7

ECUM SECUM CONSISTED OF HALF a dozen home-built cabins spread over ten hilly acres where the group grew organic vegetables for sale at farmers’ markets around the province. At least that was the way it was twenty years ago, the last time the place came on Garrett’s radar screen.

He’d had a girlfriend who lived there. Ellie was the original flower child with long, cornrowed hair and a deep all-over tan, the result of going topless and sometimes completely naked when she worked in the gardens. She’d been a big draw. Most of the men in the area stopped in to buy fresh produce on an almost daily basis. Their wives, not so much.

It took all of six months for Garrett to realize that the only thing they had in common was sex. He bailed out. Two years later, he ran into her and she had two naked babies and had put on thirty pounds. He couldn’t help wondering how the produce business was faring.

It was a twenty-minute drive to Ecum Secum. The approach, he remembered, was up a steep dirt pathway to the first and largest cabin. He realized things had changed the moment he saw the driveway. The dirt track had become a wide strip of asphalt lined with carefully trimmed plantings, each surrounded by wood chips. An equally well-crafted stone fence lined both sides of the driveway. A professional-looking sign read: ECUM SECUM HAVEN: REDIRECTING TROUBLED YOUTH.

It was the first of several surprises. The largest cabin had been replaced by a modern three-story home that sprouted wings in every direction. On the roof, an assortment of antennas and satellite dishes poked out. Parked in front was a pair of expensive motorcycles, known as crotch rockets in biker parlance. He wondered what part they played in redirecting troubled youth.

The other cabins looked more or less unchanged, including the one that he and Ellie had rocked late into the night with their bawdy activities. Still, the overall impression was of a tidy and shipshape organization, as unlike the hippy commune he remembered as one could possibly imagine. Either organic farming or redirecting troubled youth appeared to have grown lucrative in the intervening years.

He parked in a carefully delineated space in front of the house and went up to the front door. Before he could ring the bell, a voice from inside a fenced garden said, “Help you?”

A man sat on the ground picking asparagus. He wore only a pair of worn blue jeans hanging low on his gaunt frame. Garrett went over and leaned on the fence.

“Asparagus looks good,” he said.

“Can’t buy it. Goes to farmers’ market. They got a contract.”

“Anyone in charge here?”

He stopped picking and stared at Garrett more closely. “Sort of,” he said slowly.

“Can I talk to him?”

He stared for maybe ten seconds, as though trying to absorb the difficult question. Finally, he said, “Lloyd.”

Garrett waited.

The man went back to picking.

“And where might Lloyd be?”

An earthy finger sliced the air. “Up back.”

It appeared the asparagus picker had used up his entire vocabulary, so Garrett walked around the house and followed the path leading to the next cabin.

There were several more small gardens. Most had one or two remarkably untroubled-looking youths weeding away. He rounded one small cabin and stopped dead in his tracks.

A well-built, blond-haired man with a tidy blond beard and a tidy blond mustache and wearing a tiny blond pair of bikini bottoms that made him look almost naked was standing on a patch of mowed lawn directing what appeared to be an exercise session. Facing him were some twenty young boys and girls, none more than fifteen. They also wore bathing suits and were making a go of following the calisthenics of their leader.

“Come on, Lila,” said the blond man. “Pick up your feet and for God’s sake stop scowling. It’s not going to kill you.”

The girl mouthed a silent “fuck you” but made an attempt to raise her feet an inch or two higher.

“That’s better,” said the man. He threw himself to the ground and began to do pushups, his lean and tanned body rippling in the sunlight. Garrett saw pure envy from the young boys and something harder to describe on the faces of a few of the girls, with the exception of Lila, who continued to exhibit total boredom with the routine.

The man had graduated to one-armed pushups, flipping from one hand to the other effortlessly. On one of his flips, he saw Garrett. He put both hands on the ground and bounced back up to his feet. “Eric, you take over for the run. We appear to have a visitor.”

A pimple-faced boy jogged to the front and the others followed him off on a path that disappeared into the surrounding spruce.

“Help you?” he asked, coming over and wiping himself off with his T-shirt.

“You Lloyd?”

He nodded. “Don’t think I know you,” he said. “Thought I knew everyone around these parts. You a tourist? We only deal with young people here.”

“I’m Garrett Barkhouse, the new RCMP officer for this section of the coast.”

There was a slight hesitation, as though Lloyd was readjusting some little speech he’d had at the tip of his tongue.

“Glad to meet you,” he said, offering his hand. “Be good to have some law and order in these parts.”

“Some of your neighbors seem to think you could use some up here.”

Lloyd smiled thinly. “I know there have been a few burglaries in town. My kids had nothing to do with it. We teach them to obey the law. People see our sign and figure trouble comes from troubled youth. But it’s not always the case.”

