by Alex A King
I filed that one away in my memory banks. “I think my client wants me to be more active, so there’s no confusion.”
“What’s the reason for the breakup?”
When I told her she made a face. “That happened to me once. He shaved ten years off his age.”
“What did you do?”
She grinned, full and red. Probably her lipstick never smudged. “I go to Athens and give him a tsibouki every other month.”
I slapped my hands over Patra and Milos’s ears. “You didn’t break up with him?”
“There are worse things a person can lie about.” She winked at the gawking Milos, then stalked off into the night. All three of us watched her leave; we couldn’t help ourselves. Lydia was compelling.
“Is she a putana?” Milos wanted to know.
“No, she’s just young and pretty.”
Patra looked up at me. “What’s a putana?”
“Better than a politician, that’s what.” I steered them toward the door before the questions gained momentum.
There was a noise behind us. Leaves rustling. Then: “Is she gone?”
I looked around. The words were coming from the bushes. “Who?”
“Lydia, the goddess.”
I groaned as Jimmy Kontos emerged from the bushes. His beard had twigs. His skin was scratched. A dopey, love-struck look was stuck to his face.
“Were you hiding from her?”
“I didn’t want her to see me like this,” he said. Jimmy was in his Ugg boots and cutoff sweats.
“Like what? Short? Newsflash: she knows you’re a nanos.”
“Stupid giant.” He took off down the sidewalk, muttering.
At my side, Patra was wide-eyed. “Thea Allie, was that Rumpelstiltskin?”
“I heard that,” Jimmy called out.
“Yes,” I said, “and he’s going to spin kaka into more kaka.”
Toula’s children giggled.
“I heard that, too!”
Dumping Johnny would have to wait. These children needed their food and their mother, and not in that order. Toula showed up as I was scanning my kitchen cupboards, wondering if coffee and Merenda sandwiches were a valid food groups for people under the age of sixteen. She bundled up her drooping children, and we herded them back to her minivan, one of the few on the island. Then we stood on the road, jiggling to stay warm. Finally we had privacy, so I could ask her something.
“Leo said you went to see him.”
Her eyes cut from me to the street, and they stayed there. Decades of being her sister told me that Toula’s pants were about to self-combust. “It’s a small island. Eventually everyone talks to everyone.”
No way was I going to let her off that easily. Not my sister. “Oh, no, no. We’re not talking a casual meeting in the street. You went to see him at work.”
“Sometimes I hate this place.” She lowered her voice. “Okay, I went to see him. But don’t say anything to Kostas. Please?”
Kostas is her husband. My brother-in-law is directly responsible for half of his children’s DNA—probably the part that makes up names like Dog Fart. Together they own a business called Go Car Go, which—spoiler alert—fixes cars.
“What’s going on, Toula?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“Is it true you went on a date with Leo?”
Very stealthy, the way she changed the subject. It worked, darn it. “Half a date. No—not even half a date. I’m not sure anyone could even call it a date. I don’t. It was more of a comedy of errors.”
Her eyes lit up with curiosity. Her expression shifted into motherly and nurturing mode. “What happened?”
“No big deal. It just isn’t meant to be, that’s all.”
Silence—from her and from me. Then: “Are you going to tell me why you went to see Leo?”
“Thanks,” she said, swinging around to look at the minivan. “I mean it.”
Toula was keeping secrets. That made two of us.
“Any time.”
Toula hugged me and left me to my ghosts and my head full of questions.
My phone rang as I was settling down at my desk.
“Did you tell him yet?” Angela wanted to know. “Did he cry?”
“Not yet. I’m on my way.”
“Make it something awful. I want him to hurt the way he hurt me. And if he cries, take pictures so I can enjoy them.”
Yikes. I promised pain and tears, then got rid of her so I could hunt down Johnny Margas.
Kyrios Harry was listening in again. The ghost was a real snoop. “If you are looking for Johnny he will be on his yacht. He never sleeps anywhere except his own beds.”
“Why not?”
“Everyone in his family has died in a bed that was not theirs. He believes if he always sleeps in his own bed he can cheat death.”
Cum hoc ergo propter hoc. With this, therefore because of this. Also known as the “correlation proves causation” fallacy. Everyone died in a strange bed, therefore the strange bed was the cause of death. Greeks loves that one. It dovetails nicely with their penchant for superstitions.
“Is there anything else you can tell me about Johnny Margas?”
My email pinged. Incoming from Sam, at last. I scanned the email, then smiled. My gaze slid sideways, to where Kyria Eva was sitting primly on my couch with the stick firmly lodged between her bony cheeks. Was it my imagination or was she eavesdropping?
“Never mind,” I said. “I’ve got more than I need.”
Johnny Margas’s yacht was nice. Too bad it wasn’t his yacht.
“I like your boat,” I said.
Yiannis “Johnny” Margas didn’t flinch, twitch, or correct me. Instead, he scraped his gaze all over me, leaving my skin and clothes covered in a thin, invisible coat of oil. “Kalipsera,” he said, wishing me a good evening in what was supposed to be an inviting, seductive voice.
