Where there's a will

FOURTEEN

Even with the cell phone jammed against her ear, Inge could hardly hear him, what with all the yee-ha-ing and kiyi-yi-ying, let alone the mooing and stamping of the cows. She was riding postern on the afternoon’s Cattle Drive Adventure (“An honest-to-goodness cattle drive in which you will ride trained cow horses as you help the wranglers drive our mini-herd of Angus crossbreeds over the open range”), and she had been lucky simply to hear the phone beep.

She pulled her horse to the side and cantered away from the tumult.

“Axel, calm down. Say again?”

“I said I think they know everything! Or they’re about two inches away from it. John and Gideon, they were just here. You should have heard their questions. And… and…”

“Axel, take a deep breath. Now, what the hell are you talking about?” She took a breath herself and closed her eyes. Don’t let this be what I think.

But it was. Through his babbling she managed to make out the gist of what he was saying. No, she thought, they hadn’t figured out everything, but they were close. At the least they knew that the accepted version of events had some holes, big holes, in it. She’d feared this might happen from the moment they’d came back from Maravovo with the news about Torkel, but by that time there had simply been no way to head them off. Think, she told herself. Think.

Axel was just repeating himself now, in stuttery, fragmented phrases, like an old-fashioned record with a needle stuck in a groove, and she interrupted. “What did you tell them?”

“I didn’t tell them anything. Inge, they kept talking about the wills, and how the wrong one went into effect, and how we could be accomplices-I mean accessories-”

“How did they find out there was a ring?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they-”

“What did you say when they asked why nobody mentioned it?”

“I said… I don’t remember what I said. But I know I didn’t tell them anything.”

“But you don’t remember what you said,” Inge said wryly.

She’d dismounted now and was wandering about with the reins in her hand, letting Betsy nibble at the coarse grass. She could hear him clearly now. The whooping Indonesians and the disgusted cattle had moved off a hundred yards.

“No, but I know I didn’t tell them anything that… Inge, I was so flustered, I hardly knew what I was saying. They kept talking about how the will might be invalidated if we knew all along it was Torkel in the plane-”

“Okay, Axel, shh, it’s all right, you did fine. It couldn’t be helped.”

What rotten dumb luck that they had picked him to come to with their questions. If it had been her, she might have… well, what?

“Inge, they asked me if Torkel killed Magnus!”

That stopped her. “They asked you what?”

“They asked me-”

“I heard you, I heard you! Where would they get that idea?”

“I don’t know! It was Gideon-”

“And what did you say to that? Or don’t you remember that either?”

“What do you mean, what did I say? I told them it was ridiculous. But the fact that they would even come up with a question like that. .. what does it mean?”

“It means they were fishing. They know something’s wrong, but they don’t know what. This isn’t good, Axel.”

“You don’t… you don’t think… I mean, nothing could happen, not after all this time, could it?”

“Nothing serious, only that we might all go to jail and lose our inheritances,” she snapped.

She heard his gasp. “But what should we do now?” he whispered.

“Let me make sure I have this straight. This Sergeant Fukida wants to look into it, but he’s given John and Gideon a couple of days leeway before he gets started, and John is going to see Dagmar Tuesday? The day after tomorrow?”

“In the morning, yes. I think he wanted to head right over from here, but I told him she was in the hospital till tomorrow afternoon and it’d be better-”

“All right, that was good. Now be quiet, let me think.”

He continued making agitated little sounds, as if he were walking around in a circle talking to himself, which he probably was. “Christ,” she muttered, sticking the telephone in a saddle bag. She placed her hands on Betsy’s rump, leaned her forehead on her hands, and thought. When she got the telephone out of the saddlebag again, Axel was still chattering away.

“But there have to be some kind of statutes of limitation. Felix would know-”

“All right, here’s what we do,” she said, and Axel fell instantly silent. “This is not something that we want Dagmar to have to deal with on her own. You saw how shaky she was the other day. She’ll need some propping up.”

“I know, I know. That’s exactly what I was thinking-that we all better be there when John arrives-”

“No, how would that look? Axel, for a smart guy, you can be the most…” She sighed. “What we need to do is talk to Dagmar first, but, yes, everybody should be in on it. This concerns everyone, and everyone has a right to have their say. Here’s the way it’ll work: I’ll run down to the hospital tomorrow morning to drive her home.”

