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

by Luke Christodoulou

  ‘We found this in her bathrobe pocket,’ a freckled sergeant said, passing her the suicide note.

  ‘I came naked from my mother’s womb and I shall have nothing when I die. The Lord gave me everything I had, and they were His to take away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’

  Underneath she had written three names. Jacob, Job, King David.

  Island of Kythira

  The doctor in Kythira ruled out foul play and based on the scene, I agreed. The priest shined more light.

  ‘Samson sacrificed himself to save others. The priest said it is the only suicide in the Bible looked upon favorably. For some reason, Rita Simonide felt like she had to die and was trying to justify her decision,’ I said to Ioli over the phone.

  ‘Mine quoted the Bible, too, from the book of Job. I googled the three names she wrote underneath and I found that all three mentioned, had what we would describe today as depression. Costa, if all seven left a religious suicide note...’

  ‘That’s our connection.’

  ‘Another priest brainwashing easy victims?’

  ‘Maybe. Though is there one that travels the islands? Each has their own congregation.’

  ‘Mine wasn’t from Corfu. She only taught here.’

  ‘Mine wasn’t from here either. I’m going to call Polina back at HQ to see if she has finished with the background checks. Hopefully, she will have their permanent residence.’

  ‘Be careful with your sweet talk around that one, now Tracy is back.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You men are so oblivious. Polina has a crush on you.’

  ‘Ridiculous. I could be her father.’

  ‘Whose your daddy is quite a common phrase here in Greece and that is all I’m saying. Anyway, I’m off to Paxos. Just thirty minutes away.’

  ‘It will take me a couple of hours to Zakynthos. I’ll call you when I’m done.’

  I dialled Polina’s number.

  ‘Yes, Captain?’

  ‘Demetriou are you done with the background checks of...’

  ‘Just finished a case of Captain Germanos and I will be right on...’

  ‘I want it now,’ I raised my voice.

  ‘On it right away, Captain,’ her voice lost its sweet tone.

  ‘And Demetriou, call my house number in a couple of hours and inform my wife that I will not be returning tonight. I will be too busy to call and I don’t want her to worry.’

  ‘Wife, sir?’ she asked puzzled.

  ‘Yes, wife. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I was under the impression you were divorced. My mistake.’

  ‘Yes, your mistake. Now, get busy with the checks. I want to know if all victims were visitors to the islands and if so, where was their permanent residence.’

  ‘On it, boss.’ And the phone went silent. A feeling of remorse swam over me. I shook it off. It was for the best. Ioli is always right and there was no need in leading the poor girl on.

  Ioli and I were each faced with a male body this time.

  Island of Zakynthos

  My heart skipped a beat as the speed boat passed by Nauagio beach. The famous shipwreck grew out of the sand in the isolated bay. The beach served as one of Tracy’s and mine’s first honeymoon stops. It had been her first time in Greece and she fell in love with the exotic island.

  The speed boat flew by ships busy with unloading thrilled tourists that had waited a lifetime to visit one the landmark beaches of the world. Soon, I had docked in Eptanisa’s most populous city, Zakynthos town. A silent sergeant drove me to the third floor apartment where 32 year old Demetris Papademetriou, an athlete signed to a local soccer team, ended his life.

  He had placed a plastic bag over his head and tied it tightly round his throat. He sat on the balcony, facing Faneromeni church. Another body, another note.

  ‘1 Samuel, 31:3-6,’ I read the ripped piece of kitchen roll. ‘A bible, please,’ I requested.

  ‘One minute, Captain,’ the young sergeant replied. He took out his phone. ‘There is an app... Wait... Tell me again the verse.’

  ‘1 Samuel, 31:3-6. Read it to me.’

  ‘The fighting grew very fierce around Saul, and the Philistine archers caught up with him and wounded him severely. Saul groaned to his armor bearer: take your sword and kill me before these pagan Philistines come to run me through and taunt and torture me. But his armor bearer was afraid and would not do it. So Saul took his own sword and fell on it. When his armor bearer realized that Saul was dead, he fell on his own sword and died beside the king. So Saul, his three sons, his armor bearer and his troops all died together that same day.’

