Now they just walked them onto the trucks before ever leaving the ranch, and walked them off when they got to the dock. And they started at nine, not at one.
Willie had gotten $1.50 a day on his first cattle drive-which was exactly what Somoa had plunked into the nearby vending machine to get the super-sized chocolate milk he was working on. Now Willie made damn near a hundred times that for doing about a hundred times less work.
It was getting to be retirement time, he thought with a sigh. He’d done a good job training the hands, and Somoa was more than ready to take over. It was time, all right. The Torkelssons had done right by him when it came to a pension, but he wasn’t going to live forever, and if he kept this up he’d wind up dropping dead in the saddle-or more likely at the wheel of an ATV. Not that that’d be so bad, but it’d be kind of nice to get to spend some of that pension, to kick back, do some fishing, do some traveling, do some hanging around the docks, schmoozing and drinking beer in the afternoon, like so many of the old ranch hands turned beach bums.
He watched one of them now, coming down the dock toward him with a rolling, limping gait. Sunburnt and bearded, shaggy gray hair caught in a pony tail, shapeless old captain’s hat on his head, black patch tied over one eye. Interesting-looking guy. Not a ranch hand, though. An old salt, a tough, gristly old pirate, really; nobody he remembered seeing around before.
“How you doin’, buddy?” Willie said. “Can I help you with something?”
“Oh, I expect you can, Willie,” the old man said, and his lean, leathery face split in a grin.
Willie did a double-take, then peered hard at him for a good five seconds. The Philomena Purcell did a short test-burst of its powerful foghorn, startling the cattle into a round of jostling and stamping, and bringing a chorus of eh-hoo s from the hands.
Willie heard none of it. “Oh… my… gawd…,” he said.
“You know, I bet my Uncle Jake would like that,” Julie said.
“Absolutely,” John said. “How could anybody not like a topless dashboard hula dancer that plays the Hawaiian War Chant while she jiggles?”
“I don’t know, it’s pretty hard to beat this coconut piggy bank carved into a monkey head,” Gideon said, fingering it. “I think it’s meant to be a guenon, or maybe a mangabey. One of the Cercopithecinae, at any rate.”
“Well, obviously,” John said, yawning. “Cercopithecinae, for sure.”
They were in Hilo Hattie’s in Kona. The two-day get-away to Hilo and Volcanoes National Park had done its work. They had put the Torkelsson affair behind them. The subject of Dagmar’s murder had naturally come up a few times, but only in a desultory way. Talking and surmising had led nowhere and had been depressing, and, in any case, they now understood and accepted-even John did-that it was Fukida’s baby, not theirs.
Besides that, their thoughts had naturally enough begun to turn toward home. They had seats on a Hawaiian Airlines flight the following afternoon and they had stopped in the giant store on their way back to the Outrigger, where they planned to spend their last night, to pick up presents for friends and family. The “serious” purchases had already been made-a handsome coral belt for John’s wife Marti, and a Tommy Bahama Aloha blouse for Julie’s sister. Now they were meandering down the souvenir aisles, searching for a few less formal gifts. John, done with his shopping and getting bored, called the Outrigger to see if there were any messages.
“Call from Inge,” he told them when he’d hung up and they were in the checkout line. “We’re invited to a memorial reception for Dagmar. Casual dress. Just family and close friends.”
“I doubt if Julie and I qualify as close friends,” Gideon said.
“No, she made a point of saying they’d like to have you. She sounded like she meant it. I guess they really don’t want there to be any hard feelings.”
“I don’t think so,” Gideon said doubtfully. “I’ve stirred up a lot of trouble for those people.” He swiped his credit card through the machine on the counter.
“I think we ought to go,” John said.
“When is it?” Julie asked.
“Two o’clock, at the community center in Waimea. We’ll be a little late, but we can make it. I think it’d be a nice thing if we showed up. For a few minutes, anyway.”
“I think so, too,” Julie said. “To pay our respects.”
“Yes, but-”
“Good, it’s settled,” John said. “Let’s get going.” Gideon gave up with a sigh. “Okay, I’ll go along.” He signed the $57 receipt and tucked a copy in his wallet.
“I still think we should have gotten him the monkey head,” he muttered as they left, just to prove he did have a mind of his own.
Hedwig, Inge, Axel, and Felix, forming a ragged reception line, seemed genuinely grateful when John, Julie, and Gideon made their appearance. Hedwig, reeking of jasmine and splendidly draped in a shimmering silk muu-muu of royal blue threaded with gold, hugged them all to her soft bosom. A teary-eyed Inge energetically pumped their hands. Axel, also showing emotion, hugged John and Gideon, but shyly shook hands with Julie. Felix went the other way, throwing wide his arms and bear-hugging a startled Julie-it was the first time they’d met-but cordially shaking hands with John and Gideon. Malani and Keoni beside their respective spouses, politely nodded and murmured appreciation for their coming. All very hospitable and sincere and gratifying.
And yet, thought Gideon, there was something surreal about it all. If Fukida was right-and he, Julie, and John agreed with him-then one of these people, these warm, nice, decent people (if you made a few allowances for fraud, theft, and one or two other little transgressions) was the murderer of the woman they were all there to memorialize.
Not that there were so very many. The Torkelssons, it appeared, did not have many friends. In addition to the four siblings and the two spouses, there were perhaps a dozen people who looked as if they were probably ranchers and their wives, and about ten Hawaiian and Asian men, some old, some young, but all with a compact, athletic grace that marked them as current or retired paniolos. Gideon recognized Willie Akau and a couple of the others he’d seen around the Little Hoaloha. The paniolos, some of whom still had range dust on their work clothes, were gathered in two clumps near the refreshment table, most of them clutching tiny paper cups of pink lemonade and looking thoroughly ill at ease.
The refreshments were ample-punch, lemonade, coffee, trays of cookies and fruit breads-but the room would comfortably have held a hundred-a plain, linoleum-tiled, echoing space, far too large for the two dozen or so people in it, so that the affair had a forlorn quality, with guests whispering rather than talking, to keep from making too much noise.
Until Felix took over. “I think we’re all here now,” he honked from the middle of the room. “On behalf of my family, I want to thank you for coming. My aunt would have really appreciated knowing you were here.”
“She does know,” Hedwig said with a wise smile.
Felix looked pained. “You all know my sister Hedwig, who is now going to lead us in a… in a what, Hedwig?”
“In a Circle of Karmic Energy.”
With a theatrical half-bow, Felix stepped aside and turned the floor over to Hedwig. “Whatever,” Gideon heard him mutter out of the side of his mouth.
Hedwig spread her massive arms, bringing silence. In the full, gorgeous, blue-and-gold muu-muu she looked immense, the Mother Goddess herself.
“It must be hard to get that big being a vegetarian,” Gideon mused.
“Be good,” Julie warned him, but she was smiling.
Hedwig lowered her head and waggled her outstretched fingers. “We will hold hands and form a circle.”
A circle was duly formed. John held Julie’s left hand, Gideon her right. On Gideon’s other side, he grasped the callused hand of a wiry old paniolo, making both of them uncomfortable.