Didn’t work on me. Not a fan of reptiles. “Are you Kyrios Margas?”
Smirk. “You can call me Johnny. Do you have a name or should I just call you Beautiful?”
He much too old to be this greasy, in his silly nautical costume, with his ridiculous hat.
“Aliki Callas.” I didn’t waste time. “Angela Zouboulaki sent me to speak with you.”
His smile melted to half mast. His eyes darted right then left. This was a man recalculating his odds and realizing they weren’t about to favor him. “She cannot talk to me herself?”
“She doesn’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re a lying liar who lies. You told her you were forty-five.”
“Oh. That.” He shrugged. “Everybody lies.”
“Yes, but not usually about everything.”
Left and right, left and right. This guy really didn’t want to be overheard.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, I think you know. Should we talk about who owns this boat? I bet Angela doesn’t know.”
The remnants of his smile fell away. “Come aboard.” His tone had grit now. Less oil. “We can talk inside, where it is private.”
That wasn’t going to happen. My grandmother always gave advice—not always good advice, but definitely advice. Like, “If a man wants to spank you say yes, because afterwards he will give you money or dinner—both if you are lucky,” and, “Never wear clean underwear on a date because if you lose your underwear you will save yourself some laundry.” She also told me to never get on boats with rich strangers because rich men can afford to sail away and dump your body at sea.
“We don’t have to talk. I just need you to listen. Angela doesn’t want to see you because you lied to her. But,” I said, “your wife is in the hospital here, so you should probably visit her.”
His face paled. “Eva is here?”
“She was in an accident.” I gave him a quick rundown of the tragedy that befell Harry Vasilikos and the Royal Pain.
“And she is alive?”
“Thank the Virgin Mary!”
Was he happy she was alive or happy she was barely alive? Hard to say.
I pointed my finger at him. It had an accusatory tip. “Stay away from Angela.” Then I managed a dignified half spin and walked away.
“Or what?” he called out after me.
I turned around, shrugged. “Or nothing. I’m just the messenger.”
I was back at Angela’s again, putting a smile on her face. We were in her white living room, sitting on white furniture. Dressed in black, I felt like a stain.
“Tell me again,” Angela said. “Only this time do it with actions.”
Once more, with feeling and actions.
She bit her lacquered lip in its tasteful pink shade. “I was hoping for more pain and a lot of man-tears, but I suppose this will do.”
“I uncovered dirt and flung it in his face. That part was great.”
“The last one was married, too.”
“Divorced.”
“Same thing.”
Not even close. Last time she flipped out because the guy in question had been married once, years earlier, and hadn’t bothered to mention it. He had actually loved Angela, but then he was murdered and that cut the relationship short.
“What now?” I asked her.
“Now I have to find somebody else.”
I ventured out onto the thin ice. “Have you considered avoiding men for a while?”
Her eyebrows tried to rise but the Botox had her whole forehead in chains. “Words are coming out of your mouth but I do not understand what you are saying.”
“Maybe be single for a while. Relax. Work on yourself.” Yes, I’d take a pay hit but it would be worth it for Angela to get her life together.
“Work on myself … Are you saying I need more plastic surgery?”
My Virgin Mary. “No. I’m saying stay away from men until you can pick a decent one.”
Tears bubbled up in her eyes. “But they are all so awful.”
“No, they’re not. You’re a magnet for bad ones, so take your time and find a good one.”
“But that’s why I have you,” she said. “To figure out which ones are bad.”
Something else had slipped into second position, behind the Johnny Margas issue. Angela had lied to me about her boat trip to Skiathos. I wanted to know why, especially when six people died not long after pulling out of that same port and one was in Merope’s ICU.
When I mentioned her error, her gaze darted away and landed on the large painting of herself on the living room wall. The painting was the room’s only color source.
“Skiathos, Mykonos, same thing,” she said.
“Except they’re in completely different directions.”
“I had a thing.”
“What kind of thing.”
“A personal thing.”
“Was it more surgery?”
“No.”
“Drugs?”
“No!”
“Another man?”
“I would tell you if it was a man.”
She had a point. Angela always shared the sordid details of her affairs.
“I cannot tell you. It is too shameful. If it got out, they would run me off the island.”
“Who would?”
“Everyone.”
“Angela.”
Her gaze bounced back to me. “What?”
“Do I ever share your secrets with other people?”
“No. But they’ll know.”
“Is it worse than being a murder suspect? Because as soon as the police find out you own Wundebar Bread and hear you were on Skiathos yesterday, they’ll put you on the list. Probably at the top.”
She took a moment to think about it, head tilting left and right. “Okay, I will tell you. I went to Skiathos to meet with Harry.”
Well, well, well, I hadn’t anticipated that. “Harry Vasilikos? Why? Were you lovers?”
“Never!”
“Kyria Sofia said you and Kyrios Harry were friends.”
“Friends, no. He and my first husband did business sometimes, that is all. But he did have a sweet dog. Very obedient.”
My eye twitched. “So why the clandestine meeting?”
