Sookie 06 Definitely Dead (6 page)

“An afternoon wedding?” I asked. Sam sometimes took outside bartending jobs, but Saturday was usually our heavy day at Merlotte’s.

“No, night,” she said, “but I already talked to Sam this morning, and he’s agreed.”

“Okay,” I said.

She read more into my tone than I’d put there, and she flushed. “Glen has some clients that he wants to invite,” she said, though I’d asked for no explanation. “They can only come after dark.” Glen Vicks was the accountant. I was glad I’d retrieved his last name from my memory. Then everything clicked into place, and I understood Portia’s embarrassment. Portia meant that Glen’s clients were vampires. Well, well, well. I smiled at her.

“I’m sure it’ll be a lovely wedding, and I look forward to being there,” I said, “since you were kind enough to invite me.” I’d deliberately misunderstood her, and as I’d foreseen, she flushed even redder. Then a related idea occurred to me, one so important I bent one of my personal rules.

“Portia,” I said slowly, wanting to be sure she got my meaning, “you should invite Bill Compton.”

Now Portia loathed Bill-disliked all vampires-but when she’d been forwarding one of her own plots, she’d dated Bill briefly. Which had been odd, because afterward Bill had discovered Portia was actually his great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, or something like that.

Bill had gone along with her pretense of interest in him. At the time, he’d just wanted to find out what her goal was. He’d realized that it made Portia’s skin crawl to be around him. But when he’d discovered the Bellefleurs were his only surviving kin, he’d anonymously given them a whacking great bunch of money.

I could “hear” that Portia thought I was purposely reminding her of the few times she’d dated Bill. She didn’t want to be reminded of it, and it angered her that I’d done so.

“Why do you suggest that?” she asked coldly, and I gave her high points for not just stalking out of the shop. Tara was being studiously busy over by the Isabelle table, but I knew she could hear our conversation. Nothing wrong with Tara’s hearing.

I had a ferocious internal debate. Finally, what Bill wanted prevailed over what I wanted for him. “Never mind,” I said reluctantly. “Your wedding, your list.”

Portia was looking at me as if she really saw me for the first time. “Are you still dating him?” she asked.

“No, he’s dating Selah Pumphrey,” I said, keeping my voice even and empty.

Portia gave me an unreadable look. Without another word, she went out to her car.

“What was all that about?” Tara asked.

I couldn’t explain, so I changed the subject to one closer to Tara’s retailing heart. “I’m delighted you’re getting the business,” I said.

“You and me both. If she didn’t have to pull it together in such a short time, you can bet Portia Bellefleur wouldn’t ever go Isabelle,” Tara said frankly. “She’d drive to Shreveport and back a million times running errands, if she had the lead time. Halleigh is just trailing along in Portia’s wake, poor thing. She’ll come in this afternoon, and I’ll show her the same things I’ve shown Portia, and she’ll have to buckle under. But it’s all good for me. They’re getting the whole package, because the Isabelle system can deliver it all on time. Invitations, thank-you notes, dresses, garters, bridesmaids’ gifts, even the mother-of-the-bride gowns-Miss Caroline will be buying one, and Halleigh’s mother-they’re getting it all here, either from my stock or from Isabelle’s book.” She looked me up and down. “What brought you in, by the way?”

“I need a date outfit to wear to a play in Shreveport,” I said, “and I have to go to the grocery and get back at home to cook Jason’s lunch. So, you got anything to show me?”

Tara’s smile turned predatory. “Oh,” she said, “just a few things.”

5

IWAS GLADJason was a little late. I’d finished the bacon and I was putting the hamburgers in the frying pan when he arrived. I had already opened the package of buns and put two on Jason’s plate, and put a bag of potato chips on the table. I’d poured him a glass of tea and set it beside his place. Jason came in without knocking, as he always did. Jason hadn’t changed that much, at least to the eyes, since he’d become a werepanther. He was still blond and attractive, and I mean attractive in the old way; he was good to look at, but he was also the kind of man that everyone looks at when he comes into a room. On top of that, he’d always had a mean streak. But since his change, he’d somehow been acting like a better person. I hadn’t decided why that was. Maybe being a wild animal once a month satisfied some craving he hadn’t known he had.

