Her Boyfriend's Bones Read online

  “That depends what kind of business he was into.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He could have been engaged in criminal activity.”

  “Why do you say that? Did you understand what he and Yannis were talking about?”

  “No. But my gut tells me there’s something sketchy about Mr. Fathi. I hope the police will treat his murder with respect and investigate thoroughly.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “There have been reports that some police are in sympathy with the ultra-nationalistic Golden Dawn party. They don’t like refugees or foreigners in general. Whether Fathi was bent or not, I’d like to make sure his murder gets the attention it deserves.”

  Thor was a descendant of Scandinavia’s aboriginal reindeer herders, the Sami people. Like Dinah’s Seminole ancestors, the Sami had experienced years of oppression and discrimination. Thor’s fellow feeling for the underdog was one of his most admirable qualities. She snuggled closer. “Are there still wolves in Greece?”

  “Maybe a remnant pack or two somewhere. They were once widespread across Europe. Wolves don’t adapt well to human encroachment, although they’ve never disappeared entirely.”

  She huddled under his arm and brooded until she saw the approaching headlights of a car with a flashing blue light like a gumball machine on its roof. The car stopped and Thor strode to the driver’s side and stuck his head in the window. He opened his wallet and showed his ID to the driver. “I’m a policeman in Norway, here on holiday with my girlfriend. I witnessed the lead-up to the shooting and can help fill you in on the details.”

  Chapter Five

  Dinah lay awake staring into the darkness and listening to a chorus of tree frogs outside the bedroom window. Your intuition is out of whack, she told herself. You’re a worrywart who conjures up bugaboos where there are none.

  She rolled onto her side and studied Thor’s back. She coughed. The mattress jiggled. He didn’t move. She sighed and turned onto her back again.

  Maybe he was just embarrassed that he couldn’t stop acting like a cop and he was afraid she wouldn’t stick around and play second fiddle during his busman’s holiday. He had introduced himself to the Greek officers as a tourist, but he’d made it sound like he was practically an eyewitness. He convinced them to drop her off at the taverna and take him along with them to identify Yannis. She’d sat in the taverna cooling her heels for two hours and when he finally showed up, he’d been about as talkative as a fence post. She’d peppered him with questions, but all he said was that the police found Yannis eating his dinner at the farmhouse. He had offered no resistance and the police had taken him into Samos Town where the public prosecutor would interview him in the morning. When she asked if they’d found the murder weapon, Thor just shook his head. And when she asked if he’d learned anything about the dead man or what the argument was about, his eyes wandered off into the treetops as if he were squirrel hunting.

  If the local police didn’t like foreigners, they might be shutting him out of their speculations and discussions. Maybe he felt snubbed and that’s why he was so vague and closemouthed. Whatever the reason, his silence was keeping her awake.

  A familiar, pungent aroma whiffed into the room. Marijuana. It seemed to be emanating from the veranda just under the window. The word may not have spread that the house had been let. Uninhabited, it was probably a hangout for kids sneaking away from their parents’ homes to toke up. She didn’t know whether cannabis was illegal in Greece, but she had no desire to be busted for possession if it was. It was Thor’s responsibility to run them off, but where was a cop when you needed one? She got up, threw on her robe, and stalked across the room to the window for a look-see.

  She couldn’t see anything directly below, but above, a luminous crescent moon floated in the midnight sky. When the moon was waxing, as it was tonight, the Greeks believed that it was Artemis, goddess of the hunt, drawing her golden bow. Like Marilita, Artemis had killed her boyfriend, a great hunter named Orion. Different myths ascribed different motives for the murder. One story went that Orion had tried to rape her. Another held that she did it to prevent him from slaughtering too many of her beloved animals. The myth Dinah favored was the one in which her twin brother, Apollo, grew jealous of Orion and tricked Artemis into shooting him with one of her arrows. For all his sparkle and shine, Apollo came across as a jerk.

