Choices: Mystery, Mistakes and a Student Goes Missing

By C. C. Fridgen Ph.D.

Kathy Ann Portney, a senior at Grainger College, is found at the bottom of a stairwell in the woman’s sorority dormitory and presumed dead. The school’s beloved head janitor of many years finds her. When he takes the president of the college to see the body, it’s gone.

Kathy Ann is the only child of the wealthiest and most influential family in the small town of Cotton Creek. Dr. Crosley, the president of Grainger College, makes the unfortunate decision to keep what he suspects has happened to Kathy Ann, a secret, while he tries to solve the mystery himself.

In the meantime the police chief of Cotton Creek also disappears, but a body is not found to help explain what might have happened to him. Chief Roger Meese is a very important member of the security team for Cotton Creek and the college falls within his jurisdiction.

As the story unfolds, the significant characters come together leaving the college in turmoil and the town searching for two prominent citizens.

To add to Dr. Crosley’s challenges the school mascot is prehistoric and loved by all but feared by many. Kathy Ann is not the first student to make a dramatic withdrawal from Grainger College. Two years prior to her disappearance another Grainger student disappeared and was found floating in the alligator mascot’s home pond. After a night of student partying Chompy jumped to the conclusion that this very drunk student was on the menu.

The choices selected by students and administrators can be destructive to the reputation of a college and therefore to funding and enrollment for years to come.

It is always best to make choices carefully and wisely.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664176256

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Copyright © 2021 by C. C. Fridgen, Ph.d.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 06/15/2021

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Cast of 20 Significant Characters

Chapter 1 The Body

Chapter 2 Body Gone

Chapter 3 The Life and Times of Jimmy Johnson

Chapter 4 The Police Chief Comes to Help

Chapter 5 The Police Chief Disappears

Chapter 6 Brother Blair Comes to Help

Chapter 7 The Mayor’s Input

Chapter 8 The Mayor’s Beginnings

Chapter 9 The Support Team Gathers

Chapter 10 The College Mascot Becomes Dinner

Chapter 11 Mary Askin to Lydia Portney

Chapter 12 The Unavoidable Meeting

Chapter 13 Malcolm Makes a Life

Chapter 14 Calling on Blair Again

Chapter 15 Roger Meese Before Cotton Creek

Chapter 16 The Psychiatrist

Chapter 17 The Private Detective

Chapter 18 The Young Virginia Robinson Crosley

Chapter 19 Discovering Roger in Jimmy’s Apartment

Chapter 20 Bringing The Mayor on Board

Chapter 21 John’s Marriage Does an About Face

Chapter 22 The Family is Together

Chapter 23 Virginia Understands

Chapter 24 The Gathering of Significant Players

Chapter 25 The Truth is Revealed

Chapter 26 The Future is Full of Choices

DEDICATION

To my wonderful life partner, Dr. Joseph Fridgen, who read many chapters as I drafted them, cooked many meals, spent hours piloting a vacuum around our home and kept us out of trouble by paying the bills on time, while I wrote. His belief in my abilities and me kept my spirits up and my production moving along at a respectable rate. I doubt that he realized how much his support, patience, and counsel meant to me.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To the many fellow writers and even larger numbers of readers who helped me to move from many years of writing science content to a new venture into the creative world of fiction. First and foremost were Patsy O’Leary and Dr. William Meggs who encouraged me to take expanded Post Graduate education in Creative Writing. I also want to thank the students and faculty of Michigan State University who so often gave me the fodder to feed my imagination. As I watched faculty cope with the culture of the academic environment I tried to learn from leadership icons such as Dr. Jon Bartholic, Director of the Institute for Water Research, Dr. Niles Kevern the chairperson of the Fisheries and Wildlife Department, Dr. Mary Andrews, Professor of Human Ecology, Dr. George Axinn, Professor of Resource Development and U.S. representative to Nepal, and a statewide network of Extension Agents in Michigan who shared their time and experiences to lend credibility to my descriptions of academic outreach.

