The Crowded Grave

turned back to Monique.
    “Can I take a look in the big tent, the one you called their living room?”
    About fifteen feet square, with a peaked top and a large canopy, the main tent contained a couple of the picnic tables that the campground provided beside the barbecue stands. There was a small stereo-radio on one with a pile of CDs beside it, a five-liter box of cheap red wine and a pile of empty pizza boxes. On the other were cooking pots. Piled on a cloth beneath the bench were several boxes of vegetables and cereals and a dilapidated wicker basket containing some tools. Bruno noted a hammer and small saw, a couple of screwdrivers and a large pair of wire cutters.

5
    A small blue Peugeot circled the roundabout too fast. It beeped its horn to deter a mother with two children in a carriage from setting forth on the pedestrian crossing before parking with a jerk across two of the marked spaces in front of the
mairie
. The front bumper stopped within an inch of Bruno’s leg. The young woman at the wheel in a gray woolen suit threw him a swift glance and then began collecting papers from a briefcase on the passenger seat. From down the street, he heard a siren. The Peugeot was freshly washed but far from new, with dents in the bumper and scratches on the rear fenders and the wide tires he’d only previously seen on cars used for race-car driving.
    Bruno tapped on her window. “Your documents, please, mademoiselle.”
    She turned from her papers and looked at him coldly. The sound of the approaching siren grew, and a blue gendarmerie van came into view, Sergeant Jules at the wheel.
    “You’re Courrèges, the village policeman, right?”
    “Correct. You are illegally parked and about to receive a citation for failing to stop for a pedestrian crossing,” he said. He realized that this was the new magistrate, but the traffic in St.Denis was one of his responsibilities. He pulled out his notebook as Jules parked his police car behind the blue Peugeot, blocking its exit.
    “You got her too?” called Jules, heaving himself from the car. “We clocked her at seventy-eight coming into town.” He began to fill out a speeding ticket.
    “Meet our new magistrate,” said Bruno. “Annette Meraillon. Mademoiselle, this is Sergeant Jules of the gendarmerie.”
    “Putain,”
said Jules. “I’ve started writing it now. Can’t tear it up, they’re all numbered.”
    “I’m sure Mademoiselle Meraillon believes that the law should always take its course,” said Bruno. “Where was she doing seventy-eight?”
    “Going past the vet, just where the limit goes down from fifty to thirty. That’ll be three points off her license.”
    “Plus the pedestrian crossing,” said Bruno. “That’s four. And the fines, not including the twenty euros for parking across two spaces.”
    “If you two have finished,” the young woman said, “I’m on official business and have an appointment—with you.”
    Jules and Bruno looked thoughtfully at each other.
    “Urgent official business, mademoiselle?” Jules inquired.
    “Of course.”
    “Mademoiselle Meraillon wants to see a crime scene from which she knows the body has already been removed,” said Bruno. “It may be official, but it’s not exactly urgent. And I don’t know of any provision for magistrates to break the traffic laws when there is no crime in progress.”
    “This is ridiculous—” she began, then came an interruption.
    “Well, I’m glad you’ve got the stupid woman,” said Florence, putting the brake on her carriage. The two children sitting inside, safely buckled in, waved at Bruno. He waved back.Florence, the science teacher at the local school, kissed him quickly as he bent to say hello to the children. She put her hand on the roof of the blue Peugeot and looked in.
    “You’re a dangerous driver,” she said. “I’d started crossing that road and it was my right of way. You have no right to drive like that in town.” Florence turned to Bruno and Jules. “Take my name. I’ll be happy to be a witness.”
    The woman in the car glanced at the children as if seeing them for the first time. She swallowed hard, looked at Florence and then back at the children. She gripped the steering wheel, braced her shoulders against the car seat and lowered her head.
    “I’m sorry,” said the magistrate, raising her head to look directly at Florence. “And I’m sorry if I frightened your children. I didn’t mean to, and I apologize. I was in too much of