Living Dead in Dallas

and he knocked it back and licked his lips. He looked pinker almost immediately.
    “How’d your meeting go, honey?” I asked. Bill had been in Shreveport the better part of the night.
    “I’ll tell you later.”
    I hoped his work-related story was less distressingthan Andy’s. “Okay. I’d appreciate it if you’d help Portia get Andy to her car. Here she comes now,” I said, nodding toward the door.
    For once, Portia was not wearing the skirt, blouse, jacket, hose, and low-heeled pumps that constituted her professional uniform. She’d changed to blue jeans and a ragged Sophie Newcomb sweatshirt. Portia was built as squarely as her brother, but she had long, thick, chestnut hair. Keeping it beautifully tended was Portia’s one signal that she hadn’t given up yet. She plowed single-mindedly through the rowdy crowd.
    “Well, he’s soused, all right,” she said, evaluating her brother. Portia was trying to ignore Bill, who made her very uneasy. “It doesn’t happen often, but if he decides to tie one on, he does a good job.”
    “Portia, Bill can carry him to your car,” I said. Andy was taller than Portia and thick in body, clearly too much of a burden for his sister.
    “I think I can handle him,” she told me firmly, still not looking toward Bill, who raised his eyebrows at me.
    So I let her get one arm around him and try to hoist him off the stool. Andy stayed perched. Portia glanced around for Sam Merlotte, the bar owner, who was small and wiry in appearance but very strong. “Sam’s bartending at an anniversary party at the country club,” I said. “Better let Bill help.”
    “All right,” the lawyer said stiffly, her eyes on the polished wood of the bar. “Thanks very much.”
    Bill had Andy up and moving toward the door in seconds, in spite of Andy’s legs tending to turn to jelly. Micah Tooten jumped up to open the door, so Bill was able to sweep Andy right out into the parking lot.
    “Thanks, Sookie,” Portia said. “Is his bar tab settled up?”
    I nodded.
    “Okay,” she said, slapping her hand on the bar tosignal she was out of there. She had to listen to a chorus of well-meant advice as she followed Bill out the front door of Merlotte’s.
    That was how Detective Andy Bellefleur’s old Buick came to sit in the parking lot at Merlotte’s all night and into the next day. The Buick had certainly been empty when Andy had gotten out to enter the bar, he would later swear. He’d also testify that he’d had been so preoccupied by his internal turmoil that he’d forgotten to lock the car.
    At some point between eight o’clock, when Andy had arrived at Merlotte’s, and ten the next morning, when I arrived to help open the bar, Andy’s car acquired a new passenger.
    This one would cause considerable embarrassment for the policeman.
    This one was dead.
     
    I SHOULDN’T HAVE been there at all. I’d worked the late shift the night before, and I should’ve worked the late shift again that night. But Bill had asked me if I could switch with one of my coworkers, because he needed me to accompany him to Shreveport, and Sam hadn’t objected. I’d asked my friend Arlene if she’d work my shift. She was due a day off, but she always wanted to earn the better tips we got at night, and she agreed to come in at five that afternoon.
    By all rights, Andy should’ve collected his car that morning, but he’d been too hung over to fool with getting Portia to run him over to Merlotte’s, which was out of the way to the police station. She’d told him she would pick him up at work at noon, and they’d eat lunch at the bar. Then he could retrieve his car.
    So the Buick, with its silent passenger, waited for discovery far longer than it should have.
    I’d gotten about six hours’ sleep the night before, so I was feeling pretty good. Dating a vampire can be hard on your equilibrium if you’re truly a daytime person, like me. I’d helped close the bar, and left for home with Bill by one o’clock. We’d gotten in Bill’s hot tub together, then done other things, but I’d gotten to bed by a little after two, and I didn’t get up until almost nine. Bill had long been in the ground by then.
    I drank lots of water and orange juice and took a multivitamin and iron supplement for breakfast, which was my regimen since Bill had come into my life and brought (along with love, adventure, and excitement) the constant threat of anemia. The weather was getting cooler, thank God, and I sat on