Sheriff Dearborn, who had the reputation of being a good man, was a little older than Mike, but fit and tough from his thick gray hair to his heavy shoes. The sheriff had a mashed-in face and quick brown eyes. He had been a good friend of my father's.
"Yes, sir, we had us a disagreement," I said frankly in my down-homiest voice.
"You want to tell me about it?" The sheriff pulled out a Marlboro and lit it with a plain, metal lighter.
And I made a mistake. I should have just told him. I was supposed to be crazy, and some thought me simple, too. But for the life of me, I could see no reason to explain myself to Bud Dearborn. No reason, except good sense.
"Why?" I asked.
His small brown eyes were suddenly sharp, and the amiable air vanished.
"Sookie," he said, with a world of disappointment in his voice. I didn't believe in it for a minute.
"I didn't do this," I said, waving my hand at the destruction.
"No, you didn't," he agreed. "But just the same, they die the week after they have a fight with someone, I feel I should ask questions."
I was reconsidering staring him down. It would feel good, but I didn't think feeling good was worth it. It was becoming apparent to me that a reputation for simplicity could be handy.
I may be uneducated and unworldly, but I'm not stupid or unread.
"Well, they were hurting my friend," I confessed, hanging my head and eyeing my shoes.
"Would that be this vampire that's living at the old Compton house?" Mike Spencer and Bud Dearborn exchanged glances.
"Yes, sir." I was surprised to hear where Bill was living, but they didn't know that. From years of deliberately not reacting to things I heard that I didn't want to know, I have good facial control. The old Compton house was right across the fields from us, on the same side of the road. Between our houses lay only the woods and the cemetery. How handy for Bill, I thought, and smiled.
"Sookie Stackhouse, your granny is letting you associate with that vampire?" Spencer said unwisely.
"You can sure talk to her about that," I suggested maliciously, hardly able to wait to hear what Gran would say when someone suggested she wasn't taking care of me. "You know, the Rattrays were trying to drain Bill."
"So the vampire was being drained by the Rattrays? And you stopped them?" interrupted the sheriff.
"Yes," I said and tried to look resolute.
"Vampire draining is illegal," he mused.
"Isn't it murder, to kill a vampire that hasn't attacked you?" I asked.
I may have pushed the naivete a little too hard.
"You know damn good and well it is, though I don't agree with that law. It is a law, and I will uphold it," the sheriff said stiffly.
"So the vampire just let them leave, without threatening vengeance? Saying anything like he wished they were dead?" Mike Spencer was being stupid.
"That's right." I smiled at both of them and then looked at my watch. I remembered the blood on its face, my blood, beaten out of me by the Rattrays. I had to look through that blood to read the time.
"Excuse me, I have to get to work," I said. "Good-bye, Mr. Spencer, Sheriff."
"Good-bye, Sookie," Sheriff Dearborn said. He looked like he had more to ask me, but couldn't think of how to put it. I could tell he wasn't totally happy with the look of the scene, and I doubted any tornado had shown up on radar anywhere. Nonetheless, there was the trailer, there was the car, there were the trees, and the Rattrays had been dead under them. What could you decide but that the tornado had killed them? I guessed the bodies had been sent for an autopsy, and I wondered how much could be told by such a procedure under the circumstances.
The human mind is an amazing thing. Sheriff Dearborn must have known that vampires are very strong. But he just couldn't imagine how strong one could be: strong enough to turn over a trailor, crush it. It was even hard for me to comprehend, and I knew good and well that no tornado had touched down at Four Corners.
The whole bar was humming with the news of the deaths. Maudette's murder had taken a backseat to Denise and Mack's demises. I caught Sam eyeing me a couple of times, and I thought about the night before and wondered how much he knew. But I was scared to ask in case he hadn't seen anything. I knew there were things that had happened the night before that I hadn't yet explained to my own satisfaction, but I was so grateful to be alive that I put off thinking of them.
I'd never smiled so hard while I toted drinks, I'd never made change so briskly, I'd never gotten orders so exactly. Even ol' bushy-haired Rene didn't slow me down, though he insisted on dragging me into his long-winded conversations every time I came near the table he was sharing with Hoyt and a couple of other cronies.
Rene played the role of crazy Cajun some of the time, though any Cajun accent he might assume was faked. His folks had let their heritage fade. Every woman he'd married had been hard-living and wild. His brief hitch with Arlene had been when she was young and childless, and she'd told me that from time to time she'd done things then that curled her hair to think about now. She'd grown up since then, but Rene hadn't. Arlene was sure fond of him, to my amazement.
Everyone in the bar was excited that night because of the unusual happenings in Bon Temps. A woman had been murdered, and it was a mystery; usually murders in Bon Temps are easily solved. And a couple had died violently by a freak of nature. I attributed what happened next to that excitement. This is a neighborhood bar, with a few out of towners who pass through on a regular basis, and I've never had much problem with unwanted attention. But that night one of the men at a table next to Rene and Hoyt's, a heavy blond man with a broad, red face, slid his hand up the leg of my shorts when I was bringing their beer.
That doesn't fly at Merlotte's.
I thought of bringing the tray down on his head when I felt the hand removed. I felt someone standing right behind me. I turned my head and saw Rene, who had left his chair without my even realizing it. I followed his arm down and saw that his hand was gripping the blond's and squeezing. The blond's red face was turning a mottled mixture.
"Hey, man, let go!" the blond protested. "I didn't mean nothing."
"You don't touch anyone who works here. That's the rule." Rene might be short and slim, but anyone there would have put his money on our local boy over the beefier visitor.
"Okay, okay."
"Apologize to the lady."
"To Crazy Sookie?" His voice was incredulous. He must have been here before.
Rene's hand must have tightened. I saw tears spring into the blond's eyes.