After a pause, Andreas asked, 'How long's this been going on?'
'Hmm. I'd say about twenty years.'
Andreas' head was pounding, and he rubbed his forehead. 'Now we've got three meeting the profile, plus a priest my instincts scream is dirty, a jeweler we know nothing about, and who knows how many more suspects from the date-rape-drug crowd over at Panos'.'
Tassos said nothing. Andreas tried to ease his headache with less serious thoughts, and he burst out laughing.
'Are you okay?' Tassos asked.
'You remember the name of that Agatha Christie murder mystery about all those people on the train?'
'Yeah, I saw the movie, Murder on the Orient Express.'
Andreas caught himself nodding into the phone. 'That's it, the one with a dozen suspects, each one looking guiltier than the other.'
'Do you remember who did it?' Tassos asked.
Andreas laughed. 'Yeah, they all did — with only one body to work with and stuck on a train. Here we have eighteen, maybe more, and a whole island — more than enough for all our suspects to have killed at least one.'
'I really hope you're kidding,' Tassos said, his voice serious.
Andreas sighed. 'I'd like to think I am.' The whimsy of the moment was gone. 'I think I'll stop by to say hello to your friend Panos.'
'He's probably at his farm. It's out by the reservoir in Ano Mera.'
Andreas rubbed his eyes with the heel of his free hand. 'Time to get back to work.' He was about to hang up but didn't. He knew Tassos hadn't either. There was something else he had to say, something he'd been meaning to say. 'I don't know where all this is headed, but I want you to know I'm praying for something.'
Tassos spoke softly. 'What's that?'
'That nothing bad happens to some other poor girl because of what we're doing.' There was a long pause.
'Amen.' Tassos hung up. Demetra looked forward to seeing her cousin. It was a terrific day, bright, sunny and not too hot. She had a surprise for Annika; she was moving her to a different hotel. The parents of one of her friends owned a new five-star hotel on a beach made famous for unexpected, transforming romance in the movie Shirley Valentine — just the sort of atmosphere her cousin could use.
Demetra took a taxi from the airport to Annika's hotel. She told the driver to wait while she ran in to speak to her cousin. He grumbled, but after a 'Greek-to-Greek' conversation — at all appropriate decibel levels — agreed to wait 'a few minutes.' Demetra had tried unsuccessfully for more than a day to reach Annika after getting her message that she was staying at the Hotel Adlantis, but none of Demetra's phone calls to the hotel had been returned. That wasn't like her cousin. She assumed Annika hadn't received her messages.
As she got out of the taxi she noticed a police car parked by the entrance. A young policeman was leaning against the hood, smoking and smiling at her. She smiled back. He was cute. Once inside she heard shouting. It was a man's voice yelling about 'police,' 'lousy cousin,' and 'useless mayor.' When she reached the counter, she saw that it was a gray-haired man screaming into a cell phone. She stood looking at her watch and the taxi outside while the man behind the counter seemed oblivious to her presence. After a minute she said in Greek, 'Excuse me.' He waved her off.
Wrong move. 'Excuse me.'
No answer.
'Excuse me,' she said a little louder now.
Still no response, but an angry look.
'Excuse me.' Demetra banged on the bell on the counter.
The man swore at her in Greek.
She swore back and banged louder on the bell, yelling 'EXCUSE ME EXCUSE ME EXCUSE ME.'
Finally, the man put the phone against his side and cursed at her for two or three seconds. 'What do you want?'
She smiled. 'I am looking for my cousin, Annika Vanden Haag.'
'She's not here,' he said, and he put the phone back to his ear.
'Where is she?'
He looked at her with hate in his eyes. 'I don't keep track of my guests. Now leave before I get really angry.' He went back to his conversation.
She screamed, 'HELP! POLICE! HELP! POLICE!'
The man's face turned white. He dropped the phone and told her to shut up.
She smiled. 'Now, where's my cousin?'
He swore a few words at her but answered, 'I don't know. She hasn't been in her room since yesterday morning and she was going to leave today. She probably moved somewhere else.'
'Did she take her things with her?'
'How should I know?'
