Her Boyfriend's Bones Read online

  “A day in Athens, but you’ll be back. You won’t be needed right away.”

  “Reckless, impetuous, depraved. I don’t think I’d do justice to the part.”

  “I’m eighty-five-years old. Surely you can spare an old woman a few weeks. Of course, you will be paid handsomely for your time.”

  “I wish you luck finding a suitable Marilita, Zenia, but I’m not the one.” Dinah stood up. “Thank you for the tea, but I have to be getting back to Kanaris to meet that mechanic. I’m sure Mr. Vercuni will save you the trouble and drive me back down the mountain.”

  Egan rose from the sofa, tugging his jacket around him. “Yes, of course. And don’t worry, Zenia. We’ll find another Marilita. I’ll call one of my contacts in Athens to set up some auditions. There’s always a cluster of young starlets looking for a start.”

  “None so damnably like my sister as this one,” said Zenia and swept out of the room with surprising energy for an octogenarian.

  Egan smirked. “She’s not used to hearing ‘no’ for an answer. It’s rather bracing to see. Wait here, Miss…Pelerin, is it? I’ll change and drive you to town.”

  He left the room and Dinah nipped across to look at the framed photographs and articles beside the front door. There was a ratty newspaper clipping dated June 1973 with a picture of a hawk-nosed, thin-lipped, square-jawed man in a much decorated military uniform. Colonel Phaedon Hero, she surmised. The Greek script was unreadable. It was the kind of photo that might have accompanied a notice of promotion, or an obituary. There were several black-and-white photographs that looked as if they should have stayed in the family album. The sun pouring through the skylights had faded them badly. There was one of the Colonel, recognizable by his beaky nose, standing with his arm around an arrogant, dark-eyed young woman in a rakish feather hat—Zenia? Another photo showed a different military man standing with one hand on the shoulder of a seated woman in a high-necked dress. His heavy black brows and austere visage suggested an authoritarian mentality. No doubt he was the intrepid father whose ashes reposed in the first howitzer shell and the seated woman must be his wife. She had a vacant stare, like a marionette. It was hard to imagine such a drab looking woman giving birth to the likes of Zenia and Marilita.

  Hurriedly, Dinah ran her eyes around the rest of the gallery until she found the newspaper photo that had aroused Thor’s curiosity—the one taken on the day of the murders. Marilita, her hair tousled and her head thrown back in voluptuous abandon, was laughing into the camera. She wore a bikini with a man’s shirt hanging open over the top. Phaedon Hero, in uniform but clearly in a jovial mood, stood between Marilita and a seemingly bemused older woman in street clothes—Nasos’ mother. Phaedon lifted one of her hands high over her head as if he were about to lead her into a Greek dance. A well-muscled hunk in bathing trunks stood apart from the rest holding a picnic hamper. So that was Nasos Lykos. He certainly didn’t look like a mellowing influence. He must have been at least ten years younger than Marilita and, even in the deteriorated newspaper photo, his eyes transmitted a bad-boy bent.

  “Let’s be off then,” said Egan, breezing through the room in a short-sleeved green shirt and mustard colored tie. He opened the door with a flourish. “My car is parked in front.”

  Dinah put on her sunglasses and preceded him down the curved stone steps to his car, her thoughts revolving around that tableau forty years ago. If Zenia’s explanation of the murders could be believed and the Colonel had found out that his sister-in-law and the others were traitors, why didn’t he have them arrested? Why go to a beach and let himself be photographed smiling in their company? And who had taken the picture?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Egan’s car was a dusty green Hyundai pocked with dents, but you wouldn’t know it from his superior air. He looked as if he were holding back a nosebleed as he pulled on a pair of leather driving gloves.

  Dinah couldn’t wait to tell Thor that Phaedon Hero was Zenia’s husband. She wondered why Mentor hadn’t mentioned the fact, but maybe he thought she knew already. “How long had Zenia and Phaedon been married before his death?”

