"It's part of my job," I said tartly. "Can't be helped. I don't work nights all the time, anyway. But when I can, I do."
"Why?" The vampire gave me a shove up to my feet, and then he rose easily from the ground.
"Better tips. Harder work. No time to think."
"But night is more dangerous," he said disapprovingly.
He ought to know. "Now don't you go sounding like my grandmother," I chided him mildly. We had almost reached the parking lot.
"I'm older than your grandmother," he reminded me. That brought the conversation up short.
After I stepped out of the woods, I stood staring. The parking lot was as serene and untouched as if nothing had ever happened there, as if I hadn't been nearly beaten to death on that patch of gravel only an hour before, as if the Rats hadn't met their bloody end.
The lights in the bar and in Sam's trailer were off.
The gravel was wet, but not bloody.
My purse was sitting on the hood of my car.
"And what about the dog?" I said.
I turned to look at my savior.
He wasn't there.
Chapter 2
I GOT UP very late the next morning, which was not too surprising. Gran had been asleep when I got home, to my relief, and I was able to climb into my bed without waking her.
I WAS DRINKING a cup of coffee at the kitchen table and Gran was cleaning out the pantry when the phone rang. Gran eased her bottom up onto the stool by the counter, her normal chatting perch, to answer it.
"Hel-lo," she said. For some reason, she always sounded put out, as if a phone call were the last thing on earth she wanted. I knew for a fact that wasn't the case.
"Hey, Everlee. No, sitting here talking to Sookie, she just got up. No, I haven't heard any news today. No, no one called me yet. What? What tornado? Last night was clear. Four Tracks Corner? It did? No! No, it did not! Really? Both of'em? Um, um, um. What did Mike Spencer say?"
Mike Spencer was our parish coroner. I began to have a creepy feeling. I finished my coffee and poured myself another cup. I thought I was going to need it.
Gran hung up a minute later. "Sookie, you are not going to believe what has happened!"
I was willing to bet I would believe it.
"What?" I asked, trying not to look guilty.
"No matter how smooth the weather looked last night, a tornado must have touched down at Four Tracks Corner! It turned over that rent trailer in the clearing there. The couple that was staying in it, they both got killed, trapped under the trailer somehow and crushed to a pulp. Mike says he hasn't seen anything like it."
"Is he sending the bodies for autopsy?"
"Well, I think he has to, though the cause of death seems clear enough, according to Stella. The trailer is over on its side, their car is halfway on top of it, and trees are pulled up in the yard."
"My God," I whispered, thinking of the strength necessary to accomplish the staging of that scene.
"Honey, you didn't tell me if your friend the vampire came in last night?"
I jumped in a guilty way until I realized that in Gran's mind, she'd changed subjects. She'd been asking me if I'd seen Bill every day, and now, at last, I could tell her yes - but not with a light heart.
Predictably, Gran was excited out of her gourd. She fluttered around the kitchen as if Prince Charles were the expected guest.
"Tomorrow night. Now what time's he coming?" she asked.
"After dark. That's as close as I can get."
"We're on daylight saving time, so that'll be pretty late." Gran considered. "Good, we'll have time to eat supper and clear it away beforehand. And we'll have all day tomorrow to clean the house. I haven't cleaned that area rug in a year, I bet!"
"Gran, we're talking about a guy who sleeps in the ground all day," I reminded her. "I don't think he'd ever look at the rug."
"Well, if I'm not doing it for him, then I'm doing it for me, so I can feel proud," Gran said unanswerably. "Besides, young lady, how do you know where he sleeps?"
"Good question, Gran. I don't. But he has to keep out of the light and he has to keep safe, so that's my guess."
Nothing would prevent my grandmother from going into a house-proud frenzy, I realized very shortly. While I was getting ready for work, she went to the grocery and rented a rug cleaner and set to cleaning.
On my way to Merlotte's, I detoured north a bit and drove by the Four Tracks Corner. It was a crossroads as old as human habitation of the area. Now formalized by road signs and pavement, local lore said it was the intersection of two hunting trails. Sooner or later, there would be ranch-style houses and strip malls lining the roads, I guessed, but for now it was woods and the hunting was still good, according to Jason.
Since there was nothing to prevent me, I drove down the rutted path that led to the clearing where the Rattrays' rented trailer had stood. I stopped my car and stared out the windshield, appalled. The trailer, a very small and old one, lay crushed ten feet behind its original location. The Rattrays' dented red car was still resting on one end of the accordian-pleated mobile home. Bushes and debris were littered around the clearing, and the woods behind the trailer showed signs of a great force passing through; branches snapped off, the top of one pine hanging down by a thread of bark. There were clothes up in the branches, and even a roast pan.
I got out slowly and looked around me. The damage was simply incredible, especially since I knew it hadn't been caused by a tornado; Bill the vampire had staged this scene to account for the deaths of the Rattrays.
An old Jeep bumped its way down the ruts to come to a stop by me.
"Well, Sookie Stackhouse!" called Mike Spencer, "What you doing here, girl? Ain't you got work to go to?"
"Yes, sir. I knew the Rat - the Rattrays. This is just an awful thing." I thought that was sufficiently ambiguous. I could see now that the sheriff was with Mike.
"An awful thing. Yes, well. I did hear," Sheriff Bud Dearborn said as climbed down out of the Jeep, "that you and Mack and Denise didn't exactly see eye to eye in the parking lot of Merlotte's, last week."
I felt a cold chill somewhere around the region of my liver as the two men ranged themselves in front of me.
Mike Spencer was the funeral director of one of Bon Temps' two funeral homes. As Mike was always quick and definite in pointing out, anyone who wanted could be buried by Spencer and Sons Funeral Home; but only white people seemed to want to. Likewise, only people of color chose to be buried at Sweet Rest. Mike himself was a heavy middle-aged man with hair and mustache the color of weak tea, and a fondness for cowboy boots and string ties that he could not wear when he was on duty at Spencer and Sons. He was wearing them now.