“Suicide makes me angry,” she said. “It’s so messy. You don’t want to deal with your problems, so, poof, you let someone else do it.”
“Hari didn’t strike me as the irresponsible type.”
Rachel shrugged. She pretended to focus on the scenery, but from the way she couldn’t sit still, I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. Suicide was a poor explanation. On the other hand, the summer had already taught me that there was no use trying to think things through from somebody else’s point of view. Even if you had a few facts, you never had the whole picture. You could never be inside another person’s brain long enough to unlock it for your own understanding.
I swerved to avoid a bird, but it had already swooped away from the vehicle. “If I’d come to Amiros on a different day, I wouldn’t have met Hari at all. That would have been better.”
Rachel stretched her legs so that more sun would bounce off her thighs. “That’s chance for you. That’s what brought me to Amiros in the first place if we get right down to it.”
“How so?”
“At my restaurant in Tucson, Los Cuatro Vientos, we always stop halfway through the set to find out if people are celebrating birthdays or anniversaries. Do you guys do that?”
I nodded. Like as not, at least one table was celebrating something. Giving customers the chance to announce their special occasions created a handy way to interact with them. The system was also tiring and repetitive. Once I calculated that I’d performed Las mañanitas, the standard birthday song, over two thousand times. By now the figure would have doubled.
“I met Olga and family when she first came to visit Tucson, which is where Eleni’s older sister lives. They’d come to the restaurant to celebrate their mother’s birthday, and I went to sing Las mañanitas at their table. I noticed they were speaking Greek. I’d been to Greece a couple of times by then, so I managed to cough out xrónos pollá, which was my wrong way of saying ‘happy birthday.’ We struck up a conversation, which led to an invitation, which is why you and I are riding together in Olga’s car right now. How’s that for chance?”
I admitted that it was pretty good.
To myself I admitted that it was also good to be driving a car alongside a woman I’d had sex with and who possibly would be interested in a repeat session for later, much later in the evening. I had to start concentrating on the scenery, which consisted of dirt and occasional scrub brushes, to cool myself off.
“You’ve got to think cosmically,” Rachel told me, “as in there was some reason you were supposed to meet Hari.”
“I feel like a voyeur. It’s like I was on a movie set and suddenly stumbled into someone else’s movie. I keep thinking about that woman who went to look for him at Himena’s café. Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“I still have to give Soumba the ring.”
“You’re not leaving until Wednesday. You’ve got plenty of time. Actually I wouldn’t bother.”
“I can’t keep somebody else’s engagement ring! Hari must have had relatives, and they’d certainly know whom it was for.”
“You saw Soumba’s office. If the paperwork gets any higher, Lascar and Petros will have to dig their boss out with a machete.” She pointed to the right. “There’s the road.”
I slowed down long enough to make the turn. “So what do I do about the ring?”
“Leave it with Nikos. The next time he goes to Athens, he can try to connect with Hari’s relatives.”
A small marker for Petronaki directed us to a dirt trail barely large enough for a car. We rumbled through a grove of scraggly cypress trees mixed with pines.
Christos’ head popped over the seat. “Are we lost yet?”
Rachel and Alex started laughing.
“Do you get lost a lot?” I asked her.
She laughed even louder and refused to answer.
After a mile or so, we reached a clearing in the trees. A hand-painted sign pointed to a footpath that led through the woods and down to the ocean.
I stopped the car. “I thought the beach at Petronaki was famous.”
“Maybe there’s another parking lot.”
We followed the road another few yards until it stopped before the remnants of a campfire. “I guess this is it.”
Rachel regarded the trees that surrounded us in every direction as she tried to get her bearings. Even the boys were suspicious.
I turned off the motor. “At least we beat the crowds.”
“The tourists don’t know to come here. The locals would rather swim by the port than drive an hour to a more secluded spot.”
“I thought the archaeological ruins were famous too.”
“They are,” Rachel said. “At least among archaeologists.”
I got out of the car, listening for the sounds of the waves somewhere below. “It doesn’t sound like too long of a walk.”
“I hope not,” Rachel said slowly. “You might have to fire me as a tour guide. I’d hate to think we drove all this way to be disappointed.”
I opened the trunk and handed the boys their swim gear. “I’m sure it will be fine.” I indicated Eleni’s food sack. “Should we drag all this stuff down to the beach?”
“Let’s bring the fruit and cookies and a few water bottles. We can have the sandwiches when we return to the car. We might come back sooner than we’d planned.”
We started down the steep path. I led the troop while Rachel warned the boys to be careful of the brush and occasional low branches. Without warning we emerged from the trees onto a small cliff a couple hundred yards above the water.
The U-shaped inlet was a hidden pearl. Perfectly symmetrical, it gently curved outward to embrace the sea. Its black pebbles, a volcanic reminder, outlined the frothy white waves with the help of clusters of boulders. The ocean beyond was a deep blue.
Rachel pulled a guidebook page from her back pocket. “‘The remains of a small theatre are to the north of the beach,’” she read. “‘The easiest way to find them is to follow along the coast and then turn inland where the giant, diamond-shaped rock juts out to the sea.’”
