Chapter 6
“Who the hell are you?” I asked, fighting the paralysis in my throat.
“Sorry!” said an accented voice. “I’m Karin.”
I couldn’t place the accent—not Cajun or Spanish or English. . . . “How’d you get in?”
“Eric let me in. You said you consented to be guarded.”
“I thought he meant someone would be outside.”
“He said, ‘here.’ ”
I thought back over the conversation I’d just had, which I didn’t remember any too well. “If you say
so,” I said doubtfully.
“I do,” said the calm voice.
“Karin, why are you here?”
“To guard you,” she said, with obvious patience.
“To keep me here? Or to keep other people out?”
“Other people out,” Karin said. She didn’t sound irritated, just matter-of-fact.
“I’m going to turn on the light,” I said. I reached over to my bedside lamp and switched it on. Karin
the Slaughterer crouched by the door to my room.
We regarded each other. Weirdly, after a moment, I could see Eric’s progression. If I was a golden
blonde and Pam was a paler true blonde, Karin’s hair was at the ash blond end of the spectrum. It fell in
heavy waves down her back. Her face was utterly bare of makeup and utterly lovely. Her lips were
narrower than mine, as was her nose, but her eyes were wide and blue. Karin was shorter than me or
Pam, but just as curvy. Karin was Me 101.
Eric ran true to type.
The biggest difference was not in our features but in our expressions. When I looked into Karin’s
eyes, I knew she was a stone-cold killer. All vampires are, but some have more aptitude for it than others.
And some take more pleasure in it than others. When Eric had turned Pam and Karin, he’d gotten blond
warriors.
If I became a vampire, I’d be like them. I thought of things I’d already done. I shivered.
Then I saw what she was wearing.
“Yoga pants?” I said. “A dread vampire wears yoga pants?”
“Why should I not? They are comfortable,” she said. “Freedom of movement. And very washable.”
I was on the verge of asking her what detergent she used and if she washed them on the cold cycle
when I stopped myself. Her sudden appearance had really thrown me for a loop.
“Okay, I’m betting you heard everything Eric said to me. Would you care to expand on his very
unsatisfactory conversation?” I asked, moderating my voice to a calm-and-casual level.
“You know as well as I what he was telling you, Sookie,” Karin said. “You don’t need me to
interpret, even assuming my father Eric wanted me to do that.”
We kept silent for a moment, me still in the bed and her crouching a few feet away. I could hear the
bugs outside when they resumed droning in unison. How’d they do that? I wondered, and realized I was
still stunned with sleep and shock.
“Well,” I said. “It’s been fun, but I need to get some rest.”
“How is this Sam doing? The one you returned from the dead?” Karin asked unexpectedly.
“Ahhh . . . well, he’s having a little trouble adjusting.”
“To what?”
“To being alive.”
“He was hardly dead any time,” Karin scoffed. “I’m sure he is singing your praises? I’m sure his
gratitude is heartfelt?” She wasn’t sure at all, but she was interested in hearing my answer.
“Not so’s you’d notice,” I admitted.
“That’s very strange.” I could not begin to imagine why she was curious.
“I thought so, too. Good night, Karin. Can you watch me from outside my room?” I switched off my
light.
“Yes, I can do that. Eric didn’t say I had to stay by your bed and watch you sleep.” And there was a
little ripple in the darkness to indicate she’d gone. I didn’t know where she’d stationed herself, and I
didn’t know what she’d do when day came, but frankly, that belonged in the big pile of things that weren’t
my problem. I lay back and considered my immediate future. Tomorrow, work. Tomorrow night,
apparently I was scheduled to have some kind of painful public confrontation with Eric. I couldn’t get out
of it, since I simply didn’t see not showing up as an option. I wondered where Arlene had found to lay her
head tonight. I hoped it wasn’t nearby.
The upcoming schedule of events didn’t seem very attractive.
Do you sometimes wish you could fast-forward a week? You know something bad’s coming up, and
you know you’ll get through it, but the prospect just makes you feel sick. I worried for about thirty
minutes, and though I knew there was no point in doing so, I could feel my anxiety twisting me up in a
knot.
“Bullshit,” I told myself stoutly. “This is utter bullshit.” And because I was tired, and because there
was nothing I could do to make tomorrow any better than it was going to be, and because I had to live
through it somehow, eventually I fell back asleep.
I’d missed the weather report the day before. I was pleasantly surprised to wake up to the sound of
heavy rainfall. The temperature would drop a little, and the bushes and grass would lose their coating of
dust. I sighed. Everything in my yard would grow even faster.
By the time I’d gone through my morning routine, the downpour had slacked off a bit, from torrential
to light, but the Weather Channel told me heavy rain would resume in the late afternoon and might
continue intermittently through the next few days. That was good news for all the farmers and, therefore,
for Bon Temps. I practiced a happy smile in the mirror, but it didn’t sit right on my face.
I dashed out to my car through the drizzle without bothering to open my umbrella. Maybe a little
adrenaline would help me get going. I had very little enthusiasm for anything today held. Since I wasn’t
sure if Sam would be able or willing to walk across the parking lot to work, I might have to stay until
closing. I couldn’t keep dumping so much responsibility on employees unless I gave them a bump in pay,
and we simply couldn’t afford that right now.
As I pulled up behind the bar, I noticed that Bernie’s car was gone. She’d meant it when she said she
was leaving. Should I go in the bar first or try to catch Sam in his trailer?
While I was still debating, I caught a glimpse of yellow through the rain on my windshield. Sam was
standing by the Dumpster, which was conveniently placed between the kitchen door and the employee
entrance. He was wearing a yellow plastic rain poncho, one he kept hanging in his office for such
occasions. At first, I was so relieved to see him I didn’t absorb the message in his body language. He was
standing, frozen and stiff, with a bag of garbage in his left hand. He’d shoved the sliding Dumpster lid
aside with his right. He was looking into the Dumpster, all his attention focused on something inside.
I had that sinking feeling. You know, the one you get when you realize your whole day has just turned
south. “Sam?” I opened my umbrella and hurried over to him. “What’s wrong?”
I put my hand on his shoulder. He didn’t twitch; it’s hard to surprise a shapeshifter. He also didn’t
speak.
There was more odor than usual coming from the Dumpster.
I choked, but made myself look into the hot metal confines, half-full with bagged garbage.
Arlene wasn’t in a bag. She was lying on top. The bugs and the heat had already started to work on
her, and now the rain was falling on her swollen, discolored face.
Sam dropped the garbage bag to the ground. With obvious reluctance, he bent forward to touch his
fingers to Arlene’s neck. He knew as well as I that she was dead. There was nothing in her brain for me to
register, and any shifter could smell death.
I said a very bad word. Then I repeated it a few times.
After a moment Sam said, “I never heard you say that out loud.”
“I don’t even think it that often.” I hated to enlarge on this particular piece of bad news, but I had to.
“She was just here yesterday, Sam. In your office. Talking to me.”
By silent mutual consent, we moved over to the shelter of the oak tree in Sam’s yard. He’d left the
Dumpster open, but the raindrops would not hurt Arlene. Sam didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I
guess lots of people saw her?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t call it lots of people. We didn’t have that many customers. But whoever was in the bar
had to have seen her, because she must have come through the front door.” I thought for a second. “Yeah, I
didn’t hear the back door open. She came back to your office while I was working on the mail, and she
talked to me for maybe five or ten minutes. It seemed like forever.”
“Why would she come to Merlotte’s?” Sam looked at me, baffled.
“She said she wanted her job back.”
Sam closed his eyes for a long moment. “Like that was going to happen.” And he opened them,
looking right into mine. “I am so tempted to take her body out of here and dump it somewhere else.” He
was asking me a question; though I was shocked for a split second, I understood his feelings very well.
“We could do that,” I said quietly. “It would sure . . .” Save us a lot of trouble. Be a terrible thing
to do. Take the focus of any investigation away from Merlotte’s. “Be messy,” I concluded. “But
doable.”
Sam put an arm around my shoulders and tried to smile. “They say your best friend will help you
move a body,” he said. “You must be my best friend.”
“I am,” I said. “I’ll help you move Arlene in a New York minute—if we really decide that’s the right
thing to do.”
“Oh, it isn’t,” Sam said heavily. “I know it’s not. And you know it’s not. But I hate the thought of the
bar being involved in another police investigation . . . not only the bar, but us personally. We have enough
to heal from already. I know you didn’t kill Arlene, and you know I didn’t. But I don’t know if the police
will believe that.”
“We could put her in the trunk of my car,” I said, but I didn’t even convince myself that we were
going to act on that. I could feel the impulse dying away. To my surprise, Sam hugged me, and we stood in
the shade of the tree for a long moment, water dripping down on us as the rain died away to a light
drizzle. I’m not sure what Sam was thinking exactly, and I was glad of that; but I could read enough from
his head to know that we were sharing a reluctance to start the next phase of today.
After a while, we released each other. Sam said, “Hell. Okay, call the cops.”
With no enthusiasm, I called 911.
While we waited, we sat on the steps of Sam’s porch. The sun popped out as though it had been
cued, and the moisture in the air turned to steam. This was as much fun as sitting in a sauna with clothes
on. I felt sweat trickle down my back.
“Do you have any idea what happened to her, what killed her?” I asked. “I didn’t look that close.”
“I think she was strangled,” Sam said. “I’m not sure, she was so bloated, but I believe something is
still around her neck. Maybe if I’d watched more episodes of CSI . . .”
I snorted. “Poor Arlene,” I said, but I didn’t sound too grieved.
Sam shrugged. “I don’t get to pick who lives and who dies, but Arlene wouldn’t have topped my list
of people I’d ask mercy for.”
“Since she tried to have me killed.”
“And not just killed quick,” Sam said. “Killed slow and awful. Taking all that into consideration, if
there had to be a body in my garbage, I’m not too sorry it’s hers.”
“Too bad for the kids, though,” I said, suddenly realizing there were two people who would miss
Arlene for the rest of their lives.
Sam shook his head silently. He was sympathetic to the kids’ plight, but Arlene had been
transforming into a less-than-stellar mom, and she would have warped them right along with herself.
Arlene’s adopted brand of extreme intolerance was as bad for children as radiation.
I heard a siren, and as it got louder, my eyes met Sam’s in resignation.
What a mess the next two hours were.
Both Andy Bellefleur and Alcee Beck arrived. I tried to stifle a groan. I was friends with Andy’s
wife, Halleigh, which made this situation doubly awkward . . . though at the moment, social awkwardness
was not on the top of my list of worries, and it was preferable to dealing with Alcee Beck, who simply
didn’t like me. At least the two patrol officers doing the actual evidence gathering were familiar to us;
Kevin and Kenya had both graduated from the training course for collecting and processing evidence.
That must have been some course, because the Ks sure seemed to know what they were doing.
Despite the smothering heat (the rain didn’t seem to have worked in the cooling-down department), the
two went about their jobs with careful efficiency. Andy and Alcee took turns helping them and asking us
questions, most of which we couldn’t answer.
When the coroner came to pick up the body, I heard him remark to Kenya that he figured Arlene had
been strangled. I wondered if the pathologist who did the autopsy would reach the same conclusion.
We should have gone inside Sam’s trailer, where it was cool, but when I suggested it, Sam said he
wanted to keep an eye on what the police were doing. With a long sigh, I pulled my knees up to my chin to
get my legs in the shade. I propped my back against the door of the trailer, and after a moment Sam
propped his against the rails around the little porch. He’d long since discarded the plastic poncho, and I’d
pulled up my hair on top of my head. Sam went in the trailer and came out with two glasses of iced tea. I
drank mine in three big gulps and held the cold glass to my forehead.
I was sweaty and gloomy and scared, but at least I wasn’t alone.
After Arlene’s body had been tagged and bagged and started its pathetic journey to the nearest state
medical examiner, Andy came over to talk to us. Kenya and Kevin were now searching the Dumpster,
which had to be one of the world’s worst tasks—definitely worthy of Dirty Jobs. They were both
sweating like pigs, and from time to time they’d vent their feelings verbally. Andy was moving slowly and
wearily, and I could tell the heat was getting him down.
“Arlene just got out less than a week ago, and she’s dead,” Andy said heavily. “Halleigh’s feeling
poorly, and I’d rather be home with her than out here, for God’s sake.” He glared at us as if we’d planned
this encounter. “Dammit, what was she doing here? Did you see her?”
“I did. She came to ask for a job,” I said. “Yesterday afternoon. Of course, I told her no. She walked
out. I didn’t see her after that, and I left for home about . . . seven, or a little later, I guess.”
“She say where she was staying?”
“Nope. Maybe in her trailer?” Arlene’s trailer was still parked in the little clearing where she’d
been (a) shot and (b) arrested.
Andy looked skeptical. “Would it even be still hooked up to electricity? And there must be twenty
bullet holes in that thing.”
“If you’ve got somewhere to go to, that’s where you go,” I said. “Most people have to do that, Andy.
They don’t have a choice.”
Andy was sure I was accusing him of being an elitist since he was a Bellefleur, but I wasn’t. I was
just stating a fact.
He eyed me resentfully and turned even redder. “Maybe she was staying with friends,” he plowed
on.
“I just wouldn’t know.” I privately doubted if Arlene had that many friends anymore, especially ones
who would have wanted to host her. Even people who didn’t like vampires and didn’t think much of
women who consorted with the undead might think twice about buddying up to a woman who’d been
willing to lure her best friend to a crucifixion. “She did say when she was leaving the bar that she was
going to go talk to her two new friends,” I added helpfully. I’d heard that in her thoughts, but I’d heard it. I
didn’t have to spell it out. Andy got all freaked-out when he had to think about what I could do. “But I
don’t know who she meant.”
“You know where her kids are?” Andy asked.
“I do know that.” I was pleased to be able to contribute more. “Arlene said they’d been staying with
Chessie and Brock Johnson. You know them? They live next to where Tray Dawson had his repair shop.”
Andy nodded. “Sure. Why the Johnsons, though?”
“Chessie was a Fowler. She’s related to the kids’ dad, Rick Fowler. That’s why Arlene’s buddy
Helen dumped the kids there.”
“And Arlene didn’t pick ’em up when she got out?”
“Again, I don’t know. She didn’t talk like they were with her. But we didn’t exactly have a cozy
chitchat. I wasn’t happy to see her. She wasn’t happy to see me. She thought she’d be talking to Sam, I
reckon.”
“How many times was she married?” Andy finally plopped down in one of Sam’s folding aluminum
chairs. He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.
“Well. Hmm,” I said. “She was with John Morgan for about ten minutes, but she never counted that.
Then Rene Lenier. Then Rick Fowler, then Doak Oakley, then back to Rick. Now you know everything I
do, Andy.”
