Mr. Sterling Norris, a longtime friend of my grandmother’s and the mayor of Bon Temps, was the greeter that night, and he stood at the door shaking hands and having a little conversation with everyone who entered.
“Miss Sookie, you look prettier every day,” Mr. Norris said. “And Sam, we haven’t seen you in a coon’s age! Sookie, is it true this vampire is a friend of yours?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you say for sure that we’re all safe?”
“Yes, I’m sure you are. He’s a very nice . . . person.” Being? Entity? If you like the living dead, he’s pretty neat?
“If you say so,” Mr. Norris said dubiously. “In my time, such a thing was just a fairy tale.”
“Oh, Mr. Norris, it’s still your time,” I said with the cheerful smile expected of me, and he laughed and motioned us on in, which was what was expected of him. Sam took my hand and sort of steered me to the next to last row of metal chairs, and I waved at my grandmother as we took our seats. It was just time for the meeting to start, and the room held maybe forty people, quite a gathering for Bon Temps. But Bill wasn’t there.
Just then the president of Descendants, a massive, solid woman by the name of Maxine Fortenberry, came to the podium.
“Good evening! Good evening!” she boomed. “Our guest of honor has just called to say he’s having car trouble and will be a few minutes late. So let’s go on and have our business meeting while we’re waiting for him.”
The group settled down, and we got through all the boring stuff, Sam sitting beside me with his arms crossed over his chest, his right leg crossed over the left at the ankle. I was being especially careful to keep my mind guarded and face smiling, and I was a little deflated when Sam leaned slightly to me and whispered, “It’s okay to relax.”
“I thought I was,” I whispered back.
“I don’t think you know how.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. I was going to have a few things to say to Mr. Merlotte after the meeting.
Just then Bill came in, and there was a moment of sheer silence as those who hadn’t seen him before adjusted to his presence. If you’ve never been in the company of a vampire before, it’s a thing you really have to get used to. Under the flourescent lighting, Bill really looked much more unhuman than he did under the dim lighting in Merlotte’s, or the equally dim lighting in his own home. There was no way he could pass for a regular guy. His pallor was very marked, of course, and the deep pools of his eyes looked darker and colder. He was wearing a lightweight medium-blue suit, and I was willing to bet that had been Gran’s advice. He looked great. The dominant line of the arch of his eyebrow, the curve of his bold nose, the chiseled lips, the white hands with their long fingers and carefully trimmed nails . . . He was having an exchange with the president, and she was charmed out of her support hose by Bill’s close-lipped smile.
I didn’t know if Bill was casting a glamor over the whole room, or if these people were just predisposed to be interested, but the whole group hushed expectantly.
Then Bill saw me. I swear his eyebrows twitched. He gave me a little bow, and I nodded back, finding no smile in me to give him. Even in the crowd, I stood at the edge of the deep pool of his silence.
Mrs. Fortenberry introduced Bill, but I don’t remember what she said or how she skirted the fact that Bill was a different kind of creature.
Then Bill began speaking. He had notes, I saw with some surprise. Beside me, Sam leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Bill’s face.
“. . . we didn’t have any blankets and very little food,” Bill was saying calmly. “There were many deserters.”
That was not a favorite fact of the Descendants, but a few of them were nodding in agreement. This account must match what they’d learned in their studies.
An ancient man in the first row raised his hand.
“Sir, did you by chance know my great-grandfather, Tolliver Humphries?”
“Yes,” Bill said, after a moment. His face was unreadable. “Tolliver was my friend.”
And just for a moment, there was something so tragic in his voice that I had to close my eyes.
“What was he like?” quavered the old man.
“Well, he was foolhardy, which led to his death,” said Bill with a wry smile. “He was brave. He never made a cent in his life that he didn’t waste.”
“How did he die? Were you there?”
“Yes, I was there,” said Bill wearily. “I saw him get shot by a Northern sniper in the woods about twenty miles from here. He was slow because he was starved. We all were. About the middle of the morning, a cold morning, Tolliver saw a boy in our troop get shot as he lay in poor cover in the middle of a field. The boy was not dead, but painfully wounded. But he could call to us, and he did, all morning. He called to us to help him. He knew he would die if someone didn’t.”
The whole room had grown so silent you could hear a pin drop.
“He screamed and he moaned. I almost shot him myself, to shut him up, because I knew to venture out to rescue him was suicide. But I could not quite bring myself to kill him. That would be murder, not war, I told myself. But later I wished I had shot him, for Tolliver was less able than I to withstand the boy’s pleading. After two hours of it, he told me he planned to try to rescue the boy. I argued with him. But Tolliver told me that God wanted him to attempt it. He had been praying as we lay in the woods.
“Though I told Tolliver that God did not wish him to waste his life foolishly—that he had a wife and children praying for his safe return at home—Tolliver asked me to divert the enemy while he attempted the boy’s rescue. He ran out into the field like it was a spring day and he was well rested. And he got as far as the wounded boy. But then a shot rang out, and Tolliver fell dead. And, after a time, the boy began screaming for help again.”
