“Sookie, that was Antoine on his cell phone. They need you at the bar,” she said. And then she turned to the FBI agents. “Probably you should go with her.”

“Why?” Weiss asked. “What’s up?” She was already on her feet. Lattesta was stuffing the picture back into his briefcase.

“A body,” Amelia said. “A woman’s been crucified behind the bar.”

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The agents followed me to Merlotte’s. There were five or six cars parked across the spot where the front parking lot ended and the back parking began, effectively blocking access to the back. But I leaped out of my car and picked a path between them, and the FBI agents were right on my heels.

I had hardly been able to believe it, but it was true. There was a traditional cross erected in the employee parking lot, back by the trees where the gravel gave way to dirt. A body was nailed to it. My eyes scanned it, took in the distorted body, the streaks of dried blood, came back up to the face.

“Oh, no,” I said, and my knees folded.

Antoine, the cook, and D’Eriq, the busboy, were suddenly on either side of me, pulling me up. D’Eriq’s face was tearstained, and Antoine looked grim, but the cook had his head together. He’d been in Iraq and in New Orleans during Katrina. He’d seen things that were worse.

“I’m sorry, Sookie,” he said.

Andy Bellefleur was there, and Sheriff Dearborn. They walked over to me, looking bigger and bulkier in their waterproof quilted coats. Their faces were hard with suppressed shock.

“Sorry about your sister-in-law,” Bud Dearborn said, but I could barely pay attention to the words.

“She was pregnant,” I said. “She was pregnant.” That was all I could think about. I wasn’t amazed that someone would want to kill Crystal, but I was really horrified about the baby.

I took a deep breath and managed to look again. Crystal’s bloody hands were panther paws. The lower part of her legs had changed, too. The effect was even more shocking and grotesque than the crucifixion of a regular human woman and, if possible, more pitiful.

Thoughts raced through my head with no logical sequence. I thought of who needed to know that Crystal had died. Calvin, not only head of her clan but also her uncle. Crystal’s husband, my brother. Why was Crystal left here, of all places? Who could have done this?

“Have you called Jason yet?” I said through numb lips. I tried to blame that on the cold, but I knew it was shock. “He would be at work this time of day.”

Bud Dearborn said, “We called him.”

“Please don’t make him look at her,” I said. There was a bloody mess trailing down the wood of the cross to the ground at its base. I gagged, got myself under control.