Her Boyfriend's Bones Read online

  Dinah extricated herself and eked out a tight smile. “Hello, K.D. Or is it Katherine nowadays?”

  “While I’m in Greece, I think I shall answer to Katarina.” A gangling boy in a T-shirt that read “Raining Pleasure” rubbernecked as he walked past and she took off her glasses and gave him a flirty half smile. She held one arm of her glasses between her little white teeth and searched the crowd. “Where’s your boyfriend?” Her drawl had thickened, along with her mascara, and if she still grieved for her father, she gave no outward sign of it.

  “What makes you think I have a boyfriend?”

  “Lucien told my mother you’d come to Greece to rendezvous. Is this one a policeman like the one you had when you lived in Seattle or an egghead like the last one in Hawaii?”

  Dinah made a mental note to kill her blabbermouth brother. “I assume you didn’t check any luggage.”

  “This is all I have in the whole, wide world.” She essayed a rueful smile.

  “It looks like a lot. I’m surprised the airline didn’t make you check it.”

  “I slipped one of the flight attendants twenty American dollars.”

  “Terrific. Let’s go.” Dinah steamed off toward the parking lot and her canary yellow Kia Picanto rental. Princess Katarina and her Louis Vuitton trundled along in her wake. Dinah trained her eyes straight ahead, hoping that it was only the princess’ bright colors that turned so many heads. For all she knew, K.D. was snatching purses as she went.

  When they got to the car, Dinah popped the trunk, hoisted Louis inside, and took her place behind the wheel.

  “It’s simply too glorious!” K.D. stood beside the car and raised her arms heavenward. “I can’t believe I’m really in Greece.”

  “I can’t either.” Dinah fastened her seat belt and rethought the wisdom of not bullying. “Get in, K.D.”

  “This is so exciting!” The girl gave a little squeal and folded her long legs into the Picanto.

  Dinah turned the key, jerked the car into gear, and lurched out of the lot. Leaving the airport, she drove east along the coast road toward Pythagório, named for Samos’ native son, Pythagoras. Geometry hadn’t been one of Dinah’s best subjects in school, but she’d memorized the Pythagorean theorem for the sheer deliciousness of the word “hypotenuse.” She had read in her Samos guide book that Pythagoras was deemed the first communist, although his notions of equality were limited to his upper-crust friends and disciples. Nevertheless, he taught that money and property should be held for the common good.

  She drove for about three miles, passing a ritzy resort hotel that looked wonderful, but well outside her budget. She should have reserved a hotel yesterday when her mind was clear and her temper was cool. Although in retrospect, neither of those conditions had actually applied.

  Broken pieces of marble columns—Corinthian, Ionian, Doric—littered the sides of the road and ruined arches and agoras stood in the weedy spaces between the hotels and businesses. The modern town, and probably the airport runway, had been built on top of one of the oldest port cities in the world. It was an archaeological atrocity. Mentor’s resentment of the British notwithstanding, anyone who cared about the grandeur that was Greece would be appalled by such casual destruction.

  Traffic ground to a stop as they entered the main part of the village and she began to worry about finding a room. She inched along, immune to the kitschy charm of the cafes and shops, and irritated on many fronts. “Tell me about this trouble you’re in, K.D. You burglarized somebody’s house?”

  “It’s been blown all out of proportion, Aunt Dinah. It’s really only a misunderstanding.”

  Dinah wasn’t her aunt and she didn’t regard this new form of address as an honor. “Help me to understand. Did you not do it? Were you falsely accused?”

  “My friend Fiona and her parents go to dinner, okay? So Fiona leaves the back door unlocked for me and I sneak into her house to get the vibrator she’s ordered for me off the Internet. I hang around for a few minutes to look at her new posters of Zac Efron and Kevin Zegers, and everybody comes home early and her father goes, ‘Hey! She’s stealing Fiona’s curling iron.’ I mean, I’m hiding it behind my back and he sees it for just a second, but curling iron?” She gave a derisive little hoot. “And Fiona totally freaks because she doesn’t want her folks to know that it’s a vibrator and think that it’s hers and she just starts screaming and I run out and her parents call the police.”

