Mental Games - 24. Crime and Vindication

After having breakfast together at a local diner, Adam went back to Mike's room for a while. They spent the next couple of hours being affectionate and made love one more time before Adam kissed Mike goodbye and set out for his own campus.

Adam arrived in Baltimore just before noon and realized he was hungry again, so he decided to stop and grab a bite to eat before heading to the campus. As soon as he finished sating his hunger pangs, he drove the rest of the way to JHU, checked in and then carried his belongings to his room. He stacked everything inside, but didn't bother to unpack, because he wanted to take a walk and see if he could spot anyone he knew.

Adam decided it would probably be best if he checked outside the other residence halls first, because that was where most of the students were arriving and unloading their things. After walking around for a while, he finally spotted someone he knew. The guy was with a couple of his other friends, whom Adam didn’t know, but he went over to say ‘hi’ anyway. His friend quickly introduced him to the others and they began to chat and slowly got to know each other better. They were discussing what each of them had done over Christmas break when Adam asked a question.

“Hey, do any of you know the guy across the street in the green t-shirt, white baseball cap and carrying the backpack?” he wanted to know, but no one did. “I hate to sound judgmental, but does he look like a college student to any of you?”

“It’s kinda hard to tell, but he doesn’t really seem to fit in, does he?” one of the others responded. “Why are you asking? Did he do something wrong?”

“I’ve been here for a while, because I was looking for people I knew, and shortly after I got here I spotted him hanging around,” Adam answered. “I didn't think anything of it at first, but then started to get suspicious when I noticed him checking out several different cars, like he was looking for something. Then, I saw him going in and out of a bunch of different residence halls, but he was never helping anyone out and he didn’t seem to belong in any of those places either. His actions have just made me curious, so I've kept an eye on him.”

“So what are you thinking?” one of the others asked.

“I’m not sure, but I think maybe I’ll go over and speak with him, just to see what he has to say,” Adam responded. “I am hoping by talking to him that I might be able to find out what he’s up to.”

After discussing this idea in a little more depth with the others, they agreed to go with Adam when he went over to confront the guy. Adam walked right up to him, while the others formed a semi-circle around the boy.

“Hi. I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before,” Adam began. “Are you new here?”

“Yeah, I just transferred in,” the guy answered.

“Oh, that’s great! Which residence hall are you in? Maybe we're neighbors,” Adam followed, while eying the guy suspiciously.

“That one over there,” the guy answered, as he pointed toward one of the buildings farther down.

“What’s the name of that hall again?” Adam pressed. “I can never seem to remember which is which.”

“What the fuck difference does that make?” the guy snapped in reply, skillfully avoiding the question. “Look, I’m busy and I need to get going.”

“Really? I’ve seen you hanging out around here for quite some time and you haven't seemed to be in any hurry until now,” Adam pointed out. “In fact, it looked like you were checking out a bunch of different cars and roaming in and out of the other residence halls, so it kinda made me suspicious. You don’t really go here, do you?”

“It’s none of your fucking business,” the guy hissed, obviously getting upset.

“I think it is, especially since your backpack seems to be bulging out more now than when I first spotted you,” Adam replied, before turning toward the others with him. “Why don’t one of you guys jog over there and get that campus cop for us. We’ll let him check this guy out then.”

‘Don’t you dare try to run,’ Adam mentally warned the guy. ‘If you do, I'll guarantee you will wind up in the hospital.’

The guy’s muscles had started to tense up and twitched momentarily, but then he suddenly seemed to relax again. He'd apparently been considering taking off, but then thought better of it after receiving Adam’s warning about ending up in the hospital.

“Hey, fellas. What’s up?” the campus cop asked, once he joined the group.

Adam quickly filled him in about his suspicions and the cop did a hasty visual inspection of the suspect.

“Do you mind if I look in your backpack?” he asked the nervous looking fellow.

‘You’re going to let him do this, if you don’t want us to take it by force and rough you up while we're doing it,' Adam suggested mentally.

“Uhhh, yeah. I guess it would be alright,” the guy answered, although he still didn’t seem very anxious about allowing it.

The campus cop then asked him to slide his arms out of the straps of the backpack so he could place it on the ground. After the campus cop unzipped it and looked inside, his eyes lit up.

