"Just for being here," I said.
"It true about Dawn?"
Lafayette put two plates on the serving hatch. He winked at me with a sweep of his thick, false lashes. Lafayette wears a lot of makeup. I was so used to him I never thought of it any more, but now his eye shadow brought the boy, Jerry, to my mind. I'd let him go with the three vampires without protest. That had probably been wrong, but realistic. I couldn't have stopped them from taking him. I couldn't have gotten the police to catch up with them in time. He was dying anyway, and he was taking as many vampires and humans with him as he could; and he was already a killer himself. I told my conscience this would be the last talk we'd have about Jerry.
"Arlene, burgers up," Terry called, jerking me back into the here and how. Arlene came over to grab the plates. She gave me a look that said she was going to pump me dry at the first chance she got. Charlsie Tooten was working, too. She filled in when one of the regular women got sick or just didn't show. I hoped Charlsie would take Dawn's place full-time. I'd always liked her.
"Yeah, Dawn's dead," I told Terry. He didn't seem to mind my long pause.
"What happened to her?"
"I don't know, but it wasn't peaceful." I'd seen blood on the sheets, not a lot, but some.
"Maudette," Terry said, and I instantly understood.
"Maybe," I said. It sure was possible that whoever had done in Dawn was the same person who'd killed Maudette.
Of course, everyone in Renard Parish came in that day, if not for lunch, then for an afternoon cup of coffee or a beer. If they couldn't make their work schedule bend around that, they waited until they clocked out and came in on their way home. Two young women in our town murdered in one month? You bet people wanted to talk.
Sam returned about two, with heat radiating off his body and sweat trickling down his face from standing out in the shadeless yard at the crime scene. He told me that Andy Bellefleur had said he was coming to talk to me again soon.
"I don't know why," I said, maybe a tad sullenly. "I never hung around with Dawn. What happened to her, did they tell you?"
"Someone strangled her after beating on her a little," Sam said. "But she had some old tooth marks, too. Like Maudette."
"There are lots of vampires, Sam," I said, answering his unspoken comment.
"Sookie." His voice was so serious and quiet. It made me remember how he'd held my hand at Dawn's house, and then I remembered how he'd shut me out of his mind, known I was probing, known how to keep me out. "Honey, Bill is a good guy, for a vampire, but he's just not human."
"Honey, neither are you," I said, very quietly but very sharply. And I turned my back on Sam, not exactly wanting to admit why I was so angry with him, but wanting him to know it nonetheless.
I worked like a demon. Whatever her faults, Dawn had been efficient, and Charlsie just couldn't keep up with the pace. She was willing, and I was sure she'd catch up with the rhythm of the bar, but for tonight, Arlene and I had to take up the slack.
I earned a ton of money in tips that evening and on into the night when people found out I'd actually discovered the body. I just kept my face solemn and got through it, not wanting to offend customers who just wanted to know what everyone else in town wanted to know.
On my way home, I allowed myself to relax a little. I was exhausted. The last thing I expected to see, after I turned into the little drive through the woods that led to our house, was Bill Compton. He was leaning against a pine tree waiting for me. I drove past him a little, almost deciding to ignore him. But then I stopped.
He opened my door. Without looking him in the eyes, I got out. He seemed comfortable in the night, in a way I never could be. There were too many childhood taboos about the night and the darkness and things that went bump.
Come to think of it, Bill was one of those things. No wonder he felt at ease.
"Are you going to look at your feet all night, or are you going to talk to me?" he asked in a voice that was just above a whisper.
"Something happened you should know about."
"Tell me." He was trying to do something to me: I could feel his power hovering around me, but I batted it away. He sighed.
"I can't stand up," I said wearily. "Let's sit on the ground or something. My feet are tired."
In answer, he picked me up and set me on the hood of the car. Then he stood in front of me, his arms crossed, very obviously waiting.
"Tell me."
"Dawn was murdered. Just like Maudette Pickens."
"Dawn?"
Suddenly I felt a little better. "The other waitress at the bar."
"The redheaded one, the one who's been married so often?"
I felt a lot better. "No, the dark-haired one, the one who kept bumping into your chair with her hips to get you to notice her."
"Oh, that one. She came to my house."
"Dawn? When?"
"After you left the other night. The night the other vampires were there. She's lucky she missed them. She was very confident of her ability to handle anything."
I looked up at him. "Why is she so lucky? Wouldn't you have protected her?"
Bill's eyes were totally dark in the moonlight. "I don't think so," he said.
"You are..."
"I'm a vampire, Sookie. I don't think like you. I don't care about people automatically."
"You protected me."
"You're different."
"Yeah? I'm a waitress, like Dawn. I come from a plain family, like Maudette. What's so different?"
I was in a sudden rage. I knew what was coming.
His cool finger touched the middle of my forehead. "Different," he said. "You're not like us. But you're not like them, either."
I felt a flare of rage so intense it was almost divine. I hauled off and hit him, an insane thing to do. It was like hitting a Brink's armored truck. In a flash, he had me off the car and pinned to him, my arms bound to my sides by one of his arms.
"No!" I screamed. I kicked and fought, but I might as well have saved the energy. Finally I sagged against him.
My breathing was ragged, and so was his. But I didn't think it was for the same reason.
"Why did you think I needed to know about Dawn?" He sounded so reasonable, you'd think the struggle hadn't happened.
"Well, Mr. Lord of Darkness," I said furiously, "Maudette had old bite marks on her thighs, and the police told Sam that Dawn had bite marks, too."
If silence can be characterized, his was thoughtful. While he was mulling, or whatever vampires do, his embrace loosened. One hand began rubbing my back absently, as if I was a puppy who had whimpered.