"I got you the only light-tight room at the Motel 6," says Pam with a smirk, when she pulls up at the courthouse in the corvette an hour later. "It's all that was available in Bon Temps. Changed your mind yet?"
"It will be fine," says Eric, waiting for Pam to slide over so that he can take the wheel. She does so after a moment of pouting. "Call Chow and tell him to arrange for vampire security at the Bon Temps sheriff's office. I don't want anyone interfering with the girl before the trial is over."
Pam shoots him a sidelong look, then pulls out her cell phone to make the call. Eric drives them to the motel, keeping silent, his thoughts churning in his head.
She's dead if I don't keep her alive, he thinks. She'll see that soon enough, she isn't stupid. Then she will yield to me. Her hair is like sunlight reflected on snow. She should wear reds-rubies set in gold, brushed cottons that gleam like velvet. And velvet too, of course. I will give her luxuries she has not dreamed of. Though she may reject them-it would be better if she did not feel indebted. She is very proud-she is one to be earned, not bought. No matter; I will win her in the end.
He arrives at the motel too soon, long before he has managed to settle his troubled thoughts. The place is a shithole, just as he expected, but he's slept in worse locations. At least there are no lice. Well, probably no lice.
Pam hands him the keycard and follows him up to the room. Once inside, with the door locked, she pulls out the files she brought him from Shreveport. Eric perches on the side of the bed and sifts through them, while Pam flicks the remote control, changing the TV channel until she comes to the day's coverage of the trial.
"Well, Pam," says Eric, setting the file aside a moment later. "Why do people kill people?"
Pam rolls her eyes without looking at him. "We're vampires, so I'll take that as a rhetorical question."
"More importantly," he says, "why would anyone bother to kill Bill Compton? He was nothing."
"You're sure it wasn't the girl?" Pam does look away from the television this time, her brow stamped with a frown.
"Positive," he says.
"You don't think she's capable of killing?" Pam's tone indicates polite disbelief.
"She's more than capable," says Eric. "But she wouldn't do it unless she felt she was justified, and she wouldn't hide it. Her self-preservation instincts are-less than desired."
Pam shuts the TV off and turns to look at him. "Desired by whom?" she says.
Eric frowns at the wall and doesn't answer.
"Eric." Pam stands up and comes to stand in front of him. "Is this about the girl? Tell me it isn't about the girl."
"It's about a vampire being murdered in my area," he tells her. "It's about the AVL and the Queen going over my head to the press and forcing this degrading mockery of a trial into existence."
"You think they set the girl up?" she says. "Why?"
"Because she was convenient," says Eric. "The Vampire Rights Amendment is expected to open for debate in the Senate soon. The VLA has been waiting for an opportunity to make a show of good faith. They seized the chance."
"If that's true, it will hardly matter if you catch the real murderer tomorrow. If it's a vampire, the Queen won't let you make it public."
"The trial is a separate matter," he says. "If I find the murderer, I can find a way to exculpate the girl without bringing vampire involvement to light."
"Oh my God." Pam touches a hand delicately to her forehead. "This is about the girl."
"I want her," says Eric simply. "There's no point in being a vampire if I can't get the things I want."
"It's because she's blonde, isn't it?" Pam shakes her own hair out pointedly. "I can find you a blonde, Eric. Lots of blondes."
"Who did Bill Compton associate with?" says Eric, ignoring this. "What resources did he command?"
"He was a procurer for the Queen for a few decades," says Pam. "Before that, he was mostly in the company of his maker, Lorena. He owned a few businesses-a restaurant, a clothing store. Small change, by vampire standards."
"Did he have other human companions?"
"No pets lately, apart from the Stackhouse girl. I saw him not too long ago, and he told me he was mainstreaming. I suppose he felt the need to be monogamous." She pronounces the word with a sneer.
"Did he have a will?"
Pam picks up the file on the bed and turns a few pages. "He did. Sookie is the beneficiary."
Eric shuts his eyes and sighs tiredly. "Not good," he says.
"It's like he was asking to get himself killed," says Pam. "He goes to live in a human neighborhood, brings a girl into his house, probably shows her where he sleeps, then makes a will leaving everything to her."
