Yianni’s eyes paused on a line in the article: “Mytilini, like the rest of Lesvos, has for millennia served as a place of exile for those fleeing their homelands.”
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
He put down the magazine and stared out the window at a sapphire-blue sea separating mainland Greece from Lesvos. He wondered how many who called themselves Greek today owed the lives they now led to refugee ancestors. Probably a lot more than suspected. Or cared to admit.
Yianni’s first glimpse of Lesvos surprised him. He’d expected a large, triangular-shaped island edged in coves and inlets, not the dramatic contrast of land and sea he saw beneath him. Two huge silver-blue bays along Lesvos’ southern shoreline drove deeply into a brown and green landmass as heavily ridged as a crocodile’s back.
He took the green to be the boundless olive groves and forests of pine, chestnut, plane, and oak trees bragged about by his Athenian friends of Lesvos origins. They spoke of their island’s fertile brown soil and warm, sunny year-round climate, countless varieties of vegetation, and abundant water, creating a natural paradise. He’d thought that the kind of clouded nostalgia talk city-dwellers often used when romanticizing the villages they or their ancestors had abandoned in order to earn a living elsewhere. But, from what he saw through his window, perhaps they’d not been exaggerating after all.
The plane banked as it approached the airport’s single narrow runway alongside the sea. Time to put away the magazine and focus on the case.
Yianni looked at the tiny gym bag by his feet. He’d only packed what he needed for a quick in-and-out trip to Lesvos. Next time he’d pack more. He had no doubt there’d be a next time.
l l l l l
Scents of springtime blossoms, carried along a warm summerlike breeze, met Yianni outside the post-World War II-era terminal building. So, too, did a uniformed police officer in a marked car parked at the bottom of the ramp leading out from the main entrance, courtesy of the Mytilini police commander. The cop said it should take about fifteen minutes to cover the seven kilometers to the crime scene.
Yianni asked him about the investigation. The cop said he knew nothing. His orders were to pick up Yianni at the airport and drop him off at the Volandes mansion in town. Yianni knew that by now the Lesvos police grapevine must have spread details of such a horrific murder to every cop on the island, so he took the cop’s answer to mean he’d been ordered to keep his mouth shut and not talk to the Athens cop.
No matter, he’d sit back and enjoy the view. They turned north out of the parking lot onto a two-lane road running next to the sea. A single line of trees, perhaps tamarisk, separated the road from the bright blue water to the east. To the west spread open spaces of beige, brown, and green. The closer they drew to town, hotels, residences, and occasional commercial buildings no taller than three stories filled in much of the sea view space with pastel shades of pink, yellow, blue, green, and lavender, all topped with terra-cotta roofs.
They turned away from the sea road onto a two-lane avenue cutting through a more upscale neighborhood of high stone walls, ornamental iron gates, large trees, and green lawns, amid a mix of one- and two-story homes, neoclassical mansions, and uninspired concrete apartment buildings with their ubiquitous slab-sided balconies that plagued all of modern Greece, no matter how well-off the neighborhood.
They met up again with the sea at a broad four-lane boulevard leading toward the new harbor, passing by neatly maintained buildings in colorful pastels taking on a neoclassical air, bedecked in pillars and pediments. Even the usual commercial buildings one expected to find cluttered around any busy harborfront had a softer tone than Yianni expected.
He caught a brief glimpse of the dome of Mytilini’s landmark architectural gem, the Church of Saint Therapon, before they turned left away from the harbor, headed the wrong way on a one-way street. Barely wide enough for two cars to pass, the road narrowed still more by light-colored brick sidewalks running flush up against the storefronts of shops that stretched ahead on each side of the road for as far as Yianni could see.
This must be the town’s main shopping street. It struck Yianni as more citified than he’d expected for an island town so obviously proud of its architectural past. Then again, from an islander’s perspective, Mytilini ranked as more of a city than a town, though not in the sense of metropolitan Athens, with its four million residents. Mytilini’s population of thirty thousand far exceeded the total number of residents of most Greek islands. Yes, Mytilini qualified as an island city—complete with urban-style graffiti and an infatuation with modern styling.
The car turned off into a warren of narrow stone-paved streets winding through a decidedly more residential area, one that struck Yianni as a metaphor for the general state of Greek life today: some homes prosperous, some on their last legs, but most looking as if simply trying to get by.
The driver stopped next to a forensic van and a police car parked in front of a fence of black iron spears mounted atop a low concrete wall. Together, the fence and wall separated the street from the courtyard of a meticulously maintained three-story neoclassical mansion. Tightly packed hedges just inside the fence provided the traditional seclusion common to Lesvos’ urban residential architecture. An open gate constructed of the same black iron spears offered the only break in the hedges.
A tall, fit-looking man in his forties wearing a blue suit, blue shirt, and no tie stepped out through the gate.
“That’s my boss,” said the driver.
“He’s in charge of police on Lesvos?”
