The Forgotten

“The quicker I’m out of here, the happier I am.”

“I suppose that about sums it up for me, as well.”

“Why are you so unhappy about this, Dr. Dahl? Drug checks are part of standard operation in this school. You had to have known that when you took the job.”

“For the administration to do what’s necessary to maintain standards—that’s one thing. We don’t need the gendarmes telling us how to run our school.”

“Ah—”

“Yes, ah!”

Decker’s smile was wide. He tried to hold it back and that only made her angrier. She stomped over to the first lad—a fourteen-year-old moonfaced kid with a sprig of freckles across the nose—and asked him to open his locker.

He did, following Jaime Dahl’s drill to a tee. Decker was impressed.

Inside were papers, notebooks, pens, a few car magazines, and lots of candy wrappers.

“Thank you,” Decker said, taking a step backward.

The boy closed his locker. Jaime told him that he could go.

The boy left.

One down, about three hundred to go.

The tenth kid had a locker containing two bottles of pills. They looked to be prescription. He asked Jaime about them.

“As long as the medicine is from a doctor, we allow it into the school.”

“Can I pick up the bottles?” he asked her.

“Why are you asking me? You’re in charge.”

He picked up the bottles. “It’s all the same medicine.”

“I have a note,” the kid said anxiously. “You can call my mom.”

Decker looked him over. A stick of a kid: he was shaking. “I’m just wondering why you need sixty pills of any kind at school when the dose is one a day … at night.”

The kid said nothing.

Decker put the bottle back inside his locker. “Something you might want to think about. Someone could get the wrong idea … like you were selling off the excess. Of course, I know that’s not the case. But … it kinda looks bad.”

The kid mumbled a pathetic “Yessir.”

“It’s all right, Harry,” Jaime comforted him. “We can talk about this later.”

“Yes, Dr. Dahl.”

Decker went on to the next one, then the next. Over the course of the next hour, he found lots of bottles that looked suspect. Either they were genuine pharmaceutical containers with pills that didn’t match the prescribed medicine, or they carried counterfeited labels altogether. Since medicine was allowed, Decker left it up to Jaime to discipline. Usually, a stern look from the beautiful doctor was enough to send the boys into paroxysms. Decker felt for the kids, just like he had felt for Jacob after the boy had confessed his drug use. Kids had a way of doing that to him, making him feel bad even when he was just doing his job.

Rooting through the trash of rotting food, old papers, wrappers, and garbage. Not to mention old, wet gym clothes that smelled riper than decayed roadkill. Besides the pills, Decker found more than a fair share of cigarette butts—tobacco and otherwise. He pretended not to notice them. He also came upon packages of condoms—most of them unopened. There were also lots of pinups—mostly female, but there were some studly males as well. All of the posers wore smiles and adequate amounts of clothing. He also found several indiscreet Polaroids that he conveniently overlooked. It didn’t take long before Jaime Dahl became acutely aware of his omissions. It didn’t make her friendlier, but it did make her curious.

She said, “You’re not taking notes.”

“Pardon?”

“I see you’re not making note of any of the material you’re finding.”

“I haven’t found anything significant.”

“What would you consider significant?” The blue eyes narrowed. “You’re obviously not from Narcotics. Why are you here?” Suddenly, she took his arm and pulled him aside, out of earshot of the waiting students. She whispered, “Surely a police lieutenant has better things to do with himself than to hassle young minds in the throes of experimentation for freedom.”

“Surely.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

It was Decker’s turn to narrow his eyes. It seemed to unnerve her. “If we can’t be buddies, maybe we can try civility?”

“I know your type. Don’t even think about asking me out!”

He stared at her, then laughed. What’s on your mind, honey? He said, “My wife would have a few choice words to say to me if I did.”

Her eyes went to his hand.

Decker said, “Not all married men wear wedding rings.”

“Only the ones who don’t want women to know they’re married.”

“Dr. Dahl, I’ve got a wife, four kids, three stifling private-school tuitions, a choking home mortgage, and car payments on a Volvo station wagon that’s already out of alignment. I’ve got the whole nine yards of suburbia. And I’m still smiling because deep down inside, despite my cynical view of this entire planet that we call Earth, I am a very happy man. Can we move on, please? I have a schedule and I bet you do as well.”

She regarded his face but said nothing. Decker took the silence as an invitation to finish up. He was up to the senior class, and had gone halfway through its roster without finding anything incriminating. He was discouraged by his failure, but encouraged by it as well. Maybe the school was really the best and the brightest.

He was almost done, finishing the last row of lockers. One of them belonged to a good-looking boy of seventeen—around six feet tall and muscular. He wore his brown hair in a buzz cut and had storm-colored eyes—electric and very dark blue. His locker was free of contraband and very neat. No pictures, nothing chemical, nothing out of place. Yet there was something on the kid’s face, a smirk that spoke of privilege. Decker met the kid’s eyes, held them for a moment.

“Let me see your backpack—”

“What?” The boy blinked, then recovered.

“This isn’t the procedure,” Jaime stated.

“I know,” Decker said. He turned to the boy. “Do you object?”

“Yes, I do.” The muscular boy tapped his foot several times. “I object on principle. It’s an invasion of my civil rights.”

Again, Decker met the kid’s eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Do I have to answer that?” the boy asked.