Dead Until Dark

Jason to the tiny local hospital, oblivious to the police looking very carefully at Jason’s truck, blind to the squad car following the ambulance, totally trusting when the emergency room doctor sent me home, telling me he’d call me when Jason regained consciousness. The doctor told me, eyeing me curiously, that Jason was apparently sleeping off the effects of alcohol or drugs. But Jason had never drunk that much before, and Jason didn’t use drugs: our cousin Hadley’s descent into the life of the streets had made a profound impression on both of us. I told the doctor all that, and he listened, and he shooed me off.
    Not knowing what to think, I went home to find that Andy Bellefleur had been roused by his pager. He’d left me a note telling me that, and nothing else. Later on, I found that he’d actually been in the hospital while I was there, and waited until I was gone out of consideration for me before he’d hand-cuffed Jason to the bed.

Chapter  12
    S AM CAME TO GIVE ME THE NEWS ABOUT ELEVEN O’CLOCK. “They’re going to arrest Jason as soon as he comes to, Sookie, which looks to be soon.” Sam didn’t tell me how he came to know this, and I didn’t ask.
    I stared at him, tears running down my face. Any other day, I might have thought of how plain I look when I cry, but today was not a day I cared about my outsides. I was all in a knot, frightened for Jason, sad about Amy Burley, full of anger the police were making such a stupid mistake, and underneath it all, missing my Bill.
    “They think it looks like Amy Burley put up a fight. They think he got drunk after he killed her.”
    “Thanks, Sam, for warning me.” My voice came from way faraway. “You better go to work, now.”
    After Sam had seen that I needed to be alone, I called information and got the number of Blood in the Quarter. I punched in the numbers, feeling somehow I was doing a bad thing, but I couldn’t think how or why.
    “Bloooooood . . . in the Quarter,” announced a deep voice dramatically. “Your coffin away from home.”
    Geez. “Good morning. This is Sookie Stackhouse calling from Bon Temps,” I said politely. “I need to leave a message for Bill Compton. He’s a guest there.”
    “Fang or human?”
    “Ah . . . fang.”
    “Just one minute, please.”
    The deep voice came back on the line after a moment. “What is the message, madam?”
    That gave me pause.
    “Please tell Mr. Compton that . . . my brother has been arrested, and I would appreciate it if he could come home as soon as his business is completed.”
    “I have that down.” The sound of scribbling. “And your name again?”
    “Stackhouse. Sookie Stackhouse.”
    “All right, miss. I’ll see to it that he gets your message.”
    “Thanks.”
    And that was the only action I could think of to take, until I realized it would be much more practical to call Sid Matt Lancaster. He did his best to sound appalled to hear Jason was going to be arrested, said he’d hurry over to the hospital as soon as he got out of court that afternoon, and that he’d report back to me.
    I drove back to the hospital to see if they’d let me sit with Jason until he became conscious. They wouldn’t. I wondered if he was already conscious, and they weren’t telling me. I saw Andy Bellefleur at the other end of the hall, and he turned and walked the other way.
    Damn coward.
    I went home because I couldn’t think of anything to do. I realized it wasn’t a workday for me anyway, and that was a good thing, though I didn’t really care too much at that point. It occurred to me that I wasn’t handling this as well as I ought, that I had been much steadier when Gran had died.
    But that had been a finite situation. We would bury Gran, her killer would be arrested, we would go on. If the police seriously believed that Jason had killed Gran in addition to the other women, then the world was such a bad and chancy place that I wanted no part of it.
    But I realized, as I sat and looked in front of me that long, long afternoon, that it was naivete like that that had led to Jason’s arrest. If I’d just gotten him into Sam’s trailer and cleaned him up, hidden the film until I found out what it contained, above all not called the ambulance . . . that had been what Sam had been thinking when he’d looked at me so doubtfully. However, Arlene’s arrival had kind of wiped out my options.
    I thought the phone would start ringing as soon as people heard.
    But no one called.
    They