Alcide in Wonderland

Chapter 3

I Eat What I See

**

Friday morning…

It was so many kinds of weird to wake up…

Clean sheets, comfy bed, no wife digging her heels into my side to keep me at the other end of the bed… Like that was a problem anymore.

It was just as cozy as any other quiet hotel room…

…Except hotels don’t smell like waffle houses.

Beautiful. He’s got someone to cook for him.

I grabbed what I needed to take to the shower, knowing that I probably slept through breakfast but keeping my fingers crossed that there’d be coffee left…

My phone was blinking.

I figured that I’d go ahead and deal with her now since she’s more lucid in the morning… like it would keep her from calling later…

“Morning.”

“Are you just waking up?”

“Yeah.  I didn’t go to sleep until after I texted you…”

“The one you sent at 5? What the hell did you stay up that late for?” Did she think I woke up just to text her? Damn.

“We were working late on the new lead… then there was another victim dropped on us. Pam wants us to stay in town to work on the lead until the autopsy on Monday.”

“She wants you to stay there?”

“Yeah. I guess it makes sense. We can either follow the leads now and then leave after the autopsy or wait until after the autopsy to start work… 6 of one, half dozen of another, but I’d rather get it over with.”

“But three days? Why would you need that long?”

I chuckled at the thought. “Believe it or not the high school has this club… they follow serial killers and there’s this kid who spotted a new pattern. Fucking phenom… We have a few gigs of data to go through now.”

“So you’re going to be stuck in an office all weekend. Love that Pam.”

“Eh. Like I said. I’d rather get it over with… and we’re probably going to end up taking over Sookie’s kitchen.”

“You sure she won’t mind?”

“I doubt it… How’re the boys this morning?”

“They slept in because they were up so late, but they seem good. They nuked some of those breakfast sandwiches from the freezer and went back to their room to watch cartoons.”

“Alright… Just checking in. Let ‘em know I’m up. They wanted to IM me today. I’m going to go get in the shower and track down some coffee.”

“Okay… Alc, I really am sorry.”

“Ame, I know you’re not always happy about it, but they have to come first. You’ve gotta keep an eye on that shit. If I had to take them to the emergency room, there would’ve been an investigation.”

She snapped, “Of course… your career…”

“No Ame, they’re old enough to tell a doctor you fed it to them… not my career… child abuse charges.”

“Are you going to forgive me?”

“Maybe once the boys do.”

“They already said they did.”

“Yeah… and then they made their own breakfast from the freezer.”

**

I froze up once the bathroom door was closed behind me…

A clean bathroom. Another perk to hotel stays…

The boys kept theirs straight, but the one I shared with Ame was a nightmare. Towels and dirty clothes all over the floor. Her makeup strewn and smeared all over the counter.

Sookie had left towels and wash cloths folded on the sink and a post it note on the mirror… ‘Help yourself.’

Next I’ll find a ‘curious little cake’ that says ‘eat me’…

I was through the rabbit hole.

The medicine cabinet was stocked with floss, new tooth brushes, tooth paste, mouth wash, razors, shaving gel (male & female)… some high end aftershave… that Eric hasn’t ever smelled like…

Huh.

And the shower was already stocked with gels and shampoos…

Sookie could run a B&B…

**

I was checking my phone before I headed down the hall towards the coffee. Fresh or not, it smelled great… Calling me…

I had a text from Ame. ‘I called Pam. She confirmed that she told you to stay.’

I wasn’t sure how to feel about that… pissed that my wife called my boss to check up on me or relieved that Pam didn’t act like she doesn’t know where I am?

It didn’t matter…

Not when I saw that my next texts were from the boys.

‘Tv is for babies during the day. Im watching xmen. -J ’

‘Do you know where my batman game is? -C’

I replied: ‘In the tray I dump my pockets into. Do I want to know why it was on the back of the toilet?’

‘I miss you -C’

‘I miss you too -J’

‘Mommy says you wont be home til Monday. -C’

Of course she’d tell them instead of letting me… “Sorry guys. We got really good news about the case. Eric and I have to stay to work. Monday night is the soonest I’ll be back.”

No more than I’m home, I might as well have stayed in the corps…

I got their reply just before I hit the kitchen. ‘You need a vacation. -J&C’

Amen.

“We all do.”

**

The second I saw Eric, I thought of a way to fuck with him…

It’s only fair after the 2 hours of sleep deprivation I dealt with this morning.

“Tell me princess; what’s your favorite position?” He looked like he wanted to hit me in a heartbeat. Mission accomplished.

But it was Sookie… “Good morning to you too!… When you’re dealing with a horse cock like Eric’s there isn’t a bad position… Mish is good, reverse cowgirl is better. Then again, I do love the look on his face during a Hindi massage.”

