A Deadly Twist Read online

  Yianni leaned forward. “I get all that political stuff, so let’s get to the part about me clearing my desk.”

  “The reporter who broke that story on the mysterious hacker has gone missing, or so her editor thinks.” Andreas told Yianni of his conversation with the editor and his request the paper not run a story about her disappearance until Andreas had a better handle on what happened. “At this point, we don’t know if she disappeared willingly or unwillingly. She might just be out somewhere partying.” Andreas leaned back in his chair. “Then again, with so much of our world facing lethal attacks on the media, we do have to consider the worst as a possibility.”

  “I take that to mean the worst is about to happen to me.”

  “Hey, don’t complain. It’s why you get paid the big money.”

  Yianni waved off the teasing. “I’ve got plans with Toni for the weekend.”

  “You’ve got a couple of days before then, and besides, Naxos is only an hour from Mykonos.”

  “But our plans are for Athens.”

  Andreas nodded. “Well, let’s see what you can turn up by Friday, and we’ll take it from there.”

  “I’m not happy.”

  “Understood. I’ll find some way to make it up to you.”

  “Your bigger challenge will be finding a way to make it up to Toni. After all, she’s become best friends with your wife.”

  Andreas nodded. “Neither of whom is shy about speaking her mind to me. I guess that means you should be on your way ASAP. The sooner you get a handle on things, the better our chance of salvaging your weekend.” He paused. “And my domestic bliss.”

  “Where do you suggest I begin?”

  “I spoke to the Naxos police chief and told him to keep Nikoletta’s hotel room sealed off until you get there. She apparently left in a hurry, taking nothing with her. I’d say that’s the place to start.”

  “I’ll get going.” Yianni stood. “Can you get me a list from Nikoletta’s editor of everyone she met with on Naxos?”

  “I’ll get Maggie on it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s the least I can do for you.”

  Yianni headed for the door. “You mean the very least.”

  * * *

  Yianni caught a flight from Athens that had him to Naxos in about the same time as it took to fly to its neighboring island of Mykonos, two islands different in practically every way imaginable. Shaped like a broad granite and marble arrowhead pointing north, Naxos was four times the size of Mykonos, and the largest island in the Cyclades. It also boasted the Cyclades’s two tallest mountains, Zas and Koronos. Naxos had long ago been deforested but was still green, agriculturally blessed, and since antiquity, famous for its marble and emery mines. Though Mykonos had its barite mines and grain windmills, it was a dry, arid, and rocky place, with modest agriculture that in no way rivaled Naxos’s natural riches and virtual self-sufficiency.

  But times had changed, and today Mykonos possessed a high-end tourism reputation that was the envy of every Greek island seeking to maximize its own tourist potential. Yianni wondered how long it would be before Naxos embraced the same tourism fervor so many of its island neighbors had.

  He stared out the window as the light plane approached Naxos Island National Airport. A relatively modest facility, it stood approximately two and a half miles southwest of Chora, east of a massive salt pond, and surrounded by a patchwork of chocolate, beige, and green open fields. Its short runway kept big international jetliners away, an obvious check on tourism expansion. Yianni wondered if that was intentional and, if so, who wanted it that way.

  As Yianni walked across the tarmac toward the tiny terminal building, the final scene from Casablanca popped into his mind—Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains strolling through the fog along a lonely stretch of airstrip on their way to neither knew where.

  Naxos’s local police chief stood waiting for Yianni at the gate. They knew each other from Yianni’s time as a cop on Mykonos. Back then, they’d worked together at catching thieves who’d milk one Cycladic island until things got too hot for them there, then jump to another.

  “You haven’t changed a bit, Dimitri,” said Yianni, hugging the chief and exchanging cheek kisses.

  “Too bad I can’t say the same for you,” smiled Dimitri. “But in your case, you look better than ever.”

  “Puh, puh, puh. That’s all I need, you giving me the evil eye with bullshit compliments.” He slapped Dimitri on the back.

  “How’s your chief doing?”

  “Andreas? Great. You know he’s married now with two kids.”

  “I’ve heard, to the only daughter of one of Greece’s wealthiest old-line families.”

  “Yeah, that’s what gets played up in cop gossip, but she’s a down-to-earth, no-bullshit lady. In fact, she and my girlfriend created a program to mentor vulnerable young girls.”

  “Sounds impressive.”

  “It is, but I want to hear all about your family.”

  As they made their way to Dimitri’s car, he filled Yianni in on the expanding size of his family and listened to Yianni go on about the state of his own love life.

  “Your friend sounds like an interesting woman.”

  “She is, but this case is threatening to wreck our plans for the weekend.”

  The chief shrugged. “Have her come over. You can stay with us.”

  “That’s kind of you, but I was hoping to show her Athens.”

  “Well, the offer’s open.” Dimitri pressed a button on his key fob to unlock the doors to his cruiser. “I assume the first thing you’ll want is to see the reporter’s hotel room.”

  “Yes,” said Yianni as he slid into the passenger seat, “then the people she talked to.”