Andy wasn’t satisfied with that, as I’d known he wouldn’t be. We went over the conversation I’d had
with the dead woman, from soup to nuts.
I gave Sam a despairing glance while Andy was looking down at his notes. My patience was
wearing thin. Sam interjected, “Why was Arlene out, anyway, Andy? I thought she’d be in a cell for
years!”
Embarrassment turned Andy’s face even redder than the heat. “She got a good lawyer from
somewhere. He filed an appeal and asked she be out on bail before the formal sentencing. He pointed out
to the judge that she was a mother, practically a saint, who needed to be with her kids. He said, ‘Oh, no,
she didn’t plan to take part in the killing, she didn’t even know it was going to happen.’ He practically
cried. Of course Arlene didn’t realize her asshole buddies were planning on killing Sookie. Right.”
“My killing,” I said, straightening up. “The killing of me. Just because she didn’t plan on personally
hammering in a nail . . .” I stopped and took a deep breath. “Okay, she’s dead. I hope that judge enjoys
being all sympathetic now.”
“You sound pretty angry, Sookie,” Andy said.
“Of course I am angry,” I snapped. “You would be, too. But I didn’t come over here in the middle of
the night and kill her.”
“How do you know it was the middle of the night?”
“I sure can’t slip anything by you, Andy,” I said. “You got me there.” I took a deep breath and told
myself to be patient. “I know it had to have happened in the middle of the night because the bar was open
until midnight . . . and I don’t think anyone would have murdered Arlene and put her in the trash while the
bar was full and the cooks were working in the kitchen, Andy. By the time the bar closed, I was asleep in
my bed, and I stayed that way.”
“Oh, you got a witness to that?” Andy smirked. There were days I liked Andy more than others.
Today was not one of those days.
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
Andy looked a little shocked, and Sam’s face was carefully blank. But I myself was pretty glad that
I’d had a nocturnal visitor or two. I’d known this moment would come while I sat sweating and waiting
for Arlene’s body to be removed. I’d thought it through. Eric had said he wanted his visit to be kept
secret, but he hadn’t said anything about Karin’s.
“Who’s your witness?” Andy said.
“A—woman named Karin. Karin Slaughter.”
“You switching teams, Sookie? Did she stay all night?”
“None of your business what we were doing, Andy. Last night before the bar closed, Karin saw me
at my house, and she knows I stayed there.”
“Sam, what about you? Anyone at your house?” Now Andy was sounding heavily sarcastic, as if we
were covering up something.
“Yes,” Sam said. Again, Andy looked surprised, and not happy.
“All right, who? Your little girlfriend from Shreveport? She come back from Alaska?”
Sam said steadily, “My mom was here. She left early this morning to get back to Texas, but you can
sure call her. I can give you her phone number.”
Andy copied it down in his notebook.
“I guess the bar has to be closed today,” Sam said. “But I’d appreciate being able to open as soon as
I can, Andy. These days, I need all the business I can get.”
“You should be able to open at three this afternoon,” Andy said.
Sam and I exchanged glances. That was good news, but I knew the bad news was not over, and I
tried to convey that to Sam with my eyes. Andy was about to try to shock us with something. I wasn’t sure
what it was, but I could tell he was baiting his trap.
Andy turned away with an air of unconcern. Abruptly, he turned back to us with the sudden pounce of
someone springing an ambush. Since I could read his mind, I knew what was coming. I kept my face blank
only because I’ve had years of practice.
“You recognize this, Sookie?” he asked, showing me a picture. It was a gruesome close-up of
Arlene’s neck. There was something tied around it. It was a scarf, a green and peacock blue scarf.
I felt remarkably sick.
“That looks kind of like a scarf I used to have,” I said. In fact, it was exactly like a scarf I’d gotten
by default: the one the werebat Luna had tied around my eyes in Dallas when the shifters had been
rescuing me.
That seemed like a decade ago.
Feverishly, I tried to remember what had happened to the scarf. I’d gone back to my hotel with it.
After that, I’d left it in my belongings in a Dallas hotel room and returned to Shreveport on my own. Bill
had deposited my little suitcase on my porch when he’d returned, and the scarf had been tucked inside. I’d
hand-washed it, and it had come out real pretty. Also, it was a memento of an extraordinary night. So I’d
kept it. I’d worn it tucked into my coat in winter, tied it around my ponytail the last time I wore my green
sundress . . . but that had been a year ago. I was sure I hadn’t used it this summer. Since I’d just cleaned
out my bedroom drawers, I’d have seen it when I was refolding my scarves, but I had no specific memory
of that, which didn’t mean a thing. “I sure don’t remember the last time I saw it,” I said, shaking my head.
“Hmmm,” said Andy. He didn’t like to think I’d strangled Arlene, and he didn’t believe I could have
gotten her in the Dumpster by myself. But, he thought, don’t people who drink vampire blood get real
strong, for a while? This was one reason vamp blood was the hottest illegal drug around.
I started to tell him out loud that I hadn’t had any vampire blood in a long time. But luckily, I thought
twice.
There was no point in reminding Andy that I could read his thoughts. And there was no point in
telling him that I had been very strong from vamp blood . . . but in the past.
I sagged against the wall of the trailer. If Sam’s mother could provide Sam an alibi, and if Andy
believed Bernie . . . that would leave me as prime suspect. Karin would back up my story, I was certain,
but in the eyes of the local law, her testimony would be almost worthless. Andy would be less likely to
believe Karin simply because she was a vampire. Other officers who were familiar with the vampire
world would believe Karin would have helped me dump Arlene’s body if I’d asked her, because she was
Eric’s child and Eric was my boyfriend, as far as everyone knew.
Hell, I was pretty sure Karin would have killed Arlene for me, if I’d asked. It might take Andy and
Alcee a while to figure that out, but they would.
“Andy,” I said, “I couldn’t get Arlene in that Dumpster if I tried for a month, not without a hoist. You
want to test me for vampire blood, you go right ahead. You won’t find any in my system. If I’d choked
Arlene to death, I hope I wouldn’t leave my scarf around her neck. You may not think much of me, but I’m
not dumb.”
Andy said, “Sookie, I never have known what to think of you.” And he walked away.
“That could have gone better,” Sam said, in a huge understatement. “I remember you wearing that
scarf last winter. You wore it to church, tied around your ponytail, with a black dress.”
Well. You never know what men will remember. I started to feel a little touched and tender. Sam
said, “You were sitting right in front of me, and I was looking at the back of your head the whole service.”
I nodded. That was more like it. “I wish I knew what had happened to it since then. I’d like to know
who got it out of my house and used it on Arlene. I know I wore it to the bar once. I don’t know if it got
lifted out of my purse or stolen from my drawer in my bedroom. That’s gross and sneaky.” At that moment
I remembered my drawer being ajar. I wrinkled my nose, thinking of someone pawing through my scarves
and panties. And one or two things had seemed to be out of place. I told Sam about the little incident. “It
doesn’t sound like much when I say it out loud, though,” I concluded ruefully.
He smiled, just a little upturn of his lips, but I was glad to see it. His hair was wilder than usual,
which was saying something. The sun caught the reddish bristles on his chin. “You need to shave,” I said.
“Yeah,” he agreed, but absently. “We’ll check it out. I was wondering . . . Andy knows you can read
minds. But it seems like he can’t keep that in his head when he’s talking to you. Does that happen a lot?”
“He knows, but he doesn’t know. He’s not the only one who acts that way. The people who do get
that I’m different—not just a little crazy—they still don’t seem to get it completely. Andy’s a true
believer. He really understands that I can see what’s in his head. But he just can’t adapt to that.”
“You can’t hear me that way,” Sam said, just to reaffirm what he already knew.
“General mood and intent, I pick up. But not specific thoughts. That’s always the way with
supernaturals.”
“Like?”
It took me a minute to interpret that. “Like, right now I can tell you’re worried, you’re glad I’m here,
you’re wishing we’d cut the scarf off her neck before the police got here. It’s easy to get that, because I’m
wishing the same damn thing.”
Sam grimaced. “That’s what I get for being squeamish. I knew there was something around her
throat, but I didn’t want to look any closer. And I definitely didn’t want to touch her again.”
“Who would?” We fell silent. We sweated. We watched. Since we were sitting on Sam’s own steps,
looking over his own hedge, they could hardly tell us to go away. After a while, I got so bored that I
called or texted the people due to work today to tell them to come in at three. I thought of all the lawyers I
knew, and debated which one to call if I had to. Beth Osiecki had prepared my will, and I’d liked her real
well. Her partner, Jarrell Hilburn, had prepared the document that formalized my loan to Sam to keep the
business afloat, and he’d also prepared the paperwork giving me part interest in the bar.
On the other hand, Desmond Cataliades was very effective and personally interested in me, since
he’d been best buds with my biological grandfather. But he was based in New Orleans and had a brisk
trade, since he was knowledgeable about both the supernatural world and American law. I didn’t know if
the part-demon would be able or willing to come to my aid. His e-mail had been friendly, and he’d talked
about coming to see me. It would cost me an arm and a leg (not literally), but as soon as the bank released
the check from Claudine’s estate, I’d be good for his fee.
In the meantime, maybe the police would find another suspect and make an arrest. Maybe I wouldn’t
need a lawyer. I thought about the last statement I’d received for my savings account. After the ten
thousand I’d put into Merlotte’s, I had around three thousand remaining from the money I’d earned from
the vampires. I’d just inherited a lot of money—$150,000—from my fairy godmother, Claudine, and
you’d think I’d be sitting pretty. But the bank issuing the check had come under sudden and vigorous
scrutiny by the Louisiana government, and all its checks had been frozen. I’d called my bank to find out
what was up. My money was there . . . but I couldn’t use it. I found this utterly suspicious.
I texted Eric’s daytime man, Mustapha. “Hope Karin will be available to tell police she saw me last
night and I was home the whole time,” I typed, and sent it before something happened to stop me. That
was a huge hint, and I hoped Karin got it.
“Sookie,” Alcee Beck said, and his deep voice was like the voice of doom. “You don’t need to be
telling anyone what’s happening here.” I hadn’t even seen him approach, I was so lost in calculation and
concern.
“I wasn’t,” I said honestly. That was what I called a fairy truth. The fae didn’t out-and-out lie, but
they could give a convoluted version of the truth to leave a completely false impression. I met his dark
eyes and I didn’t flinch. I’d faced scarier beings than Alcee.
“Right,” he said disbelievingly, and moved away. He went out to the edge of the parking lot to his
car, which was pulled into the shade of a tree, and bent to reach in the open window. As he walked back
to the bar, putting on his sunglasses, I thought I saw a quick motion in the woods by his car. Weird. I
shook my head to clear it, looked again. I saw nothing, not a flicker of movement.
Sam got us two bottles of water from the trailer refrigerator. I opened mine gratefully and drank, then
held the chilly bottle to my neck. It felt wonderful.
“Eric visited me last night,” I said, without any premeditation. I saw Sam’s hands go still. I very
carefully wasn’t looking at his face. “I’d gone to see him at Fangtasia, and he wouldn’t even talk to me
while I was there. It was beyond humiliating. Last night he stayed about five minutes, tops. He said he
wasn’t supposed to be there. Here’s the thing. I’ve got to keep it secret.”
“What the hell . . . ? Why?”
“Some vampire reason. I’ll find out soon enough. The point is, he left Karin there. She’s his other
child, his oldest. She was supposed to protect me, but I don’t think Eric ever thought of something like this
happening. I think he thought someone was going to try to sneak in the house. But assuming Karin will tell
Alcee and Andy that I didn’t leave my house last night, he did me a great good deed.”
“If the police will accept the word of a vampire.”
“There’s that. And they can’t question her until tonight. And I have no idea how to get in touch with
her, so I left a message with Mustapha. Here’s Part Two of the bad Eric stuff. He told me I would be
seeing him tonight, but he warned me I wouldn’t like it. It sounded pretty official. I kind of have to go, if
I’m not in jail, that is.” I tried to smile. “It’s not going to be fun.”
“You want me to come with you?”
That was an amazing offer. I appreciated it, and I said so. But I had to add, “I think I have to get
through this by myself, Sam. Just now, the sight of you might make Eric more . . . upset.”
Sam nodded in acknowledgment. But he looked worried. After some hesitation, he said, “What do
you think is going to happen, Sook? If you have to go, you have the right to have someone with you. It’s
not like you are going to a movie with Eric or something.”
“I don’t think I’m in physical danger. I’m just . . . I don’t know.” I believed—I anticipated—that Eric
was going to repudiate me publicly. I just couldn’t push the words out of my throat. “Some vampire
bullshit,” I muttered dismally.
Sam put his hand on my shoulder. It was almost too hot for even that slight contact, but I could tell he
was trying to let me know he was ready to back me up. “Where are you two meeting?”
“Fangtasia or Eric’s house, I suppose. He’ll let me know.”
“The offer stands.”
“Thanks.” I smiled at him, but it was a weak attempt. “But I don’t want anyone more agitated than
they’re gonna be.” Meaning Eric.
“Then call me when you get home?”
“I can do that. Might be pretty late.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
Sam had always been my friend, though we’d had our ups and our downs and our arguments. It
would be insulting to tell him that he didn’t owe me anything for bringing him back to life. He knew that.
“I woke up different,” Sam said suddenly. He’d been thinking during the little pause, too.
“How?”
“I’m not sure, yet. But I’m tired of . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Of what?”
“Of living my life like there’ll be plenty of tomorrows so what I do today doesn’t matter.”
“You think something’s going to happen to you?”
“No, not exactly,” he said. “I’m afraid nothing will happen to me. When I work it out, I’ll let you
know.” He smiled at me; it was a rueful smile, but it had warmth.
“Okay,” I said. I made myself smile back. “You do that.”
And we returned to watching the police do their thing, each sunk in our own thoughts. I hope Sam’s
were happier than mine. I didn’t see how the day could get much crappier. But it could.
ELSEWHERE
that night
“I think we can call him now,” the medium man said, and took out his cell phone. “You take care of the
throwaway.”
The tall man extracted a cheap cell phone from his pocket. He stomped on it a few times, enjoying
the crushing of the glass and metal. He picked up the carcass of the telephone and dropped it into a deep
puddle. The short driveway from the road to the front of the trailer was dimpled with such puddles.
Anyone driving in would be sure to press the phone into the mud.
The medium man would have preferred some method of disposal that completely obliterated the
little collection of circuitry and metal, but that would do. He was frowning when the call he placed went
through.
“Yes?” said a silky voice.
“It’s done. The body’s found, the scarf was on it, I retrieved the magic coin, and I’ve planted the
charm in the detective’s car.”
“Call me again when it happens,” said the voice. “I want to enjoy it.”
