Her Boyfriend's Bones Page 22

  The doors dinged open and the EMTs rolled the gurney out into the hall. A beefy man in a rumpled white coat was waiting for them. “I am Dr. Frangopoulos. How long has he been unconscious?”

  “I don’t know,” said Dinah. “Possibly since early yesterday morning.”

  “Can he follow commands?”

  “No.”

  The doctor pinched Thor’s earlobe and yanked.

  Thor grimaced and his eyelids flickered.

  “A good sign,” said the doctor. He opened Thor’s eyes and shone a light. “Pupils sluggish.”

  The EMTs spewed a barrage of information and handed him a clipboard with their notes. Frangopoulos read over them. “Airways clear, heart rhythm normal. Alright, take him into room eight and let’s take some pictures.”

  Thor mumbled.

  “He’s waking up!” Dinah caught his hand. “Thor?” She leaned over and put her ear to his mouth. “Thor, who did this to you?”

  “Staff,” he said.

  “He’s not comatose,” said the doctor, “but there is intracranial swelling and probably bleeding. With this level of stupor, his thinking will be clouded and impaired. If you remain in the hospital waiting room, I will let you know when I have finished the neurological assessment.”

  Reluctantly, Dinah let go of Thor’s hand and the EMTs wheeled him away.

  ***

  A waiting room of any kind was a trial and waiting for life-and-death news about someone you care about was Dinah’s definition of hell. Time dragged. She paced up and down and tried to take heart from the fact that Thor had come to enough to speak—a good sign, as the doctor said. But after four hours, it was hard to sustain her optimism. She felt as if she were trapped in her own version of Waiting for Godot, the only line of which she could recall was “Nothing to be done.”

  Leon and Jacey had left as soon as Thor was handed over to Dr. Frangopoulos. They were probably meeting with Mentor, putting him wise to what she had said about someone pointing the finger of guilt at him. She wondered if he would know automatically that it was Brakus. Irene Brakus’ face lit up like a sunbeam when she looked at Mentor. Dinah would have chalked up Brakus’ malevolence to jealousy were it not for one little word. Staff. Was Thor saying staff as in Mentor’s walking staff or was it a meaningless utterance of an impaired brain?

  She walked past a row of chairs. Absorbed by her own worries and woes, she had scarcely noticed the people waiting here for news of their loved ones. Her pacing no doubt exacerbated their nervousness. Feeling self-conscious, she sat down in the last chair and looked at the clock on the wall. Another half hour ticked by. Frangopoulos had promised to speak with her as soon as he’d finished the neurological assessment. It must be worse than he’d thought—a subdural hematoma or a cerebral hemorrhage or something that required brain surgery.

  She bounced up again. There wouldn’t be a qualified brain surgeon in a town this size. She needed to speak with somebody about airlifting Thor to Athens, or maybe back to Norway. She started down the corridor toward the nurse’s station. Standing at the desk in earnest conversation with a nurse was Galen Stavros.

  He saw her at the same time. “I came as soon as I heard.”

  The fight or flight region of her brain lit up. Had Thor been trying to say Stavros? And where was K.D.? Why was she late? Dinah’s feelings for the girl had warmed considerably over the course of this day, but she didn’t trust her judgment. And she didn’t trust anything at all about Stavros.

  “Did he say anything in the ambulance?”

  She shied away from him. “I don’t see that’s any of your business.”

  “I understand that you’re frightened, but it’s vital that we talk. Let’s walk outside.”

  He took her arm, but she shook free. “Except for a traumatic brain injury, he’s safe now. We don’t need you or your ‘well-placed connections’ anymore. What we need is a brain surgeon.”

  “I’ve already sent for a neurosurgeon from Athens. He arrived an hour ago. He is with Thor as we speak.”

  She stared, speechless.

  “You can be sure that I am on his side, Miss Pelerin. Could we please talk in private?”

