Ioli took a second and replied “He wanted twins. Part of his evil, twisted plan. This is why I believe he stalked you. He must have bumped into you somewhere. At a bar, at a club, maybe the beach. Did any strangers approach you? A man on his own?”
“They died because they were twins? Well, as funny as it sounds. I’m glad they went together… neither would have coped with the other’s loss.”
“I know what you mean,” Ioli replied, thinking she had no idea of the pain the boy must have been feeling.
“As for strangers… it’s Mykonos. We met dozens of people. Most were here with their friends,” he answered disappointingly before shouting out “wait! At that club, the biggest one, can’t remember its name. Amy met a local boy, erm Costa, yeah, he was called Costa… he flirted with Amy and they ended up kissing and they met the next day at the beach too. I remember Amy saying his uncle was the bouncer.”
“Ok, we will look into it,” she answered as she wrote down everything he had said.
“Anything else?”
He shook his head. Ioli took out a folded piece of paper and opened it up.
“Have you seen this man before?” she asked, holding up the sketch from Pissouri.
“Is that him?”
“Maybe. This is based on an eye witness.”
“Never seen him before,” Patrick managed to say before starting to weep.
“Patrick, I think you should call home. Don’t go through this alone. Here is my card. Call me, anything you need, anything you remember. I’ll help with all the paperwork needed to take your cousins home.”
“Thanks.”
She smiled at him, stroked his shoulder and walked out the room.
Mr Andreas was pacing nervously up and down the reception area.
“Ah, my good girl, how is he?”
“Devastated. His cousins are dead.”
“Dead? My God, he was right to worry… The poor thing.”
“Yes and until his family arrives, you have to be with him. Help him. Anything he wants. He is only a boy and he is all alone, in a foreign country and his cousins have just been murdered. His family should be needing a couple of rooms too…”
“Yes, yes… sure. Anything they need.”
“You’re a good man, Mr Andrea.”
She looked around.
“My partner?”
“Down at the beach he went. Come, let me show you.”
She followed him through the wide balcony doors and out to the spacious dining terrace. She looked down towards where Mr Andreas was pointing and saw Captain Phillip on all fours digging in the sand.
“Thank you,” she said and marched down to find Captain Hound.
She smiled as she realised she missed Costa. He would have enjoyed the joke. Captain Hound.
“Captain Phillip?”
He raised his head to face her, stood up, shook off the sand and pointed to the ground.
“This is where they laid. See the prints of the towels in the sand? I’ve picked up all their trash, mostly alcohol bottles. We’ll have them fingerprinted though I doubt he would have touched anything. No hair, no blood or any signs of a struggle. The sand looks calm. Too many footprints around the area, but look here. See, this set of footprints leading up to the path?”
“Deeper,” Ioli commented.
“Right! They are deeper. Like someone overweight or someone carrying something heavy.”
“Size?”
“Forty-four. Ten and a half if the American asks.”
“I’ll call Douka to send you some silicone rubber to make a mold of the print.”
“Good. Call him while you follow me. There is only one route the girl could have taken to her room. I’ve got something interesting to show you.”
As per the Captain’s wish, she walked behind him while talking to Douka over the phone. She requested the silicone rubber and informed him on Patrick’s account of the young man named Costa. When she hung up, Captain Phillip announced proudly, “here!”
“Here what?” Ioli asked.
“This is where he took the girl. Which means he stalked them. He knew her room. He knew she would pass from here. Look at this,” he said and fell to all fours again.
She kneeled down beside him and stared at the faint, watery mark on the rock pathway.
“Blutack,” he said and sneezed out loud. Louder than anyone Ioli had ever heard before. She opened her mouth to wish him a simple bless you, however the Captain paid no attention to the sneeze and continued on with his theory.
“Killer must have pinned something to the ground. Maybe money as to make the victim stop. As drunk as she was, I doubt she gave much of a fight. He hid here, in this bush. Look for yourself. I found many broken twigs. Unfortunately, nothing else.”
“Our killer makes no such mistakes,” Ioli said once again. “Bless you by the way,” she added.
“It’s all this sand. I feel like there is a sandstorm swirling around my nostrils!”
Douka had just got off the phone with Ioli. His men had gathered around him. So far, nothing suspicious had been revealed with their search of nearby hotels. He gave them instructions on how to proceed and watched them walk off to their respective missions.
“Biggest club, town center? Space club, here I come,” he said to himself and headed upwards through the crowds that were busy window shopping and choosing the right souvenir.
“Good day,” he said to catch the attention of the petite elderly lady that was busy sweeping outside the closed club. Leaves and leaflets decorated the grounds of the club’s grand entrance.
“Eh?”
“Good day, I said.”
“What do you want?” she snapped.
“Anyone else here?”
“No. Why? Ain’t I good enough to talk to? Think that this old lady is stupid or can’t remember things eh?”
“No, madam. I would never think that…”
“You officers, always coming round about fights and drugs… as if anything will ever change. And tell me this, boy… if you closed the bars and got rid of the drugs, who will continue coming to Mykonos? We live from the tourism you know!” the callous woman said.
