Santorini Caesars

by Jeffrey Siger

  The mother nodded at Yianni and the housekeeper said, “Thank you.”

  Yianni returned to Andreas in the foyer. “The Brigadier should have been here by now. The Pentagon’s only five minutes away.”

  “He’s probably picking up the doctor,” said Andreas.

  “He’s a general. They have colonels to do that sort of thing for them.”

  Andreas shook his head. “I pray the day never comes where someone’s trying to figure out how I’d react to this kind of news.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Andreas’ phone rang. He looked at the number before answering. “What’s up, Petro?”

  “Ballistics has a preliminary report on the shell casings, Chief. They’re police-issue calibers, but with a twist.”

  “A twist?”

  “They’re handloads, not out-of-the-box ammunition.”

  “You mean someone made their own cartridges?”

  “Yes. The casings were standard issue but the lab found markings on them consistent with handloading equipment. Standard powder loads were replaced with something more powerful. No doubt the bullets were replaced, too, but we’ll have to see what the coroner recovers to confirm that.”

  “His first reaction was that each shooter used different bullets—one to shatter bone, the other to mushroom in the heart.”

  “Damn.”

  Andreas stared at the mother as he exhaled heavily. “For sure. See you back at the office, but make sure you don’t talk about any of this with anyone.”

  “Understood, Chief. Bye.”

  “That didn’t sound very encouraging,” said Yianni.

  “Wait until the Brigadier gets here if you want to see just how very not encouraging things can get.”

  “What’s he got to do with this?”

  “That’s what I aim to find out. It’s sounding more and more like we’ve got a well-planned execution on our hands.”

  Two minutes later the front door swung open and a vintage version of John Wayne, Greek-style, strode into the room. Military beret and all.

  ***

  The Brigadier gave Andreas and Yianni a cursory nod as he passed them on the way from the front door to his wife. She burst into tears the moment he walked into the room. He gently pulled her up from the sofa and held her tightly in his arms. At a head taller and half a person broader than she, he looked like a bear embracing a ballerina. He closed his eyes and stood dry-eyed as she poured tears out onto his chest.

  When her crying subsided to sobs, the Brigadier eased off on his grip and opened his eyes. He kissed her on the forehead, hugged her, and eased her down next to the housekeeper. Then he reached down and took the housekeeper’s hands in his. She looked up at him, her lips trembling. He nodded, she nodded back, and he let go of her hands. She put an arm around the mother. The Brigadier turned and walked to where Andreas and Yianni stood silently watching. He stood a half-head taller than Andreas and looked ten years older, with a barely noticeable potbelly.

  “Thank you, both. I appreciate the consideration you showed my wife. Especially after how rude we were to you.”

  Andreas nodded. “I’m sorry about your daughter.”

  “I am, too,” said Yianni.

  “It still hasn’t hit me.” The Brigadier bit at his lip. “It’s just too unimaginable.”

  Andreas nodded.

  “The doctor should be here any minute now. I sent a member of my staff to pick him up.”

  Andreas felt the I-told-you-so glance from Yianni. “I know this is a lousy time to be asking you questions, but I hope you understand why I must.”

  “Of course. Besides it might help to keep my mind off…” He coughed in a less-than-successful attempt to contain a sudden sob. “Ask me whatever you want. Let’s just do it here in the foyer where I can keep an eye on my wife.”

  “Let me start with the most obvious question. Who do you think might have done this?”

  The Brigadier didn’t blink. “How would I know?”

  “Not even a wild guess?”

  He gestured no.

  “When we spoke earlier you said the killers might be military.”

  “No, I simply said from the way you described their manner of dress they could have been military or police.”

  “Fair point, but what you said got me to thinking. The killers chased your daughter for several blocks. They could have shot her anytime they wanted but held off until surrounded by witnesses and surveillance cameras. And when they did, they managed to tightly group their shots precisely where they wanted on a moving target. That’s exceptional marksmanship. Especially for cops.”

  “I’d call it extraordinary,” said the Brigadier. “But how do you know they hit where they were aiming?”

  Andreas locked eyes with the Brigadier. “They used special, hand-loaded ammunition with slugs designed to be particularly effective on her spine and heart.”

  The Brigadier blinked and looked away. “My God…are you saying Penelope was assassinated?”

  “That’s why I asked who you thought might have done this.”

  The Brigadier pressed the fingers of his right hand against his brow and rubbed. “She’d been running with a leftist crowd since entering university. But I figured a lot of kids did that in college. Sort of a guilty rite of passage for having parents who could still afford to send them to private schools and spend summers on the islands while the rest of the country was in economic meltdown.”

  “But why would the left want to kill her if she was one of them?”

  “No idea. And I’m not saying they did. I’m just saying that she ran with a crowd known for doing violent things.”

  “What sorts of violent things?”

  The Brigadier closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, let it out, and opened his eyes. “I have nothing specific in mind. But the media’s always showing them burning cars and throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at police. I’m just doing what you asked, speculating wildly. Sorry if I’m not helpful. I’m not exactly thinking particularly clearly at the moment.”

