The Devil Takes Half (30 page)

Patronas flipped through his notebook. “But you said when last we spoke, and I quote, ‘Someone should go through the dig site. That bull you showed me, the one that was mixed in with the shards, it might well be the only one in existence. Perhaps if we resumed the excavation, we could find more.' You weren't done then.”

“
I just wanted to keep Devon McLean away from the site. That's another thing archeologists are, Chief Officer. They're thieves, poachers. In addition to stealing from the dead, they steal from each other.”

“
Well, if you still want to take a look at the shards, you can. I'm moving the investigation out of Profitis Ilias. I've already notified the Archeology Department of the University of Athens. I plan to turn the site over to them on Monday.”

They talked for a few more minutes, Patronas switching back and forth between Greek and English. Listening to his answers, the chief officer was sure Alcott could never have mounted a criminal conspiracy in Greece. His grasp of the language was too poor. One mistake after another. He confused the Greek word for Englishman,
agglos
, with the one for angels,
aggelos
, and called a colleague a
kathiki
, shit pot, instead of
kathighiti
, professor. Patronas switched back to English. “I've also decided to release you and Devon McLean. As of today, you are free to go.”

“
So I'm no longer a suspect,” Alcott said. “I guess that's something. However, if it's all the same to you, I would like to stay and see this through.”

“
Will you please inform Devon McLean that he may reclaim his passport today? I neglected to tell him when I saw him earlier in the day.”

“
Sure, I'll tell him.”

* * *

Petros' grandmother was outside, working in the garden on the side of her house in Castro. On her hands and knees, she was digging up greens with a small spade. She got up when she saw him, dropping a handful of
horta
, wild dandelion greens, in a plastic bag, and wiped her hands on her skirt. “Not much good now.” She waved at the patchy soil with her spade. “Too dry.” She was dressed all in black, her apron and stockings smeared with dirt. Out in the open away from her house, she seemed diminished, more vulnerable.

Patronas nodded. “Only tomatoes thrive in August.”

“
Come, I've got some in the back. I'll give them to you.” Stooped and arthritic, she walked slowly around the house. Her garden was small but well–kept, with even rows of vegetables interspersed with marigolds and sunflowers. The majority of space was given over to tomatoes, neatly tied to long, slender pieces of graying wood. She had chickens in a wire enclosure behind the garden and a wooden cage filled with rabbits. Everything was tidy, but worn; the garden hose had been taped up, the chicken wire patched in places. She emptied the
horta
out onto the ground and began to fill the plastic bag with tomatoes. Something was wrong with her hands, the knuckles of her fingers swollen and twisted.
Arthritis,
Patronas thought with pity.

“
Have you found out who killed him?” she asked.

“
Not yet, Kyria Athanassiou. But we're making progress. We're moving out of Profitis Ilias and down into Chora, where we'll continue the investigation.” He looked toward the house. “Is your daughter here?”

She raised her head and studied him, her eyes narrow against the sun. “What do you want with her?”

“
I think I know why your grandson was killed.”

She began to cry silently, tears running down her wrinkled face. “Tell
me
why,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her gnarled hand. “She doesn't care. He was nothing to her. Tell
me
why my
engonaki
,
my little grandson, was killed.”

“
I have no proof, but I think your grandson found a Minoan settlement near where he and Eleni Argentis had been digging.”

Hearing their voices, her daughter, Voula, came out of the house. She was dressed in white capris and a black top that hugged her breasts. The cork heels on her sandals were so high she tottered like a geisha. Her make-up, too, was geisha-like, the pale foundation clearly painted on, her red lipstick too dark for the hour of the day.

“
What's going on?” she asked.

“
He came about Petros,” the old woman said. “He knows why they killed him.”

The daughter touched Patronas' arm. “Why?”

“
He found a Minoan city.”

Her eyes widened. “Manos,” she called. “Manos, you'd better get out here.”

Her boyfriend appeared a moment later. He was dressed as before, in a loose cotton shirt, khaki shorts and plastic flip-flops. “Chief Officer,” he said in the same lazy manner. “I don't know … these women. Treating a guest this way. May I offer you a seat? Something to drink? A beer? Ouzo perhaps?”

“
No, nothing.”

“
Yiayia, go get us something.”

Wiping her eyes, the grandmother dutifully went back into the house, leaving the door open, and the chief officer could hear her putting together food and drinks in the kitchen. He wondered what the man's hold on her was. What was that in her black eyes? Fear? Hate? Or was she simply the relic of another time, one of those women raised to do a man's bidding, taught since birth to serve? They didn't bind women's feet in the old days, but they might as well have. Or was her servitude something more?

Studying Voula and her lover in turn, he recounted the discovery of the settlement up at the monastery and his decision to turn it all over to the university in five days time. Like the archeologists, they'd keep quiet about it. They'd be banking on getting a piece of whatever there was, and they wouldn't want to share. “The university people are better equipped to sort it out than we are,” he said. “They'll post guards at the entrances and go through it slowly. We don't have the manpower to protect and evaluate it properly.”

Manos and Voula exchanged glances. “Does the government pay for a discovery like that?” the man asked. “Was there any reward Petros could claim?”

“
No. The law is very clear. All archeological finds belong to Greece and to Greece alone, not to the individual whose land they are found on, nor to the individual who finds them. Everything must be turned over to the government immediately. It's to prevent smuggling.”

The man's interest seemed to flag. “Okay, then,” he said. “No money.” He leaned against the back of the house and lit a cigarette.

Patronas pulled out the brooch and handed it to Voula. “This yours?” he asked.

She took it, looked at it for a moment and returned it to him. “No.”