  Uncertain, she let him conduct her outside where a dark Mercedes was parked in front of the lobby entrance. A man in a police uniform stood in front of the car, an uzi resting loosely in the crook of one arm. His head turned slowly from side-to-side as he panned camera-like around the parking lot.

  Stavros slipped a wallet out of his inside jacket pocket, flipped it open, and showed her a laminated identification card with his picture and some official looking insignia. “I am Lieutenant Colonel Stavros with the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit of the Hellenic Police, assigned to work with Inspector Ramberg to uncover a cache of stolen weapons.”

  She felt momentarily dazed. Stavros was the ally?

  “I will ask you again, did he say anything to indicate that he’d found the weapons?” His peremptory manner bordered on intimidation.

  She gave him a probing look. “Forget for the moment that you were not honest with me from the beginning. The only proof I have that what you say is true is an ID card that may or may not be for real. I’ve seen a dandy looking forgery run off by one of your Hellenic policemen.”

  “What kind of forgery?”

  “An identity card. Issued by Germany.”

  His eyebrows practically levitated. “Did Ramberg show it to you?”

  “No.”

  He pulled a card out of his pocket and showed it to her. “Did it look like this?”

  She recognized the picture immediately. The name was Abrahem Fathi. “Yes.”

  Stavros said, “Ramberg took it off Fathi’s body and gave it to me.”

  “For all I know, you could have taken the card from Thor after you tried to kill him.” She remembered that when she showed Thor the business card Stavros had given her, he asked what he looked like. “Did you ever meet Thor? Because he didn’t know you from a bale of hay.”

  “We met the day you went to meet young Katarina. We were supposed to have dinner, but you returned unexpectedly. I am his Greek liaison. I promise you that I am who I say I am.”

  “And just when I had convinced myself that you were Nasos Lykos, back from the dead.”

  For an instant, he appeared stunned. When he spoke, he was even more peremptory. “Sit down with me inside the car and we will talk.”

  She shook her head and backed away. She should never have let him inveigle her outside the building. It was that line about bringing in the neurosurgeon from Athens that drew her and it was probably a lie. Gulled again, she thought, as the man with the uzi panned around and looked at her.

  She turned to go back inside.

  “Wait.” Stavros caught her arm and held her. He said something in Greek to the man with the uzi.

  She wrested her arm free and was halfway to the door when the uzi guy walked around the car, pressed the keys into her hand, and returned to his vigil.

  Stavros said, “From the time that Fathi was murdered, Thor planned to brief you about his investigation. I think it is time that we brief each other and combine our knowledge.”

  Whether from curiosity or exhaustion, she relented. “Did you really send for a neurosurgeon?”

  “Yes. He is very good. He often treats policemen injured in the line of duty.” He opened the back door of the Mercedes and gestured with his head. “You are in no danger.”

  “You first,” she said.

  He climbed in. She pocketed the keys and climbed in beside him. He removed his cap and said, “Nasos Lykos is dead.”

  “Dead men don’t write poison pen letters.”

  His head jerked up. “I tell you, the man is dead.”

  “Zenia Stephanadis agrees. But somebody who claims to be Nasos is sending her threatening letters.”

 
“How do you know about these letters?”

  “I don’t know how many there have been. I’ve only seen one. It’s melodramatic and gothic, hinting at her past sins and warning that the wolf is coming to make her pay. Whoever wrote it hates her. Just like you do.”

  “Do you have it? Show it to me?”

  She took it out of her purse and gave it to him. “This was hand-copied from the original.”

  He took a pair of horn rims out of his jacket pocket and read.

  When he finished, she said, “I believe that Nasos Lykos or the person who’s impersonating him is connected to the stolen weapons Thor was looking for.”

  “So he did confide in you.”

  She hedged. “Not in detail. After the house was vandalized, he became afraid for my safety. He told me he was here to investigate an arms smuggling operation for N.C.I.S and he thought he’d been betrayed. The only people who could have known that he was anything more than a Norwegian cop on holiday with his girlfriend are the Greek police.”

