Aaron Elkins - Where there's a will

“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.”