Troop 18

by Jessica L. Webb

Meyers nodded. “I’ll go find Kurtz,” he said quietly. “I’ll tell her she’s assigning sleeping quarters, and Shipman and Frances are to be out here where they can be watched.” Meyers faded into the background, a skill Andy now recognized and admired in the man.

  “You going to make it, Constable Zeb?” Andy said, trying to pull him out of his low mood.

  “Fucking ankle,” he said bitterly, not taking the bait. “Fucking troop. Jesus.”

  “Good to see you’re taking this all in stride,” Les said sardonically. Zeb shot another foul-mouthed answer right back at her. Les winked at Andy and dropped into a nearby chair, fully engaging Zeb in a verbal match. Andy backed away, thinking it was exactly what they both needed to balance out their moods.

  The rain started again as Clearwater B&B buzzed with the night-time preparations. It sheeted against the windows, closing them in even more tightly, marking the boundaries of the closed, warm space against the wet, cold dark outside. Penny and Al cheerfully took the offered upgrade of the honeymoon cabin and not long later four cadets squeezed into the room meant to house only two. Night settled more completely outside the windows as conversations drifted and flowed, blankets and pillows tossed across the room, t-shirts traded for socks.

  Andy watched it all silently, a mug of hot coffee in her hand, feeling much like Prewitt-Hayes as she counted, re-counted, and tracked the movements and moods of the cadets. Lights were dimmed near midnight and a thoughtful, introspective quiet stole across the house. Andy hoped they were hearing her warning. They could talk and analyze and plan and whisper all they wanted with each other. But these were the moments where they were in their own heads, where worries and truths and decisions played out in dramatic, imagined detail that no one else could witness. Andy looked at Zeb across the room and she nodded once, releasing the cadets to his care for now.

  Les was rinsing out her mug in the sink, talking in low tones to Kurtz who was sitting on a tall stool at the island. Tara had gone to bed once the task of arranging for the care of their overflow of guests had been completed. Les announced she was turning in, making a joke about pulling rank and claiming a bed for herself. She hugged Kurtz and Andy quickly and Andy wished her a good sleep, knowing they needed it more than anything.

  Once Les was gone, Andy took the seat beside Kurtz, feeling an ache in the centre of her back where Meyers and the stretcher team had struck her earlier. It seemed like so long ago, and Andy felt the energy drain very suddenly out of her body.

  Kurtz took a long look at Andy before going to the liquor cabinet tucked into a corner of their walk-in pantry. Andy looked with idle appreciation around the kitchen, admiring the space. She would love to have a kitchen like this with a pantry and enough counter space to cook a full-course meal. As Kurtz came back with her bottle of whiskey and poured some into Andy’s coffee without asking, Andy let the image of cooking for Kate and their friends drift out of her head with a sad, lost pang. She wondered where she and Kate would go next. She couldn’t imagine going back to separate apartments, couldn’t imagine one more day of Kate not having met her friends, of not sharing every piece of their lives.

  “How you holding up, kid?” Kurtz said.

  “I’m beat.”

  “No wonder. You carry too much. You always have.”

  Andy said nothing to this, taking a sip of her spiked coffee, feeling the double-heat hit her bloodstream almost instantly. She was going to have to be careful. This was not a night to get fall-down drunk, though a small part of her urged her to do just that.

  “Who is it?” Kurtz said quietly. Kurtz wasn’t stupid. She’d made her own assessment of the cadets.

  “Frances is my bet,” Andy said, just as quietly. She wished suddenly Kate was here, so they could talk this out or at least confirm or deny the others’ suspicions. But her instinct held her steady. Walking back through every detail she’d read or discovered about Cadet Jacob Frances and Troop 18 over the last few weeks, everything added up to Frances being the addict. “Shipman is covering for Frances. He figures he’s gone anyway, might as well take the fall for the whole thing.”

  Andy took Kurtz’s silence as support, but she had nothing to add. They sat quietly, the tick of the clock above the pantry providing an easy, subdued metronome. Andy took another sip of her coffee, the caffeine and alcohol hitting all the right neurons in her brain. Or all the wrong ones. Andy wasn’t exactly sure anymore.

