Dead Ever After

chapter 14

Mr. Cataliades came in to tell us he’d been talking to Beth Osiecki by cell phone and that he had an appointment to meet her and review my situation. Diantha rode into town with him; I didn’t ask what her part in this consultation was supposed to be, and she didn’t volunteer. Barry decided to ride in with them, too, and see if there was another car to rent locally while he was in town. He’d called ahead to make sure Chessie Johnson would be at home and was willing to talk to him.

Barry was used to getting answers from people indirectly, by listening to their heads when they were in conversation with others. In other words, eavesdropping. Since he’d be the one asking the questions in this instance, he was a little anxious about the process. I briefed him as thoroughly as I could on the Johnsons and on Lisa and Coby. He had prepared a list of questions to which he needed answers: Whom had Arlene been planning to meet? Where had she been staying since she got released? Whom had she talked to? Who had paid for the new lawyer and her bail?

“If you can,” I said quietly, “please find out what’s going to happen to the kids. I feel bad for all they’ve been through.” Barry could see what was in my head. He nodded, his face serious.

Bob got on the phone to a touch psychic, though since we didn’t have possession of the scarf I couldn’t see the point. Bob seemed sure we’d be able to lay hands on it. The touch psychic, a Baton Rouge woman named Delphine Oubre, would drive up to Bon Temps the next morning, he said.

“And do what?” I tried hard to sound grateful and appreciative, but I didn’t think I managed. I had done the most accurate drawing of the scarf that I could, and I’d described the pattern and the colors to Diantha, since saying “teal green” and “peacock blue” to Mr. Cataliades had just resulted in a blank stare. Diantha had done a second version in color, and it had looked very like what I’d remembered.

“I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you. Your demon buddies are pretty resourceful.” Bob smiled mysteriously and glided out of the room. In some ways, Bob was still very catlike.

Amelia was researching spells to make Arlene’s mysterious male friends talk, if we could find them. I had a moment of longing for Pam. She could make anybody talk, no spell involved, unless you considered vamp hypnosis a spell. Pam would rather beat it out of them, anyway. Maybe I’d give her a call.

No. I told myself this firmly, and frequently. At this point, it was better if I simply let all connection with the vampires drop. Sure, Bill still lived next door, and it was inevitable that I’d see him from time to time. Sure, Eric had left a couple of things in the hidey-hole in my guest bedroom. Sure, Quinn reported that he’d smelled two vamps (almost surely Bill and Karin) in the woods. But I’d decided I was going to pretend there was a wall between me and every vampire in Area Five. Between me and every vampire in the world!

I checked my e-mail. I’d gotten one from Sam. Full of anticipation, I clicked on it. “Come to work this morning,” was all it said. Quinn had e-mailed me, too. “Saw a couple of people I thought I recognized in the motel bar last night,” I read. “I’m going to follow them today.”

Who on earth could it be? But at the idea that things were moving along, I felt a rush of optimism. I went into my room to shower and dress with a smile on my face.

When I emerged from my room ready to go to work, I found Bob and Amelia in the backyard. They’d built a little fire in a circle of old bricks, and they were scattering some herbs on it and chanting. They didn’t invite me to join them; and truthfully, magic smelled weird and made me really nervous, so I wasn’t eager to ask any questions.

I went into Merlotte’s to find it was exactly as usual. No one blinked an eye at my presence or expressed surprise that I’d turned up. As it happened, we were extremely busy. Sam was there, but every time our eyes met he looked away, as if he were ashamed of something. But I swear he was glad to see me.

Finally, I trapped him in his office. I was blocking the only exit, unless he wanted to duck into his tiny bathroom and lock the door, and he wasn’t craven enough to do that.

“Okay, spill,” I said.

He seemed almost relieved, as if he’d hoped I’d demand an explanation. He looked directly at me, and if I could have climbed inside his brain and looked at it, I would have. Damn shifters.

