by Alex A King
Chapter 14
Two vehicles followed me to the Crooked Noses’ building. The Agents in Black sat two cars back, trying to pretend I didn’t know they were there. When I arrived at work I trotted over and thunked a knuckle on the driver’s side window. It whirred down. The Woman in Black was behind the wheel. Both agents had foam mustaches courtesy of their Dutch Bros. lattes.
“Just so you know, they don’t have public restrooms in here, so I’d go easy on the caffeine. It’s a diuretic, you know,” I told them.
“We’re always prepared for long stakeouts.”
I looked left. I looked right. “Did you bring a port-a-potty? Because it’s invisible if you did.”
They shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you wearing diapers? You are, aren’t you?”
“We don’t have to answer your questions,” the Woman in Black told me.
Boy, were they dedicated. I had to give them that.
“If you need to be changed I guess you could ask Xander or Elias.” I waved at my entourage. Elias waved back. Probably he wouldn’t be waving if he knew I had just volunteered him for diaper duty.
“We’ll be fine,” she said.
“You say that now, but diaper rash is a real pain. Just ask babies.”
Five minutes later I was at my cubicle, wondering what I was supposed to do to earn my paycheck. Francis wanted an interview with Grandma. Grandma wasn’t interview material. Given that she knew all the tricks—probably she had invented most of them—tricking her into answering questions wasn’t going to happen.
While I tried to figure out how to squeeze Grandma without her realizing she was getting squeezed, I used the Crooked Noses’ resources to track down Terri Fincher, Oregonian and Periphas Dogas’s devoted correspondent. Was Terri the wife the kooky eagle-lover had acquired in prison?
Facebook turned out to be my portal to the past. Terri Fincher no longer existed in her original form. Now she was Terri Dogas, a crusader who fought for one cause: romancing incarcerated men. Apparently hooking up with men behind bars was a real thing. She owned a page and group with hundreds of members, all of them desperate to bag their own convicted murderer, till death do they part.
The happy nuptials took place a couple of months ago in Greece, not long after Melas had catapulted Periphas Dogas back into prison. The new Kyria Dogas posted a single picture to the page to mark the occasion. Dogas in his prison costume, staring into the camera like he wanted to punch it in the eye, while a wedding cake with crazy eyes and a beehive grinned beside him. Dogas I’d met before, unfortunately, so I was more interested in his wife. She was two Marikas wide and an easy foot shorter than Dogas. It was possible she was the counterfeit elf from Santa’s Grotto. According to her page they’d only met in person twice, and the marriage had never been consummated. But she was looking forward to the day, a minimum of twenty years from now, when they could grow old together without bulletproof glass conspiring to prevent them from physically expressing their love.
A month ago Terri’s updates went dark. The other members plied the comments section with messages, demanding to know if Terri was okay. They speculated that Periphas had broken out of prison and the lovebirds were hiding out on a deserted Greek island, dining on souvlaki and galactical bootycall—aka galactoboureko.
The trail went dead, so I tapped in to the very website I was working for and ran a search on Dogas. Somehow I’d managed to miss the oh-so fascinating news of Periphas Dogas’s recent wedding and even more recent death. While I was dealing with life, the Crooked Noses did what they did best: they gossiped and speculated. They knew long before I did that Terri Fincher was an Oregonian, and they knew Periphas Dogas had earmarked me as his future bride way back when. They put two and two and some more twos together and decided that Dogas’s main interest in his bride was her nationality and state of origin.
Reason: me.
The whacko with the eagle couldn’t shoehorn me into a wedding ring so he got the nearest—in his deranged mind—thing.
As far as theories went it was bonkers. But Periphas Dogas had been nuttier than a Snickers, which meant probably it was accurate.
Stavros’s muffin sat like a brick in my stomach, steeping in acid. This whole Dogas business made me want to upchuck. It didn’t help that I kept flashing back to the Todd-shaped hole in the world. How were his parents coping? Should I call? What if they already guessed I was maybe, probably, responsible for his murder?
My research was cut short by my impending boss. Once again he’d shown up to work in a suit with serious sheen. Paired with his face—Godfather meets Goodfellas—I kept picturing him mowing down prohibition-era crowds with a Tommy gun.
“Did you get that interview yet?”
“Not yet. Todd is dead. Did you hear?”
“I heard.” He peered over my shoulder. “Periphas Dogas and his widow. I guess I don’t have to ask why you’re interested. It was all over the board when you beat him up in that basement.”
Wow. Francis was stone cold. “Do you even care?”
“As soon as his funeral date is announced I’ll be there. Want to come with me?” He made it sound like a date.
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not? You guys used to be together.”
An opinionated voice inside my head told me that Francis would be overly interested in my theory that the freak responsible for my exploding life was also Todd’s killer. As the Crooked Noses’ head honcho, he might be tempted to share my thoughts with the world.
“He cheated. I left and never looked back.”
“Okay, but if you change your mind …”
His nonchalance didn’t help my chances of barfing. I changed the subject before things got messy.
