Troop 18 Page 17

  This is what Andy tracked over the evening, relieved she’d finally found some way to frame what was so off-putting about the way Troop 18 had been presenting themselves. The troop clustered in small groups, the boundaries between them easily morphing to grow larger or smaller as people joined and left. A few dyads had broken off, the angled bodies and rapid verbal exchange of the cadets making it difficult, but not impossible for someone else to join.

  Shipman had his guitar out, strumming pieces of familiar music that floated freely across the quad into the cold night air. The instructors were spread throughout the group. Les and Kate were sitting closer to the fire now, still talking and laughing as they ate. Meyers was talking to Awad and Hellman, his movements more animated than Andy had ever seen, clearly enjoying telling his story. Zeb, as Andy had predicted, had not left the fire all evening.

  Only Trokof was missing. He’d come out briefly, refused the offer of a roasting stick and had disappeared not too much later into the kitchen. The troop had changed when the drill instructor had been with them, quieter and more tense. But that was to be expected when the guy who handed out mod-b push-ups for the most minor transgression was walking around.

  Andy had just decided to go check-in with the sergeant when she saw Shandly look up from the group she was talking to. Her gaze stopped on Andy, who smiled slightly, causing the young cadet to duck her head then return the smile before excusing herself from the group and walking deliberately over to the abandoned food table. Andy quietly joined Shandly.

  It was cold away from the fire. Andy could feel the damp bite of the near-winter air against her face. Shandly was cleaning up, putting remnants of hot dog buns together in a bag and twisting them shut. Andy approached the table, waiting for Shandly to acknowledge her before taking a seat. Shandly’s movements were quick and nervous, as if she wanted to keep her hands busy but was afraid she would run out of things to do if she moved too fast. Andy held her silence, waiting to see if Shandly would start the conversation. When it was clear she wouldn’t or couldn’t, Andy decided to help her out.

  “Dr. Morrison thought you might want to speak to me,” Andy said as an opener, keeping her body language and her expression open.

  Shandly nodded and started stacking plates, trying to determine which were clean and which were dirty. After a moment, she abandoned the sorting and stacked them all together in a tall pile. Task completed and nothing left to do, Shandly finally sat down beside Andy.

  “I wanted to talk to you about what it’s like…” Shandly started to say, her words jumbled and soft-spoken. She took a breath, made fists out of her hands then spread them wide and clasped them together before looking up at Andy. “What it’s like for you…and what it might be like for me…to be an openly gay police officer.”

  Andy did not congratulate herself on having guessed right. She simply let this piece of information become fact and added it to the profile she had in her head of Cadet Krista Shandly, age twenty-one from Gander, Newfoundland.

  Andy considered what she wanted to say, trying to isolate exactly what Shandly was trying to get at. Until she knew, Andy decided to focus only on her own experience.

  “I got posted to Ottawa right out of Depot and did my six month field placement there before getting posted to Vancouver. I’ve been here ever since. Vancouver is generally a gay-friendly city, and it’s got a large lesbian population.” Andy paused to check that Shandly wasn’t bored with a personal history lesson. But Shandly seemed rapt and Andy had to wonder how many gay officers she’d had the chance to talk to. If any.

  “My rookie year was the hardest. More than one asshole wanted to use my sexual orientation against me. But everyone’s rookie year is the hardest, Shandly. People either ignore you or try to beat you down and show you you’re not going to make it unless you toughen up, fall in line, and follow orders like a good little rookie should. I decided early on that being gay was only a weapon in someone else’s hand if I let it be a weapon. And I imagine Constable Zeb has drilled into you the first rule of engagement…”

  “Always protect your weapon,” Shandly said, finishing the sentence quietly. Andy nodded but didn’t add anything more. Shandly looked out into the dark. A burst of laughter behind them seemed to shake Shandly from her thoughts and she looked up at Andy, pushing her blunt-cut brown hair out of her eyes where it immediately fell back again. Andy had known a lot of women who had cut their hair at Depot, mainly because they were sick of push-ups every time a stray hair fell out of place and touched the collar of their shirt. Andy hadn’t, she’d refused. For the first time ever, she braided her hair, pinned it up against the back of her neck, and hair-sprayed the shit out of it. Five days a week. For six months.

