Sookie 10 Dead in the Family (20 page)

“I think a physical search will do it,” Bud said. “The location was real specific.” (And the tracking dogs were expensive to hire, he thought.)

“Oh my gosh,” I said, genuinely startled. “How could this person claim not to be involved if they knew where the body was exactly? I don’t get it.” I’d hoped Bud would tell me more, but he didn’t bite.

Andy shrugged. “We got to go look.”

“Look away,” I said, with absolute confidence. If they’d brought the dogs, I’d have been sweating bullets that they’d scent Debbie Pelt or the former resting site of Basim. “You’ll excuse me if I just stay here in the house while you-all tramp through the woods. I hope you don’t pick up too many ticks.” Ticks lurked on bushes and weeds, sensing your chemicals and body heat as you passed, then making a leap of faith. I watched Andy tuck his pants into his boots, and Bud and Alcee sprayed themselves.

After the men had disappeared into the woods, Claude said, “You’d better tell me why you’re not scared.”

“We moved the body last night,” I said, and turned to sit down at the desk where I’d installed the computer I’d gotten from Hadley’s apartment. Let Claude put that in his pipe and smoke it! After a few seconds, I heard him stomp back up the stairs.

Since I had to wait for the men to come out of the woods, I might as well check my e-mail. A lot of forwarded messages, most of them inspirational or patriotic, from Maxine Fortenberry, Hoyt’s mother. I deleted those without reading them. I read an e-mail from Andy Bellefleur’s pregnant wife, Halleigh. It was a strange coincidence, hearing from her while her husband was out in back of my house on a wild-goose chase.

Halleigh told me she was feeling great. Just great! But Grand-mama Caroline was failing fast, and Halleigh feared Miss Caroline wouldn’t live to see her great-grandchild born.

Caroline Bellefleur was very old. Andy and Portia had been brought up in Miss Caroline’s house after their parents had died. Miss Caroline had been a widow for longer than she’d been married. I had no memory of Mr. Bellefleur at all, and I was pretty sure Portia and Andy hadn’t known him that long. Andy was older than Portia, and Portia was a year older than me, so I estimated that Miss Caroline, who’d once been Renard Parish’s finest cook and had made the best chocolate cake in the world, was at least in her nineties.

“Anyway,” Halleigh went on, “she wants to find the family Bible more than anything else on this earth. You know she’s always got a bee in her bonnet, and now it’s finding that Bible, which has been missing for umpty-ump years. I had a wild thought. She thinks way back our family was connected to some branch of the Comptons. Would you ask your neighbor, Mr. Compton, if he would mind very much looking for that old Bible? It seems like a long shot, but she hasn’t lost any of her personality though she’s physically weak.”

That was a nice way of saying that Miss Caroline was bringing up that Bible real often.

I was in a quandary. I knew that Bible was over at the Compton house. And I knew after she studied it, Miss Caroline would find out that she was a direct descendant of Bill Compton. How she’d feel about that was anybody’s guess. Did I want to screw with her world-view when the woman was on her deathbed?

On the other hand, did. Oh, hell, I was tired of trying to balance everything out, and I had enough on my plate to worry about. In a reckless moment, I forwarded Halleigh’s e-mail to Bill. I had come late to e-mail, and I still didn’t entirely trust it. But at least I felt I’d put the ball into Bill’s court. If he chose to lob it back, well, okay.

After I’d messed around a little on eBay, marveling at the things people were trying to sell, I heard voices in the front yard. I looked out to see Bud, Alcee, and Andy brushing dust and twigs off their clothes. Andy was rubbing at a bite on his neck.

I went outside. “Did you find a body?” I asked them.

“No, we did not,” Alcee Beck said. “We did see that people had been back there.”

“Well, sure,” I said. “But no body?”

“We won’t trouble you any further,” Bud said shortly.

They left in a cloud of dust. I watched them go, and shivered. I felt like the guillotine had been descending on my neck and had been prevented from cutting off my head only because the rope was too short.

I went back to the computer and sent Alcide an e-mail. It said only, “The police were just here.” I figured that would be enough. I knew I wouldn’t hear from him until he was ready for me to come to Shreveport.

