'Are you okay?' Tassos asked.
'You remember the name of that Agatha Christie murder mystery about all those people on the train?'
'Yeah, I saw the movie, Murder on the Orient Express.'
Andreas caught himself nodding into the phone. 'That's it, the one with a dozen suspects, each one looking guiltier than the other.'
'Do you remember who did it?' Tassos asked.
Andreas laughed. 'Yeah, they all did — with only one body to work with and stuck on a train. Here we have eighteen, maybe more, and a whole island — more than enough for all our suspects to have killed at least one.'
'I really hope you're kidding,' Tassos said, his voice serious.
Andreas sighed. 'I'd like to think I am.' The whimsy of the moment was gone. 'I think I'll stop by to say hello to your friend Panos.'
'He's probably at his farm. It's out by the reservoir in Ano Mera.'
Andreas rubbed his eyes with the heel of his free hand. 'Time to get back to work.' He was about to hang up but didn't. He knew Tassos hadn't either. There was something else he had to say, something he'd been meaning to say. 'I don't know where all this is headed, but I want you to know I'm praying for something.'
Tassos spoke softly. 'What's that?'
'That nothing bad happens to some other poor girl because of what we're doing.' There was a long pause.
'Amen.' Tassos hung up. Demetra looked forward to seeing her cousin. It was a terrific day, bright, sunny and not too hot. She had a surprise for Annika; she was moving her to a different hotel. The parents of one of her friends owned a new five-star hotel on a beach made famous for unexpected, transforming romance in the movie Shirley Valentine — just the sort of atmosphere her cousin could use.
Demetra took a taxi from the airport to Annika's hotel. She told the driver to wait while she ran in to speak to her cousin. He grumbled, but after a 'Greek-to-Greek' conversation — at all appropriate decibel levels — agreed to wait 'a few minutes.' Demetra had tried unsuccessfully for more than a day to reach Annika after getting her message that she was staying at the Hotel Adlantis, but none of Demetra's phone calls to the hotel had been returned. That wasn't like her cousin. She assumed Annika hadn't received her messages.
As she got out of the taxi she noticed a police car parked by the entrance. A young policeman was leaning against the hood, smoking and smiling at her. She smiled back. He was cute. Once inside she heard shouting. It was a man's voice yelling about 'police,' 'lousy cousin,' and 'useless mayor.' When she reached the counter, she saw that it was a gray-haired man screaming into a cell phone. She stood looking at her watch and the taxi outside while the man behind the counter seemed oblivious to her presence. After a minute she said in Greek, 'Excuse me.' He waved her off.
Wrong move. 'Excuse me.'
No answer.
'Excuse me,' she said a little louder now.
Still no response, but an angry look.
'Excuse me.' Demetra banged on the bell on the counter.
The man swore at her in Greek.
She swore back and banged louder on the bell, yelling 'EXCUSE ME EXCUSE ME EXCUSE ME.'
Finally, the man put the phone against his side and cursed at her for two or three seconds. 'What do you want?'
She smiled. 'I am looking for my cousin, Annika Vanden Haag.'
'She's not here,' he said, and he put the phone back to his ear.
'Where is she?'
He looked at her with hate in his eyes. 'I don't keep track of my guests. Now leave before I get really angry.' He went back to his conversation.
She screamed, 'HELP! POLICE! HELP! POLICE!'
The man's face turned white. He dropped the phone and told her to shut up.
She smiled. 'Now, where's my cousin?'
He swore a few words at her but answered, 'I don't know. She hasn't been in her room since yesterday morning and she was going to leave today. She probably moved somewhere else.'
'Did she take her things with her?'
'How should I know?'
Demetra smiled, turned toward the front door, and waved at the policeman who looked as if he'd heard someone calling for him. He waved back. She turned back to the gray-haired man. She thought he'd be seething. Instead he looked scared to death.
'Her things are still here. It happens all the time. A girl meets a boy and leaves her things. All the time.'
Demetra was getting nervous. 'I want to see her room.'
'I can't allow it,' he said, seeming almost to tremble.
She just stared at him. He came from behind the desk and led her down the stairs. She'd forgotten all about the taxi driver.
The room looked as if Annika had left in a hurry, but with clothes and toiletries there — as if she'd intended to return. Demetra left the room and headed upstairs toward the taxi. She thought of saying something to the policeman, but what was there to say? She'd call Annika's mother as soon as she reached her hotel and let her decide what to do.
The only thing she knew for sure was that something was very wrong. Catia's relief at Demetra's voice was very short-lived. She expected Demetra to tell her that she was with Annika or at least had spoken to her. Instead, Catia heard panic. 'I don't know where she is, Auntie, I don't know.'
All her life Demetra was the tough-mouthed little kid who tended to lose it a bit under pressure, just the opposite of Annika. Out of habit, Catia spent most of their conversation calming her niece and ignoring her own anxiety. That changed as soon as they hung up and Catia called her brother, Demetra's father — the deputy minister. He tried treating his younger sister as she'd just treated his daughter, but Catia would have none of it.
'Don't patronize me, Spiros, I'm not Demetra,' Catia said, her voice steely.
He sounded slightly annoyed. 'I understand you're worried about Annika being out all night, but let's be realistic, she just broke up with her boyfriend, she's on Mykonos, and… uh-'
Catia cut him off. 'This is not about that. I know something's wrong. I sense evil.' With those words she let her brother know further argument was useless because, among Greeks, a mother's sense of evil lurking about her child was taken very seriously.
He sighed. 'Okay, what do you want from me?'
It wasn't exactly the marines she asked for, just a call from the person in charge of all police in Greece to the chief of police in Mykonos to find her daughter ASAP.
Another sigh. 'Okay, little sister, I'll call as soon as we hang up.'
Catia thanked him, sent him kisses, and hung up feeling much better. She was certain her brother would find Annika. After all, wasn't that what police did all the time?
12
Panos' farm lay at the base of one of the barren, brown-gray hills north of Ano Mera along the west side of the well-worn dirt road to Fokos Beach. Between his farm and the sea were a mile-long rainwater reservoir, a daytime beach taverna, scraggly brush, wandering goats, and not much else. The last time Andreas was out this way a bit of the island's Eastertime cast of green — peppered with bright floral dots of red and yellow — still covered the hills, but that short-lived color was gone by now.
Dust from the road caught up to Andreas' car as he slowed to make an awkward, almost U-turn over a mattress-sized concrete slab. It bridged a dry creek bed separating the road from a rocky, rutted path running up to
