Charlaine Harris - Sookie Stackhouse 02 - Living Dead In Dallas

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LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS
by Charlaine Harris.
An Ace Book
Ace mass-market edition / April 2002
This book is dedicated to all the people
who told me they enjoyed Dead Until Dark.
Thanks for the encouragement.
My thanks go to Patsy Asher of Remember the Alibi in San Antonio, Texas; Chloe Green of
Dallas; and the helpful cyber-friends I've made on DorothyL, who answered all my questions promptly and
enthusiastically. I have the greatest job in the world.
Chapter 1
Andy Bellefleur was as drunk as a skunk. This wasn't normal for Andy—believe me, I know all the
drunks in Bon Temps. Working at Sam Merlotte's bar for several years has pretty much introduced me to
all of them. But Andy Bellefleur, native son and detective on Bon Temps's small police force, had never
been drunk in Merlotte's before. I was mighty curious as to why tonight was an exception.
Andy and I aren't friends by any stretch of the imagination, so I couldn't ask him outright. But other
means were open to me, and I decided to use them. Though I try to limit employing my disability, or gift, or
whatever you want to call it, to find out things that might have an effect on me or mine, sometimes sheer
curiosity wins out.
I let down my mental guard and read Andy's mind. I was sorry.
Andy had had to arrest a man that morning for kidnapping. He'd taken his ten-year-old neighbor to
a place in the woods and raped her. The girl was in the hospital, and the man was in jail, but the damage
that had been dealt was irreparable. I felt weepy and sad. It was a crime that touched too closely on my
own past. I liked Andy a little better for his depression.
"Andy Bellefleur, give me your keys," I said. His broad face turned up to me, showing very little
comprehension. After a long pause while my meaning filtered through to his addled brain, Andy fumbled in
the pocket of his khakis and handed me his heavy key ring. I put another bourbon-and-Coke on the bar in
front of him. "My treat," I said, and went to the phone at the end of the bar to call Portia, Andy's sister. The
Bellefleur siblings lived in a decaying large white two-story antebellum, formerly quite a showplace, on the
prettiest street in the nicest area of Bon Temps. On Magnolia Creek Road, all the homes faced the strip of
park through which ran the stream, crossed here and there by decorative bridges for foot traffic only; a
road ran on both sides. There were a few other old homes on Magnolia Creek Road, but they were all in
better repair than the Bellefleur place, Belle Rive. Belle Rive was just too much for Portia, a lawyer, and
Andy, a cop, to maintain, since the money to support such a home and its grounds was long since gone. But
their grandmother, Caroline, stubbornly refused to sell.
Portia answered on the second ring.
"Portia, this is Sookie Stackhouse," I said, having to raise my voice over the background noise in the
bar.
"You must be at work."
"Yes. Andy's here, and he's three sheets to the wind. I took his keys. Can you come get him?"
"Andy had too much to drink? That's rare. Sure, I'll be there in ten minutes," she promised, and
hung up.
"You're a sweet girl, Sookie," Andy volunteered unexpectedly.
He'd finished the drink I'd poured for him. I swept the glass out of sight and hoped he wouldn't ask
for more. "Thanks, Andy," I said. "You're okay, yourself."
"Where's . . . boyfriend?"
"Right here," said a cool voice, and Bill Compton appeared just behind Andy. I smiled at him over
Andy's drooping head. Bill was about five foot ten, with dark brown hair and eyes. He had the broad
shoulders and hard muscular arms of a man who's done manual labor for years. Bill had worked a farm
with his father, and then for himself, before he'd gone to be a soldier in the war. That would be the Civil
War.
"Hey, V. B.!" called Charlsie Tooten's husband, Micah. Bill raised a casual hand to return the
greeting, and my brother, Jason, said, "Evening, Vampire Bill," in a perfectly polite way. Jason, who had not
exactly welcomed Bill into our little family circle, had turned over a whole new leaf. I was sort of mentally
holding my breath, waiting to see if his improved attitude was permanent.