  She thought about extorting a joint from the troublemakers down below in exchange for not tracking down their parents and tattling. But she’d learned that K.D.’s flight was scheduled to arrive midmorning and she couldn’t show up stoned. Or at least, she shouldn’t. She grabbed a flashlight and swept down the stairs to scare off the punks. To her dismay, the only doper in sight was Alcina. She lounged under the mulberry tree with a pipe in her mouth.

  “Alcina, I didn’t know you were here.”

  “It’s my job to be here.” She showed no guilt and made no attempt to hide the pipe.

  The moon cast light enough to see and Dinah turned off the flashlight. She couldn’t think of anything to say. Too bad your husband was arrested for murder would have been gratuitous and insensitive and Please smoke your pot somewhere else would have been rude and contentious. Maybe it was legal. Anyhow, the woman probably needed a hit of something soothing. Finally, she said, “I thought I sme…heard intruders.”

  “You’re wrong if you think Yannis killed that man.”

  “I’m sure the police will do a gunshot residue test.”

  Alcina tugged at the cross on her breast. “Yannis is innocent.” She seemed unfazed by the pot. Her words were clear and her voice emphatic. Disbelief, denial, loyalty—it was no surprise that she would defend her husband. But was her certainty based on something other than instinct? Some verifiable fact?

  “Did you speak with him when he came home for dinner?”

  “Tending this house is my job. I stay here. Yannis stays at the farmhouse. He cooks his own meals.”

  Thor had told Dinah that the combination bedroom-sitting room off the kitchen on the first floor was Alcina’s private domain, but she’d thought it was just for rest breaks during the day. “Did Yannis telephone and tell you what he and the dead man argued about?”

  “No phone calls.”

  Dinah’s internal alert center lit up. Thor had phoned. He said Alcina hadn’t answered. “Maybe there was a call and you didn’t hear the phone ring.”

  “No calls.”

  Dinah didn’t dwell on the discrepancy. “Do you…did you know this Fathi fellow?”

  “Boatloads of his kind, Iraqis and Kurds and Afghans. Thieves, criminals, vipers. The Turks don’t stop them. They’re glad to get rid of them. Most end up in the migrant detention center in Samos Town.”

  “But not Fathi?”

  “He talked his way out.”

  To do that, Dinah guessed he would have to have a job or a sponsor. “Did Fathi work for Zenia Stephanadis, too?”

  Alcina flipped open a Zippo. In the flare, her face loomed out of the shadows like a Gorgon. If looks could turn a person to stone, thought Dinah, Alcina’s could. She relit her pipe and the Zippo spanked shut. A plume of smoke rose over her head. A minute went by and Dinah inferred that she would not be commenting on Fathi’s employment or volunteer any additional information. His death didn’t seem to bother her so long as Yannis escaped punishment. Presumably, Yannis shared his wife’s dislike of foreigners. What happened was probably one of those senseless, but all too common explosions of violence fueled by prejudice, alcohol, and testosterone.

  There was nothing else to say and Dinah turned to go back inside.

  “Your gkomenos has a gun.”

  “What?”

  “Your boyfriend. He has a gun.”

  The remark blindsided Dinah. Why would Thor bring a gun with him to Greece? Norwegian policemen didn’t carry guns when they were on dut
y at home unless there was a crisis. Oh, no! Had it been stolen? Was Thor’s gun the one that Yannis used to shoot Fathi? Was that the reason Thor had been so distant and uncommunicative after returning from his ride with the police? If his gun had been used in the commission of a crime, he could be prosecuted by the Greek authorities. More importantly, he would never forgive himself. Panicky, she about-faced, ran down the hall, and took the stairs two at a time.

  He was still sleeping. She brought herself up short. Would a man who’d lost his gun sleep that soundly? If he had a gun, it must still be here. Where had Alcina come across it? Was she hinting that someone other than Yannis had broken into the house and swiped it? I should have grilled her. I shouldn’t have let her make such an insinuation without demanding to know exactly what it was that she was insinuating.

  “Thor? Thor, wake up.” She turned on the overhead light. “We need to talk.”

  He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “What’s the matter?”

  “Is there a gun in the house?”

  He hesitated. “My service pistol.”

  So it was true. “Show me.”

