Odd Thomas

Chester?"
        "No. Fungus Man. Real name's Bob Robertson. The hair on his back was standing straight up like I've never seen it."
        "Bob Robertson has a lot of hair on his back?"
        "No. Terrible Chester. Even when he scared off that huge German shepherd, he didn't raise his hackles like he did today."
        "Loop me in, odd one. How did Bob Robertson and Terrible Chester happen to be in the same place?"
        "Since I broke into his house, I think maybe he's been following me around."
        Even as I spoke the word following, my attention was drawn to movement in the graveyard.
        Immediately west of St. Bart's is a cemetery very much in the old style: not bronze plaques set in granite flush with the grass, as in most modern graveyards, but vertical headstones and monuments. An iron fence with spearpoint pickets surrounds those three acres. Although a few California live oaks, more than a century old, shade portions of the burial ground, most of the green aisles are open to the sun.
        In the fiery glow of that Tuesday twilight, the grass appeared to have a bronze undertone, the shadows were as black as char, the polished surfaces of the granite markers mirrored the scarlet sky - and Robertson stood as still as any headstone in the churchyard, not under the cover of a tree but out where he could be easily seen.
        Having set her wineglass on the parapet, Stormy crouched at the hamper. "I've got some cheese that's perfect with this wine."
        If Robertson had been standing with his head bowed, studying the engraving on a memorial, I would still have been disturbed to see him here. But this was worse. He had not come to pay his respects to the dead, not for any reason as innocent as that.
        With his head tipped back, with his eyes fixed on me where I stood at the belfry parapet, the singular intensity of his interest all but crackled from him like arcing electricity.
        Past the oaks and beyond the iron fence, I could see parts of two streets that intersected at the northwest corner of the cemetery. As far as I could tell, no marked or unmarked police vehicle was parked along either avenue.
        Chief Porter had promised to assign a man at once to watch the house in Camp's End. If Robertson hadn't been home yet, however, that officer could not have established surveillance.
        "You want crackers with the cheese?" Stormy asked.
        Crimson had seeped down the summer sky, closer to the horizon, staining the western swathe of bright orange until it narrowed to a swatch. The air itself seemed to be stained red, and the shadows of trees and tombstones, already soot-black, grew even blacker.
        Robertson had arrived with nightfall.
        I set my wineglass beside Stormy's. "We've got a problem."
        "Crackers aren't a problem," Stormy said, "just a choice."
        A sudden loud flapping-fluttering startled me.
        Turning to see three pigeons swooping into the belfry and to their roost in the rafters above the bells, I bumped into Stormy as she rose with two small containers. Crackers and wedges of cheese spilled across the catwalk.
        "Oddie, what a mess!" She stooped, set the containers aside, and began to gather the crackers and cheese.
        Down on the darkening grass, Robertson had thus far stood with his arms at his sides, a slump-shoulder hulk. Aware that I was as fixated on him as he was on me, he now raised his right arm almost as if in a Nazi salute.
        "Are you going to help me here," Stormy asked, "or are you going to be a typical man?"
        Initially I thought he might be shaking his fist at me, but in spite of the poor - and rapidly fading - light, I soon saw that the gesture was even less polite than it had seemed at first. His middle finger was extended, and he thrust it toward me with short, angry jabs.
        "Robertson's here," I told her.
        "Who?"
        "Fungus Man."
        Suddenly he was on the move, walking between the headstones, toward the church.
        "We better forget dinner," I said, drawing Stormy to her feet with the intention of hustling her out of the belfry. "Let's get down from here."
        Resisting me, she turned to the parapet. "I don't let anyone intimidate me."
        "Oh, I do. If they're crazy enough."
        "Where is he? I don't see him."
        Leaning out, peering down, I couldn't see him either. Apparently he had reached the front or