The Devil Takes Half (36 page)

He sat down on one of her mother's overstuffed chairs. “What happened, Dimitra?” he asked in a neutral tone. “Why'd you unplug the refrigerator?” He didn't really want to know. What he wanted was breakfast. But it was a way of showing interest without conceding anything.

Noting the slight souring of his wife's expression, Patronas realized this had been the wrong thing to say. He should have greeted her first and asked after her health and the health of her mother. But he was hungry. He couldn't help himself. Although he fought against it, his voice took on a plaintive note.

“
All the food's gone. You threw away all the food.”

She smoothed down her skirt with her hand. “I didn't know when you'd be coming home and I didn't want it to spoil.”

“
What do you mean ‘you didn't want it to spoil'? That's why people have refrigerators, Dimitra, to keep the food cold so it won't spoil.” Even to himself, he sounded a little possessed, like a mad dog. A mad dog without a bone.

When she sat up a little straighter, he realized that this, too, had been a blunder. This was not just about food. Her trip to her mother's had been a protest, a complaint against him. Not a serious one. She'd never divorce him. In Chios, to be divorced would be to make oneself into a pariah, a woman others would shun, who would be the subject of talk, and Dimitra would never bring this upon herself. Complaining was allowed and complain she did.

“
You haven't been home for more than two nights since July,” she said. “I never know where you are or what you're doing. I call the station. They don't know. I call your cellphone, you don't answer.”

He interrupted her. “I caught the killer. It was so dark I couldn't see and he came at me with a knife, tore me up pretty bad.” He waited for his wife to chastise him, to comment on his bandaged head, to say he should have been more careful. His wife said nothing.

“
It was Manos Kleftis, the boyfriend of the Petros Athanassiou's mother. He's the one who killed them.” He stopped then, choking as he remembered what McLean had said about Marina's death and the rape and torture which had preceded it.

His wife opened her purse, handed him a tissue and watched coldly while he dabbed his eyes. “It's never going to end, is it, Yiannis?” she said. “This thing with Marina. It isn't enough you spend our entire married life hungering after her. Even dead she's got to ruin things for us.”

“
What are you talking about?”

“
You think I don't see? You're crying, Yiannis. We haven't seen each other for weeks. You nearly get yourself killed and there you sit, crying over
her,
your precious Marina, your lost love.” She got up and came over to where he was sitting, leaned down. “The sad thing is you thought I didn't know,” she hissed. “I knew long before your mother said anything. I could hear it in your voice every time you said her name, ‘Marina.' ” She deepened her voice, imitating him, “ ‘Marina.' You should have heard yourself.”

Not today,
Patronas said to himself.
Oh, please, Dimitra, not today.

“
I kept silent all these years, hoping you'd change. I thought if I tried a little harder, you'd get over it, maybe even come to appreciate me. But you didn't, did you? Not for a minute. I even talked to my mother about it. She said all men are alike. ‘
Andres einai.
' They're men. They can't help themselves. They take and take and take. ‘That is the nature of men,' she said. I could live with that, with all that taking. But not this, not you living with me and loving her.”

How like Dimitra,
Patronas thought,
to think the best defense for sending Marina to her death was a good offense. To go on the attack.

“
Shut up,” he said.

She began to cry then, her big hound dog eyes full of accusation and hurt.

“
Do you know after Marina died, you called her name in your sleep?” she wailed. “Night after night you called her name. Tell me, Yiannis, if I die, will you call my name? Cry ‘Dimitra' even once?”

“
Marina's dead. In no small part because of you. Leave her out of this.”

“
This isn't about her, Yiannis. It's about us.”

“
Shut up, Dimitra. I swear if you don't stop right now, you'll regret it for the rest of your life.”

“
I spent the last twenty years of my life with a man who doesn't love me, who never loved me. What is there left to regret?”

Patronas had thought a long time about why Dimitra had done what she'd done. Being a wife was all she'd ever been, all she'd ever wanted to be. His relationship with Marina, no matter how innocent, had threatened this. It had violated Dimitra's most cherished belief about herself—that she was a respectable woman leading a respectable life. He knew she didn't love him. Marriage, it wasn't about love for Dimitra. Having a husband was like having a big car or Rolex watch, a way of showing off, of saying, ‘Look at me. Look what I have.' And he had been what Dimitra had, God help him. Like food and water, a necessity. No cat is complete without its mouse.

She was like Medea, who'd burned her rival alive in a poisoned wedding dress and slaughtered her own children. More passive maybe, but the instinct was the same.

“
What was it, Dimitra? Was it seeing her there on your doorstep with her daughter? Is that why you did it?”

“
You think I sent her there because she had children and I didn't?” She turned and looked at him. “Good God, Yiannis. It's a wonder they don't fire you.”

“
Why then?”

“
I wasn't thinking. I told you that.”

“
Dimitra, you've never done anything in your life without calculating the exact advantage or disadvantage to you. You wanted her gone. Maybe not dead, but out of your life, our lives. Isn't that true?”

“
Don't give yourself credit, Yiannis,” she said. “I would never hurt her or anyone else for you, to preserve what little we have.”

What happened to me has never been written.

—
Greek proverb

P
atronas drove back to his house and let himself in. He'd ended up shouting, “You bitch! You evil bitch! You want to kill me, too!” until Dimitra's mother had come in and asked him to leave, saying the windows were open and the neighbors would hear. He'd shouted at her too and backed his Citroen over her lilacs before he left.
Ah, sto diablo
.
Why did his wife have to start in on him today? Why couldn't she have waited? He'd picked up a tray of tyropitas and three bottles of beer on his way home—Becks, a brand Dimitra never bought because it was too expensive.

