Charlaine Harris - Deadlocked

“Wel , you took her blood quick enough,” Ambrosel i said.

Valid point, I thought, tempted to smile for just a nanosecond.

“We won’t know where she died until we look at your house, sir,” Ambrosel i continued. “For al I know, you’re al covering up a crime that took place inside this very room.” I had to repress an impulse to glance around in a guilty way.

“Eric, Sookie, and I were together from the time this Rowe woman left the bedroom until we came out here to talk to Felipe and his friends,” Pam said.

“And we were al together until Eric and Pam and Sookie came out here from the bedroom,” Horst said promptly, which was simply not true. Any of the Nevada vampires or their human pickups could have slipped outside and disposed of Kym.

At least Pam was tel ing the truth.

Then I remembered that I’d been shut in the bathroom. By myself. For at least ten minutes.

I’d assumed that Pam had remained outside the bathroom door; I’d assumed Eric had gone into the living room to tel Felipe and his crowd that it was time to get down to business. He would have suggested that the human guests go into the other bedroom while we had our discussion.

That’s what I’d assumed.

But I had no way to know for sure.

Chapter 4

Down at the police station, we covered the same conversational ground, but this time on an individual basis. It was both boring and tense. When I’m dealing with the police, I’m always thinking what I could be guilty of. I always imagine there are laws I don’t know about, laws that I’ve broken.

And of course, I’ve broken a few major laws that haunt me, some more than others.

After the individual interviews, conducted by several policemen, we were deposited back in our little groups and stowed separately around the big room. The Nevada vampires were finishing up talking to a detective several yards away, while I could see Cherie in a glass-wal ed cubicle with yet another interviewer. T-Rex and Viveca waited for her on a bench against the wal .

I was more than ready to leave this building. This late at night, even on a Saturday, the traffic on Texas Boulevard would be light. If I had my car, I could be home in an hour, maybe less. Unfortunately, the police had suggested we al pile into Felipe’s Suburban for the trip to the station. Since my car had been parked at the curb, it was temporarily part of the crime scene.

Simply for want of something else to do while she waited to hear from the crime-scene people, Cara Ambrosel i was walking us through the evening one more time.

“Yes,” an obviously bored Eric was saying. “My friend Bil Compton came in from Bon Temps. Since the other vampires who work for me were busy at the club, I asked Bil to help out at my house because I was having company, though I confess I wasn’t expecting quite so much of it. Bil was

… tasked … with patrol ing the front grounds. Though I live in a gated community, from time to time curiosity seekers try to make my acquaintance, especial y during a party. So Bil was doing a circuit of the front yard and the area around it, every few minutes. Right, Bil ?”

Bil nodded agreeably. He and Eric were such buddies. “That’s what I did,” he said. “I surprised one old man who came down to the end of his driveway to get his newspaper, and I saw one woman out walking her dog. I talked to Sookie when she arrived.”

It was my turn to do the smiling and nodding. We were al friends, here! And if I’d followed Bill’s advice, I thought, I would never have seen Eric sucking on Kym Rowe’s neck, and I would never have seen her dead body, and I would be sound asleep in bed . I looked at Bil thoughtful y. He raised his brows at me— What? I shook my head, a tiny motion.

“And you had asked this missing man, Mustapha, to help Mr. Compton keep intruders away. Though his employment is as your daytime man.”

Detective Ambrosel i was talking to Eric.

“I think we’ve already covered that.”

“Where do you think Mr. Khan is?”

“Last time I saw him, he was in the kitchen,” I said, figuring it was my turn. “As I told you, we spoke when I came inside.”

“What was he doing?”

“Nothing in particular. We didn’t talk long. I was …” I was in a hurry to see Eric, but he was busy with the dead woman. “I was anxious to apologize to our guests for being a bit late,” I said. Mustapha had made me late on purpose—but what that purpose had been, I couldn’t fathom.

“And you came upon Mr. Northman in your bedroom, or at least the bedroom you customarily use, taking blood from another woman.”

There was real y nothing to say to that.

“Didn’t that make you real y angry, Ms. Stackhouse?”

“No,” I said. “I get anemic if he drinks from me too often.” At least that part was the truth.

“So you’re not mad, even though he could get the same nourishment from a bottle?”

She just wasn’t going to stop. That was what you wanted in a cop, unless you had stuff to hide.

“I wasn’t happy,” I said simply. “But I accepted it, like death and taxes. Comes with the territory when you’re dating a vampire.” I shrugged, trying to imitate nonchalance.

“You were unhappy, and now she’s dead,” Ambrosel i said. She looked down at her notepad for dramatic effect. She thought we were al a bunch of lousy liars. “According to Ms. Dodson, she heard Ms. Ravenscroft threaten the victim.”

Eric turned a dark blue gaze on Cherie Dodson, clearly visible through the glass of the enclosure. At the same moment, her wrestler friend, TRex, was looking at Cherie almost as unhappily as Eric. Though I had to stretch a little, I could get the gist of his thoughts. T-Rex knew what his girlfriend was saying to the police. Cherie’s disclosure didn’t accord with T-Rex’s code of ethics. Thad Rexford had a very interesting mind, and I would have liked to wander around in it a little longer, but Eric gripped my hand to give it what he thought was a gentle squeeze. I turned to look up at him with narrowed eyes. He could tel I was distracted, and he didn’t think my mind should be wandering.

“I advised the woman that she should leave town, yes,” Pam said imperturbably. “I don’t think that was threatening her. If I’d wanted to threaten her, I’d have said, ‘I’l rip your head from its neck.’”

Ambrosel i took a deep breath. “Why did you tel her to leave town?”

“She had been insulting and insolent to Sookie, who is my friend, and Eric, who is my boss.”

“What did she say that was so insulting?”

Probably I should answer this one. It would sound haughty coming from Pam. Of course, Pam was haughty. “She was pretty excited that Eric had taken blood from her.” I shrugged. “She seemed to think that made her special. She wasn’t happy Eric told her to leave after I showed up. I guess she’d assumed that Eric’s taking blood from her meant he wanted to have sex with her, and she thought I would, you know, participate in that.” This was hard to say, and it must have been unpleasant to hear, from the face the detective made.

“You didn’t feel that way, too?”

“Honestly, it was the equivalent of being insulted by a pork chop my boyfriend was eating,” I said. And then I was smart enough to shut my mouth.

Eric smiled down at me. I would have given a lot to wipe that smile off his face. I took advantage of Ambrosel i being distracted by her cel phone to smile back at Eric. He understood my expression wel enough. His mouth straightened out. Over his shoulder, I could see that Bil looked unmistakably pleased.

“So, Ms. Ravenscroft, you told Kym Rowe to go, she left, and she died,” Ambrosel i said, by way of resuming the questioning. But she didn’t seem focused on Pam the way she had been, and I could see that she was preparing to move out.