A Solitary Reaper

by Rachael Wright

  "Are you?"

  "Yeah," Stelios confessed, "I am. Kaikas said she hiked this last week. No body."

  "Good."

  "He looks like a two-day body to me."

  "Let's wait for Panteleon to give us time-of-death. Tell me about the hike," Savva said with a grunt.

  "This is it, Sir. It's rocky. It's steep."

  "Is this a popular hiking spot?"

  "I'll ask Kaikas. Maybe she knows."

  "Who found the body?"

  "A tourist. American. Out for a morning hike."

  "Such derision. That bad?"

  "Everything he's wearing is new. He probably bought it just for the trip. Superiority complex as well, like he did us a favor by calling."

  "Really?"

  "Yep."

  Savva turned around to face a florid-faced Stelios. "Are you always rude this early in the morning?"

  Stelios stared at him, wide-eyed. "I'm sorry, Sir."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing, Sir," Stelios said, taking a half step forward.

  Savva blocked him. "I'll ask you one last time."

  The answer dribbled off his tongue like an upturned olive oil bottle. "Theia broke it off last night."

  "Broke what off?"

  Stelios' arms flailed like loose threads. "The wedding. Our engagement."

  An officer, twenty feet in front of them, turned around at Stelios' shout. Savva waved the loitering officer off, and turned back to Stelios. His voice softened. "What happened?"

  Stelios ran a shaking hand through his mussed hair, leaving streaks of red dust behind. "I don't know. We argued last night ... about everything: groceries, the trash, sex. It just exploded. She screamed and screamed and then her eyes glazed over. She dropped her ring on the floor and said we were over. She left," he ended lamely.

  "And?"

  "I called this morning. I thought we could talk, but before she could say anything, dispatch called. I asked if I could call her back. She knew who was calling. She screamed some more. So I hung up and hiked up to this damned body."

  "Booras," Savva growled.

  "Sorry, Sir."

  "I get it. You're upset, but either be professional or you can go back to headquarters and I'll work the case with Private Kaikas."

  "Yes, Sir."

  Savva nodded, put out a thick freckled hand, patted the younger man's shoulder, turned, and resumed their trudge. Stelios and Theia had been an on and off again item since their school days. That loss, no matter what the circumstances, was excruciating. He cast around for something to say unrelated to women. But all that came to him was the sound of his wife's voice as he stood in the shower. "Kupía Savva invited you for dinner tonight."

  "I'd be thrilled, Sir."

  They hiked in silence. Breath hitched in their throats, sweat rolled in their eyes, and the sun roasted their foreheads, and sent up popping lights in their vision. Savva grumbled. With every step his boots rubbed and rubbed and rubbed. Every movement was agony. But then, one by one the other officers and Dr. Panteleon scrambled over a lip and disappeared from sight.

  "Kalimera, Captain Savva."

  Savva studied the overeager face of a young woman with wild curly hair. Private Kaikas and no other. She radiated joy from her twitching fingers to her bright fingers. "Yes? Where is he?"

  The small crowd parted to expose a male body, propped against a rock like a discarded sack of animal feed. Blood had dried in rivers across his face and his head lolled sideways on his chest. Savva swallowed against the knee jerk reaction to walk away. It was an inert body, a body that did not know the fear it instilled in the nine people gathered around it.

  Stelios led a tall, wiry man over. He was pale and wiped his hands repeatedly on his trousers. Large stains emanated from his armpits. "Sir, this is Mr. Adam Harris. He found the body."

  Indeed Stelios and Adam Harris could be father and son, so alike were they with long noodle-like limbs and thin lined faces. But a wariness coiled in Adam Harris' quick moving, green eyes.

  "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Harris," Savva said in accented English. "I'm Captain Alexandros Savva." Adam Harris grimaced as he struggled for speech. "Where are you from Mr. Harris?"

  "Colorado," he moaned, "the United States."

  "I had a layover in Denver once," Savva said dreamily. "Your mountains put ours to shame."

  "But your sea is mesmerizing, Captain."

  "It is." Savva let a comradely silence build between them before starting in. "Tell me, in your own time, what happened."

