by Leta Serafim
They drove to a fish taverna by the sea and parked on the sand. A full moon was rising, and he and the priest sat outside and talked while they waited for their dinner, watching the light play across the water.
“Last time I saw a moon like this I was up at Profitis Ilias,” the priest commented. “I remember looking down at the well and seeing the moon’s reflection in the water. The light was dancing everywhere, bright like sequins.” He paused for a moment. “Four weeks ago that was, the night I was attacked.”
“You tried to grab him, right?”
“That’s right. But I couldn’t get a grip. He was as slippery as oil.”
“Rubbery?”
“I never thought of it that way. Yes, maybe.”
Patronas nodded. He was almost there. He was sure this time. “I’ve been looking at this anapoda, backwards. It was Petros, little Petros Athanassiou, who set the whole thing in motion.”
The waiter brought their order and set it on the table. Papa Michalis picked up his fork and transferred three of the fish to his plate. “No wine?” he asked Patronas.
“No, I have to get back to Profitis Ilias. The coroner, he talked too much about what happened. Got everybody nervous. Now Tembelos and the others, they stay inside the monastery with the doors locked. If this were a movie, this would be the time they’d break out the crucifixes and pitchforks. Just yesterday one of them told me, ‘Something dark and bloodthirsty lives on this hill. It was no man who attacked her. It was a demon.’ And this is a policeman talking, mind you.”
The priest began to fillet his barbounia. Although he did his best to hide it, he was amused by what Patronas was telling him. “Your man thinks it was a vampire?”
“Who knows what he thinks? All I know is, it’s hard to stay focused when cops bring up the supernatural, when they start acting like it’s goblins they’re chasing, not criminals. My men are saying it wasn’t human the way he got by them, the night he assaulted Evangelos Demos—how he didn’t make a sound. Even Giorgos Tembelos is spooked, and he’s the best man I’ve got. He said we should close the cave back up and leave it. He called it the ‘lair of the devil.’ ”
Still chuckling, Papa Michalis ate his fish. Shifting the bones to one side of his plate, he took two more. “Sounds like The Hound of the Baskervilles. Terrified a whole community, the murderer did, with nothing more than a tin of phosphorous. It was ridiculously complicated, that case. But Holmes solved it. Went out on the moors alone, he did, and watched for him. As simple as that.”
The priest apparently had committed long portions of the book to memory, and without being asked, recited them to Patronas:
A hound it was, an enormous, coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame.
Patronas fought down the urge to throttle him. “Always dogs. Dogs not barking, dogs with dewlaps, dogs aflame.”
In addition to monopolizing the conversation, the priest was eating more than his share of fish, a great deal more. He’d be lucky if he got two mouthfuls. Still, he was glad he’d invited him. That talk of Holmes and the dog had given him an idea, a plan.
Forking yet another fish onto his plate, Papa Michalis nattered on, oblivious. “You see, Chief Officer, it was just a dog in The Hound of the Baskervilles, a painted dog, but because people were scared, they attributed supernatural attributes to it. Holmes never lost sight of the criminal hiding there, just as you mustn’t. Stay with it, Chief Officer. Don’t let your men leave Profitis Ilias. There’s no demon stalking that hill. It’s a man you’re after.”
Chapter 38
The eyes of the hare are one thing, those of the owl another.
—Greek proverb
Spiros Korres’ red pick-up truck was gone, but Patronas found his wife hanging up clothes in the backyard. She was a short, dumpy woman, dressed in a mended gray housedress. Her white hair was pulled back in an untidy bun and her deep-set black eyes were wary. She continued to work while he spoke to her, picking up wet clothes from her basket and pinning them to the line.
“Kyria Korres, would you give Spiros a message? Tell him we’re leaving Profitis Ilias and moving our investigation back to police headquarters.”
The old woman eyed him suspiciously. “What does that have to do with us?”
“The killer is still around. You and your husband need to be careful.”
She tugged another shirt loose from the pile. “Very well, I’ll tell him.”
“Where’s the Albanian? I need to talk to him.”
