Aaron Elkins - Where there's a will

“And the rest is mine,” John said.

“Obviously, this is not turning into much of a vacation-for any of us.” Julie said. She set down her glass with a thump. “I have a suggestion. I think we should all check out of Chez Torkelsson, go on down to one of those gorgeous resorts on the coast for a few days, forget about all this, and have ourselves a real vacation. Swim, sightsee, take in a luau, eat ourselves silly, and just relax in the sun. How does that sound?”

“Terrific,” said Gideon, brightening.

John shrugged. “Nah, I think I’d probably just go on home if you guys do that.”

“Have you seen the Seattle weather?” Julie asked him. “Let’s see, I think I remember: tomorrow, low clouds and scattered showers; Tuesday, showers in the A.M., increasing to steady rain, sometimes heavy, in the afternoon; Wednesday, cloudy with likelihood of heavy-”

John threw up his hands. “Okay, okay. Sounds awful.”

“And what about Meathead? You can’t forget Meathead,” Gideon said.

John laughed. “All right, you convinced me.” He sobered. “But how the heck do we tell Axel and Malani? That’ll be a little awkward.”

“That’s women’s work,” Julie said. “It takes a sensitive hand. You leave it to me. I’ll square it with Malani after dinner tonight, and we can leave tomorrow. I guarantee: no hurt feelings.”

As if on cue, Malani came out with a tray of crackers and mixed cheeses. “I thought I heard your voices,” she said cheerfully. “Good, let’s plan dinner.” She set the tray down and took a chair. “I want us all to get away from the ranch and go into town for a meal for a change. I don’t know about you, but if I have to look one more overdone steak in the eye, I… will… barf.”

“How about pizza?” John suggested hopefully. “We passed a Domino’s in Waimea.”

“We’ll eat Chinese,” Malani went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I know a place.”

“Yes, ma’am,” John said.

“And now,” Malani said, putting a hand to her forehead and pretending to peer up at something through the surrounding tree branches, “the sun is over the yardarm. Who wants a glass of wine?”

In the kitchen, she got a bottle of Chardonnay out of the refrigerator and put it on the counter. Gideon, with the corkscrew in his hand, suddenly recalled something. “Malani, remember that box you couldn’t find the other day?”

She looked up from setting out four big wine glasses. “Box?”

“Yes, with the effects from the plane. You said it’d been on the counter, but-”

“Oh, that’s right, the one… well, I forgot to ask.” She put her head in the doorway to the living room. “Kilia!”

Kilia-short, fat, and energetic-trotted into the dining room with a cleaning cloth in her hand. “Yes, missus?”

“Kilia, remember the box those young men brought the other day? With the cup and that little ceramic map-”

“Sure, missus.”

“Did you put it away somewhere?”

“No, ma’am!” Kilia declared with a shudder. “That box and the one with the skeleton bones-I wouldn’t touch them things.”

“Thank you, Kilia. Well, not to worry,” she said to Gideon. “It’ll show up.”

Auntie Dagmar was getting old.

The thought hit Inge like a blow when she peeked through the open doorway of Dagmar’s room at Kona Hospital. She had certainly seemed depressed for a couple of days, but this was different. She was old. Old, and shrunken, and… frail. The ageing and shrinking had been going on for a long time but the frail was something new. So even Dagmar was not indestructible, she thought with a tiny, unanticipated catch in her throat; even Dagmar, who had seemingly been here since the beginning of time, was not permanent in this world.

The old woman was sitting hunched on the side of her bed, fully dressed in a black pant-suit, legs hanging down with her feet not reaching the floor, holding onto a small, blue, hard-sided suitcase that was set upright beside her. She’d put on lipstick and rouge for once, and her jet-black wig was actually on straight, but with her white, papery skin the effect was somewhere between clownish and ghoulish. She was like an ancient, wizened child-an unwanted wartime orphan-dumped in some deserted train station with her pathetic belongings, and waiting pitifully, hopelessly, for someone to come and get her.

“It’s about time,” she snapped when she saw Inge. “Rush, rush, rush, so I’m ready to be picked up, then wait, wait, wait. They didn’t even give me a breakfast. Help me down from here. I don’t suppose you thought to bring any schnapps?”

Inge smiled. That’s what she got for getting sentimental about Auntie Dagmar. “Never mind the schnapps, Auntie. It’s eight o’clock in the morning. We have a problem, a big problem.”

“I hate problems,” Dagmar said.

“Don’t worry, I have it all worked out.” She took Dagmar by one elbow-her arm was like a dried twig-and helped her down with the aid of a stepstool. “We just need to talk it over. Let’s go somewhere and get something to eat.”

“Now you’re talking. Island Lava Java? Cinnamon rolls?”

“Anything you want. But I don’t think they have schnapps.”

Dagmar cut her cinnamon roll precisely in half and lathered one portion with the extra butter she’d ordered, but didn’t raise it to her mouth. Her coffee had been likewise creamed and sugared while Inge spoke, but otherwise untouched. She stared out at the tourists exploring Ali’i Drive, and at the sea wall on the other side of the street, and at Kailua Bay beyond. A white Norwegian Line cruise ship lay anchored a few hundred yards offshore and Kona was swarming with curious, tentative sixty- and seventy-year-olds in tank tops, flip-flops, and sunglasses. Even from their table, Inge could smell the sunscreen.

“No,” Dagmar said.

Inge stared at her. “ No? No, what?”

“No, everything. I’m not going to sit there with people pulling me this way and that way, telling me what to be careful about and how to act and what to say when I talk to John, and what not to say. And I’m not talking to John either.”

Inge sighed. It was Dagmar’s nature to be recalcitrant; there was no point in becoming impatient. “It won’t be like that, Auntie,” she said kindly. “We can just come up with a few guidelines-topics to steer clear of-”

“It will be like that. Felix will order me to say this, you’ll order me to say that, Hedwig will lecture me on karma.” She picked up the piece of cinnamon roll only to put it down again. “No,” she said again, more firmly still. “I can’t remember what I told the police before, it was so long ago. They have a record of it. I’m bound to contradict myself. John would catch me. Isn’t he a detective or something now?”

“He’s an FBI agent.”

“Well, he used to be a detective.”

“He used to be a policeman in Honolulu-”

“Don’t keep changing the subject. That’s a bad habit you have. The point is, I can’t go through any more of that, where they harp on every word I said before. Impossible.”

“But what do you suggest, Auntie? You can’t avoid seeing him tomorrow.”

“I most certainly can.”

“How?”

“By going to see this Sergeant what’s-his-name and telling him the truth today.”

Inge was stunned. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that. “But if you tell him the whole truth-”

“I didn’t say the whole truth, I said the truth.”

Confused, Inge jerked her head. “I don’t-”

Dagmar grasped her wrist. “Inge, think about what you just told me. What do they know? They know that Torkel changed identities with Magnus. What do they suspect? They suspect that I-that we-were aware of it and lied to protect him.”