Troop 18 Page 8

  Les laughed lightly. “I’ve had more than one paper on you in the last few months, Sergeant Wyles. My ‘Diversity in Policing’ unit mainly. Cadet Shandly has managed to reference you at least twice. I came across Dr. Morrison’s name with yours when I was fact checking.”

  Andy shifted this unexpected piece of information around in her head. She also had a thought about Cadet Krista Shandly, but she shelved it for the moment. They finally hit the gravel path and rough, slick rocks gave way underneath their boots. Andy pushed open the wet, metal gate that led out of the meadow.

  “Maybe you should stay at the main house tomorrow then, so you’re here when Dr. Morrison arrives,” Les said, her tone matter-of-fact.

  They were at the house, and Andy looked up into the brightly lit windows of the huge kitchen. Kurtz was stretching up to a high shelf, pulling down a bottle of wine. Looked like it was going to be a good night. Andy thought about being here Monday morning when Kate arrived. She already felt restless, anxious, distracted.

  “Maybe I will,” Andy said, stopping at the bottom of the stairs and facing Les. “Thanks.”

  Andy left Les with Kurtz and Tara, waving away the offer of a glass of wine before heading back into the near night. Turning back the way they had just come, Andy hiked alone back up to camp, a hissing lantern in one hand, the crescent moon beautiful and useless in the evening sky.

  Much later, alone in her cabin with the fire hot and bright, Andy sat at the rough table in her worn basketball sweatshirt with the troop files spread out in front of her. The cadets had arrived back just after ten o’clock and had lined up for inspection with the air of people who had nothing to hide. According to Zeb and Meyers, the day had gone smoothly with no apparent incidents. The cadets had divided into groups and shopped, eaten fast food, and had a few beers. Most had probably called home to check in on family, talk longingly to boyfriends or girlfriends, reassure that two months really wasn’t that long. It was, of course. Andy knew exactly how long two months apart could be.

  Andy yanked the sleeve of her sweatshirt down until it sat right on her shoulders, thinking about how many times Kate had worn this sweatshirt, pushing up the too-long sleeves. She took a moment with the thought, comforting in its memory. Then, ridiculously, she checked her watch as if she could hurry the time until she saw Kate again. The lack of knowing made Andy crazy. She wanted to know if Kate was okay, why Kate had signed on with the RCMP, what Kate had been doing the past two months, what she was thinking and feeling and whether or not Andy would ever again see her covertly stealing Andy’s favourite sweatshirt.

  Andy shook her head and looked down at the files on the table. Just as she was sifting through the now familiar information, trying to find something new or relevant, Andy thought she heard the grinding noise of boots on gravel. She froze, listening past the crackle of the fire and the light wind against the windows. Camp had been quiet for a good hour by now, the cadets driven into their cabins by the cold rain that had moved in. Andy kept listening and for a long time, nothing. Then again, she heard it farther down toward the road.

  Andy silently pushed back her chair and moved to the front door, easing the door against its frame to limit the creaking. Her eyes automatically moved to the area beyond the orange pool of light from the hydro pole. She couldn’t see anything out of place, no hint of movement or irregularity of shape or shadow. Andy considered going to the cadet cabins and waking up the troop for roll call five hours early. But she didn’t, remembering it was still the weekend. Technically the cadets didn’t need to check in until Sunday night at eleven. Still, Andy scanned the area one last time before walking back into her cabin, thinking that tomorrow morning the cadets would be met with a surprise inspection. They’d overturn the entire camp to see what they could find.

  *

  All sixteen cadets stood in the quad area with Andy as Trokof, Zeb, and Meyers went through each sleeping cabin, classroom, and the kitchen. There was really no such thing as private property at Depot, and that clearly extended to Camp Depot. Andy sat at one of the picnic tables, her hands wrapped around a mug of coffee, her third since getting up with the sun this morning. She watched the cadets move around the clearing, most of them still groggy with sleep, having been awoken by Trokof yelling at them to clear out. No one was allowed back into the cabins until inspection was complete. Andy was the only one who had a coffee and the cadets circled around her, drawn to the smell.