Demetra smiled, turned toward the front door, and waved at the policeman who looked as if he'd heard someone calling for him. He waved back. She turned back to the gray-haired man. She thought he'd be seething. Instead he looked scared to death.
'Her things are still here. It happens all the time. A girl meets a boy and leaves her things. All the time.'
Demetra was getting nervous. 'I want to see her room.'
'I can't allow it,' he said, seeming almost to tremble.
She just stared at him. He came from behind the desk and led her down the stairs. She'd forgotten all about the taxi driver.
The room looked as if Annika had left in a hurry, but with clothes and toiletries there — as if she'd intended to return. Demetra left the room and headed upstairs toward the taxi. She thought of saying something to the policeman, but what was there to say? She'd call Annika's mother as soon as she reached her hotel and let her decide what to do.
The only thing she knew for sure was that something was very wrong. Catia's relief at Demetra's voice was very short-lived. She expected Demetra to tell her that she was with Annika or at least had spoken to her. Instead, Catia heard panic. 'I don't know where she is, Auntie, I don't know.'
All her life Demetra was the tough-mouthed little kid who tended to lose it a bit under pressure, just the opposite of Annika. Out of habit, Catia spent most of their conversation calming her niece and ignoring her own anxiety. That changed as soon as they hung up and Catia called her brother, Demetra's father — the deputy minister. He tried treating his younger sister as she'd just treated his daughter, but Catia would have none of it.
'Don't patronize me, Spiros, I'm not Demetra,' Catia said, her voice steely.
He sounded slightly annoyed. 'I understand you're worried about Annika being out all night, but let's be realistic, she just broke up with her boyfriend, she's on Mykonos, and… uh-'
Catia cut him off. 'This is not about that. I know something's wrong. I sense evil.' With those words she let her brother know further argument was useless because, among Greeks, a mother's sense of evil lurking about her child was taken very seriously.
He sighed. 'Okay, what do you want from me?'
It wasn't exactly the marines she asked for, just a call from the person in charge of all police in Greece to the chief of police in Mykonos to find her daughter ASAP.
Another sigh. 'Okay, little sister, I'll call as soon as we hang up.'
Catia thanked him, sent him kisses, and hung up feeling much better. She was certain her brother would find Annika. After all, wasn't that what police did all the time?
12
Panos' farm lay at the base of one of the barren, brown-gray hills north of Ano Mera along the west side of the well-worn dirt road to Fokos Beach. Between his farm and the sea were a mile-long rainwater reservoir, a daytime beach taverna, scraggly brush, wandering goats, and not much else. The last time Andreas was out this way a bit of the island's Eastertime cast of green — peppered with bright floral dots of red and yellow — still covered the hills, but that short-lived color was gone by now.
Dust from the road caught up to Andreas' car as he slowed to make an awkward, almost U-turn over a mattress-sized concrete slab. It bridged a dry creek bed separating the road from a rocky, rutted path running up to the farm. In all that dust and heat it was hard to imagine enough rainwater raging through this area in the winter to overflow the reservoir's seventy-five-foot high dam and flood the beach. Then again, what
worried farmers here wasn't a lack of water, it was the relentless, drying winds.
Panos' farm used stone walls and close-packed, tall bamboo windbreaks to protect his crops. The thick bamboo plantings ran uninterrupted inside a low wall along the north side of the path, perfect for screening out wind — and the curious. Andreas didn't see a structure until the windbreak ended and the wall turned north. Then he saw two.
He parked by the closer one, next to a rough, unpainted wooden gate at a break in the wall. It was a one-room shed made of the same sort of stone as the wall; both looked centuries old. Equipment was strewn everywhere. Andreas couldn't tell what was being used and what had been left to rot.
He stood by his car for a moment and listened. He heard no human sound but sensed someone was around. A light brown van sat parked about forty yards away, up by the other structure. Whatever it was, it was made of the same sort of stone as everything else on the property and built into the hillside like a mine entrance. Andreas walked to the shed and looked inside. It was a mess: hoes, rakes, shovels, pots, hoses, cement, gasoline, seed, fertilizer, wire, rat poison, rope, twine, batteries. Everything you'd expect to find on a farm — or with our serial killer, Andreas thought. Only thing missing was cough syrup for the crystal meth.
