Dead in the Family

and then call the cops. That would take care of you, and then the fair . . .” Ham’s voice died away.
    “You knew it was a fairy,” I said, smiling at Ham. “You knew. So you decided to do the job first.”
    “It wasn’t something Alcide would have wanted Basim to do, right, Alcide?”
    Alcide didn’t answer, but he was pulsating like a skyrocket on the periphery of my vision.
    “And you told Patricia. And she helped,” I said, stroking his face. He wanted to make me stop, but he didn’t dare.
    “Her sister died in the war! She couldn’t accept her new pack. I was the only one who was nice to her, she said.”
    “Aw, you’re so generous to be nice to the pretty Were woman,” I said mockingly. “Good Ham! Instead of Basim killing someone and burying them, you killed Basim and buried him. Instead of Basim getting a reward from the fairy, you thought you would get a reward from the fairy. Because fairies are rich, right?” I let my nails dig into his cheek. “Basim wanted the money to get out from under the government guys. You wanted the money just because you wanted the money.”
    “Basim owed a blood debt in Houston,” Ham said. “Basim wouldn’t have talked to the anti-Were people for any reason. I can’t go to my death with that lie on my soul. Basim wanted to pay off the debt he owed for killing a human who was a friend of the pack. It was an accident, while Basim was in wolf form. The human poked him with a hoe, and Basim killed him.”
    “I knew about that,” Alcide said. He hadn’t spoken until now. “I told Basim I would loan him the money.”
    “I guess he wanted to earn it himself,” Ham said miserably. (Misery, I learned, was deep purple.) “He thought he’d meet with the fairy again, find out exactly what the fairy wanted him to do, get a body from a mortuary or a drunk’s body from some alley, and plant it on Sookie’s land. That would fulfill the letter of what the fairy wanted. No harm would have been done. But instead, I decided . . .” He began sobbing, and his color turned all washed-out gray, the color of faded faith.
    “Where were you going to meet him?” I asked. “To get your money? Which you had earned, I’m not saying you didn’t.” I was proud of how fair I was being. Fairness was blue, of course.
    “I was going to meet him at the same spot in your woods,” he said. “On the south side by the cemetery. Later tonight.”
    “Very good,” I murmured. “Don’t you feel better now?”
    “Yes,” he said, without a trace of irony in his voice. “I do feel better, and I’m ready to accept the judgment of the pack.”
    “I’m not,” Patricia cried. “I escaped death in the pack war by surrendering. Let me surrender again!” She fell to her knees, like Annabelle. “I beg forgiveness. I’m only guilty of loving the wrong man.” Like Annabelle. Patricia bowed her head, and her dark braid fell over one shoulder. She put her clasped hands to her face. Pretty as a picture.
    “You didn’t love me,” Ham said, genuinely shocked. “We screwed . You were upset with Alcide because he didn’t pick you to bed. I was upset with Alcide because he didn’t pick me as his second. That was the sum total of what we had in common!”
    “Their colors are certainly getting brighter now ,” I observed. The passion of their mutual accusation was perking up their auras to something combustible. I tried to summarize to myself what I’d learned, but it all came out a jumble. Maybe Jason could help me sort it out later. This shaman stuff was kind of taxing. I felt that soon I would be depleted, as if the end of a race were in sight. “Time to decide,” I said, looking at Alcide, whose brilliant red glow was still steady.
    “I think Annabelle should be disciplined but not cast out of the pack,” Alcide said, and there was a chorus of protest.
    “Kill her!” said Jannalynn, her fierce little face determined. She was so ready to do the killing. I wondered if Sam really understood what he’d bitten off in going out with such a ferocious thing. He seemed so far away now.
    “This is my reasoning,” Alcide said calmly. The room quieted as the pack listened. “According to them,” and he pointed at Ham and Patricia, “Annabelle’s only guilt is a moral one, in sleeping with two men at the same time while telling one of them she was faithful. We don’t know what she told Basim.”
    Alcide spoke the truth . . . at least, the truth as he saw it. I looked at