“Can you move it?” Rachel asked matter-of-factly.
Letta rotated it a millimeter, cried, rotated it the other way, and cried again.
“Do you think you could stand?” I asked.
“I don’t know!”
I positioned myself behind Letta, slowly lifting her to a standing position while Rachel steadied her. When Rachel and I got on either side, Letta wound her arms around our shoulders.
“We’ll take it slowly,” Rachel said.
The plan was simple but ineffective. After one step, Letta’s better leg buckled. The three of us nearly fell together.
“Bend your right leg,” Rachel suggested. But the two women were the same size, so our staggering footsteps advanced us no more than a few inches at a time.
“This is impossible,” I said. “Grab onto my back,” I told Letta. She clutched at my neck and I took some slow steps, afraid to go faster than a crawl.
Rachel supervised. “You’re doing fine,” she said. “Try to keep moving.”
I trudged forward along the edge of the water. We reached the spot where the cliff jutted out, the part Letta had jumped from.
“I have to rest,” I gasped.
“Maybe we could use the sea,” Rachel said.
“Float her?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Rachel and I struggled to maneuver Letta on her back and let the waves carry her weight. I kept my hands under her head while Rachel supported the girl’s waist, floating her along.
The boys came around the bend and ran towards us.
“What happened?” they shouted. “Who’s this?”
“You are heroes today!” Rachel said. “Because you heard the woman crying, we found her in time. Now, Alex, come here. You must do what I’ve been doing.”
Eagerly he joined us in the water, and I paused long enough for Rachel to show the boy how to put his arms under the woman’s waist. “Can you walk like that, holding her?”
“Yes!”
“Shall I try walking again?” I asked.
Rachel and Alex nodded. The boy wasn’t strong enough to hold her, but he could guide her body enough for me to manage.
“Are you doing all right?” I asked Letta.
She nodded, gritting her teeth.
“I’ll get a doctor,” Rachel said. “Don’t try to carry her up the hill. Float her around the curve so that she’s as close as possible to the path leading back up to the parking lot. I’ll come back as soon as I can. Is that all right?”
“Go.”
She took the smaller boy’s hand. “Come, Christos. You need to help me.” Without looking back, she rushed him towards the path.
***
Rachel returned nearly an hour later with Kremaki’s two emergency medics, both men in their thirties. They joked as they ambled down the hill as if they might have been in any other profession. To them this was a routine call, and perhaps Rachel hadn’t been able to convey a sense of emergency. As soon as they saw the misplaced kneecap and the way Letta bit her finger in pain, they sobered up and leapt into action. They’d brought a stretcher, and they immediately and deftly transferred her to it. They secured her with cloth strips, tying careful knots, but we were hardly prepared to cart her uphill. Despite Letta’s petite size, it took all of us to get her up the path: Rachel and the boys in front whacking branches out of the way, and me and the two medics taking turns with the stretcher. Not only was the incline steep, but it was irregular. More than once we slipped, and our patient’s ashen face winced in pain.
By the time we staggered to the clearing and maneuvered Letta into the ambulance, we were all done in. She squeezed my hand in a silent “thank you” before the medics shut the door behind her.
The medic who doubled as the driver walked me around to the front of his vehicle. Sweat ran down his forehead. He had done a lion’s share of the transporting. “You saved the life for the woman,” he said. “God will bless you.”
“We were here by accident,” I said.
“There are no accidents. Work as me long enough and you will know it is true.”
The men thanked us all and then waved as they hurried off. We were anxious enough to get in our own car and start the journey back. While I drove, Rachel plied the boys with sandwiches. They ate mechanically, perfectly quiet. They understood the seriousness of the day’s events without asking about it. The silence that fell on the car was due to the exhaustion that comes with watching somebody’s pain, pain so deep you can’t do anything about it.
By the time we worked our way to the main road, the sun had given way to dusk. “We’re going to be late to work,” I said. “Your boss will understand a good cause, won’t he?”
Rachel bobbed her head and body back and forth in small waves. “I don’t think we should say anything. This was too personal. Spiros, bless his heart, is a one-man grapevine. What did Letta tell you while you were waiting for us?
“We didn’t talk much. She kept crying.”
“Why did she try to kill herself?”
“All she would say is that her dad wouldn’t understand and that her life was over.”
“How old do you think she is?”
“Maybe seventeen. She’s probably knocked up.”
“With any luck, she’ll have a miscarriage.”
“Having a baby is no reason to kill yourself.”
“On the island it could be. The Amirosians are a nice group as a rule, but they’re closed-minded. They’re living half a century behind the rest of the country.”
“Not Eleni.”
“Eleni has a sister who moved to the States and a mother who travels. A lot of the other islanders are stuck so far in the past that they’ve never been off Amiros.”
I couldn’t imagine a similar situation.
As we continued north, I gunned the car. I was driving way over the limit, but no one else was on the road. Shaken by the day’s events, I had everything I could do to concentrate on driving in a straight line.
“Do you think we did the right thing?” Rachel asked. She was twisting and untwisting an empty plastic bag as if it were therapy.
“What do you mean?”
“Did Letta prefer to die?”
