Murder in Mykonos

by Jeffrey Siger

  The man struggled to his feet. ‘It’s my wife.’ He pointed toward a small marble plaque on the wall. ‘She died five years ago and we still miss her.’ He gestured to the still snarling animal to come to him. Andreas nodded and Tassos let him go. The dog glared at Andreas but did not snap as it passed him on the way to his master.

  ‘The wailing was mine, the moaning his.’ He scratched the dog behind its ears. The man now looked to be in his eighties.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ Andreas said again.

  ‘If you were looking for me, I don’t live here.’ He didn’t sound bothered at all – almost seemed to welcome the company.

  ‘No, sir, we were looking for your tenant, Mr Daly.’

  The man nodded. ‘Tom’s not here now, probably off in some mine.’

  ‘Yes, we heard he likes old mines,’ Andreas said.

  ‘Sure does. He was pretty upset when I told him I had to close up that entrance.’ He gestured toward the rear of the chamber. ‘But I told him this was where Anna always wanted her church to be.’ He looked toward his wife’s remains. ‘Tom’s a good fella. He understood. Even helped me build it. Did all the work himself, sealing up the old entrance.’

  Andreas glanced at Tassos, then back at Vassili. ‘Do you mind if we look around?’ He gestured toward the wall sealing off the mine from the crypt.

  The man shrugged. ‘Look all you want.’

  Andreas took out his flashlight and studied the wall. It was made of two solid, four-foot-wide by four-foot-high slabs of gray-brown granite tightly fitted one on top of the other. He looked at the old man. ‘Rather unusual construction for a church crypt, wouldn’t you say?’

  The man shrugged again. ‘Tom said, “If we’re going to build a church for Anna, let’s do it right.” Said he wanted to make sure no one could break in from the other side.’

  Or into the tunnel from this side, thought Andreas. He beamed his light on the floor by the wall. Nothing there to indicate that the wall swung into the crypt – like the door it resembled – but maybe it swung into the mine. He lowered his shoulder to the wall and pushed, then gestured for Tassos to give him a hand. The two men pushed as hard as they could, first on one edge, then on the other. The wall didn’t budge.

  ‘What are you doing?’ The old man sounded more curious than annoyed.

  ‘Just making sure it’s secure,’ said Andreas. ‘Is there another way into the tunnel?’

  ‘I guess, but you’ll have to ask Tom. I’m not much for mines. I always preferred the sea myself – until my Anna insisted I take over her family’s farm. But I brought her back to the sea when I built her church to Saint Nicholas, protector of sailors.’ He was rambling off into reminiscences.

  ‘I noticed the blue roof,’ said Tassos.

  That was a courteous way to cut him off, thought Andreas.

  The man nodded, seemed to forget what he was saying, and hobbled toward the ladder. He bent over to pick up the lantern and started up the rungs. ‘You done here?’

  Andreas looked at Tassos and nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Tassos stood by the ladder waiting for Vassili to reach the top rung and climb into the sanctuary. Instead, the man placed the lantern on the sanctuary floor and asked Andreas to hand him his dog. Andreas stared at the dog, which was staring at him, then looked at Tassos.

  ‘Here, let me do that,’ said Tassos, grinning. ‘Vassili, since you built this church, maybe you can answer a question for me.’

  ‘What is it?’ He took the dog from Tassos, placed it on the floor, crawled off the ladder, and stood up.

  Tassos started up the ladder. ‘Is there anything you can think of that churches built to Saints Kiriake, Marina, Fanourios, and Calliope have in common that makes them different from churches built to Saints Nicholas, Barbara, Phillipos, and Spyridon?’

  The old man didn’t answer, just stood silently in the sanctuary seemingly waiting for Tassos and Andreas to join him. Finally he spoke. ‘I wish I could help you, but I’m not a priest.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the saints themselves. I’m talking about how the churches are built.’

  ‘I know of no differences except of course for the icons.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Come to think of it, there might be a difference, but you’d have to check with the archbishop.’

  He had Andreas’ interest. ‘What difference?’

