I jerked my head in the direction of the pond behind the house, and we circled around to the rear. My brother, aided by Hoyt Fortenberry, had put in a large deck outside the back door maybe two years ago. He’d arranged some nice outdoor furniture he’d gotten on end-of-season sale at Wal-Mart. Jason had even put an ashtray on the wrought-iron table for his friends who went outside to smoke. Someone had used it. Hoyt smoked, I recalled. There was nothing else interesting on the deck.
The ground sloped down from the deck to the pond. While Alcee Beck checked the back door, I looked down to the pier my father had built, and I thought I could see a smear on the wood. Something in me crumpled at the sight, and I must have made a noise. Alcee came to stand by me, and I said, “Look at the pier.”
He went on point, just like a setter. He said, “Stay where you are,” in an unmistakably official voice. He moved carefully, looking down at the ground around his feet before he took each step. I felt like an hour passed before Alcee finally reached the pier. He squatted down on the sun-bleached boards to take a close look. He focused a little to the right of the smear, evaluating something I couldn’t see, something I couldn’t even make out in his mind. But then he wondered what kind of work boots my brother wore; that came in clear.
“Caterpillars,” I called. The fear built up in me till I felt I was vibrating with the intensity of it. Jason was all I had.
And I realized I’d made a mistake I hadn’t done in years: I’d answered a question before it had been asked out loud. I clapped a hand over my mouth and saw the whites of Beck’s eyes. He wanted away from me. And he was thinking maybe Jason was in the pond, dead. He was speculating that Jason had fallen and knocked his head against the pier, and then slid into the water. But there was a puzzling print. . . .
“When can you search the pond?” I called.
He turned to look at me, terror on his face. I hadn’t had anyone look at me like that in years. I had him spooked, and I hadn’t wanted to have that effect on him.
“The blood is on the dock,” I pointed out, trying to improve matters. Providing a reasonable explanation was second nature. “I’m scared Jason went into the water.”
Beck seemed to settle down a little after that. He turned his eyes back to the water. My father had chosen the site for the house to include the pond. He’d told me when I was little that the pond was very deep and fed by a tiny stream. The area around two-thirds of the pond was mowed and maintained as yard; but the farthest edge of it was left thickly wooded, and Jason enjoyed sitting on the deck in the late evening with binoculars, watching critters come to drink.
There were fish in the pond. He kept it stocked. My stomach lurched.
Finally, the detective walked up the slope to the deck. “I have to call around, see who can dive,” Alcee Beck said. “It may take a while to find someone who can do it. And the chief has to okay it.”
Of course, such a thing would cost money, and that money might not be in the parish budget. I took a deep breath. “Are you talking hours, or days?”
“Maybe a day or two,” he said at last. “No way anyone can do it who isn’t trained. It’s too cold, and Jason himself told me it was deep.”
“All right,” I said, trying to suppress my impatience and anger. Anxiety gnawed at me like another kind of hunger.
“Carla Rodriguez was in town last night,” Alcee Beck told me, and after a long moment, the significance of that sank into my brain.
Carla Rodriguez, tiny and dark and electric, had been the closest shave Jason had ever had with losing his heart. In fact, the little shifter Jason had had a date with on New Year’s Eve had somewhat resembled Carla, who had moved to Houston three years ago, much to my relief. I’d been tired of the pyrotechnics surrounding her romance with my brother; their relationship had been punctuated by long and loud and public arguments, hung-up telephones, and slammed doors.
“Why? Who’s she staying with?”
“Her cousin in Shreveport,” Beck said. “You know, that Dovie.”
Dovie Rodriguez had visited Bon Temps a lot while Carla had lived here. Dovie had been the more sophisticated city cousin, down in the country to correct all our local yokel ways. Of course, we’d envied Dovie.
I thought that tackling Dovie was just what I wanted to do.
It looked like I’d be going to Shreveport after all.
4
THE DETECTIVE HUSTLED ME OFF AFTER THAT, telling me he was going to get the crime scene officer out to the house, and he’d be in touch. I got the idea, right out of his brain, that there was something he didn’t want me to see, and that he’d thrown Carla Rodriguez at me to distract me.
