Shallow Graves

time of death?”
    “About ten this morning.”
    “Church time. Meg was here bailing out that movie guy—now that’s a fact I don’t want to think too much on. What about Keith? He do church?”
    “I don’t know,” the deputy answered. “We can call. They’re in First Presbyterian.”
    “Who’s that? The minister?”
    “Jim Gitting. Good man. Gives a good sermon.”
    Tom didn’t care whether he was the devil’s own brother. “Call him. Find out if Torrens was there today.”
    The deputy picked up the phone. “Reverend Gitting please. . . . Hey, Reverend, how you doing? Look, I’m real sorry to be—”
    Tom took the phone from his hand. “Reverend, this is the sheriff. Was Keith Torrens in church this morning?”
    “Uhm, no, Sheriff.” The voice was whiny. Didn’t sound like he’d give a good sermon at all. “Can I ask why you’re asking?”
    “Just looking into some things. He usually attend services?”
    “Hardly ever. He was working this morning—like usual.”
    “Wait. You said he wasn’t there. How’d you know where he was.”
    “He wasn’t in church. He just dropped off Sam for Sunday school. Is this about that thing with Sam this morning? It wasn’t a big deal. Just gave the teachers a little fright is all.”
    “What ‘thing’ with Sam?”
    “Well, the boy disappearing. Is that what you’re calling about?”
    “What happened?”
    “The boys had a study group outside, the weather was so nice. About a half hour later the teachers noticed Sam was gone. We called Meg but she wasn’t home—”
    Bailing out that asshole from the movie company.
    “—and we called Keith.”
    “At his office?”
    “Right. He was about to leave but then Sam came back. He was upset about something but wouldn’t say what. Mrs. Ernhelt had a talk with him about going away without saying anything and he seemed okay. It really wasn’t anything.”
    “What time was this, Reverend?”
    “I don’t know for sure. About nine forty-five or ten.”
    Brother. . . .
    “All right, sir, thank you.”
    “Can you tell me what this is all about?”
    “Nothing important. ’Night.”
    The deputy finally said what he’d apparently been eager to say for some time. “Tom, if somebody gave my kid drugs like that I’da done something to him too. Maybe not killed him. But I’da done something. You can’t hardly blame Keith.”
    “The minister called Keith when Sam disappeared. He was in his office.” Before the deputy could nod in relief Tom said, “But his boy wasn’t accounted for.”
    “Sam? Come on, you’re not thinking . . .” But the man’s voice faded fast, as if he couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.
    TRASH.
    The mystery of what lay behind the stockade fence at R&W was solved: not surplus, not salvage. Forget about antiques. Not even good junk.
    Robert and William owned a trashyard and nothing but.
    Pellam had circled far around the back of R&W and was slowly moving through the woods. Unlike the pristine woods surrounding Ambler’s house,the air here was raw, pungent, ripe. He smelled garbage and methane, which filled his throat and made him gag. Several times he had to swallow down nausea. Under the dim moonlight, halved by mist, he felt he was plodding through a dead animal’s viscera. The ground under his boots was slick and pasty.
    He came to the foothills of the junkyard: a door-less refrigerator on its side then ten yards further along, amputated pieces of laminated furniture, plush toys, books, tangles of wire, hunks of iron losing shape to oxidation.
    Twenty yards more and he came to the boundary of R&W. He’d brought a small bolt cutter, and although he saw now at one time there had been a cheap chain link enclosing a portion of the yard, it had long ago sagged or been pulled down by vandals or gravity. Pellam stuffed the cutter into his back pocket and hopped over an indented portion of the fence.
    He paused and listened for dogs.
    Nothing. No voices either. Just the sour smell and a tangle of vague moonlight reflecting off a thousand varied surfaces. Pellam walked forward slowly toward the shack that must have been the office of the place, looking for footholds through the maze of scabby, broken trash.
    Pellam pressed his back against the shack. He looked quickly in the window then ducked below the sill. Empty. He looked again.
    A filthy place. Fast-food cartons, empty beer cans, more magazines (he expected Penthouse s but all he could see were