“She doesn’t get out till the afternoon.”

“Axel, for Christ’s sake, they’re not holding her prisoner! We don’t have a lot of time; we’ll cut the tests short. I’ll tell them to have her ready early, and I’ll explain everything to her on the way back. She’ll be tired, and this is going to upset her-”

“It’s sure upsetting me,” Axel mumbled.

“-so we’ll give her a few hours to rest and get herself together. We’ll all meet at, oh, one o’clock. Can you have everybody at her place by then?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to meet up here, maybe at your place?”

“Axel, will you please try and use your head for once? We don’t want John and Gideon to see us all getting together with her first, do we?”

“Oh. Well, I guess-”

“Don’t guess. Just get hold of the rest and have them there by one.”

“Everybody? But Felix is in Honolulu.”

She clenched her teeth. “I know that, little brother, but he is fully capable of catching a plane and being on the Big Island an hour after walking out his front door. We’re going to need him. He’s our lawyer.”

“All right, I’ll get right on it. ’Bye, Inge.”

“Axel?”

“Inge?”

“When I said ‘everybody,’ that didn’t include Malani. Don’t bring Malani.”

She could tell he was holding the phone away from his ear and staring at it. “Well, holy cow, Inge, I’m not stupid.”

“’Bye, Axel.”

When Gideon and John got back to the house, they found Julie sprawled on one of two porch chairs, watching them and looking tired but contented. On a table next to her was a pitcher of iced orange-guava juice and two glasses.

“Pull up a couple of chairs. Malani’s in the house, putting together something to nibble. The glasses are in the dining room, in the cabinet over the-”

“I know where they are,” John said, going in to get some.

“You look happy,” Gideon said as he dragged over two more chairs. “Have a good day?”

“Very,” Julie said. “Malani showed me over the ranch. It’s huge. We rode for three solid hours. It was wonderful.” She rubbed her thigh and winced. “But I doubt if I’ll be able to walk tomorrow. I used muscles I forgot I even had.”

Gideon nodded. “Oho, the good old medial rotators. You don’t put much stress on them day-to-day, but you need them for hanging onto the horse with your knees. The adductors would have gotten a workout too: the brevis, the pectineus…”

“See? Didn’t I say he gives lectures?” John said, coming back with the glasses.

“I assumed she’d want to know,” Gideon said. “I know it will come as a shock to you, but some people are intellectually curious.”

“I most certainly did want to know,” Julie said loyally. “I’d been just about to ask.” She smiled affectionately at the two men, picked up the pitcher, and poured for them. “So how did it go at the police station? Did you come up with some good answers?”

“No, but we sure got some great questions,” John said. “I’m hoping Dagmar can help with the answers. I’m gonna go see her Tuesday morning.”

“Why Dagmar?”

By the time John, with Gideon’s help, had finished explaining, they were on their second glasses, and the three of them were covering the same ground and arriving at the same dead ends that they’d reached with Axel and with Fukida.

“John, aren’t you putting yourself in an uncomfortable position, talking to Axel, and now to Dagmar?” Julie asked. “These are your friends, not just some anonymous suspects.”

“Tell me about it. I am uncomfortable, Julie, but I already said I’d do it.”

“To Axel, right? Dagmar isn’t expecting you, is she? Are you sure you don’t just want to leave it to Sergeant Fukida? In the long run, it might be better.”

John hesitated, debating within himself. “Maybe I do, at that,” he said softly. “It’s not as if I really think there’s anything I can do for them. I can call Fukida and let him know the ball’s in his court, I’m out of it. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll complain.”

“I’m uncomfortable, too,” Gideon said. “It’s been bothering me all day.”

“What do you have to be uncomfortable about?” John asked.

“I’m uncomfortable about accepting these nice people’s hospitality at the same time I seem to be doing everything I can to sic the police on them, and totally upsetting their lives, and maybe losing them their inheritances. I can’t keep riding around in their pickup, eating their food, acting as if… well, as if everything is all right, when it’s clearly not. And most of it is my fault.”

“And the rest is mine,” John said.

“Obviously, this is not turning into much of a vacation-for any of us.” Julie said. She set down her glass with a thump. “I have a suggestion. I think we should all check out of Chez Torkelsson, go on down to one of those gorgeous resorts on the coast for a few days, forget about all this, and have ourselves a real vacation. Swim, sightsee, take in a luau, eat ourselves silly, and just relax in the sun. How does that sound?”

