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
“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
“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
“ ’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
“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?”