“I want to open a supermarket and I want to stock his bread.”
“You want to open a supermarket and stock Royal Pain bread?” I asked, incredulous. “Why?”
“Because I like it.” She rose, smoothed her slacks. “Come with me.”
I followed her through the light, spacious hallways with their pale art, until we reached a kitchen outfitted with brushed steel appliances and white marble counters. Everything was so clean that the five-second rule expanded to ten in this space. Angela opened one of several doors. A light came on inside a pantry bigger than my whole kitchen. One entire shelf was filled with bread—Royal Pain bread. I picked up a loaf to check the ingredients. Preservatives out the wazoo. This bread would stay fresh until the dinosaurs got a second shot at survival.
“Royal Pain is my favorite bread,” Angela explained. “I cannot get enough of it.”
“But Royal Pain your competitor.”
“I didn’t know that until today. I just like it.”
“So you get it brought over from the mainland?”
“Most of the time. Sometimes I get it when I am there. This I got from Harry himself.”
I froze. My throat dried up. “You got all this from Harry, yesterday?”
She shrugged. “Yes. I went to Skiathos to collect it because I did not want anyone here to see it being delivered when he arrived. You know how people on Merope are. Money or no money, that priest’s sister would skewer me socially.”
“Have you eaten any of it yet?”
“I still have an older loaf in the breadbox. Why?”
I grabbed my phone and called Leo. He answered on the second ring. When I told him to get his kolos over to Angela’s house right away because the murder weapon in the Vasilikos case was potentially in her house, he sighed.
“I can pick it up but I can’t do anything with it,” he said.
The bottom fell out of my stomach. “Why not?”
“Because it’s not my case anymore.”
Chapter Nine
“Say it again for the slow person in the room,” I said. “That’s me.”
“Harry Vasilikos and his passengers were dead several hours before they crashed. That means it’s not our jurisdiction. Skiathos is part of the Thessaly region. Their police will be investigating now. Merope is the North Aegean region.”
“So you’re just giving up?”
“It’s not our jurisdiction.”
“So you’re giving up.” This time it wasn’t a question.
He sighed. Looked to me like I wasn’t the only frustrated one around here. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
A few turned out to be ten. While we were waiting, Angela’s butler and I loaded up and carried the loaves to the foyer. Her butler is a British import because Greek butlers don’t buttle authentically enough, I guess. Alfred is tall, thin, and if he has a sense of humor he keeps it in his back pocket next to a hip flask. Dealing with Angela twenty-four hours a day isn’t for the sober or the sane.
Angela cast a mournful look at her lost carbs. “Why would anyone poison all this beautiful bread?”
“That’s for the police to find out. Not our police, unfortunately, but police.”
She air-kissed my cheeks. “You saved my life. If I had eaten that bread I would be dead.” She thought about that a moment. “But then every man who had ever wronged me would be sorry, and maybe they would have cried at my funeral.”
“Angela?”
“What?”
“Open that supermarket and take a break from men.”
Leo filled his trunk with bread.
“Did ghosts tell you the bread was poisoned, or was it your superior research skills?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
<
br /> I passed him another armful of loaves. “I’m amazing at research.”
“Are you going to tell me why you vanished on our date?”
“No.”
One of these days maybe I would, when I had backup and pictures of the dead women. I needed to sit down and peruse missing persons’ records, victims of solved and unsolved murders, until I had names to go with the faces. Right now I didn’t have the stomach for all that death. At the moment I was consumed by the Vasilikos case. Leo could give up—had to give up—but I couldn’t. Harry Vasilikos had something I wanted so badly I could taste it. There was a time when Andreas was my world. Then … he was gone. Before Andreas left, I’d never been abandoned. Like any heart of a certain age, mine already had cracks before we fell in love, but when he left my heart shattered.
I needed to know where he was now.
If he was okay.
If any part of him still loved me.
If he was sorry.
“Do you want to try again? Lunch. Drinks. Coffee at Merope’s Best. I know—what about a movie at my place? We could order dinner from Crusty Dimitri’s. We could get food poisoning together.”
Our heads turned simultaneously. We looked down at the bread.
“Bad joke,” he said.
I tossed him the last three loaves, ticking them off like fingers. “It’s a good joke. The timing was bad, that’s all. And I don’t want to try again.”
“Is it because of Toula?”
The last loaf was in his trunk.
“No. It’s because of me.”
The day caught up to me. When it did, it slapped me until I was sleepy. All the way home I yawned. When I got there, Dead Cat was at the door, waiting. He wasn’t always around but come nighttime he appeared and kept me company. When I wasn’t in bed, he was on the couch, watching and waiting for me to leave my desk. Sometimes, like the other afternoon on the cliff, he showed up while I was working.
Of course, lately he wasn’t my only ghost. Harry and his womenfolk were there, waiting. The women wanted me to change the channel, and Harry wanted to know when I was going to solve his murder.
“You gave Angela Zouboulaki bread,” I said, shrugging off my coat. It went on the coatrack next to the door.
He shrugged. “Is that a crime? She loves my bread.”