  ‘That’s all of it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘So, the king lost it all and killed himself. What did you lose, Demetri?’ I stared into his hollow blue eyes.

  Island of Paxoi

  Ioli too was faced with a young man’s body. A music teacher, Nikolas Perikli, alone on holiday in the quiet town of Gaios, leapt to his death from his holiday balcony to the hotel’s inner garden. He had used metal wire and as he fell, the wire viciously cut into his skin. He died instantly by the snapping of the neck. His body, pulled by gravity, slowly cut away from his head and fell to the ground. The head fell too, rolling along the stone path and into the swimming pool. The morning’s cleaning lady who whistled as she swept between the neatly placed sunbathing beds, suffered a severe heart attack at the sight of the floating head.

  Ioli spent a good hour, photographing the scene and collecting evidence. She wanted to make sure beheaded Nikola took his own life.

  A note slept amongst the dust, left on the glass coffee table, that with the old couch, took up most of the living area.

  ‘Judas, heaven or hell? Forgiving father, who can tell?’ Ioli read.

  ‘Funny how we all turn poetic at the end,’ she whispered.

  The female constable smiled uncomfortably at her. ‘We’ve never had such a gruesome crime scene before. Most come here to enjoy the serenity offered.’

  ‘Looks like, this guy needed more peace than was offered.’

  She picked up her phone and walked out of the unembellished hotel, into the vast village square. The coffee shops and ice-cream parlors were in full swing, serving sunburned, lobster colored tourists. She gazed into the deep, blue ocean just feet away and dialled my number. I had just read the note from my scene.

  ‘Costa, another note, another suicide, another person from out of town.’

  ‘Same here. I think these people were burdened with something and resorted to killing themselves as to redeem themselves. I think they must all have been religious.’

  ‘But isn’t suicide a sin, according to religion?’

  ‘Maybe that is why they are leaving the notes. Explaining their choice somehow.’

  ‘Has Polina called?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘I’m thinking maybe some sort of support group. They must have known each other. No way, am I believing seven people committed suicide on seven different islands all at the same time. The doctors we have spoken to, place the time of death between midnight and 2 A.M.’

  ‘Also, the way of death intrigues me. Why not put a pistol in your mouth? Or poison? Or get creative with a knife and so on...’

  ‘Exactly. Too many similarities. They knew each other. Polina needs to hurry up with the background checks.’ And with that, the tone went dead. Ioli ran and boarded the coast guard’s ship, ready to set sail for Lefkada. I, too, wrapped up in Zakynthos and left for Ithaki, Odysseus’s famous island. Hours later we both set out for our final island, Kefalonia.

  Island of Kefalonia

  We met exhausted in Argostoli, Kefalonia’s capital town, as the bright, summer sun dipped into the ocean’s horizon and light vanished from the sky. No moon, not even a slice.

  ‘You look like shit.’

  ‘Well, thank you sunshine. Now, there’s a way to greet your superior officer.’

  ‘Well, excuse me, Captain Papacosta. I promise to
behave,’ she said, forcing a tired smile. ‘My feet are killing me.’

  ‘My back keeps reminding me of my age,’ I laughed.

  ‘How was Ithaca?’ she asked.

  ‘I went to a small fishing village called Kioni bay. A painter from Athens was renting a small, fishing hut. 67 years old, an Anastasia Pappa. I found her hanging by a fishing rope from the ceiling. The note said that death comes for us all, life given to us will leave our body sooner or later. She wrote a prayer and finished it with Father, here I come. You?’

  ‘Kalamos village in Lefkada. Idalia Rapti, the victim's name. She fits the profile. Out of towner; religious. Moved to the island to join a monastery and become a nun. She was only eighteen. I could not bear to watch her skinny body swinging from the chandelier. So young. Beautiful girl too. Her note was just one line. I have lived in hell, wherever I go now will be a step up!’

  ‘All these people have a story to be told. All lived in Athens, by the way. Polina finished with the background checks. So far, that is their only thing in common. We will visit all of their next of kin and hope to find out more. Let’s finish up with our seventh body, go to the hotel Polina booked for us and tomorrow morning I’ll be taking the ferry to the mainland and you will fly out at night. You sure you won’t be coming with me?’

