by Laina Turner
“We’re not trying to accuse you of anything. Just trying to validate information. Please sit back down,” I said softly, feeling bad I even asked her the question.
Abagail did so begrudgingly.
“Can you think of any reason why someone would say that then? Anyone you know that would want to make it look like you had a thing for President Stoddard?” Chloe asked. Good question, Chloe I thought. I should have asked from that point of view originally. Maybe it would have seemed less jarring.
Abagail sat there for a second and shook her head. “No. I don’t know why anyone would make that up about me but it’s absolutely not true. And if you really mean that this conversation won’t leave this room, or rather the three of us, then I will tell you something on that topic.”
“You have our promise,” I said, wondering if this might be our big break. Could what she was about to say tell us who might have an interest in kidnapping President Stoddard?
“I never had a thing for President Stoddard, but I think he may have had a thing for me,” she said tentatively, looking at both of our faces to see our reaction. I got the feeling she was afraid we wouldn’t believe her, which made me believe her all the more.
I did look over at Chloe, but I kept my reaction neutral. To be honest, that scenario surprised me a lot less than Abagail coming on to him. But I needed to know why she thought that. That was the more important part. This was quite a big accusation.
“I’m not trying to make it seem like I don’t believe you with what I’m about to say. I’m just looking for details. But why? What makes you think he was interested in you?” I asked.
“Last year I was on the presidential leadership committee. And while he never did anything inappropriate, I do want to make that very clear because if he had I would have reported it. No man should ever get away with sexual harassment.”
She said this firmly and I was so proud. So many women would be intimidated by his power and not report abuse. She continued talking and brought me back to paying attention.
“There were little things he did that just seemed, I don’t know, a little weird. He’d seek me out after the meetings to talk. And it wasn’t about topics we discussed in the meeting, which would have been fine but instead he’d ask me personal questions like if I had a boyfriend and what kind of things I liked to do in my free time. Once or twice he even showed up at places I was at with friends. Restaurants or the coffee shop in town. He’d make a point of coming over to me and laughing about the coincidence, but he’d only talked to me not my friends and they were all students, too, so it made no sense he’d not talk to all of us.”
“Did he ever ask you out?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, things never went that far, thank goodness. But I had the feeling he was waiting for the right opportunity. Nothing I can prove, just a feeling,” she quickly added.
“How did you get him to stop?” Chloe asked.
“That’s the funny thing, I didn’t do anything. His attention just stopped. One day after a meeting, he completely ignored me and never talked to me one-on-one again.”
I sat there for a second, processing the information when she started talking again. “Listen, I have to go. I am meeting with my study group. Trying to get a jump start on the semester. Professor Baird’s tests are tough, at least that’s what I’ve heard. Are we done here?”
“Of course. Sorry for taking up your time and thank you.”
She got up to leave and looked like she had something else on her mind. I looked at her.
“Something else you remembered, Abagail?” I asked.
She bit her top lip as if struggling with something. “I don’t want to talk out of turn but there’ve been rumors.”
My eyebrows raised. “What do you mean?”
“Rumors about President Stoddard.”
“Like?” I questioned.
“That he would choose a new co-ed each year to pay special attention to. At least that’s what I heard when I talked to a few people about the attention he was paying me, but I don’t know if it’s true. Like I said, he never did or said anything inappropriate to me.”
“Thanks, Abagail.” I said.
She turned to walk away again, and I called out to her. “Hey, Abagail?”
“Yes,” she said, turning back toward me.
“Professor Baird is a big fan of Freud. Especially his background,” I said and winked.
She smiled at me. “Thanks, Professor Little.”
Abagail walked away and Chloe and I turned toward each other.
“It sounds like Candy had it backwards,” I said, and Chloe nodded in agreement.
“Do you think that is how she truly felt or maybe it’s wishful thinking on her part?” Chloe asked me.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” I looked at my phone to see the time. Engineering building be darned, I wanted to talk to Amy even more now after what Abagail had told us.
“Let’s go see if we can figure out who that girl is that was on that list. See if she has the same kind of story,” I said, standing up.
Chapter 19
Chloe and I headed over to the engineering building and I couldn’t help but feel a little apprehension. Not because of the prospect of talking to a student I didn’t know that could potentially get me in trouble, even though that was a legitimate concern, but rather possibly running into my ex, Jefferson. I didn’t harbor any animosity against him, because I was the one who’d broken it off. While it had been my hope we could remain friends, he didn’t have the same attitude toward me. Plus, he was an unpredictable personality. It was something I’d found attractive in the beginning when it was more lighthearted and fun, but he also had his moments where he was dark and angry.
Sometimes he was fine and then sometimes he was downright mean. While he’d never been one to air his nasty side at work, I didn’t want to take the chance and normally tried to avoid him at all costs. It usually wasn’t hard since he didn’t mingle much with faculty outside the engineering people, but if I was going into his territory, that was a different story. It was like going into the lion’s den, so to speak. I realized it sounded very dramatic, but it’s how it made me feel. I would just keep my fingers crossed that we wouldn’t see him.
