I was so naive. That's what comes of being a law-abiding citizen for nearly every day of my life.
I rode with Jason to the tiny local hospital, oblivious to the police looking very carefully at Jason's truck, blind to the squad car following the ambulance, totally trusting when the emergency room doctor sent me home, telling me he'd call me when Jason regained consciousness. The doctor told me, eyeing me curiously, that Jason was apparently sleeping off the effects of alcohol or drugs. But Jason had never drunk that much before, and Jason didn't use drugs: our cousin Hadley's descent into the life of the streets had made a profound impression on both of us. I told the doctor all that, and he listened, and he shooed me off.
Not knowing what to think, I went home to find that Andy Bellefleur had been roused by his pager. He'd left me a note telling me that, and nothing else. Later on, I found that he'd actually been in the hospital while I was there, and waited until I was gone out of consideration for me before he'd handcuffed Jason to the bed.
Chapter 12
SAM CAME TO give me the news about eleven o'clock. "They're going to arrest Jason as soon as he comes to, Sookie, which looks like being soon." Sam didn't tell me how he came to know this, and I didn't ask.
I stared at him, tears running down my face. Any other day, I might have thought of how plain I look when I cry, but today was not a day I cared about my outsides. I was all in a knot, frightened for Jason, sad about Amy Burley, full of anger the police were making such a stupid mistake, and underneath it all, missing my Bill.
"They think it looks like Amy Burley put up a fight. They think he got drunk after he killed her."
"Thanks, Sam, for warning me." My voice came from way faraway. "You better go to work, now."
After Sam had seen that I needed to be alone, I called information and got the number of Blood in the Quarter. I punched in the numbers, feeling somehow I was doing a bad thing, but I couldn't think how or why.
"Bloooooood ... in the Quarter," announced a deep voice dramatically. "Your coffin away from home."
Geez. "Good morning. This is Sookie Stackhouse calling from Bon Temps," I said politely. "I need to leave a message for Bill Compton. He's a guest there."
"Fang or human?" "Ah ... fang." "Just one minute, please."
The deep voice came back on the line after a moment "What is the message, madam?" That gave me pause.
"Please tell Mr. Compton that... my brother has been arrested, and I would appreciate it if he could come home as soon as his business is completed."
"I have that down." The sound of scribbling. "And your name again?"
"Stackhouse. Sookie Stackhouse." "All right, miss. I'll see to it that he gets your message." "Thanks."
And that was the only action I could think of to take, until I realized it would be much more practical to call Sid Matt Lancaster. He did his best to sound appalled to hear Jason was going to be arrested, said he'd hurry over to the hospital as soon as he got out of court that afternoon, and that he'd report back to me.
I drove back to the hospital to see if they'd let me sit with Jason until he became conscious. They wouldn't. I wondered if he was already conscious, and they weren't telling me. I saw Andy Bellefleur at the other end of the hall, and he turned and walked the other way. Damn coward.
I went home because I couldn't think of anything to do. I realized it wasn't a workday for me anyway, and that was a good thing, though I didn't really care too much at that point. It occurred to me that I wasn't handling this as well as I ought, that I had been much steadier when Gran had died.
But that had been a finite situation. We would bury Gran, her killer would be arrested, we would go on. If the police seriously believed that Jason had killed Gran in addition to the other women, then the world was such a bad and chancy place that I wanted no part of it.
But I realized, as I sat and looked in front of me that long, long afternoon, that it was naivete like that that had led to Jason's arrest. If I'd just gotten him into Sam's trailer and cleaned him up, hidden the film until I found out what it contained, above all not called the ambulance ... that had been what Sam had been thinking when he'd looked at me so doubtfully. However, Arlene's arrival had kind of wiped out my options.
I thought the phone would start ringing as soon as people heard.
But no one called.
They didn't know what to say.
Sid Matt Lancaster came about four-thirty.
Without any preliminary, he told me, "They've arrested him. For first-degree murder."
I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Sid was regarding me with a shrewd expression on his mild face. His conservative black-framed glasses magnified his muddy brown eyes, and his jowls and sharp nose made him look a little like a bloodhound.
"What does he say?" I asked.
"He says that he was with Amy last night."
I sighed.
"He says they went to bed together, that he had been with Amy before. He says he hadn't seen Amy in a long time, that the last time they were together Amy was acting jealous about the other women he was seeing, really angry. So he was surprised when she approached him last night in Good Times. Jason says Amy acted funny all night, like she had an agenda he didn't know about. He remembers having sex with her, he remembers them lying in bed having a drink afterward, then he remembers nothing until he woke up in the hospital."
"He was set up," I said firmly, thinking I sounded exactly like a bad made-for-TV movie.
"Of course." Sid Mail's eyes were as steady and assured as if he'd been at Amy Burley's place last night. Hell, maybe he had.
"Listen, Sid Matt." I leaned forward and made him meet my eyes. "Even if I could somehow believe that Jason had killed Amy, and Dawn, and Maudette, I could never believe he would raise his finger to hurt my grandmother."
"All right, then." Sid Matt prepared to meet my thoughts, fair and square, his entire body proclaimed it. "Miss Sookie,
let's just assume for a minute that Jason did have some kind of involvement in those deaths. Perhaps, the police might think, your friend Bill Compton killed your grandmother since she was keeping you two apart."
I tried to give the appearance of considering this piece of idiocy. "Well, Sid Matt, my grandmother liked Bill, and she was pleased I was seeing him."
Until he put his game face back on, I saw stark disbelief in the lawyer's eyes. He wouldn't be at all happy if bis daughter was seeing a vampire. He couldn't imagine a responsible parent being anything but appalled. And he couldn't imagine trying to convince a jury that my grandmother had been pleased I was dating a guy who wasn't even alive, and furthermore was over a hundred years older than me.
Those were Sid Mart's thoughts. "Have you met Bill?" I asked.
He was taken aback. "No," he admitted. "You know, Miss Sookie, I'm not for this vampire stuff. I think it's taking a chink out of a wall we should keep built up, a wall between us and the so-called virus-infected. I think God intended that wall to be there, and I for one will hold up my section."
"The problem with that, Sid Matt, is that I personally was created straddling that wall." After a lifetime of keeping my mouth shut about my "gift," I found that if it would help Jason, I'd shake it in anybody's face.
"Well," Sid Matt said bravely, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his sharp nose, "I am sure the Good Lord gave you this problem I've heard about for a reason. You have to learn how to use it for his glory."
No one had ever quite put it that way. That was an idea to chew over when I had time.
"I've made us stray from the subject, I'm afraid, and I know your time is valuable." I gathered my thoughts. "I want Jason out on bail. There is nothing but circumstantial evidence tying him to Amy's murder, am I right?"