Murder On Display_A riveting, stand-alone murder / mystery that keeps you guessing until the shocking end

by Luke Christodoulou

  Valentina parked rather abruptly in what seemed like the middle of the road.

  ‘This is the furthest cars are allowed,’ she justified herself, and signalled them to follow her.

  Ioli got out of the vehicle and stretched her arms up high. Her lower back reminded her of the life growing inside her. Multiple banners and posters were tied to the stone wall opposite her. Elections for mayors were next week and campaigns were at their peak. All politics in Greece were heated conversations and over-the-top campaigns. For a country that gave birth to Democracy, there were a hell of a lot people wishing to rule over others.

  Jacob, also, lifted himself out of the car with difficulty. He exited with his nose sniffing the air like a hound dog on barbeque day. The aroma of freshly-watered roses and lilies embedded itself on his nasal hairs. ‘I miss the pollution of Athens, already,’ he chuckled.

  They followed Valentina down a wide path that lead to the town’s square.

  ‘Town square... whoever killed the girl wanted people to see. Has the boy you arrested talked? This seems like a revenge crime. Some sort of punishment. To humiliate her in the eyes of the town,’ Ioli spoke, mostly thinking out loud.

  ‘Hasn’t said a word. He just cries. Whenever I speak to him, he just stares at the floor and rocks back and forth. Don’t know if you read it in the file, but he isn’t very bright. He is... special, you know?’ Valentina said, before declaring ‘here we are’.

  The abandoned house stood out from the rest. It stood in the line of houses opposite the rows of chairs from the multiple coffee shops and tavernas that circled the square. Its white paint had faded, revealing the mud brick wall beneath. Its wood and hay roof sagged terribly. Gaping holes showed where windows had once been, while its subservient-to-the-elements door hung on its rusty hinges at a jaunty angle.

  All three newcomers stood shock-still at the sight of the bagged body impaled on the antenna pole. Valentina had her back to the scene, signalling to the town folks whispering from the tavernas to remain where there were and to stay quiet. Nothing harder than keeping Greek island village folk from uttering their opinions and asking an array of personal questions of the ‘outsiders’.

  Ioli’s eyes finally left the bagged body and circled the scene. The ‘sealed un-professionally with too much police tape’ scene. ‘The Tasmanian devil would have taped this scene better,’ she joked softly into Jacob’s ear.

  ‘How do we get up there?’ Jacob asked, swallowing his laughter. Valentina stood feet away.

  ‘Just like the killer. There are stone steps around the back leading to the roof,’ Valentina replied. ‘Be careful, though. Stay in the center of the steps,’ she added, her eyes weighting the heavy coroner and his over-stuffed backpack. Valentina could not help but wonder what he carried around in it. Ioli’s small, black, leather briefcase was easier to judge. Gloves, camera, evidence bags, fingerprint kit, plastic bottles, special flashlights and powders probably all neatly in place.

  Jacob caught her eyes focused on his rucksack. ‘I swear, not even half of it is food,’ Jacob joked and Ioli chuckled.

  ‘It’s his tent. We will cover the roof. Too many alert and prowling eyes,’ Ioli said, and turned the corner.

  She placed her case on the first step and unclipped its hinges. She took out her camera and began snapping away. A trail of blood drops revealed that the murder did not take place on the roof. Soon, the rest of the group joined her and warily went up the disintegrating stairs.

  ‘He wanted her to be found. To be seen...’ Ioli spoke softly as she took photos of the area. ‘Is he capable of such logic?’ she turned and asked the island’s officer. Valentina shrugged her shoulders. ‘Maybe we could ask his former teachers? I don’t know if there is a doctor, he visited on another island. We don’t have one living permanently on the island’.

  ‘Maybe there is no logic. Something he copied from a movie or a book?’ Alexandro spoke from behind her.

  ‘That’s a lot of maybes. Maybe he has a dark place in his fragile mind,’ Ioli commented.

  ‘Don’t we all?’ Jacob asked, and with heavy puffing, stepped onto the roof.

  On the roof, Valentina’s eyes ping-ponged from Jacob to Ioli as in a matter of seconds they unfolded the thin, silky-looking sheet with the four hooks at its corners and clipped it to the sides of the roof, passing over the body, quickly creating a pavilion covering the entire rooftop.

  Ioli exhaled and ran her fingers across her forehead.

  ‘You okay?’ Jacob asked.

  ‘Fine. A bit hot.’

