“Yes. Where will it be?”

“There’s a chapel out close to Hotshot,” he said. “It doesn’t look like much.”

“The Tabernacle Holiness Church?” It was a peeling, white ramshackle building way out in the country.

He nodded. “Calvin said they do the burials for Hotshot from there. One of the guys in Hotshot is the pastor for it.”

“Which one?”

“Marvin Norris.”

Marvin was Calvin’s uncle, though he was four years younger.

“I think I remember seeing a cemetery out back of the church.”

“Yeah. The community digs the hole, one of them puts together the coffin, and one of them does the service. It’s real homey and personal.”

“You’ve been to a funeral there before?”

“Yeah, in October. One of the babies died.”

There hadn’t been an infant death listed in the Bon Temps paper in months. I had to wonder if the baby had been born in a hospital or in one of the houses in Hotshot; if any trace of its existence had ever been recorded.

“Jason, have the police been by any more?”

“Over and over. But I didn’t do it, and nothing they say or ask can make that change. Plus, the alibi.”

I couldn’t argue that.

“How are you fixed as far as work goes?” I wondered if they would fire Jason. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in trouble. And though Jason was never guilty of the worst crimes attributed to him, sooner or later his reputation as being a generally okay guy would simply crumple for good.

“Catfish said to take time off until the funeral. They’re going to send a wreath to the funeral home when we get her body back.”

“What about Hoyt?”

“He hasn’t been around,” Jason said, sounding puzzled and hurt.

Holly, his fiancée, wouldn’t want him hanging around with Jason. I could understand that.

“Mel?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Jason said, brightening. “Mel comes by. We worked on his truck yesterday, and this weekend we’re going to paint my kitchen.” Jason smiled at me, but it faded fast. “I like Mel,” he said, “but I miss Hoyt.”

That was one of the most honest things I’d ever heard Jason say.

“Haven’t you heard anything about this, Sookie?” Jason asked me. “You know—the way you hear things? If you could steer the police in the right direction, they could find out who killed my wife and my baby, and I could get my life back.”