The Education of Giacomo Jones Ch. 06

When preseason camp began, Rance Edward Martin and Giacomo Maria Jones were just two Fulbright students who knew nothing more about each other than maybe their given names.

During that span, Rance and Gia had fallen deeply in love and lost their virginity to each other.

Also during that span, a psychopathic killer had been set free in New Jersey intent on avenging a perceived betrayal by Gia Jones, and his bloody southern sojourn would leave five people dead and another wounded across three Atlantic Coast states before he would die at the hands of police rifles as he attempted to plunge a knife into Gia.

Now, as Gia stretched, wiped the sleep from her eyes and opened the cottage's heavy hurricane blinds, her mind reeled at this rare moment of rest, unencumbered by classes or studying or the constant demands of a winning football season. The memory of Geno Millions and the terror he wrought had not disappeared, but she had managed to keep it sufficiently boxed away, to deprive it of room to contaminate her waking hours.

For the first time in longer than she could remember, Gia breathed deeply, then slowly exhaled, pushing months of stress from her body as she did.

●●●

Gia's hands were shaking as she walked across the Fulbright campus on the brisk late Tuesday morning on her way to the Fulbright Student Union building where she was scheduled to meet Vangie Overshaw at the Starbucks adjacent to the campus bookstore.

She had called Vangie and asked for her advice on how to handle the pending visit by Caroline Agostinelli of '60 Minutes' and the discussion about the interview. But as she climbed the low rise toward the Union — topographically, the highest point on campus — as the pin oak leaves crunched on the brick walkway beneath her feet, the Agostinelli interview was having a hard time staying on the forefront of her consciousness.

Fulbright's first lady, mother to a grown daughter of her own, recognized that Gia was shaken over something before they greeted each other at the campus coffee shop.

"Hi Gia. I hope you won't consider me too forward if, before we sit down, I ask you what's bothering you," Vangie said.

"Uh ... I'm fine, Vangie. No ... really," Gia said in a jittery tone and manner that immediately confirmed Vangie's earlier intuition.

"My dear girl, walk with me, get out where the air's fresh, the sun's out and we can speak freely," Vangie said.

They had strolled several hundred feet and emerged into the now-empty expanse of the Fulbright Reserve, resplendent in its orange, yellow, brown and maroon autumnal foliage. Without Vangie following up, saying nothing, it came pouring out of Gia.

"Vangie, I did everything right — everything. I made up all the lapsed classwork, everything that's on the posted syllabus on Five Star," Gia said, referencing Fulbright's secure, academic portal for students to submit and track their classwork and assignments. "He tells me there's some sort of missing assignment that's overdue, that it has to be turned in before I can even take the final, and without the final, I can't complete the course and graduate on schedule next month."

"Whoa ... whoa, Gia. Who's he? What class is this. When did this happen?" Vangie said, a supportive hand on both of Gia's arms as the student's composure began to crumble. "What's going on, dear?"

Gia abandoned her effort to keep her emotions in check, held onto Vangie and wept. Vangie led her to a bench along the edge of the open space of the Reserve where it gives way to a cordon of oaks, maples and ornamental Bradford pear and cherry trees. They sat down and, as always, it was Vangie who had the necessary facial tissue Gia used to dab her tears. Vangie held the hand Gia was not using to dry the streaks that ran from her eyes down her cheeks to her chin.

"Take it slow. Start at the beginning and tell me what happened," Vangie said.

Some part of Gia felt guilty that she had not spoken to Rance first. She hadn't even answered a pair of texts from him. She'd been too rattled in the moment and she wondered if, after she told him what had happened, that Rance might not break every bone in the spindly body of Edelbert Haines.

But now Vangie waited patiently, empathetically beside Gia to hear what had just rocked her world — again.

"We were wrapping up my class, Advanced Molecular Biology Theory and Practice, when the professor, Dr. Haines, as everyone's heading to the door, looks toward me and says, 'Ms. Jones, a word please?'" Gia said. "So I stopped on the way out as he was erasing the whiteboard and just waited."

