Death of an Aegean Queen (29 page)

Crewmen on the dock below started to drag the ramp away from our ship and shouted to each other in preparation for dropping the dock lines wrapped around huge cleats on the dock. A man came flying across from the street that ran along the harbor, waving his arms, shouting “Wait! Wait!” Two dockhands called out something to the bridge high above me, and the engine shifted to a deeper rumbling sound.

Malcolm Stone, carrying a large package, dashed up the ramp, yelling, “Don’t close the door!” and leaped across a foot-wide gap from the top of the ramp to the ship. The ship, still moving away due to the inertia, would have been out of jumping range if he’d been a tenth of a second later. From all along the promenade deck, from the dock below and the deck above me came a chorus of “Crazy!” and “
Proséxte
!” and “Who is that nut?”

* * * * *

The conversation at dinner that evening was revealing, if hardly appetizing. We mostly talked about blood. Lettie, Ollie, Marco, and I joined Kathryn Gaskill and the Zieglers who were already seated. I figured Ernestine Ziegler had discovered Marco was back and had wangled a place for herself and Heather at our table, because their earlier assignment had been elsewhere and our table only seated six comfortably. Tonight we were seven.

Marco brought up the subject. “Kathryn, you said your husband’s blood type was AB positive, didn’t you?”

This, I believe, was Marco’s very first use of a contraction. I could have proposed a toast to this big linguistic step forward but I didn’t want to change the subject.

“Yes. His doctor at home told him that was good because it made him a universal recipient,” Kathryn said. “In other words, he could receive blood from most anyone, but he couldn’t donate it except to another person with AB blood.”

“It’s not quite as simple as that,” Ernestine Ziegler, who I recalled telling us she was a nurse, butted in. Her gaze shifted around the table. When it came back to Marco, her eyelashes fluttered. “Blood has a number of factors other than the A, B, O, and Rhesus factors. Not to mention the fact that it needs to be screened for hepatitis, HIV, and a lot of other things. But you’re right, generally speaking.”

Kathryn looked at Marco, quizzically. “Why do you ask that again?”

“Because,” Marco began, then paused and took a sip of water as if he wasn’t sure how to proceed. “Because I took a small sample of the blood from the deck. I collected it that morning after you and Dotsy called me out there. I took it to our laboratory in Milano yesterday and I asked them to do a DNA test on it. That test takes a while, but the A,B,O test is fast. It only takes a few seconds. They told me immediately the sample I gave them was type AB positive, and only three percent of the population has AB positive blood.”

“Now you know what I knew already.” Kathryn didn’t appear shocked that Marco had surreptitiously collected a blood sample. “I knew it was George’s blood. Didn’t I tell you?”

“Well now, wait a minute. Three percent is three percent. It is not a certainty. It would not hold up in court as proof the blood was George’s. For that you need the DNA.” Marco swept his hand around, taking in most of the dining room. “How many people are here right now? About three or four hundred? So there are probably ten or twelve people in this room with AB positive blood. Not good enough.”

“When the DNA tests come back, they’ll prove it was George’s blood.”

“Don’t you need some of George’s DNA to compare it to?” Ollie asked.

“I am afraid I must confess. I also took a few hairs from George’s brush. The FBI collected George’s toothbrush and hairbrush as well as blood samples from the deck but it will take them a long time to get the results. I have connections so I can get it done faster.

I hope the hairs you pulled from George’s brush were from his hair and not from his hairpiece
. I forced myself to keep a straight face as I flashed on an image of a lab worker yelling out, “It’s not even human!” or “This hair is from a woman of Tahitian ancestry.”

“And another thing,” Marco added. “They told me the blood has a high level of a chemical called EDTA. I thought that was strange.”

“That’s a blood thinner. They use it to keep blood from clotting. Don’t you remember the big to-do in the O.J. Simpson case?” This came from Ernestine. “The defense tried to say it meant the blood on the back fence had been planted there from a lab sample.”

Kathryn put her fork down and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “George was taking a blood thinner. There was so much plaque in his coronary arteries, the doctors were worried about a blood clot. That’s why he was scheduled for heart surgery this summer.”

Ernestine Ziegler almost shouted, “If he was scheduled for surgery, why was he on blood thinners? Doctors always take a patient off that stuff, weeks before surgery.”

“No they don’t. Not always.” This came from Heather Ziegler in the form of a tiny croak.

Her mother rounded on her as if she were about to strike. I caught my breath. Ernestine seemed to consult her plate for instructions on how to respond. She patted the tablecloth and shifted a spoon. “When you’ve been a nurse as long as I have, young lady, you’ll know that when a doctor keeps a patient on a blood thinner regimen right up until . . .”

Lettie cut her short with, “Did you know Dotsy got kidnapped and shot at today?” That was brilliant. Nothing short of a bombshell like that would have been sufficient to divert the conversation onto a less contentious path. All heads turned toward me and I, looking pretty unscathed because I hadn’t worn my clavicle brace, launched into a lengthy and, if I do say so myself, entertaining account of my narrow escape from the goat man.

The waiter brought our desserts and coffee.

Should I bring up the watch? I tossed it around in my mind while the waiter corrected the placement of the desserts, giving the lemon tart to Lettie and the baklava to Heather. Kathryn and I hadn’t been told not to talk about it so I decided to go for it, but not actually reveal that it had been found in Brittany’s closet. “The investigators are asking questions about George’s watch. A beautiful gold watch Kathryn said was given to him by a high school class he sponsored when he was a principal.”

“Actually, it was when he was still a teacher. Before he became principal,” Kathryn said.

“Do any of you remember if George was wearing it that first evening after we left Athens?”

