When the Devil's Idle (15 page)

“
Can
you get me whatever you have on German reprisal operations in
Epirus?” he asked the dispatcher, explaining what he was looking
for and why.

“
Our
records don’t go back that far. You’d be better off going to the
village yourself and talking to the old timers. Take a photograph
of the victim with you and pass it around, see if they recognize
him. Her family, too. If her father was indeed the priest, they’ll
remember. Or you could speak to someone from the university. Some
of those reprisal operations still have cases pending in court and
they’ve been gathering evidence for years. They might be able to
help you.”

To complicate
matters, his boss in Athens called later that morning and told him
to follow up on Lipsi the next day. “I want to be able to tell the
German ambassador that we are pursuing every angle, and that
includes a possible terrorist attack.”

“
Lipsi, sir?” he said politely. “A terrorist attack? It seems a
little far-fetched, in my opinion.”

“
No
more far-fetched than you and your revenge fantasy, Patronas, your
female Count of Monte Cristo. The dispatcher told me your theory
and I think it’s crazy.”

“
I
have a feeling about this, sir.”

“
A
feeling? You plan on taking that into court? Have the prosecutor
announce that you, Chief Officer Yiannis Patronas of the Chios
Police Force, have a
feeling
? You have any proof that the
victim, Walter Bechtel, was even in Greece in 1944? Anyone identify
him as a member of the First Mountain Division, as one of Roser’s
men?”

His boss had
researched the massacre, which made Patronas hopeful. All was not
lost. He’d get a chance to look into it.

“
I
haven’t got a positive ID yet. Give me a couple days in Epirus with
my men, and if I don’t find anything, I’ll go to Lipsi.”

“
No.
You’ll go to Lipsi tomorrow. You hear me? Tomorrow. After that, we
will discuss a trip to Epirus.”

As instructed,
Patronas duly departed for Lipsi early the next morning, planning
to return early and prepare for the trip to Epirus. Evangelos Demos
had elected to stay on Patmos and research Aghios Stefanos, as had
Giorgos Tembelos and Papa Michalis. They were all eager to see what
they could discover on the Internet, believing as Patronas did that
the massacre was the key to the case.

Lipsi was
picturesque, the area around the harbor a study in blue and white
like something generated by the National Tourist office, but
Patronas discovered nothing relevant to the case while he was
there.

He and a local
policeman had examined the files on the terrorist organization and
discussed it at length, the bulk of the crimes having been
committed long before either of them entered the force.

“
They
were active for more than twenty-five years,” the man said.
“Launched one hundred and three attacks and assassinated
twenty-three people. I was five years old when they killed their
first victim in Athens—the American CIA station master, Robert
Welch.”

“
Any
actions you know of against Germans?”

“
None
that I’m aware of.”

“
Any
acts of violence perpetrated by November Seventeenth on or near
Patmos?”

“
No.
They wouldn’t have risked it, not with their leader living so close
by.”

“
He
was a mathematician, wasn’t he? A university professor in France. I
saw photographs of his house on the news. How did he afford
it?”

“
That’s one of the many mysteries concerning November
Seventeenth, Chief Officer. No one knows.”

Patronas left the
police station around two o’clock, intent on making the three
o’clock boat back to Patmos and picking up the investigation where
he’d left off, the massacre in Aghios Stefanos. The wind had
quieted down, the placid water of the harbor golden in the sun. A
group of children were crouched down next to the sea, tossing
chunks of stale bread into the water and catching the fish that
gathered with a net.

The island
reminded Patronas of the Chios of his boyhood, the slow idyllic
summers he’d spent with friends before his father died and
everything changed. He’d caught fish the same way, silvery little
minnows.

Two men were
sitting outside on kitchen chairs, mending yellow nets with long
metal needles, and he paused to speak to them about the
case.

“
My
boss in Athens thinks November Seventeenth might be involved,” he
said.

“
Not a
chance,” one of the men said. “You said the victim was an elderly
German. With November Seventeenth, there was a point to what they
did. They wouldn’t have wasted their bullets on an old
man.”

Patronas nodded,
seeing logic in the man’s words. Hadn’t been a bullet, but he had a
point. The terrorists had eluded capture by law enforcement for a
quarter of a century. They’d never do something as stupid as
killing Walter Bechtel. No, the German’s murderer had been on
another kind of mission.

He passed around
his pack of cigarettes and bought them all coffees. “It must have
been something, the day they arrested the head of November
Seventeenth, Giotopoulos.”

“
Hamos
,” the same man said, chaos. “Lipsi is small, only
six hundred people, and the government sent more than that here
just to arrest him, over seven hundred. They couldn’t afford to let
him get away, you see, not after he’d made fools of them for all
those years.”

The fishermen
smirked. It pleased them that the officials in Athens had been
bested by the terrorist. Patronas could see it in their
faces.

“
They
had frogmen in the water, gunboats. It was as if war had broken
out.”

“
You
ever talk to him? The terrorist?”

“
Sometimes.” The man hesitated before answering, began to shut
down.

“
He
say anything against Germany?”

“
Not
that I can remember. Anyway, that was before things got really bad.
Hell, now everyone’s against the Germans.”

“
It
must be distressing being there in that house with the grieving
family,” Papa Michalis said, “especially if, as you allege, Maria
Georgiou is the guilty party. Having to wash dishes and put away
the laundry as if nothing happened. It would require great presence
of mind.”

They were eating
dinner at a taverna in Skala. Evangelos Demos and Giorgos Tembelos
were still working at the police station researching Aghios
Stefanos on their computers.