“No, just Mytilini. There are six other commands on the island.”
“Thanks for the lift,” said Yianni. He shook the driver’s hand, got out of the car, and walked toward the police commander, extending his hand as he approached him. “Hi, Commander, I’m Detective Yianni Kouros. We spoke earlier today.”
“Pleased to meet you.” He offered Yianni a firm handshake.
“Thanks for sending your man to pick me up at the airport, and for arranging to keep the crime scene intact.”
“No problem. I’m open to all the help we can get. This is a nasty one.”
Yianni stepped up to the gate and looked down at a gray marble path running from the sidewalk into, and apparently around, the courtyard garden. As he stepped inside, straight ahead on the right, five paces away, he saw a massive blood stain on the marble.
“I assume that’s where it happened.”
The commander nodded. “Yes, blood-spatter analysis confirmed Volandes stood there when the assailant hammered him with the sword from behind.”
“Behind?”
“Yes, he likely never saw it coming.”
“Where’s the sword?”
“Haven’t found it.”
Yianni knelt and looked at the blood patterns on the marble, stood, and studied the hedges leading back to the gate. At the gate, he looked down at the sidewalk just beyond it.
“Commander, do you mind if I close the gate?”
“Go right ahead, it’s been checked for prints.”
Yianni pulled the gate closed and, standing inside the garden, ran his eyes up and down the iron spear at the edge of the gate farthest from the scene of the attack. He worked his way back along the gate, studying each spear, until stopping abruptly four spears from the edge of the gate closest to the attack.
“Commander, could you ask whoever belongs to that forensic van out front to step over here for a moment?”
The commander nodded to a young woman dressed all in white.
“Yes, sir, how can I help you?”
Yianni pointed toward the top of the fourth spear from the end. “What’s that look like to you?”
She leaned in, squinted, pulled a jeweler’s loupe out of her pocket, and examined the spear. “I see what you’re getting at…it could be blood.”
“B
ut how did it get over here, so far away from the point of attack?” said Yianni.
“It’s probably spray,” she said.
“That’s pretty far from the site of the attack, but even so, from the angle of attack the spray would have been intercepted by the hedges. There’s spatter all along them.”
The woman swallowed. “Perhaps that’s where the perpetrator touched the gate when he left the garden.”
“Perhaps, but what about this?” Yianni pointed to more spotting running up and down the fourth spear. “And this.” He pointed to similar spots running up and down the next spear over toward the hedges. “You surely don’t think he touched both bars in all those places.”
She blushed. “No, I don’t.”
“So what could explain those bloodstains, assuming that’s what they are and that they’re the victim’s blood?”
“I don’t know.” She looked at the commander and back at Yianni. “I’m new to all this. I’m just an examiner assisting the person who conducted the actual examination.”
“And who’s that?”
“My boss, the forensic supervisor.”
Yianni looked at the commander. “Is her boss one of us?”
The commander nodded. “Technically, he’s on the force, but not as a cop, and for all intents and purposes, he’s a handmaiden of the prosecutor’s office.”
“Is he here?”
The commander gestured no. “He said he didn’t have the time to spare for educating visiting Athenians.”
Yianni smiled. “I see.” He waved for the woman to follow him back to the site of the attack. “So, what do we have here, besides a lot of blood?”
Visibly nervous, the examiner began to stutter. “I, I, I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
Yianni raised his hand. “Relax. Since your supervisor obviously doesn’t discriminate as to who he doesn’t have time to teach, let’s see if I can help out a bit.”
The commander smiled.
“Here, in the direction the victim was walking, what do you see?”
She looked like a deer in the headlights.
“Never mind trying to answer that, it’s a rhetorical question. What you see is a broad symmetrical pattern of blood spatters. Now look behind the victim and what do you see?” Yianni waited. “That wasn’t rhetorical. It’s a real question for you to answer.”
The woman spoke in a tentative voice, “There’s a large gap in the spatter.”
“Would you say it seems to just disappear?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Very good. Now what possible explanation can you come up with for that?”
She paused for a second. Then her eyes opened wide. “The killer’s body caught the blood spatter.”
“Very good, go to the head of the class.”
The woman bristled. “No reason to be patronizing.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
She frowned. “But that means there should have been a lot more blood on the perpetrator than we found.”
“No, that means there should have been a lot more blood on Ali Sera if he was the killer.”
“What about the bloodstains on the gate?” asked the commander.
“That’s the interesting part, but I think I have an answer. Care to take a guess?”
The woman gestured no. “I know to quit when I’m ahead.”
Yianni walked back to the gate followed by the others. “Remember when Ali claimed it had started to rain?”
“Yes, it made no sense,” she said.
“But for him it did, because it was raining blood.”
“I don’t understand,” said the commander. “You just said the blood spatter never made it over here.”
