Aaron Elkins: Where there's a will

“… is piped by gravity-feed to on-ranch reservoirs,” Axel was saying, “from where it goes via one-inch plastic pipe to troughs that have been placed through mathematically computed-oh, gosh, where did the time go? We better go back. Gideon, I know you must have some questions.” He waited inquiringly.

Gideon searched his mind. The last thing he’d really heard was that the cattle were trucked to Calgary, but that had been a while back. He looked desperately around for inspiration. A quarter of a mile away, on a nearby hillside, were a dozen or so peacefully grazing cows. They were brown. They did not have white faces.

“I see,” he said with more confidence than he felt, “that you raise Jerseys here. Do you have Herefords as well?”

“That’s a really good question,” Axel said as they turned around and headed back down, with Gideon now in the lead. “We used to have Herefords on the old ranch-you remember, Johnny.”

“Sure do,” John said.

“But in the last few years we’ve phased them out. White-faced cattle don’t bring as much on the market. Isn’t that interesting? Nobody knows why. You know what I think? I think it’s because they make people think of milk cows, not beef cows.”

“Yeah,” John said. “I guess nobody wants to eat Elsie.”

At the bottom of the hill they separated, with Axel going to the back of the house to bring around a truck for the short drive to Inge’s. John looked at Gideon and made an odd face.

“What?” Gideon said.

John screwed his mouth up into a little knot and put on what he must have thought was a professorial tone of voice, throwing in a prissy English accent for good measure and tipping his head back as if he were looking through a monocle. “I see thet yaw raise Jehseys heah. Do yaw heve Heffahds as well?” he said.

And then dissolved in laughter. “I love it.”

Gideon laughed, too. “I think I got away with it.”

“This place, Maravovo Atoll, where they found the plane,” Inge began when she’d finally got everyone settled, “is part of something called the Republic of Kiribati-”

“Actually, it’s pronounced kiribass, ” Axel said. “Not kiribati. It used to be the Gilberts, you see, but when they changed the name, they had no way to spell-”

Felix exploded with a shout. “Axel, for God’s sake! I mean, Jesus Christ!”

“Sorry,” Axel said, blinking, clearly wondering what Felix was so upset about.

Inge covered her mouth. It was hard not to laugh. It was so like Axel, so like Felix. What a pair.

“This island, or atoll, or whatever it is,” she continued, “is totally uninhabited. No one ever went there until two months ago, when Odysseus Cruise Lines started offering a ten-day Hawaiian Islands cruise out of Honolulu and included a two-day round trip to the place for a beach picnic. See, they have to do that because Odysseus is Greek-owned, and non-American ships aren’t allowed to travel between American ports without including at least one foreign call on their itinerary, and Maravovo Atoll was the closest-”

“For God’s sake, Inge,” Auntie Dagmar snapped, “we don’t need a lecture on United States maritime law. You’re getting as bad as Axel. Get to the point.”

“What did I do now?” Axel bleated.

“Dammit, Auntie,” Inge said, “all I’m trying to do… all right, okay, yes, sorry.” When Dagmar was in one of her cranky moods there wasn’t much point in trying to reason with her. Besides, it was natural enough for everybody to be a little edgy.

A week ago, she explained, a group of snorkelers from the cruise ship had paddled in an inflatable boat to a relatively distant part of the atoll’s lagoon, where they had seen the old Grumman sunk in five or six feet of water, its tail protruding. They had dived down to it, looked through a missing window, and seen some bones inside. The doors had been jammed or rusted shut, and since they didn’t have underwater flashlights or breathing equipment, and everything was a jumble inside, they hadn’t been able to see much else.

“Jesus,” Hedwig breathed. “As if we needed this.”

The snorkelers, Inge went on, had gotten the plane’s registration number from the fuselage and reported it to the ship’s captain, and eventually the number was traced back to the plane’s Hoaloha Ranch ownership. The Waimea police department was notified, and they were the ones who had called Inge with the news.

“N7943U,” Axel said from memory.

Inge checked her notes. “That’s it.”

“What do they want us to do?” Dagmar asked.

“The police?” said Inge. “They don’t want us to do anything. They just called to tell us. But the Kiribati-pardon me, Axel, Kiribass-officials want to know if we want the remains back. Personally, I think the best thing to do would be to just leave them where they are. The less attention we stir up, the better. And it’s not as if it’s him out there, it’s just a few bones that don’t really mean anything any more.”

“I agree,” Axel promptly put in.

“Amen,” said Hedwig. “Don’t meddle with Fortune’s wheel. The plane went down there for a reason, whether we understand it or not. Let it be.”

“Fortune’s wheel!” Dagmar was shocked. “And what do you mean, ‘a few bones that don’t mean anything any more’? Sometimes I don’t know what’s the matter with you people. To leave him out there like that, on that little… no, no, I want him back here on his own land.” She stared imperiously around her, challenging them to disagree, and muttering: “‘A few bones that don’t mean anything.’”

Inge hesitated. “What do you think?” she asked Felix, who was silently swirling the ice in his glass.

Felix took a moment before answering. “In my opinion, we should have him brought home,” he bellowed-his normal speaking voice ranged anywhere from bellow to roar. “Not only because of what Dagmar says, but because it would look strange-suspicious, even-if we don’t.”

“But who’s going to know either way?” Axel asked.

“The police, bird-brain,” Inge said fondly. “I’m supposed to call them back, remember? Felix is right.”

“Oh, yeah,” Axel said, then nodded. “Okay, I’m with Felix, then. We better bring him back and bury him here, what’s left of him. A quiet, private, family burial.”

Dagmar nodded regally to signify approval, although she’d glowered at the “what’s left of him.”

“So how do we go about getting the remains back?” Hedwig asked. “Does anybody know?”

“I wouldn’t think there’s much to it,” Felix said. “We’ll probably have to get some kind of formal approval from the Kiribati government, wherever it is-”

“The capital is Tarawa,” said Axel.

“-but any reputable ocean salvage firm will know the ropes. When I get back to Honolulu I’ll check around for one. We can split the cost between us.”

“ I’ll pay,” Dagmar said. When the others opened their mouths to protest, they were silenced with a fierce tilt of her chin.

“She who must be obeyed,” said Felix, salaaming in her direction.

“Idiot.”

“Okay, that’s the way it’ll be, then,” Inge said. She glanced at the antique Swedish clock over the mantel. “Now. John and Gideon will be here at six. That gives us almost an hour to make sure we’re all reading from the same script, in case the papers get hold of this, or if the police have more questions.”

“Speaking of John and his friend,” Hedwig said, “I don’t see any reason for them to know anything about this.”

“Too late,” Axel said. “I already told John and he told Gideon.”

Hedwig looked disbelievingly at him. “That was dumb.”

“Well, I figured it was bound to come out anyway, and if I didn’t mention it, it would look as if we were hiding something.”