Shallow Graves

20

Pellam moved back and forth slowly in the bentwood rocker he'd been politely invited toward by the blunt 12-gauge trap gun. (Pellam hated shotguns. Shotguns were really loud.)

The man-he was Wex Ambler, according to his muttered introduction-studied Pellam carefully. Pellam gazed back. It was an odd contrast-hateful dark eyes and an L.L. Bean Sunday gardener's outfit, complete with bright green Izod shirt.

"What were you doing?" Ambler asked.

"Thinking of shooting a movie here. I was-"

"You know I could shoot you now. Blow your head clean off and all the sheriff'd do is tell me how sorry he was I lost a window and bloodied my floor."

Pellam saw the stillness in Ambler's eyes and knew this was a man who could easily kill.

He said, "I wanted to see if you were really the man who was trying to send me to Attica for ten years."

Ambler said, "I didn't want you to go to prison. I wanted you to leave town. Get the hell out and not come back."

"You could've asked."

"You were asked. Several times."

Goodbye…

Ambler's eyes flashed. "You people… We have a decent town and you think you can come here from Hollywood, and make your movies, but you're laughing at us. Behind our backs you're laughing. I hate you people."

Pellam was laughing. "Bullshit. I came to town to rent a few houses and stores for a couple of weeks. That's all we wanted. My friend gets killed and I get beat up and somebody plants drugs on me…"

Ambler shook his head, whipping Pellam's words off like they were gnats.

Pellam's eyes measured distances, noticing that the shotgun's safety was on, that Ambler's finger was outside the trigger guard, that the muzzle was aimed sixty or seventy degrees away from him. Noticing a carving set on the counter, antler handled, a burnished, well-honed blade on the knife. Even the serving fork looked vicious.

"Sin city," Ambler said.

Pellam rocked forward. His legs tensed, thinking he could probably make it. He wondered what it was like to stab someone. "It's just a business," Pellam said.

Ambler didn't hear him. "People here go to church, they have children, they teach them Christian values, they work hard, they-"

Pellam thought: Make millions selling smack.

"-don't need your kind of influence."

Outside influence. So it was a script. Moorhouse and Ambler and the sheriff all had the same script and the lines were terrible. They'd all be in on it, of course. This man with a million-dollar house was probably the ringleader. He'd arranged to bring the drugs in from someplace out of the country. Then he'd distribute them in small towns like this. An untapped market. Moorhouse, Tom the sheriff and the pastel-sunglassed deputies were his enforcers.

Ambler was lecturing. Sin, providence, promises unkept.

The words didn't quite harmonize with the fact the man had killed Marty. Or was seeding God-fearing Dutchess County with exotic drugs. (But Pellam recalled a former acquaintance-E Block, West Wing, San Quentin, California-who went to church every day.)

Ambler kept talking like a crazy person on the street, furious. Flecks of spittle in the corner of his mouth. The muzzle of the gun rose and fell like surf.

But Pellam wasn't paying much attention to Ambler's mania or the moral purity of Dutchess County.

He was thinking about the carving knife.

His feet rested themselves under the sensually curved chair.

Pressing the balls of his feet against the tile. The knife, the knife, the knife.

He felt the tension, like blued spring steel, building in his calves.

The knife…

He kept his eyes calm, staring right into Ambler's. That was the give-away in a fight. You could always tell when a man was about to swing or go for a weapon-his eyes. He'd learned that from another acquaintance (D Block, North Wing). Pellam looked at Ambler and kept his eyes very still.

He rocked forward. The chair swung back and then forward, his weight moved with it.

The knife.

On your mark.

Goddamn, shotguns were loud.

Get set.

Blood on the tiles? No, sir, there'd be blood on the ceiling, the walls, the fancy granite countertop…

Go.

Ambler's harsh voice asked, "What did you tell her?"

Pellam froze, stopped rocking. "Who?"

Ambler's feverish eyes danced out the window for a moment, as a car drove past. It continued on.

