Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

by Charlaine Harris

  “Okay, so he could have found out where Eric lives, but why would a writer have any reason to send Kym Rowe into the house, or to murder her afterward?”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea,” Bill said. “But we can surely go ask him. I’m trying to think of some other avenue of investigation, one that doesn’t lead back to someone in Eric’s house.”

  “I’m not saying that Harp Powell isn’t fishy, showing up with Kym’s parents. But it seems more likely that he’s just riding the publicity train. To me, it appears a lot more likely that Mustapha let Kym Rowe in so she could find Eric and offer herself. I just don’t know why. Why did someone prep her and send her in to do that? Why did they get Mustapha to delay my arrival? I guess so that she’d have time to hook Eric … but then, why have me come in? Mustapha could have told me that the meeting had been canceled or that I should go to Fangtasia instead … a hundred different things.”

  “His role in this is a mystery,” Bill said, shrugging. “She was obviously bait for Eric, designed to arouse his lust.” Bill looked at me and blinked. “His bloodlust,” he added hastily. “But she must have had some piece of information, if only the name of who hired her to do this. When you argued with Eric and he sent the girl away, someone went after her and seized her head and twisted.” Bill made a very graphic motion with his hands. No stranger to the seizing and twisting, he.

  “Disregarding why she was killed,” I said, “why was she sent there in the first place? Getting me mad at Eric doesn’t seem to be much of a reason.”

  Bill looked down at his hands. “There are a couple of theories that fit the few facts we’re sure of,” he said slowly. “And these theories are what I’ll tell Eric. The first is that Eric himself or Pam or Mustapha followed the Rowe woman out of the house and killed her out of sheer anger at the trouble she’d caused. Perhaps—if the killer was Eric— he wanted to erase the memory of the offense he’d committed against you.”

  I stiffened. This was nothing I hadn’t thought of myself, but hearing it out loud made it seem more likely.

  “The other theory … well, that’s more complex.” Bill shifted his gaze to the dark woods. “Since a Were let the girl in, I have to assume she was part of some Were plot. I should suspect Alcide, since he’s the packleader. But I don’t believe that Alcide would plan such a convoluted method of discrediting Eric. Alcide’s a relatively straightforward man and an intelligent one … at least in some respects. Evidently, women are a huge blind spot for him.” Bill raised an eyebrow.

  That was a pretty good evaluation of Alcide’s character. “But what Were would do this without Alcide’s say-so?” I said.

  “Mustapha is a lone wolf.” Bill shrugged. Obvious.

  “But Mustapha didn’t bring Kym Rowe to the house,” I argued. “You said the scent trail didn’t tell you that.”

  “He must have known she was coming. Sookie, I know you like the man in some measure, but he knew about this in advance. Maybe he didn’t know why she was coming to the house—but he knew if he let her in unchallenged, everyone in the house would assume she’d been invited. And he knew the girl wasn’t there to scrub toilets or sing for the company. She was there to get Eric to drink from her. Since Mustapha was the one who called you and told you to come later, his purpose must have been to make sure you were not there to prevent Eric from being interested in her.”

  “But the only result was that I got mad at Eric. Bill, who cares that much about my love life?” Bill gave me a very direct look, and I could feel myself turning red.

  But instead of making a personal reference, Bill said, “You had a visitor last night who cares very deeply.”

  I tried not to flinch too obviously. “You know she came to the house?”

  “We all know about her presence in Area Five, Sookie. All of us who are sworn to Eric. It’s hard to cover up the visit of a queen, especially one as well-known as Freyda. It’s even harder to remain ignorant of exactly where she is. She went to the casino to confer with Felipe directly after she left your house, and Felipe summoned Eric there. He took Thalia with him—not Pam. Thalia said it was a very tense meeting.”

  That explained the delay in Eric’s calling me … but it didn’t make me feel any better. “What makes Freyda so well-known?” I bypassed all the obvious conversational openings that Bill’s little speech presented to lock in on what was most interesting to me. I was all too aware that Bill could see how desperate I was to know more about her, and I just didn’t care.