“Then we’re through with this project,” the medium man said, and he might have been a little hopeful
that was so. “And the money will be in our accounts. It’s been a pleasure working with you.” His voice
was quite empty of sincerity.
“No,” said the voice on the other end. It held such promise; you just knew that whoever could speak
that way must be beautiful. The medium man, who’d actually met the owner of the voice, shuddered.
“No,” the voice repeated. “Not quite through.”
Chapter 7
By the time I was able to leave work, I felt like I’d been steamed and left out on the counter.
We had gotten to open at three on the dot, to my surprise. By then rumors and facts had spread all
over Bon Temps. A big crowd showed up at Merlotte’s just pining to get the lowdown on what had
actually happened. What with questions from every customer and the endless speculations of Andrea
Norr, I was fixing to start screaming.
“So who could have put her in the Dumpster, and how’d they get her in there?” An said for the
fiftieth time. “Antoine puts the kitchen trash in there. That’s disgusting.”
“It sure is,” I said, just managing not to bite her head off. “That’s why we’re not going to talk about
it.”
“Okay! Okay! I get your drift, Sookie. Mum’s the word. At least I’m telling everyone that you didn’t
do it, sweetie.” And she went right back to talking. There was no doubt that gossipy An had the
mysterious “it.” Following her movements around the bar was like watching an all-male rendition of the
wave.
It was nice to know that An was telling everyone I wasn’t guilty, but it was depressing to think that
anyone would have assumed I was. An’s reasoning echoed that of the detectives. It seemed impossible
that a lone woman could lift Arlene, literally a dead weight, up into the mouth of the Dumpster.
In fact, when I tried to picture the insertion, the only way such a maneuver would work for one
person would be if the killer already had Arlene over his shoulder (and I was using his because it would
take a strong person to lift Arlene that way). She had gotten skinny, but she was still no featherweight.
Two people could do it easily enough—or one supernatural of any gender.
I glanced over at Sam, working behind the bar. Since he was a shifter, he was incredibly strong. He
could easily have tossed Arlene’s corpse into the trash.
He could have, but he hadn’t.
The most obvious reason was that he would never put Arlene’s corpse in the Dumpster right behind
his business in the first place. Second, Sam would never have staged himself finding the body with me as
witness. And third, I simply didn’t believe he would have killed Arlene, not without some compelling
reason or in the heat of some terrible struggle. Fourth, he would already have told me if either of those
circumstances applied.
If Andy understood that I couldn’t get Arlene in there by myself, he must be trying to figure out who
would help me do such a thing. When I considered that, I did have a lot of friends and acquaintances who
were not strangers to body disposal. They would help me with few questions asked. But what did that say
about my life?
Okay, screw the brooding introspection. My life was what it was. If it had been tougher and bloodier
than I’d ever imagined . . . that was a done deal.
Suspect Number One for “helping Sookie dispose of a body” came in right after that. My brother,
Jason, was a werepanther, and though he hadn’t ever changed publicly, word had gotten around. Jason had
never been able to keep his mouth shut when he was excited about something. If I’d called him to help me
put a woman in a Dumpster, he would have jumped in his pickup and been there as fast as he could drive.
I waved at my brother as he walked in the door holding hands with his Michele. Jason was still
stained and sweaty after a long, hot day’s work as a boss of one of the parish road crews. Michele looked
perky in contrast, in her red polo shirt all the employees wore at the Schubert Ford dealership. They were
both in the throes of marriage fever. But like everyone else in Bon Temps, they were fascinated by the
death of a former Merlotte’s server.
I didn’t want to talk about Arlene, so I headed them off by telling Michele I’d found a dress to wear
in the wedding. Their forthcoming ceremony took precedence over everything else, even a lurid death in
the parking lot. As I’d hoped, Michele asked me a million questions and said she was going to come by to
look at it, and she told me Greater Love Baptist (Michele’s dad’s church) was willing to lend their
folding tables and chairs for the potluck reception at Jason’s house. A friend of Michele’s had
volunteered to make the cake as her wedding present to the happy couple, and the mother of another friend
was going to do the flowers at cost. By the time they’d finished their meals and paid their tab, the word
“strangled” hadn’t entered the conversation.
That was the only respite I had the whole evening. Though I’d noticed the bar crowd was thin the
previous day, an amazing number of people now told me they’d seen Arlene enter Merlotte’s. They’d all
spoken to her personally before watching her go to the office. And they’d all watched her leave (either
five or fifteen or fifty minutes afterward) with steam coming out of her ears. No matter how their stories
varied on other points of interest, to me that was the important memory: that she’d left, alive and
unharmed. And angry.
“Did she come to ask your forgiveness?” Maxine Fortenberry asked. Maxine had come in to have
supper with two of her cronies, buddies of my grandmother’s.
“No, she wanted a job,” I said, with as much frank and open honesty as I could plaster on my face.
All three women looked delightfully shocked. “Not really,” Maxine breathed. “She had the gall to
ask if she could have her job back?”
“She couldn’t see why not,” I said, lifting a shoulder as I gathered up their dirty plates. “You all
want a refill on your tea?”
“Sure, bring the pitcher around,” Maxine said. “My Lord, Sookie. That just takes the cake.”
She was absolutely right.
The next moment I had to spare was spent cudgeling my brain to try to remember when I’d last seen
that blue and green scarf. Sam had said he remembered me wearing it to church with a black dress. That
would have been to a funeral, because I didn’t like to wear black and reserved it for the most serious
occasions. Whose funeral? Maybe Sid Matt Lancaster’s? Or Caroline Bellefleur’s? I’d been to several
funerals in the past couple of years, since most of Gran’s friends were aging, but Sam wouldn’t have gone
to those.
Jane Bodehouse drifted into Merlotte’s close to suppertime. She clambered onto her usual stool at
the bar. I could feel my face get tight and angry when I looked at her. “You’ve got some nerve, Jane,” I
said baldly. “Why do you want to drink here, when you’re so damaged by the firebomb incident? I can’t
believe you can endure coming in here, you suffered so much.”
She was surprised for a second until the cogs in her brain turned enough to give up the memory that
she’d hired a lawyer. She looked away, ostentatiously, trying to brazen it out.
The next time I passed her, she’d asked Sam to give her some more pretzels. He was reaching for the
bowl. “Better hurry,” I said bitchily. “We don’t want Jane to get upset and call her lawyer.” Sam looked
at me in surprise. He hadn’t seen the mail yet. “Jane’s suing us, Sam,” I said, and marched to the hatch to
give the next order to Antoine. “For her hospital expenses and maybe for her mental distress,” I threw
over my shoulder.
“Jane,” Sam said behind me, genuinely amazed. “Jane Bodehouse! Where are you gonna drink if you
sue us? We’re the only bar in the area that lets you in these days!” Sam was telling her no more than the
truth. Over the years, most of the bars in the area had come to refuse to serve Jane, who was prone to
make sloppy passes at any man in her immediate vicinity. Only the drunkest men responded, because Jane
wasn’t as careful with her personal hygiene as she had been even a year before.
“You can’t stop serving me,” she said indignantly. “Marvin says so. And that lawyer.”
“I think we can,” Sam said. “Starting now. You even know what that lawsuit says?” That was a
shrewd bet.
As if he’d heard us, here came Marvin through the door, and he was mighty mad. “Mama!” he called.
“What are you doing here? I told you, you can’t come here no more.” He caught my eye and glanced away,
abashed. Everyone in Merlotte’s stopped what they were doing to listen. It was almost as good as reality
television.
“Marvin,” I said, “I’m just hurt down to my toes that you would treat us like this. All these times I’ve
called you instead of letting your mama drive home. All these times we’ve cleaned her up when she got
sick, to say nothing of the night I stopped her from taking a guy into the ladies’ room. Are you going to
keep your mama at home every night? How are you going to cope?”
I wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t the truth. And Marvin Bodehouse knew it.
“Just half the emergency room bill, then?” he said, pathetically.
“I’ll pay her bill,” Sam said handsomely. Of course, he hadn’t seen it. “But only after we get a letter
from your lawyer saying you’re not going to seek anything else.”
Marvin glared down at his shoes for a second. Then he said, “I guess you can stay, Mama. Try not to
drink too much, you hear?”
“Sure, honey,” Jane said, tapping the bar in front of her. “A chaser for that beer,” she told Sam, in a
lady-of-the-manor voice.
“Putting that on your tab,” Sam said. And suddenly the life of the bar was back to normal. Marvin
shuffled out, and Jane drank. I felt sorry for both of them, but I was not in charge of their lives, and all I
could do was try to keep Jane off the roads when she was drunk.
An and I worked hard. Since everyone who came in proved to be hungry (maybe they needed fuel to
produce their gossip), Antoine was so busy he lost his temper a couple of times, an unusual occurrence.
Sam tried to find time to smile and greet people, but he was hustling to keep up with bar orders. My feet
hurt, and my hair needed to be released from its ponytail, brushed, and put back up. I was looking forward
to a shower with a craving almost sexual in its intensity. I actually managed to forget my appointment—I
wasn’t going to call it a date—with Eric for later that night, but when it crossed my mind I realized I
hadn’t gotten a definite time or place from him.
“Screw it,” I said to the plate of curly fries I was carrying to a table of auto-shop mechanics. “Here
you go, fellas. And here’s some hot sauce, if you want to live dangerously. Eat and enjoy.”
Right on the heels of that thought, Karin glided through the front door. She looked around her as if
she were in the monkey house at the zoo. Her eyebrows elevated slightly. Then she locked in on me, and
she made her way toward me with a smoothness and economy of movement I envied.
“Sookie,” she said quietly, “Eric needs you to come to him now.” We were attracting no small
amount of attention. Karin’s beauty, her pallor, and her creepy glide were a combo that added up to
Watch me, I’m beautiful and lethal.
“Karin, I’m working,” I said, in that sort of hiss that comes out when you’re pissed off but trying to
keep your voice down. “See? Earning a living?”
She looked around her. “Here? Truly?” Her tiny white nose wrinkled.
I took hold of my temper with both hands. “Yes, here. This is my business.”
Sam came up, trying hard to act casual. “Sookie, who’s your friend?”
“Sam, this is Karin the—this is Karin Slaughter, my alibi for last night. She’s here to tell me Eric
needs me in Shreveport. Now.”
Sam was trying to look genial, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Karin, nice to meet you. We’re pretty
busy. Can’t Eric wait for an hour?”
“No.” Karin didn’t look stubborn or angry or impatient. She looked matter-of-fact.
We stood silently regarding each other for a long moment.
“All right, Sook, I’ll take your tables,” Sam said. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll manage.”
“You’re the boss, Sam.” Karin’s arctic eyes gave my boss—my partner—a laserlike examination.
“I’m the boss, Sam,” he said agreeably. “Sook, I’ll come if you need me . . .”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, though I knew that wasn’t true. “Really, don’t worry.”
Sam looked torn. A group of thirtyish women who were celebrating a divorce began hollering for a
refill on their pitcher of beer. They were the deciding factor. “Will you be responsible for her safety?”
Sam said to Karin.
“With my existence,” Karin said calmly.
“Let me get my purse,” I told Karin, and hurried to the lockers at the back of the storeroom. I
whipped off my apron, dropped it in the “dirty” barrel, and changed into a clean T-shirt from my locker. I
brushed my hair in the ladies’ room, though since it had a dent all around from the elastic band, I had to
put it back up in its ponytail. At least it looked neater.
No shower, no fresh dress, no nice shoes. At least I had lipstick.
I stuck my tongue out at the mirror and slung my purse over my shoulder. Time to face the music,
though I didn’t know what tune would be playing.
I didn’t know how Karin had arrived at Merlotte’s; maybe she could fly, like Eric. She rode with me
in my car to Shreveport. Eric’s oldest child wasn’t much of a talker. Her only question was, “How long
did it take you to learn to drive a car?” She seemed mildly interested when I told her I’d taken driver’s
education in high school. After that, she stared ahead of her. She might be thinking deep thoughts about the
world economy, or she might be totally miffed that she’d gotten escort detail. I had no way of knowing.
Finally, I said, “Karin, I guess you just got to Louisiana recently. How long had it been since you’d
seen Eric?”
“I arrived two days ago. It had been two hundred and fifty-three years since I saw my maker.”
“I guess he hadn’t changed much,” I said, perhaps a bit sarcastically. Vampires never changed.
“No,” she said, and fell silent again.
She wasn’t going to give me a way to ease into the topic I had to broach. I simply had to take the
plunge. “Karin, as I asked Mustapha to tell you, the police in Bon Temps may want to talk to you about
when you saw me last night.”
Karin did turn to look at me then. Though I was watching the road, I could see the movement of her
head out of the corner of my eye.
“Mustapha gave me your message, yes. What shall I say?” she asked.
“That you saw me in my house about eleven thirty or midnight, whichever it was, and that you
watched the house until daybreak, so you know I didn’t leave,” I said. “Isn’t that the truth?”
Karin said, “It might be.” And then she didn’t say one more word.
Karin was pretty fucking irritating. Excuse me.
I was actually glad to get to Fangtasia. I was used to parking in the back with the staff. Just as I was
about to drive around the row of stores, Karin said, “It is blocked off. You must leave your car out here.”
Since the first time I’d been here with Bill, I’d seldom parked in front with the customers. I’d been a
privileged visitor for months. I’d fought and bled with the Fangtasia staff, and I’d counted some of them as
my friends, or at least my allies. Now, apparently, I was one of the crowd of casual human thrill-seekers.
It hurt a little bit.
I was sure that would prove to be the least of my hurts.
While I was giving myself a pep talk, I was cruising through the rows of cars looking for a space.
The search took a few minutes. I could hear a faint strain of music when we got out of the car, so I knew
there must be a live band tonight (“live” in the sense that they were actually onstage).
Every now and then a vampire group would play a few sets at Shreveport’s only vamp bar, and this
seemed to be one of those nights. Newly turned vampires played covers of music they had loved in life,
recent human music, but the old vampires would play things that living people had never heard, mixed in
with some human songs they found appealing. I’d never met a vampire who didn’t love “Thriller.”
At least Karin and I were able to bypass the line waiting at the cover charge booth, which was
occupied by a snarling Thalia. I was glad to see her arm had reattached, and I tapped my own right
forearm and gave her a thumbs-up. Her face relaxed for a moment, which was as close as Thalia got to a
smile unless flowing blood was involved.
Inside the club, the noise level was tolerable. The sensitivity of vamp hearing kept the volume at a
level I could endure. Crowded together on the little music platform was a cluster of very hairy men and
women. I was willing to bet they’d been turned in the sixties. The nineteen sixties. On the West Coast. It
was a big clue when they ended “Honky Tonk Women” to flow into “San Francisco.” I peeked at their
tattered jeans. Yep, bell-bottoms. Headbands. Flowered shirts. Flowing locks. A slice of history here in
Shreveport.
