Dead as a Doornail

her arm around my shoulders. “Why, he was in Merlotte’s tonight. You were too worried about your friend to notice, I guess. He was over in the side of the room where I was sitting.” Arlene had been working that side.
    It wasn’t too amazing that I’d missed one male face in a crowded bar. But it did bother me that I’d been listening in to people’s thoughts and I’d missed out on thoughts that must have been relevant to me. After all, he was in the bar with me, and a few hours later he’d set fire to my house. He must have been mulling me over, right?
    “This driver’s license says he’s from Little Rock, Arkansas,” Andy said.
    “That wasn’t what he told me,” Claudine said. “He said he was from Georgia.” She looked just as radiant when she realized he’d lied to her, but she wasn’t smiling. “He said his name was Marlon.”
    “Did he tell you why he was in town, Ms. Crane?”
    “He said he was just passing through, had a motel room up on the interstate.”
    “Did he explain any further?”
    “Nope.”
    “Did you go to his motel, Ms. Crane?” Bud Dearborn asked in his best nonjudgmental voice.
    Dr. Tonnesen was looking from speaker to speaker as if she was at a verbal tennis match.
    “Gosh, no, I don’t do things like that.” Claudine smiled all around.
    Bill looked as if someone had just waved a bottle of blood in front of his face. His fangs extended, and his eyes fixed on Claudine. Vampires can only hold out so long when fairies are around. Charles had stepped closer to Claudine, too.
    She had to leave before the lawmen observed how the vampires were reacting. Linda Tonnesen had already noticed; she herself was pretty interested in Claudine. I hoped she’d just attribute the vamps’ fascination to Claudine’s excellent looks, rather than the overwhelming allure fairies held for vamps.
    “Fellowship of the Sun,” Andy said. “He has an honest-to-God membership card in here. There’s no name written on the card; that’s strange. His license is issued to Jeff Marriot.” He looked at me questioningly.
    I shook my head. The name meant nothing to me.
    It was just like a Fellowship member to think that he could do something as nasty as torching my house—with me in it—and no one would question him. It wasn’t the firsttime the Fellowship of the Sun, an anti-vampire hate group, had tried to burn me alive.
    “He must have known you’ve had, ah, an association with vampires,” Andy said into the silence.
    “I’m losing my home, and I could have died, because I know vampires?”
    Even Bud Dearborn looked a little embarrassed.
    “Someone must have heard you used to date Mr. Compton, here,” Bud muttered. “I’m sorry, Sookie.”
    I said, “Claudine needs to leave.”
    The abrupt change of subject startled both Andy and Bud, as well as Claudine. She looked at the two vampires, who were perceptibly closer to her, and hastily said, “Yes, I’m sorry, I have to get back home. I have to work tomorrow.”
    “Where’s your car, Ms. Crane?” Bud Dearborn looked around elaborately. “I didn’t see any car but Sookie’s, and it’s parked in the back.”
    “I’m parked over at Bill’s,” Claudine lied smoothly, having had years of practice. Without waiting for further discussion, she disappeared into the woods, and only my hands gripping their arms prevented Charles and Bill from gliding into the darkness after her. They were staring into the blackness of the trees when I pinched them, hard.
    “What?” asked Bill, almost dreamily.
    “Snap out of it,” I muttered, hoping Bud and Andy and the new doctor wouldn’t overhear. They didn’t need to know that Claudine was supernatural.
    “That’s quite a woman,” Dr. Tonnesen said, almost as dazed as the vampires. She shook herself. “The ambulance will come get, uh, Jeff Marriot. I’m just here because I had my scanner turned on as I was driving back from my shift at the Clarice hospital. I need to get home and get some sleep. Sorry about your fire, Ms. Stackhouse, but at least you didn’t end up like this guy here.” She nodded down at the corpse.
    As she got into her Ranger, the fire chief trudged up to us. I’d known Catfish Hunter for years—he’d been a friend of my dad’s—but I’d never seen him in his capacity as volunteer fire chief. Catfish was sweating despite the cold, and his face was smudged with smoke.
    “Sookie, we done got it out,” he said wearily. “It’s not as bad as you might