He carried the tyropitas and beer upstairs and set them out on the bed. Fluffing up the pillows, he propped himself up and began to eat. He didn't bother taking his shoes off. No one to nag him now. No one to fuss about the mess he was making. Somehow this didn't make him as happy as he'd imagined it would over the years. With Dimitra gone, the house seemed too empty. Perhaps he should get a dog.

He didn't remember falling asleep. The last beer had tipped over before he finished it and he could smell it on the mattress and feel the wetness under him. The phone was ringing and he fumbled for the receiver, thinking it was probably Dimitra, that she'd repented. He'd be magnanimous when he took her back. Forgiving. He wouldn't mention this little episode.

“
Chief Officer?” Papa Michalis' voice was tentative. “I heard you made an arrest.”

“
Yes, we did. Manos Kleftis and Devon McLean are both in custody. I'm going to talk to Kleftis later. Confront him with what McLean said and see how it goes.”

Feeling sorry for himself, he then launched into what had transpired in the cave, how he'd been injured and come home like a knight errant from the crusades only to find his kitchen bereft of food and his wife gone. He tried to keep the hurt out of his voice as he described the scene at his mother-in-law's, the cavalier way his wife had dismissed his suffering, his need for food and water.

Papa Michalis offered no criticism. His job as a priest was to support the sacrament of marriage, not subvert it, but Patronas could tell from the old man's silence that he thought Dimitra had a point: Patronas had behaved badly with respect to Marina Papoulis. He was a
barka vouligameni
, a shipwreck of a husband, a pig.

Dimitra had been visiting the Papoulis family since the murder, the priest reported, bringing meals and helping out around the house. “She took Margarita shopping and bought her a new book bag for school and winter coats for the boys.”

Patronas dusted the filo and bits of feta off the bed. He didn't want hear about Dimitra. “How are they doing, the children?”

“
Not good.” In dolorous tones, Papa Michalis described how the Papoulis children were struggling to deal with the horror of their mother's death. “I need to find another place to stay,” he told him. “I'm in the way here. I'm too much of a stranger for them to be able to say what they need to say in front of me, to cry when they need to cry.”

“
What are you going to do?”

“
I don't know. Maybe go to Psarra.”

Who knew? Maybe it did all come down to kindness. “I have a better idea, Father. Why don't you come and live with me? I don't foresee my wife returning home in the near future, and there's plenty of room for us even if she does. We can restock the refrigerator and hire a woman to cook for us. You can have the bedroom on the first floor. It's plenty big and it will be easier for you than going upstairs with your crutches.”

The priest would be better than a dog. Even with crutches, he could get himself to the bathroom. He wouldn't need to be walked.

One shouldn't celebrate the beginning until the end.

—
Greek proverb

A
photographer from the local newspaper was at the police station waiting to take Patronas' picture, and the dispatcher informed him there'd been a request from a television station in Athens for a live interview.

Evangelos Demos reported that both prisoners had spent the night quietly in their respective cells. “Well done, Chief Officer,” he said. “I just finished transcribing the tape of your interview with McLean, and it was masterful.”

Patronas spent the rest of the day fielding calls and finishing up the paperwork on the case. He toyed around with the idea of confronting Kleftis, but thought it best to let him stew. Perhaps, if he got bored enough, his mind would start to play tricks on him, his moribund conscience to stir. Tomorrow would be soon enough. His staff had taken to calling him Columbo. Truth be told, he felt like him.

Ach, TV. It's turning us all into Americans.
Patronas remembered how he'd struck a pose with the photographer, striving to look like an American detective, one of the tough guys in raincoats who bit off their words.
To hell with that.
He rummaged around in his desk, looking for something to eat. He was Greek, a Greek detective, seeking to solve life's mysteries, to tame the demons that plague men's souls. He found a package of soda crackers and opened it. Chewing thoughtfully, he wondered whether someone like Kleftis even had a soul. He'd have to ask Papa Michalis. If he did, it was a feeble thing, Kleftis' soul. A dried out husk, papery, like the discarded skin of a snake.

Before he left, he assigned two men to watch over Kleftis at the station. “Do not let him out of here under any circumstances. If there's a fire, save the devil the trouble and let him burn.”

Kleftis was dozing peacefully on the bottom bunk. “You may think you're the
diabolou kaltsa
, the devil's socks,” Patronas muttered, watching him through the bars, “but I've got you, you son of a bitch.” He banged on the metal until Kleftis woke up. Only the innocent were permitted to sleep like that. Not murderers. Never murderers.

* * *

Papa Michalis was waiting for Patronas in front of the Papoulis' house. It was early evening and the air was fragrant with the smell of
vuxtaloulouda
, a flower that bloomed only at night. Patronas breathed deeply, savoring the smell. A dog was barking somewhere and the street lights had come on. There was no sign of Margarita or her brothers.

Patronas stowed Papa Michalis' things in the back of his Citroen, then helped him in and shut the door. He was surprised at how little the priest had: a worn leather satchel full of clothes, an icon of Aghios Markella—the patron saint of Chios—and two robes, neatly ironed and draped one on top of the other on a hanger.

“
Where's the rest of your stuff?”

“
In my profession, one is supposed to travel light,” said Papa Michalis primly. “The instructions are very clear: ‘Lay not up treasures upon earth. Lay up treasures in heaven.' After a period of self-doubt and reflection, I decided that passage referred not just to gold and silver, but to reclining chairs and television sets, so I donated mine to the hospital in Chora. They'll be moving them out any day now.”

He moved his crutches to the side to give himself more room. “I spoke to His Eminence and he was not pleased when I told him I would be taking up residency in your house. He wanted me to go to the place the Church runs for elderly and infirm monks. I declined, of course. Who wants to live with a bunch of pious, incontinent old men in downtown Athens?”