She was in the midst of these pointless, dismal thoughts when the sound of footsteps on the gravel path behind her brought her back to the present. Someone was rounding the curve that led to the cove. She threw the sardine, wiped her fingers, and quickly picked up the jet-black wig on the bench beside her. It had been taken off, as it usually was here, so that she could enjoy the breeze flowing through her scant gray hair. She had barely gotten it back on her head when the waiter from the Mauna Kai who usually brought her dinner came smiling into sight.

Could it be five o’clock already? Had she dozed without knowing it? The thought that she might turn into one of those drooling oldsters who couldn’t stay awake in public was a source of terror to her. She would end it all before it came to that. But no, when she turned to greet her visitor, he held an envelope that he held politely out to her. “It’s an e-mail for you, ma’am.”

Inasmuch as she refused to have a computer in the house, Dagmar had an arrangement with the Mauna Kai (one of many expensive but life-easing arrangements with the Mauna Kai) in which they kept an e-mail account for her. They would bring her any messages received and would send off whatever she might dictate in response.

“Thank you, Steven,” she said with a final, subtle adjustment of her wig from behind.

“I’m Faustino, Mrs. Torkelsson,” he said.

“Yes, of course. Faustino,” she said. “Now let me read this.”

From: Inge

To: Felix; Axel; Hedwig; Aunt Dagmar

Sent: Monday, June 08, 2004 2:17 PM

Subject: Amazing Development

Hold on to your socks for this one!

I just got off the phone with an Officer Pacheco of the Waimea Police Department.

The Grumman has been found! After ten years! A couple of skin divers spotted it in a few feet of water in a lagoon on some uninhabited, Godforsaken island 400 miles from here, and Officer Pacheco wants to know what we want to do about it.