When the Devil's Idle

by Leta Serafim

  “One is. The other’s a priest.”

  “A priest!” she exclaimed. “What happened? Did someone die?”

  He didn’t want to alarm her. “No, no, nothing like that.”

  A newcomer to the island, she might not learn of the murder for a day or two. Maybe when she bought her groceries, she’d hear the story. A place as small as Patmos, there’d be no way to hide such a crime. Still, he didn’t want to taint their relationship from the onset with such darkness. Let her find out from others.

  If she asked him later why he hadn’t told her, he’d say he wanted to spare her. Men had done that in Greece in the old days, shielded their women. Yes, that would be the answer he’d give her. He’d been trying to be chivalrous, he’d say. Sir Galahad.

  “It’s just a routine police matter,” he added, buttering a piece of bread. “The local officer used to work with us on Chios. He’s here by himself. He called and asked for help on some cataloging for the department of culture. Someone found relics on a hill behind Chora and we need to log them in. Things were slow on Chios, so I came.”

  A lie, but a small one.

  “If you think things are slow on Chios ….” Antigone Balis shook her head ruefully. “You said a priest would be checking in. There are plenty of priests on Patmos—too many, if you ask me. No need to import another one.”

  Patronas wiped his mouth with a napkin. “He’s retired from the priesthood and works part-time for the department. He doesn’t have much money, so I asked him to come along. I thought a trip to the island would be good for him, be a vacation of sorts.” He knew he was talking too much, but couldn’t seem to stop himself.

  She smiled at him. “Paid for by the government?”

  Patronas grinned back. “Of course.”

  They shared another laugh; then she gathered up the dishes and stood up. “What time will your friends be arriving?”

  “I don’t know. Whenever the police cruiser gets here from Leros.”

  “A police cruiser for a routine matter? You’ve been holding out on me, Chief Officer.” Her laugh was low and musical. “You’re here about the German, aren’t you? The old man someone killed in Chora.”

  So much for chivalry.

  Patronas called Giorgos Tembelos a few minutes later, making sure first that Antigone Balis was well out of range. Not much got by that woman, that was for sure. She’d let him go on and on before delivering the skylovrisi—the dog’s curse. He should have been more circumspect over breakfast, not run his mouth like a schoolboy. It was the see-through dress that had done it, that glimpse of her nether regions.

  He could hear the roar of the engine in the background. “You on the boat?”

  “Yup,” Tembelos said. “Just left Piraeus.”

  “I rented a room for you in a hotel, the Sunrise. It is on a backstreet in Skala. A woman named Antigone Balis owns it. Be careful with her. She’s a wily creature.”

  “Is she pretty? You sound smitten.”

  Remembering the dress, Patronas reluctantly answered in the affirmative.

  “Married?”

  “Nope. A widow.”

  “A widow!” Tembelos chuckled. “Oh, Yiannis, here we go again.”

  Since the divorce, Tembelos had started treating Patronas like he was some kind of Don Juan, a man who bedded a different woman every night. Swedish, French, it didn’t matter, they were all after him, according to Giorgos. Patronas was Casanova and then some. Books could be written about his sexual peccadillos. Tembelos actually called them that. The playboy Hugh Hefner could take lessons.

  Truth was, Patronas hadn’t been with a woman in the biblical sense for more than two years. Long before his divorce, he and his ex-wife had occupied different rooms in the house. A homely man, he knew he was nothing to look at. He had a mirror. Sometimes he wondered if he’d ever sleep with a woman again.

  Tembelos knew this and was trying to build his confidence, to give him the courage to start over. Women were necessary evils in his view. Without them, a man weakened and lost his edge. They were sort of like vitamins.

  “I’m here on a murder investigation,” Patronas answered primly, playing along. “I’m not looking for romance.”

  “Got to be careful with women, Yiannis. Some are like spiders; they eat their mates.”

  “I’m not unfamiliar with them.”

  More laughter. “Oh, by the way, your ex-wife, the vouvala, is leaving Chios.” A vulgar term for a woman, vouvala meant ‘water buffalo.’ Tembelos hated Dimitra and always called her that.

