Where there's a will

TWENTY-ONE

Willie Akau stood motionless, one arm raised straight above his head, his dusty, garlanded hat in his hand, as the last of the trailer trucks was backed up, inch by inch, to the long, narrow, high-walled loading ramp that fed into the hold of the Philomena Purcell, the old Corral Line cargo ship that had been taking Hoaloha Ranch cattle-and more recently, Little Hoaloha cattle-to Vancouver for the last fifteen years. In air-conditioned comfort, no less.

At just the right moment, the hand holding the hat flashed down and the truck stopped instantly. “Okay, Somoa, open ’er up,” Willie yelled to the young paniolo standing at the ready.

Somoa hopped up onto the truck bed and tugged on the pull-chain, hand over hand. The perforated metal door clattered up, Somoa jumped out of the way, and the cattle, bawling uncertainly, but docile and cooperative, headed onto the ramp, their hooves drumming satisfyingly on the wooden floor.

“Eh-hoo! Ehhhhh-hoo! Hoo!”

Willie had been hearing that call as man and boy for going on sixty years now. Today it came from the two additional paniolos he’d stationed on either side of the ramp with pole prods to urge the cows along in case any of them needed coaxing.

But they didn’t need the poles this time, and in fact, they rarely did. They didn’t really need the eh-hoo s either. When it came down to it, they didn’t much need Willie Akau.

In the old days, it was different. The trip to the Kawaihae docks had been a wild and woolly affair then, a full-fledged, old-fashioned cattle drive from the mountains to the sea. They had to start at one in the morning to get the cows there on time. And then when you got to the docks, you had to ride horseback right into the water and swim every damn cow out to an anchored ship, one at a time, then struggle to get a belly band around the frightened animal (he’d gotten his hand broken once and his nose twice doing it) so the deckhands could haul it up in a sling. You had to know what you were doing every step of the way.

Now they just walked them onto the trucks before ever leaving the ranch, and walked them off when they got to the dock. And they started at nine, not at one.

Willie had gotten $1.50 a day on his first cattle drive-which was exactly what Somoa had plunked into the nearby vending machine to get the super-sized chocolate milk he was working on. Now Willie made damn near a hundred times that for doing about a hundred times less work.

It was getting to be retirement time, he thought with a sigh. He’d done a good job training the hands, and Somoa was more than ready to take over. It was time, all right. The Torkelssons had done right by him when it came to a pension, but he wasn’t going to live forever, and if he kept this up he’d wind up dropping dead in the saddle-or more likely at the wheel of an ATV. Not that that’d be so bad, but it’d be kind of nice to get to spend some of that pension, to kick back, do some fishing, do some traveling, do some hanging around the docks, schmoozing and drinking beer in the afternoon, like so many of the old ranch hands turned beach bums.

He watched one of them now, coming down the dock toward him with a rolling, limping gait. Sunburnt and bearded, shaggy gray hair caught in a pony tail, shapeless old captain’s hat on his head, black patch tied over one eye. Interesting-looking guy. Not a ranch hand, though. An old salt, a tough, gristly old pirate, really; nobody he remembered seeing around before.

“How you doin’, buddy?” Willie said. “Can I help you with something?”

“Oh, I expect you can, Willie,” the old man said, and his lean, leathery face split in a grin.

Willie did a double-take, then peered hard at him for a good five seconds. The Philomena Purcell did a short test-burst of its powerful foghorn, startling the cattle into a round of jostling and stamping, and bringing a chorus of eh-hoo s from the hands.

Willie heard none of it. “Oh… my… gawd…,” he said.

“You know, I bet my Uncle Jake would like that,” Julie said.

“Absolutely,” John said. “How could anybody not like a topless dashboard hula dancer that plays the Hawaiian War Chant while she jiggles?”

“I don’t know, it’s pretty hard to beat this coconut piggy bank carved into a monkey head,” Gideon said, fingering it. “I think it’s meant to be a guenon, or maybe a mangabey. One of the Cercopithecinae, at any rate.”

“Well, obviously,” John said, yawning. “Cercopithecinae, for sure.”

They were in Hilo Hattie’s in Kona. The two-day get-away to Hilo and Volcanoes National Park had done its work. They had put the Torkelsson affair behind them. The subject of Dagmar’s murder had naturally come up a few times, but only in a desultory way. Talking and surmising had led nowhere and had been depressing, and, in any case, they now understood and accepted-even John did-that it was Fukida’s baby, not theirs.

Besides that, their thoughts had naturally enough begun to turn toward home. They had seats on a Hawaiian Airlines flight the following afternoon and they had stopped in the giant store on their way back to the Outrigger, where they planned to spend their last night, to pick up presents for friends and family. The “serious” purchases had already been made-a handsome coral belt for John’s wife Marti, and a Tommy Bahama Aloha blouse for Julie’s sister. Now they were meandering down the souvenir aisles, searching for a few less formal gifts. John, done with his shopping and getting bored, called the Outrigger to see if there were any messages.

