An Aegean April Read online

  She cleared her throat. “Murder.”

  Andreas stopped tapping. “Oh.”

  “But he couldn’t have done it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Murder is not in his character.”

  Andreas figured pursuing her basis for that observation would likely take up his entire morning. “Ms. McLaughlin, what is it you’d like for me to do?”

  “Investigate. He won’t stand a chance if you don’t.”

  “I’m sure the police will be thorough.”

  “There’s too much at stake for the politicians to stay out of it.”

  He sensed a political diatribe in the offing. “This is not the first time a refugee has been involved in a crime like this in Greece.”

  He heard her pause and clear her throat.

  “It’s the first time the victim’s been a seventy-year-old Greek shipping tycoon, sliced cleanly in half from neck to crotch with the single stroke of a sword.”

  Andreas sat up in his chair. “Run that by me again.”

  “Late last night, Mihalis Volandes, the patriarch of an old-line shipping family, was killed, just as I said, in the garden outside his Mytilini home.”

  Andreas crossed himself. “My God.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Why are they accusing your guy?”

  “The police found him at the scene.”

  “Holding the sword?”

  “This isn’t funny, Chief.” Her voice took on an edge.

  “It wasn’t meant to be. What’s his name?”

  “Ali Sera, and, no, he wasn’t holding a sword.”

  “Why was he there?”

  “He said he’d received a call telling him to meet Mr. Volandes at his home.”

  “Who called him?”

  “He didn’t know the caller.”

  “Did your guy know Volandes?”

  “I can’t say for sure that they ever met, but he certainly knew of him, because our organization publicly supported Mr. Volandes’ efforts to develop a new approach for processing refugees.”

  “Was Ali for or against Volandes’ efforts?”

  “I’m positive he was for them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they made sense and would work.”

  Andreas rubbed at his forehead with his free hand. “Who’s in charge of the investigation?”

  “I don’t know, but I can ask.”

  “That’s okay,” said Andreas. “I’ll find out.”

  “So you’ll investigate?”

  “No promises. For now I just want more details.”

  “I understand. Thank you so much, and please let me know what more I can do to help.” She gave him her cell and office numbers. “I’ll be back on Lesvos late Monday, and can get you more information once I’m there, if you need it.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “On Mykonos, for Easter.”

  “Ah, yes, an island I know well.”

  “Do you think I should return to Lesvos sooner?”

  “Not for my purposes,” said Andreas. “I’ll give the local police your contact information in case they want to get in touch with you before you’re back on the island.”

  “It’s all so unbelievable. I feel so sorry for everyone involved. Mr. Volandes, his family, Ali….”

  She seemed to be holding back a sob. “We’d been so close to changing so many lives––an old Greek man and his American granddaughter they used to call us––united in doing good works for the world.”

  Andreas cleared his throat. “I understand. May I suggest you spend some time in church? After all, it’s Easter time and that might help you to process this.”

  She sighed. “Thanks for the advice, Chief. Kalo Paska. Bye.”

  “And a Good Easter to you, too.” Andreas hung up the phone. He looked out his window at his own building’s reflection in the neighboring building’s windows.

  Sliced in half. He crossed himself again.

  l l l l l

  “You’re in early, again, I see,” said Maggie Sikestes, poking her sturdy, red-haired, five-foot-three-inch frame inside the doorway to her boss’ office.

  Andreas shrugged. “Lila’s feeding schedule for the baby has me up at five anyway. No reason for me to hang around the house.”

  “Is that your idea or Lila’s?”

  “Cute. Maybe I should ask my loyal secretary to consider coming in earlier too?”

  Maggie feigned a smile. “Feel free to ask.”

  They’d been bantering back and forth like this since Andreas’ return to Greece’s Central Police Headquarters in Athens (better known as GADA), following a brief stint on Mykonos as its police chief. He’d returned to assume command of the unit charged with investigating matters of national concern or potential corruption. That’s when the luck of the draw landed him with Maggie, GADA’s mother superior and source of all knowledge of its many secrets and intricate ways.

  Andreas shook his head. “If you’d been here when I got in, you could have screened my calls.”

  “Ever hear of letting them go through to voicemail?”

  “It’s the kid in me. I can’t resist a ringing phone.”

  “Why do I sense you’re about to tell me something unpleasant?”

  “Good guess. A half-hour ago, I received a call from a woman who heads up a refugee operation on Lesvos. Someone who works for her, who happens to be a refugee, is accused of using a sword to murder one of the island’s most distinguished citizens.”

  “Ouch.”

  “And she wants me to look into it.”

  “Will you?”

  Andreas shrugged. “I’ve left a message with the Mytilini police commander to call me when he has the chance. Let’s hear what he has to say. If it’s an open-and-shut case, no reason for us to get involved.”

  “I sense you don’t think it is.”

  Andreas raised and dropped his hands. “The victim was sliced in half, top to bottom.”

  “Oh, my God. That sounds like terrorists.”

  Andreas nodded. “Up to now, we’ve been blessedly spared that sort of thing in Greece. At least of the foreign-born sort.”

