Joshua Corin - Before Cain Strikes

“Mmm-hmm,” he replied, not meaning a syllable of it.

Soon, though, the night air made them chilly, and it was time to get dressed. They did so in heavy silence and walked back to her farmhouse, shivering. Penelope Sue made some tea.

Tom envisioned their upcoming conversation. He’d seen variations of it in every Viagra, Cialis and Levitra commercial. She’d pull out a brochure. They’d go to the doctor. Next shot: they’d be walking hand in hand on the beach and grinning ear to ear as the waves cascaded in the background. Except he couldn’t go the medicinal route even if he wanted to, not with his bad heart.

Which left them where and with what? He wanted to grow old with this woman, but he wanted her to be happy, and her sexual appetite was as gleefully voracious as his. As his was until six months ago.

She handed him his tea. Spice orange. Herbal. No caffeine for him. Hers was a special blend she bought at the farmer’s market. She cuddled beside him on the living room couch.

Commercial time, he thought. Cue the music.

“Tom,” she said, “this is why the good Lord invented vibrators.”

She winked at him lasciviously and sipped her hot tea.

God, he loved this woman.

That’s when he noticed his cell phone, which he’d left on her star-shaped coffee table, glowing on and off. He had a message.

“I should check on Mama in a bit,” said Penelope Sue. “See if she needs her sheets changed.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“I’d like that. Mama wouldn’t, but that’s her problem now, isn’t it?”

She spoke with that sugary Kentucky accent that lent itself so sweetly to bourbon and bluegrass. Tom knew it well. He grew up not fifty miles from here. Hearing her speak was like hearing his past call him home. When Tom returned to Kentucky to recuperate, the hospital assigned him a certain physical therapist with long red hair that smelled of peaches and, well, here he was, in puppy love at age fifty-eight.

“It’s past time to turn the farm over for the winter,” said Penelope Sue. “Got to recaulk the windows and get the pumps double-checked.”

“I can do that this weekend.”

Penelope Sue nodded. Weekends were her busiest times at the hospital. Tom worked a desk at the FBI’s Louisville division, but not on Saturdays and Sundays. His nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday life couldn’t have been more different from his schedule on the national task force, but that just made it all the better. Tom Piper had turned a corner. The pilgrim had finally settled down.

Was it the change in his health? Was it the influence of Penelope Sue? Maybe. But the greater cause, Tom knew, belonged to Galileo. Near-death experiences put life in perspective. It was a simple truism, almost trite, but accurate as a bull’s-eye. And Tom wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Ready for more?” she asked.

Tom knew she wasn’t referring to the tea or (mercifully) sex. She was referring to the room’s thirty-six-inch plasma TV and to the DVD player attached to it and the disc inside. He acquiesced, and she giddily reached for the remote control.

Two minutes later: “Space…the final frontier…”

Yes, oh, yes, the love of his life was a Trekkie.

They were in the middle of an original-series marathon, her adorable attempt to convert him to the cult of Trek. She had a uniform hanging in a bag in her closet. Her bedroom contained signed photographs. And when she’d revealed this part of herself to him, there hadn’t been one ounce of hesitation. There never was, with Penelope Sue. And so he snuggled with her and watched hour after hour, and maybe through her infectious enjoyment he actually began to like this thing. Science fiction was far removed from his own interests, but Penelope Sue simply had a way about her that opened doors.

Around 10:00 p.m., he collected their mugs and washed them out in the ceramic sink. They had three more episodes to go, and it was time for a break. Besides, by now her mother upstairs was undoubtedly in need of a visit.

“It was Esme,” said Penelope Sue, trotting into the kitchen. Tom put the mugs down. “She’s the one who called.”

Penelope Sue handed him his phone.

Tom clicked on the voice mail. He put it on speaker phone.

They listened to Esme’s message.

“I’ll go take care of Mama,” said Penelope Sue, and without waiting for him to object, she walked away. So be it.

He dialed the number. He knew it by rote.

“Hello, Esmeralda,” he said. He was the only one who called her by her full name. He’d done so for almost fifteen years. It was a sign of affection, and they never, ever talked about it. “It sounds like you’ve got yourself a case.”

“I’d love to hear your take on it.”

He sat down at the kitchen table. “I’d love to hear yours first.” No matter how much his life had changed in the past six months, he would never stop being her Socratic mentor.

“The removal of the hands suggests a trophy. The fire could be some kind of funeral pyre.”

“Or you could be giving more meaning to his actions than he is,” he said.

“Everything has meaning, whether it’s intended or not. All accidents have explanations. We can’t help ourselves.”

Tom glanced out the window at the barn in the distance. “No. We can’t.”

“I’m missing something important, aren’t I?”

“We’re all missing something important.” He looked away from the window. “We can’t help ourselves there, either.”

“He didn’t burn her, though. He torched the whole house. That’s significant.”

“Everything has meaning.”

“You know the answer, don’t you?”

He had a notion. It was rudimentary, of course, and without seeing the report and visiting the crime scene it was purely speculative, but yes, he had a notion. He often did.

“I think you need to trust yourself,” he told her.

“I’m off the books up here, Tom. I could use your help.”

The ceiling boards above him creaked. That would be Mama, stubbornly fighting off Penelope Sue’s attempts to deliver her nightly shot. Talk about rituals…

“I have faith in you,” he said to Esme. He stood. His knees were a bit stiff from the cold. “You can do this.”

“Don’t make me beg, Tom.”

He could tell by the tone of her voice that she was teasing him. She knew he’d fly up there. He was reliable. He was ever her instructor. He was Tom Piper. Together they’d solve this case, and another in a long line of deranged scumbags would be in custody.

But that wasn’t him anymore, right?

He looked out again at the barn, bathed in cold moonlight.

“Come on,” she replied, still playful. “What’ll it take? A tantalizing email?”

That was how, last winter, he’d coaxed her out of her early retirement. She’d already been intrigued by the Galileo case, still in its infancy, and he’d sent her a note that Henry Booth had left at a crime scene, and soon she was saying goodbye to her family and boarding a plane for Texas to meet up with Tom’s task force. He’d pushed her buttons and she’d allowed them to be pushed and how was this, now, any different? Surely he owed it to her, if not to that poor girl Lynette. The Galileo case had nearly gotten Esme killed, and he knew the effect it had had on her marriage.

But what about the effect it had had on him?

Penelope Sue padded into the room, a look of curiosity on her brow. He held out his hand to her and she clasped it.

“I’m sorry,” he told Esme. “I’m already home. Best of luck, Esmeralda. I know you’ll do just fine.”

Click.

Esme wasn’t angry.

She expected to be angry. She expected to feel wounded and betrayed. But she didn’t. She wasn’t relieved or happy. She wasn’t quite sure what she felt about Tom’s refusal.