So Jason came in, and when I told him Gran was dead, and dead by violence, he just looked at me. There seemed to be nothing going on behind his eyes. It was as if someone had erased his capacity for absorbing new facts. Then what I’d said sank in, and my brother sank to his knees right where he stood, and I knelt in front of him. He put his arms around me and lay his head on my shoulder, and we just stayed there for a while. We were all that was left.
Bill and Sam were out in the front yard sitting in lawn chairs, out of the way of the police. Soon Jason and I were asked to go out on the porch, at least, and we opted to sit outside, too. It was a mild evening, and I sat facing the house, all lit up like a birthday cake, and the people that came and went from it like ants who’d been allowed at the party. All this industry surrounding the tissue that had been my grandmother.
“What happened?” Jason asked finally.
“I came in from the meeting,” I said very slowly. “After Sam pulled off in his truck. I knew something was wrong. I looked in every room.” This was the story of How I Found Grandmother Dead, the official version. “And when I got to the kitchen I saw her.”
Jason turned his head very slowly so his eyes met mine.
“Tell me.”
I shook my head silently. But it was his right to know. “She was beaten up, but she had tried to fight back, I think. Whoever did this cut her up some. And then strangled her, it looked like.”
I could not even look at my brother’s face. “It was my fault.” My voice was nothing more than a whisper.
“How do you figure that?” Jason said, sounding nothing more than dull and sluggish.
“I figure someone came to kill me like they killed Maudette and Dawn, but Gran was here instead.”
I could see the idea percolate in Jason’s brain.
“I was supposed to be home tonight while she was at the meeting, but Sam asked me to go at the last minute. My car was here like it would be normally because we went in Sam’s truck. Gran had parked her car around back while she was unloading, so it wouldn’t look like she was here, just me. She had given Bill a ride home, but he helped her unload and went to change clothes. After he left, whoever it was . . . got her.”
“How do we know it wasn’t Bill?” Jason asked, as though Bill wasn’t sitting right there beside him.
“How do we know it wasn’t anyone?” I said, exasperated at my brother’s slow wits. “It could be anyone, anyone we know. I don’t think it was Bill. I don’t think Bill killed Maudette and Dawn. And I do think whoever killed Maudette and Dawn killed Grandmother.”
“Did you know,” Jason said, his voice too loud, “that Grandmother left you this house all by yourself?”
It was like he’d thrown a bucket of cold water in my face. I saw Sam wince, too. Bill’s eyes got darker and chillier.
“No. I just always assumed you and I would share like we did on the other one.” Our parents’ house, the one Jason lived in now.
“She left you all the land, too.”
“Why are you saying this?” I was going to cry again, just when I’d been sure I was dry of tears now.
“She wasn’t fair!” he was yelling. “It wasn’t fair, and now she can’t set it right!”
I began to shake. Bill pulled me out of the chair and began walking with me up and down the yard. Sam sat in front of Jason and began talking to him earnestly, his voice low and intense.
Bill’s arm was around me, but I couldn’t stop shaking.
“Did he mean that?” I asked, not expecting Bill to answer.
“No,” he said. I looked up, surprised.
“No, he couldn’t help your grandmother, and he couldn’t handle the idea of someone lying in wait for you and killing her instead. So he had to get angry about something. And instead of getting angry with you for not getting killed, he’s angry about things. I wouldn’t let it worry me.”
“I think it’s pretty amazing that you’re saying this,” I told him bluntly.
“Oh, I took some night school courses in psychology,” said Bill Compton, vampire.
And, I couldn’t help thinking, hunters always study their prey. “Why would Gran leave me all this, and not Jason?”
“Maybe you’ll find out later,” he said, and that seemed fine to me.
Then Andy Bellefleur came out of the house and stood on the steps, looking up at the sky as if there were clues written on it.
“Compton,” he called sharply.