Odd Thomas

white laces that I stripped out of a spare pair of shoes.
        This package looked like an enormous doobie. I don't do drugs, not even pot, but that's what it looked like, anyway.
        Or maybe a cocoon. A giant larva or pupa inside, changing into something new. I didn't want to dwell on what that might be.
        Using a plastic shopping bag from a bookstore as a suitcase, I packed a change of clothes, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, electric razor, cell phone, flashlight, scissors, a package of foil-wrapped moist towelettes - and a roll of antacids, which I was going to need to get through the rest of the night.
        I dragged the body out of the bathroom, across my dark room, to the larger of the two south-facing windows. If I had lived in an ordinary apartment house, with neighbors below, the tenants' committee would have met first thing in the morning to draft a new rule forbidding corpse-hauling after 10:00 p.m.
        The body weighed far too much for me to carry it. Tumbling it down the outside stairs would have been a noisy proposition - and a memorable spectacle if someone happened to be passing in the street at an inopportune moment.
        A half-size dinette table and two chairs stood in front of the window. I moved them aside, raised the lower sash, removed the bug screen, and leaned out to be sure I correctly remembered that the backyard could not be seen from neighboring houses.
        A board fence and mature cottonwood trees provided privacy. If a narrow line of sight between branches gave neighbors a sliver of a view, the moonlight alone didn't brighten the scene enough to lend credibility to their testimony in a courtroom.
        I muscled the sheet-wrapped cadaver off the floor, into the open window. I shoved him out feet first because though he was inarguably dead, I felt squeamish about dropping him on his head. Halfway out the window, the sheet hung up on a protruding nail head, but with determination, I maneuvered him far enough to let gravity take over.
        The drop from the windowsill to the ground measured twelve or thirteen feet. Not far. Yet the impact produced a brutal, sickening sound that seemed instantly identifiable as a dead body plummeting to hard earth from a height.
        No dogs barked. No one said, Did you hear something, Maude? No one said, Yes, Clem, I heard Odd Thomas drop a corpse out his window. Pico Mundo slept on.
        Using paper towels to avoid leaving fingerprints, I plucked the pistol off the carpet. I added the gun to the contents of the plastic shopping bag.
        In the bathroom once more, I checked to be sure that I hadn't missed anything obvious during the cleanup. Later I would need to do a more thorough job than I had time for now: vacuum for incriminating hairs and fibers, wipe every surface to eliminate Bob Robertson's prints…
        I wouldn't be helping the killer get away with the crime. By all indications, he was a cool professional who would have been too smart and too self-aware to have left fingerprints or any other evidence of his presence.
        When I consulted my wristwatch, what I saw surprised me. One-thirty-eight a.m. The night had seemed to be racing toward dawn. I'd thought it must be two-thirty or later.
        Nonetheless, time was running out for me. My watch was digital, but I could hear my opportunity for action tick-tick-ticking away.
        After turning off the bathroom light, I went to the front window once more, cracked the blind, and studied the street. If anyone was standing vigil, I still couldn't spot him.
        Carrying the shopping bag, I went outside and locked the front door behind me. Descending the steps, I felt as intently watched as a Miss America contestant during the swimsuit competition.
        Although pretty much certain that no eyes were on me, I balanced a load of guilt that made me self-conscious. I nervously scanned the night, looking everywhere but at the steps in front of me; it's proof of miracles that I didn't fall and break my neck and leave a second body for the police to puzzle over.
        You might wonder what I had to feel guilty about, considering that I hadn't killed Bob Robertson.
        Well, I never need a good reason to embrace guilt. Sometimes I feel responsible for train wrecks in Georgia, terrorist bombs in distant cities, tornadoes in Kansas…
        A part of me believes that if I worked more aggressively to explore my gift and to