  “So if I survive Depot and my rookie year, it might get easier?” Shandly said, still staring out into the night.

  “That depends on you. And some of it depends on where you end up and where you want to go,” Andy said, not willing to make any promises. Shandly didn’t seem to have much of a tough shell, and being a police officer was mentally and physically exhausting work. “May I ask you a question?” Andy said and Shandly nodded shyly. “Why did you decide to become a cop?”

  This apparently was an easy answer. Shandly sat up a little straighter. “I was just a kid when the planes hit the Twin Towers in New York. A couple dozen trans-Atlantic planes were diverted to Gander, so our little town almost doubled in size in half a day. Everyone was so freaking scared, no one knew what was going on, but everyone wanted to help. I went down to the airport with my parents in our van. We figured we could house a family or two. It was chaos. People crying, yelling, lining up for phones, huddled around TVs trying to get news.

  “The cops were trying to organize things and keep everyone calm but most of them didn’t know what to do. Then one officer found a ladder and stood in the middle of the lobby, started waving his hands above his head. It was so bizarre that eventually everyone got quiet. And he told the group that everyone was going to get news as it came in. They were setting up phones so everyone was going to get a chance to make phone calls, and they were lining up housing so everyone would have somewhere to stay and something to eat. He told them that even though their hearts were scared, they should fill their bellies and warm their bodies so they were ready when the next stage came. And the community of Gander would be there for them, whatever they needed.”

  Shandly stopped, seeming to realize how long she’d been talking. But she carried on. “He wasn’t even the senior officer, now that I think about it. But he just figured out what needed to be done. And he totally changed the tone of this mass of people. Even as a kid I could see that. So…I want to do that, I think I’ll be good at that.” Shandly finished, looking back down again at her hands.

  Andy had asked a lot of people this question, and she’d answered it herself more times than she could count. But Andy wasn’t sure she’d ever heard a more succinct answer.

  “Do you want to end up back in Newfoundland eventually?”

  “All Newfies want to go home,” Shandly said, but it seemed like an automatic response, ingrained. Andy didn’t believe her for a second as the look she gave Shandly made her disbelief clear. Shandly seemed to flush slightly but only added to her answer. “It would be good for other kids…other girls….to have a role model, I think. I wish I’d had one growing up. Gander isn’t the most diverse town,” she added, somewhat bitterly.

  Not a good reason to go home, Andy thought to herself. With that attitude, Shandly’s best intentions had the potential to backfire.

  “I don’t give out advice very often, Cadet Shandly, but here’s mine. Don’t rush home. Go where you’re posted, learn everything you can during those six months, then see what offers you get and what kind of postings are available. There are a lot of ways you can have an impact, so go and find out what those are before you make any decisions about going home. It’s an opportunity. Use it.”

  Shandly nodded slowly. “Thanks, Sgt. Wyles. I real
ly appreciate this.”

  Before Andy could accept the thanks, a roar of raucous laughter echoed around camp, and both the cadet and Andy turned around. Shipman was acting out some incident, flailing his arms above his head in an exaggerated pantomime, making the cadets and instructors gathered around the campfire laugh even harder. As she looked around the assembled group, Andy saw Cadet Prewitt-Hayes staring intensely, questioningly at Shandly. Beside her, Shandly dipped her head in acknowledgement.

  “You’re making Cadet Prewitt-Hayes nervous, talking to me,” Andy said. A statement, not a question.

  “No, she knows what we’re talking about,” Shandly said, then seemed to realize how that sounded, and her eyes grew round and she shrunk back slightly.

  “So you cleared the topic with her first,” Andy added in quietly. She tried to keep any accusation or judgement out of her tone, but she had to make clear to the young cadet that she knew how this troop functioned. She could see they had a system, even if she didn’t yet know what the system was attempting to accomplish.