"So Professor Haines waits til everybody's gone and then asks me how I was going to make up the missing assignment. I was stunned because I know I've done everything that was on Five Star. I put my books down and pulled out my tablet to make sure and look it up, and he stopped me. He says I won't find it in Five Star because it was a class assignment that was made in October when I was out and struggling to remain sane," Gia said.

"So I told him, 'Dr. Haines, this is the first I've heard of any assignment. I would have done it had I known,' and he cuts me off before I could explain why I was out during that period, though I am pretty sure he knows," Gia said.

"What happened next really freaked me out," Gia said. "He puts a hand on my shoulder, slides it down my back and lets it linger on my waist, and I'm pulling away from him. Then he gets threatening and he tells me that we've got to work something out and we have very little time to do it because the final is in less than two weeks."

Now, Gia's shock and fear were turning to anger.

"He tells me that it would be a shame for someone who was on track to not only graduate but graduate among the top two or three students at Fulbright to have to miss graduation altogether because a requisite course was incomplete," she said.

"Then he tells me that I need to stop by his apartment on Faculty Row sometime between 8 and 10 tonight so maybe we could, and here's how he put it, 'work out an equitable solution that leaves us both happy.' He puts a piece of paper in my hand with his house number written on it."

"What's his name, Haines? What's his first name?" Vangie said, anger now clouding her face.

"Edelbert," Gia said. "Edelbert Haines."

Vangie put an assuring arm around Gia.

"Men think they can get away with anything, and it pisses me off. And the sad thing, at least in my experience, they do get away with it. Occasionally a Harvey Weinstein or a Bill Cosby gets caught but ..." Vangie said. She gritted her teeth as rage coursed through her.

●●●

Gia's hand trembled as she reached for the brass knocker just beneath brass numbers that identified the dark green door to unit 22-C on Faculty Row and just above the small, engraved brass placard that bore the name "Haines." All alone, she had to make a conscious effort through her fear to inhale and exhale.

It was after 8 p.m. and Rance had been texting her nonstop asking in increasingly frantic tones where she was and shy she wasn't responding to his calls, texts or emails. He knew she wasn't in her Honors College room. He had even persuaded the resident advisor to open the door, something that was generally against the rules but for someone who had endured what had happened in that building nearly two months earlier, an exception was made.

Gia texted him just once. I will be OK. Just something I have to do right now on my own. Can't explain. Will text you later this PM. She followed it with three heart emojis.

She felt as though her heart was in her throat when she heard the deadbolt to 22-C unlatch from the inside. When the door opened and Edelbert Haines stood before her in his pajamas, she had to fight off an instant wave of nausea.

"Ah, Miss Jones. Lovely of you to drop by, my dear," Haines said, standing aside behind his open door and gesturing with his left hand for her to enter. Every impulse of her nature screamed at her to run the other direction. Somehow, she commanded her voluntary nervous system to take one step inside ... then another ... and another. Then she heard the door close behind her and the deadbolt fasten back into place.

"May I pour you a drink, Miss Jones? I have anything from soft drinks to beer to a fine single-cask bottle of Blanton's Select, a limited edition single-barrel bourbon," Haines said. Of course, it was a felony in South Carolina to offer alcohol to anyone under the age of 21, but considering what he intended for the evening, it seemed a minor threshold to cross.

"Sure. Ginger Ale if you have it," she said.

"Certainly. Make yourself comfortable on the sofa and I will be back in a moment," Haines said as he seemed to scurry into his kitchen. She put her purse on the coffee table before her and looked for a spot on the brown sofa least covered in cat hair.

Any doubt about his intentions for the evening was removed when Gia saw unmistakable evidence that Haines was stiffening beneath his baggy, cotton pajama bottoms, a sight she found revulsive. Haines was a stringy, bespectacled and thin man who appeared to be in his late 50s or early 60s. He had sparse, stringy, grayish-blond hair, teeth were misaligned and breath so foul that one need not intrude on his personal space to detect his chronic halitosis. He was Gollum, grown to a height of just under six feet.

Staying in the same room with this vile man for as long as it took to do what she had to do to hopefully save a lifetime of academic achievement was not something she was sure she could force herself to do, not to mention what she would have to do before leaving.

