A Solitary Reaper Read online

  "You said you touched his neck to feel his pulse. Will we find your prints or DNA anywhere else?"

  "No, I pulled my hands through my sleeves so I wouldn't have to touch him."

  "Before or after checking for a pulse?"

  "After."

  "Why pull your hands through your sleeves?"

  "I didn't want to touch him. I touched my uncle's body at a funeral by accident, it's not an experience I want to repeat."

  Savva nodded. "Why move the body at all?"

  "He was alone, sprawled out on the ground, being baked by the sun. I felt terrible for him." Neither Stelios nor Savva spoke. Adam's eyes flashed as they swung back and forth. "I'm telling the truth!"

  Savva contemplated his cuticles. "You failed to mention that you moved the body, Mr. Harris."

  "I didn't want to get into any legal trouble. I'm a tourist here."

  "We need to confirm, Mr. Harris," Savva said. "I'm sure you understand."

  "I am telling the truth," Adam repeated. His eyes narrowed to slits, and a vein in his jaw thumped.

  Savva squinted. "We'll take your fingerprints for elimination purposes and a sample of your DNA since you confess to touching the body. I'll also need you to write out a statement with Sergeant Booras. If you think of anything else, please call."

  Adam Harris nodded. Stelios called another officer in to take his fingerprints. Savva left distinctly disappointed. He returned to his office and paced. The way Adam Harris described the body’s initial position it was as if Matthias had tried to crawl. Was he crawling away from something? Or towards? No cell phone, no identification ... was that intentional? Did the killer know how traceable Matthias' prints would be?

  Savva stomped to the door and peered down the hall to the closed interview room. Who was Adam Harris? What had prompted him to go hiking, today of all days? Savva scoffed at the thought that anyone was that unlucky.

  Savva slouched in his chair, rested his legs on the desk, and stared at the computer as though compelling it to cough up answers. But none were forthcoming. His eyes roamed from the computer, to the mounds of pristine white paperwork, Colonel Kleitos' office's daily email requests, to a photo of Shayma and Davonna, arm in arm in front of Davonna's pink mansion. Their bodies were angled toward each other, heads thrown back, and their mouths were open, caught in an eternal laugh. Savva could hear it radiating in waves across the driveway. He pulled a piece of dead skin from his lips with his teeth. The door opened with a creak and Stelios slunk in.

  "Well?"

  "I think he's holding back."

  "I had that impression as well; check with his hotel and see what time he left this morning. Then see if we can get any surveillance for the drive to the trailhead."

  "I still don't get why he moved the body, Sir. If it was a woman, naked on the ground, anyone would've covered her, but to move the body and prop him against a rock?"

  Savva turned without speaking, pushed his wallet in his back pocket, and pulled a ring of keys from a hook by the door.

  "Where are you going, Sir?"

  "Who's the best officer to ask about trails on Lesvos; how often they're used, etc.?"

  Stelios peered at the keys in Savva's hand. "I'd say Thanos Argyris, but he has the day off."

  "Do you have his number?"

  Stelios unlocked his phone and read the number out to Savva who punched it into his own.

  "Argyris? It's Captain Savva. Can you meet?" Savva paused, then: "Yes that'll work."

  CHAPTER THREE

  Savva flung open the door to headquarters and strode across Kikladon Street, down Ilia Venezi, and past the deserted coffee shop on the corner, surrounded by white gravel, cream Coca-Cola umbrellas, and short pale lemon trees in earthenware pots. He loosened his tie and shoved on sunglasses. Summer tourists darted across the street, clutching phones to their chests like life jackets. They frowned at street signs, cradled hulks of metal and plastic known as cameras, and stepped in trash on the streets.

  Savva stopped under the cobalt blue awning of Aris and Spiros' bakery to admire the window display. In the reflection he caught a glimpse of a woman behind him on the street. Willow and dark skinned, she sauntered holding her daughter's hand with one hand and the other curled around the girl's shoulders. It was not fear that caused them to hold onto each other, but desire, nay a need, to be close. Savva surveyed them as they passed, their matching black shoes marching in unison. The girl turned, pushed a lock of chestnut hair out of her eyes, and grinned at him. He returned her smile but within moments he was swarmed by another group of tourists. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he elbowed his way through them, and slid down a ubiquitous alley.

