‘What a slut. I’m so glad you’re not really friends with her,’ her mother commented. ‘Can we go, now?’
Ioli, again, did not bother to reply. Valentina whispered to the lady to give them a little more time.
‘Melina, can you think of anyone who would wish to hurt Natalie?’
At first, the girl shook her head. Then, she said ‘well, Andreas was pissed off at her. They had a real big argument last month at our graduation party.’
‘Andreas? Is he a classmate?’ Ioli asked, remembering Adoni mentioning the name.
Melina nodded.
‘What did they fight about?’
‘He was her date for the dance. He was really happy that she had said yes. He was sure he was going to score, with her being so easy and all, and then, when she said no because she had a boyfriend, he went full swing mad. Called her a whore and left the party. Worst of all for him, was that both his best mates had slept with Nat during the year.’
The girl’s blunt honesty was deafening. The image of the innocent young victim was fading away. However, none of her life choices meant she deserved to die and Ioli believed in justice for all.
Ioli watched the mother and daughter rush out of the building and go off to the gathering of Mrs. Helen’s supporters.
‘Being mayor in a small village is more prestigious than winning a Nobel prize,’ Valentina joked. ‘Everyone pays attention to you, something all small island folk yearn for.’
‘Well said,’ Alexandro commented with a smile.
Ioli exhaled a silent laugh and asked about Andreas.
‘He is the shoemaker’s son,’ Valentina said, raising her thin-line eyebrows.
Ioli’s eyes opened wide. ‘Really, now?’
Chapter 8
Evening’s arrival made no significant impact on the temperature and the humidity stuck to your skin worse than chewed gum on the bottom of a school chair. The shades of orange in the sky were a delight to the eye and Ioli smiled, fondly reminiscing her wedding day in the neighboring island of Santorini.
The colors around them were in full contrast to the group of black-dressed people outside Natalie’s grieving mother’s house. The humble garden with the crooked, faded-blue fence welcomed friends and relatives of the family that came to support Electra on the loss of her only daughter. Some wiped away tears from the corners of their eyes, some hugged, some patted each other on the back. Most smoked. None spoke.
A well-groomed fifty-year-old with dyed black hair that fooled no-one welcomed them.
‘I am Orestis Stamos, mayor of Chora. You are the officers from the mainland, right?’ he asked, and continued talking without waiting for anyone’s reply. ‘Anything you need, do not hesitate to ask. The town council is here to support you in any manner possible,’ he added, speaking louder as to be heard to the assembly behind him. They may be grieving, but they were still going to vote in the upcoming election.
‘Thank you,’ Ioli said, shaking his extended, golden ring-wearing hand and introducing herself and her partner.
They crossed the land of piercing eyes and reached the open front door. Inside, the smell of freshly-cooked meals lingered through the air. Greek customs never die. Everybody brought a plate, a pot or a tinfoil tray filled with food.
A young boy, not older than five, ran around in the narrow hallway filled with wooden frames that housed the course of the twins’ lives in photographs. Natalie’s and Gregory’s most important moments unfolded before their eyes. First and last days of school. School plays. Weddings. Christenings. Sporting events. Family holidays. A wall of happiness and smiles. Electra glowed in each one, standing beside her children. It was a weird notion placing a face to the headless body left to rot upon a rooftop. A pretty girl with intense, energetic eyes. You could almost see the fire in her soul. From a young age, she had make-up on, her eyebrows carefully plucked and various colors had decorated her hair throughout the years. Ioli paused at the last framed photo that hung tilted to the left. She immediately straightened it.
The boy held a paper plane and imitating an engine sound, he cruised through the house, blissfully oblivious to the sadness surrounding him.
‘Hey kid,’ Ioli kneeled at his eye level. Ioli’s smile and beauty always captured the attention of children who sensed her kindness and sincerity. ‘That’s a great plane. I’m sure you’ll be a great pilot one day.’
The boy giggled and color appeared on his tender, roundas-autumn-apples cheeks. ‘Where’s the living room, Mr. Pilot?’
The green-eyed boy pointed to the large sliding door on the right.
