Ill Wind

by Nevada Barr

  “Tom,” Anna said softly.

  “Gun,” Stanton said just as quietly, his voice penetrating from the shadows.

  Almost swallowed up in Silva’s right fist was a derringer. Anna took her .357 from its holster and trained it on him.

  “Tom,” she said again. “Put the gun down. It’s Anna.”

  Silva turned. The act unbalanced him and he stumbled backward, his shoulders crashing into the planks. The derringer sparked in the light as his arm swung up. Anna’s stomach lurched and her finger tensed on the trigger but he was only shading his eyes with the weapon, squinting to see past the glare.

  “Fucking idiot.” Shaken by the anger adrenaline leaves behind, Anna said: “You just nearly scared me into shooting you, you know that? Put that gun down. Slow! Don’t you dare scare me like that again.”

  “Anna?” Tom staggered half a step forward then fell back once more against the support of the door. “Ranger Anna? No shit?”

  “The gun,” Anna reminded him. “Put it down.”

  Tom brought the derringer in front of his face and studied it. Anna’s breath caught at the movement. She was becoming uncomfortably aware of the strain of holding the revolver at arm’s length in one hand and the six-cell flashlight in the other.

  “This is my door knocker,” Tom said. It looked a match to the one he’d given Patsy.

  “Drop the damn thing,” Anna snapped.

  “Jeez-Louise,” he mumbled. “Keep your pants on.”

  “Now,” Anna ordered, trying to cut through the alcohol shrouding his mind.

  “I’m not dropping it,” he said petulantly. “It’s got a pearl handle. How ’bout I set it down real nice like? Okay?”

  “Okay. Just do it.”

  Silva bent down to lay the little pistol on the cement, lost equilibrium and fell against a post supporting the porch roof. The derringer clattered to the concrete. “Fuck,” Silva growled. “If you’ve busted it . . .” He reached for the pistol but a hand shot out of the shadows and snatched it away.

  “I’ll go ahead and take care of this for you, Mr. Silva,” Anna heard Stanton saying politely.

  Flashing blue lights and a screaming siren made Anna jump. She squeaked as well but fortunately the clangor drowned her out. Silva screamed outright. “Sheesh!” He collapsed on the welcome mat, his back to the door, and hid his face in his hands. “Pats is a dead woman. Missy and Mindy: dead. Fuck.” In slow motion, he rolled to his side and vomited into the petunias.

  Anna holstered her weapon and took a deep breath to steady her nerves. Stanton materialized out of the shadows and began patting the incapacitated Silva down for weapons. “Now you’ve done it, Anna,” Stanton said.

  “Don’t I know it. I took ‘it’ out,” Anna said, referring to her revolver.

  “Gonna be paperwork to atone for that.”

  Loud bootfalls on the flagstone announced Jennifer Short’s arrival. “The pitter-patter of little feet,” Anna muttered unkindly. “Hey ya, Jennifer,” she said as the other woman came up beside her. “You might want to call ‘in service’ when you go out and ‘on scene’ when you arrive. It’s okay to spoil the surprise.”

  “Sorry. Damnation. I’m always forgettin’ that.”

  The porch light came on, giving Stanton light to work by, and Anna switched off her flashlight.

  Jennifer’s face was flushed and her eyes bright. Clearly she was scared, but excited too. Maybe she’d arrived a bit like Wyatt Earp into Dodge but she’d made a quick response from Far View and she hadn’t hung back. “Good to see you. Come to join the fun?” Anna asked.

  “Looks like it’s all been had. Ol’ Tom the only perpetrator?” Jennifer asked, disappointed. “Frieda made it sound like a riot.”

  “He had a gun,” Anna tried to sweeten the pot. Jennifer perked up a little. “Why don’t you go work with Special Agent Stanton,” Anna suggested. “I need to check on Patsy and the girls.”

  Tom Silva was still retching, Agent Stanton standing beside him looking mildly ill. Jennifer strode up, jammed her hat more tightly down on her head, then fumbled out her handcuffs. “You have the right... Oh shit.” She pulled her Stetson off and tugged a bit of paper from inside the hatband. “Hold this.” She handed the hat unceremoniously to Stanton and finished reading Tom his rights from the paper. When she’d done, she turned to Anna. “What now? Cuff him?”

