"What's happening, Officer?" Sam asked.
"We're going to break into this house, Mr. Merlotte, unless you have a master key."
Why would Sam have a key?
"He's my landlord," JB said in my ear, and I jumped.
"He is?" I asked stupidly.
"He owns all three duplexes."
Sam had been fishing in his pocket, and now he came up with a bunch of keys. He flipped through them expertly, stopping at one and singling it out, getting it off the ring and handing it to Kevin.
"This fits front and back?" Kevin asked. Sam nodded. He still wasn't looking at me.
Kevin went to the back door of the duplex, out of sight, and we were all so quiet we could hear the key turn in the lock. Then he was in the bedroom with the dead woman, and we could see his face twist when the smell hit him. Holding one hand across his mouth and nose, he bent over the body and put his fingers on her neck. He looked out the window then and shook his head at his partner. Kenya nodded and headed out to the street to use the radio in the patrol car.
"Listen, Sookie, how about going to dinner with me tonight?" JB asked. "This has been tough on you, and you need some fun to make up for it."
"Thanks, JB." I was very conscious of Sam listening. "It's really nice of you to ask. But I have a feeling I'm going to be working extra hours today."
For just a second, JB's handsome face was blank. Then comprehension filtered in. "Yeah, Sam's gotta hire someone else," he observed. "I got a cousin in Springhill needs a job. Maybe I'll give her a call. We could live right next door to each other, now."
I smiled at him, though I am sure it was a very weak smile, as I stood shoulder to shoulder with the man I'd worked with for two years.
"I'm sorry, Sookie," he said quietly.
"For what?" My own voice was just as low. Was he going to acknowledge what had passed between us - or rather, failed to pass?
"For sending you to check on Dawn. I should have come myself. I was sure she was just shacked up with someone new and needed a reminder that she was supposed to be working. The last time I had to come get her, she yelled at me so much I just didn't want to deal with it again. So like a coward, I sent you, and you had to find her like that."
"You're full of surprises, Sam."
He didn't turn to look at me or make any reply. But his fingers folded around mine. For a long moment, we stood in the sun with people buzzing around us, holding hands. His palm was hot and dry, and his fingers were strong. I felt I had truly connected with another human. But then his grip loosened, and Sam stepped over to talk with the detective, who was emerging from his car, and JB began asking me how Dawn had looked, and the world fell back into its same old groove.
The contrast was cruel. I felt tired all over again, and remembered the night before in more detail than I wanted to. The world seemed a bad and terrible place, all its denizens suspect, and I the lamb wandering through the valley of death with a bell around my neck. I stomped over to my car and opened the door, sank sideways into the seat. I'd be standing plenty today; I'd sit while I could.
JB followed me. Now that he'd rediscovered me, he could not be detached. I remembered when Gran had had high hopes for some permanent relationship between us, when I'd been in high school. But talking to JB, even reading his mind, was as interesting as a kindergarten primer was to an adult reader. It was one of God's jokes that such a dumb mind had been put in such an eloquent body.
He knelt before me and took my hand. I found myself hoping that some smart rich lady would come along and marry JB and take care of him and enjoy what he had to offer. She would be getting a bargain.
"Where are you working now?" I asked him, just to distract myself.
"My dad's warehouse," he said.
That was the job of last resort, the one JB always returned to when he got fired from other jobs for doing something lamebrained, or for not showing up, or for offending some supervisor mortally. JB's dad ran an auto parts store.
"How are your folks doing?"
"Oh, fine. Sookie, we should do something together."
Don't tempt me, I thought.
Someday my hormones were going to get the better of me and I'd do something I'd regret; and I could do worse than do it with JB. But I would hold out and hope for something better. "Thanks, honey," I said. "Maybe we will. But I'm kind of upset right now."
"Are you in love with that vampire?" he asked directly.
"Where did you hear that?"
"Dawn said so." JB's face clouded as he remembered Dawn was dead. What Dawn had said, I found on scanning JB's mind, was "That new vampire is interested in Sookie Stackhouse. I'd be better for him. He needs a woman who can take some rough treatment. Sookie would scream if he touched her."
It was pointless being mad at a dead person, but briefly I indulged myself by doing just that.
Then the detective was walking toward us, and JB got to his feet and moved away.
The detective took JB's position, squatting on the ground in front of me. I must look in bad shape.
"Miss Stackhouse?" he asked. He was using that quiet intense voice many professionals adopt in a crisis. "I'm Andy Bellefleur." The Bellefleurs had been around Bon Temps as long as there'd been a Bon Temps, so I wasn't amused at a man being "beautiful flower." In fact, I felt sorry for whoever thought it was amusing as I looked down at the block of muscle that was Detective Bellefleur. This particular family member had graduated before Jason, and I'd been one class behind his sister Portia.
He'd been placing me, too. "Your brother doing okay?" he asked, his voice still quiet, not quite as neutral. It sounded like he'd had a run-in or two with Jason.
"The little I see of him, he's doing fine," I answered.
"And your grandmother?"
I smiled. "She's out planting flowers this morning."
"That's wonderful," he said, doing that sincere head shake that's supposed to indicate admiring amazement. "Now, I understand that you work at Merlotte's?"
"Yes."
"And so did Dawn Green?"
"Yes."
"When was the last time you saw Dawn?"
"Two days ago. At work." I already felt exhausted. Without shifting my feet from the ground or my arm from the steering wheel, I lay my head sideways on the headrest of the driver's seat.
"Did you talk to her then?"
I tried to remember. "I don't think so."
"Were you close to Miss Green?"
"No."