Where There's a Will

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.”

“No, they also think we lied to protect our inheritances. Well, not you, because you got the same under both wills, but—”

“Yes, all right. So, do you think they’ll simply drop it now? It’s only a question of time until they ferret out what really happened. Isn’t it better to come out with it voluntarily, than to be caught in one lie after another, like rats in a trap?”

“But you’re not saying you’d tell them...?”

“Everything? Of course not. I may be getting a bit senile, but I’m not crazy yet.”

“I see,” Inge said reflectively. It just could be that Dag-mar had the right idea. The old lady might be getting frail, but not in the head. Still, there were problems. She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Auntie, there may be criminal charges involved. And... what about our inheritances? We could lose them.”

“Pooh, I don’t believe that for a minute. Not after so much time. There are statutes about such things. Felix can straighten out any problems.”

That was what Inge believed, too, but it was good to hear Dagmar say it. “But how will it look?”

“It will look as if everything possible was done to protect my dear brother and your dear uncle from the vicious assassins that threatened his life, even if the law did happen to be slightly violated in a technical sense. People will understand.”