A Solitary Reaper Read online

  Savva's hand drifted toward his fourth piece of baklava. Who cared? He'd hiked up a mountain today and so deserved the treat. He plopped a piece in his mouth and glanced from Shayma to Stelios who stared at opposite corners of the garden. "Why there? Why was he in that exact spot? Why did the killer take him there?"

  "And why did Adam Harris move him?"

  "We need to go talk to Harris again, this time with his wife. Didn't he say someone suggested he go on the hike?"

  "Someone at the hotel."

  "More hotels ... Theé mou, save me," Savva whined.

  The two men fell silent, frowning at the ground in front of them. Savva stroked his chin as he fought to ignore the stomach cramps that rolled fitfully across his midsection. No more food. Not ever, Savva promised. The last baklava piece was a terrible idea. Perhaps he'd hike back out to the crime scene to work off the calories he'd just consumed.

  "Another nice dinner, collapsed into murder mystery night," Shayma mused. "To think I could've married an archeologist."

  Savva ignored her. "There's a chance whoever told him about the trail is involved."

  "Oh I give up," Shayma mumbled, she picked up the empty plates, and went inside grumbling the entire way.

  Stelios stood and walked across the lawn to look up at the towering bougainvillea in the corner. It soared above his head, flicking and twisting in the breeze. He shoved his hands into his pockets and watched as the leaves twisted, as petals broke off and soared over the garden wall and on to certain death.

  Savva watched and waited, his head cocked like a bloodhound on a scent. His gaze fixed on Stelios' back, as he waited for the smallest shiver or grip of the fist. It didn't come. Stelios seemed relaxed. Almost too relaxed after his anger on the trail this morning.

  Go, Savva told himself. Put one foot in front of the other and go say something. But what would he say and what would he do that wasn't trite? As he resolved to wait for Stelios to come to him, Stelios stiffened and turned, and walked back to the house. The French doors opened with a whoosh followed by the sound of his stiff tread in the kitchen.

  Savva rose, stuffed his hands into his pockets and watched through the window as Shayma turned from the sink, her wet hands dripped on the floor with quiet plop plop plops. She said something to Stelios who reached out to her with a wan smile before he disappeared through the front door.

  Next door the radio shuddered into existence, screeching out football scores and Golden Dawn's newest scandal–which was just another old one. Shayma turned back to the sink and in the beam of light that fell onto the garden from the kitchen window Savva watched as she washed, dried, and stowed every last dish. Only when she had left the kitchen, and the bathroom light had flickered on did he set his feet for the house.

  He padded across the kitchen, turned off the light, collapsed on the grey couch, pulled a white knitted blanket over his body, and stuffed a flower appliquéd pillow under his head. He closed his eyes to see Stelios staring at the bougainvillea.

  He punched the pillow and slammed his head back down. The bathroom light shut off. How on earth could he fool himself into thinking that the boy would speak to him? When had he ever approached Stelios in a manner, which wasn't thick with professionalism? He knew the impression he gave at work. He curated a hard pristine exterior and demanded respect and excellence. But never before had he felt so hampered by his own creation, by his own ineptitude. Shayma called his name from the bedroom but he turned into the couch, shut his eyes, and pulled the blanket over his shoulders.

  * * *

  Stelios left the Savvas' home and began his solitary trudge to his own adobe. The streets were empty and dark as most of the streetlights were burned out. It gave the odd sensation that the world existed only in these weak circles of light cast by twenty-foot poles. Outside of these, in the darkness, there was nothing, merely shadows. But Stelios was born in Mitilini. He knew the streets better than anyone except Alexandros Savva.

  He passed Agia Thomas Church, it's pistachio colored walls shone in the light from the light across the street. Stelios faulted the low stone wall and cut across the dark lawn to a small white bungalow. The red tile roof gleamed in the pale light of the moon. He hesitated at the door, the tarnished skeleton key in his hand shook. His mouth filled with saliva and he swallowed thickly.