"Bill, you're okay for a bloodsucker," Andy said judiciously, rotating on his bar stool so he could face
Bill. I upgraded my opinion of Andy's drunkenness, since he had never otherwise been enthusiastic about
the acceptance of vampires into America's mainstream society.
"Thanks," Bill said dryly. "You're not too bad for a Bellefleur." He leaned across the bar to give me
a kiss. His lips were as cool as his voice. You had to get used to it. Like when you laid your head on his
chest, and you didn't hear a heartbeat inside. "Evening, sweetheart," he said in his low voice. I slid a glass of
the Japanese-developed synthetic B negative across the bar, and he knocked it back and licked his lips. He
looked pinker almost immediately.
"How'd your meeting go, honey?" I asked. Bill had been in Shreveport the better part of the night.
"I'll tell you later."
I hoped his work-related story was less distressing than Andy's. "Okay. I'd appreciate it if you'd
help Portia get Andy to her car. Here she comes now," I said, nodding toward the door.
For once, Portia was not wearing the skirt, blouse, jacket, hose, and low-heeled pumps that
constituted her professional uniform. She'd changed to blue jeans and a ragged Sophie Newcomb
sweatshirt. Portia was built as squarely as her brother, but she had long, thick, chestnut hair. Keeping it
beautifully tended was Portia's one signal that she hadn't given up yet. She plowed single-mindedly through
the rowdy crowd.
"Well, he's soused, all right," she said, evaluating her brother. Portia was trying to ignore Bill, who
made her very uneasy. "It doesn't happen often, but if he decides to tie one on, he does a good job."
"Portia, Bill can carry him to your car," I said. Andy was taller than Portia and thick in body, clearly
too much of a burden for his sister.
"I think I can handle him," she told me firmly, still not looking toward Bill, who raised his eyebrows
at me.
So I let her get one arm around him and try to hoist him off the stool. Andy stayed perched. Portia
glanced around for Sam Merlotte, the bar owner, who was small and wiry in appearance but very strong.
"Sam's bartending at an anniversary party at the country club," I said. "Better let Bill help."
"All right," the lawyer said stiffly, her eyes on the polished wood of the bar. "Thanks very much."
Bill had Andy up and moving toward the door in seconds, in spite of Andy's legs tending to turn to
jelly. Micah Tooten jumped up to open the door, so Bill was able to sweep Andy right out into the parking
lot.
"Thanks, Sookie," Portia said. "Is his bar tab settled up?"
I nodded.
"Okay," she said, slapping her hand on the bar to signal she was out of there. She had to listen to a
chorus of well-meant advice as she followed Bill out the front door of Merlotte's.
That was how Detective Andy Bellefleur's old Buick came to sit in the parking lot at Merlotte's all
night and into the next day. The Buick had certainly been empty when Andy had gotten out to enter the bar,
he would later swear. He'd also testify that he'd had been so preoccupied by his internal turmoil that he'd
forgotten to lock the car.
At some point between eight o'clock, when Andy had arrived at Merlotte's, and ten the next
morning, when I arrived to help open the bar, Andy's car acquired a new passenger.
This one would cause considerable embarrassment for the policeman.
This one was dead.
***
I shouldn't have been there at all. I'd worked the late shift the night before, and I should've worked
the late shift again that night. But Bill had asked me if I could switch with one of my coworkers, because he
needed me to accompany him to Shreveport, and Sam hadn't objected. I'd asked my friend Arlene if she'd
work my shift. She was due a day off, but she always wanted to earn the better tips we got at night, and
she agreed to come in at five that afternoon.
By all rights, Andy should've collected his car that morning, but he'd been too hung over to fool with
getting Portia to run him over to Merlotte's, which was out of the way to the police station. She'd told him
she would pick him up at work at noon, and they'd eat lunch at the bar. Then he could retrieve his car.
