I was so naive. That’s what comes of being a law-abiding citizen for nearly every day of my life.
I rode with Jason to the tiny local hospital, oblivious to the police looking very carefully at Jason’s truck, blind to the squad car following the ambulance, totally trusting when the emergency room doctor sent me home, telling me he’d call me when Jason regained consciousness. The doctor told me, eyeing me curiously, that Jason was apparently sleeping off the effects of alcohol or drugs. But Jason had never drunk that much before, and Jason didn’t use drugs: our cousin Hadley’s descent into the life of the streets had made a profound impression on both of us. I told the doctor all that, and he listened, and he shooed me off.
Not knowing what to think, I went home to find that Andy Bellefleur had been roused by his pager. He’d left me a note telling me that, and nothing else. Later on, I found that he’d actually been in the hospital while I was there, and waited until I was gone out of consideration for me before he’d handcuffed Jason to the bed.
Chapter 12
SAM CAME TO give me the news about eleven o’clock.
“They’re going to arrest Jason as soon as he comes to, Sookie, which looks like being soon.” Sam didn’t tell me how he came to know this, and I didn’t ask.
I stared at him, tears running down my face. Any other day, I might have thought of how plain I look when I cry, but today was not a day I cared about my outsides. I was all in a knot, frightened for Jason, sad about Amy Burley, full of anger the police were making such a stupid mistake, and underneath it all, missing my Bill.
“They think it looks like Amy Burley put up a fight. They think he got drunk after he killed her.”
“Thanks, Sam, for warning me.” My voice came from way faraway. “You better go to work, now.”
After Sam had seen that I needed to be alone, I called information and got the number of Blood in the Quarter. I punched in the numbers, feeling somehow I was doing a bad thing, but I couldn’t think how or why.
“Bloooooood . . . in the Quarter,” announced a deep voice dramatically. “Your coffin away from home.”
Geez. “Good morning. This is Sookie Stackhouse calling from Bon Temps,” I said politely. “I need to leave a message for Bill Compton. He’s a guest there.”
“Fang or human?”
“Ah . . . fang.”
“Just one minute, please.”
The deep voice came back on the line after a moment. “What is the message, madam?”
That gave me pause.
“Please tell Mr. Compton that . . . my brother has been arrested, and I would appreciate it if he could come home as soon as his business is completed.”
“I have that down.” The sound of scribbling. “And your name again?”
“Stackhouse. Sookie Stackhouse.”
“All right, miss. I’ll see to it that he gets your message.”
“Thanks.”
And that was the only action I could think of to take, until I realized it would be much more practical to call Sid Matt Lancaster. He did his best to sound appalled to hear Jason was going to be arrested, said he’d hurry over to the hospital as soon as he got out of court that afternoon, and that he’d report back to me.
I drove back to the hospital to see if they’d let me sit with Jason until he became conscious. They wouldn’t. I wondered if he was already conscious, and they weren’t telling me. I saw Andy Bellefleur at the other end of the hall, and he turned and walked the other way.
Damn coward.
I went home because I couldn’t think of anything to do. I realized it wasn’t a workday for me anyway, and that was a good thing, though I didn’t really care too much at that point. It occurred to me that I wasn’t handling this as well as I ought, that I had been much steadier when Gran had died.
But that had been a finite situation. We would bury Gran, her killer would be arrested, we would go on. If the police seriously believed that Jason had killed Gran in addition to the other women, then the world was such a bad and chancy place that I wanted no part of it.
But I realized, as I sat and looked in front of me that long, long afternoon, that it was naivete like that that had led to Jason’s arrest. If I’d just gotten him into Sam’s trailer and cleaned him up, hidden the film until I found out what it contained, above all not called the ambulance . . . that had been what Sam had been thinking when he’d looked at me so doubtfully. However, Arlene’s arrival had kind of wiped out my options.
I thought the phone would start ringing as soon as people heard.
But no one called.
They didn’t know what to say.
Sid Matt Lancaster came about four-thirty.