As this book reached the halfway mark I found myself relocating for the fifth time in forty years to a new state and a new set of writing and learning experiences as well as a new group of fellow writers. In the process I joined the Chesapeake Bay Writers Association. Although all published authors the following writers including Tim Holland author of The Rising Tide, offered guidance as to the process of writing and publishing fiction. I would also like to thank Peter Stipe author of Remember Me and Elizabeth Browne author of Nature. They each helped in so many ways to make me feel welcome in the wonderful state of Virginia. I want to thank Melvyn and Mary Streets who were willing to read so much and make corrections in the first scan of the completed story. I also want to thank Becky Andrews who reads for the College of William and Mary for giving my work a through reading to correct punctuation, pacing and relational objectives. Her work was invaluable.

I want to offer a special and loving thank you to my son Craig Joseph who read the story before it was complete and discovered that I had a duplicate chapter. I want to thank the handsome couple on the cover of this book that happen to be my grandchildren as well as brother and sister and gave me enthusiastic permission to use their images to promote the spirit of the book.

CAST OF 20 SIGNIFICANT

CHARACTERS

CHAPTER 1

THE BODY

The janitor found her body at the bottom of the stairs, leading to a basement storeroom in the oldest sorority house dormitory on the small school campus. She had been a very pretty girl but as she lay in a heap, soaked in her own blood, it was hard to see her beauty.

Grainger College was a state supported liberal arts school in the Deep South. Generations of families had sent their young people to its quaint and beautifully landscaped campus. Kathy Ann Portney’s family could not really remember anyone going anywhere else and, of course, everyone knew they were the most generous contributors to the school’s endowment. Being an only child, Kathy Ann had been a bit spoiled. As a member of the same sorority as her mother had been twenty years before her, and with her last name on a couple of the academic buildings, she had been a celebrity on campus.

Jimmy Johnson had been a janitor at Grainger College through several generations of students and had only seen one other student not breathing and that was Freddy Compton who got drunk and fell in the pond behind the administration building and drowned. He was half eaten by the campus mascot, a large alligator named Chompy, before anyone found him. Jimmy sure wished he had not been the one to find Freddy, but that experience did give him a leg up on how to handle the finding of Kathy Ann’s body. Last time he went straight to the phone and called the local sheriff’s office. In no time there were sirens and flashing lights and a cadre of reporters all over campus. He almost lost his job over that and it was only Grainger’s president who saved Jimmy from being run off campus and out of town by the Compton family. They thought he should have been able to protect students from alligator mascots. The president who intervened on Jimmy’s behalf was John Crosley.

Jimmy carefully stepped over the body as his heart pounded and he felt clammy and light headed. He could not afford to get weak in the knees just yet. He unlocked the storeroom where seldom-used supplies were stored. He found one of the moving pads that had been left when a new stained glass window was brought to campus to replace the one that the girls’ softball team had hit a ball through. He carefully draped the heavy pad over the body and wondered, as he did, how long Miss Kathy Ann had been dead.

As Jimmy climbed back up the stairway and stepped into the bright daylight of the sorority lobby he was struck by the contrast of a beautiful setting against the terrible ugliness of the scene he had just left in the basement stairwell. He made his way across the main quad toward the administration building and up the front steps. As he walked down the hallway to the Presidents office he nodded to secretaries and students. Jimmy knew this campus so well and just about everyone on campus knew him. As he entered the outer office of the President’s suite, Marilyn was sitting at her desk with her head bowed down checking some pages. Probably checking a speech that Dr. Crosley was expected to give at spring commencement. She looked up when she heard his footsteps.

Hi Jimmy, what can I do for you?

Hi Marilyn, is Dr. Crosley in?

No, I’m afraid he isn’t. He went into Mobile to meet with the Governor and his staff. You know it’s budget time.

Do you know when he’ll be back?

Not exactly, but I’m afraid this may be an all day affair.

