Dead until Dark ss(v-1

by Шарлин Харрис

  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 assumed 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."

  "Yes."

  He took a deep breath. We were in the dark, by the trees that lined the yard. Andy bellowed Bill's name again.

  "Sookie," Bill said gently, "I am sure you were the in­tended victim, as sure as you are."

  It was kind of a shock to hear someone else say it.

  "And I didn't kill them. So if the killer was the same as their killer, then I didn't do it, and he will see that. Even if he is a Bellefleur."

  We began walking back into the light. I wanted none of this to be. I wanted the lights and the people to vanish, all of them, Bill, too. I wanted to be alone in the house with my grandmother, and I wanted her to look happy, as she had the last time I'd seen her.

  It was futile and childish, but I could wish it nonetheless. I was lost in that dream, so lost I didn't see harm coming until it was too late.

  My brother, Jason, stepped in front of me and slapped me in the face.

  It was so unexpected and so painful that I lost my balance and staggered to the side, landing hard on one knee.

  Jason seemed to be coming after me again, but Bill was suddenly in front of me, crouched, and his fangs were out and he was scary as hell. Sam tackled Jason and brought him down, and he may have whacked Jason's face against the ground once for good measure.

  Andy Bellefleur was stunned at this unexpected display of violence. But after a second he stepped in between our two little groups on the lawn. He looked at Bill and swallowed, but he said in a steady voice, "Compton, back off. He won't hit her again."

  Bill was taking deep breaths, trying to control his hunger for Jason's blood. I couldn't read his thoughts, but I could read his body language.

  I couldn't exactly read Sam's thoughts, but I could tell he was very angry.

  Jason was sobbing. His thoughts were a confused and tan­gled blue mess.

  And Andy Bellefleur didn't like any of us and wished he could lock every freaking one of us up for some reason or another.

  I pushed myself wearily to my feet and touched the painful spot of my cheek, using that to distract me from the pain in my heart, the dreadful grief that rolled over me. I thought this night would never end.

  THE FUNERAL WAS the largest ever held in Renard Par­ish. The minister said so. Under a brilliant early summer sky, my grandmother was buried beside my mother and father in our family plot in the ancient cemetery between the Comp­tons' house and Gran's house.

  Jason had been right. It was my house, now. The house and the twenty acres surrounding it were mine, as were the mineral rights. Gran's money, what there was, had been di­vided fairly between us, and Gran had stipulated that I give Jason my half of the home our parents had lived in, if I wanted to retain full rights to her house. That was easy to do, and I didn't want any money from Jason for that half, though my lawyer looked dubious when I told him that. Ja­son would just blow his top if I mentioned paying me for my half; the fact that I was part-owner had never been more than a fantasy to him. Yet Gran leaving her house to me outright had come as a big shock. She had understood him better than I had.

  It was lucky I had income other than from the bar, I thought heavily, trying to concentrate on something besides her loss. Paying taxes on the land and house, plus the upkeep of th
e house, which Gran had assumed at least partially, would really stretch my income.

  "I guess you'll want to move," Maxine Fortenberry said when she was cleaning the kitchen. Maxine had brought over devilled eggs and ham salad, and she was trying to be extra helpful by scrubbing.

  "No," I said, surprised.

  "But honey, with it happening right here..." Maxine's heavy face creased with concern.

  "I have far more good memories of this kitchen than bad ones," I explained.

  "Oh, what a good way to look at it," she said, surprised. "Sookie, you really are smarter than anyone gives you credit for being."

  "Gosh, thanks, Mrs. Fortenberry," I said, and if she heard the dry tone in my voice she didn't react. Maybe that was wise.

  "Is your friend coming to the funeral?" The kitchen was very warm. Bulky, square Maxine was blotting her face with a dishtowel. The spot where Gran had fallen had been scrubbed by her friends, God bless them.

  "My friend. Oh, Bill? No, he can't."

  She looked at me blankly.

  "We're having it in the daytime, of course."

  She still didn't comprehend.

  "He can't come out."

  "Oh, of course!" She gave herself a light tap on the temple to indicate she was knocking sense into her head. "Silly me. Would he really fry?"

  "Well, he says he would."

  "You know, I'm so glad he gave that talk at the club, that has really made such a difference in making him part of the community."

  I nodded, abstracted.

  "There's really a lot of feeling about the murders, Sookie. There's really a lot of talk about vampires, about how they're responsible for these deaths."

  I looked at her with narrowed eyes.

  "Don't you go all mad on me, Sookie Stackhouse! Since Bill was so sweet about telling those fascinating stories at the Descendants meeting, most people don't think he could do those awful things that were done to those women." I wondered what stories were making the rounds, and I shud­dered to think. "But he's had some visitors that people didn't much like the looks of."

  I wondered if she meant Malcolm, Liam, and Diane. I hadn't much liked their looks either, and I resisted the au­tomatic impulse to defend them.

  "Vampires are just as different among themselves as hu­mans are," I said.

  "That's what I told Andy Bellefleur," she said, nodding vehemently. "I said to Andy, you should go after some of those others, the ones that don't want to learn how to live with us, not like Bill Compton, who's really making an effort to settle in. He was telling me at the funeral home that he'd gotten his kitchen finished, finally."

  I could only stare at her. I tried to think of what Bill might make in his kitchen. Why would he need one?

  But none of the distractions worked, and finally I just re­alized that for a while I was going to be crying every whip­stitch. And I did.