Not… no… I was talking to Eric… she thought… Oh fuck! “I didn’t think you’d actually answer, I just…” Too much information… Fuck, I’d need a lobotomy to get rid of that salvo of a mind fuck.

“Thought you’d see how far you could push the new girl? I know… I’m a teacher; I understand how a child’s mind works.”

Oh hell… there’s no bouncing back from that. Open mouth, insert foot. Still picturing shit. Ew… Just… Ech!

She patted my shoulder and pointed to the table so I’d sit down. I wanted a smoke, but… after fucking up like that…

I parked my ass.

…And almost had a heart attack when Sookie put a mountain of pancakes and sausage in front of me… then a mug of coffee.

Real food?

She winked at me and pushed over the syrup and sugar…

This bitch really did have a sense of humor…

**

I was still a little raw, so when she started smearing strawberry on her pancakes… I kind of flipped my shit.

They were freaks. They weren’t a couple, they were twins separated at birth… what started as nosiness became a full blown interrogation…

Sookie didn’t seem to mind though.

Sookie and Eric both had the same fucked up condiment OCDs… every damn one of them was weird all by itself, but… I started to think they were fucking with me… I tried moving away from food… to other stuff…

Music… Movies…

Some of it was because I knew what Eric’s answers would be; some of it was just curiosity.

Damn if she didn’t avoid naming any chick flicks. And I gave her the chance… She actually pointed out how sappy Big Daddy was… She ended up rattling off a list of movies that The Man Show would be proud of…

Man law gave her an automatic thumbs up for knowing who’s played James Bond. Ame wouldn’t have made it through the screening.

She wasn’t losing her sense of humor about being grilled or anything, but my food was getting cold and I figured I’d pushed my luck enough… and made the mistake of asking her to ‘rub off’ on Ame…

Big mistake.

Huge.

“Sweetheart, if I rubbed off on your wife, you’d lose her to the other team for good.”

I got stuck… somewhere between figuring out how much I’d pay to watch… and wondering if I’d really consider it a ‘loss’.

I couldn’t shake it off until Eric kicked me… “I meant the movies and stuff.”

She laughed at me. She’d done that shit on purpose. Funny bitch. “Thanks for clearing that up, Colombo. I can do my best, but you’ve heard that shit about old dogs and new tricks, right?”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “You talking about me or her?”

She gave me a wink from behind her coffee cup… “Yes.”

Funny bitch… “So, Eric says this was your grandmother’s house.”

“Yup. Been in my family for 180 years. The newest part is the second floor. Grampa, Daddy and my uncle built it about 40 years ago. They got lumber during the summer of their 13th birthdays so they could have their own rooms. They ended up putting both beds in one room and then made a man-cave out of the other.”

Close ass family. “Your uncle still local?”

“He has a house here that he’s never at. Even when he’s ‘home’ he stays with Daddy. He travels a lot for work. Only home for about a month out of the year.”

“Sounds like us.”

“Except Unc likes it. He didn’t do well when his wife passed and after Gran died he couldn’t stay in the area. Too many ghosts.” Poor bastard. I could sympathize… I couldn’t go anywhere in Dallas without thinking of my mom after she died. Even driving down I-30 to get to work reminded me of driving lessons.

“Big family?”

“Big enough, but in a town this small, most of our high school friends are like cousins anyway. You’ll meet at least one of them at the station today and the sheriff is Daddy’s fishing buddy. He’s a really sweet man.”

“Is he any good at being a sheriff?”

She laughed. “No. Not at all, but he’s one hell of a peacekeeper.”

“Good to know.”

“We have Kenya though. Kevin is a spaz. Like someone gave Shaggy a badge, but Kenya is our law enforcement. She runs the town.”

“Shit. That reminds me… Mind if I throw my dress shirt in your dryer?” Damn thing probably looks like a road map.

“It’s already hanging up on the porch. I grabbed it when I plugged you in earlier. You don’t want to wear the suit though. It smells like an ashtray and jeans and Ts will pass for what y’all are dealing with. Once they know you’re with the FBI, they’ll be picturing them anyway.” She, she already washed my shirt? A fucking stranger grabbed my shirt and washed it and I can’t get my fucking wife to get her own stuff off of our bathroom floor. No fucking way.

Eric shrugged. “I didn’t bring a suit anyway. I planned on ruling out a landscaper, not picking up another victim.” At least he brought his fucking gun.

“Alright… So other than getting the evidence from the locals, we need to start sorting through the club’s information, right?”

Sookie smiled, standing up and taking my empty plate and replacing it with an ashtray… then refilling my coffee… and starting to wash the breakfast dishes…

Seriously… all joking aside… I needed Amelia to at least spend some time with her. She’d think I’m fucking Sookie, but who the fuck cares? Maybe being jealous of a real person might light a fire under her ass enough to start giving a shit again.

