Dead in the Family

took his order, Terry silently handed me a receipt. He’d had to get a new element for the water heater. “It’s all fi xed now,” he said. “Your cousin was able to get his hot shower.”
    “Thanks, Terry,” I said. “I’m going to give you something for your time and labor.”
    “Not a problem,” Terry said. “Your cousin took care of that.” He turned his attention to his magazine. He’d brought a copy of Louisiana Hunting and Fishing to read while he waited for his food.
    I wrote Terry a check for the element and gave it to him when I brought his food. He nodded and slipped it in his pocket. Since Terry’s schedule meant he wasn’t always available to fill in, Sam had hired another bartender so he could have some regular evenings off. The new bartender, who’d been at work for a couple of weeks, was really pretty in a supersized way. Kennedy Keyes was five-eleven, easy; taller than Sam, for sure. She had the kind of good looks you associate with traditional beauty queens: shoulder-length chestnut hair with discreet blond highlights, wide brown eyes, a white and even smile that was an orthodontist’s wet dream. Her skin was perfect, her back straight, and she’d graduated from Southern Arkansas University with a degree in psychology.
    She’d also done time.
    Sam had asked her if she wanted a job when she’d drifted in for lunch the day after she’d gotten out of jail. She hadn’t even asked what she’d be doing before she’d said yes. He’d given her a basic bartender’s guide, and she’d studied every spare moment until she’d mastered an amazing number of drinks.
    “Sookie!” she said, as if we’d been best friends since childhood. That was Kennedy’s way. “How you doing?”
    “Good, thank you. Yourself?”
    “Happy as a clam.” She bent to check the number of sodas in the glass-fronted refrigerator behind the bar. “We need us some A&W,” she said.
    “Coming right up.” I got the keys from Sam, then went back to the stockroom to find a case of root beer. I got two six-packs.
    “I didn’t mean you to get that. I coulda gotten them!” Kennedy smiled at me. Her smile was kind of perpetual. “I appreciate it.”
    “No problem.”
    “Do I look any smaller, Sookie?” she said hopefully. She half turned to show me her butt and looked at me over her own shoulder.
    Kennedy’s issue didn’t seem to be that she had been in jail, but that she had put on weight in jail. The food had been crappy, she’d told me, and it had been high on the carbohydrate count. “But I’m an emotional eater,” she’d said, as if that were a terrible thing. “And I was real emotional in jail.” Ever since she’d gotten back to Bon Temps, she’d been anxious to return to her beauty queen measurements.
    She was still beautiful. There was just more of her to look good.
    “You’re gorgeous, as always,” I said. I looked around for Danny Prideaux. Sam had asked Danny to come in when Kennedy was working at night. This arrangement was supposed to last for a month, until Sam was sure people wouldn’t take advantage of Kennedy.
    “You know,” she said, interpreting my glance, “I can handle myself.”
    Everyone in Bon Temps knew that Kennedy could handle herself, and that was the problem. Her reputation might constitute a challenge to certain men (certain men who were assholes). “I know you can,” I said mildly. Danny Prideaux was insurance.
    And there he came through the door. He was taller than Kennedy by a couple of inches, and he was of some racial mixture that I hadn’t figured out. Danny had deep olive skin, short brown hair, and a broad face. He’d been out of the army for a month, and he hadn’t yet settled into a career of any sort. He worked part-time at the home builders’ supply store. He was willing enough to be a bouncer for a few nights a week, especially since he got to look at Kennedy the whole time.
    Sam drifted out of his office to say good night and brief Kennedy on a customer whose check had bounced, and then he and I went out the back door together. “Let’s go to Crawdad Diner,” he suggested. That sounded good to me. It was an old restaurant just off the square around the courthouse. Like all the businesses in the area around the square, the oldest part of Bon Temps, the diner had a history. The original owners had been Perdita and Crawdad Jones, who’d opened the restaurant in the forties. When Perdita had retired, she’d sold the business to Charlsie