Dead to the World (Sookie Stackhouse #4)(16)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"He never misses work, and his truck is at his house. The door was open," I said.

He did grasp that significance, because Bud Dearborn is a man who knows how to appreciate a fine pickup.

"That does sound a little funny, but still, Jason is way over twenty-one and he has a reputation for…" (Drilling anything that stands still, I thought.) ". . . being real popular with the ladies," Bud concluded carefully. "I bet he’s all shacked up with someone new, and he’ll be real sorry to have caused you any worry. You call me back if you haven’t heard from him by tomorrow afternoon, you hear?"

"Right," I said in my most frozen voice.

"Now, Sookie, don’t you go getting all mad at me, I’m just telling you what any lawman would tell you," he said.

I thought, Any lawman with lead in his butt. But I didn’t say it out loud. Bud was what I had to work with, and I had to stay on his good side, as much as possible.

I muttered something that was vaguely polite and got off the phone. After reporting back to Catfish, I decided my only course of action was to go to Shreveport. I started to call Arlene, but I remembered she’d have the kids at home since it was still the school holiday. I thought of calling Sam, but I figured he might feel like he ought to do something, and I couldn’t figure out what that would be. I just wanted to share my worries with someone. I knew that wasn’t right. No one could help me, but me. Having made up my mind to be brave and independent, I almost phoned Alcide Herveaux, who is a well-to-do and hardworking guy based in Shreveport. Alcide’s dad runs a surveying firm that contracts for jobs in three states, and Alcide travels a lot among the various offices. I’d mentioned him the night before to Eric; Eric had sent Alcide to Jackson with me. But Alcide and I had some man-woman issues that were still unresolved, and it would be cheating to call him when I only wanted help he couldn’t give. At least, that was how I felt.

I was scared to leave the house in case there might be news of Jason, but since the sheriff wasn’t looking for him, I hardly thought there would be any word soon.

Before I left, I made sure I’d arranged the closet in the smaller bedroom so that it looked natural. It would be a little harder for Eric to get out when the sun went down, but it wouldn’t be extremely difficult. Leaving him a note would be a dead giveaway if someone broke in, and he was too smart to answer the phone if I called just after dark had fallen. But he was so discombobulated by his amnesia, he might be scared to wake all by himself with no explanation of my absence, I thought.

I had a brainwave. Grabbing a little square piece of paper from last year’s Word of the Day calendar ("enthrallment"), I wrote: Jason, if you should happen to drop by, call me! I am very worried about you. No one knows where you are. I’ll be back this afternoon or evening. I’m going to drop by your house, and then I’ll check to see if you went to Shreveport. Then, back here. Love, Sookie. I got some tape and stuck the note to the refrigerator, just where a sister might expect her brother to head if he stopped by.

There. Eric was plenty smart enough to read between the lines. And yet every word of it was feasible, so if anyone did break in to search the house, they’d think I was taking a smart precaution.

But still, I was frightened of leaving the sleeping Eric so vulnerable. What if the witches came looking?

But why should they?

If they could have tracked Eric, they’d have been here by now, right? At least, that was the way I was reasoning. I thought of calling someone like Terry Bellefleur, who was plenty tough, to come sit in my house – I could use waiting on a call about Jason as my pretext – but it wasn’t right to endanger anyone else in Eric’s defense.

I called all the hospitals in the area, feeling all the while that the sheriff should be doing this little job for me. The hospitals knew the name of everyone admitted, and none of them was Jason. I called the highway patrol to ask about accidents the night before and found there had been none in the vicinity. I called a few women Jason had dated, and I received a lot of negative responses, some of them obscene.

I thought I’d covered all the bases. I was ready to go to Jason’s house, and I remember I was feeling pretty proud of myself as I drove north on Hummingbird Road and then took a left onto the highway. As I headed west to the house where I’d spent my first seven years, I drove past Merlotte’s to my right and then past the main turnoff into Bon Temps. I negotiated the left turn and I could see our old home, sure enough with Jason’s pickup parked in front of it. There was another pickup, equally shiny, parked about twenty feet away from Jason’s.

When I got out of my car, a very black man was examining the ground around the truck. I was surprised to discover that the second pickup belonged to Alcee Beck, the only African-American detective on the parish force. Alcee’s presence was both reassuring and disturbing.

"Miss Stackhouse," he said gravely. Alcee Beck was wearing a jacket and slacks and heavy scuffed boots. The boots didn’t go with the rest of his clothes, and I was willing to bet he kept them in his truck for when he had to go tromping around out in the country where the ground was less than dry. Alcee (whose name was pronounced Al-SAY) was also a strong broadcaster, and I could receive his thoughts clearly when I let down my shields to listen.

I learned in short order that Alcee Beck wasn’t happy to see me, didn’t like me, and did think something hinky had happened to Jason. Detective Beck didn’t care for Jason, but he was actually scared of me. He thought I was a deeply creepy person, and he avoided me as much as possible.

Which was okay by me, frankly.

I knew more about Alcee Beck than I was comfortable knowing, and what I knew about Alcee was really unpleasant. He was brutal to uncooperative prisoners, though he adored his wife and daughter. He was lining his own pockets whenever he got a chance, and he made sure the chances came along pretty frequently. Alcee Beck confined this practice to the African-American community, operating on the theory that they’d never report him to the other white law enforcement personnel, and so far he’d been right.

See what I mean about not wanting to know things I heard? This was a lot different from finding out that Arlene really didn’t think Charlsie’s husband was good enough for Charlsie, or that Hoyt Fortenberry had dented a car in the parking lot and hadn’t told the owner.

And before you ask me what I do about stuff like that, I’ll tell you. I don’t do squat. I’ve found out the hard way that it almost never works out if I try to intervene. What happens is no one is happier, and my little freakishness is brought to everyone’s attention, and no one is comfortable around me for a month. I’ve got more secrets than Fort Knox has money. And those secrets are staying locked up just as tight.