"Two G's," she read out. "Oh look, put them with the 'A' and it's gag! Another five points for me."
Stelios tallied up the points and pushed the paper over to her. Phebe's hood had come off long ago. In her joy at beating him and in her frustration at her English grammar (which wasn't terrible), she'd shoved it off. Her face shone like a beacon, and Stelios wouldn't have been a man if he hadn't noticed that the face full of worry and fear had transformed into one of beauty.
"My phone's ringing," Stelios said.
He walked to the couch where his phone pinged from his jacket pocket and pulled it out. Theia's number and photo flashed on the screen. His finger hovered over the answer button, but in his peripheral vision something moved. He leaned forward. A man in a sharply tailored suit and oxfords, haloed by the streetlight, stood in the middle of the street, smiling at Savva's house.
Phebe grabbed a blanket from the sofa, and stood beside him. Eyes met eyes, and, in the weak light, Stelios thought the man in the street smiled. One moment she stood next to him, clutching the blanket, and the next, a scream pierced the silence. She collapsed on the floor. Stelios kneeled at her side, slapping her face to bring her back around. He turned back to the window. The street was empty. He dialed Savva.
* * *
"Oh," Davonna said brightly, "his name is Ambrosio Latsis."
Savva blinked.
Glass shattered on the stone terrace.
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The first chapter of the next installment of the Savva series, Remember, Body, to be published in 2019, begins below.
Remember, Body
A Captain Savva Mystery
It’s wretched when women die, all that potential for life cut off, and when they die by hands other than their own (or God’s), it’s a man who takes it from them. It’s sad, yes, and the cruelest, cruelest, part of humanity when out of 8.7 million, only five species in the animal kingdom wage war their own kind … as we do.
It was on one of these species, a particular type of ant, which Alexandros Savva mused as he stared blearily at a bottle of ouzo and wondered, in a half-hearted way, why he couldn’t feel his toes and why his shoes were covered in dew.
All that permeated his mind were half-hearted ponderances on warring ants, because the name shackled every interconnected neuron. Alexandros tilted the ouzo bottle to his mouth to forget. No islander would dare to say the name out loud, not even though the family owned half the country’s shipping. Only she, an ex-patriated Brit, would do so.
So it wasn’t her fault, per se, that the sound of shattering glass and a cheery “Ambrosio Lastis” cavorted on an unending loop in his mind. She knew Minerva died ten years ago. She knew that a couple, who once had the thrill of sending their daughter go to university, were now childless. The wife devoted to saving the people of her war-ravaged country and the husband, an island-cop doing battle against a suffocating bureaucracy and a rabble of criminals.
“Criminally bureaucratic!” Alexandros shouted. “Hah!”
He fell back into the chair and shut his eyes against the headache. Perhaps if he hadn’t, he would’ve seen the outline of his wife at the kitchen window. Perhaps he would’ve seen her hang her head and wipe away tears and wrap her arms around her body to control the shaking. Perhaps he would have traversed the stone path from the bougainvillea to the French doors and pulled her into his arms.
As it was, his mind was muddled. Muddled by drink, by the name, by ants. He didn’t forget her. But he couldn’t share with Shayma. He tried to tell himself she’d steal the ouzo, but she’d really steal the grief. He couldn’t share that. Couldn’t let her tear it away, or make it logical, or worse yet–try to shoulder it.
He should be congratulated that he’d kept his life together for two months. He hadn’t made a scene or screamed obscenities. Shayma enlightened Davonna about what the name meant and the party broke up not long after: no one in the mood to celebrate a closed case after learning a murderer had taken up residence in their lives.
He exhibited elegance and grace and didn’t blame Davonna. He kissed his wife when they arrived home and gave her a foot massage and didn’t even try to end it in sex. It would’ve been a welcome distraction, but Shayma’s thoughts were ten years away, and though most men wouldn’t have minded, he did.