And I thought he might take the shotgun away, since he seemed much more sure now he was dealing with a crime, and the shotgun might be part of some bit of evidence. But Alcee Beck didn’t say anything, so I didn’t remind him.
I was more shaken than I wanted to admit to myself. Inwardly, I’d been convinced that, though I needed to track my brother down, Jason was really okay—just misplaced. Or mislaid, more likely, ho ho ho. Possibly he was in some kind of not-too-serious trouble, I’d told myself. Now things were looking more serious.
I’ve never been able to squeeze my budget enough to afford a cell phone, so I began driving home. I was thinking of whom I should call, and I came up with the same answer as before. No one. There was no definite news to break. I felt as lonely as I ever have in my life. But I just didn’t want to be Crisis Woman, showing up on friends’ doorsteps with trouble on my shoulders.
Tears welled up in my eyes. I wanted my grandmother back. I pulled over to the side of the road and slapped myself on the cheek, hard. I called myself a few names.
Shreveport. I’d go to Shreveport and confront Dovie and Carla Rodriguez. While I was there, I’d find out if Chow and Pam knew anything about Jason’s disappearance—though it was hours until they’d be up, and I’d just be kicking my heels in an empty club, assuming there’d be someone there to let me in. But I just couldn’t sit at home, waiting. I could read the minds of the human employees and find out if they knew what was up.
On the one hand, if I went to Shreveport, I’d be out of touch with what was happening here. On the other hand, I’d be doing something.
While I was trying to decide if there were any more hands to consider, something else happened.
It was even odder than the preceding events of the day. There I was, parked in the middle of nowhere at the side of a parish road, when a sleek, black, brand-new Camaro pulled onto the shoulder behind me. Out of the passenger’s side stepped a gorgeous woman, at least six feet tall. Of course, I remembered her; she’d been in Merlotte’s on New Year’s Eve. My friend Tara Thornton was in the driver’s seat.
Okay, I thought blankly, staring into the rearview mirror, this is weird. I hadn’t seen Tara in weeks, since we’d met by chance in a vampire club in Jackson, Mississippi. She’d been there with a vamp named Franklin Mott; he’d been very handsome in a senior-citizen sort of way, polished, dangerous, and sophisticated.
Tara always looks great. My high school friend has black hair, and dark eyes, and a smooth olive complexion, and she has a lot of intelligence that she uses running Tara’s Togs, an upscale women’s clothing store that rents space in a strip mall Bill owns. (Well, it’s as upscale as Bon Temps has to offer.) Tara had become a friend of mine years before, because she came from an even sadder background than mine.
But the tall woman put even Tara in the shade. She was as dark-haired as Tara, though the new woman had reddish highlights that surprised the eye. She had dark eyes, too, but hers were huge and almond-shaped, almost abnormally large. Her skin was as pale as milk, and her legs were as long as a stepladder. She was quite gifted in the bosom department, and she was wearing fire engine red from head to toe. Her lipstick matched.
“Sookie,” Tara called. “What’s the matter?” She walked carefully up to my old car, watching her feet because she was wearing glossy, brown leather, high-heeled boots she didn’t wan
t to scuff. They’d have lasted five minutes on my feet. I spend too much of my time standing up to worry about footwear that only looks good.
Tara looked successful, attractive, and secure, in her sage green sweater and taupe pants. “I was putting on my makeup when I heard over the police scanner that something was up at Jason’s house,” she said. She slid in the passenger’s seat and leaned over to hug me. “When I got to Jason’s, I saw you pulling out. What’s up?” The woman in red was standing with her back to the car, tactfully looking out into the woods.
I’d adored my father, and I’d always known (and my mother herself definitely believed) that no matter what Mother put me through, she was acting out of love. But Tara’s parents had been evil, both alcoholics and abusers. Tara’s older sisters and brothers had left home as fast as they could, leaving Tara, as the youngest, to foot the bill for their freedom.
Yet now that I was in trouble, here she was, ready to help.
“Well, Jason’s gone missing,” I said, in a fairly level voice, but then I ruined the effect by giving one of those awful choking sobs. I turned my face so I’d be looking out my window. I was embarrassed to show such distress in front of the new woman.
