A Touch of Dead

  For a few long moments, we stayed frozen in the tableau; Mr. Cataliades was standing, I was on the ground on my butt, and Bubba and Bill were on their knees beside the thing that had been Waldo.

  Then the limo door opened, and before Mr. Cataliades could scramble to help her out, the Queen of Louisiana stepped out of the vehicle.

  She was beautiful, of course, but not in a fairy-tale princess sort of way. I don’t know what I expected, but she wasn’t it. While Bill and Bubba scrambled to their feet and then bowed deeply, I gave her a good once-over. She was wearing a very expensive midnight blue suit and high heels. Her hair was a rich reddish brown. Of course, she was pale as milk, but her eyes were large, tilted, and almost the same brown as her hair. Her fingernails were polished red, and somehow that seemed very weird. She wore no jewelry.

  Now I knew why Mr. Cataliades had kept the privacy glass up during the trip north. And I was sure that the queen had ways of masking her presence from Waldo’s senses, as well as his sight.

  “Hello,” I said uncertainly. “I’m . . .”

  “I know who you are,” she said. She had a faint accent; I thought it might be French. “Bill. Bubba.”

  Oooh-kay. So much for polite chitchat. I huffed out a breath and shut my mouth. No point in talking until she explained her presence. Bill and Bubba stood upright. Bubba was smiling. Bill wasn’t.

  The queen examined me head to toe, in a way I thought was downright rude. Since she was a queen, she was an old vampire, and the oldest ones, the ones who sought power in the vampire infrastructure, were among the scariest. It had been so long since she’d been human that there might not be much remembrance of humanity left in her.

  “I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” she said, shrugging.

  My lips twitched. I just couldn’t help it. My grin spread across my face, and I tried to hide it with my hand. The queen eyed me quizzically.

  “She smiles when she’s nervous,” Bill said.

  I did, but that’s not why I was smiling now.

  “You were going to send Waldo back to me, for me to torture and kill,” the queen said to me. Her face was quite blank. I couldn’t tell if she approved or disapproved, thought I was clever or thought I was a fool.

  “Yes,” I said. The shortest answer was definitely the best.

  “He forced your hand.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He was too frightened of me to risk returning to New Orleans with my friend Mr. Cataliades.”

  “Yes.” I was getting good at one-word answers.

  “I wonder if you engineered this whole thing.”

  “Yes” would not be the right answer here. I maintained silence.

  “I’ll find out,” she said, with absolute certainty. “We’ll meet again, Sookie Stackhouse. I was fond of your cousin, but even she was foolish enough to go to a cemetery alone with her bitterest enemy. She counted too much on the power of my name alone to protect her.”

  “Did Waldo ever tell you if Marie Laveau actually rose?” I asked, too overwhelmed with curiosity to let the question go unanswered.

  She was getting back in the car as I spoke, and she paused with one foot inside the limo and one foot in the yard. Anyone else would have looked awkward, but not the Queen of Louisiana.

  “Interesting,” she said. “No, actually, he didn’t. When you come to New Orleans, you and Bill can repeat the experiment.”

  I started to point out that unlike Hadley, I wasn’t dead, but I had the sense to shut my mouth. She might have ordered me to become a vampire, and I was afraid, very afraid, that then Bill and Bubba would have held me down and made me so. That was too awful to think about, so I smiled at her.

  After the queen was all settled in the limo, Mr. Cataliades bowed to me. “It’s been a pleasure, Miss Stackhouse. If you have any questions about your cousin’s estate, call me at the number on my business card. It’s clipped to the papers.”

  “Thanks,” I said, not trusting myself to say more. Besides, one-word answers never hurt. Waldo was almost disintegrated. Bits of him would be in my yard for a while. Yuck. “Where’s Waldo? All over my yard,” I could say to anyone who asked.

  The night had clearly been too much for me. The limo purred out of my yard. Bill put his hand to my cheek, but I didn’t lean into it. I was grateful to him for coming, and I told him so.

  “You shouldn’t be in danger,” he said. Bill had a habit of using a word that changed the meaning of his statements, made them something ambiguous and unsettling. His dark eyes were fathomless pools. I didn’t think I would ever understand him.

  “Did I do good, Miss Sookie?” Bubba asked.