  ‘I see no point in sitting in a boat for hours and then on a bus for even more hours when I can easily take those big metallic birds that were invented to save you time. It’s only an hour's flight! That shrink needs to work on your fears if you ask me,’ she joked and laughed.

  ‘I don’t mind big planes...’

  Ioli stopped laughing and gave me a judgmental look.

  ‘Well, I do, but I can still fly in them. It’s these tiny, little, small, puny tin boxes that fly the domestic flights. They turn my stomach into jelly and my heart into a race horse. No, thank you.’

  ‘Whatever you say, Captain. So, who’s our next victim?’

  ‘Agatha Richardson. 62 years old, from the UK. She lived and worked in Athens as a book editor for translated works. She retired and moved here five months ago.’

  Argostoli town was built in a bay within a bay and boasted some of the calmest waters in Greece. The houses were buried in the green scenery provided by the hills behind it. It looked like the perfect place to retire to. Live in peace the rest of your days. Get a grip, Costa. You’re turning 50, not 80.

  After introductions were made with the local police, they led us through an arched doorway that swallowed you into a colorful indoor garden.

  ‘It smells lovely,’ I commented. The local police officers exchanged looks.

  ‘Yes... Especially in contrast with inside,’ a young, blond constable mumbled.

  I opened the door of the 19th century stone house which stood at the end of a row of red roses. That’s when the horrid smell hit us. A mixture of stale foods, blood and animal urine sprinkled with an odor of feces, lingered in the air.

  ‘Go on,’ Ioli said.

  ‘You first.’

  ‘Man, woman, cockroach?’ I suggested our version of rock, paper, scissors.

  ‘On three. One... two... three.’

  The local police stood amazed, watching as I used my index fingers by the side of my head as antennas and Ioli acted as if she was scratching her balls.

  ‘Man beats cockroach,’ she proudly declared. ‘This way, sir,’ she showed me the way.

  ‘In the kitchen. To your left, Captain,’ the blond constable spoke up.

  The narrow hallway unfolded in front of us, filled with trays of kitty litter. Nothing had been cleaned for days. Fourteen bowls of different colors were by the kitchen door. The milk gone bad, smelled nasty. We walked slowly into the kitchen. The round kitchen table housed a large pool of blood. Bloody paw prints were all over the table and tiled white floor. She had provided her cats with one good last drink. Cats with bloody faces, sitting outside the window, frantically meowed to be let back in.

  ‘It took us all day to remove them from the house. That is why we did not leave any windows open to let some fresh air in,’ the constable explained.

  We hardly heard him. We were both staring up in shock. Agatha Richardson sure did use her imagination with her self-strangling. Maybe she had edited too many thrillers and horror stories. She had tied her wrists, ankles and neck with barbed wire. She passed the barbed wire round the kitchen’s two thick, cherry wood beams and connected the wire to her motorized garden hose collector. She, then, turned the machine on and it slowly gathered the barbed wire, twisting it round and round. It had no trouble, lifting the lightweight, fragile lady to the beams. The wire pierced through her skin and strangled her neck, cutting through her carotid artery. Warm blood sprang into the air, spaying the kitchen red and provided a fountain of fresh blood for her feline friends.

  ‘Where’s the note?’ Ioli asked.

  ‘Sin by sin, they gather, pray by pray, they fade... no more light for me, I linger in the shade...’ I read the bagged piece of pink paper passed to me by the local police.

  ‘She sounds tormented. What I don’t get is even if they, religious as they seem, could get past the fact that religion sees suicide as a sin, why did they feel like God would not forgive them? She wrote Sin by sin, they gather, pray by pray, they fade... no more light for me, I linger in the shade... She understood that with prayer her sins faded. So why kill yourself? And the way she chose? She wanted to feel pain. She believed she deserved pain.’

  ‘I’m lost for words,’ I answered honestly, puzzled by the case.

  ‘Well, that’s a first.’

  We examined evidence collected by the local authorities and discussed the case with the town’s only coroner. Another suicide by all means.

  All seven people dead by their own hand, by their own free will.

  I looked at my watch. Ten at night. ‘I feel drained of energy.’