Which was why Alexandros Savva huddled in the far corner of his back garden swirling alcohol at midnight and sitting in the sprinklers. About him, in the weak light from a street lamp, leaves rattled and a car backfired and in the background of all those sounds the sea drifted forward and back on sand bars.
A minute later Alexandros’ body went limp and a dark form left the house, bundle in her arms, flitted over to his chair, removed the bottle, and covered him with a quilt.
***
You’d think that being the heiress to one of the largest fortunes in Greece would be beneficial, enjoyable even. Problems would melt away, blasted into oblivion by the power of green. In the back of your mind you entertain the thought that two billion euro can buy life. As lovely as all that would be, reality is cruel. New problems, cruel problems, reared en-masse at every turn. To the poor money is magic–an elusive unicorn capable of transporting them to paradise. But those with it know better.
Meda Tocci, the heiress in question, lounged against her porch railing as dusk encroached over Lesvos, sipping a glass of merlot as she watched money unravel the lives of her relatives. Her son dead, her husband dead, all that was left to her were these vultures the world called relatives. Screams and screeches rippled across the surrounding hills. A music to feed Meda’s soul. After all the work, after all the secrets, after the perpetual hatred: it was finished now.
“You’re a demon from the pit of hell!” one of them screeched through the gathering dusk.
Meda saluted the speaker, in all probability–Steffi, with her wine, drew a chair underneath her, lowered herself royally, and smoothed the bouclé fabric of the cream Chanel suit. She lifted her right arm and checked the time on the silver Rolex. Any minute now they’d be here, as they always were, summoned by the irate neighbors. Meda adjusted the neckline of her blouse. The two-carat diamond studs in her ears caught the fading light.
One by one, like animals catching the scent of a predator, the six screaming, snarling heads snapped to the drive. A man, so tall his head grazed the roof, drove, accompanied by a scowling woman with frizzy hair. All eyes swiveled to Meda who lacquered on her most alluring smile, descended the porch, and sauntered through the sea of apoplectic faces to Lieutenant Stelios Booras.
His legs unfolded from the SUV with all the length of a Jacob’s Ladder. She inspected his waistline, the skin underneath his eyes, the eyes themselves–they flicked to his partner too often. She licked her lips and took another step toward him. The arguments diminished behind her. She met his gaze unblinkingly. The officer beside him, Meda couldn’t remember her name, rolled her eyes, and made a beeline for the rabble.
“Yassas, Meda,” Stelios said. “What is it this time?”
Meda flashed her perfect white teeth. “It’s nothing. I don’t know why you came. I am ecstatic to see you Stelios, as always.”
“Your neighbors say it’s been going on for the past three hours. It’s unacceptable.”
She waved him off with a flash of her be-ringed fingers. “Oh, it’s nothing. They’re just fighting over allowances. Nothing to worry you over. Why don’t you come in and have some coffee? I have tiropitas and baklava fresh from Aris and Spiros’ bakery. Now there isn’t a woman to feed you properly you must let me do it. Savva works you too hard. Come on now.” Her nudge caught him off guard, and so with little effort, Meda tugged him through the mass of seething faces, and up the stairs in
to her air-conditioned home.
Even if he couldn’t recognize a Chippendale end table or been able to value a French Lyonnais Marie Theresa chandelier or tell whether the silver gilt picture frame, which held a photograph of a handsome man in an army uniform, was real silver, Stelios understood comfort.
He failed to hide a smile when she produced the tray laid out in preparation of his arrival. “Meda, you really shouldn’t antagonize them.”
Meda poured Stelios a coffee and perched onto the chair next to him. Her skirt rode up above her knees as she crossed her ankles demurely. “Oh, pish-posh, let’s not talk about them. How are you? How are your parents? They must love it on Mykonos.”
“I’m fine. They’re fine. But Meda, this has to stop. Your neighbors have threatened legal action.”
“HAH,” Maria laughed. “I’d like to see them try. Lesvos would run out of sheep and olives before I run out of money.”
“We’re aware, Meda. But this isn’t healthy. Your family is wasting police resources that would be better spent.”
