“Well, I have a certain amount of discretion in arson cases,” he said. “I could have told the home office that I thought you did it yourself.”
“You wouldn’t have done that,” I said calmly, though I was seeing a side of Greg I didn’t like. Amelia practically had flames coming out of her nose, she was so incensed. But I could tell that Greg was already ashamed of bringing up the possibility.
“No,” he said, looking down at his hands. “I guess I wouldn’t. I’m sorry I said that, Sookie. I’m scared someone’ll tell the whole town what I do, why people I insure are so… lucky. Can you see what you can find out?”
“Bring your family into the bar for supper tonight, give me a chance to look them over,” I said. “That’s the real reason you want me to find out, right? You suspect your family might be involved. Or your staff.”
He nodded, and he looked wretched.
“I’ll try to get in there tomorrow to talk to Marge. I’ll say you wanted me to drop by.”
“Yeah, I make calls from my cell phone sometimes, ask people to come in,” he said. “Marge would believe it.”
Amelia said, “What can I do?”
“Well, can you be with her?” Greg said. “Sookie can do things you can’t, and vice versa. Maybe between the two of you…”
“Okay,” Amelia said, giving Greg the benefit of her broad and dazzling smile. Her dad must have paid dearly for the perfect white smile of Amelia Broadway, witch and waitress.
Bob the cat padded in just at that moment, as if belatedly realizing we had a guest. Bob jumped on the chair right beside Greg and examined him with care.
Greg looked down at Bob just as intently. “Have you been doing something you shouldn’t, Amelia?”
“There’s nothing strange about Bob,” Amelia said, which was not true. She scooped up the black-and-white cat in her arms and nuzzled his soft fur. “He’s just a big ole cat. Aren’t you, Bob?” She was relieved when Greg dropped the subject. He got up to leave.
“I’ll be grateful for anything you can do to help me,” he said. With an abrupt switch to his professional persona, he said, “Here, have an extra lucky rabbit’s foot,” and reached in his pocket to hand me a lump of fake fur.
“Thanks,” I said, and decided to put it in my bedroom. I could use some luck in that direction.
After Greg left, I scrambled into my work clothes (black pants and white boatneck T-shirt with MERLOTTE’S embroidered over the left breast), brushed my long blond hair and secured it in a ponytail, and left for the bar, wearing Teva sandals to show off my beautiful toenails. Amelia, who wasn’t scheduled to work that night, said she might go have a good look around the insurance agency.
“Be careful,” I said. “If someone really is prowling around there, you don’t want to run into a bad situation.”
“I’ll zap ’em with my wonderful witch powers,” she said, only half-joking. Amelia had a fine opinion of her own abilities, which led to mistakes like Bob. He had actually been a thin young witch, handsome in a nerdy way. While spending the night with Amelia, Bob had been the victim of one of her less successful attempts at major magic. “Besides, who’d want to break into an insurance agency?” she said quickly, having read the doubt on my face. “This whole thing is ridiculous. I do want to check out Greg’s magic, though, and see if it’s been tampered with.”
“You can do that?”
“Hey, standard stuff.”
To my relief, the bar was quiet that night. It was Wednesday, which is never a very big day at supper time, since lots of Bon Temps citizens go to church on Wednesday night. Sam Merlotte, my boss, was busy counting cases of beer in the storeroom when I got there; that was how light the crowd was. The waitresses on duty were mixing their own drinks.
I stowed my purse in the drawer in Sam’s desk that he keeps empty for them, then went out front to take over my tables. The woman I was relieving, a Katrina evacuee I hardly knew, gave me a wave and departed.
After an hour, Greg Aubert came in with his family as he’d promised. You seated yourself at Merlotte’s, and I surreptitiously nodded to a table in my section. Dad, Mom, and two teenagers, the nuclear family. Greg’s wife, Christy, had medium-light hair like Greg, and like Greg she wore glasses. She had a comfortable middle-aged body, and she’d never seemed exceptional in any way. Little Greg (and that’s what they called him) was about three inches taller than his father, about thirty pounds heavier, and about ten IQ points smarter. That is, book smart. Like most nineteen-year-olds, he was pretty dumb about the world. Lindsay, the daughter, had lightened her hair five shades and squeezed herself into an outfit at least a size too small, and could hardly wait to get away from her folks so she could meet the Forbidden Boyfriend.
While I took their drink and food orders, I discovered that (a) Lindsay had the mistaken idea that she looked like Christina Aguilera, (b) Little Greg thought he would never go into insurance because it was so boring, and (c) Christy thought Greg might be interested in another woman because he’d been so distracted lately. As you can imagine, it takes a lot of mental doing to separate what I’m getting from people’s minds from what I’m hearing directly from their mouths, which accounts for the strained smile I often wear-the smile that’s led some people to think I’m just crazy.
After I’d brought them their drinks and turned in their food order, I puttered around studying the Aubert family. They seemed so typical it just hurt. Little Greg thought about his girlfriend mostly, and I learned more than I wanted to know.
Greg was just worried.
Christy was thinking about the dryer in their laundry room, wondering if it was time to get a new one.
See? Most people’s thoughts are like that. Christy was also weighing Marge Barker’s virtues (efficiency, loyalty) against the fact that she seriously disliked the woman.
Lindsay was thinking about her secret boyfriend. Like teenage girls everywhere, she was convinced her parents were the most boring people in the universe and had pokers up their asses besides. They didn’t understand anything. Lindsay herself didn’t understand why Dustin wouldn’t take her to meet his folks, why he wouldn’t let her see where he lived. No one but Dustin knew how poetic her soul was, how fascinating she truly could be, how misunderstood she was.
If I had a dime for every time I’d heard that from a teenager’s brain, I’d be as rich as John Edward, the psychic.
I heard the bell ding in the service window, and I trotted over to get the Auberts’ order from our current cook. I loaded my arms with the plates and hustled them over to the table. I had to endure a full-body scan from Little Greg, but that was par for the course, too. Guys can’t help it. Lindsay didn’t register me at all. She was wondering why Dustin was so secretive about his daytime activities. Shouldn’t he be in school?
Okay, now. We were getting somewhere.
But then Lindsay began thinking about her D in algebra and how she was going to get grounded when her parents found out and then she wouldn’t get to see Dustin for a while unless she climbed out of her bedroom window at two in the morning. She was seriously considering going all the way.
Lindsay made me feel sad and old. And very smart. By the time the Aubert family paid their bill and left, I was tired of all of them, and my head was exhausted (a weird feeling, and one I simply can’t describe).
I plodded through work the rest of the night, glad to the very ends of my Roses on Ice toenails when I headed out the back door.
“Psst,” said a voice from behind me while I was unlocking my car door.
With a stifled shriek, I swung around with my keys in my hand, ready to attack.
“It’s me,” Amelia said gleefully.
“Dammit, Amelia, don’t sneak up on me like that!” I sagged against the car.
“Sorry,” she said, but she didn’t sound very sorry. “Hey,” she continued, “I’ve been over by the insurance agency. Guess what!”