  ‘When are you due?’

  ‘Mid October.’

  ‘I’m a Libra, too,’ Alexandro said, his crooked grin spreading across his beaming face.

  ‘Great,’ Ioli said, trying to hold back her natural sarcasm. ‘Will you do us the honors, Mr. Jacob?’

  Jacob approached the antenna with the pool of still liquidy blood below it and unzipped the body bag all the way to the top. He, then pulled the bag off entirely, revealing the maimed, naked body.

  Alexandro whistled awkwardly. ‘I’ll be honest; I’ve never seen a body so viciously attacked. Headless with guts hanging out like that. Poor girl.’

  ‘A mutilated doll played with too roughly,’ Jacob Petsa said, observing the body’s exterior.

  His eyes ran up and down her body, ignoring the already present putrid smell and the black flies –donkey flies as his grandma used to call them- buzzing around her disemboweled stomach.

  ‘Such a dehumanizing murder...’ Alexandro said.

  ‘Guess you haven’t seen many dead or abused children,’ Jacob commented drily. ‘Now, girl, what’s your story?’ he asked what was left of Natalie’s body. ‘You know,’ he redirected his voice in Alexandro’s direction. ‘A body was made for living. When it dies, it always yearns to inform how it ceased to live.’

  Ioli tilted her head, squinted her eyes and circled the body.

  ‘Maybe you and Valentina should go find where the trail of blood began. Take some shots of where the murder weapon was found. Then, go talk around the square. Someone must have seen or heard something in such a quiet place.’

  ‘On it, Cara,’ Alexandro said and off he went; his stomach heaving, not yet settled from the swaying sea.

  Jacob wore his white gloves and took the girl’s hand into his. Natalie’s icy fingers were forever trapped into a defensive fist. ‘I see no wounds and her nails appear clean. She did not see this coming. She must have clenched her fists when she was first stabbed.’

  ‘There are two entry wounds in her back,’ Ioli commented, taking a pair of tweezers and taking samples of the mud and grit that surrounded the wounds.

  Jacob focused on the raw pink flesh where the girl’s breasts once were. ‘I’m guessing these were made post-mortem.’

  ‘What about the decapitation?’

  ‘Also, post mortem. Why cut off the head if the girl’s dragon tattoo makes it clear who she is?’

  ‘Perhaps our killer took it as a trophy. A souvenir of the murder. Maybe to shock.’

  Ioli, now, stood behind him, looking at the thick scarlet rivers running down the girl’s thighs. ‘Was she stabbed between the legs?’

  ‘Looks that way.’

  ‘Maybe, she was raped?’

  ‘I need to get the body back to Athens and perform a proper autopsy to get a clear picture,’ Jacob said, breathlessly standing up. ‘Working in this heat is as exciting as tepid coffee.’

  ‘I’ll get Alexandro back up here to help you with the body and Valentina will drive you back to the ferry. We’ll be in touch.’

  ‘Ioli?’ His voice put a stop to her fast pace.

  She turned around. ‘Yes?’

  ‘How’s Costa?’

  ‘Under the circumstances, he is fine. He has stopped chemotherapy and guess what? As we speak, Tracy has dragged his ass on a cruise across a dozen islands or so.’

  Jacob’s heavy chuckle escorted her down the bloody steps. She held her belly and contr
olled her breathing. Her mind wondered to what I was up to at that precise moment.

  Chapter 4

  July; the busiest month of the year at Peiraeus port. Ships, both cruise and cargo, covered the majority of the deep blue waters of the man-made bay. It was only ten o’clock in the morning, yet you could still see the asphalt desperately trying to breath. I always loved that. The waves above the road, distorting the image received by our eyes. I guess the natural phenomenon excited me as it served as proof that nothing is as it seems. Never trust your eyes alone.

  ‘Costa, what the hell are you thinking about again?’ my lovely-after-her-morning-coffee wife, Tracy, asked as we stood in queue to board the newly-renovated Neptune II.

  ‘Nothing, dear. Just thinking of all the fun we are going to have. Drinking cocktails and making love like teenagers...’

  ‘Bull,’ she said and giggled. ‘You have that silly look upon your face. I know you are thinking of something strange. Like why are certain leaves greener than others or how come shrimp are the cockroaches of the sea or how are the waves above the road created by the heat or...’

  ‘You are starting to scare me, woman. Get out of my head.’

