Dead to the World

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    “When can you search the pond?” I called.
    He turned to look at me, terror on his face. I hadn’t had anyone look at me like that in years. I had him spooked, and I hadn’t wanted to have that effect on him.
    “The blood is on the dock,” I pointed out, trying to improve matters. Providing a reasonable explanation was second nature. “I’m scared Jason went into the water.”
    Beck seemed to settle down a little after that. He turned his eyes back to the water. My father had chosen the site for the house to include the pond. He’d told me when I was little that the pond was very deep and fed by a tiny stream. The area around two-thirds of the pond was mowed and maintained as yard; but the farthest edge of it was left thickly wooded, and Jason enjoyed sitting on the deck in the late evening with binoculars, watching critters come to drink.
    There were fish in the pond. He kept it stocked. My stomach lurched.
    Finally, the detective walked up the slope to the deck. “I have to call around, see who can dive,” Alcee Beck said. “It may take a while to find someone who can do it. And the chief has to okay it.”
    Of course, such a thing would cost money, and that money might not be in the parish budget. I took a deep breath. “Are you talking hours, or days?”
    “Maybe a day or two,” he said at last. “No way anyone can do it who isn’t trained. It’s too cold, and Jason himself told me it was deep.”
    “All right,” I said, trying to suppress my impatience and anger. Anxiety gnawed at me like another kind of hunger.
    “Carla Rodriguez was in town last night,” Alcee Beck told me, and after a long moment, the significance of that sank into my brain.
    Carla Rodriguez, tiny and dark and electric, had been the closest shave Jason had ever had with losing his heart. In fact, the little shifter Jason had had a date with on New Year’s Eve had somewhat resembled Carla, who had moved to Houston three years ago, much to my relief. I’d been tired of the pyrotechnics surrounding her romance with my brother; their relationship had been punctuated by long and loud and public arguments, hung-up telephones, and slammed doors.
    “Why? Who’s she staying with?”
    “Her cousin in Shreveport,” Beck said. “You know, that Dovie.”
    Dovie Rodriguez had visited Bon Temps a lot while Carla had lived here. Dovie had been the more sophisticated city cousin, down in the country to correct all our local yokel ways. Of course, we’d envied Dovie.
    I thought that tackling Dovie was just what I wanted to do.
    It looked like I’d be going to Shreveport after all.

Chapter  4
    T HE DETECTIVE HUSTLED ME OFF AFTER THAT, telling me he was going to get the crime scene officer out to the house, and he’d be in touch. I got the idea, right out of his brain, that there was something he didn’t want me to see, and that he’d thrown Carla Rodriguez at me to distract me.
    And I thought he might take the shotgun away, since he seemed much more sure now he was dealing with a crime, and the shotgun might be part of some bit of evidence. But Alcee Beck didn’t say anything, so I didn’t remind him.
    I was more shaken than I wanted to admit to myself. Inwardly, I’d been convinced that, though I needed to track my brother down, Jason was really okay—just misplaced. Or mislaid, more likely, ho ho ho. Possibly he was in some kind of not-too-serious trouble, I’d told myself. Now things were looking more serious.
    I’ve never been able to squeeze my budget enough to afford a cell phone, so I began driving home. I was thinking of whom I should call, and I came up with the same answer as before. No one. There was no definite news to break. I felt as lonely as I ever have in my life. But I just didn’t want to be Crisis Woman, showing up on friends’ doorsteps with trouble on my shoulders.
    Tears welled up in my eyes. I wanted my grandmother back. I pulled over to the side of the road and slapped myself on the cheek, hard. I called myself a few names.
    Shreveport. I’d go to Shreveport and confront Dovie and Carla Rodriguez. While I was there, I’d find out if Chow and Pam knew anything about Jason’s disappearance—though it was hours until they’d be up, and I’d just be kicking my heels in an empty club, assuming there’d be someone there to let me in. But I just couldn’t sit at home, waiting. I could read the minds of the human employees and find out if they knew what was up.
    On the one hand, if I went