And then Eric was standing beside me, and my heart gave a little leap. I didn’t know if it was
happiness at his proximity, or apprehension that this might be the last time I’d see him, or simple fear. His
hand touched my face as his head bent toward mine. He said into my ear, just loud enough for me to hear,
“This is what has to be done, but never doubt my affection.”
He bent even closer. I thought he was going to kiss me, but he was just getting my scent. Vampires
only inhale when they really want to savor a smell, and that was what he was doing.
He took my hand to lead me to the management part of the bar, to his office. He looked back at me
once, and I could tell he was reminding me without words that he wanted me to remember that whatever
was coming was all a show.
Every muscle in my body tensed.
Eric’s office wasn’t big, and it wasn’t grand, but it sure was crowded. Pam was leaning against a
wall, looking amazingly suburban-chic in pink capris and a flowered tank, but any relief I might have
experienced on seeing a familiar face was simply swamped by more apprehension when I recognized
Felipe de Castro—King of Nevada, Louisiana, and Arkansas—and Freyda, Queen of Oklahoma. I’d been
sure they’d be there, one or the other, but to see both . . . my heart sank.
The presence of royalty never meant anything good.
Felipe was behind the desk, sitting in Eric’s chair, naturally. He was flanked by his right hand, Horst
Friedman, and his consort, Angie Weatherspoon. Angie was a leggy redhead I’d hardly exchanged two
words with. I’d hate her forever because she’d danced on Eric’s favorite table while wearing spike-
heeled shoes.
Maybe I would write a rap song called “Flanked by His Flunkies.”
Maybe Eric’s table wasn’t my problem any longer.
Maybe I should crawl back into my right mind instead of freaking out.
There was a throw rug in front of the desk. Eric and I had been literally called on the carpet.
“Looking real, Sookie,” Pam said. Of course she would comment on my waitress outfit. I probably
smelled like French fries.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I said.
“Meees Stekhuss,” Felipe said pleasantly. “How nice to see you again.”
“Hmmm,” Freyda said, from her chair against the wall facing the door. It seemed she disagreed.
I glanced behind me to see that an expressionless Karin was blocking the doorway. Pam was Emo
Emma compared to Karin. “I’ll be right outside,” Eric’s oldest announced. She took a step back, and then
she shut the door very firmly.
“So here we are, a big extended family,” I said. Kind of shows you how nervous I was.
Pam rolled her eyes. She didn’t seem to feel that now was the time for humor.
“Sookie,” Felipe de Castro said, and I saw we’d dispensed with honorifics. “Eric has called you
here to release you from your marriage to him.”
It was like being smacked in the face with a large dead fish.
I made myself hold still, made my face freeze. There’s halfway wanting, or suspecting, or even
expecting—and there’s knowing. Knowing at least has some certainty about it, but also a sharper, deeper
pain.
Of course, I’d had conflicted feelings about my relationship with Eric. Of course, I’d more or less
seen the handwriting on the wall. But no matter Eric’s little midnight visit and his previous hurried heads-
up, this bald pronouncement was a shock—one I wasn’t going to bow down to, not in front of these
creatures. I began sealing off little compartments inside myself—just like the ones that had theoretically
ensured that the Titanic was unsinkable.
I did not even glance at Freyda. If I saw pity in her face, I would jump her and try to smack her
down, whether that meant suicide or not. I hoped she was sneering in triumph, because that would be
more tolerable.
Looking at Eric’s face was out of the question.
All this rage and misery swept through me like a windstorm. When I was certain my voice wouldn’t
quaver, I said, “Is there some paper to sign, some ceremony? Or shall I just walk out?”
“There is a ceremony.”
Of course there was. Vampires had a ritual for everything.
Pam came to my side with a familiar black velvet bundle in her hands. To my vague surprise, though
I wasn’t really feeling much of anything, she leaned over to give me a cold kiss on the cheek. She said,
“You just nick yourself on the arm and you say, ‘This is yours no longer,’ to Eric. You hand the knife to
Eric.” She unfolded the velvet to expose the knife.
The ceremonial blade was gleaming and ornate and sharp, just as I remembered it. I had a
momentary impulse to sink it into one of the silent hearts around me. I didn’t know which one I’d aim for
first: Felipe’s, Freyda’s, or even Eric’s. Before I could think of this too much, I took the knife in my right
hand and poked my left forearm. A tiny trickle of blood coursed down my arm, and I felt every vampire in
the room react.
Felipe actually shut his eyes to savor the bouquet. “You are giving up more than I ever imagined,” he
murmured to Eric. (Felipe moved to the top of my stab-in-the-heart list instantly.)
I turned to face Eric, but I kept my eyes on his chest. To look up at his face would be to risk
cracking. “This is yours no longer,” I said clearly, with a certain amount of satisfaction. I held the knife
out in his general direction, and I felt him remove it from my grasp. Eric bared his own forearm and
stabbed himself—not the jab I’d given my arm, but a real slice. The dark blood flowed sluggishly down
his arm to his hand and dripped on the worn carpet.
“This is yours no longer,” Eric said quietly.
“You may go now, Sookie,” Felipe said. “You will not come to Fangtasia again.”
There was nothing left to say.
I turned and walked out of Eric’s office. The door opened magically in front of me. Karin’s pale
eyes met mine briefly. There was no expression on her lovely face. No one said a word. Not “Good-bye,”
or “It’s been swell,” or “Kiss my foot.”
I made my way through the dancing crowd.
And back to my car.
And I drove home.
Chapter 8
Bill was sitting in a lawn chair in my backyard. I got out of my car and stared across the hood at him. I
had two conflicting impulses.
The first was to invite him into my house for some vengeance sex.
The second, smarter one was to pretend I hadn’t seen him.
Apparently, he wasn’t going to speak until I did, which proved how smart Bill could be on occasion.
I was sure, simply because of his presence and the intensity with which he regarded me, that he was fully
aware of what had happened tonight. My smarter self prevailed after a brief internal struggle, and I spun
around and went into the house.
The necessity of focusing on my driving was gone. The pressure of the presence of the vampires was
gone. I was so glad to be alone with no one to watch my face crumple.
I couldn’t totally blame Eric. But I did, mostly. He’d had a choice, whether he’d admitted it to
himself or not. Though his culture demanded he honor his dead sire’s agreement and marry the Queen of
Oklahoma, I believed that Eric could have finagled his way out of that agreement. I didn’t accept his
contention that he was helpless in the face of Appius’s wish. Sure, Appius had already set the machinery
in motion with Freyda before he’d consulted Eric. Maybe he’d even collected a finder’s fee from the
Queen of Oklahoma. But Eric could have bullshitted his way free somehow. He could have discovered
another candidate for the position of Freyda’s consort. He could have offered financial compensation. He
could have . . . done something.
Faced with the choice between loving me for my short lifetime and beginning an upward climb with
the rich and beautiful Freyda, he had made the practical decision.
I’d always known that Eric was a pragmatist.
There was a quiet knock at the back door. Bill, checking on my well-being. I went out onto the porch
and flung the door open, saying, “I just can’t talk . . .”
Eric stood on the steps. The moonlight was kind to him, of course, gilding the blond mane and the
handsome face.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I looked over his shoulder. Bill was nowhere in sight. “Now
that I’m not your wife, I thought you and Freyda would be . . . consummating your new relationship.”
“I told you not to pay attention to what happened,” he said. He took a small step forward. “I told you
it meant nothing to me.”
I didn’t invite him in. “Pretty hard to believe it meant nothing to your king. And Freyda.”
“I can keep you,” he said, with absolute confidence. “I can work out a way. You may not be my wife
in name, but you are in my heart.”
I felt like a pancake that had just been flipped over on the griddle. I had to go through this again? I
snapped.
“Not just no, but hell no. Don’t you hear yourself? You’re lying to me and to yourself.” I wanted to
smack his face so badly my hand hurt.
“Sookie, you’re mine.” He was beginning to be angry.
“I am not. You said that in front of everyone.”
“But I told you, I came to you in the night and told you I would—”
“You told me that you loved me as much as you were able,” I said, almost bouncing on the balls of
my feet in agitation. “It seems pretty clear that you’re not able.”
“Sookie, I would never have dismissed you like that, so publicly, if I hadn’t been sure you
understood that the ceremony was for the benefit of the others.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, holding up a hand. “You’re telling me that as far as you’re concerned, you
plan to find a way to keep me somewhere secret from Freyda, so you can sneak off and be with me from
time to time? And to be your piece on the side, I’d have to move to Oklahoma and lose my house and
friends and business?”
I knew from the expression on his face that that was exactly what he’d planned. But I was also sure
he could never have really believed I would say yes to such an arrangement. If he had, he truly didn’t
know me.
Eric lost his temper. “You never gave our marriage honor! You always thought I would leave you! I
should have turned you without asking, as I did Karin and Pam! Or better yet, gotten Pam to turn you! We
need not have parted, ever again.”
And then we were staring at each other—him furious, me horrified. We’d talked about my becoming
a vampire one night in bed, after fireworks sex, and the idea had surfaced at other times. I’d always said
clearly that I didn’t want that.
“You considered doing that. Without my consent.”
“Of course,” he said, emphatically, impatiently, as if my not understanding his intent was ridiculous.
“Naturally, I did. I knew if you were turned . . . you would be so glad. There is nothing better than being a
vampire. But you seemed repulsed by the idea. At first I thought, ‘She loves the sun—but she loves me,
too.’ But I began to wonder if in your heart you really despised what I am.” His brows drew together; he
was not only angry, he was hurt.
That made two of us.
I said, “And yet you were thinking of turning me into something you thought I despised.” I felt
incredibly depressed. My energy left me and I slumped in my shoes. I said wearily, “No, I do not despise
what you are. I just want to live my human life.”
“Even if it means without me.”
“I didn’t know I had to make a choice.”
“Sookie, common sense—you have plenty of that—must have told you so. I am sure of it.”
I threw up my hands in despair. “Eric, you tricked me into a marriage. I worked around that in my
head because I could see you did it to protect me, and maybe you also did it out of your own sense of . . .
mischief. I loved you. And I felt flattered that you wanted us to be united in your world’s eyes. But you’re
right when you say I never regarded our marriage as equal to a human church marriage—which, the only
time I brought it up, you mocked.”
He flung his arm out as if he were struggling to make a point by gesture, a point that he couldn’t make
verbally.
I held up my hand again. “I’m being completely honest with you. Let me finish, then you can say
whatever you need to. I have loved you for months, with . . . with ardor and devotion. But I don’t think
there’s any way we can resolve this. Because you must know that saying you ‘thought there would still be
a way for us to be together’ is just plain bullshit. You know that I would never leave home to live some
kind of half life as your girl on the side, sneaking sex from time to time until Freyda found out I was there
and killed me. Going through the same humiliation that I did tonight. Over and over.”
“I should have known you would never leave Sam,” Eric said, with heavy bitterness.
“Leave Sam out of this. This is about you and me.”
“You never believed we would be lovers forever. You were sure someday I would leave you, when
you grew old.”
I thought that over. “Since I’m trying to be honest here, you should try that, too. You would never
have even considered staying with me when I grew old. You always assumed you would turn me, even
though I told you I never wanted to be a vampire.” We’d come full circle in this awful conversation. I
stepped back and closed the porch door. To put an end to the pain, I said, “I rescind your invitation.”
I went back into the house, and I did not look out the windows. The love we’d had for each other lay
broken irreparably. It bled out somewhere on my back doorstep.
If the day had been rough, with Arlene’s murder and the subsequent furor, and the trip to Fangtasia
had been rougher, this conversation with Eric was the roughest thing of all. I sat in my living room in
Gran’s favorite chair, staring into space, my hands on my knees. I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or
scream or throw something or throw up. I sat there like a sphinx, thoughts and images tumbling through my
head.
I was sure I had done the right thing, though I regretted bitterly some of the things I’d said. But they’d
all been true. The hour after Eric left was like the second after I’d persuaded myself to rip off a bandage
so I could tend to the wound.
Who could not love Eric? He was bigger than life, literally. Even dead, he was more vital than
almost all the men I knew. Clever and practical, protective of his own, a renowned fighter, he was
nonetheless full of joie de vivre—or maybe I should call it joie de mort. And he had a sense of humor and
adventure, qualities I’d always found incredibly attractive. Plus, jeez, sexy. Eric’s wonderful body
matched his great skill in using it.
But still . . . I would not be a vampire for him. I loved being human. I loved the sunshine; I loved the
daytime; I loved to stretch out on a chaise lounge in the backyard with the light surrounding me. And
though I was not a good Christian, I was a Christian. I didn’t know what would happen to my soul if I was
turned into a vampire, and I didn’t want to risk it—especially since I’d done some pretty bad things in my
time. I wanted some years to atone.
I wasn’t blaming Eric for those bad things I’d done. Those transgressions were on me. But I didn’t
want the rest of my life to be like that. I wanted a chance to come to terms with the lives I’d taken, the
violence I’d seen and I’d dealt out, and I wanted to be a better person . . . though at the moment, I wasn’t
sure how to accomplish that.
I was sure that being Eric’s secret mistress was not the path to that goal.
I pictured myself in some little apartment in Oklahoma, without any family or friends, spending long
days and longer nights waiting for Eric to steal an hour or two to come by. I’d be waiting every night for
the queen to find me and kill me . . . or worse. If Eric turned me, or got Pam to do the deed, I’d at least
have my days taken care of; I’d be dead in a small, dark space. Maybe I’d spend my nights hanging around
with Pam and Karin, we three blondes, waiting at Eric’s beck and call—for eternity. I shuddered. The
mental image of me hanging around with Karin and Pam—like Dracula’s females, waiting for an unwary
passerby in some Gothic castle—was simply disgusting. I’d want to stake myself. (After a year or two,
probably Pam would be glad to oblige me with that.) And what if Eric ordered me to kill someone,
someone I cared about? I’d have to obey him.
And that was if I survived the change, which was by no means certain. I read every week about
bodies that had been found in hastily dug graves, bodies that had never reanimated, never clawed their
way to the surface. People who’d thought it would be cool to be undead and persuaded or paid some
vampire to turn them. But they hadn’t risen.
I shuddered again.
There was more to think about and more ground to retread, but suddenly I was dazed with
exhaustion. I wouldn’t have imagined I could get into bed and close my eyes ever again, after a day like
today . . . but my body thought otherwise, and I let it rule.
I might rue what I’d said this night when I woke up in the daytime. I might call myself a fool and pack
my bags for Oklahoma. Right now, I had to let my regrets and conjectures go. As I scrubbed my face at the
bathroom sink, I remembered I’d made a promise. Instead of calling Sam and having to answer questions,
I texted him. “Home okay, bad but over.”