  “You did great, Bubba,” I said. “You did the right thing without me even having to tell you.”

  “You knew all along she was in the limo,” Bubba said. “Didn’t you, Miss Sookie?”

  Bill looked at me, startled. I didn’t meet his eyes. “Yes, Bubba,” I said gently. “I knew. Before Waldo got out, I listened with my other sense, and I found two blank spots in the limo.” That could only mean two vampires. So I’d known Cataliades had had a companion in the back of the limousine.

  “But you played it all out like she wasn’t there.” Bill couldn’t seem to grasp this. Maybe he didn’t think I’d learned anything since I’d met him. “Did you know ahead of time that Waldo would make a try for you?”

  “I suspected he might. He didn’t want to go back to her mercies.”

  “So.” Bill caught my arms and looked down at me. “Were you trying to make sure he died all along, or were you trying to send him back to the queen?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  One-word answers never hurt.

  LUCKY

  Amelia Broadway and I were painting each other’s toenails when my insurance agent knocked at the front door. I’d picked Roses on Ice. Amelia had opted for Mad Burgundy Cherry Glacé. She’d finished my feet, and I had about three toes to go on her left foot when Greg Aubert interrupted us.

  Amelia had been living with me for months, and it had been kind of nice to have someone else sharing my old house. Amelia is a witch from New Orleans, and she had been staying with me because she’d had a magical misfortune she didn’t want any of her witch buddies in the Big Easy to know about. Also, since Katrina, she really doesn’t have anything to go home to, at least for a while. My little hometown of Bon Temps was swollen with refugees.

  Greg Aubert had been to my house after I’d had a fire that caused a lot of damage. As far as I knew, I didn’t have any insurance needs at the moment. I was pretty curious about his purpose, I confess.

  Amelia had glanced up at Greg, found his sandy hair and rimless glasses uninteresting, and completed painting her little toe while I ushered him to the wing-back chair.

  “Greg, this is my friend Amelia Broadway,” I said. “Amelia, this is Greg Aubert.”

  Amelia looked at Greg with more interest. I’d told her Greg was a colleague of hers, in some respects. Greg’s mom had been a witch, and he’d found using the craft very helpful in protecting his clients. Not a car got insured with Greg’s agency without having a spell cast on it. I was the only one in Bon Temps who knew about Greg’s little talent. Witchcraft wouldn’t be popular in our devout little town. Greg always handed his clients a lucky rabbit’s foot to keep in their new vehicles or homes.

  After he turned down the obligatory offer of iced tea or water or Coke, Greg sat on the edge of the chair while I resumed my seat on one end of the couch. Amelia had the other end.

  “I felt the wards when I drove up,” Greg told Amelia. “Very impressive.” He was trying real hard to keep his eyes off my tank top. I would have put on a bra if I’d known we were going to have company.

  Amelia tried to look indifferent, and she might have shrugged if she hadn’t been holding a bottle of nail polish. Amelia, tan and athletic, with short glossy brown hair, is not only pleased with her looks but really proud of her witchcraft abilities. “Nothing special,” she said, with uncon
vincing modesty. She smiled at Greg, though.

  “What can I do for you today, Greg?” I asked. I was due to go to work in an hour, and I had to change and pull my long hair up in a ponytail.

  “I need your help,” he said, yanking his gaze up to my face.

  No beating around the bush with Greg.

  “Okay, how?” If he could be direct, so could I.

  “Someone’s sabotaging my agency,” he said. His voice was suddenly passionate, and I realized Greg was really close to a major breakdown. He wasn’t quite the broadcaster Amelia was—I could read most thoughts Amelia had as clearly as if she’d spoken them—but I could certainly read his inner workings.

  “Tell us about it,” I said, because Amelia could not read Greg’s mind.

  “Oh, thanks,” he said, as if I’d agreed to do something. I opened my mouth to correct this idea, but he plowed ahead.

  “Last week I came into the office to find that someone had been through the files.”

  “You still have Marge Barker working for you?”

  He nodded. A stray beam of sunlight winked off his glasses. It was October, and still warm in northern Louisiana. Greg got out a snowy handkerchief and patted his forehead. “I’ve got my wife, Christy; she comes in three days a week for half a day. And I’ve got Marge full-time.” Christy, Greg’s wife, was as sweet as Marge was sour.