  “I’ll arrange to have one of my local Naxos cops drive you around the island. Trust me when I say that’ll be a hell of a lot easier than turning you loose with a GPS, a map, and a car. The island’s too big, and the places and people you’ll want to see way too difficult for you to find on your own.”

  “Thanks, but how do you know who exactly I’ll want to see?”

  “I don’t.” Dimitri pulled out of the airport onto the main road leading back to the heart of Chora. “But from what I’ve heard, your reporter was all over the island, speaking to some of its most interesting characters.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “This island is filled with strong opinions, rooted in a deep pride in Naxos’s historically independent ways. Some show it in words, some in dress, some in actions. I expect every one of them will have an opinion on what happened to her.”

  “Are you saying word’s out that she’s missing?”

  “We’re trying to keep it quiet and officially have said nothing, but there’s no way this sort of thing stays out of the local gossip mill for long. After all, the story she wrote about meeting up with that cyber guy attracted international attention in a way that gave the island a bit of celebrity. People know who she is. When word gets out that she disappeared the same night that tourist died”—Dimitri waved his right hand in a small circle—“I can only imagine the theories that will be circulating. Each one undoubtedly aimed at implicating someone the teller of the tale despises.”

  “Why would locals want to spread that sort of bullshit? It seems sort of self-destructive for the island.”

  “The answer to that question, my friend, has been a mystery haunting Greeks for centuries. For example, our illustrious mayor made it clear to me this morning that he’s prepared to turn this into a political issue aimed directly at me. To quote him, ‘Unanswered questions surrounding a dead tourist and missing journalist cannot be allowed to hang over our island.’”

  “I take it you two don’t get along.”

  “That’s putting it mildly. We have serious disagreements over what he and I see as legally
permissible behavior on the part of his political cronies.”

  “Hmm.” Yianni changed subjects. “Any evidence of the tourist’s cause of death?”

  “Yes, a header off the top of a cliff onto the rocks below.”

  “What else do you know about him?”

  “No ID yet, but we know his physical description.” Dimitri described him.

  “That’s it?”

  “No signs of foul play, no drugs or alcohol in his system.”

  “Then what the hell was he doing out there in the middle of the night?”

  “That’s what half the island wants to know, and the other half doesn’t care because it’s already convinced he was murdered.”

  “I can see you’re feeling the pressure. Any leads?”

  “That would be too much to expect. A lot of accusations are being lobbed back and forth between rival interest groups, and of course, a rash of conspiracy theories abound. All, at least so far, unsupported by evidence.”

  “In other words, business as usual.”

  “Yes, but I’ve compiled a list of everyone preaching me theories.” Dimitri handed Yianni an envelope. “Take it for what it’s worth. It just might give you a place to start.”

  “And give your harassers the sense that you took their opinions seriously enough to pass them on to me.” Yianni smiled.

  Dimitri grinned. “One must keep one’s public happy.”

  They fell back to talking about old times and how much the world had changed in so few years.

  Yianni paid little attention to the neighborhoods they passed through on the two-lane road into Chora. To him, the modern areas that developed around the outskirts of virtually every town of sizable population, be it an island or mainland town, looked the same. The perennial favorite choice of construction remained two- and three-story buildings thrown up for the rents they generated, from street-level commercial space to residential apartments above. Gas stations, hardware stores, and electronics shops mixed in among supermarkets, pharmacies, bakeries, butchers, and banks. Doctors, lawyers, and accountants worked in offices next to fast-food shops, nail salons, hairdressers, and lotto sellers, plus the ubiquitous kafenia and tavernas.

  Dimitri wove though Chora’s maze of one-way streets to a tiny parking area wedged between the edge of a cliff and the hotel.

  “Here we are. I’ve taken the liberty of arranging for the security guy to be here for you to interview. He’s our only witness to whatever happened. I figured you’d like to speak to him first.”

  Yianni followed Dimitri into a reception area decorated in pale grays and whites. Walls of glass enclosed two sides of the adjoining bar and restaurant area, affording sweeping views of the Aegean, Portara, and Chora.

  Dimitri introduced Yianni to the hotel’s owner, a tall, slim man with the practiced, welcoming smile of a hotelier. He showed the two cops into his office. A squat, swarthy man wearing blue jeans, a Grateful Dead T-shirt, and a scruffy, Jerry Garcia–style gray beard, slouched in one of two taverna chairs in front of a simple wooden desk.

  “Anargyros, these are the policemen who want to speak with you,” said the owner. He pointed to the upholstered office chair behind the desk. “Please, Detective, feel free to take my chair.”

  “Thank you, but Dimitri can sit there. I’ll take this one.” Yianni sat in the chair next to Anargyros and turned his head to face the hotel owner. “You’ve been most kind. We’ll let you know as soon as we’re finished with the interview.”

  The hotel owner looked disappointed at being subtly told to leave but nodded and left the office, shutting the door behind him.

  Yianni smiled at Anargyros. “First of all, thank you for seeing us at a time when I assume you’re normally asleep. My name is Detective Yianni Kouros, and I have some questions that you may have already been asked by others.”

