Benedict drove. My head spun. The doc had given me a shot that had lifted me up and dropped me in the middle of Loopy Land. I tried to focus, but putting aside the drinking and drugs, the threat to life was hard to shake. I had literally had to fight for survival. What was going on here? What could Natalie have to do with all this?
As we pulled into the staff parking lot, I saw a campus police car near my front door. Benedict looked a question at me. I shrugged and stepped out of the car. The head rush as I stood nearly floored me. I made my way to a standing position and started gingerly up the path. Evelyn Stemmer was the head of campus security. She was a petite woman with a ready smile. The ready smile wasn’t there right now.
“We’ve been trying to reach you, Professor Fisher,” she said.
“My cell phone was stolen.”
“I see. Do you mind coming with me?”
“Where?”
“President’s house. President Tripp needs to speak with you.”
Benedict stepped between us. “What’s this about, Evelyn?”
She looked at him as though he’d just plopped out of a rhino’s rectum. “I’d rather let President Tripp do the talking. Me, I’m just an errand girl.”
I was too out of it to protest. What would be the point anyway? Benedict wanted to come with us, but I really didn’t think it would behoove my position to have my best friend visit my boss with me. The front seat of the campus police car had some kind of computer in it. I had to sit in the back like a real-life perp.
The president lived in a twenty-two-room, 9,600-square-foot stone residence, done up in a style that the experts called “restrained Gothic Revival.” I was not sure what that meant, but it was a pretty impressive structure. I also didn’t see the need for the squad car-the villa sat on a hilltop overlooking the athletic fields, maybe four hundred yards from the staff parking lot. Fully renovated two years ago, the home could now play host to not only the president’s young family but, more importantly, to a full potpourri of fund-raising events.
I was escorted into an office that looked exactly like a college president’s office, just sleeker and more polished. Come to think of it, so did the new president. Jack Tripp was sleek and polished and corporate with floppy hair and capped teeth. He tried to fit in by dressing in tweed, but the tweed was far too tailored and costly to be bona fide professorial. His patches were too evenly cut. The students derisively referred to him as a “poser.” Again I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but it seemed apropos.
I have learned that human beings are all about incentives, so I cut the president some slack. His job, though couched in haughty terms of academia and higher learning, was all about raising money. Period. That was, and perhaps should be, his main concern. The best presidents, I had learned, were often the ones who understood this and thus came in with the least lofty agenda. By that definition, President Tripp was doing a pretty good job.
“Sit, Jacob,” Tripp said, looking past me to Officer Stemmer. “Evelyn, close the door on your way out, would you?”
I did as Tripp asked. Evelyn Stemmer did too.
Tripp sat at the ornate desk in front of me. It was a big desk. Too big and corporate and self-important. When I am feeling unkind, I often note that a man’s desk, like his car, often seems to involve, uh, compensation. Tripp folded his hands on a desktop large enough to land a helicopter and said, “You look like hell, Jacob.”
I bit back the “you should see the other guy” because, in this case, the rejoinder was in serious bad taste. “I had a late night.”
“You look injured.”
“I’m fine.”
“You should get it looked at.”
“I have.” I shifted in the seat. The meds were making everything hazy, as though my eyes were covered in thin strips of gauze. “What’s this about, Jack?”
He spread his hands for a moment and then brought them back to the desk. “Do you want to tell me about last night?”
“What about last night?” I asked.
“You tell me.”
So we were playing that game. Fair enough. I’d go first. “I went drinking with a friend at a bar. Had too much. When I came back to my place, two men jumped me. They, uh, kidnapped me.”
His eyes widened. “Two men kidnapped you?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“They said their names were Bob and Otto.”
“Bob and Otto?”
“That’s what they said.”
“And where are these men now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are they in custody?”
“No.”
“But you’ve reported the matter to the police?”
“I have,” I said. “Do you mind telling me what this is about?”
Tripp lifted his hand, as if he’d suddenly realized the desktop was sticky. He placed the lower parts of his palms together and let the fingertips bounce off one another. “Do you know a student named Barry Watkins?”
My heart skipped a beat. “Is he okay?”
“You know him?”
“Yes. One of the men who grabbed me punched him in the face.”
“I see,” he said, as though he didn’t see at all. “When?”
“We were standing by the van. Barry called out to me and ran over. Before I could so much as turn around, one of the guys punched him. Is Barry okay?”
The fingertips bounced some more. “He is in the hospital with facial fractures. That punch did serious damage.”
I sat back. “Damn.”
“His parents are rather upset. They are talking about a lawsuit.”
Lawsuit-the word that strikes terror in the heart of every bureaucrat. I half expected some lame horror-movie music to start up.
“Barry Watkins also doesn’t recall two other men. He remembers calling out to you, running toward you, and that’s it. Two other students recall seeing you flee in a van.”
“I didn’t flee. I got in the back.”
“I see,” he said in that same tone. “When these other two students arrived, Barry was lying on the ground bleeding. You drove off.”
“I wasn’t driving. I was in the back.”
“I see.”
Again with the “I see.” I leaned closer to him. The desk was completely bare except for one too-neat stack of papers and, of course, the requisite family photograph with the blond wife, two adorable kids, and a dog with floppy hair like Tripp’s. Nothing else. Big desk. Nothing on it.
“I wanted to get them as far away from campus as possible,” I said, “especially after that display of violence. So I quickly cooperated.”
“And by them, you mean the two men who… were they abducting you?”
“Yes.”
“Who were these men?”
“I don’t know.”
“They were just, what, kidnapping you for ransom?”
“I doubt it,” I said, realizing how crazy it all sounded. “One had broken into my home. The other waited in the van. They insisted I come with them.”
“You are a very large man. Powerful. Physically intimidating.”
I waited.
“How did they persuade you to go with them?”
I skipped the part about Natalie and dropped the bombshell instead. “They were armed.”
The eyes widened again. “With guns?”
“Yes.”
“For real?”
“They were real guns, yes.”
“How do you know?”
I decided not to mention that one had taken shots at me. I wondered whether the police might find bullets near the highway. I’d have to check.
“Did you tell anyone else about this?” Tripp asked when I didn’t answer.
“I told the cops, but I’m not sure that they believe me.”
He leaned back and started picking at his lip. I knew what he was thinking: How would the students, their parents, and important alumni react if they knew that gunmen had been on campus? Not only had they been on campus, but if I were telling the truth-questionable at best-they had kidnapped a professor and assaulted a student.