  “Twenty years, I should say. Yes, twenty, at least. Perhaps longer.”

  Dinah did the math. According to Thor, Marilita was forty when she was executed in 1973. That would make her eighty today, five years younger than Zenia. “Did Zenia and Phaedon have any children?”

  “No. They pretended briefly that Marilita’s misbegotten child was theirs, but gave up the charade when the scandal broke.”

  “There was a scandal that Marilita had a child out of wedlock?”

  “It wouldn’t make the back page of the tabloids today, but at the time it made headlines in the dailies all across Europe. Marilita never denied that the girl was illegitimate. It devastated her career, but she had made most of her big films and big money in her early twenties. She had a few supporting roles in her thirties, but her star power was gone.”

  “Was Nasos Alcina’s father?”

  “Zot, no. Alcina must have been ten or twelve when Marilita met Nasos. They had known each other only a couple of years when they played their climactic scene. Marilita’s execution was an anticlimax. She went to her grave without naming the child’s father.”

  “Do you think the junta executed her because of her politics?”

  “They had absolute power. They could execute anyone for any reason, but murdering a member of the junta was certainly high treason. The newspapers reported only what they were ordered to report, of course, but they embellished their stories with a rather gleeful flair. I read one or two while filming on location in Albania. Military Court Awards Disgraced Actress, Murderess, And Convicted Insurrectionist Her Date With Nemesis, The Inescapable Messenger of Justice. Marilita received a bit more ballyhoo than the average prisoner. The government demonized her. By the time they stood her up in front of the firing squad, she was probably longing to die. The junta’s manicures were not designed to pamper.”

  “You mean they pulled out…?”

  “Among other forms of torture, or so I’ve heard.”

  Dinah shuddered. “You said that Marilita changed when she fell in love with Nasos. How?”

  “She was less outspoken. Not demure by any means, but muted. Before Nasos, her political comments would have caused repercussions were it not for Phaedon. He protected her.”

  “She opposed the junta?”

  “She opposed conformity. I think she did a lot of things just to antagonize her sister. She was always bringing around some disreputable artist or actor to queer Zenia’s parties. Phaedon rather enjoyed her slumming and laughed it off, but it goaded Zenia.”

  “But Zenia is an actress. Aren’t most theater people nonconformists?”

  “Only when it’s advantageous. Zenia was ambitious for her husband. She was more interested in advancing Phaedon’s military career than her own and then, well. Sadly, Nemesis is a democrat. The goddess doesn’t like any one person to have too much good.” He finally got the gloves fitted to his satisfaction, started the car, and eased out into the road like an aristocrat out for a Sunday jaunt.

  “Aren’t you headed the wrong way?”

  “There’s more room to turn around at the gorge lookout.”

  There was plenty of room here for anyone who knew how to drive, but Dinah didn’t object. His dawdling would be a relief after that ride with Zenia. He obviously had no compunction about backbiting and she egged him on. “Zenia doesn’t like the villagers and vice versa. Do you know why?”

  “Kanaris has always been a haven for leftists and Zenia and Phaedon represented the anticommunist junta. There were demonstrations for Marilita after her arrest and some of the villagers hung banners proclaiming their gratitude that she had struck a blow against tyranny. Over the years, whenever the opportunity presents, Zenia takes pains to remind them.” He chortled. “What is the line? The sins of the fathers
shall be visited upon the sons.”

  Dinah was awed by the sheer duration of the feud. If the sons of the sinners were still alive, they’d be grandfathers by now.

  Egan turned into the small, unpaved area marked with a crooked wooden sign in Greek and a badly carved horse with wings.

  “What does the sign say?”

  “Pegasus Point.” He completed his U-turn and started to leave.

  “Wait. I’d like to take a look if you don’t mind.”

  He stopped the car and pulled up the hand brake. “You can see all that’s worth seeing from the car.”

  “How deep is it?”

  “Two hundred and forty meters.”

  Dinah multiplied by three and peered down. “Is there a stream or river at the bottom?”