  Andreas raised his hands in apology. “Oh, no, Brigadier, I understand completely. We’re just trying to come up with a possible motive, something to justify viewing this as more than a random, wrong-time wrong-place tragedy.”

  The Brigadier closed his eyes. “She was so young. Hard to imagine her making such a hardened enemy who’d go to such lengths to have her killed.”

  “That’s sort of my thinking too. What about you and your wife?”

  He opened his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Do either you or your wife have any ‘hardened’ enemies?”

  “Someone willing to murder our daughter to get back at one of us? That’s preposterous.”

  “It may be preposterous, but I just want to know if it’s possible.”

  The Brigadier paused. “I’ve done a lot in my career that’s harmed a lot of people, but I can’t imagine a scenario where someone would go after my daughter to get back at me.”

  “Terrorists?”

  “That’s always a possibility, and I work with special-operations forces, but I’m not directly involved in anything that would draw their attention. Besides, terrorists like to claim responsibility for their killings. I haven’t heard anything like that in connection with this. Have you?”

  “No.”

  “I wish I could help you, I really do. I want to get these bastards more than anyone on earth.”

  “I know. We’re right with you on that.”

  “So, what happens next?”

  Andreas looked at the mother. “We wait for the doctor and if he says it’s okay, we ask your wife and the housekeeper the same questions we asked you.”

  The Brigadier turned and looked at his wife. “I wish there were some way to avoid that.”

  “I do
too,” said Andreas.

  The doorbell rang.

  “It must be the doctor,” said the Brigadier as he went to open the door.

  Yianni leaned over and whispered to Andreas. “He’s not telling us everything.”

  Andreas nodded. “I know.”

  Twenty minutes later Andreas and Yianni left the house. The doctor had allowed them to ask their questions of the mother and housekeeper, but both only said how much the daughter was loved; they couldn’t conceive that anyone would want to harm her.

  Neither cop pressed the women or the Brigadier further. It was too soon to confront them with more reality than they already had to deal with.

  ***

  “What do you think he’s hiding?” said Yianni as he steered the marked blue-and-white police car onto Mesogeion Avenue, heading toward GADA.

  Andreas gazed out the passenger side window. “No idea. But if it’s something that could help us catch his daughter’s killers and he still won’t tell us, it’s got to be damn serious.”

  “Maybe he already knows who did it?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind.” Andreas drummed his fingers on the dashboard. “That’s about all we’d need right now in Greece, senior military types running personal vendetta operations.”

  “Or it could just be the natural reluctance of the military to trust civilians. Cops think the same way.”

  “But we’re cops, not civilians.”

  “To hardcore military types we’re not much different from civilians. Just bureaucrats with guns.”

  Andreas looked at the side of Yianni’s face. “So, you think he’s going to try running his own investigation? How long do you think he’ll get away with that before we start stumbling over each other chasing the same leads? And once we do, all hell will break loose. This country’s not keen on the military inserting itself into civilian matters.”

  “The Brigadier may not see it that way. Or more likely not care. Many in the military think the police are far too lax in tolerating demonstrators—that we let them get away with too much.”

  “It’s not just military types who think that way. But now we have the media about to announce to the world that two Greek cops killed an unarmed twenty-year-old female demonstrator. That’s going to raise an outcry against us. So until we identify who actually did the shooting, I’m not eliminating anyone, including demonstrators.”

  “Do you really think demonstrators masqueraded as government types to cover the killing of one of their own?”

  “Not likely,” said Andreas, “but as I said, for now I’m not dismissing any possibility.”

  “Spoken like a true Greek. We thrive on Byzantine conspiracy theories.”

  Andreas waved his left hand at Yianni. “All we know for sure is that the girl was known by her parents to take part in anti-government demonstrations, and she was hunted down and killed by skilled assassins. If her father knows something that might lead to his daughter’s killers, my guess is he’ll follow up on it ASAP.”

  “Do you want to tap his phones? Follow him?”

  “I’d like to do all that, but getting a wiretap on a Greek general’s phones based on what we have is a non-starter. And putting a tail on him without first getting permission from his defense minister could generate some serious inter-ministry fireworks.”

  “Which I assume you want to avoid.”

  “Any minute now we’ll be hit head-on with a behemoth media shit storm portraying cops as bloodthirsty killers of a Greek general’s daughter. The very last thing we need on top of that is a headline that says ‘Cops Investigating Victim’s Mourning Father.’”

  “So, what do we do?”

  Andreas smiled again. “I thought I’d leave that to you and Maggie to take care of.”

  “Maggie?”

  Andreas nodded. “You told me generals get others to do things for them. Well, Maggie is our police headquarters’ mother superior, with a network of friends and contacts playing similar roles in every Greek government ministry office. Who better to get a line on the Brigadier’s likely choice to run such a delicate search-and-destroy operation for him? And whoever that is, that’s who we watch.”

