The Church Murders: A stand-alone thriller (Greek Island Mysteries Book 2)

by Luke Christodoulou

  ‘Lieutenant Ioli Cara, and this is Captain Papacosta. We are here concerning the death of your neighbor, Katerina Spanou. Did you hear or see anything suspicious yesterday?’

  ‘Err, nope. Nothing. I work nights, at Franco’s bar and I sleep till evening after I get home.’

  ‘Did you hear a loud noise like a gunshot while you slept?’

  ‘Nah...’ she scratched the shaved side of her head. ‘I sleep with my headphones on. Can’t sleep in quiet.’

  ‘You live alone?’

  ‘Yeah, this was my granny’s house. She left it to me, so I thought, fuck it. I left Larissa and moved here. Found a job...’

  ‘What ways are there to your roof?’ I asked.

  ‘Just the one. From the ladder at the back of the house.’

  ‘Mind if we take a look?’

  ‘No, freaking way! You think the bitch got shot from my roof? Wow, of course you can have a look.’

  ‘Bitch, hey?’ Ioli looked at her.

  ‘Not that I had anything to do with the lady. She did not like me much. She was always looking at me funny.’

  ‘What about her husband?’

  ‘Mario? He was OK, handsome for his age. But I don’t like ladies men. I might be a bar-woman, but I’m not a player.’

  ‘And Mario was?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, wife at home and there he is with that Stella woman from the grocery store.’

  ‘And what grocery store is this?’

  ‘At Karouanos.’

  We walked round the side of the house and took a look at the old, rusty ladder that moved like a cobra to the top of the house. The yard’s fence was ruined along most parts. Anyone could have just walked in and gone up the ladder.

  ‘Ioli, go tell Constable Christina and Hercule to go round the neighborhood asking if anyone saw or heard anything. Find out where Karaounos is and meet me at our car. Let’s go visit this Stella.’

  ‘How about port checks and planes?’

  ‘I don’t think planes fly here during the winter. International, that is. Maybe a weekly flight to Athens. Check it. We could send a message to the ports, for them to be alert and check people’s IDs and reason for traveling, but no way the chief would agree on a lockdown.’

  She nodded in agreement and walked off. My eyes made sure Ioli had turned out of sight.

  ‘Can I have a cigarette?’

  ‘Sure, police man dude. She your lady or something?’ the girl asked, taking out her abused pack of cancer sticks. ‘Here,’ she said, placing the cigarette between my lips with her right hand and lighting it with the left. She lit one for herself, too.

  ‘I’m trying to quit,’ I informed her for no apparent reason, enjoying the feeling of smoke traveling down my throat.

  ‘How’s that working out for you?’ she mocked me. Her giggle followed me up the ladder to the roof. No evidence to be found.

  Chapter 19

  Karouanos supermarket was a large, sprayed-white building with big red neon lights. On every window, the sign BUILDING FOR SALE OR RENT, gave off the desperation of the owners who were hit hard by the economic crisis that plagued Greece. Inside, the shelves were half full – or half empty, depending on how you view the metaphorical glass.

  Two girls, dressed in black trousers and red shirts, worked the checkout counters. An obese man, in his fifties, was complaining for not finding his favorite brand of cereal.

  ‘I don’t drive and I’m not going to take the bus all the way to Carrefour,’ he muttered on his way out.

  ‘What’s his problem, Stella?’ The question came from a head that popped out from behind the shelves of the food aisle.

  ‘Nothing, Mister Karouano. Just Mr. Gianni being Mr. Gianni!’

  ‘Stella?’

  She turned and stared at me. She studied me for a quick second and asked how she might help me.

  ‘I am Captain Papacosta and this is Lieutenant Cara,’ I pointed to Ioli, standing by the entrance, reading the shop’s leaflet with the weekly offers.

  ‘Yes?’ she drawled the question, accompanying it with wide eyes.

  ‘We are here regarding the death of Kate Spanou. If we could have a moment of your time, if you are not busy,’ I said and looked around at the deserted store.

