William Bankier - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 103, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 625 & 626, March 1994

“This isn’t professional,” she interrupted impatiently. “It’s personal.”

He waited. Eventually she continued, “It’s these letters, Sam. Anonymous letters. I’ve been getting them for a while and I sort of ignored them. But I just got another one, and it... it’s a little scary...” Her voice trailed off.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Glenda,” he said politely, suppressing the protective reflex she jerked in him — still, after twenty years. And she knew it, too. But why the hell was she telling him this? “Have you called the police?”

“No.” There was a long pause. “The thing is,” she went on, “I have a feeling that it’s Eddie.”

Ah.

“And in spite of what he thinks, I don’t especially want to get him into trouble. And since you and I used to be... so close, well, you’d be doing us both a favor if you’d just talk to him.”

So close, he thought acidly, remembering how he had once vibrated for days after accidentally brushing her left breast as he helped her into the car. “Glenda, I appreciate that, but I really think you ought to go to the police—”

“NO!” she said swiftly. “Not yet. That’s what I did when we broke up, and it just made things worse, it infuriated him!”

She really did sound scared. He felt himself start to weaken.

“I don’t have anybody else, Sam,” she was saying. “And we were so close when we were kids...”

That was twice she had used that phrase. If he had ever seen Casablanca he might have said, “I wouldn’t bring up high school if I were you, it’s bad strategy.” Or, “Cut the crap, Glenda, we had a sick adolescent relationship based on my sexual frustration and your convenience.” Or merely, “I’ve had a long day, Glenda, get to the point.”

In fact, being the well-brought-up, chivalrous, repressed American male he was, he just sat silently and thought very bad thoughts about Glenda Cannon. And eventually he realized that that Glenda was gone, gone these twenty years, gone as irrevocably as his sixteen-year-old self. And presently he heard himself say:

“What do you want me to do?”

Just an old talking doll whose string has been pulled once again, he thought disgustedly, listening.

Barney Cannon had left his daughter about a hundred acres of prime pastureland west of Parkerville, south of McMinnville. Most of the western portion of it was now probably leased to other ranchers; Glenda was not interested in cattle. But set in the northeast corner, like an emerald in a haybale, was the twenty-acre parcel called EastWind Farm.

EastWind had always looked more like an artist’s conception of a ranch than a working operation. It’s perfectly white, straight fences enclosed lush, uniformly verdant fields (thanks to cheap federal water) where gamboled the Arabians, dainty but strong. Like Glenda herself.

But as Sam drove up the oleandered drive on Tuesday he noticed a few flaws in Xanadu. The horses were as sleek as ever, but a broken railing by the entrance was sloppily patched and stringy weeds wrapped themselves around fence posts. He passed the modest brick ranch house — luxury was reserved for the horses — and pulled up in front of the stables, where a window had been boarded up with plywood.

That broken window would have been replaced immediately in Barney’s day, he mused, getting out of the car. But then Barney had been dead for three years now. He wondered just how well Glenda and EastWind were doing without Daddy to fall back on.

The stables seemed to be bereft of human life, although several horses whinnied and stamped in their stalls. An intense, familiar aroma permeated the place: hay — no attar of roses but plain old alfalfa; horse manure — definitely the ordinary variety; horse urine, horse dander... he sneezed violently.

Damn.

Sam had not lied to Claire: he could ride perfectly well. He had learned young; all his little friends rode, and dreamed of rodeos and roundups. But his own cowboy aspirations had been squelched around age eleven when it became humiliatingly clear that he was acutely allergic to horses. Not to the animals themselves, perhaps, but to their by-products, and their whole way of life. Out on the trail he was fine, but as soon as he entered a barn...

He sneezed again and was fumbling for a Kleenex when a brusque “What do you want?” interrupted him. A teenage girl was regarding him suspiciously over the top of a stall door that said “Barney’s Pride”; her broad face was freckled and her reddish hair drawn back in a ponytail, and from the haze of dust settling behind her, it seemed that she had just mucked out the stall.

“Hi,” Sam said, backing away from the lethal cloud. “I’m supposed to meet Glenda here at two. I’m Sam Cooper.”

“She’s out riding,” Ponytail said in a hostile voice and turned back to her task. Sam walked back outside and settled onto a barrel; he was not a vain man, but he would just as soon have his nose stop dripping before Glenda showed up.

He had waited ten minutes and was starting to feel irritated when there was a thunder of hooves, a flash of white mane and gold hair, and Glenda rounded the barn and galloped straight towards him.

Well, he knew this game. He sat relaxed and unflinching, and at the last moment she pulled up five feet in front of him, slid off, and called commandingly, “PEGGY!” Ponytail came hurrying out of the barn and Glenda handed her the reins.

“Cool him down, I rode him pretty hard. Didn’t want to keep Sam waiting,” she said with a grin in his direction that seemed to intensify the girl’s sulkiness; she glared at him as she led the horse away.

Glenda pulled off her gloves and extended her hand.

“Howdy, Sam. How are you? You’re looking good,” she added with a frank glance that momentarily stripped away his composure. His face grew hot and his gaze shifted to his feet. He reminded himself that in the years since Glenda he had slept with a number of women quite successfully, had gained no weight and lost no — almost no — hair, and in fact probably looked better than usual since he was wearing a shirt Claire had bought him. He passed a hand over the soft material, obscurely reassured.

Neutrally he responded, “You’re looking good too,” which was expected but true. Breathtakingly true. He had thought she might have begun to erode, like EastWind — it had been impossible to tell what lay under the mask of makeup she had worn during the Rodeo Parade — but she looked great: taut, trim, tan, a little weathered, but all the more appealing for it. Her face, with its high cheekbones, slanting eyes, and delicate mouth, had been kittenish in youth. Now it was truly beautiful.

“Well,” she said after this moment of mutual appraisal, “I sure do appreciate your coming out, Sam. Let’s go into the tack room; I’ve got the letters in there. Wait a minute” — she sat on the barrel recently vacated by Sam — “let me get out of these boots.”

In an instant Peggy materialized. “I’ll do it, Glenda,” she said, kneeling at her feet in an attitude of adoration more abject than the act required. Pubescent hero-worship? wondered Sam. Or something more? Whatever the emotion, it probably explained her ill will towards him.

He followed Glenda down the length of the barn, struck by how small she suddenly was. He had forgotten that; on her white stallion she was an Amazon, and riding boots gave her height, but actually she was very petite. Back in high school, in that era of exaggerated gender differences, he had found her doll-like diminutiveness adorable, but now... he was six foot one, and Claire was tall and long-limbed, and he liked that, he realized with something like relief. With Glenda he would feel like a child molester—