Aaron Elkins - Where there's a will

“Here’s a picture of him,” he said, sliding it over to John, who had been browsing through the case file.

John put down an open folder. “Jesus, is that after or before they cremated him?”

On the other hand, he had to admit that sometimes black humor did help, and he was grateful for the opportunity to smile. “Before. But you’re right, he was pretty well charred, especially the upper body. Externally, he’s pretty well carbonized from the chest up. Not quite as bad below.”

“Is there one of him face-up? They must have flipped him over.”

Gideon paged through a few more photos. “Yes, here.”

Both men leaned closer to look at it. “Ugh. You can see why they wouldn’t have known who it was from the face,” Gideon said.

“Face, what face? His head looks like a… like a lump of coal, like a… I mean, where are the eyes, where’s the nose?”

Gideon nodded. “Notice the damage is so much more pronounced around the head and shoulders. Interesting.”

“I can tell you why that is,” John said. “I just read the arson investigator’s report. There’s no question at all about it being arson, by the way. They found traces of two different accelerants-paint thinner and diesel fuel oil-and at least five different origin points in the building, one of which was him.”

“Him? You mean they set him on fire?”

“Yeah, pretty much. His face was resting right on a roll of straw matting that’d been soaked in diesel oil.”

Gideon looked at the photographs. “Yes, I guess maybe you can see a few burned chunks of matting-of something, anyway-on the floor there.”

There were six pictures of the body in all, and Gideon fanned them out so they could both look at them. From the chest up, it was barely identifiable as a human form, more like a black, barely started sculpture than the remains of flesh and bone and muscle. Below the chest, the form was recognizably human, but made of charred, piebald skin, split in places like a sausage left too long on the grill. The clothing had been completely burned away except for the residue of a wide belt at the waist-or perhaps it was just the impression the burning belt had left on the burning skin-and the coalesced remnants of cowboy boots on the feet.

“John, I can’t tell anything from this. There’s just nothing distinctive, nothing to say if it’s Magnus or it isn’t Magnus. It’s human, that’s about it. And obviously, the toes aren’t visible. I just hope there’s something more in the autopsy report.”

“Well, I can tell you who Torkel wanted everyone to think it was: himself-Torkel.”

“Sure, but we already figured that out.”

“We thought that. We assumed that. But now there’s proof. Torkel took off his own ring and put it on Magnus’s body.” He leafed through one of the folders until he came to what he wanted. “Here. ‘Also under the decedent’s right hand was a signet ring made of white gold or similar material, with a ruby or similar stone set in a circular, braided border. This ring was subsequently identified by decedent’s family as belonging to him, an heirloom gift from his father when decedent joined the Swedish merchant marine.’”

“So you think Torkel planted it to fake the identification.”

“Sure, Doc, it’s obvious. What else could it be? He wanted everybody to think he was dead.”

Gideon shook his head. “John, I don’t know anymore…” He lifted one of the pictures and gazed at it for a while. “Maybe it is Torkel.”

John had a habit of suddenly flinging out his arms when he was excited, and he did it now. Gideon knew enough to anticipate it and was just able to get his head out of the way of a flailing right hand. “Doc, don’t start with me! Why do you do this? Jesus! First the guy in the plane is Magnus, positively. Then it’s Torkel, absolutely. And now you’re telling me this guy-”

“All I’m telling you is that I concluded the body on the plane was Torkel’s because of the amputated toes-a reasonable conclusion, you’ll agree-but now, according to Fukida, this guy here was missing the same two toes, which I can’t confirm or refute from these pictures. And when you tell me that Torkel’s ring was found with the body, how am I supposed to know what to think? Maybe somebody wanted everyone to think the body in the plane was Torkel’s, when it was really Magnus’s.”

John’s arms, still extended out to the sides, went to his temples. “Please let him tell me he’s joking.”

“I’m joking,” Gideon said. “Well, I think I am.”

“Doc-”

“No, I am, I am,” Gideon said. “Joking. Nobody doctored that foot for effect. Resorption, remember? Osteoporotic atrophy, remember?”

“Right, right,” John said, pacified.

“No, the man in the plane was Torkel Torkelsson, period. We can forget about him. But what we don’t know is who the guy in the fire was. There’s no way I can come up with anything solid from these pictures.”

“It’s Magnus,” John said stolidly. “There’s nobody else it could be. You heard Fukida.”

“So what happened to his toes?” Gideon murmured.

“What happened is what Fukida said. Torkel cut them off himself. Or maybe the guy who did the autopsy let his imagination run away with him. Either or both-probably both, would be my guess.”

“I suppose so,” Gideon said.

John had calmed down enough to go back to leafing through the folders while he was speaking. “Hey, here’s Auntie Dagmar’s statement to the detective working the case. Want to hear it?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, ‘Statement of Dagmar Torkelsson, Date November 5, 1994, taken by Detective Paul Webster,’ blah, blah, blah… here we are:

DT: Yes, that’s right. After dinner my brothers went back to the hay barn to do some work.

PW: The hay barn? That’s the building that burned down? DT: Yes, in the old days it was our hay barn, but now it’s just used for storage space and the ranch offices. We still call it the hay barn. That is, we did.

PW: Did they always do that? Go to the hay barn to go back to work after dinner?

DT: Not always. Two times, three times a week.

PW: Did you go with them?

DT: No, I never do. I stayed home. I cleaned up the dishes and turned on the television.

“Yes, that’s right,” Gideon said. “They all lived together, didn’t they?”

“Yup. In the Big House. It’s Inge’s and Keoni’s now, home of Kohala Trails Adventure Ranch. Dagmar moved down to the coast after the fire. She has joint problems, so the weather’s a lot better for her down there.”

“Did they get along?”

“Like you’d expect two brothers and a sister in their seventies, living in one house, to get along.”

“In other words, they didn’t.”

“No, that’s not exactly right. Let’s just say they were really tight, but at the same time they could get pretty crabby with each other. With anybody, for that matter. They were all one-of-a-kinds, Doc. No problem with weak personalities for that bunch.”

Gideon laughed. “I’m starting to think you’re right about that.”

John began reading aloud again.

PW: And the next time you heard from your brother?

DT: I already told the officer PW: I know, but tell me again, please.

DT: Well, he called me… Magnus… and he said PW: What time was this?

DT: I don’t know. I was watching Hill Street Blues, so it must have been PW: Okay, and what did he say?

DT: He said that Torkel was… that they’d killed Torkel and he had to get out of Hawaii before the same thing happened to him.

PW: Now, when you say he said “they” DT: I don’t know who he meant. He said “they,” that’s all I know.

PW: He definitely said “they”? Plural? Not “him” or “her”? No names, no descriptions?