  “Could it be?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s what I want to find out. Tell Yianni to see me the moment he gets in.”

  “Can I make you some coffee?”

  Andreas held up a paper cup. “I got some from the cafeteria.”

  “My sympathies.”

  “Also, see what you can find out about the victim, Mihalis Volandes.” Maggie’s eyebrows rose at the name. Andreas nodded. “There should be a lot. But concentrate on his efforts to help refugees. Also, see what you can find out about the accused, Ali Sera, though I doubt you’ll find much, if anything, on him.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes, while you’re at it, look into the background of Dana McLaughlin.” He wrote the name on a sheet of paper and slid it across the desk to Maggie.

  “And who would she be?”

  “The one who’s asked for my help.”

  “Ah, the ever-trusting soul of my boss.”

  “Just being careful.”

  Chapter Two

  “You wanted to see me?” said the bull-like man, a shaved head shorter than Andreas, standing in the doorway to Andreas’ office.

  “Yeah, Yianni. Grab a chair.”

  Yianni Kouros and Andreas had met when Yianni was a brash young rookie on Mykonos and Andreas his chief. They’d been together protecting each other’s back ever since.

  “We’ve got a gruesome murder on Lesvos.”

  “Maggie told me.”

  “I’m still waiting to hear back from the cops on the scene.” Andreas looked at his watch. “Should be soon.”
>
  “If this is terrorists, isn’t it something the minister will want to handle directly out of his office?”

  “What minister? Our boss, the minister of public order? The politicians are still trying to find someone competent to replace the last one.”

  Yianni smiled. “That’s because you refused to take the job again. I meant our Prime Minister.”

  “I’m sure we’ll hear from him, if he’s interested in anything more than offering political homilies to the people and routine condolences to the family. My guess is he’ll want to play this down, make it seem a local affair, far removed from any sort of international incident. The last word that he or anyone else who cares about our tourism industry will want to hear bandied about is ‘terrorism.’”

  Yianni nodded. “Look what’s happened to Turkey. It’s practically deserted. Even the Turks are going elsewhere on holiday.”

  “Which makes them particularly sensitive to anything that threatens their remaining tourism along the coastline across from our Northern Aegean islands.”

  “For sure. Remember what happened with Kos? Refugees once poured onto Kos out of Turkey in numbers as large as those hitting our other islands close to Turkey. But Turkish hoteliers in Bodrum complained about how refugees massing at its shores waiting to be smuggled across to Kos negatively affected its tourism industry, and poof, refugees miraculously evaporated from Bodrum, and Kos no longer had the refugee problem it once had.”

  Andreas nodded. “This woman McLaughlin’s probably right about politicians getting involved. My guess is they’ll want to wrap it up quickly and not let it linger out there as a possible terrorist act.”

  “Who’s McLaughlin? And why did she call you?”

  “The guy the Lesvos police have in custody is a recent refugee who works for her. She’s the head of the local branch of SafePassage. It’s a big NGO based in Brussels that provides hands-on aid to refugees from the time their boats hit Greek waters through relocation into Europe.”

  “What about the ones that get shipped back to Turkey?”

  “They can’t help them—which, I assume, is why SafePassage opposes the EU arrangement with Turkey calling for shipping unauthorized refugees from our islands back to Turkey and God-only-knows what conditions over there.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  Andreas smiled and pointed at his computer screen. “Google.”

  “Chief,” Maggie’s voice came booming through the open doorway. “It’s the Mytilini police commander on the line.”

  “And the research skills of the possessor of that lovely voice.” Andreas pointed Yianni to a chair by his desk, and hit the speaker button on his phone.

  “Commander, thanks for calling me back. I’m certain you’re very busy with this new case.”

  “You don’t know the half of it, which is probably an insensitive way to put things, considering how the victim died.”

  Andreas winced. “Yes, I think that’s a fair observation.”

  Yianni rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  “Sorry. It’s been a long night.”

  “So, what can you tell us?”

  “We received an anonymous call around one in the morning of a suspicious person lurking around the Volandes mansion.”

  “Any idea who called it in?”

  “Like I said, it was anonymous.”

  “What about caller ID?”

  “It came from a throwaway phone with no way to track the owner.”

  “Did that strike you as unusual?”

  “These days a lot of refugees end up using that sort of phone. It’s the only kind they can get.”

  “So, you think a refugee called it in?”

  “We recorded the call, and the speaker had a definite accent, making that a distinct possibility.”

  “Why would a refugee make the call?” said Andreas.

  “Any number of reasons, ranging from being a good citizen to a blood feud with the guy the caller implicated. Tribal differences don’t disappear when these folks land here. We’ve got a lot of people who don’t get along living in close proximity to one another.”

  “Hi, it’s Detective Yianni Kouros. Sorry to interrupt, but it sounds to me that you think you have your killer.”

  “I wish I could say that for certain, Detective. Yes, we caught him outside the Volandes mansion with the victim’s blood down his face and the front of his clothes. The body was on the other side of the gate, well into the garden.”

