Shallow Graves

necklace.
    “Help you, sir?”
    “John Pellam to see Keith Torrens.”
    “Yessir, have a seat.”
    Pellam sat and thumbed through a pristine copyof Chemical Week. In three minutes, a grinning Keith Torrens walked into the reception area.
    “John.” They shook hands. “Good to see you.”
    “Thanks for taking the time.”
    “Come on, I’ll give you the fast tour.”
    Factories generally depressed Pellam—the regimentation, the way machines dictated where people stood and what they did (reflecting some kind of fear, he decided, that if it all fell apart, he’d end up on an assembly line somewhere twisting sheet metal screws into Whirlpools for the rest of his life). M&T, though, was a surprise. It was bright and clean. Filled with spotless white tile, brilliantly lit. The workers wore white jackets, pants and shoes and transparent bluish hats, like shower caps. It looked like a kitchen. Many of the people were bent over conveyor belts, checking machinery, packing cartons, reading computer screens. The equipment was stainless steel and white.
    “Quite an operation.”
    Keith said, “I’m a small guy. To compete with the Pfizers and Bristol-Myers Squibbs, you’ve got to be efficient. That’s the key word.” Light brown cardboard cartons rose to the ceiling on small elevators and moved along a conveyor overhead until they vanished into the shipping department.
    Keith was so excited to show off his company that he talked very quickly; that speed, together with the loud pulse from a dozen different kinds of machines, made it impossible for Pellam to catch more than a few phrases. Still, he smiled and nodded enthusiastically.
    They finished the tour and ended up outside Keith’s office. “It’s small but we’re proud of it.”
    Pellam said, “I’ll buy your cough syrup next time I get the flu.”
    “I’ll give you enough samples to last for two years.” He vanished into a corridor.
    Five minutes later—throat lozenges, cough syrup, nasal spray stuffed in Pellam’s jacket pockets—they walked into Keith’s office, a large sparse room, done in cheap paneling. Keith seemed like the sort who’d sink most of his money into the factory itself. Pellam shut the door and said softly, “I’d like to ask you a favor.”
    “Meg said there was something on your mind.”
    “I’d appreciate if you’d keep this off the record.”
    “Surely.”
    Pellam said, “It’s about my friend. The one who was killed.”
    “That car accident.”
    “I’m not sure it was an accident.”
    “No?”
    “I found the wreck and I noticed what looked like two bullet holes in the back. The sheriff said they were caused by the fire department but I checked out their equipment and I don’t think that’s it.”
    “Bullet holes.” Keith was frowning.
    Pellam shrugged. “I was wondering if there was any way somebody could look at a hole and see if it was definitely made by a bullet. Someone like you?”
    Keith said, “Possibly. What do the holes look like?”
    “The ones I saw were about a third of an inch, so that would mean they’re about thirty caliber.”
    Keith said, “Deer round, so it might be copper jacketed.”
    “Could be, sure.”
    Keith was looking up at the ceiling. “Any chance you could find the bullets in the car?”
    “Let’s assume they disappeared.”
    “Got you.” He nodded knowingly. Then reflected. “The car burned, right?”
    “Right.”
    “If,” Keith began slowly, “they were just lead bullets, the odds are that any residue would have been burned away. Lead oxidizes at a very low temperature. Copper, though, that’s a different story. It has a real high vaporization point. And going through sheet steel in a car? Yeah, I’d guess enough would have come off in the holes to find traces.”
    “Now, next question—”
    “I’d be happy to.”
    “I wasn’t going to ask you to go to the trouble. Isn’t there something you can show me to look for?”
    “After about four years of inorganic chemistry, sure. But why don’t we just spend a half hour right now? I’ll take some samples and we can have it back here in the lab in no time. We’ll run it through the chromatograph and spectrometer. Where’s the car?”
    “Out at a small junkyard on Route Nine.”
    “R&W?”
    “Yeah, that’s it.”
    Keith frowned. “I thought it would’ve been impounded or something.”
    “See why I’m a little curious about what’s going on?”
    THE CAMPER, FOLLOWED by Keith’s Cougar, pulled