  “There used to be a small stream. Zenia’s father owned all of this land, but when I was a lad, the villagers regarded the gorge and the forest as their hunting ground. After Phaedon’s death, Zenia posted trespassing signs. There’s an easement for the hiking trail along the perimeter, but going into the gorge is prohibited. Of course, no one pays any heed to the postings. They do what they can to repay Zenia for her malice.”

  Dinah was about to question him about the mnimosyno, but a plume of dark, oily smoke caught her eye. It rose out of the wooded depths below like a snake swaying to a charmer’s flute. Was someone burning his garbage way down there? The smell that assailed her nostrils wasn’t animal or vegetable. It was noxious, burning rubber and plastic.

  She jumped out of the car and leaned over the railing. The source of the smoke was an overturned car. She could see one blue door twisted askew like a broken wing. Thor’s car was that exact same blue.

  A sick feeling washed over her. “Do you have a cell phone, Egan?”

  “Of course.” He got out of the car and walked over to the railing. “What’s the problem?”

  “Call for help. Call an ambulance. I’m going down.”

  She ran along the railing, looking for a gap or a trail. Where the railing ended, she saw a chute of broken trees and scree where the car had plunged over the side. She sideslipped down a short way, climbed over a log, and sideslipped another few yards. She strained her eyes. Was it Thor’s car or another blue car? Except for size, most modern cars looked alike to her and this one had landed upside down. Maybe she was catastrophizing and Thor was merrily going about his business in town this morning. What would he be doing on this side of the gorge anyway? If he’d come to talk with Zenia, either she or Egan would have mentioned that he’d been there. She felt a spasm of relief, followed immediately by a spasm of guilt. What happened here spelled catastrophe for somebody.

  Above, she heard Egan talking in a high, excited voice. He alternated between Greek and English. She wished she could hear and understand the other end of the call. Did Samos have a helicopter to airlift an injured person out of this gorge? Did they have a Jaws of Life to pry apart the wreckage if someone was trapped?

  Her feet slipped out from under her and she went down hard on her backside and the palms of her hands. When she got up, her hands were skinned and bleeding and embedded with grit. She wiped them on the knees of her pants and scouted around for an easier descent. A wheel had come off the car on its downward plunge and rolled at least a hundred yards diagonally through the scrub until it collided with a tree and fell over on its side. The path it took appeared less steep than the one she was on and she cut across the slope in that direction. If she were going to stay upright, she would have to zigzag down the mountain like a skier.

  Belatedly, she remembered water. Why did she never have the stuff when she needed it? Not only was she getting hotter and thirstier by the minute, but water might have been the only help she could have offered the crash victim. She reached for her phone to call Egan, but she’d left it in her purse in the car. She remembered how Thor had agonized over the Utoya massacre in Norway. If the cops had carried guns, kids could have been saved. The same sense of incompetence afflicted her now. If she carried water or a phone or knew anything at all about how to control bleeding or prevent shock, she might be able to save…whoever was in that car.

  Her shoes had collected a painful lot of sand and pebbles and she could feel the beginnings of a blister on her left heel, but she had too much downward momentum to stop now. Her hands felt sticky from blood and pine resin where she had been grabbing onto trees to keep from falling and her face stung from heat and sweat. She dashed a drop of sweat out of her eyes and realized that she’d lost her Wayfarers.

  The heat and stink of burning plastic and rubber grew stronger and she advanced cautiously. The roof and front seat compartment had crumpled nearly flat and the rear end was charred. The gas tank must have exploded. She scrambled over a downed tree and crept around to look at the front grill. It was a Peugeot. Thor’s Peugeot.

  She slumped onto the ground. Nobody could have walked away from that one. He was dead. A few hours ago she’d cursed her fate over a lousy set of slashed tires. Now the Fates had shown her what they could do when they got serious. Breathing hurt, as if she were inhaling shards of glass. She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. There’d be plenty of time to cry, plenty of time to reflect on the fact that her last words to him had been mean and petulant. Time to think about all the ways she’d let him down. She forced herself to stand up, tried to steel herself against the sight of his dead body, but prayed anyway. Don’t let him be dead. Please, please, please don’t let him be dead.

