A Deadly Twist

by Jeffrey Siger

  Also by Jeffrey Siger

  The Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Mysteries

  Murder in Mykonos

  Assassins of Athens

  Prey on Patmos

  Target: Tinos

  Mykonos After Midnight

  Sons of Sparta

  Devil of Delphi

  Santorini Caesars

  An Aegean April

  Island of Secrets (First Published as The Mykonos Mob)

  Copyright © 2021 by Jeffrey Siger

  Cover and internal design © 2021 by Sourcebooks

  Cover design by Ploy Siripant

  Cover images © Westend61 GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo

  Sourcebooks, Poisoned Pen Press, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Apart from well-known historical figures, any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  sourcebooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Siger, Jeffrey, author.

  Title: A deadly twist / Jeffrey Siger.

  Description: Naperville, Illinois : Poisoned Pen Press, [2021] | Series: A Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis mystery

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020021161 (hardcover) | (trade paperback) | (epub)

  Classification: LCC PS3619.I45 D43 2021 (print) | LCC PS3619.I45 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020021161

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020021162

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Read on for an excerpt from Island of Secrets

  Chapter One

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To Barbara G. Peters and Robert Rosenwald

  I owe it all to you.

  “Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean Sea.”

  —Nikos Kazantzakis

  Chapter One

  “The key to getting away with what I do is lacking any possible motive. Motive’s the first thing cops look for. Which is why I’ve never taken a job that could tie me to a target, no matter how tenuous the link or big the payday. I’m a conservative businessman, and if my work has taught me anything, it’s that fast money comes with excessive risk. It’s the gradual accumulation of wealth that makes a person secure in old age, and that’s what I’m aiming for.”

  Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis sat in his office in Greece’s Central Police Headquarters in Athens (better known as GADA) reading and rereading a front-page newspaper article that opened with that paragraph.

  A reporter named Nikoletta Elia claimed to have landed an exclusive interview with “the computer underground’s most successful hacker” while on holiday on the Greek island of Naxos. Andreas took it to be a made-up story, likely pieced together by a seriously hungover reporter following an all-night booze session with some braggart trying to impress his bar mates with tales of international intrigue.

  Strangers admit to weird things late at night in island bars, but this confession made no sense. It was inconceivable to Andreas that a “conservative” computer hacker who wanted to make it to “old age” would be stupid enough to open up about his business to anyone, let alone a reporter, about how he used his elite hacking skills on behalf of clients to ravage businesses, steal state secrets, and mask murders behind accidental equipment malfunctions.

  Still, the article was in today’s issue of Athens’s most respected daily newspaper, and Andreas expected it would kick the city’s many conspiracy theorists into overdrive. What does the hacker’s presence in Greece mean? And why are the police doing nothing about it? As head of Greece’s Special Crimes Unit, charged with investigating matters of national concern or potential corruption, Andreas expected his phone would soon light up with calls from members of Parliament looking to show their constituents that they cared about who visited their country.

  Andreas looked at his watch. It wasn’t yet eight a.m., too early for MPs to be calling. His administrative assistant, Maggie, would be at her desk any minute. He’d tell her to take messages. He didn’t have the patience to be diplomatic with politicians this morning. He’d spent most of last night listening to his kindergarten son and toddler daughter coughing. Their colds had kept him awake longer than they had the kids.

  I guess that’s what it means to be a parent.

  A compact, five-foot-three, redheaded ball of energy poked her head in through the doorway. “Morning, Chief.”

  “Morning, Maggie.”

  “So, what fresh hells do you have for me today?”

  “Just your routine international bad guy on holiday looking for publicity blowback day.”

  “That should do wonders for Naxos tourism.”

  “You saw the article?”

  “Who didn’t? It’s a front-page story by a crime reporter with a big following.”

  “But it makes no sense. Don’t people realize it has to be phony?”

  “Since when did being phony keep a story off the front page? At least this one’s entertaining.”

  “Good, then keep entertaining yourself by taking messages on any calls for me about it.”

  “I’ll need to requisition a few more message pads.”

  Andreas and Maggie had been doing their variation on a vaudeville routine since he’d returned to GADA from a brief stint as the chief of police on Mykonos. The luck of the draw had landed him with Maggie, GADA’s mother superior and source of all wisdom about its many secret ways.

  Ring, ring.

  Maggie headed for her desk to answer the phone. “Let the games begin.”

  Andreas drew in and let out a deep breath. It’s gonna be a long day. He picked up the newspaper and stared at the byline. “Nikoletta Elia, there must be more to this story than you’re telling us.”