“The harelip?” She nodded in the direction of the pigs.
Taking a deep breath, Patronas walked quickly past the sty. He stepped over the small stream that trickled through the bottom of the ravine and started back up the other side toward the shed. The end of summer, the river bed was nearly dry, the grass on the banks ratty and clogged with filth. There was a dead rat floating in a fetid pool, its eyes and tufts of skin missing where birds had pecked. The stench of the pigs was omnipresent.
The shepherd was sitting outside. He got up when he saw Patronas and greeted him warmly, kissing him on both cheeks and asking after his health as was the custom. “Come in, come in,” he said.
Unlatching the door of the shed, he cleared a space on the cot and motioned for Patronas to sit down, then went to the dresser and got out a crumpled bag of cookies. He smelled nearly as bad as the pigs.
Patronas pushed the bag away. It made him feel bad, this hospitality. “I’m sorry I took the brooch without your permission,” he told him. “I’ll bring it back to you after the investigation is over.” He made a ring with his fingers and held it up as if pinning it to his jacket, worried the man might not understand the Greek. “The bird pin, the little quail.”
The shepherd nodded.
“The last time we spoke, you said there were two people.”
“Yes. Two.”
“Big? Small?”
“Big. Men.”
Patronas thought for a moment. “You said you’d seen someone else.”
“Yes.”
“Was this before or after Petros was killed?”
“Both.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“I don’t know. Is small. Woman maybe.”
Voula. “Just as I thought,” Patronas said to himself. Two donkeys fighting in a third one’s stall.
* * *
The group at Profitis Ilias was much diminished. The army reserves from Marina’s village had been ordered back to their base, and the locals had gotten bored waiting for something to happen, or perhaps grown frightened that it would. One by one they had slipped away, save for Spiros Korres. The farmer still came by every day, ostensibly to check on his goats, though Patronas had twice caught him trying to sneak down into the cave.
Hoping to pocket something valuable, was Patronas’ guess. Korres would pilfer. A peasant to the core, he’d steal you blind if you let him. But he was also an old-time Greek, which meant he wouldn’t kill a woman or slit the throat of a child. Patronas had checked on Korres’ son, Vassilis, too; he’d been away when Marina was killed, visiting a girl on Mytelene his mother disapproved of. The wife of Giorgos Tembelos had supplied this last bit of information. While waiting in line to pay their electric bills at DEH, the two women had gotten into a discussion. The murderer had to be someone else, Patronas told himself, one of the xenios. He had him in his sights now, just at the periphery of his vision. All he had to do was bring him into focus.
It was a hot day, and Tembelos and the others had stripped off their uniforms and were sitting in the refectory in their undershirts, watching the World Cup on a portable television someone had brought from home. After letting him in, they padlocked the door and Patronas was dismayed to see that Tembelos had his gun out, lying within easy reach on the stone table. They were probably using the buddy system when they took a piss, the idiots. As
far as he knew, no one had ventured into the cave or disturbed the crypt under the chapel. Too afraid.
Korres was braver. Given half the chance, he’d get into that cave. Patronas nodded. Yes, he’d have to work quickly.
Whenever the Greek team scored, the men jumped up and yelled, alerting anyone within a mile of their presence on the hill, in complete defiance of his most explicit orders. “Stealth,” he’d told them. “This mission requires stealth.” He might as well have been talking to the wind. He’d assigned two other policemen to the lean-to. He had no doubt they were listening to the game, too, on the police radio. Not the bravest, most disciplined group, the Chios Police Force. Not exactly the FBI.
* * *
The policemen gathered around and listened in stunned silence. “You want us to leave?” one of them asked.
“That’s right,” Patronas said. “You, Tembelos, go to the Villa Hotel and make a big show. Tell everybody what an ass I am, how I left Profitis Ilias in the middle of a murder investigation and ordered you to do the same. Return the passports to the two archeologists. Make it clear to them that as of today the monastery will be unprotected.”
“I thought you wanted us here.”
“Not anymore.”