“It didn’t,” said Yianni. “At least not from the attack. But think of it this way. The night was pitch-black, and if the assailant wore black, you’d never see him. So let’s assume Ali shows up at the gate and peers inside trying to see where’s the man he’s supposed to meet. That’s when he feels raindrops on his face, and blood spattering later turns up running up and down the front of his body.” Yianni turned and pointed at the attack site. “If you look closely at where blood pooled up, you might find evidence of what the killer used to pick up some of the victim’s blood, like a paintbrush or syringe.”
“For what purpose?” said the woman.
“Simple, yet ingenious. The killer carefully gathered some of his victim’s blood, patiently waited until Ali peeked through the gate, and then spattered the blood all over him.”
“Sounds like you’re saying we’ve got a cold-blooded ninja killer on our hands,” said the commander.
Yianni shrugged. “Check the spot on the street where Ali said he was standing when he looked through the gate and felt rain. If you use those two spears in the gate spotted with blood as the point of origin, I think you’ll find a blood-spatter pattern on the sidewalk consistent with Ali blocking most of the spatter.”
“I get it,” said the woman. “It matches the analysis that shows the actual killer catching a lot more blood spatter than we found on Ali. I’ll get right on it.” She hurried off in the direction of her equipment.
Yianni smiled. “That one has potential.”
The commander nodded. “What about the paintbrush or whatever?”
“I doubt you’ll ever find it, any more than the sword or garment the killer likely wore to catch the victim’s blood spatter.”
“I’ll get my people checking every trash bin, empty lot, and vacant building in the neighborhood for them all. We might get lucky.”
“What’s next?” said Yianni.
“Well, neither the prosecutor nor his forensic supervisor friend is going to be happy about what you found. They’re both pretty much egotistical pricks, who, incidentally, don’t like me any more than I like them. But, in light of what you’ve come up with, I don’t see how they can hold Ali. That’s not to say they won’t. After all, he’s a refugee, not a Greek.”
“I get the politics. I guess my real question is whether you’ll be searching for the real killer.”
The commander shrugged. “If the prosecutor won’t drop it, he’s not going to take kindly to my trying to prove he’s wrong. He might make things difficult for me.”
“What about the victim’s family?”
“They’ll likely want closure, and if the prosecutor can bring them that by sacrificing Ali, that might end it.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“Afraid?”
“Because once my boss thinks this kid is getting framed, he’s going to have me living over here until we get to the truth.”
The commander smiled. “Lesvos is lovely this time of the year, and if you’re here on Easter, you’re welcome to come to my house.”
“Thanks, but I’ve plans with my family down on the Peloponnese. Besides, I don’t think much will happen before Tuesday.”
The cop nodded. “Well, that’ll give me a few days to see what I might be able to come up with before the prosecutor starts thinking about shutting me down. Which reminds me, I better tell the examiner not to mention any of this to her boss quite yet.”
“Will she listen?” said Yianni.
“Of course.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“She’s my daughter.”
Chapter Three
“It’s Yianni, calling from Lesvos,” came the shout through the doorway into Andreas’ office.
“Thanks, Maggie.” Andreas picked up the phone. “Afternoon. So, what do you have for me?”
“Probably not what you’d like to hear. It looks like the kid in custody isn’t the killer.”
Andreas exhaled. “I was afraid of that.”
“Whoever killed Volandes took great care to make it look like the kid did it.” Yia
nni told him about the blood spatter patterns, what he’d found on the gate, and specks of blood found by the examiner outside the gate.
“The actual killer had to be one strong son of a bitch to slice clean through a man from head to crotch in a single blow.”
“Yeah,” said Yianni. “And I doubt Ali had the strength to do that.”
“Adrenaline.”
“Maybe, but nothing else matches up.”
Andreas smiled. “Sounds like once again you made me look brilliant for getting you involved in an investigation.”
“Flattery works.”
“You’re welcome.”
“A raise would be better.”
“Have you spoken to Ali?”
“No, he’s been advised by an attorney not to talk to the police.”
“Smart.”
“Especially since the police commander thinks the prosecutor has a real hard-on for grabbing headlines with a refugee-as-murderer prosecution.”
“That’s going to be tough to pull off with what you’ve found.”
“The prosecutor has a forensics guy with a reputation for doing whatever it takes to see that the prosecutor gets convictions.”
“Isn’t that interesting?”
“Yeah, I thought you’d like that.”
Andreas picked up a pencil. “I guess that means we’ll have to jump in on this one.”
“I thought you’d say that, too.”
“What’s your take on it so far?”
“Looks like an assassination, with two planned victims: the dead guy and the accused.”
“The common thread being?”
“Refugees.”
Andreas tapped the pencil on his desktop. “Okay, so we had Volandes fired up to change the EU’s approach to dealing with refugees, and Ali working for an NGO that supports Volandes’ plans. Seems a very neat, quick way to get rid of one half of a problem while undermining the credibility of the other half.”
An Aegean April Page 3