Before Cain Strikes by Joshua Corin Page A

she did the only thing in her life that had been reliable as Rex. She smoked her Newports. Harold was no help. Harold worked his factory job and came home and drank. Harold was her cliché of a husband. Could a cliché offer comfort? Could a cliché ease pain? Even now he stood off to the side in a twelve-pack daze. At least that meant he wouldn’t be coming to bed and she wouldn’t have to deal with his grabby hands.
    Gladys searched the faces in the crowd for Dr. Hammond, but the veterinarian still hadn’t shown up. Her husband, P.J., was here, enjoying a pleasant conversation with some black fellow she didn’t know, not that Gladys knew many black fellows or black ladies or black anything. Her parents had raised her not to associate with that type, and so she didn’t. They’d had the foresight to get her a turtle instead of a kitten or puppy, so their judgment had to be sound. They’d recently moved down to Virginia to escape the north’s implacable winters.
    She hadn’t told them yet about their granddaughter’s disappearance.
    The cigarette between her fingers was dying, its powdery tip crawling back toward her skin. Gladys had two,three puffs left at the most. How much longer was she supposed to stay out here? She at least was glad those moron county cops hadn’t shown up here, coming to her place of residence this afternoon with apologies and some bullshit about that dead girl in Monticello. Who was she to care about some dead girl in Monticello? Were they trying to make her feel guilty for leaving the car running? The police were untrustworthy. They planted evidence and pursued their own agenda. Her aunt spent ten years in Sing Sing on some bogus drug charge and she wasn’t ever the same once she got out. Calling them pigs was an insult to—
    Well, no more cigarette. Time to see how much goodwill goes for these days.
    She chose P. J. Hammond.
    “Excuse me, P.J.,” she said.
    “Gladys, I am so sorry for what’s happened.” He hugged her. “I’m sure everything is going to work out.”
    She eyeballed the black fellow standing next to him. He got the hint and walked away.
    “P.J., do you happen to have a cigarette?”
    “Me? Oh, no. If I smoked, I’d give you my whole pack. But you know my Mary. She’s a stickler for health.”
    “Is she coming tonight?” P.J. scanned the group, as if his wife could have snuck into the mix without him knowing. “Yeah, I don’t think so. She’s a bit under the weather, to be honest. It happens like clockwork, every year, first time we get a big dump of snow, she starts sneezing and coughing.”
    “That’s too bad,” replied Gladys. She needed a cigarette.
    “Timothy’s here, though. You know our son, Timothy, right?”
    He indicated a lanky boy shuffling his feet by one of the camera crews. His father probably dragged him down here.
    “Timothy, come here and say hello to Mrs. Harper.”
    Timothy crossed toward them, his gait unmistakably teenage in its awkwardness. He bumped into a few people on his way. Poor shy kid, Gladys decided.
    “Hi,” the boy whispered. His eyes were dark and downcast.
    “Hello, Timothy. Your mother’s a very good veterinarian. I’ll bet you’re an animal lover. I have a pet turtle named Rex. He’s twenty-six years old. Can you believe that?”
    “You must take good care of him,” replied the boy.
    “Oh, turtles are easy.” She leaned in confidentially. “It’s people you’ve got to watch out for.”
    Timothy nodded at the sage advice. Then he seemed to be working up his courage to ask a question. His brow curled in concentration and his chin dimpled like a golf ball. Then, finally, the question came: “Does your daughter cry a lot?”
    Gladys blinked. “Does she what?”
    “When she gets upset, how do you make her stop crying?”
    Wisdom out of the mouths of babes, and the defense mechanism her subconscious had built, fixating about cigarettes and her lazy husband, blinked away like the illusion it was. Her eyes