He pointed to the man standing next to Tembelos. “Haris, you go find Voula Athanassiou. Pretend that you need her to sign something, a form to release Petros’ things. Complain while you’re there. Make a point of telling Voula and her boyfriend, Manos—I can’t stress that enough—that Profitis Ilias has been abandoned. That there’s no one up here now.”
Patronas was getting hoarse. He was shorter than his men and he always shouted when he gave orders, as if generating noise would generate stature. Standing there in the refectory of Profitis Ilias, he wished he had a bullhorn.
Unwilling to dismiss the two Argentises as suspects, he had decided at the last minute to include them in the dragnet. Maybe it wasn’t money. Maybe, on the stepmother’s part, it was hate.
“Michalis, your cousin works at Argentis Shipping, right? Use that as a pretext to visit. Make sure Antonis Argentis is informed as well. Lefteris, you talk to Titina Argentis. She’s smart, so be careful or she’ll see right through you. Tell her you are releasing what’s left of Eleni for burial and ask her where she wants us to send it. Have her sign something, too. Make it look official-like. I’ll talk to Spiros Korres and his son.”
He continued loudly, “When you walk down to your cars, go in a group and make as much noise as you can. Stay close together. If our killer is watching, I don’t want him to know I’m not with you. Tembelos, you drive my Citroen. Stay low and park it in front of my house. Have someone pick you up there. As soon as I call you, come back with a squad car.”
“Why a squad car? Why not your Citroen?”
“The Citroen is for my personal use. I wouldn’t want to sully it with criminals.” Who the criminal was or how he planned to catch him, he didn’t say. He was the boss. He didn’t have to explain. It was dangerous, the mission he was embarking on, which is why he was sending them away. Leaders took risks. It was what made them who they were.
He watched his men leave from inside the monastery, taking care not to show himself. He noted with satisfaction that they stayed close together as they walked down the path. He wasn’t much of a speaker. Often, when addressing them, he felt tongue-tied and awkward. He and his men had even joked about it. The workshop wants a lame master. But today had been different. Today he’d been eloquent, forceful. Demosthenes.
Chapter 39
The fox has many tricks. The porcupine has but one and better.
—Greek proverb
Picking up the blankets and his lantern, Patronas slowly made his way down into the cave. He lifted the yellow tape that marked the place where Marina’s body had been found and moved deeper into the shadows. He hated being here. The place reeked of death, death and defeat.
After his men left, he’d moved the things out of the crypt under the chapel and back down into the cave. ‘Salting the site,’ archeologists called it. With any luck, he’d catch the murderer tonight and turn the site over to the archeologists tomorrow. There’d be no need for anyone to learn of Papa Michalis’ involvement.
He spread the blankets out on the ground inside one of the houses and sat down, checking first to make sure he couldn’t be seen. The room was filled with amphorae, which made good back rests, the clay surfaces smooth and round. Fingering a pot, he wondered what had become of the people who’d made it and why they’d come here, seeking sanctuary. Did their descendents still live in Greece? On Chios? Or had they died out like the deer that had once roamed the plains of Attica? Sometimes he’d see a shopkeeper with the face of a statue and think, ‘We haven’t changed; we are the same as our ancestors.’ Other times, he wasn’t so sure. Greece had been invaded too many times, known too much trouble. And now it was full of tourists. His cousin’s daughter had married a French man. They’d both been on holiday on Mykonos and she’d gone home with him, never to return. Other men he knew had married foreign women and now had blond children, Swedish mother-in-laws. In the past it had been easier. You knew who you were and how to live. You were a man like your father had been and you lived as he had. Now it was all mixed up. You weren’t even Greek anymore. You were European.
He set his lantern down and turned it on. It was one of the old fashioned kind—glass with long metal handles on either side, kerosene in the bottom. He remembered when railroad conductors had used them, swinging them back and forth on trains at night. He’d taken it instead of a propane one, fearing the hissing of the propane would alert the killer to his presence. Squirming around, he made himself as comfortable as he could on the stony ground. The air inside the cave was colder than he’d anticipated.