“Actually, I used to live here,” Garrett said.

“Really?”

“That cabin back there,” he said, pointing. “Stayed about a year with my girlfriend—almost twenty years ago.”

“Before my time, I’m afraid.”

“I understand you still sell to farmers’ markets.”

“Yes, we’ve been quite productive in that regard. It’s pretty much what’s paid for our new buildings and facilities … that, and the small amount of provincial aid we get for taking in troubled kids.”

A striking blonde woman appeared on the porch of the cabin and said something in German. Lloyd looked annoyed, answered abruptly, and the woman disappeared inside.

“You speak German here?” Garrett asked.

“Most of the staff does. Last few years I’ve hired mostly workers from Germany. You can’t find good help locally. I tried bringing people in from Halifax but it was the same story. Canadian kids, American kids, they’re spoiled, you know. Actually, it’s worked out quite well. The foreign workers set a good example for the challenged kids we deal with.”

“Work ethic, huh?”

“Something like that.”

Lloyd was too smug for Garrett’s taste. He still had his shirt off, proud of his tight, muscular frame and not the least bit reluctant to show it off. He certainly seemed to enjoy exhibiting himself to the youngsters.

“We’re trying to track down information on a fishing boat that was found offshore the other day,” said Garrett, showing him a photo of the boat. “Ever seen her?”

He glanced at the picture. “Nope. Probably smugglers though. We get our fair share passing along the coast here. Pretty close to Halifax. I’ve found bales of marijuana on the shore myself.”

“Did you turn them in?”

“Nope. Had a bonfire on the beach and cooked it. I don’t allow any illegal substance here.”

“How about alcohol?”

“Especially not. Our kids are all under the legal drinking age.”

Garrett stared out at the cultivated gardens alternating with manicured lawns and wood-chipped paths. “You should have turned the drugs over to the RCMP,” he said.

“What RCMP? Wasn’t any around till you showed up. I don’t have time to haul freight to Halifax. We generally police ourselves. Besides, RCMP mentality always assumes the worst and they would have blamed our kids for having the stuff.”

Garrett nodded. That was probably what would have happened, all right. Just like the local people blamed the kids here when anything turned up missing. Much as he’d taken a disliking to Lloyd, he couldn’t fault what he was doing here.

Lloyd looked at the picture again. “Say, isn’t that the boat the papers said had several dead children on it?”

“The very one.”

“Sick bastards. It’s people like that that make our work here necessary. A number of our kids were involved in prostitution.”

“In Halifax?”

“Based there. Escort services in the city deliver anywhere in the province, just like pizza.”

“I’d like to talk to the girls who were in the profession,” said Garrett.

Lloyd tightened. “I’m not sure I can allow that. They’re trying to forget all about those times. It’s not easy for them.”

“I’m sure it isn’t. But given what they’ve been through, I doubt a few questions are going to upset them. And it might give us a lead that could help save other girls from getting sucked into the business.”

Garrett watched as Lloyd tried to think of some way to refuse to help.

“Look, we need help. It won’t take long. I don’t want to have to do this through legal channels, but I will if necessary.”

Lloyd shrugged. “I’m not trying to be difficult. Uh … you have some sort of ID or something? I didn’t realize Mounties operated out of uniform.”

Garrett showed his badge. “Trying to keep our provincial presence low-key for now. Till I feel my way around. Doesn’t always pay to advertise.”

Lloyd was thoughtful for a moment. “How about I let you talk to Lila Weaver? She’s been here a while and is pretty self-contained for a fifteen-year-old. She spent two years at a service in the city—Sweet Angels Escort Service.”

Garrett nodded.

“You wait on the porch. I’ll try to catch up to them.”

He turned and jogged off. Garrett watched his taut little butt, barely concealed in the bikini briefs. The man verged on exhibitionism just being around young girls in that outfit.

He climbed onto the porch and sat in a green plastic Adirondack lawn chair. It was almost twenty minutes before Lloyd reappeared, followed mopishly by a sweating and obviously less than thrilled Lila.

“Lila, this is Mr. Barkhouse. He’s a Mountie and wants to ask you a few questions.”

Lloyd started up onto the porch, heading for another plastic chair.

“I’ll handle it from here, Lloyd,” Garrett said.

Lloyd paused abruptly at his dismissal, started to say something, thought better of it and disappeared down the path.

Garrett looked at Lila and then at Lloyd’s disappearing frame. “He ever put any clothes on?”

Lila hooted. “He’d prance around starkers if he could get away with it.” She climbed up onto the porch and leaned against the railing. “Not that he’s got anything I haven’t seen.”

Garrett looked at her world-weary eyes. Fifteen years old. It was already clear that any semblance of a normal future, falling in love, marriage, a job, and kids was going to be a very long shot for this girl. She was right. There wasn’t much she hadn’t already seen.