“I can’t,” he said. “I swore not to.”

I narrowed my eyes while I considered. It was a serious thing, swearing, and I could hardly threaten to tickle him until he talked, or tell him I was going to hold my breath until he spilled. But I had to know what had changed. I’d thought we were getting back to normal, that Sam had started to rebuild himself after his death experience, that we were on solid ground.

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to tell me what’s wrong,” I said reasonably. “If you can think of any way to give me a hint, that would be a good thing.”

“I better not.”

“I wish you could have come out last night,” I said, changing tack. “We had a good supper, and the house was full last night.”

“Did Quinn stay?” Sam asked stiffly.

“No, too crowded for that. He’s got a motel room out on the interstate. I wish you’d be friendly to him. And all my guests.”

“Why do you want me to be friendly with Quinn?”

Yeah, some jealousy there. Good Lord. “Because all my company came from miles away, and they all came to help clear my name.”

Sam froze for a minute. “Are you hinting that I’m not helping you like they are? That they care more about you than I do?” He was obviously angry.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think that.” Wow, he was super-touchy. I said hesitantly, “I did kind of wonder why you didn’t come to the court hearing?”

“You think I want to see you in handcuffs, robbed of your dignity?”

“I’d like to think I always have my dignity, Sam, cuffs or not.” We glared at each other for a second or two. Then I said, “But it was pretty humiliating,” and to my embarrassment, my eyes filled with tears.

He held out his arms to me and I hugged him, though I could feel the uneasiness in him. The oath he’d sworn had something in it about physical contact, I concluded. When the hug naturally ended, he kind of held me away. I let it be. I could see he thought I was going to ask him more questions. But I thought better of it.

Instead, I invited him out to the house for dinner the next night. I’d looked at the work schedule, and I’d seen that Kennedy would be behind the bar. He agreed to come, but he looked wary, as if he suspected I had a secret motive. Not at all! I just thought the more I was in his company, the more chances I’d have to find out what was going on.

I’d been worried that people would shy away from me, since I’d been accused of killing Arlene. As I waited tables, I came to understand the shocking truth: People weren’t worried much about Arlene’s death. Her trial had taken her reputation away from her. It wasn’t so much that people loved me; it was that people realized a mom shouldn’t lure her friend to her death, and then get caught, because then her children were left in the lurch. I came to see that despite the fact that I’d dated vampires, I had a good reputation in many respects. I was reliable and cheerful and hardworking, and with the people of Bon Temps that counted an awful lot. I put flowers on my family’s graves every holiday and on the anniversary of their deaths. Plus, through area gossip, it had become known that I was taking an active interest in my cousin Hadley’s little boy, and there was a widespread, pleasant hope that I would marry Hadley’s widower, Remy Savoy, because that would tie things up neatly.

Which would have been great . . . except Remy and I weren’t interested in each other. Until real recently, I’d had Eric, and to the best of my knowledge, Remy was still dating the very cute Erin. I tried to imagine kissing Remy and simply wasn’t inclined to go there.

All of these thoughts kept me engaged and busy both outside and inside, until it was time for me to go. Sam smiled and waved when I took off my apron and handed over my tables to India.

No one at all was at my house when I unlocked the back door. That was strange, since it had been such a beehive that morning. Moved by an impulse, I went into my bedroom and perched on the side of the bed, close to my bedside table. Thanks to my compulsory cleaning during my three days off, neatly located in the top drawer were all the things I might need at a moment’s notice during the night: a flashlight, Kleenex, ChapStick, Tylenol, three condoms Quinn had left when we’d dated, a list of emergency phone numbers, a cell phone charger, an old tin box (full of pins, needles, buttons, and paper clips), some pens, a notepad . . . the usual mixture of handy items.

