Her Boyfriend's Bones Page 2

  “I thought you planned to devote all of your time to making love to me.”

  “How much lovemaking can one mortal woman stand from the namesake of the Norse god of thunder?”

  “It’ll be interesting to find out, won’t it?”

  He grinned and kissed her on the top of the head. “Hold that thought until I get home from the supermarket.”

  When he had gone, she finished the apple and felt a lot better. She put on her bathing suit under her jeans and shirt, threw a towel into her backpack, and started to the sea, thinking mostly positive thoughts. Some men would be infuriated if their lover sprang a teenage buttinsky on them, but Thor was unflappable. Unflappable and incorrigible. Apparently he couldn’t go a week without schmoozing with other cops. He was a police inspector on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, a place that had been virtually crime free until a contingent of U.S. senators dropped by last year and set off a crime wave. Dinah, who had tagged along as a consultant to one of the senators, teamed up with Thor, and together they had solved two murders. Crime had brought them together, but hashing over the local police blotter wasn’t her idea of a fun vacation. She hoped he wouldn’t turn their summer get-together into a busman’s holiday.

  A series of rocky, dirt switchbacks dropped away from the village past a haphazard orchard of olive trees interspersed with wild oleander and pomegranate and fig trees. Spears of dark green Italian cypress studded the hills and a massive rock face jutted up in the distance. Smaller outcrops like the teeth of giants thrust up through the green earth, and thousand-year-old rock walls terraced the upper slopes as far as she could see. Samos did not have a shortage of rocks.

  A second vineyard had been planted down the seaward side of the mountain and far below, a sprinkling of red-tiled roofs gleamed amidst the green. In the bend of the fourth switchback sat a dilapidated stone cottage. It had no door and she stuck her head inside and looked around. A low stone wall divided the room in half. The wall had a hole in the bottom above a deep pit which had been partially covered with a thick stone slab.

  “Yia’sou.”

  She stepped back as a burly man in a white linen suit and a straw boater hiked up the trail from below. He leaned hard on a walking staff and panted from exertion.

  Yia’sou was one of the handful of basic Greek words and expressions she’d memorized. It meant both hello and goodbye. She answered with a confident smile. “Yia’sou.”

  The Greek that streamed out of his mouth next didn’t sound so friendly.

  Not sure if she had been reprimanded for trespassing, she proffered another phrase from her limited vocabulary. “Me sinkhorite.” If she’d pronounced it correctly, it meant excuse me. She followed up with an extenuating spiel in English and hoped her apologetic smile would get the meaning across. “The cottage was open. I just assumed it was public. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

  He leveled a penetrating look at her and came forward. “Who are you?”

  “You speak English.” She brightened. “My name is Dinah Pelerin. I’m staying in the Stephan house in Kanaris for the summer.”

  He sat down on a bench in front of the cottage, took off his boater and fanned his face. “The cicadas are bursting today.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It is very hot.” His inquisitive eyes seemed to search for a way to categorize her. “Not many tourists come to Kanaris.”

  “Then I guess that makes me special.”

  “Zenia Stephanadis has never permitted guests in that house.”

  She said, “There’s a first time for everything.”

  He regarded her thoughtfully for a few seconds and his face creased into a smile that spread from his mouth to his eyes. “You are right, Dinah Pelerin. There is always a first time. I am Mentor. I grow the sweetest grapes and make the best wine on Samos. My father was born in Kanaris and his father before him. I was born in the house I live in today. You will pass by it on your way to the sea.”

  “I’m happy to meet you, Mentor. Kanaris is a beautiful place.”

  “Where do you come from?”

  “America. The southeastern part.”

  “America.” He pulled a pipe out of his coat pocket and stuck it between his teeth. “The British think of Greece as an outdoor museum and look upon us Greeks as undeserving caretakers. They preserve the best of our antiquities in their museums, more arrogant even than the French. The Germans think we are wastrels and idlers who cannot be trusted to clean up after ourselves. Our pensions are too fat for their liking and they would impoverish us for our own good. And the Americans,” he paused and lit his pipe. “The Americans can’t believe that a tiny, unimportant country with socialist leanings can jeopardize their retirement funds. Is that what you think?”

