The Devil Takes Half (24 page)

He stopped by the police station, hoping to take advantage of the holiday and call England while the place was quiet. “I'll take the rest of the day off,” he told himself. “The investigation's stalled. One day more or less won't make any difference.”

The operator told him the museum where Devon McLean worked was being renovated and would be closed until September first. No one was available in the Archeology Department, either. She suggested he call back after August eighteenth, when the Director of the Institute of Archeology would return, having completed his summer studies in Sicily.

Patronas hung up the phone.
Vrasta.
Another day, then.

The files on Eleni Argentis and Petros Athanassiou were spread out on his desk. He'd set out a photo of Dimitra when he'd first taken over as Chief Officer. That was fifteen years ago. The photo had faded into nothingness and was now yellow and overexposed, sort of like their relationship. He had no desire to go home. Somehow the feast days hadn't been the same since his mother died. Oh, Dimitra did her best, but as they were both only children, it was often just the two of them and sometimes her mother, which was no cause for celebration. Maybe they could go to Pyrgi tonight and dance in the square. It had been a long time since he'd done that. He couldn't remember the last time he'd danced in Pyrgi.

* * *

Marina Papoulis turned onto the rutted lane that led to Profitis Ilias. Both sides of the road belonged to Spiro Korres. Most of his acreage lay fallow now, the red soil dry in the heat of summer. It was so quiet she could hear the cicadas buzzing in the cypress trees that marked the end of his property. She veered too far to the right, and the car scraped the prickly pears on the side of the road. Their thorns sounded like nails as they raked the fender. Eventually, the road leveled out and continued on. A crow was calling from one of the trees. The cawing echoed over the rocks. No one she knew lived out here.

Two plastic cones blocked the entrance to the parking lot. She got out of her car, moved them and drove in. She parked the car next to the police cruiser and rolled down the windows. The air was hot and still. There was another car parked there. She wondered who it belonged to. Stepping over the police tape, she started to climb up the path, thinking it would be a long trek in her straight skirt and new shoes. But it took her less than fifteen minutes to reach the monastery.

She was surprised to find no one there and the doors locked. “Chief Officer?” she yelled, banging on the door. “Yiannis?”

She walked around the monastery and tried the gate in the back. It, too, was locked. Puzzled, she called and called. She thought she heard something, a radio perhaps, and called again. “Yiannis, are you here?” But it was only dead leaves dragging across the stones in the wind. She walked down to the dig site but found no one there, either. It was getting hot. She thought she saw a man in the distance and waved to him. The sun was high in the sky. She'd have to leave soon.

She heard a faint tinkling in the distance and made her way toward it. A herd of goats stood together on a distant slope near where she'd seen the man.

“
Chief Officer,” she yelled. “Yiannis?” There was no answer.

Hearing a noise, she ventured closer and called out again, more hesitant this time. “Yiannis?”

What the wind gathers, the devil scatters.

—
Greek proverb

D
imitra had been at work in the garden. The honeysuckle was tied up with string alongside the house, and the roses were freshly watered, the path swept. He'd forgotten she'd invited his cousin to celebrate with them and was pleasantly surprised to see him standing on the front steps.

“
The prodigal returns,” his cousin said, clapping him on the back.

His cousin had brought a spring lamb with him, and the two of them spent the afternoon rigging up the spit and grilling it over an open fire. They passed a bottle of ouzo back and forth as they worked, laughing and eating snippets of meat.

That night the three of them went to Pyrgi to hear the music. The medieval town was decorated with lights and Patronas could hear the band warming up. The village was a special place, its walls covered by intricate black and white designs: triangles and circles, chevrons and flowers. The designs gave the village a playful, jaunty air that Patronas liked, a kind of fairytale atmosphere. The tables in the square had been removed, and people were forming circles and starting to dance. He grabbed Dimitra's hand and they joined the long line, dancing the
Kalamatiano
, a popular Greek dance. Children were forming their own lines and imitating the grown-ups. The noise was earsplitting—the amplified music, the crowd, the screaming of the dancers as they whirled around on the cobbled pavement.

It was so noisy that Patronas didn't hear his phone ringing until they returned to the car. Patronas answered, wondering who was calling at this hour. He looked at his watch—close to three a.m.

It was the dispatcher at the police station. “Chief Officer, you better get in here,” the man said.

“
Why? What's happened?”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Just come,” the man said.

When Patronas reached the station, he was surprised to see his entire staff assembled outside his office. Tembelos was out of breath, his face flushed. “I just heard,” he said.

“
What's going on?” Patronas studied the faces of his staff. No one would meet his eye. “What the hell is going on?”

It was Evangelos Demos who finally told him. “It's Marina Papoulis. She never came home.”

Something stirred deep inside him. “What do you mean?”

“
Her husband called. They've been waiting for her for hours.”

“
Is Margarita there? The other children?”

“
As far as I know.”

Patronas quickly called Marina's house and spoke to her husband.

“
She was in a big hurry when she left,” the man told him. “She said she had information for you and that she had to find you.”

“
So she went to the station?”

“
Or your house. All I know is, she was determined to find you.”

“
Are there any relatives she might have visited on the way?”

“
I've checked and they all say no. I called everyone I could think of, Chief Officer.” The man sounded close to tears. “No one's seen her.”

* * *

“
Dimitra!” Patronas screamed.

She was upstairs, hanging up her clothes. He could hear her humming one of the songs they'd danced to in Pyrgi. He stood watching her from the door of the bedroom. “Why didn't you tell me Marina Papoulis was here today?”

“
I don't know. It slipped my mind.” She resumed her singing, dancing around in her slip, happy from their evening out.

“
When was she here?”

“
After I got back from church, early afternoon.” Her eyes clouded, the joy slowly leaving her face. “It's not enough that she talks to you at the laiki; now she's got to come here in her car, looking for you.”

