I GOT UP very late the next morning, which was not too surprising. Gran had been asleep when I got home, to my relief, and I was able to climb into my bed without waking her.

I WAS DRINKING a cup of coffee at the kitchen table and Gran was cleaning out the pantry when the phone rang. Gran eased her bottom up onto the stool by the counter, her normal chatting perch, to answer it.

"Hel-lo," she said. For some reason, she always sounded put out, as if a phone call were the last thing on earth she wanted. I knew for a fact that wasn't the case.

"Hey, Everlee. No, sitting here talking to Sookie, she just got up. No, I haven't heard any news today. No, no one called me yet. What? What tornado? Last night was clear. Four Tracks Corner? It did? No! No, it did not! Really? Both of 'em? Um, um, um. What did Mike Spencer say?"

Mike Spencer was our parish coroner. I began to have a creepy feeling. I finished my coffee and poured myself an­other cup. I thought I was going to need it.

Gran hung up a minute later. "Sookie, you are not going to believe what has happened!"

I was willing to bet I would believe it.

"What?" I asked, trying not to look guilty.

"No matter how smooth the weather looked last night, a tornado must have touched down at Four Tracks Corner! It turned over that rent trailer in the clearing there. The couple that was staying in it, they both got killed, trapped under the trailer somehow and crushed to a pulp. Mike says he hasn't seen anything like it."

"Is he sending the bodies for autopsy?"

"Well, I think he has to, though the cause of death seems clear enough, according to Stella. The trailer is over on its side, their car is halfway on top of it, and trees are pulled up in the yard."

"My God," I whispered, thinking of the strength necessary to accomplish the staging of that scene.

"Honey, you didn't tell me if your friend the vampire came in last night?"

I jumped in a guilty way until I realized that in Gran's mind, she'd changed subjects. She'd been asking me if I'd seen Bill every day, and now, at last, I could tell her yes— but not with a light heart.

Predictably, Gran was excited out of her gourd. She flut­tered around the kitchen as if Prince Charles were the ex­pected guest.

"Tomorrow night. Now what time's he coming?" she asked.

"After dark. That's as close as I can get."

"We're on daylight saving time, so that'll be pretty late." Gran considered. "Good, we'll have time to eat supper and clear it away beforehand. And we'll have all day tomorrow to clean the house. I haven't cleaned that area rug in a year, I bet!"

"Gran, we're talking about a guy who sleeps in the ground all day," I reminded her. "I don't think he'd ever look at the rug."

"Well, if I'm not doing it for him, then I'm doing it for me, so I can feel proud," Gran said unanswerably. "Besides, young lady, how do you know where he sleeps?"

"Good question, Gran. I don't. But he has to keep out of the light and he has to keep safe, so that's my guess."

Nothing would prevent my grandmother from going into a house-proud frenzy, I realized very shortly. While I was getting ready for work, she went to the grocery and rented a rug cleaner and set to cleaning.

On my way to Merlotte's, I detoured north a bit and drove by the Four Tracks Corner. It was a crossroads as old as human habitation of the area. Now formalized by road signs and pavement, local lore said it was the intersection of two hunting trails. Sooner or later, there would be ranch-style houses and strip malls lining the roads, I guessed, but for now it was woods and the hunting was still good, according to Jason.

Since there was nothing to prevent me, I drove down the rutted path that led to the clearing where the Rattrays' rented trailer had stood. I stopped my car and stared out the wind­shield, appalled. The trailer, a very small and old one, lay crushed ten feet behind its original location. The Rattrays' dented red car was still resting on one end of the accordian-pleated mobile home. Bushes and debris were littered around the clearing, and the woods behind the trailer showed signs of a great force passing through; branches snapped off, the top of one pine hanging down by a thread of bark. There were clothes up in the branches, and even a roast pan.

I got out slowly and looked around me. The damage was simply incredible, especially since I knew it hadn't been caused by a tornado; Bill the vampire had staged this scene to account for the deaths of the Rattrays.

An old Jeep bumped its way down the ruts to come to a stop by me.

"Well, Sookie Stackhouse!" called Mike Spencer, "What you doing here, girl? Ain't you got work to go to?"

"Yes, sir. I knew the Rat—the Rattrays. This is just an awful thing." I thought that was sufficiently ambiguous. I could see now that the sheriff was with Mike.

"An awful thing. Yes, well. I did hear," Sheriff Bud Dear­born said as climbed down out of the Jeep, "that you and Mack and Denise didn't exactly see eye to eye in the parking lot of Merlotte's, last week."

I felt a cold chill somewhere around the region of my liver as the two men ranged themselves in front of me.

Mike Spencer was the funeral director of one of Bon Temps' two funeral homes. As Mike was always quick and definite in pointing out, anyone who wanted could be buried by Spencer and Sons Funeral Home; but only white people seemed to want to. Likewise, only people of color chose to be buried at Sweet Rest. Mike himself was a heavy middle-aged man with hair and mustache the color of weak tea, and a fondness for cowboy boots and string ties that he could not wear when he was on duty at Spencer and Sons. He was wearing them now.

Sheriff Dearborn, who had the reputation of being a good man, was a little older than Mike, but fit and tough from his thick gray hair to his heavy shoes. The sheriff had a mashed-in face and quick brown eyes. He had been a good friend of my father's.

"Yes, sir, we had us a disagreement," I said frankly in my down-homiest voice.

"You want to tell me about it?" The sheriff pulled out a Marlboro and lit it with a plain, metal lighter.

And I made a mistake. I should have just told him. I was supposed to be crazy, and some thought me simple, too. But for the life of me, I could see no reason to explain myself to Bud Dearborn. No reason, except good sense.

"Why?" I asked.

His small brown eyes were suddenly sharp, and the ami­able air vanished.

"Sookie," he said, with a world of disappointment in his voice. I didn't believe in it for a minute.

"I didn't do this," I said, waving my hand at the destruc­tion.

"No, you didn't," he agreed. "But just the same, they die the week after they have a fight with someone, I feel I should ask questions."

I was reconsidering staring him down. It would feel good, but I didn't think feeling good was worth it. It was becoming apparent to me that a reputation for simplicity could be handy.

I may be uneducated and unworldly, but I'm not stupid or unread.

"Well, they were hurting my friend," I confessed, hanging my head and eyeing my shoes.

"Would that be this vampire that's living at the old Compton house?" Mike Spencer and Bud Dearborn exchanged glances.

"Yes, sir." I was surprised to hear where Bill was living, but they didn't know that. From years of deliberately not reacting to things I heard that I didn't want to know, I have good facial control. The old Compton house was right across the fields from us, on the same side of the road. Between our houses lay only the woods and the cemetery. How handy for Bill, I thought, and smiled.

"Sookie Stackhouse, your granny is letting you associate with that vampire?" Spencer said unwisely.

"You can sure talk to her about that," I suggested mali­ciously, hardly able to wait to hear what Gran would say when someone suggested she wasn't taking care of me. "You know, the Rattrays were trying to drain Bill."