Patronas had
already lost a day and when he returned from Lipsi had wanted to go
back to the hotel and review his notes. The priest, however, was
hungry and insisted they eat first. He chose a fish restaurant,
saying he longed for some
barbounia
—little red mullets—which
cost close to sixty euros a kilo. “Being on an island always makes
me yearn for fish.”

“
You
live on an island.”

“
Hence, my yearning is continuous.” He took the largest of the
fish and put it on his plate, looked at it reverently for a moment.
“Such a lovely color,
barbounia
, such a sweet
red.”

Patronas wished
with all his heart that just once Papa Michalis would long for
something besides the most expensive food in Greece, red or
otherwise—a pizza, maybe, or bottled water.

The order had
depleted nearly all his cash reserves. The fried crawfish the
priest also had a longing for, which rang up at eighteen euros,
used up the rest. He’d have to find an ATM tomorrow.

Papa Michalis
filleted a fish and took a bite. “You spent time with Maria
Georgiou. What’s your impression of her?”

“
Steady. Not easily taken by surprise.”

“
Did
she volunteer that she was from Aghios Stefanos? It seems unlikely
that she would have been so forthcoming with that information if
her purpose was indeed revenge. It would have made more sense for
her to have disguised her origins.”

A fair
point,
Patronas conceded, recalling the interview. Maria
Georgiou had been absolutely straightforward with him, made no
effort to disguise her background or family history. If she was
indeed the killer, wouldn’t she have pointed him in another
direction? Instead, what she’d said had led him straight back to
her. Without a moment’s hesitation, she’d given him the classic
three: means, motive, and opportunity.

Shit. He could
feel his theory collapsing. Guilty people didn’t behave that way.
No, they lied and dissembled.

Papa Michalis was
wasting no time, Patronas saw, forking up the smaller fish two at a
time. “Don’t feel bad, Yiannis. I know you were sure you had
her—that she was the one—but I thought from the beginning it was
highly unlikely a woman committed this crime. Female murderers are
few and far between. That’s why we remember them. Lucretia Borgia,
the Roman empress, and Livia, who poisoned all who stood between
her son, Tiberius, and the throne. A few more maybe, but not many.
Cleopatra is far more typical, taking her own life rather than
killing another. Also, like Cleopatra, women prefer poison. It’s
their weapon of choice. They also lack the musculature to beat a
man to death.”

Patronas snorted.
Musculature? Where the hell did he get this stuff?

He moved to grab
a fish. “So all the talk of revenge, that little speech you gave me
earlier, you didn’t mean it?”

“
I
have since reconsidered. As I said, I think it’s highly unlikely.
Being a woman, Yiannis, it trumps everything.”

As if he
knew.

After dinner
Patronas returned to the hotel and told Antigone Balis that he and
the others would be leaving for a few days, but would need the room
back when they returned.

She was all
business, chilly. “I’ll have to charge you for the time you’re
away,” she said, paging through her book. “When you registered, you
said a week.”

“
That’s fine.”

Then she seemed
to regret her coldness and went into the kitchen and packed him a
parcel of food to take with him.

A promising sign,
he told himself, packing him a meal. A woman doesn’t make it her
business to feed a man she doesn’t like. First, she tends to one
kind of hunger, food in this instance, and then she unzips her
dress and addresses another.

Maybe all was not
lost and he’d be clutching something besides a buoy or himself one
of these nights.

He peered inside
the bag. Praise the Lord, if there wasn’t a little tub of
keftedakia—
meatballs—inside. They were fresh, judging by the
smell. The bag also contained a dozen fresh figs and half a
karidopita,
walnut cake, wrapped up in foil. She’d even put
in forks and napkins.

He looked around
for Papa Michalis, and not seeing him, furtively ate one of the
meatballs. They were delicious, delicately seasoned with onion and
mint. So, in addition to possessing the torso of a goddess, the
woman could cook. His cup runneth over, sort of like the contents
of her brassiere.

‘
Not
for your teeth,’ his mother had said, but maybe Antigone Balis was.
Maybe this time his luck would change and a beautiful woman would
find her way into his bed. It had never happened to him before.
Statistically, he was due. Thoughtfully, he ate another
meatball.

Antigone Balis
and him.
Sure, why not?

But then she told
him she’d charge him forty-five euros for the food—fifteen euros
apiece—and add it to the bill.

He wasn’t Romeo
calling out to her Juliet. No, he was just a customer, a customer
being ripped off. He felt like weeping, but he controlled himself,
bade her
kalinyhta,
good night, and made a dignified
exit.

Tembelos returned
to the hotel late that night, so tired he could barely
stand.

“
How’s
the merry widow?” he asked, flopping down on a chair and taking his
shoes off.

“
Greedy,” Patronas answered, still upset about the forty-five
euros.

“
Greedy is good. She wants you, Yiannis. I saw it in her eyes.
So how are you going to go about it? You going to tackle her? Pull
her down and have at it?”

“
I
think that’s called ‘rape,’ Giorgos, and I’d get arrested.” He
wasn’t in the mood for jokes, wished his friend would
stop.

“
Perhaps a dinner invitation?”

“
With
you and Evangelos hanging around? Not to mention a priest?” He
nodded to where Papa Michalis was sleeping. “The presence of a
priest is hardly conducive to romance.”

“
I
could keep him away.”

“
No,
you couldn’t. I ate dinner with him last night. He’s like a lion
pouncing on a gazelle, Papa Michalis. He can smell a free meal from
far away, track it for days across the savannahs of Africa and tear
into it with his teeth.” Patronas made a gnashing sound.

“
No
need to tell me. He’s a shrewd one, our priest. All pious and full
of cant—
Lay not up the treasures of this earth—
except when
it comes to meals someone else is paying for. Then he’s a fucking
camel.”