  She walked around to the driver’s window. The glass had disintegrated into a mass of green rubble and there was only a small gap between the squashed roof and the chassis. Careless of the glass, she lay down on her belly. The airbag had deployed and the mass of deflated nylon curtained the interior. Was the airbag what caused that gunshot smell? She pushed the fabric aside and saw detached hunks of the dashboard. The steering wheel had mangled like a coat hanger. The seat was empty.

  Had he been thrown from the car or jumped free before impact? Was he lying down here somewhere injured and unable to climb out?

  “Thor?” She yelled his name over and over again, but there was no answer. It was as if he’d gone up in the plume of smoke still snaking up from the rear of the Peugeot.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dinah sat on the unbroken section of the railing over the gorge and tried not to moan out loud. She drank a liter of water furnished by a baby-faced emergency medical technician who looked as helpless as she felt. The other technician, an older guy with a gaunt face and a sour mouth, was reading Egan the riot act in Greek. From what she could gather, the gist of his gripe was that they had driven their big white ambulance up this snaky mountain road to rescue a man who wasn’t here. To his credit, Egan seemed to be giving as good as he got. What he lacked in stature, he made up for in hauteur.

  She poured a little of the cool water on her stinging hands and scoured the slopes of the gorge for the hundredth time. This was the steeper, more sparsely wooded side. Looking across the gorge floor, she could see sections of a less precipitous trail winding up through the pines. She had climbed halfway to the top calling his name, but there was no sign that he’d walked out that way and she turned back.

  Tears welled as Sergeant Papas and two other policemen drove up and got out of their car. She hopped off the railing, but her legs felt limp and she reached back and braced herself on the rail. She knew that Papas spoke English because Thor had spoken to him in English. She burst into a torrent of words. “He’s not down there. His car is totaled and he’s not there. I called and walked around and around. He must have been thrown free, but he’s unconscious. Maybe in the trees above the floor.”

  Papas stepped to the railing and took in the wreckage below. “Did you see blood on or near the car?”

  Her heart leapt up. “No. No, I didn’t see blood. My car was vandalized this morning. Maybe somebody stole his car and pushed it over the cliff. D
id he call you? Did he report his car stolen?”

  ”There have been no reports of a stolen car.” He had a husky voice, low but oddly gentle. He had a somber face and deep-set, shrewd little eyes. He scoped out the gorge floor through binoculars. “It’s possible the car landed on top of him and you were unable to see.”

  She couldn’t let herself think along those lines or she’d lose it. “Do you have equipment to extricate him if he’s trapped?”

  “It’s on the way.”

  “And if he was thrown clear, is there a search and rescue helicopter on the island? Can you radio for more searchers?”

  “If we need to.” Papas raised the binoculars and scanned the horizon. “Perhaps this is a strategy.”

  “What?”

  “Perhaps the Inspector wants to disappear.”

  “Why would he want to disappear?” She rolled this two cents over in her mind. Pancake his car over the side of a cliff? It wasn’t practical. It wasn’t Norwegian. “He wouldn’t do something like this,” she said. “He absolutely wouldn’t do something like this without telling me.”

  Papas gave her a quizzical look.

  She disregarded the implied skepticism. “If you’ll notice the tread marks, Sergeant, he seems to have been driving down the mountain from the other direction. Where does this road lead?”

  “Nowhere. It deadends in less than a kilometer at an abandoned marble quarry. He may have gone to the end of the road to turn around.”

  “Does anyone besides Zenia Stephanadis have a house on this road?”

  “No.” He hung the binoculars around his neck, put on his dark glasses, and scribbled a number on the back of a card. “Here is my phone number. If the Inspector is in the lagkadi, we will find him.”