Read Online Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris - Free Book Online

the most pathetic. “Poor Crystal,” I said, and found tears were rolling down my cheeks.
    “You didn’t like her,” Andy Bellefleur said. I wondered how long he’d been out here, looking at the ruin of what had once been a living, breathing, healthy woman. Andy’s cheeks were patched with stubble, and his nose was red. Andy had a cold. He sneezed and excused himself to use a handkerchief.
    D’Eriq and Antoine were talking to Alcee Beck. Alcee was the other Bon Temps police detective, and that didn’t make the investigation look too promising. He wouldn’t be too regretful about Crystal’s death.
    Andy faced me again after he’d stuffed his handkerchief in his pocket. I looked at his weary, broad face. I knew he’d do his best to find out who’d done this. I trusted Andy. Square-built Andy, some years my senior, had never been a smiley kind of guy. He was serious and suspicious. I didn’t know if he’d chosen his occupation because it suited him, or if his character had altered in response to his occupation.
    “I hear she and Jason had split,” he said.
    “Yes. She cheated on him.” This was common knowledge. I wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.
    “Pregnant and all, like she was?” Andy shook his head.
    “Yeah.” I spread my hands. That was the way she was .
    “That’s sick,” Andy said.
    “Yeah, it is. Cheating with your husband’s baby in your stomach between you . . . that’s just specially icky.” It was a thought I’d had but never voiced.
    “So, who was the other man?” Andy asked casually. “Or men?”
    “You’re the only guy in Bon Temps who doesn’t know she was screwing Dove Beck,” I said.
    This time it registered. Andy glanced over at Alcee Beck and back to me. “I know now,” he said. “Who hated her that much, Sookie?”
    “If you’re thinking Jason, you can just think again. He would never do that to his baby.”
    “If she was so free with herself, maybe it wasn’t his baby,” Andy said. “Maybe he found that out.”
    “It was his,” I said with a firmness I wasn’t sure I felt. “But even if it wasn’t, if some blood test says it wasn’t, he wouldn’t kill anybody’s baby. Anyway, they weren’t living together. She’d moved back in with her sister. Why would he even go to the trouble?”
    “Why were the FBI at your house?”
    Okay, so this questioning thing was going to go one way. “Some questions about the explosion in Rhodes,” I said. “I found out about Crystal while they were there. They came along out of professional curiosity, I guess. Lattesta, the guy, thinks this might be a hate crime.”
    “That’s an interesting idea,” he said. “This is undoubtedly a hate crime, but whether or not it’s the kind of thing they should investigate, I don’t know yet.” He strode off to talk to Weiss. Lattesta was looking up at the body, shaking his head, as if he was noting a level of awfulness he’d thought couldn’t be reached.
    I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was in charge of the bar, and the crime scene was on bar property, so I was determined to stay.
    Alcee Beck called, “All people on the scene who are not police officers, leave the area! All police officers who are nones sential to the crime scene, step into the front parking lot!” His gaze fell on me, and he jabbed a finger toward the front. So I went back to lean against my car. Though it was cold enough, it was lucky for all of us that the day was bright and the wind wasn’t blowing. I pulled my coat collar up around my ears and reached into the car to get my black gloves. I tugged them on and waited.
    Time passed. I watched various police officers come and go. When Holly showed up for her shift, I explained what had happened and sent her home, telling her I’d call when I’d gotten permission to reopen. I couldn’t think of any other course of action. Antoine and D’Eriq had left long ago, after I’d entered their cell numbers on my phone.
    Jason’s truck