Since he’d been bitten, not born, he didn’t change completely; he became a sort of hybrid. At first, he’d been disappointed about that. But he’d gotten over it. He’d been dating a full werepanther named Crystal for several months now. Crystal lived in a tiny community some miles out in the country-and let me tell you, out in the country from Bon Temps, Louisiana, is reallyout in the country .

We said a brief prayer and began eating. Jason didn’t dig in with his usual gusto. Since the hamburger tasted good to me, I figured whatever was on his mind was important. I couldn’t read it out of his brain. Since my brother had become a Were, his thoughts had not been as clear to me.

Mostly, that was a relief.

After two bites, Jason put down his hamburger, and his body posture changed. He was ready to talk. “I got something I got to tell you,” he said. “Crystal doesn’t want me to tell anyone, but I’m really worried about her. Yesterday, Crystal … she had a miscarriage.”

I shut my eyes for a few seconds. I had about twenty thoughts in that brief time, and I couldn’t complete a one of them. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I hope Crystal’s all right?”

Jason looked at me over a plate of food he’d completely forgotten. “She won’t go to the doctor.”

I stared at him blankly. “But she has to,” I said reasonably. “She needs a D & C.” I wasn’t sure what “D & C” stood for, but I knew after you’d miscarried, you went to a hospital and that’s what they did there. My friend and co-worker Arlene had had a D & C after her miscarriage, and she’d told me about it several times.Several times. “They go in and …” I began, but Jason cut me off in midstream.

“Hey, I don’t need to know,” he said, looking very uncomfortable. “I just know that since Crystal’s a werepanther, she didn’t want to go to the hospital. She had to go when she got gored by that razorback, just like Calvin had to go when he got shot, but they both got well so fast that there was some comment in the doctors’ lounge, she heard. So she won’t go now. She’s at my house, but she’s … she’s not doing well. She’s getting worse, not better.”

“Uh-oh,” I said. “So what’s happening?”

“She’s bleeding too heavy, and her legs don’t work right.” He swallowed. “She can hardly stand up, much less walk.”

“Have you called Calvin?” I asked. Calvin Norris, Crystal’s uncle, is the leader of the tiny Hotshot panther community.

“She don’t want me to tell Calvin. She’s scared Calvin’ll kill me for knocking her up. Crystal didn’t want me to tell you, either, but I got to have help.”

Though her mom wasn’t living, Crystal had female relatives galore in Hotshot. I’d never had a baby, I’d never even been pregnant, and I wasn’t a shifter. Any one of them would know more about the situation than I did. I told Jason this.

“I don’t want her to sit up long enough to go back to Hotshot, specially in my truck.” My brother looked as stubborn as a mule.

For an awful minute, I thought that Jason’s big concern was Crystal bleeding on his upholstery. I was about to hop down his throat, when he added, “The shocks need replacing, and I’m scared the bouncing of the truck on that bad road would make Crystal worse.”

Then her kin could come to Crystal. But I knew before I spoke that Jason would find a reason to veto that, too. He had some kind of plan. “Okay. What can I do?”

“Didn’t you tell me that time when you got hurt, there was a special kind of doctor the vamps called to look at your back?”

I didn’t like to think about that night. My back still bore the scars of the attack. The poison on the maenad’s claws had nearly killed me. “Yes,” I said slowly, “Dr. Ludwig.” Doctor to all that was weird and strange, Dr. Ludwig was herself an oddity. She was extremely short-very, very short.

And her features were not exactly regular, either. It would come as an extreme surprise to me if Dr. Ludwig were at all human. I’d seen her a second time at the contest for pack-master. Both times, I’d been in Shreveport; so the chances were good that Dr. Ludwig actually lived there.

Since I didn’t want to overlook the obvious, I fished a Shreveport directory out of the drawer below the wall-mounted telephone. There was a listing for a Doctor Amy Ludwig. Amy? I bit back a burst of laughter.

I was very nervous about approaching Dr. Ludwig on my own, but when I saw how worried Jason was, I couldn’t protest over making one lousy phone call.

It rang four times. A machine picked up. A mechanical voice said, “You have reached the telephone of Dr. Amy Ludwig. Dr. Ludwig is not accepting new patients, insured or uninsured. Dr. Ludwig does not want pharmaceutical samples, and she does not need insurance of any kind. She is not interested in investing her money, or giving to charities she hasn’t personally selected.” There was a long silence, during which time most callers presumably hung up. I didn’t. After a moment, I heard another click on the line.