  “We…yes, I did…but just…” Shandly stumbled over her words, clearly nervous now. Andy said nothing, just continued looking at the cadet. “It’s not what you think,” Shandly concluded desperately. One of the worst things she could have said.

  “Tell me what I think, Cadet Shandly,” Andy said.

  Shandly just shook her head and looked over her shoulder, obviously wanting to escape to the safety of her troop.

  Andy wasn’t ready to let Shandly off the hook but then she heard a sound of hurried movement behind them. The laughter had ceased, and people were talking in low voices. Shandly was looking across the quad.

  “Oh, no…” Shandly said very quietly, almost defeated. Then with a quick, blank look at Andy, Shandly joined her troop.

  Andy stood also and surveyed the night time scene. The majority of the cadets and instructors were still around the campfire, many of them now on their feet looking back across the quad at the cabins. Andy saw Cadet Foster walking swiftly towards two figures moving in the dark shadow thrown by the bright light of the cabins. Even from this distance, Andy could make out Petit’s hulking figure. Someone else seemed to be leaning on him. Andy started to move toward them, sensing the unnatural silence in the group, the tension stealing over Camp Depot in a thick fog.

  Andy walked quickly toward the cadets, watching as Frances cursed and pushed off Petit. Foster arrived next and seemed to deliberately step in beside Frances, blocking him from Andy’s view. More people advanced from the dark, forming a quieted, tense semi-circle around the trio. Petit made another grab for Frances as he keeled far to the right, but Frances shrugged it off, spitting angry words at his troop mates.

  Andy finally got a proper view of the scene. Frances was swaying on his feet. He took a step forward, stumbled, and Petit grabbed the back of his sweatshirt and yanked him back and up. It would have been funny in any other situation, but not now. Not with Petit looking desperate, Foster looking furious, and Cadet Jacob Frances looking all the world like he was drunk.

  Frances seemed to register Andy’s presence, then slowly scanned the crowd that had assembled behind her. He paled in the harsh orange light, then he twisted in Petit’s grip, took a few steps between the cabins, and threw up.

  Chapter Eleven

  “He’s not drunk.”

  Kate and Andy had just joined the rest of the instructors in the kitchen cabin. Camp was quiet, the thick smell of wet ash still drifting through the cold night air. Andy had sat on the steps outside the infirmary cabin while Kate had examined Frances, not comfortable leaving her alone with the belligerent cadet. He’d quieted quickly, though, and a thoughtful Kate emerged forty-five minutes later, saying she’d like to talk to the team.

  Now, Andy watched as the team absorbed the information. Zeb clearly didn’t like Kate’s assessment.

  “Bullshit,” he said. “I know what a guy who can’t hold his alcohol looks like. I just want to know how he snuck it into camp.”

  “I have a pretty good idea what a drunk person looks like also, Zeb,” Kate said pointedly. “My ER’s not that far from the UBC campus, so September is always a blast.” Zeb shook his head, his expression angry. Andy noted the other instructors also seemed somewhat doubtful but would take Kate’s opinion as truth. “More to the point,” Kate continued, “I know how a person with alcohol intoxication acts and Cadet Frances’s behaviour was too erratic for him to be drunk.”

  Even Andy wondered about that statement. It didn’t make sense.

  Kate sighed and tried again. “Picture someone drunk. Picture them trying to act sober for longer than thirty seconds. No swaying, no slurring, no impairment in their ability to focus, no nonsensical outbursts.” Kate paused and let the instructors make a mental image of this. “It’s not possible, is it? You can’t act through alcohol intoxication. Frances was perfectly fine for long stretches of time then he’d start to feel dizzy again, which is what brought on the nausea. Apparently, he’s been like that all night. He was trying to get back to his cabin to sleep it off when Petit found him in that state and told him he should see me. They fought about it, which is what we all heard, and Frances insisted he was fine and didn’t need medical attention.”

