“That’s so nice of you,” I said, putting all my sincerity into my voice. “Every soul in Bon Temps would have us on the way to being married if I did that, but I sure do appreciate it.”
“You don’t think they won’t make assumptions if you stay with Bill?”
“I can’t marry Bill. Not legal,” I replied, cutting off that argument. “Besides, Charles is there, too.”
“Fuel to the fire,” Sam pointed out. “That’s even spicier.”
“That’s kind of flattering, crediting me with enough pizzazz to take care of two vampires at a go.”
Sam grinned, which knocked about ten years off his age. He looked over my shoulder as we heard the sound of gravel crunching under yet another vehicle. “Look who’s coming,” he said.
A huge and ancient pickup lumbered to a stop. Out of it stepped Dawson, the huge Were who’d been acting as Calvin Norris’s bodyguard.
“Sookie,” he rumbled, his voice so deep I expected the ground to vibrate.
“Hey, Dawson.” I wanted to ask, “What are you doing here?” but I figured that would sound plain rude.
“Calvin heard about your fire,” Dawson said, not wasting time with preliminaries. “He told me to come by here and see was you hurt, and to tell you that he is thinking about you and that if he were well, he would be here pounding nails already.”
I saw from the corner of my eye that Dennis Pettibone was eyeing Dawson with interest. Dawson might as well have been wearing a sign that said DANGEROUS DUDE on it.
“You tell him I’m real grateful for the thought. I wish he were well, too. How’s he doing, Dawson?”
“He got a couple of things unhooked this morning, and he’s been walking a little. It was a bad wound,” Dawson said. “It’ll take a bit.” He glanced over to see how far away the arson investigator was. “Even for one of us,” he added.
“Of course,” I said. “I appreciate your coming by.”
“Also, Calvin says his house is empty while he’s in the hospital, if you need a place to stay. He’d be glad to give you the use of it.”
That, too, was kind, and I said so. But I would feel very awkward, being obliged to Calvin in such a significant way.
Dennis Pettibone called me over. “See, Ms. Stackhouse,” he said. “You can see where he used the gasoline on your porch. See the way the fire ran out from the splash he made on the door?”
I gulped. “Yes, I see.”
“You’re lucky there wasn’t any wind last night. And most of all, you’re lucky that you had that door shut, the one between the kitchen and the rest of the house. The fire would have gone right down that hall if you hadn’t shut the door. When the firefighters smashed that window on the north side, the fire ran that way looking for oxygen, instead of trying to make it into the rest of the house.”
I remembered the impulse that had pushed me back into the house against all common sense, the last-minute slam of that door.
“After a couple of days, I don’t think the bulk of the house will even smell as bad,” the investigator told me. “Open the windows now, pray it don’t rain, and fairly soon I don’t think you’ll have much problem. Course, you got to call the power company and talk to them about the electricity. And the propane company needs to take a look at the tank. So the house ain’t livable, from that point of view.”
The gist of what he was saying was, I could just sleep there to have a roof over my head. No electricity, no heat, no hot water, no cooking. I thanked Dennis Pettibone and excused myself to have a last word with Dawson, who’d been listening in.
“I’ll try to come see Calvin in a day or two, once I get this straightened out,” I said, nodding toward the blackened back of my house.
“Oh, yeah,” the bodyguard said, one foot already in his pickup. “Calvin said let him know who done this, if it was ordered by someone besides the sumbitch dead at the scene.”
I looked at what remained of my kitchen and could almost count the feet from the flames to my bedroom. “I appreciate that most of all,” I said, before my Christian self could smother the thought. Dawson’s brown eyes met mine in a moment of perfect accord.