  “What do you mean, ‘leaving’? Where is she going?”

  “Italy. According to my wife, the vouvala’s uncle in Bologna said he could find her a job there. No worries, Yiannis; your ex is out of your life. She’s finally moving on.”

  The news that Dimitra was leaving for Italy took Patronas by surprise. They’d been to Italy once, years before, walked through the streets of Rome and visited the Sistine Chapel, drank expensive coffees on the Via Veneto and inspected the Michelangelos. His wife had been stunned by the handsomeness of the Italian men, and he’d bought himself a fedora and a cashmere scarf, in an effort to look like them. Foolish now, he realized, him thinking a hat could make a difference. Turn a dumpy, middle-aged detective into Marcello Mastroianni. He’d been trying to impress Dimitra in those days—Dimitra, who’d adored the Italian actor. Hard to believe that now.

  He looked down at himself, buttons straining across his midriff, his splayed feet, and ran a hand through what was left of his hair. She’d laughed at the way he walked, rocking from side to side, said he reminded her of Charlie Chaplin. At one time or another, she’d laughed at most everything about him. His camel’s nose and boxy mustache—the mustache he cherished because he thought it made him look like his father. His clumsy eagerness in bed. He closed his eyes. Oh, God. Dimitra. My wasted life.

  Soon she would be well and truly gone. Somehow this news did not make him as happy as he thought it would.

  “Anything else to report?” Patronas kept his voice light. No reason for Giorgos Tembelos to know his news had upset him.

  “Not really. They finished the autopsy in Athens. I’m sure you’ll hear more from Evangelos, who called last night and got the report. It was pretty much just like you said: someone split his skull open. Death wasn’t instantaneous, the coroner said, but close to it. The blow rendered the victim unconscious, but he was still alive when the perpetrator cut the swastika on his forehead. Alive, but on his way out. Hard to tell what they hit him with. Could have been anything. The coroner found dirt in the wound, and he’s going to test it against the sample of soil you took from the garden. Going to run a toxicology screen, too—see if there’s anything unusual in the victim’s blood. Nothing but beer would be my guess, but the lab still has to check. Also, they’re testing the tallow from the crime scene, comparing it to the church candles from Patmos to see if there’s a match.”

  “Let’s hope not. I don’t want a Greek involved in this, Giorgos. I want it to be a stranger passing through who beat the old man to death. Not one of us. I couldn’t bear it if it was one of us.”

  “Sometimes we don’t get what we want, Yiannis. Greece has crazy people, too, just like everyplace else.”

  “Not that crazy.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “What about Interpol?”

  “They’re still checking. If there’s anything about Bechtel in their database, they’ll get in touch with us. Otherwise, not. Same thing in Athens. They might never get to the databases, they said, given the backlog of cases and the budgetary situation. Cut the staff in half, the government did, and turned off the air-conditioning. It was hell in that lab, I can tell you. You wouldn’t believe the smell.”

  Patronas quickly filled Tembelos in on what he’d learned from the victim’s family. “Someone killed the grandfather’s cat, tortured it apparently. Could have been random, but I don’t think so. Someone’s been targeting the family for a reason.”


  “But why?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  There was a long silence.

  “I don’t like this, Yiannis,” Tembelos finally said.

  Patronas sighed. “Nor I, Giorgos. Nor I.”

  Chapter Eight

  You can knock a long time on a deaf man’s door.

  —Greek Proverb

  The autopsy report was as Patronas had expected: death from a subcranial fracture and bleeding in the brain. No indication of what had been used. The coroner rarely speculated; this time had been no exception.

  “I thought of something as I was driving the other day,” Evangelos Demos said as he and Patronas walked toward the car.

  Must have been quite an experience—driving and thinking. A wonder he didn’t kill himself. Patronas had concluded long ago that his colleague was incapable of thought. The process simply eluded him, as did the concept of cause and effect, tit for tat, many other useful things. Zippers would give Evangelos trouble.