  Though it was impossible to escape the crowds at the beach, Savva skirted the perimeter, ducked under a grove of olive trees, and slumped on a hidden bench. No one ever sat there. Thick layers of pale green leaves obstructed the view of the sea. He pulled off his suit coat and laid it on the back of the bench, sat on the thin metal slats, and peered through the trees to the wide flat blue plain of the Aegean. The mountains of Turkey rose like sunning sea turtles from the sea.

  "It's like old times, Sir."

  Thanos Argyris sat beside Savva; a tall graceful man with green eyes densely bordered by thick brows. In his dark blue uniform Thanos looked as though he belonged on a marble plinth at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens along with all the other Greek gods.

  "I hear you went to Athens to train at the Cyber Crime Center last month."

  "I did, Sir. It was quite informative. General Sfakianakis is doing good work."

  "I don't know that there's better work than saving children from the dangers of the Internet. Kleitos said you're to continue working with them. How are you finding it?"

  Thanos laughed and slid down so his back rested against the bench. "There's a lot of paperwork, Sir."

  "Don't remind me," Savva growled. "I'm swimming in it at the moment."

  Thanos laughed again and pushed his hair at out of his eyes. Something was different. Thanos sat with an ease he'd never seen. His hands were still, placed on his thighs, his breathing deep and even. Where pain and striving cease ... maybe he'd found God ... or something akin.

  "You wanted to speak to me, Sir?" Thanos prompted.

  Savva pulled himself upright. "A man was murdered at the top of Mt. Lepetimnos. An American tourist found him. He said a local recommended the trail. Private Kaikas said she’d been up there last week with her boyfriend. You used to patrol that area, any idea how much it’s used?”

  Thanos stared at the sea with eyes glazed. “Mt. Lepetimnos is out of the way. It's nice if you're looking for peace and quiet, but there isn't any shade, and when the sun is out it can be murderous. I don't want to speculate but there's a reason he chose that spot. It wasn't likely they'd be seen or overheard. The body would be found, but not right away. It would give him time; in case his victim fought back, in case it took longer for him to die."

  "Who knows about it? Is it in the guidebooks."

  "Well the mountain itself is, but it's not hiked regularly."

  "Who does hike it?"

  "Everyone I know stumbled on it. But it's a rough go. Last year I saw a couple of older ladies go up it, but on the whole it's not something for the once-in-a-moon hiker. Did you go up, Sir?"

  Savva scratched his head. "I did."

  "How'd you find it?"

  Savva stretched out his weak legs and exhaled. "It wasn't an experience I'd like to relive."

  "Do you know who the victim is?"

  "Matthias Papatonis: sometime member of the mafía. He was listed in the Criminal Records Database."

  "It's a bit strange," Thanos said.

  "Go on."

  "Well if it was the mafia, why didn't they dispose of the body, 'properly'? Why take him up to that mountain? He'd be found and identified anyways."

  "Perhaps they didn't care."

  Down on the beach a toddler had escaped from his parents. He careened across the s
and. His miniature red speedo flickered between the trees, while his mother, wide brimmed hat in one hand, a fistful of sarong in the other, screamed at the escapee. She swore as her bare feet hit the boiling sand. Savva eyes watered, and he bit his lip as the screeches of the boy echoed from the beach. The lad squawked like a gull.

  "Have you been well, Sir?" Thanos asked as the boy was captured and hauled back to the family towel, howling all the way.

  "Fine. Fine. Shayma goes down to the beach now and then, but does most of her work up at the house."

  "How's Davonna?" Thanos said.

  "Fine."

  "Was there anything else you needed, Sir?"

  Savva reclined against the bench, the heat of the sun-warmed metal seeped through the thin fabric of his cotton shirt; it caressed the tight muscles of his back, and lulled him toward sleep. With a stifled yawn he turned to Thanos. "What do you think about the case?"