  Adam inhaled, rubbed his arm, and closed his eyes. "I left the hotel around six am, and drove here. A hotel employee told my wife about this hike and I decided to go. The mountain was deserted. I reached the top and turned to look at the view behind me and I saw him. At first I thought he was resting. Oh God, I didn't see ... his head. I said hello and then 'kalimera', you know in case he didn't speak English, but he didn't move. I said it louder. And then I saw the blood. I don't know how I missed it. I checked for his pulse; there wasn't one. I had to Google your emergency number. I waited, as the dispatcher asked, for your officers to arrive. It took a while. I haven't touched him ... well you know ... apart from checking for a pulse."

  "Yes, it is a long hike. You've given your information to my officers?"

  "I have."

  "Sergeant Booras will call to schedule a time for you to come to the station and give us your statement. You're free to go back to your hotel. Would you like an escort?"

  Adam shook his head, stepped away to leave, but craned his head towards Savva. "How are you going to get him down?"

  Savva smiled wearily. "The same way you're going, Mr. Harris."

  Adam grimaced, wished the officers a safe journey down, and then slipped over the ledge.

  * * *

  Savva turned from Adam's departing figure back to the body. He couldn't be much older than forty with a well-muscled body. He wore a simple grey v-neck shirt and beige hiking pants with cargo pockets. Quite unlike Savva's boots, this man's were well worn and still tied tight around his ankles. This was a man who took regular and vigorous exercise.

  "What's he doing here?"

  Stelios peered over Savva's shoulder. "Hiked?"

  "With someone else? Alone? Are there any footprints?"

  "No, Sir. It stormed last night, the wind would have obliterated them."

  Savva turned to face the medical examiner. "Dr. Panteleon, is there an obvious cause of death?"

  Dr. Lena Panteleon was a small stocky woman with close cropped blonde hair and perpetually frowning green eyes. She hovered over the body, balancing on the balls of her feet, looking as though she was about to take flight. Thick fingers, encased in white gloves, probed the back of the head, twisting it to see the extent of the damage.

  "Apart from the obvious head wound? But see this trail of dried blood? I'd say he was hit from behind, fell forward, then the blood trickled down his face and dried before he was set against this rock. There could be more injuries. I can't say for sure it was the cerebral damage which killed him."

  "Did he surprise the killer? Or did he hike with them and get hit from behind for his trouble?" Savva mused.

  Dr. Panteleon said nothing. It was a question she couldn't and shouldn't answer.

  "What do you think, Sir?" Stelios said as he continued to hover at Savva's shoulder.

  Savva sidestepped Stelios' proximity and his stale garlic-saturated breath. "Help process the scene so we can get back down and get him to the morgue. And check for blood splatter, see if you can pinpoint where the attack took place."

  Dr. Panteleon stood and wiped a hand across her forehead. "His pockets are empty, Captain."

  Savva licked his lips and bent back over the body. "Empty? Tiléfono?"

  "No. No identification either."

  He intertwined his fingers behind his back and leaned forward, over the body, like a guardian angel. "Do you think he's Greek?"

  Dr. Panteleon peered at the bloody face. If
one averted one's eyes from the crumbling mass at the back of his skull, the man could be taking a mesimeri, reposing against the rock with the olive branches wafting his face like an ancient philosopher-king being fanned by a slave. He had dark Mediterranean skin, sharp contoured cheekbones, and a contemplative look to his mouth like he'd been caught pondering some hidden secret of humanity. The pools of blood, cracked at split from the heat, obscured his eyes and distorted what could have been a handsome face. Savva shook his head. As he turned, an irregularity caught his eye. He pattered around the body to the left hand where it lay splayed in the dust.

  "Did you notice these?"

  Stelios and Dr. Panteleon surveyed him from where they'd begun to organize the descent.

  "What is it?" Stelios asked.

  "These fingers are broken."

  Dr. Panteleon walked over and bent down. Her blond hair fell forward across her cheeks. The corpse’s fingers lay in the dust, broken at such sharp angles that shards of white bone had speared open the skin. Savva's stomach contracted. It must have been excruciating.

  "You're right: the second and third. Why were these two broken? Was he holding something?"