I slept without dreams and woke to another day of rain.
The police were at my door, and they arrested me for murder.
ELSEWHERE
in a motel on the interstate fifteen miles from Bon Temps
The tall man was lying back on the double bed, his big hands clasped over his belly, his expression
totally satisfied. “God be praised,” he said to the ceiling. “Sometimes the evildoers get punished as they
deserve.”
His roommate ignored him. He was on the telephone again. “Yes,” the medium man was saying. “It’s
confirmed. She’s been arrested. Are we through here now? If we stay any longer, we run the risk of being
noticed, and in my companion’s case . . .” He glanced over at the other bed. The tall man had left his bed
to go to the bathroom, and he’d shut the door. The medium man continued in a hushed voice. “In his case,
recognized. We couldn’t use the trailer because the police were sure to search it, and we couldn’t risk
leaving trace, even with the Bon Temps police department. We’ve been changing motels every night.”
The rich male voice said, “I’ll be there tomorrow. We’ll talk.”
“Face-to-face?” The medium man sounded neutral, but since he was alone, he let his expression
show his apprehension.
He heard the man on the other end laughing, but it was more like a series of coughs. “Yes, face-to-
face,” the man said.
After he’d ended the conversation, the medium man stared at the wall for a few minutes. He didn’t
like this turn of events. He wondered if he was worried enough to forgo the remainder of his pay for this
job.
He hadn’t lasted this long without being wily and without knowing when to cut his losses. Would his
employer really track him down if he left?
Gloomily, Johan Glassport concluded that he would.
By the time Steve Newlin came out of the bathroom zipping up his pants, Glassport was able to
relate the conversation without revealing by any blink of an eyelash how repugnant he found the idea of
meeting their employer again. Glassport was ready to turn out the lights and crawl into his bed, but
Newlin wouldn’t shut up.
Steve Newlin was in an exceptionally good mood, because he was imagining several things that
might happen to the Stackhouse woman while she was in jail. None of these things was pleasant, and
some of them were pornographic, but all of them were couched in terms of what Steve Newlin’s personal
Bible interpreted as hellfire and damnation.
Chapter 9
I never would have imagined I could be glad my grandmother was dead, but that morning I was. It
would have killed Gran to see me arrested and put into a police car.
I never had experimented with bondage, and now I surely never would. I hate handcuffs.
I had a trite-but-true moment when Alcee Beck told me he was arresting me for murder. I thought,
Any minute now I’ll wake up. I didn’t really wake up when I heard the doorbell. I just dreamed it. This
isn’t real, because it can’t be. What convinced me that I was awake? The expression on Andy
Bellefleur’s face. He was standing behind Alcee, and he looked stricken. And I could hear right in his
brain, he didn’t think I deserved to be arrested. Not on the evidence they had. Alcee Beck had had to talk
long and hard to convince the sheriff that I should be arrested.
Alcee Beck’s brain was strange; it was black. I’d never seen anything like it, and I couldn’t get a
handle on it. That couldn’t mean anything good. I could feel his determination to put me in jail. In Alcee
Beck’s mind, I might as well have “GUILTY” tattooed on my forehead.
When Andy put the cuffs on me, I said, “I assume I’m uninvited to Halleigh’s baby shower.”
“Aw, Sookie,” he said, which was hardly adequate.
To do Andy justice, he was embarrassed, but I wasn’t exactly in the mood to do him any justice
when he was doing me none. “I think you know I never hurt Arlene,” I said to Andy, and I said it very
evenly. I was proud of myself for keeping a sealed and stern façade, because inside I was dying of
humiliation and horror.
He looked as if he wanted to say something (he wanted to say, I hope you didn’t but there’s a little
evidence says you did but not enough I don’t know how Alcee got a warrant), but he shook his head and
said, “I got to do this.”
My sense of unreality lasted all through the booking process. My brother, God bless him, was
standing at the jail door when they brought me in, having heard through the instant messaging circuit what
had happened. His mouth was open, but before he could vocalize all the angry words I could see
crowding his brain, I started talking. “Jason, call Beth Osiecki, and tell her to get down here soon as she
can. Go in the house and get the phone number for Desmond Cataliades, and call him, too. And call Sam
and tell him I can’t come to work tomorrow,” I added hastily, as I was marched into the jail and they shut
the door on my brother’s anxious face. Bless his heart.
If this had happened even a week, two weeks ago, I could have been confident that Eric, or even
perhaps my great-grandfather Niall (prince of the fairies), would have me out in the wink of an eye. But
I’d burned my bridges with Eric, and Niall had sealed himself into Faery for complicated reasons.
Now I had Jason.
I knew every single person I saw during the process of being booked. It was the most humiliating
experience of my life, and that was saying something. I discovered I was being charged with second-
degree murder. I knew from Kennedy Keyes’s discussion of her time in jail that the penalty for second-
degree murder would be life in prison.
I do not look good in orange.
There are worse things than humiliation and worse things than wearing a jail outfit (baggy tunic and
drawstring pants). That’s for sure. But I have to say, my cup was full and overflowing, and I was ready
for some goodness and mercy. I was so agitated that I was glad to see the cell door. I thought I’d be alone.
But I wasn’t. Jane Bodehouse, of all people, was passed out and snoring on the bottom bunk. She must
have had a few adventures after Merlotte’s closed the night before.
At least she was out of it, so I had plenty of time to adjust to my new circumstances. After ten
minutes of processing, I was bored out of my mind. If you’d asked me how it would be to sit without work
to do, without a book, without a television, without even a telephone, I would have laughed because I
couldn’t have imagined such a situation.
The boredom—and my inability to get away from my own fearful conjectures—was awful. Maybe it
hadn’t been so bad for Jason when he’d been in jail? My brother didn’t like to read, and he wasn’t much
on reflection, either. I would ask him how he’d managed, the next time I saw him.
Now Jason and I had more in common than we’d ever had in our lives. We were both jailbirds.
He’d been arrested for murder, too, in the past, and like me, he was innocent, though evidence had
pointed in his direction. Oh, poor Gran! This would have been so awful for her. I hoped she couldn’t see
me from heaven.
Jane was snoring, but seeing her familiar face was somehow homey. I used the toilet while she was
out of it. There would be plenty of awfulness in my future, but I was trying to forestall a little bit of it.
I’d never been in a jail cell before. It was pretty disgusting. Tiny, battered, scarred, concrete floor,
bunk beds. After a while, I got tired of squatting on the floor. Since Jane was sprawled across the bottom
bunk, with some difficulty I hauled myself to the top level. I thought of all the faces I’d seen through the
bars as I’d gone to my cell: startled, curious, bored, hard. If I’d known all the people on the free side of
the bars, I’d also recognized almost all those men and women on the other side, too. Some were just
fuckups, like Jane. Some of them were very bad people.
I could hardly breathe, I was so scared.
And the worst part—well, not the worst part, but a real bad part—was that I was guilty. Oh, not of
Arlene’s death. But I had killed other people, and I’d watched many more die at the hands of others. I
couldn’t even be sure I remembered them all.
In a kind of panic, I scrambled to recall their names, how they’d died. The harder I tried, the more
the memories became jumbled. I saw the faces of people I’d watched perish, people whose deaths I
hadn’t caused. But also I saw the faces of people (or creatures) I’d killed; the fairy Murry, for example,
and the vampire Bruno. The werefox Debbie Pelt. Not that I’d gone out hunting them because I had a beef
with them; they’d all been intent on killing me. I kept telling myself that it had been okay to defend my life,
but the reiteration of their death scenes was my conscience letting me know that (though I was not guilty of
the crime that had put me here) jail was not a totally inappropriate place for me to be.
This was the rock-bottom moment of my life. I had a lot of clarity about my own character; I had
more time than I wanted to think about how I’d landed where I was. As unpleasant as the first hours in the
cell were, they got worse when Jane woke up.
First, she was sick from both ends, and since the toilet was sitting completely exposed, that was just
. . . disgusting. After Jane weathered that phase, she was so miserable and hungover that her thoughts were
dull throbs of pain and remorse. She promised herself over and over that she would do better, that she
would not drink so much again, that her son would not have to fetch her again, that she would start that
very evening to cut way back on the beers and shots. Or since she felt so horrible today, maybe tomorrow
would be soon enough. That would be much more practical.
I endured a few more mental and verbal cycles like this before Jane realized she had a companion in
the cell and that her new buddy wasn’t one of her usual cell mates.
“Sookie, what are you doing here?” Jane said. She still sounded pretty puny, though God knew her
body should be empty of toxins.
“I’m as surprised as you are,” I said. “They think I killed Arlene.”
“So she did get out of jail. I really did see her, not last night but the night before,” Jane said,
brightening a little. “I thought it was a dream or something, since I was sure she was behind bars.”
“You saw her? Somewhere besides Merlotte’s?” I didn’t think Jane had been in Merlotte’s when
Arlene had come to speak to me.
“Yeah, I was gonna tell you yesterday, but I got sidetracked by that lawyer talk.”
“Where did you see her, Jane?”
“Oh, where’d I see her? She was . . .” This was clearly a big effort for Jane. She ran her fingers
through her snarled hair. “She was with two guys.”
Presumably these were the friends Arlene had mentioned. “When was this?” I tried to ask this very
gently, because I didn’t want to risk knocking Jane off course. She wasn’t the only one who was having a
hard time staying on track. I had to concentrate hard to both breathe and ask coherent questions. After
Jane’s episodes of illness, it smelled pretty awful in our little bunkhouse.
Jane tried to recall the time and place of her Arlene encounter, but it was such a struggle and there
were so many less taxing things to think about that it took her a while. However, Jane was at heart a kind
person, so she fumbled through her memories till she arrived at success. “I seen her out back of . . . you
remember that real big guy who repaired motorcycles?”
I had to clamp down on myself to keep my voice casual. “Tray Dawson. Had a shop and a house out
where Court Street turns into Clarice Road.” Tray’s large shop/garage stood between Tray’s house and
Brock and Chessie Johnson’s, where Coby and Lisa were living. There were only woods behind those
houses, and since Tray’s was the last one on the street, it was a secluded spot.
“Yeah. She was out there, in back of his house. It’s been closed for a while now, so I got no idea
what she was doing.”
“You know the guys she was with?” I was trying so hard to sound casual, trying so hard not to inhale
the terrible miasma, that my voice came out in a squeak like a mouse that was being strangled.
“No, I ain’t seen them before. One of ’em was kind of tall and skinny and bony, and the other one
was just plain looking.”
“How’d you come to see them?”
If Jane had had enough energy to look uncomfortable, she would have. As it was, she looked a tad
woeful. She said, “Well, that night I thought about going by the nursing home to see Aunt Martha, but I
stopped off at the house to have a little drink, so by the time I got to the nursing home, they said the place
was closing to visitors, it being pretty late and all. But I run into Hank Clearwater there, you know, the
handyman? He was leaving after visiting his dad. Well, me and Hank have known each other forever, and
he said we could have a drink in his car, and before you know it one thing led to another, but we thought
he better move the car somewhere a little more private, so he pulled into the woods across the street from
the nursing home, there’s a little track through the woods where kids run four-wheelers. We could see the
backs of the houses on Clarice Road. They all got those big security lights. Helped us see what we were
doing!” She giggled.
“So that’s how you were able to see Arlene,” I said, since I didn’t even want to think about Hank and
Jane.
“Yeah, that’s how come I saw her. I thought, ‘Damn, that’s Arlene, and she’s out, and she tried to kill
Sookie. What’s up with that?’ Those men were real close to her. She was handing them something, and
then Hank and I . . . got to . . . talking, and I never saw them again. Next time I looked up, they were gone.”
Jane’s piece of information was very important to me in a dubious kind of way. On the one hand, it
might help clear me or at least give the law grounds for doubting that I’d had any part in killing Arlene.
On the other hand, Jane was not what you would call a reliable witness, and her story could be shaken up
with one arm tied behind a policeman’s back.
I sighed. As Jane began a monologue about her long “friendship” with Hank Clearwater (I’d never
be able to have him in to work on my plumbing after this), I had some random thoughts of my own.
My witness, Karin the Slaughterer, would not rise until full dark, which would not be achieved until
quite late. (Not for the first time, I told myself how much I hated daylight saving time.) Karin was a better
witness than Jane because she was obviously sharp, alert, and in her right mind. Of course, she was dead.
Having a vampire as a witness to your whereabouts was not a glowing testimonial. Though they were
now citizens of the United States, they were not treated or regarded like humans, not by a long shot. I
wondered if the police would get around to interviewing Karin tonight. Maybe they’d already sent
someone to Fangtasia before she’d turned in today.
I considered what Jane had told me. A tall, thin guy and a plain guy, not locals or Jane would have
recognized them. With Arlene. In the area behind the house next door to where her children were staying
with Brock and Chessie Johnson. Late, on the night Arlene was murdered. That was a big development.
Kevin, in a clean, crisp uniform, brought us lunch an hour later. Fried bologna, mashed potatoes,
sliced tomatoes. He looked at me with as much distaste as I’d looked at the food.
“You can just cut that out, Kevin Pryor,” I said. “I no more killed Arlene than you can tell your mama
who you’re living with.”
Kevin turned bright red, and I knew my tongue had gotten the better of me. Kevin and Kenya had
been living together for a year now, and most people in town knew about it. But Kevin’s mom could
pretend she didn’t know because Kevin didn’t tell her face-to-face. There wasn’t a thing wrong with
Kenya, except for Kevin’s mom she was the wrong color to be a girlfriend to Kevin.
“You just shut up, Sookie,” he said. Kevin Pryor had never said a rude thing to me in his life. I
suddenly realized that I didn’t look the same to Kevin now that I was wearing orange. From being
someone he should treat with respect, I’d become someone he could tell to shut up.
I stood and looked into his face through the bars separating us. I looked at him for a long moment. He
turned even redder. There was no point in telling him Jane’s story. He wasn’t going to listen.
Alcee Beck came back to the cells that afternoon. Thank God he didn’t have the key to our cell. He
loomed outside it, silent and glowering. I saw his big fists clench and unclench in a very unnerving way.
Not only did he want to see me go to jail for murder, he would love to beat me up. He was spoiling for it.
Only the thinnest thread kept him anchored to self-restraint.
The black cloud was still in his head, but it didn’t seem as dense. His thoughts were leaking through.
