Sookie 10 Dead in the Family (10 page)

Terry nodded and then went out the back door to get his pickup. I speared Claude with a scowl. “That man is very fragile,” I said. “He had a bad war. Just remember that.”

Claude’s face was slightly flushed. “I’ll remember,” he said. “I’ve been in wars myself.” He gave me another quick graze on the cheek, to show me he’d recovered from the blow to his pride. I could feel the envy of every woman in the bar beating against me. “I’ll be gone to Monroe by the time you get home, I suppose. Thanks, Cousin.”

Sam came to stand beside me as Claude went out the door. “Elvis has left the building,” he said dryly.

“No, I haven’t seen him in a while,” I said, definitely on auto-mouth. Then I shook myself. “Sorry, Sam. Claude’s one of a kind, isn’t he?”

“I haven’t seen Claudine in a while. She’s a lot of fun,” Sam said. “Claude seems to be. more typical of the general run of fairies.” There was a question in his voice.

“We won’t be seeing Claudine anymore,” I said. “As far as I know, we won’t be seeing any fairies but Claude. The doors are shut. However that works. Though I understand there’s still one or two lurking around my house.”

“There’s a lot you haven’t told me,” he said.

“We need to catch up,” I agreed.

“What about this evening? After you get off? Terry’s supposed to come back and do some repairs that have piled up around here, but Kennedy is scheduled to take the bar.” Sam looked a little worried. “I hope Claude doesn’t make another pass at Terry. Claude’s ego is as big as a barn, and Terry’s so. You never know how he’s going to take stuff.”

“Terry’s a grown man,” I reminded Sam. Of course, I was trying to reassure myself. “They both are.”

“Claude isn’t a man at all,” Sam said. “Though he’s a
male
.”

It was a huge relief when I noticed Terry’d returned an hour later. He seemed absolutely normal, not flustered, angry, or anything else.

I had always tried to keep out of Terry’s head, because it could be a very frightening place. Terry did well as long as he kept his focus on one thing at a time. He thought about his dogs a lot. He’d kept one of the puppies from his bitch’s last litter, and he was training the youngster. (In fact, if ever a dog was taught to read, Terry would be the man who’d done it.)

After he’d worked on a loose doorknob in Sam’s office, Terry sat at one of my tables and ordered a salad and some sweet tea. After I took his order, Terry silently handed me a receipt. He’d had to get a new element for the water heater. “It’s all fi xed now,” he said. “Your cousin was able to get his hot shower.”

“Thanks, Terry,” I said. “I’m going to give you something for your time and labor.”

“Not a problem,” Terry said. “Your cousin took care of that.” He turned his attention to his magazine. He’d brought a copy of
Louisiana Hunting and Fishing
to read while he waited for his food.

I wrote Terry a check for the element and gave it to him when I brought his food. He nodded and slipped it in his pocket. Since Terry’s schedule meant he wasn’t always available to fill in, Sam had hired another bartender so he could have some regular evenings off. The new bartender, who’d been at work for a couple of weeks, was really pretty in a supersized way. Kennedy Keyes was five-eleven, easy; taller than Sam, for sure. She had the kind of good looks you associate with traditional beauty queens: shoulder-length chestnut hair with discreet blond highlights, wide brown eyes, a white and even smile that was an orthodontist’s wet dream. Her skin was perfect, her back straight, and she’d graduated from Southern Arkansas University with a degree in psychology.

She’d also done time.

Sam had asked her if she wanted a job when she’d drifted in for lunch the day after she’d gotten out of jail. She hadn’t even asked what she’d be doing before she’d said yes. He’d given her a basic bartender’s guide, and she’d studied every spare moment until she’d mastered an amazing number of drinks.

“Sookie!” she said, as if we’d been best friends since childhood. That was Kennedy’s way. “How you doing?”

“Good, thank you. Yourself?”

“Happy as a clam.” She bent to check the number of sodas in the glass-fronted refrigerator behind the bar. “We need us some A&W,” she said.

“Coming right up.” I got the keys from Sam, then went back to the stockroom to find a case of root beer. I got two six-packs.

“I didn’t mean you to get that. I coulda gotten them!” Kennedy smiled at me. Her smile was kind of perpetual. “I appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

“Do I look any smaller, Sookie?” she said hopefully. She half turned to show me her butt and looked at me over her own shoulder.

