Dead as a Doornail

being anonymous in the big store. I moved slowly and read labels, and I even selected a shower curtain for the duplex bathroom. I took my time completing my list. When I transferred the bags from the buggy into the car, I tried to do all the lifting with my right arm. I was practically reeking with virtue when I got back to the house on Berry Street.
    The Bon Temps Florist van was in the driveway. Every woman has a little lift in her heart when the florist’s van pulls up, and I was no exception.
    “I have a multiple delivery here,” said Bud Dearborn’s wife, Greta. Greta was flat-faced like the sheriff and squatty like the sheriff, but her nature was happy and unsuspicious. “You’re one lucky girl, Sookie.”
    “Yes, ma’am, I am,” I agreed, with only a tincture of irony. After Greta had helped me carry in my bags, she began carrying in flowers.
    Tara had sent me a little vase of daisies and carnations. I am very fond of daisies, and the yellow and white looked pretty in my little kitchen. The card just read “From Tara.”
    Calvin had sent a very small gardenia bush wrapped up in tissue and a big bow. It was ready to pop out of the plastic tub and be planted as soon as the danger of a frost was over. I was impressed with the thoughtfulness of the gift, since the gardenia bush would perfume my yard for years. Because he’d had to call in the order, the card bore the conventional sentiment “Thinking of you—Calvin.”
    Pam had sent a mixed bouquet, and the card read, “Don’t get shot anymore. From the gang at Fangtasia.” That made me laugh a little. I automatically thought of writing thank-you notes, but of course I didn’t have my stationery withme. I’d stop by the pharmacy and get some. The downtown pharmacy had a corner that was a card shop, and also it accepted packages for UPS pickup. You had to be diverse in Bon Temps.
    I put away my purchases, awkwardly hung the shower curtain, and got cleaned up for work.
    Sweetie Des Arts was the first person I saw when I came through the employees’ entrance. She had an armful of kitchen towels, and she’d tied on her apron. “You’re a hard woman to kill,” she remarked. “How you feeling?”
    “I’m okay,” I said. I felt like Sweetie had been waiting for me, and I appreciated the gesture.
    “I hear you ducked just in time,” she said. “How come? Did you hear something?”
    “Not exactly,” I said. Sam limped out of his office then, using his cane. He was scowling. I sure didn’t want to explain my little quirk to Sweetie on Sam’s time. I said, “I just had a feeling,” and shrugged, which was unexpetedly painful.
    Sweetie shook her head at my close call and turned to go through the bar and back to the kitchen.
    Sam jerked his head toward his office, and with a sinking heart I followed him in. He shut the door behind us. “What were you doing when you got shot?” he asked. His eyes were bright with anger.
    I wasn’t going to get blamed for what had happened to me. I stood right up to Sam, got in his face. “I was just checking out library books,” I said through my teeth.
    “So why would he think you’re a shifter?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “Who had you been around?”
    “I’d been to see Calvin, and I’d . . .” My voice trailed off as I caught at the tail end of a thought.
    “So, who can tell you smell like a shifter?” I asked slowly.“No one but another shifter, right? Or someone with shifter blood. Or a vampire. Some supernatural thing.”
    “But we haven’t had any strange shifters around here lately.”
    “Have you gone to where the shooter must have been, to smell?”
    “No, the only time I was on the spot at a shooting, I was too busy screaming on the ground with blood running out of my leg.”
    “But maybe now you could pick up something.”
    Sam looked down at his leg doubtfully. “It’s rained, but I guess it’s worth a try,” he conceded. “I should have thought of it myself. Okay, tonight, after work.”
    “It’s a date,” I said flippantly as Sam sank down in his squeaky chair. I put my purse in the drawer Sam kept empty and went out to check my tables.
    Charles was hard at work, and he gave me a nod and a smile before he concentrated on the level of beer in the pitcher he was holding to the tap. One of our consistent drunks, Jane Bodehouse, was seated at the bar with Charles fixed in her sights. It didn’t seem to make the vampire uncomfortable. I saw that the rhythm of the bar