by Alex A King
No answer. She shuffled over to the pantry, pulled out the flour, the sugar, the butter. This, I was starting to notice, was how she dealt.
* * *
Late afternoon, while the compound was beginning to stir after a long, peaceful siesta, the dogs went wild. Grandma was sprinkling chopped walnuts on what looked like turds drenched in honey syrup. We hadn't slept. Something told me she never did, and that same something told me I never would. I was too Americanized and too old to take midday naps, even if the idea of them made me drool over the decadence of it all. Grandma dropped the nuts, wiped her hands on her black apron and bustled out the front door.
I bolted after her.
The dogs had congregated around the pool's fence. They were attempting to leap over or push through the bars, but so far they had only managed to be ineffectual battering rams. A fully dressed Xander was wading into the pool, and the rest of the family was beginning to dribble out into the courtyard to see what all the commotion was about.
Cookie. Cookie was the commotion. Facedown in the pool, Dad's former best friend was an untethered boat, drifting at the mercy of the pump's whims. Either he was dead or he was gunning for breath-holding as a new sport in the Summer Olympics. The gut suggested athletics wasn't his thing, so I was going with dead. Acid jumped in my stomach, made a grab for my uvula as leverage. As soon as Xander reached Cookie he flipped the man over and towed him back to the concrete shore.
Papou rolled to a stop beside me. "We should cut off his head, make sure he is really dead this time."
"No decapitation," Grandma said.
"How about a stake through the heart?" he asked, hopeful.
"He is a man not a vampire."
"So you say." He winked at me behind her back.
"I saw that."
"Everything she sees." He grabbed his crotch. "Did you see that, old woman?"
"How can I when there is nothing to see?"
He snorted but couldn't manage a laugh, despite the levity of his word. I thought I understood why. We were all Russian nesting dolls—not just me. Under the skin we wore another skin. And under that, another. Cookie wasn't just a mobster, a criminal, a godfather of his own smaller family. Beneath all the layers—the Bartholomew Cubbins hats—Cookie was still the little boy who used to play with Dad. Wasn't a dead man Papou and Grandma were seeing, but a kid who'd drowned in the pool.
There's nothing funny about that. Nothing commonplace—not even in their line of work. A dead kid is a sign someone really screwed things up.
One of my cousins, I discovered, was a physician. He rushed to Xander's side and knelt beside the dead man. Between them they tried all the tricks but it was too late. Cookie was gone—for good. No faking.
Grandma looked at me, and this time I could read every line etched into her leathery skin. the Baptist had been here. Again.
Her walls couldn't keep him out.
Chapter 17
I'D BEEN LOOKING FORWARD to a dip in Grandma's pool, but knowing it had dead guy cooties scratched the shine off the idea. That didn't mean I couldn't enjoy it from one of the surrounding deck chairs. Just me and my goat and a million winking stars. The water was a flat sheet of glass, the lights inside turning it an eerie shade of pale green, the color of paint drying on a morgue wall. If I dived in, where would I end up: in my own meat locker or Narnia?
A man died here because someone else decided he shouldn't live.
That same someone had decided my life was forfeit, thanks to a slip of DNA.
There was no easing on down the road toward finding Dad until I'd scrubbed my name off the Baptist's naughty list. Which mean I had to convince him I was a fundamentally decent person or kill him.
Or get him locked up.
The middle idea didn't strike my fancy. Killing was in my blood but it wasn't in my heart or hands. Which meant I was down to two choices, neither of which was appealing. How does one reason with a psycho who truly believes his path is righteous? And how does one lure that righteous nut into a bear trap?
I kicked off my shoes, dunked my toes into the water, sending gentle shockwaves through the illusion. Arms outstretched, I fell forward. Cooties be damned, I was already contaminated.
The water shattered. I curled up into the fetal position, let myself sink the way an anchor does when it's pushed overboard.
When I burst up out of the water I wasn't in Narnia, or Fillory, or any of the magic places. I was still stuck in Greece, my situation unchanged.
"No bikini?"
