professor shook his head and continued. “I knew the best thing I could do was fix whatever was wrong with her car so we could get out of there. And do you know what I found when I looked under the hood?” His voice rose in disbelief. “She’d pulled off the distributor cap!
“That was it as far as I was concerned. I told her I’d had enough of her game playing, and I was leaving then and there.”
“You just drove away, then, and that was that?” Kate let her skepticism show in her voice.
“It didn’t work out quite like that,” he admitted. “When I turned around and started back to my car, she threw her arms around me and begged me not to leave. She had some wild story about having enough money to take care of us both. As crazy as she was acting, I started wondering if she’d robbed a bank or something. I was finally able to peel her off and told her she needed to grow up and face reality. That’s when she really lost it.
“She went into hysterics and screamed that she hated me. Then she pulled away and ran off into a nearby building. Like a fool, I went charging after her. I think I had some notion of calming her down and talking some sense into her. Instead, she was waiting for me there inside the ladies’ room, of all places. She grabbed my arm and started begging me not to reject her. I pulled out of her grasp and headed for the door as fast as I could. That’s probably when I lost my cuff link.” He shook his head again. “Who knew that it would be the thing that linked me to her and got me in all this trouble?”
“No,” Kate said. “I think your trouble started when you failed to realize that all her bids for attention were really a cry for help.”
Roger White looked off into the distance. “You’re probably right. But anyway, once I pulled loose from her, I got in my car and left her there at the campground.”
“That’s all?” Kate asked. “You didn’t have anything to do with her injuries?”
“I’d swear to that,” he said. “I got out of there as quickly as I could, and my only thought at the time was that I’d made a lucky escape. When I left her, she was emotionally distraught, but fine physically.”
Kate watched him carefully. “So what do you think happened to her?”
Dr. White raked his fingers through his hair. “I have no idea. But if word gets out that I was involved in any of this, I’m done for. Not only will my wife leave me, but if the school gets wind of it, I’ll lose my job on top of everything else.”
The sincerity of his demeanor almost convinced Kate to believe him despite what Casey had told her, but she couldn’t allow herself to be swayed by his persuasive words.
“Can you explain to me how Casey came by all those bruises?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “I swear to you, when I left that campground, she was perfectly all right.”
Kate studied him carefully, looking for traces of guilt. “You’ve certainly put a new spin on things with that story,” she said at last.
“Then you believe me? You’ll help me prove that I didn’t have anything to do with this?”
Kate shook her head. “I won’t make any guarantees. All I can promise you is that I’ll keep on looking for the truth.”
Dr. White looked intently into her eyes, then he nodded. “I guess that’s all anyone could ask.”
He rose and walked over to the Fleming Building. Kate remained on the bench a little while longer, drawing comfort from the quiet and letting the stillness of the setting fill her being.
She felt as if her brain was on information overload. What she needed more than anything else at the moment was time to process what she’d just heard. Kate knew there were at least two sides to every story, but the versions she’d heard from Casey Barnes and from Dr. White weren’t just different views of the same event; they were diametrically opposed. Both parties couldn’t be telling the truth.
Roger White’s story had sounded plausible enough, but then, so had Casey’s. And at times, Kate had felt that each of them was holding something back. Which one could she believe?
Lord, I feel like I’m walking blindly here, but you know the truth. Help me to discover it.
Still feeling unsettled despite her prayer, she rose and started across the manicured lawn.
A white car bearing the logo of the Chattanooga police department pulled up next to the curb. Two officers got out and walked into the faculty office building.
Kate froze and watched them with a sense of foreboding. What was going on?
She heard startled exclamations behind her and turned to see students gathering to gawk as the door of the Fleming Building opened and the two police officers emerged with Roger White between them, his hands cuffed behind his back.
The police officers ignored the growing crowd as they hustled the professor off to the waiting patrol car. While one opened the rear door, Dr. White scanned the group of watchers. His eyes met Kate’s, and their gazes locked.
A bitter taste rose up in Kate’s throat. Despite her earlier certainty of Roger White’s guilt, his version of what had happened at the campground had raised some serious doubts about Casey’s story. A new question formed in her mind: where had the reporter from the Copper Mill Chronicle learned of the professor’s alleged involvement in the assault on Casey Barnes?
As far as she was aware, only a few people knew about Casey’s accusation. A slip from any one of them could have been enough to set an alert reporter’s antennae quivering. Skip, for instance, had been known to say more than he should on a number of occasions. Or...
Her mind flitted back to her conversation with Livvy and LuAnne in the diner the day before, and her heart sank. She’d worried at the time about someone overhearing her as she discussed the case with them, but apparently she hadn’t worried enough. She knew neither Livvy nor LuAnne would have repeated anything she’d told them; she would trust those two with her life. But had someone else picked up on what they were saying and passed that information along to the reporter?
If that were the case, it would seem she had done the same kind of rumor spreading that she’d just cautioned Melanie and her friends about.
Lord, forgive me! I didn’t mean to spread gossip or point an accusing finger at an innocent man.
But was the professor innocent? Someone had put those bruises on Casey Barnes’ face. Was Roger White responsible? Or was it Martin Chandler...or someone Kate had yet to consider?
She pressed her hand against her forehead and tried to still the feeling that everything in this case had just turned upside down.
Lord, what’s going on here?
Chapter Twenty-Five
After stopping for a
quick lunch—a grilled chicken wrap and iced coffee—Kate set off on the drive home. She turned on her car radio and fiddled with the knob until she found a Christian music station. The praise music soothed her troubled spirit, and she sang along with every song she knew until the music faded out and static took its place.
Back in Copper Mill, she decided to stop by the church so she could tell Paul what had happened during her visit to the college. Since it was midafternoon, she knew that Millie would be long gone. The thought produced a guilty sense of relief.
Kate let herself in the side entrance that led into Millie’s office. She walked across the tidy space and tapped on Paul’s door. His eyes lit up when he saw her a moment later.
“Hi there,” Kate grinned. “I thought I’d stop by and catch up on what’s been happening. Do you have time?”
Paul stepped aside so she could enter his private office. “I’d never turn down the chance to talk to my favorite church member. Did you learn anything in Chattanooga?”
Kate fought the temptation to roll her eyes. “More than I ever expected. I just wish I knew what to make of it all.” They sat down while she gave him a full recap of her conversation with Melanie and her friends and what Melanie had told her about Martin Chandler’s temper and his relationship with Casey.
Paul frowned when she finished. “A cover-up may be right on target. I think you ought to give that information to Skip so he can check Martin out.”
“Already done.” Kate smirked when Paul raised his eyebrows. She chuckled and added, “Great minds think alike, honey. I called him on my way home.”
Paul settled back in his chair, and his face relaxed into a smile. “It sounds like you’ve had a productive day.”
“That isn’t the half of it,” Kate said with a rueful laugh. She went on to tell him about running into Roger White and gave him the professor’s version of the incident at the campground the previous Friday.