My research told me that the Crooked Noses didn’t know the dead fruitcake left me his worldly goods and had them shipped to me in a cardboard box. “Maybe you should ask why I’m researching Mr. and Mrs Dogas. It’s positively gossip worthy.”
Curiosity flipped a light on in his eyes. “Do tell.”
“When I’ve got more facts.”
“Tell you what, we’ll do a swap. Get the interview with your grandmother and I’ll give you what I’ve got on Periphas and his wife. The stuff that didn’t make it to the forum.”
“Deal,” I said, hoping I’d signed up for something good and not anything the internet could tell me. A thin thread of panic wound itself around my intestines and tightened. How was I supposed to interview Grandma?
I bit my nail. It didn’t help. All I had now was a ragged nail and no interview. I messaged Aunt Rita hoping for sage advice that wouldn’t get me killed.
Be direct, she wrote. Mama likes people who are direct. Also she does not like some people who are direct. When that happens she kills them. But she will not kill you because she loves you.
That was heartwarming.
What the heck, why not be direct? Worst case, Grandma would say no. Okay, worst case she’d kill me, but I was counting on her natural instincts to love and protect her grandchild from murder.
I hunched over the desk and called Grandma. “I have a favor to ask.”
“How ever much you want, it is yours. Unless it is for drugs or miniskirts.”
“Why would I need to buy drugs when you’re always drugging the koulourakia?”
“I have not drugged my kourlourakia in days, How much do you need?”
“It’s okay, I don’t need money.”
Technically I did need money, which was why I was calling her to begin with—to get the money. But not her money—my own money.
“What then?”
“I need to ask you some questions.”
“Questions? What questions?”
I leaned back in the chair, closed my eyes, imagined my final moments in a Greek guillotine, whatever that was. Probably something cobbled together with rope and a donkey. “Just … questions. About you, your life, that sort of thing.”
&nb
sp; A long pause happened. The kind of pause that makes a person wonder if the other person dropped dead mid-call. At Grandma’s age it was possible. That or she was digging through her bag, hunting for a gun to shoot me.
“You mean an interview,” she said at long last.
“That’s such a dirty word. How about let’s call it a questionnaire? Questionnaires are so civilized and they can be fun. That’s why they put them in magazines and why Buzzfeed manages to still exist.”
“No interviews.”
“Not even for me, your only granddaughter? The only person who knows about your addiction to romance novels.”
There was another long pause where I worried about her health. “Grandma?”
“You play dirty.”
“When I have to—and I do have to.”
“Why? Who wants you to ask these questions? What do they want?”
“I just want to get to know you better.”
“Can we ever really know anybody?”
“Grandma, I never knew you were a philosopher!”
“You know who is Greece’s most famous philosopher? My kolos. Send me your questions. I want to look at them.”
Within seconds she had the questions on her phone. Her disapproval radiated over the airwaves.
“This reads like questions from a woman’s magazine. What is my favorite color, who was my first murder, what is your favorite way to kill a drug dealer, etc. Where did these come from?”
“Work.”
“What is this work?”
“I guess they’re just interviewing powerful and interesting women who can kick ass and take names.”
“Okay, I will answer your questions because I am powerful and interesting and I believe a woman can do anything, especially if it is running the world. Ask and I will give you answers, eh?”
“I already know your favorite color is pink.” I scanned the questions. They ranged from frivolous to of special interest to federal prosecutors all over the globe. “What’s your favorite crime to commit?”
“Jay walking.”
“Greece has jay walking?”
“Greeks invented crossing the street when they are not supposed to. Many Greeks were struck down by Turks on donkeys while they were darting across the road.”
That rang true. Greeks had invented a lot old stuff. “When did you know you were destined to be a criminal?”
“When I married your grandfather and realized one of us had to have the archidia to take care of the family business.”
“Granddad wasn’t a criminal?”
“Oh, he was. But not a very good one. He always preferred books and philosophy and hiding away to read.”
“And when did you start doing the other stuff? The good guy stuff. That’s not an interview question. That’s me being nosy.”
“Before I married your grandfather.”
“Really?”
“The best thing a girl can do is get an education and a job that she can keep a secret even from her own husband, that way she will not lose the house if her husband is a worthless excuse for a man. Not your grandfather. He had no balls for organized crime, but he was a good man. But my father … po-po … he stole oxygen with each breath.”
“Moving on,” I said. Yes, I wanted to know more but this wasn’t the time or place. When the time and place did roll around there had to be wine. A lot of wine. “Do you ever plan to retire?” I was back to Francis’s questions now.
“We will see.”
There were more questions after that. Grandma answered them all, more or less. Probably some of her responses were even true. Not the one where she said she’d tried to steal the Parthenon Marbles back from the British Museum, but definitely others. Although now that I thought about it I felt the sudden urge to see if any covert reclamations had been attempted.
Francis was a happy camper when I presented him with a transcribed list of Grandma’s responses.
“Nice work. Do you think she was honest?”
“I think she was Grandma.”
Was that good, was that bad, who can say?