“Alcee,” I said, “you know I didn’t do this, right? I think you do know that. Jane has evidence that
two men saw Arlene that night.” Even though I knew Alcee didn’t like me, for reasons both personal and
professional, I didn’t think he would persecute (or prosecute) me for his own reasons. Though he was
certainly capable of some corruption, some graft, Alcee had never been suspected of being any kind of
vigilante. I knew he hadn’t had any personal relationship with Arlene, for two reasons: Alcee loved his
wife, Barbara, the librarian here in Bon Temps, and Arlene had been a racist.
The detective didn’t respond to my words, but I could tell there was a question or two going on in
his thoughts about the righteousness of his actions. He departed, his face still full of anger.
Something was so wrong inside Alcee Beck. Then it came to me: Alcee was acting like someone
who’d been possessed. That was a key thought. I finally had something new to think about; I could spend
infinite time picking the thought apart.
The rest of the day passed with excruciating slowness. It’s bad when the most interesting thing that
happens to you all day is getting arrested. The women’s jailer, Jessie Schneider, sauntered down the hall
to tell Jane that her son couldn’t pick her up until tomorrow morning. Jessie didn’t speak to me, but she
didn’t have to. She gave me a good long look, shook her head, and walked back to her office. She’d never
heard anything bad about me, and it made her sad that someone who’d had such a good grandma had
ended up in jail. It made me sad, too.
A trustee brought us our supper, which was pretty much lunch revisited. At least the tomatoes were
fresh, since there was a garden at the jail. I’d never thought I’d get tired of fresh tomatoes, but between my
own burgeoning plants and the jail produce, I would be glad when they were out of season.
There wasn’t a window in our cell, but there was one across the corridor, high up on the wall. When
the window got dark, all I could think of was Karin. I prayed very earnestly that (if she hadn’t been
already) she would be contacted by the police, that she would tell the truth, that the truth would literally
set me free. I didn’t get a lot of sleep that night after the lights went out. Jane snored, and someone over in
the men’s section was screaming from about midnight to one a.m.
I was so grateful when morning came and the sun broke through the window across the corridor. The
weather report two days ago had forecast Monday as sunny, which meant a return to very high
temperatures. The jail was air-conditioned, which was a good thing, since it meant I wasn’t quite
exasperated enough to kill Jane, though I came mighty close a couple of times.
I sat cross-legged on my top bunk, trying hard to think about nothing, until Jessie Schneider came to
get us.
“You got to go in front of the judge now,” she said. “Come on.” She unlocked the cell and gestured
us out. I’d been afraid we’d be shackled, but we weren’t. We were handcuffed, though.
“When am I getting to go home, Jessie?” Jane asked. “Hey, you know Sookie didn’t do nothing to
Arlene. I saw Arlene with some men.”
“Yeah, when did you remember that? When Sookie reminded you?” Jessie, a big, heavy woman in
her forties, didn’t seem to bear either of us any ill will. She was so accustomed to being lied to that she
simply didn’t believe anything an inmate said, and very little anyone else told her, either.
“Awww, Jessie, don’t be mean. I did see her. I didn’t know the men. You ought to let Sookie go. Me,
too.”
Jessie said, “I’ll tell Andy you remembered something.” But I could tell she didn’t hang any weight
on Jane’s words.
We went out a side door and directly into the parish van. Jessie had two other prisoners in tow by
that time: Ginjer Hart (Mel Hart’s ex-wife), a werepanther who had a habit of passing bad checks, and
Diane Porchia, an insurance agent. Of course, I knew Diane had been picked up (which sounded better
than “arrested”) for filing false insurance claims, but I’d kind of lost track of her case. Women were
transported separately from men, and Jessie, accompanied by Kenya, drove us over to the courthouse. I
didn’t look out the window, I was so ashamed that people could see me in this van.
There was a hush when we filed into the courtroom. I didn’t look at the spectator section, but when
attorney Beth Osiecki waved her hand to catch my attention, I almost wept from relief. She was sitting in
the front row. Once I’d noticed her, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face over her shoulder.
Tara was sitting behind the places saved for lawyers. JB was with her. The babies sat in two infant
seats between them.
In the row behind sat Alcide Herveaux, leader of the Shreveport werewolf pack and owner of AAA
Accurate Surveys. Next to him was my brother, Jason, and his packleader, Calvin Norris. Jason’s friend
and best man, Hoyt Fortenberry, was nearby. Chessie Johnson, who was keeping Arlene’s kids, was
having a low-voiced conversation with Kennedy Keyes and her boyfriend, Danny Prideaux, who not only
worked at the home builders’ supply but was also Bill Compton’s daytime guy. And right by Danny
glowered Mustapha Khan, Eric’s daytime guy, and Mustapha’s buddy Warren, who gave me a wispy
smile. Terry Bellefleur stood at the back, shifting from foot to foot uneasily, his wife, Jimmie, at his side.
Maxine Fortenberry came in, her walk ponderous and her face as angry as a thunderstorm. She’d brought
another friend of Gran’s with her, Everlee Mason. Maxine was wearing her righteous face. It was clear
that coming into the courtroom was something she’d never had to do in her life, but by golly she was going
to do it today.
I had a moment of sheer amazement. Why were all these people here? What had brought them to the
courtroom on the same day I had a hearing? It seemed like the most incredible coincidence.
Then I caught the thoughts in their brains, and I understood that there was no coincidence. They were
all here on my behalf.
My vision suddenly blurry from tears, I followed Ginjer Hart as she entered the defendants’ pew. If
the jail orange looked awful on me, it wasn’t doing Ginjer any favors, either. Ginjer’s bright red hair was
a direct slap in the face to the Day-Glo shade of the ensemble. Diane Porchia, with her neutral coloring,
had fared better.
I didn’t really care about how we looked in our jail clothes. I was trying not to think about the
moment. I was so touched that my friends had come, so horrified they’d seen me handcuffed, so hopeful
I’d get out . . . so terrified I wouldn’t.
Ginjer Hart was bound over for trial since no one stepped forward to bail her out. I wondered if
Calvin Norris, leader of the werepanthers, hadn’t shown up to stand bail for his clanswoman, but I
learned later that this was Ginjer’s third offense and that he’d warned her the first and second times that
his patience had a limit. Diane Porchia made bail; her husband was sitting in the last row, looking sad and
worn-down.
Then, finally, it was my turn to step forward. I looked up at the judge, a kindly but shrewd-looking
woman. Her nameplate read “Judge Rosoff.” She was in her fifties, I thought. Her hair was in a bun, and
her oversized glasses made her eyes look like a Chihuahua’s.
“Miss Stackhouse,” she said, after looking at the papers in front of her. “This is your arraignment for
the murder of Arlene Daisy Fowler. You’re charged with second-degree murder, which carries a penalty
of life in prison. You have counsel present, I see. Miss Osiecki?”
Beth Osiecki took a deep breath. I suddenly understood that she’d never represented someone
charged with murder. I was so frightened I could hardly listen to the back-and-forth between the judge and
the attorney, but I heard it when the judge said she’d never seen so many friends turn out for a defendant.
Beth Osiecki told the judge I should be released on bail, especially in view of the very slim evidence that
connected me to Arlene Fowler’s murder.
The judge turned to the district attorney, Eddie Cammack, who never came to Merlotte’s, went to
church at Tabernacle Baptist, and raised Maine coon cats. Eddie looked as horrified as if Judge Rosoff
were being asked to release Charles Manson.
“Your honor, Miss Stackhouse is accused of killing a woman who was a friend to her for many
years, a woman who was a mother and . . .” Eddie ran out of good things to say about Arlene. “Detective
Beck says Miss Stackhouse had solid reasons to want Arlene Fowler dead, and Fowler was found with
Miss Stackhouse’s scarf around her neck, behind Miss Stackhouse’s workplace. We don’t believe she
should be freed on bail.” I wondered where Alcee Beck was. Then I spotted him. He was glowering at
the judge like someone had suggested whipping Barbara Beck on the courthouse lawn. The judge glanced
at Alcee’s angry face and then dismissed him from her mind.
“Has this scarf been proved to be Miss Stackhouse’s?” Judge Rosoff asked.
“She admits the scarf looks like one she had.”
“No one saw Miss Stackhouse wearing the scarf recently?”
“We haven’t found anyone, but . . .”
“No one saw Miss Stackhouse with the victim around the time of the murder. There’s no compelling
physical evidence. I understand Miss Stackhouse has a witness to her whereabouts the night of the
murder?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Then bail is granted. In the amount of thirty thousand dollars.”
Oh, yay! I had that much money, thanks to Claudine’s legacy. But there was that suspicious freeze on
the check. Shit. As quickly as my mind ran through these ups and downs, the judge said, “Mr. Khan, you
stand surety for this woman?”
Mustapha Khan rose. Maybe because he resented having to be in a courtroom (he’d had some serious
brushes with the law), Mustapha was in full “Blade” mode today: black leather vest and pants (how’d he
stand that in the heat?), black T-shirt, dark glasses, shaved head. All he needed was a sword and multiple
guns and blades, and since I knew him, I knew those would be somewhere near.
“My boss does. I’m here to represent his interests, since he’s a vampire and can’t appear in the day.”
Mustapha sounded bored.
“My goodness,” Judge Rosoff said, sounding mildly entertained. “That’s a first. All right, your bail
has been set at thirty thousand dollars, Miss Stackhouse. Since your family, home, and business are here
and you’ve never lived anywhere else in your life, I think you’re a low flight risk. You seem to have
plenty of community ties.” She glanced over the papers in front of her and nodded. All was right and tight
with Judge Rosoff. “You are released on bail pending your trial. Jessie, return Miss Stackhouse to the jail
and process her out.”
Of course, I had to wait for everyone else, including the male prisoners, to have their moment in
court. I wanted to leap up and run away from that bench where I sat with the other defendants. It was all I
could do to refrain from sticking out my tongue at Alcee Beck, who looked like he was going to have a
heart attack.
Andy Bellefleur had come in to stand beside his cousin Terry. Terry whispered in his ear, and I
knew he was telling Andy I’d made bail. Andy looked relieved. Terry punched Andy in the arm, and not
in a “hey, buddy” kind of way. “I told you so, asshole,” he said audibly.
“Not my doing,” Andy said, a little too loudly. Judge Rosoff looked pained.
“Bellefleurs, please remember where you are,” she said, and they both stood at attention, absurdly.
The judge had a twitch at the corners of her mouth.
When all the prisoners had been arraigned, Judge Rosoff nodded and Jessie Schneider and Kenya
herded us out into the van. A second later, the parish bus began loading the male prisoners. Finally, we
were on our way back to the jail.
An hour later I was dressed in my own clothes again, walking out into the sun, a free woman. My
brother was waiting. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to pay you back when you stood by me when I was in
jail,” he said, and I winced. I hadn’t ever pictured that happening myself. “But here I am, picking you up
at the hoosegow. How’d you like those toilets?”
“Oh, I’m thinking of having them put in at the house, to remind me of good times.” Since he was my
brother, he ground it in for a couple more minutes. My nickname was now “Jailbird,” and my picture on
Facebook had bars drawn over it. And on and on.
“Michele?” I asked, when Jason ran out of funny comments. Since we’d been together all our lives,
Jason understood what I meant without the whole sentence.
“She couldn’t get off work,” he said, meeting my eyes so I’d know he wasn’t lying. As if I couldn’t
have told by seeing directly into his brain. “She woulda come, but her boss wouldn’t let her off.”
I nodded, ready to believe Michele didn’t think I was guilty.
“The last time we talked about Eric, you and him were on the outs,” Jason said. “But he must be
carrying a torch to have bailed you out like that. That’s a shitload of money.”
“I’m surprised myself,” I said. And that was a huge understatement. Based on past experience, when
Eric got angry at me, he let me know about it. When he’d decided I was being prissy about killing a few
enemies in a bloodbath, he’d bitten me without bothering to take away the pain. I’d let that incident go by
without having a showdown over it—a mistake on my part—but I hadn’t forgotten it. After our terrible
confrontation the night before my arrest, I had never expected this magnanimity from Eric. Even attributing
it to a sentimental gesture on his part didn’t match what I knew of Eric. I definitely wanted to ask
Mustapha a few questions, but he was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Sam, which was somewhat more
of a surprise.
“Where do you want to go, Sis?” Jason was trying not to act like he was in a hurry, but he was. He
had to get back to work; he’d taken an extended lunch hour to come to court.
“Take me to the house,” I said, after a second’s thought. “I have to shower and put on clean clothes
and, I guess . . . go in to work. If Sam wants me there. I might not be such an advertisement for the place
now.”
“Are you kidding? He went nuts when he heard they arrested you,” Jason said, as if I should have
known what had happened while I was in jail. Sometimes Jason got what I was kind of jumbled up with
“psychic” or even “omniscient.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, he went to the station to yell at Andy and Alcee Beck on Sunday. Then he called the jail
about a million times to ask how you were doing. And he asked the judge who the best criminal lawyer in
the area was. By the way, Holly’s been working in your place while you were out sick and this morning,
just to pick up a little extra cash for the wedding. She says don’t worry! She don’t want to come back
regular.”
When we got to Hummingbird Road, I thought, I’m really free. I didn’t know if I’d ever recover
from the overwhelming humiliation of being arrested and going to jail, but I assumed that when I’d gotten
over the oppressive weight of the experience, I’d have learned some lesson God wanted me to learn.
I had a moment of thinking of our Lord being dragged through the streets and pelted with offal and
then having his court hearing in a public place. Then being crucified.
Well, not that I was comparing myself to Jesus, I told myself hastily, but I’d done that kind of
backward, right? Almost been crucified, then been arrested. We had something in common, Jesus and me!
I threw that thought out of my mind as not only a gross exaggeration, but maybe even blasphemy, and
focused instead on what to do with my new freedom.
Shower first, for sure. I wanted to wash off the jail smell, plus I hadn’t showered since Saturday
morning. If I’d gone back to my cell after the courtroom, I could have showered with the other female
inmates. Woo-hoo!
Jason had been silent during our drive to my house, but that didn’t mean his brain hadn’t been busy.
He was glad Michele was cool with my arrest, because it sure would have been uncomfortable if she’d
thought his sister was guilty, and that might have delayed the wedding. Jason really wanted to get married.
“Tell Michele to come see the dress I bought for my bridesmaid dress, anytime,” I said, as Jason
pulled up behind the house. I’d retrieved my purse when I’d been released, so I had my keys.
Jason gave me a blank look.
“The one I bought to wear to your wedding. I’ll call her later.”
Jason was used to me chiming in on his thoughts. He said, “Okay, Sook. You take it easy today. I
never believed you done it. Not that she didn’t have it coming.”
“Thanks, Jason.” I was genuinely touched, and of course I knew he was completely sincere.
