“Why did you take both of the bikes unless you knew the brothers wouldn’t be needing one to get out of ‘the middle of nowhere’?”
“The instructions were to take them both if we wanted to get paid.”
And remove evidence linking the victims to the house. “How did you get the rest of the money?”
“It was left in an envelope at the purser’s office on the boat. We just had to give him the name on the envelope.”
“What was the name?”
“Alexander Ypsilantis.”
Kouros didn’t have to ask who that was. “How did you get the upfront payment?”
“We didn’t. The other girls kept it. The deal was we got to keep the back end money.”
“Which brings up the obvious question, Maria. Why did the other girls decide to pass on the opportunity of making another two thousand euros each?”
“They had a better deal. Some Arabs were taking them on a Mediterranean cruise for a week, all expenses paid. Those guys pay really big.”
“When was that?”
“The day we left for Tinos.”
“Where are they now?”
“Don’t know, haven’t heard from them.”
“That just might make you the lucky one. All you got was arrested.”
Maria shrugged.
“Got a name on who hired your girlfriends for the Tinos job?”
She gestured no.
“Was it a male or a female?”
“No idea.”
“Did whoever hired them know you’d be going instead of them?”
“No, the girls told us the deal would be off if that got out.”
“Why?”
“The person who hired them did not want Greek girls involved.”
“Your friends weren’t Greek?”
She gestured no. “Ukrainian.”
“Names please.”
She gave them.
“Anything else?”
She swallowed hard. “Yes, you promised not to send me back upstairs.”
Kouros nodded. “A deal is a deal. I’ll get you transferred.”
Maria’s eyes welled up with tears. “Thank you.”
Chapter Nineteen
“I tell you, Chief, if she wasn’t telling the truth she deserves an Academy Award. I don’t think she had a clue about what was going on, or even who Ypsilantis was.”
“At least it explains why Greeks suddenly ended up in the middle of this mess. The hookers who took the Carausii brothers away from the Polish girls were supposed be metanastes,” said Andreas. “And it’s making Lila’s theory on Filiki Eteria look pretty good. Either that, or someone has a freaky, coincidental sense of humor.”
Alexander Ypsilantis was the leader of Filiki Eteria at the start of Greece’s War of Independence in 1821.
“It also means another dead end,” said Kouros.
“Maybe. But get over here on the next boat. I want you running down those taxi drivers. Maybe you’ll get lucky again.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“And tell Maggie to see what she can come up with on the two Ukrainian hookers who were supposed to be on Tinos instead of the Greeks. See you this afternoon. Bye.”
Andreas put his cell phone down on the table and picked up his coffee. “Did you hear?”
Tassos nodded. “I wouldn’t bet on finding those two Ukrainian girls before August 15th. If they’re still breathing its probably under a lot of different guys. You’d think they’d know better than to go off on a ship with strange johns. Foreign ones no less.”
They were sitting in a taverna at the foot of Megalochari Avenue, across from where pilgrims began their long crawl up the hill to the Church of Panagia Evangelistria.
“Any luck with your local cop buddies finding those two Polish women I spoke to in the metanastes bar?” said Andreas.
“No word yet. They know where the girls live, but if they’re not at home it’s anyone’s guess where they are. We might have to try catching up with them at the bar.”
Andreas pushed back from the table. “Let’s take a walk up the hill. Maybe we’ll find some inspiration there.”
“I haven’t spoken to Eleni about your card.”
“We can do it now,” said Andreas.
“I thought you might be thinking that.”
“Such a good detective. Let’s go.”
Megalochari Avenue was wide enough to accommodate two-way traffic, one line of parked cars, and a narrow lane partitioned off from the rest of the roadway by orange and white traffic cones for those choosing to crawl. Shops at the base of the hill sold whatever one might need for completing a pilgrimage; candles running from a few inches to several feet in length, metallic shapes called tama symbolizing the purpose of the pilgrimage, and everything else up to and including knee pads.
The thirty-five degree grade up the one-half mile hill was steep enough to have Tassos pausing at each of the half-dozen intersecting streets.
“Perhaps you’d like to crawl a bit?” said Andreas.
“You think that’s easier in this heat? It must be a hundred degrees. Look at those poor women. I don’t see a man out there trying it today. We’re all wimps when it comes to that sort of thing.”
“I see Maggie’s trained you well.”
“Just you wait, mister newlywed.”
Andreas’ phone rang. He looked at the number and answered. “You will live a thousand years. We were just talking about you.” He looked at Tassos. “It’s Maggie.” He held up the phone so Tassos could hear. “So, what do you have for us?”
“I assume you two were saying only extraordinarily nice things.”
“Of course.”
“Good, then I’ll tell you the truth. All we have on the Ukrainian women are arrest records for prostitution and shoplifting. No one has seen either of them in weeks.”
“That checks out with what the Greek hooker in Kordydallos told Yianni.”
“That’s all I have for now. Hardly feel as if I earned my pay today. Say hello to my love. Bye.”
Andreas put the phone back in his pocket. “She loves you.”
“Good, let’s get up to the church already. The sun is killing me.”
The upper part of the avenue was more park-like than the lower and ended at a broad flagstone plaza in front of the church. In a tree-shaded spot at the point where the carpeted lane ended, a massive bronze sculpture of a shrouded, faceless supplicant crawled life-like along a marble base toward the church, right arm outstretched ahead and reaching toward heaven.
Off to the right, another avenue emptied into the plaza from the harbor, and across from each avenue a set of steps led up through a low white-capped stonewall onto a terrace spanning the front of the church. The terrace
