"If the police will accept the word of a vampire."

"There's that. And they can't question her until tonight. And I have no idea how to get in touch with her, so I left a message with Mustapha. Here's Part Two of the bad Eric stuff. He told me I would be seeing him tonight, but he warned me I wouldn't like it. It sounded pretty official. I kind of have to go, if I'm not in jail, that is." I tried to smile. "It's not going to be fun."

"You want me to come with you?"

That was an amazing offer. I appreciated it, and I said so. But I had to add, "I think I have to get through this by myself, Sam. Just now, the sight of you might make Eric more . . . upset."

Sam nodded in acknowledgment. But he looked worried. After some hesitation, he said, "What do you think is going to happen, Sook? If you have to go, you have the right to have someone with you. It's not like you are going to a movie with Eric or something."

"I don't think I'm in physical danger. I'm just . . . I don't know." I believed - I anticipated - that Eric was going to repudiate me publicly. I just couldn't push the words out of my throat. "Some vampire bullshit," I muttered dismally.

Sam put his hand on my shoulder. It was almost too hot for even that slight contact, but I could tell he was trying to let me know he was ready to back me up. "Where are you two meeting?"

"Fangtasia or Eric's house, I suppose. He'll let me know."

"The offer stands."

"Thanks." I smiled at him, but it was a weak attempt. "But I don't want anyone more agitated than they're gonna be." Meaning Eric.

"Then call me when you get home?"

"I can do that. Might be pretty late."

"That doesn't matter."

Sam had always been my friend, though we'd had our ups and our downs and our arguments. It would be insulting to tell him that he didn't owe me anything for bringing him back to life. He knew that.

"I woke up different," Sam said suddenly. He'd been thinking during the little pause, too.

"How?"

"I'm not sure, yet. But I'm tired of . . ." His voice trailed off.

"Of what?"

"Of living my life like there'll be plenty of tomorrows so what I do today doesn't matter."

"You think something's going to happen to you?"

"No, not exactly," he said. "I'm afraid nothing will happen to me. When I work it out, I'll let you know." He smiled at me; it was a rueful smile, but it had warmth.

"Okay," I said. I made myself smile back. "You do that."

And we returned to watching the police do their thing, each sunk in our own thoughts. I hope Sam's were happier than mine. I didn't see how the day could get much crappier. But it could.

ELSEWHERE

that night

"I think we can call him now," the medium man said, and took out his cell phone. "You take care of the throwaway."

The tall man extracted a cheap cell phone from his pocket. He stomped on it a few times, enjoying the crushing of the glass and metal. He picked up the carcass of the telephone and dropped it into a deep puddle. The short driveway from the road to the front of the trailer was dimpled with such puddles. Anyone driving in would be sure to press the phone into the mud.

The medium man would have preferred some method of disposal that completely obliterated the little collection of circuitry and metal, but that would do. He was frowning when the call he placed went through.

"Yes?" said a silky voice.

"It's done. The body's found, the scarf was on it, I retrieved the magic coin, and I've planted the charm in the detective's car."

"Call me again when it happens," said the voice. "I want to enjoy it."

"Then we're through with this project," the medium man said, and he might have been a little hopeful that was so. "And the money will be in our accounts. It's been a pleasure working with you." His voice was quite empty of sincerity.

"No," said the voice on the other end. It held such promise; you just knew that whoever could speak that way must be beautiful. The medium man, who'd actually met the owner of the voice, shuddered. "No," the voice repeated. "Not quite through."

Chapter 7

By the time I was able to leave work, I felt like I'd been steamed and left out on the counter.

We had gotten to open at three on the dot, to my surprise. By then rumors and facts had spread all over Bon Temps. A big crowd showed up at Merlotte's just pining to get the lowdown on what had actually happened. What with questions from every customer and the endless speculations of Andrea Norr, I was fixing to start screaming.

"So who could have put her in the Dumpster, and how'd they get her in there?" An said for the fiftieth time. "Antoine puts the kitchen trash in there. That's disgusting."

