Dead as a Doornail

like.”
    Now I knew twice as much about Calvin Norris as I had.
    “Tell me how you’re recovering,” I asked.
    “I’ve still got the damn IV in,” he said, gesturing with his arm. “Other than that, I’m a lot better. We heal pretty good, you know.”
    “How are you explaining Dawson to the people from your work who come to visit?” There were flower arrangements and bowls of fruit and even a stuffed cat crowding the level surfaces in the room.
    “Just tell ’em he’s my cousin here to make sure I won’t get too wore out with visitors.”
    I was pretty sure no one would question Dawson directly.
    “I have to get to work,” I said, catching a glimpse of the clock on the wall. I was oddly reluctant to leave. I’d enjoyed having a regular conversation with someone. Little moments like these were rare in my life.
    “Are you still worried about your brother?” he asked.
    “Yes.” But I’d made my mind up I wouldn’t beg again. Calvin had heard me out the first time. There wasn’t any need for a repeat.
    “We’re keeping an eye on him.”
    I wondered if the watcher had reported to Calvin that Crystal was spending the night with Jason. Or maybe Crystal herself was the watcher? If so, she was certainly taking her job seriously. She was watching Jason about as close as he could be watched.
    “That’s good,” I said. “That’s the best way to find out he didn’t do it.” I was relieved to hear Calvin’s news, and the longer I pondered it, the more I realized I should have figured it out myself.
    “Calvin, you take care.” I rose to leave, and he held up his cheek. Rather reluctantly, I touched my lips to it.
    He was thinking that my lips were soft and that I smelled good. I couldn’t help but smile as I left. Knowing someone simply finds you attractive is always a boost to the spirits.
    I drove back to Bon Temps and stopped by the library before I went to work. The Renard Parish library is an old ugly brown-brick building erected in the thirties. It looks every minute of its age. The librarians had made many justified complaints about the heating and cooling, and the electrical wiring left a lot to be desired. The library’s parking lot was in bad shape, and the old clinic next door, which had opened its doors in 1918, now had boarded-up windows—always a depressing sight. The long-closed clinic’s overgrown lot looked more like a jungle than a part of downtown.
    I had allotted myself ten minutes to exchange my books. I was in and out in eight. The library parking lot was almost empty, since it was just before five o’clock. People were shopping at Wal-Mart or already home cooking supper.
    The winter light was fading. I was not thinking about anything in particular, and that saved my life. In the nick of time, I identified intense excitement pulsing from another brain, and reflexively I ducked, feeling a sharp shove in my shoulder as I did so, and then a hot lance of blinding pain, and then wetness and a big noise. This all happened so fast I could not definitely sequence it when I later tried to reconstruct the moment.
    A scream came from behind me, and then another. Though I didn’t know how it had happened, I found myself on my knees beside my car, and blood was spattered over the front of my white T-shirt.
    Oddly, my first thought was Thank God I didn’t have my new coat on.
    The person who’d screamed was Portia Bellefleur. Portia was not her usual collected self as she skidded across the parking lot to crouch beside me. Her eyes went one way, then another, as she tried to spot danger coming from any direction.
    “Hold still,” she said sharply, as though I’d proposed running a marathon. I was still on my knees, but keeling over appeared to be a pleasant option. Blood was trickling down my arm. “Someone shot you, Sookie. Oh my God, oh my God.”
    “Take the books,” I said. “I don’t want to get blood on the books. I’ll have to pay for them.”
    Portia ignored me. She was talking into her cell phone. People talked on their phones at the damnedest times! In the library, for goodness’s sake, or at the optometrist. Or in the bar. Jabber, jabber, jabber. As if everything was so important it couldn’t wait. So I put the books on the ground beside me all by myself.
    Instead of kneeling, I found myself sitting, my back against my car. And then, as if someone had taken a slice out of my life, I discovered I was lying on the pavement of the library parking lot, staring