“Call from Inge,” he told them when he’d hung up and they were in the checkout line. “We’re invited to a memorial reception for Dagmar. Casual dress. Just family and close friends.”

“I doubt if Julie and I qualify as close friends,” Gideon said.

“No, she made a point of saying they’d like to have you. She sounded like she meant it. I guess they really don’t want there to be any hard feelings.”

“I don’t think so,” Gideon said doubtfully. “I’ve stirred up a lot of trouble for those people.” He swiped his credit card through the machine on the counter.

“I think we ought to go,” John said.

“When is it?” Julie asked.

“Two o’clock, at the community center in Waimea. We’ll be a little late, but we can make it. I think it’d be a nice thing if we showed up. For a few minutes, anyway.”

“I think so, too,” Julie said. “To pay our respects.”

“Yes, but-”

“Good, it’s settled,” John said. “Let’s get going.” Gideon gave up with a sigh. “Okay, I’ll go along.” He signed the $57 receipt and tucked a copy in his wallet.

“I still think we should have gotten him the monkey head,” he muttered as they left, just to prove he did have a mind of his own.

Hedwig, Inge, Axel, and Felix, forming a ragged reception line, seemed genuinely grateful when John, Julie, and Gideon made their appearance. Hedwig, reeking of jasmine and splendidly draped in a shimmering silk muu-muu of royal blue threaded with gold, hugged them all to her soft bosom. A teary-eyed Inge energetically pumped their hands. Axel, also showing emotion, hugged John and Gideon, but shyly shook hands with Julie. Felix went the other way, throwing wide his arms and bear-hugging a startled Julie-it was the first time they’d met-but cordially shaking hands with John and Gideon. Malani and Keoni beside their respective spouses, politely nodded and murmured appreciation for their coming. All very hospitable and sincere and gratifying.

And yet, thought Gideon, there was something surreal about it all. If Fukida was right-and he, Julie, and John agreed with him-then one of these people, these warm, nice, decent people (if you made a few allowances for fraud, theft, and one or two other little transgressions) was the murderer of the woman they were all there to memorialize.

Not that there were so very many. The Torkelssons, it appeared, did not have many friends. In addition to the four siblings and the two spouses, there were perhaps a dozen people who looked as if they were probably ranchers and their wives, and about ten Hawaiian and Asian men, some old, some young, but all with a compact, athletic grace that marked them as current or retired paniolos. Gideon recognized Willie Akau and a couple of the others he’d seen around the Little Hoaloha. The paniolos, some of whom still had range dust on their work clothes, were gathered in two clumps near the refreshment table, most of them clutching tiny paper cups of pink lemonade and looking thoroughly ill at ease.

The refreshments were ample-punch, lemonade, coffee, trays of cookies and fruit breads-but the room would comfortably have held a hundred-a plain, linoleum-tiled, echoing space, far too large for the two dozen or so people in it, so that the affair had a forlorn quality, with guests whispering rather than talking, to keep from making too much noise.

Until Felix took over. “I think we’re all here now,” he honked from the middle of the room. “On behalf of my family, I want to thank you for coming. My aunt would have really appreciated knowing you were here.”

“She does know,” Hedwig said with a wise smile.

Felix looked pained. “You all know my sister Hedwig, who is now going to lead us in a… in a what, Hedwig?”

“In a Circle of Karmic Energy.”

With a theatrical half-bow, Felix stepped aside and turned the floor over to Hedwig. “Whatever,” Gideon heard him mutter out of the side of his mouth.

Hedwig spread her massive arms, bringing silence. In the full, gorgeous, blue-and-gold muu-muu she looked immense, the Mother Goddess herself.

“It must be hard to get that big being a vegetarian,” Gideon mused.

“Be good,” Julie warned him, but she was smiling.

Hedwig lowered her head and waggled her outstretched fingers. “We will hold hands and form a circle.”

A circle was duly formed. John held Julie’s left hand, Gideon her right. On Gideon’s other side, he grasped the callused hand of a wiry old paniolo, making both of them uncomfortable.

Hedwig looked up to see that all was proper and again lowered her cropped blonde head and began to intone.

“Let those who form this circle be here in peace and love, and may it be a protection against any negative energy that may come to do us harm. We are here to honor a beloved person who has moved to another plane. By the formation of this circle we make thinner the veil between the worlds, so that we can call to those who have gone on before us and they will hear us…”

Although his head was bowed, Gideon managed to throw a pointed look across Julie and at John. This is your fault, pal, and don’t think I’m going to let you forget it.

