Odd Thomas

pink veterinarian, I guess I'd still bring him to you 'cause I know you'd make him well."
        Following a circuitous route, checking the rearview mirror, I drove six blocks to wind up two blocks away on Maricopa Lane.
        Using my cell phone en route, Viola called her sister to say that she was bringing the girls for a visit.
        The tidy white clapboard house on Maricopa has periwinkle-blue shutters and blue porch posts. On the porch, a social center for the neighborhood, are four rocking chairs and a bench swing.
        Sharlene rocked up from one of the chairs when we parked in her driveway. She is a large woman with a rapturous smile and a musical voice perfect for a gospel singer, which she is.
        A golden retriever, Posey, rose from the porch floor to stand at her side, lashing a gorgeous plumed tail, excited by the sight of the girls, held in place not by a leash but by her master's softly spoken command.
        I carried the cake into the kitchen, where I politely declined Sharlene's offer of ice-cold lemonade, an apple dumpling, three varieties of cookies, and homemade peanut brittle.
        Lying on the floor with four legs in the air, forepaws bent in submission, Posey solicited a belly rub, which the girls were quick to provide.
        I dropped to one knee and interrupted long enough to say happy birthday to Levanna. I gave each of the girls a hug.
        They seemed terribly small and fragile. So little force would be required to shatter them, to rip them out of this world. Their vulnerability frightened me.
        Viola accompanied me through the house to the front porch, where she said, "You were gonna bring me a picture of the man I'm supposed to be on the lookout for."
        "You don't need it now. He's… out of the picture."
        Her huge eyes were full of trust that I didn't deserve. "Odd, tell me honest-to-Jesus, do you still see death in me?"
        I didn't know what might be coming, but though the desert day made a bright impression on my eyes, it seemed storm-dark to my sixth sense, with great thunder pending. Changing their plans, canceling the movie and dinner at the Grille - that would surely be enough to change their fate. Surely. "You're okay now. And the girls, too."
        Her eyes searched mine, and I dared not look away. "What about you, Odd? Whatever's coming… is there a path for you to walk through it to someplace safe?"
        I forced a smile. "I know about all that's Otherly and Beyond - remember?"
        She locked eyes with me a moment longer, then put her arms around me. We held each other tight.
        I didn't ask Viola if she saw death in me. She had never claimed to have a foretelling gift… but I was afraid nevertheless that she would say yes.
        

CHAPTER 48
        
        LONG AFTER "ALL NIGHT WITH SHAMUS COCOBOLO" had gone off the air and the strains of Glenn Miller had traveled out of the stratosphere toward distant stars, with no Elvis CDs to comfort me, I cruised the streets of Pico Mundo in the silence of the sun, wondering where all the bodachs had gone.
        At a service station, I stopped to fuel the Chevy and to use the men's room. In the streaked mirror above the sink, my face suggested that I was a hunted man, haggard and hollow-eyed.
        From the adjacent minimart, I bought a screw-top sixteen-ounce Pepsi and a small bottle of caffeine tablets.
        With the chemical assistance of No-Doz, cola, and the sugar in the plate of cookies that Mrs. Sanchez had given me, I could remain awake. Whether I could think clearly enough on such a regimen would not be entirely evident until the bullets started flying.
        Lacking a name or face to put to Robertson's collaborator, my psychic magnetism would not lead me to my quarry. Cruising randomly, I would arrive nowhere of consequence.
        With clear intention, I drove to Camp's End.
        The chief had ordered surveillance on Robertson's house the previous evening, but that stakeout had apparently been withdrawn. With the chief shot and the entire police department in shock, someone had decided to shift resources elsewhere.
        Suddenly I realized that the chief might not have been targeted solely to frame me for a second murder. Robertson's kill buddy might have wanted to eliminate Wyatt Porter in order to ensure that the Pico Mundo PD would be shaken, disoriented, and slow to respond to whatever crisis was