Dead Ever After: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

by Charlaine Harris

  “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 wit
h 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 no
t 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.