So the Buick, with its silent passenger, waited for discovery far longer than it should have.
I'd gotten about six hours' sleep the night before, so I was feeling pretty good. Dating a vampire
can be hard on your equilibrium if you're truly a daytime person, like me. I'd helped close the bar, and left
for home with Bill by one o'clock. We'd gotten in Bill's hot tub together, then done other things, but I'd
gotten to bed by a little after two, and I didn't get up until almost nine. Bill had long been in the ground by
then.
I drank lots of water and orange juice and took a multivitamin and iron supplement for breakfast,
which was my regimen since Bill had come into my life and brought (along with love, adventure, and
excitement) the constant threat of anemia. The weather was getting cooler, thank God, and I sat on Bill's
front porch wearing a cardigan and the black slacks we wore to work at Merlotte's when it was too cool
for shorts. My white golf shirt had MERLOTTE'S BAR embroidered on the left breast.
As I skimmed the morning paper, with one part of my mind I was recording the fact that the grass
was definitely not growing as fast. Some of the leaves appeared to be beginning to turn. The high school
football stadium might be just about tolerable this coming Friday night.
The summer just hates to let go in Louisiana, even northern Louisiana. Fall begins in a very
halfhearted way, as though it might quit at any minute and revert to the stifling heat of July. But I was on
the alert, and I could spot traces of fall this morning. Fall and winter meant longer nights, more time with
Bill, more hours of sleep.
So I was cheerful when I went to work. When I saw the Buick sitting all by its lonesome in front of
the bar, I remembered Andy's surprising binge the night before. I have to confess, I smiled when I thought
of how he'd be feeling today. Just as I was about to drive around in back and park with the other
employees, I noticed that Andy's rear passenger door was open just a little bit. That would make his dome
light stay on, surely? And his battery would run down. And he'd be angry, and have to come in the bar to
call the tow truck, or ask someone to jump him . . . so I put my car in park and slid out, leaving it running.
That turned out to be an optimistic error.
I shoved the door to, but it would only give an inch. So I pressed my body to it, thinking it would
latch and I could be on my way. Again, the door would not click shut. Impatiently, I yanked it all the way
open to find out what was in the way. A wave of smell gusted out into the parking lot, a dreadful smell.
Dismay clutched at my throat, because the smell was not unknown to me. I peered into the backseat of the
car, my hand covering my mouth, though that hardly helped with the smell.
"Oh, man," I whispered. "Oh, shit." Lafayette, the cook for one shift at Merlotte's, had been shoved
into the backseat. He was naked. It was Lafayette's thin brown foot, its toenails painted a deep crimson,
that had kept the door from shutting, and it was Lafayette's corpse that smelled to high heaven.
I backed away hastily, then scrambled into my car and drove around back behind the bar, blowing
my horn. Sam came running out of the employee door, an apron tied around his waist. I turned off my car
and was out of it so quick I hardly realized I'd done it, and I wrapped myself around Sam like a static-filled
sock.
"What is it?" Sam's voice said in my ear. I leaned back to look at him, not having to gaze up too
much since Sam is a smallish man. His reddish gold hair was gleaming in the morning sun. He has true-blue
eyes, and they were wide with apprehension.
"It's Lafayette," I said, and began crying. That was ridiculous and silly and no help at all, but I
couldn't help it. "He's dead, in Andy Bellefleur's car."
Sam's arms tightened behind my back and drew me into his body once more. "Sookie, I'm sorry you
saw it," he said. "We'll call the police. Poor Lafayette."
Being a cook at Merlotte's does not exactly call for any extraordinary culinary skill, since Sam just
offers a few sandwiches and fries, so there's a high turnover. But Lafayette had lasted longer than most, to
my surprise. Lafayette had been gay, flamboyantly gay, makeup-and-long-fingernails gay. People in
northern Louisiana are less tolerant of that than New Orleans people, and I expect Lafayette, a man of
color, had had a doubly hard time of it. Despite—or because of—his difficulties, he was cheerful,
entertainingly mischievous, clever, and actually a good cook. He had a special sauce he steeped
hamburgers in, and people asked for Burgers Lafayette pretty regular.
