"Yeah, that's how come I saw her. I thought, 'Damn, that's Arlene, and she's out, and she tried to kill Sookie. What's up with that?' Those men were real close to her. She was handing them something, and then Hank and I . . . got to . . . talking, and I never saw them again. Next time I looked up, they were gone."
Jane's piece of information was very important to me in a dubious kind of way. On the one hand, it might help clear me or at least give the law grounds for doubting that I'd had any part in killing Arlene. On the other hand, Jane was not what you would call a reliable witness, and her story could be shaken up with one arm tied behind a policeman's back.
I sighed. As Jane began a monologue about her long "friendship" with Hank Clearwater (I'd never be able to have him in to work on my plumbing after this), I had some random thoughts of my own.
My witness, Karin the Slaughterer, would not rise until full dark, which would not be achieved until quite late. (Not for the first time, I told myself how much I hated daylight saving time.) Karin was a better witness than Jane because she was obviously sharp, alert, and in her right mind. Of course, she was dead. Having a vampire as a witness to your whereabouts was not a glowing testimonial. Though they were now citizens of the United States, they were not treated or regarded like humans, not by a long shot. I wondered if the police would get around to interviewing Karin tonight. Maybe they'd already sent someone to Fangtasia before she'd turned in today.
I considered what Jane had told me. A tall, thin guy and a plain guy, not locals or Jane would have recognized them. With Arlene. In the area behind the house next door to where her children were staying with Brock and Chessie Johnson. Late, on the night Arlene was murdered. That was a big development.
Kevin, in a clean, crisp uniform, brought us lunch an hour later. Fried bologna, mashed potatoes, sliced tomatoes. He looked at me with as much distaste as I'd looked at the food.
"You can just cut that out, Kevin Pryor," I said. "I no more killed Arlene than you can tell your mama who you're living with."
Kevin turned bright red, and I knew my tongue had gotten the better of me. Kevin and Kenya had been living together for a year now, and most people in town knew about it. But Kevin's mom could pretend she didn't know because Kevin didn't tell her face-to-face. There wasn't a thing wrong with Kenya, except for Kevin's mom she was the wrong color to be a girlfriend to Kevin.
"You just shut up, Sookie," he said. Kevin Pryor had never said a rude thing to me in his life. I suddenly realized that I didn't look the same to Kevin now that I was wearing orange. From being someone he should treat with respect, I'd become someone he could tell to shut up.
I stood and looked into his face through the bars separating us. I looked at him for a long moment. He turned even redder. There was no point in telling him Jane's story. He wasn't going to listen.
Alcee Beck came back to the cells that afternoon. Thank God he didn't have the key to our cell. He loomed outside it, silent and glowering. I saw his big fists clench and unclench in a very unnerving way. Not only did he want to see me go to jail for murder, he would love to beat me up. He was spoiling for it. Only the thinnest thread kept him anchored to self-restraint.
The black cloud was still in his head, but it didn't seem as dense. His thoughts were leaking through.
"Alcee," I said, "you know I didn't do this, right? I think you do know that. Jane has evidence that two men saw Arlene that night." Even though I knew Alcee didn't like me, for reasons both personal and professional, I didn't think he would persecute (or prosecute) me for his own reasons. Though he was certainly capable of some corruption, some graft, Alcee had never been suspected of being any kind of vigilante. I knew he hadn't had any personal relationship with Arlene, for two reasons: Alcee loved his wife, Barbara, the librarian here in Bon Temps, and Arlene had been a racist.
The detective didn't respond to my words, but I could tell there was a question or two going on in his thoughts about the righteousness of his actions. He departed, his face still full of anger.
Something was so wrong inside Alcee Beck. Then it came to me: Alcee was acting like someone who'd been possessed. That was a key thought. I finally had something new to think about; I could spend infinite time picking the thought apart.
The rest of the day passed with excruciating slowness. It's bad when the most interesting thing that happens to you all day is getting arrested. The women's jailer, Jessie Schneider, sauntered down the hall to tell Jane that her son couldn't pick her up until tomorrow morning. Jessie didn't speak to me, but she didn't have to. She gave me a good long look, shook her head, and walked back to her office. She'd never heard anything bad about me, and it made her sad that someone who'd had such a good grandma had ended up in jail. It made me sad, too.
A trustee brought us our supper, which was pretty much lunch revisited. At least the tomatoes were fresh, since there was a garden at the jail. I'd never thought I'd get tired of fresh tomatoes, but between my own burgeoning plants and the jail produce, I would be glad when they were out of season.
There wasn't a window in our cell, but there was one across the corridor, high up on the wall. When the window got dark, all I could think of was Karin. I prayed very earnestly that (if she hadn't been already) she would be contacted by the police, that she would tell the truth, that the truth would literally set me free. I didn't get a lot of sleep that night after the lights went out. Jane snored, and someone over in the men's section was screaming from about midnight to one a.m.
I was so grateful when morning came and the sun broke through the window across the corridor. The weather report two days ago had forecast Monday as sunny, which meant a return to very high temperatures. The jail was air-conditioned, which was a good thing, since it meant I wasn't quite exasperated enough to kill Jane, though I came mighty close a couple of times.
I sat cross-legged on my top bunk, trying hard to think about nothing, until Jessie Schneider came to get us.
"You got to go in front of the judge now," she said. "Come on." She unlocked the cell and gestured us out. I'd been afraid we'd be shackled, but we weren't. We were handcuffed, though.
"When am I getting to go home, Jessie?" Jane asked. "Hey, you know Sookie didn't do nothing to Arlene. I saw Arlene with some men."
"Yeah, when did you remember that? When Sookie reminded you?" Jessie, a big, heavy woman in her forties, didn't seem to bear either of us any ill will. She was so accustomed to being lied to that she simply didn't believe anything an inmate said, and very little anyone else told her, either.