  “It was not I.” He pulled the cap between his fingers inch by inch as if he were counting rosary beads. “When the Greek police were notified that vintage American weapons were being smuggled out of Samos, I knew they were the weapons Colonel Phaedon Hero had diverted for the liberation movement. My mother and I financed a number of the anti-junta groups.”

  “Then you are Nasos.”

  “I was. I have been Galen Stavros, a member of the Hellenic Police, for the last thirty-five years. I have a wife and children. I am a grandfather. I thought I had banished the hatreds of the past. I can’t express quite how, but you remind me of Marilita and when you spoke about Zenia helping you, the bitterness that I felt surprised me. But I would never write such letters.”

  “Why didn’t you let someone else handle this case? Why did you come back to Samos?”

  “I knew I could give the Norwegians information they would not have found on their own. I didn’t disclose my former identity or the fact that Marilita and I had worked together to oppose the junta. I told Inspector Ramberg only that Phaedon Hero had been the officer in charge of the armory in Samos Town and American weapons had been shipped regularly from Athens to that location for distribution to military units on the island.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him that Colonel Hero was Zenia’s husband?”

  “I knew he would find out and I didn’t want to reveal too much knowledge. I had no idea where he had hidden the weapons or who had begun selling them. This is the first time I have returned to Samos since I swam away from Megalo Seitani on June the ninth, 1973.”

  “You swam away with a head wound?”

  “I would have drowned, but I was picked up at sea by a fishing boat. Yannis Thoma’s fishing boat.”

  “Yannis said it was the junta that killed your mother and the Colonel.”

  Stavros held his left hand palm up in his right and traced his life line with his right thumb. “The assassins did not wear uniforms, although their speech and manner were military.”

  “How did they find out that you and Colonel Hero were supplying guns to the liberation movement?”

  “I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times. The only person who could have known was Zenia.”

  “But how could she inform on her husband over a, a political difference of opinion?”

  “She has always revered power and authority. It was why she married Phaedon. She thrived in the society of generals and colonels and Phaedon was a military rising star by the early sixties, destined for high rank and power.”

  “Why did he join the junta and why then turn against it?”

  “Initially, he thought the Americans and the British would spur Greece to make liberal reforms. But as the U.S. increased its support of authoritarian governments and policies, he became disillusioned. After the junta assigned him to carry out the Prometheus Plan to eradicate the ‘enemy within,’ he knew he had to fight.”

  Dinah recalled Zenia’s comment about the junta being the last legitimate government of Greece. “I don’t think he would have told Zenia how he felt.”

  “He must have. And she killed him as surely as if she’d pulled the trigger, herself.”

  Dinah felt a sort of punch-drunk sadness for them all. “It must have been hell for you.”

  “Yes. My mother fought for justice all her life. She smuggled weapons to the Greek resistance during the German occupation and after the junta seized power, she began to set up a network of partisans. My father died before the coup, but he had left her very well off. Through her contacts, she found governments and dealers willing to sell her weapons and she arranged for our partisans to receive weapons training in Syria. She died fighting for what she believed in, but it was a terrible thing to see.”

  “You didn’t have to see Marilita die.”

  “No.” His face contorted. “We were never lovers, but she was as dear to me as my mother. When she was put to death and there was nothing I could do to stop it, I knew Nasos had to die. If he hadn’t, he would have come back and killed Zenia.” He replaced his cap over the scar. It was as if that cap served as a protective carapace, covering memories that were still raw.

  A dull pain had begun to pulse behind Dinah’s eyes. She was beyond weariness. It was too much to take in the tragedy of these old people. She needed to get back to the waiting room, to her own troubles, and yet she heard herself ask, “Who besides you would know about Zenia’s sin? Who would want to make her pay?”

  “No one,” he said. “Only the dead.”

