Definitely Dead

with alcohol-lubricated vigor. I’d found some real, honest cotton sheets among the linens (Why are they still called linens? Have you seen a linen sheet in your life?) and I’d tossed the black silky ones into the washer, so it was very easy to slip back into sleep.
    When I got up, it was after ten in the morning. There was a knocking at the door, and I stumbled down the hall to unlock it after I’d pulled on a pair of Hadley’s spandex exercise pants and a hot pink tank top. I saw boxes through the peephole, and I opened the door feeling really happy.
    “Miss Stackhouse?” said the young black man who was holding the flattened boxes. When I nodded, he said, “I got orders to bring you as many boxes as you want. Will thirty do to start with?”
    “Oh, yes,” I said. “Oh, that’ll be great.”
    “I also got instructions,” he said precisely, “to bring you anything related to moving that you might need. I have here strapping tape, masking tape, some Magic Markers, scissors, and stick-on labels.”
    The queen had given me a personal shopper.
    “Did you want colored dots? Some people like to put living room things in boxes with an orange dot, bedroom things in boxes with a green dot, and so on.”
    I had never moved, unless you counted taking a couple of bags of clothes and towels over to Sam’s furnished duplex after the kitchen burned, so I didn’t know the best way to go about it. I had an intoxicating vision of rows of neat boxes with colored dots on each side, so there couldn’t be any mistake from any angle. Then I snapped back to reality. I wouldn’t be taking that much back to Bon Temps. It was hard to form an estimate, since this was unknown territory, but I knew I didn’t want much of the furniture.
    “I don’t think I’ll need the dots, thanks anyway,” I said. “I’ll start working on these boxes, and then I can call you if I need any more, okay?”
    “I’ll assemble them for you,” he said. He had very short hair and the curliest eyelashes I’d ever seen on a person. Cows had eyelashes that pretty, sometimes. He was wearing a golf-type shirt and neatly belted khakis, along with high-end sneakers.
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” I said, as he whipped a roll of strapping tape from a large lumpy plastic shopping bag. He set to work.
    “Oh, ’scuse me,” he said, and it was the first time he’d sounded natural. “My name is Everett O’Dell Smith.”
    “Pleasure to meet you,” I said, and he paused in his work so we could shake hands. “How did you come to be here?”
    “Oh, I’m in Tulane Business School, and one of my professors got a call from Mr. Cataliades, who is, like, the most famous lawyer in the vampire area. My professor specializes in vampire law. Mr. Cataliades needed a day person; I mean, he can come out in the day, but he needed someone to be his gofer.” He’d gotten three boxes done, already.
    “And in return?”
    “In return, I get to sit in court with him on his next five cases, and I get to earn some money I need real bad.”
    “Will you have time this afternoon to take me to my cousin’s bank?”
    “Sure will.”
    “You’re not missing a class now, are you?”
    “Oh, no, I got two hours before my second class.”
    He’d already been to a class and accumulated all this stuff before I’d even gotten up. Well, he hadn’t been up half the night watching his dead cousin walk around.
    “You can take these garbage bags of clothes to the nearest Goodwill or Salvation Army store.” That would clear the gallery and make me feel productive all at the same time. I’d gone over the garments quite carefully to make sure Hadley hadn’t hidden anything in them, and I wondered what the Salvation Army would make of them. Hadley had been into Tight and Skimpy; that was the nicest way to put it.
    “Yes, ma’am,” he said, whipping out a notebook and scribbling in it. Then he waited attentively. “Anything else?” he prompted me.
    “Yes, there’s no food in the house. When you come back this afternoon, can you bring me something to eat?” I could drink tap water, but I couldn’t create food out of nothing.
    Just then a call from the courtyard made me look over the railing. Quinn was down there with a bag of something greasy. My mouth began watering.
    “Looks like the food angle is covered,” I told Everett, waving Quinn up.
    “What can I do to help?” Quinn asked. “It struck me your cousin might not have coffee and food,