He checked his watch. It was almost eight. As quietly as he could, he got up and stretched, then resumed his watch. He could hear the goats moving around in the corral high above him, their hooves clattering softly, almost like rain.
* * *
The bats woke him. Flying around in a dense, black mass, they were so close Patronas could see their teeth, touch their bony wings. He ducked down and covered his head with hands, fearful one would get caught in his hair. A few minutes later they disappeared, exiting the cave all at once as if the wind had carried them off.
The bats returned a few hours later, swooping low and darting around him, their shadows huge against the light of the lantern. He had thought bats were silent creatures and was surprised by how much noise they made, chittering and chirping as they jockeyed for position. Gradually, they settled down and peace returned to the cave.
He dozed off again and slept until morning. When he awoke, he was stiff and sore. He got up and walked around, then unpacked his breakfast and began to eat.
As the air warmed, huge beetles began to emerge from under the amphorae, the ground alive with them. The bugs fell on the remnants of his meal like piranhas. Their thorny legs working, they tore at the chunks of bread, dismembering each other in their hunger. They terrified Patronas, and he stayed well away from them.
Later that day, he gathered fistfuls of gravel from the floor of the cave and laid them out on both sets of stairs. He didn’t want the killer taking him by surprise. If he dozed off again during the night, the crunching of the gravel would serve as an alarm and wake him up. He wished he’d thought to bring coffee.
That evening, the wind came up and found its way into the cave, whistling and crying in the darkness. Patronas wrapped himself up in the blankets and hunkered down in his hiding place. He wondered how long he’d have to stay here, how many more nights.
* * *
Patronas had been down in the cave forty-eight hours when he heard someone moving around in the courtyard overhead. At first he thought it was the wind, but then he heard the footsteps, so faint he had to strain to make them out. They continued for a few minutes. Whoever it was, was cautious, starting and stopping as they walked across the cobblestones, s
huffling almost imperceptibly as they made their way forward. Patronas turned off the lantern and moved it aside, not wanting to trip over it in the dark. He stayed absolutely still.
A few minutes later he heard a soft clang. Someone was shifting the metal panels of the well. The intruder then crawled into the hole and entered the cave. There was no crunch of gravel on the steps, which puzzled Patronas. He strained to hear, sensing movement in the room where he’d found Marina’s body. Whoever it was appeared familiar with the layout of the cave and whistled as they made their way toward the ruins. The whistling disturbed Patronas. Toneless and shrill, it didn’t sound human.
A few minutes later a shrouded figure entered the Minoan city. The cave was so dark it was hard to see, but Patronas could make out a shadowy form coming toward him, encased entirely in black—the same faintly gleaming material Patronas had caught sight of the night Evangelos Demos was attacked. Head, feet, hands, all were covered. The covering muted the shape of the body, the physique, and made it impossible to tell if this were a man or woman, human. The face also was obscured. Some kind of a mask, Patronas guessed. Large and greenish, it covered the upper half of the head and had square, opaque openings where he judged a person’s eyes would be. The figure was panting heavily, its breath rough in the stillness. Patronas fought to keep from panicking. He silently repeated what the priest had said: ‘There’s no demon stalking that hill. It’s a man you’re after.’
He could see a pinpoint of light playing across the leaden floor of the cave and for a moment was afraid the intruder had seen him. He held his breath.
The figure stopped and waited for a moment, then started again. Patronas could hear the sound of counting. Steps? he wondered. A kind of spell?
The counting continued for another minute or two, then the figure knelt down and removed something from its ankle and began to probe the ground with it … a knife. Patronas could hear the rasp of metal against the stone. Quickly unearthing two ivory statuettes, it raised first one then the other, inspecting them carefully with the tiny light before resuming digging. Patronas could see a nylon pouch like a spear fisherman’s wrapped around its waist and a second knife strapped to its forearm. Whoever this was must have found the statues earlier and reburied them, waiting for this night. The intruder continued to work, amassing a growing pile of treasure: a gold diadem of oak leaves and acorns, bracelets, rings. He played the flashlight over each item before moving on.