But the next drawer held memorabilia. There was the bullet I’d sucked out of Eric’s flesh in Dallas. There was a rock that had hit Eric in the head in the living room of Sam’s rental house in town. There were various sets of keys to Eric’s house, Jason’s house, Tara’s house, all neatly labeled. There was a laminated copy of my gran’s obituary and my parents’, and another laminated newspaper story published the year the Lady Falcons had won their division at state, with a few nice lines about my performance. There was an ancient brooch in which Gran had placed a lock of my mom’s hair and a lock of my dad’s. There was the old pattern envelope containing a letter from Gran and the velvet bag that had contained the cluviel dor, and the cluviel dor itself, now dull and divested of all its magic. There was a note Quinn had written me during our dating period. There was the envelope in which Sam had given me a partnership agreement to the bar, though the actual partnership document was in a lockbox at my lawyer’s. There were birthday cards and Christmas cards and a drawing made by Hunter.

It was dumb to keep the rock. It was too heavy for the drawer, anyway, and made it hard to open and close. I put it on top of my night table, planning to set it in the flower bed. I got out the keys to Eric’s house, wrapped them in bubble wrap, and put them in a padded mailer to send to him. I wondered if he’d put the house up for sale, or what? Maybe the next sheriff would move into it. If Felipe de Castro appointed him or her, I realized that my grace period was very short. With any new vampire regime, it would be open season on me . . . or would they just forget about me? That would be almost too good to be true.

A knock at the back door was a welcome diversion. The packmaster himself had come to call, and he seemed more at ease than I’d ever seen him. Alcide Herveaux looked comfortable in his own skin and pleased with the world. He was wearing his usual jeans and boots—a surveyor couldn’t tromp through ditches and woods in flip-flops. His short-sleeved shirt was well worn and tight across his wide shoulders. Alcide was a working man but not an uncomplicated one. His love life, up until now, had been nothing short of a disaster. First, Debbie Pelt, who had been a bitch on wheels until I’d killed her; then the very nice Maria-Star Cooper, who’d been murdered; then Annabelle Bannister, who’d been unfaithful to him. He’d had a thing for me until I’d persuaded him that would be a bad idea for both of us. Now he was seeing a werewolf named Kandace, who was new to the area. She would be up for membership in the pack later this month.

“I hear we need to try to find a trail of someone who stole that scarf,” Alcide said.

“I hope you can pick up something,” I said. “Wouldn’t be court evidence, but we’d be able to track down him or her.”

“You’re a clean woman,” he said, looking around the living room. “But I can tell there’ve been lots of people in here lately.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I got a houseful of company. So the best place to catch a scent would be in my room.”

“That’s where we’ll start,” he said, and smiled. He had white teeth in a tan face and lovely green eyes, and Alcide’s smile was something else. Too bad he wasn’t for me.

“You want a glass of water or some lemonade?” I said.

“Maybe after I get the job done,” he said. He took off his clothes and folded them neatly on the couch. Wow. I struggled to keep my face neutral. Then he changed.

It always looked like it hurt, and the sounds were unpleasant, but Alcide seemed to recover quickly. The handsome wolf in front of me padded around my living room, his sensitive nose recording scent trails before he followed them into my bedroom.

I stayed out of his way. I sat at the little desk in the living room where the computer was plugged in, and I passed the time by deleting a lot of old e-mail. It was something to do while he searched. I banished all the spam and the department store ads before a big wolf head thrust its way into my lap, and there was Alcide, tail wagging.

I patted him automatically. That was what you did when a canine head presented itself. You scratched between its ears and under its chin, you rubbed its belly . . . well, maybe not a wolf’s belly, especially a male wolf’s.

Alcide grinned at me and changed back. He’d become the fastest changer I’d ever seen. I wondered if that ability came with the packmaster job.

“Any luck?” I asked, keeping my eyes modestly focused on my hands while he got dressed.

“At least you didn’t clean the throw rug by your bed,” he said. “I can tell you that one person who’s been in your room, I don’t know at all. But your friend Tara’s been there, right by your bed. Your two fae buddies were in there, but then, they lived here.”

