Shallow Graves

wrapped it in paper towels, which he soaked under the low-pressure water tap and wadded up. This he dropped into a brown paper bag, crumpled that up and then stepped outside and tossed the whole thing into a refuse basket.
    Pellam hefted the suitcase, wheezing painfully from the effort, and left the camper. He walked stiffly through the cold autumn sunlight to the Greyhound depot, which took up a small portion of a gas station on Main Street. He paid to have the bag shipped to Marty’s parents.
    The clerk stroked the leather. “That’s a fine suitcase.”
    “Yessir,” Pellam said and, as it joined other luggage on a baggage cart, walked listlessly outside.
    HE WAS REMINDED of the last time he went hunting with his father—in his hometown, Simmons, New York, probably no more than sixty or seventy miles from where he now stood.
    Walking then through the same stubbly grass henow limped over, smelling the same scent of damp foliage, bathed in the same pale cast of light. Twenty-five years ago Pellam Senior had struggled through the fields, lifting the long Browning shotgun with an effort and missing even the slowest of pheasants. Two days later the man had collapsed with the first of the heart attacks that would eventually finish him.
    Pellam associated the hunting trip with his father’s death.
    That memory came back to him now and would not leave.
    He walked slowly, favoring his left foot to ease some of the dull ache in his back. Should’ve taken the damn cane the doctor had offered him, he thought again.
    The top of the park had been roped off by the police. A thin yellow tape that said, “Sheriff’s Department,” every few inches stretched from one thick rusted pipe to another. There was a chain on the ground attached to one pipe; they could have used that to bar the entrance but Pellam guessed the cops wanted the chance to use all their crime-fighting gear. He walked around the pipe and started to climb toward the summit of this hill.
    Pellam, breathing hard against the pain, reached the top of the drive and stopped.
    Obliterated.
    He walked to the center of the parking area—what had been grass and gravel was now just a pile of rich dark earth and the surrounding mess made by the dozer, whose tread marks he’d seen on the way up but hadn’t thought anything of.
    Obliterated.
    In the exact center—probably just where Marty’s car had been—there was no trace of scorch marks, no trace of footprints, no car treads. Just a dry foamy powder of dug-up dirt like a huge round grave. He stayed here for a long time. Mostly just walking around in slow circles, listening to the birds and the whiplashing wind in the leaves; there was really nothing to see. Nothing at all.
    “ WHAT HAPPENED? ”
    “Happened?” the deputy asked.
    They were standing outside the camper, parked on Main Street. The beefy deputy looked familiar. Pellam thought he was maybe the same one who’d helped him to the clinic after his accident. (What was the driver’s name? May? Mary? No, Meg. That was it. Meg.) The law enforcer stood with his arms pushed out from his body by a lot of biceps muscle. He noticed the man’s .357 had rubberized combat grips. He wondered if the gun had ever been fired anywhere but on a range. This deputy also had teardrop-shaped glasses though his had lavender-tinted lenses.
    “I get to where the accident was,” Pellam explained, “and the ground’s all plowed over.”
    Lavender?
    “Oh, that. What it was, they figured it would be, you know, discouraging for people to see where it happened.”
    Discouraging? “How do you mean?”
    “Wasn’t my decision. I don’t really know. I just heard, what with leaf season here and all, it might hurt tourist trade.”
    “Discouraging?” Pellam asked in exasperation.
    The deputy answered in a monotone. “It was kind of unpleasant. A bad fire, you know. Blood. We get a lot of hunters too. We—”
    “Then why was the tape still up?”
    “Tape?”
    “The police tape. That’d discourage tourists too pretty fast, you’d think.”
    “Oh, the tape. You’re right, sir. We forgot about it. But thanks for bringing it to our attention.”
    “You’re welcome,” Pellam said. “What happened to the car?”
    “Car?”
    The miniature troops with needles were climbing up and down Pellam’s back, working hard. He thought about the Demerol. He thought about tequila, with or without worms. The pain was bad and he was losing patience fast. “My friend’s car, the