  ‘I’m not sure if a church has to be built with its front door facing the setting sun on its saint’s name day. Though that’s the way I built this one.’ He waved his hand.

  ‘What are you talking about? Everybody knows the front door has to face west so the sanctuary faces east.’ Tassos sounded impatient.

  Vassili shook his head. ‘No, Tassos, the front door faces the setting sun.’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘I see you’re not a sailor.’ Vassili smiled. ‘The sun doesn’t set – or rise – in the same place all year. It sets along a line running from the northwest to the southwest depending on the season.’

  ‘How does that answer Tassos’ question about differences between the churches?’ Andreas asked.

  The man shrugged. ‘I’m not sure it does, but if a church has to be built with its door facing the setting sun on its name day, the ones in one group face one way and the ones in the other another.’

  Andreas was puzzled. ‘Why?’

  ‘The name days for Kiriake and the three saints you said with her all fall in summer – June, July, and August – when the sun sets to the northwest. The others have name days in November and December, when it sets to the southwest. That’s about all I can think of. Hope it helps.’

  If Andreas still had his gun in his hand, he’d have knocked himself out when he smacked his forehead. ‘Of course! They all have name days falling in the heart of—’

  Tassos finished Andreas’ sentence. ‘Tourist season!’

  Andreas shook Vassili’s hand hard enough to rock him. ‘Thank you very much. You’ve been a great help,’ he said, and raced out with Tassos right behind him – leaving the old man and his dog alone again in their church.

  Andreas was running on pure adrenaline, his every muscle tense, every blood vessel pounding. He barely gave Tassos time to close the car door before spinning the tires in the dirt. He knew what this meant. Saint Kiriake’s name day was July 7, the day after tomorrow. If they didn’t find Annika Vanden Haag by then, she’d be dead. No doubt about it.

  Annika felt weaker than she could remember ever feeling. She must have been drugged. No other explanation made sense to her. She needed something to eat, something to drink, but was certain if she did, she’d be as good as dead.

  She tried to get up. That was when she sensed how sore and raw she was down there, and vaguely what she’d just been through. Had she been raped? Instinctively she touched herself to feel for injury, then for fluids. She found no semen there; nor on her belly or thighs. It was a small but precious moment of relief.

  What’s this? On the outside of her right thigh she felt a swelling. She pressed at it and instantly realized what it was. Ever since childhood her body had reacted this way at the point of an injection. Now she panicked. She realized that whenever she slept he had open access to her body.

  She knew she must stay awake to defend herself. It was her only chance at surviving. If she were going to die, she’d go out fighting. She knew her family was looking for her. They had to be. There was still hope someone would find her – if only she could stay awake.

  He’d first used prayer to survive his daily moments of childhood terror, later he developed other, more efficient means for coping with his past. He still practiced both, as his tributes could attest to, had any remained alive.

  They were all tall and blond as his sister was – or would have been. He knew just what to say to gain their trust and bring his foreign tributes down into his world among the foreign gods – and what drug to use to control them. Like his tributes, he chose his drugs for a purpose: some drugs for sleep,
some for giving pleasure to his gods, some for both. There was no problem finding whatever he needed on Mykonos, this island of open pleasure. All he required lay in the bag by his feet. He was prepared for anything.

  16

  Annika struggled against sleep. The music was soothing and the room warmer than she remembered. Suddenly it hit her; the bastard was piping in heat and music to keep her sleepy.

  She smacked at her face with her good hand, but that only worked until the stinging passed; then she felt even sleepier. She thought of her family, but that flooded her with thoughts of how sad they’d be if they couldn’t find her.

  She needed something to occupy her mind, to keep her awake. She stood up and twisted her head for a few minutes, squatted through a set of deep knee bends, and did some warm-up stretches. Her hand wasn’t hurting as much as before. Maybe it isn’t broken after all, she thought, or maybe I’m just used to playing through pain. She didn’t give a damn that she was naked before an audience. She had to prepare herself.