She padded down the stairs in her slippers and opened a cupboard in the kitchen. Pulling out a china dish, she set it down on the table. He recognized the pattern as Marina's. “Seems you were asking for
svingis
.” Dimitra spoke as if from far away.

“
What happened when she dropped them off?”

“
I told her I'd be sure you got them and thanked her in an appropriate manner.”

“
What else did she tell you?”

“
Something about the investigation. She had some papers for you. I told her to leave them here. But she said ‘no'; she needed to explain them to you.”

“
Where did you tell her I was?” he asked, his voice tight.

“
Profitis Ilias.” Unconcerned, she studied the donuts for a moment, then picked one up and began to eat it.

“
My God, Dimitra, what have you done?” They'd discussed it. She had to have known how dangerous it was.

She turned and looked at him, a little defiant. “I told her you were up at Profitis Ilias. Just like I said.” Her face was greasy and she had a ring of sugar around her mouth.

“
You bitch!” He knocked the donut out of her hand. “You saw your chance and you took it.”

She made a move toward him, but he pushed her back. “Get away!” he yelled. “You stay away from me!”

He thought about what she'd done as he ran to his car. In the past, Dimitra's meanness had been small-minded, directed largely at those who were defenseless, people no one on Chios would defend … an unwed mother, someone's homosexual son. It was well-hidden. Like the tentacles of a sea anemone, it only appeared occasionally, uncoiling and stinging the unwary victim, poisoning them with invective, a stream of malicious and hurtful words. She'd moved beyond that now. This time it wasn't tentacles she'd displayed. It was claws.

He who lives on hope, dies of hunger.

—
Greek proverb

W
hile Giorgos Tembelos and the others searched the area around Marina Papoulis' house, Patronas raced to Profitis Ilias. She'd be all right. She'd have seen the barricade and turned back. She'd probably had car trouble. Yes, that was why she hadn't made it home. Swerving in and out of traffic, he drove like the car was on fire, passing on the right side, honking continually.

It was nearly five a.m. when he turned onto the dirt road that traversed the Korres' farm. Instead of driving in the direction of the monastery as he usually did, he drove toward the house. “Open up, Spiros,” he yelled, banging on the door with his fist.

Korres took a long time answering. “What is it?” he asked, fastening up his pants. His eyes were red and he smelled of beer.

“
Marina Papoulis has disappeared. Have you seen her?”

“
No, but we were in church all morning and then we went on to Pyrgi.” He rubbed his face with his hand, trying to wake up. “I'll saddle a horse for you. If she's not in the monastery, you'll need to search the hills.” He walked to the barn, hurriedly brought out a horse, a bay, and helped him into the saddle. “Give her a kick. It'll be quicker than walking.”

In the distance, Patronas could see Marina's car parked in the lot next to the police cruiser. “Marina!” he yelled. “Marina!”

There was no answer.

He urged the horse forward as fast as he dared. There was no moon, and it was hard to find his way in the darkness. He and the bay were both old and he didn't want to cause injury to either of them. His mount seemed to sense his panic and trotted up the hill at a fast pace, stumbling once or twice on the stones, snorting like a race horse. The gravel kept shifting and he clutched the saddle to keep from falling.

Both entrances to the monastery were locked. “Marina!”

He got down from his horse and searched the area around the citadel, then remounted and rode out to the dig site. The ground was rocky and the horse shied away from the trenches. He waved his flashlight around the site, but saw nothing. A part of the tent was flapping in the wind, the white canvas ghostlike in the darkness.

“
Marina!”

Turning his horse around, he was about to head back to the monastery when he heard the plaintive cry of a goat in the distance. Other goats soon joined the chorus, their bleating unusually high-pitched and frantic, as if they sensed a predator.

Patronas galloped to the lean-to where the goats were housed and shone the flashlight into the corral. The goats backed away from the light, stepping on one another in their effort to get away, clearly fearful. He didn't know what to make of it. Animals acted like that around butcher shops. He'd seen them, heard their awful clamor. But here? It didn't make sense.

“
Easy now. I won't hurt you.”

His horse began to shy away, too, breathing heavily and showing the whites of her eyes, her flanks drenched in sweat. Suddenly she reared up and charged away, bucking Patronas off. He got to his feet and grabbed his flashlight, holding it in front of him as he walked back toward the corral, fearful of being caught unawares in the dark. He, too, was beginning to sense a predator.

“
Marina!” He didn't know how long he stood there, slashing the air with his light. He played it back and forth on the flat table of rock at the rear wall of the corral. There'd been no rain, yet the ground appeared to be wet. Patronas bent down and ran his fingers through the shallow puddle. Even in the darkness, he could tell it was blood. “Mother of God,” he whispered.

Splotches of blood darkened the entire side of the rock. It looked like something had been dragged through the dirt there, slaughtered. Patronas closed his eyes for a moment. He found Marina's purse close by. It was open, looked as if someone had pawed through it. A pair of goats eyed him for a moment then galloped away to join their fellows spread out in the distance, their bells tinkling faintly as they moved. A few of the goats remained in the lean-to, watching him steadily with their leaden eyes.

Patronas climbed up on top of the ledge and waved the lantern back and forth. “Marina,” he called faintly. A round piece of metal caught the light. It was about the size of a manhole cover and looked to have been pried loose from the dirt. Beneath it was a hole. The ground was disturbed all around it, torn up and covered with blood. There was no way to tell who'd been there or how he'd come, if it were one man alone or an army. Patronas kicked the metal plate to one side and let himself down into the hole. Crude steps led deep into the earth. There was blood on the first few, and caking the sides of the passageway, Marina's dress, or what was left of it, a ragged patch of pink on the pavement.