“They were searching my house while I was gone every day,” I said. “They were searching for the cluviel dor.”

“That’s sad, that your kin would do that,” Alcide said, and he patted me on the shoulder. “Who else did I smell? Eric, of course. And you know who else? Arlene. She was carrying a charm of some kind, but definitely Arlene.”

“I didn’t remember you’d met Arlene.” I grasped at an irrelevant issue because I was stunned silly.

“She served me once or twice when I came by Merlotte’s.”

I figured out her access after five seconds’ more cogitation. “She knew where I hid my keys from when we were friends,” I said, infuriated by my own carelessness. “I guess before, or even after, she came to Merlotte’s, she let herself in here and got the scarf. But why?”

“Someone told her to, I expect,” Alcide said, buckling his belt.

“Someone sent her here to get the scarf that would be used to kill her.”

“Apparently, that’s what happened. Ironic, huh?”

I couldn’t think of any other explanation.

And it made me sick.

“Thanks so much, Alcide,” I said, remembering my manners. I got him the glass of lemonade I’d promised him, and he drank it in one long gulp. “How’s Kandace doing, integrating into the pack?” I asked.

He smiled broadly. “She’s doing real well,” he said. “Taking it slow. They’re warming up to her.” Kandace had been a rogue wolf, but because she’d turned in some worse rogues, she’d gotten a chance to join the pack while the bad ones had been banished. Kandace was quiet and tall, and though I didn’t know her well, I knew she was the calmest person Alcide had ever been with. I had the sense that after a life on rough seas, Kandace was looking for inland waters.

“That’s real good to hear,” I said. “I wish her luck.”

“Call me if you need me,” Alcide said. “The pack stands ready to help you.”

“You’ve already been a help,” I said, and I meant it.

Two minutes after he left, Barry pulled up in a car he’d rented from a new place out by the interstate. He’d also brought Amelia and Bob. Amelia said, “I’m asleep on my feet,” and headed for the bedroom to take a nap, Bob hard on her heels. Barry ran upstairs to plug his cell phone into his charger. I glanced at the clock and realized it was time to get busy. I began cooking supper for six. Country-fried steak took a while, so I got that in the oven first. Then I cut up crookneck squash and onions to sauté, and I chopped okra and breaded it to fry, and I put bakery rolls on a baking sheet to pop in the oven right before I served supper. I’d start the rice soon.

Barry came into the kitchen, sniffing the air and smiling.

“Did you have a productive day?” I asked.

Barry nodded. He said, I’ll wait until everyone gets here so I’ll only have to say it once.

Okay, I said, and wiped the flour off the kitchen counter. Barry cleared the counter of dirty dishes in the best possible way, by washing and drying them. He was far more domesticated than I’d ever suspected, and I realized there was much more to know about him.

“I’m going outside to make some phone calls,” he said. I knew he wanted to be out of my earshot and mindshot, if I can put it that way, but that didn’t bother me in the least. While he was outside, Bob ambled through the kitchen and straight down the porch steps, carefully easing the porch door closed.

A few minutes later, Amelia came out into the kitchen sleepy-eyed. “Bob went for a walk in the woods,” she muttered. “I’m going to splash some water on my face.” Mr. Cataliades and Diantha came in the back door ten minutes later. Diantha looked exhausted, but Mr. C was positively bubbly.

“I am smitten with Beth Osiecki,” he said, beaming. “I’ll tell you all about it over our meal. First, I must shower.” He sniffed the air in the kitchen appreciatively and told me how much he looked forward to dinner before he and a silent Diantha went upstairs. Amelia came out of the bathroom; Mr. Cataliades went in. Bob returned from the woods, sweaty and scratched and with a bag full of various plants. He collapsed in a chair and begged for a big icy glass of tea. He drank it dry. Diantha had stopped at a roadside stand to buy a honeydew melon, and she cut into it. I could smell the sweetness as she cut out the fruit and diced it.

