Shallow Graves

changes.”
    “John—”
    “Bye.”
    “—no.”
    Before he sat down at the lunch counter Pellam noticed a rack of sunglasses. His had met the same fate as his Polaroid, thanks to Meg Torrens’s little Toyota. He decided to buy another pair. He noticed some mirrored teardrop shapes. He tried them on, checked them out in the mirror.
    He smiled. Perfect. Yep: Cool Hand Luke.
    The middle-aged man behind the counter said, “They’re you.”
    “How d’I look? Like a small-town sheriff?”
    “Yessir, you could man a speed trap any day with those.”
    “Take ’em,” Pellam said.
    “You want the fake leather case?”
    “That’s okay.”
    He sat at the counter. The clerk didn’t seem much interested in a Hollywood career and just talked to Pellam about traveling, of which he’d done a great deal. He told Pellam how he and his wife had taken this year’s vacation in Peru and Chile.
    “The air is the thing you don’t think about. The altitude, you know. You walk a couple blocks—well, they don’t really have blocks but you know what I mean—and you’ve gotta lie down and take a nap. It’s exhausting! I mean, I thought I was in good shape. I can chop a couple cord of wood and no problem. But I was beat. And there are all these little old women steaming along like it’s nothing to them and trying to sell you pottery and these blankets and jewelry. They see money and they run right at you. They sprint! In air like that. It’s all what you’re used to.” The man summarized: “Everything’s relative.”
    “Suppose so,” Pellam said, and listened to the history of Machu Picchu.
    Pellam checked his watch, said, “I’ve got to pick up something.”
    “We did the Orinoco too but I didn’t see one crocodile.” He grimaced.
    “Life’s full of disappointments.” Pellam stood and put his deputy glasses on.
    “No disappointment at all. Sally and me’re going back in October. We’ll find one. I promise you that.”
    Pellam wished him luck.

Chapter 12
    PELLAM PARKED THE camper in the driveway of the Torrens house (the word “homestead” came to mind). Meg stepped out onto the porch, then smiled and jumped down the few steps to the walk that led to the driveway, wiping her hands on a scallopy apron and looking just like a housewife out of a 1960s sitcom.
    A housewife, however, in a tight, blue silk blouse, the top two (or was it three?) buttons undone.
    Eyes up, boy.
    My God, she’s got a freckled chest.
    Pellam just loved freckles on women.
    “What brings you here, Pellam?”
    “Came to borrow something.”
    She blinked. To joke, or not to joke? “Butter churn?”
    “Naw.”
    “Bear grease for your muzzle-loader?” she asked.
    Gotcha.
    He smiled indulgently. “As a matter of fact,” Pellam said, “you’re talking to one of the only people in the state of New York that’s fired a Sharps .54.”
    And she didn’t miss a beat. “A Sharps? Forgetabout it, boy. That’s a drop-block breechloader, not a muzzle-loader.”
    Gotme.
    She laughed hard at his jolted expression. “Girls usually melt at gun talk, huh?”
    He said, “Nobody in the goddamn world except me and born-again gun nuts know about Sharps anymore.”
    “I never fired one but my daddy had one. He collected guns. I’ve got myself a Springfield breechloader in the den.”
    “No.” He laughed. “A forty-five seventy?”
    She nodded. “Carbine. With a saddle ring and everything.”
    “Damn, what a woman. You ever fire it?”
    “What good’s a gun unless you fire it? But try getting the black powder smell out of your silk undies.”
    “Not a problem I have.”
    “Sam and I take it out to the range sometimes. Hard to find ammo, of course.”
    “That’s what I wanted to borrow.”
    “Ammunition?”
    “Your son.”
    “The bomb expedition?” She nodded.
    “Yep. It okay?”
    Meg said, “You ever known any parent to mind when somebody says he’ll take your child off your hands for a few hours?” She called Sam then turned back to Pellam. “Oh, before I forget . . . The Apple Festival is Saturday afternoon. You interested in seeing it?”
    “I guess. You’ll be there?”
    “It’s a family thing.”
    What was that supposed to mean? You’ll be there it’s a family thing. He waited a second for more messages; when he got none, he said, “Sure. Look forward to it.”
    Sam appeared. “Hey, Mr. Pellam, we gonna look at bombs?”
    “You bet, Sam.”
    “All right! Can we go in the camper?”
    “That’s the