  She had read about the Greek debt crisis and the harsh terms imposed by Germany and the European Union, but she wasn’t about to be drawn into a discussion with a Greek who obviously had a chip on his shoulder. “I don’t have a retirement plan and I arrived in Greece just last night. This is my first day.”

  “Now you must excuse me. We Greeks have become paranoid these last two years. The world seems to have forgotten Greece’s contributions to western civilization. We are scolded like children for our lazy habits and our careless borrowing.”

  “Americans have no right to criticize others for over-borrowing. I charged my airfare to Samos on my Visa card and it’ll be months before I earn enough to pay off the balance.”

  He laughed. “If you need help or advice while you’re on the island, ask for Mentor. Everyone knows me.”

  “Thank you, Mentor. That’s a perfect name for an advisor.”

  “In Greek, it means spirit.” He gestured through the door behind him. “You are a welcome guest at my kalivi anytime. I keep a jug of white wine in a cooler inside.”

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  “It is my pleasure. In ancient Greek, the word for stranger and the word for guest was the same. Except for the hordes from Africa and the Middle East, it is true today.”

  That “except for” distinction implied a degree of racism. Or maybe it was just plain old xenophobia, a Greek word understood wherever the natives felt threatened by foreigners. She didn’t want to wade into that discussion, either. “Is this cottage where you make your wine?”

  “No. This is an old kalivi, used only for harvest parties and celebrations.” He got up and showed her the huge stone grill and roasting spit adjacent to the cottage and then pointed inside. “On the other side of that low wall, the pickers used to crush the grapes with their feet. The juice was forced through that hole at the bottom of the wall into the well, which is lined with cement.”

  “It looks deep.”

  “Two meters, the height of a tall man. For safety, I had it covered but for a few centimeters. Wide enough to spit at the devil.” He chuckled.

  “Did the juice ferment inside the well?”

  “No. It was siphoned into goatskin pouches and carried down the mountain by donkeys to tavernas where it was transferred into barrels to ferment. Today, everything has changed but the grapes.”

  “Have you always been a wine maker?”

  “Only four seasons. I am still learning and experimenting. I was a professor of classical studies in Athens for twenty years. When my wife died, we came home to Kanaris. She is buried in the village cemetery. On Sunday it will be five years to the day since her funeral. You are welcome to come to the mnimosyno and reburial service.”

  Dinah’s ears pricked up. Her degree was in cultural anthropology and rituals that carried over from the past fascinated her. “There’s a second burial?”

  “At the time of burial, the grave is filled with lime. After five years, the bones are exhumed, bathed in wine, and reburied with the blessings of the priest.”

  She said, “I’ve read about ceremonies like this. In anci
ent times, seeing the bones reassured the living that the soul of the dead had departed and wouldn’t return as a ghost.”

  “We no longer bury the household furnishings with the dead or kill their horses to accompany them to the underworld and for the most part, educated Greeks no longer believe in ghosts. But I am a follower of the old ways and Kanaris has no stomach for another ghost.”

  She couldn’t tell if he was spoofing her or being serious. “There’s a village ghost?”

  “It depends who you ask.” He lowered himself back onto the bench. “Have you heard the story of Marilita Stephan?”

  “Yes. My friend told me she was executed for a triple murder.”

  “There are those who still maintain her innocence. She had many friends here and is buried in the village cemetery. Her sister Zenia forbade a mnimosyno, but Marilita’s friends went ahead with it. My mother was there. She said that when they unearthed the body, the flesh was blackened and putrid. The priest turned sick. Zenia sent him away before prayers could be said and told the mourners they had their proof. Marilita is burning in hell.”

