Raising Cain by Gallatin Warfield

edge.
    Gardner looked at his mom. She wore a yellow towel on her head, and her bathing suit was still wet. Her toenails were painted
     crimson.
    “Your father is the only man I’ve ever loved,” she continued. “We met, courted, got engaged, married, and we’re still together.”
     She looked past the pond, past the trees, to a brick mansion on the far hill. “It’s important to stay together, son. Men and
     women need each other. And marriage is the glue. You will get married one day, Gardner, to a beautiful young woman. And you’ll
     stay married forever…. “
    Gardner got up from the table. “Marry for life….” What a joke. Carole had been his beautiful woman. They’d met, courted, gotten
     engaged, then married. But the tides had destroyed their sand-castle world. Inside forces, outside forces, a combination of
     both. It didn’t matter, really. The strongest bonds in the universe eventually came apart. And that was the problem.
    Gardner turned off the kitchen light and walked into the hall. Then he slowly climbed the stairs to his room.
    Brownie stood by the examining table in the crime lab, staring at the documents he’d laid out. It was late, but he wasn’t
     going home, not tonight. Mama was with the family, at the wake. Brownie had put in an appearance, then retreated here where
     he could be alone. A dead father and a live brother were more than he could handle in one day.
    The funeral had been tough. Mama’s tears had eaten him up. Faults and all, she’d adored the old man. But nothing had prepared
     him for the burial. When the casket went into the vault, Mama screamed and tried to jump in with it. Then she fainted, and
     the wails of the other mourners cut down to the bone. It was a living hell.
    Brownie shivered and tried to stifle the thoughts. Then he opened Frank Davis’s latest report, the one that had just come
     in this afternoon. Amazingly, the fuck-head had turned up a lead. He’d stumbled onto a possible suspect: a fundamentalist
     freak-o named Ruth. Brownie had already reviewed the report three times, but now he sat down to read it again, circling the
     important sections in red ink: “Church of the Ark, Inc., Abbreviation: CAIN.” “No alibi.” “Car phone.” “Mountain Bell.” “Suspicious
     behavior.” “Evasive during questioning.” “Denial of consent search.” “Antagonistic.” “Combative.” “Proximity to Cutler Road.”
     “Possible weapons violations.” At the bottom of the page was Davis’s preliminary conclusion: “Insufficient probable cause
     to justify search warrant or arrest. Investigation continuing.” Brownie underlined that part with his pen.
    There was a supplemental report attached, which Brownie had not highlighted. In it Davis had meticulously set out in writing
     what the Brown family had kept quiet for years: Joseph had a taste for liquor and ladies. He was a “good man, a kind man,
     a gentle man” like the reverend said, but he did have his faults. Brownie had brought him home in a squad car more than once,
     but the family had always managed to cover it up. And now redneck Davis had dug it out and written it up, the son of a bitch.
     Brownie tried to restrain his anger as he scanned down to the final paragraph of the report. “No clear correlation between
     these activities and the manner of death. Investigation continuing.” On that point, at least, he and Davis agreed. Daddy was
     a rake at times, but he was pretty normal in his needs. Bondage wasn’t his thing. The Frey girl hadn’t caused the scratches,
     he was almost certain.
    Brownie moved to another file. “Thomas Ruth,” he said aloud. “What the fuck kind of name is that?” Davis had run a background
     check on the man as soon as he returned to the station. There was no criminal history listed under that name. Checks into
     his family, educational, and employment history had drawn blanks also. “Who are you?” Brownie asked, walking to a bookshelf.
     He