“Auntie Rachel!” cried Christos. He pointed to a boulder that pushed beyond the others.
“Maybe that’s it.”
We hiked down the cliff, moving slowly because so much of the path had given way to erosion. When Christos slipped a few feet and got scared, I picked him up and carried him the rest of the way.
The beach was deserted, but that made it more perfect. There were no other tourists, no stray dogs, no boats, no distractions. It was a place to get away from the crowd without leaving the island or even travelling far from Amiros Town. It was a secret haven, and I was glad we had it to ourselves. I imagined we were some kind of aqua royalty that had come to the most beautiful place possible. Today was our chance to pay tribute to the Swim Gods.
“Can we get in the water now?” asked Christos, brave again as soon as his feet touched solid ground.
“First let’s find the old theatre,” suggested Rachel. “Then we’ll take a dip.”
The theatre was so overgrown with weeds that we didn’t understand we were sitting in it until we couldn’t find it anywhere else. Only a few stones were left in place. Two larger blocks suggested a stage. Beyond lay the remains of other structures, including a section from a stone column.
“Would that be a temple?” I asked, pointing to the broken rocks.
“Poor Apollo,” Rachel said, consulting her notes. “The temple was dedicated to him.”
“Don’t feel too bad,” I said. “He had a bunch more to choose from.”
Rachel photographed the boys atop various rocks while I suggested strategic angles.
“I’m sorry,” she told me once the boys had scampered off to chase a lizard. “There’s not much left of Ancient Petronaki.”
From a stone perch, I pulled Rachel towards me. “I love it here. But I’d rather see you than history.” I kissed her on the lips, but she resisted a second smooch by pulling
me to my feet.
“Last one in is a rotten egg!” she yelled, pointing to the waves.
She and the boys started running. I followed a few paces behind. We tossed our bags on the beach and rushed into the salt water. Unlike many of the island’s beaches where rocks guarded the sea from every approach, here a wide plateau led into cool relief. The sea was clear and fresh, and the black pebbles squashed comfortably beneath our feet. If it weren’t for the climb down from the road, the beach would have had a dozen hotels already. Its relative inaccessibility made it a treasure for the adventurous.
“Hey!” I sputtered as an unexpected wave splashed over my nose. I wiped the water from my eyes to find Christos watching me anxiously, worried I was mad even though the true culprit was Rachel, who was crouched in the water beside him.
I had no choice but to dunk them both until Christos squirmed away and charged the beach. Only then did Rachel let me take her into my arms and extend a wet kiss.
We bobbed in the water, exchanging smiles we’d discovered in bed the night before.
“The guidebook was right,” she said. “The beach makes up for the disappointing ruins.”
“I’m a connoisseur of beaches. This one’s on my list of the top five.”
“What are the others?”
“I’m not sure yet!”
Rachel and I did lazy strokes back and forth through the gentle waves while the boys splashed one another in shallow water. The sea was warm enough to be refreshing on a hot summer’s day but not so cold that we couldn’t stay in it for long periods of time. In short, it was perfect. I was used to brief, freezing dips in the Pacific.
When the boys got hungry, we got out of the water long enough to share the cookies and oranges. We plunged back into the waves as soon as the sun started tickling our skin again. While Rachel played paddleball with the boys, I floated on my back in the calm water, strangely relaxed. My time on Amiros was growing short, I had a job search to think about once I returned to California, and I wasn’t sure what kind of relationship I had with Rachel. Yet with a crystal-clear ocean underneath me and an afternoon that stretched lazily before me, I could put all my worries on hold. They hadn’t gone away, but I could put them on vacation.
The reprieve would be brief. As long as I lived in Squid Bay, I couldn’t rule out the possibility of becoming the victim of a hit man. But the real reason I had to leave town was because I couldn’t stand the thought of playing in a place where Louloudi’s ghost would call to me night after night. Never mind that she’d mistreated her husband. Never mind that she’d made a fool of me too. Never mind that I’d been the leader of the best mariachi band in town. Things changed. Your choice was to adapt. You only had one choice.
Rachel paddled over to me with Christos on her back. For a time he swam between the two of us, practicing his new bravery in the water. I’d spent hours with my young nieces under similar circumstances, and I appreciated the wave of energy, the assurance that time marched on, the reminder that I needed to be damned happy that I was the one who was still alive.
At length Alex left his sand castle and dog-paddled over to us. “Can Christos and me go exploring?” He pointed south where the edge of the beach met a tree-filled cliff that cut off the view of the sea beyond.
“Christos and I,” Rachel said automatically. “Stay in sight, and don’t get in water over your knees. We have to leave pretty soon anyway.”
“Okay!”
I waited until he was out of earshot. “Should we follow?”
“They’re well behaved when it comes to safety instructions.”
“I believe you’re the one who needs a lesson in safety.” I wrestled her into the water and then knelt behind her. We were up to her chest in water, and I took the wet bulbs of her bathing suit in my hands. “Say, have you ever—in the water?”
“No!”
“We could try.”
She kicked away from me and headed for the open sea.
We’d swum towards the horizon and back a dozen times when we noticed that the boys were waving at us from the area of the beach next to the cliff.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Hard to say what.” Rachel started swimming towards them, and I did the same.