**

We tried for a while to work… well, I did… Eric was a useless fucking lump, watching Sookie’s ass while she did dishes…

Then her dad came by, pissed as a wet hornet over finding out about Eric on Facebook…

I’d have to text Ame to look her up now that Sookie’d been tagged attached to Eric… She might back off for about 10 minutes.

Then one of her students came by…

While her student was over though, we actually had the chance to discuss the case for a while. It was more looking through and drooling over how fucking spot on her records are. She’d downloaded everything she could and hot-linked to everything else…

She’d used Google Maps to pin the locations of the victims’ homes and dumpsites…

That Rene kid had put together files about each of the victims like he was building a profile on them…

Then she helped him build a calendar proving his birthday theory…

Other than translating the verbiage to Fed-speak… most of our leg work had been done by a history teacher and an emo senior.

That was some humbling shit…

But after the last half a day, I didn’t have to ask Eric what the fuck he was doing with her. His usual bimbos were helium dependant… It was the only way to keep their heads from caving in. They usually made me appreciate Ame… and that was pretty bad.

They’d get cut loose after a couple of months and I never had to ask why.

**

From where I was sitting, I watched Sookie say goodbye to her student with a hug and she didn’t look too happy when she came into the kitchen. “Hey guys, sorry about that. You both look like Christmas morning. Find something?”

“Uh… we found this cock hard file that pretty much does all of our work for us.”

She smiled big enough to show off dimples. It made her look young enough to card. “The kids will flip their lids when they find out they were on to something. Hurry up and find this guy so I can tell them.”

“The pictures you told us to look for… we found him. Swarthy fuck… Staring and shit… Wearing the same outfit like it’s hunting gear and it looks like he sends them drinks. Champagne with a strawberry.”

I spun my computer around to show her. Normally a no-no, but she already knew it anyway… I flipped through the pics and watched her turn green.

“Oh god. I think I’m going to be sick. Did y’all notice he’s hard in all 3 of the pictures?”

Eric and I crowded the screen, went through them one at a time again and… no shit… that fucker was pitching a tent…

Sick son of a bitch….

We had him…

All we needed was a way to ID this pervert and we had him.

More than a year on this damn case… I couldn’t count how much overtime was put in…

One night in the boonies and now… all we needed was a name.

I’m going to take a month off as soon as he’s in a cage…

Period.

**

Eric was still trying to distract Sookie…

She really was sweet… she was still queasy from seeing what kind of shit me and Eric were pretty numb to…

If the poor thing only knew.

I left the kitchen for the front porch, using an update for Pam as an excuse to leave them alone.

“Hey Dahlia, I tried Pam’s cell and she isn’t answering. She in a meeting?”

“You aren’t the only one, Alc. She’s out of contact.”

“She’s disappeared?”

“She had just gotten back from lunch when I sent an urgent call to her. Twining. She stormed out and she isn’t answering her phone even though he’s called back… her car is still in its spot…”

“She stormed out?”

“She was stomping so hard I thought she was going to snap her heels off.”

“Oh, shit! Alright well, Eric and I are up here in Bon Temps still. If you hear from her, let her know that we have a lot of news.”

“Do you want to talk to Russ?”

“No more than usual. I’ll call him if we need extra hands, but right now we’re just going through a jackpot of info.”

“Gotcha. You two be careful.”

“Always, same to you… If Pam’s in a mood, you should wear a vest until she settles down.”

She laughed. “One step ahead of you.”

**

Since our ‘boss’ was probably getting a facial, I figured I’d call home to say hi to the boys…

Spread my good mood…

Ha.

“Hey Ame.”

“You’re in a good mood… You get laid?” Twat. Getting ‘laid’ hasn’t put me in a good mood in years.

“No. I’m excited as hell that we got an ass-ton of usable information. How’s things at the house?”

“The usual. The boys are fighting over who gets to pick the next movie. Octavia is over. We had plans today, but since you told the boys they didn’t have to go to school, I got fucked.”

“I’d rather I was there to sit with them… would you prefer they went to school today and told everyone that they felt fine as soon as they barfed up the spoiled lunch you gave them?”

“Are you ever going to drop it?”

“No. And you brought it up, whining about them being out of school.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“I’m not much different than the guy you married. You just didn’t bank on how much I’d love my kids.”

“You just use them to control me.”

“Take a bow.”

“What?”

“You’re showing off for your drink whore friend… the show’s over. Take your fucking bow and put my boys on.”

“Octavia is not a whore!”

“More balls have bounced off of her chin than the courts at Wimbledon… Not only is she a whore, but I’ve seen sexier faces on people we’ve exhumed and she looks like andouille in everything she wears. Put my boys on.”

