McNally's Trial Read Online Free PDF Page A

blazer that would have been the envy of Emmett Kelly. He had seen my office before and was not shocked by my teensy-weensy professional crypt. First-time visitors are sometimes stunned speechless. My temporary man Friday flopped into the folding steel chair alongside my desk and helped himself to one of my English Ovals. He gestured toward the stack of computer printout.
    “What’s that?” he asked.
    “That, son,” I said, “is the start of a new investigation. It records the names and addresses of cemeteries to which the Whitcomb Funeral Homes have delivered their dear departed over the last six months. You and I must go through this encyclopedia of mortality and compile lists of the cemeteries involved and the number of deceased each of them accommodated.”
    Binky looked at me with something like horror. “You jest?” he said hopefully.
    “I do not jest,” I said firmly.
    “Archy,” he said plaintively, “don’t you have anything more exciting for me to do? You know—interrogating predatory blonds, shoot-outs, bloodbaths—that sort of thing.”
    “Binky,” I said at my avuncular best, “you have a totally mistaken concept of what the detective business is all about. It’s ninety percent routine, old bean: dull, dull, dull routine. Now either you submit your resignation and endure the wrath of the Duchess or you get to work instantly.”
    He sighed. “Oh, very well,” he said, “I’ll do it. Under protest, you understand. Do you have a pencil? And paper?”
    I supplied the needed and, after dividing the computer printout into two approximately equal piles, we both got busy. Binky worked in silence for about fifteen minutes. Occasionally he licked the point of his pencil— a despicable habit. Finally he looked up at me in total bewilderment.
    “Archy,” he said, “why are we doing this?”
    “I thought you’d never ask,” I said. “We’re doing it because the Whitcomb Funeral Homes are making too much money.”
    He stared at me with that dopey look he always gets when confronting anything more profound than Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
    “Oh,” he said.
    We continued our donkeywork and finished almost simultaneously. Binky shoved his notes across the desk to me. His handwriting was unexpectedly small, neat, and quite legible. Due to his long experience in signing bar tabs, no doubt. I compared his pages with mine and saw something interesting. I handed the two lists to my new subaltern.
    “Take a look,” I said. “See if you spot anything.”
    He studied our jottings with a worried frown. Then, to my pleased surprise, he caught it.
    “Hey,” he said, “a lot of these stiffs are being shipped north for burial.”
    “You’ve got it,” I said approvingly. “Of course South Florida has a huge retiree population, and I suppose many of them want to be planted in family plots in their hometowns. But it appears that Whitcomb is handling an inordinate number of out-of-state shipments.”
    Binky took another look at our computations. “Sure,” he said. “And the number is increasing every month. That’s crazy.”
    “Let me see,” I said and read over our lists again.
    Binky was correct. But then I saw something else. The majority of human remains being sent out of Florida by Whitcomb were airlifted to New York, Boston, and Chicago. The computer printout I had received did not state who was receiving these gift packages at La-Guardia, Logan, and O’Hare.
    Binky and I lighted cigarettes and stared at the smoke-stained ceiling tiles.
    “You know, Archy,” he said, “it’s sad. I mean, old geezers retire and come down here to spend their last years in the sunshine. But when they croak, they want to go home. Don’t you think that’s sad?”
    “No,” I said, “I don’t. Our transplanted oldsters are survivors. More power to them. And when they finally shuffle off, they want their final resting place to be Buffalo, Peoria, Walla Walla, or wherever. It’s their