  Another line rang. He looked up. A very long day.

  * * *

  Despite a lifetime of reporting the news, Nikoletta Elia had never expected to write that story, n
or had she anticipated the surge of international attention it received. Her editor had sent her to Naxos for a few days to do a piece on the simmering conflict between the island’s traditional agrarian population and its growing cadre of tourism advocates.

  She’d been surprised by the assignment and wondered what she’d done to draw the ire of her editor. After all, it wasn’t the kind of hard-hitting reporting on which she’d built her byline. Breaking new ground on the crime and corruption beat was her forte, not rehashing the age-old debate about the pros and cons of tourism.

  “Give it to a business or features writer,” she’d argued to her editor.

  “Don’t be so negative. After all, it is an island steeped in myth, poised on the cusp of modernity.”

  “Get a travel writer, then. You know it’s not my thing.”

  “Try it, you might learn something. Besides, you could use a break from chasing cops and robbers.”

  Nikoletta crossed her arms and scowled. “I couldn’t care less that Naxos is where Zeus was raised, Ares took refuge, or Dionysius called home.”

  He feigned a smile. “Okay, point made; you know your mythology.”

  “Oh, that’s just the start. Theseus, Ariadne, blah blah blah.” She raised a hand to stop him from interrupting. “I also know that Cycladic life began on Naxos before Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece. Oh, and let’s not forget that Naxos flourished as a society through most of antiquity up until the Persians ended its long independent run. Then came the Athenians, the Spartans, and a string of other Greeks, followed by the Romans, Venetians, Turks, and a touch of Russians, though the most lasting influence is clearly Venetian.”

  The editor chewed at his lip.

  She waggled a finger at him. “I don’t do historical pieces because I prefer running around with cops and robbers.”

  He held up his hands. “Fine, so write about modern-day conquerors—tourists and real estate developers. Do the piece however you like, but I want you over there and writing it now.”

  Nikoletta shut her eyes and silently counted to ten. She needed this job. Greece was still deep in financial crisis and, besides, she liked what she did. At least most of the time. She opened her eyes, smiled, curtsied dramatically, and headed for the door.

  “Send me a story,” he yelled after her.

  She didn’t stop but shot a hand above her head and flashed him the middle finger.

  * * *

  Nikoletta’s assignment was getting lousier by the minute. The newspaper refused to pay for a plane ticket that would have had her on the island in less than forty minutes. Instead, it paid for a boat that took four hours. That she wasn’t forced to take a ferry, which would have made it a six-hour trip at best, did nothing to improve her mood.

  Her boat sailed into Naxos harbor past the massive marble Portara, the 2,500-year-old gateway to a never-completed grand temple to Apollo and the modern-day symbol of Naxos. Beyond the harbor the old town spread out and rose along a hillside covered in low whitewashed buildings. Flagstone lanes beneath soaring stone archways led up to a thirteenth-century Venetian castle that still dominated the town. The Castle, or Kastro area, constituted the upper part of the old town, distinguishing it in topography and social standing from the old town’s lower Bourgos section.

  Nikoletta barely glanced at any of that, choosing instead to maneuver to where she could grab her bag from the luggage storage area and disembark as quickly as possible.

  She’d packed lightly, hoping to spend no more than a couple of days, and had arranged to stay in the island’s main town of Naxos, also known as Chora, as every island’s namesake town is called. She’d picked Chora because it sat on the island’s west coast, virtually equidistant from its northern, southern, and eastern edges. She also assumed that, because it was the island’s capital and largest town by far, it would give her the best chance of ferreting out interviews with island officials and tourism advocates. Locating the island’s agrarian defenders in the rural parts of the island would prove more logistically challenging, but she’d worry about that later.

  She walked along the pier past a phalanx of waiting empty taxis and through a gauntlet of locals hawking places to stay and stopped by a driver holding a small placard with her name written in bold letters. He took her bag and led her to a van bearing the name of the hotel. After five minutes of winding through a maze of one-way streets, they arrived at a bright-white stucco-and-glass hotel just north of the harbor and perched atop a steep bluff overlooking the Portara.

  Now free from her four-hour internment on the boat, caressed by gentle winds rolling in off the sea and catching the scent of wildflowers, she thought that a few days away from the madness of Athens might not be so bad after all. She shut her eyes, drew in a deep breath of sea air, and stood quietly for a moment. She opened her eyes, exhaled, and stared out to sea.

