Her Boyfriend's Bones Page 21

  She stripped off her shirt and shorts, filled the sink with hot water and suds, and gave herself a sponge bath. She scrubbed her hands and arms, but the bouquet of garbage seemed to have infused her pores.

  K.D. returned with clean clothes.

  “Where’s Alcina?”

  “Yannis came by and she left with him. I tossed her room, but couldn’t find any letters.”

  “Did she tell you anything else about Nasos?” Dinah dried off and changed quickly.

  “Only that she lights a beeswax candle for him every Sunday just like she does for her mother to light their way in the darkness.” She lifted the edge of the tarp. “What’s this?”

  “It may be the weapon somebody used to bludgeon Thor.”

  “Jesus. He was bludgeoned?”

  “I don’t know.” Dinah recalled Papas’ reservations about the car wreck being staged for his benefit. She had a feeling that the discovery of that forearm had been staged for her benefit.

  K.D. ticked a fingernail against the marble arm.

  “Don’t touch it. There may be fingerprints. If the police call the house, tell them about the arm and tell them they need to get a forensics expert to analyze it pronto.” Dinah looked around for a place to hide the thing until the police arrived. Hastily, she shoved it behind the pipes under the sink. “If Papas shows up to take it, don’t give it to him. Tell him I put it in the trunk of my car.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To pay a visit to Mentor Rodino.”

  “The guy with the zombie wife?”

  “What?”

  “You said he was going to dig her up.”

  “That doesn’t make her a zombie. I’ll take your phone with me. Put mine on the charger and I’ll call you later.”

  “I want to come with you.”

  “Not a good idea.”

  “What if this Mentor dude is a killer? What if you need a decoy to lead him away from Thor while you do CPR or something?”

  “I need you to hold down the fort here. In case the police call. Or N.C.I.S.”

  “That’s lame.”

  “This isn’t a game, K.D. I’m trying to keep you safe.”

  “I’m not like some feeb to be kept out of everybody’s way. I have a brain. I can help.”

  Dragging a teenager into this was probably negligence bordering on child endangerment, but Dinah didn’t believe that Mentor was a killer and she had ceased to think of K.D. as a child. If K.D. felt excluded, she might go into the village and jack a car. “All right. But no monkey business. You have to do exactly as I say. Clear?”

  “Clear.”

  Since the vandals struck, Dinah no longer felt bound by Kanaris’ prohibition against cars. She had driven through the village and parked the Picanto snug against the house, but there was no need to drive back the same way. Hiking down from the quarry, she had spotted another road that took off from the far end of Marilita’s lane and appeared to intersect with the dirt road past Mentor’s kalivi. It looked like a shortcut and she was in a hurry. She hustled K.D. out the door and the two of them drove off in a new direction.

  The surface of the lane in this direction was less of a washboard and Dinah zipped along at good speed. But after a mile, conditions deteriorated to a rocky track that led up the mountain, over a ridge, and down in a series of hairpin turns carved around terraced vineyards and olive groves. She flung the car’s front end around the tight curves as if she were schussing down a black diamond ski run.

  K.D. said, “You’re a maniac behind the wheel.”

  Dinah glanced at her, unbelted, a grin like an upturned horseshoe under her heart-shaped sunglasses. “Fasten your seatbelt.”

  “You’re not wearing yours. Anyway, there are no cars to crash into out here.”

  “I’m the adult. Do as I say or I’ll put you out of the car and you can walk.”

  “You’re a mass of contradictions, you know that?”

  To the extent that her head was crawling with contradictory thoughts and allegations, Dinah had to agree. She slowed down and scanned the hillside above for Mentor’s additional kalivis full of Hellenistic plunder. There were a few scattered cottages. She wouldn’t know if they were his without asking someone. At the next switchback, the track they were on joined the track she’d walked on that first day when she met him.