  "I don't know much about it, Sir."

  "You know everything I know."

  Thanos was quiet, his gaze on the clouds above. "I don't think it's mafía related, Sir."

  "Why?"

  "It doesn't fit with the way they operate. It's too passionate. Why not a knife between the ribs or a bullet to the brain? Why bash it in? Why be up there at all?"

  "The murder is mafía related in any case because of his employment with them."

  As they sat in silence, a twig snapped. Thanos and Savva whipped around to the sound. Strutting along the path behind them was a man in a speedo. It was nearly invisible underneath a belly the size of which Savva had never seen. He looked to be pregnant with quadruplets but walked with his shoulders flung back, his chest thrown out, and a greedy twinkle in his eye. He muttered kalispera, gave Thanos a sidelong look, and Savva a quick nod. He plopped down on a towel. The belly protruded from the sand like another island.

  Savva's own bulge was mightily constrained by his belt. "Well I'm off."

  "Say chaírete, to Shayma."

  Savva grunted and trudged back up the rocky beach towards El. Venizelou. It was that strange time of day, too late to go back to the office and too early to go home. So he ducked into the nearest taverna and ordered a glass of ouzo and a tyropita. Just as he said he'd no longer do anymore.

  "Stelios," Savva barked into his phone, as nearby tourists nursing sunburns and glasses of ouzo, glared, "email me the file on Matthias." There was a short pause and then, "No that's fine, whatever you have."

  He ended the call, opened the mail app on his phone, and pushed the refresh button every ten seconds, expelling a heavy sigh each time it didn't appear. When the email came through. Savva slammed a battered pair of glasses on his face, and read. His eyes flicked over the screen with zeal. His finger tapped away on the table, the gold wedding band flickered in the sunlight, which streamed through the taverna's rusted windows and the decades of grime tucked into the corners. It was only when the third text message from Shayma came through that he pushed himself from the seat and walked in the direction of home. With every step, the machinery inside the detective’s head cranked and rolled and hissed into motion.

  * * *

  Savva picked up a plastic bag that the breeze held against his garden gate. He prodded a grey amorphous blob on the sidewalk and decided he'd also have to come out and power wash it, covered as it was with indeterminate grime. He dropped the bag in the dumpster beside the gate. As he walked down the flagstone path to the house, the scent of lemon basil flowering between the meandering stones permeated the air. He put his hand out again, to the copper doorknob, and, though it may have been the ouzo, his shoulders lifted and a light went back into his eyes so they sparkled and brimmed with words and affection yet to be poured out.

  "You're here!" Shayma shouted.

  Her long black hair was wrapped into a thick bun, long strands had escaped, and curled at the base of her neck. She stood at the oven, a blue oven mitt on one hand, and he eyes fixed on the clock above. Savva dumped his keys and wallet on the hall tree and crossed the house in three strides. His only thought was to put his arms around her waist, to draw her tight against him, to nuzzle her neck.

  "Alexandros," she squeaked when he circled his arms about her waist. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing," he murmured into her soft skin. "Come to bed with me."

  "Don't be ridiculous, we've company, and you'll make me burn the baklava."

  Savva kissed her three more times before he let her go. "You do know how to tease a man."

  "It was the baklava wasn't it?"

  "My knees go weak at the word."

  Shayma snorted and slapped him with the oven mitt. "Later. If you're good."

  "Baklava or the bedroom?"

  "It depends on how good you are."

  "I shall be an angel," Savva promised. He watched while Shayma moved platters from the counter to the table. "Booras will be here in a few minutes. I told him to bring wine."

  "I hope you didn't order Stelios, Alexandros Savva."

  "I had to conduct an entire interview in English today. My brain is frazzled. I can't remember the difference between asking and ordering"

  "Go to bed, then."

  "Bed? Without food!" Savva shrieked. He eyed the platter of dolmades and lamb skewers and the calamari with ladholemono sauce. Pistachio baklava in the oven. Bed indeed.

