All Together Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #7)(62)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"Was anyone with him?" Barry asked.

"Oh, let me think." She posed, her head thrown back, for Barry’s benefit. She didn’t think his southern accent sounded stupid. She thought it was adorable and sexy. "I just can’t remember. Listen, I’ll tell ya what I’ll do. I’ll get the security tape for last night; we’ve still got it. And I’ll let you have a look at it, okay?"

"Can we do that right now?" I asked, smiling sweetly.

"Well, I can’t leave the counter right now. There’s no one else here to watch the store if I have to go to the back. But if you’ll come to look tonight after my replacement gets here" – she cast a very pointed glance at Barry, to make sure I realized I need not come – "I’ll let you have a peek."

"What time?" Barry said, rather reluctantly.

"Shall we say seven? I get off right after that."

Barry didn’t touch the hint, but he agreed to be back at seven.

"Thanks, Barry," I said as we buckled up again. "You’re really helping me out." I called the hotel and left a message for the queen and Andre, explaining where I was and what I was doing, so they wouldn’t get mad when I wasn’t at their disposal the moment they woke, which should be very soon. After all, I was following Eric’s orders.

"You gotta come in with me," Barry said. "I’m not seeing that woman by myself. She’ll eat me alive. That was the War of Northern Aggression, for sure."

"Okay. I’ll stay out in the car, and you can yell to me from your head if she climbs on top of you."

"It’s a deal."

To fill the time, we had a cup of coffee and some cake at a bakery. It was great. My grandmother had always believed that northern women couldn’t cook. It was delightful to find out exactly how untrue that conviction had been. My appetite was also delightful. It was a continuing relief to find that I was just as hungry as I normally was. Nothing vampy about me, no sir!

After we filled up the tank and checked our route back to the Pyramid, it was finally time to return to the archery range to talk to Copper. The sky was full dark, and the city glowed with light. I felt sort of urban and glamorous, driving around such a large and famous city. And I’d been given a task and performed it successfully. No country mouse, me.

My feeling of happiness and superiority didn’t last long.

Our first clue that all was not well at the Monteagle Archery Company was the heavy metal door hanging askew.

"Shit," said Barry, which summed up my feelings in a nutshell.

We got out – very reluctantly – and, with many glances from side to side, we went up to the door to examine it.

"Blown or ripped?" I said.

Barry knelt on the gravel to have a closer look.

"I’m no 007," he said, "but I think this was ripped off."

I looked at the door doubtfully. But when I bent over to look more closely, I saw the twisted metal of the hinges. Chalk one up for Barry.

"Okay," I said. Here’s the part where we actually have to go in.

Barry’s jaw tightened. Yeah, he said, but he didn’t sound too sure. Barry was definitely not into violence or confrontations. Barry was into money, and he had the best-paying employer. Right now, he was wondering if any amount of money would be enough to compensate for this, and he was thinking if he weren’t with a woman, he’d just get in the car and drive away.

Sometimes male pride can be a good thing. I sure didn’t want to do this by myself.

I shoved the door, which responded in a spectacular way by falling off its hinges and crashing to the gravel.

"Hi, we’re here," Barry said weakly. "Anyone who didn’t know before…"

After the noise had stopped and nothing had leaped out of the building to eat us, Barry and I straightened up from our instinctive crouching positions. I took a deep breath. This was my task, since this had been my errand. I stepped into the stream of light coming from the empty doorway. I took one big step forward over the threshold of the building. A quick scan hadn’t given me a brain signal, so I pretty much figured what I was going to find.

Oh, yeah, Copper was dead. She was on top of the counter, laid out in a sprawl of limbs, her head canting off to one side. There was a knife protruding from her chest. Someone had been sick about a yard to the left of my foot – not blood – so there’d been at least one human on-site. I heard Barry step into the building and pause, just as I had.

I’d noted two doors from the room on our earlier visit. There was a door to the right, outside the counter, that would admit customers to the range. There was a door behind the counter that would allow employees to duck back for breaks and to attend customers in the range area. I was sure the tape we’d come to watch had been back there, because that would be the natural place for the security equipment. Whether it was still back there, that was the big question.

I wanted to turn around and leave without a backward glance, and I was scared out of my mind, but she’d died because of that tape, I figured, and it seemed like I’d be discarding her unwilling sacrifice if I discarded the tape. That didn’t really make much sense, but that was how I felt.

I’m not finding anyone else in the area, Barry told me.

Me, either, I said, after I’d performed my second, more thorough, scan.

Barry, of course, knew exactly what I planned to do, and he said, Do you want me to come with you?

No, I want you to wait outside. I’ll call you if I need you. In truth, it would have been nice to have him closer, but it smelled too bad in the room for anyone to stand around for more than a minute, and our minute was up.

Without protesting, Barry went back outside, and I crept down the counter to a clear area. It felt indescribably creepy to scramble over, avoiding Copper’s body. I was glad her sightless eyes were not aimed in my direction as I used a tissue to wipe the area my hands had gripped.

On the employee side of the counter, there was evidence of a considerable struggle. She’d fought hard. There were smears of blood here and there, and paperwork had gotten knocked to the floor. There was a panic button clearly visible, below the top of the counter, but I guess she hadn’t had time to punch it.

The lights were on in the office behind the counter, too, as I could see through the partially open door. I pushed it with my foot, and it swung away from me with a little creak. Again, nothing leaped out at me. I took a deep breath and stepped through.

The room was a combination security room/office/break-room. There were counters built around the walls with rolling chairs pulled up to them, and there were computers and a microwave and a little refrigerator: the usual stuff. And there were the security tapes, heaped in a pile on the floor and smoldering. All the other smells in the outer room had been so bad we simply hadn’t gotten around to this one. There was another door leading out; I didn’t go check to see where it led to, because there was a body blocking it. It was a man’s body, and it was lying facedown, which was a blessing. I didn’t need to go over to check to see if he was dead. He was surely dead. Copper’s replacement, I assumed.