Brother Odd (Odd Thomas 3)

“We must be careful, Sister,” I warned. “He may only mean that he is a confidence man.”

She nodded but seemed no less perplexed.

“We need to talk somewhere more private,” Romanovich said.

Returning his NSA credentials, I said, “I want a few words with the girl.”

As once more I sat on the floor near Christmas, she looked up from her book and said, “I like cats, too, b-b-but they aren’t dogs.”

“They sure aren’t,” I agreed. “I’ve never seen a group of cats strong enough to pull a dogsled.”

Picturing cats in the traces of a sled, she giggled.

“And you’ll never get a cat to chase a tennis ball.”

“Never,” she agreed.

“And dogs never have mouse breath.”

“Yuck. Mouse breath.”

“Christmas, do you really want to work with dogs one day?”

“I really do. I know I could do a lot with dogs.”

“You have to keep up rehab, get back as much strength in your arm and leg as you can.”

“Gonna get it all b-back.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“You gotta retrain the b-b-brain.”

“I’m going to stay in touch with you, Christmas. And when you’re grown up and ready to be on your own, I have a friend who will make sure you’ll have a job doing something wonderful with dogs, if that’s still what you want.”

Her eyes widened. “Something wonderful—like what?”

“That’ll be for you to decide. While you’re getting stronger and growing up, you think about what would be the most wonderful job you could do with dogs—and that will be it.”

“I had a good dog. His name was F-Farley. He tried to save me, but Jason shot him, too.”

She spoke about the horror with more dispassion than I could have done, and in fact I felt that I would not maintain my composure if she said another word about it.

“One day, you’ll have all the dogs you want. You can live in a sea of happy fur.”

Although she couldn’t go directly from Farley to a giggle, she smiled. “A sea of happy fur,” she said, savoring the sound of it, and her smile sustained.

I held out my hand. “Do we have a deal?”

Solemnly, she thought about it, and then she nodded and took my hand. “Deal.”

“You’re a very tough negotiator, Christmas.”

“I am?”

“I’m exhausted. You have worn me down. I am bleary and dopey and pooped. My feet are tired, my hands are tired, even my hair is tired. I need to go and have a long nap, and I really, really need to eat some pudding.”

She giggled. “Pudding?”

“You’ve been such a tough negotiator, you’ve so exhausted me that I can’t even chew. My teeth are tired. In fact my teeth are already asleep. I can only eat pudding.”

Grinning, she said, “You’re silly.”

“It’s been said of me before,” I assured her.

Because we needed to talk in a place where bodachs were unlikely to enter, Sister Angela led Romanovich and me to the pharmacy, where Sister Corrine was dispensing evening medicines into small paper cups on which she had written the names of her patients. She agreed to give us privacy.

When the door closed behind Sister Corrine, the mother superior said, “All right. Who is Jacob’s father, and why is he so important?”

Romanovich and I looked at each other, and we spoke as one: “John Heineman.”

“Brother John?” she asked dubiously. “Our patron? Who gave up all his wealth?”

I said, “You haven’t seen the uberskeleton, ma’am. Once you’ve seen the uberskeleton, you pretty much know it couldn’t be anyone else but Brother John. He wants his son dead, and maybe all of them, all the children here.”

CHAPTER 46

RODION ROMANOVICH HAD SOME CREDIBILITY with me because of his National Security Agency ID and because he was droll. Maybe it was the effect of rogue molecules of tranquilizers in the medicinally scented air of the pharmacy, but minute by minute, I grew more willing to trust him.

According to the Hoosier, twenty-five years before we had come under siege in this blizzard, John Heineman’s fiancée, Jennifer Calvino, had given birth to their child, Jacob. No one knows if she had availed herself of a sonogram or other testing, but in any case, she had carried the child to term.