  Dinah wasn’t so much surprised by K.D.’s interest in sex toys as by the change in her vernacular. When last they’d met, K.D. had flaunted her precociousness, sneering at clichés and salting her conversation with literary jawbreakers like verisimilitude and denouement. Having lost her own father at a young age, Dinah knew what it was like to go through a stage of rebellion and acting out. But she had a particular aversion to being lied to and the story K.D. had just told was seriously lacking in verisimilitude. “If that’s all there was to it, the police would have dropped the case as soon as they talked to Fiona. Did you take something else?”

  “No. I told you. Fiona has issues. Isn’t that a darling little hotel?” She pointed to a small white building across from the marina.

  Tired of fighting the traffic, Dinah turned in the palm-bordered entrance and parked under the portico at the front door. “Wait here.”

  She proceeded into the lobby and went straight to the reception desk. A young woman with long, dark hair and ravishing olive skin looked up from her book. “Yia’sou.”

  “Yia’sou. I’d like a room with two…” Dinah stopped and reconsidered how much togetherness she could stand. “Two rooms for one night.”

  “I’m sorry. We are fully booked for the next three days. There is a large conference in town.” She indicated a message board in front of the elevator doors.

  Dinah read the list of today’s meetings. Modeling Rare Events, 9:00, Third Floor, Room C and Risk and Stochastic Control, 2:00, Third Floor, Room B. “What kind of a conference is it?”

  “Actuarial Science.”

  With murder so fresh in her mind, a conference of people who calculate life expectancy and the probability of disaster struck her as ominous. “Could you recommend another hotel nearby where there might be a vacancy?”

  “I think all of the hotels are full. The Greek Council for Refugees is holding its conference in town and there are attendees from all over Europe. There are also several large wedding parties.”

  Dinah didn’t want to spend all afternoon looking for a hotel. Maybe the best thing would be to take K.D. back to Kanaris for the night and hope that Alcina didn’t offer her a joint. Reluctantly, she returned to the car. “No luck. They’re full up.”

  K.D. had draped herself across the front fender of the Picanto as if posing for a commercial. “I’m not full up. I’m famishing, Aunt Dinah. Can we at least eat lunch here?”

  “Why not?” Dinah had noticed a sign near the reception desk for a terrace café. She moved the Picanto to a parking spot at the far end of the hotel and the two of them wended their way along a flower-lined footpath that led behind the building to the terrace. They sat down at a table overlooking the marina, which was chock-a-block with tour boats and yachts, many of which bore German names. Bavaria and Windzerzaust and Wandervogel. Dinah gazed through the polarized lenses of her Wayfarers at the shimmering blue waters of the bay bounded in the distance by low, chalk-white mountains. A double-masted schooner glided across the horizon. She wished she were on it, en route to Troy.

  A waiter delivered menus to the table and poured water.

  K.D. fawned up at him. “I’ll have a piña colada.”

  “No.” Dinah’s bark startled the man. “We’ll have two glasses of tea, with ice, please.”

  “Yes, madam.” He bowed and withdrew.

  Dinah’s brows drew together. “Don’t test me, K.D.”

  “I was just kidding.”
>
  “I wasn’t.”

  A truce ensued by tacit agreement and they perused the menu. The specialty of the house seemed to be mezés, small plates of stuffed grape leaves or fried vegetables or tomatoes and cheese. When the waiter returned with the tea, they ordered a selection to share. While they waited, Dinah watched the schooner sail out of sight.

  “You have to go home tomorrow, K.D. I know you and your mother are frightened about this burglary charge, but it was a mistake to run away. You’ll probably get a slap on the wrist and a year’s probation. At most. If you pay restitution, a good lawyer can probably get you off scot-free and by the time you graduate from high school, the charge will have been expunged from your record and you can do the debutante thing with the rest of your set.”

  “I don’t want to be like those boring cookie cut-outs. I want to experience everything and live life to the fullest like my daddy did.”

