Devil of Delphi: A Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Mystery

by Jeffrey Siger

  “That’s what the brother told the local police. He said he saw the whole thing from beginning to end. A brutal, horrific experience.”

  “Are those his words or yours?”

  “His, according to the police. He said he was sitting at a table at the far end of the room facing the door and having coffee with customers. His sister, who liked helping out as a waitress, was taking an order from a table next to the front door when the killer opened the door, took two steps inside to where she stood, shot her in the forehead, and left.”

  “Sounds like a professional.”

  “Precisely my thinking. The brother said it was like watching a movie, and in the few stunned seconds it took for him to comprehend he’d just seen his sister murdered, the killer had escaped on a motorbike parked with its motor running just outside the cafenion’s front door.”

  “That’s definitely a story I’d call ‘horrific,’” said Andreas. And phony too, he wanted to add, but decided it best not to let Spiros know just yet what had actually happened. Spiros might be trying to change his ways, but Andreas doubted whether he’d quite reached the point of overcoming his sycophantic dependency on the press. His boss had mastered the art of justifying to himself how passing along juicy bits of inside information endearing him to the media actually benefited rather than impeded a pending investigation.

  For the time being Andreas wanted Tank thinking the police had no reason to disbelieve his story, giving him all the rope he needed to hang himself and snare those behind his sister’s murder in the process. With that in mind, Andreas decided to keep his questions for Spiros to the expected routine.

  “How did the brother know the killer was foreign?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “From the story you told me no one ever heard the killer speak.”

  “Good point. Maybe there was a verbal exchange. That’s why I need you. To catch things everyone else misses.”

  “Nice try, but flattery’s not going to work.”

  “I don’t think you understand, Andreas. I need you on this case now.”

  “Your voice is rising, Spiros. Do something before you lose your zen state.”

  Andreas heard forced breathing on the other end of the phone.

  “This isn’t funny. I’m trying. It’s difficult.” More pronounced breathing. “But if you can’t get up to Thessaloniki today, send Kouros. I need your best man on this one right away.”

  Now Andreas paused to draw a breath. “Yianni is in the midst of a delicate, long-term investigation that requires his presence in Athens at the moment, but don’t worry, I’ve the perfect guy for this.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Spiros…”

  “Fine. Do what you think is best, but do it now. I really, really, really need your help on this one. And quick results. Thank you. Bye.”

  Spiros hung up before Andreas could say good-bye. Still holding the phone he yelled, “Maggie, come in, please.”

  She opened the door as Andreas hung up the phone.

  “From the look on your face it must have been a pretty shocking call.”

  “I think amazed better describes my state of mind at the moment.” Andreas shook his head. “Spiros actually kept his cool and behaved like a sane human being under pressures that usually send him bouncing off the walls.”

  “Maybe he’s on medication?”

  “God bless the pharmaceutical gods if he is. All I can say is that he literally did not seem himself.”

  “Hmm. That is strange. Want me to see what I can find out?”

  “In your, quiet, old girl network way, please.”

  “I’ll have lunch with his secretary today and let you know what she tells me.”

  Andreas cocked his head and looked at her. “Dare I ask what you’ll be telling her in return?”

  “Oh, nothing really important. Just about how your office is filled with booze and men wanting to sleep on your couch.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Don’t worry about it, she won’t be surprised.”

  “How come?”

  Maggie turned and walked toward the door. “You were once police chief on Mykonos. Need I say more?”

  ***

  “It’s late, Yianni,” said Andreas peeking his head into Kouros’ office. “How’s it going?”

  Kouros sat behind his desk, staring at a computer screen. “If you ever forget how many bad guys are out there, I have something to remind you.” He pointed at the screen. “I’ve spent two hours looking at faces without so much as an inkling of recognition. I know I’ve seen the shooter before, but I just can’t get a fix on him.”

  “Maybe you should try working with a police artist?”

  Kouros reached for an envelope on his desk and handed it to Andreas. “Already did, first thing after I got back. I figured it might help me set my mind on what I’m looking for.”

  Andreas pulled out a digitally rendered composite of a man in his mid-twenties with jet black short hair, a close-trimmed beard, and dark eyes. Andreas stared at the face. “I see what you mean. I think I’ve seen him too.”

  “Maybe we think we know him because he looks like some celebrity, a soccer player or television actor?”

  “Could be,” said Andreas. “And practically every Greek boy who can grow a beard these days has one. Makes them all look alike.”

  He put the composite back on Kouros’ desk. “Pass this around and see if anyone can come up with a possible name to go with the face. But only show it to cops you trust not to talk about it. If this guy’s off the radar and as deadly as he seems, we don’t want to show it to snitches yet. Too risky. All we need is for one of them to decide it’s safer to warn our killer we’re on to him than to cooperate with us, and he’ll vanish.”

  Kouros nodded. “I’ll start on that after I finish this. I should be done in a couple more hours.”

  “You sound like you don’t think you’ll make a match.”

