"Claude's told me two things about that," Dermot said, going to the refrigerator and pouring a glass of milk. "He said he knew the portals were closing, but he felt he couldn't leave without tying up his business affairs here, and he never imagined that Niall would really stick to his decision. On the whole, the gamble of staying here appealed to him more. But he told the others, all the assortment of fae at Hooligans, that Niall denied him entry."

I noticed that Dermot was admitting, though not explicitly, that he didn't have the high opinion of Claude that the other fae did. "Why'd he tell two stories? Which do you believe?"

Dermot shrugged. "Maybe both are true, more or less," he said. "I think Claude was reluctant to leave this human world. He's amassing money that could be working for him here while he's in Faery. He's been talking with lawyers about setting up a trust, or something like that. It would continue to earn him money even if he vanishes. That way if he wants to return to this world, he will be a rich man and able to live as he wants. And there are advantages, even when you live in Faery, to having financial assets here."

"Like what?"

Dermot looked surprised. "Like having the ability to buy things that aren't available in Faery," he said. "Like having the wherewithal to make trips out here occasionally, to indulge in things that aren't ... acceptable in our own world."

"Like what?" I asked again.

"Some of us like human drugs and sex," Dermot said. "And some of us like human music very much. And human scientists have thought of some wonderful products that are very useful in our world."

I was tempted to say "Like what?" a third time, but I didn't want to sound like a parrot. The more I heard, the more curious it seemed.

"Why do you think Claude went with Niall?" I asked instead.

"I think he wants to become secure in Niall's affection," Dermot said promptly. "And I think he wants to remind the rest of the fae world what an enticing option they have cut off, since Niall closed the portals and guards them so rigorously. But I don't know." He shrugged. "I'm his kinsman, so he has to shelter me and defend me. But he doesn't have to confide in me."

"So he's still trying to have it both ways," I said.

"Yes," Dermot said simply. "That's Claude."

Just then there was a knock at the back door. Dermot raised his head and sniffed. "There's one of the troubles," he said, and went to answer it. Our caller was Bellenos the elf, whose needlelike inch-long teeth were terrifying when he smiled. I remember how he'd grinned when he'd presented me with the head of my enemy.

Our new visitor had bloody hands. "What you been doing, Bellenos?" I asked, proud that my voice was so even.

"I've been hunting, my fair one," he said, and gave me that scary grin. "I was complaining of being restless, and Dermot gave me leave to hunt in your woods. I had a wonderful time."

"What did you catch?"

"A deer," he said. "A full-grown doe."

It wasn't hunting season, but I didn't think anyone from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries was going to fine Bellenos. One look at his true face, and they'd run screaming. "Then I'm glad you took the opportunity," I said, but I resolved to have a private word with Dermot about granting hunting privileges on my land without consulting me.

"Some of the rest of us would like to hunt here, too," the elf suggested.

"I'll think about it," I said, none too pleased at the idea. "Long as that hunting was restricted to deer, and you stayed on my land ... I'll let you know soon."

"My kindred are getting restless," Bellenos said, in what was not quite a warning. "We would all like to get out of the club. We would all like to visit your woods, experience the peacefulness of your house."

I shoved my deep uneasiness down into a little pocket inside me. I could fish it out later and have a good look at it after Bellenos left. "I understand," I said, and offered him water. When he nodded, I poured a glass full of cold water from the pitcher in the refrigerator. He gulped it all down. Hunting deer in the dark with your bare hands was apparently thirsty work. After the water was gone, Bellenos asked if he could clean up, and I pointed out the hall bathroom and put out a towel.

When the door was safely shut, I gave Dermot a look.

"I know you have reason to be angry, Sookie," he said. He came closer and dropped his voice. "Bellenos is the most dangerous. If he gets tense and bored, bad things will happen. It seemed wisest to give him a safety valve. I hope you'll forgive me for granting him permission, since we're family." Dermot's big blue eyes, so like my brother's, looked at me imploringly.

I wasn't too pleased, but Dermot's reasoning made all kinds of sense. The image of a repressed elf finally cutting loose on the people of Monroe was a picture I didn't want in my head. "I get what you're saying," I told him. "But if you ever want to let someone run free on my land again, check with me first." And I gave him a very level look to let him know I meant it.

"I will," he said. I wasn't convinced. Dermot was a lot of good things, but I couldn't see him as a strong or decisive leader. "They're tired of waiting," he said hopelessly. "I guess I am, too."

"Would you leave for Faery?" I asked. I tried a smile. "Can you live without your HGTV and your Cheetos?" I wanted to ask my great-uncle if he could live without me, but that would be too pitiful. We'd gotten along without each other just fine for most of our lives-but there was no denying I was fond of him.