I had to drive a few more seconds before I could respond. I hadn’t considered that we might not have been doing her a favor. “Of course she didn’t prefer to die. She’s a kid. How could she know what she wants?”
Rachel shifted uncomfortably.
“She wasn’t even trying hard to kill herself,” I said. “The cliff wasn’t that high, and the alcove cuts the ocean currents.”
Rachel lit cigarettes in reply. Since she was usually prone to conversation, her silence unnerved me.
“When you see somebody in trouble, it’s only natural to try to help them,” I said finally. “She didn’t resist our help.”
“It was two against one. She knew she didn’t have a choice.”
We rode without speaking until we passed Lepidopteros, where a few houses already had lights on.
“We’ve got to deposit the boys and clean up,” I said. “We’re going to be a half an hour late to the taverna, and that’s if we hurry like the devil’s chasing us. What do we tell Spiros? He’ll think we took a nap or something.”
Rachel looked back at the boys, but they’d conked out several miles earlier. “Spiros will assume we’re late because we were having sex.”
“Whoops.”
Rachel shrugged. “Don’t worry. The islanders might be provincial, but sex is something they all think they know everything about.”
Chapter Sixteen
Whenever I’d been late to work at Noche Azul, which was often, I would slip in as quietly as possible through the back door. I was embarrassed when Rachel insisted on our going in through the front and doubly so when we ran into Spiros, who was soliciting customers with a broad smile and open arms.
“I’m so sorry we’re late.” Rachel gave him a standard hug. “It was unavoidable.”
Spiros rubbed his hands on his limp cotton apron. Rachel said he rarely cooked, so the prop was for show. “Yes, yes. Sometimes happens.” He stood back, scrutinizing Rachel. “You feeling bad?”
She tapped her wrist. “Better, better. But if you don’t mind, I would prefer to have Andy play guitar for me. I’ll sing and maybe play a few tunes on the violin.”
“Oh, yes, is fine. Andy is sounding good with the others.”
I started for the stage, but Rachel hung back. I heard Spiros whisper to her under his breath.
Halfway to the stage, I waited for her to catch up with me. “Is he upset with us?”
“Not so much. He enjoyed the excuse to give me a hard time.”
She hurried ahead, smiling politely at the crowd from Ocean Royale that filled the room. She offered a mildly embarrassed wave to Kostas, Angelos, and Dina, who grinned at us mid-song. As we took our places, I was acutely aware that all eyes were on us. Spiros wasn’t the only one who assumed we were late because we couldn’t get out of bed.
“It takes longer as you get older, doesn’t it?” Angelos winked at me as Rachel translated.
“Who says fast is good?” Rachel quipped back.
“You’re so late we thought you were trying to make twins!” Kostas said.
She blew him a kiss. “Stop meddling and let me sing Filákia sou.”
I hadn’t learned many of the Greek songs yet, but I knew that Your Little Kisses was one of Rachel’s favorites.
We plunged into an evening’s entertainment no matter how much we didn’t feel like it, enriching the customers’ dinners with vivid memories. Once again I followed Dina’s slow chord patterns or took cues from Kostas, but instead of the tunes being a worthy challenge, tonight each one was another obstacle. From time to time I looked over at Rachel, but she rarely looked back. Despite the happy music we were playing, we were each in our own worlds, remembering the afternoon in our own sad ways.
***
Hours later, we were on our way out the door when Kostas followed us to the parking lot. He put his arm around Rachel’s shoulder. “Sorry to give you such a hard time tonight. Last week when Dina was late, nobody said anything.”
“Dina is eighty years old,” Rachel said. “We don’t have the same excuse!”
“Eighty?” I asked. “I thought he just had bad joints.”
Rachel shook my arm. “I was exaggerating. We think he’s seventy-something, but he won’t tell us his age.”
“Anyway,” Kostas said, “I wanted you to know that we didn’t mean anything by it.”
Rachel patted his back. “I know. I barely paid attention.”
“Well, good night,” I said, hoping he’d take a hint and leave.
“Listen.” Kostas planted himself directly between us and Eleni’s mother’s car. “I’m not trying to meddle, so you can tell me this is none of my business and I’ll leave it alone, but you were both off tonight. Did your arriving late have anything to do with that little mishap with the motor scooter?”
Rachel gave Kostas a hug that bordered on intimate. “You’re a doll. But thank God, no.”
“You haven’t had any car accidents or weird people showing up at your house or strange phone calls or anything?”
Rachel shook her head. “Nothing like that.”
“If I can help you, say so. No matter what it is.” He spoke slowly as if afraid we might misunderstand.
Rachel put an outstretched hand on his chest. “Kostas, today’s problems weren’t our own.” She led us further into the parking lot until we were clearly out of earshot of any of the taverna’s windows. “We went down to Petronaki today. We saw a woman try to kill herself.”
“Bloody hell!”
“She jumped into such shallow water that she only managed to mess up her leg. I had to drive to Kremaki to get help. That’s what took us so long.”
Kostas made a face. “Finding a suicidal woman nearly always throws a spanner in the works.”
“Especially because it was so absurd. Who attempts suicide by jumping off a small cliff?”