  Yes, not bad at all.

  Nikoletta checked into the hotel, put away her few things, and decided to stroll into town to catch the sunset at a harborside café. Unfamiliar with Chora, she asked the receptionist for the best walking route into town. The receptionist pointed toward the sea, and said the most direct way was to follow a rock-and-dirt path running down along the edge of the bluff through a field of gorse, maquis, stonecrop, and smother weed.

  Nikoletta hesitated at first, but the route did offer spectacular views of the Portara set against its islet of Palatia, plus a shimmering orange sun and a deep-blue sea. Besides, it was still daytime, and despite a sign at the top of the path marked BEWARE DANGER, many were walking along the same path. Returning in the dark would be a different story, especially since she was intent on finding a bar in which to drown her sorrows at her lousy assignment.

  She easily made it down from the bluff, across a not so busy road, and into a lane opening on to a square in front of the island’s eighteenth-century Greek Orthodox cathedral. It was built on the remains of ancient temples and faced the ancient city’s agora, or meeting place, but she did not pause, and two minutes later she was at the north end of the harbor.

  She strolled by what seemed an endless line of tavernas, bars, and tourist shops, many trying to look more modern and chic than the next but not quite pulling it off. If they were examples of the sort of modern development tourism advocates had in mind for the rest of the island, she could understand why the island’s traditionalists were so adamantly opposed.

  She paused beside a wide marble harbor-front square and watched as local children rode their bikes and scooters helter-skelter among the passing tourists. It was as if all the world were their playground. She smiled. This was Nikoletta’s idea of a Greek island experience.

  Her eye caught a flagstone stairway tucked away between a jewelry shop and a kafenio, and she headed straight for it. A sign above the stairs read TO THE CASTLE & THE MUSEUM.

  She wound her way up the hill along archway-covered lanes lined with stone and stucco buildings, all plainly laid out without any plan other than to confuse marauding pirates. She kept climbing through a residential area randomly trimmed in geraniums and bougainvillea, determined to make it to where signs promised she’d find the Kastro and the seventeenth-century Naxos Archaeological Museum.

  As expected, given the hour, the museum was closed.

  Nikoletta stood in front of the museum, looking back on to the square, and wondered what to do now. To her right sat a well-tended garden of oleander, geraniums, bougainvillea, and a host of flowers she could not identify; to her left stood the Naxos Cultural Center. She sat on the wall outside the cultural center and watched an amber-colored queen lead her onyx and amber kittens scampering into the garden. This seemed to be the right place to contemplate the direction of her life. After all, she now sat before what once had been the Ursuline School for Girls, representing seventeenth- and eighteenth-century efforts at educating them.

  She shut her eyes and listened to children playing near
by. She imagined what life must have been like here so many centuries before and wondered whether the sounds of children at play would have been any different back then.

  Amid this unexpected tranquility, Nikoletta decided her editor had been right in asking her to do a piece on tradition versus tourism. She’d made her reputation reporting on the basest of human propensities, stories in which brute force was the currency of choice. It was time to write about humankind’s better nature, how those of goodwill could battle over a contentious issue without violence and reach a balanced result acceptable to all sides. Or so she’d like to believe.

  She didn’t move from her perch until well past sunset, listening all the while to the birds and children. She felt at ease as she backtracked down the hill, but before the harbor a waiter called out to her to please come try his tiny bar. She hadn’t noticed the place on the way up, but it had a certain charm reminiscent of the sort of Bohemian café you’d expect to find on a Paris backstreet.

  Why not? she thought and made her way to an empty table by an open window, ordered a glass of red wine, and sat staring out at people passing by.

  She didn’t notice the tall, fit man until he stood next to her table. He wore the stylized haircut and week-old black beard of men in their late twenties but struck her as considerably older. At first she thought he was another waiter.

  “Excuse me, miss, are you Nikoletta Elia?”

  She stared at him. “Do I know you?”

  “May I sit down?”

  “Not until you tell me who you are.”

  “Someone with a story to tell that I know you’ll be interested in hearing.”

  He’d said the magic words.

  She nodded for him to sit. “This better be good.”

  “I’m a big fan of your work. We must have arrived on the same boat, because I saw a man holding up a sign with your name on it. I waited to see what you looked like but didn’t want to bother you. Later, I saw you walking along the harbor front and decided to follow in hopes of getting the chance to speak with you.”

  “If you’ve been following me, how come I didn’t notice you up in the Kastro? I was virtually alone up there.”