"I love you," he said unexpectedly. "The happiest I've been in years is the time I've spent here with you, in this house. It's so peaceful."

This was the second time in a few minutes that a fae had said my house was peaceful. My conscience stirred inside me. I suspected very strongly that it was not me or the house that attracted creatures with fae blood; it was the hidden presence of the cluviel dor.

Bellenos came out wrapped in a towel, holding out his bloody clothes. His pallor-and his freckles-extended all over. "Sister, can you wash these in your machine? I had only planned to scrub my face and arms, but I thought how good it would feel to be completely clean."

As I took the stained clothes to the washer on the back porch, I was glad I'd taken Mr. Cataliades's warning to heart. If the cluviel dor had such influence when they couldn't even see it, didn't even know it was present, how much more would they want to touch it if they could? What would they do if I wouldn't give it up?

After I'd started Bellenos's clothes on the cold cycle, I remained on the back porch looking out through the screen door at the night. The bugs were in full symphony. It was almost noisy enough to be annoying. I was glad all over again for the blessed invention of air-conditioning, even if the house was cooled by window units instead of central heat and air. I could close and lock my windows at night and keep the drone of the insects at bay ... and feel safe against the appearance of other things. One of those other things was strolling out of the trees right now.

"Hey, Bill," I said quietly.

"Sookie." He moved closer. Even when I knew he was there, I couldn't hear him. Vampires can be so quiet.

"I guess you heard my visitor?" I said.

"Yes. Found what was left of the deer. Elf?"

"Bellenos. You've met him."

"The guy who took the heads? Yeah. Dermot is home?"

"He's here."

"You really shouldn't be alone with Bellenos." Bill, a serious guy, sounded very grim indeed when he said this.

"I don't intend to be. Dermot will take him back to Monroe, either tonight or tomorrow morning. Eric call you tonight?"

"Yeah. I'm going to Shreveport in an hour. I'm meeting Heidi there." He hesitated for a moment. "I understand she still has a living relative."

"Her son in Nevada. He's a drug addict, I believe."

"To have living flesh of your flesh. It must be a very strange feeling to be able to talk to your immediate kin. This age of vampires is so much different from that when I was turned. I can hardly believe that I now know my great-great-great-grandchildren."

Bill's maker had ordered him out of Bon Temps and even out of the state for a long time, so he wouldn't be recognized by his wife and children or his local acquaintances. That was the old way.

I noted the wistfulness in his voice. "I don't think it's been very healthy for Heidi to keep in touch with her son," I said. "She's younger than he is, now, and ..." Then I shut up. The rest of the sad story was Heidi's to tell.

"Several days ago, Danny Prideaux came to me to ask if he can be my daytime man," Bill said suddenly, and after a moment I understood that Bill was thinking of human connections.

So that was Danny's big secret. "Huh. He already has a part-time job at the lumberyard."

"With two jobs, he thinks he can ask his young woman to marry him."

"Oh, wow! Danny's gonna ask Kennedy to marry him? That's wonderful. You know who he's dating? Kennedy, who works behind the bar at Merlotte's?"

"The one who killed her boyfriend." Bill seemed displeased by this bit of information.

"Bill, the guy was beating her. And she served her jail time. Not that you have any room to talk. You hired him?"

Bill looked a little abashed. "I agreed to a trial period. I don't have enough work for a full-time person, but it would be very pleasant to have a part-time helper. I wouldn't have to ask you for help all the time, which I'm sure is inconvenient for you."

"I haven't minded making the occasional phone call," I said. "But I know you'd like to have someone you don't have to keep thanking. I wish Danny'd tell Kennedy what he's up to. Not knowing is making her have all kinds of bad thoughts about him."

"If they're going to have a real relationship, she has to learn to trust him." Bill gave me an enigmatic look and melted back into the trees.

"I trust people when they've proved they're trustworthy," I muttered, and went back in the house. The kitchen was empty. Sounded like Bellenos and Dermot had gone upstairs to watch television; I caught the faint sound of a laugh track. I climbed halfway up the stairs, intending to suggest that Bellenos move his own clothes from the washer to the dryer, but I paused when I heard them talking during a commercial break.

"It's called Two and a Half Men," Dermot was telling his guest.

"I understand," Bellenos said. "Because the two brothers are grown, and the son isn't."

"I think so," Dermot said. "Don't you think the son is useless?"

"The half? Yes. At home, we'd eat him," Bellenos said.

I turned right around, sure I could put the clothes into the dryer myself. "Sookie, did you need us?" Dermot called. I might have known he'd hear me.

