Her Boyfriend's Bones Read online

“I don’t know. See if there are any books about the military junta or the weapons they had. They called it Regime of the Colonels.”

  “Most of these books are in Greek.”

  “Then you won’t find anything useful.”

  Dinah went back down the hallway to the bedrooms. It was easy to spot the mistress’ suite. It was papered over with theater posters and enlarged photographs of actors and actresses. Zenia seemed to specialize in the classical Greek tragedies. She had played Jocasta in “Oedipus Rex” at the famous Odeon of Herodes Atticus amphitheater in Athens. She had played Antigone and Electra. And she was Clytemnestra in “The Agamemnon.” The largest and most lurid poster featured a much younger Zenia as Medea. She wore an expression of ghastly righteousness and held over her head a dagger dripping with blood. Dinah had read the story of Medea and seen the play while she was in college. Medea had fallen in love with Jason and helped him in his quest for the Golden Fleece. When he threw her over for another woman, she poisoned her rival and followed that up by murdering her own children, the sons she had borne to Jason. Zenia must have been a powerful actress in her heyday to portray such a difficult character.

  Dinah felt like a peeper, which of course she was. She had come to ask for Zenia’s help and here she was prowling around her boudoir like a cat burglar. Zenia had said rehearsals began at four. It was six o’clock now. She probably wouldn’t be home for another half hour at least, but Dinah didn’t want to be caught inside the house and there was no telling when Egan might walk in the door.

  “The only title I’ve found in English is Timeless Tales of the Greek Gods,” called K.D.

  “Look in the console behind the sofa.”

  Dinah was on the way out when her eyes lit on the bedside table and a book in English, a copy of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile. She smiled. So Zenia’s taste wasn’t limited to high tragedy. Absent-mindedly, she picked up the book and riffled the pages. An envelope had been placed in the center. It was unstamped and addressed to Zenia Stephanadis. The sender was Nasos Lykos.

  She caught her breath. Egan’s words reverberated. They never found Nasos’ body. She bit her lip. The envelope looked new. Nasos was probably a common name, but Nasos Lykos? It had to be Marilita’s boyfriend or a namesake—a son or grandson. She could feel the edges of a letter inside the envelope. Curiosity trumped scruples. She slipped it out, unfolded it, and looked at the slanting scrawl—all in Greek. Indecipherable. She put the letter back in the envelope and, impulsively, crammed it in her pocket. Her corruption was compounding faster than the interest on her Visa bill.

  “What’s this?” Zenia’s voice sounded high pitched as an incoming missile. “Come away from there. I will shoot you.”

  “No!” Dinah ran into the living room. Zenia stood in the door that led from her garage. She wore a silver-beaded skull cap and a flapper-era dress and she was aiming a shiny black pistol at K.D.’s head. “Zenia, please put down the gun. This is my fault.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “We knocked and when you didn’t answer, we thought you might have fallen and couldn’t get up.”

  “Liar. How did you get in?”

  “I climbed up your orange tree,” said K.D.

  “What?”

  “I climbed your orange tree and crawled in through the kitchen window. We’re here to ask for your help finding Dinah’s boyfriend, Thor.”

  “Pah!” Zenia’s lips compressed to a pinkish-purple gash. “What’s that in your hand?”

  Dinah slued a glance at K.D. She was holding what looked to be an old scrapbook.

  “I don’t know,” said K.D. “A book. I haven’t opened it.”

  “Please, Zenia,” pleaded Dinah. “Put down the gun.” She wouldn’t have bet one way or the other on the marksmanship of an octogenarian who was apparently too vain to wear eyeglasses, but she noted that the hand holding the gun was rock steady. “Aim that thing somewhere else. You know that we mean you no harm.”

  She transferred her aim from K.D. to Dinah. “Snooping through my personal belongings, that’s harm.”

  “It’s a misunderstanding,” said K.D. “Alcina told me about the orange tree. She said you sometimes didn’t hear her knock and we could come in the back way.”

  K.D. might be a liar, but she was a damned good one. Dinah regained a semblance of composure. “Is there someone you’re afraid of, Zenia? Is that why you have that gun?”

