“You just shut up, Sookie,” he said. Kevin Pryor had never said a rude thing to me in his life. I suddenly realized that I didn’t look the same to Kevin now that I was wearing orange. From being someone he should treat with respect, I’d become someone he could tell to shut up.
I stood and looked into his face through the bars separating us. I looked at him for a long moment. He turned even redder. There was no point in telling him Jane’s story. He wasn’t going to listen.
Alcee Beck came back to the cells that afternoon. Thank God he didn’t have the key to our cell. He loomed outside it, silent and glowering. I saw his big fists clench and unclench in a very unnerving way. Not only did he want to see me go to jail for murder, he would love to beat me up. He was spoiling for it. Only the thinnest thread kept him anchored to self-restraint.
The black cloud was still in his head, but it didn’t seem as dense. His thoughts were leaking through.
“Alcee,” I said, “you know I didn’t do this, right? I think you do know that. Jane has evidence that two men saw Arlene that night.” Even though I knew Alcee didn’t like me, for reasons both personal and professional, I didn’t think he would persecute (or prosecute) me for his own reasons. Though he was certainly capable of some corruption, some graft, Alcee had never been suspected of being any kind of vigilante. I knew he hadn’t had any personal relationship with Arlene, for two reasons: Alcee loved his wife, Barbara, the librarian here in Bon Temps, and Arlene had been a racist.
The detective didn’t respond to my words, but I could tell there was a question or two going on in his thoughts about the righteousness of his actions. He departed, his face still full of anger.
Something was so wrong inside Alcee Beck. Then it came to me: Alcee was acting like someone who’d been possessed. That was a key thought. I finally had something new to think about; I could spend infinite time picking the thought apart.
The rest of the day passed with excruciating slowness. It’s bad when the most interesting thing that happens to you all day is getting arrested. The women’s jailer, Jessie Schneider, sauntered down the hall to tell Jane that her son couldn’t pick her up until tomorrow morning. Jessie didn’t speak to me, but she didn’t have to. She gave me a good long look, shook her head, and walked back to her office. She’d never heard anything bad about me, and it made her sad that someone who’d had such a good grandma had ended up in jail. It made me sad, too.
A trustee brought us our supper, which was pretty much lunch revisited. At least the tomatoes were fresh, since there was a garden at the jail. I’d never thought I’d get tired of fresh tomatoes, but between my own burgeoning plants and the jail produce, I would be glad when they were out of season.
There wasn’t a window in our cell, but there was one across the corridor, high up on the wall. When the window got dark, all I could think of was Karin. I prayed very earnestly that (if she hadn’t been already) she would be contacted by the police, that she would tell the truth, that the truth would literally set me free. I didn’t get a lot of sleep that night after the lights went out. Jane snored, and someone over in the men’s section was screaming from about midnight to one a.m.
I was so grateful when morning came and the sun broke through the window across the corridor. The weather report two days ago had forecast Monday as sunny, which meant a return to very high temperatures. The jail was air-conditioned, which was a good thing, since it meant I wasn’t quite exasperated enough to kill Jane, though I came mighty close a couple of times.
I sat cross-legged on my top bunk, trying hard to think about nothing, until Jessie Schneider came to get us.
“You got to go in front of the judge now,” she said. “Come on.” She unlocked the cell and gestured us out. I’d been afraid we’d be shackled, but we weren’t. We were handcuffed, though.
“When am I getting to go home, Jessie?” Jane asked. “Hey, you know Sookie didn’t do nothing to Arlene. I saw Arlene with some men.”
“Yeah, when did you remember that? When Sookie reminded you?” Jessie, a big, heavy woman in her forties, didn’t seem to bear either of us any ill will. She was so accustomed to being lied to that she simply didn’t believe anything an inmate said, and very little anyone else told her, either.
“Awww, Jessie, don’t be mean. I did see her. I didn’t know the men. You ought to let Sookie go. Me, too.”
Jessie said, “I’ll tell Andy you remembered something.” But I could tell she didn’t hang any weight on Jane’s words.
We went out a side door and directly into the parish van. Jessie had two other prisoners in tow by that time: Ginjer Hart (Mel Hart’s ex-wife), a werepanther who had a habit of passing bad checks, and Diane Porchia, an insurance agent. Of course, I knew Diane had been picked up (which sounded better than “arrested”) for filing false insurance claims, but I’d kind of lost track of her case. Women were transported separately from men, and Jessie, accompanied by Kenya, drove us over to the courthouse. I didn’t look out the window, I was so ashamed that people could see me in this van.
There was a hush when we filed into the courtroom. I didn’t look at the spectator section, but when attorney Beth Osiecki waved her hand to catch my attention, I almost wept from relief. She was sitting in the front row. Once I’d noticed her, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face over her shoulder.
Tara was sitting behind the places saved for lawyers. JB was with her. The babies sat in two infant seats between them.
In the row behind sat Alcide Herveaux, leader of the Shreveport werewolf pack and owner of AAA Accurate Surveys. Next to him was my brother, Jason, and his packleader, Calvin Norris. Jason’s friend and best man, Hoyt Fortenberry, was nearby. Chessie Johnson, who was keeping Arlene’s kids, was having a low-voiced conversation with Kennedy Keyes and her boyfriend, Danny Prideaux, who not only worked at the home builders’ supply but was also Bill Compton’s daytime guy. And right by Danny glowered Mustapha Khan, Eric’s daytime guy, and Mustapha’s buddy Warren, who gave me a wispy smile. Terry Bellefleur stood at the back, shifting from foot to foot uneasily, his wife, Jimmie, at his side. Maxine Fortenberry came in, her walk ponderous and her face as angry as a thunderstorm. She’d brought another friend of Gran’s with her, Everlee Mason. Maxine was wearing her righteous face. It was clear that coming into the courtroom was something she’d never had to do in her life, but by golly she was going to do it today.
I had a moment of sheer amazement. Why were all these people here? What had brought them to the courtroom on the same day I had a hearing? It seemed like the most incredible coincidence.
Then I caught the thoughts in their brains, and I understood that there was no coincidence. They were all here on my behalf.
My vision suddenly blurry from tears, I followed Ginjer Hart as she entered the defendants’ pew. If the jail orange looked awful on me, it wasn’t doing Ginjer any favors, either. Ginjer’s bright red hair was a direct slap in the face to the Day-Glo shade of the ensemble. Diane Porchia, with her neutral coloring, had fared better.
I didn’t really care about how we looked in our jail clothes. I was trying not to think about the moment. I was so touched that my friends had come, so horrified they’d seen me handcuffed, so hopeful I’d get out . . . so terrified I wouldn’t.
Ginjer Hart was bound over for trial since no one stepped forward to bail her out. I wondered if Calvin Norris, leader of the werepanthers, hadn’t shown up to stand bail for his clanswoman, but I learned later that this was Ginjer’s third offense and that he’d warned her the first and second times that his patience had a limit. Diane Porchia made bail; her husband was sitting in the last row, looking sad and worn-down.