“I still say he’s hiding something.”
Zeb stubbornly repeated the same message about Cadet Foster for the last ten minutes. It was after eleven, the gas furnace of the kitchen hummed and rattled as it warmed the cabin where Andy, Kate, Sergeant Trokof, and the three instructors were meeting. Andy shifted her annoyance to the background and forced herself to give Zeb’s strong opinion the same weight as everyone else’s, no matter how much she disagreed.
“He’s so quiet, but you can tell he’s itching to talk back,” Zeb continued, though no one offered a contrary opinion. They’d already tried and Zeb refused to listen.
Andy had assembled the troop’s files, and they’d been going through the cadets one by one, offering opinions and insights, seeing where their observations overlapped or jarred. So far it had been pretty straightforward, Andy encouraging the team to offer what they were thinking without coming to any conclusions or making definitive statements about the cadets as individuals or the troop as a whole. But as soon as they’d come to Hawke Foster, they had disagreed instantly.
“But he’s not talking back. He’s following orders like he should,” Les said, her tone showing that her patience was wearing thin. “Just because it’s clear he’s got some attitude underneath that, doesn’t set him apart from fifty other cadets at the training academy right now.”
Zeb shook his head, his mouth set in a hard line, but he didn’t say anything. Andy was confused at his strong reaction. Zeb didn’t seem to dislike Hawke, but he did seem mistrustful. Andy wondered if shades of prejudice coloured Zeb’s opinion of Cadet Foster. Andy waited to see if anyone would offer anything into the silence, but the team seemed to have all said their piece.
“Dr. Morrison, may we ask your opinion?” Sergeant Trokof broke the silence, turning everyone’s attention to Kate. She’d been generally quiet through the whole discussion, occasionally offering an insight or asking a question. Andy wasn’t the least bit surprised at how focused an opinion she already had of each cadet, how well she was able to pinpoint a characteristic or a personality trait, even though she’d only spent at most twenty minutes each with them.
“You’ve all read his file, I assume.” Kate looked around the assembled group who all affirmed the assumption. “Then I can tell you that Hawke Foster’s medical file supports his cadet file. Given his difficult history in the foster care system, I imagine Constable Zeb is right. Foster probably has a lot of secrets.”
The group was quiet, digesting Kate’s words. Even Zeb seemed taken aback at Kate’s quasi-agreement. Hawke Foster’s case file read like a thousand files Andy had seen of young offenders. But Foster’s had two differences. At the age of twelve, he had testified against a former foster parent who was brought up on charges of physical abuse. The man was eventually sent to jail. And the second difference was that she was looking at his file because he was in the process of becoming a peace officer, not a criminal. So yes, Foster probably had a great deal to hide, but that didn’t mean it had anything to do with the situation they were currently investigating.
Andy was just opening her mouth to drive this point home with Zeb when the sound of a door slamming across the quad caught her by surprise. She only had time to quickly check her watch—twenty minutes after cadet lights out—when the shouting started. Meyers and Zeb were the closest to the door, Meyers reaching it first and swinging the door wide. Andy followed quickly, hearing the rush of feet behind her.
Her eyes took a moment to adjust from the bright lights of the kitchen cabin to the diffuse orange light from the hydro pole. She heard sounds of a struggle, fighting, more screen doors being slammed as cadets poured out of their cabins, all watching the two figures grappling at the far side of the quad. Andy squinted as she tried to figure out who and what she was seeing.
Andy clearly saw Greg Shipman’s face as he straightened up, then reached down and across the back of whoever he was wrestling with, grabbing the man’s shirt and pulling, hockey jersey style. His opponent went low and grabbed Shipman around the legs, lifting him in a dump tackle. Shipman landed flat on his back in the wet gravel with a sharp grunt.
Meyers reached the pair first, placing himself between the attacker and Shipman, who had rolled over onto his side on the ground, but made no other move. Meyers had his hands out and used his tall frame as a barrier, moving whoever it was backwards. Zeb knelt down beside Shipman and Andy, seeing the cadet’s eyes open, figured he was fine and continued to advance on his opponent, who Meyers had steered back and away from the group of wide-eyed cadets standing in a nervous circle.
It was Foster.
Andy followed Meyers as he continued to separate Foster from the rest of the group, the cadet walking backwards, his hands clenched in fists at his side, his eyes locked at a seemingly random point over Meyers’ shoulder. Meyers stopped and let Foster take a few more steps back, then looked at Andy. She took a step in, letting Foster register her presence and take a few more steadying breaths. They could hear voices in the background: Andy sorting through Trokof’s harsh commands, Les’s neutral directions, Kate’s soothing assessment. Andy waited, but of course Foster offered nothing into the silence, his posture remaining tensed.