  At the funeral Jason stood beside me, apparently over his surge of anger at me, apparently back in his right mind. He didn't touch me or talk to me, but he didn't hit me, either. I felt very alone. But then I realized as I looked out over the hillside that the whole town was grieving with me. There were cars as far as I could see on the narrow drives through the cemetery, there were hundreds of dark-clad folks around the funeral-home tent. Sam was there in a suit (looking quite unlike himself), and Arlene, standing by Rene, was wearing a flowered Sunday dress. Lafayette stood at the very back of the crowd, along with Terry Bellefleur and Charlsie Tooten; the bar must be closed! And all Gran's friends, all, the ones who could still walk. Mr. Norris wept openly, a snowy white handkerchief held up to his eyes. Maxine's heavy face was set in graven lines' of sadness. While the minister said what he had to, while Jason and I sat alone in family area in the uneven folding chairs, I felt something in me detach and fly up, up into the blue brilliance: and I knew that whatever had happened to my grandmother, now she was at home.

  The rest of the day went by in a blur, thank God. I didn't want to remember it, didn't want to even know it was hap­pening. But one moment stood out.

  Jason and I were standing by the dining room table in Gran's house, some temporary truce between us. We greeted the mourners, most of whom did their best not to stare at the bruise on my cheek.

  We glided through it, Jason thinking that he would go home and have a drink after, and he wouldn't have to see me for a while and then it would be all right, and me thinking almost exactly the same thing. Except for the drink.

  A well-meaning woman came up to us, the sort of woman who has thought over every ramification of a situation that was none of her business to start with.

  "I am so sorry for you kids," she said, and I looked at her; for the life of me I couldn't remember her name. She was a Methodist. She had three grown children. But her name ran right out the other side of my head.

  "You know it was so sad seeing you two there alone today, it made me remember your mother and father so much," she said, her face creasing into a mask of sympathy that I knew was automatic. I glanced at Jason, looked back to the woman, nodded.

  "Yes," I said. But I heard her thought before she spoke, and I began to blanch.

  "But where was Adele's brother today, your great uncle? Surely he's still living?"

  "We're not in touch," I said, and my tone would have discouraged anyone more sensitive than this lady.

  "But her only brother! Surely you ..." and her voice died away as our combined stare finally sank home.

  Several other people had commented briefly on our Uncle Bartlett's absence, but we had given the "this is family busi­ness" signals that cut them right off. This woman—what was her name?—just hadn't been as quick to read them. She'd brought a taco salad, and I planned to throw it right into the garbage when she'd left.

  "We do have to tell him," Jason said quietly after she left. I put my guard up; I had no desire to know what he was thinking.

  "You call him," I said.

  "All right."

  And that was all we said to each other for the rest of the day.

  Chapter 6

  I STAYED AT home for three days after the funeral. It was too long; I needed to go back to work. But I kept thinking of things I just had to do, or so I told myself. I cleaned out Gran's room. Arlene happened to drop by, and I asked her for help, because I just couldn't be in there alone with my grandmother's things, all so familiar and imbued with her personal odor of Johnson's baby powder and Campho-Phenique.

  So my friend Arlene helped me pack everything up to take to the disaster relief agency. There'd been tornadoes in north­ern Arkansas the past few days, and surely some person who had lost everything could use all the clothes. Gran had been smaller and thinner than I, and besides that her tastes were very different, so I wanted nothing of hers except the jewelry. She'd never worn much, but what she wore was real and precious to me.

  It was amazing what Gran had managed to pack into her room. I didn't even want to think about what she'd stored in the attic: that would be dealt with later, in the fall, when the attic was bearably cool and I'd time to think.

  I probably threw away more than I should have, but it made me feel efficient and strong to be doing this, and I did a drastic job of it. Arlene folded and packed, only putting aside papers and photographs, letters and bills and cancelled checks. My grandmother had never used a credit card in her life and never bought anything on time, God bless her, which made the winding-up much easier.

  Arlene asked about Gran's car. It was five years old and had very little mileage. "Will you sell yours and keep hers?" she asked. "Yours is newer, but it's small."

  "I hadn't thought," I said. And I found I couldn't think of it, that cleaning out the bedroom was the extent of what I could do that day.

  At the end of the afternoon, the bedroom was empty of Gran. Arlene and I turned the mattress and I remade the bed out of habit. It was an old four-poster in the rice pattern. I had always thought her bedroom set was beautiful, and it occurred to me that now it was mine. I could mov
e into the bigger bedroom and have a private bath instead of using the one in the hall.

  Suddenly, that was exactly what I wanted to do. The fur­niture I'd been using in my bedroom had been moved over here from my parents' house when they'd died, and it was kid's furniture; overly feminine, sort of reminiscent of Bar­bies and sleepovers.

  Not that I'd ever had many sleepovers, or been to many.

  Nope, nope, nope, I wasn't going to fall into that old pit. I was what I was, and I had a life, and I could enjoy things; the little treats that kept me going.

  "I might move in here," I told Arlene as she taped a box shut.

  "Isn't that a little soon?" she asked. She flushed red when she realized she'd sounded critical.

  "It would be easier to be in here than be across the hall thinking about the room being empty," I said. Arlene thought that through, crouched beside the cardboard box with the roll of tape in her hand.

  "I can see that," she agreed, with a nod of her flaming red head.

  We loaded the cardboard boxes into Arlene's car. She had kindly agreed to drop them by the collection center on her way home, and I gratefully accepted the offer. I didn't want anyone to look at me knowingly, with pity, when I gave away my grandmother's clothes and shoes and nightgowns.

  When Arlene left, I hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek, and she stared at me. That was outside the bounds our friendship had had up till now. She bent her head to mine and we very gently bumped foreheads.

  "You crazy girl," she said, affection in her voice. "You come see us, now. Lisa's been wanting you to baby-sit again."

  "You tell her Aunt Sookie said hi to her, and to Coby, too."

  "I will." And Arlene sauntered off to her car, her flaming hair puffing in a waving mass above her head, her full body making her waitress outfit look like one big promise.