  “Any woman who lives alone should have a gun.”

  “But you’re not alone,” said Dinah. “You have Egan.”

  “The only thing Egan knows how to shoot is a movie.” She lowered the pistol, nestled it into her drawstring bag, and laid the bag on the console. “Put that book back where you found it. I’m going to brew a pot of tea. Come along and tell me what it is that you want.”

  Dinah and K.D. followed her into the kitchen. It was a grimy little galley with the smell of many suppers embedded in the walls. The window through which K.D. had climbed opened above a sink piled high with dirty dishes. Dinah looked away from a sauté pan containing some congealed, meat-resembling substance and said, “I’d like you to telephone your friend, the regional governor, and request reinforcements to search for Thor.”

  Zenia filled a kettle and set it on an electric burner on the counter next to the stove. “The police have already searched the gorge, doing a great deal of damage to my trees and property in the process. Where else would you have them search?”

  “I don’t know.” Out of the blue, she remembered that Thor had been at some beach yesterday afternoon, Megalo something. “The police should go everywhere that he’s been and talk to everyone who saw him. I’m afraid he’s been kidnapped.”

  “Pah. Who’d kidnap a policeman? Will you eat biscuits?”

  “Yes ma’am, thank you.” K.D. regarded Zenia with a respectful, almost reverent gaze. Having a gun pointed at her head seemed to have had a chastening effect.

  Zenia opened a package of sesame-topped cookies. “Koulourakia,” she said. “They’re my favorite.”

  Dinah watched her empty the cookies onto a plate. What was going on in the brain behind that topaz pendant? “I need your help, Zenia. I don’t trust the local police. You said yourself that they take bribes. I want outside police brought in.”

  Zenia spooned loose-leaf tea from a tin canister into a sterling tea ball and plopped the ball into a Victorian silver teapot. “Do you think it wise to place such confidence in your young man? You aren’t married. He has no obligation. Perhaps he doesn’t wish for you to find him.”

  Dinah saw what Galen Stavros meant about Zenia’s shalls and shall nots. “I understand that you’re a stickler for the proprieties, Zenia, but this is a matter of life and death. Thor and I aren’t married, but we care about each other. He wouldn’t disappear without telling me.”

  “Sentimental rubbish.” The old woman’s eyes showed not one mote of compassion.

  Dinah trotted out the only thing she had to barter. “If you call the governor for me, I will help you make your docudrama. I will be your Marilita.”

  “You’re too late. Egan has made another woman an offer.”

  Anger mingled with frustration and Dinah lashed out. “If you haven’t the humanity to help save a man’s life, it’s your prerogative. As a matter of fact, I’ve had another offer. A man who also has important connections.”

  “I won’t have another mob trespassing on my property.”

  Dinah was seething. “No one gives a rip about your trespassing signs. If Thor is in that gorge or anywhere else on your property, we will find him and the men who kidnapped him. Where the wolf has been, there will be tracks.”

  Zenia paled beneath her rouge. The kettle shrilled and the plate in her hand wobbled and tipped. Cookies hit the floor and skittered in all directions.

  Dinah took the plate and lifted the kettle o
ff the burner. “You’d better sit down and tell me what or who it is that you’re afraid of, Zenia. And if you know anything about Thor’s disappearance, you’d better not leave that part out.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Zenia reclined on her sofa under a heavy quilt, her head supported by a plump bolster. Dinah had removed her beaded skull cap and poured her a double shot of twelve-year-old Metaxa, which K.D. had found concealed behind Timeless Tales. Zenia sipped the liquor and glowered at Dinah, who glowered back.

  “I’m not afraid of anyone,” said Zenia. “If anyone threatens me, I’ll shoot him.” She had her crust back and parried Dinah’s questions in a waspish temper.

  “Has someone threatened you? Is that why you keep a gun in your purse? Is that why you leased Marilita’s house to a policeman and told everybody to be on guard?”

  “If you’re looking for a gossip, go and badger that talebearer at the taverna. He tells everyone who complains about his stomach flu or his lost goat that I’ve hexed them.”