Is there any way I can get a message to him? Now Marilyn looked at Jimmy carefully. He was one of the family around here. Yes, he was a janitor, the head Janitor, but everyone knew that he was more than that. Sometimes the President would ask him to prepare tours for students, when they and their families would come for a pre-admissions trip. The students learned that Jimmy knew where everything was and how to get what they needed to have a special event. He wouldn’t buy booze for them but he would not rat on them if they brought booze onto campus. If he caught a couple getting particularly amorous he would just look the other way or even suggest a better place. Jimmy was well liked by all.

What’s up, Jimmy? Marilyn asked. Can I be of some help? It was so tempting to just unload this on her. She was so nice and always treated him with respect. He also knew that she had the respect of Dr. Crosley. But, no, he just could not tell anyone until he told the President. John Crosley had made it clear that Jimmy should always share sensitive information with him first.

Thanks, Marilyn, but I really need to pass along a confidential message to Dr. Crosley.

OK, why don’t you leave him a message on his voice mail, and a contact number where he can reach you when he gets in. Do you have his private line?"

I used to but have not used it in a long time. I have it in my address book in my office.

Well here it is. She said as she scribbled it on a piece of paper and handed it to Jimmy. I have a hunch that he may not return until after dark, so leave a contact where you can be reached after work hours, otherwise he may not get back to you until tomorrow.

Thanks, Marilyn, I appreciate the help and the advice

As jimmy left the administration building he hurried to a tree-covered knoll opposite the sorority house where he had found Kathy Ann’s body. He quickly dialed the President’s cell phone and got what he expected, his voice mail.

Dr. Crosley, this is Jimmy Johnson. I have some bad news for you and I need to tell you in person. I don’t want to make a mistake like I did last time when I found what was left of Freddy Compton. My cell phone number is eight eight three-six four five five. Please call me as soon as you can. I will wait in my office in the basement of the library until I get a return call from you. That should get the President’s attention, he thought.

Jimmy decided to walk over to the cafeteria and get a cup of coffee to settle his nerves. He had several jobs that needed attention today but he could not imagine concentrating long enough on any of them to even think about starting. By the time he walked back to his building his hands were shaking. He had coffee on his shirt and what was left in the cup was cold.

Jimmy unlocked the door and sat at his desk and drank what was left of his coffee. Should he go back over to the Sorority House and check on the body? No, he didn’t’ think he could face that scene again unless he had someone with him. He paced around his little office and finally went outside and walked the grounds He sat under his favorite tree and tried to concentrate on the birds singing, but nothing made the waiting any easier. He really wanted to tell someone what he had found, but he knew he really couldn’t. Jimmy had lived a tough life and John Crosley believed in him. Jimmy needed all the loyalty and support he could get right now.

As the bells rang for class changes he felt better. There was something calming about hearing those bells. Grainger didn’t hold night classes so when the last class ended at five o’clock and he watched student’s head for the dining hall he realized that this small semblance of normalcy was over. He thought about heading in for something to eat but just wasn’t hungry. So he just sat there. At last, just as the sun was going, down his cell phone rang.

Jimmy, this is John Crosley. Jimmy almost started to cry he was so relieved to hear Dr. Crosley’s voice. Sorry I could not call sooner, I am in the car on my way back to campus. What’s going on?

Oh, Dr. Crosley, I am so glad to hear your voice. I found a body at the bottom of the basement stairwell in the Phi Phi Sorority House. How long before you can be here?

Have you told anyone?

No sir, I told absolutely no one. Marilyn gave me your private line without making me tell her why I needed it.

Good we’ll do what we need to do as soon as I get there. Meet me at my parking space behind the administration building. I should be there in about forty minutes. If anyone asks you why you are waiting there, just tell them you’re waiting for me because my car is making a funny noise and I called to ask you to meet me and check it out.

I’ll be waiting for you Doctor Crosley. As Jimmy walked back toward the administration building in the dark he remembered the day he found Freddy and the hysterical parents, the intense policemen and, most of all, the pushy reporters. It was awful. He never wanted to go through that again, but at least this time he would have Dr. Crosley standing by him before he had to say anything.

He sat on the curb and leaned