  They were clearly nervous. As they’d exited their cabins, pulling on sweatshirts and jackets against the cold, they’d automatically sought each other out with their eyes. It had been their own version of roll call. Yes, we’re all here, no, none of the cadets defected overnight. Cadet Prewitt-Hayes, her eyes sharp even at this early hour, still seemed to count her sheep every few minutes, constantly on alert. Andy found this interesting. It seemed a protective gesture, almost maternal.

  “Cadet Prewitt-Hayes,” Andy called out, her tone friendly.

  “Yes, Sergeant?” Her eyes were cautious, which was fair as Andy had just singled her out. More interesting was that every other cadet sought out Andy, then Tracey, then each other.

  “Do you have any siblings?”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” she said, clearly taken by surprise.

  “And are you the eldest by any chance?”

  A genuine smile from the cadet. “Oldest of seven. How did you know?”

  Andy returned the smile but only shrugged, taking a sip of her coffee.

  The cadets did not relax with this friendly exchange, still seeking each other out for reassurance. Andy wished she could see a pattern in who they looked to most often, but she still couldn’t. Other than the obvious shepherding of their marker, Prewitt-Hayes, the response seemed almost automatic in all of them.

  Andy watched as Michael Awad sat at one of the tables instead of pacing like the rest. The group shifted subtly, a ripple effect as the two youngest cadets, Shandly and Harper, went to sit at another table, still talking, still yawning. Then Shipman joined Awad, punching him lightly on the shoulder, saying something under his breath that made him smile slightly. It was all perfectly natural, and yet none of it was. Their behavior was too choreographed, too carefully constructed. Almost as if their goal was to have none of the cadets stand out or get noticed except for their chosen leader. Troop 18 took uniformity to a whole new level.

  Trokof emerged from the women’s cabin and called for Andy. The cadets all froze, decidedly not looking at each other as Andy left her seat and crossed the silent quad to Trokof.

  “Two things,” Trokof said immediately and quietly when Andy approached. “Men’s cabin, around five hundred dollars. Women’s cabin, same thing. All twenties, like it just came out of the bank machine.”

  Andy considered how this fit with Lincoln’s concern that the troop was selling drugs to make some extra money. But if so, where were the drugs? And who were they selling to?

  “What else?” The money wasn’t technically an infraction, just incredibly suspicious.

  “We found this in the kitchen, stashed at the bottom of the potato bin.” Trokof handed her a folded and dirty piece of ordinary lined paper. Her back to the cadets, Andy unfolded it and scanned the neat printing. It seemed to be a chart of some kind, with the numbers one to thirty one on the left margin and two incomplete columns of numbers. There were no headings or measurements to indicate what the numbers were comparing.

  “Homework?” Andy said.

  Trokof shook his head. “Not that Constables Zeb or Meyers recognized.”

  Andy scanned it again, noticing only some of the columns were filled in, notably those between the numbers five and twelve. A calendar? Andy wondered. Tracking what? She looked back to Trokof, not able to pull any other meaning from it.

  “Do you want to ask the troop about it, or do you want me to yell at the troop about it?” Trokof said.

  “I’ll ask and when they don’t answer, you yell,” Andy finally said, allowing the smallest hint of a smi
le. Ten years ago, she would have said it was impossible, but she actually liked Sergeant Albert Trokof.

  “Done,” he said briskly, falling back into his drill sergeant role.

  Andy took the paper, walked over to the quad and watched as the cadets assembled without being asked. She held up the paper.

  “Anyone want to explain why this was carefully hidden in the kitchen?”

  Sixteen pairs of eyes were trained on her, and not one of them blinked. Andy continued holding the paper, letting it lift and flip with the damp morning breeze. She waited, watching to see who would shift first, who would break the unasked for rank. The strangest silence had settled on the camp. It was heavy and nervous, but Andy let it stretch longer and longer until the troop had no choice but to move their tensed muscles and maybe take a deeper breath. Angela Hellman shifted her weight to her back foot, and Andy’s shooting guard instincts kicked in, reading it as defensive. Greg Shipman blinked but kept his eyes above Andy’s left shoulder, as if she wasn’t holding anything. Krista Shandly waited until she thought Andy’s attention was somewhere else then flicked her eyes to Tracey then back again. When the young cadet’s gaze centered back on Andy, she was met with a long, drilling look Andy held until it was beyond uncomfortable. Krista blushed and dropped her gaze. Andy continued to look at the troop, noting the strained set to Hawke Foster’s shoulders, the drawn blankness of Jacob Frances’s face.