  Dinah felt a vicarious revulsion. The sight of a half-rotted corpse would haunt anyone’s dreams. A mischievous wind snatched at her hair and coated her shoes with dust. She shivered.

  Mentor leveraged himself to his feet with the aid of his walking staff and clamped his boater low and tight over his head. “It’s the meltemi. It blows noon to sunset, May to September. A blessing on a hot day, unless you’re sailing into the wind.”

  Chapter Three

  Dinah knew more about Greece before the birth of Christ than she knew about Greece after the Second World War. Thor, on the other hand, seemed well versed in the history of his European neighbor. Sitting under a hundred-year-old grape arbor in the courtyard of the Marc Antony Taverna, he supplied her with a junta-in-the-nutshell explanation.

  “The right-wing Greek generals who instigated the coup called it a revolution, an emergency action to save the nation from communism. The Americans were all for it, of course. Anything to foil the Red Menace. The Rolling Stones, Hollywood movies, leftist academics, journalists, even Mark Twain—all of them were declared to be enemies of the Greek State.”

  “Was Marilita Stephan considered an enemy of the state?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen any of her films, but I don’t think they were banned. The military rulers probably turned a blind eye to any improprieties committed by their home-grown celebrity. In any case, she seems to have had a special relationship with the power elite.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Colonels don’t picnic with just anybody. Marilita was rich and famous, but she must have been special or dangerous in some other way. The junta wouldn’t want to execute a popular actress, even if she went crazy and capped a colonel. They would have thrown her in prison until the public forgot about her. Instead, a military court tried her in secret and executed her in public. Somebody higher up the chain of command was covering his ass big time.”

  Dinah wished he wouldn’t speak so irreverently. She couldn’t erase from her mind the image of the casket opening to reveal Marilita’s blackened body. She said, “It’s a very cold case, Thor. You’ll never be able to solve a homicide that happened before you were born.”

  “Maybe not, but I don’t think anyone’s made much of an effort before.” He speared a piece of lamb on the end of his fork and scrutinized it as if it held some vital clue. “Zenia, the sister, has framed copies of newspaper reports of the murders hanging in the entryway of her home. They’re old and yellowed and crumbling at the edges. Most are in Greek, but there was one article in a British tabloid with a photograph of Marilita and her three victims posing on the beach on the day of the murder.”

  Dinah dug into her païdakia, grilled lamb chops in English, and sipped a dry red Greek wine from a stubby, stemless glass. Thor was obviously hooked by the case and it was no use trying to distract him. Murder wasn’t the most cheerful dinnertime topic, but at least she wouldn’t be agitating over the impending arrival of Katherine, alias K.D. Dobbs. She said, “It’s odd that Zenia would want to be reminded on a daily basis of such a horrible event.”

  “Wait until you meet her. I’ve seen more lifelike figures in a wax museum. Can you believe she uses an ear trumpet?”

  “Maybe we’ve fallen into a time warp. On my walk this afternoon, I met a man who invited me to his dead wife’s exhumation. Memorial exhumations are apparently a local custom. There was a mnimosyno for Marilita. His mother was there and she told him that Zenia acted like a real witch. He used to be a university professor, and yet I think he seriously believes that Marilita’s ghost haunts the village. I should be taking notes for an anthropology paper.”

  “Maybe you should. Who was the American writer who said the past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past?”

  “William Faulkner.”

  “He’s the one. He could have been writing about Kanaris.”

  A woman two tables away set a plate of meat on the ground and a pair of scrawny cats made a beeline across Dinah’s feet to get to it. The courtyard had begun to fill up, mostly couples, but there were a few lone diners. The tourists were easy to spot. They arrived before sundown carrying cameras and daypacks. If last night was any indication, the locals wouldn’t start to arrive until much later, although there were a few exceptions. Two men who looked as if they’d been around since Zeus was in diapers shared a bottle of retsina and mused over a game of backgammon. A large, garrulous woman and her ouzo-sipping husband bickered companionably. Periodically, she wagged her finger and topped up his glass with water. One leather-skinned codger in a Greek fisherman’s cap seemed to be taking an indecent interest in Dinah. She couldn’t tell if his furtive stare signified lust or curiosity. She gave him a testy look and turned back to Thor. “Are there no young people in the village?”

