Dead as a Doornail (Sookie Stackhouse #5)(58)
Author: Charlaine Harris

The working part of the night finally came to an end. We had to call Jane’s son to come get his soused relative, but that was nothing new. The pirate bartender had been working at a good clip, never making mistakes, being sure to give every patron a good word as he filled the orders. His tip jar looked healthy.

Bill arrived to pick up his boarder as we were closing up for the night. I wanted to have a quiet word with him, but Charles was by Bill’s side in a flash, so I didn’t have an opportunity. Bill gave me an odd look, but they were gone without my making an opportunity to talk to him. I wasn’t sure what I would say, anyway. I was reassured when I realized that of course Bill had seen the worst employees of Russell Edgington, because those employees had tortured him. If Charles Twining was unknown to Bill, he might be okay.

Sam was ready to go on our sniffing mission. It was cold and brilliant outside, the stars glittering in the night sky. Sam was bundled up, and I pulled on my pretty red coat. I had a matching set of gloves and a hat, and I would need them now. Though spring was coming closer every day, winter hadn’t finished with us yet.

No one was at the bar but us. The entire parking lot was empty, except for Jane’s car. The glare of the security lights made the shadows deeper. I heard a dog bark way off in the distance. Sam was moving carefully on his crutches, trying to negotiate the uneven parking lot.

Sam said, "I’m going to change." He didn’t mean his clothes.

"What’ll happen to your leg if you do?"

"Let’s find out."

Sam was full-blood shifter on both sides. He could change when it wasn’t the full moon, though the experiences were very different, he’d said. Sam could change into more than one animal, though dogs were his preference, and a collie was his choice among dogs.

Sam retired behind the hedge in front of his trailer to doff his clothes. Even in the night, I saw the air disturbance that signaled magic was working all around him. He fell to his knees and gasped, and then I couldn’t see him anymore through the dense bushes. After a minute, a bloodhound trotted out, a red one, his ears swinging from side to side. I wasn’t used to seeing Sam this way, and it took me a second to be sure it was him. When the dog looked up at me, I knew my boss was inside.

"Come on, Dean," I said. I’d named Sam that in his animal guise before I’d realized the man and the dog were the same being. The bloodhound trotted ahead of me across the parking lot and into the woods where the shooter had waited for Sam to come out of the club. I watched the way the dog was moving. It was favoring its right rear leg, but not drastically.

In the cold night woods, the sky was partially blocked. I had a flashlight, and I turned it on, but somehow that just made the trees creepier. The bloodhound – Sam – had already reached the place the police had decided marked the shooter’s vantage point. The dog, jowls jouncing, bent its head to the ground and moved around, sorting through all the scent information he was receiving. I stayed out of the way, feeling useless. Then Dean looked up at me and said, "Rowf." He began making his way back to the parking lot. I guessed he’d gathered all he could.

As we’d arranged, I loaded Dean in the Malibu to take him to another shooting site, the place behind some old buildings opposite the Sonic where the shooter had hidden on the night poor Heather Kinman had been killed. I turned into the service alley behind the old stores and parked behind Patsy’s Cleaners, which had moved to a new and more convenient location fifteen years ago. Between the cleaners and the dilapidated and long-empty Louisiana Feed and Seed, a narrow gap afforded a great view of the Sonic. The drive-in restaurant was closed for the night but still bright with light. Since the Sonic was on the town’s main drag, there were lights up and down the street, and I could actually see pretty well in the areas where the structures allowed light to go; unfortunately, that made the shadows impenetrable.

Again, the bloodhound worked the area, paying particular interest to the weedy strip of ground between the two old stores, a strip so narrow it was no more than a gap wide enough for one person. He seemed pretty excited at some particular scent he found. I was excited, too, hoping that he’d found something we could translate into evidence for the police.

Suddenly Dean let out a "Whoof!" and raised his head to look past me. He was certainly focusing on something, or someone. Almost unwillingly, I turned to see. Andy Bellefleur stood at the point where the service alley crossed the gap between the buildings. Only his face and upper torso were in the light.

"Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea! Andy, you scared the hell out of me!" If I hadn’t been watching the dog so intently, I would’ve sensed him coming. The stakeout, dammit. I should have remembered.

"What are you doing here, Sookie? Where’d you get the dog?"

I couldn’t think of a single answer that would sound plausible. "It seemed worth a try to see if a trained dog could pick up a single scent from the places where the shooter stood," I said. Dean leaned against my legs, panting and slobbering.

"So when did you get on the parish payroll?" Andy asked conversationally. "I didn’t realize you’d been hired as an investigator."

Okay, this wasn’t going well.

"Andy, if you’ll move out of the way, me and the dog’ll just get back into my car, and we’ll drive away, and you won’t have to be mad at me anymore." He was plenty mad, and he was determined to have it out with me, whatever that entailed. Andy wanted to get the world realigned, with facts he knew forming the tracks it should run on. I didn’t fit in that world. I wouldn’t run on those tracks. I could read his mind, and I didn’t like what I was hearing.

I realized, too late, that Andy’d had one drink too many during the conference at the bar. He’d had enough to remove his usual constraints.

"You shouldn’t be in our town, Sookie," he said.

"I have as much right to be here as you, Andy Bellefleur."

"You’re a genetic fluke or something. Your grandmother was a real nice woman, and people tell me your dad and mom were good people. What happened to you and Jason?"

"I don’t think there’s much wrong with me and Jason, Andy," I said calmly, but his words stung like fire ants. "I think we’re regular people, no better and no worse than you and Portia."

Andy actually snorted.

Suddenly the bloodhound’s side, pressed against my legs, began to vibrate. Dean was growling almost inaudibly. But he wasn’t looking at Andy. The hound’s heavy head was turned in another direction, toward the dark shadows of the other end of the alley. Another live mind: a human. Not a regular human, though.

"Andy," I said. My whisper pierced his self-absorption. "You armed?"