  Bill kindly looked down at his hands as he told me, “She’s beautiful, of course. Ambitious. Young. She’s not content to sit on her throne and let things hum along. By the way, she had to fight for that throne. She killed her predecessor, and he didn’t make it easy. Freyda has worked hard to extend the business dealings of Oklahoma. The only thing slowing her progress is her lack of a strong and loyal second. If she acquires the strong vampire she needs to serve as her right hand, she’ll always have to watch her back against that vampire’s ambition. If she marries this right hand, he can’t succeed her. His loyalty will be assured, because his fate is bound to hers.”

  I pondered this for a few minutes, while Bill sat in silence. Vampires are great at that. I caught his eyes on my face. I got the impression that Bill felt sorry for me. A worm of panic twisted in my stomach.

  “Freyda’s strong, active, and determined,” I said. “Like Eric. And you say she needs a good fighter, a good second. Like Eric.”

  “Yes, like Eric,” he said deliberately. “Freyda would be a great match for him. Practically speaking, he’d escape from the political situation created by his murder of Victor. The king’s going to have to do something to Eric. Felipe really can’t afford to be perceived as ignoring Victor’s death.”

  “Why not?”

  He looked at me blankly.

  “Felipe let Victor get away with whatever the hell Victor wanted to do,” I said. “Why shouldn’t he be perceived that way?”

  “He doesn’t want to lose the loyalty of the vampires who serve him,” Bill said.

  “That’s ridiculous!” I thought steam would come out of my ears. “You can’t have it all different ways!”

  “But he’ll try. I don’t think you’re really angry about Felipe. You’re really angry about the hard practicality of Eric marrying Freyda.” I winced, but Bill continued ruthlessly. “You have to admit that her character is much like Eric’s and that they’d make a good team.”

  “Eric’s my team,” I said. “He loves me. He wants to stay here.” I realized that I was, so to speak, batting with another hand now. I’d been just as sure the night before that Eric would leave, that he loved power more than he loved me.

  “But … Sookie, you must see … staying might be the death of him.”

  I could read a mixture of pity and tough love in Bill’s attitude. “Bill, are you sure you’re able to judge that?”

  “I hope that I have your best interests in my heart, Sookie.” He paused, as if considering whether he should go on. “I know you’ll suspect everything I say about this situation—because I love you, and I don’t love Eric. But truly, I want your happiness, above almost everything else.”

  Almost everything else. I found myself wondering what came ahead of that. His own survival?

  I heard the screen door bang, and Dermot hurried out to his car.

  “Got to get to the club,” he called.

  “Drive careful,” I called back. He was gone before I could say anything more. I turned back to Bill, who was staring at the spot where Dermot had stood, a wistful expression on his face. No wonder Dermot had hurried; he’d surely known a vampire was in the backyard and that his scent would be attractive. “Let’s get back to the Kym Rowe issue,” I said, to get Bill’s attention. “What can I do to help you find out who killed her?”

  “The first person we’d want to talk to is Mustapha, and he’s vanished. Tell me exactly what he said when he was here.”

  “Which time? When he was
here before the night of the party, or when he was here after the party?”

  “Tell me about both visits.”

  I related the first conversation to Bill, though there was surprisingly little to tell. Mustapha’d been here. He’d relayed Pam’s warning, which I hadn’t understood until I’d met Freyda. He’d warned me about Jannalynn. The second time he was here, he’d been worried about Warren.

  “You’ve told Eric this?” he asked.

  I snorted. “We’re not exactly having lengthy heart-to-hearts these days. My conversation with Freyda was longer than any talk I’ve had with Eric.”

  Wisely, Bill didn’t comment. He recapped. “So Mustapha comes to your house, though he’s been missing ever since the girl died. He tells you that he wants to talk to Alcide, but he’s afraid to call him or approach him directly since Jannalynn might be around to intercept him.”