“She’s in room 206, which is on the second floor at the west end. Those stairs will take us up there.” I pointed to the stairwell. I normally didn’t take the stairs unless I had to, but in this building, the elevator was on the other end and I didn’t want to head over there. More of a chance that I would run into Jefferson. I just needed to put him out of my mind and focus on why I was here.
The room where Amy’s class was held was just letting out and since I didn’t know who she was or what she looked like, I figured I better just ask.
“Excuse me,” I asked a student rushing out the door. He raised his eyebrows as way of an answer.
“Do you know if Amy Westfield was in class?”
He shrugged in response and kept walking.
“Apparently not,” I said dryly to Chloe.
“Yes, he was a man of few words.”
Chloe and I asked a couple more students until someone pointed to a brunette talking to the professor in the room.
“Thanks,” I said and stayed outside to wait.
“He must have a type. She looks very similar to Abagail,” Chloe whispered.
“And to Tracy.”
All three ladies were petite brunettes with brown eyes. They didn’t really look alike but had similar hair and eye color, hair length and height.
“And complete opposites to his wife,” Chloe observed. She was right. Candy was a tall, leggy blond. Before we could make any more assumptions, Amy walked out.
“Excuse me, Amy?” I said.
“Yes?”
“I’m Professor Little, this is Professor Parsons. Can we talk to you a minute?”
She had the same confused look on her face Abagail had, but she nodded her head yes and we walked down to the
common student area.
Chloe and I went through the same spiel we had with Abagail and got essentially the same story. Amy had just been in a different committee. While this information gave more insight as to who President Stoddard was, it didn’t get us any closer to finding him.
Chapter 20
Something Shelley said the other day made me think that talking to Thaddeus’ ex-wife might be a good idea. A good idea from an information standpoint, not so much a good idea in the sense that I thought she would welcome my questions. Who knew what kind of reception I’d get, but thanks to Chloe, I was getting better at this confronting people thing.
Since they did have two children together, I was hoping she would be more inclined to help me for their sake even if she wasn’t that thrilled that I was trying to help Candy. My guess was there was a lot of animosity there. I mean how wouldn’t there be after what had happened?
I didn’t have the facts, just all the rumors that had circulated when he had taken the president’s position at our university. When Candy had met him, he’d still been married. A few months after carrying on an affair with Candy, he divorced his wife and soon after married her and took a new job. Presumably, to get away from all the negative gossip. Of course, this was all hearsay.
His old job had been at the university in Nebraska but when he’d moved to Ohio, his ex-wife and children had come with him. I assumed he was paying child and spousal support and it made sense for his ex and the kids to be nearby, but it sure did seem like an unusual arrangement. I didn’t know too many divorced couples that moved across country together but assumed they did it for the kids and had to hand it to them for putting their differences aside.
Shelley had given me her address and it wasn’t that far away; just on the other side of town, only twenty or twenty-five minutes away from where President Stoddard currently lived. Convenient for the kids, but it couldn’t be easy for the first Mrs. Stoddard to live so close to his new wife. I’d never been married but I wasn’t sure I could do it. I had to commend her for it.
I sat in my office and thought of the best way to handle a conversation like this. I didn’t think just showing up unannounced was the best course of action. Plus, I wouldn’t want to take the chance that the kids were home because they had to already be freaking out that their dad was missing. I didn’t want to add to that. At least I assumed they would know. They were teenagers, so it wouldn’t be easy to hide it from them.
Since Shelley had also given me her cell number, I figured I would just call. I looked at the piece of paper where Shelley had written Bethany Stoddard, along with the phone number and address. Tapping my fingers on the desk for a minute with nervous energy, I finally picked up the phone and punched in the numbers. It rang once and went right to voicemail, so she was either on a call or sent me to voicemail because she didn’t recognize the number.
“Ms. Stoddard, my name is Olivia Little and I’m a professor at Spencer University. I was hoping to talk to you for a second. If you could please give me a call at your earliest convenience that would be great,” I said into the phone and left my phone number. I hung up and set my phone back on the desk, not expecting a call back and mentally writing a note to myself to try calling back later. But to my surprise, my phone rang a few minutes later and I recognized her number on the display.
“Hello, this is Olivia.”
“Hi, Olivia, this is Bethany Stoddard. You called?”
I was taken aback by her cheerful conversational nature. She didn’t seem at all annoyed or curious as to why a complete stranger from the university her ex-husband worked for was calling.
“Thank you so much for calling me back Ms. Stoddard.”
“Please call me Bethany,” she interrupted.
“Bethany, I know it probably seems weird that I’m calling you, but I was wondering if you could answer a few questions about your ex-husband.”
“You mean like who could have kidnapped him?”
I sat there stunned, not knowing what to say when she started laughing.
