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I thought I’d covered all the bases. I was ready to go to Jason’s house, and I remember I was feeling pretty proud of myself as I drove north on Hummingbird Road and then took a left onto the highway. As I headed west to the house where I’d spent my first seven years, I drove past Merlotte’s to my right and then past the main turnoff into Bon Temps. I negotiated the left turn and I could see our old home, sure enough with Jason’s pickup parked in front of it. There was another pickup, equally shiny, parked about twenty feet away from Jason’s.

When I got out of my car, a very black man was examining the ground around the truck. I was surprised to discover that the second pickup belonged to Alcee Beck, the only African-American detective on the parish force. Alcee’s presence was both reassuring and disturbing.

“Miss Stackhouse,” he said gravely. Alcee Beck was wearing a jacket and slacks and heavy scuffed boots. The boots didn’t go with the rest of his clothes, and I was willing to bet he kept them in his truck for when he had to go tromping around out in the country where the ground was less than dry. Alcee (whose name was pronounced Al-SAY) was also a strong broadcaster, and I could receive his thoughts clearly when I let down my shields to listen.

I learned in short order that Alcee Beck wasn’t happy to see me, didn’t like me, and did think something hinky had happened to Jason. Detective Beck didn’t care for Jason, but he was actually scared of me. He thought I was a deeply creepy person, and he avoided me as much as possible.

Which was okay by me, frankly.

I knew more about Alcee Beck than I was comfortable knowing, and what I knew about Alcee was really unpleasant. He was brutal to uncooperative prisoners, though he adored his wife and daughter. He was lining his own pockets whenever he got a chance, and he made sure the chances came along pretty frequently. Alcee Beck confined this practice to the African-American community, operating on the theory that they’d never report him to the other white law enforcement personnel, and so far he’d been right.

See what I mean about not wanting to know things I heard? This was a lot different from finding out that Arlene really didn’t think Charlsie’s husband was good enough for Charlsie, or that Hoyt Fortenberry had dented a car in the parking lot and hadn’t told the owner.

And before you ask me what I do about stuff like that, I’ll tell you. I don’t do squat. I’ve found out the hard way that it almost never works out if I try to intervene. What happens is no one is happier, and my little freakishness is brought to everyone’s attention, and no one is comfortable around me for a month. I’ve got more secrets than Fort Knox has money. And those secrets are staying locked up just as tight.

I’ll admit that most of those little facts I accumulated didn’t make much difference in the grand scheme of things, whereas Alcee’s misbehavior actually led to human misery. But so far I hadn’t seen a single way to stop Alcee. He was very clever about keeping his activities under control and hidden from anyone with the power to intervene. And I wasn’t too awful sure that Bud Dearborn didn’t know.

“Detective Beck,” I said. “Are you looking for Jason?”

“The sheriff asked me to come by and see if I could find anything out of order.”

“And have you found anything?”

“No, ma’am, I haven’t.”

“Jason’s boss told you the door to his truck was open?”

“I closed it so the battery wouldn’t run down. I was careful not to touch anything, of course. But I’m sure your brother will show back up any time now, and he’ll be unhappy if we mess with his stuff for no reason.”

“I have a key to his house, and I’m going to ask you to go in there with me.”

“Do you suspect anything happened to your brother in his house?” Alcee Beck was being so careful to spell everything out that I wondered if he had a tape recorder rolling away in his pocket.

“Could be. He doesn’t normally miss work. In fact, he never misses work. And I always know where he is. He’s real good about