"Argh!" My body almost shot out of its skin. Detective Melas was standing poolside, arms folded. His grin was indecent, at best.
"I always swim fully clothed. That way I can avoid cops and other perverts."
"You got something against law enforcement?"
Treading water, I ignored him. "Jesus. What are you thinking sneaking up on me? You're lucky you didn't get shot."
"Relax, I've got permission to be here."
"Not from me you don't."
He sat in my chair, looked at my goat. "What's with the goat?"
"It's sacrificial. But now you're here so he gets to go free. What are you doing here?"
"Asking questions." He reached out, petted my goat. The beast went to him willingly, the hussy. "Hear you had some problems earlier."
"Your guys already came and went. They asked questions and we answered them."
"And now we've got a dead previously dead man in the morgue. The plan is to sneak him back into his coffin and let his sister know. No one's ready for another Cookie funeral."
"Sounds complicated," I said, hauling myself out of the water. My dress was glue. It clung to me in all the wrong places. Melas was gawking. "Does that happen a lot?"
"This job, I see a lot of weird things. You find him?"
"The dogs found him. The rest of us followed the dogs." I was trying to calculate precisely how much I should or shouldn't say. Probably Grandma didn't want me saying a word, but he was the law, so I was compelled—or something like that.
He stood up. Nodded at my wet clothes. "Go get dressed. Something pretty and dry. I'm taking you out. Maybe I'll even kiss you again."
No way. Was he high?
"Wow, what an offer. Let me think about it … No."
"What have you done since you've been here? Anything touristy? You came to Greece and saw nothing, did nothing. That how you want it to be?"
"Hey, I saw dead people." But he had a good point. "It would be nice to have some fun."
"I can do fun." His voice dipped. His gaze dropped to my wet chest. "I specialize in fun."
I bet he did. The few licks I'd already had of that cake were delicious. So I got changed, put on a dress that was somewhere between church and bar, and hoped I could keep my hands to myself if he couldn't.
Grandma was holding court in the kitchen, feeding the hungry while they listened. Aunt Rita, Papou, Takis, and Xander were there, with a handful of the others. Some I didn't recognize. The woman must have been a sardine packer in a former life. How else did she fit so many people in her tight kitchen with its low roof?
She inspected me. "Did you forget something?"
Mental inventory time. Shoes, underwear, earrings, lipgloss, and enough mascara to make Bambi jealous.
"No."
"Yes." She nodded to Xander. "Go with Katerina."
"What? No way. I'm going out with a policeman. I'll be fine."
"Xander goes or you don't go."
Our earlier conversation swam back, the one about not defying her in front of others. I could do that. I would do that, if that's what it took to win her cooperation.
I nodded, but it was a chore.
Ugh! Imagine what a nightmare she'd have been when I was a teenager. I was suddenly glad Dad had run away to America. He did me a massive favor raising me thousands of miles away from his ball-crushing mother.
I pointed at Xander. "Be unobtrusive. Can you do that?"
* * *
No. No, he couldn't. His motorcycle's he
adlamp rode our butts all the way to the coast. When we parked, I saw the motorcycle was new but otherwise identical to the one Baby Dimitri's buddy blew up. Xander stayed a good twelve feet back, all the way to our table on the water's concrete edge, then he melted into the crowd.
If the waterfront was beautiful by daylight, by night it was magic. Fairy lights were strung across the street, looped from lamppost to lamppost. They danced in the sea, and I could have easily sat there all night, watching them twirl. Music clashed all over the place. Restaurants and tavernas had their fresh seafood on display. Choose your own dead Nemo, caught earlier that day. Volos and the waterfront villages of the Pelion area all did this, Melas told me. At night they sealed off their promenades and filled the docks with tables and chairs. The street became a safe place for foot traffic. Everybody, it seemed, flocked to the waterfront to socialize.
"What are we doing here?" I asked Melas.
"I don't know about you, but I'm eating. Or I will be when the food comes."
My brain whirred. He'd thrown me in jail, handcuffed me to a pole, and now we were on a date?
