Shallow Graves by Jeffery Deaver Page B

reminding him of a boat, though he’d only been on water once or twice in his life. Subterranean noises rose from his stomach. The dinner of ham with fruit sauce he’d eaten at the Cedar Tap wasn’t sitting well.
    He returned to his typewriter, a small German portable. He hammered away.
    . . . the graveyard is on a plateau. One hill eases down to the cemetery from the crest of the piney woods. On the other side the land glides down to the river. From that point of stability you gointo the town itself. An old cannon is small and overpainted, just like the park benches. The storefronts are bleached out and full of antiques no one wants, hardware that no one needs. The town has managed something remarkable—absorbed fatigue and turned it into a fuel that runs a thousand small-town dreams.
    ANGLE: A flagpole rung by its windblown rope like a bell.
    ANGLE: A roaring 4x4 with exhaust bubbling driven by a YOUNG MAN, who grins at a TEENAGE GIRL. He’s your perfect citizen of Cleary: snotty, confident, comforting as long as you share his race and ancestry. We FOLLOW the truck to—
    LONG ANGLE: A motorcycle coming toward us, a man in his thirties driving slowly. There’s something ominous about him. He—
    The car door outside the Winnebago startled him. He’d seen the lights through the curtain, but, absorbed in writing, hadn’t noticed they weren’t continuing around the curve and disappearing.
    “Hey, Pellam, you in there? I saw the light.” A woman’s voice.
    He opened the door.
    “Hi there,” he said and let Janine in.
    “I was just passing by . . . You know.” She laughed and set a shopping bag on the table. She surveyed the rooms. “Reminds me of, know what? An airplane.”
    What was that smell? It entered with her. He thought of newly mown grass. He looked outside then shut the door and locked it.
    “This is luxury,” he said. “At the studio they call these honey wagons.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “There are several theories,” he said. “None of which I really ought to go into.”
    “Look, I heard about your friend. I’m so sorry.”
    “Thank you.”
    “What happened?”
    Pellam believed that grief, like joy, was best explained simply. “Car accident.”
    “That’s so sad. Terrible.” She looked like she meant it and he wondered if she was going to start crying. He really hoped she wouldn’t. She said, “What I was saying the other day, about Cleary? You read about car crashes every week in the Leader. ” She surveyed him and nodded toward his thigh (scary about these small-town rumors—man, they spread fast). “How’re you  ?”
    “Right muscle. Wrong leg. I’ll be okay.”
    The sorrow in her voice was gone; he was grateful that she’d expressed it but hadn’t overdone the emotion.
    “I’ll give it a massage. I studied Rolfing.”
    “Maybe later. It’s a bit tender right now.”
    She studied the camper carefully. Her eyes lingered on the one decoration: A New York Film Festival poster of Abel Gance’s Napoleon. She kept giving faint little laughs, as each new thing she noticed surprised her.
    “I heard they aren’t going to do the movie here.”
    “True.”
    “But you’re staying?”
    “True also. I got fired.”
    “No! Why?”
    “It’s Hollywood.”
    “What a downer.” She didn’t look real down, though. She touched his arm. “I’m sorry about the movie but I’m glad about you.”
    He didn’t respond.
    She waited a few seconds then let go and looked around again. “Don’t you get claustrophobic?”
    “It’s not bad.”
    “I’m not disturbing you?” Though as she said it she was sitting down in the small dining alcove, making herself at home.
    There are times to say, Yes, you are, and times to say, No, when asked that question.
    He said, “No, not at all.”
    “I brought you some dessert.”
    “Dessert?”
    “I remember you liked dessert. The cake at Marge’s? When you picked me up? On Monday?” Her eyebrows raised with every sentence.
    “I