  He opened his bedside table drawer, pulled out a sleek black pistol, and pointed it toward the floor. “Why so surprised? I’m a cop.”

  “A cop on holiday. Has the gun been fired?”

  “You mean recently?”

  “Of course I mean recently.”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He aimed it toward the window, examined the barrel, and removed the clip. “It’s clean and fully loaded.”

  She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Why? Why do you have a gun in Greece?”

  “For protection. Southern Europe isn’t like Norway. Norway isn’t like Norway anymore. Violent crime is on the increase and there are foreign criminal networks moving into Norwegian cities.”

  “But you told me yourself that Norwegian policemen don’t carry guns, not loaded ones anyway. Not unless they’re going to meet a polar bear. You didn’t change your no-guns policy even after the massacre on Utoya two years ago.”

  “Yes, and plenty of us think that’s a mistake. The Utoya fiasco would never have happened in the U.S. If Norwegian cops had carried guns, half of those kids would’ve been saved. We looked worse than The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight. We couldn’t shoot at all. We weren’t even competent enough to get a damned helicopter off the ground because the regular crew was on holiday. The SWAT team had to take a boat to the island and the first boat sank under the excess weight of their equipment. All the while that monster continued to pick off children one by one.” He raked a hand through his hair and curbed his anger. “The point is, I have the gun because there’s lots of crime in Greece, especially in the cities.”

  The shootings of sixty-nine teenagers by a right-wing, anti-immigrant zealot in 2011 had jolted Norwegians to the core and she could understand Thor’s determination not to be caught defenseless in the future. But gun violence had already disrupted their holiday and the knowledge that he was packing heat other than the romantic sort, unnerved her. She said, “Kanaris isn’t a city.”

  “I was in Athens for a week before you arrived. Athens has crime.” He put the gun back in the drawer. “There’s plenty of serious crime. Greece is a gateway for human trafficking into Europe. Thousands of women and young girls are forced into the sex industry here. There’s narcotics, weapons, organized crime. And theft is on the rise everywhere.”

  “At the moment, theft is the only crime that worries me. Alcina knows about the gun. She could have told anyone where it is and let him walk out the door with it. Yannis or whoever could have used it to murder the Iraqi and put it back without you ever knowing.”

  “You ever consider a career in law enforcement?”

  She scowled.

  “It’s a joke, Dinah. A quote from my favorite TV show. Crocket used to say that to Tubbs all the time.”

  “You’re pretty glib for someone just roused from a deep sleep.”

  “I’m not used to waking up to the third degree. I don’t know when Alcina caught sight of my gun, but nobody has touched it but me. Look, if it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll carry it in my coat pocket and sleep with it under my pillow.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud.”

  “I know you’re upset, Dinah. Seeing a dead man would upset anyone. But I have a permit to carry and I’m a trained marksman.”

  She still felt uneasy. “Who did you phone when I went to fetch Brakus?”

  “Alcina.”

  “She says she didn’t receive any calls.”

  “Which one of us do you believe?”

  “You, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “You, completely and conclusively. But don’t you dare put that blaster under your pillow.”

  His face broke into a smile. “Come back to bed. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  She unhitched the belt of her robe and took a step, but his smile waned.

  He wrinkled his nose. “I smell marijuana.”

  “Alcina’s smoking a weed pipe on the veranda.”

  “And you said theft was the only crime I should worry about. I’d better go speak with her. We can’t afford to draw more unfavorable attention to Zenia’s house.” He swung out of bed and went to get his robe out of the closet.

  She couldn’t suppress a frisson of desire as he walked across the room. He looked like a Greek god in the nude, an absolute Adonis. A shadow of superstitious fear crossed her mind. Adonis was another of Artemis’ victims. She sent a wild boar to gore him to death.