My cell phone buzzed. “Hello?” I said. The rice was boiling, so I turned it down and covered it. I glanced at the kitchen clock so I could turn it off in twenty minutes.

“It’s Quinn,” he said.

“Where are you? Who were you tracking down? We’re about to eat. You coming?”

“The two men I saw were gone this morning,” he said. “I think they caught a glimpse of me and checked out during the night. I’ve spent all day trying to find them, but they’re in the wind.”

“Who were they?”

“Do you remember . . . that lawyer?”

“Johan Glassport?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Barry saw him in New Orleans.”

“He was here. With some guy who looked kind of familiar, though I couldn’t put a name to him.”

“So . . . what are your plans?” I glanced at the clock anxiously. It was hard to concentrate when I was trying to put a meal on the table. My gran had always made it look so easy.

“I’m sorry, Sookie. I have other news. I’ve been called away to take a job, and my employer says I’m the only one who can do it.”

“Uh-huh.” Then I realized I hadn’t responded to his tone of voice, but his words. “You sound pretty serious.”

“I have to stage a wedding ceremony. A vampire wedding ceremony.”

I took a deep breath. “In Oklahoma, I take it?”

“Yes. In two weeks. If I don’t do it, I’ll lose my job.”

And now that he was going to have a kid, he couldn’t afford to do any such thing. “I get it,” I said steadily. “Really, I understand. You showed up, and I love that you came here.”

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t catch up with Glassport. I know he’s dangerous.”

“We’ll find out if he has anything to do with this, Quinn. Thanks for your help.”

And we said good-bye a few more times, in different ways, until we had to hang up. By that time, I had to get busy with the gravy or supper would be ruined. I simply had to postpone thinking of Eric and Freyda’s wedding until later.

After twenty minutes, I was calmer, the food was ready, and we were all seated around the kitchen table.

No one joined in my prayer but Bob, but that was okay. We’d said one. Getting everyone served was a ten-minute process. After that, the floor seemed open to discussion.

Barry said, “I visited Brock and Chessie, and I talked to the kids.”

“How’d you get in?” Amelia asked. “I know you called ’em before you went.”

“I said I’d known Arlene and I wanted to say how sorry I was. I didn’t lie to them after that.” He looked defensive. “But I did tell them I was a friend of Sookie’s, and that I didn’t think she had anything to do with Arlene’s death.”

“Did they believe that?” I said.

“They did,” he said, with an air of surprise. “They don’t believe you killed Arlene, strictly from a practical point of view. They said you’re smaller than Arlene and they didn’t think you could have either gripped her neck hard enough or gotten her into the Dumpster. And the only person they could think of who would help you is Sam, and he wouldn’t have put the body behind his own bar.”

“I hope a lot of people have figured that out,” I said.

“I said Arlene hadn’t called me when she got out of prison. They told me that they hadn’t had any warning, either, which was what I wanted to know. She’d just shown up on their doorstep three days before her death.”

“What did they observe about her demeanor before her death?” Mr. Cataliades said. “Was she frightened? Secretive?”

“They thought Arlene looked kind of nervous when she came by to see the kids. She was excited to see them, but she was scared about something. She told Chessie she had to meet some people and she wasn’t supposed to talk about it, that someone was going to help her pay her legal bills so she could get back on her feet and take care of her kids.”

“That would have interested her, sure,” I said. “Maybe applying for a job at Merlotte’s wasn’t her idea. Maybe these mysterious men put her up to it. Maybe she did know how unlikely it was that she’d be hired back.”

“The Johnsons don’t know anything more specific than that? They didn’t see the people she was going to talk to?” Amelia was impatient. This didn’t seem like much information to her.

“It confirms what I heard from Jane Bodehouse,” I said. “Jane saw Arlene meeting with two men in back of Tray’s old place the night before we found her body.”