“Terrific,” said Gideon, brightening.

John shrugged. “Nah, I think I’d probably just go on home if you guys do that.”

“Have you seen the Seattle weather?” Julie asked him. “Let’s see, I think I remember: tomorrow, low clouds and scattered showers; Tuesday, showers in the A.M., increasing to steady rain, sometimes heavy, in the afternoon; Wednesday, cloudy with likelihood of heavy-”

John threw up his hands. “Okay, okay. Sounds awful.”

“And what about Meathead? You can’t forget Meathead,” Gideon said.

John laughed. “All right, you convinced me.” He sobered. “But how the heck do we tell Axel and Malani? That’ll be a little awkward.”

“That’s women’s work,” Julie said. “It takes a sensitive hand. You leave it to me. I’ll square it with Malani after dinner tonight, and we can leave tomorrow. I guarantee: no hurt feelings.”

As if on cue, Malani came out with a tray of crackers and mixed cheeses. “I thought I heard your voices,” she said cheerfully. “Good, let’s plan dinner.” She set the tray down and took a chair. “I want us all to get away from the ranch and go into town for a meal for a change. I don’t know about you, but if I have to look one more overdone steak in the eye, I… will… barf.”

“How about pizza?” John suggested hopefully. “We passed a Domino’s in Waimea.”

“We’ll eat Chinese,” Malani went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I know a place.”

“Yes, ma’am,” John said.

“And now,” Malani said, putting a hand to her forehead and pretending to peer up at something through the surrounding tree branches, “the sun is over the yardarm. Who wants a glass of wine?”

In the kitchen, she got a bottle of Chardonnay out of the refrigerator and put it on the counter. Gideon, with the corkscrew in his hand, suddenly recalled something. “Malani, remember that box you couldn’t find the other day?”

She looked up from setting out four big wine glasses. “Box?”

“Yes, with the effects from the plane. You said it’d been on the counter, but-”

“Oh, that’s right, the one… well, I forgot to ask.” She put her head in the doorway to the living room. “Kilia!”

Kilia-short, fat, and energetic-trotted into the dining room with a cleaning cloth in her hand. “Yes, missus?”

“Kilia, remember the box those young men brought the other day? With the cup and that little ceramic map-”

“Sure, missus.”

“Did you put it away somewhere?”

“No, ma’am!” Kilia declared with a shudder. “That box and the one with the skeleton bones-I wouldn’t touch them things.”

“Thank you, Kilia. Well, not to worry,” she said to Gideon. “It’ll show up.”

Auntie Dagmar was getting old.

The thought hit Inge like a blow when she peeked through the open doorway of Dagmar’s room at Kona Hospital. She had certainly seemed depressed for a couple of days, but this was different. She was old. Old, and shrunken, and… frail. The ageing and shrinking had been going on for a long time but the frail was something new. So even Dagmar was not indestructible, she thought with a tiny, unanticipated catch in her throat; even Dagmar, who had seemingly been here since the beginning of time, was not permanent in this world.

The old woman was sitting hunched on the side of her bed, fully dressed in a black pant-suit, legs hanging down with her feet not reaching the floor, holding onto a small, blue, hard-sided suitcase that was set upright beside her. She’d put on lipstick and rouge for once, and her jet-black wig was actually on straight, but with her white, papery skin the effect was somewhere between clownish and ghoulish. She was like an ancient, wizened child-an unwanted wartime orphan-dumped in some deserted train station with her pathetic belongings, and waiting pitifully, hopelessly, for someone to come and get her.

“It’s about time,” she snapped when she saw Inge. “Rush, rush, rush, so I’m ready to be picked up, then wait, wait, wait. They didn’t even give me a breakfast. Help me down from here. I don’t suppose you thought to bring any schnapps?”

Inge smiled. That’s what she got for getting sentimental about Auntie Dagmar. “Never mind the schnapps, Auntie. It’s eight o’clock in the morning. We have a problem, a big problem.”

“I hate problems,” Dagmar said.

“Don’t worry, I have it all worked out.” She took Dagmar by one elbow-her arm was like a dried twig-and helped her down with the aid of a stepstool. “We just need to talk it over. Let’s go somewhere and get something to eat.”