  Thor marched off downstairs and Dinah returned to the window. The moon had slipped out of sight like a guilty thing, but the sky was riddled with stars. She knew nothing about astronomy except that the names of the constellations had originated with the ancient Greeks. Orion was one of them. Even she recognized the three stars known as Orion’s belt. She scanned the heavens looking for them, but evidently Orion wasn’t visible at this time of year. She turned her head this way and that to see if she could make out Aries and the ram of the Golden Fleece or Aquarius and the image of the shepherd boy who carried cups of water and nectar to the gods. But the Greeks’ ability to connect the dots and visualize rams and water carriers was greater than hers.

  She tried to eavesdrop on the conversation between Thor and Alcina, but the tree frogs were too loud. Zenia Stephanadis’ ear trumpet would have come in handy. She had an urge to meet Zenia and see for herself the woman who seemed to perturb everyone. Maybe after K.D. had been packed off to Atlanta, she would dream up an excuse to pay the old lady a visit. If she was going to remain on Samos, she might as well satisfy her curiosity about the Stephanadis sisters while one of them was still alive to tell.

  Thor tromped back into the room, shucked off his robe, and fell back across the bed like a toppled statue. “This place is like your American Wild West. The hell with law and order. Everybody’s an anarchist.”

  Dinah laughed. Why had she been so panicky? The Greek gods were messing with her head. The god Pan had stampeded her with an irrational fear and the goddess Psyche had psyched her out with ridiculous doubts. What was clear beyond a doubt, the real-life man in front of her needed comforting. She turned off the light and went back to bed.

  Day 2

  Chapter Six

  Except for the marble floors, the interior of the Samos International Airport reminded Dinah of the Greyhound Bus Station in Needmore, Georgia. She sat in the sunny waiting area dreading the arrival of Olympic Air Flight 752 from Athens. It had been due at 10:50, but it was already a half hour late and the longer she waited, the antsier she became. Thor had dropped her off at ten to give her time to rent a car and organize her thoughts. It was now 11:30 and her thoughts remained as hectic and muddled as they’d been last night, and any minute now she’d have the added headache of a teenage despera
do on the lam from a burglary rap.

  Flight 752 was the logical connection with the flight arriving in Athens from Atlanta, but what if K.D. hadn’t taken it? What if she’d defied her mother’s instructions and hared off into the center of Athens? Dinah had seen K.D. operate. She’d inherited her mother’s good looks and her father’s aptitude for chicanery. Left to her own devices, she could wreak havoc.

  A crowd of arrivals from another flight filed past, donning their sunglasses and yakking into their cell phones. Dinah checked her watch and fingered the phone in her pocket. At what point should she call Neesha and report the girl a no show? She kneaded her forehead. The fun was leaking out of her summer plans from a dozen different holes. She got up and paced. If the kid took a detour into Athens, I suppose I’ll be obliged to chase her down and retrieve her. What a pain. It will be an even bigger pain if she shows up on Samos and refuses to leave. What then? Even if she acknowledges she did wrong and feels genuinely bad about it, what are the odds I can persuade her to go home and face the music? I wonder if I could petition the Greek authorities to round her up and ship her home? In leg irons, if necessary.

  At 11:45, a voice announced the arrival of Flight 752. Dinah coached herself. Be sympathetic, but firm. Don’t try to bully her or she’ll park herself on Samos just to spite you. And don’t, don’t, don’t let her wheedle a few extra days out of you. Was there a plausible threat or a bribe that would appeal to the girl’s self-interest? Two years ago, she’d wanted to be a great writer. Maybe there was a school somewhere or a program or a mad professor in a distant land willing to tutor a fugitive wannabe author.

  Dinah hadn’t smoked a cigarette since last New Year’s Eve, but she was beset by an almost unbearable craving. Did she have time to go to the snack shop and…?

  “Aunt Dinah!” Dragging a large Louis Vuitton roller bag behind her, K.D. parted a sea of tourists and swooped toward her. She wore lime green harem pants that swished and billowed, an electric pink camp shirt, a pink visor, and red, heart-shaped sunglasses. She’d grown another few inches, to maybe five-ten or -eleven, and her long, straight hair had gone from sandy blond to auburn. The only thing that hadn’t changed was her expression of smug entitlement. She enfolded Dinah in a suffocating embrace. “You are a perfect saint to give me asylum.”