"It's not a date," he said, reading my mind.
"Of course it's not." Was that a pang of disappointment in my voice? Better squash it fast. "I wouldn't be here if it was."
"Yeah, you would. You like me."
"We're oil and water. I'm wet and you're greasy." Wasn't helping my situation, was I?
He leaned back in his chair. "Want to tell me how Cookie's murder went down?"
"Was it a murder?"
"Medical Examiner says yes."
"I don't know. Grandma and I were in the kitchen when we heard the dogs freak out. We went to investigate, and there was Cookie, floating like the S.S. Poseidon."
The waiter showed up. He was lean-hipped and fit and flirty, one of those dishes who knew he was tasty. Melas ordered wine for us both, and I guess I didn't mind too much, otherwise I would have protested.
"The Baptist is a creep," he said when the waiter left. "You didn't know him when he was a cop. He toyed with perps. Tortured them. Got off on hurting them, mentally and physically. He's still that way. He's deluded, thinks he's on some kind of righteous crusade. Being a cop wasn't enough for him." His attention shifted to the water, then back to me. "There are times our hands are tied, when we have to let the bad guys walk, so he bailed. Now he's doing things his way. To extremes."
"I figured he'd screwed up and you guys tossed him out."
He shook his head. "He walked with a big, fat government pension."
"Why does he drown them, his victims?"
A plate of fried calamari appeared on the table with a garlicky dipping sauce. I wanted a shovel, but all I had was a fork.
"He used to tell a story. You know they're always saying drowning is peaceful? You struggle in the beginning, but when the panic stops, then it's calm all the way down to the bottom. the Baptist, he nearly drowned when he was in the army. They were parachuting and something went wrong, and he ended up swallowing half a river. Almost died out there. He said there was nothing peaceful, nothing calm about it. Only terror and pain all the way down. That's what he wants for his victims. Suffering to the end. Figures they deserve it."
I skewed a piece of calamari, unable to resist any longer. "He struck me as a sadist, like he's in love with the idea of pain and suffering."
"Why aren't you terrified?"
"I'm shaking in my boots, but it's overshadowed by all the anger. I can't take care of priority number one until he backs off. I hate him for getting in my way."
The waiter wandered back over, refilled our wine. Melas looked at me and I shrugged, so he ordered for us. While he was ocupado with the waiter, I scanned the crowd, hunting and pecking for Xander. Wherever he was he was good. I bet he ruled at hide-and-seek when he was a kid.
"Thanks," I said. "I'm finding it hard to think tonight."
"Death's not easy to see, and murder's even harder. Go easy on yourself."
"My family takes it in stride. I'm the odd one out. I feel like I should be able to shrug it off."
"There'd be something wrong with you if you did. First time I saw a dead body on the job I spray-painted the pavement with gyro."
I inspected the glass in my hand. The liquid was red and slightly sweet. Normally wine caught in my throat and gave me a wicked headache, but this stuff went down easy. "I actually hate wine."
"Who hates wine? You can't be Greek if you hate wine."
"Tonight I don't hate wine."
"Tonight you need wine."
"I hope I can stop myself before it's too late."
"Too late for what?"
It was deft, the way I changed the subject. Very clever. "What did you order?"
"You'll see."
When the food came it was moussaka again—hot, fresh, equal parts saucy and cheesy.
"Yum, yum," I said, brightening up. It's hard to be sad around good food.
Melas watched me dig in. I tried not to food-orgasm on the spot, but it took all my self-control.
After a moment he said, "My mother wants her plate back."
"Did you tell her how you lost it?"
"Sure. I told her some crazy woman stole it."
My eyebrows hiked north. My mouth was too busy chewing to ask, and I'd grown past the old joke about see-food; bound to be one of those things that got lost in translation anyway. He didn't elaborate, so eventually I was forced to take a break.
"You cuffed me to a pole, tortured me, then bailed. And I'm the crazy one?"
"You broke into my house."
"Yeah, because I needed your help."
"When I want help I ask for it. You should try that sometime."