  “Okay,” Andy said finally, after the silence had lasted almost five minutes. She held the paper out to Trokof, now at her shoulder, never once taking her eyes off the troop.

  Andy had expected Sergeant Trokof to immediately start yelling. He didn’t. Out of the corner of her eye, Andy could see him looking down at the paper. The troop seemed confused also and the level of tension increased again.

  “Cadet Prewitt-Hayes, step forward please,” Trokof said, his voice almost friendly. A ripple of near palpable tension rolled through the group as their right mark stepped forward, away from the protective circle of her troop. “Tell me what this is.”

  “I don’t know, Sergeant.”

  “Don’t know or won’t tell, Cadet Prewitt-Hayes?” Trokof said, finally looking up from the paper.

  “I don’t know, Sergeant,” Prewitt-Hayes said again.

  Sergeant Trokof said nothing for a minute, then he handed the piece of paper back to Andy. She folded it along the creased seams and slipped it into her pocket. Sixteen pairs of eyes watched it disappear, though no one seemed especially concerned. This information, whatever it was, must exist elsewhere, Andy decided. Sergeant Trokof had clasped his hands behind his back, and Andy could hear him pulling in a lungful of air, his barrel chest expanding until his uniform strained at the buttons. Andy couldn’t help tensing her body, aware of what was coming next. When he finally started yelling, it was almost a relief.

  Sgt. Trokof yelled for ten minutes, an impressive litany of abuse, both general and individualized. He managed to pull in the long, proud history of the RCMP, the current political climate, and the tenuous but deserving future of Canada’s oldest police force. He focused on the individual cadets, trouncing their weaknesses, telling them how worthless they were with his words but contradicting that message with the depth of his understanding of their character. Andy was impressed, though she stood impassively through the entire heated monologue, surveying the cadets in front of her. She couldn’t help but notice the tension had eased even though no one had moved. They could stand together and be abused all day, no problem. And when Trokof ended his diatribe with a punishing fifty push-ups and a long list of camp tasks to be accomplished by roll call the next morning, Andy noticed relief rippling through the troop. Push-ups they could do, yelling they could handle, menial labour was no problem. As Andy and Trokof walked away, she couldn’t help thinking that Troop 18 had just won. Again.

  Chapter Six

  Musket the old Lab gave a long, dramatic sigh as Andy scratched his damp, doggy-smelling head. Andy grinned at him as his tail thumped slowly and happily on the porch floorboards.

  “You’ve got a friend for life,” Kurtz said, watching the dog’s now-closed eyes.

  “He’s a good boy,” Andy murmured.

  “Came with the place,” Kurtz said dismissively, though Andy knew damn well she loved the dog. “Tara says we paid half a million for the dog, and they threw the house and lot in for free.”

  Andy laughed quietly and continued scratching the dog’s ears. It was late Sunday afternoon, and Andy had hiked down to the main house for her overnight stay, taking up Les on her offer of being here when Kate arrived in the morning.

  “How are things going up there?” Kurtz said, leaning on the railing, looking back at her former junior officer. She and Tara were expecting a group sometime in the next hour, so Andy said she’d help act as lookout, ready to play host to the weary travellers.

  Technically, they were no farther ahead, but she hadn’t really expected to be only four days in. “So far, fine.”

  “That doesn’t tell me anything, Wyles.”

  Andy gave a small laugh. “The troop is settling in, as are the instructors. They’re starting up class tomorrow after roll call to get the cadets on a somewhat familiar schedule.” Andy shrugged. “I’m still watching and waiting, information gathering.” She then proceeded to tell Kurtz about the inspection and the piece of paper with the seemingly random assortment of numbers. As Kurtz processed this information, Andy reviewed her mental note to call Jack tomorrow after she’d driven the medic into Kamloops. She’d taken a picture of the paper with her camera phone and texted it to him as soon as she got to the main house, wanting to know if he could run some kind of search to glean some meaning from it.