“What happened, Cadet Foster?” Andy said.
Hawke Foster looked up at Andy and met her eyes for one brief moment before looking back over Meyers’ shoulder. It was long enough for Andy to see his raging defiance. This is what Zeb sees, Andy thought to herself. His defiance seemed to be deliberate, an odd kind of control.
“Answer Sgt. Wyles, Cadet Foster,” Meyers said quietly, an edge of authority to his tone but completely lacking any kind of threat. Andy kicked her estimation of the man up a notch.
“Shipman and I had a disagreement,” Foster said, his words precise and neutral.
“A disagreement about what?” Andy said, knowing he was going to give the least amount of information possible without being insubordinate. It was a good trick Andy had used often enough herself, but she had no intention of letting him get away with it.
“Music,” Foster said.
Andy caught Meyers’s eye in the dim light. Music.
“Cadet Foster, do you really expect me to believe you and Cadet Shipman risked being kicked out of Depot for conduct unbecoming of a cadet over music?”
Foster tensed. It was barely noticeable, just a tight line of his shoulders and chest under the thin grey t-shirt. It could have passed for a shiver of cold, but Andy knew better. Foster cared very much about his place in this troop, in becoming an RCMP officer. Again, she stored it. Again, she waited.
“I asked you a question, Cadet Foster, and I expect an answer.”
“We had a disagreement over music,” Foster reiterated, and this time it sounded beyond neutral. Rote.
Andy gave him an absolute look of disbelief, staring him down, waiting for him to shift or blink or fidget. Foster unfocused his eyes and remained perfectly still. Andy had a grudging respect for Hawke Foster. She recognized a good defence system when she saw one.
The gravel crunched behind Andy. She didn’t turn to see who it was, but she caught the light scent of her shampoo as Kate joined them, standing between Andy and Foster, angled slightly towards the cadet. Foster reacted with a quickly controlled startle, like he had not anticipated anyone being anywhere close to his side in this. Kate gave Andy a questioning look, and Andy gave her assent to speak to the cadet.
“Are you hurt?”
Hawke looked at Kate, blinked, then flicked his eyes to Constable Meyers.
“You may answer the doctor when she asks you a question, cadet,” Meyers said.
Hawke shook his head. “I’m not hurt,” he said, his voice an unemotional monotone.
Kate waited, but Foster offered nothing else. “Do you know where to find me if you need to follow up?” she asked.
Clearly Hawke Foster was not used to neutrality, let alone an offered kindness. Another controlled flinch, a knock to his defence system. Andy wanted to smile. Kate had that effect on people.
“Yes, Dr. Morrison.”
“How’s Shipman?” Andy said, deliberately allowing Foster to hear the question and Kate’s answer. Andy watched his reaction out of her peripheral vision.
“Fine, just winded.” Andy read her expression and saw she wasn’t keeping any information back.
Foster quietly shifted again and straightened slightly. Andy turned, her instinct twigged, just in time to see Shipman and Foster pass a look between them. Andy caught Foster’s questioning look, Shipman’s slight shrug of a reply. This didn’t seem like two people who had just been fighting.
Diversion, thought Andy and she turned her body all the way, scanning the quad, trying to count the cadets in front of her. Many of them were moving, talking and regrouping, crossing the quad to talk to someone else. Very few were still, though their movements were slow. Too slow, deliberate. Choreographed. Andy couldn’t track the cadets easily enough. Les looked up and caught Andy’s searching look.
“Roll call, Sgt. Manitou,” Andy called across the quad.
“In formation, Troop 18!” Les called out loudly, and the cadets instantly began to fall into two neat lines in front of her.
Foster hesitated and looked to Meyers.
“Formation, Cadet Foster,” Constable Meyers said.
Meyers followed Foster as he hustled back towards his troop. Andy hung back with Kate, watching, waiting to figure this out. As the troop gathered in formation, she saw who was missing. Petit.
Just as Les was about to say something to the cadets, the door to the kitchen opened and Petit walked out holding a half-eaten banana. He paused comically at the sight of his troop in perfect formation before him in the quad. The screen door slammed loudly behind him in the tense silence.
“No need to line up for me, friends,” Petit said.
No one laughed, though Andy caught Shandly nervously biting her lip. Sergeant Trokof stepped forward.
“Cadet Bertrand Jean-Pierre Petit,” Trokof started, his voice drippingly friendly. “Would you be so kind as to inform myself, your instructors, Sgt. Wyles, Dr. Morrison as well as the rest of your assembled troop as to exactly what you were doing in the kitchen after hours?”