Ioli knocked and the door glided open. A tall boy with tanned olive skin had his hand on the handle and his reddish eyes on Ioli. The boy from the photos.
‘Gregory, my sincere condolences. I am Lieutenant Ioli Cara, Homicide division. I understand the tremendous difficulty of the hour, but I need to speak to both you and your mother.’ Her eyes traveled through the room. Electra sat motionless in a worn-in, purple armchair. A lady, slightly younger than she, stood behind her. The resemblance was striking.
A sister or a first cousin, for sure.
Electra’s eyes were focused on Natalie’s portrait on the wall opposite her. The statue of a grieving mother, Electra did not bother to turn as they entered the room.
Gregory raised his arm and with an open palm showed them to the sofa. He, also, went and stood behind his mother. The curtains were shut and only two twin lamps offered light to the gloomy room.
Ioli sat down first, her fellow two officers sitting beside her. Ioli introduced them quickly and once again offered her condolences.
‘… just a few questions and we will be on our way. I respect your time of grieving and wish not to trouble you further…’
‘You got her murderer. Why do you need to bother us?’ Voula, Electra’s sister, snapped.
‘Everything needs to put in order and every detail explored. No mistakes are in anybody’s best interest. A court of law needs evidence, a timeline, a motive,’ Ioli replied calmly and continued with her routine set of questions.
Voula answered all of Ioli’s inquiries, confirming what they already knew. Natalie left to go to her friend’s house.
She, also, contradicted popular opinion, portraying her niece as sweet and lovable. ‘No, she never had a boyfriend,’ her aunt proclaimed.
Ioli noticed Gregory smirk and roll his eyes. She decided not to ask any more questions and try to approach Gregory on his own. It was obvious that Natalie had managed to keep her erotic escapades a secret from her family.
‘Thank you for all your help,’ Ioli said, placing her right hand on the sofa’s arm and lifting her growing-by-the-day body up. ‘Gregory, could you escort us out, please?’
Gregory nodded, unsure of the lady cop’s intentions.
Only then, did Electra speak. ‘I read you, lady. If you are not sure that Adonis killed my Natalia, make sure. I want her murderer punished.’
Ioli nodded confidently and followed Gregory out of the olive-scented room. With her hand behind her back, she signaled to Valentina and Alexandro to exit the house.
‘Hopefully they will mingle with the crowd and learn something rather than flirt with each other,’ she thought, as she commented on the back garden that came into view from the kitchen door. ‘What a lovely garden. Must be amazing to sit on the grass and enjoy the view. Do you mind if we step outside and sit for a while? My back is killing me.’
Ioli could not believe she would use her baby as an excuse to investigate. ‘Sorry baby. Guess you are investigating, too.’
Again, Gregory nodded reluctantly, strings of his brown hair falling in front of his too-small-for-his-face eyes.
‘Erm, sure,’ he replied with his deep, husky voice and scratched the back of his head. He was kind enough to pull out a white, plastic garden chair for Ioli. ‘Here.’
‘Thank you,’ she said and sat down. The flowery scent came as a relief after sniffing the olive leaves burning inside the
house in memory of the dead. The view was even more enjoyable with the winds coming alive in the evening and the colors more vivid as the sun journeyed down; ready to dip into its sea bed for the night.
‘My closest childhood friends were twins,’ she lied. ‘It was amazing how connected they were and how they knew everything about each other.’
‘Cut the crap, lady. We’re on our own, now. What do you really want to know?’
‘The real Natalie.’
Gregory pulled out another dirty chair, swung it around and sat upon it, his legs wide open and his arms resting on the chair’s back. ‘As if the bastards around the village haven’t already bad-mouthed her.’
‘What’s to bad-mouth…’
‘You talk a lot of crap; you know that?’
‘And you’re a very angry, rude young man,’ Ioli replied with a smile. Gregory smiled back. ‘Okay, so Natalie had a lot of boyfriends. So? It’s 2016…’
‘2016 where you come from! Here, we are a hundred years behind Athens. Do you know how hard it is to have Natalie as a sister in a community as small as ours?’