9
THANKS TO MAXINE, I HAD CLEAN-SMELLING clothes to wear to work, but I had to go buy some footwear at Payless. Normally, I put a little money into my shoes since I have to stand up so much, but there was no time to go to Clarice to the one good shoe shop there or to drive over to Monroe to the mall. When I got to work, Sweetie Des Arts came out of the kitchen to hug me, her thin body wrapped in a white cook’s apron. Even the boy who bussed the tables told me he was sorry. Holly and Danielle, who were switching off shifts, each gave me a pat on the shoulder and told me they hoped things got better for me.
Arlene asked me if I thought that handsome Dennis Pettibone would be coming by, and I told her I was sure he would.
“I guess he has to travel a lot,” she said thoughtfully. “I wonder where he’s based.”
“I got his business card. He’s based in Shreveport. He told me he bought himself a small farm right outside of Shreveport, now that I think about it.”
Arlene’s eyes narrowed. “Sounds like you and Dennis had a nice talk.”
I started to protest that the arson investigator was a little long in the tooth for me, but since Arlene had stuck to saying she was thirty-six for the past three years, I figured that would be less than tactful. “He was just passing the time of day,” I told her. “He asked me how long I’d worked with you, and did you have any kids.”
“Oh. He did?” Arlene beamed. “Well, well.” She went to check on her tables with a cheerful strut to her walk.
I set about my work, having to take longer than usual to do everything because of the constant interruptions. I knew some other town sensation would soon eclipse my house fire. Though I couldn’t hope anyone else would experience a similar disaster, I would be glad when I wasn’t the object of discussion of every single bar patron.
Terry hadn’t been able to handle the light daytime bar duties today, so Arlene and I pitched in to cover it. Being busy helped me feel less self-conscious.
Though I was coasting on three hours of sleep, I managed okay until Sam called me from the hallway that led to his office and the public bathrooms.
Two people had come in earlier and gone up to his corner table to talk to him; I’d noted them only in passing. The woman was in her sixties, very round and short. She used a cane. The young man with her was brown haired, with a sharp nose and heavy brows to give his face some character. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t make the reference pop to the top of my head. Sam had ushered them back into his office.
“Sookie,” Sam said unhappily, “the people in my office want to talk to you.”
“Who are they?”
“She’s Jeff Marriot’s mother. The man is his twin.”
“Oh my God,” I said, realizing the man reminded me of the corpse. “Why do they want to talk to me?”
“They don’t think he ever had anything to do with the Fellowship. They don’t understand anything about his death.”
To say I dreaded this encounter was putting it mildly. “Why talk to me?” I said in a kind of subdued wail. I was nearly at the end of my emotional endurance.
“They just . . . want answers. They’re grieving.”
“So am I,” I said. “My home.”
“Their loved one.”
I stared at Sam. “Why should I talk to them?” I asked. “What is it you want from me?”
“You need to hear what they have to say,” Sam said with a note of finality in his voice. He wouldn’t push any more, and he wouldn’t explain any more. Now the decision was up to me.
Because I trusted Sam, I nodded. “I’ll talk to them when I get off work,” I said. I secretly hoped they’d leave by then. But when my shift was over, the two were still sitting in Sam’s office. I took off my apron, tossed it in the big trash can labeled DIRTY LINEN (reflecting for the hundredth time that the trash can woul
d probably implode if anyone put some actual linen in it), and plodded into the office.
I looked the Marriots over more carefully now that we were face-to-face. Mrs. Marriot (I assumed) was in bad shape. Her skin was grayish, and her whole body seemed to sag. Her glasses were smeared because she’d been weeping so much, and she was clutching damp tissues in her hands. Her son was shocked expressionless. He’d lost his twin, and he was sending me so much misery I could hardly absorb it.
“Thanks for talking to us,” he said. He rose from his seat automatically and extended his hand. “I’m Jay Marriot, and this is my mother, Justine.”
This was a family that found a letter of the alphabet it liked and stuck to it.
I didn’t know what to say. Could I tell them I was sorry their loved one was dead, when he’d tried to kill me? There was no rule of etiquette for this; even my grandmother would have been stymied.