  Edging closer, Evangelos Demos whispered in his ear. “It occurred to me that terrorists might be involved.”

  “Terrorists!” Patronas was astounded. Even for Evangelos, the idea was stupid.

  “Yes. Remember that terrorist group, November Seventeeth? Their leader, the mathematician, resided on Lipsi. That’s very close to Patmos. Less than an hour away by boat.”

  “So?”

  “So one of them could have done it.”

  “November Seventeenth shot people, Evangelos. CIA agents, Greek politicians, and industrialists. They never went after Germans. And if they did, a rock would not have been their weapon of choice.”

  “You don’t know it was a rock.”

  Patronas fought to keep his voice down. “Evangelos, they used bazookas.”

  “Maybe they’ve changed their tactics.”

  Patronas had been trying to quit smoking, but the situation demanded nicotine and he pulled out his emergency pack of Karelias and lit up. “You share this ‘thought’ of yours with anyone else?” he asked.

  “I told Stathis in Athens.”

  Patronas closed his eyes. That’s what you get when you try to help someone. They ruin your career. How did the proverb go? I taught you to swim and now you try to drown me.

  “And what did Stathis say?” He drew on his cigarette furiously. He would have eaten it if he could.

  “He said, and I quote, ‘November Seventeenth is no longer a threat.’ ”

  “There you go.”

  “I still think we should check it out.”

  “Listen to me, Evangelos, we’re going to interview the residents of Chora. That’s what’s on the schedule for today—not Lipsi, not terrorists. Understand?”

  “But what if the killer doesn’t live in the village? We’ll be bothering a lot of innocent people.”

  It’s a wonder he doesn’t blow a fuse in his brain, overload that one, hard-working cell. “We’re cops, Evangelos. Like I told you before, we don’t care about bothering people.”

  “That’s not true. I care. I care a lot. I live here.”

  “I have an idea. Why don’t you go back to your office and wait there? Maybe the killer will come and find you.”

  “What if you’re wrong? What if the crime was political?”

  “You think someone’s declared war on Germany?”

  Evangelos nodded. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  They drove in silence through the backstreets of Skala, slowly making their way to Chora. It was a beautiful morning, the sunlight piercing. Patronas yearned for Chios, for the security of what he knew, to forget about the case and the mastodon sitting next to him.

  He rolled down the window and inhaled deeply. Tembelos and the priest were due to arrive in a few hours; he could last until then. Hopefully, what was wrong with Evangelos wasn’t contagious.

  “What do we say to people?” Evangelos asked fretfully, a moment later. “You can’t just ask, ‘Did you do it?’ I’d be insulted if someone asked me that.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Evangelos!”

  They continued in this manner for another ten minutes, Evangelos proposing and Patronas resisting.

  Groucho Marx, no doubt about it.

  Patronas remembered the way the comedian had talked in circles in the movies, answered questions no one had asked and derailed entire conversations.

  Maybe I could get a harp and strum it like Groucho’s brother, Harpo. Forget about police work; we could swing from the rafters, Evangelos and me, reenact A Night at the Opera.

  They started with the two tavli players in the square, Themis Poulis and Philippos Zanaras.

  “You see anything?” Patronas asked the men.

  He had bought them breakfast earlier and the table was littered with crumbs. The man called Themis had offered to read his fortune in the coffee grinds—an old custom that involved dumping the grinds out on a plate and studying them, prophesying the way the ancients had once done with entrails—but Patronas had declined. He was here to work. Besides, he knew his fortune. A divorced policeman, he was destined to spend the rest of his life lonely and poor. First, his hair would go, after which he’d probably lose control of his bladder.

  He opened his notebook. “Was someone hanging around the house?”

  “I never saw anyone,” Poulis said, “just the family and the people who worked for them, the gardener and the maid.”

  He’d been a farmer in the old days, he went on to say, had wrestled with the stony earth for over sixty years. “I grew tomatoes and raised a few sheep. It was a hard life, but a good one. I helped out at the monastery, too, on feast days.”