Pellam rocked back. His quaking legs relaxed. Shotguns didn't so much shoot you as obliterate you.

Ambler continued. "That you'd make her a star?"

"What are you talking about?"

Ambler said, "She told you she'd been a model, didn't she? And you promised to get her jobs. Promised to take her out to California. 'Leave this backwater little town. Leave your son'? And then you seduced her, didn't you? You promised her a job and you fucked her."

"I don't-"

"She's just fodder for you, isn't she?"

"I don't know who you're talking about."

His first thought was: Janine. But then he asked cautiously, "Meg?"

Ambler nodded.

Him? He's the one?

Meg, come on… This guy?

Ambler muttered sarcastically, "Oh, she'd be in good hands with you… Jesus. You gave Sam that fucking heroin or whatever it was and practically killed him…"

The surprise in Pellam's eyes must have seemed genuine. Ambler stopped talking.

"I didn't give Sam that stuff."

Ambler frowned. Finally he said, "You seduced her, didn't you?"

"Nothing happened between us. We talked. We had dinner."

Ambler looked at him for a moment, a lover's examination of a possible rival. How they hang on every flutter of eyelash, every syllable.

Pellam said, "She's a captivating person."

Ambler said, "Too good for you."

"That's probably true."

Ambler said, "I love her."

"That's why you did it?" Pellam asked. "Why you had me set up? Because you thought I was taking her away from you?"

"Yes! And here you come to threaten me. To tell me to stop seeing her-"

Pellam said, "I didn't even know you were seeing her."

"Then what're you doing here tonight?"

Pellam looked at Ambler's face carefully, judging. Tommy Bernstein had said there were times when a man has to make a leap. He meant it philosophically, muttering something about a leap of faith, though when he said it he was drunk and poised to leap off the second story of his Beverly Hills house into the swimming pool that Liberace had supposedly done something scandalous in.

Pellam said, "I'm going to show you something."

"What?"

"I'm going to reach into my pocket, okay? I just want to show you something."

Pellam's hand disappeared into his pocket and it returned with the two shell casings.

"What are those?"

"These were the shells from the shots that killed my partner. Whoever did that is the same person who's been selling the drugs that Sam got. I assumed it was the same person who had me beat up."

"And you thought it was me?" Ambler's face was horrified. Pellam slowly rocked forward, off the balls of his feet. He'd forgotten about the knife. Ambler said, "I'm a Christian."

Pellam laughed. "Well, you vandalized our camper, right? You planted the drugs in the car and you called the sheriff and said Marty was selling stuff, right?"

Ambler didn't answer for a moment. "The day you and your friend came to town I was with Meg. She was so excited. I've never seen her that way. She was obsessed with the idea of being in a movie. That's all she talked about. If you made a movie here, I was afraid I'd lose her. She'd try to get a part, she'd go off to Hollywood. I did have somebody plant something in the car. And then, yes, he called the police. But I didn't have Marty killed. I'd never do that."

"You were the one who ordered the parking lot plowed over?"

"When the accident happened-when the car blew up-I was terrified that I'd be accused of it. I told Moorhouse to have it dozed to hide any evidence."

"And Sillman? The rental place."

"I had my man talk to Sillman. We arranged to offer Marty's family some money. A lot of money. It looked like an insurance settlement."

"And you had those two locals pay me a visit? Beat me up?"

Ambler nodded. "I wanted you gone so badly. All she did was talk about you. Talk about movies. I was losing her. I was desperate." He looked down at his hands, studied his long fingers. Ambler broke open the shotgun and put it on the counter. He picked up the bullet casings. "Winchester.300's. But there's something different about them."

"Magnums," Pellam said.

"I don't have a gun that'll take these." He looked up. "You want to check?"

Pellam glanced at the shotgun, which Ambler could still grab, close and loudly obliterate Pellam with before he was halfway to the knife. He said, "I believe you."

Ambler handed the cartridges back. "Those're unusual rounds."

"Used for real long distance shooting."

"What kind of weapon would that be?" Ambler asked.