  Tracy leaned in closer to me and placed her head and her now short, bright red hair on my chest. ‘Never,’ she said and looked up into my eyes. We kissed and as we pulled away from each other, realizing that we were holding up the line.

  The group of twenty or so teenagers behind us giggled and chuckled at the sight of the two still in-love fifty year olds. This is the point where Tracy would want me to clarify that she was still just forty-nine. Fifty scared her. It was the number she considered as the point where surely you had more yesterdays than tomorrows.

  Their teacher coughed loudly and on purpose, her eyes running from side-to-side, behind her black-framed reading glasses. The students silenced at once and a pretty, blonde girl whispered in broken English ‘sorry, Mrs. Anne.’

  ‘Must be an expensive private school. Taking the kids on a ten day cruise around the isles,’ Tracy said softly, as we picked up our luggage and moved closer to the ticket-checking booth.

  ‘They don’t all look Greek. Maybe an international school...’ I started to say before being interrupted by a bored-looking, unhealthily skinny woman with a white shirt and a red, tight skirt. ‘Tickets, please.’

  ‘Why didn’t you name the ship Poseidon?’ I asked as Tracy took care of everything procedural.

  ‘Excuse me?’ the lady asked, her tired eyes struggling to look up to mine, located at six feet four.

  ‘Neptune is the Latin name of the God of sea. It’s a Greek ship sailing the Greek islands. It should be called Poseidon.’

  ‘There’s a complaint box on board, sir. Here you go, ma’am. Have a nice journey. Next!’

  ‘Maybe I should ask for better and friendlier staff,’ I replied as Tracy pulled me by my oil-green shirt.

  ‘Can’t take you anywhere,’ she laughed and rolled her eyes, as we crossed the narrow, temporary bridge, following behind the spotty-face youth that took our luggage.

  I looked back and said goodbye to solid ground. With a guilty smile, I saw the lady at check-in exhale in dismay at the pile of tickets and ID cards placed in front of her by Mrs. Anne Jackson, the head-teacher of the travelling group of eighteen-year-olds.

  After a three-minute walk through a maze of corridors and similar doors with different numbers, the young boy came to a halt outside cabin 202. He unlocked the door, placed our suitcases down and extended his right hand. ‘Everything comes at a price, hey kid?’ I joyfully said and shook his hand. It was only when he felt the five Euro note in his fingers that he smiled. A short-lived smile as he rushed to leave, to go back out and earn more needed-for-college tips.

  ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ Tracy said in pure excitement as we entered our upper-deck, two-room cabin.

  I looked around at the new wooden furniture, the carpeted floors, the glass door that led out to a miniature balcony and the hanging gold-plated chandelier. Through the open doorway, I saw the king-size bed with red sheets and the box of chocolates laid upon them.

  ‘How much did this cost?’ I spurted out as my heart skipped a beat.

  ‘Always a helpless romantic!’

  ‘Oh, come on. You know what I mean.’

  Tracy approached me and placed her arms around me. The weight I had lost due to chemotherapy aided her arms to meet behind my back. Her perfume surrounded me and lured me closer. ‘It’s my present to you. For being you. Big, strong, still-alive you. Now, shut up, enjoy the cruise and make love to me.’

  With every passionate kiss, an item of our clothing fell to the floor. Our naked bodies were soon, side by side on the soft mattress. So familiar, so in-touch. Sex in your fifties can still be amazing. Even better than in your horny teens and your energetic twenties and thirties. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

  It was great to feel the warmth of being inside Tracy, once again. My sex drive had taken a bungee jump and never came back up during chemotherapy sessions. Nothing worse than for a man to mentally crave sex and then witness his body not following; not up for the task.

  Lost in each other’s familiar embrace we felt the ship move and set sail for our first stop, the scenic island of Syros.

  As my eyelids began their descent, booming music suddenly invaded through the thin cabin walls.

  ‘I think we have the luck to be next to the senior high school kids,’ Tracy mumbled and covered her head with the spare pillow. Tracy could sleep through a nuclear apocalypse. I, on the other hand, could stay awake from the buzzing of a pesky mosquito or the ticking from Tracy’s silver wristwatch.

  I stood up, located my black boxer shorts, put them on and exited to the balcony. An endless view of shimmering, blue waters sparkling in the presence of intense sunlight welcomed me. The air was fresh, clean and pure, sprinkled with that unique salty smell of the ocean.

  ‘This planet is too beautiful. God, I don’t want to die.’ I gazed up into the clear sky and let my eyes become watery by the searing sun. ‘At least, not by cancer. Not now. I’m too old to die young’.

