Ill Wind by Nevada Barr Page B

with Jimmy. He called in sick. That’s all I need, for Bella to catch a dose of something.”
    “Don’t worry. Unless she comes down with a case of Coors, Bella won’t get what Jimmy’s got.”
    They rode without speaking till Stacy turned off Chapin Mesa Road toward the Far View dormitories. There was something familiar in the drawn face, the tight voice. Putting it together with the medical, Anna realized where she’d seen it before. He carried himself like a man in pain.
    “Take off your gun and I’ll buy you a beer,” she offered on impulse.
    For a moment she was sure he was going to turn her down. “I’ll get you home before six,” she added, remembering Bella and Drew’s baby-sitting schedule.
    “A beer would taste good tonight.”
     
     
    THE lounge at the Far View Lodge was on the second floor and boasted an open-air veranda to the east side. The view, though somewhat curtailed by an expanse of tarred roof studded with air-conditioning ducts, justified the name of Far View. Mesas receded into mists that melded seamlessly into mountain ranges. In the afternoon light, strong at midsummer, the muted blues and grays were given an iridescence that at some times made the mesas appear as unreal as an artist’s conception, and, at others, the only reality worth living.
    When Anna arrived Stacy was not there. She took a table that backed on a low adobe wall. The plaster radiated heat collected during the day and deflected a cold wind that had sprung up.
    Anna’s nerves jangled. She couldn’t shake an unwelcome First Date feeling. Possibly because she’d taken the time to comb her hair out of its braids and dab perfume between her breasts. A Carta Blanca took the edge off. By the time she was halfway down it, Stacy arrived.
    The edge came back.
    He looked as awkward as she felt, and wordlessly she cursed herself for moving their relationship out of the secure arena of work.
    Stacy ordered a Moosehead and folded himself into one of the wire garden chairs.
    “I hardly recognized you with your clothes on,” Anna said.
    “Ah. Out of uniform.”
    “You clean up nice.”
    “Thanks.”
    Small talk died. Anna sipped her beer and resisted the urge to glance at her watch. “I thought the medical went well this morning,” she said to get the conversation into neutral territory.
    “God.” Stacy shook his head. Pain was clear in his eyes.
    Anna forgot her discomfort. Leaning across the table, she took hold of his arm.
    A familiar laugh brought her head up. Ted Greeley had taken a table across the veranda. As he caught her eye, he raised his highball in a salute. Anna smiled automatically then returned to Stacy. “What is getting to you?”
    “Stephanie McFarland died. I called the ER before I came.”
    Anna felt as if he’d slapped her. “That’s not right,” she said. “Stephanie was just a kid with asthma. They got the name wrong.”
    Stacy shook his head. “The name wasn’t wrong. She died.”
    “Fuck.” Anna took a long pull on the beer. It didn’t help. “Third grade. What the hell happened? She didn’t have to die.”
    “Yes she did.”
    Stacy sounded sure of himself, like a man quoting scripture or baseball scores.
    “Why?” Anna demanded.
    “Figure it out,” Stacy snapped. “You saw me. I couldn’t do a thing, not one damn thing.”
    Anna looked at him for a long moment. Self-pity in the face of the child’s death struck her as blind arrogance. “Give it a rest. We did what we did. You were useless, not deadly. Don’t make yourself so important.”
    Stacy stared at his hands. Clearly this was a cross he was determined to bear. Maybe he was Catholic.
    “I’m sorry,” Anna said.
    “Yeah. Me too. Sorrier than you know.”
    Stacy made circles on the glass tabletop with the beer bottle.
    Anna finished her beer and ordered another.
    “Bella can get bone grafts in her legs,” he said, as if this were part of an ongoing conversation instead of a non sequitur . “She could dance, fall