Capítulo 6: Chapter 6

Jim turned another corner in the Grid and kept an eye out for movement around the derelict houses that lined the street. This whole street was supposed to be vacant. The windows were boarded up and graffiti covered the siding and plywood. Some houses had old cars still sitting in the drive. Nothing moved in the snow. He drove down the road, his truck leaving the first set of tracks. He traveled slowly, and not just so he could see better. Even with four-wheel drive the truck slipped on the wet snow.

Spruce Bay surprised him. He had put in for a transfer up here when Leigh got the teaching job; wanting to support her any way he could. If she thought teaching in a school at the end of the road in the north of Manitoba would be good for her, he was all for it. Spruce Bay wasn't a popular spot so it wasn't long before the Staff-Sergeant told Jim he was moving up here. The Staff up here knew someone who had the trailer for rent and that was that.

He turned another corner and caught a brief movement down the road. He swung the floodlight over and saw a wolf standing between two houses. It looked at him for a long moment then casually loped into the darkness. Jim shook his head. The first time he'd seen a wolf in town he'd been shocked. He hadn't realized that they were so big. They made the police dogs in Winnipeg look small. The other members told him the wolves weren't dangerous to humans, but dogs and cats disappeared regularly. No children had ever been attacked. That didn't mean that there were no dangers for children here; far from it. Jim had never worked in a place that held so many risks for children, but humans created all the worst dangers.

There were the usual gangs. According to Staff three gangs operated in Spruce Bay. Mostly low level stuff, selling weed and other drugs; at least one gang was using children to commit burglaries. Two of the gangs ran out of the nearby reserves, the last one worked out of derelict properties here in town.

Jim was still learning the community so he kept on the lookout for places that should be empty, but weren't. He'd found a few, but it was just squatters. They weren't all Cree either. He'd found a group of would be hippies who had come up from Steinbach to live in the North. He could hear the capital letters when they talked to him. They were harmless and unless the owners of the property complained there was little to be done.

Jim turned another corner and looked at another line of abandoned homes. He didn't think they would hear from the owners any time soon.

Spruce Bay had been good for Leigh. She'd had some problems with the principal, but one of the trustees had helped her clear it up. She was teaching and enjoying herself coming out of that awful shell she'd been in since that day. Jim pulled over and told himself to breathe. He wiped his eyes and shook his head.

He was a cop. People had attacked him with knives and bats. Jim could personally attest to the effectiveness of the ballistic vest he wore as part of his uniform. Yet he'd never been as scared as that night when he came home to Leigh in his workshop trying to decide what drill bit to use to put a hole in her skull. He still had nightmares about it; ones where he'd come home just a little too late and found her with the drill in her head. He shuddered then sent a brief prayer of thanks he'd got there in time.

She'd been in the hospital for two months. Jim visited every day, but it was like seeing the ghost of his wife for the first few weeks. She talked about voices in her head and how much pressure they created. The only way to fix it was to put a hole in her skull. Trepanning she'd called it. The doctors were encouraged when she stopped trying to convince them to try it on her. By the second month the anti-psychotics were working and she was more herself.

Dr. Heath recommended that Leigh do a gradual return to teaching, but she'd lost all her confidence. Staying home for a month, then two, and turning down requests to do supply work. After the third month, they stopped asking her.

Leigh became agoraphobic and rarely left their house. Jim didn't know what she did all day, but he would leave her sitting at the counter in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, and come home at the end of a twelve-hour shift to find her still at the counter with the cup of coffee, now cold. He'd done all the cooking and cleaning. He shopped at a twenty-four hour grocery store between their home in Winnipeg and the detachment he worked at just outside the city.

Finally, in January he'd taken her to Dr. Heath again. He thought she would fight against going out, but she followed him like a child. Dr. Heath suggested that the psychotic break might have caused some post-traumatic stress disorder. Leigh didn't want to go into the hospital again, but Jim knew a good counselor who worked with police officers who had PTSD. He got Leigh talking to her and miraculously she started coming out of her shell.

Then she started blaming herself. She was weak, flawed, broken, useless. Jim heard all of it. Leigh tried to convince him to leave her. For a couple of weeks Jim had to sit in the truck to cry himself out before he could go into the house and face Leigh. He started seeing a counselor himself, at first for advice, but then to help with his own fears.

Jim sat in the truck and let the feelings run their course. Lydia, the counselor, had told him that they were going to affect him one way or another, so he might as well find a safe place and just let them flow. He didn't need to hang on to them, and if he tried to ignore them, he just brought them home to add to Leigh's emotions.

At first, Jim had felt like a fool, sitting in a police cruiser at the side of the road with tears running down his face, but he learned he could set them aside at need and deal with them later. He thought it made him a better police officer. The Staff-Sergeant agreed after Jim talked a young kid out of a desperate situation.