  ‘Don’t know how I can help you, but...’ she lifted her hands up and shouted out to her boss that she would be going outside for a cigarette break. She got up and walked out, throwing looks at her co-worker who had already started texting friends that Stella had been taken away by the police. Nothing like good gossip to start the day in a small society.

  We followed her fake purple nails and comfortable, black, flat shoes to the side of the building. It had shade and was out of sight. The red bricked wall reminded me of my high school in Astoria. Against such walls, bullies like Franklin Carter and his gang tortured skinny, nerdy, foreign little me on a daily basis. Until I punched him hard in the face and broke his nose, that is. Sent home, suspended for a week, yelled at by my mother, smacked by my father and frowned upon by my teacher, Miss Jenny. But it was worth it. I had earned myself the tag of being a hard-ass. A name I maintained all the way up to police academy.

  Stella pulled her deep copper hair into a high ponytail and with trembling fingers, the thirty year old brought a cigarette to her lips. She offered us one, receiving a stern no from Ioli and a fake one from me.

  ‘So, what have you heard?’ The question came out with alluring smoke.

  ‘What was the nature of your relationship with Mario Spanou, Mrs...?’ Ioli asked.

  More trembling. More smoke.

  ‘Listen, I am a married woman and you know how islands are. I... I...’

  ‘That is why it is best for you to answer our questions here than down at the station. You can just say, we are checking up on everyone who knew them. We already have a team, going door to door. Whatever you say will be in confidence.’

  ‘It’s Mrs. Georgiou by the way, but call me Stella,’ she forced a flat line smile. ‘Mario and I were close. Intimate, if you know what I mean.’

  I nodded my head to show that I did. Ioli smiled and gently touched Stella’s shoulder. A woman on the verge of breaking down in tears. For the moment, we were both playing good cop.

  ‘It just happened. We were both unhappy in our marriages, not that that’s an excuse. He shopped here and was so kind and handsome. He made me feel special. And now, he’s gone. I never knew Kate well. I had nothing against her. I feel bad that someone shot her, but I don’t see why you are here.’

  ‘We have to explore all leads...’ I started to say.

  ‘You think I shot her?’

  ‘No one is saying that...’

  ‘Since Mario died, I have only been here and at home. Anyway, why would I want her dead? Mario is dead, what would I have to gain from her death? And those poor little angels, left orphans!’ She fell into Ioli’s arms and wept. She had been brave enough to hold her tears for a lost lover, but now, overwhelmed with buried emotions surfacing fast and away from non-understanding eyes, especially her cheated-on husband’s, she collapsed. Ioli had no sympathy for the adulteress. Always a firm believer that if you are unhappy, you leave and move on. She gradually pushed the woman away, holding her by the shoulders. She looked straight into Stella’s watery, red eyes.

  ‘Maybe you blamed her for Mario. He did die during sex. She fucked him to death,’ Ioli said, hoping anger would provide answers.

  ‘Don’t say that! He did not sleep with her anymore!’

  ‘Not only with her, but we heard he was quite the ladies-man.’

  ‘Shut it! You know shit! Mario loved me! And yes, if she killed him, I would have killed the bitch, but he died of a heart attack. My Mario had a weak heart! Now, if I am not under arrest, I have to get back to work. Haven’t got all day, to stand around and listen to your rude mouth!’

  ‘You’re free to go,’ I said and watched the woman storm off, while bringing to life one more cigarette.

  ‘That went well,�
�� Ioli smiled.

  ‘You do have your way with women! Anyway, I doubt she did it.’

  ‘What if Kate did kill her husband? Or what if someone killed them both? I think we need to dig up dear Mario and get that dinosaur doctor and his help to perform an autopsy. If his wife or anyone killed him, it will be poison. A scorned woman’s favorite murder weapon.’

  ‘Especially, knowing he had a weak ticker.’

  Chapter 20

  Days later, the autopsy results confirmed that poison brought Mario down. Large amounts of antifreeze were found in his blood stream. Kate had managed to feed it to him. A housewife can learn a lot from internet articles and YouTube videos.

  Not that it mattered anyway, in terms of solving the case, that is. The very next day, after our talk with Stella at the supermarket, we had two more dead bodies on our hands.