  “So really, nothing yet,” Kurtz said finally.

  “Like I said.” She took it as a statement of fact, not criticism. She did think about Superintendent Heath arriving in three days, knowing he wouldn’t be quite so blasé about the lack of progress. He would want evidence, facts, a culprit. Something to put into a report. Andy shrugged it off and didn’t let it settle on her. She had too many other things to worry about right now.

  “So what’s your plan for Kate?” Kurtz said, looking out over the balcony. Kurtz had said very little when Andy had explained to her and Tara who would be arriving to take over as camp doctor in the morning.

  Before she answered, Andy dug her fingers deeper into the wet fur of the old Lab. Musket sighed contentedly. “No plan.”

  Kurtz looked at her and Andy met her eyes, waiting for the next question or challenge or, worse, advice. “Watching and waiting? Information gathering?”

  “Something like that.” Andy heard the hard note creep into her tone. She swallowed it. “I haven’t really talked to her in two months, Kurtz. I have no idea why she’s coming up here.”

  Kurtz’s blue eyes drilled into Andy’s. “To be with you obviously, you dumb shit.”

  Andy’s laugh was bitter and short. She clenched her jaw and shook her head, not saying anything. Kate didn’t need to join the RCMP to be with Andy. That didn’t make any sense.

  The guests arrived twenty minutes later, two gay couples from Vancouver needing a pre-holiday respite. The men were rowdy and raunchy, instantly changing the mood inside the B&B from quiet and restful to loud and boisterous. Andy helped them in with their luggage and talked with them in the living room as Tara brought in warm appetizers and Kurtz poured wine. She took the few good-natured jokes about her height, her occupation, and the sly questions about the things she could do with handcuffs.

  As the conversation moved away from her, Andy started to feel restless. She glanced out the window at the late afternoon light, trying to decide if she had time for a run. Her brain needed it, not her body. But if her heart was going to continue constricting strangely every time she thought about Kate arriving here tomorrow morning, she might as well put it through a workout.

  Andy excused herself from the room, telling Tara she’d be back in time to help with dinner
. She changed into her running gear up in the small blue room with the antique quilt folded neatly under over-stuffed pillows. Andy felt better as soon as she stepped out the door. She stretched only briefly, knowing this wasn’t going to be a long run. She started up the gravel pathway, pushing open the metal gate into the meadow and lengthening her stride only until she was comfortable and her body moved with the efficiency and ease that made her relax. She let her thoughts slip into an almost meditative space.

  Andy and her team had grudgingly attended a mandatory professional developmental workshop a few years ago. The focus had been on mental health, the COs needing to show they were taking care of their officers and were aware of the high divorce rates and the reported and unreported cases of depression and anxiety. So they had a full day on mindful meditation, coping with anxiety, and anger management.

  One of the speakers had walked them through a very simple meditation exercise that didn’t require music or yoga mats or even closing your eyes. It involved a personalized mantra of sorts—whatever you needed to tell your brain to allow it to relax. Give it permission to think or not think, to allow your thoughts to wander, to become distracted, and even to become lost.

  Andy had struggled with that exercise. It went against every cop instinct she had to be alert, to pursue facts, to think with purpose and reason and logic, so she’d practised on her run in the morning, in the shower, driving in her cruiser, at her desk. And slowly she’d mastered the art of removing herself from herself for five minutes. She’d found her thoughts were clearer, sharper, and more in focus after. Calmer.

  This was Andy’s mindset as she ran back down toward the main house, her muscles loose and warm, her thoughts easy and unrestricted. As she picked her way down the darkening path and out into the meadow, she looked up briefly to see the first stars just beginning to show themselves in the blue blanket sky. Then something caught her eye near the gate, a movement of white against dark, a flash of pale, exposed skin. A figure detached itself from the fence and stood on the path, hands shoved into pockets.