I was surprised that it took three days to receive a reply from Bill.
Those days had been remarkable only for the number of people I hadn’t heard from. I hadn’t heard from Remy, which wasn’t too extraordinary. None of the members of the Long Tooth pack called, so I could only assume they’d retrieved the body of Basim from its new resting place and that they would let me know when the meeting would be held. If someone came into my woods and tried to find out why Basim’s body had vanished, I didn’t know about it. And I didn’t hear from Pam or Bobby Burnham, which was a little worrisome, but still. no big.

What did gripe me in a major way was not hearing from Eric. Okay, his (maker, sire, dad) mentor Appius Livius Ocella was in town. but geez Louise.

In between sessions of worrying, I looked up Roman names and found that “Appius” was his praenomen, his common name. Livius was his nomen, his family name, handed down from father to son, indicating that he was a member of the Livii family or clan. Ocella was his cognomen, so it was meant to indicate what particular branch of the Livii had borne him; or it could have been given as an honorific for his service in a war. (I had no idea what war that could have been.) As a third possibility, if he’d been adopted into another family, the cognomen would reflect his birth family.

Your name said a lot about you in the Roman world.

I wasted a lot of time finding out all about Appius Livius Ocella’s name. I still had no idea what he wanted or what he intended to do to my boyfriend. And those were the things I needed to know the most. I have to say, I was feeling pretty sulky, pugnacious, and sullen (I looked up a few words while I was online). Not a pretty posy of emotions, but I couldn’t seem to upgrade to dull unhappiness.

Cousin Claude was making himself scarce, too. I glimpsed him only once in those three days, and that was when I heard him go through the kitchen and out the back door and got up in time to see him getting into his car.

This goes to explain why I was delighted to see Bill at my back door when the sun had set on the third day after I’d sent him Halleigh’s e-mail. He was not looking appreciably better than he had the last time I’d seen him, but he was dressed in a suit and tie and his hair was carefully combed. The Bible was under his arm.

I understood why he was groomed, what he meant to do. “Good,” I said.

“Come with me,” he said. “It will help if you’re there.”

“But they’ll think. ” And then I made my mouth shut. It was unworthy to be worrying about the Bellefleurs’ assuming Bill and I were a couple again when Caroline Bellefleur was about to meet her maker.

“Would that be so terrible?” he asked with simple dignity.

“No, of course not. I was proud to be your girlfriend,” I said, and turned to go back to my room. “Please come in while I change clothes.” I’d finished the lunch-and-afternoon shift, and I’d changed to shorts and a T-shirt.

Since I was in a hurry, I changed to an above-the-knee black skirt and a white cap-sleeve fitted blouse I’d gotten on sale at Stage. I slid a red leather belt through the belt loops and got some red sandals from the back of my closet. I fluffed my hair, and I was ready.

I drove us over in my car, which was beginning to need an alignment.

It wasn’t a long ride to the Bellefleur mansion; it didn’t take long to get anywhere in Bon Temps. We parked in the driveway at the front door, but as we’d driven up I’d glimpsed several cars in the back parking area. I’d seen Andy’s car there, and Portia’s, too. There was an ancient gray Chevy Chevette parked sort of unobtrusively at the rear, and I wondered if Miss Caroline had a round-the-clock caregiver.

We walked up to the double front doors. Bill didn’t think it was appropriate (“seemly” was the word he used) to go to the back, and under the circumstances, I had to agree. Bill walked slowly and with effort. More than once I wanted to offer to carry the heavy Bible but I knew he wouldn’t let me, so I saved my breath.

Halleigh answered the door, thank God. She was startled when she saw Bill, but she recovered her poise very quickly and greeted us.

“Halleigh, Mr. Compton has brought the family Bible that Andy’s grandmother wants to see,” I said, in case Halleigh had gone temporarily blind and hadn’t noticed the huge volume. Halleigh was looking a little rough around the edges. Her brown hair was a mess, and her green flowered dress looked almost as tired as her eyes. Presumably, she’d come over to Miss Caroline’s after she’d worked all day teaching school. Halleigh was obviously pregnant, something Bill hadn’t known, I could tell by the fleeting expression on his face.

“Oh,” Halleigh said, her face visibly relaxing with relief. “Mr. Compton, please come in. You have no idea how Miss Caroline’s fretted about this.” I think Halleigh’s reaction was a pretty good indicator of just how much Miss Caroline had fretted.

We stepped into the entrance hall together. The wide flight of stairs was ahead of us and to our left. It curved gracefully up to the second floor. Lots of local brides had had their pictures made on this staircase. I had come down it in heels and a long dress when I’d been a stand-in for a sick bridesmaid at Halleigh and Andy’s wedding.