  “How’d you know someone had been through the files?” Amelia asked. She screwed on the top of the polish bottle and put it on the coffee table.

  Greg took a deep breath. “I’d been thinking for a couple of weeks that someone had been in the office at night. But nothing was missing. Nothing was changed. My wards were okay. But two days ago, I got into the office to find that one of the drawers on our main filing cabinet was open. Of course, we lock them at night,” he said. “We’ve got one of those filing systems that locks up when you turn a key in the top drawer. Almost all of the client files were at risk. But every day, last thing in the afternoon, Marge goes around and locks all the cabinets. What if someone suspects . . . what I do?”

  I could see how that would shiver Greg down to his liver. “Did you ask Marge if she remembered locking the cabinet?”

  “Sure I asked her. She got mad—you know Marge—and said she definitely did. My wife had worked that afternoon, but she couldn’t remember if she watched Marge lock the cabinets or not. And Terry Bellefleur had dropped by at the last minute, wanting to check again on the insurance for his damn dog. He might have seen Marge lock up.”

  Greg sounded so irritated that I found myself defending Terry. “Greg, Terry doesn’t like being the way he is, you know,” I said, trying to gentle my voice. “He got messed up fighting for our country, and we got to cut him some slack.”

  Greg looked grumpy for a minute. Then he relaxed. “I know, Sookie,” he said. “He’s just been so hyped up about this dog.”

  “What’s the story?” Amelia asked. If I have moments of curiosity, Amelia has an imperative urge. She wants to know everything about everybody. The telepathy should have gone to her, not me. She might actually have enjoyed it, instead of considering it a disability.

  “Terry Bellefleur is Andy’s cousin,” I said. I knew Amelia had met Andy, a police detective, at Merlotte’s. “He comes in after closing and cleans the bar. Sometimes he substitutes for Sam. Maybe not the few evenings you were working.” Amelia filled in at the bar from time to time.

  “Terry fought in Vietnam, got captured, and had a pretty bad time of it. He’s got scars inside and out. The story about the dogs is this: Terry loves hunting dogs, and he keeps buying himself these expensive Catahoulas, and things keep happening to them. His current bitch has had puppies. He’s just on pins and needles lest something happen to her and the babies.”

  “You’re saying Terry is a little unstable?”

  “He has bad times,” I said. “Sometimes he’s just fine.”

  “Oh,” Amelia said, and a lightbulb might as well have popped on above her head. “He’s the guy with the long graying auburn hair, going bald at the front? Scars on his cheek? Big truck?”

  “That’s him,” I said.

  Amelia turned to Greg. “You said for at least a couple of weeks you’d felt someone had been in the building after it closed. That couldn’t be your wife, or this Marge?”

  “My wife is with me all evening unless we have to take the kids to different events. And I don’t know why Marge would feel she had to come back at night. She’s there during the day, every day, and often by herself. Well, the spells that protect the building seem okay to me. But I keep recasting them.”

  “Tell me about your spells,” Amelia said, getting down to her favorite part.

  She and Greg talked spells for a few minutes, while I listened but didn’t comprehend. I couldn’t even understand their thoughts.

  Then Amelia said, “What do you want, Greg? I mean, why did you come to us?”

  He’d actually come to me, but it was kind of nice to be an “us.”

  Greg looked from Amelia to me, and said, “I want Sookie to find out who opened my files, and why. I worked hard to become the bestselling Pelican State agent in northern Louisiana, and I don’t want my business fouled up now. My son’s about to go to Rhodes in Memphis, and it ain’t cheap.”

  “Why are you coming to me instead of the police?”

  “I don’t want anyone else finding out what I am,” he said, embarrassed but determined. “And it might come up if the police start looking into things at my office. Plus, you know, Sookie, I got you a real good payout on your kitchen.”

  My kitchen had been burned down by an arsonist months before. I’d just finished getting it all rebuilt. “Greg, that’s your job,” I said. “I don’t see where the gratitude comes in.”

  “Well, I have a certain amount of discretion in arson cases,” he said. “I could have told the home office that I thought you did it yourself.”