"It sure is," I said, just managing not to bite her head off. "That's why we're not going to talk about it."

"Okay! Okay! I get your drift, Sookie. Mum's the word. At least I'm telling everyone that you didn't do it, sweetie." And she went right back to talking. There was no doubt that gossipy An had the mysterious "it." Following her movements around the bar was like watching an all-male rendition of the wave.

It was nice to know that An was telling everyone I wasn't guilty, but it was depressing to think that anyone would have assumed I was. An's reasoning echoed that of the detectives. It seemed impossible that a lone woman could lift Arlene, literally a dead weight, up into the mouth of the Dumpster.

In fact, when I tried to picture the insertion, the only way such a maneuver would work for one person would be if the killer already had Arlene over his shoulder (and I was using his because it would take a strong person to lift Arlene that way). She had gotten skinny, but she was still no featherweight.

Two people could do it easily enough - or one supernatural of any gender.

I glanced over at Sam, working behind the bar. Since he was a shifter, he was incredibly strong. He could easily have tossed Arlene's corpse into the trash.

He could have, but he hadn't.

The most obvious reason was that he would never put Arlene's corpse in the Dumpster right behind his business in the first place. Second, Sam would never have staged himself finding the body with me as witness. And third, I simply didn't believe he would have killed Arlene, not without some compelling reason or in the heat of some terrible struggle. Fourth, he would already have told me if either of those circumstances applied.

If Andy understood that I couldn't get Arlene in there by myself, he must be trying to figure out who would help me do such a thing. When I considered that, I did have a lot of friends and acquaintances who were not strangers to body disposal. They would help me with few questions asked. But what did that say about my life?

Okay, screw the brooding introspection. My life was what it was. If it had been tougher and bloodier than I'd ever imagined . . . that was a done deal.

Suspect Number One for "helping Sookie dispose of a body" came in right after that. My brother, Jason, was a werepanther, and though he hadn't ever changed publicly, word had gotten around. Jason had never been able to keep his mouth shut when he was excited about something. If I'd called him to help me put a woman in a Dumpster, he would have jumped in his pickup and been there as fast as he could drive.

I waved at my brother as he walked in the door holding hands with his Michele. Jason was still stained and sweaty after a long, hot day's work as a boss of one of the parish road crews. Michele looked perky in contrast, in her red polo shirt all the employees wore at the Schubert Ford dealership. They were both in the throes of marriage fever. But like everyone else in Bon Temps, they were fascinated by the death of a former Merlotte's server.

I didn't want to talk about Arlene, so I headed them off by telling Michele I'd found a dress to wear in the wedding. Their forthcoming ceremony took precedence over everything else, even a lurid death in the parking lot. As I'd hoped, Michele asked me a million questions and said she was going to come by to look at it, and she told me Greater Love Baptist (Michele's dad's church) was willing to lend their folding tables and chairs for the potluck reception at Jason's house. A friend of Michele's had volunteered to make the cake as her wedding present to the happy couple, and the mother of another friend was going to do the flowers at cost. By the time they'd finished their meals and paid their tab, the word "strangled" hadn't entered the conversation.

That was the only respite I had the whole evening. Though I'd noticed the bar crowd was thin the previous day, an amazing number of people now told me they'd seen Arlene enter Merlotte's. They'd all spoken to her personally before watching her go to the office. And they'd all watched her leave (either five or fifteen or fifty minutes afterward) with steam coming out of her ears. No matter how their stories varied on other points of interest, to me that was the important memory: that she'd left, alive and unharmed. And angry.

"Did she come to ask your forgiveness?" Maxine Fortenberry asked. Maxine had come in to have supper with two of her cronies, buddies of my grandmother's.

"No, she wanted a job," I said, with as much frank and open honesty as I could plaster on my face.

All three women looked delightfully shocked. "Not really," Maxine breathed. "She had the gall to ask if she could have her job back?"

"She couldn't see why not," I said, lifting a shoulder as I gathered up their dirty plates. "You all want a refill on your tea?"

