Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris Page B

a tea bag, I put a saucer with a couple of lemon slices on the tray, too. No fairies around to offend.
    “Are you Sookie Stackhouse?” he asked when I returned with his tea.
    “Yes, I am.” I put the saucer gently on the table, right beside the cup. “Why do you want to know?” I already knew why, but with regular people, you had to ask.
    “I’m Jack Leeds, a private investigator,” he said. He laid a business card on the table, turned so I could read it. He waited for a beat, as if he usually got a dramatic reaction to that statement. “I’ve been hired by a family in Jackson, Mississippi—the Pelt family,” he continued, when he saw I wasn’t going to speak.
    My heart sank to my shoes before it began pounding at an accelerated rate. This man believed that Debbie was dead. And he thought there was a good chance I might know something about it.
    He was absolutely right.
    I’d shot Debbie Pelt dead a few weeks before, in self-defense. Hers was the body Eric had hidden. Hers was the bullet Eric had taken for me.
    Debbie’s disappearance after leaving a “party” in Shreveport, Louisiana (in fact a life-and-death brawl between witches, vamps, and Weres), had been a nine days’ wonder. I’d hoped I’d heard the end of it.
    “So the Pelts aren’t satisfied with the police investigation?” I asked. It was a stupid question, one I picked out of the air at random. I had to say something to break up the gathering silence.
    “There really wasn’t an investigation,” Jack Leeds said. “The police in Jackson decided she probably vanished voluntarily.” He didn’t believe that, though.
    His face changed then; it was like someone had switched on a light behind his eyes. I turned to look where he was looking, and I saw a blond woman of medium height shaking her umbrella out at the door. She had short hair and pale skin, and when she turned, I saw that she was very pretty; at least, she would have been if she had been more animated.
    But that wasn’t a factor to Jack Leeds. He was looking at the woman he loved, and when she saw him, the same light switched on behind her eyes, too. She came across the floor to his table as smoothly as if she were dancing, and when she shed her own wet jacket, I saw her arms were as muscular as his. They didn’t kiss, but his hand slid over hers and squeezed just briefly. After she’d taken her chair and asked for some diet Coke, her eyes went to the menu. She was thinking that all the food Merlotte’s offered was unhealthy. She was right.
    “Salad?” Jack Leeds asked.
    “I have to have something hot,” she said. “Chili?”
    “Okay. Two chilis,” he told me. “Lily, this is Sookie Stackhouse. Ms. Stackhouse, this is Lily Bard Leeds.”
    “Hello,” she said. “I’ve just been out to your house.”
    Her eyes were light blue, and she had a stare like a laser. “You saw Debbie Pelt the night she disappeared.” Her mind added, You’re the one she hated so much .
    They didn’t know Debbie Pelt’s true nature, and I was relieved that the Pelts hadn’t been able to find a Were investigator. They wouldn’t out their daughter to regular detectives. The longer the two-natured could keep the fact of their existence a secret, the better, as far as they were concerned.
    “Yes,” I said. “I saw her that night.”
    “Can we come talk to you about that? After you get off work?”
    “I have to go see a friend in the hospital after work,” I said.
    “Sick?” Jack Leeds asked.
    “Shot,” I said.
    Their interest quickened. “By someone local?” the blond woman asked.
    Then I saw how it might all work. “By a sniper,” I said. “Someone’s been shooting people at random in this area.”
    “Have any of them vanished?” Jack Leeds asked.
    “No,” I admitted. “They’ve all been left lying. Of course, there were witnesses to all of the shootings. Maybe that’s why.” I hadn’t heard of anyone actually seeing Calvin get shot, but someone had come along right