“Sounds a bit sexist to me.”
“Call me in fourteen years and tell me if you still think that way.”
Andreas smiled and took a second bite of the kalathakia. “This is a messy one.”
“Why do I sense you’re not talking about the pastry?”
“Three murders, all execution-style, and all signs point to one of the baddest guys on the island, but the S-O-B has no apparent motive for setting things in motion. It makes no sense.”
“It could be worse. The signs could be pointing at Karavakis and Despotiko.”
“That duo’s still a possibility. Despotiko’s wife was tangentially involved in putting together the meeting that got the Colonel killed, and she did so in a way that gave both her husband and Karavakis plausible deniability of any substantive part in setting it up.”
“A wonderful piece of work she is.”
“You know her?”
“Know her? We’re practically her official babysitters. I cannot tell you the number of times we’ve had to haul her drunken, drugged-up ass home or out of trouble.” Telly shook his head. “I’m not complaining, mind you. In return, her husband takes very good care of us.” He shot a glance at Andreas. “I mean legitimately so. He buys us a lot of police equipment we can’t get through Athens.”
Andreas shrugged. “Every little bit helps. So, what can you tell me about her? I’ve heard there’s a story out there about her being a working girl and that’s how she met her husband.”
“I’ve heard the same story. One version even has them introduced by Karavakis, but you’ll never hear a word on that topic from his lips. Honestly, I don’t think she was a hooker, and certainly not one of Karavakis’ girls. She was more like an attractive woman on the make who liked to party and chose her lovers wisely.”
“Aiming to land a rich husband?”
“I think our town hall lists that as an official summertime sport. These days, though, they come from Athens looking to land a rich Mykonian.”
“Good for her.”
Telly grimaced. “Not so sure about that. My instincts tell me she was a relatively innocent, nice person who sold herself to the devil and now is a prisoner of her deal.”
“Meaning?” said Andreas.
“She may not have been a hooker when she met him, but Despotiko sure as hell uses her like one now.”
“He passes her around?”
“No, not directly. She’s more his mercenary. His personal representative when he needs one.”
Andreas wondered if that explained why they’d bumped into her having lunch with Karavakis and the mayor. It would also explain why they’d treated her with such deference.
“She’s also his eyes and ears on what’s happening on the Athens-Mykonos party scene, and she does whatever he tells her to do, whenever he tells her to do it. In exchange, he lets her have her flings.”
“What a wonderful life she’s made for herself.” The kind that builds resentment.
“That’s why we end up driving her home so often.” He leaned in and whispered, “More times than I care to mention from rented villas, filled with hard partiers so hyped-up and loud we’ve no choice but to bust them.”
“Now that’s saying something. There must be some serious shit going down to be busting Mykonos tourists in their high-priced villas.”
“You wouldn’t believe the half of it.” Telly sipped his coffee. “Though we never busted her, of course.”
“Of course.”
“But it’s not all bad. Sometimes we babysitters do get to do a mission of mercy or two.”
“It’s what keeps us coming to work.” Andreas finished off the pastry.
“I did one yesterday.
“You rescued a treed cat?”
“No, a bird,” said Telly, shooting him the middle finger. “A woman came to me asking for my help at getting some immigrant’s fifteen-year-old daughter into counseling for too much boozing.”
“There must be a well-established program for that on the island.”
“Not that I know of.”
“My wife’s participating in something like that. In fact, two girls are at our house right now. At least they were there when I left.”
“Two girls? Wait. They must be the ones we turned over for counseling overnight.” Telly paused. “Do you know a woman named Toni?”
“As in the piano player Toni?”
Telly raised an eyebrow. “By chance, is your wife’s name Lila?”
Andreas stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“Son of a bitch. What a coincidence.”
Andreas struggled to keep a poker face. “What can you tell me about the girls? I heard they have drinking problems.”
“They have bigger problems than drinking.” Telly leaned in across the table. “They call themselves Karavakis’ girls.”
Andreas shut his eyes. “Tell me you’re pulling my leg.”
“Nope. My sense of humor is not that dark.”
Andreas opened his eyes. “I can’t wait to get home.”
“I bet,” said Telly waving for the check. “But that’ll have to wait. The forensics guys just drove by. We better get back to Mr. Pepe.”
The owner waved back. “No check!”
Andreas left a tip for the waiter, and as they headed to the door, Andreas asked, “What do you know about Toni?”
“I like and trust her, but she has a way of doing things her own way that can test my patience at times.”
“Sounds like someone else I know.”
“Who?”
“My wife.”
Ino had run away from her Balkan home when she was twelve, and she’d learned early on how to survive off the kindness of strangers. She shared a tiny, beaten-down two-room stucco home wedged in behind a gas station on the new ring road with a friend she’d made in Athens. She considered herself blessed to have it, and only had it because her friend happened to be a favorite cousin of the home’s owner.
