Before Cain Strikes Read Online Free PDF Page A

prevent his pipes from freezing, but Rafe descended into the cellar nonetheless to double-check.
    Esme phoned Oyster Bay.
    “Hello,” grumbled Lester on the other end. “Hi, Lester.”
    After exchanging hollow pleasantries, Esme asked if he could put Sophie on the line. And she waited. A breeze wafted in through one of the open windows in the bedroom and tickled at the back of Esme’s neck.
    Then, finally: “Hi, Mom!”
    “Hey, baby. How was school?”
    “Zack Portnoy wet his pants. There was a big puddle under his chair. The janitor had to come and clean it up and everything. It was gross.”
    Esme grimaced. “I’m sure it was, sweetie. Did you learn anything today in class?”
    “To clean up pee, you need to use ammonia.”
    “Did you learn anything else?”
    Silence.
    “Sophie?”
    “I’m thinking, I’m thinking! Oh, yeah—Mrs. Morrow wanted me to remind you that you’re shap…shap…uh…”
    “Chaperoning?”
    “For the science museum trip on Monday.”
    “Are you excited to go see the science museum?”
    “Uh-huh. Will I get to touch the electricity in the crystal ball?”
    “That’s up to Mrs. Morrow. She might have a lot of activities planned.”
    “Okay. Oh, Grandpa Les bought Chinese tonight and I bet him that I could put a whole egg roll in my mouth and I did.”
    “Sweetie, that’s not a good idea,” said Esme, caught between a giggle and a groan. “You could have choked.”
    “Nuh-uh, I had water and also, if I choked, I would just put my arms up and I’d be all better.”
    Rafe stepped into the room, a pair of his father’s worn workman’s gloves in his left hand.
    “Just promise me not to do it again, all right, Sophie?”
    She’d said their daughter’s name to let Rafe know who she was talking to.
    Rafe indicated, a little vehemently, that he wanted to talk to her, too.
    “Okay, Sophie. I’m going to put Daddy on. I love you.”
    “I love you, too, Mommy.”
    As the priest genuflected and stepped away from the podium, Esme’s thoughts returned to the present, and the funeral, and all around her, amid the light snow, a concerto of sobs. She glanced over at her husband. Like many there, he wore dark sunglasses. They’d stopped at a Walgreens on the way to the service to pick them up and had run into Rafe’s cousin Randy, from the ne’er-do-well branch of the Stuart family tree. Randy walked with a cane—not to support any actual injury but to support his claim for disability. He used to work at the Pepsi factory on the outskirts of the city and a case had fallennear his foot, and near his foot became on his foot and there it was. At Walgreens he bought a pair of knock-off Ray-Bans and walked off with a box of M&M’s.
    It was Randy who’d called Rafe and Esme about Lynette. Randy was drinking buddies with one of the deputies in the county sheriff’s office, and rumor, when lubricated with cheap Scotch, traveled easy and fast. Randy had never personally known Lynette, but he was there at the funeral nonetheless, standing a few feet behind Esme and Rafe. He would be at the reception, too, with his cane, and would probably attempt to parlay his “disability” and his “grief” into a one-night stand.
    The two grave diggers winched the coffin into the ground. Lynette’s immediate family was seated up front—both parents, two pairs of grandparents, three brothers and a sister. They had the best view. Not for the first time, Esme longed (in the event of her untimely death) to be cremated.
    The coffin reached its resting place four feet below topsoil. This cued the crowd of mourners to slowly, quietly disperse. Esme followed Rafe back to his Prius. A thin coat of snow outlined the carlike shapes in the cemetery parking lot. Were it not for the chirp of Rafe’s electronic fob, they might have had to go door to door.
    Once inside, Rafe powered up the seat warmers. Esme loved the seat warmers. Esme believed that every chair, couch and bench needed a seat warmer. They