  “I don’t mean to badger you, Zenia. I came to ask for your help. I need you to telephone your friend the governor to ask for additional police, people who don’t have friends or relatives in Kanaris and aren’t susceptible to bribery.”

  “This morning you said you were leaving for Athens. Your man has been unaccounted for less than twenty-four hours. I see no reason to bother the governor.”

  Dinah felt her objections to waterboarding ebb. She thought about the letter written by a ghost, the rich and clever boyfriend whose bones were never found and she had an idea. “K.D., the least we can do to make amends is to wash the dishes for Zenia. Come on.”

  K.D. gave her an are-you-nuts look, but put down the book she was leafing through and followed. Dinah turned on the kitchen tap full-blast and took the letter out of her shirt. “I took this out of a book on Zenia’s bedside table. Here’s what I want you to do.”

  Dinah washed most of the dishes and set them on the drain board. She left K.D. to do the drying and returned to the living room.

  Zenia raised her head off the bolster. Her face was gray, like crinkled wax paper. “Egan leaves things a mess.”

  Dinah took the glass of Metaxa off the table and handed it her. “Here. You’d better drink some more.”

  Zenia held the glass in both hands and regarded Dinah over the rim. “I have no need of your housekeeping services. You are free to leave.”

  “In a few minutes. I was thinking about Nasos Lykos. Did he have children?”

  “If he did, they would be bastards.”

  “Egan said they never recovered his body. Is it possible he’s still alive?”

  “There was a double funeral for him and his mother in Athens. Dignitaries and courtesans from all over Europe came.” The contempt in her pronunciation of courtesan was palpable. “He is quite dead.”

  Dinah rested one hip on the arm of the sofa and snugged the quilt around Zenia’s feet. “You didn’t find Nasos as charming as Egan did.”

  “He was a frivolous man. Spoiled by his family’s money. His debauchery would have humiliated any other woman. Marilita laughed it off. She was no better than a courtesan, herself.”

  “Did you know Rena Lykos, his mother?”

  “She had a dignified carriage and wore couture dresses. After her death, I read in the newspaper that one of her legs had been nearly torn off by a badly thrown grenade which she had purchased for the guerillas fighting the junta. Her allegiance was misplaced, but she had mettle.”

  K.D. walked out of the kitchen carrying a glass of iced tea. She set the glass on a napkin on the coffee table. “May I use your bathroom, Zenia?”

  “Is it the custom in your country to break into a person’s house, snoop through their private possessions, but ask permission to use the loutro?”

  “Second door on the right,” said Dinah. When K.D. left the room, she turned back to Zenia. “Nasos sounds like the sort of man Americans would call a wolf. Were you thinking of Nasos when I mentioned the word wolf? Is that what upset you?”

  “The only thing that upset me is finding you snooping about. I felt dizzy for a moment. My high blood pressure.”

  So she did lie. Stavros got that wrong. She had been frightened white. Was it possible that it was Nasos’ ghost, and not Marilita’s, that haunted Kanaris? Dinah walked across the room and studied the photographs. Presumed dead and washed out to sea left plenty of latitude for doubt. Who other than Nasos would write Zenia a letter using his name?

  Zenia said, “What are you gawking at?”

  She went back to the sofa. “Do you know a man named Galen Stavros?”

  “No.”

  “He appears somewhere in his seventies. He lives in Athens, but he gave the impression that he had lived on Samos at one time.”

  “Is he the man who offered to help you find Ramberg?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he was a friend of Marilita’s. He doesn’t think she murdered your husband or anyone else.”

  “If he believed she was innocent, he should have spoken up before it was too late.”

  Dinah conceded the point. Why hadn’t he come forward? Fear of the junta, she supposed. A wild notion swam into her head. What if Stavros was Nasos? He was old enough, and seemingly familiar with all of the players. He could be lying about where he got that scar on his head. It could be an ugly souvenir of that last picnic with Marilita. If he were the real murderer, that would have been a very solid reason not to come forward.

  Zenia said, “This Stavros person must be one of those creatures who chases the foreio.”