  “She’s your secretary. If you think we can get her to ask her friends to betray their bosses’ confidences, be my guest.”

  Andreas nodded. “Yes, it’s going to require some convincing to get her to agree.”

  “And just what part do you have in mind for me to play in your cloak and dagger assignment for Maggie?”

  Andreas smiled. “A simple one. You get to do the convincing.”

  Chapter Four

  Andreas and Yianni walked into Andreas’ office on GADA’s fourth floor to find Maggie and Petro sitting on the couch in front of the windows, staring at the flat-screen television mounted on the opposite wall.

  Andreas walked behind his desk and sat down without looking at the screen. “All I want to know is whether they’re pronouncing my name correctly.”

  “Yes, if ‘killer’ Kaldis sounds right to you,’” said Maggie.

  “Cute.”

  “Would you prefer, ‘mad-dog killer cops’ or ‘government assassins’ or ‘fascist death squads?’ asked Petro.

  “That seems to cover the political spectrum nicely.”

  “It all depends on what channel you watch,” said Maggie. “I’d say fascist death squads is the left’s favorite. Government assassins is more popular with the right.”

  “So who’s calling us mad dogs?”

  “The moderates,” said Petro.

  Maggie nodded. “Yep, it’s not looking good for the good guys.”

  “Any calls?” asked Andreas.

  “It would be easier telling you who didn’t call.”

  “Lila?”

  “The wife and family’s fine. She said to tell you she’s not picking up the house phone, so call her on her mobile.”

  “That bad?”

  Maggie nodded. “The press smells blood in the water, and the video of what you staged in front of the university’s gates is running on an endless loop on virtually every station in Greece. They’re gunning for you because you’re the only cop they recognize and they all have your home phone number and address.”

  Andreas shut his eyes and shook his head. “Okay, get me our new minister of public order, please.”

  Maggie stood and walked to Andreas’ desk. She dialed the number from memory. “Hello, it’s Chief Inspector Kaldis for the minister.” Maggie handed Andreas the phone and went back to the couch.

  Yianni dropped into a chair next to the desk and gestured for Petro to lower the volume on the television.

  “Hi, Babis, I hear you’re looking for me.”

  “Andreas. What’s happening and why haven’t you returned my calls?”

  “Sorry about that, I’ve sort of been busy, what with having to prevent a riot and inform a family that their daughter’s been murdered.”

  “Yes, I heard it was a woman. A young student at the university. Do you know which of our guys did it?”

  Andreas squeezed the phone. “I don’t know if any of our guys did it.”

  “Of course they did. Everybody saw it. Video from the university’s cameras is playing nonstop on every TV station in the country. They’re calling for the killers’ heads.”

  “Well, the short answer is we only know that two men dressed as cops or military killed her.”

  “Military? You think they could be military.”

  “I said dressed as military.”

  “It would be catastrophic for our people to think the military might be involved in this.”

  “It’s sort of out of our hands. The media will say what it likes, and once it gets out that the victim was the daughter of a Greek general, who knows where they’ll go with the story?”

  “A Greek g
eneral.”

  “Yes. And an only child.”

  Babis paused, as if catching his breath. “Despite the militaristic attitudes of the distinguished leader of our government’s right wing coalition partner who serves as minister of defense, this government does not countenance violence against lawful demonstrators. And certainly not by the military.”

  “That’s the downside of a free press. People get to think and say what they want.”

  “You’re not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be,” said Andreas. “But what we should be worrying about is violence against cops.”

  “That’s not an issue here.”

  “It soon will be, because from the way the media’s playing this, every cop in Greece will be a target. Demonstrations and riots will come out of this for sure. So we better be prepared.”

  “Just find the killers and leave the bigger picture to me. There will be no riots. We know how to handle demonstrations.”

  Andreas squeezed the phone so hard his knuckles turned white, but his voice remained calm. “Babis, I know how proud you are of your distinguished history at uniting members of your party in demonstrations against government policies with which your party disagreed, but we’re talking about passions here, not politics. Should the people start to believe that our government is employing the very practices it once so vigorously denounced in opposition—”

  “No reason for you to say any more. I know how the people think. They know we’d never betray our promises to them. They will listen to our prime minister and remain calm. All you need to do is find the fascist cops who did this. We must rid their kind from our ranks. That is our promise to the people.”

  Andreas closed his eyes. “That’s all nice to say, but I think you still better plan for civil unrest. Make that massive civil unrest.”

  “There is no reason to. Just do what I said and leave the people to me. And unless you have proof, no more talk of the military being involved in this tragedy. Goodbye, I must speak to the Prime Minister.”

  The phone went dead and Andreas stared at it for a moment before putting it back in its cradle. “He said not to worry about protecting cops, because he can handle the people, and that I should focus on finding ‘the fascist cops’ who did this. ‘Rid their kind from our ranks.’” He emphasized the quotes with his fingers.