“Listen,” I handed them the detector through the open window, “the signal was about fifteen feet outside the cemetery.”
“So hopefully it’s not buried with the bodies.”
“We don’t know. But I feel a little safer.” I was semiconfident that there would be no interference with dead bodies.
“Dude, what do we do now?”
“We had maybe twenty minutes that they left us alone back there. Then you two were unceremoniously escorted off the property, right?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“So from the time we started sweeping the property until you met the guard, twenty minutes passed.”
They both agreed.
“Well, I spent another twenty minutes covering the ground before I saw a guard coming in my direction.”
“So, if these guards have a routine, we should be able to figure out their schedule,” James said.
“Exactly. I’m guessing they cover that area every twenty minutes.”
“So we know how much time we have to work with,” Em jumped in.
“And,” I concluded, “we found out on the vacant property that it isn’t that difficult to dig. It’s sand. I mean, we should be able to determine what is buried there in twenty minutes. Two shovels, two diggers.”
James and Em were quiet. We could hear a night bird somewhere in the distance and the drone of some tree insects. Occasionally there was a car or truck up on the main highway.
“We’re talking about digging in an old cemetery, right?”
I’d been leaning into the open window, so I opened the door and climbed in beside Em.
“Technically outside a cemetery.”
“What if, and I’m just saying, what if we put our shovels through the top of a real rotted wooden casket? And we go right through to a skeleton?”
James, who always talked a good game, was having second thoughts.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how I’d feel, James.”
“And if we don’t, if we don’t do this, then we’ll never know if it’s the gold or not, right?”
“We’ll never know.” I agreed.
“And it’s our job to find out.” James was searching for courage. “We were hired to find this stuff.”
“We were. But part of our job isn’t to break the law.”
Another silence.
Finally Em spoke. “You guys know that I usually try to pull you back. I don’t want either of you getting in over your heads, but you usually manage to do that anyway, right?”
We both nodded.
“But in this case, if you’re careful, I think you’ve got to go for it.”
“Seriously?” I couldn’t believe she was 100 percent on board with this.
“Seriously.”
“We could get in a lot of trouble.”
“Could.”
“Serious trouble.”
“You’re digging in the beach, right?”
“Duh.” James frowned.
“That’s what people do. They dig in the sand. Kids do it. Adults do it. If you’re at a beach, it’s natural to dig in the sand.”
One of the few memories I had of good times with my mother and sister was going to Miami Beach and burying my ten-year-old sister up to her head. She was fine with it and Mom and I dug the hole with our hands. Marie lay in the sand cavern and we covered her up to her neck. Then I drew a butterfly around her head. There must have been ten people who came up and took pictures, and my sister was the hit of the beach. For about ten minutes.
“It’s just a strip of sand. As long as you’re not digging in the graveyard, it’s just the beach. I think we’re okay. Seriously.”
Em was buying in. I was amazed.
“Let’s go back to the Cove. Tomorrow night I think we’ve got some serious digging to do.”
“You know what happened the last time we dug, amigo?”
I did. We’d found a treasure map.
“Our luck is on course,” James said.
“In this case,” Em was smiling, her hand on my knee, “I don’t think it was luck. I think you guys have done some really good investigative work. You’re putting the puzzle together.”
“Yeah.” James had a smug, satisfied look on his face.
“Swing by the vacant property,” I said.
He turned off the highway and went back a block to the fenced-off boat dock.
“What are we looking for?”
I glanced at my watch. Eleven fifteen. Something that the girl at the front desk had said. That guests checked in at the Ocean Air in the very early morning and checked out very late at night.
“I don’t know, just cruise by.”
James slowed down to a crawl and we passed the camouflaged property, then the Ocean Air Suites.
“Whoa. Hold it.”
James braked.
We gazed back into the parking lot, sizing up the big tour bus parked in front. Its parking lights were on and with our windows down we could hear the hum of the big diesel engine.
“They’re just dropping off a late tour group. No big deal.” James shrugged his shoulders.
“Maybe.” Something was nagging at me. Tour buses don’t usually drop people off around midnight.
“Guys, I don’t think we want to sit here and debate what the bus is doing here. We’ve already been in trouble for hanging around this property.”
James pulled out and drove back to the highway.
“Park it over there, James.” I pointed to a deserted gas station. It was dark and there was no one around.
“Skip-” Em was not happy.
“Five minutes. Just watch the road over there, where traffic comes out from the Ocean Air.”
“Another one of your stakeouts?”
“Five minutes, Em. And the last stakeout turned up someone who looked a lot like Jim Weezle. We did have some success, am I right?”
She had nothing to say.
We waited, our engine running.
“Maybe it’s a good time to give the old girl a drink.”
James turned off the truck, went to the back, and came back empty handed. “No more oil, Skip. Not a good thing.”
“How long can we make it?”
“Won’t be many more miles she’ll be bone dry. It’ll freeze up the engine and we’ll grind to a stop. Not a good thing at all.”
“It’ll be nice when we get a new truck.”
With two million dollars, James could buy as many trucks as he wanted.
“What are we waiting for, Skip?”
And that’s when the big fancy tour bus pulled out, moving onto the highway headed north.
“We were waiting for that,” I said. “James, can you follow the bus?”
He started the truck and drove up behind the bus staying with it for a couple of minutes.
“Still don’t know what the purpose of this trip is.” He kept his eyes on the vehicle in front of us.
“Can you pass him?”