"You've got balance, Jim," Staff had said, "That kid could feel it somehow. You're a good officer, you'll make a good Sergeant." Those words felt even better than the commendation.

In April Leigh started applying for teaching jobs. She didn't want to return to the school in the city. She didn't want to stay in the city at all. Jim encouraged her. That was why he sat on a street of abandoned houses wiping tears from his eyes.

Jim laughed and shook off the last of the shadows. Coming to Spruce Bay was the best thing they had done since they got married five years before.

Jim put the truck into gear again and went around the next corner. A few children threw rocks at a house. He could hear the bang of the rocks against the plywood from in the truck. As soon as they saw his lights, the kids scattered. One still had a rock in her hand, so she threw it at Jim. It banged off the windshield. He imagined the laughter as they ran on the trails.

The first time he saw a crowd of children out late at night he'd tried to chase them down, but they'd just laughed and vanished into the woods. He'd told the Staff and had been warned to be careful on the trails. Sometimes the gangs set traps for the unwary.

Most times the children ran away. Once a young boy had waited for Jim to come to him.

"Give me a ride home," the boy had said.

"What are you doing?" Jim had asked him, "You shouldn't be out causing trouble like this."

"Who cares?" the boy had said.

"Your mom cares."

The boy laughed.

"You haven't met my mom."

Jim had driven him to a house in the Grid that didn't look any different from the abandoned ones on either side. Even the windows were boarded up.

"Wha' d'you wan'." The woman who opened the door peered at Jim.

"Your boy was throwing rocks at a house."

"Stupid shit," She smacked the boy on the head, "Y're supposed to run away when the cops come."

"See?" The boy stuck his tongue out at Jim then ran away down the street.

"You gonna arrest me?" the woman said.

"No," Jim said, still looking where the boy had disappeared between two houses.

"Then get the fuck out of my face." She slammed the door. Jim heard it lock and wondered how the boy was supposed to get into his own home. He left feeling vaguely dirty. He'd seen the boy around a few other places, but never had a chance to talk to him. The boy acted like none of it had happened, running up and down the mall like the rest of the children. How many of them were locked out of their own homes at night?

"If you have a solution," the Staff-Sergeant said, "I'd love to hear it. We can't arrest them because they're too young. If we make it a Child Welfare issue, Mr. Henry ends up fighting three different agencies over whose jurisdiction it is. Even if the kids get removed from the homes, where are they going to go?"

"There must be something," Jim said, but the Staff-Sergeant just shrugged and went back to the paper work.

Jim turned another corner. Another batch of children - or maybe the same ones - hard to tell. They ran into the woods. The last couple in line flipped him the bird as they vanished. They looked young enough to be students in Leigh's class. Perhaps Leigh would have an idea. These kids shouldn't be allowed to run wild through the town. They mostly stayed in the Grid as the homeowners in the Plan were more likely to call the police, or even fire shotguns over the kid's heads.

It was past midnight, so Jim pulled over and phoned Leigh at home. There was no answer; maybe she was still at the school. He decided to head over and see if she needed a ride home.

The school was dark and closed tight when he got there. Jim thought someone ran around the corner, so he drove the truck to the far side of the parking lot. Tracks came from a dark alcove to where he'd seen the person. That's where they started running. They were long gone. He should check what they'd been doing in that alcove, make sure the school was secure.

"Dispatch, car SB 6 here, I'm at the school. I saw someone run away from an alcove. I think there's a door there. I'll just check to make sure it's shut."

"Ten-four," dispatch said.

Jim locked the truck behind him, but left it running with the headlights pointed where he was going. He pulled out his flashlight and switched it on. Not only would it help him see, but made a makeshift weapon if he needed it. The headlights threw stark shadows. Shrubs became blobs of black sucking in the light and radiating dark.

He got to the corner into the alcove. Jim vaguely remembered this was the custodian's office, along with access to the boilers and electrical for the school. He held his flashlight up and stepped around the corner. A shadow lay on the snow. He puzzles at what cast the shadow for an instant before it hit him this wasn't a shadow. A person lay crumpled in front of the door.

"Dispatch, SB 6, I need an ambulance at the school. There is a person, looks like they're hurt."

"Details on the victim?" dispatch asked.

Then Jim saw the ax and the blood on the snow and all over the walls of the school.

"It was no accident," he said, "Better send the Sergeant out."

"Ten-four," dispatch said.

Jim walked back to the truck and leaned against it. It was going to be a long night. He hoped Leigh was all right. He took the camera out of the bag in the back and started snapping pictures of the footprints already disappearing under the falling snow.

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