The Edge of Alone - 07

by Sean Black

  Now, looking down at the screen, he could see that there was no signal again. Chris, who’d be rambling on, suddenly turned back towards Ty. Putting the phone away quickly would only look suspicious. In any case, Chris couldn’t see the screen and who Ty was texting.

  “You’re out of luck,” Chris said to him with a nod in the direction of Ty’s cell phone.

  “No signal?” asked Ty, looking skywards.

  “That, and we use a jammer. Kids were smuggling in cell phones. Only way we could really stop them making calls was installing a jammer. If you need to make a call you can use the landline in the ranch house. Or you can walk back down to the road. It’s a complete pain in the ass at times, but it’s also kinda nice being off the grid.”

  Ty smiled politely, and followed Chris inside.

  35

  Mary was still asleep when Ruth woke. She managed to untangle herself from Mary without waking her up. If they were going to be stuck in here all day there didn’t seem much point in waking her.

  Ruth crossed quietly to the sink, and tried to turn on the tap. It took three attempts before she finally managed to turn it. It coughed and sputtered before a trickle of sludgy brown water appeared. She waited until it ran clear, gathered some in her cupped hands and splashed her face a few times. The water was freezing cold, but it felt good against her skin.

  The night may have been cold, but she could already begin to feel the heat outside beginning to build. She wasn’t sure how hot the barn would get during the day. She guessed that they would find out soon enough. At least they would be shielded from the direct sunlight.

  With Mary still fast asleep, Ruth took a few minutes to look around. There was a ladder that led up into a hay loft. Gingerly, she climbed the ladder. She was halfway up when she heard someone outside. She quickly climbed back down as she heard someone removing the padlock.

  The barn door opened. Ruth’s heart sank a little as she saw who it was.

  Rachel. No doubt come to gloat.

  In her right hand, Rachel was carrying a brown canvas shopping bag. She stopped when she saw Ruth standing at the bottom of the ladder. Ruth put her finger to her lips and pointed at Mary, still asleep on the dirty mattress in the corner.

  She was half expecting Rachel to go get some cold water from the sink and use it to wake Mary. She didn’t. Instead, she walked across to Ruth and handed her the bag.

  “Breakfast. I asked to be the one who brought it to you. I got you some extra stuff too from your lockers. Clean underwear. Toothbrushes. Toothpaste. A fresh bar of soap. That kind of junk,” said Rachel, keeping her voice down to a whisper so as not to wake Mary.

  Ruth took the bag from her, uncertain what to say to this new version of Rachel.

  “This whole thing is such bullshit,” Rachel hissed. “Chris is such an asshole.”

  “Okay, who are you and what have you done with Rachel?” asked Ruth.

  Rachel smiled, although it could have been a smirk. Ruth was still a little too disorientated to tell.

  “Very funny,” said Rachel. She turned to the corner. “How’s Mary doing?”

  “I mean it,” said Ruth. “What have you done with Rachel?”

  Rachel took a step back. She crossed her arms, the body language of the Rachel that Ruth had come to know and hate.

  “I play the game, Ruth. That’s all. Hate the game, don’t hate the player. Now, do you want this stuff or not?”

  Ruth may not have trusted Rachel, but she wasn’t going to turn down breakfast and clean underwear. She took the bag as Rachel held it out.

  “Thanks,” said Ruth.

  “You’re welcome,” said Rachel, sounding half-bitchy and half-sincere.

  “So if you’re just playing the game then how come you’re still here? You could walk out any time you want to.”

  “I could, but where am I going to go? My parents still don’t want anything to do with me. If I leave here I get fifty bucks and a bus ticket home. How long do you think that would last?”

  Ruth hadn’t thought about it. But she saw Rachel’s point. “But you’ll have to leave some time?”

  “I guess,” said Rachel. “I’m working on a few things. Making some plans.”

  Ruth peered into the bag. Rachel hadn’t lied. It was crammed full of stuff. Ruth even glimpsed a pack of cookies that she knew were Mary’s favorites.

  “Look, I know I’m a bitch,” Rachel said. “And that’s not me acting. Not all the time anyway. This place has been hard on me too. It’s set up so that we’re against each other, but I’m not making any excuses for how I might have acted.”

  Rachel turned back towards the barn door. Before she stepped back outside, she stopped. “I’ll be back at lunch time, if they let me. Make sure you hide any of the stuff that I shouldn’t have given you.”

  36

  Chris had all the boys in Ty’s new dorm line up against the far wall. He reeled off their names to Ty as each boy took their turn to step forward. They ranged in age from around thirteen all the way up to seventeen. Apart from one African-American and one Asian kid, all the boys were white.

  Like the other kids Ty had seen at Broken Ridge the previous day, they all looked to be in good physical health. Again, Ty figured that a lack of junk food, and regular exercise coupled with sunshine and fresh air would take care of most things.

  “Gentlemen, this is Mr Cross. He’s going to be your dorm father, starting today.” Chris picked out the oldest looking kid from the line. “Lewis, can you help Mr Cross with any questions he might have?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Lewis.

