Shallow Graves

swivelled back in his green leatherette chair. “Don’t need to see me about that. Town clerk can issue them.”
    “He can?”
    “Yep. Deer’ll cost you twenty-five. Bear’s protected. Geese—”
    Pellam smiled. “I understand you decided not to issue obstruction permits to my movie company.”
    “Oh, that. True.”
    “Why?”
    Moorhouse pulled an inch of Scotch Magic tape off a dispenser, rolled it up and began chewing it. “Your friend, if he’d got himself killed in a car crash or racing out into the street to rescue a little girl we’d put banners up and welcome your outfit to town. But the boy was smoking crack—”
    “He wasn’t smoking crack. He never did crack. I traveled with him for months.”
    “Well, we found crack vials—pot there too.”
    “I doubt it was his.”
    “Somebody walked up and dropped a foil-wrapped package full of hash in a burning car?”
    “If the police found it there then, yes, that’s exactly what happened.”
    “What’d you be suggesting, sir?”
    This man, like the town deputies, was getting some serious mileage out of “sir.” The word seemed to have a different meaning every time he said it.
    “He couldn’t have had any with him.”
    “And why would you be so sure?”
    “I just am.”
    “Yessir, well, doesn’t really matter. It’s in our discretion to issue permits or not. We chose not to. Nothing more needs to be said. We’re a self-sufficient community.”
    Pellam blinked, wondering what on earth that meant.
    “I’m saying we don’t need your movie here, sir. We don’t need your Hollywood money.”
    “I’m not suggesting you do.”
    Moorhouse held his hands up. “So. That’s it. There’s nothing more to be said.”
    “I guess not.”
    Moorhouse’s wattle stretched as he broke into a shallow smile. He opened his desk. “Now, we’ve got a ticket for you. . . . Ha, that’d be an airline ticket. Not parking.”
    “Oh, I’m not leaving.”
    “You’re not . . .”
    “Leaving.”
    “Uh-huh. I see.”
    Pellam said, “Real pretty around here. The leaves and everything.”
    “We do get tourists from around the world.”
    Pellam said, “I can understand why.”
    “So, you’re just going to look at some leaves for a while?”
    “Well, see without those permits I’m out of a job. So may as well take a bit of a vacation.”
    “Vacation.” The Scotch tape got chewed and the eyebrows moved a fraction of an inch closer. “That’s wonderful. I’m glad our little burg made an impression on you. Uhm, one thing I’d mention, for your benefit. You’ve got that camper of yours. Which you can’t park on the town streets two to six a.m. You’ll get yourself a ticket, you do.” The grin tightened. “That’s parking. Not airline. Ha.”
    “And I’ll bet that’s enforced pretty well.”
    “Tom and his boys do their best.”
    Pellam walked to the door. He stopped. “The car?”
    “Car, sir?”
    Damn, gotta learn how to say that. Sir, sir, sir, sir. . . . It seemed very Zen. Like a mantra.
    “The car Marty was in. The one that burned. You still have it in custody, don’t you?”
    “Believe it’s been sold.”
    “In two days?”
    “Sold for scrap.”
    “But how?”
    “Selling a car’s easy, sir.”
    “I mean, there’ll be lawsuits, won’t there? There’ll be some kind of investigation.”
    “The police investigation ended with the coroner’s report. You curious, you’ll have to ask the rental place.”
    “Obliged for your help. . . .” Pellam opened the door. He turned back and nodded. “Sir.”
    MEG TORRENS LISTENED to the familiar squeak of her chair as she sat back. It was the oldest chair inan old office, a teacher’s dark oak chair with an elaborate spring mechanism underneath a carved seat that matched no posterior she’d ever seen.
    “Wex,” Meg said, “I can promise you, they aren’t going to go with less than R-1. This is Cleary P&Z you’re talking about.”
    Wexell Ambler sat across from her and looked unhappily at the survey in front of him.
    The midmorning lull was in full swing at Dutchess Realty Company. In residential real estate evenings and Saturdays were the hectic times though that was an adjective Meg doubted could ever legitimately describe business in Cleary (No, Mr. Pellam, you are one hundred percent on point there: people aren’t busy in Cleary. Never have been, never will be). The small office, littered with three desks and unmatched chairs, scarred bookcases, an