"Did he have family here?" I asked Sam. We eased apart self-consciously and went into the
building, to Sam's office.
"He had a cousin," Sam said, as his fingers punched 9-1-1. "Please come to Merlotte's on
Hummingbird Road," he told the dispatcher. "There's a dead man in a car here. Yes, in the parking lot, in
the front of the place. Oh, and you might want to alert Andy Bellefleur. It's his car."
I could hear the squawk on the other end of the line from where I stood.
Danielle Gray and Holly Cleary, the two waitresses on the morning shift, came through the back
door laughing. Both divorced women in their mid-twenties, Danielle and Holly were lifelong friends who
seemed to be quite happy working their jobs as long as they were together. Holly had a five-year-old son
who was at kindergarten, and Danielle had a seven-year-old daughter and a boy too young for school, who
stayed with Danielle's mother while Danielle was at Merlotte's. I would never be any closer to the two
women—who, after all, were around my age—because they were careful to be sufficient unto themselves.
"What's the matter?" Danielle asked when she saw my face. Her own, narrow and freckled,
became instantly worried.
"Why's Andy's car out front?" Holly asked. She'd dated Andy Bellefleur for a while, I recalled.
Holly had short blond hair that hung around her face like wilted daisy petals, and the prettiest skin I'd ever
seen. "He spend the night in it?"
"No," I said, "but someone else did."
"Who?"
"Lafayette's in it."
"Andy let a black queer sleep in his car?" This was Holly, who was the blunt straightforward one.
"What happened to him?" This was Danielle, who was the smarter of the two.
"We don't know," Sam said. "The police are on the way."
"You mean," Danielle said, slowly and carefully, "that he's dead."
"Yes," I told her. "That's exactly what we mean."
"Well, we're set to open in an hour." Holly's hands settled on her round hips. "What are we gonna
do about that? If the police let us open, who's gonna cook for us? People come in, they'll want lunch."
"We better get ready, just in case," Sam said. "Though I'm thinking we won't get to open until
sometime this afternoon." He went into his office to begin calling substitute cooks.
It felt strange to be going about the opening routine, just as if Lafayette were going to mince in any
minute with a story about some party he'd been to, the way he had a few days before. The sirens came
shrieking down the county road that ran in front of Merlotte's. Cars crunched across Sam's gravel parking
lot. By the time we had the chairs down, the tables set, and extra silverware rolled in napkins and ready to
replace used settings, the police came in.
Merlotte's is out of the city limits, so the parish sheriff, Bud Dearborn, would be in charge. Bud
Dearborn, who'd been a good friend of my father's, was gray-haired now. He had a mashed-in face, like a
human Pekinese, and opaque brown eyes. As he came in the front door of the bar, I noticed Bud was
wearing heavy boots and his Saints cap. He must have been called in from working on his farm. With Bud
was Alcee Beck, the only African American detective on the parish force. Alcee was so black that his
white shirt gleamed in contrast. His tie was knotted precisely, and his suit was absolutely correct. His shoes
were polished and shining.
Bud and Alcee, between them, ran the parish . . . at least some of the more important elements that
kept it functional. Mike Spencer, funeral home director and parish coroner, had a heavy hand in local
affairs, too, and he was a good friend of Bud's. I was willing to bet Mike was already out in the parking lot,
pronouncing poor Lafayette dead.
Bud Spencer said, "Who found the body?"
"I did." Bud and Alcee changed course slightly and headed toward me.
"Sam, can we borrow your office?" Bud asked. Without waiting for Sam's response, he jerked his
head to indicate I should go in.
