A Deadly Twist

by Jeffrey Siger

  “I don’t see how you can say that. It will mobilize the community to look for her.”

  “If there’s actually been a kidnapping, and the kidnapper learns he’s the subject of a nationwide manhunt, the attention might spook him into doing away with her. Your local police are already doing all the right things. I’m only here to provide them with additional manpower.”

  The mayor’s perpetual smile turned sharklike. “That’s bullshit and you know it. The local cops are inept and couldn’t find a souvlaki at a soccer match. You’re here because the reporter’s newspaper and your minister insisted that your unit step in and take over the investigation. I will not be party to a cover-up of this poor woman’s kidnapping.”

  Yianni leaned into the mayor. “I don’t know who put those ideas in your head, but I suggest you reconsider whatever you plan on saying to the press.”

  Any semblance of a smile disappeared. “Is that a threat?”

  “No, just some professional advice from one public servant to another.”

  “I was hoping you’d participate in the press conference, but it’s far from necessary. You’re here, and that’s all the backup I need for what I have to say on the subject.”

  “Feel free to say whatever you think serves the interests of your island, but there’s something I should tell you.”

  “What’s that, another threat?”

  “No, another fact. My chief arrives tomorrow, because he’s also concerned with the safety of Nikoletta. You’ve now been warned about the risks to her life presented by proceeding with your press conference. If Chief Inspector Kaldis thinks that what you say to the media in any way jeopardizes her life, he’ll tear you apart in the press, not to mention what he’ll do to you in the eyes of all your perceived political friends back in Athens.”

  “I’m not afraid of him.”

  “Well, you should be. Perhaps you forget that our unit’s mandate extends to investigating suspected official corruption wherever we find it. Why you’re so hell-bent on undermining your local police chief, no matter the risk it presents to the reporter’s life, will undoubtedly pique my chief’s interest.” Yianni put his hand on the mayor’s shoulder. “Are you up for risking your political career for a few passing headlines and the chance to take a cheap shot at your police chief?”

  He let his hand fall from the mayor’s shoulder. “I’ll be waiting here when you’re done. We still have to talk about your conversation with Nikoletta.”

  The mayor turned and walked briskly toward the journalists, but with a noticeable slump to his shoulders. Reporters began shouting questions at him, but he paid them no attention until he was behind the podium and cameras were rolling.

  He stared straight at Yianni as he spoke. “I’m here to answer any and all of your questions, but first let me say why I’ve called you here. I want you and the nation to know how proud I am of our island’s professional hardworking police force, which has spared no effort to identify the poor tourist who tragically perished here.”

  “Is that why you called this press conference?” yelled a reporter. “Just to say thank you to the police?”

  He stared at the reporter. “I wouldn’t think any of you’d have a problem with that. On Naxos we value our police and everything they do to keep all of us, tourists and locals alike, safe and secure. Don’t you agree it’s about time they got the recognition they deserve?”

  Yianni smiled. Nicely played, Mister Mayor.

  * * *

  Yianni had to give the mayor credit. He’d handled the sharp questioning with patience, offering little in terms of substance, yet tossing out a teaser to keep them coming back. “We expect very soon to identify the tourist who perished in that tragic fall onto the rocks below Grotta.”

  That prompted a shouted round of additional questions.

  “It’s part of an ongoing investigation,” the mayor deflected, “and we’ll provide you with more details as soon as we’ve confirmed them and notified the next of kin.”

  When the press conference ended, the mayor hurried out of the atrium, made his way up three flights of marble steps to the second floor, and headed straight for a doorway centered on a glass-enclosed office suite marked MAYOR—with Yianni right behind him.

  Inside, the mayor stopped momentarily to speak with a woman sitting at a desk in front of a set of French doors and across from the open door to a corner office. He glanced back at Yianni and grunted, “Follow me.”

  The office was furnished in what Yianni considered politician traditional. An imposing, highly polished wooden desk, a luxurious high-back leather swivel chair, a pair of far simpler guest chairs, an oval conference table with matching chairs, and a comfortable sofa set off to one side of the room. The sofa undoubtedly was meant for those occasions when, by sitting next to his visitor, the mayor could convey that his guest was among his most valued and trusted confidants.

  The office also displayed the obligatory photographs of celebrities and powerful officials who’d passed through the mayor’s life. Angled on his desk for all to see stood a photo of his wife, children, one dog, and one cat.

  Without waiting to be invited, Yianni sat in a chair directly across from the mayor.

  “Okay, Detective, I did what you wanted. What else do you need to know so that I can get you out of my hair?”

  “I’d appreciate your telling me everything you recall about your meetings with Nikoletta Elia.”

  “It was one meeting, and I found her to be a charming and intelligent woman interested in fairly portraying Naxos to her readers.”

  “You’re done with the press conference, and though I sincerely admire the way you handled the press, don’t waste your charms on me. I’ve read her notebooks, and we both know that at one point she told you to stop bullshitting her with ‘Chamber of Commerce’ answers.”

