Dead as a Doornail

look forward to. Well, in two months, it’d be sunbathing time. That made me smile. I enjoyed lying in the sun in a little bikini, timing myself carefully so I didn’t burn. I loved the smell of coconut oil. I took pleasure in shaving my legs and removing most of my other body hair so I’d look smooth as a baby’s bottom. And I don’t want to hear any lectures about how bad tanning is for you. That’s my vice. Everybody gets one.
    More immediately, it was time to go to the library and get another batch of books; I’d retrieved my last bagful while I was at the house, and I’d spread them out on my tiny porch here so they’d air out. So going to the library—that would be fun.
    Before I went to work, I decided I’d cook myself something in my new kitchen. That necessitated a trip to the grocery store, which took longer than I’d planned because I kept seeing staples I was sure I’d need. Putting the groceries away in the duplex cabinets made me feel that I really lived there. I browned a couple of pork chops and put them in the oven, microwaved a potato, and heated some peas. When I had to work nights, I usually went to Merlotte’s at about five, so my home meal on those days was a combination lunch and dinner.
    After I’d eaten and cleaned up, I thought I just had time to drive down to visit Calvin in the Grainger hospital.
    The twins had not arrived to take up their post in the lobby again, if they were still keeping vigil. Dawson was still stationed outside Calvin’s room. He nodded to me, gestured to me to stop while I was several feet away, and stuck his head in Calvin’s room. To my relief, Dawson swung the door wide open for me to enter and even patted my shoulder as I went in.
    Calvin was sitting up in the padded chair. He clicked off the television as I came in. His color was better, his beard and hair were clean and trimmed, and he looked altogether more like himself. He was wearing pajamas of blue broadcloth. He still had a tube or two in, I saw. He actually tried to push himself up out of the chair.
    “No, don’t you dare get up!” I pulled over a straight chair and sat in front of him. “Tell me how you are.”
    “Glad to see you,” he said. Even his voice was stronger. “Dawson said you wouldn’t take any help. Tell me who set that fire.”
    “That’s the strange thing, Calvin. I don’t know why this man set the fire. His family came to see me . . .” I hesitated, because Calvin was recuperating from his own brush with death, and he shouldn’t have to worry about other stuff.
    But he said, “Tell me what you’re thinking,” and he sounded so interested that I ended up relating everything to the wounded shifter: my doubts about the arsonist’s motives, my relief that the damage could be repaired, my concern about the trouble between Eric and Charles Twining. And I told Calvin that the police here had learned of more clusters of sniper activity.
    “That would clear Jason,” I pointed out, and he nodded. I didn’t push it.
    “At least no one else has been shot,” I said, trying to think of something positive to throw in with the dismal mix.
    “That we know of,” Calvin said.
    “What?”
    “That we know of. Maybe someone else has been shot, and no one’s found ’em yet.”
    I was astonished at the thought, and yet it made sense. “How’d you think of that?”
    “I don’t have nothing else to do,” he said with a small smile. “I don’t read, like you do. I’m not much one for television, except for sports.” Sure enough, the station he’d had on when I’d entered had been ESPN.
    “What do you do in your spare time?” I asked out of sheer curiosity.
    Calvin was pleased I’d asked him a personal question. “I work pretty long hours at Norcross,” he said. “I like to hunt, though I’d rather hunt at the full moon.” In his panther body. Well, I could understand that. “I like to fish. I love mornings when I can just sit in my boat on the water and not worry about a thing.”
    “Uh-huh,” I said encouragingly. “What else?”
    “I like to cook. We have shrimp boils sometimes, or we cook up a whole mess of catfish and we eat outside—catfish and hush puppies and slaw and watermelon. In the summer, of course.”
    It made my mouth water just to think about it.
    “In the winter, I work on the inside of my house. I go out and cut wood for the people in our community who can’t cut their own. I’ve always got something to do, seems