  “If it’s not alcohol, then what is it?” Trokof said quietly.

  “I really can’t be sure without more tests. It could be something as innocuous as an imbalance of electrolytes from the stomach flu he’s been fighting for almost a week, or it could be a symptom of a much more serious systemic issue.”

  “Or it could be drugs,” Les added quietly.

  “Yes. I won’t rule out the possibility that what we’re seeing are the effects of a different kind of intoxication.”

  “Then test him,” Zeb said, forcefully inserting himself into the conversation again. Andy gave Kate a quick sidewise glance. She was handling Zeb’s anger, so Andy suppressed the instinct to run defense for her.

  “And take it where?” Kate said calmly. “It’s after midnight on a Friday, and labs won’t open until eight o’clock Monday morning. By which time the results would likely be invalid anyway.”

  Zeb shook his head angrily but said nothing more, roughly digging at a long furrow in the wood table with his thumbnail.

  “Is Cadet Frances ill, Dr. Morrison? Does he need to be taken for more tests?” Trokof moved his gaze from Zeb back to Kate, looking like he could give the constable a drill instructor style lecture right about now.

  “I’ve let Frances know I will be monitoring him daily for the next little while, and if he refuses the daily physical or misses one appointment, that will go directly to the Chief Training Officer.” Kate stopped and looked around. “Sorry, I should have checked with you first. I didn’t mean to go above your heads—”

  Trokof waved this away. “No, you were right to bring Lincoln’s name into this. We may be asked for our opinions, but it is not up to us to decide the fate of the cadets.”

  Kate nodded then continued. “I’ll make the judgement on a day to day basis as to whether or not I think the cadet needs additional medical testing. Right now he’s presenting with odd but explainable symptoms. I’ll monitor him over the weekend, and if I think he’s not fit to participate in regular cadet duties on Monday morning, I’ll recommend he’s taken into Kamloops for full testing.”

  Kate folded her hands on the table, but Andy noticed the awkward way she held her body, pushing herself slightly back from the table like she was conflicted about her conclusion. She was holding something back. Andy wanted to know, felt the questions pile up in her head. But she forced herself to listen to the conversation as Trokof and Meyers outlined the plans for the weekend, another trip tomorrow into Kamloops for the troop, minus Frances who wasn’t cleared to go.

  Kate and Andy stayed at the table as the meeting wrapped up and the instructors left one by one, yawning their goodnights. Andy could read signs of fatigue and weariness, not just from tonight, but an accumulation of a week’s wor
th of worry and organization and decision-making. Meyers was the last to leave, closing the door quietly behind him. Andy stored the concerns for the instructors and their mental health for the moment. She and Kate were alone, and Andy had a lot of questions.

  Kate was silent, though, her hands clasped in front of her, braiding her fingers together in an unconscious motion. Thinking, always thinking.

  “Frances said something interesting during his examination. I didn’t share it with the instructors because something is…wrong with the way he said it. And I can’t figure out what it is.” A few more twists of her fingers, then Kate shook them out irritably. “When I was questioning Frances about his symptoms and his recent bout of stomach issues, he mentioned that his dad was being tested for Crohn’s disease.”

  “Ulcers?”

  Kate made a wavering motion with her hands. “Basically,” she said, clearly having decided that a more medical explanation wasn’t relevant right now.

  “Does it explain Frances’s symptoms?”

  “It could. His symptoms could absolutely be Crohn’s disease.” She paused, her brow furrowing. “It actually makes more sense for Jacob Frances to be getting tested for Crohn’s now than his father. It usually comes on early.”

  “His father was a cop,” Andy reminded Kate with a small smile. “Maybe he was one of those types that decided he never needed medical advice.”

  Kate returned the small smile, but she seemed to do it more to humour Andy than anything.

  “What am I missing?” Andy said.

  “It took Frances a long time to tell me about his father, though I’d asked about family history more than once. And when he did, he got very emotional.” Kate paused, and her voice got quiet. “He cried, Andy.”