  Anna nodded. “There’s a belt in the trunk of my car. A leather one with some metal rings on it. Put it around his waist and cuff his hands in front of him and to the belt. Frederick will assist. You’re looking good.”

  “It’s my first,” Jennifer said, and grinned. “Y’all be gentle with me,” she said to Silva. He threw up again.

  Anna waited till Jennifer and Stanton had helped Tom to his feet and led him away, then she knocked on the tower house door. “Patsy, it’s me, Anna. Tom’s gone. Are you okay?” There was a scraping sound from within, as if something heavy was being dragged away, then the door opened a crack. Looking terribly young with her short hair and pink pajamas, Patsy stuck her head out and looked around to discern the truth of Anna’s statement.

  “Are you all right?” Anna repeated her question.

  “I guess. Mindy! Missy!” The girls came up from the living area and stood on the landing looking wide awake and confused. “Yes, we’re okay,” Patsy said, comforted by having her girls around her. “He never got in or anything.”

  “He wouldn’t have hurt us,” Mindy complained. At thirteen or fourteen, she was the younger of the two daughters. “You don’t have to take him anywhere. He was drunk,” she added, as if this exonerated him.

  “Maybe you could make me a cup of coffee,” Anna said to Patsy. “Instant would be fine.”

  The girls settled in the little booth in the kitchen. The domesticity of Mother putting the kettle on seemed to soothe all of them. Patsy poured the water over the coffee crystals when it was barely warm and handed Anna skim milk from the refrigerator.

  Anna leaned against the counter and forced down a swallow. “What happened?” she asked now that a semblance of normalcy had been restored.

  “It was Tom,” Patsy said unnecessarily. “He came over earlier. I could tell he’d been drinking and I wouldn’t see him. He went away again but came back about half an hour ago. He was pretty drunk.”

  “Blotto,” Missy said.

  “Not blotto,” Mindy contradicted her.

  “Blotto.”

  The girls were so close in age and so alike in blond good looks, Anna often got them confused, which didn’t endear her to either one of them. Both wore their hair long and straight, framing round scrubbed faces marked with a scattering of pimples. Mindy wore a nightshirt with Bart Simpson’s likeness on it, and Missy an oversized T-shirt and boxer shorts, both the worse for wear.

  “Go on,” Anna said to their mother.

  “That’s about it. He was drunk. Blotto,” she added, giving Mindy a yes-he-was-too look. “He tried to get in. That’s when I locked the door.”

  “What did he want?”

  “I don’t know.” Patsy started to cry.

  “He kept yelling he was going to kill us,” Missy said.

  “He did not!” Mindy punched her sister in the arm.

  “He did too, you little creep.”

  “Girls, that’s enough!” Patsy slapped the tabletop with the flat of her hand and the girls were quiet.

  “He didn’t say he was going to kill us,” Patsy said. “He just said things like ‘You’re dead if you don’t listen to me’ and ‘You’re a dead woman, Pats.’ Things like that. He did not threaten to kill us, Missy. Don’t you go saying things like that.”

  “Like that’s not a threat.” Missy tossed her hair and started French-braiding it back off her face.

  The comments struck Anna as threatening as well, but Patsy and her daughters, even Missy, didn’t seem particularly terrified by the incident, so maybe they weren’t. Maybe it was a fairly standard family interaction. “Is that all
you can remember?” she asked Patsy.

  “That’s about it. I think he maybe shot that little gun off once or twice. He was mad that I gave it back to him. I left it in his pickup the other day. With the girls, I didn’t want it around the house.”

  Anna waited a moment but no more information was forthcoming. “Okay. We’re going to arrest him and take him down to Cortez. What do you want to charge him with?”

  “Arrest him?” Patsy looked alarmed. “You don’t have to do that. Can’t you just take him somewhere till he sobers up? You don’t have to arrest him.”

  “I already did.”

  Now she looked aggrieved. “I won’t press charges.”