“Call me if you need me,” he said, and then he took off for work. I was so glad to unlock the door
and be back in my own home, I almost started crying. And after being jammed into a jail cell with a
hungover Jane Bodehouse, it was exquisitely sweet to be alone. I glanced at the telephone answering
machine, which was blinking furiously, and I was certain there were some e-mails waiting for me. But a
shower came first.
While I dried my hair with a towel, I looked out the window at the shimmering landscape.
Everything looked dusty again, but it would be a couple of days before I needed to water, thanks to the
recent rain. I actually looked forward to getting out in the yard, because after jail it looked incredibly
beautiful. The extravagant growth and lushness had only increased while I was gone.
I put on makeup, because I needed to feel attractive. I put a ton of moisturizer on my newly shaved
legs and sprayed on a little spritz of perfume. This was more like it. Every second I felt more like myself,
Sookie Stackhouse, bar owner and telepath, and less like Sookie the Jailbird.
I pushed down the Play button on the answering machine.
Here are the people who didn’t believe I should have been arrested: Maxine; India; JB du Rone’s
mom; Pastor Jimmy Fullenwilder; Calvin; Bethany Zanelli, coach of the high school softball team; and at
least seven others. I had to feel touched that they’d bothered to call to express their feelings, even though
I’d been in jail and it had been possible I’d never get to hear their encouraging messages. I wondered if I
should write a thank-you note to each caller. My grandmother would have.
As I listened to Kennedy Keyes’s voice telling me Sam had said I shouldn’t come in today and I
should rest, I could see by the counter that I had only one more message. A man’s voice came on. I didn’t
recognize it. He said, “You had no right to take away my last chance. I’m going to make sure you pay for
it.” I looked at the number. I didn’t recognize it, either. Was I shocked at the determination in his voice?
Yes. But I wasn’t surprised. I know how people really are. I can hear their thoughts. I couldn’t read the
brain of someone who’d left a phone message, but I know intent when I hear it. My anonymous caller had
meant every word he’d said.
Now it was my turn to make a phone call. “Andy, I need you to come out here and listen to
something,” I said when he picked up his cell. “You may not want to, but if I’m in danger, you gotta
protect me, right? I didn’t lose that when I got arrested?”
“Sookie,” Andy said. He sounded massively tired. “I’m on my way.”
“And do me a favor, okay? This is weird, and I know you won’t want to do it, but you tell Alcee
Beck to clean out his car. I’m pretty sure there’s something in his car that shouldn’t be there.” I’d had so
much time to think in jail that I’d remembered a little flash of memory: Alcee’s car parked by the woods.
The odd flicker of movement I’d seen from the corner of my eye. The fact that Alcee was so insanely
determined I be arrested and charged that I’d thought, It’s almost like he’s under a spell.
That seemed like such a good fit, I was sure it was true.
Chapter 10
Though Sam hadn’t wanted me to come in the day I was released from jail, I went in to work the next
morning. On one level, it was such a normal thing to do that my preparations felt quite ordinary. On
another level, since I’d spent part of my jail time thinking I might never get to walk back into Merlotte’s
again, I was nervous about making a public appearance after facing such an ugly allegation.
Andy Bellefleur had listened to the threat on my answering machine and taken the little tape with
him. I’d wished I’d been smart enough to make a copy before he drove off. I hadn’t needed to ask him if
he’d conveyed my request to Alcee Beck. I heard from his thoughts that he hadn’t, that he was already in
bad with Alcee because Andy’d maintained they shouldn’t arrest me, while Alcee had bulled ahead with
the charges. So there was something I’d have to take care of myself.
After Jason’s account of Sam’s agitation at my arrest, I’d expected a big welcome back to the bar. In
fact, I’d expected Sam would call me the night before, but he hadn’t. Now, seeing him behind the bar, I
smiled and started over to give him a hug.
Sam looked at me for a long moment, and I felt the conflict rolling off him. If fireworks had been
exploding out of his brain, he couldn’t have been more lit up. But then his whole face shut down, and he
turned his back to me. He began polishing a glass furiously. I was surprised it didn’t shatter in his fingers.
To say I was hurt and bewildered would be understating by about a ton. I didn’t think Sam was
exactly angry with me for being arrested, but he was angry about something. Though I got hugs from all the
bar staff and at least six customers, Sam avoided me like I was Typhoid Mary.
“Jail isn’t catching,” I said tartly, the third time I had to pass him to pick up plates from the serving
hatch. He had turned away to examine the list of emergency phone numbers as if there were some new
information on it that had to be memorized in the next five minutes.
“I . . . I know that,” he said, biting off whatever he’d been about to say. “Good you’re back.” An
Norr came up to get a pitcher of beer, and that cut our conversation off at the knees . . . if you could call
our exchange a conversation. I went about my business, but I was fuming. Not for the first time, I wanted
to know what Sam was thinking, but since he was a shapeshifter, I could only feel that his thoughts were
dark and frustrated.
That made two of us.
On the plus side, if any bar patrons were scared of being served by a woman who’d been arrested
for murder, they didn’t act like it. Of course, they were used to Kennedy, who not only had been arrested
for killing her abusive ex-boyfriend but had actually done both the killing and the time to pay for it.
Sam was practically running a work-release program.
Somehow, thinking about Kennedy made me feel better, especially since she’d been one of the kind
people who’d come to court the previous morning. Speaking of Kennedy (if only to myself), a couple of
hours later she came in with her honey, Danny Prideaux, in tow. As always, Kennedy looked as if she’d
just arrived at a hotel to check in for a pageant weekend: groomed from head to toe, wearing a turquoise
and brown tank top and brown shorts. Her turquoise sandals boosted her up another two inches. How did
she do it? I marveled at her.
After pausing for a moment so her entrance would register (something she did quite by habit),
Kennedy crossed the floor to wrap her arms around me in a ferocious hug, which was a first. Apparently,
we were now sisters under the skin. Though the comparison made me uncomfortable, I could hardly be
holier-than-thou—so I reciprocated the hug and thanked her for her concern.
Kennedy and Danny were there for a drink before Danny went to his second job as daytime guy for
Bill Compton. Danny met with Bill every other night, he told me, to get his orders and report on the
results of his previous days. Today, he’d be over at the house to let in some workmen.
“So Bill keeps you busy?” I said, trying to think what Bill would need Danny to do.
“Oh, it’s not bad,” Danny said, his eyes fixed on Kennedy. “I wasn’t working at the builders’ supply
today, so I’m meeting the security guys at the house to show them where Bill wants the sensors put. Then
I’ll wait while they do the installing.”
It struck me as funny that Bill was getting a security system. Surely humans needed intruder alerts
more than vampires did? Actually, I might look into that when Claudine’s bank was cleared to resume
business. Getting a security system wasn’t a bad idea.
Kennedy started talking about the bikini wax she’d gotten in Shreveport, and Danny’s new employer
was banished in favor of this more interesting topic, but the next idle moment I had I caught myself
wondering if Bill’s security system meant that he’d had some trigger event to suggest he really needed
one. Since he was my nearest neighbor, I ought to know if someone had tried to break into his house. It
would be all too easy to get so wrapped up in my own multilevel troubles that I forgot other folks had
troubles, too.
Also, I was curious as hell. And it was a relief to think about something besides being an accused
murderer and breaking up with my boyfriend.
Kennedy said, “What’s your vampire got to say about this murder charge, Sookie?”
Her timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
“Apparently, he put up my bail, but I think that was just for old times’ sake,” I said. I looked at her
directly, so she’d get the message.
“Sorry,” she said, after a moment’s absorption of my message and the depth of my pit o’ breakup
misery. “Oh, wow.”
I shrugged. And I could hear Kennedy wondering if I’d go back to Bill Compton now that I’d lost my
second vampire lover.
Bless her heart. Kennedy just thought like that. I patted her hand and moved on to another customer.
I grew tired, really tired, by about seven o’clock. I’d outstayed the first shift and was well into the
second, and on this Tuesday night the crowd was thin. I went behind the bar to talk to Sam, who was
fidgeting around in a very un-Sam way.
“I’m gonna go, Sam, because I’m dead on my feet,” I said. “That okay?”
I could see the tension in his body language. But he wasn’t angry with me.
“I don’t know who pissed you off, Sam, but you can tell me,” I said. I met his eyes.
“Sook, I . . .” And he stopped dead. “You know I’m here if you need me. I’ve got your back, Sook.”
“I got a real nasty message on my answering machine, Sam. It kind of scared me.” I made a wry face
to show him I hated being such a chicken. “I didn’t recognize the number it came from. Andy Bellefleur
said he’d look into it. I’m just saying that what with one thing and another, I’m grateful that you said that.
It means a lot. You’ve always been there for me.”
“No,” he said. “Not always. But I am, now.”
“Okay,” I said doubtfully. Something was really eating at my friend, and I had no way to pry it out of
him, which normally wouldn’t be a problem for me.
“You go home and get some rest,” he said, and he put his hand on my shoulder.
I scraped up a smile and offered it to him. “Thanks, Sam.”
It was still broiling hot when I left Merlotte’s, and I had to stand by my car for a good five minutes
with both the front doors open before I could bear to get inside. I had that icky sensation of sweat trickling
down between my butt cheeks. My feet could hardly wait to be out of the socks and sneakers I wore to
work. While I waited for the car to cool—well, to become less hot—I caught a flash of movement from
the trees around the employee lot.
At first I thought it was a trick of the sunlight bouncing off the chrome trim on my car, but then I was
sure I’d seen a person in the woods.
There was no good reason for anyone to be out there. To the rear of Merlotte’s and facing onto
another street lay the little Catholic church and three businesses: a gift shop, a credit union, and Liberty
South Insurance. None of them were likely to have customers who would opt to wander in the fringe of
woods, especially on a hot weekday evening. I wondered what to do. I could retreat to Merlotte’s, or I
could get in the car and pretend I hadn’t seen anything, or I could dash into the woods and beat up
whoever was watching me. I considered for maybe fifteen seconds. I didn’t think I had enough energy to
dash, though I had plenty of anger to fuel a beating. I didn’t want to ask Sam for anything; I’d asked him
for so much, and he was acting so odd today.
So, option two. But just to make sure someone knew what was happening . . . and I didn’t get any
more specific than that . . . I called Kenya. She answered on the first ring, and since she knew it was me
calling, I saw that as a good thing.
“Kenya, I’m leaving work now, and there’s someone out back skulking in the trees,” I said. “I got no
idea what anyone would want to do back there—there’s nothing besides Sam’s trailer—but I’m not going
to try to handle that on my own.”
“Good idea, Sookie, since you ain’t armed and you ain’t a cop,” Kenya said tartly. “Oh . . . you
aren’t armed, are you?”
Lots of people had personal handguns in our neck of the woods, and just about everyone had a
“critter rifle.” (You never knew when a rabid skunk would come up in your yard.) I myself had a shotgun
and my dad’s old critter rifle at home. So Kenya’s question wasn’t out of left field.
“I don’t carry a gun with me,” I said.
“We’ll come check it out,” she said. “You were smart to call.”
That was nice to hear. A police officer thought I’d done something smart. I was glad to reach the
turnoff into my driveway without any occurrence.
I picked up my mail, then went to the house. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular. I was still
excited about the prospect of eating my very own food, after the indescribable slop we’d gotten in jail. (I
knew the parish didn’t have a big budget to feed prisoners, but damn.)
Despite my eagerness, I looked around me carefully before I got out of my car, and I had my keys in
my hand. Experience had taught me it’s better to be wary and feel ridiculous than to get conked on the
head or abducted or whatever the enemy plan of the day might be.
I flew up the steps, crossed the porch, and unlocked the back door quicker than you can say “Jack
Robinson.”
A little fearfully, I went to the answering machine in the living room and pressed the button to listen.
Andy Bellefleur said, “Sookie, we traced the call. It came from a house in New Orleans owned by a
Leslie Gelbman. That mean anything to you?”
I caught Andy at work. “I know several people in New Orleans,” I said. “But that name means
nothing to me.” I didn’t think any of them would be placing a hate call to me, either.
“The Gelbman house is up for sale. Someone had broken into it through the back door. The phone
was still hooked up, and that’s what the caller used to leave that message. Sorry we didn’t find out who
said that stuff. Did you recall any incident that would make that message mean something to you?”
He actually sounded sorry, which was nice. My opinion of Andy wavered back and forth. I think his
opinion of me did, too. “Thanks, Andy. No, I haven’t thought of anything I’ve ever done that could be
construed as taking away someone’s last chance.” I paused. “Did you give Alcee my message?”
“Ahhhh . . . no, Sookie. Alcee and I aren’t on the best of terms right now. He still . . .” Andy’s voice
died away. Alcee Beck still thought I was guilty and was in a snit because I’d been released on bail. I
wondered if it was Alcee I’d seen out in the woods around Merlotte’s. I wondered how violently he felt
about me being free.
“Okay, Andy, I understand,” I said. “And thanks for checking on the phone call. Give Halleigh my
best.”
After I’d hung up, I thought of someone I should call about my present predicament. Jason had told
me he hadn’t gotten an answer when he’d called the part-demon lawyer Desmond Cataliades. I got out my
address book, found the number Mr. Cataliades had given me, and punched it in.
“Yes?” said a small voice.
“Diantha, it’s Sookie.”
“Oh! Whathappenedtoyou?” This was said in Diantha’s rapid-fire delivery, the words blurring
together in her haste. “Yournumberwason-Uncle’scallerID.”
“How’d you know something happened? Can you slow down a little?”
Diantha made an effort to enunciate. “Uncle’s packing to come to see you. He’s learned a couple of
things that have him all worried. He had a twinge of fear. Uncle’s usually right on the money when he has
a twinge. And he has solid business reasons to talk to you, he says. He would have gotten there sooner,
but he had to consult with some people that are pretty hard to catch.” She exhaled. “Thatwhatyouwanted?”
I was tempted to laugh but decided I would not. I couldn’t see her facial expression, and I didn’t
want my amusement to be misconstrued. “His twinge was right on the money,” I said. “I got arrested for
murder.”
“Ofaredheadedwoman?”
“Yeah. How’d you know? Another twinge?”
“Thatwitchfriendofyourscalled.”
After I chopped up that sentence into sound bites until I was sure I understood it, I said, “Amelia
Broadway.”
“Shehadavision.”
Dang. Amelia was getting stronger and stronger.
“Is Mr. Cataliades there?” I asked, taking care to say it correctly. Ca-TAHL-e-ah-des.
There was empty air, and then a pleasant voice said, “Ms. Stackhouse. How nice to hear from you,
even under the circumstances. I am setting off your way, shortly. Do you need my services as an
attorney?”
“I’m out on bail now,” I said. “I was kind of in a hurry to be represented, so I called Beth Osiecki, a
local lawyer.” I sounded as apologetic as I could manage. “I did think of you, and if I’d had more time . . .