"Sure, go right ahead," my boss said dryly. "Sookie, you okay?"
"Fine, Sam." I wasn't sure that was true, but there wasn't anything Sam could do about it without
getting into trouble, and all to no avail. Though Bud gestured to me to sit down, I shook my head as he and
Alcee settled themselves in the office chairs. Bud, of course, took Sam's big chair, while Alcee made do
with the better extra chair, the one with a little padding left.
"Tell us about the last time you saw Lafayette alive," Bud suggested.
I thought about it.
"He wasn't working last night," I said. "Anthony was working, Anthony Bolivar."
"Who is that?" Alcee's broad forehead wrinkled. "Don't recognize the name."
"He's a friend of Bill's. He was passing through, and he needed a job. He had the experience."
He'd worked in a diner during the Great Depression.
"You mean the short-order cook at Merlotte's is a vampire!"
"So?" I asked. I could feel my mouth setting stubborn, and my brows drawing in, and I knew my
face was getting mad. I was trying hard not to read their minds, trying hard to stay completely out of this,
but it wasn't easy. Bud Dearborn was average, but Alcee projected his thoughts like a lighthouse sends a
signal. Right now he was beaming disgust and fear.
In the months before I'd met Bill, and found that he treasured that disability of mine—my gift, as he
saw it—I'd done my best to pretend to myself and everyone else that I couldn't really "read" minds. But
since Bill had liberated me from the little prison I'd built for myself, I'd been practicing and experimenting,
with Bill's encouragement. For him, I had put into words the things I'd been feeling for years. Some people
sent a clear, strong message, like Alcee. Most people were more off-and-on, like Bud Dearborn. It
depended a lot on how strong their emotions were, how clear-headed they were, what the weather was, for
all I knew. Some people were murky as hell, and it was almost impossible to tell what they were thinking. I
could get a reading of their moods, maybe, but that was all.
I had admitted that if I was touching people while I tried to read their thoughts, it made the picture
clearer—like getting cable, after having only an antenna. And I'd found that if I "sent" a person relaxing
images, I could flow through his brain like water.
There was nothing I wanted less than to flow through Alcee Beck's mind. But absolutely
involuntarily I was getting a full picture of Alcee's deeply superstitious reaction to finding out there was a
vampire working at Merlotte's, his revulsion on discovering I was the woman he'd heard about who was
dating a vampire, his deep conviction that the openly gay Lafayette had been a disgrace to the black
community. Alcee figured someone must have it in for Andy Bellefleur, to have parked a gay black man's
carcass in Andy's car. Alcee was wondering if Lafayette had had AIDS, if the virus could have seeped into
Andy's car seat somehow and survived there. He'd sell the car, if it were his.
If I'd touched Alcee, I would have known his phone number and his wife's bra size.
Bud Dearborn was looking at me funny. "Did you say something?" I asked.
"Yeah. I was wondering if you had seen Lafayette in here during the evening. Did he come in to
have a drink?"
"I never saw him here." Come to think of it, I'd never seen Lafayette have a drink. For the first
time, I realized that though the lunch crowd was mixed, the night bar patrons were almost exclusively white.
"Where did he spend his social time?"
"I have no idea." All Lafayette's stories were told with the names changed to protect the innocent.
Well, actually, the guilty.
"When did you see him last?"
"Dead, in the car."
Bud shook his head in exasperation. "Alive, Sookie."
"Hmmm. I guess . . . three days ago. He was still here when I got here to work my shift, and we
said hello to each other. Oh, he told me about a party he'd been to." I tried to recall his exact words. "He
said he'd been to a house where there were all kinds of sex hijinks going on."
The two men gaped at me.
"Well, that's what he said! I don't know how much truth was in it." I could just see Lafayette's face
as he'd told me about it, the coy way he kept putting his finger across his lips to indicate he wasn't telling me
any names or places.
"Didn't you think someone should know about that?" Bud Dearborn looked stunned.
