The people thinking about Crystal and her death were the law enforcement people charged with finding out who’d killed her. If one of the culprits was in the bar, he was simply not thinking about what he’d done. And there had to be more than a single person involved. Setting up a cross was not something a man on his own could handle; at least not without a lot of preparation and some elaborate arrangement of pulleys. You’d have to be some kind of supernatural to pull it off by yourself.

This was Andy Bellefleur’s train of thought while he waited for his crispy chicken salad.

I had to agree with him. I’d bet Calvin had already considered that scenario. Calvin had sniffed the body, and he hadn’t said he’d smelled another wereanimal of any kind. But then I recalled that one of the two men who’d been wheeling the body out had been a supe.

As far as learning anything new, I was drawing a blank until Mel came in. Mel, who lived in one of Sam’s rental duplexes, looked like a reject from the cast of Robin Hood, the Musical tonight. His longish light brown hair, neat mustache and beard, and tight pants gave him a theatrical air.

Mel surprised me by giving me a half hug before he sat down, as if I were a good buddy of his.

If this behavior was because he and my brother were both panthers . . . but that still didn’t make a lot of sense. None of the other werepanthers got cozy with me because of Jason—far from it. The Hotshot community had been a lot warmer toward me when Calvin Norris had been thinking of asking me to be his mate. Did Mel have a secret yearning to go out with me? That would be . . . unpleasant and unwelcome.

I took a little trip into Mel’s head, where I saw no lusty thoughts about me. If he’d been attracted, he’d have been thinking them, since I was right in front of him. Mel was thinking about the things Catfish Hennessy, Jason’s boss, had been saying about Jason in Bon Temps Auto Parts that day. Catfish’s tolerance balloon had burst, and he’d told Mel he was thinking about firing Jason.

Mel was plenty worried about my brother, bless his heart. I’d wondered my whole life how someone as selfish as my brother could attract such faithful friends. My great-grandfather had told me that people with a trace of fairy blood were more attractive to other humans, so maybe that explained it.