The man droned on and on. Joanna had to fight lay awake while Dave Thompson paced back and forth in front of the class. Joanna had spent years listening to Jim Bob Brady’s warm southern drawl. Thompson’s strained down-home manner of speech sounded put on and gratingly phony. Waving an old-fashioned pointer for emphasis, he delivered a drill-instructor-style diatribe meant to scare off all but the most serious-minded of the assembled students.
“Look around you,” he urged, waggling the pointer until it encompassed all the people in the room. “There’ll be some faces missing by the time we get to the end of this course. We generally expect a washout rate of between forty and fifty percent, and that’s in a good class.”
Joanna raised her eyebrows at that. The night before, Dave Thompson had said this was a good class. This morning, it evidently wasn’t. What had ringed his mind?
“You may have noticed that there aren’t any television sets in those rooms of yours,” Thompson continued. “No swimming pool or tennis courts, either. This ain’t no paid vacation, my friends. You’re here to work, plain and simple. You’d by God better get that straight from the get-go.
“There may be a few party animals in the crowd. If you think you can party all night long and then drag ass in here the next morning and sleep through the lectures, think again. Days are for classwork, and nights are for hitting the books. Do make myself clear?”
Careful not to move her head in any direction, Joanna kept her eyes focused full on Thompson’s beefy face. Peripheral vision allowed her a glimpse of movement in the front row where a young blond-haired man nodded his head in earnest agreement. The gesture of unquestioning approval was so pronounced it was a wonder the guy’s teeth didn’t rattle.
“Over the next few weeks, you’ll be working with a staff made up from outstanding officers who have been selected from jurisdictions all over the state,” Thompson was saying. “These are the guys who, along with yours truly, will be conducting most of the classroom instruction. We’ll be overseeing some of the hands-on training as well as evaluating each student’s individual progress. All told, the instructors here have a combined total of more than a hundred twenty years of law enforcement experience. Try that on for size.”
He paused and grinned. “You know what they say about experience and treachery, don’t you? Wins out over youth and enthusiasm every time. Count on it.”
The room was quiet. No doubt the comment had been meant as a joke, but no one laughed. While Thompson consulted his notes, Joanna noticed the young guy in the front row was busily nodding once again.
“That brings us to the subject of ride-alongs.” Thompson resumed. “When it comes time for those, you’ll be doing them with experienced on-duty officers from one or more of the participating agencies here in the Valley. By the way, be sure to sign the ride-along waivers in your packet and return them to me by the end of the day.
“This is particular class—procedures—is my baby. It’s also the backbone of what we do here. As you all know, the academy is being funded partially by state and federal grants and partially by the tuition paid by each participating agency. Tuition doesn’t come cheap. The state maybe picked up this fine facility for a song from the folks at the RTC, but we’ve gotta pay our way. Here’s how it works, folks. Listen up.
“Each person’s whole tuition and room rent is due and payable on the first day of class. In other words, today. The minute you all walked through our door this morning, that money was gone. The academy doesn’t do refunds. You quit tonight? Too bad. The guy who hired you—the one who sent you here in the first place—doesn’t get to put that money back in his departmental budget. That means anybody who drops out turns into a regular pain in the bottom line.
“In other words, boys and girls, if you blow this chance, you end up outta here and outta law enforcement, too. Nobody in his right mind’s gonna give a quitter another opportunity.
“For those of you who don’t blow it, for those of don’t who make the grade, when you go back to your various departments, you’re more than welcome to do things the way they do them there. Here at the academy, we have our own procedures, and we do things our way. The APOA way. In other words, as that great American hero, A. J. Foyt, has been quoted as saying, ‘my way or the highway.’
