“I guess she’ll be glad when things get back to normal.” That seemed safe enough.

“Yeah. She’s got a law practice to run.”

“Did the lady who was taking care of Miss Caroline have another job to go to?” Reliable caregivers were as scarce as hens’ teeth and far more valuable.

“Doreen? Yeah, she moved right across the garden to Mr. DeWitt’s.” After an uncomfortable pause, he said, “She kind of got on to me that night, after you-all left. I know I wasn’t polite to . . . Bill.”

“It’s been a hard time for you-all.”

“I just . . . It makes me mad that we were getting charity.”

“You weren’t, Andy. Bill is your family. I know it must feel weird, and I know you don’t think much of vampires in general, but he’s your great-great-great-grandfather, and he wanted to help out his people. It wouldn’t make you feel funny if he’d left you money and he was out here with Miss Caroline under the ground, would it? It’s just that Bill’s still walking around.”

Andy shook his head, as if flies were buzzing around it. His hair was thinning, I noticed. “You know what my grandmother’s last request was?”

I couldn’t imagine. “No,” I said.

“She left her chocolate cake recipe to the town,” he said, and he smiled. “A damn recipe. And you know what, they were as excited at the newspaper when I took that recipe in as if it were Christmas and I’d brought them a map to Jimmy Hoffa’s body.”

“It’s going to be in the paper?” I sounded as thrilled as I felt. I bet there would be at least a hundred chocolate cakes in the oven the day the paper came out.

“See, you’re all excited, too,” Andy said, sounding five years younger.

“Andy, that’s big news,” I assured him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go return something.” And I hurried through the rest of the cemetery to Bill’s house. I put the CD, complete with its little sticky note, on top of the pile from which I’d taken it, and I skedaddled.

I second-guessed myself, and third-, fourth-, and fi fth-guessed, too. At Merlotte’s I worked in a kind of haze, concentrating fiercely on getting lunch orders right, being quick, and responding instantly to any request. My other sense told me that despite my efficiency, people weren’t glad to see me coming, and really I couldn’t blame them.

Tips were low. People were ready to forgive inefficiency, as long as you smiled while you were sloppy. They didn’t like the unsmiling, quick-handed me.

I could tell (simply because he thought it so often) that Sam was assuming I’d had a fight with Eric. Holly thought that I was having my period.

And Antoine was an informant.