Ollie and Marco shook their heads. Ernestine reminded me she and Heather weren’t with us that evening. Lettie, the little human data bank, closed her eyes, licked a blob of lemon tart off her upper lip, and appeared to go into a trance. After several seconds she said, “I don’t believe he was. At dinner he was wearing a long-sleeve shirt and jacket so a watch could have been hidden by his sleeves. But when he reached to the center of the table for the creamer, I remember, his jacket sleeve crept up and there was no watch on his wrist. Not on his left wrist, anyway.”

This phenomenal display of total recall got wide-eyed stares from everyone at the table, except me and Ollie. We were used to it.

“George was left-handed. He wore his watch on his right arm,” Kathryn said.

* * * * *

Heather Ziegler caught up with Marco and me in the hall outside the dining room. She tugged at his sleeve. “Captain? About what Mother was saying in there about the blood thinners and all.”

“Yes?” Marco said and we both stopped to listen.

“I didn’t say anything at the table because Mother is . . . well I didn’t want to contradict her, you know.” She pulled Marco out of the flow of traffic, people heading for the elevators, and I followed. “You said a large amount of EDTA was found in the blood sample you collected, didn’t you? Well, if it was from receiving EDTA as a blood thinner, it would have been a small amount. A large amount would likely mean it came from a drawn blood sample. EDTA is sometimes used to keep it from clotting in the test tube.”

* * * * *

Marco and I were invited to a summit meeting in the library. I was to be, at least temporarily, admitted to the inner circle of the investigation because I had now acquired combat equity by virtue of being fired upon by a man who was somehow connected to the smuggling business, even if we hadn’t yet figured out how. On our way out to the promenade, Marco told me he’d phoned the Iráklion police station and learned Goatman was now represented by an attorney with known connections to Robert Segal, big-time antiquities smuggler and, incidentally, Brittany’s boyfriend.

Luc Girard was already there, as were Agent Bondurant, Officer Villas, and Sophie. Sophie looked alert now, greeting me with a little wave. We pulled a couple of chairs around, making a sort of conversation circle. Chief Letsos was conspicuous by his elsewhereness.

Bondurant spoke first. “It’s a bit out of order, I know, having Mrs. Lamb with us, but Captain Quattrocchi and I felt that, although she was mentioned as having possibly had something to do with the placement of George Gaskill’s watch on the floor of Miss Benson’s closet . . .” He paused for breath and looked toward Sophie. “Mrs. Lamb has nevertheless become the target of certain denizens of the smuggling underground, and that’s what we’re here to talk about.

“The funeral of Nikos Papadakos was held today, as you all know, and Dimitris—Officer Villas—and I attended. Although Papadakos had never been suspected before, he did come from an area that’s a known source of smuggled artifacts. Dr. Girard has even given me the name of a man he knows is involved, and he lives in Papadakos’s village.”

Luc Girard nodded, his hands tented beneath his chin.

Our only suspect in the murder, so far, has been an American passenger named Nigel Endicott, and that’s because a shop owner in Mykonos picked his photo as the most likely buyer of the knife that we think probably was the one used to kill Papadakos.”

“It is not a lot to go on,” Marco said.

“Exactly. And we can find no connection between Endicott and Papadakos, between Endicott and antiquities, smuggling, Mykonos, photography, or anything else. He has no criminal record. He is a retired insurance adjuster and a widower who has recently moved from New York to Vermont. But we mustn’t forget this happened on the island of Mykonos, and it may have nothing to do with this ship. Dimitris? Would you talk about that?”

Officer Villas said, “There is not much to tell. We have talked to a hundred people on the island. Everyone known to have been in that part of Little Venice that day, all the usual suspects, as you Americans say.” He nodded at Bondurant. “And we have come up with nothing. No one we have questioned seems to have ever heard of Nikos Papadakos, in spite of the fact that he has been on the island fifty times in the last two years.

“We have also considered the possibility the killer may have been someone from his own homeland, Crete, but there is simply no way to check that. Boats, ferries, small planes, come and go between Mykonos and Crete every day. Unless someone comes forward and tells us ‘I saw this man who I know is from Crete and he was talking to Papadakos,’ we have no way to follow up.”

Bondurant looked around at all of us and said, “Right. Now let’s talk about the artifacts on this ship that, thanks to Mrs. Lamb and Dr. Girard, we now know are stolen. How many of them are there and how did they get here? This is a subject Captain Quattrocchi and I have both been investigating for some time. Dr. Girard, be specific. How many stolen items are we talking about?”

Luc Girard, who had been staring unabashedly at Sophie throughout the whole discussion of Papadakos’s murder, blinked as if surprised to find himself here. “There is the Panathenaic amphora, of course. The big vessel on display in the Zeus deck bar. It was stolen from a museum on the Greek mainland and it’s very important because it dates from the earliest Athenian games. Then there is the gold serpent bracelet that, until yesterday, was on display in the case outside the main dining room. It’s been stolen again, and a similar-looking copy has been put in its place.”

Marco interrupted to ask him several questions about the bracelet. He had been in Italy when the theft occurred and knew nothing about it.

“There is a stone-and-gilt bull’s head attached to a wooden block for display purposes,” Girard continued. “It’s near the embarkation door on the Athena deck. It was stolen from the Iráklion museum some five years ago. And finally, there is a red-figure krater, a two-handled bowl, in the case near the entrance to the show lounge. It is about . . .” With his hands, Girard indicated it was about as large as a carry-on bag. “It is beautiful. It was stolen from a well-known private collection. So there are four items we know for certain were stolen and one of them, the bracelet, has been stolen again.”