Petit stared at Trokof like he hadn’t understood the question, then he looked down at his banana then across to his troop. They stared back at him silently.
“I got hungry?”
“Are you asking me if you got hungry, Cadet Petit? Or are you telling me you got hungry,” Sgt. Trokof said, his voice implying he had unlimited patience. Everyone present, except possibly Kate standing curiously beside her, knew differently.
“I got hungry, Sgt. Trokof,” Petit said.
“Well, I’m certainly happy we could accommodate your appetite so late in the evening, Cadet Petit. But please explain to me how you came to the decision to satiate your hunger instead of breaking up a fight between your troop mates.”
Petit clearly didn’t have an answer for this, either funny or straight. “I figured they would work it out, I guess,” Petit said nervously.
“Work it out,” Sergeant Trokof repeated, his voice going quiet.
“Yeah,” Petit said, shifting his weight from side to side, his nerves obviously heightened. Andy tracked his gaze to Prewitt-Hayes, like she could help him out of this mess. Andy couldn’t see her from this angle, but she could imagine the tense expression on her face. “Yeah,” Petit said again. “Sometimes Greg’s music gets on my nerves also.”
Palpable tension rolled through the group. Andy had to see this for herself. With a quick look at Kate, she joined everyone in the quad, coming to stand between Petit and the rest of the assembled troop. She saw the bleak intensity on the right mark’s face, then caught Trokof’s eye. He gestured expansively towards the troop. Take it, the gesture said to Andy.
“Cadet Petit, do you share a cabin with Shipman and Foster?”
“No, Sgt. Wyles,” Petit answered immediately. Andy wasn’t watching him, though. She was watching Prewitt-Hayes who was glaring daggers at Petit. Andy waited. Prewitt-Hayes controlled her expression.
“Cadet Prewitt-Hayes, perhaps you would like to explain how Cadet Petit knows what the fight between Cadets Shipman and Foster was about?”
Tension, fear, nerves, Andy read all of these on every member of the troop. Frances, at the back left of the second row, even seemed to shake a little.
Prewitt-Hayes shook her head, like she was unable to speak. Trokof yelled into the silence, startling everyone including Andy, who had been half-expecting it.
“You will give Sgt. Wyles an actual answer with actual words, Cadet Prewitt-Hayes!” he roared.
“I don’t know for sure, Sgt. Wyles. He must have heard it,” the right mark, leader of the troop, answered in a shaky voice.
Andy considered her options. They were caught, but Andy had no idea what they were caught in. Frustrated, she let the troop suffer the silence. She followed the information backwards, thought about sitting in the kitchen, the sound of a fight, the scattering of the instructors, what she could now see as choreographed movements of the fight, the purposeful shifting of the rest of the troop, Petit coming out of the kitchen…
Drill Sergeant Trokof was looking at Andy expectantly. She gave a slight shake of her head. No more interrogation, but there would be another inspection and Andy hoped like hell this would turn up something more definitive.
It didn’t. The moon had descended past its peak in the sky by the time inspection was done, the troop standing in formation the entire time in the quad, even when the rain began just after midnight. Nothing. Not a sign, not a shred of evidence, not even a piece of paper this time. The cadets were clean, the cabin was clean, and overturning the kitchen turned up nothing.
Andy passed the punishment of Troop 18 over to the instructors, heading wearily back to her cabin with Kate walking silently beside her. It was impossible not to hear Trokof raging at the troop behind them, but Andy blocked it out. She was tired, but her brain was on overdrive, thinking about Superintendent Heath arriving the day after tomorrow, trying to explain to him how this troop was continuing to defy them all. She felt annoyed, she felt worried, and above all frustrated.
As she held the door open for Kate, Andy questioned her defense of this group. It didn’t make sense. She forced herself to keep her priorities straight. She was here to get to the bottom of whatever this troop was hiding, not to help individual cadets, not to get them back on the straight and narrow, not to punish them or shape them or encourage them. But it was hard. Something about this troop tugged at her. Cadet Hawke Foster, she had to admit to herself, was highest on that list.
Kate was adding some small logs to the fire, pushing them in before locking the glazed door. Andy read a similar look of concentration on her face, though Kate’s was tinged with curiosity instead of Andy’s frustration. Kate stood, wiping her hands.
“I don’t get it,” Kate said.
“Neither do I,” Andy admitted, shoving her hands into her pockets, wishing the fire would hurry up and warm the cabin.
“I get that it was a diversion, that they wanted us out of the kitchen cabin. At first I thought it was a prank, like they really did just get hungry. But the way they reacted…” Kate trailed off.
“They were scared,” Andy finished for her.
“Of getting caught?”
It seemed like such a simple question.