As if on cue, he heard a loud cough followed by a shout. 'Can I help you?' It was Panos. He was standing at the entrance to the other structure holding something in his right hand.
Andreas was not in uniform — he rarely was — and could tell the man didn't recognize him even though they'd met once in his restaurant. Andreas gave a friendly wave and started toward him. 'Hi, Panos, Andreas Kaldis.' Still no sign of recognition. 'Police chief.'
That got an immediate response. Panos gave his biggest restaurateur smile and hurried down to meet him.
'Hello, Chief, nice seeing you again.' It was a water bottle Panos held, and he switched it to his left hand and reached out with his right hand to shake with Andreas. Andreas noticed only a bit of water remained in the bottle. 'How can I help you?' Panos seemed nervous.
'Nice place you have here.' Andreas fanned his head from left to right.
'Thanks. Been in my family for generations.'
'What do you grow?' Andreas wanted to see if Panos would raise the subject of Helen Vandrew. By now, one of his friends must have told him the police knew she'd been in his bar.
'Zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, onions, purslane…' As Panos recited the list his voice became calmer.
'You must have a lot of help,' Andreas said.
'No, just me. I like doing the work myself.' He shifted the bottle back and forth between his hands.
'Then you must spend a lot of time here,' Andreas said matter-of-factly.
Panos seemed unsure how to respond. 'Only what I have to.' He paused. 'That's why the place is such a mess. I spend all my time working my crops and none cleaning up.' He seemed to like his answer.
Andreas switched to a sharp, prosecutorial tone. 'And just what sort of crops do you work in there?' He gestured with his head toward the stone entrance at the hillside.
'Where?' Clearly he was stalling.
Andreas put his right hand on Panos' left shoulder and slowly but firmly spun him toward the hill. With his left hand he pointed. 'There.'
Panos answered nervously, 'Mushrooms. I grow mushrooms there. It's an old mine. Perfect for mushrooms.'
'What's a mine doing over here? I thought they were over there.' Andreas pointed past the mine entrance to the northeast.
Panos waved his arm toward Fokos and back toward Ano Mera. 'This whole area's filled with mines, from the sea just east of Fokos all the way to Ano Mera. Miles and miles of tunnels.'
That surprised Andreas. He dropped his arm from Panos' shoulder. 'But why an entrance here?'
Panos spoke quickly. 'They never mined here. I think it was for emergencies, maybe just ventilation. I don't know. They're all over the hills. Some bigger, some smaller, some just holes in the ground. My grandfather built this.' He pointed at the stone entrance. 'To hide the hole. He didn't like the way it looked.'
Andreas reached back and patted Panos on the shoulder. 'Always wondered what an old mine looked like. Mind if I take a peek inside?' From the way Panos started breathing, Andreas thought he'd die at the question.
'I was just heading back to town, but if you'd like to come out tomorrow, I'd be happy to show you around.'
'Do you mind if I take a look around on my own?' Andreas left no doubt it was not really a question but a command.
'It's really not safe to go in there alone.' Panos' voice was desperate.
Andreas took off his sunglasses and stared at him. 'Don't worry, I can take care of myself.' He started toward the entrance.
Panos touched his arm to stop him. 'So, why did you come out to see me?'
Andreas just smiled and put on his sunglasses.
Panos stared at his feet. 'It's about the girl, isn't it?'
Andreas said nothing, just continued to smile.
'Yes, I knew her. I said I didn't to your man because I didn't want to get involved. You know how it is.' He gave a nervous grin, as if talking to a friend.
Andreas had stopped smiling now and returned a cold stare. 'No, I don't.' He paused for a few seconds before pointing his finger dead center at Panos' chest. 'Now tell me everything you know, everything you think, everything you guess about that woman.'
Panos started to object, but Andreas pressed his finger into the man's chest. 'I don't want your bullshit. Just tell me what I want to know or get a lawyer to get your ass out of jail.'
