The Winter Over(22)

“His office is in front of you,” Elise said without bothering to turn around.

His smile widened and he pushed through the steel door to the admin office. He nodded to Deb as she glanced up from her screen and got a cautious nod in return. He’d been careful to avoid pushing Deb’s buttons, either in their initial meeting or since. The deputy director was one of the few people at the station with enough clout to make the next nine months hell for him, not to mention taint future assignments if she wished. Granted, he could do the same to her.

“Do you know if Hanratty is free, Deb?”

She tapped a pen against her teeth. “I think so. He’s probably just making sure the Herc is on time for takeoff tomorrow. All routine stuff, though, so he’s probably got time.”

Keene thanked her, then reached out and rapped on Hanratty’s door, two short, sharp knocks.

The answer was muffled by the door. “Come.”

The manager’s office, tiny by stateside standards, was vast compared to any other private space at Shackleton. Behind the desk, however, was what distinguished this room from almost any other on base—a wide picture window that was a thermal engineer’s nightmare. The heat loss probably ran in the thousands of dollars per season, but the extravagance had been deemed necessary to both draw and reward the kind of administrative talent that would run a base at the bottom of the world. The window had a broad view of the skiway, revealing the snowplows and blowers that were busy clearing the runway. Keene watched for a moment as the machines groomed the snow in precise lines.

Oblivious to the view, Hanratty was seated at his desk with his back to the window, frowning at something he saw on one of his three monitors. One hand was on a mouse, the other holding the receiver of an antiquated phone handset. He was dressed in a blue short-sleeved button-down with the TransAnt five-pointed logo emblazoned on the breast. The man was never cold; Keene had seen him stand outside for twenty minutes in the same outfit.

Hanratty’s eyes flicked toward him, then back to the screen. “What can I do for you, Gerald?”

“I need a minute, Jack.” Keene moved one of the guest chairs closer to the desk.

“Not a good time.”

“It rarely is.” He sank into the chair, crossed his legs, folded his hands, and waited.

Hanratty spared him an irritated glance. “I’m trying to make sure the last flight of the season gets off the ground in one piece. It’s bad form to slam a US senator into the firn on his way out.”

“The pilots have a lot more to do with that than you. It’s what they’re paid for, after all. Why don’t you let them do their job and relax for once?”

Hanratty’s already austere face tightened even further, but he took another minute to finish what he was doing, then turned his full attention on Keene. “All right, Dr. Keene. What can I do for you?”

“I just had an interesting conversation with our sanitation engineer extraordinaire.”

“Jennings? Or Newell?”

“Jennings.”

Hanratty showed mild surprise. “Did she ask to see you?”

“No, you did.”

Hanratty frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I sent word to Jennings that you required her to see me.”

Hanratty folded his hands together, rested them on his desktop. Keene could see he had the man’s full attention now. “And why would you do that?”

“I don’t have the authority to require a staff member to undergo a psych eval unless they pose an immediate threat to the base or other crew. So, at best, all I could do was send her a politely worded request to chat, something she might’ve agreed to, or might not have. I wanted to guarantee that she would show up. And in the right frame of mind.”

“Which was?”

“Cooperative.”

“And you used my authority to do so.”

“Correct.”

Keene watched Hanratty’s mental struggle play out on his face. The muscles of his jaw rippled up the side of his head. The man had a famous temper, but he was also sharp enough to know that his base psychologist wasn’t here simply to push his buttons or indulge in an ego trip.

Hanratty got himself under control. “You’ll explain.”

Keene steepled the tips of his fingers together. “You subjected Jennings to quite a trauma yesterday with no warning and no subsequent emotional support. It was all the more extraordinary considering her past.”

Hanratty shrugged. “She wasn’t closer to Sheryl than anyone else on base, so I don’t see how she was put in any more of an untenable emotional position than, say, Taylor or myself. I supposed I could’ve checked up on her today, but the reality down here is that that’s not always going to happen. I assumed she’d been cleared by the stateside psych team. Was I wrong?”

“No,” Keene said slowly, “but the question is, cleared for what?”

“To handle the emotional and mental adversity of a winter-over, obviously.”

“And the death of a colleague?”

The station manager shrugged. “If necessary. It wasn’t exactly listed in the season’s work agenda.”

“Is that all?”

“Christ, Gerald. Spit it out. What are you asking?”

Keene paused. “Jack, I’ve looked at Jennings’s records. I’ve interviewed her. I called the head of the psych eval team back in Colorado Springs. I reached out to her therapist at home and stopped just short of ringing up her family doctor.”