Chapter 2
It is odd, I suppose, how little one may know about one’s friends.
Moxie and I had grown closer since I’d become what he liked to describe, only half-jokingly, as his “tame investigator,” but even then, we didn’t discuss our pasts.
In Moxie’s case, this was because he didn’t care to be told anything about me that he didn’t want to hear, and what he did want to hear, he already knew.
As for me, I’d noticed early on that Moxie deflected questions of a personal nature with a joke before changing the subject.
He didn’t mind talking about the women in his life, and in eye-popping detail, but his own history was off-limits.
Now, at the Bear, he described without hesitation a nightmare childhood: alcoholism, physical abuse, desertion, foster care, and finally, his consignment to a troubled-teen school by a mother unable to cope and a father who was only a mistimed fist or boot away from killing his son.
“Where did they put you?” I asked, but I could guess the answer. Given Moxie’s age and Maine upbringing, there was only one.
“élan,” he said.
The élan School was founded in Androscoggin County, Maine, in 1970, on thirty-three acres in Poland that once housed a hunting lodge.
Later, it added more campuses, including one in Parsonsfield, in York County, where the worst of the abuse was said to have occurred: beatings, sleep deprivation, public humiliation, and punishments for misbehavior that verged on torture.
From the start, élan was dogged by allegations of mistreatment, but serious flaws in the state’s system of school supervision meant that investigations were stymied, when they occurred at all.
The Parsonsfield campus shut down within a decade or so, but the Poland facility remained in operation until 2011, when it was finally forced to close because of declining enrollment.
Throughout, élan’s owners denied accusations of misrule, claiming they were the victims of a smear campaign, yet students repeatedly attempted to escape.
One of them ended up being raped and murdered while trying to return home.
Another was reportedly beaten so badly in the school’s boxing ring, where students were reputed to have been forced to fight one another as part of their therapy, that he later died of his injuries and was buried in an unmarked grave.
“I avoided Parsonsfield,” said Moxie. “But Poland was bad enough.”
I didn’t ask how bad. If Moxie wanted to share those details, he would.
“I hear someone tried to burn it down a while back, or what’s left of it,” I said.
“I’d like to shake their hand. If they’d told me what they were planning, I’d have paid for the gasoline.”
“Does the Spero have a similar reputation?” I asked.
“I doubt any school in Maine could function under such a cloud these days,” said Moxie, “or not for long, but the Spero is still no summer camp. Parents wouldn’t send their kids there otherwise.
It’s a farming-out of discipline to strangers, and the moms and dads don’t want to know the fine print of how that might be accomplished.
All that matters is a difficult child is no longer in their hair and they can get on with their lives, or take care of the kids who aren’t such a pain in the ass.
I can understand the reasoning but not the solution, because it’s no solution at all.
It’s an abrogation of responsibility, and the antithesis of what parenting should be. ”
Over at the Fulcis’ table, the pounding had ceased.
The brothers were sipping sodas while staring intently at a guy who looked to be giving a hard time to the woman with him.
I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I could see a finger jabbing, making hard contact with soft flesh.
The Fulcis wouldn’t like that. I didn’t like it either.
As for the woman, she was keeping her head down and staying silent, but the set of her jaw was firm.
I’d seen my share of women broken by men, and this woman was some distance removed from them—for the time being.
Meantime, the finger jabbed again. It would leave a bruise.
And the Fulcis continued sipping and watching.
“I have no problem assisting with a personal vendetta,” I said, “as long as it’s acknowledged and the target is worthy. If you and Alcock want to point me at the Spero, I’ll go, but if the school hasn’t broken any laws, there’s a limit to what I can achieve.”
Moxie finished his drink.
“Why would Scott Theriault have headed north from The Plains?” he asked. “He was just a kid. If he was trying to run away, it would make more sense for him to work his way south. Surely he’d have looked toward civilization again, not wilderness, if he wanted to escape.”
“He might have wanted to be anywhere but the Spero,” I said.
Moxie studied me with eyes that understood the impulse.
“If that’s true,” he replied, “what does it say about the place?”