From Dead to Worse

only sin was being loved by Alcide. We’d seen it with our own eyes, though.
    “What’s the deal with you and the police in Bon Temps?” I asked, as long as we were talking about law enforcement.
    He laughed. “I used to be a cop; did you know that?”
    “No,” I said, genuinely surprised. “No kidding?”
    “For real,” he said. “I was on the force in New Orleans. But I didn’t like the politics, and my captain was a real bastard, pardon me.”
    I nodded gravely. It had been a long time since someone had apologized for using bad language within my hearing. “So, something happened?”
    “Yeah, eventually things came to a head. The captain accused me of taking some money this scuzzbag had left lying on a table when we arrested him in his home.” Tray shook his head in disgust. “I had to quit then. I liked the job.”
    “What did you like about it?”
    “No two days were alike. Yeah, sure, we got in the cars and patrolled. That was the same. But every time we got out something different would happen.”
    I nodded. I could understand that. Every day at the bar was a little different, too, though probably not as different as Tray’s days had been in the patrol car.
    We drove in silence for a while. I could tell Tray was thinking about the odds of Alcide overcoming Furnan in the struggle for dominance. He was thinking Alcide was a lucky guy to have dated Maria-Star and me, and all the luckier since that bitch Debbie Pelt had vanished. Good riddance, Tray thought.
    “Now I get to ask you a question,” Tray said.
    “Only fair.”
    “You have something to do with Debbie disappearing?”
    I took a deep breath. “Yeah. Self-defense.”
    “Good for you. Someone needed to do it.”
    We were quiet again for at least ten minutes. Not to drag the past into the present too much, but Alcide had broken up with Debbie Pelt before I met him. Then he dated me a little. Debbie decided I was an enemy, and she tried to kill me. I got her first. I’d come to terms with it . . . as much as you ever do. However, it had been impossible for Alcide to ever look at me again in the same way, and who could blame him? He’d found Maria-Star, and that was a good thing.
    Had been a good thing.
    I felt tears well up in my eyes and looked out the window. We’d passed the racetrack and the turnoff to Pierre Bossier Mall, and we went a couple more exits before Tray turned the truck onto the off ramp.
    We meandered through a modest neighborhood for a while, Tray checking his rearview mirror so often that even I realized he was watching for anyone following us. Tray suddenly turned into a driveway and pulled around to the back of one of the slightly larger homes, which was demurely clad in white siding. We parked under a porte cochere in the back, along with another pickup. There was a small Nissan parked off to the side. There were a couple of motorcycles, too, and Tray gave them a glance of professional interest.
    “Whose place?” I was a little hesitant about asking yet another question, but after all, I did want to know where I was.
    “Amanda’s,” he said. He waited for me to precede him, and I went up the three steps leading up to the back door and rang the bell.
    “Who’s there?” asked a muffled voice.
    “Sookie and Dawson,” I said.
    The door opened cautiously, the entrance blocked by Amanda so we couldn’t see past her. I don’t know much about handguns, but she had a big revolver in her hand pointed steadily at my chest. This was the second time in two days I’d had a gun pointed at me. Suddenly, I felt very cold and a little dizzy.
    “Okay,” Amanda said after looking us over sharply.
    Alcide was standing behind the door, a shotgun at the ready. He’d stepped out into view as we came in, and when his own senses had checked us out, he stood down. He put the shotgun on the kitchen counter and sat at the kitchen table.
    “I’m sorry about Maria-Star, Alcide,” I said, forcing the words through stiff lips. Having guns aimed at you is just plain terrifying, especially at close range.
    “I haven’t gotten it yet,” he said, his voice flat and even. I decided he was saying that the impact of her death hadn’t hit him. “We were thinking about moving in together. It would have saved her life.”
    There wasn’t any point in wallowing in what-might-have-been. That was only another way to torture yourself. What had actually happened was bad enough.
    “We know who did it,” Dawson said, and a shiver