I turned over and did a few backstrokes. “Maybe they found a jellyfish.”
“The boys weren’t in the water. They were making footprints along the edge.”
“What’s the matter?” Rachel shouted as we reached the beach and the boys ran towards us.
“There’s a baby crying in the woods!” said Alex.
“I heard it too!” said Christos.
“A baby?”
“It was crying real loud! Maybe it’s hungry.”
“Did it sound like a girl or a boy?”
“It sounded big!”
“Hmm.” Rachel pretended to be matter-of-fact. “Why don’t you stay here while Andy and I investigate?”
“I want to investigate too!” Alex shouted.
“You’d better stay here or your mother won’t let me bring you along on the next excursion.”
The threat worked. Once the boys promised to wait on the beach, Rachel and I traipsed up towards the cliff. We found a rough footpath and climbed into the woods. The only sounds came from dry branches that cracked under our footsteps.
“Do you really think the boys heard something?” I asked.
“Probably a goat.”
We continued our ascent. When we reached a mini-clearing, Rachel hugged me and reached to kiss my lips. “Sorry I passed on water sex.” She stuck her fingers under the top edge of my red trunks. “How would you feel about a forest fire?”
She peeled out of her black and purple bikini and stood naked before me. Since I was afraid she might disappear if I took my eyes off her, I removed my suit without looking down, caught my foot in the cloth, lost my balance, and rolled on top of pine needles. She crawled on top of me, letting me feel her whole sleek body next to mine. We were about to coordinate our movements when we heard a soft cry. A woman’s.
We stared at each other blankly at this reality check. Rachel sighed, stood, and slipped back into her suit. “We better check it out.”
The sounds grew louder. We approached as quietly as we could, but snapping twigs heralded our approach. Then the pines gave way to the top of the cliff. Ten feet from the edge, a young woman in a sundress stood crying. When she saw us, she started running.
“Oxi!” yelled Rachel. No!
Too late. The woman had already jumped.
Chapter Fifteen
I ran to the edge of the cliff and peered over the abyss. Down below, the young woman wasn’t thrashing; she’d sunk into the water like a rock. Her long strands of brown hair had spread over the surface of the water like the tentacles of a dead squid on a beach.
I stepped back, preparing to jump after her.
“Too shallow!!” Rachel shouted, racing towards a jagged path that led down to the water.
I followed, half running and half tumbling down the steep slope as I broke off long tree branches and thrashed through weeds.
Ahead of me, Rachel lost her footing. She slid the last meter of the descent and landed with a thud.
I had to hop over her to avoid running her over. “Are you all right?”
She stroked her thighs to ease the effect of the impact. “Go!”
I covered the short stretch of beach in a few seconds and dived after the figure. She was only twenty feet out, but except for the brown strands, her body was submerged. In a single motion, I seized her head and pulled it into the air. She was choking, but I shoved my free arm under her armpit to keep her head above the waves. I held her in the same position as I tugged her back towards shore, occasionally shoving down the wet dress that threatened to strangle her if the salt water didn’t get her first.
Rachel waded out to meet me. Together we scooted her from the ocean’s edge onto the pebbles. Her body contorted as she struggled to breathe. She rolle
d her head to the side, coughing water.
I knelt beside her, steadying her shoulders. “It’s all right. We’ll take care of you.”
Gasps of air replaced coughing. Rachel bent down, pulling hair from the woman’s mouth. Up close she looked more like a girl than a woman. Her facial features were rounded, still unformed.
“My leg!” she gushed as soon as her irregular breath allowed.
She was definitely Greek. She had the faint British accent I’d heard from a number of the islanders, but her words were fluid.
Silently Rachel pointed to the girl’s left knee, whose cap seemed off track.
“You’ll be all right,” I said. “You’ll be fine.”
“My knee! It hurts so much!” She made the mistake of looking down. “Ohhhh!” She hid her face with her hands. “I’m so stupid! My dad, he’s going to kill me!”
I lay her back down against the warm pebbles. “Relax,” I said over and over, knowing she couldn’t listen. “What should we do?” I whispered to Rachel.
Rachel calculated the distance from our present position to the clearing where we’d parked. “I don’t think you can carry her to the car.”
“I could try.” I spoke so softly I couldn’t hear myself. The girl was about Rachel’s size, meaning a bit over five feet and not much over a hundred pounds, but the terrain was steep, and a misstep would be a disaster.
“I’ll drive to Kremaki to get help,” Rachel said. “That’s the closest town.”
“Use your cell phone!”
Rachel indicated the forest and the beach. “Here? You think there’s coverage here?”
“You told Eleni you would call if anything happened.”
Rachel gave me an exasperated look that meant “of course I told a worried mother that I would be able to call.”
“How far is the town?” I asked.
“Half an hour.”
“She needs medical attention right away.”
The girl mumbled as she tried to sit up. I pulled her to a sitting position. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Letta.”
“Letta, is your other leg okay?”
She pointed to her toes. “My ankle hurts a lot!”
Island Casualty (Andy Veracruz Mystery Book 2) Page 10