She heard ice dropping into a glass. She heard a refrigerator door open and shut. She heard a cabinet open and shut. And about three minutes after he entered the kitchen, Haines emerged with a glass tumbler in each hand. In one, ginger ale fizzed against cubes of ice. In the other was a half-inch of shimmering, brown liquid, poured neat.

"Here you go, my dear," Haines said, handing Gia her soft drink before he took his seat on the sofa about a foot from her — not near enough to be in contact with Gia but uncomfortably and unprofessionally close on the full-sized couch.

"Now, Miss Jones, have you given any thought into how we might resolve the issue of the missing paper that was assigned to the class while you were ... so regrettably detained and not in attendance," Haines said with a leering smirk on his ashen, drawn face.

"Dr. Haines, it appears you have me at a significant disadvantage. Clearly, I would have done the work and turned it in by now had I known of it. But because I knew nothing of it until you told me this afternoon, and with so little time before finals, it appears I am out of options," she said, her head downcast, eyes fixed on the fizzy drink she clutched desperately in both hands.

"You are aware of my academic standing in this year's class, the graduate fellowships I stand to lose if for some reason I can't receive my degree," she said in a voice devoid of life. "So I suppose it's up to you to tell me what's now expected of me so that I can keep my education — actually, my life — on track."

Those were words that, until today, Gia believed she would never have to abase herself to utter. And now that she had made herself say them, she sat intentionally mute awaiting whatever Haines chose to do or say.

"I am a man in the autumn of his years, Miss Jones," Haines said. "My passion is my work, and I am, as you know, among the nation's most highly regarded in the field of biological chemistry, and it's something I've worked a lifetime to achieve as I am sure you aspire to one day do," he said, taking not just a sip but a hearty swallow of his bourbon. The sweet scent of it pervaded the air around them.

"Now, I have no doubt that you know the material, Miss Jones, and that you will do well on the final exam, provided we can find an acceptable way, a ... bridge, perhaps, over this existing impasse to get you there," Haines said, extending his left hand to Gia's upper arm. He stroked it softly up and down a few times. Cold chills raced through her body as it physically recoiled for an instant from his touch.

"You see, Miss Jones, I am my own master, the captain of my own ship, in the classroom and world of research. My words can determine the fate of research grants, offers of employment, even move the scientific consensus of the bioscience, biotech, biopharmaceutical industries," he said. "But outside that setting, my dear, I have ... needs. Needs all men have that I can't resolve alone."

At that moment, Haines' left hand slid from Gia's arm to her right shoulder and began a slow slide down the slope of her right breast, lingering at its apex where her nipple would be hidden beneath a heavy sweater and a padded bra and then back up to her shoulder.

"Professor Haines, what exactly are you asking me to do?" Gia said, still staring at the drink in her hand but now her words businesslike, tinged slightly with the resentment she could no longer conceal.

Haines's hand became more insistent now, resuming its downward course, once more across Gia's right breast toward her abdomen and her hips until it reached her upper thigh, where it lingered.

"I think you know, Miss Jones. I'm not asking you to do anything, at least nothing that a healthy young woman with her own desires wouldn't want to do," he said. "That would seem especially true for so gifted and beautiful young lady as yourself with what, by all measures, a potentially brilliant future ahead."

Gia heard a rustling of garments to her right and forced her eyes off the glass of ginger ale and to her right, where she saw Haines' free hand unbuttoning the fly to his pajama bottoms and reach inside. When it re-emerged, Haines' erect cock was in its grasp.

"By all means, Miss Jones, touch it. Feel free to use it for your pleasure ... our pleasure," he said, attempting to take Gia's right hand off the tumbler of ginger ale she gripped tightly.

"So, Professor Edelbert Haines, you're telling me that my timely graduation depends on my touching your penis," she said to him, coldly.

"You're not a stupid girl, Miss Jones. Why are you being so dense?" he said, perhaps imagining Gia was playing coy, hard-to-get. "Think of it as a magic wand that, if you take care of it the right way, all your problems go poof! They vanish."

His hand had tightened its grip on Gia's right wrist, painfully attempting to pry her hand away from her glass and pull it toward his groin as he scooted closer to her on the sofa.