  She’d forgotten how narrow the track was, barely wide enough for a midget like the Picanto to pass. As she neared the kalivi where Mentor hosted his harvest parties, the stone bench in front squeezed the track down even more. She steered the left front wheel over the lip of the track into the vineyard on the left-hand side to keep from scraping the fender against the bench on the right.

  “You’re still too close,” said K.D.

  She backed up and steered still farther to the left, craning her neck and straining to see in the right-hand mirror how much room she had. But the bench was too low for her to see and she had to rely on K.D. “How am I doing?”

  “A smidgen more to the left,” said K.D.

  The grape vines had been planted right up to the edge of the track and there was a drop-off of several inches. She tried to estimate that smidgen and still keep the tires moving straight ahead on the verge.

  “You’re okay now. Straighten up and pull right.”

  Dinah tried to ease forward, but the left front tire slid off into vineyard, whacking into a vine and miring in the sandy soil. She tried to back up, but she couldn’t get any traction. After spinning her wheels for a minute, she gave up. “I’ll look inside the kalivi for a plank or something we can put under the tire.”

  “I can’t open my door,” said K.D., climbing across the gear shift and exiting on the driver’s side.

  Dinah edged around the front of the car, climbed over the bench, and entered the kalivi. No planks, no boards, no help. She started back outside to see if there was anything useful outside.

  A droning sound caught her attention. It sounded almost human. She turned and peered behind the low wall where the barefoot pickers once trampled the grapes. Empty. She must have hallucinated the noise. She looked down just in time to avoid tripping on the stone slab that covered the well like a lid.

  “I found a flat rock that may work,” called K.D.

  Dinah walked out the door and the sound came again. Like a moan. She turned back. The slab had been moved. The last time she saw it, there was a wider space between the edge of the slab and the edge of the well, wide enough to spit at the devil, as Mentor had joked. Now there was only a sliver, too tiny to see down inside the well.

  She lay down on her belly and spoke through that sliver. “Hello?”

  Nothing. Not even an echo. Her imagination was playing tricks. She pushed herself up. K.D. was standing in the door. “What are you doing?”

  “I thought I heard a moan.”

  “Probably a bird. A dove or something.”

  The sound came again. Dinah lay back down and put her ear next to the crevice. “It’s coming from under this stone.”

  It was definitely a moan. A person was down there. Thor? Panic seized her. She tried to slide the stone lid. “Give me a hand, K.D.”

  K.D. pitched in and the two of them pushed as hard as they could, but it was impossible.

  “It must weigh a ton,” said K.D.

  Dinah spoke through the crack. “Thor? Is it you?”

  No answer. Whoever was moaning down there was past speech.

  “You think it’s Thor?” K.D.’s voice echoed her panic.

  “A fulcrum,” said Dinah, jumping up. “We need a lever of some kind to wedge into that crevice. Maybe we can move the stone a few inches at a time.”

  “What can I…?”

  Dinah gave her back her phone. “Call Alcina and tell her to call for an ambulance. If you can’t get Alcina, call somebody else who speak
s Greek.”

  Frantically, Dinah tore out the door and looked for a tool. One of Mentor’s walking staffs had been left propped against the side of the cottage, but a wooden stick would break. She needed something strong enough to support that stone and pivot it around. She turned and her eye fell on the spit roaster. The bar was steel, strong enough to hold a goat or pig carcass. She yanked it out of its slot and ran back inside.

  K.D. was talking to Alcina. Dinah pushed her out of the way and inserted one end of the bar into the crevice. She leaned on it with all her weight, pushed down with everything she had, wrenched to the right as hard as she could. The slab made a scrooping sound as it grated across the stone floor, but it moved only a couple of inches. K.D. put down the phone and reached for the bar.

  “We need chocks,” said Dinah. “Go find some small rocks, the rounder the better. I’ll try to lift the slab an inch or two and when I do, you stick a rock under it.”

  K.D. set off in a run.

  Another moan.

  “Thor?” Dinah put down the steel bar and got down on her belly. The crevice had grown wide enough to see into, barely. It was dark, but she could make out Thor slumped against the far side of the well. His head hung limply on his chest.