“Now you’re talking. Island Lava Java? Cinnamon rolls?”

“Anything you want. But I don’t think they have schnapps.”

Dagmar cut her cinnamon roll precisely in half and lathered one portion with the extra butter she’d ordered, but didn’t raise it to her mouth. Her coffee had been likewise creamed and sugared while Inge spoke, but otherwise untouched. She stared out at the tourists exploring Ali’i Drive, and at the sea wall on the other side of the street, and at Kailua Bay beyond. A white Norwegian Line cruise ship lay anchored a few hundred yards offshore and Kona was swarming with curious, tentative sixty- and seventy-year-olds in tank tops, flip-flops, and sunglasses. Even from their table, Inge could smell the sunscreen.

“No,” Dagmar said.

Inge stared at her. “ No? No, what?”

“No, everything. I’m not going to sit there with people pulling me this way and that way, telling me what to be careful about and how to act and what to say when I talk to John, and what not to say. And I’m not talking to John either.”

Inge sighed. It was Dagmar’s nature to be recalcitrant; there was no point in becoming impatient. “It won’t be like that, Auntie,” she said kindly. “We can just come up with a few guidelines-topics to steer clear of-”

“It will be like that. Felix will order me to say this, you’ll order me to say that, Hedwig will lecture me on karma.” She picked up the piece of cinnamon roll only to put it down again. “No,” she said again, more firmly still. “I can’t remember what I told the police before, it was so long ago. They have a record of it. I’m bound to contradict myself. John would catch me. Isn’t he a detective or something now?”

“He’s an FBI agent.”

“Well, he used to be a detective.”

“He used to be a policeman in Honolulu-”

“Don’t keep changing the subject. That’s a bad habit you have. The point is, I can’t go through any more of that, where they harp on every word I said before. Impossible.”

“But what do you suggest, Auntie? You can’t avoid seeing him tomorrow.”

“I most certainly can.”

“How?”

“By going to see this Sergeant what’s-his-name and telling him the truth today.”

Inge was stunned. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that. “But if you tell him the whole truth-”

“I didn’t say the whole truth, I said the truth.”

Confused, Inge jerked her head. “I don’t-”

Dagmar grasped her wrist. “Inge, think about what you just told me. What do they know? They know that Torkel changed identities with Magnus. What do they suspect? They suspect that I-that we-were aware of it and lied to protect him.”

“No, they also think we lied to protect our inheritances. Well, not you, because you got the same under both wills, but-”

“Yes, all right. So, do you think they’ll simply drop it now? It’s only a question of time until they ferret out what really happened. Isn’t it better to come out with it voluntarily, than to be caught in one lie after another, like rats in a trap?”

“But you’re not saying you’d tell them…?”

“Everything? Of course not. I may be getting a bit senile, but I’m not crazy yet.”

“I see,” Inge said reflectively. It just could be that Dagmar had the right idea. The old lady might be getting frail, but not in the head. Still, there were problems. She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Auntie, there may be criminal charges involved. And… what about our inheritances? We could lose them.”

“Pooh, I don’t believe that for a minute. Not after so much time. There are statutes about such things. Felix can straighten out any problems.”

That was what Inge believed, too, but it was good to hear Dagmar say it. “But how will it look?”

“It will look as if everything possible was done to protect my dear brother and your dear uncle from the vicious assassins that threatened his life, even if the law did happen to be slightly violated in a technical sense. People will understand.”

Not so technical, Inge thought, and yet, the more Dagmar talked, the more convinced she became that this was the best course. People would understand. “The rest of the family, though-they might not like it,” she said. “This affects all of us.”

“Then they’ll have to lump it, won’t they?” Dagmar said cheerfully. Sensing Inge’s incipient agreement and satisfied with the way the conversation was going, she finally took a bite of the roll, smacked her lips, and licked butter from her fingers. “Now, Inge, dear, I imagine you’d like to argue with me about it for a while. Will fifteen minutes do? If it’s going to be longer, I’ll want another cup of coffee.”

“I’m not going to argue,” Inge said, laughing. “You have my complete support. Would you like me to be with you, or do you want to see him alone?”

“Suit yourself, dear,” Dagmar said. Her sharp gray eyes glinted happily from their parchmentlike folds of skin. She no longer looked frail. She was, as always, looking forward to stirring things up.