Eric dials Pam's number as he drives the corvette out of the parking lot of the jailhouse.
"Pam," says Eric, as soon as she picks up the phone. "Tell you've learned something by now."
"I've learned lots of things, Eric," says Pam in a bored voice, and he smiles. She wouldn't dare take that tone with him unless she had good news to offer.
"Tell me."
"No one has seen or heard from Lorena in the last year," she says. "And no one who's seen her in the last decade wants to talk about her. But I did get one tantalizing little tip from a vampire named Bernard who needs a start up loan for a fang-friendly strip club he wants to start in Boise."
"Understood. What was the tip?"
"Lorena has another child. Her name's Judith Vardamom. She's in Arkansas." Pam gives him the address. "I can visit her if you like, but it will take me a couple of days to get there."
"I'll do it. Tell Bernard we'll discuss the loan if I get anything useful out of her." He hangs up.
Eric leaves for Arkansas the next evening at dusk and arrives two hours before dawn. Judith Vardamom's home is a modest brick dwelling in downtown Little Rock, and when she opens the door he is surprised to find her a modest looking vampire, small and round, with a pleasant, cheerful face. He wonders what Lorena had been thinking, choosing such a person for her child.
She gives him a cautious, courteous nod. "What can I do for you?" she says.
"I am Eric Northman, Sheriff of Area Five in Louisiana," he says. "I wish to speak to you about Bill Compton."
Judith freezes, a strangely human reaction for a vampire. Then she steps back from the door, to allow him passage inside.
"I've been following the trial on TV," she tells him, sinking down onto a plain upholstered sofa in the living room. "I wondered why no one came to see me before."
Eric can't think of a response to this that won't lay bare his conflict with Louisiana and the AVL, so he lets it pass.
"Is Bill Compton dead?" he asks her.
She blinks at him for a moment.
"Would I know for certain?" she says.
"I have known vampires who felt the death of their maker's other children," says Eric.
"I felt nothing," she says.
"Attempts are being made to trace Lorena," says Eric, keeping his relief to himself. He notes with interest that Judith tenses at the mention of Lorena's name. "I thought it-curious that she has not made an appearance at the trial."
"If Bill were dead, I am sure she would know," says Judith. "She's obsessed with him."
"That was my impression also."
"She would want revenge on the human girl."
"Would she bide her time until the trial was over?"
"I wouldn't think so. Lorena was never one for careful planning, or deferring pleasure." Judith hesitates. "Especially if he loved her. She would not forgive either of them for that."
Eric nods. "She and Bill were together for a long time after his making."
"Eighty years." Judith gives him a ghostly smile. "I was with her only five."
"Why the difference?"
"She had no true interest in me." There is a detectable trace of relief and gratitude in Judith's voice. "She made me because Bill took a fancy to me. I resemble his human wife. He was unhappy in her company. She hoped I would make him more content with his lot."
"Did you?"
"No." Her smile is more genuine this time. "We are-we were-fond of each other. But he felt guilty; he was afraid I blamed him for Lorena making me."
Eric studies her expression. He feels certain there is more to the story that she is not telling him. "Did you?"
"No. Lorena does exactly as she pleases. Even if he had known what she intended, no amount of pleading would have changed her mind."
"When he left Lorena, you did not meet again?"
Judith regards him for a long moment, and when she speaks again, she does not answer his question; at least not directly.
"Have you met the girl? His human?"
Eric tilts his head. "Yes?"
"She seems sweet. Rather naive."
Eric does not answer. He is not prepared to discuss Sookie's character with a vampire over whom he has no authority.
"Do you think he loved her?" Judith continues.
Eric shrugs. "I barely knew him."
"I knew him well."
"And?"
She speaks slowly, lingering over her choice of words. "Bill is unlike most vampires I have ever met. He works hard to preserve his remaining humanity."
"What's your point?"
"Bill was fond of me," she says, echoing her earlier words. "But deep down, he wasn't much more interested in me than Lorena was. After Lorena released him, he never tried to find me." She glances away from the wall, where her gaze has been trained for most of their conversation, and meets his eyes. "There's a difference between what he wants, and what he thinks he wants."
Eric's hand tightens in his lap, the one visible expression of impatience he allows himself. "Miss Vardamom, I don't have time to waste unravelling obscure subtext."
Judith stiffens, then averts her eyes again. "He hates Lorena. But he would do anything he told her. She changed him; not just into a vampire, but into something more like herself than he would ever admit. There is more between them than just the bond of a maker and a child."
Eric stirs uneasily. "If she called him-"
"He would go to her. Without question. That is why I never sought him out after she released us. I can't risk coming to her attention again."
"Then if I do find her-"
"Don't mention me," she says, her tone stern. "Keep me out of it, and we'll be even."
"Understood." He rises.
"You can shelter with me for the day," she says. "I can tell you came here in a hurry."
"That would be-welcome. Thank you."
She leads him to a basement without windows, furnished comfortably, almost like a second home. She points him to a bedroom.
"This girl," she says. "Bill's human. Is she under your protection now?"
"Yes," says Eric without hesitation. Protection is a simple matter, a yes-no question. Feelings don't come into it.