Without any preliminary, he told me, “They’ve arrested him. For first-degree murder.”
I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Sid was regarding me with a shrewd expression on his mild face. His conservative black-framed glasses magnified his muddy brown eyes, and his jowls and sharp nose made him look a little like a bloodhound.
“What does he say?” I asked.
“He says that he was with Amy last night.”
I sighed.
“He says they went to bed together, that he had been with Amy before. He says he hadn’t seen Amy in a long time, that the last time they were together Amy was acting jealous about the other women he was seeing, really angry. So he was surprised when she approached him last night in Good Times. Jason says Amy acted funny all night, like she had an agenda he didn’t know about. He remembers having sex with her, he remembers them lying in bed having a drink afterward, then he remembers nothing until he woke up in the hospital.”
“He was set up,” I said firmly, thinking I sounded exactly like a bad made-for-TV movie.
“Of course.” Sid Matt’s eyes were as steady and assured as if he’d been at Amy Burley’s place last night.
Hell, maybe he had.
“Listen, Sid Matt.” I leaned forward and made him meet my eyes. “Even if I could somehow believe that Jason had killed Amy, and Dawn, and Maudette, I could never believe he would raise his finger to hurt my grandmother.”
“All right, then.” Sid Matt prepared to meet my thoughts, fair and square, his entire body proclaimed it. “Miss Sookie, let’s just assume for a minute that Jason did have some kind of involvement in those deaths. Perhaps, the police might think, your friend Bill Compton killed your grandmother since she was keeping you two apart.”
I tried to give the appearance of considering this piece of idiocy. “Well, Sid Matt, my grandmother liked Bill, and she was pleased I was seeing him.”
Until he put his game face back on, I saw stark disbelief in the lawyer’s eyes. He wouldn’t be at all happy if his daughter was seeing a vampire. He couldn’t imagine a responsible parent being anything but appalled. And he couldn’t imagine trying to convince a jury that my grandmother had been pleased I was dating a guy who wasn’t even alive, and furthermore was over a hundred years older than me.
Those were Sid Matt’s thoughts.
“Have you met Bill?” I asked.
He was taken aback. “No,” he admitted. “You know, Miss Sookie, I’m not for this vampire stuff. I think it’s taking a chink out of a wall we should keep built up, a wall between us and the so-called virus-infected. I think God intended that wall to be there, and I for one will hold up my section.”
“The problem with that, Sid Matt, is that I personally was created straddling that wall.” After a lifetime of keeping my mouth shut about my “gift,” I found that if it would help Jason, I’d shake it in anybody’s face.
“Well,” Sid Matt said bravely, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his sharp nose, “I am sure the Good Lord gave you this problem I’ve heard about for a reason. You have to learn how to use it for his glory.”
No one had ever quite put it that way. That was an idea to chew over when I had time.
“I’ve made us stray from the subject, I’m afraid, and I know your time is valuable.” I gathered my t
houghts. “I want Jason out on bail. There is nothing but circumstantial evidence tying him to Amy’s murder, am I right?”
“He’s admitted to being with the victim right before the murder, and the videotape, one of the cops hinted to me pretty strongly, shows your brother having sex with the victim. The time and date on the film indicate it was made in the hours before her death, if not minutes.”
Damn Jason’s peculiar bedroom preferences. “Jason doesn’t drink much at all. He smelled of liquor in the truck. I think it was just spilled over him. I think a test will prove that. Maybe Amy gave him some narcotic in the drink she fixed him.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because, like so many women, she was mad at Jason because she wanted him so much. My brother is able to date almost anyone he wants. No, I’m using that euphemism.”
Sid Matt looked surprised I knew the word.
“He could go to bed with almost anyone he wanted. A dream life, most guys would think.” Weariness descended on me like fog. “Now there he sits in the jail.”
“You think another man did this to him? Framed him for this murder?”
“Yes, I do.” I leaned forward, trying to persuade this skeptical lawyer by the force of my own belief. “Someone envious of him. Someone who knows his schedule, who kills these women when Jason’s off work. Someone who knows Jason had had sex with these gals. Someone who knows he likes to make tapes.”