  Day 5

  Chapter Thirty-one

  At one o’clock in the morning, the neurosurgeon informed Dinah that Thor was stable following surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain. He was in the intensive care ward and the doctors wouldn’t be able to assess his cognitive status for another twenty-four hours, or possibly longer. There was no reason for her to remain at the hospital and he advised her to go home and get some rest.

  “I’ll stay,” said Galen Stavros. He had waited with her and this morning he looked haggard and ready to drop. “I cannot take the chance that his attackers will return.”

  “Can’t you call someone to stand in for a few hours?” she asked.

  “I will. I must make sure that my stand-in can be trusted.”

  His caution reassured her. And as there was nothing she could do here but pace and pray, she felt a duty to find out what had become of K.D.

  Bleary-eyed, she let Stavros lead her back to the Mercedes. The man with the uzi had been replaced by a different man with an uzi.

  Stavros opened the rear door for her. “I’ve arranged a driver for you. His name is Antonis.”

  A man with long brown hair stepped out of the shadows, saluted Stavros, and took his place behind the wheel.

  She settled into the back and said to Stavros, “You’ll call if he wakes up?”

  “Of course. And call me if Katarina has not returned home. Unless she has done something very reckless or gone clubbing in Samos Town, there is not much to fear. I’ve instructed the local police that I will take charge of the sculpture you found. Antonis will bring it back with him tonight.” He started to close the door.

  “Wait.” She reached in her purse and pulled out the card that K.D. had filched from Papas’ car. “Here’s another forged ID for you. Sergeant Papas and his brother Hector use the wine co-op as their studio. Most of their clientele have Arabic names.”

  His mouth quirked up on one side. “With so many in our ranks harassing the refugees, it is a twist that one policeman is helping them, but by his help, turning them into criminals and fugitives.”

  She said, “They can’t all be smugglers and terrorists.”

  “No, but the sergeant and his cards may help us to narrow the field.”

  He closed the door and the car glided off into the night. She curled up, hugging he
r knees to her chest, and reflected on her conversation with the reincarnated Nasos. She had guessed right about Phaedon. He had been supplying weapons to opponents of the junta. At first, he procured guns through backdoor channels from the Soviets. But as a glut of American weapons poured into the country, he began to divert a portion of each shipment. The stolen weapons were never missed and no one suspected his duplicity, or so he thought until masked assassins showed up at the beach that day and demanded the location of his stockpile. When he refused, they shot him point-blank and turned their guns on Nasos and his mother. Marilita had flown at them, screaming and clawing. Wounded, Nasos ran onto a rocky promontory and dived into the sea. The gunmen fired after him, but missed.

  She asked him where Alcina was during the shooting, but he had lost track of her and he never saw Aries Brakus at all. Aries had been out of the army for several years and Stavros had no doubt that the only person who could have known about Phaedon’s treason and informed against him was Zenia.

  Dinah looked out at the whitecaps ruffling the water like memories rolling in from the shores of a distant past. Nasos had created a new identity for himself and a narrative that he could live with. Had he been powerless to save Marilita? Maybe. Who was she to judge? Memory wasn’t a videotape. It was the story you told yourself so you could sleep at night. Sometimes the gory details had to be deleted and the failures of courage glossed over to make it bearable. If Zenia had done what he said she did, she must have contrived some major historical revisions to make her feel good about herself.

  The driver’s gap-toothed smile appeared in the rearview mirror. “I will drive you through the village to your house. You must tell me where to turn.”

  “Fine. Thank you.” She hadn’t noticed when they left the coast and now they were on the climb to Kanaris. Lost in thought, the road had slipped away, along with his name. Antony? Antonis? She closed her eyes. What would she do if K.D. hadn’t come home? More than concern for her safety or anger at her high jinx, she wanted her company. Even if she fell asleep, she didn’t want to be by herself.

  The Mercedes cruised through the silent village. There were no street lights and all of the houses were dark. Even the Marc Antony had closed and gone dark.