"Then if I were you," she says, stepping through the door of her own room, "I would keep her away from him."
She shuts the door. Eric stares after her for a long moment, before shutting his own behind him.
There's a text waiting from one of his trial observers when Eric wakes up the next evening. The trial is in recess until Monday; Sid Matt Lancaster has made a successful plea for time to process new evidence. Eric wonders if the evidence he's referring to is the evidence he himself is attempting to collect.
He's back in Bon Temps by midnight, and he reaches Merlotte's Bar and Grill a few minutes after. The bar is closed; Sam Merlotte, the owner, is expecting him.
There's a human girl seated at the bar. Eric has seen her at the trial, sitting behind the defense table, passing notes to Sookie, embracing her before she's led back to her cell each night. He hadn't expected her, but now he thinks that her presence here is a stroke of luck.
"Good evening," he says, and she whirls to face him. "You must be Sookie's friend, Tara."
"I guess I must," she says. She's afraid of him, in an impersonal way-Eric can tell that she cares little for vampires. But her defiance is stronger than her fear. Eric admires that. "Who are you?"
"His name's Eric," says Merlotte, walking into the bar from the back room. "He's here to help Sookie, or so he says."
"And you believed him?" says the girl. "You a stupid man, Sam Merlotte."
Eric favors Tara with a blinding smile. She rolls her eyes. She is very attractive; apparently he's developing a taste for surly human girls.
"As a matter of fact, I have great hopes of securing her release," Eric tells them. "What can you tell me about her relationship with Bill Compton?"
Tara straightens on her barstool and levels a glare at him. "What do you need to know for? You were there when Sookie testified. Yeah, that's right, I saw you. All tall, blonde, and dead."
Eric takes three deliberate steps forward and slips onto the barstool beside Tara. She doesn't flinch.
"You observed the two of them together," says Eric, in a mild voice. "I never did so. Did Bill seem very attached to her?"
Tara snorts. Merlotte frowns.
"Like a lamprey,"says Tara. "Or some kind of drawling, unreconstructed, bloodsucking-"
"Yes, thank you, I think I can complete the parasite metaphor for myself," says Eric. "What about Sookie?"
Tara exchanges glances with Merlotte, and Eric can see the silent agreement that passes between them. There is some significant piece of information that neither of them are going to share with him. He wonders if it would be worth his while to corner Tara when she's by herself; he can't risk glamoring either of them with the other so near.
"She liked him all right," says Merlotte. "They got a lot closer after her grandmother died."
"How did he take it when she left him?"
"He about went O.J. on her," says Tara, in a tone of withering scorn.
"I don't know that it was as bad as that," says Merlotte, looking as though the defense of Compton pains him.
"It was bad enough, with him living next door and her coming home every night to find him creeping around the woods."
"Did he feel betrayed?" Eric inquires in a mild voice, to cover the sudden stab of fury this image creates in him. "Angry? Despondent?"
"I wasn't really paying attention." Tara pours herself a shot of tequila and drains it at a go. "Sookie was all messed up, and I had my hands full with her."
"I wouldn't say he was angry," Merlotte offers. "Frustrated, maybe. Depressed."
"Depressed enough to take his own life?"
"Do vampires do that?" Merlotte looks surprised.
"On occasion," says Eric, in a careless voice. "To some, immortality becomes a burden."
"Bill Compton wasn't about to kill his self over nobody," says Tara. "All that true love shit, he was just putting on a show. If she was really important to him, he'd have told her the truth when she asked him."
"I don't know," says Sam. "He might have, just to make sure she felt guilty for the rest of her life."
"He'd have left her a note," says Tara. "'Oh woe is me, my undead ass hasn't learned how to handle rejection in 200 years.'"
Eric grins. He likes this girl. She is fierce, intelligent, and loyal, a proper friend for Sookie.
Tara slaps her glass down on the bar and gets to her feet. "I'm going home. Vampire, if you get Sookie out of this-"
"Yes?" Eric arches an eyebrow and gives her his most smoldering look.
"Well, I won't spit when I hear your name." She grabs her bag. "See you, Sam."
"Night, Tara."
They watch her leave. A change comes over the atmosphere when he and Merlotte are alone. They look at each other over the bar, two supernatural creatures with a vested interest in the fate of a human girl. Were they rivals, as well? Eric can hardly imagine why Merlotte would undertake to fund Sookie's defense, unless he hopes to take Compton's place in her life. Men are simple creatures in some respects, human, vampire, and shifter alike.
"Sookie tells me that you are assisting her financially," says Eric, noting with satisfaction the anger that flares in the shifter's eyes at this casual mention of her name, and the intimacy it implies. "I would like to relieve you of that burden."
"It's no burden," says Merlotte. "I've known Sookie a long time, I'm happy to help her any way I can."
Eric leans in close over the bar and catches the shifter's eyes. Merlotte blinks once, then twice. His mouth falls slack.
"I would very much like to pay for Sookie's defense myself," he says.
"Um." Merlotte shakes his head. "Sure. That'd be great."
Eric leans back and smiles. "I'll write you a check."