  “That sure sounds incriminating,” said Yianni.

  “It’s why the prosecutor’s all hot to go after him.” The commander paused. “But something doesn’t seem right.”

  “What’s that?” said Andreas.

  “The obvious question is why would a killer hang around to be caught? And, yes, I know stranger things happen. But then there’s the blood spatter.”

  “What about it?” asked Yianni.

  “It wasn’t a lot of blood on him, considering the scene.”

  “But he was spattered, meaning he must have been there when the blow was struck,” said Yianni.

  “That’s the point. The boy––”

  “Boy?” said Andreas.

  “The accused is only seventeen. Anyway, the accused, Ali Sera, said when he got there everything was quiet and he saw no one around. He tried peeking inside the gate, but with no moon and no lights, he couldn’t see a thing. That’s when he said he felt it start to rain.”

  “Rain?” said Andreas.

  “Yes, rain. But we’ve been bone-dry for days, not a drop.”

  “So what do you make of that?” said Andreas.

  “I don’t know. I went back to the crime scene this morning at first light and it’s a bloody mess. The boy insists he never went beyond the gate. But I agree it’s hard to imagine how the accused could have gotten the victim’s blood on his face and down the front of his clothes if he wasn’t inside that garden at the time of the murder.”

  “What about the bottoms of his shoes?” said Andreas.

  “Clean. We checked. He must have been careful not to step in the blood, and forensics found no footprints suggesting anyone other than Volandes had been there.”

  “What about the terrorist angle?” said Andreas.

  “That could explain why he didn’t run away. He wanted the world to know what he’d done,” said Yianni.

  “Yeah, but he’s not claiming anything like that, nor is any organization. Not yet, anyway,” said the commander. “The boy maintains he received a call telling him to meet Volandes at his house right away because Volandes had something important to get to Dana McLaughlin.”

  “But McLaughlin wasn’t on Lesvos,” said Andreas.

  “Sera knew that. It’s why he went.”

  “So whoever made the call knew that too,” said Yianni.

  “Assuming there was such a call,” said the commander. “Even if the boy’s phone shows a call, he could have used a throwaway phone to call himself to create an alibi.”

  Andreas cleared his throat. “Commander, I hope you don’t mind, but could you keep the crime scene protected for the rest of the day? I’m going to have Detective Kouros fly over to take a look at it. I’m sure you caught everything, but this matter could get a bit tricky if someone decides to run with a potential terror angle. I wouldn’t want a question hanging out there over why my unit hadn’t gotten involved when we had the chance.”

  “I understand. I also appreciate your effort at not stepping on what you assume are my professional toes.”

  The cop laughed and Andreas joined in.

  “Hold that thought,” said Andreas. “Detective Kouros isn’t nearly so diplomatic.”

  “I look forward to meeting him. Is that it?”

  “Yep, thanks for your time. Bye.”

  As soon as Andreas
hung up Yianni said, “Thanks. It’s just what I wanted two days before Easter. A trip to Lesvos.”

  “Just catch the next plane out of Venizelos and come back after checking out the crime scene.”

  “The guy sounds thorough,” said Yianni. “Even if his sense of humor could use some work. What am I going to find that forensics didn’t?”

  “Think of it like diapers. You won’t know what you’ll find until you look.”

  “Fine, I’m convinced.” Yianni stood up and headed toward the door. “Actually, compared to yours, that guy’s sense of humor isn’t so bad.”

  l l l l l

  The 170-mile flight from Athens’ Venizelos International Airport to Mytilini International took a little less than an hour, eight hours less than the average travel time if Yianni had taken a ferry. He hadn’t been to Lesvos before and, like many Greeks, knew very little of the island’s ancient history beyond it being home to the lyric poet Sappho.

  He vaguely recalled some mention of Lesvos in the Iliad and the Odyssey as inhabited as far back as the fourth millennium BCE, and of learning in school that the island had been ruled over time by an assortment of conquerors, from Spartans and Athenians, through Romans, Turks, and other foreign sorts. He also remembered hearing of archaeological discoveries supporting the existence of a Lesvos civilization on a par with that developed in Troy and Mycenae, but that exhausted Yianni’s knowledge on the subject of Lesvos’ ancient history.

  In an airline magazine, he found an article on the island’s capital city of Mytilini, which noted that, like Jerusalem, Mecca, Rome, and Athens, Mytilini laid claim to being built on seven hills. Mytilini’s seven hills stood on the island’s southeastern edge, a little more than ten miles from Turkey. They curved westerly in a north-south arc, embracing to the east the city, two harbors, and a promontory bearing the remains of one of the largest castles in the Mediterranean, rebuilt in the fourteenth century on the sixth-century foundation of another fortress.

  When Lesvos came into being as an organized community in the eleventh century BCE, Mytilini stood as a small island separated from the main island by a narrow strait linking harbors at its north and south ends. Time, silt, and defensive considerations ultimately filled in that strait, and Mytilini and Lesvos now stood as one, with the ancient harbor to the north called the upper or old port, and the commercially active passenger harbor to the south, the new port.