  What lay behind that door tore a destructive path through his mind. Emptiness. Finality. The End. It didn't matter who he was or what he did ... in the end he was just a man destroyed by a woman. His hair cut. His head delivered on a silver platter. Arsenic in his tea. Strength poured out, lines of it escaping in thin strands down his legs, across the grass, down the street, into the sea, where it was swallowed forever.

  "So, was there really a body on Mt. Lepetimnos?"

  Stelios whipped around, shoved the key behind his back, and came face to face his aged white-haired neighbor, wrapped in a white bathrobe, which gaped open to expose her pale chest. Her equally white-haired brother peered over her shoulder. They leered with bulbous eyes and the twitching fingers of addicts, but stood straight, as if the weight of their age had temporarily left them.

  "Yes."

  "Ooh, who?" she asked.

  "It's an ongoing investigation."

  Their faces dropped, wrinkles, which had disappeared in their glee and morbid pursuit of information, clanged back into place. It disgusted him, this obsession with death and other people's misfortune. The gawking, staring, and the distilling of a life to the quality of conversation it gave a dinner party.

  Stelios swung back around, shoved the key in, and shut the door. He collapsed against the wall and covered his face with his hands. He sat there until his legs went numb. Only when his bladder, full from the four glasses of wine, contract painfully did he rush to the bathroom. He tugged up his fly and loitered in the hallway. Nothing lay shattered on the floor. There was no chaos, no sign that in the heat of pain and rage she'd tried to leave a scar. She was gone in a puff of smoke, as though she'd only ever been a dream.

  He collapsed into bed fully dressed. He shut his eyes against the view, against the empty nightstand, against the closet doors flung open to reveal lines of suits and ironed shirts. With the ferocity of a fog horn, his phone rang.

  "Stelios, where have you been all day? I've called three times!" A shrill voice crackled over the line.

  Stelios groaned. "Hello, Ma."

  "Where have you been?"

  "At work, Ma."

  "I heard what happened."

  "The body?"

  "Body? What body? I was talking about Theia."

  Stelios flung his arm over his face. "What about her?"

  "She left you."

  "Yes."

  "Did she cheat? You know I told you ..."

  "Ma, stop. She didn't cheat on me. We just weren't right for each other."

  "Don't give me that 'American' nonsense, Stelios Booras. If she's loyal and gives you children that's all that matters."

  "It isn't all that matters, Ma. The world is changing."

  "Greece isn't."

  "It is. She wasn't happy and she has a right to be."

  "Were you happy?"

  "I thought I was."

  "What can I do?" she asked.

  He sat up and tugged off his shoes. "I'm alright, Ma. I'm busy with work."

  "With a body?"

  "A murder victim. He was found this morning."

  "Theé mou, how awful. Have you eaten?"

  "I was at the Savva's home for dinner."

  "How kind of them. You know my mother was good friends with Alexandros' mother; fantastic woman."

  "I know, Ma."

  Stelios' mother bit her lip, walked out onto her flagstone patio, and looked over the horizon to the sea where the crowd that had gathered to watch the sunset had now dispersed to their homes, little lights bobbing along the curving stone paths.

  "How are you, Ma?"

  "Oh, fine. Oh, your sister's calling. I have to go."

  "Anti
sas, Ma."

  "Anti sas."

  Kyría Booras ended the call and held the phone to her chest and bit back tears. The house was as silent as Christ's empty tomb. Behind the curtain of her eyes, a little boy, toddled around the house in front of her, pushing his chubby fingers into the still warm chocolate cake, and sighing in contentment as those brown fingers disappeared into his mouth. She imagined that boy now, his soft brown eyes, bright with devotion, staring up at her and only her. Long ago she'd thought the worst day of her life would be when he married and another woman took her place ... but Kupía Booras knew now that the long sigh and the hundreds of miles which lay between her and her wounded son was infinitely worse. Her heart ached and lurched, desperate to catapult out of her chest, and her arms reached forward and underneath her hard cultivated exterior, she groaned, as only a mother can groan.

  Her husband walked up behind her his arm slid around her thin shoulders. "What did he say? Did you tell him about the girls?"