  ‘Room service and sleep?’

  ‘I feel like a gyro.’

  ‘You and your junk food.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You’re the boss. Let’s grab a bite and head on over to our hotel.’

  An hour later, we were both feeling better. Two kebabs, fries and a couple of ice-cold beers journeyed down to my empty stomach. What helped more, was the environment. We sat in the main square, tourist watching as we ate. The well lit stone square featured everything a visitor could ask for. Souvenir shops, restaurants and ice-cream parlors surrounded it. We watched their happy, relaxed faces. Their hand-in-hand, moon-lit strolls. Their carefree aura. Their happiness felt contagious. I envied them and let my mind drift to a daydream where Tracy and I would go on vacation together. In love again.

  Ioli guiltily enjoyed our street food and in a sleepy state of mind, she closed her eyes and drifted off to dreamland.

  ‘Lovely place...’ I started to say. ‘Oh, sorry. I did not realize...’ I lowered my voice.

  She waved her hand to signal not to stress. ‘Let’s go get some shut eye.’

  Our family ran hotel stood at a distance of a five minute walk. Much-needed minutes for our food to go down.

  We checked in with the jovial receptionist and took the keys to our rooms. Within ten minutes, we had showered, undressed and fallen fast asleep. For the first time in a long time, Ioli enjoyed an eight hour slumber.

  I, on the other hand, was once again tormented by my nightmares.

  ‘Thank you for all my new friends, daddy,’ Gaby sang happily. She swung on a swing set built out of corpses. Agatha and Rita were the legs, Idalia and Anastasia were the top beam, while Demetris, headless Nikola and Eftychia formed the swing.

  ‘Let’s play ball,’ she screamed, throwing me Nikola’s head and waking me up in a cold sweat.

  Chapter 39

  A hot day followed the hot, sticky night. The summer was welcoming its first of many heat waves. A huge, red ball of fire sneaked out of the sea and climbed up into the sky. By ten o’clock it felt difficult to move, let alone think.

  Ioli and I exited the air c
onditioned breakfast room and said our goodbyes. I rushed to catch the ferry, while Ioli had hours to kill until her flight to Athens.

  ‘Even though my mood is not the greatest, I can’t miss such an opportunity. I’ve always wanted to visit Myrtos beach.’

  ‘Myrtos beach?’

  ‘You’ve never heard of it?’

  She watched, amazed, as I shook my head that I had not.

  ‘One of the best beaches in Greece.’ She took out her phone, fiddled around for a second or two and lifted it up to my eyes.

  ‘It looks beautiful. I’m happy you’re taking some time for yourself. You’re too young to get sucked in by all this.’

  ‘Don’t start grandpa,’ she giggled.

  ‘I’m just saying.’ And with that, I set off for the port.

  Ioli returned to her room to change. She undressed and put on her blue bikini. She stood in front of the mirror and forced a smile. Time had started to take its toll on her body. For the time being, it was noticeable only to herself. She could see the difference. She always kept fit and did her best to eat healthily. Sometimes, she wondered why. She lived alone, she did not wish for children and after her previous disastrous relationships she did not care much for men either.

  ‘You do it for you,’ she pumped herself up. ‘And you need some color, girl!’

  She gathered her shiny black hair into a high ponytail, wore her designer sunglasses and pulled down a short, turquoise beach dress. She picked up a hotel towel and her sunscreen and with an air of relaxation caressing her, she left the hotel for a much-deserved, half-day off. She approached the first taxi from the line of cabs outside and bargained for a local price for her day trip.

  A breathtaking view awaited her.

  She ignored the driver’s moaning about the air-conditioning going to waste and opened her window. The fresh air from the mountain road filled the green Mercedes. Down below, miles of unspoiled beaches stretched all the way to the oceanic horizon. Minutes later, the car entered the small village of Divarata. Locals marched up and down, busy setting up their souvenir shops, tavernas and ice-cream parlors. Soon, tourists would flock to their village which stood high above Myrtos Beach. A long, winding, hair-pin, dirt road led down to the white pebble beach. A stretch of round, white cobblestones lay between two of the island’s tallest mountains, Agia Dynati and Kalon Oros.