  The mayor rolled his eyes. “Well, if you already know what we said to each other, why are you wasting my time asking me to repeat myself?”

  “I have a couple of reasons. One, to see what she may have left out of her notes, and two, to decide whether I can trust you’re telling me everything. So let’s get back to what she asked and what you answered.”

  They sparred back and forth for the next twenty minutes, but the answers the mayor grudgingly gave were consistent with what Nikoletta had recorded in her notebook.

  “So, my final question—at least for now—is who else did you suggest she interview for her article?”

  “Let’s be frank, Detective. As I see it, Nikoletta was into this story for the glory. It’s why she wrote the piece about a computer criminal. Next, she wanted to write an article about what she thought was a war brewing between our tourism industry and agricultural interests. Contractors versus conservationists. Yes, she asked me for the names of the biggest, most important players on all sides of what she saw as a potential controversy. I wasn’t about to give her the names of firebrands who’d stoke her into doing a hatchet job on the island, so I gave her the names of people who I knew would only say good things about the island. If she wanted revolutionaries and naysayers, she could find them on her own.”

  “Did she find them?”

  “I don’t know. My job is to protect the island, and that means its reputation. Encouraging bad press falls outside my job description.”

  “Okay, let’s try a different approach. Who are the island’s firebrands, revolutionaries, and naysayers?”

  The mayor’s face turned crimson. “All they’ll try to do is wind you up with crazy conspiracies and theories. How’s that going to help find the missing woman?”

  “I won’t know until I speak to them. But let me put your mind at ease. She never believed what you told her. Here’s what she had to say.”

  Yianni read from his notes. “‘The mayor must think I’m an idiot. He gave me a list of political cronies who’ll give me only politica
lly correct answers. He must be hiding something. I’ll have to get leads elsewhere.’”

  Yianni looked up. “Sounds like your recommendations didn’t cut it with her. So…names, please. It’ll speed up the investigation, and perhaps even save her life.”

  The mayor spit out a list of names, accompanied by various creative epithets.

  As it turned out, every name mentioned by the mayor had found its way into Nikoletta’s notebooks, which also contained a few that weren’t on his list. She’d obviously been thorough in her research. Perhaps too thorough for islanders like the mayor, who don’t like the threat of bad press.

  Yianni thanked the mayor for his time and cooperation, but the mayor said nothing in reply, only pointed Yianni toward the door, not rising to shake his hand or show him out.

  I guess that means I did my job.

  * * *

  After calling Andreas to brief him on how he’d indelibly ingratiated himself to the island’s mayor and texting Dimitri the description of the man he’d been told was watching Nikoletta and the hacker the night they met, Yianni moved on to the next name on Nikoletta’s list, Marco Sanudos, head of the Naxos Hoteliers’ Association. They’d arranged to meet at Marco’s hotel. A map showed it to be approximately five kilometers from Naxos town hall, close by a popular beach. Since it didn’t seem that far, Yianni decided to use the motorbike rather than accept Dimitri’s offer of a car and driver.

  It was a sunny, warm morning, with very little wind, a perfect day for a bike ride along the miles of open beach that Naxos took such pride in offering to the world. Less than a kilometer into his planned route, Yianni realized the maps were not as precise in describing the state of the roads as he’d hoped, so much so that he should have taken Dimitri up on his offer of a driver.

  The paved road running from the town hall south along the sea soon turned away from the beach and into a maze of back streets that had Yianni turning first one way and then another in an effort to keep moving parallel to the sea. When he came upon a broadly paved road running next to the beach, he thought he’d found his way, but it soon turned into a dirt road before joining up with a main road that took him away from the sea in the direction of the airport.

  At a sign for Agios Prokopios Beach, he decided to put his faith in the saint whose namesake beach he was looking for and took a right, heading west. It took him past the salt pond he’d seen when his plane landed and along a narrow paved road winding between borders of bamboo windbreaks and ancient stone walls. He drove alongside fields and pastures of varying shades of greens and browns, some no doubt growing seed potatoes for Naxos’s most famous crop. It was not the by-the-seashore sort of ride he was looking for, but still scenic. Missing, though, were road signs with even a hint at how to find Marco’s hotel.

  After a slew of wrong turns and dead ends, Yianni pulled over, took out his phone, and in an act some might see as a repudiation of divine guidance, switched his faith to GPS.

  By the time he spotted the first sign for the hotel, he was already there. It sat atop a slight rise overlooking the beach. The resort complex, equipped with two huge swimming pools, a spa, shops, bar and dining facilities, tennis courts, and a private beach, had virtually everything required to keep the clientele happily on property, free to spend their time and money there and nowhere else.

  He parked the bike by a freshly painted white building trimmed in cerulean blue and dominated by a soaring all-glass entranceway framed in white marble. Yianni followed a sign marked RECEPTION pointing toward the building. A short, fit man a few years older than Yianni waited for him inside the door.

  “Detective Kouros, I presume. I’m Marco Sanudos.”

  “How did you know it was me?”