  “You wouldn’t have done that,” I said calmly, though I was seeing a side of Greg I didn’t like. Amelia practically had flames coming out of her nose, she was so incensed. But I could tell that Greg was already ashamed of bringing up the possibility.

  “No,” he said, looking down at his hands. “I guess I wouldn’t. I’m sorry I said that, Sookie. I’m scared someone’ll tell the whole town what I do, why people I insure are so . . . lucky. Can you see what you can find out?”

  “Bring your family into the bar for supper tonight, give me a chance to look them over,” I said. “That’s the real reason you want me to find out, right? You suspect your family might be involved. Or your staff.”

  He nodded, and he looked wretched.

  “I’ll try to get in there tomorrow to talk to Marge. I’ll say you wanted me to drop by.”

  “Yeah, I make calls from my cell phone sometimes, ask people to come in,” he said. “Marge would believe it.”

  Amelia said, “What can I do?”

  “Well, can you be with her?” Greg said. “Sookie can do things you can’t, and vice versa. Maybe between the two of you . . .”

  “Okay,” Amelia said, giving Greg the benefit of her broad and dazzling smile. Her dad must have paid dearly for the perfect white smile of Amelia Broadway, witch and waitress.

  Bob the cat padded in just at that moment, as if belatedly realizing we had a guest. Bob jumped on the chair right beside Greg and examined him with care.

  Greg looked down at Bob just as intently. “Have you been doing something you shouldn’t, Amelia?”

  “There’s nothing strange about Bob,” Amelia said, which was not true. She scooped up the black-and-white cat in her arms and nuzzled his soft fur. “He’s just a big ole cat. Aren’t you, Bob?” She was relieved when Greg dropped the subject. He got up to leave.

  “I’ll be grateful for anything you can do to help me,” he said. With an abrupt switch to his professional persona, he said, “Here, have an extra lucky rabbit’s foot,” and reached in his pocket to hand me a lump of fake fur.
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  “Thanks,” I said, and decided to put it in my bedroom. I could use some luck in that direction.

  After Greg left, I scrambled into my work clothes (black pants and white boatneck T-shirt with MERLOTTE’S embroidered over the left breast), brushed my long blond hair and secured it in a ponytail, and left for the bar, wearing Teva sandals to show off my beautiful toenails. Amelia, who wasn’t scheduled to work that night, said she might go have a good look around the insurance agency.

  “Be careful,” I said. “If someone really is prowling around there, you don’t want to run into a bad situation.”

  “I’ll zap ’em with my wonderful witch powers,” she said, only half-joking. Amelia had a fine opinion of her own abilities, which led to mistakes like Bob. He had actually been a thin young witch, handsome in a nerdy way. While spending the night with Amelia, Bob had been the victim of one of her less successful attempts at major magic. “Besides, who’d want to break into an insurance agency?” she said quickly, having read the doubt on my face. “This whole thing is ridiculous. I do want to check out Greg’s magic, though, and see if it’s been tampered with.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Hey, standard stuff.”

  To my relief, the bar was quiet that night. It was Wednesday, which is never a very big day at supper time, since lots of Bon Temps citizens go to church on Wednesday night. Sam Merlotte, my boss, was busy counting cases of beer in the storeroom when I got there; that was how light the crowd was. The waitresses on duty were mixing their own drinks.

  I stowed my purse in the drawer in Sam’s desk that he keeps empty for them, then went out front to take over my tables. The woman I was relieving, a Katrina evacuee I hardly knew, gave me a wave and departed.

  After an hour, Greg Aubert came in with his family as he’d promised. You seated yourself at Merlotte’s, and I surreptitiously nodded to a table in my section. Dad, Mom, and two teenagers, the nuclear family. Greg’s wife, Christy, had medium-light hair like Greg, and like Greg she wore glasses. She had a comfortable middle-aged body, and she’d never seemed exceptional in any way. Little Greg (and that’s what they called him) was about three inches taller than his father, about thirty pounds heavier, and about ten IQ points smarter. That is, book smart. Like most nineteen-year-olds, he was pretty dumb about the world. Lindsay, the daughter, had lightened her hair five shades and squeezed herself into an outfit at least a size too small, and could hardly wait to get away from her folks so she could meet the Forbidden Boyfriend.