The Sookie Stackhouse Companion

over with.
    “Not exactly. You and Eric have been together longer, and you seem to know each other a little better.”
    “As well as a human and a thousand-year-old vamp can, I guess. You don’t think you and Jannalynn know each other?”
    “She’s a lot younger than me,” he said. “And she has some impulse control issues. But she’s really brave, really loyal.”
    Okay, that was just weird. It was like listening to an echo of Jannalynn’s thoughts the night before.
    “Yes,” I said. “She is.”
    Sam shrugged. “When she left last night, we agreed we’d talk when I got back to Bon Temps and recovered from the wedding. We have a date for next weekend.”
    I had a limited menu of responses to choose from. “Good,” I said, and left it at that.
    We continued our near-silence most of the way across Texas. I thought of the hateful crowd the day before, their distorted faces. I thought about the flash of sheer pleasure I’d felt when I’d realized who’d killed Jim Collins. I thought of how much fun the party had been before Jannalynn had shown up and Luna had told me about the smell in the house next door.
    “I was surprised that the police didn’t come over to ask any questions last night,” I said.
    “Sister called this morning and told me that they were going to, but—well, it seemed so obvious what had happened—”
    “That’s great. You’re free and clear.”
    This was good. Now we were talking like we had before. A knot in my stomach eased up.
    “She said that even before they knew Jim was dead, the Arrowsmiths prodded their son to come forward and tell Porter that he’d seen the e-mails between Sarah Newlin and Jim about marshaling both sides to clash at the wedding. She’d urged Jim to make trouble, to enlist his like-minded neighbors and friends to take action, and encourage them to disrupt the wedding in any way they could. In turn, Jim had insisted she come to town herself to witness the work he was doing. The theory is that the shooting started when the two of them were arguing because the plan didn’t work out.”
    That was pretty much the truth and should sure clinch the case against Sarah. “Why do you think we didn’t hear the shots?” I asked Sam.
    “According to Sister, all the windows were shut. Probably because the noise of a yard full of folks he hated enjoying themselves was bothering Jim,” Sam said. “And with our CD player turned up loud . . . Sarah Newlin told them that she’d been at Jim’s house almost an hour before he got worked up enough to suggest they go over and shoot us all. But then her lawyer arrived, and she clammed up.”
    “You think there’s anyway she’ll get off?” I asked incredulously.
    “She won’t go to prison for murder. Maybe manslaughter. Of course, she’ll claim self-defense.” He shook his head and accelerated to pass a beat-up minivan that was poking along in front of us.
    “Just think on it, Sook—if Luna hadn’t gone on the Collins side of the hedge to make out in private, maybe Sarah Newlin would have called someone to come get her, or managed somehow to crawl out of the house. She might even have made it into her car. Then I think Mom and I would have had a visit from the police for sure.”
    But that hadn’t happened, and now Sarah Newlin would be in jail for a while anyway. That was something, a big something. “I’m not drawing any big life lesson from yesterday,” I said.
    “Were you sure you were going to?”
    “Well, yes.”
    “We survived,” Sam said. “And my brother got married to the woman he loves. And that’s all that’s important.”
    “Sam, do you really think that?” I didn’t want to pick at him, but I was genuinely curious.
    My boss smiled at me. “Nah. But what would you say the moral of the day was? There was a lot of hate, there was some love. The love won out for Craig, the hate did Jim Collins in. End of story.”
    Sam was right, as far as his “moral” went.
    But I didn’t think it was truly the end of the story.

Life in Bon Temps
    BY VICTORIA KOSKI

Dead Until Dark

Timeline
    SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2004. Sookie Stackhouse, telepath, is working the evening shift at Merlotte’s bar when a vampire comes in to order a drink. Although vampires have been “out of the coffin” for two years, Bill Compton is the first one to come to her little town of Bon Temps, and she is delighted by the new experience. Local lowlifes Mack and Denise Rattray soon move to Bill’s table, where