  In his eighties, he had skin like wrinkled brown paper.

  “Did you ever speak to the Bechtels?” Patronas asked.

  “Only the little boy, Walter.”

  The child had wanted to learn tavli and had watched them avidly for a morning or two when the family first came. “He couldn’t get it,” the farmer said. “Maybe it was the language ….” His voice trailed off. “I know a little German,” he added, embarrassed. “Nothing formal, only what I picked up during the war. The soldiers, they occupied my house. But I didn’t want to use the German I knew on the boy. It was ugly, the German I knew, curses mostly. Hateful talk.”

  The taverna owner had nothing to add. Although the Bauers and their guests, the Bechtels, had eaten often in his tavern, aside from taking their orders, he’d never spoken to them directly. He, too, had seen nothing the night of the murder. Over and over he repeated that he couldn’t believe something like this had happened on Patmos. “We’re not the way we were,” he said.

  The two old men nodded.

  “Greece has changed,” Themis Poulis said.

  The housekeeper lived in a rooming house in Skala, about four blocks away from the Sunrise Hotel. An abandoned water desalination plant had once occupied the site, Patronas remembered. Immense in its ugliness, it had been a vast graveyard of shattered glass and rusting metal frames. He saw no trace of it today.

  Made of reinforced concrete, the housekeeper’s building appeared to be relatively new, two stories high with a row of windows overlooking a small parking lot in front. Dumpsters were lined up along the left side of the building and pots of fake flowers adorned the entrance, their plastic leaves gray with dust.

  “Tourists stay here?” Patronas asked.

  “Some,” Evangelos said. “Church groups, mostly. There are only sixteen rooms and the owner prefers to rent them by the month, so the majority of residents work in the tourist industry or for private families like the Bauers. It’s not a bad place to stay. It’s cheap and the rooms are clean.”

  “How does she get from here to Chora?”

  “Bus probably. It drops you off at the top of the hill near the city hall, and then you walk the rest of the way.”

  Illuminated by fluorescent bulbs, the lobby was full of elderly Greek women, at least fifteen of them, chattering like magpies.

  Some kind of religious tour, Pa
tronas guessed, seeing the women had a priest with them. That had been the only kind of tourism permitted widows in the old days. They all had the same brochure in hand and were discussing the Cave of the Apocalypse, where trumpets had sounded and a saint had foreseen the end of the world.

  Dimitra’s kinfolk.

  Listening to their excited voices, Patronas again remembered his honeymoon—not quite the end of the world, but close.

  The owner of the hotel directed Patronas and Evangelos down a dimly lit hallway to Maria Georgiou’s room.

  Not wanting to alert the other residents of the rooming house of their presence, Patronas tapped softly on the door.

  How did the saying go? It is better if a priest, a doctor, and a policeman not enter one’s house.

  He’d called the hotel the previous day and spoken to her to arrange the interview, so she was expecting them.

  The housekeeper looked as if she were on her way to church, dressed in a blue rayon shirtwaist with a lace collar, stockings, and high-heeled shoes. A poor woman, she probably kept the outfit for special occasions—feast days, perhaps—an interview with the police evidently counting as one.

  Patronas introduced himself. “I am Yiannis Patronas, Kyria Georgiou,” he said, “Chief Officer of the Chios Police Force, and this is my colleague, Evangelos Demos, who’s in charge of the police here.”

  “Maria Georgiou,” the woman said shyly. “Hairo poli.”

  Glad to meet you.

  The room was clean and spare, light streaming in from a row of open windows. Patronas saw a pair of birds pecking at some seeds scattered along the sill. Swallows, they came and went, fluttering their wings as they landed. Their nest must be elsewhere.

  The housekeeper nodded to the little birds. “I feed them.” she explained. “I’m alone and they keep me company. It’s a small reward for their songs.”

  Maria Georgiou was a handsome woman with perfectly symmetrical features, reminiscent of classic statuary. Her nose was long and straight and her lips were full. Her eyes were dark and her unplucked brows were as thick as a man’s.