“Yes, of getting caught and all the consequences,” Andy said. “But I think they’re more afraid we’ll uncover whatever they’re protecting.”
Kate tilted her head, seeming to think through Andy’s answer. She unconsciously tried to twist the absent ring on her finger again. Andy’s heart constricted, and she hesitated. Then she walked across the cabin, sifted through her bag by the door and pulled Kate’s sister’s ring out of one of her pockets. She handed it to her silently. Kate turned it over on her palm, studying the thick silver band with the simple, worn pattern. Then, to Andy’s surprise, she pocketed it just like Andy had done so many times over the past two months.
“I think I’ll give it to Tyler when I get home,” Kate said quietly, meeting Andy’s eyes.
Andy’s heart lightened as another burden was lifted. It was a symbol of how far Kate had come in the two months she had been gone. For Andy, it meant Kate could let the past be the past and she could refuse to let guilt weigh her down. Andy couldn’t help smiling and pulling Kate into her arms, completely overwhelmed with just how in love she was with this woman. Kate clasped her arms around Andy’s waist, buried her head in her chest and they stood like that for a long time. Andy could hear the crackling of the fire, the click and hum of the hot water tank, Trokof’s distant, continuous yell. But she concentrated on the sound of Kate’s breathing, the smell of her hair, the incredible feeling of being held so tightly.
Eventually Kate pulled back and looked up into Andy’s eyes. “They’ll come around,” Kate said.
“What makes you so sure?” Andy asked, wishing in that moment she had Kate’s confidence.
“Secrets don’t stay secrets. They can’t. Even I can see this troop is working overtime to keep up appearances. It takes a lot of energy,” Kate said evenly.
“But they’ve been at it for months. Successfully. It’s like they’re getting better at it, not worse,” Andy tried to articulate her frustration.
“I didn’t say you’d break them. I said they’d come around,” Kate clarified, and Andy thought again of the mantra she’d been trying to keep in mind since Lincoln presented her with this challenge a week ago. You won’t punish it out of them, you won’t force it out of them, you won’t trick it out of them.
“Tell me why you think so.”
“Because you are offering them a way out. They might not see it yet because they’re still so caught up in maintaining. But I saw the way you pulled back instead of going after that cadet, Petit. You saw right through Prewitt-Hayes, but you didn’t attack her. You let it go, you let them remain intact,” Kate said. “They trust you, I think. They’ll come around,” she repeated, her voice sure.
Andy shook her head, wanting Kate’s confidence. But it was enough for now, that someone had it. It was enough that Kate was here with her. Andy kissed Kate lightly, even the gentlest brush of their lips making her heart hammer strongly.
“Do you have any idea how much I love you, Kate Morrison?” Andy whispered to her.
“Yes, I do,” Kate said happily. “I love you, too, Andy Wyles. And I missed you.”
*
Tuesday dawned sunny, the weather seeming to agree with Andy’s assessment that they needed to start fresh, move past the night’s turbulence and start again. While Kate showered, Andy went to the kitchen cabin, finding Sergeant Trokof alone with a coffee, toast, and a glass of orange juice.
“Good morning, Sgt. Wyles. I trust you slept well after last night’s chaos,” Trokof said, still clearly annoyed.
Andy looked closely at the drill sergeant. He seemed pale this morning, drawn. She considered the possibly that at his age, the man needed more than four and a half hours of sleep. She made a note to talk to Kate when she had a minute today.
“Yes, fine thank you,” Andy said.
“And the doctor? How is she faring this morning?” Trokof said. Andy, listening carefully for tones of disapproval, heard only inquiry and interest. She imagined either Les had discreetly filled in the other instructors, or they’d drawn their own conclusions as Kate and Andy had disappeared into a cabin together last night.
“Kate’s good, she should be joining us in a minute,” Andy said, meeting Trokof’s eyes. She felt the brief awkwardness of her personal life and her work life colliding, but she navigated it with confidence, knowing others would be looking for her cue in how to respond. “She’s trying to figure out this troop like the rest of us,” Andy added, shrugging. She pulled two clean mugs off the tray and poured herself and Kate a coffee before walking them carefully to the table across from Trokof who was shaking his head.
“Christ almighty, this troop is starting to piss me off. Part of me wants to tell the CO coming up tomorrow to just get rid of all of them, cancel all their training agreements and damn the consequences. It’s what they deserve after the shit they put us through last night.” Trokof was clearly angry now, the early morning sun streaming through the cabin windows apparently not having the same effect on him as it had on Andy. She didn’t offer her own opinion. Her contrary views seemed unnecessary. But Trokof looked across the table at Andy, as if sensing her disapproval.