  Stelios' mother froze and she gazed at the crowded hillside to the house two streets down from hers where one of the missing girls used to live. But there were other police. Local police. Of course they weren't Alexandros Savva. Or Stelios Booras, but they were police. "No. Theia left and called off the wedding and he's in the middle of a murder investigation with Alexandros."

  "He would want to know."

  "Another time." She bustled off towards the house and shouted back, "Calamari?"

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Alexandros Savva woke with his hand flung over his face. The floorboards creaked; a familiar sound like a zipper, and the room went as bright as the sun. Escape, he must escape the horrid bright light. He turned onto his stomach and buried his face in the pillow.

  "Ughh."

  "You're a bit sore I imagine," said a cheerful voice from the direction of the window.

  He flexed his fingers (the only part of his body that seemed to obey his command). His legs were lead. The vertebrae from his groin to neck had been soldered together. His arms were useless lumps. "My ... I can't move."

  "It was the hike, Alexandros. Shall I get you a banana for the soreness?"

  "What time is it?"

  "Half-past ten," Shayma said. She tugged off the quilt and the sheet. "I need to make the bed and then head for Davonna's."

  "Oh help," he whined.

  Shayma put one hand under his armpit and tugged. My wife, Savva thought as he clung to Shayma's arms, is hauling me out of bed. Humiliation. Utter and complete humiliation. It wasn't an easy process, removing him from the bed, and by the time they'd managed it, both were doubled over, gasping for breath. Savva stood, on shuddering legs, propped against the wall.

  Shayma pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes and straightened her shirt, which had ridden up over her breasts. "I called and told the desk sergeant you'd be late."

  "Oh just help me to the shower, Woman."

  Without commenting Shayma stripped him of his black pajamas, turned on the shower, helped him step under the warm stream, and slapped his bare buttocks for good measure. He couldn't do a bath. He'd never be able to get out. Under the water, his arms crossed across his prodigious chest, his mind revived. Fifteen minutes later, in front of a fogged mirror, Shayma poked her head in and handed him a banana. As if all he needed was a bit of potassium. Why not morphine?

  Out on the car Savva phoned Private Kaikas. "Which hotel is Adam Harris at?"

  A deflated chip bag tumbled in front of three chattering yia-yia's, from whose wrinkled arms dangled overstuffed bags of yarn. Savva nestled the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he shoved the car into fourth.

  "The Loriet Hotel on Airport Road Varia," she said.

  "Ah, the colorful one. Tell them I'm on my way and I need to speak to Adam Harris and his wife, then go pick up Booras, and meet me at the Istoriko Lounge in Neapoli."

  "Yes, Sir."

  Savva tossed the phone onto the seat next to him and gripped the wheel. He turned onto El. Venizelou road; past the beige house with the perpetually closed burnt red shutters, past walls of red and grey and brown and white and black stones, and mountains covered in a thin blanket of pale green.

  The hotel rose from the surrounding trees like a raja out of a fairy tale; its cornices and sculptures and gardens were the rings and necklaces and crowns of his wealth. Signals of opulence and wealth sought his attention from every corner. A sign for the spa creaked in the breeze next to a black Bentley. Even the cobblestone drive was perfect, brushed free of debris and dirt, not a single stone was chipped or mauled.

  Savva pulled in front of a white Toyota truck and locked the silver Saab. He put one hand against the driver's door, closed his eyes, and tried to shake out the stiffness in his legs. Two scuffed leather shoes appeared in front of him as he bent over his weak thighs.

  "Are you alright?"

  Savva shot up and found himself face to face with a man ten years his senior. Grey hair, a tired face, a blue knapsack clutched in his left hand. The green eyes moved from the silver Saab to Savva's neat haircut and lack of luggage. He moved the bag to his other hand and regarded Savva from under hedgerow eyebrows.

  "Fine, yes," Savva grunted.

  He gave Savva a tentative smile before he skirted around and hopped into the truck. Savva turned back to the Saab, locked it, and forced his legs to carry him to the hotel entrance.

  "Captain Savva?"

