Shallow Graves
her. “Whoever’s behind those drugs that Sam got. Whoever killed Marty. That’s what I’m doing here. That’s why I’m not leaving until I find out who it is.”
“In Cleary . . .” She shook her head. “This is the town where every other car has a red ribbon on the rearview mirror.”
Pellam shook his head, frowning.
“Mothers Against Drunk Driving,” Meg said. “The grocery bags at the Grand Union say, ‘Say No to Drugs.’”
Pellam opened the packet, sniffed it.
She said, “Why didn’t they find it?”
“I swallowed it. Then I got it back last night after they searched me, by a well-known biological process there’s no need to go into on this fine morning.”
“Jesus, Pellam. What if it’d broken open? You could’ve died.”
“I couldn’t really take a felony possession count.” He nodded at the printouts.
“Why didn’t you just flush it?”
“Sometimes, they test the water in jails.”
She smiled. “I can’t exactly see Tom testing the john water for drugs.”
Pellam laughed. “Who knows what kind of kits he got mail order from Small Town Cop Monthly he’s just dying to use.”
He stepped to the sink, opened the packet and let the contents disappear into the garbage disposal, under the smiling observation of a cut-out wooden goose wearing a bonnet. “I know people’d cry real tears, see me do this.”
Pellam dried his hands then walked up to a tall breakfront. He didn’t know anything about antiques. He stood awkwardly in front of the elaborate piece. “This is really something.”
The breakfast rolls came out and she set them in front of him. He ate two right away. They had a strongly yeasty flavor. Homemade.
They sipped coffee in an awkward silence for a few minutes. He was on his third roll. “The best compliment there is,” she said and ate one herself. “I never gain weight. Oh, I’m not being vain. It’s just a fact.”
Pellam walked into the hall. Looking at the wallpaper, the furniture.
Houses.
He knew what Tommy Bernstein would have said about his little place on Beverly Glen north of Sunset Boulevard. Shit, you got a fallee house, man. You be in trouble. . . . Houses on the top of the canyons were faller houses; at the bottom, fallee. You gonna get squashed in the ’quake, he’d have said. Sell that sucker now.
He said to Meg, “I’ll bet you have nice holidays here.”
“Holidays?” Meg paused. “I guess so. Quiet. Just the three of us. And friends sometimes. A house like this needs big families. It was different when I was growing up. Family all over the place.” Her voice faded. Then she said, “I have a confession.”
“Okay.”
“The accident, when I ran into you?”
“I’m familiar.”
“It wasn’t an accident. Oh, I didn’t want to hit you. But I wanted to meet you. I saw you walk up the sidewalk and I drove up there on purpose. I was going to skid the car or something. Pretend to drive off the road. So I could meet you.” She was playing with her cocktail ring. Five thousand dollars of pressurized carbon spun obsessively on a beautiful, thin finger.
He asked, “Why?”
“I thought maybe I could get a part in the movie.”
“That’s why you came to see me in the hospital?”
“No.”
He was standing right next to her. She turned, their eyes met. Outside, miles away, the cracks of shotguns rolled into silence. She said, “Well, maybe.”
He leaned down and kissed her.
Just like that.
“No,” she said. But that was the only resistance she offered. Her arms were around him, kissing back, and pulling him against her.
Then she stepped back.
“No,” she said. And this time she was speaking toherself and, unlike him, she decided to obey the command.
She walked back to the kitchen, stood at the window, wiped the sink absently.
Pellam had long ago given up apologizing for impulse. He followed her, picked up his cup, poured more coffee.
“The thing is.” Meg didn’t look at him, stared out the window. “I’m having an affair.”
He set the cup down.
Good job, Pellam. You can pick ’em like nobody else. Fall for a woman who’s got two men in her life, while you’re being chased around the ginkgo trees by a drugged-out flower child (and you, with an unblushing rail-thin Hollywood businesswoman you never call waiting at home for you).
He saw she was organizing her thoughts. Confession time. Things to get off her beautiful freckled chest. He sat down again. This might take some time. He
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