A shadow crossed Amelia’s face at the mention of Tray Dawson. They’d been close, and she’d hoped they’d get closer, but Tray had died.

“Why there?” Bob said. “It would have been a lot easier to meet at an isolated place rather than out back of someone’s house, especially someone who would definitely ask questions.”

“That house is empty, and the garage next to it, too,” I told him. “And I don’t know if Arlene had a vehicle or not. Her old car was parked at the Johnsons’ house, but it may or may not have been running. Plus, as the crow flies, Tray’s place is not far from Merlotte’s, and that’s where they were going to take her. They didn’t want her to have time to figure out what was going to happen.”

There was a long pause while my friends worked this through.

“Possible,” Bob said, and everyone nodded.

“How are Coby and Lisa?” I asked Barry.

“Stunned,” Barry said shortly. “Confused.” From his head, I could see the images of the kids’ bewildered faces. I felt horrible every time I thought about those kids.

“Did their mom tell them anything?” Amelia asked quietly.

“Arlene told them she was going to take them away to live with her in a cute little house—that they’d be able to get nice food and clothes without her having to work such long hours. She told them she wanted to be with them all the time.”

“How was she going to do that?” Amelia said. “Did she tell them?”

Barry shook his head. He was feeling a twinge of self-disgust, and I didn’t blame him. Somehow it seemed ignoble to read the minds of children when they’d suffered such a string of misfortunes. But it wasn’t like Barry had been giving them the third degree, I told myself.

“The bottom line is, Arlene planned on doing something for these two men, something that would pay off big,” Barry concluded.

“When is your touch psychic coming?” Mr. Cataliades asked Bob.

“She’s getting here tomorrow morning after she finishes feeding her animals or something.” Bob reached out for another piece of country-fried steak. He narrowly missed getting stabbed in the hand by Mr. Cataliades, who was after the same piece.

“I got your scarf, Sookie,” said Diantha, who was eating very slowly. Her voice and demeanor were pale shadows of her normal hypervitality. She was even speaking slowly enough to be understandable.

Silence fell around the table as we all regarded her with awe. Mr. Cataliades was looking at his niece fondly. “I knew she could do it,” he told us, and I wondered if he’d actually had a foreseeing or if he just had a lot of faith in Diantha.

“How?” Amelia asked. (Amelia never hesitated when it came to asking a direct question.)

Diantha said, “I went in the police station after I saw the big woman cop.”

Everyone else looked at her blankly.

“She turned herself into Kenya Jones,” I explained. “Kenya’s a patrolwoman who’s been trained to do crime-scene processing.”

“We waited at the police station a long time this morning, Sookie,” Mr. Cataliades explained. “I had to interview Detective Bellefleur personally, and Detective Beck, too, since I am now co-counsel on your case, thanks to Ms. Osiecki. During our long, long wait we had time to find out all kinds of interesting information. Like where the evidence locker is and who can check out items from it. Diantha is so quick and devious!”

Diantha smiled faintly.

“How’d you manage it?” Amelia asked. She looked admiring.

“I had a scarf in my pocket in a plastic bag. It was pretty close to Sookie’s description. We found it at Tara’s Togs. I turned myself into Kenya. I went to the locker and storage area. I told the policeman there I needed to see the scarf. The old guy, he brought it to me in a plastic bag. I looked at it, and when he went to the bathroom, I swapped it for the scarf I’d brought. I handed it to him when he came back. I walked out.” She reached for her glass of tea in a weary way.

“Thank you, Diantha,” I said. I was both happy she’d done such a ballsy thing and sorry she’d done something illegal. My law-abiding half was kind of appalled that we were screwing around with real evidence in a real murder. But my self-preserving half was relieved that we might find out something, now that we had the real scarf . . . if the touch psychic lived up to her billing.

Diantha perked up after receiving a good helping of praise from all of us. Though she was still moving and speaking slowly, after she ate everything on the table that wasn’t on someone’s plate she seemed to have taken a big step toward restoring her strength. Obviously, the transformation she’d accomplished had burned up a tremendous amount of energy.