“Somebody contemplating suicide isn’t thinking straight anyway,” he said.
“I agree exactly. But you know how gossip flies around here. That’s why I didn’t want to say anything to the others. We don’t even know why the girl was so upset. She was too shaken to tell us.”
“But you two are all right?”
Rachel squeezed his arm. “Kostas, yes. Thanks.”
“If you need anything, you’ll tell me?”
“You bet.”
Rachel kept up the strong front for another ten seconds until the two of us reached the car.
“What a stupid night,” she said, her eyes watery. “Could you concentrate on anything that we played?”
“On and off.”
I started the motor and we rolled out of the parking lot. We passed by the police station before hitting the port, which was deserted at this time of night. By the time we reached the familiar coastal road, which was the smoothest way back to Eleni’s, she’d sunk her head against the seat.
I rested my free hand on her leg. “What do you think really happened to Letta? A problem with love, or money, or maybe a combination?”
“She’s too young to worry about money. Somebody must have broken her heart.”
I took the wheel in both hands as we rounded a sharp curve. “She’s too young for that too. Surely she knows that someone else will come along.”
Rachel hesitated. “That’s great in theory or even in film. But if you’re really in love, seriously, desperately in love, once your heart has been broken, things are never the same.”
She kept her gaze focused straight ahead on the road. I didn’t have to see her face to know was speaking from experience.
***
When the heat of the room woke me several hours later, I rose and stretched. My calves and shoulders were sore from carrying Letta but not inordinately so. A long swim would straighten me out. I made myself a frappé over Rachel’s sink and sat on the couch, wondering how I could describe such a strange vacation to my brother. Engagement rings and desperate lovers were a far cry from the kind of recreational holiday I’d had in mind.
As far as I knew, Rachel and I didn’t have any pressing plans for the morning. I went to the bedroom door and stood watching my companion. She slept face down on top of the sheet wearing only a frayed gray tank top and pink panties.
I sat beside her on the bed, contemplating my two remaining days of vacation. With one finger, I traced the edge of the elastic where her legs melted into the pink. I repeated the motion twice before she stirred.
The fourth time, she reached behind her back and took my hand. She rolled over and kissed me. She told me “good morning” before rolling back to her original position. Before I could reposition my hand, she cleared her throat. “Don’t even think about it.”
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep last night.”
“I know you didn’t, but I mean to sleep right now. Go downstairs if you’re hungry. Eleni will fix you something.”
I sensed no room for negotiation and decided anticipation was my safest course. I descended the spiral staircase as Nikos was about to pop into the station wagon, briefcase in hand.
He waited for me to catch up to him. “Kaliméra sas!” Good morning! He embraced me so heartily I almost fell over. “You are a big hero! All morning the boys have talked of nothing but you.”
I felt uncomfortable. “It wasn’t just me.”
“Children may exaggerate, but they give you the essence.”
“Anyone else would have done the same.”
“But no one else was there! Did you actually see her jump?”
“Yes. When she saw us, she panicked.”
“Poor woman! I can’t imagine being so upset. And then, too, I’m afraid of heights. Ha! Cigarette?” He shook one loose from his pack.
“I don’t let myself smoke in the morning.”
“That’s what you sai
d the other day. But by now it’s nearly afternoon.”
His reasoning suited me perfectly. “Thanks.”
“The first one in the morning is always the best. I don’t know why I smoke the others—ha!”
Nikos lit our cigarettes and tossed the match on the driveway in the direction of the car. We heard a growl and then a snarl.
Instinctively we moved back.
“Did you hear something?” he asked.
Then, before we had any idea what was happening, the whole damned car burst into flames.
We lunged towards the house, retreating from the heat.
“Eleni!” Nikos shouted. “Fire extinguisher!”
She appeared in a few seconds with a small red tank. Nikos flipped back the metal nozzle and began spraying the car with a steady stream, but there were no visible results. Flames leapt from the car, turning the driveway into a fiery ball.
Eleni yelled to me from the porch. “Andy! Come!” She ran back inside. I heard water running in the kitchen. She was filling buckets.
Chapter Sixteen
The fire truck arrived within minutes, roaring down the street with a siren that could have raised Hari from the dead. A quartet of firemen hopped from the aging vehicle. While two of the men attached the fire hose to a nearby hydrant, the other two unfolded its coils. Within moments they were directing a steady spray of water to the flames, shouting at each other over the yellow roar as they encircled the car in a macabre dance.
We were left with a driveway full of puddles and wet metal.
Prokles, the fire chief, pulled off his helmet, gloves, and coat, and sat down on the porch steps from which Nikos and I had been watching his enterprise. His brown hair was streaked in dirt. While he shook sweat off his arms, he kept his eyes on the smoldering metal as if worried it would spring back to life.
“Never seen that before,” he said. “What the hell you do to that car?”
We explained what little we could. Nikos reenacted his movements to show exact distances.
Prokles listened closely. When he wiped off his forehead, his fingertips left greasy streaks. He pulled out a cell phone from a deep pants pocket. “I must tell you. This was no accident.”
Island Casualty (Andy Veracruz Mystery Book 2) Page 11