“You nasty prick, just because your girlfriend looks like a model…”

“Eric’s girlfriend.”

“You lying sack of shit! I…”

“Put my boys on. Now.”

“Stop bossing me around.”

“Stop giving me a reason.”

“Control freak.”

“Amelia! Let me talk to the kids.”

“Why? So you can tell them what a shitty mother I am?” No. I don’t need to tell them that. They already know.

I didn’t answer her. It pissed her off to no end whenever I went quiet and waited. Refusing to fight with her always fired her up more than an actual fight.

I smiled at nothing when she huffed and started bitching, stomping her way up the stairs.

Then I imagined yet another way to kill her when she told the boys their ‘donor’ was on the phone.

“Hey Daddy!” It was both of them on speaker phone.

“Hey guys! Guess what.”

“What?”

“I’m just taking a quick break… All the work we’re doing… the reason for us being stuck here… We might find this guy sooner than we thought.”

“How?”

“Eric’s new girlfriend is a teacher. She has this student who found a pattern… We know what he looks like now.”

Jack let out a loud yell… “Are you going to take us to the island when you catch this one?”

“Probably not… If we find him soon, it’ll be too cold for swimming, but I bet we can find another way to celebrate.”

They both laughed and clapped… As much as they liked celebrating when we managed to close a case… I’d rather have a damn desk job so that I could be home with them instead of doing this long distance shit.

“So what did you guys do for lunch?”

“Nothing yet.”

“You getting hungry?”

“Yeah… we had some go-gurts a little while ago.” I fucking hate that my children don’t trust the food out of their own fridge. Fucking bullshit.

“Lemme see what I can do about getting you something. K?”

**

“Yancy.”

“Hey Adabelle.”

“Hey Alc, what can I do for you?”

“I’m stuck out of town on the job and my kids are home under the weather… Can I get you to run an errand for me?”

“What kind of errand?”

“Just grab them a couple of kids meals for them from whatever drive thru you’re hitting… take them to them.”

She started laughing. “What’s wrong with your wife?”

I snorted at her. “Oh, that list is too long.”

“Gotcha… Burgers or nuggets?”

“One of each and Sprite to drink?”

“You got it. Anything else?”

“Feel free to ticket the Monte Carlo in my driveway.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Worse. Cooz bestie. Woman is a thorn in my ass.”

She was laughing again. “You’re a trip! You kiss that pretty partner of yours for me.”

“Yeah. I’ll get right on that.”

**

When I went back inside, I walked into the kitchen…

“Hey you’ll nev…”

The first thing I saw was Sookie’s ass again… Eric was latched on to her tit and his hands were shoved down the back of her damn jeans and…

Her hand was down the front of his…

“…FUCK! Have either of you geniuses ever heard of a DOOR?”

They froze where they were… and didn’t bother covering up right away. “Why wouldn’t we get married? We already have a kid.” She had a better sense of humor about being interrupted than she did last night.

Eric hid his face in Sookie’s shoulder again. Coward. “Sookie, Alcide wants to stay until we can do the Post Mortem on Monday. It’ll save him 10 hours in the car. Do you mind?”

She let Eric pull her T-shirt down to cover her rack and leaned back.  “Alcide, if you don’t mind our little den of iniquity, you’re welcome to stay here.”

That’s great and all, but I’d already seen her ass more than my wife’s… “Great, thanks. What I was coming in here for… Pam is off the grid.”

“WHAT!? Since when?”  Finally! I didn’t think her hand was ever going to come out of his pants. Kind of hard to have a conversation with a guy while he’s getting a hand job.

“Since about an hour ago. 1:30ish. She stepped out for lunch. Dahlia says that she got an urgent call that she tried to connect and no phone, no text, and her car is still in its parking spot.”

“What are they doing?”

“Dahlia said that they’re kind of scared to look for her. No one wants to find Pam if she’s hiding on purpose. They’re looking anyway, but I get the feeling that their dragnet might include having animal control activate her microchip.”

Sookie thought I was just being funny and it took both of us to explain what kind of nightmare this woman is… Even then she was still looking at us like we were describing Yeti… She’d see, eventually.

**

“So are you guys ready to git?”

We both nodded, but Eric had to go get his wallet and gun… He kept that shit on him in his own apartment… Part of me wanted to make fun of him for being whipped… the rest of me was just happy for the prick… he found himself a nice little set up… even if he was in the sticks.

“You ok with taking two cars?”

“Sure. Got something better to do than sit around a police station waiting for us?”

She smiled. “Something like that… I need to run to the store… I need to get the stuff to make dessert tonight.”

“Ah… Mom doesn’t bake?”

“No. Sheila does not. I haven’t had the chance to give Eric the full warning about her either.” She followed with a wink… The real reason for wanting to take two cars.