“I think it would be real nice if Bill could give the Bible to Miss Caroline,” I said, before the pause could become awkward. “There’s a family connection.”

Even Halleigh’s excellent manners faltered. “Oh. how interesting.” Her back stiffened, and I saw Bill appreciating the curve of her pregnancy. A faint smile curved his lips for a second. “I’m sure that would be just fine,” Halleigh said, rallying. “Let’s just go upstairs.”

We went up the stairs after her, and I had to struggle with the impulse to put a hand under Bill’s elbow to help him a little. I would have to do something to help Bill. He obviously wasn’t getting any better. A little fear crept into my heart.

We walked a little farther along the gallery to the door to the largest bedroom, which was open a discreet few inches. Halleigh stepped in ahead of us.

“Sookie and Mr. Compton have brought the family Bible,” she said. “Miss Caroline, can he bring it in?”

“Yes, of course, have him bring it,” said a weak voice, and Bill and I walked in.

Miss Caroline was the queen of the room, no doubt about it. Andy and Portia were standing to the right of the bed, and they looked both worried and uneasy as Bill ushered me in. I noticed the absence of Portia’s husband, Glen. A middle-aged African-American woman was sitting in a chair to the left of the bed. She was wearing the bright, loose pants and cheerful tunic that nurses favored now. The pattern made her look as though she worked on a pediatric ward. However, in a room decorated in subdued peach and cream, the splash of color was welcome. The nurse was thin and tall, and wore an incredible wig that reminded me of a movie Cleopatra. She nodded to us as we came closer to the bed. Caroline Bellefleur, who looked like the steel magnolia she was, lay propped up on a dozen pillows in the four-poster bed. There were shadows of exhaustion under her old eyes, and her hands curled in wrinkled claws on the bedspread. But there was still a flicker of interest in her eyes as she looked at us.

“Miss Stackhouse, Mr. Compton, I haven’t seen you since the big wedding,” she said with an obvious effort. Her voice was thin as paper.

“That was a beautiful occasion, Mrs. Bellefleur,” Bill said with an almost equal effort. I only nodded. This was not my conversation to have.

“Please take a seat,” the old woman said, and Bill pulled a chair up closer to her bed. I sat a couple of feet back.

“Looks like that Bible is too big for me to handle now,” the ancient lady said, with a smile. “It was so nice of you to bring it over. I have sure been wanting to see it. Has it been in your attic? I know we don’t have much connection with the Comptons, but I sure wanted to find that old book. Halleigh was nice enough to do some checking for me.”

“As a matter of fact, this book was on my coffee table,” Bill said gently. “Mrs. Bellefleur—Caroline—my second child was a daughter, Sarah Isabelle.”

“Oh my goodness,” said Miss Caroline, to indicate she was listening. She didn’t seem to know where this was headed, but she was definitely attentive.

“Though I didn’t learn this until I read the family page in this Bible after I returned to Bon Temps, my daughter Sarah had four children, though one baby was born dead.”

“That happened so often back then,” she said.

I glanced over at the Bellefleur grandchildren. Portia and Andy weren’t happy that Bill was here, not at all, but they were listening, too. They hadn’t spared a glance for me, which was actually just fine. Though they were puzzled by Bill’s presence, the focus of their thoughts was the woman who had raised them and the visible fact that she was fading away.

Bill said, “My Sarah’s daughter was named Caroline, for her grandmother. my wife.”

“My name?” Miss Caroline sounded pleased, though her voice was a little weaker.

“Yes, your name. My granddaughter Caroline married a cousin, Matthew Phillips Holliday.”

“Why, those are my mother and father.” She smiled, which did drastic things to her scores of wrinkles. “So you are. Really?” To my amazement, Caroline Bellefleur laughed.

“Your great-grandfather. Yes, I am.”

Portia made a sound as though she were choking on a stink-bug. Miss Caroline disregarded her granddaughter entirely, and she didn’t look over at Andy—which was lucky, because he was turkey-wattle red.

“Well, if this isn’t funny,” she said. “I’m as wrinkled as unironed linen, and you’re as smooth as a fresh peach.” She was genuinely amused. “Great-granddaddy!”

Then a thought seemed to occur to the dying lady. “Was it you arranged for that timely windfall we got?”