“It’s much harder when she has to speak as the person, rather than just resemble them,” Mr. Cataliades said quietly. He’d read my mind. He treated her with courtesy and respect, refilling her glass with tea and passing her the butter with great frequency. (I made a mental note to add butter to my store list.) Barry had bought a cake at the bakery. Though Gran would have thrown up her hands in horror at having a store-bought cake in her house, I was not so proud, since I hadn’t had time to bake. Diantha was definitely on board for dessert, which I planned to dish up as soon as the kitchen was clean.

Amelia was such a clear broadcaster. She stared across the room at Diantha, lost in thought. While we were clearing the table, I had to listen to her reassessing Diantha’s abilities and cleverness. She was really impressed with the part-demon girl. Amelia was thinking about Diantha’s amazing elasticity. She wondered if Diantha was transforming her actual flesh or if she was casting an illusion. Diantha’s success made Amelia feel she hadn’t done her share of the detecting.

“Of course,” Amelia said abruptly, “Bob and I couldn’t cast the spell we wanted to cast, since we haven’t found the two men yet. But after Barry came back to get us in his snazzy rental”—this was a joke; Barry had come back in a battered Ford Focus—“we did go to all the apartment and house rental places in Bon Temps, including answering the newspaper ads. We were ready to insist on seeing any unrented apartments or houses we’d seen an ad for, because we thought the owner would say, ‘Oh, sorry, we just rented that place to two guys from wherever.’ Then we could go check them out. But we didn’t get a lead.”

“Well, that’s good information to have,” I said. “They’re too smart to stay locally.” I could tell Amelia was steamed that she and Bob hadn’t tracked down the two guys and handed them over to us.

“However,” Bob said, “we did verify why your flowers and tomatoes are growing so well.”

“Ahhhhh . . . great. Why?”

“Fairy magic,” he said. “Someone has charged all the Stackhouse land with fairy magic.”

I didn’t tell them I’d already figured that out, because I wanted them to feel good. I remembered my great-grandfather’s good-bye embrace, when I’d felt a jolt of power. I’d thought it was the finality of his farewell . . . but he’d been, for want of a better term, blessing me and my house. “Awww,” I said softly. “That’s so sweet.”

“He would have done better to put in a giant ring of protection,” Amelia said darkly. She’d been outmagicked on several fronts, and while normally she was a practical person, she was also proud. “How did Arlene get past your old wards?”

“Alcide thought she had a charm,” I offered. “I’m assuming someone gave her magic.”

Amelia flushed. “If she did have a charm, another witch is involved in this, and I want to know who. I’ll take care of that.”

“Gran would have loved seeing the yard like this,” I said, to change the subject. I smiled at the thought of the pleasure my grandmother would have felt. She’d loved her yard and worked in it tirelessly. The flowers would bloom and flourish, the bulbs would spread, the grass . . . well, it was growing like wildfire. I was going to have to mow it tomorrow, and frequently thereafter.

That was fairies for you. Always some blowback.

“Niall did more for you than that,” Mr. Cataliades said, distracting me from my unwelcome thoughts.

“What are you talking about?” I said, and that didn’t sound as civil as I meant it. “I’m sorry. You must know something I don’t.” I managed a more cordial tone.

“Yes,” he said with a smile. “I do know many things you don’t, and I’m about to tell you one of them. I would have come to Bon Temps without your being charged with murder, because I have business with you as your great-grandfather’s lawyer.”

“He’s not dead,” I said immediately.

“No, but he doesn’t plan on returning here. And he wanted you to have something to remember him kindly.”

“He’s my family. I don’t need anything else,” I said. Which was crazy, I knew it the moment I said it, but I have a little pride, too.