  Her phone vibrated insistently on the counter and the screen blinked on, a text message from Kate rolling down the screen.

  “Trokof being admitted to cardio. Precautionary only, he’s fine. May have ride back. Will text.”

  Andy quickly thumbed out a text back. “Good. Did you eat?”

  Kate returned the text. “Bad coffee and oatmeal cookie count?”

  Andy laughed quietly to herself, texted back that no, that didn’t count as a meal and who was the ride from?

  “Const. Reilly. Feel free to call local station to verify I’m not being kidnapped.”

  Andy laughed out loud this time and turned the screen to Kurtz so she could see what Kate had written.

  Kurtz snorted. “She’s a funny one. And she knows you well, apparently. Reilly’s a good guy, he’s one of the uniforms who responded to the 9-1-1.”

  Andy texted back saying Kurtz had verified that Constable Reilly was legit and to keep her updated. The phone went silent again, and Andy felt the fatigue and worry weigh down her whole body, the smell of the spiked coffee suddenly making her sick. She wanted to crawl into bed with Kate and sleep and sleep and sleep.

  “You don’t have to wait up with me, Kurtz. Go on up to bed.”

  Kurtz just sipped her coffee. They ended up talking for hours, their conversation moving from past to present with the ease of people who had been friends a long time. They were both fiercely proud and protective of the agency they had committed their lives to, but Andy could recognize a note of bitterness in Kurtz’s tone. Kurtz talked to Andy like she thought her former junior officer was still a wide-eyed rookie, unwilling to recognize the cover-ups and corruption. They argued quietly, Andy trying to defend her position, not believing Kurtz’s argument of cognitive dissonance. Kurtz ended the argument by punching Andy in the shoulder, laughing delightedly at a heated comment she’d made.

  “I’ve missed you, kid. There’s a lot I don’t miss about being a cop, but I’ve missed talking with people like this. I’ve missed talking like a cop.”

  Andy grinned back, appreciating Kurtz’s view on the world, wondering again what it must be like to retire. By one thirty in the morning, Kurtz had switched to scotch and Andy had stopped drinking altogether.

  Kate texted again. “En route. Twenty minutes.”

  Andy got up from the stool. Her body felt cold from sitting still for so long, her bruised muscles tight and unwilling to move easily. She opened the fridge and pulled out the leftovers Tara had put aside earlier, heating up the last of the beef and barley soup in a small saucepan. She buttered a thick wedge of Tara’s homemade bread, then went back to the fridge and moved aside veggies and roasts until she found a hunk of extra-old cheddar, Kate’s favourite. Next she filled the kettle, plugged it in, and found some herbal tea. Then she waited for Kate, listening for the sound of a car to announce her arrival.

  Kurtz had been watching Andy quietly as she moved around her kitchen. “You’ve found her, haven’t you?” Kurtz said with a gentleness Andy didn’t think she’d ever heard before. She’d seen it, though. It was evident every time Kurtz looked at Tara.

  “Yes,” Andy said, and a deep sense of rightness filled her entire body.

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

  Andy smiled. “Yes, it is.”

  Kate arrived just before two in the morning and came straight back to the kitchen, dropping her medical kit by the pantry. Kurtz handed her some clean clothes, bid them goodnight, then left the two of them alone. Kate looked exhausted, her face pale and her hair frizzy from having been wet and dried.
Andy pulled her in and enfolded Kate in a tight embrace, rocking her gently. Eventually Kate disengaged, running her hand down Andy’s back and giving her a reassuring smile, telling Andy she was okay.

  “Go get changed. I’ll serve you some food,” Andy said.

  Kate looked at the clothes on the butcher-block island: worn jeans, wool socks, and an old RCMP sweatshirt from Kurtz. With a tired but distinctly mischievous look, Kate started pulling off her clothes where she stood. Andy had to laugh.

  “What?” Kate said, her words muffled by the shirt coming off over her head. “No one’s awake.”

  “You’d better hope not,” Andy said, pouring hot soup from the saucepan into the bowl and sliding it on to the counter.

