Definitely Dead ss(v-6 Page 5

  To my astonishment, about a month ago, Tara had mailed me the title and the bill of sale, with a letter telling me the car was now mine. I'd called to protest, but she had stonewalled me, and in the end, there didn't seem to be anything to do but accept the gift graciously.

  She intended it as payment, since I'd extricated her from a terrible situation. But to help her, I'd had to indebt myself to Eric. I hadn't minded. Tara had been my friend all my life. Now she was safe, if she was smart enough to stay away from the supernatural world.

  Though I was grateful and relieved to have the newest vehicle I'd ever owned, I would have been happier to have her uninterrupted friendship. I'd stayed away, since I assumed that I reminded her of too many bad things. But I was in the mood to try to rip down that veil. Maybe Tara had had enough time.

  Tara's Togs was in a strip mall on the south side of Bon Temps. There was one other car parked in front of the store. I decided it might be good that a third party would be there; it would depersonalize the meeting.

  Tara was serving Andy Bellefleur's sister Portia when I went in, so I began flicking through the size tens, and then the eights. Portia was sitting at the Isabelle table, which was extremely interesting. Tara is the local representative for Isabelle's Bridal, a national company that produces a catalog that's become the bible of all things wedding-related. You can try on samples of the bridesmaid dresses at the local outlet, so you can order the right size, and each dress comes in about twenty colors. The wedding dresses are just as popular. Isabelle's has twenty-five models. The Company also offers wedding shower invitations, decorations, garters, bridesmaids' gifts, and any bit of wedding paraphernalia you can imagine. However, Isabelle's was pretty much a middle-class phenomenon, and Portia was definitely an upper-class woman.

  Since she lived with her grandmother and her brother in the Bellefleur mansion on Magnolia Street, Portia had grown up in a sort of decayed gothic splendor. Now that the mansion was repaired and her grandmother entertained more, Portia had looked noticeably happier when I'd glimpsed her around town. She didn't come into Merlotte's that much, but when she was in the bar she had more time to spare for other people, and she smiled occasionally. A plain woman just past thirty, Portia's best feature was her thick, shining chestnut hair.

  Portia was thinking wedding, and Tara was thinking money.

  "I have to talk with Halleigh again, but I think we'll need four hundred invitations," Portia was saying, and I thought my jaw would drop.

  "All right, Portia, if you don't mind paying the rush fee, we can have those in ten days."

  "Oh, good!" Portia was definitely pleased. "Of course, Halleigh and I will be wearing different dresses, but we thought we might try to pick out the same bridesmaid's dress. Maybe in different colors. What do you think?"

  I thought I was going to choke on my own curiosity. Portia was going to be married, too? To that stick of an accountant she'd been dating, the guy from Clarice? Tara caught a glimpse of my face over the top of the standing rack of dresses. Portia was looking at the catalog, so Tara winked at me. She was definitely pleased to have a rich customer, and we were definitely okay with each other. Relief flooded me.

  "I think having the same style in different colors—coordinating colors, of course—would be really original," Tara said. "How many bridesmaids are there going to be?"

  "Five apiece," Portia said, her attention on the page before her. "Can I take a copy of the catalog home? That way, Halleigh and I can look at it tonight."

  "I only have one extra copy; you know, one of the ways Isabelle's makes money is charging an arm and a leg for the darn catalog," Tara said with a charming smile. Tara can lay it on when she needs to. "I'll let you take it home, if you cross your heart you'll bring it back tomorrow!"

  Portia made the childish gesture, and tucked the thick catalog under her arm. She was wearing one of her "lawyer suits," a brownish tweedy-looking straight skirt and jacket with a silk blouse underneath. She had on beige hose and low-heeled pumps, and she carried a matching purse. Bo-ring.

  Portia was excited, and her brain was cartwheeling with happy images. She knew she would look a little old as a bride, especially compared to Halleigh; but by God, she was finally going to be a bride. Portia would get her share of the fun, the presents, the attention, and the clothes, to say nothing of the validation of having a husband of her own. She looked up from the catalog and spied me lurking by the slacks rack. Her happiness was profound enough to encompass even me.

  "Hello, Sookie!" she said, practically beaming. "Andy told me what a help you were to him, fixing up his little surprise for Halleigh. I really appreciate it."

  "It was fun," I said, with my own version of a gracious smile. "Is it true that congratulations are in order for you, as well?" I know, you're not supposed to congratulate the bride, only the groom, but I didn't think Portia would mind.

  Sure enough, she didn't. "Well, I am getting married," she confessed. "And we decided to have a double ceremony with Andy and Halleigh. The reception will be at the house."

  Of course. Why have a mansion, if you couldn't have the reception there?

  "That's going to be a lot of work, setting up a wedding by—when?" I said, trying to sound sympathetic and concerned.

  "April. Tell me about it," Portia said, laughing. "Grandmother is already half-crazy. She's called every caterer she knows to try to book someone for the second weekend, and finally landed Extreme(ly Elegant) Events because they had a cancellation. Plus, the guy who runs Sculptured Forest in Shreveport is coming to see her this afternoon."

  Sculptured Forest was the premier landscape planning center and nursery in the area, at least if you went by their omnipresent ads. Hiring both Sculptured Forest and Extreme(ly Elegant) Events meant that this double wedding would be the primo social occasion of the Bon Temps year.

  "We're thinking an outdoor wedding at the house, with tents in the back yard," Portia said. "In case of rain, we'll have to move it to the church, and have the reception at the Renard Parish Community Building. But we'll keep our fingers crossed."

  "Sounds wonderful." I really couldn't think of anything else to say. "How are you going to keep working, with all this wedding stuff to do?"

  "Somehow I'll manage."

  I wondered what the rush was. Why weren't the happy couples waiting until summer, when Halleigh wouldn't be working? Why not wait, so Portia could free her calendar for a proper wedding and honeymoon? And wasn't the man she'd been dating an accountant? Surely a wedding during tax season was the worst possible scheduling.

  … maybe Portia was pregnant. But if she was in the family way, she wasn't thinking about it, and I hardly thought she would be doing otherwise. Gosh, if I ever found out I was pregnant, I'd be so happy! If the guy loved me and would marry me, that is—because I wasn't tough enough to raise a kid by myself, and my grandmother would roll over in her grave if I was an unmarried mother. Modern thinking on that subject had completely passed my grandmother by, without even ruffling her hair with its passage.

  While all these thoughts were buzzing around in my head, it took me a minute to process Portia's words. "So try to keep the second Saturday in April free," she said with as close to a charming smile as Portia Bellefleur could manage.

  I promised I would, trying not to trip over my own tongue with astonishment. She must be high on wedding fever. Why would my presence be desired at the wedding? I was no big buddy of any of the Bellefleurs.

  "We're asking Sam to bartend at the reception," she continued, and my world realigned into a more familiar pattern. She wanted me there to assist Sam.

  "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."

  Chapter 5

  I was glad Jason 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 really out 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.