“Miss—Ms.—Stackhouse, had you ever met my brother before?”
“No,” I said. Sam took my hand. Since the Marriots were seated in the only two chairs Sam’s office could boast, he and I leaned against the front of his desk. I hoped his leg wasn’t hurting.
“Why would he set fire to your house? He’d never been arrested before, for anything,” Justine spoke for the first time. Her voice was rough and choked with tears; it had an undertone of pleading. She was asking me to let this not be true, this allegation about her son Jeff.
“I sure don’t know.”
“Could you tell us how this happened? His—death, I mean?”
I felt a flare of anger at being obliged to pity them—at the necessity for being delicate, for treating them specially. After all, who had almost died here? Who had lost part of her home? Who was facing a financial crunch that only chance had reduced from a disaster? Rage surged through me, and Sam let go of my hand and put his arm around me. He could feel the tension in my body. He was hoping I would control the impulse to lash out.
I held on to my better nature by my fingernails, but I held on.
“A friend woke me up,” I said. “When we got outside, we found a vampire who is staying with my neighbor—also a vampire—standing by Mr. Marriot’s body. There was a gasoline can near to the . . . nearby. The doctor who came said there was gas on his hands.”
“What killed him?” The mother again.
“The vampire.”
“Bit him?”
“No, he . . . no. No biting.”
“How, then?” Jay was showing some of his own anger.
“Broke his neck, I think.”
“That was what we heard at the sheriff ’s office,” Jay said. “But we just didn’t know if they were telling the truth.”
Oh, for goodness’s sake.
Sweetie Des Arts stuck her head in to ask Sam if she could borrow the storeroom keys because she needed a case of pickles. She apologized for interrupting. Arlene waved a hand at me as she went down the hall to the employees’ door, and I wondered if Dennis Pettibone had come in the bar. I’d been so sunk in my own problems, I hadn’t noticed. When the outside door clunked shut behind her, the silence seemed to gather in the little room.
“So why was the vampire in your yard?” Jay asked impatiently. “In the middle of the night?”
I did not tell him it was none of his business. Sam’s hand stroked my arm. “That’s when they’re up. And he was staying at the only other house out by mine.” That’s what we’d told the police. “I guess he heard someone in my yard while he was close and came to investigate.”
“We don’t know how Jeff got there,” Justine said. “Where is his car?”
“I don’t know.”
“And there was a card in his wallet?”
“Yes, a Fellowship of the Sun membership card,” I told her.
“But he had nothing particular against vampires,” Jay protested. “We’re twins. I would have known if he’d had some big grudge. This just doesn’t make any sense.”
“He did give a woman in the bar a fake name and home-town,” I said, as gently as I could.
“Well, he was just passing through,” Jay said. “I’m a married man, but Jeff ’s divorced. I don’t like to say this in front of my mother, but it’s not unknown for men to give a false name and history when they meet a woman in a bar.”
This was true. Though Merlotte’s was primarily a neighborhood bar, I’d listened to many a tale from out-of-towners who’d dropped in; and I’d known for sure they were lying.
“Where was the wallet?” Justine asked. She looked up at me like an old beaten dog, and it made my heart sick.
“In his jacket pocket,” I said.
Jay stood up abruptly. He began to move, pacing in the small space he had at his disposal. “There again,” he said, his voice more animated, “that’s just not like Jeff. He kept his billfold in his jeans, same as me. We never put our wallets in our jacket.”
“What are you saying?” Sam asked.
“I’m saying that I don’t think Jeff did this,” his twin said. “Even those people at the Fina station, they could be mistaken.”
“Someone at the Fina says he bought a can of gas there?” Sam asked.
Justine flinched again, the soft skin of her chin shaking.
I’d been wondering if there might be something to the Marriots’ suspicions, but that idea was extinguished now. The phone rang, and all of us jumped. Sam picked it up and said, “Merlotte’s,” in a calm voice. He listened, said, “Um-hum,” and “That right?” and finally, “I’ll tell her.” He hung up.