“Looks like a couple of laptops and a bunch of other things in there, including a few wallets,” the cop announced. “One of them appears to be a woman’s wallet too, so I doubt it's yours. I think you’d better come with me to the security office until we get this sorted out.”

The campus cop then pulled a plastic zip-tie out of his pocket and secured it around the suspect’s wrists. He then called someone over his radio to report what he had discovered and ask for assistance. Before long, a campus security car pulled up and the officer helped the guy get into the back seat.

‘You will tell them the truth and confess to what you did,’ Adam mentally informed the guy as he was being placed inside. ‘The campus cop is a friend of ours and will tell us if you don’t cooperate. He'll also let us know if he needs further assistance, so if you don’t want to end up with a couple of busted kneecaps you’ll tell him what he wants to know. If you don’t, I promise you’ll never walk again, at least not without crutches or until after you've had several costly operations first. If you want to avoid this, then you’ll be completely honest with him.’

Adam was getting good at making threats he thought would get the person to tell the truth. He could see the guy twisting around in the backseat of the patrol car so he could look out the rear window to see who was telling him these things. Finally, the guy made eye contact with Adam, but he looked confused. He thought Adam was the one saying these things, but he couldn’t see Adam’s lips moving, yet he kept hearing the comments that were registering in his brain.

“Good catch, fellas,” the campus cop said before he walked over to the passenger side of the vehicle carrying the backpack. “We’ll take it from here.”

He then slid into the front passenger’s seat and they drove off.

“Damn, that was pretty observant of you,” one of Adam’s new friends told him. “I can’t believe you actually caught the guy stealing that shit.”

“He just looked suspicious to me,” Adam replied. “I guess I got lucky this time.”

The others either nodded or verbally agreed with Adam before they returned to the discussion they were having before this began. As they continued their conversation, however, each of them was somewhat distracted, because they were also busily scanning the area around them now. It seemed as if each of the others were hoping to catch someone else and match Adam’s accomplishment.

Once their conversation ended, Adam said goodbye to his new friends and walked back to his room. He was feeling pretty good about having noticed the guy and wondered how many others were trying to take advantage of the students being distracted. Those just arriving were not only bringing things from home that they might have just received as presents, but they were also trying to catch up with their friends as well. It was a bad time for them to have a lapse in vigilance though, because it could cost some of them to lose their valuable possessions.

Once classes started, Adam barely had time to do anything else. It seemed as if his coursework was getting more and more difficult every semester and this one was no exception. Fortunately, no requests came through on either account until just after midway through the semester. Then, Adam received a message on the Baltimore account.

'I’m hoping you can help me,' it began. 'I’m not in the city, but I am in Baltimore County, so I hope this is okay. I go to Towson University and have a problem. I’ve been accused of breaking the 'Student Academic Integrity Policy', but I swear I haven’t done anything wrong. Now, those in charge are threatening to expel me from college and I have to attend a hearing in a few days. It's in front of a committee chaired by the VP for Student Affairs and they will be determining my academic future, so I was wondering if there is anything you can do to help me out?'

Adam hated the idea of someone being expelled unjustly, but he also realized people were likely to lie about their involvement in such things. Since Adam knew he could discover the truth if he spoke directly with this person, he sent a reply requesting a phone number he could contact the writer at. Once he received it, Adam made the call.

“So you’re telling me you didn’t do anything wrong?” Adam asked the guy answering the phone. “I need you to be totally honest with me.”

“No, I haven’t,” the guy assured him. “The letter I got said that I’ve been accused of taking a test for someone else, but I’ve never done that. It also says I can be expelled for 'Complicity in Academic Dishonesty'.”

“Give me the information about this hearing and I’ll see what I can do,” Adam agreed, since he was sure the boy was being completely honest about this problem.

As soon as he had the information, Adam made sure he was free on the day of the hearing. He drove to Towson University a couple of hours early, so he'd have time to check things out first. He wasn’t familiar with the campus and would need the extra time to find both the building and the room where the hearing was going to be held. Once he had pinpointed those locations, he hung out in the hallway and waited for the hearing to begin.

