Charlaine Harris - Dead Ever After

But this wasn’t a pastime I could really call fun. Even though Carmichael deserved a lot of bad things, taunting him would not make me feel better about myself or anything else.

“I wonder if he’s responsible for the voodoo doll, or whatever it was, in Alcee’s car,” I said.

I watched his face carefully as I said this, and all I got was a blank stare. I did not believe Copley had put a hex or curse on the detective.

Mr. Cataliades said, “Yes, I do have a message from Barry. Voice mail.” He held the phone to his ear.

I waited impatiently.

Finally, Mr. Cataliades lowered the phone. He looked serious. “Barry says he is following Johan Glassport,” he said. “That is not a safe thing to do.”

“Barry knows Glassport killed Arlene,” I said. “He shouldn’t take the chance.”

“He wants to identify Glassport’s companion.”

“Where was he when he left the message?” I asked.

“He doesn’t say. But he left the message at nine last night.”

“That’s bad,” I said. “Really bad.” The problem was, I couldn’t think of anything to do about it, and I couldn’t imagine what to do with Copley Carmichael.

A knock at my door startled us all. I was definitely distracted. I hadn’t even heard a car come up the driveway. My neighbor from up the road, Lorinda Prescott, was at the front door with her fabulous supper dish that was supposed to be scooped up with tortilla chips. And she’d brought Tostitos, too. “I just wanted to thank you for the delicious tomatoes,” she said. “I’ve never tasted any as good. What brand were they?”

“I just bought ’em at the lawn and garden center,” I said. “Please come have a seat.” Lorinda said she wouldn’t stay long, but I had to introduce her to my company. While Lorinda was being charmed by Mr. Cataliades, I raised an eyebrow at Diantha, who slipped back down the hall to shut the door to the guest bedroom, where Copley Carmichael was still propped against the wall. After that, Diantha and Mr. Cataliades went upstairs, having said polite things to Lorinda, who seemed a bit stunned at Diantha’s ensemble.

“I’m so glad you’ve got someone staying with you while you’re getting better,” she said. She paused, and her brow wrinkled. “My goodness, what’s that noise?”

A dull thumping sound was issuing from the guest bedroom. Damn. “That’s probably . . . gosh, I guess they shut their dog in that room!” I said. I called up the stairs, “Mr. C! The dog’s acting up! Can you get Coco to calm down?”

“I do beg your pardon,” Mr. Cataliades said, gliding down the stairs. “I will make the animal keep silent.”

“Thanks,” I said, and tried not to notice that Lorinda was looking a little shocked to hear Mr. C call his dog “the animal.” He went down the hall, and I heard the door to the guest room open and close. The thumping ceased abruptly.

Mr. Cataliades reappeared, bowing to Lorinda on his way through the living room to the stairs. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Prescott,” he said, and vanished into one of the upstairs rooms.

“Gosh,” said Lorinda. “He’s mighty formal.”

“Comes from an old New Orleans family,” I explained. A couple of minutes later, Lorinda decided she needed to get home to start supper, and I bowed her out of the house with lots of pleasantries.

When she was gone, I breathed out a deep sigh of relief. I was hurrying to the guest bedroom . . . and the phone rang. It was Michele, checking up on me, which was a nice thing for her to do, but real bad timing.

“Hi, Michele!” I said, trying to sound perky and healthy.

“Hey, nearly-sister-in-law,” she said. “How are you today?”

“So much better,” I said. That was only half a lie. I was better.

“Can I come by and pick up your laundry? I’m doing mine tonight, so Jason and me can go line dancing tomorrow night.”

“Oh, have a good time!” It had been ages since I’d been dancing. “I’m caught up on my laundry, thanks so much.”

“Why don’t you come to Stompin’ Sally’s with us, if you’re feeling so much better?”

“If my shoulder isn’t too sore, I’d love to,” I said impulsively. “Can I let you know tomorrow afternoon?”

“Sure,” she said. “Anytime before eight, that’s when we’re leaving.”

I finally got to the guest bedroom. Copley was there, unconscious, still breathing. I hadn’t been sure how Mr. C had silenced him, but at least it was not by snapping his neck. And I still didn’t know what to do about him.

I called up the stairs to Mr. C and Diantha to tell them supper was ready. They came down the stairs lickety-split. Each of us had a heaping bowlful of the ground meat, beans, sauce, and chopped peppers, and I shared out the bag of tortilla chips to use in scooping up the mixture. I had some shredded cheese, too. And Tara had left a pie made by Mrs. du Rone, so we even had dessert. By tacit agreement, we didn’t discuss the disposition of Copley Carmichael until we’d finished eating. The locusts were singing their evening chorale while we tried to reach a consensus.

Diantha’s opinion was that we should kill him.

Mr. Cataliades wanted to lay some heavy magic on him and put him back in place in New Orleans. Like substituting a ringer for the real Copley Carmichael. Obviously, he had a plan for using the new version of Amelia’s father.

I couldn’t see letting him back into the world, a soulless, devil-tied creature with no impulse for good. But I didn’t want to kill anyone else, either. My own soul was dark enough. While we debated and the long evening turned into darkness, there was another knock at the back door.

I couldn’t believe I’d ever longed for a visitor.

This one was a vampire, and she didn’t bring any food.

Pam glided in, followed closely by Karin. They looked like pale sisters. But Pam seemed energized, somehow. After I’d introduced the two vampires to the two part-demons, they took seats at the kitchen table and Pam said, “I feel that I’ve interrupted you when you were talking about something important.”

“Yes,” I said, “but I’m glad you’re here. Maybe you can think of a good solution for this situation.” After all, if anyone was good at disposing of humans or bodies, it was Pam. And perhaps Karin was even better, since she’d had longer to practice. A lightbulb lit up suddenly in my brain. “Ladies, I wondered if either of you happens to know how a man ended up in my bedroom closet?”

Karin raised her hand, as if she were in grade school. “I am responsible,” she said. “He was skulking. You have many people watching you, Sookie. He came through the woods the night you were in the hospital, and he didn’t know what had happened, that you weren’t here. He meant you ill, if the gun and knife he had on him are any indicators, but your magic circle didn’t stop him as Bill says it stopped Horst. I would have liked to see that. Instead, I had to stop him. I didn’t kill him since I thought you might want to talk to him.”

“He did mean me ill, and I thank you most sincerely for stopping him,” I said. “I just don’t know what to do with him now.”

Pam said, “Kill him. He is your enemy, and he wants to kill you.” This sounded pretty funny coming from someone who was wearing flowered crops and a teal T-shirt. Diantha nodded vigorously in wholehearted agreement.

“Pam, I just can’t.”

Pam shook her head at my weakness. Karin said, “Sister Pam, we could take him with us and . . . think about a solution.”

Okay, I knew that was a euphemism for “get him out of sight and kill him.”

“You can’t wipe his memory?” I said hopefully.

“No,” Karin said. “He has no soul.”

It was news to me that you couldn’t put the whammy on a soulless person, but then, it had never come up before. I hoped it would never come up again.