Dead as a Doornail

back to see that Andy was still lost in his own little vale of horror at what he’d done. “Bite him,” I told Dean, and Dean padded over to the policeman and nipped his hand.
    Andy cried out, of course, and raised his gun as if he were going to shoot the bloodhound. “No!” I yelled, jumping up from the dying Were. “Use your phone, you idiot. Call an ambulance.”
    Then the gun swung around to point at me.
    For a long, tense moment I thought for sure the end of my life had come. We’d all like to kill what we don’t understand, what scares us, and I powerfully scared Andy Bellefleur.
    But then the gun faltered and dropped back to Andy’s side. His broad face stared at me with dawning comprehension. He fumbled in his pocket, withdrew a cell phone. To my profound relief, he holstered the gun after he punched in a number.
    I turned back to the Were, now wholly human and naked, while Andy said, “There’s been a multiple shooting in the alley behind the old Feed and Seed and Patsy’s Cleaners, across Magnolia Street from Sonic. Right. Two ambulances, two gunshot wounds. No, I’m fine.”
    The wounded Were was Dawson. His eyes flickered open, and he tried to gasp. I couldn’t even imagine the pain he must be suffering. “Calvin,” he tried to say.
    “Don’t worry now. Help’s on the way,” I told the big man. My flashlight was lying on the ground beside me, and by its oddly skewed light I could see his huge muscles and bare hairy chest. He looked cold, of course, and I wondered where his clothes were. I would have been glad to have his shirt to wad up over the wound, which was steadily leaking blood. My hands were covered in it.
    “Told me to finish out my last day by watching over you,” Dawson said. He was shuddering all over. He tried to smile. “I said, ‘Piece of cake.’ ” And then he didn’t say anything else, but lost consciousness.
    Andy’s heavy black shoes came to stand in my field of vision. I thought Dawson was going to die. I didn’t even know his first name. I had no idea how we were going to explain a naked guy to the police. Wait . . . was that up to me? Surely Andy was the one who’d have the hard explaining to do?
    As if he’d been reading my mind—for a change—Andy said, “You know this guy, right?”
    “Slightly.”
    “Well, you’re going to have to say you know him better than that, to explain his lack of clothes.”
    I gulped. “Okay,” I said, after a brief, grim pause.
    “You two were back here looking for his dog. You,” Andy said to Dean. “I don’t know who you are, but you stay a dog, you hear me?” Andy stepped away nervously. “And I cameback here because I’d followed the woman—she was acting suspiciously.”
    I nodded, listening to the air rattle in Dawson’s throat. If I could only give him blood to heal him, like a vampire. If I only knew a medical procedure . . . But I could already hear the police cars and the ambulances coming closer. Nothing in Bon Temps was very far from anything else, and on this side of town, the south side, the Grainger hospital would be closest.
    “I heard her confess,” I said. “I heard her say she shot the others.”
    “Tell me something, Sookie,” Andy said in a rush. “Before they get here. There’s nothing weird about Halleigh, right?”
    I stared up at him, amazed he could think of such a thing at this moment. “Nothing aside from the stupid way she spells her name.” Then I reminded myself who’d shot the bitch lying on the ground five feet away. “No, not a thing,” I said. “Halleigh is just plain old normal.”
    “Thank God,” he said. “Thank God.”
    And then Alcee Beck dashed down the alley and stopped in his tracks, trying to make sense of the scene before him. Right behind him was Kevin Pryor, and Kevin’s partner Kenya crept along hugging the wall with her gun out. The ambulance teams were hanging back until they were sure the scene was secure. I was up against the wall getting searched before I knew what was happening. Kenya kept saying, “Sorry, Sookie” and “I have to do this,” until I told her, “Just get it done. Where’s my dog?”
    “He run off,” she said. “I guess the lights spooked him. He’s a bloodhound, huh? He’ll come home.” When she’d done her usual thorough job, Kenya said, “Sookie? How come this guy is naked?”
    This was just the beginning. My story was extremelythin. I read disbelief written large on almost every face. It wasn’t