  Anargyros shrugged.

  “I’d like you to tell us everything that happened last night conceivably having anything to do with Nikoletta Elia.”

  Anargyros shut his eyes and rocked his head from side to side. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  “No.”

  Anargyros reached into his jeans, pulled out a small sack of tobacco and rolling papers, and began making himself a cigarette.

  Yianni shot a where-the-hell-is-this-headed look at Dimitri.

  “Anargyros,” said Dimitri, “this isn’t one of your group therapy, addiction support sessions. We need answers now.”

  Anargyros stared at Dimitri and kept quietly rolling his cigarette.

  “Do you want to keep this job or not? Just answer the detective’s questions and you can be on your way. Otherwise…”

  Yianni jumped in as the good cop. “We really don’t want to take up any more of your time than necessary, but we do need your cooperation.”

  “Or else I’ll drag your ass down to the station and keep you there until you answer his questions,” added Dimitri.

  Anargyros finished rolling his cigarette, pulled a plastic lighter from another pocket, lit the cigarette, and drew in a puff. “She came into reception at about three a.m.” He exhaled. “Pretty close to shitfaced when she did.”

  “Did she say anything to you?” asked Yianni.

  “Just took her room key and said good night.” He took another draw on the cigarette. “About an hour later she burst into reception, wearing blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt and asking if someone was looking for her. I said no, and she went running off into the breakfast room and bar area.”

  “What did you do?” said Yianni.

  Exhaling a cloud of pungent smoke, he said, “I got up from behind the reception desk to see what she was doing. Considering how drunk she’d been an hour before, I didn’t want her grabbing anything from behind the bar. My job would be on the line if I’d let her.”

  “What was she doing in there?”

  “I never got to see—she came out before I had the chance. She seemed panicked. Then she asked if anyone had been in reception since she’d come back to the hotel at three. I said no. I also suggested she calm down and go back to bed.”

  “What did she say to that?”

  “She never answered, just pointed to one of the windows looking out toward the bluff and yelled, ‘There he is.’”

  “Did you see who she was pointing at?”

  “It was so dark I couldn’t see if a tall, short, thin, or fat he, she, or it was out there. Whoever it was stood beyond the hotel’s lights.”

  “Then how do you know someone was out there?”

  He took another drag. “Because when I turned to see what she was looking at, I saw a blinking light coming at us from the dark.”

  “How do you know it was aimed at you?”

  “Aimed at her.” He exhaled. “When I turned to her, she was running for the front door. I looked back at the light and it stopped blinking right after I heard the wind slam the front door shut.”

  “And she never came back?”

  “Correct.” He let the smoke drift out of his nose.

  “Didn’t that seem odd to you?”

  Anargyros stared at Yianni. “Are you serious? This is a holiday island. A woman staggers back to the hotel at three in the morning after too much to drink, and an hour later comes down from her room looking to hook up with some guy who’d just called her, and you expect me to wonder why she didn’t come back before my shift was over at seven?”

  Yianni nodded, “Good point. But how do you know someone had just called her?”

  “I don’t. I just assumed it.”

  “Could the call have come through the switchboard?”

  He shrugged. “I’d have had to put it through, and none came in for her.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Calls at four in the morning are rare. And if one came in, the caller would have had to convince me to pu
t it through. There were no calls.”

  Over the next hour, Yianni and Dimitri plumbed Anargyros’s memory for every detail of Nikoletta’s appearance, words, and behavior that night, but his story and recollections remained the same.

  “Well, what do you think?” said Yianni to Dimitri after they’d sent Anargyros on his way.

  “I think he’s telling the truth. He’s a bright guy seduced by a bad meth habit, but he’s done a pretty good job of kicking it. I don’t see an angle in this for him.”

  “Well, let’s take a look at her room,” said Yianni. “There’s got to be a clue somewhere.”

  “You always were an optimist.”

  * * *

  Nikoletta’s room reflected the new minimalist trend in beach accommodations. Tastefully done in pale-gray and white, with marble floors and light-oak wooden shelving and furniture, it perfectly stated what it was: a modern place for a holiday stay.

  Yianni stood in the doorway, studying the room before stepping inside. “Have your guys gone through this?”

  “Every millimeter, but they left things right where they found them.”

  “What did they turn up?”

  “Fingerprints, likely from housekeepers, workmen, and past guests.”

  “Anything else relevant to us?”

  Dimitri pointed to a pile of notebooks on the nightstand. “Four of them contain the reporter’s notes on interviews for her tourism story. The fifth covers her interview with the mysterious cybercriminal.”

  “What about the mobile phone?”

  “It’s locked. We assume it’s hers.”

  “Did you try opening it?”

  “I thought about asking my five-year-old son to take a crack at it. He always seems to know how to get into my phone, but I decided to leave that challenge to your tech wizzes back in Athens.”

  “Good decision,” said Yianni. “Let’s get it couriered to Athens right away.”

  He carefully made his way over to the nightstand. “I assume the notebooks have been examined for fingerprints?”

  “Yes. Only hers turned up.”