  I thought that was a fair summary. “Yes, and I’ve passed that message along to Alcide,” I said. “Plus, what’s most important to Mustapha, his friend Warren is missing. I think someone abducted Warren, and they’re holding him in return for Mustapha’s good behavior.”

  “Then finding Warren would be a good thing,” Bill said, and I winced when I heard his voice. I’d screwed up.

  “I get that it was dumb for me not to have mentioned this first of all,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Tell me about this Warren.”

  “You haven’t ever seen him?”

  Bill shrugged. “No. Why would I?”

  “He’s a shooter. He was stationed outside Fangtasia the night we killed Victor.”

  “So that was Warren. Skinny little guy, big eyes, long hair?”

  “Sounds right.”

  “What are he and Mustapha to each other?”

  It was my turn to shrug. “I have no idea. They were in prison together, I think.”

  “Mustapha was in prison?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, his real name is KeShawn Johnson. I got that out of his head.”

  Bill look puzzled. “But … do you remember the vampire who decapitated Wybert at the beginning of the brawl at Sophie-Anne’s monastery?”

  “I’ll never forget that. Thin, dreadlocks?”

  “His name was Ra Shawn.”

  We were just swapping expressions. It was my turn to do Puzzled. “No, I don’t recollect that at all. Oh … wait, yeah. Andre told me his name.”

  “You don’t think it’s an interesting coincidence? Ra Shawn and KeShawn? Both black? Both supernaturals?”

  “But one’s a werewolf, and the other was a vampire. Ra Shawn could have been born hundreds of years ago. I guess they could be related.”

  “I think that’s just possible.” Bill was giving me a long-suffering look.

  “The database,” I suggested, and he pulled a little bunch of keys from his pocket. There was a black rectangle attached to the key ring.

  “I have it right here,” he said, and I was amazed all over again at Bill’s plunge into the modern world.

  “And that would be a what?” I asked.

  “This is a jump drive.” Bill looked quizzical.

  “Oh, sure.” I’d had enough of feeling dumb for the evening. We went inside so Bill could use my computer. Bill carried over a chair for me and then took his seat in the rolling chair directly in front of the screen.

  He inserted the little stick into a slot I hadn’t even realized was on the side of my computer. After a couple of minutes, he had The Vampire Directory on the screen.

  “Wow.” I looked at the opening, some very dramatic graphics. A pair of Gothic gates hung closed, a giant lock on them. The background music was dark and atmospheric. I hadn’t paid any attention when I’d used a stolen copy of the database before, because I’d been so conscious of my guilt. Now I could appreciate the graveyard humor in Bill’s presentation. A written introduction appeared superimposed on the gates in many different languages. After you selected the language you wanted, a solemn voice read the introduction out loud. Bill skipped through all that. He touched a few keys, and the Gothic gates creaked open to show all our options. As Bill explained, you could sort the vampires in different ways. You could look for vampires in Yugoslavia, for example, or you could look for female vampires in the St. Louis area. Or all vampires more than a thousand years old in Myanmar.

  “I can’t believe you did all this,” I said admiringly. “It’s so cool.”

  “It was a lot of work,” he said absently, “and I had a lot of help.”

  “How many languages is it available in?”

  “So far, thirty.”

  “This must have made money hand over fist, Bill. I hope you got some of it yourself.” I hoped it wasn’t pouring into the bank account of Felipe de Castro. Who so didn’t deserve it.

  “I’ve made some change from it,” Bill said, smiling.

  That was a good expression to see on Bill’s face. He didn’t wear it often enough.

  In a jiffy, he’d called up the entry for Ra Shawn. The vampire had been about thirty at the time of his human death, but he’d been a vampire for (maybe) a hundred years at the time of his second death. Ra Shawn’s background was hazy, but he’d first been noticed in Haiti, Bill’s sources had told him. The dreadlocked Ra Shawn had long been a cult figure in the black supernatural community. He had been the cool and deadly black vampire, hired by kings, gangsters, and political figures as a fighter.