“You don’t agree, I can see that much,” he said, drilling her with a long look.
“No, I don’t.”
Trokof didn’t answer, but he did shake his head again before taking a fierce bite of his toast. Andy took a sip of her coffee, waiting for Trokof to add in his next two cents as she wondered idly what Kate would want for breakfast this morning.
“Tell me why I’m wrong,” Trokof said suddenly, putting his toast down and picking up his coffee. Andy noted that his hand shook slightly, and she wondered again about his health. Or maybe it really was just anger.
“I think your opinion this morning is based more on frustration than anything else. I’ve heard the way you talk about this troop, I can see how well you know these cadets. Having all of their training agreements revoked is the last thing you want.” Andy said it all in a very matter-of-fact tone, watching Trokof carefully. He didn’t say anything at first, then he lowered his coffee cup and passed a hand over his eyes.
“I just…” Trokof started then paused, lining his spoon up with his plate, angling the handle of his white china mug so it sat directly perpendicular to the edge of the table before trying again. “I just worry about what we’re teaching them,” he said finally.
“What do you mean?”
“I know that Depot isn’t the real world,” he said carefully. “I know that you and every other cadet who have passed through Depot in the twenty-two years I’ve been there forgot at least three quarters of the shit we drilled into you mere minutes after we handed you your medals.” He looked at Andy who gave a small grin, offering no objection. “And I know every cadet whines about how they’re not going to use drills and deportment when they’re out on the streets chasing bad guys, enforcing the law, upholding the peace, and everything else they want to learn to be Mounties.”
Andy could detect no note of bitterness in the man’s tone, though given the length of time and energy and the sheer number of Mounties in training he must have seen over the years, Andy wouldn’t blame him one bit for being bitter. “But I know what my role is. I know I am trying to teach the cadets to listen for once in their young lives, to be able to follow an order with efficiency and precision, and to trust in the people around them so explicitly it becomes an unconscious thought. I may not have spent much time on the streets as a peace officer, but I know enough to believe to the depths of my Newfie soul that those ideals and skills are necessary out in the real world.”
“I wish you’d been able to explain that to me as a twenty-three year old,” Andy said, smiling respectfully at her former drill sergeant.
“Would you have listened to me?”
“No, probably not.”
“Exactly,” he said, taking another sip of coffee. “So I worry about what we’re teaching this troop. They keep getting away with,”—he waved his hand above him, etching frustration and futility in the air—“something and we keep punishing them to no effect and they carry on, day by day getting closer to the moment where we shake their hands, hand them a medal in their red serge, and send them off. So what have we taught them, Sergeant Wyles? What skills and ideals are the cadets of Troop 18 taking out into the so-called ‘real world?’”
Andy had no answer, but she realized she had underestimated Sergeant Albert Trokof. He was not showing the simple frustration of this troop getting away with lying yet again. His concern for the troop went much deeper. Andy rearranged her thoughts and assumptions quickly, sorting through Trokof’s views and judgements and landing on his final question. She still had no answer, so she posed her own question.
“What is the best case scenario outcome for this troop?”
Trokof seemed surprised by the question, and he leaned back in his chair, the sunlight from the window slanting in a bright, diagonal line across his uniformed chest. He was just about to speak when they both heard Kate coming in from outside. She was wearing jeans and a dark blue fleece, her damp hair caught in its usual twist at her neck. Andy’s heart gave a small, joyous kick at the sight of her, then a bigger one as Kate smiled at her before turning to Sergeant Trokof.
“Good morning,” Kate said, giving her warmest, pre-coffee smile. “Am I interrupting? I can come back.”
Trokof waved a hand at the seat in front of him. “Please, sit. Your Sergeant Wyles has just posed a question as to what I see as the best possible outcome for this troop.”
Kate took the seat and picked up her coffee, giving Andy a quick smile of thanks before taking her first sip. As Trokof reordered his thoughts, Kate also gave Andy a look, raising her eyebrows slightly and giving the smallest shrug of her shoulders. Andy knew she was reacting to Trokof’s possessive and assuming use of the word ‘your.’
“The best possible outcome would be if it is discovered that whatever the troop is hiding is a minor transgression only. The appropriate punitive measures would be put in place and Troop 18 can get back to their regularly scheduled cadet training program. Realistically however, I know that’s probably not the scenario we are dealing with. In that case…” he paused, sighed, and finished the sentence. “In that case, I guess damage control is the best possible outcome.”
“Damage control,” Andy repeated, waiting for Trokof to complete the thought.
“Yes, that we have to release the fewest possible cadets. And when I say damage control, I mean limiting the impact on both the RCMP and the cadets,” he said, looking across the table at both of them.