“Shit. How bad could she be?”

“My dad is awesome. The man has more money than God, fishes with the sheriff, plays golf with the mayor. He’s the Chief for the Volunteer Fire Department… and doesn’t have a single fucking enemy in spite of telling everyone ‘how it is’ whether they want to hear it or not… And he’s married to the Anti-Christ.” I bet I have him beat.

“Why’d your dad sound like he was warning you that your brother’d be there?”

She laughed. “Because Jason may or may not choose to behave… He can be pretty goofy. Don’t worry though. He’s wicked friendly.”

“Wicked? Where’s a belle like you pick up a yankee word like ‘wicked’?”

She smirked. “I did some time with a yankee in college. She’s from Boston.”

“Roomate?”

“Nope. My roommate was a Loosy-Anna boy… It was just me and him against the world up there in Nashville… You’ll meet him tomorrow. He’s by every Saturday.”

“Damn! You’re pushing my boy into the deep end… Everybody at once, huh?”

She giggled. “Now that he met one… they’ll all come out of the woodwork. His fault… If he warned me about his visit, I could have come up with an alibi for missing the party.”

“And miss the chance to dress like that?”

She rolled her eyes. “She’ll dress me like that again next year… and the next… I can’t bitch though. She’d stop if I ever started dressing my age when we go clubbing.”

“How old are you?”

“Slacker! You haven’t looked me up?… I’m 28.”

“You’re only a year younger than my wife.” I know how I got to the comparison; Sookie has her shit together… I just didn’t know why I said it.

“Ah… that explains why you want me to rub off on her… It won’t work though… I’ve always been a tomboy. Tara always hated how outnumbered she was. We took turns picking what movie to go see… she was only happy a third of the time.”

“How’d she end up living with y’all?”

“Her stepdad put her in the hospital. That boy on the phone last night, Rene… His mom was our teacher and went to court with Daddy to help him get Tara. That’s kind of why I look after Rene now that she’s gone.”

“What got her?”

“Cancer. While I was still in college.” Fucking rough to lose a mom that young… not that I handled it well by any stretch.

“I can’t wait to meet him. By sound of shit, that kid’s brilliant.”

She smiled. “He is… He pegged the Slasher, Jessup… before it hit the news… Rene knew that it was camouflage… That Ky-Leigh was the target because of how the murders were spaced out.” No fucking way!

“How?”

“The first three girls were done. Bam. Bam. Bam. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday… Ky-Leigh was done on a Saturday and then he got number 5 on Monday… then he started spacing them out… Rene tried everything. He called Bud, who didn’t listen. He drove all the way to Shreveport and the field office there patted him on the head called him cute. He called me from Dallas when he ran out of gas after the field office there told him to piss up a rope and when he got back I took him to the State police. No one would even look at his file.”

“Assholes. When did all that happen?”

“Between victims 6 and 7.”

“A dozen! His info could have saved a dozen girls!”

“No shit.”

“If he really does go to school for psychiatry… He’ll get scouted like Eric did.”

“He’s not sure about Psych though. He’s torn. He’s really good for languages too.”

“Either, or. He’s set. That’s how I got accepted. Growing up in Texas, I was already fluent in Spanish. When I schooled, I took other romances. Knowing 4 languages with the military experience was my ticket.”

“I set him up with one of my old profs… Bon Temps School doesn’t offer any Asian languages. He’s officially hammered out 4 years of university level Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese online… My cousin gave him all of her Tagolog and Mandarin books and notes. He could translate as a minimum…”

Eric yelled from the back of the house, “Sookie, any idea where my boots are?”

She giggled and tipped her head back. “Uh… The bottom of the closet… Your gun is still under your pillow… your wallet is on the nightstand and your ass is directly behind you!”

“Fuck… Thanks!”

She snorted out a laugh. “I gotta stop moving things on him. He’s too used to everything being where he left it.”

“Eh. He’ll get used to being taken care of eventually.”

She smiled with her dimples again. “He’d better.”

**

We were barely out of the driveway before my phone rang again.

“What now?”

“Are you fucking that one too?” Adabelle must’ve dropped off the boys’ lunch.

“You’re kidding right?”

“Why else would she drop off lunch for your kids?”

“Because I asked her to! She owed me $50 from the Cowboys/Skins game.”

“Why are you betting on football with her?”

“I know her from a case we worked on last year. Ran into her the day of the game while me and Eric were grabbing lunch. She ate with us because she has the hots for Eric.”

“What do you know about her?”

“That you’d hate her.”

“Because she’s fucking my husband?”

“First of all, you don’t get to be possessive of me when it’s the only fucking time you think of me as ‘your husband’. Knock it off.”

“Secondly?” Twat.