"Just tell Bellenos that I'm putting his clothes in the dryer, but he's responsible for getting them out. I think they'll be dry in ..." I made some hasty calculations. "Probably forty-five minutes. I'm going to bed now." Though I'd had the nap, I was beginning to drag.

I barely waited to hear Dermot say, "He'll get them," before I hurried to the back porch to toss the wet clothes into the dryer. Then I went into my bedroom, shut the door, and locked it.

If the rest of the fae were as casual about cannibalism as the elf, Claude couldn't come back soon enough to suit me.

Chapter 7.

Cara Ambroselli called me first thing Monday morning, which was not a great way to start the week.

"I need you to come to the station so I can ask a few more questions," she said, and she sounded so brisk and awake that I could easily dislike her.

"I've told you everything I know," I said, trying to sound alert.

"We're going over everything again," she said. "I know you're as anxious as we all are to find out who caused this poor woman's death."

There was only one possible response. "I'll be there in a couple of hours," I said, trying not to sound sullen. "I'll have to ask my boss if I can be late to work."

That really wasn't going to be an issue since I was scheduled to work the later shift, but I was grumpy enough to drag my heels. I did call Jason to tell him where I was going, because I think someone always needs to know where you are if you're going into a police station.

"That's no good, Sis," he said. "You need a lawyer?"

"No, but I'm taking a number with me just in case," I said. I looked at the front of the refrigerator until I spotted the "Osiecki and Hilburn" business card. I made sure my cell phone was charged. Just to cover all kinds of crises, I put the cluviel dor into my purse.

I drove to Shreveport without noticing the blue skies, the shimmering heat, the big mowers, the eighteen-wheelers. I was in a grim mood, and I wondered how career criminals managed. I was not cut out for a life of crime, I decided, though the past few years had held enough mayhem to last me till I was using a walker. I hadn't had anything to do with the death of Kym Rowe, but I'd been involved in sufficient bad stuff to make me nervous when I came under official scrutiny.

Police stations are not happy places at the best of times. If you're a telepath with a guilty conscience, this unhappiness is just about doubled.

The heavy woman on the bench in the waiting room was thinking about her son, who was in a cell in the building. He'd been arrested for rape. It wasn't the first time. The man ahead of me was picking up a police report about an accident he'd been in; his arm was in a sling, and he was in a fair amount of pain. Two men sat silently side by side, their elbows on their knees, their heads hung. Their sons had been arrested for beating another boy to death.

It was a positive treat to see T-Rex come out of a door, apparently leaving the building. He glanced my way, kept moving, but did a double take.

"Sookie, right?" Under the harsh light, his dyed platinum hair looked garish but also cheerful, simply because he was such a vital person.

"Yeah," I said, shaking his hand. Pretty, vamp's girl, from Bon Temps? He was having his own little stream of consciousness about me. "They call you in, too?"

"Yeah, I'm doing my civic duty," he said with a very small smile. "Cherie and Viv already came in."

I tried to smile in a carefree way. I didn't think I was very successful. "I guess we all got to help them find out who killed that girl," I offered.

"We don't have to enjoy it."

I was able to give him a genuine smile. "That's very true. Did they wring a confession out of you?"

"I can't keep secrets," he said. "That's my biggest confession. Seriously, I'd've told them anything after we were here a couple hours the night it happened. T-Rex is not one for secrets."

T-Rex was one for talking about himself in the third person, apparently. But he was so vivid, so full of life, that to my surprise I found I liked him.

"I have to go tell them I'm here," I said apologetically, and took a step toward the window.

"Sure," he said. "Listen, give me a call if you ever want to come to a wrestling match. I get the feeling you ain't been to many, if at all, and you might have a good time. I can get you a ringside seat!"

"That's real nice of you," I said. "I don't know how much time I'll have, between my job and my boyfriend, but I do appreciate the offer."

"I never hung around with vampires before. That Felipe, he's pretty damn funny, and Horst is okay." T-Rex hesitated. "On the other hand, your boyfriend is pretty damn scary."

"He is," I agreed. "But he didn't murder Kym Rowe."

Our conversation ended when Detective Ambroselli called me to her desk.

Cara Ambroselli was a little dynamo. She asked me the same questions she'd asked me Saturday night, and I answered them the same way. She asked me a few new questions. "How long have you been dating Eric?" (He was no longer Mr. Northman, I noticed.) "Did you ever work in a strip club?" (That was an easy one.) "What about the men you live with?"

"What about them?"

"Doesn't Claude Crane own a strip club?"

"Yeah," I said warily. "He does."

"Did Kym Rowe ever work there?"

I was taken aback. "I don't know," I said. "I never thought about that. I guess she might have."