I lowered my voice so I wouldn't make a scene. "I would have asked but you cuffed me to a pole!"
"You need to work on your delivery."
Stalemate.
We both got down to the serious business of eating. Melas was easy company when we weren't sparring. Before long, my body chose to forget I was being hunted. My knots loosened and unraveled. I people-watched for the love of watching people live and laugh. The waiter came and went like the tide, leaving several inches of wine in my glass each time. Finally, I leaned back in my chair and let out a contented groan. Not exactly ladylike, but this wasn't a date.
"If this isn't a date, what is it?"
He tapped his fingers on the table. "A business proposition."
"Holy hell," I said. "You think I'm a prostitute?"
"I couldn't afford you if you were." He leaned on the table, eyes dark and deadly serious. Wherever this was going, it wasn't someplace happy. "A few months ago, one of my informants washed ashore. A low-level drug dealer with friends in a lot of crooked places. Medical Examiner said she drowned, but not in the gulf. The water in her lungs was fresh and blue."
"Blue?"
"Toilet water. Wherever she drowned they had one of those blue tablets in the cistern. She was an okay person. Saw a lot of hard times, knew a lot of bad people. But she didn't deserve to die. Anyway, wasn't long we all came to the same conclusion: the Baptist did it. Wasn't like him to take out the small fish, though. Normally he hits higher up the chain of command. Want to kill a tree, chainsaw the roots. Plucking a few leaves does nothing. The tree makes new leaves.
"Next thing we know, more informants start showing up dead. All drowned, one way or another."
"Where does Kefalas Olives fit into this?"
"George Kefalas was an informant. He was one of the big bad guys, but he was also dishing out information we needed. That's why I was at Kefalas Olives that day."
An awful thought bonked me over the head. "Information about my family?"
"Some of it."
"What about Cookie?"
Two palms up. "We don't know."
An old conversation flooded back, the one Cookie and I had shared in the cemetery the night Grandma drugged me and sent me home on the redeye. To share or not to share, that was the question. Cookie was dead now—w
hat could it hurt? So I shared.
Melas fell quiet. It was the kind of quiet that wanted to be left alone, the kind of quiet I usually respected. So what did I do? I threw a brick at it.
"Why didn't you guys haul the Baptist in when you knew what he was doing?"
"We tried. We were overruled."
"By whom?"
He shook his head. "Don't know. He had a long career in law enforcement, made a lot of important friends. Most of the others, they were okay with following the order not to bring him in."
"What about the lost informants? Didn't that put a crimp in business?"
"Yeah, we took a big hit. It's a problem."
"I can't believe everyone's backing down from a murderer. It's so … cowardly. Cops are supposed to be the good guys."
"We're not all backing down. Our informants are supposed to be confidential, so someone inside was handing out information, violating their privacy and safety. We rely on them. A good informant goes places we can't go."
The horrible thoughts were lining up, one right after the other. Here came the next one. "Oh, God. You don't want me to be an informant, do you?"
His laugh was more bark than mirth. "No, but I need your help."
Damn, this guy had some massive stones. Where was he when I needed help? Eating moussaka while I was cuffed to a chair, that's where.
"What kind of help?"
"We've tried looking for the Baptist in all the usual places. His home, his family, friends. But he hasn't had contact with them in months as far as I can tell. He's staying well-hidden. He comes out to play then vanishes again."
"You think someone is hiding him?"
"Maybe. That or he's hiding out in abandoned buildings, or even in one of the groves. Greece is filled with good hiding places. And with the economy the way it is, it's not difficult to buy discretion when necessary."
After the waiter carried our plates away, he showed up with the good stuff. The stuff I would have ordered first had I known about it. Galaktobouriko—custard pie wrapped in flaky phyllo—and loukoumadas—round, fried balls of dough—that looked happy to be sacrificially drowned in syrup. If it had been anything other than honey I might have balked, given our conversation, but it's hard to be repulsed when there's that much sugar on the table. Melas divvied them up so we could share. I could have been mistaken, but it seemed to me his halves were bigger. But it was his euro so I didn't complain.