"You can get a Beretta bolt-action chambered for them. SIG-Sauer has a.300 Magnum and-"

"Beretta, you say?"

Pellam said, "You know somebody who's got one?"

"I do, but I don't think-"

"Who?"

"You don't know them. A couple brothers."

Something flashed through Pellam's mind.

Pellam said, "They wouldn't be twins, by any chance?"

"Yeah, as a matter of fact, they are."

"You aren't gonna like it," the deputy said to the sheriff.

"I don't like a lot of what's been happening around here lately," Tom said.

They were in the police station, Sunday night, though one thing about Cleary: the Sabbath wasn't any quieter than any other day. The only difference now was that all three of them were working-two in the office, and the other deputy in the field-and they were expecting a visit from a detective and another deputy from the County Sheriff's office, who were going to be assisting in the investigation of Ned's murder.

"I was talking to people who had seen him in the past twenty-four hours. Who'd seen Ned, I mean."

The sheriff knew this, since he'd sent the deputy to do just that. "And?"

"A coupla folks saw him with Sam Torrens. At the festival."

"So?" Tom was exhausted. A blown-up car, drugs, arson, fights. And now a high school boy murdered. Life in small-town America. Crap.

"It was just before the kid got sick."

"Kid? Which kid? Explain it to me, will you?"

The deputy said, "I'm saying that it looks like Ned was the one who gave the drugs to Sam Torrens. That heroin shit."

"Oh." The sheriff closed his eyes and rubbed them with his knuckles. "What aren't I going to like? You said before I wasn't going to like something."

The deputy continued. "Keith Torrens got his boy a.22 for Christmas last year. I seen him buying shells."

"When?"

"I don't mean recent. I just mean I know he's got a.22 in the house. And had some shells."

"Come on, Randy. Everybody in town's got a.22. They practically come with the house when you buy one."

"I'm just saying."

"And we don't know for certain it was a.22 killed Ned. Could've been a.25 or a.222."

"Maybe. But you'd think there'd've been more damage-"

"We. Don't. Know."

The deputy nodded. Finally he said, "Closest thing to justifiable I've ever seen."

The sheriff wondered where the hell that was coming from. The deputy had worked on exactly one murder in his four years on the force and that had been when Barnie Slater's wife used a deer slug in his sleep to keep him from taking the lamp cord to her anymore. She had fresh coffee for the deputies when they'd arrived. The sheriff said, "Justifiable's the prosecutor's decision, not ours."

After a moment Tom asked, "When was the time of death?"

"About ten this morning."

"Church time. Meg was here bailing out that movie guy-now that's a fact I don't want to think too much on. What about Keith? He do church?"

"I don't know," the deputy answered. "We can call. They're in First Presbyterian."

"Who's that? The Minister?"

"Jim Gitting. Good man. Gives a good sermon."

Tom didn't care whether he was the devil's own brother. "Call him. Find out if Torrens was there today."

The deputy picked up the phone. "Reverend Gitting please… Hey, Reverend, how you doing? Look, I'm real sorry to be-"

Tom took the phone from his hand. "Reverend, this is the sheriff. Was Keith Torrens in church this morning?"

"Uhm, no, Sheriff." The voice was whiny. Didn't sound like he'd give a good sermon at all. "Can I ask why?"

"Just looking into some things. He usually attend services?"

"Hardly ever. He was working this morning-like usual."

"Wait. You said he wasn't there. How'd you know where he was."

"He wasn't in church. He just dropped off Sam for Sunday school. Is this about that thing with Sam this morning? It wasn't a big thing. Just gave the teachers a little fright is all."

"What 'thing' with Sam?"

"Well, the boy disappearing. Is that what you're calling about?"

"What happened?"

"The boys had a study group outside, the weather was so nice. About a half hour later the teachers noticed Sam was gone. We called Meg but she wasn't home-"

Bailing out that asshole from the movie company.

"-and we called Keith."

"At his office?"