  “Thor, can you hear me?”

  Apparently, he couldn’t. If he’d been coshed with that marble arm, he would be severely concussed. He could have a blood clot or permanent brain damage. She jumped up and poured her fear into moving the stone. As she bore down on the bar, she prayed to whatever gods might be listening. She’d read that the stone that sealed Jesus’ tomb weighed two tons. It had taken ten strong men to move it across his tomb and a single angel to roll it away. She prayed for an angel.

  K.D. came back with an armload of rocks. Dinah managed to raise the slab enough for her to roll an apple-sized stone underneath. The two of them leaned hard on the bar and the stone slid another three or four inches. The opening was getting bigger, but it was nowhere near big enough to drag a man through it.

  Dinah’s arms ached and she was sodden with sweat and fear. Samos had experienced dozens of earthquakes over the centuries. It was an earthquake that caused it to break off from the Turkish mainland in the first place. Why couldn’t God send a quake right now, a precision jolt for the sole purpose of sundering this one damned slab? “Did Alcina say she would call an ambulance?”

  “Yes. The main hospital is in Samos Town. The ambulance will come from there.”

  Dinah pried the stone almost two inches off the ground and lugged right. “Do you hear that, Thor? The old grouch is trying to help us. We’ll get you out of there. Hang on.”

  “That’s the name of the play Zenia’s acting in,” said K.D.

  “What?” Dinah straightened her back and mopped the sweat out of her eyes with her shirttail.

  “The Old Grouch. I saw a notice in Zenia’s kitchen in Greek and English. It’s by a playwright named Menander.”

  When Alcina overheard Thor talking about the grouch, he’d been talking about Zenia’s play. To whom? To Zenia? To his ally?

  Thor moaned.

  “There’s almost enough room to pull him out,” said K.D. “Let’s both push down on the bar and shift right at the same time.”

  Dinah wiped her sweaty hands on her pants and nodded. “On the count of three.”

  They bore down on the lever with all their might and the stone lifted.

  “One.” Dinah felt as if her abdominal muscles would snap.

  “Two.” Her biceps burned and she didn’t think she could hold the weight an instant longer.

  “Three!”

  They heaved and the stone slid almost a foot. Dinah would’ve collapsed except there wasn’t time. Thor was white as paste and Samos Town was an eternity away. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t see how a vehicle as large as an ambulance could maneuver down this twisty intestine of a track.

  She lay down, raised Thor’s head and leaned it back against the wall. Blood matted his hair and a rivulet of blood had flowed from his left ear down his neck and dried. He seemed to be breathing without difficulty, not that she would know. His skull didn’t feel soft, but God only knew what damage had been inflicted on the inside. She lifted his eyelids and wiggled her fingers in front of his eyes. They didn’t focus.

  “Thor, wake up. Wake up now, okay? Please?”

  Now that she’d already moved his head, she recalled that you weren’t supposed to move a head injury victim unless it was absolutely necessary. You could end up doing additional harm, cause spinal cord damage, paralysis or death. “Sorrowing Jesus, what an idiot I am.”

  “What has happened?”

  She looked up into the horrified eyes of Mentor’s daughter Jacey. Standing next to her was a big man of about thirty, presumably her husband.

  “An ambulance is on the way from Samos Town, but I’m not sure it can get here.” She couldn’t bring herself to add in time. She weighed the possible harm of acting impulsively and moving Thor versus the possible harm of not acting and waiting on an ambulance that couldn’t get here. “Can you help me get him down this mountain to meet the ambulance on the coast road?”

  “Nè, nè, nè.” Jacey spoke rapidly in Greek to the man, who answered and motioned with his hands.

  Dinah saw him as a take-charge type and felt a surge of hope.

  Jacey said, “Move your car out of the track. Leon will bring his truck from my father’s house.”

  “Is the truck small enough to make it up the track?”

