Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

Colorado resident Suzanne Jones began writing mystery fiction in 1985. Her short tales of suspense often find the protagonists pitted not only against others, but against themselves...

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Dana had forgotten the matches. She rocked back on her heels and the familiar feelings swept over her: the irritation, anxiety, self-loathing. She stared at the gas stove. How could she have forgotten the matches? How stupid of her. In her mind, she followed that twisting road down the mountain the six miles into town. She sighed and stood up from the last of the boxes she had been unpacking. There was a price for solitude. There was a price for everything. Her fingers closed on the vial of pills in her pocket, and she measured her feelings against the need for their relief. Not yet.

She thought she remembered a cabin within walking distance. She had seen a car turning into a driveway as she drove herself carefully along that steep road, looking for the place that would be her home during the summer session. She couldn’t face repeating the ordeal of that drive so soon. She would walk. It was late afternoon, but there were still too many hours between her and sleep. Besides, “Exercise is one antidote for depression.” That was her doctor, Goldman, speaking. A calm, quiet, confident voice that verged on smugness. All right. She would walk.

The air was a little cold and thin this high above the town. So clean. It pleased her to walk along the dirt road that ran along the top of a steep cliff and then between the small pines and scraggly brush, the ground beneath them still streaked with the last snow of spring. There were, besides the steady crunch of her own footsteps, the cries of birds and an occasional rustle in the brush. Not snakes, like in Texas, it was too high for them. Just some small creature, startled by her approach, as startled as she.

She saw the mailbox now with “Keller” lettered inexpertly in bold strokes on its side. Dr. Keller, she thought. She had been told the chairman of the English Department had a cabin on the mountain, a place he went to in the summers, from which he would emerge only a couple of times a week to do seminars, a place where he would work on his publications for the Modern Language Association. It wouldn’t hurt her to meet him. In fact, it was desirable. She had been accepted into the doctoral program in English, but except for her stepsister Jane, she knew no one in the department. She had been accepted largely because of James’s recommendation. James, with his clever hands and very Catholic wife and two children.

Thunderheads were starting to build over the mountain and patching the road with light and shade. There was a freshening in the air. Rain was on the way, and soon large heavy drops began to dimple the dust in the road. She hurried, reaching the front door of the cabin as it began to rain with a violence that promised to spend itself shortly. A man appeared at the door.

“Dr. Keller? I’m Dana Greystoke—”

The rain drove her against the door.

He unlatched it and pushed it open for her. He was tall and thin, late forties or early fifties, with just the appropriate amount of gray to look distinguished in his close-cut dark hair. His eyes were large and brown, and now looked at her with what she took to be irritation at her intrusion.

She glanced about the room. The fireplace was larger than the one in her cabin, and the floors were stone instead of carpeted plywood. There was a large bookcase on the wall next to the fireplace and a carton of books on the large, heavy table near the window.

She stammered through her explanation and her request for the matches. The rain hurled itself against the window.

The man dug in his jacket pocket for the matches. He was formally dressed for the mountains, she thought, even to the tastefully striped tie.

“You’re the girl from Texas, aren’t you, the one James Rollins sent us? Medieval’s your field, isn’t it?”

She nodded. She wanted to leave almost as much as he seemed to want her to, but the violent rainstorm made it almost impossible to do so. Foolish to leave and awkward to stay.

“I don’t suppose the storm will last long,” she said uncomfortably.

“No, it should blow itself out soon,” he agreed. He seemed to resign himself to having to deal with his uninvited guest. “Here, have some sherry. It’ll warm you.”

She had noticed the bottle and two glasses. “A colleague dropped this off earlier,” he said. “Let me get you a clean glass.”