"It was a private party. Why should I tell anyone about it?"
But that kind of party shouldn't happen in their parish. Both men were glaring at me. Through
compressed lips, Bud said, "Did Lafayette tell you anything about drugs being used at this get-together?"
"No, I don't remember anything like that."
"Was this party at the home of someone white, or someone black?"
"White," I said, and then wished I'd pled ignorance. But Lafayette had been really impressed by the
home—though not because it was large or fancy. Why had he been so impressed? I wasn't too sure what
would constitute impressive for Lafayette, who had grown up poor and stayed that way, but I was sure he'd
been talking about the home of someone white, because he'd said, "All the pictures on the walls, they all
white as lilies and smiling like alligators." I didn't offer thatcomment to the police, and they didn't ask
further.
When I'd left Sam's office, after explaining why Andy's car had been in the parking lot in the first
place, I went back to stand behind the bar. I didn't want to watch the activity out in the parking lot, and
there weren't any customers to wait on because the police had the entrances to the lot blocked off.
Sam was rearranging the bottles behind the bar, dusting as he went, and Holly and Danielle had
plunked themselves down at a table in the smoking section so Danielle could have a cigarette.
"How was it?" Sam asked.
"Not much to it. They didn't like hearing about Anthony working here, and they didn't like what I
told them about the party Lafayette was bragging about the other day. Did you hear him telling me? The
orgy thing?"
"Yeah, he said something to me about that, too. Must have been a big evening for him. If it really
happened."
"You think Lafayette made it up?"
"I don't think there are too many biracial, bisexual parties in Bon Temps," he said.
"But that's just because no one invited you to one," I said pointedly. I wondered if I really knew at
all what went on in our little town. Of all the people in Bon Temps, I should be the one to know the ins and
the outs, since all that information was more or less readily available to me, if I chose to dig for it. "At least,
I assume that's the case?"
"That's the case," Sam said, smiling at me a little as he dusted a bottle of whiskey.
"I guess my invitation got lost in the mail, too."
"You think Lafayette came back here last night to talk more to you or me about this party?"
I shrugged. "He may have just arranged to meet someone in the parking lot. After all, everyone
knows where Merlotte's is. Had he gotten his paycheck?" It was the end of the week, when Sam normally
paid us.
"No. Maybe he'd come in for that, but I'd have given it to him at work the next day. Today."
"I wonder who invited Lafayette to that party."
"Good question."
"You don't reckon he'd have been dumb enough to try to blackmail anyone, do you?"
Sam rubbed the fake wood of the bar with a clean rag. The bar was already shining, but he liked to
keep his hands busy, I'd noticed. "I don't think so," he said, after he'd thought it over. "No, they sure asked
the wrong person. You know how indiscreet Lafayette was. Not only did he tell us that he went to such a
party—and I'm betting he wasn't supposed to—he might have wanted to build more on it than the other, ah,
participants, would feel comfortable with."
"Like, keep in contact with the people at the party? Give them a sly wink in public?"
"Something like that."
"I guess if you have sex with someone, or watch them having sex, you feel pretty much like you're
their equal." I said this doubtfully, having limited experience in that area, but Sam was nodding.
"Lafayette wanted to be accepted for what he was more than anything else," he said, and I had to
agree.
Chapter 2
We reopened at four-thirty, by which time we were all as bored as we could possibly be. I was
ashamed of that, since after all, we were there because a man we knew had died, but it was undeniable
that after straightening up the storeroom, cleaning out Sam's office, and playing several hands of bourré
(Sam won five dollars and change) we were all ready to see someone new. When Terry Bellefleur, Andy's
cousin and a frequent substitute barman or cook at Merlotte's, came through the back door, he was a
welcome sight.
I guess Terry was in his late fifties. A Vietnam vet, he'd been a prisoner of war for a year and a
half. Terry had some obvious facial scarring, and my friend Arlene told me that the scars on his body were
even more drastic. Terry was redheaded, though he was graying a little more each month, it seemed like.