Kennedy’s issue didn’t seem to be that she had been in jail, but that she had put on weight in jail. The food had been crappy, she’d told me, and it had been high on the carbohydrate count. “But I’m an emotional eater,” she’d said, as if that were a terrible thing. “And I was real emotional in jail.” Ever since she’d gotten back to Bon Temps, she’d been anxious to return to her beauty queen measurements.

She was still beautiful. There was just more of her to look good.

“You’re gorgeous, as always,” I said. I looked around for Danny Prideaux. Sam had asked Danny to come in when Kennedy was working at night. This arrangement was supposed to last for a month, until Sam was sure people wouldn’t take advantage of Kennedy.

“You know,” she said, interpreting my glance, “I can handle myself.”

Everyone in Bon Temps knew that Kennedy could handle herself, and that was the problem. Her reputation might constitute a challenge to certain men (certain men who were assholes). “I know you can,” I said mildly. Danny Prideaux was insurance.

And there he came through the door. He was taller than Kennedy by a couple of inches, and he was of some racial mixture that I hadn’t figured out. Danny had deep olive skin, short brown hair, and a broad face. He’d been out of the army for a month, and he hadn’t yet settled into a career of any sort. He worked part-time at the home builders’ supply store. He was willing enough to be a bouncer for a few nights a week, especially since he got to look at Kennedy the whole time.

Sam drifted out of his office to say good night and brief Kennedy on a customer whose check had bounced, and then he and I went out the back door together. “Let’s go to Crawdad Diner,” he suggested. That sounded good to me. It was an old restaurant just off the square around the courthouse. Like all the businesses in the area around the square, the oldest part of Bon Temps, the diner had a history. The original owners had been Perdita and Crawdad Jones, who’d opened the restaurant in the forties. When Perdita had retired, she’d sold the business to Charlsie Tooten’s husband, Ralph, who’d quit his job at the chicken processing plant to take over. Their deal was that Perdita would give Ralph all her recipes if he’d agree to keep the name Crawdad Diner. When Ralph’s arthritis had forced him to retire, he’d sold Crawdad Diner to Pinkie Arnett with the same condition. So generations of Bon Temps diners were ensured of getting the best bread pudding in the state, and the heirs of Perdita and Crawdad Jones were able to point with pride.

I told Sam this bit of local history after we’d ordered country-fried steak with green beans and rice.

“Thank God Pinkie got the bread pudding recipe, and when the green tomatoes are in season, I want to come in every other night to have ’em fried,” Sam said. “How’s living with your cousin?” He squeezed his lemon slice into his tea.

“I hardly know yet. He just moved in some stuff, and we haven’t had a lot of overlap.”

“Have you seen him strip?” Sam laughed. “I mean, professionally? I sure couldn’t do that on a stage with people watching.”

Physically, there sure wouldn’t be anything stopping him. I’d seen Sam naked when he changed from a shifter form into human. Yum. “No, I always planned on going with Amelia, but since she went back to New Orleans I haven’t been in a strip-club kind of mood. You should ask Claude for a job on your nights off,” I said, grinning.

“Oh, sure,” he said sarcastically, but he looked pleased.

We talked about Amelia’s departure for a while, and then I asked Sam about his family in Texas. “My mom’s divorce came through,” he said. “Of course, my stepdad’s been in jail since he shot her, so she hasn’t seen him in months. At this point, I’m guessing the main difference to her is going to be financial. She’s getting my dad’s military pension, but she doesn’t know if her job at the school will be waiting for her or not when the summer’s over. They hired a substitute for the rest of the school year after she got shot, and they’re waffling over having Mom back.”

Before she’d gotten shot, Sam’s mom had been the receptionist/ secretary at an elementary school. Not everyone was calm about having a woman who turned into an animal working in the same office as them, though Sam’s mom was the same woman she’d been before. I was baffled by this attitude.

The waitress brought our plates and a basket of rolls. I sighed with anticipated pleasure. This was much nicer than cooking for myself.

“Any news on Craig’s wedding?” I asked, when I could yank myself away from my country-fried steak.

“They finished couples counseling,” he said with a shrug. “Now her parents want them to have genetics counseling, whatever that is.”

“That’s nuts.”

“Some people just think anything different is bad,” Sam said as he buttered his second roll. “And it’s not like Craig could change.” As the firstborn of a pure shifter couple, only Sam felt the call of the moon.