"I don't think she knew about the will," says Eric.
"It won't matter. Once it comes up in court, she's toast."
"She thinks he met the sun."
Pam's eyes widened. "She told you that? When?"
"I spoke with her after the trial." He doesn't look at Pam when he tells her this, but he can feel the look she's aiming at the back of his head. "She didn't say he met the sun, just that he wrote her an ambiguous letter. Her lawyer is supposed to introduce the letter into evidence tomorrow."
"The vampires on the jury won't buy that. A vampire, ending his existence because a human rejected him?"
Eric doesn't respond. It seems equally unlikely to him.
Pam perches on the bed beside him. Her face is screwed up in concentration. Eric feels a sudden rush of fondness for her; he knows what she thinks of his preoccupation with this case, with this girl, but for his sake she is bringing all her considerable mental faculties to bear on it. He is fortunate in his progeny.
As though she has traced the line of his own thoughts, she looks up at him and says, "Do you know anything about his maker?"
"Lorena." He turns the name over in his mouth. "Only by reputation. She is known to be...difficult. Unusually possessive."
"Strange, then, that she hasn't shown up at the trial."
Eric looks up. He stares at Pam, who arches an eyebrow. He snakes out a hand, catches her by the back of the head, and kisses her long and hard.
"Go," he says hoarsely, releasing her. "Find her. Find out everything you can about her."
Pam smirks. She rises, and runs at top speed from the room.
Eric conducts one last interview before retiring for the evening. Sid Matt Lancaster receives his call at 6 am with rather more grace than Eric expected.
"I'm not sure how much I should say to you," the lawyer tells him. "I do not pretend to comprehend all the complexities of your world, sir, but I am aware that as a vampire you are answerable to the persons responsible for placing my client in her present position."
"Your reticence does you credit," says Eric smoothly. He can feel the approaching dawn tug heavily at his eyelids, and he forces himself to concentrate. "Please accept my assurances that I would not willingly see any harm come to Miss Stackhouse. I am convinced of her innocence, and I wish to see the true murderer caught. If there has been a murder at all, that is. Miss Stackhouse gave me to understand that she has some doubts on that score."
"Yes, well." The lawyer sounds less than pleased that Eric knows this.
"My people are conducting an independent line of inquiry as we speak. I have great hopes that their efforts will soon yield useful information. It would be helpful in the mean time if you would share the contents of the letter that Mr Compton wrote to Miss Stackhouse shortly before his disappearance."
There is a long silence on the other end of the line, and if not for the fact that Eric can hear the creaking of the elderly human's heartbeat, he would think he'd hung up on him.
"I am going to take you at your word, young man," says the lawyer-forgetting, as humans his age do, how inappropriate the epithet is. "God save me from regretting it."
Eric waits. He hears the crackle of paper, and the lawyer clears his throat, then begins to read.
"My dear Sookie, I realize that this letter may be unwelcome to you, but I thank you for reading it anyway. I cannot think of any words to say to you apart from those I have said already, but I must say them again: I love you more than my own life, and I am grieved to my very soul by the knowledge that I have lost your trust. I know that I have only myself to blame, and that I have no defense to offer, nor any other plea to make, than that you forgive me, and give me the chance to prove myself to you once more. I do not wish to place you in an awkward position, and I will not force my company upon you. If you can find it in your heart to give me another chance, reply to this letter. If I do not hear from you by the end of the week, I will accept that my offenses are irredeemable, and make such amends as I can by removing myself entirely. All the love in my heart, William Compton."
Eric is silent for a long moment after, digesting what he has heard. "Not definitive," he says at last. "But certainly suggestive."
"Yes, I thought so. And whatever else, it certainly proves that he loved her, and held himself to blame for their separation."
"Indeed." Eric thanks the lawyer and hangs up the phone.
With minutes to spare before the dawn, he secures the entrance to the room and lowers himself into the cheap pressboard coffin provided by the motel.
His last thought, before the daylight takes him, is that if only Bill Compton were alive, he would dearly love to tear him limb from limb.