  “Nè, málista. We will drive you down to the coast road. I will call and tell the ambulance where to meet us.”

  Leon handed Jacey his phone, added some further instruction in Greek, and started out the door.

  “Leon says not to move him until he gets back. He will bring blankets and a board for his back.” She dialed a number and went outside with the phone to her ear.

  Dinah handed K.D. the car keys. “Do you think you can rev it out of the ditch?”

  “I can do it.”

  “Back up until you find a place to turn around. Go to Kanaris and take the road from there to Samos Town. You’ll have to find the hospital. I’ll meet you there.”

  K.D. picked up her phone and cast a teary look at Thor. “Good luck,” she said and left in a hurry.

  Jacey finished her call and came back inside. “I don’t understand. How could he have fallen into the hole? My father keeps it covered.”

  “He didn’t fall, Jacey. Whoever it was bludgeoned him and buried him alive. Someone wants me to believe that somebody was your father.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Dinah rode in the ambulance with Thor. She squeezed his hand while the baby-faced EMT who’d responded to the scene of the car crash monitored his vital signs. The siren wailed and the outside world went by in a blur. A succession of possible outcomes marched through her mind. Thor could wake up as good as new and they would sail away together into a lovely sunset. Thor could wake up brain damaged, amnesiac, unable to speak or understand language or feed himself. He could be crippled or paralyzed. He might vegetate for years in a coma or never wake up at all. She couldn’t eliminate the possibility that they would die together in this screaming ambulance which heeled dangerously around every curve.

  Thor’s hand remained limp and she let go. By the time they reached the hospital, she had begun to anesthetize herself against bad news. Thor wouldn’t be the first person she’d cared for and lost. In a few weeks or months, she would cordon off the pain and get on with her life. She always did. Mental detours around hard knocks were her specialty. If that made her seem callous, maybe she was. Maybe she didn’t have the capacity for a “truly great love” as K.D. imagined. Not everyone did. Her mother didn’t.

  The EMTs transferred Thor inside and Dinah followed the gurney. As she entered the building, she was surprised to see Leon’s small
pickup turn into the parking lot. He looked as calm and cool as he had when dragging Thor out of the well onto the board. Jacey’s face was a study in bewilderment.

  The hospital registration process bewildered Dinah. Language wasn’t the problem. The problem was insurance. The woman at the reception desk needed information that Thor couldn’t give and Dinah didn’t have. In Norway, every Norwegian citizen was covered by national insurance from cradle to grave. She had no idea how the Greek system worked. She said, “He needs a doctor right now. Go ahead and admit him for treatment and I’ll find out about his coverage later.”

  “We must have the insurance information at the time of admission. It is the new rule.” The young woman appeared sympathetic, but her position was adamant.

  “Maybe that’s the rule for non-serious cases. This is a freaking code blue. He’ll die if he doesn’t get treatment.”

  “I’m sorry. There is a list of doctors you can call to ask if they will see him.”

  “What about the doctors at this hospital? What is a hospital for if not treating emergencies?”

  Leon walked up behind Dinah and touched her shoulder. “My father-in-law called an underground doctor to meet the ambulance. Come. He is waiting in the basement.” He signaled the EMTs and they rolled Thor toward the elevator.

  “Underground doctor?” Dinah hurried alongside him as they trailed after the gurney. “You mean a doctor who sees patients in the basement?”

  “A doctor who sees patients who aren’t insured. There is no more money for health care and hospitals demand proof of insurance or cash. But don’t worry. If your friend needs drugs or hospital supplies, the underground movement will pay. My father-in-law will guarantee payment to the hospital and to Dr. Frangopoulos.”

  The elevator doors opened and they stepped inside.

  Jacey jumped in a split second before the doors closed. “Mpampas is on his way to the hospital now.”

  Unless something incredibly convoluted was going on, it seemed less and less likely that Mentor had caused Thor’s injuries. In fact, if Thor lived, it would be because of Mentor and his family.