  “What is that?” Dinah asked.

  “The ambulance. He heard about the accident and tracked you down, hoping to see his name in the newspaper. Maybe he’s a newspaper reporter.”

  “That’s possible, but he sounds like a family insider. He speaks as if he also knows you personally.”

  Her black eyes gleamed with Medea-like ferocity. She threw off the quilt and sat up. “I don’t know who this Stavros is, but if he claims to be Nasos Lykos, he is an imposter. Nasos is dead.”

  “Is that what you think, Zenia? That someone is pretending to be Nasos?”

  “No.” She drank more of the Metaxa, handed the glass to Dinah, and lay her head back on the bolster. “Whoever he is, he is of no interest to me.”

  It was plain from the fear on her face that he was of enormous interest, but Dinah didn’t have the time or the patience to draw out truths she didn’t want to divulge. “Let’s start over, Zenia. If Thor is alive, he’s in big trouble and it’s important, urgent, that we find him fast. Trust me, your friend the governor will want to throw all of his resources into a case that involves arms smuggling.”

  “Arms smuggling?”

  Dinah thought she discerned a flash of suspicion in her eyes. “That’s right. Guns that the American CIA supplied to the junta are being smuggled north from Samos. Did Phaedon ever talk to you about a lost or missing shipment?”

  “Phaedon would never breach his duty by revealing military secrets.”

  Dinah pulled out her phone. “Give me the governor’s number. I’ll go through the hoops with his secretary or assistants and when he comes on, you can speak with him directly.”

  “Governor Rigas is on Malta. I will call him when he returns.”

  There seemed nothing left to say or do. Defeated, Dinah picked up K.D.’s tea and took a sip. She choked and began to wheeze and cough. It was eighty proof.

  The toilet flushed. She was just recovering her breath when K.D. sashayed back into the room. She saw Dinah holding her “iced tea,” rolled her eyes, and crossed the room to turn on a lamp.

  Dark had fallen and Dinah dreaded the helpless, unavailing hours until morning. She could phone Stavros to see if any of his connections had come through with information. S
he could phone Papas and pester him to follow up on all the places where Thor had been the previous day. Or she could go home and ransack the house to see if Thor had left any clue to the name of his ally on Samos. She said, “We’re going now, Zenia. I would appreciate anything you can do or suggest to help.” She scribbled her phone number on a piece of paper and set it on the table. “And if you need help, or if you want to talk about anything at all, call me. Day or night.”

  The front door banged open. Everyone started, but it was only Egan.

  “What an enchanting scene, Zenia, dear. I see that all is forgiven.”

  “I had a bout of dizziness. Dinah and her young friend have been playing nurse.”

  “Shall I call for the doctor? You didn’t forget to take your pills, did you?” Egan adopted a custodial tone.

  “No. I feel quite well.” She sat up ramrod straight. Damp tendrils of hair stood out on her head like pilled wool and she primped and tried to smooth them down. “Hand me my drink.”

  Dinah handed her the glass and wondered if she had more than a friendly interest in Egan.

  “I’m Katarina Dobbs from Atlanta, Georgia,” said K.D. “Dinah’s niece.” She held out her hand to Egan as if she expected him to kiss it.

  “I’m Egan Vercuni.” He appeared vaguely taken aback and shook her hand somewhat brusquely. “What is that you’re drinking, Zenia?”

  “Metaxa. These girls are on their way out. You must come and have a drink with me. I’ve had a new idea for the film.”

  “Which of the muses has whispered in your ear?”

  “Mnemosyne,” said Zenia. “The goddess of memory. I’ve remembered something interesting about Marilita.”

  “And what is that?” he asked.

  “She had an absurd love of gypsy music. Decadent, as you’d expect, but we may weave in a few tunes to the musical score.”

  “Brilliant.” He took a sip of Metaxa from her glass, moved the quilt aside, and sat down beside her.

  Dinah picked up the note with her phone number and placed it in Zenia’s hand. “Take care of yourself, Zenia. Watch out for wolves in sheep’s clothing.”