“I ask you now,” Hedwig went on, “to sense the presence of the entity we knew as Dagmar Torkelsson among us, and to allow the energy and love she brings us to build and grow. Visualize the energy circling round, gathering strength.” She paused for the space of three long breaths, visualizing. “And now I want you to bask in this energy a moment longer, and then divide yourselves into groups of three or four, and to share with each other your memories and reflections. In that way, we release this positive energy back into the universe.. .”

Gideon, his mind wandering, found himself looking into the community kitchen at one end of the room. Something there-something important, he thought-had fleetingly engaged his attention, but whatever it was, he’d lost it as suddenly as it had come. He scanned the stainless-steel sinks, the counter, the two big stainless-steel refrigerators, the electric coffee percolators, the open shelves of dishes and utensils. His eyes went back and focused on the refrigerators, both of which were covered with little notes attached by a colorful multitude of refrigerator magnets. There were surfboards, pigs and penguins in grass skirts, hula dancers, palm trees, martini glasses with olives He froze. “ John! ” The exclamation popped out on its own. Fortunately, the circle was now breaking up into its smaller groups, so he didn’t disrupt the visualization in progress.

John looked curiously at him. “What?”

He began to point into the kitchen, then said: “Come on, you two. I want to show you something.”

“My goodness,” Julie said as he grabbed her wrist, “what’s all the excitement about?”

Once in the kitchen, he pointed at one of the magnet-laden refrigerators. “Take a look at that.”

“Look at what?” a puzzled John asked. “What’s so-”

When he realized which one Gideon was pointing to, it stopped him in his tracks. “I’ll be damned,” he whispered and plucked it from the metal surface. “Holy cow, am I nuts, or is this the same…”

“I think it’s exactly the same.”

“I think so, too.”

“John, do you realize what this means? It must-”

“I know,” John said, running his hand over the irregular surface. “It’s almost too fantastic, but-”

“I know.”

“I can’t tell you what a thrill it is to observe great minds in action,” Julie said dryly, “but if one of you could manage a coherent sentence, I would be endlessly grateful.”

“This thing is a ceramic map of the Big Island,” John said, offering it for her inspection.

“Ah. Well, as a matter of fact, I did manage to grasp that much on my own.”

“It’s also a magnet, Julie,” Gideon said. “A big one, for a refrigerator magnet.”

“Uh-huh. And…?”

“You remember that box of stuff from the plane that nobody could find? One of these was in it.”

“We figured it was a coaster,” John said, “or a… what do you call it?”

“A trivet,” Gideon supplied, shaking his head. “We should have realized.”

“How could we realize?” John protested. “We had no idea what was going on.”

“Well, I guess those would have to qualify as coherent sentences,” Julie said, “but I still don’t-”

“Julie,” Gideon said, “what would a magnet be doing in the cockpit of a small plane? Think what it’d do if it got anywhere near the compass.”

“Are you saying-” Suddenly aware that she was nearly shouting, she looked quickly around and dropped her voice. The three of them moved their heads closer together. “Are you saying that someone purposely tried to make the plane go off-course-”

“Tried and succeeded,” John amended. “Maravovo’s a long way from Tarabao. And there isn’t much other land out there.”

Julie jerked her head as if to clear it. “But wouldn’t that be murder? Doesn’t it mean that someone murdered Torkel?”

“And the pilot, Claudia,” Gideon said, nodding.

“But why would anyone-”

“And, hey, remember,” John said, “it was all tangled up in a wad of duct tape. It must have been stuck somewhere where they wouldn’t see it-under the console, I bet, right near the compass. The compass would have been all screwed up and they’d never know it. And they were flying in the dark, so they wouldn’t have been able to tell from-”

“Stuck by whom? ” Julie demanded, her voice rising again as her frustration increased. “And why?”

John and Gideon looked at each other. It was Gideon who answered. “I can’t vouch for the why, but I think we can make a pretty good guess as to whom.”

“More than a guess,” John said grimly. “Only one guy went to the airport with Torkel. Only one guy got the plane out of the hangar and waited around till the pilot showed up. Only one guy was there. And he used to be a pilot himself, don’t forget that. He knew all about compasses and planes.” His eyes, narrowed now, roved the room and focused. Julie followed the direction of his gaze. Her hand went to her mouth.

“Axel,” she breathed.

“The miserable sonofabitch,” John said.

John wanted to go over to him right then, put him under citizen’s arrest, and drag him off, preferably forcibly, to the Kona PD, but Gideon convinced him things would go more smoothly all around if he called Fukida instead and let him make the arrest. John, sagging a little after the first wave of anger passed, agreed, but suggested that Gideon make the call. “It’ll go over better if he thinks you figured it out for him, not me.”

“Besides,” he added with a half-smile, “you did figure it out.”

“It sure took me long enough. Okay, I’ll call from out in the hall. Julie, keep this guy”-he gestured with his chin at John-“in check. Don’t let him get his hands on Axel. It’d be better if he’s still alive when the police get here.”

