Where There's a Will

was ready to leave. “Well...”

“And at this point, we think the real story is that Magnus was murdered by Torkel?” Gideon suggested.

“That...or by one of the nephews—or nieces.”

John looked hard at him. “Are you serious about that, Teddy?”

“I’m serious about it as a possibility, yeah, you bet.” Fukida tipped the cup all the way up to finish his coffee, sucking up the last of the foam, and stood. “Everybody’s being interrogated today, this morning. I’m on my way to talk to Inge now, and I’ve got two of my detectives going to see Axel and Hedwig.”

“What about Felix?”

“Honolulu PD is helping out there. We gave them a list of questions. I want everybody talked to at about the same time so they can’t compare notes ahead of time.”

“That’s good,” John said.

“I’m glad you approve.” Fukida paused before leaving, leaning on the back of his chair. “I’m not asking you along, Johnny. You’ve done great, but I think maybe it’s time for you to step out of this.”

“You’re not gonna get any argument from me on that. If I never see any of that lousy bunch again, it’ll be too soon.”

When Fukida had gone, the three of them sat looking out over the gardens toward the sea. “What awful news,” Julie said, following which there was a long silence.

“I have to get away from here,” John said, still staring out to sea. “I just don’t want to hang around here anymore.”

“You’re ready to go home?” Julie asked sympathetically.

“Not if I can help it, not while Meathead is still loose. But my sister Brenda wants us all to come down to Hilo. You guys interested?”

“That’s your sister who’s a park ranger?” Julie asked. “I’d love to meet her.”

“Right, at Volcanoes. You two would have a lot in common. So I’ve been thinking—”

“Uh-oh,” Gideon said.

John responded with a fleeting smile. “—that we could head down south today, maybe get rooms at Volcano House for a couple of nights—it’ll be a whole lot cheaper than the Outrigger, I can tell you that. We could go up into Hilo for dinner with Brenda and her family tonight, and then maybe tomorrow Brenda could show us around the park. What do you say?”

“Sounds good,” said Gideon.

“I’d love it,” Julie said.

NINETEEN

ITwas a view that the pony-tailed old man in the gold-braided captain’s hat never got tired of—that, as far as he knew, no one had ever gotten tired of: the island of Tahiti, rearing up before him in the morning, the upper slopes of its green mountains and hanging valleys glowing like fire, the heavy mists that had clung to the bottoms of the deep ravines all night slowly separating into feathery tendrils as the sun hit them, the sky itself still a pellucid aquamarine, not the pale blue it would turn later on. Behind him, nine miles away across the Sea of the Moon, was the even more lushly exotic island of Moorea, where he lived and from which he’d just motored.

God, what a place.

With a sigh of self-satisfaction, he slowly steered Cap’n Jack’s Reward, a converted fifty-foot Danish fishing trawler, through the ships anchored in Papeete Harbor and then, edging it forward and back as deftly as if it were a twelve-foot dinghy, slipped it into its space along the concrete bulkhead that edged the long waterfront quay. Good. Done.

Nine-thirty, according to the clock on the cabin wall. That left him over an hour before the day’s clients, six Hemingway wannabe’s referred to him by Tahiti Nights Travel Agency (for the usual fifteen percent), showed up to spend a manly day on the high seas in pursuit of marlin and mahi-mahi. He just hoped nobody threw up on his beautiful, newly stained but not yet polyurethaned teak deck.

“Mornin’, Cap’n Jack, toss me a rope, I’ll tie you up.”

Teoni, waiting for him on the quay, was his one-man crew; reliable, competent, and unfailingly good-humored, even with problem customers—of whom there were many. Cap’n Jack had often wondered what it was about deep-sea fishing that brought out the worst in so many men. In Teoni’s opinion it was the result of the temporary absence of the civilizing influence of women, and Cap’n Jack thought it was as good a theory as any.

A final check of the ice chest (ham and cheese sandwiches, taro chips, beer, bottled water, fruit juice, apples and oranges, Twinkies, chocolate chip cookies), a quick look in at the head to make sure the toilet paper and paper towels were out and that it was generally ship-shape (by the end of the day, it sure wouldn’t be), a few unnecessary instructions to Teoni, and after flipping down his eye patch so as not to disturb squeamish passersby, he was off on his two-block walk to the Tiki Soft Internet Cafe for his morning coffee and a little surfing of the twenty-first-century variety.

Half an hour later, with a chocolate croissant and a heavily creamed and sugared coffee under his belt and a fresh cup on the table in front of him, he had checked and responded to the meager collection of e-mail in his inbox, had ordered two new rod-holders from Pomare Marine, and had opened his Favorites folder to relax for a final few minutes with “Upcountry Doings, Your E-News Update for North Hawaii.”

As usual, there was little in it of concern to him, but reading it was an ingrained habit by now and he scrolled dutifully through it, looking for names and places that rang a bell. He had already hit the page down key to scroll past “Sad News from the North Kohala Coast”—there wasn’t anything on the coast that interested him—when his mind registered a glimpse of the name “Torkelsson” in the body of the article.

Now that interested him. He scrolled back up the page and read intently, his hand rhythmically stroking his beard, his coffee forgotten.

Sad News from the North Kohala Coast