He was in no mood to get into a heated conversation with the cranky old lady and her twisted logic.
“Not here about fights or drugs. I’m here to see the bouncer.”
“Which one?”
“These old ladies know everyone,” he thought and replied “the one whose nephew is Costa.”
Only then did she stop sweeping and looked at him.
“You want the bouncer or Costa, Mr Officer?”
“By the way, how do you know I am with the police?” Douka asked not being able to shake the thought.
“A cop’s face is a cop’s face. Talk! I asked you something boy.”
“Costa.”
“What for?”
“About a young girl he met.”
“Ah. These young sluts they come here dressed with nothing on, flirting with our men and when they get what’s coming they remember their forgotten morals and cry rape. My Costa raped no one. My boy can have whoever he wishes, girls with open legs in the club every night…”
“Twisted logic you have there, grandma. Your Costa huh?”
“My one and only grandchild!” she declared proudly.
“I’m sure he is a good boy. No, the girl was not raped. I just want to ask him a few questions about her.”
She read him for a moment before shouting out loud.
“Costaaaaaa!!!”
A head popped out the window from the floor above.
“Yes?”
“Get your ass down here boy. Now!”
Soon a young, skinny, fresh looking twenty year old was standing opposite him.
“Yes?” he asked with anxiety coloured all over his voice.
“Costa, I need to have a word with you about an Irish girl I believe you met a few nights ago, here at this club.”
“Amy?”
“Yes,
Amy. So you did meet her?”
“Of course!” he answered, smiling as he thought of her. “What’s wrong? Is she ok?”
“How many times did you meet her?”
“Well, we met at the club, then the next day at the beach and grabbed a bite at a kebab shop later that day. I wanted to see her last night, but she said she had something planned with her brother and cousin.”
He stared at Doukas with vast curiosity. Thoughts of what could be wrong ran freely through his mind, but none of the illegal and immoral scenarios he thought of came anywhere close to the grave, ghastly truth.
“She was murdered last night. Her brother too…”
“Costa was here all night. We had him fill in for a useless waiter who did not show up again. Ask anyone…” his grandma rushed to say in his defence.
“I am not here to accuse your boy. I’m here to see if he can help us in any way.”
“Help?” Costa asked, and he quickly wiped away a lonely tear that had formed in the corner of his eye. Men don’t cry was grandma’s opinion, and he did not wish her to see him cry over a girl he had just met.
“We believe someone might have been following her. Did you notice anyone let’s say peculiar looking at you, someone who came up to talk to her? A man on his own…”
“No, can’t say that… wait…” he closed his eyes reconstructing the moment in his head.
“The night we met, we sat down on the VIP couches. I wanted to impress her, you know. Anyway, there was this guy sitting just below us, just sitting there, not moving. He did not seem to be enjoying himself much. Well, I had this feeling that he was listening in on us. At that moment, I did not think much about it as…” he rolled his eyes and looked towards his grandma before continuing saying that “we started kissing and fooling around as my grandma calls it.”
“What did this guy look like?” Douka asked.
“Wait, that’s not all. This man, he finally got up and the next time I looked around, he was at the bar talking to Amy’s brother.”
“Was her brother alone with this man? The two were there with their cousin, right?” Douka asked hoping Patrick was there.
“Yes, Patrick. No, he was not with Conor at that moment.”
“Tell me all about this man. Everything you can remember. Face, build, clothes, age.”
As Douka listened to him describe a tall, fit forty year old with black hair the coroner turned on his tape recorder and wore his gloves.
“Nice and cold in here… lovely.”
I smiled and agreed with him “Yes, the heat is unbearable during the summer.”
“Though I would prefer to be somewhere air-conditioned with an ice, cold beer than in here with you and a couple of bodies!” I added.
“Medical examiners can have a beer too, you know,” he said as he lifted the cheap, white, hospital sheet to reveal Conor’s headless body. His head rested on a silver side table next to the large metal table.
“Autopsy number one. Conor O’Brien. Age 25” he started to speak to his recorder. Ioli had texted the victim’s age and names.
“Beheaded. Time of death around twelve hours ago. The wounds to the neck indicated that the victim was still alive when stabbed, thus it is pretty safe to say that cause of death was bleeding out from the decapitation. The small bruising on the neck indicates a violent, forced needle entry. Blood from the victim is being processed to determine the drug used.”
He called me over and pointed to slight markings on the belly.
“Slight bruising underneath the thorax. The victim was carried by the murderer over his shoulder,” he said and lifted his finger from the recorder.
Jacob Petsa picked up his favourite little chisel from his instrument case and cleaned out the nails from what seemed like sand. He placed the sand in a sealed test tube and said “sand, but I’ll have it tested anyway. No defensive wounds, Costa. Your theory of them being drugged seems about right. Here, help me lift him,” he asked as he placed a rubber brick called a body block upon the cold table. The two men placed it under the body and Costa knew it was time for the deep Y incision to be made.
“No visible tattoos or birthmarks…” he continued into his voice recorder as he picked up his autopsy blade and wore his goggles.
I cringed as Jacob began the incision.
