I slowly pushed up to a sitting position. There was no way I could stand. I sat there in the pine needles and dirt and looked at Donny Boling, who was dead. There was not the faintest trace of activity in his brain. Whit was still alive though not in good shape. After Andy gave Arlene a cursory examination and told her to shut up, she quit shrieking and settled down to cry.
I have had lots of things to blame myself about in the course of my life. I added this whole incident to the list as I watched the blood seeping into the dirt around Donny’s left side. No one would have gotten shot if I’d just climbed back in my car and driven away. But no, I had to try to catch Crystal’s killers. And I knew now—too late—that these idiots weren’t even the culprits. I told myself that Andy had asked me to help, that Jason needed me to help . . . but right now, I couldn’t foresee feeling okay about this for a long time.
For a brief moment I considered lying back down and wishing myself dead.
“Are you okay?” Andy called after he’d cuffed Whit and checked on Donny.
“Yeah,” I said. “Andy, I’m sorry.” But he’d run into the front yard to wave down the ambulance. Suddenly there were a lot more people around.
“Are you all right?” asked a woman wearing an EMT uniform. Her sleeves were folded up neatly to show muscles I didn’t know women could develop. You could see each one rippling under her mocha skin. “You look kind of out of it.”
“I’m not used to seeing people get shot,” I said. Which was mostly true.
“I think you better come sit on this chair over here,” she said, and pointed to a folding yard chair that had seen better days. “After I tend to the ones that are bleeding, I’ll check you out.”
“Audrey!” called her partner, a man with a belly like a bay window. “I need another pair of hands here.” Audrey hustled over to help, and another team of EMTs came running around the trailer. I had nearly the same dialogue with them.
Agent Weiss left for the hospital first, and I gathered that the plan was to stabilize her at the hospital in Clarice and then airlift her to Shreveport. Whit was loaded into the second ambulance. A third arrived for Arlene. The dead guy waited for the coroner to appear.
I waited for whatever would happen next.
Lattesta stood staring blankly into the pines. His hands were bloodstained from pressing on Weiss’s wound. As I watched, he shook himself. The purpose flooded back into his face, and his thoughts began flowing once again. He and Andy began to consult.
By now the yard was teeming with law enforcement people, all of whom seemed to be very pumped. Officer-involved shootings are not that ordinary in Bon Temps or in Renard Parish. When the FBI is represented at the scene, the excitement and tension were practically quadrupled.
Several more people asked me if I was all right, but no one seemed to be anxious to tell me what to do or to suggest I remove myself, so I sat in the rickety chair with my hands in my lap. I watched all the activity, and I tried to keep my mind blank. That wasn’t possible.
I was worried about Agent Weiss, and I was still feeling the ebbing power of the huge wave of guilt that had washed over me. I should have been upset that the Fellowship guy was dead, I suppose. But I wasn’t.
After a while, it occurred to me that I was also going to be late for work if this elaborate process didn’t get a move on. I knew that was a trivial consideration, when I was staring at the blood that had soaked into the ground, but I also knew it wouldn’t be trivial to my boss.
I called Sam. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember I had to talk him out of coming to get me. I told Sam there were plenty of people on-site and most of them were armed. After that, I had nothing to do but stare off into the woods. They were a tangle of fallen branches, leaves, and various shades of brown, broken up by little pines of various heights that had volunteered. The bright day made the patterns of shadow and shade fascinating.
As I looked into the depths of the woods, I became aware that something was looking back. Yards back within the tree line, a man was standing; no, not a man—a fairy. I can’t read fairies at all clearly; they’re not as blank as vampires, but they’re the closest I’ve found.
It was easy to read the hostility in his stance, though. This fairy was not on my great-grandfather’s side. This fairy would have been glad to see me lying on the ground bleeding. I sat up straighter, abruptly aware I had no idea whether all the police officers in the world could keep me safe from a fairy. My heart thudded once again with alarm, responding to the adrenaline in a sort of tired way. I wanted to tell someone that I was in danger, but I knew that if I pointed the fairy out to any one of the people present, not only would he fade back into the woods, but I might be endangering the human. I’d done enough of that this day.
As I half rose from the lawn chair with no very good plan in mind, the fairy turned his back on me and vanished.
Can’t I have a moment’s peace? At this thought, I had to bend over and cover my face with my hands because I was laughing, and it wasn’t good laughter. Andy came over and squatted in front of me, tried to look into my face. “Sookie,” he said, and for once his voice was gentle. “Hey, girl, get it together. You got to come talk to Sheriff Dearborn.”
Not only did I talk to Bud Dearborn, I also had to talk to lots of other people. Later, I couldn’t remember any of the conversations I had. I told the truth to whoever asked me questions.
I didn’t mention seeing the fairy in the woods simply because no one asked me, “Did you see anyone else here this afternoon?” When I had a second of not feeling stunned and miserable, I wondered why he’d shown himself, why he’d come. Was he tracking me somehow? Was there some kind of supernatural bug planted on me?
“Sookie,” Bud Dearborn said. I blinked.
“Yessir?” I stood up, and my muscles were trembling.
“You can go now, and we’ll talk to you again later,” he said.
“Thanks,” I told him, hardly aware of what I was saying. I climbed into my car, feeling absolutely numb. I told myself to drive home and put on my waitress outfit and get to work. Hustling drinks would be better than sitting at home recycling the events of the day, if I could manage to stand up that long.
Amelia was at work, so I had the house to myself as I pulled on my working pants and my long-sleeved Merlotte’s T-shirt. I felt cold to the bone and wished for the first time that Sam had thought about stocking a Merlotte’s sweatshirt. My reflection in the bathroom mirror was awfuclass="underline" I was white as a vampire, I had big circles under my eyes, and I guessed I looked exactly like someone who’d seen a lot of people bleeding that day.
The evening felt cold and still as I walked out to my car. Night would fall soon. Since Eric and I had bonded, I’d found myself thinking of him every day as the sky grew dark. Now that we’d slept together, my thoughts had turned into cravings. I tried to stuff him in the back of my mind on the drive to the bar, but he persisted in popping to the fore.
Maybe because the day had been such a nightmare, I discovered I would give my entire savings account to see Ericright now . I trudged toward the employee door, gripping the trowel stuffed in my shoulder bag. I thought I was ready for an attack, but I was so preoccupied I didn’t send out my extra sense to detect another presence, and I didn’t see Antoine in the shadow of the Dumpster until he stepped out to greet me. He was smoking a cigarette.
“Geez Louise, Antoine, you scared me to death.”
“Sorry, Sookie. You planning on doing some planting?” He eyed the trowel I’d whipped out of my bag. “We ain’t too busy this evening. I took me a minute to have a smoke.”