  “They’re not. I checked on my way in.” Kate zipped up the too big jeans and hiked herself up onto a stool. She sighed as she dipped her spoon into the soup, blew on it gently, and took her first bite.

  Andy wondered if she should wait, decided she couldn’t. She needed to hear it from Kate. “Even Frances?”

  Kate looked at Andy sharply, confirming they were on the exact same page.

  “Poor guy,” Kate said quietly, tearing off a piece of bread and dunking it in her soup. “What’s going to happen?”

  “That’s up to Lincoln. And it’s up to the cadets to figure out if they’re going to break down and tell the truth or try to keep up a hopeless lie,” Andy said, realizing she really had no way of knowing which way the cadets were going to land on this one. She hoped for the truth with every tired and frayed nerve-ending still firing at this early hour of the morning.

  They talked quietly while Kate worked her way through her only hot meal in the last twenty-four hours. Andy poured them both some tea while Kate updated Andy on Trokof. He’d slept most of the time she was there but had been awake and lucid long enough to figure out where he was and ask about the cadets.

  Kate had told him they were all fine and offered to share what they had learned, but he’d asked her to wait until the morning when he could process it properly. Andy was just about to add something to this when they heard a light tread on the floor. The kitchen door swung silently open and Cadet Frances walked in, his skin grey, eyes bloodshot, hair sticking up at the side, and his borrowed clothes baggy. He looked like shit and he shook as he ran a nervous hand through his hair.

  “Are you all right, Jacob?” Kate said, the compassion clear in her tone.

  He looked at her blankly, switched his gaze to Andy then back to Kate.

  “What do you need?” Kate said again, turning all the way around on the stool to face him.

  “I need some paper,” Frances said. “And a pen.”

  “What for, Cadet Frances?” Andy said, using his title, possibly for the last time. But she was trying to snap him out of his stupor, hoping for a straight answer.

  Frances swayed slightly and trembled. “I want to write it all down. All of it. So they don’t have a choice. I won’t let them lie for me anymore.”

  Andy went to the wood hutch on the far wall and found a pen and a pad of lined paper. She handed it silently to Frances, who sat heavily on a chair and began to write, seeming to forget Kate and Andy were even there. Andy had to wonder how long he’d lain awake, tortured by guilt and indecision as he listened to his troop fall asleep.

  He wrote line after line but couldn’t stop shaking, the tremors getting harder and harder to watch. Finally Kate hopped off the stool and rummaged through her medical bag until she found sample size packages of Tylenol and anti-nausea meds. Kate ripped open the packages and signalled with a jerk of her head for Andy to get a glass of water. She placed both the water and the pills on the table.

  “That will put me to sleep,” Frances said, pointing almost accusingly at the small, orange tablets. “I need to finish this.”

  “You’ll be done by the time it kicks in,” Kate said, pushing them closer.

  “I shouldn’t. I want to be awake when the TO arrives. I…have things I want to tell him,” he mumbled.

  Kate looked back at Andy, seeking support. Andy shrugged. They couldn’t make him take the meds. Kate picked up one of the orange pills, broke it in half with her fingernail then picked up the two Tylenols and held them out.

  “This won’t put you to sleep, but it will take the edge off.” She kept her hand out and pushed the water closer. Frances hesitated. “Don’t punish yourself, Jacob,” Kate said quietly. “If you want to be lucid tomorrow when you talk to Lincoln and when you face your troop, you need to deal with the symptoms of withdrawal now.”

  Frances took the pills and drank the water, and then he picked up the pen and began writing again like his life depended on it. Kate and Andy withdrew to the other side of the kitchen where they whispered quietly. After ten minutes, they stopped bothering, Frances didn’t seem to notice they were there, leaning against the island. Andy checked the clock: three thirty in the morning. Her body’s exhaustion and extreme alertness warred with each other, her muscles screaming fatigue while her brain just couldn’t stop. Kate leaned her head up against her hand, looking tired and thoughtful.

  “You should go to bed,” Andy said quietly.

  Kate yawned and smiled. “Oh yeah? Where?”