  Kouros shook his head, eyes already fixed back on the screen. “I doubt it. I’ve gone through the photos of everyone vaguely resembling his description up to age thirty-five, and back to the youngest on record at thirteen. No luck.”

  “Maybe you’re right, and he just looks like someone we know from the media.” Andreas bit at his lip. “But hard to imagine a killer as cool as this one with no arrest record.”

  “He spoke Greek like a native Athenian, but perhaps he never got arrested here?”

  Andreas shrugged. “Could be. Though most guys aren’t that good. Let’s send the picture on to Europol and see what they come up with.”

  “With luck, something before his beard turns white.”

  “That’s it. I recognize him.”

  Kouros jerked his head around to look at Andreas. “You do?”

  “Yes,” said Andreas. “Santa Claus.”

  Kouros refocused his eyes on the screen. “I bet in your diet-induced state of diminished capacity you actually thought that was funny. I have a suggestion. When you get home, hug your four-year-old, get down on your knees before him, and beg him to write you better punch lines.”

  ***

  When Andreas got home he found Lila sitting on a couch in the living room reading.

  “You’re home early,” she said.

  “I missed you.”

  “Nice try. What’s up?”

  “Where’s Tassaki?”

  “My father and mother took him to dinner.”

  “To plot against their common enemy, no doubt.”

  “If you haven’t noticed, our son needs no assistance from my parents on ways to combat us.”

  He dropped onto the couch beside her. “I wasn’t suggesting he was the one who needed the help.” He kissed her on the cheek and looked out the window at the Acropolis.

  Lila closed he
r book and stared at his face as he bit at his lower lip.

  “What’s wrong, Andreas?”

  He spoke without looking at her. “Maggie had lunch today with Spiros’ secretary. He’d acted strangely when we spoke this morning and so I asked Maggie to find out if something’s wrong.”

  “I assume there is.” She reached for his hand.

  He took it. “Yes.” He paused. “He’s ill.”

  “Oh God, I pray it’s not serious.”

  “I’m afraid it is. The bastard’s made my life miserable in virtually every imaginable way, and yet I can’t help but feel sorry for him.”

  “I should hope that’s how you’d feel. Otherwise you wouldn’t be the man I married. Besides, as you’ve often said, he’s not a bad or corrupt person, just weak.”

  “Uh, let’s not get carried away here. He has a lot of other traits I’m not too fond of, but I agree this is horrible.”

  “I must call his wife.”

  Andreas turned his head toward her. “No, don’t do that.”

  “Why not? She needs support as much as he does at a time like this.”

  “But she doesn’t know.”

  “Doesn’t know?”

  Andreas nodded. “As hard as it is to believe, he hasn’t told her. His secretary only knows about it because he needed her to cover for him when he went for treatments.”

  “This is all too bizarre.”

  “What can I say? Apparently he’s afraid his wife will leave him if she knows he’s sick.”

  “How could he possibly think that? He must be deranged.”

  “A man unexpectedly confronting his mortality can turn paranoid. His wife is the one with the family money that got him his position in the first place. He probably sees his whole world falling apart, and imagines things only getting worse in every possible way.”

  “But how could he think his wife wouldn’t notice he’s ill?”

  Andreas shrugged. “I wondered the same thing. But who knows what sort of relationship they have?”

  “For him to even think she wouldn’t notice says it all about that relationship. Can you even imagine how he must feel going through what he is alone, fearing all the while what else might happen should his wife find out?”

  Andreas squeezed Lila’s hand. “I’m one lucky guy.”

  “Damn straight. And don’t you forget it.” Lila leaned over and kissed him on the lips. “What is the illness?”

  “His secretary said she didn’t know.”

  “He didn’t tell even her?”

  “Maggie sensed she didn’t want to say any more about it, even if she knew.”

  “Understandable. She probably felt bad enough for betraying her boss’ confidence.”

  Andreas smiled. “You’re pretty smart. That’s precisely what she told Maggie. She also said the only reason she was telling Maggie was so that Maggie would tell me.”

  “Tell you?”

  “Yes. And get this. Because ‘Andreas is the only friend Spiros has.’ The son of a bitch actually thinks of me as his friend.”

  “To his way of thinking, you probably are. My guess is you’re the only one he can trust to tell him the truth. Everyone else around him likely has his own agenda.”

  “Considering what I’m keeping from him at the moment, that just goes to show you how poor a judge of character he is.”

  Lila shook her head. “You’re not convincing me, Kaldis. I know you better than that. You’ll be the one guy in his corner through whatever he’s going through.”

  “But I still won’t trust him.”

  “I doubt he’d expect you to. What he needs is to be able to trust you.”

  “Okay, I get it.”

  “Fine. And by the way….”

  “Yes?”

  “Just so I’m certain you’re not hiding anything from me—”

  “What sorts of things?”

  Lila stood up and pointed toward their bedroom. “Get in there and strip. I want to make an up close and personal inspection of my biggest investment.”

  “Ah, now I know what you’re looking for.” He stood, taking her hand as he did.