I’m hoping you’ll join in with her?” I was pretty damn sure Mr. Cataliades had had more experience
defending accused murderers than Beth Osiecki.
“I’ll consult with her while I’m in Bon Temps,” said Mr. Cataliades. “If you’d like treats from New
Orleans—beignets or the like—I can bring them with me.”
“You were coming up to see me, anyway, Diantha says?” My voice faltered as I tried to imagine
why. “Of course, I’m real glad you’re coming to see me, and you’re welcome to stay here at the house, but
I may have to be at work some of the time.” I could hardly beg off any more shifts at Merlotte’s,
management or no management. Besides, working was better than thinking. I’d had my days of thinking
after I’d resurrected Sam, and a fat lot of good it had done me.
“I completely understand,” the lawyer said. “I think perhaps you will need us to stay in the house.”
“Us? Diantha’s coming with you?”
“Almost certainly, and also your friend Amelia and perhaps her young man,” he said. “According to
Amelia, you need all the help you can get. Her father called her concerning you. He told her he’d seen an
article in the papers about you.”
That was heartwarming, since I’d only met Copley Carmichael once, and he and Amelia had anything
but a smooth relationship. “Wonderful,” I said, trying hard to sound sincere. “By the way, Mr. Cataliades,
do you know someone named Leslie Gelbman?”
“No,” he said instantly. “Why do you ask?”
I described the phone call and told him what Andy had discovered.
“Interesting and disturbing,” he said succinctly. “I’ll drive by that house before we leave.”
“When do you think you’ll get here?”
“Tomorrow morning,” he said. “Until we arrive, be extremely careful.”
“I’ll try,” I said, and he hung up.
The sun had just gone down by the time I’d eaten a salad and had my shower. I had a towel wrapped
around my head (and nothing else on) when the phone rang. I answered it in my bedroom.
“Sookie,” Bill said, his voice cool and smooth and soothing. “How are you tonight?”
“Just fine, thanks,” I said. “Really tired.” Hint, hint.
“Would you mind very much if I come over to your house for just a few moments? I have a visitor, a
man you’ve met before. He’s a writer.”
“Oh, he came here with Kym Rowe’s parents, right? Harp something?” His previous visit was not a
pleasant memory.
“Harp Powell,” Bill said. “He’s writing a book about Kym’s life.”
Biography of a Dead Half-Breed: The Short Life of a Young Stripper. I really couldn’t imagine
how Harp Powell could spin the depressing tale of Kym Rowe into literary gold. But Bill thought writers
were great, even small-time writers like Harp Powell.
“If we could just take a few minutes of your time?” Bill said gently. “I know the past few days have
been very bad ones for you.”
Sounded like he’d gotten the message, probably via Danny Prideaux, about my sojourn in jail.
I said, “Okay, give me ten minutes, and then you can come over for a short visit.” When my great-
grandfather Niall had left this land, he’d put a lot of magic in the ground. Though it was delightful to see
the yard blooming and bearing fruit and being green, I found myself thinking I would have traded all the
plants in the yard for one really good protection spell. Too late now! Niall had taken my dog of a cousin,
Claude, back into Faery to punish him for his rebellion and his attempt to steal from me, and left me with
a lot of tomatoes in return. The last person to lay wards around my house had been Bellenos, the elf, and
though he’d scorned other people’s protective circles, I didn’t exactly trust Bellenos’s. I’d rather have a
gun than magic any day, but maybe that was just American of me. I had the shotgun in the coat closet by the
front door and Daddy’s rediscovered critter rifle in the kitchen. When Michele and Jason had turned out
all of Jason’s closets and storage areas in preparation for Michele moving in, they’d found all kinds of
stuff, items I’d vaguely wondered about for years, including my mom’s wedding dress. (While I’d gotten
Gran’s house when she passed, Jason had inherited my parents’ place.)
I glimpsed the wedding dress in the back of my closet when I opened it to pull out something to wear
for my fairly unwelcome guests. Every time I saw the flounced skirt, I was reminded just how different I
was from my mother; but every time, I wished I’d gotten to know her as an adult.
I shook myself and pulled out a T-shirt and jeans. I didn’t fool with makeup, and my hair was still
damp when the two men knocked at my back door. Bill had seen me in every stage of being dressed or
undressed that was possible, and I didn’t care what Harp Powell thought.
The reporter practically bolted into my kitchen. He looked agitated.
“Did you see that?” he asked me.
“What? Hello, by the way. ‘Thanks, Ms. Stackhouse, for inviting me into your home at the end of a
long, traumatic day.’ ” But he didn’t get my sarcasm, though it was as wide as the river Jordan.
“We got stopped in the woods by a woman vampire,” he said excitedly. “She was beautiful! And she
wanted to know what we were doing going to your house and if we were armed. It was like going through
security at the airport.”
Wow. That was great. Karin was on duty in my woods! I did have security, and not only the magical
kind. I had a real nighttime-patrol vampire.
“She’s a friend of a friend,” I said, smiling. Bill smiled back. He was looking spiffy tonight in dress
slacks and a long-sleeved plaid cotton shirt, crisply ironed. Had he done the ironing? More likely, he’d
gotten Danny to take all his shirts and slacks to a laundry. In sad contrast, Harp Powell was wearing khaki
shorts and an ancient button-down shirt.
I had to offer my visitors a drink. Harp admitted he’d like a glass of water, and Bill accepted a bottle
of TrueBlood. I stifled yet another sigh and brought them their beverages, Harp’s glass tinkling with ice
and Bill’s bottle warm.
I should have also offered some small talk to cover the moment, but I was all out of chitchat. I sat
with my hands folded on my knee, my legs crossed, and waited while they took their first sips and shifted
into comfortable positions on the sofa.
“I called you Sunday night,” Bill said, opening the conversational envelope, “but you must have been
out.”
He meant it as a transition remark, but I had a grim little frisson.
“Ah, no,” I said, giving him a significant look.
He stared at me. Bill can really stare.
“You know where I was Sunday night,” I said, trying to be discreet.
“No, I don’t.”
Dammit. Why didn’t Danny gossip more? “I was in jail,” I said. “For killing Arlene.”
You would have thought I’d dropped my drawers and bent over, their expressions were so shocked.
In an unworthy way, it was pretty funny. “I didn’t do it,” I said, seeing they’d misunderstood me. “I’m just
accused of it.”
Harp used his napkin to pat his mustache, which was kind of wet now, after the drink of water. He
needed a trim. “I’d love to know more about that, frankly,” he said. And he meant that down to his bones.
“You’re not teaching anymore?” I said. After the last time I’d met Harp, I’d Googled him. Bill had
told me that Harp had been teaching at a community college and had had a few books published by a
university press, historical novels of regional interest. More recently, Harp had been editing vampire
reminiscences, with emphasis on their historical value.
“No, I’m writing full-time now.” He smiled at me. “I cast my fate to the wind.”
“You got fired,” I said.
He looked taken aback, but not as taken aback as Bill. Yeah, I didn’t think Bill had known that.
Harp said, “Yes, they said it was my interest in writing the books about vampires’ personal histories
that was taking too much of my time and my concentration, but I suspect it was because I became friends
with a vampire or two.” Trying to appeal to my love of vampires, I guess. “Last semester, I was teaching
a night class in journalism at the Clarice Community College, and I got my undead friends to visit. The
faculty complained to my boss, but the students were fascinated.”
“Which would pertain to writing newspaper articles—how?”
“Which would give my students a richer background to draw from when they write. To give them a
broader knowledge of the world, color their emotional palette.”
“You’re hooked on vamps.” I rolled my eyes at Bill. “You’re a literary fangbanger.” It was all in
Harp’s head for me to see: the craving, the fascination, the sheer pleasure he took in being with Bill
tonight. Even I was interesting to him, simply because he’d figured from my history that I’d had sex with
vampires. He’d also gotten the impression that I was some kind of supernatural oddity in my own right.
He wasn’t sure how I was different from other people, but he knew I was. I cocked my head, examining
his thoughts. He was a little different himself. Maybe a tiny drop of fae blood? Or demon?
I reached over and took his hand, and he looked at me with eyes as big as saucers while I rummaged
around in his head. I didn’t find anything in there that was morally gross or salacious. I would do this as a
favor to Bill.
“All right,” I said, dropping his hand. “What are you here for, Mr. Writer?”
“What did you just do?” he asked, both excited and suspicious.
“I just decided to talk to you about whatever,” I said. “So talk. What do you want to know?”
“What happened to Kym Rowe? What’s your perspective?”
I knew the truth about what had happened to Kym Rowe, and I’d seen Kym’s murderer beheaded.
“My perspective is that Kym Rowe was a desperate young woman without many morals. She was
also hard up financially. From what I understand,” I said cautiously, “someone hired her to seduce Eric
Northman, and the same person killed her in Eric’s front yard. I understand that the murderer confessed to
the police and then left the country. Kym Rowe’s death seems sad and meaningless to me.”
I couldn’t understand what Bill was getting out of hanging around with this guy. I suspected Bill’s
reverence for the written word had blinded him to Harp’s inquisitive and intrusive habits. When Bill had
grown up, books were fairly rare and precious. Or did Bill just need a friend so badly he was willing to
make one of Harp Powell? I would have liked to check out Harp’s neck for fang marks, but with his collar
that was impossible. Dammit.
“That’s the official story,” Harp said, knocking back another swallow of water. “But I understand
that you know more.”
“Who might have told you that?” I looked at Bill. He gave a tiny shake of the head to indicate his
innocence. I said, “If you think you will get another story, a different one, from me . . . you’re absolutely
wrong.”
The former reporter backpedaled. “No, no, I just want some color to enhance my picture of her life.
That’s all. What it was like to actually be there that night, at that party, and to see Kym alive in her last
minutes.”
“It was disgusting,” I said without thinking.
“Because your boyfriend, Eric Northman, drank blood from Kym Rowe?”
Duh! That was public record, too. But that didn’t mean I enjoyed being reminded. “The party just
wasn’t my cup of tea,” I said evenly. “I got there late, and I didn’t like what I found when I walked in.”
“Why not you, Ms. Stackhouse? That is, why didn’t he drink from you?”
“That’s really not any of your business, Mr. Powell.”
He leaned across the coffee table, all confidential and intense. “Sookie, I’m trying to write the story
of this sad girl’s life. To do her justice, I’d like all the details I can gather.”
“Mr. Powell—Harp—she’s dead. She won’t ever know what you write about her. She’s beyond
worrying about justice.”
“You’re saying it’s the living who count, not the dead.”
“In this instance, yes. That’s what I’m saying.”
“So there are secrets to know about her death,” he said, righteously.
If I’d had the energy, I’d have thrown up my hands. “I don’t know what you’re trying to get me to say.
She came to the party, Eric drank from her, she left the party, and the police tell me a woman whose name
they won’t release called them to confess she’d strangled Kym.”
I took a second to check my memory. “She was wearing a green and pink dress, real bright, kind of
low-cut, with spaghetti straps. And high-heeled sandals. I can’t remember what color they were.” No
underwear, but I wasn’t going to mention that.
“And did you talk to her?”
“No.” I didn’t think I’d addressed her directly.
“But this bad behavior, this blood drinking, was offensive to you. You didn’t like Eric Northman
drinking from Kym.”
Screw trying to be polite. By now, Bill had put down his bottle and moved to the edge of the couch
as if he were ready to rocket to his feet.
“I did very thorough interviews with the police. I don’t want to talk about Kym Rowe again, ever.”
“And it’s true,” he said, as if I hadn’t spoken, “that though the cops say Kym’s killer confessed over
the phone, she’s never been caught, and she may be dead somewhere just like Kym Rowe is? You hated
Kym Rowe and she died, and you hated Arlene Fowler and she died. What about Jannalynn Hopper?”
Bill’s eyes lit up from within like brown torches. He hauled Harp up by his collar and marched him
out of the house in a way that would have been pretty funny if I hadn’t been so angry and so scared.
“I hope this is the end of Bill’s fascination with writers,” I said out loud. I would have loved to go to
bed, but I figured Bill would be back. Sure enough, he knocked on the back door in ten minutes. He was
alone.
I let him in, and I’m sure I looked as exasperated as I felt.
“I’m so sorry, Sookie,” he said. “I didn’t know any of this: that Harp had been fired, that he’d
developed this fixation on vampires, that you had been arrested. I’m going to have a talk with Danny about
keeping me better informed on local matters. What can I do to help you?”
“If you could find out who killed Arlene, it would really help.” I may have sounded a little sarcastic.
“It was my scarf around her neck, Bill.”
“How did you get out, accused of such a crime?”
“Not only was there no absolutely damning evidence tying me to the murder, Eric sent Mustapha to
bail me out, which I can’t figure. We’re not married anymore and he’s leaving with Freyda. Why does he
care? I mean, I don’t think he hates me, but putting up bail money . . .”
Bill said, “Of course he doesn’t hate you,” but he said it a little abstractedly, as if he’d had a sudden
thought. “Though I’m in communication with others at Fangtasia, I’m surprised he hasn’t summoned me. It
seems I should pay my sheriff a visit . . . and find out when he’s leaving us.” Bill sat sunk in thought for a
long moment. “Who will be the next sheriff?” he said, and his whole body was tense.
Understandably, I hadn’t gotten that far in my thinking. What with the losing-my-boyfriend heartache
and the murder charge.
“That’s a good question,” I said, without much interest. “Be sure and let me know when you find out.
I guess Felipe will bring in one of his people.” I’d worry about that later, when I had the energy. A
henchperson of Felipe’s could sure make my life more difficult, but I couldn’t think about it now.
“Good night, sweetheart,” Bill said, to my surprise. “I’m glad to see Karin is earning her keep,
though I didn’t expect Eric would put her outside your house perpetually.”
“Neither did I, but I think it’s wonderful.”
“I thought Harp was a gentleman. I was wrong.”
“Think nothing of it.” My eyelids were sagging shut.
He kissed me on the lips. My eyelids were suddenly wide apart. He stepped back, and I caught my
breath. Bill had always kissed like a champion. If there’d been a kissing Olympics, he’d have advanced to
the finals. But I wasn’t starting anything up. I stepped back, too, and let the screen door close between us.
“Sleep well.” And Bill was gone, across the yard and into the woods, moving so swiftly and silently
that I expected to see “zoom” marks behind him.
But he stopped dead just inside the tree line.
Someone had stepped out in front of him.
I caught the flowing movement of long pale hair. Karin and Bill were in conversation. I hoped Harp
Powell didn’t try to return to my woods and “interview” Karin. The last human male I’d known who’d
been hooked on a vampire female had had a sad end.
And then I yawned and forgot all about the reporter. I locked every lock on every door and window,
and crawled into bed.
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