Dean Koontz - Odd Thomas

When Karla returned to the kitchen, where she was working on the dessert, Lysette sat in the chair that the chief had occupied. With both hands, she held a glass of Coke spiked with orange vodka, from which she took tiny sips, licking her lips after each.

"How does that taste?" I wondered.

"Sort of like cleaning fluid with sugar. But sometimes I have a low energy level, and the caffeine helps."

She was wearing yellow shorts and a frilly yellow blouse. She looked like a lemon cupcake with fancy icing.

"How's your mother these days, Odd?"

"Still colorful."

"I would expect so. And your dad?"

"He's about to get rich quick."

"What with this time?"

"Selling real estate on the moon."

"How does that work?"

"You pay fifteen bucks, you get a deed to one square foot of the moon."

"Your father doesn't own the moon," Lysette said with the faintest note of disapproval.

She is a sweet person and reluctant to give offense even at evidence of flagrant fraud.

"No, he doesn't," I agreed. "But he realized that nobody else owned it, either, so he sent a letter to the United Nations, staking claim to it. The next day he started peddling moon property. I hear you've been made assistant manager of the shop."

"It's quite a responsibility. Especially 'cause I've also moved up in my specialty."

"You're not doing fingernails anymore?"

"Yes, I am. But I was just a nail technician, and now I'm a certified nail artist ."

"Congratulations. That's really something."

Her shy smile of pride made me love her. "It's not so much to some people, but it's a thrill to me."

Elvis returned from the swimming pool and sat in a lawn chair opposite us. He was weeping again. Through his tears, he smiled at Lysette-or at her cleavage. Even in death he likes the ladies.

"Are you and Bronwen still an item?" Lysette asked.

"Forever. We have matching birthmarks."

"I'd forgotten about that."

"She prefers to be called Stormy."

"Who wouldn't?" Lysette said.

"How about you and Officer Eckles?"

"Oh, we just met. He seems nice."

"'Nice.'" I winced. "The poor guy's already struck out with you, hasn't he?"

"Two years ago, he would've, yeah. But lately, I'm thinking nice would be enough. You know?"

"There's a lot worse than nice out there."

"For sure," she agreed. "It takes a while to realize what a lonely world it is, and when you do… then the future looks kinda scary."

Already in a delicate emotional condition, Elvis was wrecked by Lysette's observation. The rillets of tears on his checks became twin floods, and he buried his face in his hands.

Lysette and I chatted for a while, and Elvis sobbed without making a sound, and eventually four more guests showed up.

Karla was circulating with a tray of cheese dumplings that gave new weight to the word hors d'oeuvre , when the chief returned with Officer Eckles. He drew me aside and walked with me to the far end of the pool, so we could talk in private.

He said, "Robertson moved into town five months ago. Paid in full for that house in Camp's End, no mortgage."

"Where's he get his money?"

"Inherited. Bonnie Chan says he moved here from San Diego after his mother's death. He was still living with his mother at thirty-four."

Bonnie Chan, a Realtor famous in Pico Mundo for her flamboyant hats, had evidently sold the residence to Robertson.

'As far as I can see at this point," the chief said, "he's got a clean record. He's never even had a speeding ticket."

"You might look into how the mother died."

"I've already put out some inquiries about that. But right now I don't have any handle to pick him up."

"All those files on all those killers."

"Even if I had a legitimate way of knowing he keeps them, it's just a sick hobby or maybe book research. There's nothing illegal about it."

"Suspicious, though."

He shrugged. "If being suspicious was enough, we'd all be in jail. You first."

"But you're gonna keep a watch on him?" I asked.

"Only because you've never been wrong. I'll park somebody over there this evening, pin a tail on this Mr. Robertson."

"I wish you could do more," I said,

"Son, this is the United States of America. Some would say it's unconstitutional to try to prevent psychopaths from fulfilling their potential."

Sometimes the chief can amuse me with that kind of cynical-cop patter. This wasn't one of those occasions.

I said, "This one's really bad, sir. This guy, when I picture his face in my mind… I get spiders down the spine."

"We're watching him, son. Can't do more than that. Can't just go to Camp's End and shoot him." The chief gave me a peculiar look and added, "Neither can you."

"Guns scare me," I assured him.

The chief looked over toward the swimming pool and said, "He still walking the water?"

"No, sir. He's standing next to Lysette, looking down her blouse and crying."

"That's nothing to cry about," the chief said, and winked.

"The crying has nothing to do with Lysette. He's just in a mood today."

"What about? Elvis never struck me as weepy."

"People change when they die. It's traumatic. He's like this from time to time, but I don't know for sure what the trouble is. He doesn't try to explain himself to me."

Clearly, the chief was dismayed by the image of Presley weeping. "Is there anything I can do for him?"

"That's thoughtful of you, sir, but I don't see what anyone can really do. From what I've observed on other occasions, my sense of it is… he misses his mother, Gladys, and wants to be with her."

"As I recall, he was especially fond of his mama, wasn't he?"

"He adored her," I said.

"Isn't she dead, too?"

"Much longer than he's been, yes."

"Then they're together again, aren't they?"

"Not as long as he's reluctant to let go of this world. She's over there in the light, and he's stuck here."

"Why won't he move on?"

"Sometimes they have important unfinished business here."

"Like little Penny Kallisto this morning, leading you to Harlo Landerson."

"Yes, sir. And sometimes they just love this world so much they don't want to leave it."

The chief nodded. "This world sure was good to him."

"If it's unfinished business, he's had more than twenty-six years to take care of it," I noted.

The chief squinted toward Lysette Rains, trying to see some smallest evidence of her spirit companion-a wisp of ectoplasm, a vague distortion of the air, a quiver of mystical radiance. "He made some great music."

"Yes, he did."

"You tell him he's always welcome here."

"I will, sir. That's kind of you."

"Are you sure you can't stay for dinner?"

"Thank you, sir, but I've got a date."

"With Stormy, I'm sure."

"Yes, sir. My destiny."

"You're a smooth operator, Odd. She must love to hear you say that-'my destiny.'"

" I love to hear me say it."

The chief put his arm around my shoulders and walked me to the gate at the north side of the house. "Best thing that can happen to a man is a good woman."

"Stormy is beyond just good."

"I'm happy for you, son." He lifted the latch and opened the gate for me. "Don't you worry about this Bob Robertson. We'll dog him, but so he doesn't suspect we're watching. He tries to make a wrong move, we'll be all over him."

"I'll worry just the same, sir. He's a very bad man."

When I got to the Mustang, Elvis was already sitting in the passenger's seat.

The dead don't need to walk where they want to go-or ride in a car, for that matter. When they choose to walk or cruise the streets, they're motivated by nostalgia.

From the poolside party to the Mustang, he had changed out of the clothes from Blue Hawaii . Now he was wearing black slacks, a dressy tweed sport coat, white shirt, black tie, and black pocket handkerchief, an outfit from (as Terri Stambaugh later told me) It Happened at the World's Fair .