  Inside the cabin, Tracy’s smile faded as she watched me get lost in deep thought. She was, also, in conversation with God. ‘I buried a child, I do not wish to bury a husband. Let me go first.’

  Chapter 5

  Ioli watched the police car speed off in a hurry. She carefully took a few steps back as the swirling, hazel blur of dust approached her.

  ‘Lovely islands, third world conditions,’ she thought, picturing the body lying on the back seat of the car behind Valentina and the coroner. The island had no hospital, thus no ambulance. Ioli, thought about the island having only one doctor and he did not even live on the island permanently. If Mark knew that his pregnant wife was on an island with no medical assistance, it would surely be the beginning of an argument.

  She turned to Alexandro, who stood beside her, waiting for her orders on how to proceed.

  ‘Why do you have that grin permanently placed on your face?’

  Inappropriate or not, it felt good to get the question that had nested in her mind out there.

  Alexandro chortled awkwardly. ‘My mama’s friends used to ask her that about me when I was a kid. She used to say it is because I’m happy.’

  ‘What do you say?’ Ioli asked, her eyes fixed on his.

  ‘I guess I am. Maybe it’s my shield against the evils in the world.’

  Ioli studied him for a second before replying. ‘Work on making it a smile then, rather than a grin.’ And before the conversation on the subject could go on, she continued ‘go to the boy’s house. Ask his grandma if you can search the premises even though you hold no warrant. Tell her it has been issued in Athens. It should be ready by now anyway. The girl’s head has to be somewhere. Don’t be intrusive. Be kind to the old lady and win her over. Talk about Folegandros, the weather and such, and then direct the conversation to Adonis. Friends, places he liked to hang out, what
kind of kid was he and so on.’

  Alexandros listened carefully to her every word. He wanted to prove himself worthy in Ioli’s eyes. He did not reveal it, yet he was an ambitious young man. He had plans to climb the ‘police hierarchy ladder’ and needed to add experiences and successes under his belt.

  ‘On it, boss,’ he said and marched off, down the dirty paved road.

  Ioli could not fight back a flat-line smile. ‘On it, boss’ echoed in her ears. That was her line for so many years. She never wanted to be someone’s boss. She was fine with being part of a team. But some cells that took the path of abnormal growth and a cancerous tumor had changed all that.

  Ioli decided she would enter her ‘friendly-mode’ and mingle with the locals at the coffee shop opposite the crime scene. She resisted taking out her cherry-red note pad out of fear of scaring willing witnesses away and aimed for an affable conversation.

  Greek islanders have inbuilt welcoming natures. The heavy shop owner with the heavier mustache rushed to fetch her a chair while his wife brought her over an ice-cold, homemade lemonade. Both asked about her pregnancy and if she required anything else. It wasn’t easy squeezing interrogation questions among casual ones while avoiding answering anything about the crime to the group of locals that gradually surrounded her.

  Her mind worked overtime ‘writing’ down all the details she had acquired.

  As she thanked everyone and strolled down the road, heading towards the police station, one fact stood out in her head. They all spoke kindly about Adonis, yet no one had anything nice to say about the victim. They spoke with apathy about Natalie, while smiles were shown as they spoke about the eighteen-year-old boy that she was about to meet.

  The narrow road between the smooth grey stones that served as sidewalks, unfolded before her eyes like an abstract painting. Colorful rocks formed the road; their clean colors revealing that cars were not allowed through, while the layer of dust settling upon them declared that they had not seen rain for months. The street curved and opened out like a sloppily discarded belt. Ioli slowed down to look at all the quaint houses with the well-maintained gardens and the blue wooden fences. Many hosted posters with smiling politicians, with bold-lettered sentences and promises they probably would not keep. Election season was in full swing. The view between the houses was breathtaking; a magical screensaver of endless blue. She, also lessened her pace as her maternity trousers made her sweat uncomfortably under the scintillating sun. She gazed up at the menacing ball in the clear sky, its sunrays running down like molten lava, burning all in its destructive pass. The heat reminded her of the half-empty bag of Jelly Babies in her pocket. ‘Poor babies are melting,’ she thought and pulled the bag out. To her relief, the colorful sugar-loaded babies were still intact. Ioli picked up her first two victims. Both red. She never blended her flavors. Just minutes later, as her eyes fell upon the humble building with the outdated POLICE STATION sign, Ioli ate the last piece of candy.