Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

I might have known he’d hear me.
    “Just tell Bellenos that I’m putting his clothes in the dryer, but he’s responsible for getting them out. I think they’ll be dry in …” I made some hasty calculations. “Probably forty-five minutes. I’m going to bed now.” Though I’d had the nap, I was beginning to drag.
    I barely waited to hear Dermot say, “He’ll get them,” before I hurried to the back porch to toss the wet clothes into the dryer. Then I went into my bedroom, shut the door, and locked it.
    If the rest of the fae were as casual about cannibalism as the elf, Claude couldn’t come back soon enough to suit me.

Chapter 7
    Cara Ambroselli called me first thing Monday morning, which was not a great way to start the week.
    “I need you to come to the station so I can ask a few more questions,” she said, and she sounded so brisk and awake that I could easily dislike her.
    “I’ve told you everything I know,” I said, trying to sound alert.
    “We’re going over everything again,” she said. “I know you’re as anxious as we all are to find out who caused this poor woman’s death.”
    There was only one possible response. “I’ll be there in a couple of hours,” I said, trying not to sound sullen. “I’ll have to ask my boss if I can be late to work.”
    That really wasn’t going to be an issue since I was scheduled to work the later shift, but I was grumpy enough to drag my heels. I did callJason to tell him where I was going, because I think someone always needs to know where you are if you’re going into a police station.
    “That’s no good, Sis,” he said. “You need a lawyer?”
    “No, but I’m taking a number with me just in case,” I said. I looked at the front of the refrigerator until I spotted the “Osiecki and Hilburn” business card. I made sure my cell phone was charged. Just to cover all kinds of crises, I put the cluviel dor into my purse.
    I drove to Shreveport without noticing the blue skies, the shimmering heat, the big mowers, the eighteen-wheelers. I was in a grim mood, and I wondered how career criminals managed. I was not cut out for a life of crime, I decided, though the past few years had held enough mayhem to last me till I was using a walker. I hadn’t had anything to do with the death of Kym Rowe, but I’d been involved in sufficient bad stuff to make me nervous when I came under official scrutiny.
    Police stations are not happy places at the best of times. If you’re a telepath with a guilty conscience, this unhappiness is just about doubled.
    The heavy woman on the bench in the waiting room was thinking about her son, who was in a cell in the building. He’d been arrested for rape. It wasn’t the first time. The man ahead of me was picking up a police report about an accident he’d been in; his arm was in a sling, and he was in a fair amount of pain. Two men sat silently side by side, their elbows on their knees, their heads hung. Their sons had been arrested for beating another boy to death.
    It was a positive treat to see T-Rex come out of a door, apparently leaving the building. He glanced my way, kept moving, but did a double take.
    “Sookie, right?” Under the harsh light, his dyed platinum hairlooked garish but also cheerful, simply because he was such a vital person.
    “Yeah,” I said, shaking his hand. Pretty, vamp’s girl, from Bon Temps? He was having his own little stream of consciousness about me. “They call you in, too?”
    “Yeah, I’m doing my civic duty,” he said with a very small smile. “Cherie and Viv already came in.”
    I tried to smile in a carefree way. I didn’t think I was very successful. “I guess we all got to help them find out who killed that girl,” I offered.
    “We don’t have to enjoy it.”
    I was able to give him a genuine smile. “That’s very true. Did they wring a confession out of you?”
    “I can’t keep secrets,” he said. “That’s my biggest confession. Seriously, I’d’ve told them anything after we were here a couple hours the night it happened. T-Rex is not one for secrets.”
    T-Rex was one for talking about himself in the third person, apparently. But he was so vivid, so full of life, that to my surprise I found I liked him.
    “I have to go tell them I’m here,” I said apologetically, and took a step toward the window.
    “Sure,” he said. “Listen, give me a call if you ever want to come to a wrestling match. I get the feeling you ain’t been to many, if at