“
Are you sure?”

Something passed between her and her boyfriend. “It isn't mine,” she said, not meeting his eyes.

Patronas put the brooch back in his pocket. “We are pretty sure someone was moving the artifacts out of the site and selling them. Whether they were working with Eleni and Petros, we don't know. But we are pretty sure whoever was doing the smuggling was the same person who killed them.”

The old woman came out with a tray and set it on the table. She handed each of them a china plate with a spoon sweet on it, a tiny nectarine in syrup. Then she stood there as if bewildered, as if she didn't know where to go or what to do. Patronas could hear her chanting the name of her grandson over and over like someone reciting the rosary.

The daughter finally put her arm around her mother and took her back inside the house. Manos Kleftis ate his sweet, drank his water and wiped his mouth. When he was finished, he picked up the plastic bag the old woman had dropped on the ground and handed it to Patronas.

“
Enjoy your tomatoes, Inspector,” he said.

Where you hear of many cherries, bring a small basket.

—
Greek proverb

P
atronas lifted the brass doorknocker and let it fall. Ironically, it was shaped like a hand.

In spite of what Alcott had said, he doubted anyone would kill three people to get his name in archeology journals. He still thought Titina Argentis was involved. It stood to reason: she'd argued repeatedly with the grandmother of Petros Athanassiou and expressed hostility toward her stepdaughter both times he'd interviewed her. She'd flown to Chios with McLean. Her son was weak. He'd do her bidding. Yes, it would work. He'd have to check on their finances when he got back to the office. They acted rich, but then so did a lot of people. Dimitra and her mother for instance, and look where that had gotten him.

He could see tables set out in the garden of the Campos estate and gaily colored Japanese lanterns strung up in the trees. Either Titina Argentis had entertained recently or she was planning to. Not exactly the behavior of a murderess, but then one never knew. He'd read about killers, Americans mostly, who attended the funerals of their victims, even going so far as to console their grieving widows and children. Human behavior was an uncharted wilderness as far as he was concerned. Perhaps Papa Michalis was right, and it was a woman. One shouldn't let sexual stereotyping cloud one's judgment. No, with respect to murderers, it was best to keep an open mind.

The same maid answered the door and ushered him into the house. The stepmother was on the second floor and slowly made her way down the stairs to meet him. Again, he was struck by her regal posture, her impeccable grooming.

“
Sorry to trouble you again. I was looking to speak with Antonis.”

“
Whatever for?”

“
It's about his sister.”

“
Stepsister.” She smiled to take the chill off the word. “He isn't here. I believe he's down at the harbor awaiting one of our freighters. He's signed a contract with a firm in China, and this will be the first of what we are assuming will be a steady flow of containers. He's hoping to dominate the traffic between Greece and China, to corner the Asian trade in this part of the Mediterranean.”

“
Profitable, I would imagine.” The chief officer offered her a cigarette, which she declined, and took one himself. “Oh, by the way, Eleni apparently found a Minoan site up at Profitis Ilias. My guess is it will turn out to rival Knossos and Troy one day. It was an entire city, virtually untouched, an unbelievable find. She'll go down in history as one of the great archeologists, like Harold Carter or Schliemann.”

“
Really? Do you think that was why she was killed?” From the level of interest in her voice, he might as well have been a garage mechanic talking about an oil change for the car.

“
Undoubtedly.” He told her, too, about leaving the dig site on Monday. “My investigation up there is over. I might as well let the archeologists get started on the place.” Like McLean, she wouldn't conspire with a local man or woman, and for the same reason. As Greeks said,
She's so high, she wears a toupee
. In other words, a snob.

She turned and walked down the long hallway into the study. “Have you discovered who killed her?” she called over her shoulder. Returning a moment later with an ashtray, she pointedly set it down on the table next to him.

“
Yes, we are closing in on our murderer.” He ignored the ashtray, letting the ash from his cigarette fall where it may. Hopefully it would set fire to the exquisite Persian rug underfoot and damage the parquet floor. He was sorry it was only a cigarette. He wished it was an acetylene torch.

“
Oh, by the way, is this yours?” He showed her the plastic envelope with the brooch.

She examined it carefully before returning it to him. “No.”

“
Could it have been Eleni's?”

“
I doubt it. She never wore costume jewelry.” A little sneer in the way she said ‘costume jewelry.' As if he should have known better, that only a fool would wear costume jewelry and he should not have troubled her with such an absurd inquiry.

She pushed the ashtray closer to him. “Antonis will be pleased to hear that. He's been most disturbed by this dreadful business.” Antonis, he noted, not her. “When do you think you will be making an arrest?”

“
Any day now. We are closing in on him.”

“
So Eleni has been vindicated,” she said thoughtfully. “All her theories, her thrashing around on that hill. It turns out she was right, after all.”

“
Indeed she was.”

“
Too bad she didn't live to enjoy it.” Was it his imagination or was there just a hint of malice in her words, a touch of a smile?

* * *

“
What's the state of Titina Argentis' fortune?” Patronas asked the accountant who handled her accounts.

The man smiled indulgently. “Fortune?”

“
That's right. How much money does she have?”

Getting up, the accountant made a show of closing the door to his office. He then spoke in a hushed voice about the need for privacy and confidentiality, about not betraying his client's trust. It was all bullshit and they both knew it. After five minutes and a few idle threats, Patronas got what he'd come for: Antonis and his mother were living far beyond their means, and they had, in spite of his—the accountant's—frequent warnings, been doing so for years. They had yet to pay off the contractors for the house and had grave difficulties meeting their payroll at the shipyard.