  They shook hands and the man smiled. “Very few of our guests arrive on motorbikes, and even fewer without luggage. Frankly, I was a bit concerned when you didn’t show up at our appointed time, especially after the mayor called to tell me you’d been to see him and left.”

  “How nice of him to call.”

  “I think he was more interested in warning me to be careful of what I say to you.”

  “Does he have a habit of doing that, or is it a special honor reserved just for me?”

  “He means well,” Marco smiled, “as long as you’re not interfering with his priorities.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “May I suggest we continue this conversation in my office?”

  He told a young woman sitting behind the concierge desk to send water, coffee, and pastries and led Yianni into a room behind reception. The room’s only masonry wall was a long one shared with reception, the rest glass, arranged in a perfect semicircle looking on to the pool area.

  “Wow, how do you get any work done in here? I’d either be mesmerized by the view or worried who might be watching me.”

  “The view you get used to, and the glass is one-way.” He pointed to a stylish chrome and leather chair in front of a teak and chrome desk. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”

  Yianni sat down as a waiter arrived with a coffee tray. After the waiter left, Marco said, “What I didn’t want to get into out there in front of my staff was that I’m much closer to your friend Dimitri than I am to the mayor. Dimitri told me you’d scuttled the mayor’s plans for sticking it to him, and that really pissed him off.”

  “How do you know about my friendship with Dimitri?”

  “He called me not long after the mayor did. He said you were a friend who could be trusted and that you’d likely get lost on the way here.” Marco looked at his watch. “He asked that I let him know if you hadn’t made it by now.”

  “I’m flattered everyone’s so worried about me.”

  Marco smiled. “We’ve lost a tourist and may have lost a reporter. I guess no one wants us to lose a cop, too.”

  “So you know about Nikoletta?”

  “The mayor told me. He also said not to share her potential disappearance with anyone.”

  Yianni nodded. “I can understand your concern about losing more folks. From my limited experience in getting from town to here, I’d say Ariadne and her Labyrinth crowd must have played a big role in laying out Naxos’s street plan.”

  Marco laughed. “You’re not the first to suggest that. But better roads come at a price, and I don’t mean just their construction costs. They change the nature and character of a place. Easier accessibility means greater numbers of visitors to an area, and that brings other changes.”

  Yianni stared at Marco. “Whose side are you on? I’d expect you to be all in for tourism?”

  “I am all in for tourism, just not to the point that I want to see our island trampled to death. I was born and raised here. My grandfather started this hotel, my father expanded it, and now it’s my turn to shepherd it forward. I’m committed to sensible planning, sensible preservation, sensible progress.”

  “Nicely put. Does the mayor know you’re after his job?”

  “Not interested. This is my passion, not politics.”

  “Did you have this kind of conversation with the reporter?”

  “Yes. I sensed she didn’t believe I was sincere.”

  So far he’s consistent with what’s in Nikoletta’s notebook. “What made her think that?”

  “She asked whether I had plans to expand the hotel, and I said yes. Why not? This is a hotel area. We wouldn’t expand onto the beach but onto property adjacent to the beach. There are plenty of other virtually undeveloped beaches that can and should be preserved as they are.”

  “My guess is your fellow islanders who own property on those undeveloped beaches wouldn’t agree with you.”

  “They don’t, but that’s not unique to Naxos; it’s a national problem. We only want others to bear the burdens of preserving our country’s natural resources.”

  “Perhaps I was wrong in suggesting you’re running
for mayor. Sounds more like prime minister to me.”

  He shrugged. “Right now I’m confining myself to simpler issues, such as limiting the number of cruise boats allowed to dock on any given day.”

  “How big a problem is that?”

  “It chokes the old town for the few hours they’re in port, but otherwise they have a limited effect on the island. The bigger issue is expanding the airport.”

  “Is there a plan to do that?”

  “There’s a lot of wishful thinking in some quarters, and anxiety in others, because extending the runway to accommodate big jets would significantly impact the island.”

  “What do you think will happen?”

  “Frankly, I don’t think Naxos will have much say in it, one way or the other.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because the airlines, cruise lines, and airport authorities don’t want Naxos to have an international airport.”

  “Why not?”

  “The most expensive per-mile air route in Europe is between Athens and Mykonos. Mykonos has expanded its airport and operates twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It’s a transportation hub for this part of the Cyclades. Big jets land there, and tourists head to its ports, where boats transport them to other Cycladic islands. It’s a simpler and more profitable arrangement for big-time transportation interests than having another international airport so close to Mykonos. Santorini serves the same role in its part of the Aegean.”

  “Did you tell that to the reporter?”

  “It didn’t come up, but she might have heard it from someone else. It’s not a secret.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  Marco gave a thoughtful recitation of everything he could recall of their conversation, which matched what Nikoletta had entered in her notebooks. She’d also describe him as “cute,” but Yianni decided not to share that bit with him.

  “So, what do you think happened to her?” asked Yianni after Marco had finished describing his conversation with Nikoletta.

  “I have no idea. Yes, there are strong passions on this island over its future direction, but enough to kidnap a reporter over a story about any of that?” He shook his head. “I don’t see it.”