Dead and Gone

hadn’t either), but there was nothing wrong with his brain.
    Bud beckoned to Calvin then, and he got out of his truck and went over to the body, which had been laid on a gurney spread with an open body bag. Calvin approached the body carefully, his hands behind his back so he wouldn’t touch Crystal.
    We all watched, some with loathing and distaste, some with indifference or interest, until he’d finished.
    He straightened, turned, and walked back in the direction of his truck. Tanya got out of my car to meet him. She put her arms around him and looked up at him. He shook his head. I’d lowered my window so I could hear. “I couldn’t make out much on the rest of her,” he said. “Too many other smells. She just smelled like a dead panther.”
    “Let’s go home, Calvin,” Tanya said.
    “Okay.” They each raised a hand to me to let me know they were leaving, and then I was by myself in the front parking lot, still waiting. Bud asked me to open the employee entrance to the bar. I handed him the keys. He returned after a few minutes to tell me that the door had been securely locked and that there was no sign anyone had been inside the bar since it had closed. He handed the keys to me.
    “So we can open up?” I asked. A few police vehicles had left, the body was gone, and it seemed to me that the whole process was winding down. I was willing to wait there if I could get into the building soon.
    But after Bud told me it might be two or three more hours, I decided I’d go home. I’d spoken to every employee I could reach, and any customers could clearly see from the tape put across the parking lot that the bar was closed. I was wasting my time. My FBI agents, who’d spent hours with their cell phones clamped to their ears, seemed now to be more concerned about this crime than about me, which was great. Maybe they’d forget all about me.
    Since no one seemed to be watching me or to care what I was doing, I started my car up and left. I didn’t have the heart to run any errands. I went straight back to the house.
    Amelia had long ago left for work at the insurance agency, but Octavia was home. She had set up the ironing board in her room. She was pressing the hem on a pair of pants she’d just shortened, and she had a pile of her blouses ready to iron. I guess there wasn’t any magic spell to get the wrinkles out. I offered to drive her into town, but she said her trip with Amelia the day before had taken care of all her needs. She invited me to sit on the wooden chair by the bed while she worked. “Ironing goes faster when you have someone to talk to,” she said, and she sounded so lonely I felt guilty.
    I told her about the morning I’d had, about the circumstances of Crystal’s death. Octavia had seen some bad stuff in her time, so she didn’t freak out. She made the appropriate answers and expressed the shock almost anyone would feel, but she hadn’t really known Crystal. I could tell there was something on her mind.
    Octavia put down the iron and moved to face me directly. “Sookie,” she said, “I need to get a job. I know I’m a burden to you and Amelia. I used to borrow my niece’s car during the day when she was working the night shift, but since I’ve moved out here, I’ve been having to ask you-all for rides. I know that gets old. I cleaned my niece’s house and cooked and helped to watch the kids to pay her for my room and board, but you and Amelia are such cleaners that my two cents wouldn’t really be a help.”
    “I’m glad to have you, Octavia,” I said, not entirely truthfully. “You’ve helped me in a lot of ways. Remember that you got Tanya off my back? And now she seems to be in love with Calvin. So she won’t be pestering me anymore. I know you’d feel better if you could get a job, and maybe something will come up. In the meantime, you’re fine here. We’ll think of something.”
    “I called my brother in New Orleans,” she said to my astonishment. I hadn’t even known she had a living brother. “He says the insurance company has decided to give me a payment. It’s not much, considering I lost almost everything, but it’ll be enough to buy a good secondhand car. There won’t be anything there for me to go back to, though. I’m not going to rebuild, and there aren’t too many places I could afford on my own.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish there was something I could do about it, Octavia. Make things better for you.”
    “You’ve already