‘And, I’m guessing you are a saint?’
‘Oh come on, you’re Greek. You know how it goes in villages. Guys can sleep around as much as they want and get a pat on the back for being Alpha males, while girls are labeled poutanes, village sluts.’
‘Did she really have so many boyfriends?’
‘Boyfriends! Even the word is a joke when it comes to Natalie. She had more one-night-stands than I have toes.’
Ioli leaned forward. ‘And this annoyed you greatly, didn’t it?’
‘Shouldn’t it? I am the man of the house and…’
‘Is that the only reason?’
‘Well, no. She could have restrained herself and kept her hands off my friends. Can you imagine being around your mates and knowing that half of them had banged your sister?’
His voice remained whispery as he did not wish to be heard in the house. However, the tone grew hostile and vile colored his words. His reddish eyes looked ready to release tears of anger.
‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘it’s all gone now. Meaningless. Natalie is dead. And, what a death…’
He choked on the last few words. He shied away from Ioli and quickly wiped the tears forming in the corners of his eyes. ‘Where is my phone?’ he changed the subject. ‘I keep losing that damn thing.’
‘Sorry,’ he excused himself as he rushed by her, into the house, seemingly searching for his phone.
Ioli leaned back and exhaled deeply. She did not get to ask the main subject on her mind. However, other thoughts -just born-preoccupied her. Her mind traveled to her reckless, teenage godson. Antony had lost three phones in less years, before his father found a way to track his phone.
Her right hand, having gently passed from the top of her forehead, taking away droplets of sweat while carefully avoiding her ‘neatly pulled back into a ponytail’ hair, journeyed down and reached into her pocket. She brought her smart phone to eye level, flicked through her contact list, pressed dial and lifted her cell to her right ear.
‘Hey, pregnant lady,’ Timothy’s joyful, screechy voice came through the receiver. ‘How’s evil under the sun turning out for you and baby bump?’
‘I love that you think you are funny,’ she replied to her friend and best –according to most-tech genius the Hellenic force had to offer. ‘I’m doing fine. Relaxing and working on my tan.’
‘Fabulous as always,’ he said, and ended the sentence with a giggle. ‘Now, who is trying to be funny? So, what do you need?’
‘Who said I need something?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Can you trace the location of a phone for me?’
‘Sure. Provider?’
‘Erm, not sure…’
‘No prob. Give me the number.’
‘Give me a sec,’ Ioli said, lowering her phone and searching in her left pocket for her mini note pad. She flicked through the pages with the many scribbles, thinking how her nails looked awful. Faded and scraped-off nail polish coated her unevenly cut nails. One was even chipped on the end.
‘OK, you ready?’
‘Girl, I was born ready.’
‘Cool it, Coolio,’ she laughed and proceeded to list the number belonging to Mr. Sakis, the shoe-repair man who had not been in-touch since his phone call to the station’s answering machine.
‘Give me a few minutes. How’s Mark, the dreamy doctor doing?’
‘He’s fine. Anxious about becoming a father. How’s your dreamy man?’
‘Stefano is anxious about moving in with me. He keeps calling it the next important step in our relationship. Men!’
Ioli laughed quietly. ‘Listen, I’ll call you back. Have to get this question out of my head.’
‘Kisses,’ he replied and hung-up.
Ioli re-entered the house and crossed the empty hallway. She reached three doors. She guessed that the door with the ENTER-AT-YOUR-OWN-RISK, blue sign was Gregory’s bedroom.
Ioli knocked and having received no reply, she counted to five and pulled down on the scratched door knob. Gregory turned his head and with his eyebrows raised, he stared at Ioli. This time he did not bother hiding his tears.
‘I know, I am being intrusive, I will leave, just answer me this. Did Natalie talk to you about her new boyfriend? Her friend mentioned…’
‘Talk to me?,’ he mocked the word. ‘Natalie did not tell people shit. But, last week when I confronted her, having caught her creeping in through the kitchen window again, she told me to stay out of her way and that she was having the time of her life. I asked what was so different about her new addition to her long list of lovers and she replied he’s rich. Rolex, suit and tie rich,’ he said as he stood up and closed his door. ‘Please, don’t let mother know any of this. Natalie is gone, now. No reason for her to know the true nature of her daughter.’