  “Lewis here is at level six,” Chris explained to Ty before turning back to the boys. “Mr Cross here served our country in the Marine Corps, so he’s going to be firm but fair.”

  Somehow Ty suspected that Chris would work that detail in. It was kind of embarrassing. Some guys that he knew went out of their way to mention their service. Ty hadn’t been one of them. If someone asked, or it came up in conversation, that was one thing.

  Chris tapped Ty’s elbow. “Okay, I’ll leave you to it. If you need me, just holler.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ty already had the schedule for the day. Apart from Sunday, when the students had to attend church and write letters home, it was the same schedule every day. The idea was to get the students into a routine. Whatever else might have been wrong with the place, giving young people a routine wasn’t the worst idea. The right routine created good habits.

  The problem was that, in Ty’s experience, good habits that stuck were usually self-generated. When they were imposed on a person they tended to fall away when the imposition stopped. In other words, there was every chance the kids who’d been playing video games and eating Cheetos would go right back to that when they left.

  Once Chris had left, Ty led the boys from his dorm outside. They automatically fell into line, three steps apart, without having to remind them. He saw them sneaking anxious glances at him when they thought he wasn’t looking.

  There was no question that they were intimidated by him. That was hardly a surprise. Most people he met who didn’t know him, and quite a few people who did know him, were scared of him. Never mind his specialist skills, his Long Beach background, or his status as a retired Marine, a six foot five inch tall black man with muscles would usually have that effect.

  Outside, he took the boys through a series of light stretches and warm up exercises. As he went through, he explained the thinking behind each exercise and told them what area of the body or muscle group it was working.

  The warm up finished, he led his dorm on a run. He kept the pace light. He also made a point of encouraging any stragglers rather than simply barking at them to go faster. He would save the barking for when it was needed. That way it might actually have some impact when he needed to deploy it.

  On the way back, he changed up the gears for a hundred yards, making them alternately sprint, jog, and then walk. The walking section allowed anyone who had fall
en behind in the sprint the opportunity to catch back up. He offered more encouraging words to those students he could see were struggling, but making the effort.

  “Good work, gentlemen,” Ty told them as they stopped back outside the dorm building.

  He asked them to partner up and took them through a series of push ups, burpees, sit ups and planks. Each student took turns while the job of their partner was to count off the repetitions and encourage them along.

  Where a student was struggling, Ty reduced their number of reps. That drew some surprised looks. For some of the older boys, he increased the numbers so that they matched that person’s abilities.

  Because there was an odd number of boys in his dorm, Ty partnered up with Lewis, the oldest and highest level of the students. If Broken Ridge had a model student, Ty figured that Lewis would be it. A husky, athletic looking kid, he was polite and deferential without coming across like an ass kisser.

  It was a reminder to Ty that whatever had gone wrong here, and Ty suspected that he and Lock had only skimmed the surface, a program like this one needn’t be all bad. It could get results given the right material to begin with.

  They finished up, and Ty let them go hit the showers, which was the next item on the schedule. He held Lewis back for a moment.

  “Lewis, is that your first name or your family name?”

  “Family name, sir.”

  “Your first name?”

  “Aidan, sir.”

  “So how long you been here?”

  “Three years, sir.”

  “Mr Fontaine mentioned something to me earlier. The time out room. What’s that?”

  Aidan Lewis looked uncertain, like he wasn’t sure if he should answer or not.

  “I asked you a question, Lewis.”

  “It’s not really a room, sir. It’s an old barn. You get put there if you really mess up.”

  “Every been there yourself?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Lewis. “In my first month here. I was pretty out of control. Broken Ridge really saved me.”

  “So what’s the deal with this barn? You get put in there and then what?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “So why is it a punishment?”

  “It’s not the nicest place, I guess. Not very clean. And there’s nothing to do. I was only in there a couple of days, but it gets to you pretty quick,” said Aidan.

  It sounded to Ty like Broken Ridge’s version of solitary confinement. “Okay, well let’s hope that I don’t have to send any of the guys from the dorm there then,” he told Aidan.

  “I don’t think you will, sir. They’re a pretty good group.”

  “That’s encouraging to hear. Okay, go shower.”

  Ty watched Aidan leave. He took out his cell phone, and stared at the empty signal indicator on the screen.

  37

  Lock parked the Ford on a narrow side street a block away from the Sheriff’s office. He checked his cell phone. No update from Ty. Not even a brief text informing him that everything was running smoothly. Or that it wasn’t.

  He had one message. That had been left by Donald Price while he’d been driving. He would call him back after this meeting. As of right now, he didn’t have any fresh news, and he had a lot of ground to cover today, including a trip out to see the parents of a student who had died while attending Broken Ridge a few years back. Lock wanted to tally their story with the media reports surrounding the death.

  Lock climbed the steps to the front entrance of the Sheriff’s Department. According to their website they had a Sheriff and four Deputies, plus a support staff of another half dozen civilians, to cover an area of approximately a thousand square miles. It seemed like a lot of ground to cover with so few people, but the population was sparse. In fact the staff and students at Broken Ridge probably accounted for about ten percent of the total number of people residing in the area. Apart from the town itself, and the school, most people were scattered, living in small family groups on vast ranches, or more modest small farms.