“What happened to him?” asked Mrs. Fortenberry, her voice as quiet as she could manage to make it.
“He lived,” Bill said, and there was tone to his voice that sent shivers down my spine. “He survived the day, and we were able to retrieve him that night.”
Somehow those people had come alive again as Bill spoke, and for the old man in the front row there was a memory to cherish, a memory that said much about his ancestor’s character.
I don’t think anyone who’d come to the meeting that night was prepared for the impact of hearing about the Civil War from a survivor. They were enthralled; they were shattered.
When Bill had answered the last question, there was thunderous applause, or at least it was as thunderous as forty people could make it. Even Sam, not Bill’s biggest fan, managed to put his hands together.
Everyone wanted to have a personal word with Bill afterward except me and Sam. While the reluctant guest speaker was surrounded by Descendants, Sam and I sneaked out to Sam’s pickup. We went to the Crawdad Diner, a real dive that happened to have very good food. I wasn’t hungry, but Sam had key lime pie with his coffee.
“That was interesting,” Sam said cautiously.
“Bill’s speech? Yes,” I said, just as cautiously.
“Do you have feelings for him?”
After all the indirection, Sam had decided to storm the main gate.
“Yes,” I said.
“Sookie,” Sam said, “You have no future with him.”
“On the other hand, he’s been around a while. I expect he’ll be around for a another few hundred years.”
“You never know what’s going to happen to a vampire.”
I couldn’t argue with that. But, as I pointed out to Sam, I couldn’t know what was going to happen to me, a human, either.
We wrangled back and forth like this for too long. Finally, exasperated, I said, “What’s it to you, Sam?”
His ruddy skin flushed. His bright blue eyes met mine. “I like you, Sookie. As friend or maybe something else sometime . . .”
Huh?
“I just hate to see you take a wrong turn.”
I looked at him. I could feel
my skeptical face forming, eyebrows drawn together, the corner of my mouth tugging up.
“Sure,” I said, my voice matching my face.
“I’ve always liked you.”
“So much that you had to wait till someone else showed an interest, before you mentioned it to me?”
“I deserve that.” He seemed to be turning something over in his mind, something he wanted to say, but hadn’t the resolution.
Whatever it was, he couldn’t come out with it, apparently.
“Let’s go,” I suggested. It would be hard to turn the conversation back to neutral ground, I figured. I might as well go home.
It was a funny ride back. Sam always seemed on the verge of speaking, and then he’d shake his head and keep silent. I was so aggravated I wanted to swat him.
We got home later than I’d thought. Gran’s light was on, but the rest of the house was dark. I didn’t see her car, so I figured she’d parked in back to unload the leftovers right into the kitchen. The porch light was on for me.
Sam walked around and opened the pickup door, and I stepped down. But in the shadow, my foot missed the running board, and I just sort of tumbled out. Sam caught me. First his hands gripped my arms to steady me, then they just slid around me. And he kissed me.
I assumed it was going to be a little good-night peck, but his mouth just kind of lingered. It was really more than pleasant, but suddenly my inner censor said, “This is the boss.”
I gently disengaged. He was immediately aware that I was backing off, and gently slid his hands down my arms until he was just holding hands with me. We went to the door, not speaking.
“I had a good time,” I said, softly. I didn’t want to wake Gran, and I didn’t want to sound bouncy.
“I did, too. Again sometime?”
“We’ll see,” I said. I really didn’t know how I felt about Sam.
I waited to hear his truck turn around before I switched off the porch light and went into the house. I was unbuttoning my blouse as I walked, tired and ready for bed.
Something was wrong.
I stopped in the middle of the living room. I looked around me.
Everything looked all right, didn’t it?
Yes. Everything was in its proper place.
It was the smell.
It was a sort of penny smell.
A coppery smell, sharp and salty.
The smell of blood.
It was down here with me, not upstairs where the guest bedrooms sat in neat solitude.
“Gran?” I called. I hated the quavering in my voice.
I made myself move, I made myself go to the door of her room. It was pristine. I began switching on lights as I went through the house.
My room was just as I’d left it.
The bathroom was empty.
The washroom was empty.
I switched on the last light. The kitchen was . . .
I screamed, over and over. My hands were fluttering uselessly in the air, trembling more with each scream. I heard a crash behind me, but couldn’t be concerned. Then big hands gripped me and moved me, and a big body was between me and what I’d seen on the kitchen floor. I didn’t recognize Bill, but he picked me up and moved me to the living room where I couldn’t see any more.
“Sookie,” he said harshly, “Shut up! This isn’t any good!”
If he’d been kind to me, I’d have kept on shrieking.
“Sorry,” I said, still out of my mind. “I am acting like that boy.”
He stared at me blankly.
“The one in your story,” I said numbly.
“We have to call the police.”
“Sure.”
“We have to dial the phone.”
“Wait. How did you come here?”
“Your grandmother gave me a ride home, but I insisted on coming with her first and helping her unload the car.”
“So why are you still here?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“So, did you see who killed her?”
“No. I went home, across the cemetery, to change.”
He was wearing blue jeans and Grateful Dead T-shirt, and suddenly I began to giggle.