  After leaving the closing-down supermarket, we visited the one-foot-in-the-grave medical examiner and asked for an autopsy. I had already contacted our people in Athens to get the paperwork going and sent Constable Christina Dionysiou to Mario’s mother. The widow, dressed in black, signed the exhumation papers.

  ‘Never trusted that bitch,’ she hissed; her face shrivelled up by a cocktail of pain and hate. For a dead Greek, Kate Spanou got cursed a lot after life. No sugar-coated tales that normally come after death.

  Our next meeting brought tears that never fell, to our eyes. We parked the patrol car, provided by the local police department, outside of Kate’s mother’s house. A well-preserved, one floor bungalow, built in the sixties. The wooden fence was freshly painted and the pathway from the gate to the front door had been renovated with shiny looking, beige bricks. Rose bushes welcomed us, with that wild, winter scent of theirs. The aluminium door flew open before we reached the two steps at the end of the beige brick road.

  A petite woman in her late sixties, dressed from head to toe in pitch black clothing, with silver hair falling around her elfin face, waited for us to approach.

  ‘Good evening, ma’am. I am Captain Papacosta and this is Lieutenant Ioli Cara. We are here...’

  ‘What’s good about it?’

  ‘Our sincere condolences for your loss...’ Ioli started to say.

  ‘Come in. Come in.’ She waved her wrinkly hands with difficulty, inviting us in.

  The living room spread before us a ghost of its once spotless glory. A cloak of house dust covered the cherry wooden furniture and the countless photo frames. Small or large, silver or plastic. All dusty. Opposite the frames, a TV tuned to a cartoon network and two girls sitting in silence on the terracotta sofa. Kate’s mother sat between them and switched off the TV. Neither girl retaliated. She gestured for us to sit on the two armchairs opposite her, next to the TV set.

  ‘Hello girls,’ Ioli said with a sincere smile. Neither replied. The youngest, aged five stared at us, a spitting image of her mother, while the oldest, aged seven, was a mixture of both her parents. The oldest, had huge eyes and with the sadness surrounding her, she reminded me of a Keane painting.

  ‘Girls, go up to your room and play... Quietly.’

  Both stood up and like robots executed their grandmother’s request. Two tragic, orphan figures made their way up the stairs. A door closing creaked from the floor above.

  ‘Can I offer you anything to drink?’ Greek hospitality prevailed under any circumstances.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Moutsina. We are fine. We just need to ask you a few questions, if you are up for it.’

  ‘Better now, than after. My daughter is never coming back and I have to be strong for those two little girls.’

  We went through the typical set of questions, noting down whereabouts, close friends and words spoken.

  ‘Thank you for all your help, Mrs Moutsina,’ Ioli said and we both stood up, closing our notepads.

  She looked up at us, unsatisfied with the end of the interview.

  ‘Have you looked into Mario’s girlfriends?’ She took one look at our faces. ‘What? You thought I did not know? Everyone knew.’

  ‘Did your daughter know?’ Ioli asked.

  ‘Of course she did! She just chose not to pay attention. She saw only the good in him. Had a real Cinderella complex with him, she used to joke. Never marry a man that handsome. Not even if you’re a top model. I told her, a man is only as faithful as his options. I saw the danger, in a union of Mario with my Katerina, but she was too foolish to see. I mean, even water knows to jump off the griddle when it’s hot. But Kate stayed and now she’s gone.’ Her throat closed and she said no more. She looked up to an icon of the Holy Mary, high above the fireplace, and tears ran down the deep trenches of her wan face.

  I pulled some inner courage together and managed to form the question.

  ‘Knowing your daughter, do you believe she would be capable of hurting Mario?’

  ‘Never! She loved him too much,’ she answered without turning.

  We left her in her pain. A pain well-wishers say goes away with time, but that is just a lie. A lie we tell because we don’t know what else to say. My daughter was murdered, 8 years old. Four years have passed since then and the pain is still there, still real. A hole in my very existence, my soul in grief. I am a broken man without fear of dying. A man avoiding any kind of human attachment. No, pain does not go away.