“Like protecting the poor refugees from us terrible Greeks, for instance? Aren’t half the restaurants on this island feeding them? Our famous hospitality at work.”
“This isn’t about anyone else than your family. It has to stop.”
Meda fluffed her raven curls and tilted her head. “You won’t have to worry about it much longer. They’ll be gone soon enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a clause in their rental agreements; if they don’t act with decorum and discretion then the contract is rendered void. The number of times you’ve been called out here …” she rose from the chair, “is more than enough to evict them all.”
Stelios put down his cup and wiped his pastry-coated fingers on a white-monogramed linen napkin. “I’m going outside. Stay here. Are we clear?”
Meda wriggled a pinky finger. “Crystal clear, Lieutenant.”
***
Outside the house cacophony overwhelmed the night. Six people wheeled and lurched around Eleni who added her own voice to the din. She shouted down Meda’s aunt Pikra. He strode to where they had gathered, around a fountain where the goddess Aphrodite poured water from her white marble hands into the wide shell basin below. Eleni glanced up from her argument. Her eyebrows lifted in a ‘did you come out of there with your dignity intact’ look.
He stepped between the cousin with the port wine stain on his cheek, Dionysus and another maiden aunt with livid red hair, Clio. He shouted in their ears. “All right, that’s enough!”
They leapt away in horror, an aunt, formerly engaged in argument with Eleni, and clutched the neck of her blouse as though he would rip it off. Michael, another cousin, who limped badly, regained his composure first. His nostrils flared and his sheared red blonde hair stood on end. He resembled an angry leprechaun too much to be taken seriously.
“I hope you’re going to do something about her!”
“Who?”
“Meda!” Michael screeched. He flicked his hands at his relatives as though conducting a cheer at a football game. The fans sneered but nodded. “She should be locked up. You have no idea what we have to deal with.”
“Then leave. You aren’t prisoners. Move somewhere else,” Stelios said.
He might as well have proposed the Turks re-invade Greece and set up another 368-year occupation and told them to enjoy it. Eleni slipped out of the scram of Tocci relatives and re-tucked her uniform shirt. She caught Stelios’ eye and mimed throwing popcorn into her mouth. He choked back a laugh.
The clamor rose again.
“Shut it!” he yelled. “Your neighbors are threatening a lawsuit. Look at yourselves. It’s eleven o’clock and you’re out here squabbling. Be adults and settle your problems without police intervention.”
“It’s her fault!” screeched a white head.
“Pikra, I don’t care whose fault you think it is. If this continues you’ll all be facing fines. Individual fines. Not just the property owner. Just let that sink it.” Oh it did. Visions of euro-hungry government bureaucrats squabbling for every coin, flashed across their livid faces. “Now I suggest you all go back to your houses and calm down. If I’m called back her again it’ll be fines for the lot of you and you know how much Greece could use the money so don’t except them to be small.”
Blinking penitent eyes met this declaration. Stelios flicked his hands in dismissal and the courtyard cleared in ten seconds. When the last door slammed he glimpsed Meda behind the porch’s thick bamboo blinds. She twitched the blinds aside and waved at him.
Kaikas led the way to the garage. The outline of Meda’s silver Bentley was just visible through the glass. “That was entertaining.”
Stelios slipped in to the driver’s seat of the SUV, whipped the steering wheel around, and backed out of the driveway. “I still have two hours of paperwork. If only they’d left their tiff till tomorrow night, I’d have been off.”
“I think Meda schedules them around you.”
Stelios kept his eyes on the road, away from Eleni’s conspiratorial smile. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You’ve been the responding officer every time. I think she’s friends with Kleitos, you know how much he adores rich people, he probably gifts her the department’s schedule.”
Stelios craned his head left and right at a stop sign. Eleni shook with unspent laughter. “He wouldn’t give a fig if she was poor.”
“To be sure,” Eleni said demurely. “But you have to admit she’s got a thing for you; our Meda. Which pastries were on offer this time? Did she offer herself up?”
