Dead Ever After: A True Blood Novel

Johnson’s, where Coby and Lisa were living. There were only woods behind those houses, and since Tray’s was the last one on the street, it was a secluded spot.
    “Yeah. She was out there, in back of his house. It’s been closed for a while now, so I got no idea what she was doing.”
    “You know the guys she was with?” I was trying so hard to sound casual, trying so hard not to inhale the terrible miasma, that my voice came out in a squeak like a mouse that was being strangled.
    “No, I ain’t seen them before. One of ’em was kind of tall and skinny and bony, and the other one was just plain looking.”
    “How’d you come to see them?”
    If Jane had had enough energy to look uncomfortable, she would have. As it was, she looked a tad woeful. She said, “Well, that night I thought about going by the nursing home to see Aunt Martha, but I stopped off at the house to have a little drink, so by the time I got to the nursing home, they said the place was closing to visitors, it being pretty late and all. But I run into Hank Clearwater there, you know, the handyman? He was leaving after visiting his dad. Well, me and Hank have known each other forever, and he said we could have a drink in his car, and before you know it one thing led to another, but we thought he better move the car somewhere a little more private, so he pulled into the woods across the street from the nursing home, there’s a little track through the woods where kids run four-wheelers. We could see the backs of the houses on Clarice Road. They all got those big security lights. Helped us see what we were doing!” She giggled.
    “So that’s how you were able to see Arlene,” I said, since I didn’t even want to think about Hank and Jane.
    “Yeah, that’s how come I saw her. I thought, ‘Damn, that’s Arlene, and she’s out, and she tried to kill Sookie. What’s up with that?’ Those men were real close to her. She was handing them something, and then Hank and I . . . got to . . . talking, and I never saw them again. Next time I looked up, they were gone.”
    Jane’s piece of information was very important to me in a dubious kind of way. On the one hand, it might help clear me or at least give the law grounds for doubting that I’d had any part in killing Arlene. On the other hand, Jane was not what you would call a reliable witness, and her story could be shaken up with one arm tied behind a policeman’s back.
    I sighed. As Jane began a monologue about her long “friendship” with Hank Clearwater (I’d never be able to have him in to work on my plumbing after this), I had some random thoughts of my own.
    My witness, Karin the Slaughterer, would not rise until full dark, which would not be achieved until quite late. (Not for the first time, I told myself how much I hated daylight saving time.) Karin was a better witness than Jane because she was obviously sharp, alert, and in her right mind. Of course, she was dead. Having a vampire as a witness to your whereabouts was not a glowing testimonial. Though they were now citizens of the United States, they were not treated or regarded like humans, not by a long shot. I wondered if the police would get around to interviewing Karin tonight. Maybe they’d already sent someone to Fangtasia before she’d turned in today.
    I considered what Jane had told me. A tall, thin guy and a plain guy, not locals or Jane would have recognized them. With Arlene. In the area behind the house next door to where her children were staying with Brock and Chessie Johnson. Late, on the night Arlene was murdered. That was a big development.
    Kevin, in a clean, crisp uniform, brought us lunch an hour later. Fried bologna, mashed potatoes, sliced tomatoes. He looked at me with as much distaste as I’d looked at the food.
    “You can just cut that out, Kevin Pryor,” I said. “I no more killed Arlene than you can tell your mama who you’re living with.”
    Kevin turned bright red, and I knew my tongue had gotten the better of me. Kevin and Kenya had been living together for a year now, and most people in town knew about it. But Kevin’s mom could pretend she didn’t know because Kevin didn’t tell her face-to-face. There wasn’t a thing wrong with Kenya, except for Kevin’s mom she was the wrong color to be a girlfriend to Kevin.
    “You just shut up, Sookie,” he said. Kevin Pryor had never said a rude thing to me in his life. I suddenly realized that I didn’t look the same to Kevin now that