"RESCUE! RESCUE!" Gia screamed as she wrenched her arm free of Haines' grasp in a self-defense maneuver she had been taught by a woman University Police officer. She jumped to her feet and quickly backed away from him.

"Oh Miss Jones, you're making a huge mistake. If you don't want a life of teaching middle-school science or waiting tables, you will bring your sweet little pussy over here ...," he said as Gia saw the spurned professor's face redden with rage, " ... right ... NOW!"

His last word could have been the go code. As as the word left his mouth, his front door exploded open, slivers of wood from the shattered door facing and pieces of the destroyed deadbolt itself flying into Haines' living room.

"State Police! Do not move," a burly man in black fatigues, a helmet and a flak jacket emblazoned with the large white letters SCSP and his service weapon drawn shouted at the stunned professor still seated on his sofa, still grasping his wilting manhood, his yellowed teeth bared in a rictus of fear.

Behind the officer, other police officers flooded into the room, including Lt. Robert Blanding, who walked directly to Gia and draped a black police windbreaker around her shoulders as she began to weep. The woman officer who taught her the self-defense moves before her encounter with Haines came to her and led her from the room, out the wrecked front door and into a waiting black SUV where Vangie Overshaw waited to embrace her.

"You did ... perfectly, Gia. So brave, so ...," Vangie said before emotion choked off her words as well. They wordlessly hugged each other for several minutes until Lieutenant Blanding approached the vehicle.

"Miss Jones, I don't have enough words to thank you. In each of the past two months, you have been essential to our efforts to take down two serial predators. We've had Haines on our radar for months," he said.

"What he tried to do with you just now? He succeeded with several other terrified young women. None of them have been willing to testify because they thought they would wreck their reputations and still no one would believe them. They thought he'd get away with it and he'd destroy their careers. But because you came forward in advance and wore a wire and got him on the purse cam, we have enough to send Haines to prison for what's left of his life. And now that there's proof against him, there are several girls who will not be willing to sign affidavits and testify against Haines."

Through the remnants of the door to apartment 22-C just a few dozen feet away, the sounds of the bizarre scene unfolding inside were audible. At one moment, Haines was crying like a hysterical child, begging the officers to leave him alone and occasionally emitting a high-pitched, agonized howl. The next, he was screaming incoherent threats the officers, assuring them he would use his standing in the scientific and academic world to ruin them personally and professionally.

A few feet behind Gia, Vangie placed a call on her phone.

"Art, it's all over," she told her husband, the university president. "This time they got him cold and he's gone for good. You'll need to have Campus Properties come by after the cops process the crime scene and put plywood or a temporary door on his apartment." She listened silently for a moment. "Yeah, he deadbolted it once Gia walked in and the officers splintered it when they kicked it in. What's left of it is barely hanging from one hinge."

"Gia's OK. A little shaken up, but this is one tough, brave girl, Art. I am so proud of her," Vangie said again as she struggled again to compose herself. "As a woman, I can assure you that Fulbright can never repay Gia for all she's sacrificed to make women here safe."

●●●

Hours earlier, as Gia had told Vangie of Haines' effort to coerce sex from her, Vangie knew this was not something that she could allow to pass. The sense of resignation she saw in Gia's face as she pondered acquiescing to this serial rapist's demands broke her heart. She called her husband on the spot, and they were in his executive office 10 minutes later.

Art Overshaw's face blanched as Gia and Vangie recounted what Edelbert Haines had told her. This wasn't just another female student on whom Haines was abusing his position and academic standing to threaten the arc of their lives and careers, this was a hero who had become nationally famous weeks earlier when she risked her own life to shield a sister student from a deranged killer's attack.

"Gia, I hate to ask you this, but if you could save other girls from this monster by visiting him tonight — with law-enforcement standing by, of course — would you be willing to do it?" Art Overshaw asked her as Vangie held her hand in his private office overlooking the eastern edge of the Reserve.

Gia thought about it for a moment. The last thing she wanted was to be forced to play Wonder Woman again and be thrust once more onto the national stage. She asked if there was any way to do it and keep her out of the public eye. Art Overshaw nodded and called his friend and confidante from the Geno Millions horror, Lieutenant Robert Blanding.

"You're not going to believe this, Bob ..." the college president began the conversation.