  Her mind was on a brutal, bloody intramural soccer match during her freshman year at Yale. Two older assholes tried knocking her out after her first score. They were relentless but missed their chance; one lost two teeth and the other gained a broken leg while Annika scored two more goals and a ‘don’t-mess-with-me’ reputation. But that was against adversaries she could see, could challenge with her strength. Now there was none to face but time, and the only victory was not to succumb to sleep.

  And so she began: over and over she replayed every move, every feint, every pain, every score; she was determined to win again or die trying.

  He was running out of time.

  About thirty feet down the tunnel from her cell was a heap of construction odds and ends. He rummaged through the mess until he found a length of beat-up garden hose and an almost finished roll of duct tape. He carried them back to a World War II-era gasoline generator used for powering light and ventilation. It vented to the outside through an old air shaft. He turned on a flashlight and turned off the generator.

  He disconnected the vent pipe from the generator’s exhaust and used the duct tape to secure the garden hose in its place. The exhaust connection was about twice the diameter of the hose but the duct tape gave it an airtight fit. Picking up the other end of the hose, he walked back to the cell wall, pulled on his night-vision goggles, and looked through one of the slots. Inside the cell, each slot was faced in the same smooth, painted stone that covered the rest of the inside walls. He’d built them to swing up and into the cell – like mail slots – so fingers pressing from inside would not find them.

  She was jumping about naked in a determined little routine. He watched her silently. She kept repeating to herself, ‘I can beat you, I can beat you.’ He turned away, slid the garden hose into the end of a wider hose used for drawing fresh air into the cell, walked back to the generator and turned it on.

  The mayor was waiting for them when Tassos and Andreas returned to the police station. He was sitting in Andreas’ office and jumped up the moment they walked in. ‘Have you heard about the deputy minister’s niece?’ he blurted, nearly apoplectic.

  Andreas shot a worried glance at Tassos and looked back at the mayor. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s missing. The deputy minister called and told me he’d asked you to look for her.’

  Andreas held up his hand and said, ‘Calm down. I know, and we’re looking for her.’

  ‘You know what this means?’ Mihali didn’t sound any calmer.

  Andreas sat down in his chair before answering. ‘Yes, I’m afraid I do.’

  Tassos pointed the mayor to the chair in front of the desk. ‘Sit down, Mihali, we have a lot to talk about.’

  Uncharacteristically docile, the mayor now did as he was told. Tassos closed the door and went to sit in the other chair.

  Andreas ran his fingers through his hair, then rubbed his eyes. ‘I figure we have twenty-four to thirty-six hours before she’s dead. No more.’

  The mayor looked like a deer in the headlights. ‘Why? Why do you say that?’

  Andreas spoke as if in a trance. ‘All of his victims were killed during the tourist season. All the bodies were found in churches with saints having name days in the tourist season. The coroner set Vandrew’s time of death to within twenty-four hours of Saint Calliope’s name day – and we found her in Saint Calliope.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ll recall that the Scandinavian girl supposedly killed by the Irishman’ – Tassos paused long enough for the mayor to wince – ‘was murdered on the name day for Saint Marina.’

  ‘Another tourist-season saint,’ said the mayor.

  ‘And another of Father Paul’s churches,’ said Andreas.

  ‘Do you think he’s the killer?’ asked the mayor.

  Andreas shrugged. ‘All I’m sure of is she’ll be dead in a matter of hours if we don’t find her.’ He leaned forward and picked up a pencil from his desk. ‘It could be any of several suspects . . . or all of them . . . or none of them . . . and I don’t have a fucking clue where any of them are.’ He threw the pencil against a wall.

  ‘But we know where it’ll happen,’ said Tassos calmly.

  Andreas stared at him. ‘Do you really think with all this heat – and he has to know we’re looking for him – he’ll still take her to Saint Kiriake? He’d have to be stupid, or suicidal.’

  Tassos nodded no. ‘I don’t think he’ll bring her to Father Paul’s Saint Kiriake, but for twenty years something’s been driving him to kill in a church on its name day. I think he’s going to try again. It’s part of his ritual.’