I'd always been fond of Terry, who bent over backward to be kind to me—except when he was in
one of his black moods. Everyone knew not to cross Terry Bellefleur when he was in one of his moods.
Terry's dark days were inevitably preceded by nightmares of the worst kind, as his neighbors testified. They
could hear Terry hollering on the nightmare nights.
I never, never read Terry's mind.
Terry looked okay today. His shoulders were relaxed, and his eyes didn't dart from side to side.
"You okay, sweet thing?" he asked, patting my arm sympathetically.
"Thanks, Terry, I'm fine. Just sorry about Lafayette."
"Yeah, he wasn't too bad." From Terry, that was high praise. "Did his job, always showed up on
time. Cleaned the kitchen good. Never a bad word." Functioning on that level was Terry's highest ambition.
"And then he dies in Andy's Buick."
"I'm afraid Andy's car is kind of . . ." I groped for the blandest term.
"It's cleanable, he said." Terry was anxious to close that subject.
"Did he tell you what had happened to Lafayette?"
"Andy says it looks like his neck was broken. And there was some, ah, evidence that he'd been . . .
messed with." Terry's brown eyes flickered away, revealing his discomfort. "Messed with" meant
something violent and sexual to Terry.
"Oh. Gosh, how awful." Danielle and Holly had come up behind me, and Sam, with another sack of
garbage he'd cleaned out of his office, paused on his way to the Dumpster out back.
"He didn't look that . . . I mean, the car didn't look that . . ."
"Stained?"
"Right."
"Andy thinks he was killed somewhere else."
"Yuck," said Holly. "Don't talk about it. That's too much for me."
Terry looked over my shoulder at the two women. He had no great love for either Holly or
Danielle, though I didn't know why and had made no effort to learn. I tried to leave people privacy,
especially now that I had better control over my own ability. I heard the two moving away, after Terry had
kept his gaze trained on them for a few seconds.
"Portia came and got Andy last night?" he asked.
"Yes, I called her. He couldn't drive. Though I'm betting he wishes I'd let him, now." I was just
never going to be number one on Andy Bellefleur's popularity list.
"She have trouble getting him to her car?"
"Bill helped her."
"Vampire Bill? Your boyfriend?"
"Uh-huh."
"I hope he didn't scare her," Terry said, as if he didn't remember I was still there.
I could feel my face squinching up. "There's no reason on earth why Bill would ever scare Portia
Bellefleur," I said, and something about the way I said it penetrated Terry's fog of private thought.
"Portia ain't as tough as everyone thinks she is," Terry told me. "You, on the other hand, are a
sweet little éclair on the outside and a pit bull on the inside."
"I don't know whether I should feel flattered, or whether I should sock you in the nose."
"There you go. How many women—or men, for that matter—would say such a thing to a crazy
man like me?" And Terry smiled, as a ghost would smile. I hadn't known how conscious of his reputation
Terry was, until now.
I stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss on the scarred cheek, to show him I wasn't scared of him. As I
sank back to my heels, I realized that wasn't exactly true. Under some circumstances, not only would I be
quite wary of this damaged man, but I might become very frightened indeed.
Terry tied the strings of one of the white cook's aprons and began to open up the kitchen. The rest
of us got back into the work mode. I wouldn't have long to wait tables, since I was getting off at six tonight
to get ready to drive to Shreveport with Bill. I hated for Sam to pay me for the time I'd spent lollygagging
around Merlotte's today, waiting to work; but straightening the storeroom and cleaning out Sam's office had
to count for something.