“Sorry, but why else would you be calling me? I just find this whole situation amusing.”
Amusing? What part of kidnapping is amusing? I thought.
“What do you mean by amusing?” I came right out and asked. What was the worst that could happen? She would hang up on me.
“I’m sorry. I guess that’s callous of me. It’s just so like Thaddeus to pull a stunt like this to get the sympathy vote,” she said, and I could hear the resignation in her voice.
“Sympathy vote?” I faltered. I was bewildered. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I got the impression there was something else I didn’t know about him.
“It’s just like Thaddeus,” she continued. “When he does something wrong and gets in the hot water, he does something crazy to take the pressure off him.”
“Are you trying to tell me that that he is staged his kidnapping to take the focus off something else he did?”
“Well, of course I don’t have proof. But that’s his standard move. And I’ve known the man since we were teenagers.”
“What did he do that he would go to these extremes to take the focus off?”
At this she paused.
“Who did you say you are?” she asked more warily, giving me the impression she wanted to be careful who she talked to about whatever it was she had to say.
“My name is Olivia Little.”
“And who are you to my ex-husband?”
“I’m a professor at Spencer University and I guess you could say I’m a concerned party. I worked with him for a few years now and the fact that he’s missing just seems out of character. I guess I’ve kind of taken it upon myself to try to find where he may have gone.” What I said was pretty much the truth, but it didn’t sound that way as I heard myself say it. And it didn’t really sound like she felt that way either. I didn’t want to mention Candy because I didn’t think that would win her over.
“Well even with all his faults, Thaddeus was a good college president,” she started speaking again and I breathed a sigh of relief that she seemed willing to talk again though it sounded like she was changing topics.
“So, you really think he staged this, that he wasn’t really kidnapped?”
“I would bet my next child support payment that’s exactly what he did.”
She certainly did sound convincing. “Why?”
“You really don’t know?” Bethany said, slowly making me feel a bit like an idiot that I had no idea what she was talking about.
“No, I don’t.”
“He was, what do they call it, misappropriating funds.”
“You mean embezzling?” I said skeptically.
I hadn’t heard anything like that in the university gossip mill and that was quite a doozy of a piece of gossip. I didn’t quite know what to say, but I didn’t need to because she kept on talking.
“Don’t take my word for it, sweetie. Go ahead and asked that wife of his. It’s been great talking to you, but time for me to run,” she said and hung up, leaving me there holding the phone and wondering what the heck was going on. Did Shelley know about this?
Chapter 21
The only person who might know about the president misappropriating funds would be Shelley, who’s the one that directed me in the direction of Bethany Stoddard in the first place. Interesting that she hadn’t mentioned this to me already, unless she was trying not to gossip about President Stoddard. That would be somewhat unusual, especially in the current circumstances.
Shelley was the only one that would know what the president was doing in order to shed light on the money situation—well, except his wife—and I wasn’t going to go there. Yet.
I thought talking to her in person would be my best bet. I wanted to be able to see her reaction. I had a break in between classes so I headed over to her office, taking a detour out of my way to stop at the cafeteria and bring her a treat. Not that I felt Shelley needed buttering up to tell me what she kne
w, but it couldn’t hurt to take her a cupcake. Hopefully they had some left because they usually went fast.
Luck was with me and I got the last strawberry cupcake with butter cream frosting and sprinkles, which was Shelley’s favorite and one of mine, so I grabbed myself one, too. I then took the cupcakes and two cups of coffee and headed to Shelley’s office.
I opened the door, walking in. Shelley looked up, a smile spreading across her face, which grew even larger when she saw the coffee in my hand.
“Please tell me one of those coffees is for me. I desperately need some caffeine.”
“Not only that, but I also brought you a cupcake. Figured you might need an afternoon sugar rush as well.”
Shelley clapped her hands excitement. “It has been one of those days and I’m about to fall asleep at my desk. This is exactly what I need.”
I set her coffee and cupcake in front of her and I took a seat across from her while she took a drink and a bite of the cupcake, eyes rolling in the back of her head at how good it tasted.
“Every year the baking just gets better,” she said.
“I know. It’s hard to believe that we’re just a Midwest university and not some fancy culinary arts school.”
Shelley and I sat in silence for a few minutes enjoying our coffee and cupcakes. There was no reason to bombard her right off the bat with questions. I could wait until she was properly caffeinated and I needed an afternoon pick me up as well. But it didn’t take long until she was halfway done with her cupcake and she sat it down and looked at me.
“Okay, now that I don’t feel as much like falling asleep, is there a reason you stopped by? Don’t get me wrong, I love your company, but something tells me you have an ulterior motive,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows and laughing. She knew me so well.
“You caught me. I do have a couple questions. I talked to Bethany Stoddard.”
“Really? And how was that conversation?”
“Surprisingly good. She had no problem talking to me. In fact, she told me a lot of stuff I had no idea about. She’s very nice.”