He slid the paper aside and presented me with another list of questions. “Ready for your next assignment?”
“An interview with the devil? Sorry, don’t know him. But I’ve met some of his siblings.”
“Baby Dimitri.”
My eyebrows shot up. They took their sweet time coming down. “Excuse me?”
“I know you know him. We’ve got pictures in the database of you hanging out at his shop. Word is he likes you.”
“Tolerates. There’s a difference. And I doubt he’ll tolerate me if I start pumping him for information about his likes and dislikes, although I can tell you the man does like boobs. Anyway, no can do. I’m not going back to Greece any time soon—if ever.”
“Ever hear of a phone?”
I tilted my head. “No. What is phone, precious? What is phone?”
“Very funny.”
“I’m a funny person. Anyway, you said you had information about Periphas Dogas and his bride.” I wiggled my fingers at him in a give it to me motion.
Francis leaned back in his chair. His smirk said he was about to tell me stuff I didn’t know—stuff that would knock my socks off. I hoped he wouldn’t knock them all the way off. It was winter and I needed these socks to stay warm.
“The word is Periphas married one of his American pen pals as a substitute for you after you turned him down. Terri Fincher had been writing to him for years, long before he was temporarily released and consequently re-incarcerated.”
He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know. I dropped into the chair anyway. “What’s wrong with these men?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not a beast but there are other women out there, prettier, thinner, and with better jobs.”
“You don’t like your job?”
“I just started! I haven’t had time to like it or dislike it yet. But other women have careers.”
“I get why they’re interested. You’re cute, you’re connected, and you’re the sole heir to one of Europe’s largest crime families and its fortune. In certain circles, you’re the ultimate catch.”
“Yay?”
“Some women would be thrilled.”
“Not me. I’m less thrilled, more annoyed.” I rubbed my hands together. “I already searched the board and everything you just told me is there, so what else have you got for me?”
He slid a sheet of paper across the desk. “Terri Fincher’s address.”
“Already got it.”
“How?”
“Dogas left me a box of junk I don’t want because he was a lunatic who wouldn’t take no for an answer. There was a letter inside with a return address. More than one—a stack.”
That made him abandon the casual pose. He tapped his index finger on the desk. “Imagine for a minute you’re the faithful wife, waiting for the day your husband gets out of prison. Then your husband not only dies, but he sends his belongings to another woman. What would you think?”
The steady influx of information crystallized into a useful, terrible thought. I recalled my anger, a white-hot flare of fury, when Todd cheated. In that moment I was capable of anything. Lucky for Todd I was mostly sane and eager to avoid prison time. If I was several fries short of a deluxe gyro, say, the kind of woman who considered prison a great place to shop for husbands, there’s no knowing where Todd would be now.
Okay, yes, I didn’t know precisely where Todd was now. Parts of him were currently in the pipes beneath my house, but other parts were incinerated in the explosion. For all I knew he was in the lungs of random Portlandians.
Poor Todd.
Then I remembered what Papou said when we spoke. A woman had come to ask him about his eagle—the eagle that originally belonged to Periphas. A looney widow might want that bird for herself, as a link to her dead husband.
Sometimes it seemed like there was no bottom to the crazy in my world.
; “Do you think she might be mad enough to blow up stuff and people and leave threats in the form of graffiti and occasionally on nice stationery?”
I already had Terri pegged as my undesirable one-way pen pal. What if she was more?
“According to people who know—”
“You mean snoops?”
“I mean employees and freelancers. Terri Fincher’s house is filled with prescriptions for things I can’t pronounce but that the internet tells me are for people with real problems. She used to collect cats, but she dumped them all—ten of them—at a pet shelter when Dogas started to show interest.”
“Cats and eagles don’t really mix, I guess.”
“She has no friends except her acolytes on the internet, and her family lives down in Florida. She goes to church likes it’s her second job. On weekends, after church, she buys two sacks of McDonald’s and watches Grey’s Anatomy marathons on Netflix.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Netflix marathons,” I grumbled.
“Terri Dogas doesn’t have issues—she has all the issues. If I were you I’d be worried. You need security? I can get you security. All you need.”
For a price, no doubt. Maybe not money but definitely favors—the kind of favors that could get me killed. Baby Dimitri might give me a pass when I got nosy, but how many other gangsters would dish up hot, fresh gossip?
None many.
“Security isn’t a problem,” I said.
“No, it wouldn’t be, would it? Baboulas would never send her granddaughter home without loading the shadows with guns and eyes.” He quit leaning in the chair and sat upright. His expression was curious. His nose was more crooked than ever. “Can I ask what you’re going to do with this information?”
“You can ask,” I said. “But I don’t know yet.”
I totally knew. Earlier I typed Terri’s address into my phone, and as soon as I could escape work I planned to zip over there to have a word with the new—and newly widowed—Kyria Dogas about her dead husband and his belongings.
I stopped by the house on the way over, stuffed Dogas’s crap back into the box, taped up the whole confection. Elias tried to carry it for me.