Before Andy had time to comment, she heard more footsteps outside the door. Les entered first, holding the door for Meyers and Zeb who followed her into the kitchen cabin. Andy noticed both Les and Meyers also exhibited the same signs of being up late with the troop: haggard expressions and an automatic bee-line to the coffee machine percolating on the counter. Zeb, however, seemed utterly unaffected. He was full of energy, standing by the door, rocking on the balls of his feet then back down again. He looked like he would drop and give fifty push-ups if only someone would give him the excuse.
“What is our delinquent troop up to this morning?” Trokof said, taking his frustration down to a level of mere annoyance. Andy guessed he didn’t like to show how much this troop was wearing him down in front of the other instructors.
“Ran them through a modified PARE this morning,” Zeb said, almost gleefully.
“Bet they loved that,” Andy said, watching the young constable.
Zeb grinned wider. “They were as quiet as kittens,” he said. “I think maybe we’re finally getting to them.”
Les balanced a coffee and a plate of toast as she sat down next to Trokof. Once her breakfast was safely on the table, she looked up at Zeb and snorted in disbelief. “Either you’re naïvely optimistic or totally off your rocker, Zeb,” Les said.
A spasm of anger crossed over Zeb’s face. He hid it quickly with a gruff response. “Neither,” he shot back. “I just think we’re starting to crack this group. Bringing them out here was a perfect plan,” he added, with an appreciative nod to Andy. She said nothing, knowing no part of her plan had ever included ‘cracking’ the group. Andy quickly jumped into the conversation, seeing Les just about to offer her own retort to Zeb. Bickering was going to get them nowhere.
“Are the cadets in class today?” Andy said.
“Supposed to be,” Zeb answered before anyone else could respond. “But I think we should use the day. It’s sunny and dry.”
“What were you thinking, Constable Zeb?” Trokof said in his formal way. Andy considered Lincoln’s reasoning for wanting the drill instructor out here at Camp Depot. Decorum and structure, he’d said. Andy understood now and appreciated Lincoln’s forethought.
“Either defence class up on the basketball court or target practice just at the edge of the forest. Or both,” he added. He looked around the room at the other instructors, as if remembering he should include them. “Anyone else want them?”
Les waved away the offer. “They’re all yours,” she said, and Meyers nodded in agreement.
“Wyles?” Zeb said, almost mocking.
Andy ignored his tone. “I’ll shadow the troop today if you don’t mind,” she said, her tone a firm, professional neutral. Zeb shrank only slightly then squared his shoulders and gave a nod of assent. Not that he really had any choice. Then he turned to Kate.
“Dr. Morrison? Want the troop for anything today, or should I just point them in your direction if one of them gets a boo-boo during hand-to-hand training?” Zeb’s tone now dangerously danced the border from mocking to offensive. Andy heard the implied, though probably unintended, insult and felt her hackles rising. She slowly turned to Zeb, taking the time to school her features and take a breath so she didn’t bite his head off. But before she could say anything, Kate had interceded.
“Sure, I’ll take them,” Kate said, her voice calm and assured. She turned away from Zeb, ignoring his look of surprise. She directed her next question at the drill instructor. “The cadets do some kind of first aid training, I take it?”
“Yes,” Trokof said, sounding amused. “They have an in-class component, and they also come across first aid situations in the scenarios we run.”
“I’d be happy to run them through some scenarios this afternoon,” she said, then turned back to Zeb. “If that fits with your plans, Constable Zeb?”
“Sure thing, Dr. Morrison,” Zeb said, his tone drifting back down towards respectful. Andy wanted to shake her head. She couldn’t quite figure out Zeb. He seemed like a kid with ADHD, but one who had learned some skills and could hide it. But sometimes it caught up to him.
There was a brief, awkward pause.
“Come on Zeb. I’ll give you a hand setting up the targets,” Meyers said, draining the last of his coffee and standing up. Andy gave him a brief, grateful look as he walked by, and Meyers acknowledged it with an almost embarrassed dip of his head.
Once they’d left, Les let out a long breath. “Sorry,” she said to no one in particular, “I know I shouldn’t bait him like that. I just hate energetic people on a morning that I’m dragging my ass.”
“Especially before your first coffee,” Kate added, laughing.
“Exactly!” Les grinned, taking a sip of orange juice to wash down her toast. She made a face and put the cup down. “Ugh, that tastes awful. Did the cadets make it?”
Trokof looked down at his own empty juice cup. “Yes, I think so,” he said. “Tastes fine to me.”
“I think for a lot of reasons, I should stick to coffee,” Les said, and Kate laughed again.