"Right. He was about to leave but then Sam came back. He was upset about something but wouldn't say what. Mrs Ernhelt had a talk with him about going away without saying anything and he seemed okay. It really wasn't anything."

"What time was this, Reverend?"

"I don't know for sure. About nine forty-five or ten."

Brother…

"All right, sir, thank you."

"Can you tell me what this is all about?"

"Nothing important. 'Night."

The deputy finally said what he'd apparently been eager to say for some time. "Tom, if somebody gave my kid drugs like that I'da done something to him too. Maybe not killed him. But I'da done something. You can't hardly blame Keith."

"The minister called Keith when Sam disappeared. He was in his office." Before the deputy could nod in relief Tom said, "But his boy wasn't accounted for."

"Sam? Come on, you're not thinking…" But the man's voice faded.

Trash.

The mystery of what lay behind the stockade fence at R &W was solved: not surplus, not salvage. Forget about antiques. Not even good junk.

Robert and William owned a trashyard and nothing but.

Pellam had circled far around the back of R &W and was slowly moving through the woods. Unlike the pristine woods surrounding Ambler's house, the air here was raw, pungent, ripe. He smelled garbage and methane, which filled his throat and made him gag. Several times he had to swallow down nausea. Under the dim moonlight, halved by mist, he felt he was plodding through a dead animal's viscera. The ground under his boots was slick and pasty.

He came to the foothills of the junkyard: A doorless refrigerator on its side then ten yards further along, amputated pieces of laminated furniture, plush toys, books, tangles of wire, hunks of iron losing shape to oxidation.

Twenty yards more and he came to the boundary of R &W. He'd brought a small bolt cutter and though he saw now at one time there had been a cheap chain link enclosing a portion of the yard it had long ago sagged or been pulled down by vandals or gravity. Pellam stuffed the cutter into his back pocket and hopped over an indented portion of the fence.

He paused and listened for dogs.

Nothing. No voices either. Just the sour smell and a tangle of vague moonlight reflecting off a thousand varied surfaces. Pellam walked forward slowly toward the shack that must have been the office of the place, looking for footholds through the maze of scabby, broken trash.

Pellam pressed his back against the shack. He looked quickly in the window then ducked below the sill. Empty. He looked again.

A filthy place. Fast food cartons, empty beer cans, more magazines (he expected Penthouses but all he could see were National Geographics, Cosmopolitans and Readers' Digests), moldy and stained clothes. Books, dishes, newspapers, slips of paper, boxes.

He also saw two leather guncases in the corner.

He looked around, then tried the window. It was locked. Pellam took the bolt cutter and whacked out a pane of glass, reached up and undid the latch. He lifted the window and after a struggle to boost himself up, the pain shooting from his thigh to his ribs to his jaw, he half-fell and half-climbed over the windowsill.

He listened for a moment. And heard nothing but the rustle of a car moving by. He walked quickly to the corner, and hefted one of the gun cases. Inside was a Colt AR15, the civilian version of the Army M-l6.

The other case held the.300 magnum Beretta.

A simple-looking gun, a bolt-action. Walnut stock, dark blued metal, a black shoulder guard, a high-riding telescopic sight. There were no iron sights; it was a sniper's gun. The shells Sam had found fit it perfectly.

Cinderella's slipper.

Was it proof enough? Pellam didn't know. His only bout with the law had been on the other side (and from there it looked pretty damn easy to get yourself arrested and convicted). Pellam replaced the gun then began looking through desk drawers, the closet, the battered olive-drab rucksacks stacked on the back wall.

Which is where they had the drugs hidden.

Thousands of little tubes like the kind crack came in. Must've been five, six thousand of them. And inside each one was a little crystal like the doctor had showed them, the crystals someone had given Sam. A little piece of rock candy.

That solved the probable cause problem. If the gun didn't do it then this ought to.

A car went by. It seemed to slow and he quickly shoved the bags back into place, drew his pistol. Then after a moment, when the car was past, Pellam knelt and opened the rucksack again.