A Touch of Dead

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