Andy watched them have a casual conversation over their coffees though she tuned it out quickly, walking back over the last half hour, sorting details and ideas in her head in an attempt to keep up with the rapidly shifting scenario she found herself in. After a moment, she felt Trokof watching her. He still seemed pale, but his shoulders were set.
“We all need a bit of patience, it seems,” he said to Andy quietly.
Yes, Andy thought to herself. That summed it up entirely. They could all use a bit of patience.
*
Andy didn’t spend the day shadowing the troop like she’d hoped. Instead she spent it mired in the details of running a camp: garbage disposal, water purification, taking laundry down to the main house, fiddling with the portable printer connection, a running toilet in one of the cabins, and the endless task of keeping enough food in stock to feed this many hungry adults. She checked her voicemail while she was in cell range at the main house, confirming that Superintendent Heath himself would be descending on Camp Depot tomorrow sometime in the early afternoon.
Then she was back up to camp with cleaning supplies, fresh bed linens, and empty recycling buckets. Andy didn’t mind the menial work. She’d known what she was getting herself into when she’d presented this offer to Lincoln. Still, she felt disconnected from the instructors and the cadets for most of the day. Finally, with her list of jobs diminished and the late afternoon sun at her back, Andy walked up behind the cabins where Kate had already begun running the cadets through some first aid scenarios.
Kate had broken the troop up into four groups of four, each with at least one cadet badly imitating an injured person. Andy gave a small wave to Kate, who was standing side by side with Les, having an ongoing conversation while they surveyed the activity. Kate returned the greeting and Les waved Andy over. But Andy shook her head and instead sat on a damp, old log that had obviously served as bleachers for this run down court. She wanted to survey the troop. Watching them interact, Andy could sense a quietness that had been missing in the past few days. Maybe because this wasn’t really a class or because Kate was a civilian, but as Andy watched the cadets, none of the tension or hyperawareness was present. Maybe Zeb had been right, Andy thought as she listened to Kate calling the troop back together. Maybe this was really working.
“Okay, I think that’s about as much as we can do without fake blood and bandages,” Kate said to the cadets.
“Or without breaking someone’s leg to see what it looks like,” Shipman said, making the other cadets laugh.
“Or that,” Kate agreed with a slight roll of her eyes. Andy watched as Kate’s expression became serious. She could sense a question coming, some kind of test. “How do you know if someone is injured?” she challenged the cadets.
“Blood and bones,” Shipman called out immediately, still angling for a laugh from his troop.
“Yes. But what else?” Kate said patiently and pointedly. The troop was silent, taking in Kate’s shift in mood.
Les jumped in. “As a first responder, you’ll need to know the signs. Even if you won’t be treating anyone, you have to know what to look for to call in to EMS or at the very least to put in your report later.”
“Signs of shock,” Prewitt-Hayes said decisively, as soon as Les had finished talking.
“What does that look like?”
“Disorientation, acute anxiety, lack of response to stimuli…”
“Yes,” Kate interrupted, “but what does that look like, Cadet Prewitt-Hayes?”
Another silence, the troop looking at Kate with curious eyes. She had them stumped.
“Let me try it another way,” Kate said, glancing around the group. “What did the people around you look like after they walked out of the tear gas test?”
The cadets immediately started talking over each other, giving descriptions of physical symptoms, expressions of pain, what it looked like when someone was having difficulty breathing. All cadets went through the OC or pepper spray test in week seven of their training program. Andy still vividly remembered the burn that instantly took over her entire head; her throat, nose, mouth, eyes all streaming with tears and mucous as her body tried to rid itself of the toxin. Kate had done her homework about the cadet training. She wouldn’t have expected anything less.
“Right,” Kate was saying as Andy tuned back in. “So some injuries are easy to identify. We instinctually understand what pain looks like on another human being. But some are more subtle and shock is one of those.” Kate paused. “Here’s another question. How do you know when someone is well?” She motioned to the cadet closest to her to step forward. “How do you know Cadet Frances is well?”
A quick, tight anxiety rolled through the troop. Andy could see it in a small sidestep, a drawn breath, an uneasy look. Tension. Andy controlled the urge to walk around to where Kate and Les stood so she could see better. Something had happened, some shift, something the troop didn’t like. Singling out one cadet? Is that what spooked them? Andy watched silently, cataloguing all her questions.
“If I may say so, Dr. Morrison, I’d say that Frances kind of looks like shit, actually,” Greg Shipman said, his jocular tone breaking the strained silence. Kate looked at him, annoyed, then she turned to Frances as if seeing him for the first time. Andy watched Kate give him a quick assessment.
“He’s right,” Kate said. “Are you not feeling well, Cadet Frances?”