Panos looked down and glanced toward the mine entrance. He let out a deep breath, lifted his head, and started talking. He told what he swore was everything he could remember about the evening they met and everyone who spoke to her. He swore that was the only time he saw her and that he had no idea what happened to her. He swore to a lot of things but the only thing Andreas hadn't heard before was that she'd spoken to an American artist at the bar. Andreas asked what Panos knew about him.
'Tom's a famous artist. He's in his early sixties and been coming here two, three months every summer since the seventies. Nice guy, but acts like he's everyone's conscience.'
'What's that mean?'
Panos hesitated. 'He doesn't like the way we treat women, says we show them no respect.'
Now, there's an understatement, thought Andreas. 'Anything else?'
'No, but one of his paintings hangs in my bar, if you want to see it. Why don't you come by tonight? We'll have dinner. On me.' Panos was trying to make friends again.
'No, thanks. But why don't you run along. I'll see if there's anything else for us to talk about after I've had a look inside the mine.' The color drained from Panos' face. 'You don't look too good — better take a drink.' He pointed to the bottle in Panos' hand. 'I'm going to get one myself,' he said, and headed back to his car.
When he got there he saw Panos hadn't moved. He looked frozen in place. Andreas was pretty sure he knew why. It all added up. The mine, the almost-empty water bottle meant just one thing to him: inside the mine was a lot more than mushrooms, and whatever was in that bottle wasn't just water. He picked up the phone to call for backup. Andreas wasn't a fool. There was no telling who else might be inside the mine or what Panos might try when faced with heavy prison time for whatever drugs he was cooking up in there.
As soon as Andreas reached the station, he was told Kouros must speak to him immediately. Andreas started to say he had no time, but his call already was on hold. As he waited for Kouros to pick up he watched Panos walk toward the van. He looked like a condemned man.
'Chief, I've been trying to reach you for half an hour.' Kouros sounded anxious.
'I was out of the car. Next time try my cell phone. What's got you so excited?'
'The ministry called, the deputy minister wants you to call him immediately. He said it's of the "utmost importance."'
Andreas' heart jumped to his throat. 'Which ministry?' He
held his breath as if in prayer.
'Ours.'
So much for prayer. He and Tassos were dead meat. He wondered if Tassos knew yet. He needed time to think and wanted to talk to Tassos before calling the deputy minister. He watched Panos empty the water bottle onto the ground and get into the van. You lucky bastard, he thought. 'Okay, I'll be right in.' Andreas had no choice but to go. He had bigger things to worry about at the moment. Like his career.
Andreas thought of telling Kouros to send someone here to keep everyone out of the mine until it was checked out — probably by a new chief from the way things looked — but he guessed Panos had other ways of getting into the mine and getting rid of whatever he was hiding. He smacked the steering wheel hard with the heels of his hands and cursed aloud as he watched Panos drive away. 'Why do motherfuckers like him have all the luck?' Andreas drove slowly back toward headquarters. No need to hurry to his own execution. Besides, Tassos was busy on another phone call and Andreas wasn't going to call the ministry until after they spoke. At the crest of a hill overlooking Ftelia Beach and the foot of Panormos Bay, Andreas pulled off the road and waited for Tassos to call back. Far below, windsurfers slid gracefully back and forth across the bay. Their work seemed effortless from this distance; not at all like the instant-to-instant reality of their up close battle to stay afloat in relentless winds and driving seas.
His cell phone rang. It was Tassos.
'Sorry, I was on the phone with my friend at New Scotland Yard. Have some news for you on your priest.' Tassos sounded excited. Obviously, he hadn't heard from the ministry. 'Father Paul won't be up for sainthood anytime soon.'
Andreas decided to hear him out before dropping the bomb. 'What do you mean?'
'His story was he'd been "called" to the priesthood after his sister died in an accident. About ten years ago he left the priesthood — actually was forced out. It involved young girls in his parish.'
'I knew there was something dirty about him,' Andreas said in a detached way.
'Nothing was proven. His family had a lot of money, and — with the church's help — they paid off the kids' families and kept everything out of the papers. He quietly resigned and moved to a different part of England — probably to prey on someone else's kids.' There was anger in Tassos' voice.
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