  We drove in silence. Santorini’s capital, Thira was the cleanest town I had ever seen. Good, clean roads, trees and bushes trimmed and planted according to plan, houses and shops freshly painted and the few people that were brave enough to face the evening’s cold breath, had a friendly, Greek island smile decorating their faces. Every now and then, a gap between houses, offered the most spectacular view. The sea, painted orange as the winter sun approached, calmly met the sky above.

  Santorini offers the best sunset on the planet.

  Ioli said that all you have to do is google ‘Santorini Sunset’ and fall in love.

  Wild winds howled outside, warning people to stay inside. Freezing air roamed the narrow roads and hurried our pace into the local police station. The two constables had returned from going door to door and had prepared four steaming hot chocolates, each with two floating marshmallows.

  We found out many things in the next half an hour.

  Constable Christina made one hell of an amazing hot choco.

  Constable Hercule had a real name. Costas Loukaki. His grandfather was from Crete. That alone earned a ten minute conversation between Hercule and Ioli. Places, names, stories were all fished out of memory and laid on the table.

  Nefeles Suites was the name of the hotel we were going to stay in.

  ‘I know it sounds fancy and all, but it is a three star. And for a three star it offers the best rooms and views on the island,’ Christina said. The rule was not to stay in four or five star hotels. Three was appropriate.

  We also found out that snow could fall on even such a tropical island. Pure white flakes flew outside, swirling around careless and free. Small Greek flakes though, not enough to pile up, not like snow in Astoria, New York, where little Costa made his first snowman and caught a cold making his first snow angel. Yes, not that kind of snow, for sure.

  Unfortunately, we found out that by reading through reports formed by the door to door day trip, you learn a lot of pointless gossip, write down quite a few times I saw nothing, I wasn’t home, I can’t help you and you wonder how a gunshot went unnoticed on a Monday morning.

  Costa Loukaki A.K.A. Hercule, programmed our patrol car’s GPS and proudly announced that we would find our hotel without problems.

  ‘Only problem is there’s no parking. It is on the edge of the cliff, like most of our hotels. You park three minutes away,’ Christina popped his bubble.

  Ioli made her well-what-to-do gesture and I assured them that we would be fine. Fine was not how things went down. Slipping down and landing hard on my ass was not fine. Ioli stepping in a deep, frozen, blood-stopping puddle was not fine. By the time we reached the hotel, we looked like something th
at even the cat would not drag in.

  ‘Welcome to Nefeles,’ the kind brunette said with a warm, inviting smile and eyes full of kindness. A rare sight in Athens. The norm on the islands.

  We introduced ourselves and with cold water invading through our clothes we followed the cheerful receptionist into areas with strong central heating. The place had a homey feeling to it with wooden furniture and paintings in earthy tones. Large vases hosted long fake flowers and tall bamboo sticks, while a narrow river of pool water ran beside us. I gazed around, happy by the choice of hotel, while Ioli looked worried about our dirty shoe marks that decorated the once clean and polished floor tiles.

  The chatty receptionist spoke all the way to our room’s doors.

  ‘Your rooms are cozy, open plan style bedrooms with sitting areas and of course panoramic views of the volcano! The bathroom is marble lined with an amazing bathtub. You have a private balcony with stunning views. The heating is on. Anything you need for tea or coffee is available, and we have satellite TV. Not just central European crap, we have movie channels, sports channels, you name it. Discovery channel, animal planet. You won’t believe the things I have learnt from flicking through them. Not so busy here in the winter! Anyway, anything else you may need just dial 0 on the phone and I will be at your service. Here are your keys. 201 for the gentleman and 202 for the lady. Enjoy your stay!’ And off she went, wishing good evening to a senior couple, probably on their fourth honeymoon following their wedding vow renewal after fifty years of the ball and chain.

  ‘Thank God, she’s gone. If she named one more damn channel, my headache was ready to swing into full migraine,’ Ioli said, holding the upper part of her nose and squinting her eyes.

  ‘And that face helps?’

  ‘With all due respect, screw you, Captain,’ she laughed out loud. ‘OK, go shower, change and I’ll come over with our food options.’