In some orders, the novices wear habits similar to-or the same as-those worn by the brothers who have professed their final vows, but at St. Bartholomew's, the novices wear gray, not black.
Knuckles said, 'I figured the unconscious guy in the yard, he maybe came to, got up, went back to bed-or he was the abbot.'
'You checked on the abbot?'
'Son, I ain't gonna try that smelled-somethin'-burnin' routine on the abbot in his private quarters, him as smart as three of me. Besides, the guy in the yard was heavy, right? You said heavy. And Abbot Bernard, you gotta tie him down in a mild wind.'
'Fred Astaire.'
Knuckles winced. He pinched the lumpy bridge of his mushroom nose. 'Wish you never told me that 'Tea for Two' thing. Can't keep my mind on the abbot's mornin' address, just waitin' for his soft-shoe.'
'When did they discover Brother Timothy was missing?'
'I seen he ain't in line for Matins. By Lauds, he still don't show, so I duck outta church to check his room. He's just pillows.'
'Pillows?'
'The night before, what looked like Brother Timothy under the blanket, by flashlight from his doorway, was just extra pillows.'
'Why would he do that? There's no rule about lights out. There's no bed check.'
'Maybe Tim, he didn't do it himself, somebody else faked it to buy time, keep us from realizin' Tim was gone.'
'Time for what?'
'Don't know. But if I'd seen he was gone last night, I would've known it was him you found in the yard, and I'd have woke the abbot.'
'He's a little heavy, all right,' I said.
'Kit Kat belly. If a brother was missin' when I did bed check, the cops would've been here hours ago, before the storm got so bad.'
'And now the search is harder,' I said. 'He's… dead, isn't he?'
Knuckles looked into the fireplace, where no fire burned. 'My professional opinion is, I kinda think so.'
I'd had too much of Death. I'd fled from Death to this haven, but of course in running from him, I had only run into his arms.
Life you can evade; death you cannot.
CHAPTER 11
THE LAMB OF DAWN BECAME A MORNING LION with a sudden roar of wind that raked the parlor windows with ticking teeth of snow. A mere snowstorm swelled into a biting blizzard.
'I liked Brother Timothy,' I said.
'He was a sweet guy,' Knuckles agreed. 'That amazing blush.'
I remembered the outer light that revealed the inner brightness of the monk's innocence. 'Somebody put pillows under Tim's blankets so he wouldn't be missed till the storm could complicate things. The killer bought time to finish what he came here to do.'
'He who?' Knuckles asked.
'I told you, sir, I'm not psychic.'
'Ain't askin' for psychic. Thought you seen some clues.'
'I'm not Sherlock Holmes, either. I better talk to the police.'
'Maybe you should think on whether that's smart.'
'But I should tell them what happened.'
'You gonna tell 'em about bodachs?'
In Pico Mundo, the chief of police, Wyatt Porter, was like a father to me. He had known about my gift since I was fifteen.
I didn't relish sitting with the county sheriff and explaining that I saw dead people as well as demons, wolfish and swift.
'Chief Porter can call the sheriff here and vouch for me.'
Knuckles looked doubtful. 'And how long might that take?'
'Maybe not long, if I can reach Wyatt quick.'
'I don't mean how long for Chief Porter to tell the locals you're real. I mean how long for the locals to believe it.'
He had a point. Even Wyatt Porter, an intelligent man, who knew my grandmother well and knew me, required convincing when I first took him information that solved a stalled murder investigation.
'Son, nobody but you sees bodachs. If the kids or all of us is gonna get slammed by somebody, by somethin'- you got the best chance of figurin' out what-how-when, the best chance to stop it.'
On the mahogany floor lay a Persian-style carpet. In the figured world of wool between my feet, a dragon twisted, glaring.
'I don't want that much responsibility I can't carry it.'
'God seems to think you can.'
'Nineteen dead,' I reminded him.
'When it might've been two hundred. Listen, son, don't think the law is always like Wyatt Porter.'
'I know it's not.'
'These days law thinks it's about nothin' but laws. Law don't remember it was once handed down from somewhere, that it once meant not just no, but was a way to live and a reason to live that way. Law now thinks nobody but politicians made it or remake it, so maybe it ain't a surprise some people don't care anymore about law, and even some lawmen don't understand the real reason for law. You pour your story out to a wrong kind of lawman, he's never gonna see you're on his side. Never gonna believe you're gifted. A lawman like that, he thinks you're what's wrong with the world the way it used to be, the way he's glad it ain't anymore. He thinks you're a psych case. He can't trust you. He won't. Suppose they take you in for observation, or even for suspicion if they find a body, what do we do then?'
I didn't like the arrogant expression of the dragon in the woven wool, or the way bright threads lent violence to its eyes. I shifted my left foot to cover its face.
'Sir, maybe I don't mention my gift or bodachs. I could just say I found a monk on the ground, then I was clubbed by someone.'
'What was you doin' out at that hour? Where was you comin' from, goin' to, what was you up to? Why your funny name? You mean you're the kid was a hero at the Green Moon Mall summer before last? How come trouble follows you, or is it maybe you yourself are trouble?'
He was playing the devil's advocate.
I half believed I could feel the carpet dragon squirming under my foot.
'I don't really have much to tell them that would be helpful,' I relented. 'I guess we could wait until they find the body.'
'They won't find it,' Brother Knuckles said. 'They ain't lookin' for a Brother Tim who's been murdered, the body hidden. What they're lookin' for is a Brother Tim somewhere who slashed his wrists or hung himself from a rafter.'
I stared at him, not fully comprehending.
'It's only two years since Brother Constantine committed suicide,' he reminded me.
Constantine is the dead monk who lingers in this world, and sometimes manifests as an energetic poltergeist in unexpected ways.
For reasons no one understands, he climbed into the church tower one night, while his brothers slept, tied one end of a rope around the mechanism that turns the three-bell carillon, knotted the other end around his neck, climbed onto the tower parapet, and jumped, ringing awake the entire community of St. Bartholomew's.