Wisely ignoring my tears, Tara began asking me the logical questions: Had Jason called in to work? Had he called me the night before? Who had he been dating lately?
That reminded me of the shifter girl who’d been Jason’s date New Year’s Eve. I thought I could even talk about the girl’s otherness, because Tara had been at Club Dead that night. Tara’s tall companion was a Supe of some kind. Tara knew all about the secret world.
But she didn’t, as it turned out.
Her memory had been erased. Or at least she pretended it had.
“What?” Tara asked, with almost exaggerated confusion. “Werewolves? At that nightclub? I remember seeing you there. Honey, didn’t you drink a little too much and pass out, or something?”
Since I drink very sparingly, Tara’s question made me quite angry, but it was also the most unremarkable explanation Franklin Mott could have planted in Tara’s head. I was so disappointed at not getting to confide in her that I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see the blank look on her face. I felt tears leaving little paths down my cheeks. I should have just let it go, but I said, in a low, harsh voice, “No, I didn’t.”
“Omigosh, did your date put something in your drink?” In genuine horror, Tara squeezed my hand. “That Rohypnol? But Alcide looked like such a nice guy!”
“Forget it,” I said, trying to sound gentler. “It doesn’t really have anything to do with Jason, after all.”
Her face still troubled, Tara pressed my hand again.
All of a sudden, I was certain I didn’t believe her. Tara knew vampires could remove memory, and she was pretending Franklin Mott had erased hers. I thought Tara remembered quite well what had happened at Club Dead, but she was pretending she didn’t to protect herself. If she had to do that to survive, that was okay. I took a deep breath.
“Are you still dating Franklin?” I asked, to start a different conversation.
“He got me this car.”
I was a little shocked and more than a little dismayed, but I hoped I was not the kind to point fingers.
“It’s a wonderful car. You don’t know any witches, do you?” I asked, trying to change the subject before Tara could read my misgivings. I was sure she would laugh at me for asking her such a question, but it was a good diversion. I wouldn’t hurt her for the world.
Finding a witch would be a great help. I was sure Jason’s abduction—and I swore to myself it was an abduction, it was not a murder—was linked to the witches’ curse on Eric. It was just too much coincidence otherwise. On the other hand, I had certainly experienced the twists and turns of a bunch of coincidences in the past few months. There, I knew I’d find a third hand.
“Sure I do,” Tara said, smiling proudly. “Now there I can help you. That is, if a Wiccan will do?”
I had so many expressions I wasn’t sure my face could fit them all in. Shock, fear, grief, and worry were tumbling around in my brain. When the spinning stopped, we would see which one was at the top.
“You’re a witch?” I said weakly.
“Oh, gosh, no, not me. I’m a Catholic. But I have some friends who are Wiccan. Some of them are witches.”
“Oh, really?” I didn’t think I’d ever heard the word Wiccan before, though maybe I’d read it in a mystery or romance novel. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means,” I said, my voice humble.
“Holly can explain it better than I can,” Tara said.
“Holly. The Holly who works with me?”
“Sure. Or you could go to Danielle, though she’s not going to be as willing to talk. Holly and Danielle are in the same coven.”
I was so shocked by now I might as well get even more stunned. “Coven,” I repeated.
“You know, a group of pagans who worship together.”
“I thought a coven had to be witches?”
“I guess not—but they have to, you know, be non-Christian. I mean, Wicca is a religion.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. Do you think Holly would talk to me about this?”
“I don’t know why not.” Tara went back to her car to get her cell phone, and paced back and forth between our vehicles while she talked to Holly. I appreciated a little respite to allow me to get back on my mental feet, so to speak. To be polite I got out of my car and spoke to the woman in red, who’d been very patient.
“I’m sorry to meet you on such a bad day,” I said. “I’m Sookie Stackhouse.”
“I’m Claudine,” she said, with a beautiful smile. Her teeth were Hollywood white. Her skin had an odd quality; it looked glossy and thin, reminding me of the skin of a plum; like if you bit her, sweet juice would gush out. “I’m here because of all the activity.”
“Oh?” I said, taken aback.
“Sure. You have vampires, and Weres, and lots of other stuff all tangled up here in Bon Temps—to say nothing of several important and powerful crossroads. I was drawn to all the possibilities.”