As soon as the police opened up the parking lot, people began streaming in, in as heavy a flow as a
small town like Bon Temps ever gets. Andy and Portia were among the first in, and I saw Terry look out
the hatch from the kitchen at his cousins. They waved at him, and he raised a spatula to acknowledge their
greeting. I wondered how close a cousin Terry actually was. He wasn't a first cousin, I was sure. Of
course, here you could call someone your cousin or your aunt or your uncle with little or no blood relation at
all. After my mother and father had died in a flash flood that swept their car off a bridge, my mother's best
friend tried to come by my Gran's every week or two with a little present for me; and I'd called her Aunt
Patty my whole life.
I answered all the customers' questions if I had time, and served hamburgers and salads and
chicken breast strips—and beer—until I felt dazed. When I glanced at the clock, it was time for me to go.
In the ladies' room I found my replacement, my friend Arlene. Arlene's flaming red hair (two shades redder
this month) was arranged in an elaborate cluster of curls on the back of her head, and her tight pants let the
world know she'd lost seven pounds. Arlene had been married four times, and she was on the lookout for
number five.
We talked about the murder for a couple of minutes, and I briefed her on the status of my tables,
before I grabbed my purse from Sam's office and scooted out the back door. It wasn't quite dark when I
pulled up to my house, which is a quarter mile back in the woods off a seldom-traveled parish road. It's an
old house, parts of it dating back a hundred and forty-plus years, but it's been altered and added onto so
often we don't count it as an antebellum house. It's just an old farmhouse, anyway. My grandmother, Adele
Hale Stackhouse, left me this house, and I treasured it. Bill had spoken of me moving into his place, which
sat on a hill just across the cemetery from my home, but I was reluctant to leave my own turf.
I yanked off my waitress outfit and opened my closet. If we were going over to Shreveport on
vampire business, Bill would want me to dress up a little. I couldn't quite figure that out, since he didn't want
anyone else making a pass at me, but he always wanted me to look extra pretty when we were going to
Fangtasia, a vampire-owned bar catering mainly to tourists.
Men.
I couldn't make up my mind, so I hopped in the shower. Thinking about Fangtasia always made me
tense. The vampires who owned it were part of the vampire power structure, and once they'd discovered
my unique talent, I'd become a desirable acquisition to them. Only Bill's determined entry into the vampire
self-governing system had kept me safe; that is, living where I wanted to live, working at my chosen job.
But in return for that safety, I was still obliged to show up when I was summoned, and to put my telepathy
to use for them. Milder measures than their former choices (torture and terror) were what "mainstreaming"
vampires needed. The hot water immediately made me feel better, and I relaxed as it beat on my back.
"Shall I join you?"
"Shit, Bill!" My heart pounding a mile a minute, I leaned against the shower wall for support.
"Sorry, sweetheart. Didn't you hear the bathroom door opening?"
"No, dammit. Why can't you just call 'Honey, I'm home,' or something?"
"Sorry," he said again, not sounding very sincere. "Do you need someone to scrub your back?"
"No, thank you," I hissed. "I'm not in the back-scrubbing kind of mood."
Bill grinned (so I could see his fangs were retracted) and pulled the shower curtain closed.
When I came out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around me more or less modestly, he was
stretched out on my bed, his shoes neatly lined up on the little rug by the night table. Bill was wearing a dark
blue long-sleeved shirt and khakis, with socks that matched the shirt and polished loafers. His dark brown
hair was brushed straight back, and his long sideburns looked retro.
Well, they were, but more retro than most people could ever have imagined.
He has high arched brows and a high-bridged nose. His mouth is the kind you see on Greek statues,
at least the ones I've seen in pictures. He died a few years after the end of the Civil War (or the War of
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[frontblurb][versionhistory]LIVINGDEADINDALLASbyCharlaineHarris.AnAceBookAcemass-marketedition/April2002ThisbookisdedicatedtoallthepeoplewhotoldmetheyenjoyedDeadUntilDark.Thanksfortheencouragement.MythanksgotoPatsyAsherofRemembertheAlibiinSanAntonio,Texas;ChloeGreenofDallas;andthehelpfulcyber-friend...

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