"Sure, bring the pitcher around," Maxine said. "My Lord, Sookie. That just takes the cake."

She was absolutely right.

The next moment I had to spare was spent cudgeling my brain to try to remember when I'd last seen that blue and green scarf. Sam had said he remembered me wearing it to church with a black dress. That would have been to a funeral, because I didn't like to wear black and reserved it for the most serious occasions. Whose funeral? Maybe Sid Matt Lancaster's? Or Caroline Bellefleur's? I'd been to several funerals in the past couple of years, since most of Gran's friends were aging, but Sam wouldn't have gone to those.

Jane Bodehouse drifted into Merlotte's close to suppertime. She clambered onto her usual stool at the bar. I could feel my face get tight and angry when I looked at her. "You've got some nerve, Jane," I said baldly. "Why do you want to drink here, when you're so damaged by the firebomb incident? I can't believe you can endure coming in here, you suffered so much."

She was surprised for a second until the cogs in her brain turned enough to give up the memory that she'd hired a lawyer. She looked away, ostentatiously, trying to brazen it out.

The next time I passed her, she'd asked Sam to give her some more pretzels. He was reaching for the bowl. "Better hurry," I said bitchily. "We don't want Jane to get upset and call her lawyer." Sam looked at me in surprise. He hadn't seen the mail yet. "Jane's suing us, Sam," I said, and marched to the hatch to give the next order to Antoine. "For her hospital expenses and maybe for her mental distress," I threw over my shoulder.

"Jane," Sam said behind me, genuinely amazed. "Jane Bodehouse! Where are you gonna drink if you sue us? We're the only bar in the area that lets you in these days!" Sam was telling her no more than the truth. Over the years, most of the bars in the area had come to refuse to serve Jane, who was prone to make sloppy passes at any man in her immediate vicinity. Only the drunkest men responded, because Jane wasn't as careful with her personal hygiene as she had been even a year before.

"You can't stop serving me," she said indignantly. "Marvin says so. And that lawyer."

"I think we can," Sam said. "Starting now. You even know what that lawsuit says?" That was a shrewd bet.

As if he'd heard us, here came Marvin through the door, and he was mighty mad. "Mama!" he called. "What are you doing here? I told you, you can't come here no more." He caught my eye and glanced away, abashed. Everyone in Merlotte's stopped what they were doing to listen. It was almost as good as reality television.

"Marvin," I said, "I'm just hurt down to my toes that you would treat us like this. All these times I've called you instead of letting your mama drive home. All these times we've cleaned her up when she got sick, to say nothing of the night I stopped her from taking a guy into the ladies' room. Are you going to keep your mama at home every night? How are you going to cope?"

I wasn't saying anything that wasn't the truth. And Marvin Bodehouse knew it.

"Just half the emergency room bill, then?" he said, pathetically.

"I'll pay her bill," Sam said handsomely. Of course, he hadn't seen it. "But only after we get a letter from your lawyer saying you're not going to seek anything else."

Marvin glared down at his shoes for a second. Then he said, "I guess you can stay, Mama. Try not to drink too much, you hear?"

"Sure, honey," Jane said, tapping the bar in front of her. "A chaser for that beer," she told Sam, in a lady-of-the-manor voice.

"Putting that on your tab," Sam said. And suddenly the life of the bar was back to normal. Marvin shuffled out, and Jane drank. I felt sorry for both of them, but I was not in charge of their lives, and all I could do was try to keep Jane off the roads when she was drunk.

An and I worked hard. Since everyone who came in proved to be hungry (maybe they needed fuel to produce their gossip), Antoine was so busy he lost his temper a couple of times, an unusual occurrence. Sam tried to find time to smile and greet people, but he was hustling to keep up with bar orders. My feet hurt, and my hair needed to be released from its ponytail, brushed, and put back up. I was looking forward to a shower with a craving almost sexual in its intensity. I actually managed to forget my appointment - I wasn't going to call it a date - with Eric for later that night, but when it crossed my mind I realized I hadn't gotten a definite time or place from him.