“Har har.”
Eleni rolled her eyes, plucked out a bobby pin from her head, and reattached a loose curl. “So the fines–you made that one up didn’t you?”
Stelios glanced at her. “Sure did. I’d like to fine the lot of them and then if that didn’t work: seize their property. What on earth were they fighting about this time? Did you get a straight answer?”
“No. All I got from them was “the end of things” and “Meda is going to pay.” It’s what they’ve said for ages. More threats. More sky is falling. To be honest I don’t understand why they don’t all leave. They’re miserable. You couldn’t pay me to live with my niece, cousin, aunt, whatever that long if she treated me the way Meda treats them.”
“Ah, but does she?”
“They’re constantly at each other’s throats. Something’s going on.”
“But why wasn’t she out there stirring up trouble? Last time she sat on the fountain, pretty as you please, enjoying the fireworks. Why lock herself in the house?”
“Maybe she said her peace and left them all to suffer.”
Eleni huffed and plucked a piece of lint from her trousers. “It’s a nightmare. When you left I thought they’d tear into me next; but Meda doesn’t like me so they have no reason to.”
Stelios chuckled and turned onto Strati Murabili. The uninspiring rectangular beige police headquarters loomed in the distance. He parked the SUV and slumped against the seat. Eleni paused with her hand on the door.
“Something wrong?”
“Paperwork. It wasn’t worth it: the promotion. All I do are Kleitos’ never-ending piles of reports. I suspect most of them get passed onto me because Savva couldn’t be bothered.”
Eleni rolled her eyes and jabbed his arm. “Are you done whining? I’ve got a couple of bottles of cider in the mini-fridge. Let’s tuck in and I’ll help you finish.”
“No that’s …”
Eleni jumped out of the car. “Are you going to keep up the self-pity, Sir?” She said the last word with a simper and batted her lashes at him.
“If Kleitos finds out …”
“We aren’t on duty, technically, anymore. Come on, stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
She shut the passenger door and loped to the building. Though twenty centimeters shorter, Eleni had energy and fearlessness, which went unmatched by anyone else in the department. Chasi
ng a suspect down through half of downtown Mitilini: Eleni was your man.
* * *
Hours later, Stelios dropped his pen. He plucked at the edge of the plastic-topped table and the particleboard visible underneath. Eleni sat across from him. Her hair stood on end from the amount of times she’d run her fingers through it in exasperation. Two empty cider bottles (he had a sneaking suspicion Savva’d nicked the others) were tucked safely into his workout bag and the pile of reports had shifted from the left hand sides of their keyboards to the right.
“Good God, I never want to be you,” Eleni exhaled.
Stelios glowered. “What time is it?”
Eleni glanced at her watch. She lurched forward and laid her head on the desk. “It’s six am,” came the muffled reply. “I’m on duty again in five hours.”
“Come on. Let’s go. Some sleep is better than none.”
Standing up never felt so good. Finally finished. Finally in sight of an actual day off–report free. He opened his mouth to invite Eleni to go snorkeling tomorrow morning, but the desk sergeant, a pensioner who volunteered for the graveyard shift, appeared in the doorway.
“Nope,” Stelios said, waving off the small piece of paper clutched in the man’s right hand. “Kaikas and I are off duty. We’ve been up all night. I’m not taking another call.”
The older man studied the paper in his hand. “I apologize Lieutenant Booras, but the request came in direct from Colonel Kleitos. You, Savva, and Kaikas are to respond immediately.” Stelios shoved his hand into his pocket, fingering his tilefono. “I’ve already informed Captain Savva.”
“What is it?” Kaikas said.
“A body.”
“What? Who?” Stelios asked. “Why does Kleitos already know about it?”
“Because of who it is,” the older man said. “Meda Tocci was found twenty minutes ago.”
Stelios blinked. He opened his mouth to ask but Eleni recovered first.
“What happened? An accident?”
The desk sergeant shook his head mournfully. “Hanging. From the rafters of her front porch.”
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