  A woman stood on the hotel steps with her hand outstretched. He faltered at the base of the steps. His breath caught in his throat and he stared at her face without seeing the loose white linen trousers or the fitted white blouse. Atop the steps, she towered, a woman with long tapered fingers, perfectly coiffed brown hair, and the countenance of a goddess. She'd go damn well with Thanos.

  "Private Kaikas called to let us know you were coming," she said.

  Savva trumped up the stairs, shook her hand, and was surprised to find it was strong and confident. "How'd you know it was me?"

  "She said to look for the grumpy old man."

  Savva glared and caught the slightest flicker of a smile at the corner of the woman's mouth. "You're funny."

  "She didn't call you grumpy. I wouldn't want her to get in trouble on my account."

  "Private Kaikas knows better than to call me old."

  The woman snorted into her manicured hand. Several gold rings glinted there. "I'm Maria Iliadou, the hotel manager."

  "Alexandros Savva."

  Maria Iliadou strode through to the reception desk on black stilettos, which clicked ominously over the stone floor. What if she toppled over? But Savva's contemplation of the suitability of heels on a stone floor was brought to a rapid halt. Color assaulted his eyes: from the ceilings, the floor, the couches, and the shutters. It was color as it could only be experienced in Greece, so typical in its contradiction: an explosion of order. Overwhelming and calming. Both. All. All at once.

  "I've prepared a private sitting room for you to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Harris."

  "Efaristó."

  Maria smiled and led him down a long hallway layered in a plush red carpet and into a small room, filled with two couches, a bar cart, and two armchairs which faced an empty fireplace. One the opposite wall, four open windows overlooked the courtyard pool.

  "I'll let them know you're here," Maria said and she slipped from the room.

  Savva crossed the room, set his elbows on the windowsill, and stared out at the pool whose water lay undisturbed like a Turkish rug. Around it pool, like a fringe, were grouped white lounge chairs. It was deserted except for a solitary couple that were kitted out against the midday sun with hats, sunglasses, and alcoholic drinks in sweating glasses. A waiter walked the circumference of the pool. He stopped next to the guests: a woman in a see through pink dress and her husband. The woman's taunt face seemed to be caught in a perpetual headwind. Her husband stood behind her, his chest thrown out, stomach sucked in, scowling at the young man in his tight white polo. It was all rather comic.

&nb
sp; "Can I offer you refreshments, Sir?"

  Savva shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and turned around. A young man in white shorts, white polo, and white trainers stood in the doorway, with a silver tray balanced on his right hand. White must be the color of choice here.

  "Water."

  "Yes, Sir."

  Savva resumed his contemplation of the lounge chairs and the still water. Though a soft breeze wafted in through the open windows the water didn't ripple. The husband must have made a haughty comment to his wife because a shout of "How dare you" in a screeching American drawl fluttered in through the window.

  "Good morning, Captain," a timid voice said from the doorway.

  Savva turned and motioned Adam Harris into the room. "Welcome, please sit."

  But Adam Harris remained silhouetted in the doorway, fingering the hem of his blue checked shirt, and gaped as though Savva had asked him to jump into a lion's den. Was it the worry of speaking to an officer of the law or was it guilt over lies he'd told?

  "Forgive me," Savva said in accented English, "Is your wife to join us?"

  "She stopped to have a quick word with Miss Iliadou," Harris said. He waved in the direction of the lobby before plopping onto the sofa. "Should we start without her?"

  There was no mistaking the slight uptick in Adam's tone and demeanor. He was flustered, nervous, hesitant to speak another word. How soon would a request for an attorney come? They were Americans after all. If he was frank with himself Savva was surprised there wasn't one already holding Adam's hand.

  "I'd like both of you here. I understand this is not what you expected on your holiday."

  Adam shook his head. "Holiday? Oh yes. We call them vacations."

  "Vacations ... from the Latin vacare, to be unoccupied," Savva said.

  "I'm far from unoccupied now. I keep seeing that poor man with his head caved in. Every time I sit down or close my eyes, I see him. I can't get him out of my mind. I tried to sleep. I bummed a pill off one of the other guests but I just dreamt that I was talking to a man with half a head. Do you know who he is?"