  "He's left handed."

  Dr. Panteleon cocked an eyebrow. "What?"

  Savva pointed at the fleshy side of the hand where it was tinged grey. "It's what happens as the hand drags across the paper." He lifted his own left hand so Dr. Panteleon and Stelios could see the same smudge. "Could the killer have stepped on it?"

  Dr. Panteleon paused in the application of bags over the hands. "It's possible. X-rays will show if there's any evidence of remodeling."

  "It's obvious it's recent. He couldn't have hiked up here like that," Stelios said indignantly.

  Somewhere down below a raven screeched and the sun went behind a mere wisp of a cloud, casting the scorching hilltop in shadow for a moment. The sweat on Savva's forehead cooled.

  "When can we move him?"

  "Whenever you want. I'm finished."

  "Stelios, check underneath the body, and dust surrounding rocks for fingerprints."

  Savva turned away from the corpse–from a man who had a family and dreams and ambitions–and here he was being poked and prodded with even more indignities to come when all that was hidden was exposed for everyone to see.

  Savva kicked a lone pebble off the cliff, scuffed at the thin dust, and stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets. If he ignored the scampering of police officers and listened to the birds and the far away cries of lambs in search of their mothers, he could pretend he lived in a simple world–in a world untarnished by murder. There was nothing glorious about this work, nothing bright or shiny to polish and present to the people. It was horrific, following in the train of killers, rapists, abusers, drug addicts, and picking up the pieces of fear–fear that had escaped its careful bonds.

  Stelios' voice echoed across the hilltop and fell into the valley, as he ordered the other officers along. His voice had deepened beyond its normal tenor. Stelios still found joy and pride in what they did. He walked with a swagger (though he tripped on occasion) when ordering other officers about. But for Savva those times were long gone. He served the state with a heavy heart. He was good at what he did. He enjoyed the mental stimulation, but no parade of grateful citizens and booming trumpets played from him. He pushed for the dead, for people like this man who had lost what was most precious. If not for them he would've given up long ago.

  Stelios sidled up alongside him and, they as one, closed their eyes against the reality of death. The living could afford to ignore it. "We're ready, Sir. Two officers will stay behind to finish processing the scene."

  "Don't drop him," Savva grunted.

  "We won't, Sir," came a warbling voice behind him.

  Savva turned to the speaker, a stout muscular officer (barely old enough to drink) with a razor straight part in his thick brown hair, and a half-cocked smile. He stood with his weight placed on his right leg, as though he imagined himself Michelangelo's David. Savva couldn't grasp how physics still managed to keep the man upright.

  Savva turned from this ridiculous sight. "Dr. Panteleon are you ready?"

  "Ready."

  "Drop the body and the one responsible works weekends with the Tourist Police."

  A shiver went round the group. Stelios winced and endeavored to hide it by applying a thick coat of Vaseline to his lips. Savva stepped back and motioned for them to start.

  Dr. Panteleon stepped in front of him. "Am I included as well, Captain?" she asked with a wink.

  "You aren't a police officer and therefore don't work for me, so I can't arrange your schedule. And I wouldn't imagine asking you to hold the stretcher," Savva grunted. "But," he leaned over conspiratorially, "I'm going to make Booras take turns with the men, just so he knows his summer is on the line as well."

  "Are the Tourist Police that bad?"

  Savva narrowed his eyes at the arguing men carrying their burden down the mountainside. "They all ask the same questions. 'Where's the beach? Where's the bathroom? What's the best restaurant? Which boats are for hire? Do you speak English?' The same questions but in different languages. It's maddening."

  "I can't believe you've done it ... spoken to tourists I mean," Dr. Panteleon said as she lowered herself over the edge, her foot slipped in the loose gravel. "I took you for a recluse, Captain."

  "On my good days; I am. It was three months. I thought I'd die. My superior officer had me in his office every week lecturing me on my manner; people complained I was too gruff." Savva broke off. "Booras, switch with Elias!" The pretend David, Savva couldn't for the life of him remember the boy's name, choked back a laugh.