“I would say you do need a few things, Miss Stackhouse,” said Mr. Cataliades mildly. “Right now, you need a defense fund. Thanks to Niall, you have one. Not only will you be receiving a monthly income from the sale of Claudine’s house, your great-grandfather deeded the club to you, the one called Hooligans, and I have sold it.”

“What? But that belonged to Claude, Claudine, and Claudette, the triplets who were his fae grandchildren.”

“Though I don’t know the story, I understood from Niall that Claude did not buy the club, but was given it because he threatened the true owner.”

“Yes,” I said, after I thought about it a bit. “That’s true. Claudette was dead by then.”

“That’s a story I’d like to hear another time. Be that as it may, when Claude plotted treason against Niall and became his prisoner, he forfeited all his possessions to his ruler. Niall gave me instructions to sell the properties and give the proceeds to you in the ways I’ve described.”

“Who—? To me? You already sold the business and the house?” And Claude was a prisoner. I hadn’t missed that part of the speech. Though he richly deserved to be imprisoned after attempting a coup that would have ended with Niall dead, I would always have some sympathy for anyone in a cell. If that was how they locked up people in Faery. Maybe they stowed them in giant pea pods.

“Yes, the properties have already been sold. The proceeds have been put in an annuity. You’ll be getting a check every month. After we fill out the papers, it can be direct-deposited to your checking account. I’ll bring them down after we dine, along with the check for the business. Though part of the proceeds from that went into your annuity.”

“But Claudine already left me a huge chunk of money. There were some whistles blown on the estate bank, and everything froze. A week ago, the paper said the inspectors hadn’t found anything.” I should call my bank again.

“That was from Claudine’s personal estate,” the lawyer said. “She was a frugal fairy for many decades.”

I couldn’t comprehend my good fortune. “It’s a huge relief to have the money to defend myself. But I still hope that someone will confess and spare me the trial,” I murmured.

“We all hope that, Sookie,” Barry said. “That’s why we’re here.”

Amelia said, “After supper, while it’s still light, Bob and I are going to cast a circle of aggressive protection around the house.”

“I’m grateful,” I said, taking care to make eye contact and parcel out some sincerity to both of them. It was lucky that Barry could read minds, but not Amelia. While I knew Amelia was anxious to do something to contribute, and I knew she was powerful, sometimes things went wrong when she cast important spells. But I couldn’t see a way to turn down her offer that would sound polite. “I guess Niall was concentrating on making the land fertile, and that’s a really wonderful thing. But some protection would be great.”

“There’s an elvish warding spell in place,” Amelia admitted. “But since it’s not human in origin, it may not be totally effective in protecting against human attackers or vampires.”

That made sense, at least to me. Bellenos the elf had scoffed at Amelia’s spells and added his own, and there wasn’t anything human about Bellenos.

I felt guilty at doubting her. It was time for me to act happy. “Having defense money calls for some ice cream with that cake. How about it, you all? I’ve got Rocky Road and Dulce de Leche.” I smiled all around the kitchen. While I was dishing up the ice cream (everyone wanted some), I was keeping my fingers crossed that Amelia and Bob would cast a good spell.

After dessert, as the two witches went outside to work and Barry covered the remains of the cake while I put away the ice cream, Diantha said she was going upstairs to sleep. She still looked exhausted. Mr. Cataliades went up with her and came down with the papers about the monthly payment and a check for the property sale. It was attached to the legal documents with a paper clip in the shape of a heart.

I rinsed my hands and dried them on a dish towel before I took the documents from him. I glanced down at the check, with no idea what to expect. The amount made my head swim, and the letter clipped to it said I would be getting three thousand dollars a month. “This year?” I asked, to be sure I understood. “Three thousand a month? Wow. That’s amazing.” A whole year of luxury!

“Not this year. For the rest of your life,” Mr. Cataliades said.

I had to sit down very quickly.

“Sookie, you okay?” Barry asked, bending over. Bad news or good news? he asked.

I can pay for my legal defense, I told him. And I can get the house sprayed for bugs.