“Secondly, the reason you’d hate her is because she’s a single mom, with 4 kids that she’s never poisoned, has a full time job that she’s good at and still gets her ass to the gym.” Not to mention that Adabelle is only scary when she needs to be and smart enough to think her way out of a paper bag without someone holding her hand.

“So did the boys just meet their future stepmom?”

“Fucking lunatic! I just told you that she’s got a thing for Eric!”

“So! You also just told me that she’s a better mom than me and sexier.”

“If I fucked everything that was a better mother than you, I’d have HIV… and Rabies!”

“You’re a fucking piece of work! How the fuck do you think you rate as a father? You’re never home!”

“And when I am, I’m with them instead of making an art out of ignoring them.”

“What fucking ever! Does your new girlfriend like kids?”

“I. Don’t. Have. A. Girlfriend.”

“Sookie. Sookie Stackhouse.”

I snorted at her. “Do you really think I’d make the mistake of doing someone a decade younger than me again? Negative.”

“So marrying me was a mistake?”

“No. Staying with you since Carm was born is.”

“So I’m disposable now?” If I could dispose of her and not get caught… maybe…

“I don’t know, Ame. You tell me! You’ve been a complete bitch for no less than 5 years. You can get therapy, but you refuse to go. I told you I don’t care if you go back to work, but you haven’t put in the first application. I told you to get a babysitter so you could go out once in a while, but you sit at home and then gripe about how much fun your friends have because they can hump whoever they want. Everything you say and do… everything about the way you act says that you’d rather be single than be a wife and mother.”

“You’re a shitty husband and you rub my nose in the fact that you’d rather be away from me than at home!”

“I’m not a shitty husband. I’m just sick of the shit. Every time I’m on the job, I get these psycho calls from you asking if I’m fucking this woman or that woman. I haven’t fucked anyone but you since our first date.”

“Well isn’t that sweet!” I pulled into the parking spot right behind Sookie and got even more pissed that they didn’t get out of the car right away… I needed the excuse to hang up. I needed it in the worst way.

“Since alcohol is the only reason we’ve touched each other since Carm was born, it’s the best you’re gonna get. You’re not the only one who’s unhappy.”

“How am I supposed to be happy? At least when you were a cop, you were home to help me. Now that you’re a fed, you’re always gone.”

“All you do when I’m home is play fucking Pogo games and chat with strangers online. You have more MySpace friends than Tom for fuck sake. At least I try. When I take the boys out, you refuse to go with us and you’re still playing the same damn game when we get back… We spent four days at the beach last year and you didn’t go. When Carm got tubes put in his ears, you said you didn’t need to be there because it was outpatient.”

“All of this is bullshit! Every time I tell you I know you’re cheating, you turn it around and accuse me of being a bad mother.”

“The difference is that YOU’RE WRONG!”

“Does Sookie like kids? Has she met them? How often does she come down to see you?”

“I just met her last night!”

“So who did you go home with?”

“Eric and Sookie… We had a couple of beers and worked on the case.”

“Until 5?”

“No. Until 3… Then Sookie and Eric made so much noise fucking I found myself in the kitchen with nothing better to do than follow your crazy Sookie trail.”

“She has a great body.”

“Yeah, she does. Tight little ass.”

“You fucker!”

“And she’s one hell of a cook too. She made pancakes and sausage for breakfast.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes really! She’s also fucking smart as a whip and has a great sense of humor.”

“She sounds just dandy.”

“She’s fucking perfect… for Eric!”

She started laughing like a nut. “So why aren’t you fucking her?”

I laughed for my own bitter reasons. “Amelia… If I’d seen her first… I probably would be, you crazy fucking cunt.”

“I guess it’s only a matter of time before Eric runs out for beer… then you’ll trip and your dick will fall into her, huh?”

“Amelia…”

“Unless you two are double teaming her… Is that what you’re into?”

“Oh my God! Are you serious?” I watched Sookie and Eric climb out of her car and start coming my way… Finally!

“Yes, I’m serious. The two of you make a cute little couple in your own right.”

“Amelia… this is over. I’m done. You just got to the twilight zone…” The phone started breaking up.

“Oh, I get it. Don’t ask. Don’t tell.”

“You’ve lost it!…” Sookie held her hand up and started counting down and the static on the line built up. “…Amelia?”

“I’m sick of this. I’m leaving… Fu… …rick… ate …oo…”

“Ame?”

The next thing I heard was a beep. Dropped call… And Sookie was standing at the hood of my truck smiling like a Cheshire cat.

**

“Everything ok, Alc?”

“I’m cheating on her, so she’s leaving me.”

Eric grumbled, “She thinks you’re cheating because you’re here, or she found out about all the other times?” What!? Not him too… What the fuck? He had to know better! I spend almost all of my time with him… the only time I’m not with him or at home is when I hide from one of her tirades… Fuck! The hotels. SHITSHITSHIT!