  Every five minutes Savva called out for a rest and a rotation. The stretcher shifted, tilted, and slipped as the men, sweat dripping into their eyes and down between their legs, stepped over boulders and ducked under trees and skidded over loose rock. Stelios shifted his hands on the stretcher and flexed his fingers and winced in the sun.

  Savva brought up the rear, his eyes scanned the ground around the trail for evidence, anything cast away in a killer's haste. He stooped to peer into a patch of thorny bushes, which seemed a likely dumping place. Nothing. No spent cigarettes. No faded candy wrappers. No dilapidated plastic water bottle full of dirt. The chirping cicadas fell silent as he passed by, quiet as if they marked a moment of silence for death. He'd have to send up some uniforms to scour the area. They couldn't just do a quick pass at it.

  After a half hour of relentless toil, knees obliterated by the steep trail and the loose shifting rock, Savva couldn't concentrate on peering through the undergrowth for evidence. Instead, his eyes probed, like a man lost in the desert, for the next spot of shade. He prayed for a breeze, for clouds to cover the sun, anything for the heat to relent.

  Stelios came back to sit with him on their fourth rotation. The group sat dispersed between three small olive trees, like blue sheep, sides heaving, tongues lolling out, desperate for relief from the sun. No one talked now. The body lay in its own spot, in a meter thick line of shade cast by an overhanging rock, as innocuous as a trucker's covered load of lumber.

  Stelios bent to tie his shoelace. "I'm sorry about my attitude earlier, Sir."

  Savva's eyes flitted over Stelios' boots. Under a thin layer of dirt they were pristine, without the scratches on the sides, or the wear around the eyelets on the boots of the man in the body bag. "Forget it."

  "It won't happen again; disrespect at a crime scene."

  "No, it won't."

  When Stelios ambled off, his long legs barely unfolding as he stepped down to the men and motioned for them to pick up their once more, Savva rubbed his knees. He had to take more exercise. He had to get rid of the pudge. He couldn't become an old man. A plan, that's what he needed, a plan he could stick to, a plan instead of the taverna on a whim.

  They passed into a gulley, remarkably and gloriously hidden from the sun. Savva dragged his soaking shirt away from his skin and almost tripped wh
en he felt the first flat step. He would've collapsed to kiss the rocks if he'd been alone. A kilometer expanse of shifting sunbaked plain lay between him and the vehicles, but he could see them. Stelios called out for the stretcher-bearers to walk faster, spurned on as he was by the easy walk. The load grew lighter as the cars inched closer and the promise of an end to their funerary duties.

  Savva watched with a frown as the stretcher was loaded into the medical examiner's van. The black body bag was little more than a blur before the white doors closed and Dr. Panteleon scurried over to the driver's seat and started the vehicle.

  "I'll see you at the station, Sir?" Stelios queried.

  Savva turned around. "You'll need to shower and change first."

  "That bad?"

  "You've spent half the day scaling a mountain and then climbing back down with a body."

  "It is that bad."

  "I can smell you from fifty feet away."

  "Alright."

  "Meet me at my house after you've finished and bring something to eat."

  Stelios nodded, motioned Kaikas over, and the two of them got into her car. Savva reached for the door of his grey Saab, the plastic handle burned underneath his sweaty fingers. He poured tepid water over the hand and turned back to the mountain. A body in the sea, he'd understand. A body could be weighed down, dropped a few kilometers out, with no one the wiser. Why then at the top of a trail? Why the apparent rage-fueled attack? Was it planned? Had the killer meant the body to be found?

  CHAPTER TWO

  The silver Saab rolled to a stop in front of a faded, green two-story home with a front garden the size of a postage stamp, and bright white shutters. A shutter on the second floor banged at odd intervals against the side of the house with muffled thuds. Savva propped his car door open with his foot and heaved himself out with a grunt. He fell against the car, legs quaking, as the pot-holed street spun.

  Three houses down the front door slammed; next-door a curtain twitched closed. Nothing better to do, little spies. Savva pushed himself off the car and struggled across the garden to the front door. The keys shivered in his hand. He gripped the copper doorknob and forced the key in. The door whined. He ran his hand along the doorjamb and pulled off a great flake of white paint. This was the week he'd fix it.