“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “I know the situation’s hard on everyone in your family.”

He nodded. “My sister Mindy’s gotten over it pretty well. She let me play with the kids the last time I saw them, and I’m going to try to get over to Texas for the Fourth of July. Her town has a big fireworks display, and the whole family goes. I think I’d enjoy it.”

I smiled. They were lucky to have Sam in their family—that was what I thought. “Your sister must be pretty smart,” I said. I took a big bite of country-fried steak with milk gravy. It was blissful.

He laughed. “Listen, while we’re talking family,” he said. “You ready to tell me how you’re really doing? You told me about your great-grandfather and what happened. How are your injuries? I don’t want to sound like I expect you to tell me everything that goes on in your life. But you know I care.”

I did a little hesitating myself. But it felt right to tell Sam, so I tried to give him a nutshell account of the past week. “And JB has been helping me with some physical therapy,” I added.

“You’re walking like nothing happened, unless you get tired,” he observed.

“There’s a couple of bad patches on my left upper thigh where the flesh actually. Okay, not going there.” I looked down at my napkin for a minute or two. “It grew back. Mostly. There’s a kind of dimple. I have a few scars, but they’re not terrible. Eric doesn’t seem to mind.” In fact, he had a scar or two from his human life, though they hardly showed against the whiteness of his skin.

“Are you, ah, coping okay with it?”

“I have nightmares sometimes,” I confessed. “And I have some panic moments. But let’s not talk about it anymore.” I smiled at him, my brightest smile. “Look at us after all these years, Sam. I’m living with a fairy, I’ve got a vampire boyfriend, you’re dating a werewolf who cracks skulls. Would we ever have thought we’d say this, the first day I came to work at Merlotte’s?”

Sam leaned forward and briefly put his hand over mine, and just then Pinkie herself came by the table to ask us how we’d liked the food. I pointed to my nearly empty plate. “I think you can tell we did,” I said, smiling at her. She grinned back. Pinkie was a big woman who clearly enjoyed her own cooking. Some new customers came in, and she went off to seat them.

Sam took his hand back and began working on his food again. “I wish. ” Sam began, and then he closed his mouth. He ran a hand through his red gold hair. Since he’d had it trimmed so short, it had looked tamer than usual until he tousled it. He laid his fork down, and I noticed he’d managed to dispose of almost all his food, too.

“What do you wish?” I asked. Most people, I’d be scared to ask them to complete that sentence. But Sam and I had been friends for years.

“I wish that you would find happiness with someone else,” he said. “I know, I know. It’s none of my business. Eric does seem to really care about you, and you deserve that.”

“He does,” I said. “He’s what I’ve got, and I’d be real ungrateful if I weren’t happy with that. We love each other.” I shrugged, in a self-deprecating way. I was uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation.

Sam nodded, though a wry twist to the corner of his mouth told me, without even hearing his thoughts, that Sam didn’t think Eric was such an object of worth. I was glad I couldn’t hear all his thoughts clearly. I thought Jannalynn was equally inappropriate for Sam. He didn’t need a ferocious, anything-for-the-packmaster kind of woman. He needed to be with someone who thought he was the greatest man around.

But I didn’t say anything.

You can’t say I’m not tactful.

It was dreadfully tempting to tell Sam what had happened the night before. But I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to involve Sam in vampire shit any more than he already was, which was very little. No one needed stuff like that. Of course, I’d worried all day about the fallout from those events.

My cell phone rang while Sam was paying his half of the bill. I glanced at it. Pam was calling. My heart leaped into my throat. I stepped outside the diner.

“What’s up?” I asked, sounding just as anxious as I really was.

“Hello to you, too.”

“Pam, what happened?” I wasn’t in the mood for playfulness.

“Bruno and Corinna didn’t show up in New Orleans for work today,” Pam said solemnly. “Victor didn’t call here, because, of course, there was no good reason for them to come up here.”

“Did they find the car?”

“Not yet. I’m sure the highway-patrol officers have put a sticker on it today, asking the owners to come and remove it. That’s what they do, I’ve observed.”

“Yes. That’s what they do.”

“No bodies will appear. Especially since after the downpour of last night, there won’t be a trace.” Pam sounded smug about that. “No blame can attach to us.”