“Hello?” asked a gruff little voice.

“Dr. Ludwig?” I asked cautiously.

“Yes? I don’t accept new patients, you know! Too busy!” She sounded both impatient and cautious.

“I’m Sookie Stackhouse. Is this the Dr. Ludwig who treated me in Eric’s office at Fangtasia?”

“You are the young woman poisoned by the maenad’s claws?”

“Yes. I saw you again a few weeks ago, remember?”

“And where was that?” She remembered quite well, but she wanted another proof of my identity.

“An empty building in an industrial park.”

“And who was running the show there?”

“A big bald guy named Quinn.”

“Oh, all right.” She sighed. “What do you want? I’m rather busy.”

“I have a patient for you. Please come to see her.”

“Bring her to me.”

“She’s too sick to travel.”

I heard the doctor muttering to herself, but I couldn’t make out the words.

“Pooh,” the doctor said. “Oh, very well, Miss Stackhouse. Tell me what the problem is.”

I explained as best I could. Jason was moving around the kitchen, because he was too worried to sit still.

“Idiots. Fools,” Dr. Ludwig said. “Tell me how to get to your house. Then you can take me where the girl is.”

“I may have to leave for work before you can get here,” I said, after glancing at the clock and calculating how long it would take the doctor to drive from Shreveport. “My brother will be here waiting.”

“Is he the responsible party?”

I didn’t know if she was talking about the bill for her services, or the pregnancy. Either way, I told her that Jason definitely was the responsible party.

“She’s coming,” I told my brother, after I’d given the doctor directions and hung up. “I don’t know how much she charges, but I told her you’d pay.”

“Sure, sure. How will I know her?”

“You can’t mistake her for anyone you know. She said she’d have a driver. She wouldn’t be tall enough to see over the steering wheel, so I should have figured on that.”

I did the dishes while Jason fidgeted. He called Crystal to check on her, seemed okay with what he’d heard. Finally, I asked him to go outside and knock old dirt-dauber nests off the tool shed. He couldn’t seem to settle down, so he might as well be useful.

I thought about the situation while I started a load of laundry and put on my barmaid outfit (black pants, white boat-neck tee withMerlotte’s embroidered over the left breast, black Adidas). I was not a happy camper. I was worried about Crystal-and I didn’t like her. I was sorry she’d lost the baby because I know that’s a sad experience, but I was happy because I really didn’t want Jason to marry the girl, and I was pretty sure he would have if the pregnancy had continued. I cast around for something to make me feel better. I opened the closet to look at my new outfit, the one I’d bought at Tara’s Togs to wear on my date. But I couldn’t even get any enjoyment out of it.

Finally, I did what I’d planned on doing before I’d heard Jason’s news: I got a book and settled in a chair on the front porch, reading a few sentences every now and then in between admiring the pear tree in the front yard, which was covered in white blossoms and humming with bees.

The sun was beaming, the daffodils were just past their prime, and I had a date for Friday. And I’d already done my good deed for the day, in calling Dr. Ludwig. The coil of worry in my stomach eased up a little.

From time to time, I could hear vague sounds traveling my way from the backyard; Jason had found something to keep him occupied after he’d dealt with the nests. Maybe he was pulling up weeds in the flower beds. I brightened. That would be nice, since I didn’t have my grandmother’s enthusiasm for gardening. I admired the results, but I didn’t enjoy the whole process as she had.

After checking my watch repeatedly, I was relieved to see a rather grand pearl Cadillac pull into the front parking area. There was a tiny shape in the front passenger seat. The driver’s door opened, and a Were named Amanda got out. She and I had had our differences, but we’d parted on fair terms. I was relieved to see someone I knew. Amanda, who looked exactly like a middle-class soccer mom, was in her thirties. Her red hair looked natural, quite unlike my friend Arlene’s.

“Sookie, hey,” she said. “When the doctor told me where we were going, I was relieved, since I knew how to get here already.”

“You’re not her usual driver? Hey, I like the haircut, by the way.”

“Oh, thanks.” Amanda’s hair was newly short, cut in a careless, almost boyish style that oddly suited her. I say oddly, because Amanda’s body was definitely womanly.

“Haven’t got used to it yet,” she admitted, running her hand over her neck. “Actually, it’s usually my oldest boy that drives Dr. Ludwig, but he’s in school today, of course. Is it your sister-in-law that’s ailing?”