Dead as a Doornail (Sookie Stackhouse #5)(22)
Author: Charlaine Harris

Alcide glanced up, too. His face reddened. "We need to go in now. Will you go with me?"

"What is the meaning of me going in with you?"

"It means you’re on my father’s side in his bid for the pack."

"What does that oblige me to do?"

"Nothing."

"Then why is it important for me to do it?"

"Though choosing a packmaster is pack business, it may influence those who know how much you helped us during the Witch War."

Witch Skirmish would have been more accurate, because though it had certainly been them vs. us, the total number of people involved had been fairly small – say, forty or fifty. But in the history of the Shreveport pack, it was an epic episode, I gathered.

I glared down at my black pumps. I struggled with my warring instincts. They seemed about equally strong. One said, "You’re at a funeral. Don’t make a scene. Alcide has been good to you, and it wouldn’t hurt you to do this for him." The other said, "Alcide helped you in Jackson because he was trying to get his dad out of trouble with the vampires. Now, again, he’s willing to involve you in something dangerous to help his dad out." The first voice chipped in, "He knew Debbie was bad. He tried to pull away from her, and then he abjured her." The second said, "Why’d he love a bitch like Debbie in the first place? Why’d he even consider sticking with her when he had clear evidence she was evil? No one else has suggested she had spellcasting power. This ‘spellcasting’ thing is a cheap excuse." I felt like Linda Blair in the The Exorcist, with her head whirling around on her neck.

Voice number one won out. I put my hand on Alcide’s crooked elbow and we went up the stairs and into the church.

The pews were full of regular people. The front three rows on both sides had been saved for the pack. But the tall man, who would stand out anywhere, sat in the back row. I caught a glimpse of his big shoulders before I had to pay strict attention to the pack ceremony. The two Furnan children, cute as the dickens, went solemnly down to the front pew on the right of the church. Then Alcide and I entered, preceding the two candidates for packmaster. This seating ceremony was oddly like a wedding, with Alcide and me being the best man and maid of honor. Jackson and Christine and Patrick and Libby Furnan would enter like the parents of the bride and groom.

What the civilians made of this I don’t know.

I knew they were all staring, but I’m used to that. If being a barmaid will get you used to anything, it’s being looked over. I was dressed appropriately and I looked as good as I could make myself look, and Alcide had done the same, so let them stare. Alcide and I sat on the front row on the left side of the church, and moved in. I saw Patrick Furnan and his wife, Libby, enter the pew across the aisle. Then I looked back to see Jackson and Christine coming in slowly, looking fittingly grave. There was a slight flutter of heads and hands, a tiny buzz of whispers, and then Christine sidled into the pew, Jackson beside her.

The coffin, draped with an elaborately embroidered cloth, was wheeled up the aisle as we all stood, and then the somber service began.

After going through the litany, which Alcide showed me in the Prayer Book, the priest asked if anyone would like to say a few words about Colonel Flood. One of his Air Force friends went first and spoke of the colonel’s devotion to duty and his sense of pride in his command. One of his fellow church members took the next turn, praising the colonel’s generosity and applauding the time he’d spent balancing the church’s books.

Patrick Furnan left his pew and strode to the lectern. He didn’t do a good stride; he was too stout for that. But his speech was certainly a change from the elegies the two previous men had given. "John Flood was a remarkable man and a great leader," Furnan began. He was a much better speaker than I’d expected. Though I didn’t know who’d written his remarks, it was someone educated. "In the fraternal order we shared, he was always the one who told us the direction we should take, the goal we should achieve. As he grew older, he remarked often that this was a job for the young."

A right turn from eulogy to campaign speech. I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed this; all around me there were little movements, whispered comments.

Though taken aback by the reaction he’d aroused, Patrick Furnan plowed ahead. "I told John that he was the finest man for the job we’d ever had, and I still believe that. No matter who follows in his footsteps, John Flood will never be forgotten or replaced. The next leader can only hope to work as hard as John. I’ll always be proud that John put his trust in me more than once, that he even called me his right hand." With those sentences, the Harley dealer underscored his bid to take Colonel’s Flood’s job as packmaster (or, as I referred to it internally, Leader of the Pack).

Alcide, to my right, was rigid with anger. If he hadn’t been sitting in the front row of a funeral, he would have loved to address a few remarks to me on the subject of Patrick Furnan. On the other side of Alcide, I could just barely see Christine, whose face looked carved out of ivory. She was suppressing quite a few things herself.

Alcide’s dad waited a moment to begin his trip to the lectern. Clearly, he wanted us to cleanse our mental palate before he gave his address.

Jackson Herveaux, wealthy surveyor and werewolf, gave us the chance to examine his maturely handsome face. He began, "We will not soon see the likes of John Flood. A man whose wisdom had been tempered and tested by the years…" Oh, ouch. This wasn’t going to be pointed or anything, no sirree.

I tuned out for the rest of the service to think my own thoughts. I had plenty of food for thought. We stood as John Flood, Air Force colonel and packmaster, exited this church for the last time. I remained silent during the ride to the cemetery, stood by Alcide’s side during the graveside service, and got back in the car when it was over and all the post-funeral handshaking was done.

I looked for the tall man, but he wasn’t at the cemetery.

On the drive back to Bon Temps, Alcide obviously wanted to keep our silence nice and clean, but it was time to answer some questions.

"How did you know?" I asked.

He didn’t even try to pretend to misunderstand what I was talking about. "When I came to your house yesterday, I could smell a very, very faint trace of her at your front door," he said. "It took me a while to think it through."

I’d never considered the possibility.

"I don’t think I would’ve picked up on it if I hadn’t known her so well," he offered. "I certainly didn’t pick up a whiff anywhere else in the house."

So all my scrubbing had been to some avail. I was just lucky Jack and Lily Leeds weren’t two-natured. "Do you want to know what happened?"