Adam had brought his laptop with him so he could do other things and look busy while he waited. Eventually, he noticed two guys waiting outside of the room where the hearing was supposed to take place. He didn’t know which one had contacted him, so he gave them both the same warning.

‘You guys waiting to go into the disciplinary hearing will be completely honest and only tell the truth,’ Adam suggested with a thought. ‘If you don’t, the consequences will be much worse than just being expelled. We’ll make certain you are also sued for libel and you'll lose a major cash judgment if you lie. We will collect every penny of it too, even if we have to garnish your wages for the rest of your life.’

The two boys looked at each other first, and then glanced up and down the corridor, as they tried to figure out where this message had just come from. A few seconds later, a woman stepped into the hallway and spoke.

“Mr. Stevenson, you will come in first,” she announced and one of the boys followed her inside.

They were in the room for nearly a half-hour before the woman came into the hallway again. This time, she looked at the other boy and spoke.

“Mr. Ritch, we will not need to speak with you now,” she began. “Mr. Stevenson has admitted what happened and cleared you of any wrongdoing. It appears it was another student, not you, who took an exam for him. I wish to apologize for the error and any anxiety it may have caused, and you are now free to return to your studies.”

The student she had just spoken to looked completely relieved and his face broke into a slight grin as he got up to walk away. Adam felt good that he had been able to help and had kept the boy's reputation from being irreparably damaged.

Adam didn’t hear anything more from Ritch, at least not right away. A few weeks later though, the guy finally contacted Adam again and informed him what had been decided.

'It seems that someone said they saw me take a test for this other guy, but it turned out to be someone else who did it,' the message began. 'I was told later that the guy who took the test looked a lot like me, so I guess it was just a case of mistaken identity. I’m not exactly sure what you did to correct this problem, if anything, but I’m grateful to be cleared. If you did something to help out, then I want to thank you for your assistance. It obviously worked.'

Although Adam was slightly offended at first, since the guy seemed to question if he had actually done anything to help him, but then he considered the matter for a while longer. How could Ritch have realized what he’d done, since it was nothing the guy could have seen or been aware of? Sure, he’d been given the same warning as the other guy and heard a voice in his head, but since he didn’t know how it had happened or who had sent it, Ritch couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just something he’d created in his own mind. Since Adam wanted to remain anonymous, then he also had to accept the fact that sometimes his role in helping others might be doubted or questioned.

Not long after that situation had been settled, Adam thought of something else he needed to do before his summer vacation started. He wouldn’t be able to do it without some assistance though, so he would need to find someone who could help. With that in mind, he walked over to the Hopkins Fund office to speak with someone there.

“I need you to give me a list of names and contact numbers for your top donors so I can contact them,” he advised the administrative assistant shortly after he entered the office. “I don’t want to hear any reasons why you can’t do this for me. I just need you to give me the information I've requested, now!”

Although the woman appeared mildly confused by his request, she opened a file on her computer and printed something out. Adam carefully looked over the paper that she handed him and realized it was exactly what he had asked for. He quickly folded the paper and placed it in his pocket, before he thanked her and left. Now, he just needed to make a few phone calls.

Using his power of persuasion, Adam was eventually connected to the people on the list that he wanted to speak with. He then explained the situation to them and sought their help. Once they agreed to do what he wanted, he informed each one about a few additional details, thanked them for their assistance and then hung up. It was one more matter that he no longer had to worry about.

The rest of the semester went by without any more drama or requests for assistance, which made Adam happy. It had been a very rough semester for him and he needed to study hard, if he hoped to do well on his finals. He expected each of those exams to be extremely demanding, so he would need to be at the top of his game when he took them.

Adam was spending a lot of time at the library as he prepared for his finals. During his visits there, he also happened to spot Lisa, the girl he had helped with the stalker problem during one of the previous semesters. He was glad to see that she appeared to be fairly happy, although maybe a little frazzled by the workload. She didn’t notice him though, because she never knew exactly who had helped her, but that didn’t bother Adam. He was just glad that he’d been of assistance to her.

Finals week was a real bear for Adam, but he felt fairly confident he’d done well after taking the last of his exams. Since he had no further obligations, Adam went back to his room and started packing his belongings. After he finished that task, he loaded everything into his car and made the drive to Georgetown so he could get Mike. Mike wasn’t going to be finished with his exams for a couple more days, so Adam understood he would have to find other things to do while Mike was studying and taking his finals.