Using one of the pay phones in the hallway, Gideon called the CIS only to learn that Fukida was out on a call.

“This is pretty important, Sarah. Isn’t there any way I can get hold of him?”

“I’ll have him radioed,” Sarah said. “He’ll call you right back. What’s your number?”

It took less than a minute for Fukida’s call to come through. “How ya doin’, sport?” he practically chirped. “What’s so important?”

Gideon had never heard him so upbeat. “Where are you?” he asked. “What happened, Ted?”

“Where I am is in my car. And where I’m going is to the Waimea Community Center. And when I get there I’m going to collar our killer. The CIS has done it again, chief. We got our man!”

“Axel,” Gideon said.

Gideon heard him whoosh out his breath. “Now how the hell do you know that?”

“The magnet. How do you know?”

“The glove.” And then, after a few seconds: “What magnet?”

“The magnet that… uh, Ted, I’m not sure we’re tracking here. What glove? Who are you talking about?”

“Who am I… I just told you. Axel-Axel’s glove. He’s our murderer, he killed Dagmar. I thought you agreed with me.”

“No, I’m talking about the other murder.”

“The other…? You mean Magnus? Are you telling me Axel also-”

“No, not Magnus. Torkel. Look, I’m at the Center myself-”

“ So now Torkel was murdered, too? ” Gideon winced and held the receiver away from his ear. “You guys are driving me nuts!”

And with that, Fukida hung up, but a few seconds later he called back. “Don’t go away,” he growled. “I’m gonna want to talk to you.”

Under the stunned and recriminatory stares of his relatives and friends, a drooping, unresisting Axel Torkelsson was cuffed, read his rights, and led away by Fukida and a uniformed officer. Malani, dry-eyed but too dazed to speak, was enfolded in Hedwig’s warm, fragrant arms. People looked at one another but mostly said nothing.

After a few seconds, Felix took charge with his usual elan.

“I guess that’s it for the reception, folks,” he announced. “Thank you all for coming.”

“All right, I understand why he killed Dagmar,” Julie said. “Sergeant Fukida explained that. He was afraid she was going to break down and tell the police the truth; that is, that Torkel was not a murderer, which would have meant there was a real chance-especially once the seamen’s home found out about it-that Magnus’s will might be thrown out and Torkel’s implemented instead. Whew, do I have that right?”

“That’s the way I understand it,” John said. “Of course I’m just a simple federal cop.”

“All right. Fine. What I don’t understand is why he wanted Torkel’s plane to go down. Why would he want to kill him? ”

“Well-” Gideon began, then paused as the cocktail waitress put down their drink orders: iced tea for Julie, a Mai Tai for John, and a glass of Chardonnay for Gideon. They were in Hawaii Calls, the Outrigger’s wall-less restaurant, at a tree-shaded outdoor table in the rear, toward the beach. They clinked glasses and took their first welcome sips.

“Well,” he continued, “that’s something we don’t know for sure yet, but at a guess, it was probably pretty much the same reason. Axel must have realized that if Torkel ever did come back and explain that he wasn’t Magnus-which he was supposed to do, eventually-it would turn out the same way: goodbye, Magnus’s will, hello Torkel’s.”

“Goodbye, Little Hoaloha,” John said, “hello, nothing.”

Julie slowly shook her head. “And so he murdered two people-took away their lives because they got in the way of getting something that wasn’t really his anyway… that pleasant, harmless-looking little man.”

“Three people,” Gideon said. “Don’t forget Claudia.”

“You two ready to order dinner?” John asked restlessly. He was more than ready to change the subject.

“Sure, I guess so,” Julie said, then suddenly shuddered, the shiver running visibly down her body.

“Cold?” Gideon asked. “Do you want to move in under the roof?”

“No, it’s beautiful out here with the ocean, and the sun going down. I think I could use a pullover, though. The tan one in the closet to the right-would you mind?”

Gideon, with the pullover over one shoulder, was closing the door to their room behind him, when he heard the phone ring. On the line was Fukida.

“Hey, chief, I’m glad I caught you. Listen, have you people had dinner yet?”

“No, we were just thinking about it.”

“Great. How about if I join you?”

“Well, sure,” Gideon said, puzzled. He and John were scheduled to be deposed by Fukida the next morning at CIS. What couldn’t wait until then? And dinner? Why the sudden sociability?

“Um, fine, Ted. We’ll wait for you. We’re at Hawaii Calls, in the resort.”

Fukida heard the ambiguity in his voice and laughed, rather merrily for him. “Ah, don’t sound so worried. My wife’s in Honolulu this week. I just thought it’d be nice to have some company, and eat some decent food, too. See you in a few minutes.”

“Fine.”

“Oh, also… there’s somebody I’d like you to meet.” And with an improbable final happy chuckle he hung up.