'Well, we have a little problem, my friend.' Tassos was using the sort of voice cops use when they're about to drop a bomb on a buddy. 'The bones are too young.'
'Are too what?' Andreas sounded truly puzzled.
'Young. New, not old, not ancient. Recent, recent, recent.' Tassos seemed to be forcing himself back to cop- banter — a defense mechanism employed against the horrors of their job. Andreas let him go on.
'The bones don't belong in that crypt. Most of them were well over a hundred years old, some a little younger. Then we have the five-, ten-, and fifteen-year-old ones.'
'The what?' Andreas' pulse was racing.
Tassos' voice was deadly serious. 'I am afraid we have more than a ritual killing on our hands.'
Andreas held his breath.
'The only information we have as yet on the three sets of bones is that they are skeletal remains approximately five years apart.' Andreas could hear him drawing a breath. 'And they most likely are all of young women… tall young women.'
Andreas felt his throat closing. This was unheard-of. Greece had never had one of these before. Ever. 'A serial killer,' Andreas heard himself say, stunned.
'You and I must meet. Do you have time if I come over around four?'
Andreas thought it strange how someone as senior on the force as Tassos had put the question. He took it as a nervous courtesy intended to make things not seem as real and urgent as they were — as knights might have spoken to compose themselves before charging blindly into dark caves after monsters.
Andreas nervously tried to lighten the mood. 'I'll try to squeeze you in between my motorbike-accident review and meeting with the hotel association's president over weekend parking restrictions.'
Tassos chuckled. 'Thanks. I know how busy you are.' Then he added, 'Welcome to Mykonos — isn't that what you said when we met? And I bet you thought it would be boring.'
Andreas grinned. 'Yeah, right.' He paused and refocused. 'Any luck with an ID on the dead woman yet?'
'We should have something by the time I see you. We think she's Dutch. A girl matching her description hasn't been heard from in weeks. Her father got Interpol involved, and we should have a positive ID by the end of the day. Her parents thought she was somewhere in the Mediterranean, possibly Greece, but no one knew just where.'
'If you give me her name, I'll get someone started on trying to find a connection here.'
'Sure, let me get it for you.'
Andreas' head was spinning as he waited for Tassos to find the name. A serial killer in Greece — on Mykonos! The island and its reputation for tolerating all sorts of sinful behavior will be damned by the Greek Church and vilified in the Greek press as spawning this horror and shaming all of Greece before the world. Shame was the appropriate word, too, for now it was a world news headline story: SERIAL KILLER SECRETLY HAUNTS MYKONOS FOR DECADES. From fame to infamy in an instant. The hunt, the capture, the trial would be consumed by a crazed, feeding-frenzy media led by the European Union and Americans — which sent Greece its most sought-after tourists. And if the killer was never found…
'Here it is. Helen Vandrew. See you at four.'
4
Catia had not expected to hear back from Demetra so quickly. She'd just hung up with her husband — and alarmed him to no end — when Demetra called.
'Mother told me you're worried about Annika. Don't be. I spoke to her a few days ago. She's fine.' Demetra sounded her typical, bubbly self.
Catia's heart felt lighter — but not completely relieved.
'Where is she?'
'Patmos.'
Patmos was a beautiful, eastern-Aegean Greek island very near Turkey, reachable only by boat. It was a well-kept secret among the world's elite seeking seclusion and quiet, but not one Catia would have thought suited her daughter's mood after a breakup. Annika liked distractions when she was upset: parties, athletics — anything to keep her mind off what was bothering her. Patmos was not that sort of place. On its hillsides, Saint John wrote the apocalyptic Book of Revelation, and the island remained dominated by the church in more ways than just the massive mountaintop monastery named in his honor. 'Why Patmos?'
'She said she'd never been there and wanted to go.'
'Do you have a telephone number for her?'
Pause. 'No. She called me.'
Catia sensed a conspiratorial silence among cousins. Annika probably told Demetra not to give her mother the number. Catia thought of pushing the issue but decided not to. As long as Demetra and Annika were in touch, things were fine for now.
'Please, ask her to call me the next time you speak to her.'
'Sure. I'll be seeing her the day after tomorrow.'
Catia was relieved at hearing that but also surprised. 'You're going to Patmos?'
'Oh, no, too boring,' she giggled.
'Where are you meeting her?'
'Mykonos. I think she gets there tonight.' Annika thought she'd never get over catching Peter in full thrust with that Bulgarian tramp — the one he'd dismissed as being as base and uninteresting as her bought-and-paid-for tits when she dropped her entire string-bikini-clad package next to them poolside their first day in Sicily.
She'd also never forget that bastard's words the next morning: 'I'm not feeling very well, but don't worry about me, honey. Please, go out and see Siracusa. Call me when you're ready for lunch, and if I'm feeling better, I'll meet you.' A very unladylike urge to inflict severe bodily harm raged through Annika each time she thought of the moment she swung Audrey Hepburn-like into their hotel room loaded down with food and wine for a surprise, romantic lunch together in Peter's sick bed.
She felt it all: betrayed, rejected, used, and victimized. Worse still, she felt somehow it was all her fault, that she must be a real loser as a woman if the man she thought her soulmate could so easily lie to her just 'to fuck a tramp.' She unconsciously said the last words aloud and quickly looked around to see if anyone had heard. She'd spoken in Dutch — perhaps that's why no one seemed to notice. Or maybe she didn't speak loud enough to be heard above the hum of the ferry's engines. She looked out toward the horizon from her seat in the protected, glassed-in section of the foredeck. They should be in Mykonos around midnight. She'd try to catch a little sleep. That might help her forget, or at least temporarily rid her thoughts of him.
She'd been trying to forget for weeks. First she tried a long ferry ride from Bari to Patras staring into the sea. That didn't work. Then a long bus ride to Athens across Greece's Peloponnese staring out at the countryside. That didn't work either. In Athens she'd hoped to surprise her cousin Demetra. They always made each other feel better. But Demetra wasn't there, and though they talked by phone, it wasn't the same thing.
Annika was too embarrassed to call her parents, and her mother would know instantly from her voice how utterly devastated she was. They would insist she come home immediately. She needed to get over this first — this bastard Peter. She went to Patmos thinking perhaps a spiritual place might help. It didn't. Then she called Demetra and they agreed what she needed was something quite different from spiritual comfort — and Mykonos was the perfect place to find it. Tassos was surprisingly prompt for a Greek. Only fifteen minutes late. He seemed agitated, preoccupied. Andreas led him upstairs to his second-floor office. It was bright and sunny and faced away from the road, but the view was not as great as the weather. It overlooked the backyards of Mykonos' working class — the people who never could afford to vacation here. Rusted skeletons of cars and trucks once kept for parts sat ignored in the midst of scratched-out gardens and scraggly goats. Stray cats ranged everywhere.
His office — like the rest of the place — was furnished with things from the old station. Tassos sat in a beat- up, brown leather armchair in the corner — the two of them fit together like old friends. Andreas sat behind his desk slowly swiveling his chair from side to side. It was only the two of them, but each seemed to be waiting for the other to speak.