She’d found a way to beat the Mykonos summer worker’s biggest challenge: earn enough to pay for food and shelter and still end your summer season with sufficient funds left over to survive the winter. The work she did wasn’t something she was proud of, but she’d done worse, and the money beat waitressing.
She thought about the two women who’d taken her and Adina away from the cops. Ino had been arrested many times before. This was Adina’s first. Maybe that’s why she was so ready to believe those do-gooders. If there was one rule Ino had learned, it’s that you have to take care of yourself in this world.
Before taking Adina home, the taxi dropped Ino off at her dilapidated little house. True, this life was far from what Ino wanted, and it certainly wasn’t anything like the life that Lila led. But it was the only life she had, and she intended to protect it. As soon as the taxi carried Adina out of sight, Ino pulled out her phone and called her boss. He’d want to know where she’d been. And what she’d been doing.
Riding double on a motorcycle does not encourage conversation, which was probably a good thing. It allowed Andreas and Yianni time to cool down rather than dwell on how pissed they were at Lila and Toni. Their hearts may have been in the right place, but as far as these two cops were concerned, their heads were someplace quite different.
Andreas used the drive time back to the house to think about what the forensics team from Syros had said. Other than confirming Pepe was dead, they wouldn’t venture a professional opinion on anything until they’d had the opportunity to examine the body back in their lab.
They were prepared, though, to engage in a few off-the-record theories. They put Pepe’s time of death at several hours after Andreas and Yianni had dropped him off in Ano Mera; and from the angle of the wound, the victim had been standing, the shooter sitting.
Obviously, Pepe never took the boat he
said he would. Instead, he went to meet someone. They left together on a different boat and, planned or unplanned, the killer shot Pepe. Either the shotgun blast sent Pepe overboard or the killer disposed of him in the sea.
What didn’t make sense was an experienced island mobster like Karavakis allowing a body to drift around freely in the sea, what with all the chains, rocks, and cement readily available back on land. That suggested the murder was unplanned, but regardless, all he’d had to do was fish the body out, bring it back to shore, and pack it with sufficient weight to permanently bury it at the bottom of the sea far from shore.
Unless the killer lacked the necessary physical strength. The only suspect likely fitting that potential scenario was Mrs. Despotiko. Then again, killing someone unexpectedly face-to-face, as opposed to ordering someone to do it for you, has been known to induce panic and foggy thinking in even the strongest of killers.
Whatever the exact circumstances, the more Andreas thought about it, the more he believed that, after leaving them in Ano Mera, Pepe’d met with whoever was behind all three executions, including his own. Andreas wondered if their meeting with Pepe had triggered his death. If so, that didn’t bother him, for he didn’t see the killing in any way as his fault. He was just doing his job, and that job now included finding Pepe’s killer.
Virtually all signs still pointed directly at Karavakis, but without a shred of real evidence behind them.
At least not yet.
Andreas and Yianni found Lila and Toni sitting in the den.
“So, how did your early morning gallivanting turn out?” smiled Lila.
“Where are the two girls?” Andreas asked coldly.
“We sent them home by taxi,” said Lila.
“Do you know who they are?”
“Two girls in trouble I believe we can help.”
“I checked. One has a record as long as your arm; the other is just getting started in the business.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you suggesting we abandon them, simply write them off?”
“No, but didn’t you think to tell your husband that your new projects happened to work for the subject of a murder investigation? An investigation, I must point out that, as of this morning, has a body count of three.”
“Three?” said Toni.
“We just fished Pepe’s body out of the sea off Kalifatis.”
“Oh, my God.”
Andreas sat down next to her. “You’ve got to be careful who you bring into our home. Girls like Adina and Ino have all kinds of connections to all kinds of bad actors. Even if the girls don’t intend you any harm, they could easily tell others who do. This is serious stuff.”
Lila shut her eyes, thinking. “We were assigned the children by the police as official counselors, and I’m sure we didn’t say or do anything that would get us in trouble.”
“Really? The girls know where you and our children live, and they work under duress for a local crime lord who’s also probably behind three vicious murders. If they tell Karavakis, do you think he’s going to thank you for your intervention or give a damn about your titles?”
Lila glanced in the direction of the children’s rooms. “How could I have been so naive?”
“Your heart’s in the right place, and I’m sure you’re good at counseling, but going forward please find a neutral place to do your thing. Or better yet, run it by Yianni and me first.”
Toni looked to Yianni. “Why are you so quiet?”
Yianni avoided looking at her. “I’ve decided to allow the more experienced man in such matters express my feelings.”
“To be fair, there was only supposed to be one girl,” said Toni. “And she came from a family that lives on Mykonos. The second one just happened to be swept up by accident.”
“It might have been worse,” said Lila.
“How’s that?” said Yianni.
“They have a close girlfriend who works with them,” said Toni. “We could have had three of them here.”
“Actually, their friend’s missing and I promised the girls you’d see what you could do to find her.”
