Odd Thomas

and tending to those hundreds of files, surfing websites dealing with serial killers and mass murderers, knew precisely who he was - or at least who he wished to be.
        

CHAPTER 14
        
        I LEFT AS I HAD ENTERED, BY THE SIDE DOOR connecting the kitchen and the carport, but I didn't immediately return to the Mustang that I had borrowed from Terri Stambaugh. Instead, I went behind the house to have a close look at the backyard.
        The front lawn had been half dead, but the grass here in back had withered away long ago. The well-baked dirt had not received a drop of water since the last rain in late February, five and a half hot months ago.
        If a man were in the habit of burying his victims, dismembered or not, in the backyard, a la John Wayne Gacy, he would keep the soil receptive to a shovel. This hardpan would break the point of a pick and send any midnight gravedigger in search of a jackhammer.
        Fenced with open chain-link on which grew no vines or other screening vegetation, the backyard offered no privacy to a murderer with an inconvenient corpse on his hands. If they were of a ghoulish disposition, the neighbors could open a keg of beer, set up lawn chairs, and watch the interment for entertainment.
        Supposing that Robertson was an actual serial killer instead of merely a wannabe, he had planted his garden elsewhere. I suspected, however, that the file he had created for himself was complete as of this date and that his debut performance would be tomorrow.
        Watching from the edge of the barrel-tile roof, a crow cracked its orange beak and shrieked, as though it suspected that I had come to poach whatever crispy beetles and other sparse fare it fed upon in this parched territory.
        I thought of Poe's dire raven, perched above the parlor door, maddeningly repeating one word - nevermore, nevermore.
        Standing there, gazing up, I didn't realize that the crow was an omen, or that Poe's famous verse would, in fact, serve as the key to unlock its meaning. Had I understood then that this shrill crow was my raven, I would have acted much differently in the hours that followed; and Pico Mundo would still be a place of hope.
        Failing to understand the importance of the crow, I returned to the Mustang, where I found Elvis sitting in the passenger's seat. He wore boat shoes, khaki slacks, and a Hawaiian shirt.
        All other ghosts of my acquaintance have been limited in their wardrobes to the clothes that they were wearing when they perished.
        For instance, Mr. Callaway, my high-school English teacher, died on his way to a costume party, dressed as the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz. Because he had been a man of some refinement, born with dignity and poise, I found it depressing, in the months following his death, to encounter him around town in his cheap velour costume, his whiskers drooping, his tail dragging the ground after him. I was much relieved when at last he let go of this world and moved on.
        In death as in life, Elvis Presley makes his own rules. He seems to be able to conjure any costume that he wore on a stage or in the movies, as well as the clothes that he wore when not performing. His attire is different from one manifestation to the next.
        I have read that after downing an imprudent number of sleeping pills and depressants, he died in his underwear or maybe in his pajamas. Some say that he was found in a bathrobe as well, but some say not. He has never yet appeared to me in quite such casual dress.
        For certain, he died in his bathroom at Graceland, unshaven and facedown in a puddle of vomit. This is in the coroner's report.
        Happily, he always greets me clean-shaven and without a beard of upchuck.
        On this occasion, when I sat behind the steering wheel and closed the car door, he smiled and nodded. His smile had an unusual melancholy quality.
        He reached out and patted me on the arm, clearly expressing sympathy, if not pity. This puzzled and somewhat troubled me, for I had suffered nothing that would warrant such an expression of commiseration.
        Here in the aftermath of August 15, I still cannot say how much Elvis knew then of the terrible events that were about to unfold. I suspect he foresaw all of it.
        Like other ghosts, Elvis does not speak. Nor sing.
        He dances sometimes if he's in a rhythmic mood. He's got some cool moves, but he's no