Before Cain Strikes. Joshua Corin
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They idled in the parking lot for several minutes while the windows defrosted the snow. In the rearview they could see the bottleneck of vehicles fighting to be the first to leave. Esme looked away from the mirror and clicked on the radio.
Rafe clicked it off.
“Have a little respect,” he said.
So Esme respectfully sat there in silence as the hybrid’s engine idled and the heat breathed out of the dashboard vents and the melting snow drooled down her window. Only once the parking lot had emptied did Rafe shift into Reverse.
The GPS navigated them to Lynette’s parents’ cottage, located at the end of a lower-middle-class cul-de-sac just outside the Monticello town square. The street was cramped with cars, so Rafe had to back up and park by the county courthouse. By the time they got out of their car, the flurries had thickened in a snowstorm. If they’d had the radio on, mused Esme, maybe they could have found out how many inches were forecasted. In the meantime, it was trudge-trudge-trudge and hope-hope-hope.
Esme wanted to be more sympathetic. She really did. Her sense of detachment didn’t have anything to do with the fact that Rafe went to the senior prom with this girl. Lynette had seemed pleasant enough, and what had happened to her was a horror. But ever since that session with Dr. Rosen, ever since she’d pronounced her ultimatum, Esme had felt as if she were a dispassionate spirit, floating outside of her body. The only moment in the past two days she’d felt anything close to actual emotion was that confrontation with Grover Kirk.
In other words, when it had to do with Galileo.
Had she become an adrenaline junkie? When she had been full-time with the FBI, she’d known her share of those. The type who only smiled under duress. The type who sought out increasing scenarios of danger (whether picking fights in a D.C. bar or parasailing in South America). The type who, whenever their heart rate dropped below the speed of a Keith Moon drum solo, became inordinately depressed. But, no, that wasn’t her…was it?
As expected, the Robinson house was wall-to-wall with the same black-clad guests as the cemetery. Lynette’s immediate family was among the last to arrive; the media had dogged them the moment they stepped off the holy ground of the cemetery. Fortunately, some neighbors had volunteered to stay at the house during the service and set everything up. A few faces looked vaguely familiar to Esme, but she was hard-pressed to put a name to any of them.
Many people knew Rafe. They shook his hand, patted him on the back, told him how glad they were to see him, asked how his father was doing. Each time, Rafe dutifully introduced (or reintroduced) Esme. She could tell that his heart wasn’t in it. He seemed detached, too, but for very different reasons. For the right reasons.
The local police were in attendance, as well, in uniform and paying their respects. Esme spotted Randy chatting up a freckled deputy. That must have been the drinking buddy. Then Rafe escorted her to the sheriff, a stout man in his sixties standing by a card table with a punch bowl. He had the awkwardness of a wallflower at a junior high school prom, albeit a wallflower with salt-and-pepper hair and a sidearm clipped to his belt. His name tag read Michael Fallon.
“It’s a pleasure, Sheriff,” said Esme, and shook his hand, which was dry but warm.
“And how’s your father, Rafe? Still kicking your ass, I assume?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We all heard about that ugliness last spring.” Sheriff Fallon shook his head in sadness. “I’m glad you all emerged in one piece. Are you okay, Rafe?”
Rafe offered Esme a quick glance, then answered, “As good as could be expected, Sheriff.”
The man nodded, then took a sip from his punch.
But Rafe wasn’t finished.
“So you’re aware, then, of who my wife is? Of what she does?”
This time Esme shot him a quick glance. Where was he going with this…?
“Of course,” Fallon replied.
“Be honest with me, Sheriff, for my father’s sake. This case… How out of your league are you?”
If Fallon was insulted, he didn’t show it. “We’ve got every man in the county working on it.”
“I’m willing to bet they’re all working hard, Sheriff, but I’m also willing to bet that none of them have my wife’s mind or her experience.”
Now Esme was the one who felt like the flower—a shrinking violet. Where was all of this praise coming from? Rafe had never even hinted that he thought about her like this. Even when they were dating, he disapproved of her job, and now this?
“If we need the FBI, Rafe, if it comes to that, we’ll call them. I promise you.”
“That’s what I’m saying, sir. You don’t need to call them. They’re already here. Esme is already here. And you’re going to use her, or I’ll tell the media camped outside that you could have but you didn’t. They know who she is. You’re going to put your provincial pride in your back pocket and let her help you solve this case. Are we clear?”
“What the fuck was that!”
They had retreated to one of the rooms in the cottage. Rafe motioned for Esme to keep her voice down, and he closed the door behind him. It took Esme a second to realize their dumb luck. This had to be Lynette’s room. An assortment of national flags decorated one of the walls. Esme recognized maybe half of them. From what she knew about Lynette, the woman had never even left New York State. The flags must have represented a dream of hers: to travel the world. On her vanity lay a jewelry box, open. Lynette trusted people. Esme wasn’t a profiler, but some of these conclusions were obvious.
Lynette probably trusted her assailant, until things turned dark.
The bedsheets were white and recently laundered. The room smelled sweet. There were lilacs by the window. Esme almost approached them to inhale their scent but then remembered what brought her into this room in the first place. She wheeled toward her husband, who was staring at the contents of the jewelry box.
“Let’s start simple,” she said.
He looked at her. His eyes were sad. “Fine.”
“First, I am not a prostitute and you are not my pimp. Don’t ever, ever offer my services without consulting me.”
“I thought you’d want to help.”
“That’s so beside the point!”
Rafe shrugged. That obnoxious dominance he’d displayed with Sheriff Fallon had been replaced by a mournful smallness. His gaze shifted back to the jewelry box.
“Second, since when have you given a damn about what I do? Since when have you done anything but criticize and ridicule my job? Eight years ago, you forced me to quit! Two days ago you accused me of ‘knowingly and willfully killing our family’!”
“I know what I said.”
“What’s changed?”
“Lynette is dead.”
“Were you close with her? Had you even spoken to her since the reunion?”
“No.”
“Then what makes her so special that you’re willing to upturn everything you’ve believed in and argued?”
“I would think you’d be happy,” replied Rafe. “Your husband finally values what you do. I would think you’d be thrilled.”
“Thrilled? I’m dumbfounded! I need you to explain this to me, Rafe. I need you to do it now and I need you to do it so I understand, because at this moment I have no idea who you are.”
“Someone I knew has been murdered. I’m asking you to help find who did it. It’s what you tell me you do, Esme. Why is anything else relevant?”
“Because it is!” She caught her own reflection