Dead Ever After: A True Blood Novel

rainfall. The temperature would drop a little, and the bushes and grass would lose their coating of dust. I sighed. Everything in my yard would grow even faster.
    By the time I’d gone through my morning routine, the downpour had slacked off a bit, from torrential to light, but the Weather Channel told me heavy rain would resume in the late afternoon and might continue intermittently through the next few days. That was good news for all the farmers and, therefore, for Bon Temps. I practiced a happy smile in the mirror, but it didn’t sit right on my face.
    I dashed out to my car through the drizzle without bothering to open my umbrella. Maybe a little adrenaline would help me get going. I had very little enthusiasm for anything today held. Since I wasn’t sure if Sam would be able or willing to walk across the parking lot to work, I might have to stay until closing. I couldn’t keep dumping so much responsibility on employees unless I gave them a bump in pay, and we simply couldn’t afford that right now.
    As I pulled up behind the bar, I noticed that Bernie’s car was gone. She’d meant it when she said she was leaving. Should I go in the bar first or try to catch Sam in his trailer?
    While I was still debating, I caught a glimpse of yellow through the rain on my windshield. Sam was standing by the Dumpster, which was conveniently placed between the kitchen door and the employee entrance. He was wearing a yellow plastic rain poncho, one he kept hanging in his office for such occasions. At first, I was so relieved to see him I didn’t absorb the message in his body language. He was standing, frozen and stiff, with a bag of garbage in his left hand. He’d shoved the sliding Dumpster lid aside with his right. He was looking into the Dumpster, all his attention focused on something inside.
    I had that sinking feeling. You know, the one you get when you realize your whole day has just turned south. “Sam?” I opened my umbrella and hurried over to him. “What’s wrong?”
    I put my hand on his shoulder. He didn’t twitch; it’s hard to surprise a shapeshifter. He also didn’t speak.
    There was more odor than usual coming from the Dumpster.
    I choked, but made myself look into the hot metal confines, half-full with bagged garbage.
    Arlene wasn’t in a bag. She was lying on top. The bugs and the heat had already started to work on her, and now the rain was falling on her swollen, discolored face.
    Sam dropped the garbage bag to the ground. With obvious reluctance, he bent forward to touch his fingers to Arlene’s neck. He knew as well as I that she was dead. There was nothing in her brain for me to register, and any shifter could smell death.
    I said a very bad word. Then I repeated it a few times.
    After a moment Sam said, “I never heard you say that out loud.”
    “I don’t even think it that often.” I hated to enlarge on this particular piece of bad news, but I had to. “She was just here yesterday, Sam. In your office. Talking to me.”
    By silent mutual consent, we moved over to the shelter of the oak tree in Sam’s yard. He’d left the Dumpster open, but the raindrops would not hurt Arlene. Sam didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I guess lots of people saw her?” he asked.
    “I wouldn’t call it lots of people. We didn’t have that many customers. But whoever was in the bar had to have seen her, because she must have come through the front door.” I thought for a second. “Yeah, I didn’t hear the back door open. She came back to your office while I was working on the mail, and she talked to me for maybe five or ten minutes. It seemed like forever.”
    “Why would she come to Merlotte’s?” Sam looked at me, baffled.
    “She said she wanted her job back.”
    Sam closed his eyes for a long moment. “Like that was going to happen.” And he opened them, looking right into mine. “I am so tempted to take her body out of here and dump it somewhere else.” He was asking me a question; though I was shocked for a split second, I understood his feelings very well.
    “We could do that,” I said quietly. “It would sure . . .” Save us a lot of trouble. Be a terrible thing to do. Take the focus of any investigation away from Merlotte’s. “Be messy,” I concluded. “But doable.”
    Sam put an arm around my shoulders and tried to smile. “They say your best friend will help you move a body,” he said. “You must be my best friend.”
    “I am,” I said. “I’ll help