  “Well,” I said, “Maybe Mustapha’s—KeShawn’s—parents were into supernatural African culture. After prison, maybe he became a Blade clone because he wanted a more current model.”

  “Everybody needs a hero,” Bill agreed, and I opened my mouth to ask him who his had been. Robert E. Lee?

  “What are you two doing?” Eric asked, and I jumped and gave a little yip of surprise. Even Bill twitched.

  “It’s only polite to let me know you’re coming into my house,” I said, because he’d really scared me and I was angry in consequence.

  “It’s only polite,” Eric said mockingly, imitating my voice in a very irritating way. “I think it’s ‘only polite’ that my wife should let me know when she’s entertaining a male visitor, furthermore one that has shared her bed.”

  I took a deep breath, hoping it would help me calm down. “You’re acting like an asshole,” I said, so maybe the deep breath hadn’t helped so very much. “I have never cheated on you, and I have trusted you never to cheat on me. Maybe I should rethink that, since you don’t seem to have much faith in me.”

  Eric looked taken aback. “I have never fucked another woman since I took you to wife,” he said haughtily.

  I couldn’t help but realize that left a lot of territory uncovered—but now was not the time to ask detailed questions.

  Bill was sitting like a statue. I spared a second to appreciate his predicament. Eric was so plainly in a very bad mood, anything Bill said was going to be taken in evidence against him.

  A diversion was in order, though I felt a flash of resentment that I had to defuse the situation. “Why are you so mad, anyway?” I said. “Something go wrong at Fangtasia?”

  Eric’s face relaxed just a fraction. “Nothing is right,” he said. “Felipe and his companions are still in town. He may still bring charges against me for killing Victor. At the same time, you can tell he’s delighted we killed Victor. He and Freyda have just had a long talk in private. Mustapha is still missing. The police have been by Fangtasia to question me again. They wanted me to permit cadaver dogs to go over my property. I had to say yes, but it makes me furious. How stupid would I be to bury someone on my own property? They’ve searched the house again. T-Rex and his women came into the bar tonight, and he acted as though he were my best friend. The women used drugs in the bathroom. Thalia rousted them a little too energetically and broke Cherie’s nose. I’ll have to pay for her hospital visit, though she did promise not to relate what had happened in return for our not telling the police she’s a drug user.”

  “My goodness,”
I said gently. “And then you walk in your girlfriend’s house to find her looking at a computer screen with another man. You have had a terrible night, poor fella.”

  Bill raised an eyebrow to let me know I was troweling it on too thick.

  I ignored him. “If I’d seen you around, or had a conversation with you that lasted longer than thirty seconds, I’d have told you that Mustapha had come by here,” I said in a sweet voice. “And I’d have told you what he said.”

  “Tell me now,” Eric said, in a much more neutral voice. “If you please.”

  Okay, he’d made an effort. So once again, I related the account of Mustapha’s visit, his warning about Jannalynn, and his concern for Warren’s safety.

  “So Bill and Heidi need to scent this Jannalynn, and then we’ll know if she was the one who led the girl to my house, who sent her up to Mustapha. We’ll know why he was involved with this plan if we can find him—or his friend Warren—and they’ll tell us what we can do to get them out of the picture. Sookie, would Sam call this woman, if you asked him to do so?”

  My mouth fell open. “That would be terrible of me, to ask him to bring her in, to betray her. I won’t do it.”

  “But you can see that would be best for all of us,” Eric said. “Bill or Heidi goes up to her, shakes her hand—then they will have her scent, and we’ll know. Sam doesn’t need to do anything beyond that. We’ll take care of everything else.”

  “What would that ‘everything else’ be?”

  “What do you think?” Bill asked impatiently. “She has information we need to learn, and she seems to be a key part of the plot to implicate Eric in a murder. This woman is a murderer herself, most likely. We need to make her talk.”

  “The same way the Weres made you talk in Mississippi, Bill?” I snapped.

  “Why do you care if something happens to the bitch?” Eric said, his blond eyebrows rising in query.

  “I don’t,” I said instantly. “I can’t stand her.”