  “I will.” Anna rinsed her cup and put it in the sink. “Drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace, unlawful possession of a firearm in a national park, refusing to obey a lawful order, obstructing a federal officer in the execution of her duty, public intoxication, DUI if he drove here, noise after quiet hours, and brain off leash. If I were you, I’d think it over before I let him off the hook. His behavior is unacceptable, illegal, and unsafe. You let me know if you change your mind.”

  Anna left the three of them sitting at the table giving her and each other dirty looks.

  Tom was cuffed and belted into the back of the patrol car. Jennifer and Frederick stood by the open door, waiting without talking. As Anna walked up, Frederick stepped away from the vehicle and addressed her in hushed tones. “Can you and Ranger Short take Mr. Silva in by yourselves?”

  “I think we can manage that,” Anna said dryly.

  “Oh whew. You don’t have to give me a ride home even. I can walk back to my quarters from here easy.”

  “Tired of my company?” Anna asked as he turned to go.

  Stanton looked over his shoulder. “He’s going to throw up in your car. All the way down the hill. Ish.”

  “Coward.”

  “Hypersensitive gag reflex,” he called back cheerily.

  Blue lights still blazing, Jennifer had parked the 4X4 truck behind the patrol car. She was leaning against the fender, apparently enjoying the evening.

  “Agent Stanton opted out,” Anna told her. “Follow me to Maintenance. You can leave your vehicle there and ride down to Cortez with me.”

  “Guess I gotta turn out the overheads,” Jennifer sighed. “Too bad. They’re kinda pretty.”

  AS Anna pulled into Maintenance, the patrol car’s headlights shone on the gate to the locked yard where the pipeline contractor kept his equipment. In the beams Anna could see the red water truck and the ubiquitous yellow of heavy machinery. A man in dark clothes, welding gloves stuck in his hip pocket, was fiddling with the lock to the enclosed area. Anna flipped on her high beams and drove up to him. Shielding his eyes, he turned. It was Ted Greeley. She glanced at the dashboard clock: two-nineteen. Greeley didn’t stay on the mesa top nights; he rented a place in Mancos.

  “’Morning, Ted.” She stepped from her vehicle and stood behind the open door. “You’re up early.”

  “So’re you. But I knew that. Running my little buddy out of town?”

  “Something like that. What’re you doing up here at this hour?” It was late, and she was too tired for prolonged pleasantries.

  “Why, Anna, I didn’t know you cared. As it happens, I was visiting a sick friend. I heard on the radio that my boy Thomas was on the rampage and I got to wondering if he’d borrowed a cup of sugar from any of the neighbor ladies. That boy’s one butt short of a pack and he’s got a key to the yard. His kind of help I don’t need.”

  “I didn’t know you had a radio.”

  “I don’t.” Greeley winked and said good night.

  For a moment Anna was nonplussed. Then she remembered: neither she nor Hills had gotten Stacy’s personal protective gear from the widow. Rose still had his revolver and his radio. But a lot of people had radios: Drew, Jimmy, Paul, Jennifer, Al, Frieda. Though most of the seasonal interpreters didn’t carry them, they all had access to those kept in the museum for use in the ruins.

  Anna let the thought go. Something else had been triggered by Greeley but she was at a loss as to what it was. She let her brain empty and the thought floated up: Tom Silva had a key to the equipment yard. Had his sudden increase in cash flow that washed Patsy’s new watch into the picture come from pilfering parts? Tools?

  STANTON was right, of course. Silva vomited half a dozen times on the way down. Jennifer, riding beside him in the backseat, swore every time he threw up. “These’re my Class A’s, damn you,” she snarled at one point. Anna rolled down her window and turned the air-conditioning on to clear the air. By the time they reached the Cortez sheriff’s office Silva was nearly comatose. During the car trip he’d been too far gone to question; now it would have to wait till morning.

  Anna turned him over to the booking officer and wrote him up for drunk and disorderly and illegal possession of a firearm, knowing without Patsy’s corroboration not much else would stick.

  She and Jennifer took the car over to an all-night Shell station on Main Street and swamped out the backseat.

