Dead in the Family

database. She lived in Little Rock.
    I further discovered I could send her an e-mail. Naturally, she wasn’t obliged to answer it.
    I stared down at my hands, and I thought hard. I thought about how awful Bill looked. I thought about his pride, and the fact that he hadn’t yet contacted this Judith, though he suspected her blood would cure him. Bill wasn’t a fool, so there was some good reason he hadn’t called this other child of Lorena. I just didn’t know that reason. But if Bill had decided she shouldn’t be contacted, he knew what he was doing, right? Oh, to hell with it.
    I typed in her e-mail address. And moved the cursor down to the topic. Typed “Bill’s ill.” Thought that looked almost funny. Almost changed it, but didn’t. Moved the cursor down to the body of the e-mail, clicked again. Hesitated. Then I typed, “I’m Bill Compton’s neighbor. I don’t know how long it’s been since you heard from him, but he lives at his old home place in Bon Temps, Louisiana, now. Bill’s got silver poisoning. He can’t heal without your blood. He doesn’t know I’m sending this. We used to date, and we’re still friends. I want him to get better.” I signed it, because anonymous is not my style.
    I clenched my teeth really hard together. I clicked on Send.
    As much as I wanted to keep the CD and browse through it, my little code of honor told me I had to return it without enjoying it, because I hadn’t paid. So I got Bill’s key and put the disc back in its plastic case and started across the cemetery.
    I slowed as I drew near to the Bellefleur plot. The flowers were still piled on Miss Caroline’s grave. Andy was standing there, staring at a cross made out of red carnations. I thought it was pretty awful, but this was definitely an occasion for the thought to count more than the deed. I didn’t think Andy was registering what was right in front of him anyway.
    I felt as though “Thief” were burned onto my forehead. I knew Andy wouldn’t care if I backed up a truck to Bill’s house and loaded up all the furniture and drove off with it. It was my own sense of guilt that was plaguing me.
    “Sookie,” Andy said. I hadn’t realized he’d noticed me.
    “Andy,” I said cautiously. I wasn’t sure where this conversation would go, and I had to leave for work soon. “You still have relatives in town? Or have they left?”
    “They’re leaving after lunch,” he said. “Halleigh had to work on some class preparations this morning, and Glen had to run into his office to catch up on paperwork. This has been hardest on Portia.”
    “I guess she’ll be glad when things get back to normal.” That seemed safe enough.
    “Yeah. She’s got a law practice to run.”
    “Did the lady who was taking care of Miss Caroline have another job to go to?” Reliable caregivers were as scarce as hens’ teeth and far more valuable.
    “Doreen? Yeah, she moved right across the garden to Mr. DeWitt’s.” After an uncomfortable pause, he said, “She kind of got on to me that night, after you-all left. I know I wasn’t polite to . . . Bill.”
    “It’s been a hard time for you-all.”
    “I just . . . It makes me mad that we were getting charity.”
    “You weren’t, Andy. Bill is your family. I know it must feel weird, and I know you don’t think much of vampires in general, but he’s your great-great-great-grandfather, and he wanted to help out his people. It wouldn’t make you feel funny if he’d left you money and he was out here with Miss Caroline under the ground, would it? It’s just that Bill’s still walking around.”
    Andy shook his head, as if flies were buzzing around it. His hair was thinning, I noticed. “You know what my grandmother’s last request was?”
    I couldn’t imagine. “No,” I said.
    “She left her chocolate cake recipe to the town,” he said, and he smiled. “A damn recipe. And you know what, they were as excited at the newspaper when I took that recipe in as if it were Christmas and I’d brought them a map to Jimmy Hoffa’s body.”
    “It’s going to be in the paper?” I sounded as thrilled as I felt. I bet there would be at least a hundred chocolate cakes in the oven the day the paper came out.
    “See, you’re all excited, too,” Andy said, sounding five years younger.
    “Andy, that’s big news,” I assured him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go return something.” And I hurried through the rest of the cemetery to Bill’s house. I put