  Andreas rubbed his eyes again, then ran his hands down his face until his thumbs were under his chin and his fingers clasped about his nose as if he were praying. He paused for a few seconds, looked at Tassos, and dropped his hands to his desk. ‘I think you’re right.’

  ‘So, what do we do, guard all the churches named for Saint Kiriake?’ asked the mayor.

  Andreas said, ‘We have to be careful not to scare him off. If we do, it’ll be too easy for him just to kill her and drop her in the sea.’

  ‘Or bury her by the side of the road,’ said Tassos.

  Andreas gave him a ‘cool it with the Scandinavian already’ look.

  Tassos switched to his professional tone. ‘Our best chance of catching him with her is at one of the churches.’

  ‘We should check out the mines too,’ said Andreas.

  Tassos paused. ‘I don’t think we should be taking men away from the churches.’

  Andreas looked at Tassos in surprise and gave him a ‘what gives’ hand gesture. ‘What are you talking about? We’ve got at least two suspects running around inside the mines. It’s our hottest lead; we have to follow it up. Besides, it won’t be cops searching mines. We need men who know them.’

  Tassos paused again, then nodded. ‘I guess that makes sense.’

  Andreas looked at the mayor. ‘Do you know men we can get to search?’

  ‘At night?’ asked Mihali.

  ‘It’s always night inside a mine, and we’ve no time to lose,’ said Andreas in a tone sharper than intended.

  ‘Sure, I’ll have them within an hour,’ the mayor said.

  Andreas looked at Tassos. ‘Any idea how many men we’ll need to put a twenty-four-hour watch on the churches – starting tomorrow at sunset?’

  Tassos nodded no. ‘Not until I find out how many churches are named for Saint Kiriake. I’ll speak to the archbishop. Thank God she’s not a popular saint or we’d have to mobilize the army.’

  ‘We still might have to,’ said Andreas.

  The mayor blanched. ‘You’re kidding.’

  Andreas let out a deep breath. ‘Let’s see how many churches we’re talking about before we cross that bridge. All I can tell you for sure is Mykonos is about to go through twenty-four hours of partying without much police protection.’

  ‘Syros too,’ said Tassos, nodding. ‘I’ll have forty men here by tomorrow afternoon.�
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  ‘Thanks,’ Andreas said.

  ‘No need to thank me. We’re all hanging together on this one.’ Tassos turned and stared at the mayor. ‘Right, Your Honor?’

  The mayor stared blankly back at them. ‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘We’ll all hang together on this one.’

  Ambassador Vanden Haag arrived home a little before eleven. Catia wasn’t downstairs as usual. He found her upstairs sitting on the edge of their bed holding a picture of their daughter.

  Her eyes were red. ‘Spiros said he’d spoken to the mayor and the chief of police and they promised to find her, but they haven’t.’

  He sat next to her on the bed. ‘Do they have any idea where she is?’

  She shook her head. ‘Spiros just keeps saying he’s certain she’s okay. That she’s probably off with some boy.’ She leaned against him. ‘I have to go to Mykonos. I have to find her.’

  He put his arm around her. ‘I understand. When will you go?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning, I’ve booked a flight. I should be in Mykonos by the afternoon.’

  ‘I’ll go with you.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, you have that conference tomorrow with the prime minister. Spiros will meet me. Besides, you don’t speak Greek well enough to be of much help.’ She forced a smile and snuggled closer.

  ‘Okay, but I’ll come the day after tomorrow – we’ll surprise Annika and turn it into a family island holiday. We haven’t done that in years.’

  Catia didn’t say a word. She knew it was his way of dealing with the fear gnawing away at their hopes.

  I feel it, I see it . . . I have the angle, just get the ball back to me. She feinted to the left and moved to the right, then paused for an instant and thrust her body and leg through a vicious kick, followed by a leap in the air that brought her just short of hitting her head on the ceiling. She waved her good hand wildly above her head and yelled, ‘Score!’ Annika jumped about for a moment, then bent over and rested her hands on her knees. She was breathing deeply. That was when she first noticed the odor. The acrid, unmistakable scent of exhaust fumes.