This didn’t bother Adam though, since he knew the area fairly well by now. Most of his belongings were in the trunk of his car, so there wasn’t anything for people to see inside it that would tempt them to break in. For that reason, Adam felt free to go to the mall and then wander around for a while. He often took time to have a bite to eat too and sometimes stopped to see a movie as well. At other times, he would merely window shop and just check out the various stores. One day, he decided to wander around the campus and spend his time mingling with those he happened to come into contact with instead. He did that until Mike finished his last final and they were ready to head home.

After helping Mike pack up his things, the two boys carried it all to the car and loaded it into the back seat. As soon as the last item had been taken care of, the boys hopped in front and took off for Adam’s house. They would be going there for the first half of the summer this year.

The ride seemed to take longer than normal, but it was probably just their imagination, since they were very anxious to get there so they could relax and unwind for a while. They were also eager to see Adam’s parents again, but most of all they were anticipating sharing a bed again without any other distractions. They hadn’t been able to really enjoy themselves during the few days they had been together in Mike’s room, because he was busy concentrating on his finals. Now, they would be able to focus solely upon each other.

After riding in silence for while, the boys began to discuss how their semester had gone.

"Did you help anyone while you were there?" Mike wondered as they rode along.

"Yeah, kinda," Adam responded somewhat reluctantly, while keeping his eyes on the road so he didn't have to look over at Mike. .

"Come on. Spill it. What did you do?" Mike persisted, as he nudged Adam in the side.

"When I first arrived on campus, I went looking for some of my friends and spotted someone suspicious and alerted the campus police," Adam offered. "It turned out the guy was ripping off some of the students that were distracted by other things."

"Yeah, nothing major," Mike quipped with a chuckle, while shaking his head. "Just stopped a minor crime spree and saved a bunch of others from losing their crap."

"It really wasn't a big deal," Adam responded, sounding annoyed. "Besides, some of my friends helped me catch the guy."

"So was that all you did?" Mike pressed, while he continued to eye Adam suspiciously.

"No, I helped a guy from Towson State too," Adam replied without elaborating.

"What was his problem?" Mike prodded, since he saw Adam wasn't about to offer the information on his own.

"He was being accused of taking a test for someone else, but it turned out he was misidentified," Adam answered with some reluctance. "The guy that actually took the test happened to look like him and the witness just got confused. Once the guy who'd paid someone else to take the test for him admitted who he gave the money to, the guy who contacted me was exonerated."

"Ah, just run of the mill petty stuff for the average superhero," Mike teased, while releasing a huge guffaw.

"Don't start that shit again!" Adam screamed in warning, as he glared at Mike. "I thought we had an agreement."

"I was just joking," Mike shot back, looking annoyed that Adam was so sensitive. "Geez, lighten up a bit."

"So did you apply for your internship?" Adam countered, changing the subject after a brief pause in the conversation.

"Yes, I did," Mike concurred. "I'll do it during my final semester, but I don't know where yet. They'll tell me that the semester before I start."

"That's good," Adam agreed. "I'm glad they were willing to work it out for you after you gave them such late notice."

They chatted about a variety of other things after that and when they finally reached the house, Adam’s parents greeted them warmly.

"It's so nice to see you both again," Rita gushed, as she gave each of them a kiss and a hug."

"Come on, we haven't been gone that long," Adam quipped, in order to keep her from making such a big deal out of this. He also turned to his father and gave him a hug as well.

George and Rita also asked how each of them had been and how they thought they’d done on their finals, as they helped the pair carry everything up to Adam’s room. Once that had been taken care of, Mike and Adam decided to take a shower and change, before they headed down to have a snack and something to drink with Adam’s mom and dad.

As soon as the four of them were together again, Adam and Mike explained to George and Rita that everything was set with the Kritzers, so they’d all be together at the lake again this year. That reminded Adam of something else, so he asked his parents if he’d received any mail while he’d been away. This caused Rita to jump up, as she hurried off to retrieve a small stack of items she had set aside for her son. Adam quickly opened each envelope and then smiled. He now had what he needed.