“She thinks I am because I’m here.” Oh, Goddamn it! I have to talk to him. I can’t have him thinking that… Fuuuuuck!

Sookie walked up to me with her eyebrow up, hand out and nodding to my phone. I handed the useless piece of shit to her and she started walking away. If I wasn’t in a shit mood, I might have laughed- the teacher just took my phone. “What do you call a small town? Podunk? Bum Fuck?”

“Bum Fuck usually. Why?”

She shook her head. “How on earth did you manage to find any side action when you don’t know how to handle your own wife?” Great! Now everyone I know thinks I’m a cheating slime ball!

“What are you doing?”

She shushed me and made me wait for an answer, and handed my phone back. “I texted your wife.” Oh fucking hell! That’s the last thing I need!

“What?! She..”

“Ame, cell signal sucks out here in bum fuck. Try calling me on the station phone.’ I included the number.”

She smirked up at me and slapped my shoulder. Fucking retarded… My partner- a guy; bitter because he thinks I’m cheating on my wife… His girlfriend is (as far as she knows) trying to help me get away with it…

‘It would be so nice if something made sense for a change’.

**

Oh my God!… Deputy Dipshit… the horny lush from last night… on duty today. Marvelous.

He bounced over the counter and grabbed Sookie for a hug.

“Hey Kevin!”

“Hey Sook!… This your lucky guy?” He pointed at me? That’s how wasted he was last night. Damn!

She reached behind and gave Eric a pat. “Nope. This one is mine. Kevin, this is Eric Northman. He’s with the FBI and this is his partner, Alcide Herveaux.”

“FEDS?” I still got a hard on when local cops looked scared to meet us.

“Yup. They’re here about The Vampire. You’re going to be nice, right?”

“Well, sure. I thought you were here about that kid of yours. Rene.” Uh-oh. Not cool.

“What? Why? What’s happened?”

“He came in a little while ago and got all fired up when Bud wasn’t interested in his ‘theories’. Threw a chair at him. We’re holding him, just ‘til he cools down though. Don’t worry. We were gentle.” Fucking good for him. Can’t say I’d blame the kid after being dismissed like that when he’s so bright. He came by that frustration honest. A chair was the least I’d throw.

“Did you call his house!? His father will put him in the hospital again if you did!”

“No! No. Sookie, I was the one that answered that call. I know better. I’ll go get him for you. K?”

He was gone down the back hall as soon as Sookie nodded.

Like it wasn’t bad enough that the poor kid lost his mom while he was in grade school, turns out his old man is an abusive drunk too… he tried to kill himself just to see what it felt like… my ass… that kid was just smart enough to know what to tell a shrink to get out of a straight jacket… He was looking for a way out.

**

While Shaggy was gone, the station phone started to ring…

Sookie smiled back at me and patted my stomach before she slid over the counter like it was the General Lee.

“Bon Temps 9-1-1. What’s your emergency?… What was the name again… Lemme check for ya. Please hold… Who’s calling please?… Please hold…”

Sookie dropped the head set and started around the counter, eyeing me the whole way.

“…Special Agent Herveaux, your wife is on line 3.”

Fucking lost. Completely…

I walked over and picked up the phone.

“I’m at the station working, do not embarrass me.”

“You’re actually working?”

“Yes. I told you that’s why I’m here. You even had Pam confirm it.”

“I didn’t believe you.”

“I’m getting really fucking used to it.”

“I’m sorry… Oh god! Where were you when we were fighting earlier?”

“Smoke break.” Half lie.

“Fuck… I’m so sorry.” No. No fucking way.

“Whatever.”

“No seriously… I am… I know you need to get back… Are you going to call the boys later?” Oh boy. Now we’re lucid again. That was easy. I should’ve had her calling 9-1-1 to get ahold of me all along.

“Yeah. Sookie’s Dad is having us over for dinner tonight to meet Eric. I’ll call them when we get back.”

“K. Alc… I’m a bitch.” I know.

“I’ve got to get back.”

**

When I got back over to where Eric and Sookie were waiting, I tried to thank her. My phone would have been blown up all day if she hadn’t stepped in.

“Don’t thank me. You either need to come clean so she can make an informed decision of staying or leaving or make fucking sure you start working on sainthood so she NEVER knows. Your personal demons combined with missing adult swim are shit fucking reasons to break her heart. And you know it. Get a babysitter once in a while and take HER to a hotel instead of using her as childcare so you can get a slap and tickle with a random whore.”

