Where There's a Will

pipeline.”

“That would have gone down hard,” Gideon said.

“You’re not kidding. And then there were some kind of famous cattle negotiations in Honolulu, where they supposedly aced out one of the big Kauai ranching syndicates. There were threats against them on record, there was even—”

“But nobody was ever convicted?”

“Nobody was ever indicted. The cops never even brought charges. There just wasn’t any evidence, Doc. Nothing to tie anybody to it. Remember, they burned the place down. That doesn’t make the job any easier.”

Gideon leaned back in his seat and thought it over. “John,” he said with a shake of his head, “I have to say...”

John glanced at him. “What?”

“Well, you have a case where one brother is murdered and the other one takes off. You have to wonder—”

“You have to wonder if Magnus didn’t kill Torkel.”

“Well, don’t you?”

“Sure, and naturally that was where the cops looked first, but that angle petered out inside of a couple of days. For one thing, the autopsy on Torkel showed that they did him in classic gangland execution style. Two shooters, the whole bit. This wasn’t just one ticked-off old geezer killing his geezer brother.”

“You mean, hired killers.”

“Exactly. A professional hit all the way, very smooth.”

“But why couldn’t Magnus have been the one who hired them?”

“No way. He was too cheap.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously, what kind of sense does it make? If he wanted to have his brother killed, he’d have had it done when he wasn’t around, when he had some kind of alibi, over in Honolulu or something, wouldn’t he?”

“That’s a point,” Gideon said. “He sure wouldn’t have done it this way, putting himself right in the middle of it.”

“Another thing, too,” John pointed out. “No motive. None at all. Also, if he arranged for a couple of hitmen to do it, why would he run? No, he’s not the one who killed his brother.”

“Okay, that I can buy, but if these killers were after him, why didn’t he just go to the police for help? Why leave everything—his family, his ranch—and run for his life?”

“Well, all I can tell you is, that’s what people do when hitmen are on their tail. And between you and me, it’s a pretty good idea. Besides, the Waimea PD would be in way over their heads on something like this. They probably get, like, one homicide every ten years, and then it’s just some out-of-his-skull meth-head.”

“Then why not go to the state police in Honolulu? Or the FBI?”

“Look, people do funny things when they’re scared; you know that. Anyway, that was the last time anybody ever saw him. Or heard anything about him, until this week.”

They had reached the outskirts of Waimea now, a pretty little 1950s Western town with feed and grain stores, and stores that sold farm equipment, and rugged-looking men in Stetsons, and even a little white church with a wooden belfry. The only thing that told you you weren’t in Kansas or South Dakota were the tropical red and blue tin roofs. That and the impossibly lush green hills in which the town nestled.

“Let’s stop for a bite,” John said. “You hungry?”

“Sure,” said Gideon, whose salivary glands started working at the mention of food. “I guess I forgot about lunch.”

“Forgot about lunch!” John said incredulously. “Jesus, you’re worse than I thought.”

They turned into Opelo Plaza, a neatly maintained corner strip mall on the main street, and pulled up before Aioli’s, a simple, white frame building with blue awnings on either side of the screen door and a giant painted garlic clove above it.

“I admit, it looks kind of like a health food place—but it’s good,” John explained.

They ordered sandwiches at the counter—grilled chicken and avocado for Gideon, grilled mahi-mahi for John— and sat in rattan chairs at a bare table under slowly turning ceiling fans. Everything was spotless. The red glazed tile floor looked as if it had been cleaned thirty seconds ago. The clientele was about fifty-fifty native-Hawaiian and Haole.

While they ate, John went on with the story. Once the family had gotten over its shock at the loss of its patriarch-brothers, another kind of shock took over. They realized that the future of the wealthy ranch and its holdings was now on hold. Because the two men had reciprocal mutual-beneficiary wills, in which the brothers left virtually everything to each other, it was only when the last living brother died that the inheritance could pass on to the next generation. So, for the seven years it took for the Third Circuit Court to formally conclude that Magnus was really dead and gone, the ranch was managed under receivership and the bulk of the Hoaloha fortune remained in limbo, while the would-be inheritors chafed. All except Dagmar, who got an identical lion’s share of the liquid assets under both wills, and who soon pulled up stakes and retired to the seclusion and beauty of Hulopo’e Beach Estates on the Kohala Coast.

But the seven years finally came to an end. Three years ago Magnus had been declared legally dead and his will had gone through probate and been executed. For all intents and purposes the great Hoaloha Ranch no longer existed. The thirty-thousand-acre property was cut up and divided between the brothers’ nephews and nieces. Even after selling off part of their assets—cattle, art works—to pay the death taxes, each of them wound up with a good-sized chunk of land.