button to roll down the window.
Andreas knew of him. He came from a very old Mykonian family, had once been mayor and now was the most successful contractor on the island. He'd grown very rich on the island's building boom and was said to believe his statue should be erected in the town square next to — and a bit larger than — Mykonos' legendary heroine of Greece's 1821 struggle for independence, Manto Mavroyenous.
'Andreas Kaldis, chief of police.'
No answer.
Andreas wanted to drag him out of the car and bang his head on the hood. 'Mr Pappas, I presume.'
Slowly the man turned his head to face Andreas. 'You are correct.'
Now Andreas would settle for just ripping off the guy's sunglasses. 'Would you mind telling me what you're doing here,' then choked out words he sensed he had to say: 'I mean no disrespect, but I can't help wondering why a man of your stature in the community is sitting in his vehicle at a murder site.'
The man paused. 'One of my men found the body and called his cousin — he works for me, too. His cousin called me, and I followed the police here.'
Andreas had guessed right: kissing ass would make this pompous bastard talk.
'Thank you very much. Can you tell me why your man was working here?'
'He was repairing fence walls around the church. A client of mine is planning to expand the church's facilities.'
In other words, someone was paying Pappas to use his influence to get around the building ban. With the right permits you were allowed 'slight' improvements to existing churches. This church probably would be expanded 'slightly' into a mega-villa dwarfing the original church. Pappas wasn't known for small-time jobs.
'May I ask you who owns the property?'
Again Pappas paused. 'He lives in America. His family's from Mykonos, but they moved to Athens generations ago. My client started coming here a couple of years ago. Before then, no one from his family had set foot on the property since the war.'
Andreas took that to mean World War II.
'He inherited the property surrounding the church. He wants to restore and renovate his family's ancestral church.'
Andreas assumed he was hearing the pitch in the application for a building permit. 'Thank you, Mr Pappas. May I have the name of your client?'
'I'll have to check with him.'
Andreas wanted to pull out Pappas' tongue, but instead, he held his own. 'Thank you. I would appreciate any help you can give me. By the way, I noticed someone must be taking care of the church. Do you know who that is?'
Pappas smiled. 'I know you're not from Mykonos. Otherwise you wouldn't be asking that question.'
Andreas thought maybe he could grab him by his tongue, wrap it around his sunglasses, and then beat him against the hood. He forced a laugh. 'You obviously have me at a disadvantage.'
Pappas gave a self-important wave of his finger at Andreas. 'Just remember who helped you, Chief.'
Andreas kept smiling.
'Some say today there are 2750 churches on Mykonos. The church says it's more like half that number. Fifty years ago we only had about as many churches as there are days in the year — 365.' Andreas smiled and nodded appreciatively at Pappas' concern that Andreas might not know the number of days in a year.
'With that many churches and so few priests, some churches in deserted places like this' — he waved — 'with no family members or neighbors to look after them, fell apart and mass was no longer said in them.'
Andreas kept smiling, wishing he'd get to the point, but the lecturer was not about to give up his stage.
'Then along came the savior of all neglected churches on our island. He makes repairs, cleans them, replaces candles and icons — if they've been stolen — and says mass. He says it's his mission to protect them. The mayor even gave him a plaque for his work. A little weird — maybe even crazy — but harmless.'
For Andreas, the word harmless hung in the air.
'Why do you say harmless?'
Pappas smiled again. 'You really don't know, do you?' He paused for obvious effect. 'He's a priest — not one of ours, Anglican I think — who's been coming here forever. He's from England and he lives over that hill.' He pointed up toward the church. 'In the only house on an out-ofthe-way beach. Says he likes the solitude — and that every morning he can watch the sunrise from his front door. If you ask me, I think he gets more of a kick out of watching the ancient Mykonos tradition of local boys screwing tourist girls on his beach at sunrise.' He laughed.
Andreas felt the need for a cigarette. A priest involved in a ritual murder — in a church. That's all he needed to make this the Greek TV media event of the year. He couldn't wait to pass the good news on to Tassos. It was late afternoon by the time the ambulance and the Syros contingent headed back to the port. Miraculously, no film crew showed up. It must have been a very busy news day somewhere — or one hell of a party — Andreas thought. Thank God for small blessings. Which got him thinking of the priest. He wondered if he should wait until forensic results were back before talking to him, but decided to try finding him for some light questioning. Just ask him what you'd expect to be asked if you've looked after a place where a dead body was found. He'd have other questions for him later. He was sure of that.
Andreas took one of the police cars and drove southwest along the narrow dirt road winding up onto the mountain with the radar station. Soccer-ball-sized rocks marked the edge of the road — and a straight plunge over the rocky, arid mountainside. Far down and off to the left he caught a glimpse of green and a small beach tucked alongside a crystal blue sea; that was where he wanted to be. He followed the road as it fell down along the mountain toward the sea. Just before winding back up again toward the radar station, a rutted dirt path dropped off to the left. That's where Pappas told him to turn.
It was scruffy and overgrown and looked barely passable except to motorcycles. Andreas bumped and battered his way down, all the while wondering if he'd have to make an embarrassing call for a tow truck to get out. Once at sea level the road smoothed out and he drove for another fifty yards alongside a phalanx of bottle-shaped, gray granite boulders carefully aligned at attention — to keep SUVs from driving onto the beach, he guessed. Someone very strong and determined had gone to a lot of trouble doing that.
Andreas parked at the end of the road and started walking toward the house on the far side of the beach. He remembered he hadn't told his office where he was going. He should have used the radio in the car. He tried his cell phone — no signal. Just his luck to be at one of the few places on the island still without service. He kept going. He walked along waves of light brown sand that seemed to rise and fall in pattern with the deeper brown, rocky ridgelines above the beach. The sand was of the pebbly sort, not the fine sugarlike stuff on the south-side beaches. The winds on this side blew away everything but the hardiest.
He noticed the beach was set so close to the eastern side of the mountain that it must be in shadows several hours before sunset. That must explain why this place was never popular with the late-rising Mykonos crowd.
He stopped about twenty feet from the front door of a traditional round-edged — but tiny — one story, box- shaped Mykonian house. There seemed to be no one around. Not a soul, unless a steady five-mile-per-hour northeast wind counted as a spirit. Suddenly, a man bolted around the far side of the house. He was completely covered in white and moving quickly toward Andreas with a rifle-shaped object in his hand. Andreas' right hand instinctively went to his holster.
'Welcome, friend. I'm Father Paul.' The man spoke in Greek and seemed unaffected by Andreas' lurch toward his gun. He stopped and put out his hand.
Andreas took his hand off his gun but did not extend it. Instead, he nodded and said, 'Hello.' So far, it looked like Pappas was right about the guy. Definitely weird. What Andreas had thought was a rifle was a long-handled brush contraption the priest must be using to whitewash the thick exterior walls of his house — and himself, from the look of things. The man was wearing a pair of shorts, looked to weigh about one hundred-fifty pounds, five feet ten inches tall, and in terrific shape. Andreas guessed who'd moved those boulders.
'Andreas Kaldis, Father. I'm chief of police.'
'Oh, yes, I've heard of you. Sorry, but I've got to finish this last bit before I completely lose the light,' and off he ran to cover some spots by one of the small windows — and himself even more.
Andreas decided to wait until the man finished before asking any questions. He wanted to deal with him on a