  Pushing through the main door, Lock walked into a small, fairly informal waiting area. A row of plastic seats were lined up against wall. They faced a long desk. Doors behind led to the other offices.

  Lock immediately noted two things that told him a lot about crime in the area, or rather the relative lack of it. The plastic seats weren’t bolted down. And there was no security screen or other barrier between the waiting area and the main desk where visitors were greeted.

  A bored looking Deputy was busy tapping at a slightly dated looking personal computer. He glanced up as Lock came in.

  “Man, I wish I’d taken one of those touch typing classes when I was in high school,” the Deputy said.

  “What stopped you?” Lock asked him.

  The Deputy stared off into the middle distance. From the look of him, high school couldn’t have been all that long ago. But he seemed to be having trouble recalling just the reason.

  “Guess, I was worried about the other guys teasing me. Girls took that stuff.”

  “It’s never too late,” Lock told him.

  “Guess that’s true. Hey, so how can I help you?”

  So far, so congenial, thought Lock. “I’m here to see Sheriff Dwyer.”

  “You have an appointment?”

  “No, I don’t,” said Lock. “If he’s not around, maybe I can arrange to speak with him later?”

  Lock hadn’t wanted to telegraph his visit. He was hoping that by arriving unannounced, the Sheriff’s answers to his questions might be a little less guarded. If the Sheriff wasn’t here then he’d see what he could get from the Deputy sitting in front of him. He already had a hunch that this guy didn’t have all that much of a filter.

  As a rule, the higher up the chain of command you went in any organization, the more circumspect people were about sharing information. Not only because they actually had it, but because people who were guarded with the outside world tended to rise to a higher rank. At the top, the world was populated by politicians, whether they had that title or not.

  “Oh no, he’s around,” said the Deputy, getting up from his computer.

  He took the name Lock gave him, and wandered into the back offices while Lock waited. Lock took a seat. He dug out his cell phone. He dropped Donald Price a quick text to let him know that he would call him later with an update, but that as of now, he had nothing to worry about.

  The Deputy re-appeared. He smiled. “The Sheriff will be right with you.” He sat back down at his computer and went back to pecking at the keyboard.

  Two minutes passed before the Sheriff himself appeared. It took a moment for Lock to recognize him. The picture that was on the Department’s website must have been taken at least fifteen years and a hundred fifty pounds ago.

  “Come on through,” the Sheriff told him.

  Lock was a little surprised that he hadn’t yet been asked what he wanted to speak with the Sheriff about. He followed the Sheriff through to the largest of four offices. The Sheriff waved at the chair opposite as he lowered himself into a seat behind his desk.

  Going by the mess of a desk, they may not have had much actual crime in this area, but they still appeared to generate a lot of paper. Now came the question.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Lock had his answer prepared. He was a private investigator from California. He had a wealthy client, who would remain nameless, who was considering sending his wayward son to a number of residential programs. He had been tasked with conducting some informal background checks on each program. More to get a feel for them than anything specific. One of those programs was the one operating at Broken Ridge.

  Across from him, the Sheriff shifted buttocks. “Shouldn’t you be asking the folks out there at Broken Ridge?”

  Lock smiled. “Oh, I will be, but obviously they want the business.”

  “I hear you,” the Sheriff said. “Tell you the truth, I only have good things to say about the place. Not that I know everything that goe
s on. But the kids come into town to do voluntary work from time to time. They’re real nice. Good manners. Look like they’re well looked after. I’m afraid that there’s not much to tell. That’s the plain truth.”

  “But not the whole truth,” said Lock, shifting up a gear. “There have been some problems with the place.”

  “Problems?”

  Surely no one was this dumb, thought Lock. The three deaths were well documented. Broken Ridge had worked hard to push them down the main internet search engines if you used broad search terms. But they could be found with only a small amount of persistence and savvy.

  Lock didn’t say anything in reply. He’d let the Sheriff fill the silence. Or not. Either way, it would give him an additional measure of the type of man he was dealing with.

  The Sheriff spoke first. “Oh, you mean. . .the kid who died. Tragic, completely tragic. I really felt for the parents. Can’t imagine anything worse than that happening to someone. Y’know, I’ve had to go inform people of deaths in this job. Doesn’t get any easier.”

  He sounded sincere to Lock, but he was also quickly shifting the discussion from the specific to the general. No doubt he was hoping that Lock would drop it. He was about to be disappointed.

  “Are you talking about the death of Jennifer Oates?”

  “Oh yeah, Jennifer Oates,” said the Sheriff. “That’s a name from the past.”

  Lock was starting to get a little more suspicious. The Sheriff was playing this all off a little too much for Lock’s comfort. Lock would ramp things up, and see where it got him.

  “Seven years ago. It isn’t that distant.”

  The Sheriff didn’t take the bait. At least not that it showed on his face. “I guess not. But to answer your question, there wasn’t anything suspicious. And believe me, we looked.”

  “You were Sheriff back then?” Lock asked.