“Could be almost anyone,” Jason’s lawyer said practically.
“Yep,” I said sadly. “Even if Jason was nice enough to keep quiet about exactly who he’d been with, all anyone’d have to do is see who he left a bar with at closing time. Just being observant, maybe having asked about the tapes on a visit to his house . . .” My brother might be somewhat immoral, but I didn’t think he’d show those videos to anyone else. He might tell another man that he liked to make the videos, though. “So this man, whoever he is, made some kind of deal with Amy, knowing she was mad at Jason. Maybe he told her he was going to play a practical joke on Jason or something.”
“Your brother’s never been arrested before,” Sid Matt observed.
“No.” Though it had been a near thing, a couple of times, to hear Jason tell it.
“No record, upstanding member of the community, steady job. There may be a chance I can get him out on bail. But if he runs, you’ll lose everything.”
It truly had never occurred to me that Jason might skip bail. I didn’t know anything about arranging for bail, and I didn’t know what I’d have to do, but I wanted Jason out of that jail. Somehow, staying in jail until the legal processes had been gone through before the trial . . . somehow, that would make him look guiltier.
“You find out about it and let me know what I have to do,” I said. “In the meantime, can I go see him?”
“He’d rather you didn’t,” Sid Matt said.
That hurt dreadfully. “Why?” I asked, trying really hard not to tear up again.
“He’s ashamed,” said the lawyer.
The thought of Jason feeling shame was fascinating. “So,” I said, trying to move along, suddenly tired of this unsatisfactory meeting. “You’ll call me when I can actually do something?”
Sid Matt nodded, his jowls trembling slightly with the movement. I made him uneasy. He sure was glad to be leaving me.
The lawyer drove off in his pickup, clapping a cowboy hat on his head when he was still in sight.
When it was full dark, I went out to check on Bubba. He was sitting under a pin oak, bottles of blood lined up beside him, empties on one side, fulls on the other.
I had a flashlight, and though I knew Bubba was there, it was still a shock to see him in the beam of light. I shook my head. Something really had gone wrong when Bubba “came over,” no doubt about it. I was sincerely glad I couldn’t read Bubba’s thoughts. His eyes were crazy as hell.
“Hey, sugar,” he said, his Southern accent as thick as syrup. “How you doing? You come to keep me company?”
“I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable,” I said.
“Well, I could think of places I’d be more comfortable, but since you’re Bill’s girl, I ain’t about to talk about them.”
“Good,” I said firmly.
“Any cats around here? I’m getting mighty tired of this bottled stuff.”
“No cats. I’m sure Bill will be back soon, and then you can go home.” I started back toward the house, not feeling comfortable enough in Bubba’s presence to prolong the conversation, if you could call it that. I wondered what thoughts Bubba had during his long watchful nights; I wondered if he remembered his past.
“What about that dog?” he called after me.
“He went home,” I called back over my shoulder.
“Too bad,” Bubba said to himself, so softly I almost didn’t hear him.
I got ready for bed. I watched television. I ate some ice cream, and I even chopped up a Heath Bar for a topping. None of my usual comfort things seemed to work tonight. My brother was in jail, my boyfriend was in New Orleans, my grandmother was dead, and someone had murdered my cat. I felt lonely and sorry for myself all the way around.
Sometimes you just have to roll in it.
Bill didn’t return my call.
That added fuel to the flame of my misery. He’d probably found some accommodating whore in New Orleans, or some fang-banger, like the ones who hung around Blood in the Quarter every night, hoping for a vampire “date.”
If I were a drinking woman, I would have gotten drunk. If I’d been a casual woman, I would have called lovely JB du Rone and had sex with him. But I’m not anything so dramatic or drastic, so I just ate ice cream and watched old movies on TV. By an eerie coincidence, Blue Hawaii was on.
I finally went to bed about midnight.
A shriek outside my bedroom window woke me up. I sat up straight in bed. I heard thumps, and thuds, and finally a voice I was sure was Bubba’s shouting, “Come back here, sucker!”