“You get to read any papers here?”

“What, you mean newspapers? Hell, no. They don’t let us see nothin’ from outside.” She waved a hand that took in the entire surroundings. “Looks pretty, don’t it? But it’s just a cage all the same. No bars, but if you run away, they catch you before you make it halfway to Halifax. There’s only the one highway running to town. I’ve got to stick it out here another six months. It’s nothing but a bloody reform school. They make us get up at six and do calisthenics, for Christ’s sake. Like that’s gonna prevent us from wanting some pot. Then they force us to swim—and the water’s fucking cold! Then we spend the day listening to stupid motivational speeches or working in the gardens. It’s the pits.”

He nodded. “The life you were leading was probably lots more fun.”

She sniffed. “You get used to it. One trick’s pretty much like the next. Sometimes you get one’s crazy in the head, wants stupid stuff, you know. But you learn how to deal with it.”

He considered this and said, “Lila, there was a boat found offshore the other day. It had four young girls on it, we think headed for the escort services in the city. When we stopped them, the men on board killed the girls and got away.”

Her face turned white. “Bastards,” she said softly.

“Exactly. I know you’ve been out of the scene for a while. But anything you might be able to tell me about how the services got their supply when you were there might help save other girls from going through what you did—or worse.”

She looked out at the gardens. Even though she was sweaty and tired, her stringy, blonde hair unkempt and her face flushed, Garrett could still see why a pimp would want to latch onto her. She had a button nose, small mouth, and deep, wide-set eyes. She had long, slim legs and for her age was very well developed. She would have been a good moneymaker.

“If I help you, can you get me out of here quicker?”

“I can’t make any guarantees, but I’ll look into your case and help if I can. That much is a promise.”

She nodded. “Lloyd said he told you the name of my service?”

“Sweet Angels.”

“Some hoot, huh? If we were angels, I’d sure like to see the other guys—you know, the ones live a little farther down. But that’s how they told us to market ourselves. Sweet angels who will do whatever you want.”

“Who ran the business?”

“Margaret Allen was her name. Big Margaret. She had the biggest butt I’ve ever seen. She was all right, though. Took care of us okay, long’s we did what we were told. Her old man was a different story. Hank was his name. ’Bout fifty. He had some other job and wasn’t around a whole lot of the time. He let Margaret run things, but he’d come by couple times a month to sample the merchandise. The girls hated him ’cause he liked it rough and he beat one girl half to death when she was slow to do what he told her.”

“Any idea where the girls came from?”

“We got a delivery three, four times a year. They always came by boat. We knew ’cause a lot of ’em were so seasick when they first arrived they could hardly walk. Hank cured ’em of that right quick and then they couldn’t walk because of all the screwing they did in the first coupla weeks. They threw the new girls in at the deep end, if you know what I mean. Twelve, fourteen tricks a day right off the bat. Hank called it conditioning.”

“What nationality were the girls?”

“All over the block. When I first came on, Russian girls were really big. The Slavic look, you know? Then we had a lot of spics. Just before I left, they were moving to more Asians—you know, Oriental types.”

“Can you tell me anything at all that might help me track down their sellers?”

Lila thought. “We weren’t told anything, but we girls talked among ourselves a lot. It was the only way we had to pass the time. I remember one thing. A coupla girls said they thought they’d been rescued at the end of the boat trip because there was a cop on board. But nothing happened.”

Garrett couldn’t conceal his shock. “How did they know he was a cop? Was he in uniform?”

“Not full Mountie gear. He had the hat, though, and wore a cop belt—you know—with night stick and handcuffs. Oh, yeah, and he had a badge of some kind.”

“Did they say if he was armed?”

“Uh … I think so. At least one of the girls said something about a pistol.”

The partial uniform was strange. Maybe he was on special assignment or possibly from some other government agency. He could have been undercover, but then why have any Mountie stuff at all? Could he have been a cop undercover, pretending to be a pimp pretending to be a cop? Garrett shook his head at the idea. It made no sense.

“Okay. Anything else you can think of ?”

“Yeah—’bout a year ago, we had a large group of spic girls come in. Must have been fifteen of ’em. They told us they’d come by plane. A big private jet. I guess it was a pretty cushy deal. Lots of food on board and fancy seats. A couple of the girls even got alcohol when they were brought into a private room. ’Course they had to have sex to get it.”

“Did they say who with?”

“All they said was a coupla older guys.”

He sighed. “All right, Lila. You’ve been a big help—I mean it.”

She nodded, looking up at him with her wide eyes. “You won’t forget about trying to get me outta here?”

“I won’t forget. And Lila? They’re not spics, they’re Hispanics.”