  Dinah forbore to observe that her daddy was a sociopath. She didn’t know how much K.D. had been told about his criminal exploits, but it was clear she still idolized him. “Don’t you want to be a writer anymore, K.D.? It’s what your father would have wanted you to do.”

  “I’ll write when I’m old. After I’ve lived. I don’t want to waste any more time going to school or dragging around with an ankle bracelet. I thought I’d hang with you for a while and then move on to Sydney. I adored Sydney.”

  Dinah was about to resort to bullying when out of the tail of her eye, she glimpsed a familiar face. Savas Brakus promenaded along the marina carrying a large shopping bag. He was accompanied by a man with a mustache like Saddam Hussein’s and the policeman who’d come to investigate the murder last night. When they reached a concrete walkway that led from the marina to the pool, Brakus said something to the policeman and handed him the bag. There were nods and smiles all around. Brakus shook hands with both men and split off toward the parking lot. The other two continued back along the line of moored yachts, their heads bent in conversation.

  Chapter Seven

  K.D. yawned and her eyelids drooped. She was probably jet-lagged and she would sound less harebrained after she’d had a nap. At least, Dinah hoped so. She decided to postpone the argument and take her back to Kanaris. At dinner tonight, she would be absolutely clear and implacable. No playing pattycake. No beating about the bush. Under no circumstances would she permit K.D. to “hang with her” for longer than one night. She didn’t have to lecture the girl about the importance of staying in school or the rightness of owning up to her mischief. A murder had been committed a mere stone’s throw from the house where Dinah lived and, according to Thor, the country was rife with crime. He could help impress upon the kid that Samos wasn’t safe and she would save herself and everyone else a lot of grief by going home to Atlanta and turning herself in to the police.

  Careful not to say anything that might give her the idea that she had won the battle of wills, Dinah paid the bill and drove back toward Kanaris. K.D. dozed and Dinah’s thoughts digressed to Brakus. What was he doing loafing along in the company of a man who was the spitting image of the deceased dictator of Iraq, and the policeman who was investigating the murder of the Iraqi named Fathi? The trio didn’t jibe. Brakus didn’t even jibe with himself. In his taverna, he was obsequious and confidential. At the murder scene, he was nervous and sullen. But in Pythagório he swaggered, fairly beaming with self-assurance, as if one of those fancy yachts had his name on it. And what was in that shopping bag he gave the cop? Sandwiches and beer? Contributions to the policeman’s ball? Payola? And if so, for what?

  As they got closer to the turnoff to Kanaris, piles of garbage began to appear along the sides of the road, bits and pieces strewn by scavenging birds and sea breezes. She’d read about strikes by the sanitation workers in Athens where uncollected garbage piled up in the streets. It had seemed like a big-city problem, but with gas stations on the island charging over ten dollars for a gallon of unleaded, evidently a few Samians had decided that transporting their trash to a disposal facility was too costly. In another two to three centuries, after the detritus had rusted and decayed under layers of soil and rock, archaeologists would dig it up and label the bits as “artifacts,” just as Dinah would soon be doing with the remains of Trojan culture. But at the present moment, the drifting plastic sacks and Styrofoam egg cartons depressed her and it was hard to take the long view.

  The parking lot for the village sat at the foot of the hill with an unobstructed view across the Aegean to Turkey. She parked and opened the trunk for K.D. “From here, we walk. You can roll Louis up the lane or tote him up the stairs.” She pointed to the near-vertical steps that climbed skyward toward the main street of the village.

  “Can’t you drive to the house and unload?” K.D. sounded dubious.

  “Not allowed. It’s longer by the lane, but with this much weight to lug, it’ll be easier.”

  “How far is it?”

  “A half mile, give or take.”

  K.D. hefted Louis out of the trunk, yanked up the leather handle and set her heart glasses on her nose. “Whatever.” A note of defiance edged into her voice.

  Dinah set off at a brisk clip and didn’t look back. Maybe the isolation of the village and the lack of conveniences would help to discourage the girl.