Oh hell… Eric really did think I’m some kind of letch! Sookie doesn’t know me from Adam and she… It is the hotels. She mentioned the hotels. He fucking thinks I’m whoring around and now so does she… The difference… she was giving me a kind of look that would go with ‘motherly advice’ and he was stone… like when he’s dealing with someone in cuffs.

All I could do is nod.

I had a lot of fucking explaining to do and no fucking clue where to start.

**

The Adam Lambert lookalike didn’t get introduced to us…

As soon as Rene saw Sookie, his makeup started to run and once he calmed down enough, she sent him off to fix his face so that she could help us get the ball rolling…

The sooner we could get this shit started, the sooner it could be over. Band-Aid time.

Sookie led us to the back and walked right up to the sheriff with her hand on her hip. She picked his coffee cup up and took a sip.

He scowled at her when she held it up to his mouth. “Spit.”

“I’m a grown man, Damn it!”

“Spit, or this little girl is gonna tattle like you bent my hula-hoop!”

He growled at her and spit his dip into the coffee.

“Eric Northman and Alcide Herveaux, this is Sheriff Bud Dearborn. His wife is Margie. She’s an angel of a woman who prays every night for one thing; that her stubborn ass husband starts taking care of himself because she couldn’t stand to lose him… He’s losing his eyesight because he’s diabetic and he won’t stop sugaring his coffee or eating doughnuts… and he’s already had cancer in his mouth from dipping.” She hadn’t even looked back at us.

She reached over and brushed powdered sugar off of his stomach and announced that she’d be right back.

She was ‘right back’… hugging three coffee cups and had a wad of paper towels…

“Cream, no sugar…” and handed it to Eric with a bear claw.

“Sugar, no cream…” and handed it to me with a bear claw.

“Cream and two Splendas…”and handed it over to the Sheriff with a banana.

She kissed Bud’s cheek and said she’d see us at home…

And she was gone.

**

As soon as the door was closed behind her, Bud tossed the banana in the trash and laughed in Eric’s direction. “Do you have any idea what you’re getting into?”

“Yeah, and I’m going to tell her you didn’t eat the banana.”

“Fine. Tell her I was too full of jelly filled to eat it.”

“Oh… You don’t really want me to tell her that. Do you?”

His lip curled up. “No. Then she’ll tell her damn Daddy and then he’ll call the bakery. They’ll cut me off again. It’s bad enough he brings a cooler full of diet soda with him when we go fishing.”

Both of us laughed at him.

“Corbett says he ain’t met you yet.”

“We’re going over for dinner tonight.”

“You wanna borrow a vest?”

“You think he’s that upset Sookie didn’t say something sooner?”

“Oh, hell no! Talking about that wife of his… She’s pure evil. Still don’t know how she’s not mulch.” Damn! Sookie wasn’t exaggerating.

Eric nodded. “I’ve been warned.”

Bud chuckled. “Venom.”

“Excuse me?”

“One of those Spiderman movies… took my grandson to see it… the black suit made of evil… that’s Sheila. You need silver bullets, holy water, kryptonite…” It was hard to not laugh. It sounded like he was describing Ame.

“I get it. She’s not nice…”

“No, boy. You don’t get it… Saying she’s not nice is like saying the Mississippi is wet. Watch yourself… She’s why no one in town will ever cross Corbett Stackhouse.”

“How so?”

“No one with any sense would mess with a man that’s proved he ain’t afraid of nothing.”

All I could think of is how right Sookie was. This old fart wasn’t any kind of Sheriff. Friendly as shit, but the only way to get him off the topic of Sookie’s mom was to let him rattle on about ‘his’ new fridge and what a pain in the ass the old one was. As it was, the ‘evidence’ that got collected was nothing more than pictures of the crime scene and the grainy security video from the gas station at the opposite corner. All we could get from that was that a similar make and model was used to move this body as the last few.

It was the lightest fucking evidence box we’d ever picked up. It was pretty much useless and Maudette Pickens’s body was in the same condition as all the other victims. Ligature marks around her wrists and ankles… throat cut… most of her fingernails were broken off and jagged with a fresh coat of polish (which would end up being the same shade of Max Factor as the other 12 victims)… and she reeked of bleach and had the chemical burns from the bath.

**

Eric was completely locked up on the way back to the house, as per his usual. He always got quiet after dealing with a victim…

I could be worse… living victims made him an intolerable prick. Like he had a mission. Like catching up to the perp was the only way to not disappoint the victim.

Me, on the other hand… I always did my damnedest to think of something else. Evidence. Errands. Taking the boys out to dinner. Anything but the victim…

Tonight I managed to distract myself with the idea of meeting ‘the Anti-Christ’.

Not that I’m the one that has to call her my mother-in-law or anything, but… after what Sookie said about her and the ‘rave review’ Dearborn had just given us…

I had a feeling I was about to get a crash course in ‘dysfunction’.

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