Frances shook his head, held his hand to his stomach in a terrible pantomime. “Something I ate,” he mumbled. Andy noticed he was pale, and his hand shook.
“Me, too, I think,” Petit said, almost immediately. “Something we ate. Shipman, you’re on clean up from now on. No more cooking.”
Kate scanned the big man, and Andy knew full well she was attempting to see past their admitted symptoms, to make her own assessment of their illness or wellness. “Then I suppose you should head back to your cabins,” Kate said evenly, talking to both Petit and Frances. “Anyone else?”
Silence.
Les checked her watch, and then she pointed at the two supposedly sick cadets. “We’re almost done here. Both of you can go.”
Petit and Frances left the circle, decidedly not looking at the rest of their troop as they passed, Andy noticed. They had to walk right by Andy on the way back down to the cabins. Andy kept her eyes on them. Frances acknowledged her with a quick, polite dip of his head, Petit mumbling ‘sergeant’ under his breath as they passed. Andy considered following them down but instead she listened to Kate wrap up her session.
“The list of shock symptoms can be completely contradictory,” Kate was saying. “And it could mean absolutely anything. A victim of stabbing could have a lacerated kidney but still be telling you his life story before he felt any pain. The human body has an incredible capacity for pain given the right circumstances and the right levels of adrenaline. If there’s even a chance someone’s been injured, you need to watch for it. Keep them talking, keep asking questions, watch their body language. A body can compensate for injury. It automatically takes whatever action it needs to protect itself. There are signs, you need to watch for them.” Kate paused and looked out over the assembled troop of fourteen cadets. “Any questions?”
Andy was surprised she’d asked, figuring Kate would sum up and release the cadets. The sun was already beginning to set behind the mountain, and the temperature was rapidly dropping.
“Does it always know?” Shipman blurted out the question with none of his usual jovial swagger.
“Does the body always know what?” Kate said calmly, though Andy could tell by the way she asked that she already had an idea what Shipman was getting at.
“Does the body always know when something’s wrong?” Krista Shandly filled in the question.
“No. Not always.” No one said anything else, but no one moved either. Andy could tell they couldn’t get there on their own. Kate seemed to know the help they needed. “What are the symptoms of cardiac distress?” she asked the cadets quietly.
The troop knew. Of course they knew. They listed in great detail the signs of symptoms of a variety of cardiac episodes. Kate nodded each time someone gave a response, and she began tracking their answers on her fingers, starting over again once they got past ten. Finally they’d given as much as they could, and Kate didn’t wait. She asked them the next question. The one that Andy anticipated by now.
“Did you see any of those things on Cadet Justin Thibadeau before he died?” Kate said, her voice understanding but also not letting this go. She would follow it through, she would answer their questions. Even the ones they hadn’t said out loud. “In the weeks or days or even minutes before he went down during your training exercise, did you see any of this?” She held up her hands as reference.
Prewitt-Hayes answered for the group. “No.”
“No,” Kate confirmed, dropping her hands. “You wouldn’t have seen it because Thibadeau wouldn’t have felt it. Cardiomyopathy is sudden, and twenty percent of the time it results in instantaneous death. As you all had the misfortune to witness.”
The group was silent, sad. Andy watched them intently, waiting for the moment they would shrink back into each other, forcing a barrier between themselves and the rest of the world. After a few minutes of silence, Andy had to conclude either it hadn’t happened or she hadn’t seen it.
Kate looked up at Les. “I think that’s good for today,” she said quietly.
Les addressed the troop. “Go get ready for dinner, cadets,” she said, sounding more maternal than instructive.
Each of the cadets nodded silently and respectfully at Andy as they passed on their way back down to the cabins. Andy, Kate and Les followed silently. Andy didn’t want to have the cadets overhear their conversation. It would have to wait.
The mood at camp that night was sombre. As Andy expected, Petit and Frances didn’t join them for supper but neither did Shipman or Hellman or Awad. Andy watched as Kate made the rounds through the cabin, asking questions about the absent cadets. But the troop had closed rank again, and Kate got very little beyond the reassurance that they were all fine. Dinner was quick, the cadets leaving as soon as they had finished eating and cleaning up.
The instructors offered each other what little insight they could. Andy couldn’t help thinking that they were missing some piece. But they couldn’t reason this out, and no amount of logic could be applied to make this make sense. So the instructors took the troop’s cue, everyone turning in early, lost in their own thoughts.
It wasn’t until roll call the next morning that Andy understood the extent of the troop’s quieted mood. The troop lined up dutifully and nervously in the pre-dawn light. But only fifteen cadets answered roll call. Cadet Greg Shipman was missing.