“Uh-huh,” I said uncertainly. “So, do you plan on just observing all this, or what?”
“Oh, no. Just observing is not my way.” She laughed. “You’re quite the wild card, aren’t you?”
“Holly’s up,” Tara said, snapping her phone shut and smiling because it was hard not to with Claudine around. I realized I was smiling from ear to ear, not my usual tense grin but an expression of sunny happiness. “She says come on over.”
“Are you coming with me?” I didn’t know what to think of Tara’s companion.
“Sorry, Claudine’s helping me today at the shop,” Tara said. “We’re having a New Year’s sale on our old inventory, and people are doing some heavy shopping. Want me to put something aside for you? I’ve got a few really pretty party dresses left. Didn’t the one you wore in Jackson get ruined?”
Yeah, because a fanatic had driven a stake through my side. The dress had definitely suffered. “It got stained,” I said with great restraint. “It’s real nice of you to offer, but I don’t think I’ll have time to try anything on. With Jason and everything, I’ve got so much to think about.” And precious little extra money, I told myself.
“Sure,” said Tara. She hugged me again. “You call me if you need me, Sookie. It’s funny that I don’t remember that evening in Jackson any better. Maybe I had too much to drink, too. Did we dance?”
“Oh, yes, you talked me into doing that routine we did at the high school talent show.”
“I did not!” She was begging me to deny it, with a half smile on her face.
“’Fraid so.” I knew damn well she remembered it.
“I wish I’d been there,” said Claudine. “I love to dance.”
“Believe me, that night in Club Dead is one I wish I’d missed,” I said.
“Well, remind me never to go back to Jackson, if I did that dance in public,” Tara said
.
“I don’t think either of us better go back to Jackson.” I’d left some very irate vampires in Jackson, but the Weres were even angrier. Not that there were a lot of them left, actually. But still.
Tara hesitated a minute, obviously trying to frame something she wanted to tell me. “Since Bill owns the building Tara’s Togs is in,” she said carefully, “I do have a number to call, a number he said he’d check in with while he was out of the country. So if you need to let him know anything . . . ?”
“Thanks,” I said, not sure if I felt thankful at all. “He told me he left a number on a pad by the phone in his house.” There was a kind of finality to Bill’s being out of the country, unreachable. I hadn’t even thought of trying to get in touch with him about my predicament; out of all the people I’d considered calling, he hadn’t even crossed my mind.
“It’s just that he seemed pretty, you know, down.” Tara examined the toes of her boots. “Melancholy,” she said, as if she enjoyed using a word that didn’t pass her lips often. Claudine beamed with approval. What a strange gal. Her huge eyes were luminous with joy as she patted me on the shoulder.
I swallowed hard. “Well, he’s never exactly Mr. Smiley,” I said. “I do miss him. But . . .” I shook my head emphatically. “It was just too hard. He just . . . upset me too much. I thank you for letting me know I can call him if I need to, and I really, really appreciate your telling me about Holly.”
Tara, flushed with the deserved pleasure of having done her good deed for the day, got back in her spanky-new Camaro. After folding her long self into the passenger seat, Claudine waved at me as Tara pulled away. I sat in my car for a moment longer, trying to remember where Holly Cleary lived. I thought I remembered her complaining about the closet size in her apartment, and that meant the Kingfisher Arms.
When I got to the U-shaped building on the southern approach to Bon Temps, I checked the mailboxes to discover Holly’s apartment number. She was on the ground floor, in number 4. Holly had a five-year-old son, Cody. Holly and her best friend, Danielle Gray, had both gotten married right out of high school, and both had been divorced within five years. Danielle’s mom was a great help to Danielle, but Holly was not so lucky. Her long-divorced parents had both moved away, and her grandmother had died in the Alzheimer’s wing of the Renard Parish nursing home. Holly had dated Detective Andy Bellefleur for a few months, but nothing had come of it. Rumor had it that old Caroline Bellefleur, Andy’s grandmother, had thought Holly wasn’t “good” enough for Andy. I had no opinion on that. Neither Holly nor Andy was on my shortlist of favorite people, though I definitely felt cooler toward Andy.
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