  “I expect most of them go to the cities to find work, although jobs are scarce everywhere these days. The E.U. austerity measures and unemployment have triggered riots in Athens.” He poured himself a second glass of wine. “I can’t stop thinking about that photo on the day of the murders, everyone laughing, having a good time. What changed? What sent Marilita into a rage? How did she get hold of that colonel’s gun, if it was his gun? And why did she kill everyone in sight?”

  “Maybe she was aiming for her lover and his mother and the colonel got caught by a couple of stray bullets.” Once, in a moment of extreme provocation, Dinah had been tempted to shoot a lover. Lucky for all concerned there hadn’t been a gun nearby, but she could understand how some kinds of indignities might drive a woman over the edge. Infidelity, for example. Even so, jealous rages were more apt to take place in the bedroom than on the beach and anyway, what reason would Marilita have had to kill her fiancé’s mother and a military high-muck-a-muck? “The man I met today, Mentor, says that Marilita’s friends believe she was innocent.”

  “I don’t know, but I’ve a hunch there’s a lot more to the story than the military establishment made known.”

  Dinah wondered if Marilita’s personal life was as torrid and over-the-top as her movies. “She was probably acting out a scene, borrowed the colonel’s gun, and forgot that it wasn’t a prop. Judging from the one movie I saw, she emoted to excess. In fact, she chewed the scenery. Why don’t we rent a few DVDs of her films and see if we can figure out what made her tick?”

  “Good idea, kjære. There’s a video rental store in Karlovassi.”

  Kjære. The Norwegian endearment made her feel all fizzy inside. Until yesterday, she and Thor hadn’t seen each other for five months, although they’d kept in touch. When she e-mailed him that she’d received an offer to join a Turkish archaeological team near the Bay of Troy, he decided to take a sabbatical and suggested that she spend a few weeks soaking up the sun with him on Samos before the dig got underway. The timing was perfect and their romance, begun during
the bitterly cold polar night in Norway, deserved a turn in the sunshine. Her innate pessimism wouldn’t allow her to think beyond Samos, but this attachment felt different somehow. Easier. Less edgy. She’d rarely felt such a sense of contentment. That is, until Neesha’s phone call. She glanced at her watch. In the morning, she’d have to call and find out the schedule of flights arriving at Samos International Airport.

  “Hello again, my young friends.” Savas Brakus, the owner of the taverna, stopped by their table smiling broadly. He was a stout, bug-eyed man with an eager manner and an unabashed nosiness. He was more direct than Alcina. He came right out and asked what he wanted to know, seemingly oblivious to the presumption. Last night he had pumped them for as much information as he could get without going through their wallets or peeking at their passports. “The wine is good, yes?”

  “Very nice,” said Thor.

  “Lovers always want to linger over their wine and lose themselves in each other’s eyes. I will bring you another carafe.” He surveyed Dinah’s plate with his large, lugubrious eyes, as if any uneaten morsel would reflect poorly on his kitchen. “Your lamb was good, yes?”

  “Very good,” she said.

  “That recipe has been passed down through my family for centuries. Antony ordered his cooks to prepare païdakia for the feast to celebrate Cleopatra’s birthday. Antony and Cleopatra were here on Samos, you know. Music, dancing, feasting, revelries of every kind. What a party that must have been.” He took a gander around the courtyard at the other tables and inclined his face close to Thor’s. “I heard that you met with your landlady this morning. Did you find her in good health?”

  “As far as I could tell. Has she been ill?”

  “Some people say she suffers from the kako mati.”

  “What’s that?” asked Dinah.