“At least the body is fresh and doesn’t smell. Remember that one, a few years back. The homeless guy or at least that is what the police thought at the time… must had been in that tunnel for a good couple of months before being discovered. Oh, that smell as we cut him open, appalling stench it was… and the worms… and the rat bites…”
“Anything new? How is the family?” I asked in an effort to prevent the talkative fellow from continuing down memory terror lane.
“All the same, all the same, just getting older. Daughter is in Uni you know, thinks she is all grown up now and doesn’t need to listen to an old fart like me, sleep all day she would. She goes to parties that outlive the night, but her grades are great so what can I say? Pediatrician, she dreams of. Wants to help people, she said, not like me… my patients are already dead!” he laughed out loud and I joined in.
He continued cutting away and now and then he reported to his recorder, yet he mostly talked about the motorcycle riding, tattoo filled, long hair chimpanzee his daughter was currently dating.
“And get this; she took him round my mother’s house last week! The poor old woman thought he was an ugly girlfriend of hers with all that hair!”
After the second wave of laughter died down, he asked, “You know why there is so little blood during autopsies, Costa?”
“Ah, you are getting old! You asked me this during our first date with a body. With no cardiac function, gravity is the only blood pressure!”
“Smart ass… yes, yes… you always had a good memory. Now you say, talking about memory, I was trying to recall a place during a dinner party last Saturday. What is that place with the amazing steaks down on 46th street, the one with the bull on the sign?”
“Sparks Steak House?”
“That’s the one! Bravo to your memory. Now, that is a place I’ve missed. Don’t you miss…” he began to form the question, but regretted attempting on asking and swiftly switched the conversation to memories of beer, wine and of course steak.
I endured another hour of mindless but humorous chatter and watched as shears cut through the chest cavity, organs were exposed, the heart was removed and the stomach and intestinal contents were examined and weighed. To top all this off, the head was neatly cut open, and the brain was examined, accompanied by a joke about a blind guy in an all women’s bar.
“Nothing extraordinary then?” I asked as the coroner took off his bloody gloves and threw them in the metallic, black lid bin.
“Besides the gap between the head and body?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Nope, nothing extraordinary. Stabbed and beheaded.”
As I exited the room, eager to get down to the twins’ hotel, I heard the good doctor say “Victim number two. Amy O’Brien…”
*****
Chapter 23
Douka had set up the team at his grandmother’s little, but sufficient and of course blue and white painted inn that was situated on the outskirts of town.
“Everywhere in town is fully booked,” he apologised out of fear of being accused of using tax payers’ money to his grandmother’s gain.
“No need to apologise,” Ioli said. “We perfectly understand that it’s August. Besides, I personally love these old-fashioned inns that are family run. Good food for sure,” she said as she looked at the rest of the team.
“Okay, so let’s head to the inn for a good night’s sleep and we will recoup in the morning. We will begin presentations at nine o’clock sharp,” I said.
“I have made my own arrangements, thank you. My taxi is waiting,” Dr. Roma dryly said and with a dull, sleepy ‘‘good night’’, he left us.
“Guess five star
hotels aren’t fully booked,” Matthew, the DNA specialist, joked and gained our laughter and smiles. Besides Dr. Helena’s, who proved incapable of showing any sort of human emotion.
At the inn, the nerds –as Ioli fondly called them-scattered to their rooms, and I wished Ioli a good night.
“Screw sleep, I’ve got Mrs Douka to cook up a real Greek island meal!” she announced, thrilled by the opportunity of a toothsome feast.
“You do have an appetite!”
“You think I can run on junk food takeaway eaten at the station? I’m a home-cooked kind of girl. Anyway, want to join me?”
“You dare risk me eating your food?”
“Come on, big guy.”
She hit me on the shoulder and led me to the warm and cozy traditional kitchen of Mrs Douka.
“It gives you a very homey feeling, right?”
“I love it!” she said exhilarated as we sat down on the wooden and straw chairs that are so familiar in coffee shops around the Aegean islands. I do believe food would easily top any ‘Ioli list’ of top things that provide pleasure.
Mrs Douka walked in, Greek village salad decorated with feta cheese, oregano and olive oil in one hand and tirokafteri, a dip made of feta, red peppers and garlic in the other. Bread was already sitting on the table placed neatly in a handmade straw basket.
“I made the bread this morning,” she said.
I looked up at the elderly woman and admired the force in her emerald eyes. Her face was etched with deep wrinkles and despite a cloud of worry that graced her face you could sense that she was a proud lady.
She hobbled quickly out of the room and reminded me of my own grandmother. Dressed in black, limping about tirelessly. I guess a lifetime of work did that to you.
“Just like my grandmother,” Ioli commented as if once again, she was wandering inside my mind. “Never could sit still though towards the end her back kept her resting most of the time.”
“My back has been killing me the last few days. Makes me feel old.”
“Eat better and work out and you will be fine. You’re not old, you’re a couch potato!”
“A getting-old-fast couch potato,” I complained.
A rich, deep, aromatic, peppery smell reached us and evoked our senses, watering our mouths.
Greek Island Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-2-3): Gripping, psychological mystery/thrillers destined to shock you! Page 15