  Shit. There really wasn’t a chair, a spare blanket, or even a cushion left from the chairs in the dining room. Andy had forgotten to find them a place to sleep. A bubble of laughter rose in Andy’s throat, and she bit her lip to choke it back. Kate’s brown eyes widened with her own suppressed laughter and for a moment they silently dared each other not to laugh out loud. Frances’s intense scribbling pulled them back down to reality. Andy looked around Tara’s incredible kitchen where they were basically pinned down for the next few hours.

  “Want to make some pie?” she said to Kate quietly and the absurdity of the question, of their situation, almost had them laughing again. What else to do with their time? They had no case to build, no suspects to follow. They had to monitor Jacob Frances as he wrote the history of why they were all here, so they had nowhere else to go.

  “Apple?” Kate said.

  Kate and Andy made pie. They cut flour and chilled butter together, the sharp tines of the pastry cutter working against the sides of a ceramic bowl. Kate found a bag of apples in the cold cupboard off the back porch and began peeling, coring, and slicing enough for four pies, occasionally stopping to squeeze lemon juice over them so they didn’t brown.

  They talked quietly together about small things, things that didn’t matter really but took on a different significance at four in the morning. Frances kept up his scribbling, stopping for moments and putting his head in his hands. Andy and Kate continued what they were doing, and Frances would occasionally look up and watch. If he found what they were doing odd, he gave no indication of it. In fact, he seemed to find their quiet presence reassuring.

  Kate pushed Andy aside as they began fluting the edges of the pastry, her deft, physician’s hands being more suited for the task, Kate said. Frances put down his pen with finality. His chair scraped back against the floor as he stood, the sound harsh in the silence. For a moment, no one moved in the kitchen. Frances ran his hands through his hair again, and then he looked around the kitchen. He headed for the back door exit just off the pantry with a single-minded attention that made Andy nervous. She stepped into his line of vision.

  “I don’t want you to be out there alone,” Andy said, wondering at her choice of words. She’d meant to say ‘you can’t.’ It was supposed to have been an order, but it hadn’t come out that way. Andy felt sorry for Jacob Frances.

  “I just need some fresh air,” Frances mumbled. “I’ll sit on the steps.”

  Andy stepped back, letting the cadet open the door and close it very quietly behind him. Andy went to the sink where she could see him easily out the window in the overhead porch light. Frances had pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lit one with cupped, shaking hands and stood staring off into the night, looking more lost than any one person had a right to.
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  Kate wasn’t quite tall enough to see through the kitchen window. “He’s okay?”

  “Well, he’s not going anywhere,” Andy said. “Not now at any rate.”

  Without a word, they both turned and looked at the kitchen table where Frances’s missive sat, folded thickly. Apparently, the cadet had a lot to say. Andy’s curiosity burned. She’d been asking herself so many questions over the last few weeks, and she suspected the answers were in those sheets. But she wouldn’t touch them. Those words weren’t meant for her.

  Kate stood at the island and finished rolling out dough and covering the last of the pies. Andy made coffee, bypassing her favourite whole beans and opting for the much quieter fine grind. She checked on Frances periodically, now sitting on the top step, staring into the darkened back field. They didn’t talk now, the long day and night catching up to them in a stretched-out weariness. Kate put the first two pies in the oven, the hiss of the gas stove a comforting back drop to their exhaustion.

  Andy slid her hand around the back of Kate’s neck and massaged her lightly. Kate leaned back into her. They stood quietly together, listening to the house sleep, having arrived at the part of the night-morning where it seemed you were the only people awake in the whole world.

  Andy registered a new noise, the arc of light on the windowpane indicating a car was coming up the driveway. Andy disengaged herself from Kate’s embrace and checked the clock in the kitchen. Just after five in the morning. As she opened the back door, Frances was pulling himself up from his spot on the step, leaning awkwardly against the railing and looking to Andy for direction. Andy told him to wait and she descended the few steps down to the driveway where the car had come to a stop not too far from the garage.

  It was Lincoln, and Andy could not deny how happy she was to see him. Their mission had seemed to careen and shift so quickly out of control in the last twelve hours, coming to a sudden, jarring halt. As she stepped off the porch, Andy was both relieved and nervous that everything was coming to a close. Troop 18, who had already suffered losses, was about to suffer more.