  K.D. didn’t complain, although she was damp from sweat when they topped out near Brakus’ taverna and turned onto the cobbled lane toward Marilita’s house. Louis racketed and jounced and Dinah heard several labored intakes of breath behind her as K.D. in her T-strap sandals struggled to keep from tripping or stubbing a toe. Dinah stopped at the alley that led to the house. It was blocked by an antique, maroon-colored roadster that looked like a relic from the Roaring Twenties. A plaque in gold letters on the wood dash identified it as an Isotta Fraschini.

  “You said cars weren’t allowed,” crabbed K.D.

  “It belongs to the landlady.” Instinctively, Dinah knew that this was Zenia’s car. She walked around toward the veranda. No one was there. Zenia must be consoling Alcina in Alcina’s private room. Or canning her. However many years she and Yannis had worked here, however reliable or devoted they might be, the notoriety of another murder associated with the property probably wouldn’t sit well with Zenia.

  “I’ll show you to your room,” said Dinah, not wanting to have to explain the presence of a new lodger. “You can take a shower and rest for a few hours before dinner.”

  “Will your boyfriend eat dinner with us?”

  “I don’t know. He’s kind of busy.” Dinah hurried her up the stairs, wincing with each thunk of the heavy suitcase on the uncarpeted marble staircase. At the end of the hall, she opened the guestroom door and ushered K.D. inside. “The bathroom’s next door and there are fresh towels in the cupboard under the sink. Try to sleep for a few hours and I’ll knock on your door around five.” She turned to leave.

  “Aunt Dinah?”

  “Just call me Dinah, okay?”

  K.D. flopped down on the bed and looked up at her with moist eyes. “Dinah, my daddy was a drug lord, my mother is totally self-involved, my brother is a head case, and I don’t have one friend in the whole wide world.”

  K.D. was intentionally strumming on her heartstrings, but Dinah felt a twinge of empathy nevertheless. Her own family could be characterized in almost the same words. Her father had died running drugs when she was ten years old; her mother was a serial bride; and her beloved brother had lately taken to dabbling in art forgery. She did have a few friends, but they were scattered across the world and, generally speaking, they weren’t people she could call at three o’clock in the morning for solace or advice.

  “Your mother’s overwhelmed just now, K.D. She’s trying to pick up the pieces and start a new life now that your father’s gone and you and your brother aren’t making it any too easy. Give her a break, why don’t you? You’re smarter and stronger than she is and you know it. You’re
a survivor, like me. You’ll come through the turbulence all right and when you look back some day, you’ll have plenty of material for a bestselling novel. Novels about dysfunctional families are all the rage.”

  “If only you let me stay here until you leave to go on your dig, that will give mother a break and it will totally save my life. I won’t be a nuisance, I swear I won’t. Please, Dinah?”

  “Let me think about it.” Dinah couldn’t believe she was letting this teenage manipulatrix get to her. “Keep out of my hair for a few hours and I’ll get back to you at dinner.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! You are so good.”

  Dinah laced into herself on the way downstairs. What an idiot I am! I shouldn’t have said anything that left open the possibility. Now I’ve shown weakness. If I’m not hard as nails, K.D. will twist “let me think about it” into an ironclad promise. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  “You’re the Pelerin woman. Ramberg told me you’d be staying here, too.”

  She looked up into a wizened face riveted by eyes as round and alert as a bird’s and as black as squid ink. The eyes were surmounted by high, penciled black brows and between the brows hung a topaz pendant. “Yes, ma’am. I’m Dinah. And you must be Mrs. Stephanadis.”

  “Of course, I am.” Thor’s wax-museum description wasn’t far off the mark. A dusting of white powder coated her crinkled cheeks and a cupid’s bow of magenta lipstick overtopped her pleated lip line. Thor had neglected to mention that she dressed like an avatar of high fashion, circa 1926. Her head was encapsulated in a tight-fitting turquoise cap from which the topaz had been suspended by a silver fob. She wore a beaded, dropped-waist black overdress tied in a sash around her hips and a gauzy turquoise skirt flagged around her ankles. The silver, funnel-shaped earhorn she clutched in one blue-veined hand bespoke an even earlier era.