Where there's a will

SEVENTEEN

“Don’t be greedy, Einar,” Dagmar said absently, watching the largest of the sea turtles nudge its fellows aside in pursuit of a fast-sinking gobbet of bran-raisin muffin. “You’ve had your share.”

As had they all. This was an unscheduled feeding, the result of an abundance of leftovers from the pastry basket she’d ordered when that horde of nephews and nieces had unexpectedly descended on her, exuding concern for her welfare and consideration for her feelings.

God damn them to hell.

For once, the lovely cove and her old friends the green turtles had failed to work their magic. Her mind, far from being calmed, strummed like tightened wire with what seemed like a hundred emotions: frustration, shame, disgust with her spineless, selfish family-so strikingly different from her own generation-anger at being exploited by them, anger at being a weak old woman…

At first, the meeting had gone as well as could have been expected. Of course, there had been the predictable eruptions from the weak ones-Hedwig and Axel-on hearing that she’d gone to Fukida. How could she have taken it upon herself to do such a thing? What would happen to them now? Would they all go to jail? What did this mean for their inheritances? Would everything now go to the Swedish Seamen’s Home?

But Felix, all puffed up with noisy self-importance like the lawyer he was, had overridden and pacified them. If they thought about it for a moment, they would see that Auntie Dagmar had done nothing so terrible. Statutes of limitation made it unlikely that the police would find it worth their while to reopen the investigation or begin a new one. As to the Swedish Seamen’s Home, there was little to fear, due to the delightful legal principle known as adverse possession: Once property had been held without challenge for a prescribed period of time, the courts would frown upon the bringing of new suits. And, as fortunately happened to be the case, that period of time was almost always considered to be… ten years. So in order to challenge the Torkelssons’ right to their land, the Seamen’s Home would have to prove-not merely assert-intent to defraud. That they might try to do so was of course possible, but given the passage of a decade, the imponderables of proving anything in court, and the enormous hassle and legal costs of mounting such a suit, Felix would be very surprised if it were to come to anything.

And even in the unlikely event that it did, that a suit was actually brought, then the Seamen’s Home would be up against the hoary old concept of res judicata: A thing, once settled by a competent court (as in probate), was not to be subject to future litigation.. .

The sludgelike flow of verbiage had soothed them. Everyone had settled down. Then came the call from Keoni. Inge, who took it, came back as pale and frightened as Dagmar had ever seen her. The police had been to the Big House-were even at that moment in the house-with a search warrant: They were looking for-Inge closed her eyes as if she were wishing the reality away-a World War II model Walther PPK semi-automatic pistol.

After the first mute shock, all hell had broken loose. Even Felix was at a loss to put a good face on the clear meaning of this development: The police had somehow concluded that the story of the unidentified assassins was a sham; that Magnus had been killed with a weapon that had been in his own home. Of course, they wouldn’t find it; the gun had been rusting in fifty feet of water off Upolu Point ever since that night. But that didn’t change the horrific implication: The police knew.

They had all turned on Dagmar at that point, even Felix, even Inge. Why couldn’t she have left well enough alone? What had she told Fukida that could have led him to this?

Nothing, nothing, she had bawled back at them-Inge was there, Inge knew! To her dismay, her voice had cracked and spiraled into a witch’s shriek. At that point, Felix had outshouted them all and taken control again. This was no time to panic and hurl accusations at each other. More than ever, they had to stick together, be a family. They were most certainly in serious trouble now. Their inheritances, their very freedom, were in jeopardy. Still, all was not lost. Fukida couldn’t know what had really happened, he could only suspect. There was still time to avert disaster, but they had to put on their thinking caps.. .

It was Axel, of all people, who had come up with a plan. If Dagmar was willing to bend the truth just a little more-what little truth still remained to bend-she could save them all. If not, it was all over. Their futures, their very lives, were in her hands, in the hands of their dear Auntie Dagmar.

No, it was impossible, she had told them. She had borne the brunt of this for too long already. She couldn’t remember what she’d told the police before, and now, with this new trumped-up story they were thrusting on her (“tweaking the facts a tiny little bit,” Axel called it), how did they expect her to keep everything straight? How could she avoid tying herself in knots? They weren’t stupid, these detectives, they were bound to see through her, and then where would everybody be? And she was sick to her soul of bending the truth and said so. But in the end, worn out by the ceaseless prodding, by the endless self-justifications and airy reassurances, she had knuckled under to them, too old and too tired to fight any more.

Yes, she understood how much more important it was to all of them than it was to her, but by God, it had stuck in her craw. What about her? What they were asking her to say, if she understood it correctly (and she wasn’t at all sure she did), was tantamount to admitting to the police that she’d been guilty of committing a crime, a serious crime. What would happen to her? But Felix had poohpoohed this, blandly assuring one and all that the authorities would never prosecute an eighty-two-year-old woman, an island legend, for a few transgressions committed ten years before in an effort to protect the life of her one living brother and to help her beloved family through a difficult time. Besides, there were statutes of limitation that applied, blah blah blah. No, no, nothing at all to worry about there.

Easy for him to say.

The last of the pastries had been thrown to the turtles now, and she abstractedly wiped her fingers on the linen napkin. The turtles, not so different from her nieces and nephews, turned and swam off the second they saw they had nothing more to get from her. She filled the cap of her flask with aquavit, drank, and refilled it. It had been a long time since she’d been really soused, but if this wasn’t a good day to get soused, she didn’t know what was. Tomorrow would be time enough to deal with her problems.

There were a few crumbs left on the liner of the pastry basket and without knowing it she lifted them to her mouth with a moistened finger. She had lit a cigarillo earlier but had let it go out after one puff; her throat was too tight and raw to smoke. A few more tipples would take care of that.

When she heard a footstep on the gravel path behind her she instinctively reached for her wig, but then changed her mind. The hell with it, it was far too early for the good-looking kid with her dinner, and who else did she need to put on any pretenses for? She was eighty-two years old, she had a right to be going bald if she wanted to. If whoever it was didn’t like it, that was too bad for him, he could just keep going.

So deeply was she mired in resentment and recrimination that his presence didn’t register again until she sensed it just behind her. Her neck prickled. He was standing too close. She didn’t like that, didn’t like anyone looking right down at the top of her scalp. She should have slipped the wig on, damn it.

He was so close now that she felt his belt buckle brush against the back of her head. Repulsed, she pulled angrily to one side to get away from him. “Now see here-”

But when his hand clamped on her shoulder from behind like some terrible talon, the air went out of her, as much from astonishment as pain. What… what…

Too quickly for her to absorb, his other hand closed on her wrist, and she was somehow no longer in contact with the earth, but flopping wildly in the air, dropping like a stone toward the sharp, black rocks that rimmed the cove. She goggled at them, and then at the cloudless blue sky as she tumbled, mouth open, eyes wide with incomprehension.

What… what…