  "When he gets here don't treat him like you do at work. He's our guest."

  "He's not our son, Shayma. Don't press him if he doesn't want to talk," Savva whispered. He already regretted that he'd called her and told her Stelios' troubles.

  "I won't," Shayma grunted. "He's at the door."

  "How can you possibly hear that?" Savva muttered as he trudged back down the hallway and reached the door as a knock sounded.

  Stelios held out a bulging brown paper bag. "Kalispera, Sir."

  "How much did you get?"

  "Three bottles. Two for tonight and one for Kupía Savva."

  "Come in. Take off your jacket."

  An hour later, under an orange and pink sky, amidst cicadas thrumming and olive trees whispering, the party reclined in metal chairs, sipping wine. By some miracle (or maybe they were already drunk) the neighbors were quiet. No radio. No coital moaning. No arguments about the quality and cost of fish at market. Just silence and the petite whisper of wine swirled in a glass. Paradise.

  Shayma regaled Stelios with Davonna's plans for the non-profit. Savva eyed the plate of baklava but his stomach churned and he knew it would violently protest if he ate another bite. He settled back in the chair and nursed his wine.

  "How was work?" Shayma asked, one hand rested on her stomach and the other dangled off the armrest.

  Stelios observed Savva out of the corner of his eye. "Oh busy, today was long, as you've no doubt heard."

  "I gathered that from the mess you two left in the kitchen sink."

  "We were in a hurry," Savva grumbled.

  "Did you buy the food, Stelios?" Shayma asked, an edge in her voice.

  "Naí."

  "Alexandros made you bring wine tonight, too?"

  "I don't mind. It was still cheaper than going out to a restaurant ..."

  "You can talk about it. If you need."

  "I'm alright."

  "Have you talked to her again?" Shayma asked as Savva shot her a look, which said plainly: Stop.

  "No, she's cleaning out her things at the house. I told her I had a work meeting."

  "You should get reimbursed for the wine then, if this is a work meeting," Savva said. He studied his feet, somehow when he showered he missed a small patch of skin. It was still thick with pasty red dust.

  "I'll give you the receipt in the morning, Sir."

  "Can we help you cancel anything?" Shayma asked.

  "She said she'd handle it."

  Shayma scrutinized her husband. Savva shifted under the weight of her gaze and the emotion that hovered thick and heavy over the table. He ached to change the topic, to discuss between the three of them, the murder, but S
hayma would be irate. Thankfully, Stelios took the plunge for them.

  "Did you learn anything from Thanos, Sir?"

  "Oh, call him Alexandros," Shayma interrupted with a huff.

  Both men looked askance. Shayma put her hands up in surrender. Stelios' eyes whipped back to Savva.

  "He said the trail on Mt. Lepetimnos isn't often in use. It's not mapped, only a few locals know about it, and they had to know the body would be found within a couple of days. We'll put a notice out for information from anyone who'd hiked the area between when Private Kaikas did and when the body was found."

  "Any news on how long he's been dead?"

  "We won't have definitive results for a day or two. Dr. Panteleon assured me she'd make it a top priority. Which is funny, I didn't ask her to."

  "It's probably Kleitos," Stelios huffed.

  "Yes, well, in this case I don't mind him putting his nose where it doesn't belong."

  "Who is he–your victim?" Shayma asked.

  "Matthias Papatonis, former mafía."

  "How'd he die?"

  "Blunt force trauma–we're working on the assumption that the head injuries were cause of death. No murder weapon at the scene. Although it could've been a rock the killer took home."

  "That's not how the mafía usually works," Shayma said.

  "No, they usually bring considerably more than a rock," Savva said. He threw back his wine. The long legs snaked back down from the rim to pool at the bottom in a too-small-to-drink puddle like the blood that dried in a pool over Matthias' eyes.

  "Crime of passion?" Stelios said.

  "Could be."

  Shayma studied the empty platters of food and tapped her thin fingers on the table. "Why was he here on Lesvos?"