Brett Halliday - Mermaid on the Rocks

“I think I was wrong about one thing, Will,” Shayne said. “Maybe there’s going to turn out to be some buried treasure after all.”

“Fine,” Gentry said. “A cemetery’s a good place for it-all that digging equipment.”

They left the expressway after crossing the big bridge over the Miami River, skirted the airport on 36th Street and went north on the Palmetto Expressway.

“Next exit,” Barbara said.

The driver slowed. Off to the right Shayne saw Whispering Glades, the huge new cemetery, surely large enough to house all of Southern Florida’s dead for decades to come. They turned in through elaborate wrought-iron gates. The graves were laid out on a right-angle grid, like Miami itself, with streets, terraces and alleys running east and west, avenues, places and courts running north and south. The headstones were set flush with the ground, to be cleared more easily by the wheels of the power mowers.

The police driver dropped his speed to thirty, out of respect for the surroundings. Shayne snapped his fingers. He speeded up, swung around a slow-moving back-hoe and in a moment halted in front of a great brick mausoleum.

“What’s this all about, do you know?” Sims asked Barbara.

“No, and I’ve stopped trying to guess.”

“Will,” Shayne said. “The rest of you wait here.”

He and Gentry took the broad steps two at a time. They passed between two tall marble pillars and found themselves in a high central hall with organ music coming at them from concealed outlets. The floor was covered with wall-to-wall carpet. A commitment ceremony was taking place in a chapel at the far end. In spite of the air conditioning, there was a heavy smell of flowers.

“Mike, would you mind telling me what the hell we’re doing here?” Gentry said in a hushed voice.

“Playing a long shot,” Shayne said briefly.

An attendant approached, wearing the sober garb and smug look of all members of his profession. Shayne told him they were looking for the final resting place of Calvin Tuttle. The attendant consulted a directory and offered to take them, but Shayne asked for directions and said they would like to find it by themselves.

The crypts were arranged on three levels, like the stacks of a large library. Shayne and Gentry took an elevator to the middle level. A railed balcony ran around three sides of the hall. They turned into the third aisle. Crypts were stacked on both sides to a height of ten feet. Some had been sold but were not yet in use; these were faced with wood instead of stone, and held in place by four ornamental brass screws. Cal Tuttle’s headstone gave his name and dates, and the inscription, “Amid Turmoil, Peace.”

“Somebody had a sense of humor,” Shayne said.

The space above his had been reserved for Barbara; the space above that for Eda Lou.

“Keep an eye out,” Shayne said. “We don’t want to get picked up for robbing graves.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Gentry said fervently as Shayne took out a pocket knife, selected a blade with a blunt end and went to work on the screws holding Eda Lou’s wooden headplate in place.

“Mike!” Gentry said suddenly from the railing overlooking the central hall.

Shayne joined him. Tim Rourke, below, was mugging furiously, pointing at the front entrance and mouthing the same word over and over. The attendant who had greeted Shayne and Gentry watched gravely and then stepped out to the middle of the hall to look up at the balcony. Rourke turned abruptly and joined the group of mourners around the coffin in the chapel.

“I think our long shot came in,” Shayne said.

“Yeah, they generally do for you.”

Two women came in the front entrance. Both were blondes, Eda Lou’s improbably white hair more conspicuous than Kitty’s at that distance. The attendant approached with his obsequious murmur. Eda Lou spoke to him and the two women turned toward the elevator.

“That makes everybody,” Gentry said. “I told you it was a matter of time.”

“Let’s fade,” Shayne said.

They walked along the balcony, stopping when they were above the chapel. A single overhead spot bathed the coffin in brilliant light, but the mourners around it, and Shayne and Gentry above, were in semidarkness. A woman’s voice could be heard sobbing.

“I think I’m finally beginning to get the idea,” Gentry said. “Slow but sure.”

“It makes sense when you think about it,” Shayne said. “That crypt is better than a safe-deposit box and not so conspicuous. The headplate won’t come off till they put her in.”

The two women came out of the elevator and turned into the aisle Shayne and Gentry had just left.

“How much time do we give them?” Gentry asked.

“She can use some help. When she tightened those screws she really tightened them.”

Shayne hissed at Rourke and made a rounding-up gesture. He and Gentry went back along the balcony, the thick carpet deadening their footsteps. Both women whirled guiltily when they came into the aisle.

“We’ve been looking all over,” Shayne said.

Eda Lou, looking at Shayne malevolently, dropped her hand to her side to conceal the screwdriver. Kitty cried, “Mike! The most fantastic thing has happened! Do you know what she’s been telling me?”

“Up to a point,” Shayne said. “I don’t think you know Will Gentry, Chief of Miami Police. He’s a sucker for stories about buried treasure. Mrs. Sims, Mrs. Parchman.”

Eda Lou whirled and threw the screwdriver at him. It flew over the railing to drop almost noiselessly in the central hall.

“You son of a bitch,” she said. “I should have put something stronger than seconal in that coffee.”

“Things were already out of hand,” Shayne told her. “You should have taken a couple of sleeping pills yourself and let Shanahan alone. That’s the one we’re going to get you on. You’re going to spend the rest of your life in jail.”

“You try to put me in jail, buster. You’ll know you’ve been in a fight.”

“I know that already,” Shayne said wryly.

He snapped open the screwdriver blade of his knife and went back to work on the screws. The attendant appeared at the entrance of the aisle with the screwdriver Eda Lou had thrown at Shayne.

“You people have to remember where you are,” he admonished them. “One of you dropped this, and it didn’t miss me by more than a foot.” He gaped. “What are you doing? You can’t open a crypt without an order from the managing director!”

“Police business,” Gentry said gruffly, showing him his shield. “I’ll see that nothing’s damaged.”

“I should certainly hope so.”

Shayne pulled the plate off, unblocking the crypt just as a little group arrived, consisting of Tim Rourke, Quarrels, Barbara, Hank Sims and two detectives.

“Mr. Quarrels!” the attendant exclaimed. “It’s all right-they’re police officers.”

Shayne looked at Quarrels questioningly, and the white-haired man nodded.

“Whispering Glades is one of our subsidiaries.”

“And I’m sure it’s a gold mine,” Shayne said, “in more ways than one.”

He thumbed his lighter and held it in front of the crypt’s dark opening. The others crowded around to see what the little flame would reveal.

“A fiasco!” Rourke said. “There’s nothing there.”

“Look again,” Shayne told him. “How did you get it that far back,” he asked Eda Lou, “climb in after it?”

He tugged at a cord running the length of the seven-foot space, and slowly a long cardboard box slid into view.

It was a florist’s box, long and narrow. Shayne lifted it out. He broke the string, stripping off the thin cardboard, and exposed a wooden box underneath, the same size and shape.