“Your brother’s car’s been found,” he told Jay Marriot. “It’s on a little road almost directly across from Sookie’s driveway.”
The light went out completely on the little family’s ray of hope, and I could only feel sorry for them. Justine seemed ten years older than she had when she’d come into the bar, and Jay looked like he’d gone days without sleep or food. They left without another word to me, which was a mercy. From the few sentences they exchanged with each other, I gathered they were going to see Jeff ’s car and ask if they could remove any of his belongings from it. I thought they would meet another blank wall there.
Eric had told me that that little road, a dirt track leading back to a deer camp, was where Debbie Pelt had hidden her car when she’d come to kill me. Might as well put up a sign: PARKING FOR SOOKIE STACKHOUSE NIGHTTIME ATTACKS.
Sam came swinging back into the room. He’d been seeing the Marriots out. He stood by me propped against his desk and set his crutches aside. He put his arm around me. I turned to him and slid my arms around his waist. He held me to him, and I felt peaceful for a wonderful minute. The heat of his body warmed me, and the knowledge of his affection comforted me.
“Does your leg hurt?” I asked when he moved restlessly.
“Not my leg,” he said.
I looked up, puzzled, to meet his eyes. He looked rueful. Suddenly, I became aware of exactly what was hurting Sam, and I flushed red. But I didn’t let go of him. I was reluctant to end the comfort of being close to someone—no, of being close to Sam. When I didn’t move away, he slowly put his lips to mine, giving me every chance to step out of reach. His mouth brushed mine once, twice. Then he settled in to kissing me, and the heat of his tongue filled my mouth, stroking.
That felt incredibly good. With the visit of the Marriot family, I’d been browsing the Mystery section. Now I’d definitely wandered over to the Romances.
His height was close enough to mine that I didn’t have to strain upward to meet his mouth. His kiss became more urgent. His lips strayed down my neck, to the vulnerable and sensitive place just at the base, and his teeth nipped very gently.
I gasped. I just couldn’t help it. If I’d had the gift of teleportation, I would’ve had us somewhere more private in an instant. Remotely, I felt there was something kind of tacky at feeling this lustful in a messy office in a bar. But the heat surged as he kissed me again. We’d always had something between us, and the smoldering ember had just burst
into flame.
I struggled to hold on to some sense. Was this survivor lust? What about his leg? Did he really need the buttons on his shirt?
“Not good enough for you here,” he said, doing a little gasping of his own. He pulled away and reached for his crutches, but then he hauled me back and kissed me again. “Sookie, I’m going to—”
“What are you going to do?” asked a cold voice from the doorway.
If I was shocked senseless, Sam was enraged. In a split second I was pushed to one side, and he launched himself at the intruder, broken leg and all.
My heart was thumping like a scared rabbit’s, and I put one hand over it to make sure it stayed in my chest. Sam’s sudden attack had knocked Bill to the floor. Sam pulled back his fist to get in a punch, but Bill used his greater weight and strength to roll Sam until he was on the bottom. Bill’s fangs were out and his eyes were glowing.
“Stop!” I yelled at a reduced volume, scared the patrons would come running. In a little fast action of my own, I gripped Bill’s smooth dark hair with both hands and used it to yank his head back. In the excitement of the moment, Bill reached behind him to catch my wrists in his hands, and he began twisting. I choked with pain. Both my arms were about to break when Sam took the opportunity to sock Bill in the jaw with all his power. Shifters are not as powerful as Weres and vampires, but they can pack quite a punch, and Bill was rocked sideways. He also came to his senses. Releasing my arms, he rose and turned to me in one graceful movement.
My eyes welled full of tears from the pain, and I opened them wide, determined not to let the drops roll down my cheeks. But I’m sure I looked exactly like someone who was trying hard not to cry. I was holding my arms out in front of me, wondering when they’d stop hurting.
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