Andreas tightened his jaw. “You’re the one into counseling. I’m the one investigating homicides. I don’t have time for missing-persons work now.”
“How about you?” Toni picked up a photograph of three young women from the coffee table and handed it to Yianni.
“He doesn’t have time either,” snapped Andreas.
“Curb your tone, please,” said Lila.
“My tone—”
“Chief, I think you’d better take a look at this. Those girls might have given us a break in the case.”
Yianni handed the picture to Andreas. He looked at Toni. “Who is this girl?”
“They called her Flora. She’s nineteen and also works for Karavakis. They speak of her like she’s a mentor, of sorts.”
“What else do you know about her?”
Lila spoke. “She’s been addicted to drugs since nursing school. To support her habit, she left to do a favor for Karavakis and she hasn’t been heard from since.”
Andreas shut his eyes, leaned back, and exhaled. “This ‘mentor’ figure executed the Colonel’s assassin with the help of Pepe.” He opened his eyes. “If the pattern continues, she’s either dead already or soon will be.”
“You can’t be serious,” said Toni.
Andreas looked at Yianni. “We’ve got to get those two girls into protective custody ASAP. Slim as it is, they’re the only witnesses we have who can testify to a link between Karavakis, Pepe, and their friend who killed the biker.”
“I’ll get Telly on it right away.” Yianni reached for his mobile.
Andreas held up his hand to stop him. “Come to think of it, tell him to meet us at Karavakis’ club, and to bring the girls with him.”
“You’re going to bring our only witnesses along to make an arrest?” said Yianni.
“Who said anything about an arrest?”
“Isn’t he our number-one suspect?”
“Yeah, but we’ve got no proof. The girls can try to testify to a link, but his defense lawyers’ll shred their testimony. We need something that puts him at the heart of the killings. To do that, we have to shake his tree. Try to make him panic.”
“How are you going to do that?” said Yianni.
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out. But for now, all I’m certain of is that we’ve got to do something.”
“Yeah,” said Yianni. “If only to slow down the body count.”
Andreas looked at Lila and Toni. “The first thing we need to do is get everyone out of here, to a place where Karavakis can’t find you, and keep you there until after we have him in custody,” said Andreas.
“Why?” said Lila.
“To protect my family from a killer.”
“I understand, but you’re forgetting that this place is built like a fortress. It stands overlooking the sea with only one road in, and we can see someone coming from more than a kilometer away. It can withstand earthquakes and typhoon-force winds. It has its own generators, fire-fighting equipment, and steel shutters on every window designed to keep out burglars. Do you really think there’s a more secure place on the island?”
“But Yianni and I can’t leave you alone here.”
Toni raised a hand. “If you two plan on going after Karavakis, you’ll be leaving us alone no matter where you move us.”
“But we’ll take you to where cops can protect you,” said Yianni.
“Then send them to protect us here.”
Andreas sighed with frustration.
“Look,” said Lila. “You just admitted you don’t have enough proof to arrest Karavakis. Do you plan to keep us cooped up in whatever place you have in mind until you do?” She shook her head. “I appreciate your concern, but I think the mos
t secure place on the island is here—just send us whatever number of cops with guns you think we’ll need to protect us.”
Toni jumped in. “If you want to get in Karavakis’ face ASAP, you can get cops out here a lot faster than you can pack us all up and move us to some as-yet-determined secure location.”
Andreas took a long breath and turned to Yianni. “When you speak to Telly, tell him to send a heavily armed protective detail of whatever number of cops he can spare out here right away.” To Lila he said, “I see why you two are getting into this counseling game. You make a pretty good team when it comes to convincing folk to modify their thinking.”
Yianni reached for his phone. “Hopefully for the wiser.”
Chapter Twenty-one
This time, Andreas and Yianni took the SUV. Between the caretaker’s car and the motorcycle, everyone at the house could flee using them, if necessary. They stopped to wait for the police about two miles from the house, at the juncture of the dirt road leading back to the house and a paved road running to Ano Mera. The only vehicle they’d seen since leaving the house was a massive cement-mixer truck, prompting Yianni to quip, “These days, cement mixers are more the symbol of Mykonos than windmills or Petros the pelican.”
Andreas bit at his lip. “Do you think we’re doing the right thing leaving them alone?”
“We’re not leaving them alone. Police will be with them.”
Andreas drew in and let out a breath.
“Besides, we’re heading off to go face-to-face with the bad guy you’re worried about, looking to take him into custody for three murders. Once we do that, the last thing on his mind will be taking revenge on Lila and Toni for counseling some of his girls on bad life choices. He’ll be too busy worrying about his own.”
Andreas turned on the engine. “Here comes the cavalry.” A four-door police pickup truck packed with three officers dressed in SWAT gear turned onto the dirt road. Andreas gave them a thumbs-up and they returned the gesture. He smacked Yianni on the thigh. “Thanks for the pep talk, but seeing those guys headed for the house makes me feel a lot better.”
The Mykonos Mob Page 28