When I hadn’t heard anything in a couple of minutes, I pulled on a bathrobe and went to the front door. The yard, lit by the security light, was empty. Then I glimpsed movement to the left, and when I stuck my head out the door, I saw Bubba, trudging back to his hideout.
“What happened?” I called softly.
Bubba changed direction and slouched over to the porch.
“Sure enough, some sumbitch, scuse me, was sneaking around the house,” Bubba said. His brown eyes were glowing, and he looked more like his former self. “I heard him minutes before he got here, and I thought I’d catch ahold of him. But he cut through the woods to the road, and he had a truck parked there.”
“Did you get a look?”
“Not enough of one to describe him,” Bubba said shamefacedly. “He was driving a pickup, but I couldn’t even tell what color it was. Dark.”
“You saved me, though,” I said, hoping my very real gratitude showed in my voice. I felt a swell of love for Bill, who had arranged my protection. Even Bubba looked better than he had before. “Thanks, Bubba.”
“Aw, think nothing of it,” he said graciously, and for that moment he stood up straight, kind of tossed his head back, had that sleepy smile on his face . . . it was him, and I’d opened my mouth to say his name, when Bill’s warning came back to shut my mouth.
JASON MADE BAIL the next day.
It cost a fortune. I signed what Sid Matt told me to, though mostly the collateral was Jason’s house and truck and his fishing boat. If Jason had ever been arrested before, even for jaywalking, I don’t think he would have been permitted to post bond.
I was standing on the courthouse steps wearing my horrible, sober, navy blue suit in the heat of the late morning. Sweat trickled down my face and ran between my lips in that nasty way that makes you want to go jump in the shower. Jason stopped in front of me. I hadn’t been sure he would speak. His face was years older. Real trouble had come to sit on his shoulder, real trouble that would not go away or ease up, like gri
ef did.
“I can’t talk to you about this,” he said, so softly I could barely hear him. “You know it wasn’t me. I’ve never been violent beyond a fight or two in a parking lot over some woman.”
I touched his shoulder, let my hand drop when he didn’t respond. “I never thought it was you. I never will. I’m sorry I was fool enough to call 911 yesterday. If I’d realized that wasn’t your blood, I’d have taken you into Sam’s trailer and cleaned you up and burned the tape. I was just so scared that was your blood.” And I felt my eyes fill. This was no time to cry, though, and I tightened up all over, feeling my face tense. Jason’s mind was a mess, like a mental pigsty. In it bubbled an unhealthy brew compounded of regrets, shame at his sexual habits being made public, guilt that he didn’t feel worse about Amy being killed, horror that anyone in the town would think he’d killed his own grandmother while lying in wait for his sister.
“We’ll get through this,” I said helplessly.
“We’ll get through this,” he repeated, trying to make his voice sound strong and assured. But I thought it would be awhile, a long while, before Jason’s assurance, that golden certainty that had made him irresistible, returned to his posture and his face and his speech.
Maybe it never would.
We parted there, at the courthouse. We had nothing more to say.
I sat in the bar all day, looking at the men who came in, reading their minds. Not one of them was thinking of how he’d killed four women and gotten away with it so far. At lunchtime Hoyt and Rene walked in the door and walked back out when they saw me sitting. Too embarrassing for them, I guess.
Finally, Sam made me leave. He said I was so creepy that I was driving away any customers who might give me useful information.
I trudged out the door and into the glaring sun. It was about to set. I thought about Bubba, about Bill, about all those creatures that were coming out of their deep sleep to walk the surface of the earth.
I stopped at the Grabbit Kwik to buy some milk for my morning cereal. The new clerk was a kid with pimples and a huge Adam’s apple, who stared at me eagerly as if he was trying to make a print in his head of how I looked, the sister of a murderer. I could tell he could hardly wait for me to leave the store so he could use the phone to call his girlfriend. He was wishing he could see the puncture marks on my neck. He was wondering if there was any way he could find out how vampires did it.
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