“That’s priceless,” I said, doubling over with the laughter.
And I was crying, just as suddenly. I picked up the phone and dialled 911.
Andy Bellefleur was there in five minutes.
JASON CAME AS soon as I reached him. I tried to call him at four or five different places, and finally reached him at Merlotte’s. Terry Bellefleur was bartending for Sam that night, and when he’d gotten back from telling Jason to come to his grandmother’s house, I asked Terry if he’d call Sam and tell him I had troubles and couldn’t work for a few days.
Terry must have called Sam right away because Sam was at my house within thirty minutes, still wearing the clothes he’d worn to the meeting that night. At the sight of him I looked down, remembering unbuttoning my blouse as I walked through the living room, a fact I’d completely lost track of; but I was decent. It dawned on me that Bill must have set me to rights. I might find that embarrassing later, but at the moment I was just grateful.
So Jason came in, and when I told him Gran was dead, and dead by violence, he just looked at me. There seemed to be nothing going on behind his eyes. It was as if someone had erased his capacity for absorbing new facts. Then what I’d said sank in, and my brother sank to his knees right where he stood, and I knelt in front of him. He put his arms around me and lay his head on my shoulder, and we just stayed there for a while. We were all that was left.
Bill and Sam were out in the front yard sitting in lawn chairs, out of the way of the police. Soon Jason and I were asked to go out on the porch, at least, and we opted to sit outside, too. It was a mild evening, and I sat facing the house, all lit up like a birthday cake, and the people that came and went from it like ants who’d been allowed at the party. All this industry surrounding the tissue that had been my grandmother.
“What happened?” Jason asked finally.
“I came in from the meeting,” I said very slowly. “After Sam pulled off in his truck. I knew something was wrong. I looked in every room.” This was the story of How I Found Grandmother Dead, the official version. “And when I got to the kitchen I saw her.”
Jason turned his head very slowly so his eyes met mine.
“Tell me.”
I shook my head silently. But it was his right to know. “She was beaten up, but she had tried to fight back, I think. Whoever did this cut her up some. And then strangled her, it looked like.”
I could not even look at my brother’s face. “It was my fault.” My voice was nothing more than a whisper.
“How do you figure that?” Jason said, sounding nothing more than dull and sluggish.
“I figure someone came to kill me like they killed Maudette and Dawn, but Gran was here instead.”
I could see the idea percolate in Jason’s brain.
“I was supposed to be home tonight while she was at the meeting, but Sam asked me to go at the last minute. My car was here like it would be normally because we went in Sam’s truck. Gran had parked her car around back while she was unloading, so it wouldn’t look like she was here, just me. She had given Bill a ride home, but he helped her unload and went to change clothes. After he left, whoever it was . . . got her.”
“How do we know it wasn’t Bill?” Jason asked, as though Bill wasn’t sitting right there beside him.
“How do we know it wasn’t anyone?” I said, exasperated at my brother’s slow wits. “It could be anyone, anyone we know. I don’t think it was Bill. I don’t think Bill killed Maudette and Dawn. And I do think whoever killed Maudette and Dawn killed Grandmother.”
“Did you know,” Jason said, his voice too loud, “that Grandmother left you this house all by yourself?”
It was like he’d thrown a bucket of cold water in my face. I saw Sam wince, too. Bill’s eyes got darker and chillier.
“No. I just always assum
ed you and I would share like we did on the other one.” Our parents’ house, the one Jason lived in now.
“She left you all the land, too.”
“Why are you saying this?” I was going to cry again, just when I’d been sure I was dry of tears now.
“She wasn’t fair!” he was yelling. “It wasn’t fair, and now she can’t set it right!”
I began to shake. Bill pulled me out of the chair and began walking with me up and down the yard. Sam sat in front of Jason and began talking to him earnestly, his voice low and intense.
Bill’s arm was around me, but I couldn’t stop shaking.
“Did he mean that?” I asked, not expecting Bill to answer.
“No,” he said. I looked up, surprised.
“No, he couldn’t help your grandmother, and he couldn’t handle the idea of someone lying in wait for you and killing her instead. So he had to get angry about something. And instead of getting angry with you for not getting killed, he’s angry about things. I wouldn’t let it worry me.”
“I think it’s pretty amazing that you’re saying this,” I told him bluntly.
“Oh, I took some night school courses in psychology,” said Bill Compton, vampire.
And, I couldn’t help thinking, hunters always study their prey. “Why would Gran leave me all this, and not Jason?”
“Maybe you’ll find out later,” he said, and that seemed fine to me.
Then Andy Bellefleur came out of the house and stood on the steps, looking up at the sky as if there were clues written on it.
“Compton,” he called sharply.
“No,” I said, and my voice came out as a growl.
I could feel Bill look down at me with the slight surprise that was a big reaction, coming from him.
“Now it’s gonna happen,” I said furiously.
“You were protecting me,” he said. “You thought the police would suspect me of killing those two women. That’s why you wanted to be sure they were accessible to other vampires. Now you think this Bellefleur will try to blame your grandmother’s death on me.”
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