  “And what, pray tell is that?”

  Gently pulling her in the direction of the bedroom, he whispered. “Hard assets.”

  She patted his butt. “Welcome to my portfolio.”

  ***

  Spiros sat in the dark on the edge of his bed staring out the window toward the heart of the city. Athens was lovely now. He wished he had more time to enjoy it. His wife certainly knew how to do that.

  No reason to plow those thoughts again.

  They’d each made their own beds and now they were lying in them. Alone. At least not with each other. She had her parties and he had his career. When they’d met in university, she was searching for a husband who’d advance her pretensions to social prominence and he for someone to buy him a career. They settled on each other, and used her family’s money to achieve both. Now, it was all about maintaining appearances.

  He reached over to open the bottom drawer of the nightstand and pulled out the bottles of pills. He shook one from each into the palm of his left hand and stared at them.

  “Whatever dreams I have left for my life depend on you.”

  There were no children to hug, no family left to talk to, just the pills. He put them in his mouth and swallowed. Gagging, he reached for a bottle of water on the nightstand and drank until the gagging passed.

  He put the bottles back and sat staring at them sitting in the open drawer.

  Why am I so afraid to talk to her? He already knew the answer. His wife’s life followed an immutable plan, known only to her, with no allowances for the slightest sidetrack or delay. He wondered if she’d had an unscripted moment their entire life together.

  He sighed, stood, and walked to the window. He studied his hands in the moonlight passing through the curtains. No one else was in the house, just him and his thoughts. He felt very much alone, that he’d gotten old, and more foolish. He worried about his image, how he’d be remembered. But by whom? He could not think of one soul out there who cared a damn about whether he lived or died.

  Spiros shook his head. There must be more to life than this. “There has to be!” He shouted the last few words so loudly they’d echoed back at him.

  “Ah, a voice I can understand. Perhaps I should listen to you more often.” He rubbed his forehead with his right hand, reached out with that same hand, and pulled back the curtain.

  The other voice he heard in this house only spoke the truth to distract or assuage him, and never without motive. He wondered whether his wife’s depressions were a distraction too? Or were they real? She seemed so lost, so unfocused at those times. And he would concede whatever issue troubled her so, no matter how trivial to her but meaningful to him. What choice did he have? After all, life was all about her and no one else.

  He let the curtain drop back into place. “I want to share my problem with you. I must share my problem with you. You are my wife.”

  There was the sound of a door opening somewhere in the house. Spiros hurried back to bed. He did not want to talk anymore.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Andreas looked at the calendar on his desk. Kouros had finished going through mug shots and came up empty. He’d had no better luck spending another two days showing the artist’s sketch of the killer to every cop he’d thought might recognize him.

  On top of that, even magical Maggie couldn’t manage to hook Andreas up with his old friend who’d once headed the ministry’s organized crime division.

  As Andreas saw it, nothing was going right, but Maggie kept telling him to trust in the stars.

  “Everything will improve as soon as Mercury comes out of retrograde.”

  Andreas was considering the implications of astrology
as an aid to police work when his mobile rang.

  “Hi, Chief, it’s Petro.”

  “Still in Thessaloniki?”

  “Yep, into my third day watching the carryings-on of Tank and his merry men.”

  “Any better luck than with the first two?”

  “Wish I could say yes, but Tank’s spending all his time playing grieving brother. He’s working every opportunity to put the image of his slaughtered sister in front of the media and demand that the government clamp down on what he calls a foreign terrorist element trying to muscle in on legitimate Greek businessmen.”

  “I know. I’m getting calls from virtually every member of the three-hundred.”

  “The what? I assume you’re not talking about the Spartans of Thermopylae.”

  “No, those three hundred we could use. I’m talking about the three hundred members of our illustrious Parliament.”

  “We could use less of those.”

  “A lot less. Can’t you at least come up with something exciting to tell me to justify your three days on the road at taxpayer expense?”

  “I’ve trailed Tank’s crew to a long list of places buying bootleg. Amazing how many bars, clubs, liquor stores, restaurants, and hotels are into counterfeit.”

  “That’s the best you can do? They’ll all swear they didn’t know it was counterfeit.”

  “Chief, you asked me to come up with something exciting. Whether or not it’ll get someone put away is a different story. Besides, that’s just the intro to my report. I spotted some trucks unloading what looked to be booze at the same warehouse Tank’s crew uses for making deliveries. I traced one load back to a ship out of Northern Cyprus, another took me up to the border with Bulgaria. He kept going, I didn’t.”

  “A wise decision.”

  “A third truck took me straight to a place making the stuff. It’s in the boondocks of Salonika and looks like a small-time operation.”

  “With our legitimate economy cratered everywhere but in tourism, I’m surprised more Greeks aren’t into manufacturing bomba,” said Andreas. “I’m also willing to bet, if we don’t put a stop to whatever Tank’s got working, that operation and a lot of others won’t be small-time for long.”

  “Wish I could say I’m any closer to getting a line on whoever’s behind Tank, but I’m not.”