Watch out your window.
The next morning, Dennis stood at his window. Ralph was standing by the bush, holding a rake. Gently, while Dennis watched, the custodian cleared back the long grass above where the rabbit traveled. He did it in just one spot, visible only from above.
“I already went up there,” Constable Roberts told Ralph, who had just appeared in his office.
“I know, sir. But... he’s getting worse.”
“Who?”
“Dennis, sir. The boy you spoke to.”
“How do you know I talked to him?”
“I was watching.”
The constable looked at him. The coastal towns were full of men like Ralph, wanderers who finally blew up against the lip of a rock and stayed there.
“If I go speak to him, will he tell me he’s being abused?”
“Probably not,” Ralph admitted. “He doesn’t trust anyone. That’s the thing with holding time, sir. You stop knowing what’s real. You stop trusting anyone. Even yourself.”
“I called down to where she was before,” Constable Roberts said. “The sheriff there told me she was a pillar of the community.”
“You mean the sheriff in Sleeping Giant?”
“Yes. Did you know him too?”
“He’s not a nice man, sir.”
Constable Roberts sat back. Maybe Ralph just had an axe to grind with Martha King, and anyone else from Sleeping Giant.
“It’s not right, what she’s doing, sir.”
“I’ll go back.”
The center looked different. There were flowers on the dining room tables. The isolation rooms were empty, and the boy seemed quieter. A group was exercising on the lawn, under the guidance of a staff member. Yet Constable Roberts was troubled. He couldn’t even say why. There was something in the boys’ faces that pushed him ever so slightly sideways.
Martha King looked irritated this time. She had just come from the treatment room, where she was finishing with Reggie. The boy, slack-jawed, had been carried to bed by Ike Tressler, who had a hand up his shirt, on his warm back.
“Yes?”
“Just checking in,” he said.
“I’m under the supervision of the state,” Martha said. “There is no need for you to be checking in.”
“I took a shine to that boy you introduced me to. It occurred to me we get a lot of offseason fishermen in our towns. We could connect the boys with mentors. Kinda like our own big brother program. The men could show them the boats. Take them whale watching.”
She smiled at him, but her eyes said no.
“The boys here are severely emotionally disturbed, Constable. If they were capable of going on unsupervised outings, they wouldn’t be here. I do appreciate your concern, though.”
“I’d like to see your therapy room again.”
“I truly do not see the problem.”
She walked him to the room. He noticed the door had a lock. He knelt by the pile of damp sheets and touched them.
“These smell like urine.”