  It was after four A.M. when they started the long drive back up to Far View. Anna’d never been comfortable in the cold predawn hours, that waiting time from after midnight till sunrise. As a child she could remember standing shivering watching her parents load suitcases into the trunk of the old Thunderbird. On their rare vacations, the importance of getting an early start was paramount. Upon reaching adult-hood she’d expanded the concept of “vacation” to include sleeping in, and seldom booked a flight before noon if she could help it.

  Now those unholy hours were allocated for pacing the floor on bad nights.

  At Anna’s request, Jennifer was driving. The late hour and the abandoned road had awakened the Indy 500 driver lurking just under the surface of every American, and Short was taking the curves with expert and nauseating speed. The two swallows of instant coffee Anna’d choked down in Patsy’s kitchen felt like they’d lodged behind her breastbone and were trying to burn their way out.

  “Slow down,” she griped, “or we’ll be mopping out the front seat.”

  “Sorry.” Jennifer didn’t sound it.

  Events of the night had pushed the truck Anna and Stanton had heard on the loop out of her mind. In her irritation it resurfaced.

  “You had late shift?” she asked, knowing the answer.

  “I got two lates now Stacy’s kaput.”

  “What time did you lock Cliff Palace loop?”

  Jennifer thought a moment. “Maybe ten or thereabouts.”

  “Did you have to go back out later? Get a call or anything?”

  “No. Why?” Jennifer’s voice changed slightly, that touch of wariness that signaled the end of conversation and the beginning of interrogation.

  “Around one-thirty a truck of some sort drove through the Cliff Palace parking lot,” Anna told her. “About then I got the call to come rescue Patsy. We were right behind the truck—not close enough to see it, but we had to be close. Somehow they hid out. Nobody was at the Four-Way when we got there. The gate was false-locked, so whoever was in there had access to a key. I wondered if Jamie’d talked you out of yours so she could go play with her little dead friends.”

  “That’s against the rules,” Jennifer said piously.

  “Everybody bends the rules once in a while,” Anna tempted confession.

  “Not everybody.” Jennifer put her in her place.

  “Did anybody have a backcountry permit for tonight?”

  “No. I checked. I always check.”

  “Who of the interps owns a good-sized truck?”

  Jennifer was more comfortable with this line of questioning. It didn’t cast aspersions on her merits as a ranger. “Nobody I know of,” she said after a minute. “Interps have subcompact minds—you know; no extra irreplaceable fossil fuels and shit.”

  Claude Beavens had said the “interp’s truck” left after he did the night of the murder. Offhand Anna couldn’t remember if h
e’d seen or only heard of it. She made a mental note to ask.

  “Jimmy Russell’s got a truck,” Jennifer volunteered. “He’d’ve took ’em. Jimmy’s always looking to get his horns clipped or at least a couple of free beers. If it was a party, he’d’ve been there.”

  “Have you been locking the Four-Way funny? Like Stacy used to, all twisted and tight and hard to undo?” Anna asked abruptly.

  Jennifer hooted. “Ranger Pigeon, what is the matter with you? You’re as fussy as a cat with new kittens. You on the rag?”

  “Past my bedtime,” Anna grumbled. “Have you?”

  “My locks aren’t twisty and tight,” Jennifer said primly, and turned on the radio to drown out any further assaults on her character.

  Anna didn’t push it, but promised herself she would do some serious checking of stories when the world opened for business: Jamie, Beavens, Jennifer, Russell. She had a feeling if rangers were puppets, the mesa would have more long noses than trees.

  SIXTEEN

  “I’M NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS.” ANNA switched off the ignition. She and Frederick sat in the patrol car under the shade tree in Rose Meyers’ front yard. “What I’m looking forward to is a nap.” By the time she and Jennifer had returned to the mesa it had been close to five. She’d had less than two hours’ sleep before she went on duty at seven A.M.

  “Getting old?” Stanton teased.

  “I’m too tired even to yawn.”

  “Want me to do it?”

  For a second Anna thought he was offering to yawn for her. Then she focused on the task at hand. “It’s bound to be tedious, personal, and unpleasant. Of course I want you to do it.”

  “Generous to a fault.”

  Anna twisted in her seat till the bones in her lower back popped. “I’ll do it, but you’d better come with me in your capacity as Hysterical Wife Sedative.”