Twenty-six, already a physicist of significant accomplishments, Heineman had not reacted well to her pregnancy, had felt trapped by it. Upon his first sight of Jacob, he denied fatherhood, withdrew his proposal of marriage, cut Jennifer Calvino out of his life, and gave her no more thought than he would have given a basal-cell carcinoma once it had been surgically removed from his skin.

Although even at that time, Heineman had been a man of some means, Jennifer asked him for nothing. His hostility to his deformed son had been so intense that Jennifer decided Jacob would be both happier and safer if he had no contact with his father.

Mother and son did not have an easy life, but she was devoted to him, and in her care, he thrived. When Jacob was thirteen, his mother died, after arranging for his lifelong institutional care through a church charity.

Over the years, Heineman became famous and wealthy. When his research, as widely reported, drove him to the conclusion that the subatomic structure of the universe suggested indisputable design, he had reexamined his life and, in something like penitence, had given away his fortune and retreated to a monastery.

“A changed man,” said Sister Angela. “In contrition for how he treated Jennifer and Jacob, he gave up everything. Surely he couldn’t want his son dead. He funded this facility for the care of children like Jacob. And for Jacob himself.”

Leaving the mother superior’s argument unaddressed, Romanovich said, “Twenty-seven months ago, Heineman came out of seclusion and began to discuss his current research with former colleagues, by phone and in E-mails. He had always been fascinated by the strange order that underlies every apparent chaos in nature, and during his years of seclusion, using computer models of his design, processed on twenty linked Cray supercomputers, he had made breakthroughs that would enable him, as he put it, ‘to prove the existence of God.’”

Sister Angela didn’t need to mull that over to find the flaw in it. “We can approach belief from an intellectual path, but in the end, God must be taken on faith. Proofs are for things of this world, things in time and of time, not beyond time.”

Romanovich continued: “Because some of the scientists with whom Heineman spoke were on the national-security payroll, and because they recognized risks related to his research and certain defense applications as well, they reported him to us. Since then, we have had one of ours in the abbey guesthouse. I am only the latest.”

“For some reason,” I said, “you were alarmed enough to introduce another agent as a postulant, now a novice, Brother Leopold.”

Sister Angela’s wimple seemed to stiffen with her disapproval. “You had a man falsely profess vows to God?”

“We did not intend for him to go beyond simple postulancy, Sister. We wanted him to spend a few weeks deeper in the community than a guest might ever get. As it turned out, he was a man searching for a new life, and he found it. We lost him to you—though we feel he still owes us some assistance, as his vows allow.”

Her scowl was more imposing than any of his had been. “More than ever, Mr. Romanovich, I think you are a dubious piece of work.”

“You are undoubtedly correct. Anyway, we became alarmed when Brother Constantine committed suicide—because thereafter, Heineman at once stopped calling and E-mailing his old colleagues, and has not since communicated with anyone outside St. Bartholomew’s.”

“Perhaps,” said Sister Angela, “the suicide moved him to trade his research for prayer and reflection.”

“We think not,” Romanovich said drily.

“And Brother Timothy has been murdered, ma’am. There is no doubt of it now. I found the b

ody.”

Although she had already accepted the fact of his murder, this hard confirmation left her stricken.

“If it helps you come to terms with the situation,” Romanovich said to her, “we believe that Heineman may not be fully aware of the violence he has unleashed.”

“But, Mr. Romanovich, if two are dead and others threatened, how could he not be aware?”

“As I recall, poor Dr. Jekyll did not at first realize that his quest to rid himself of all evil impulses had in the process created Mr. Hyde, whose nature was pure evil unleavened by the goodness of the doctor.”

Seeing in my mind’s eye the uberskeleton assaulting the SUV, I said, “That thing in the snow wasn’t merely the dark side of a human personality. There was nothing human about it.”

“Not his dark side,” Romanovich agreed. “But perhaps created by his dark side.”

“What does that mean, sir?”

“We aren’t sure, Mr. Thomas. But I think now it is incumbent upon us to find out—quickly. You have been given a universal key.”

“Yes.”