Ioli felt the need to place her hand on his shoulder, to offer him a sympathetic smile or a similar gesture, yet she controlled the urge. As much as she wished to succour the young man, his anger and his love for his mother earned him a place on Ioli’s suspect list.
Chapter 9
Five years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Jones from Canterbury, Kent decided that at age sixty and having worked their grocery shop for forty years, it was time to retire.
‘We’re not getting any younger and we are stuck here in this shop for fourteen hours a day. I want out. I want to live for us. Somewhere nice, exotic. Set off on a new adventure,’ Bertha tried once again to persuade her stubborn-headed, high school sweetheart, Oliver.
‘What about the kids?’ he replied, stacking the day’s freshly-arrived tomatoes.
‘Now, that’s a new excuse from you,’ she laughed. ‘The kids are thirty-five years old and live hours away. We would always come and visit, and better, they would love to come visit us.’
Oliver stood up straight and stared at his wife with her rosy cheeks and her curly, brown hair. Those eyes always had a way with him. ‘Where?’
Bertha’s eyes lit up as she skipped through the rows of vegetables towards him. Her mouth reached speeds, never before witnessed by Oliver.
‘I was thinking somewhere in the Mediterranean. An Italian or Greek island. Somewhere really quiet, like a village where we would sit in the garden all day soaking up the sun, reading our books, dipping in our own private pool, making love…’
‘Bertha!’ Oliver cut her flow of words as his head spun around to make sure there were no customers in the shop.
‘Come on, old man! Let’s sell up and leave,’ she said and placed a full-lip kiss on his ready-to-speak lips.
Bertha recalled that day as she sat on her favorite, blue, deck chair staring at the lowering sun from her garden, right next to the 200-meter cliff. Oliver lay on his inflatable bed, his hands and legs dipped in the pool.
‘What’s all the racket?’ Oliver grunted.
‘Racket! I wonder what you would say if there was r
eally a commotion going on. It’s some people with that police officer looking around.’
‘Looking for what?’
‘How should I know?’ she asked as she watched Ioli traipse up and down the road glancing around.
Valentina had already started to knock on neighbors’ doors asking if they had seen Mr. Sakis.
Alexandro had his head over a stone brick wall that was built around an area of green, looking among pine trees and small-flowered tamarisks; planted and taken care of by the village council as the crooked, wooden sign informed.
‘Are you sure?’ Ioli asked over the phone.
‘For the millionth of time, babe, yes,’ Timothy replied, his eyes glued to his computer screen watching the red, blinking dot of Mr. Sakis’ phone. ‘I haven’t got the four clear signals that I normally need, but he should be around twelve to twenty meters from you.’
‘Maybe he dumped his phone,’ Ioli replied, her head scanning over a faded-yellow, public trash can. ‘Call you back,’ she said and closed her phone. She looked straight ahead at the plump lady standing at her shiny white fence between short bushes filled with colorful roses. The lady with the black swimsuit watched as she walked towards her.
‘Good evening,’ Ioli called over and began to introduce herself.
‘Bertha,’ the woman replied sweetly extending her hand. ‘What is this all about?’
‘We are looking for Mr. Sakis, the shoe repair man, if you know him.’
‘Oh, yes. The kind gentleman with the beard. Is he missing? I thought you were here for the murder of that poor, young girl,’ Bertha said, placing her hand on her cheek. Her lips travelled down and a cloud of sorrow lingered across her hazelnut eyes.
‘We are,’ Ioli replied, leaning on the fence. ‘How long have you been in Folegandros?’ Ioli asked, wondering if she was wasting her time on a tourist renting for the summer.
‘Oh, five years today, actually. Such a lovely place, really. Heaven on earth, this weather. I grew up in the rain, you see.’
Murder On Display: A riveting, stand-alone murder / mystery that keeps you guessing until the shocking end (Greek Island Mysteries Book 4) Page 6
