Death of an Aegean Queen (33 page)

Once we were all gathered around him again, Bondurant began talking slowly and deliberately as if weighing each word. “On Santorini we may lose them because there’s an airport, not to mention a dozen small towns where they could hide. In Fira, the town on the cliff overlooking the harbor, the streets are all pedestrianized. Only foot traffic and donkeys. But behind that part, the picturesque part, you’ve got the town’s main square with a bus terminal and roads leading out in all directions. One road goes to the local airport. If either Segal—if that’s who he is—or Miss Benson suspects we’re after them and they get as far as that square, we’ve as good as lost them.”

It seemed odd to me that an American would know so much about Santorini until I recalled Bondurant was stationed at our embassy in Athens. He may have lived in Greece for years and made any number of trips to the island.

“There are three ways to go from this dock to the town. You’ve got the cable cars.” He pointed somewhere to his left but, as the boat was still shifting in its berth, we couldn’t actually see the cable cars. “And the winding path you can see up there.” He pointed a bit more to the right and we all turned to look.

“Omigod!” I said. I saw a portion of the path zig-zagging, switching back and forth up the craggy face of the caldera. From where we stood it appeared to be miles long and bounded by nothing much to keep the climber from tumbling to his death if he slipped. With my fear of heights, I knew I couldn’t handle that on foot or on donkey.

“I think we can assume, with their heavy loads, both Segal and Miss Benson will take a cable car. Now, we do have an ally. Dimitris Villas is already here because he’s supposed to be keeping an eye on Nigel Endicott. Villas has a cell phone with him so I’ll call him in a minute and find out if he’s in Fira, on the way up, or still down below. Sometimes there’s a long line for the cable car. We have to take both Benson and Segal into custody, but we must do it without letting the things they’re carrying get broken. Both the amphora and the krater are extremely breakable and irreplaceable.

“Here’s what I suggest. I want Dr. Girard and Captain Quattrocchi to grab a cable car as fast as they can. Break in line, guys. Whoever you piss off, we’ll settle with them later. Meanwhile, I’ll call Villas and find out where he is. If he’s already up top, I’ll get him to start hunting. Keep an eye on Endicott, of course, but look for the other two. I’m going to stay down here because, if our suspects find out we’re after them, they might catch the next cable car going down.

“Now, Mrs. Lamb and Miss—oh, hell—Dotsy and Sophie. You need to stand in line like good citizens, scanning the line ahead of you for our suspects, of course, and take a cable car to the top. Then split up. One of you should stay at the cable car exit and the other should locate the top end of the donkey path. Watch to make sure neither of them tries to escape by either route. When I know for sure that they’re up there, I’ll come up and we’ll have six people looking for two. But it’s a maze of tiny streets up there. Even with six of us, it won’t be easy.”

I had to interrupt. “I don’t know what Segal looks like. How would I know if he’s sneaking away down the donkey path or not?”

Bondurant sighed. “If he’s carrying a black suitcase about the size of a refrigerator, that might be a clue.” His tone was blatantly sarcastic.

Marco said, “I think he was wearing dark clothing. Dark trousers, dark shirt. But he has blond hair. That might help.”

“One more thing,” I said. “Ollie and Lettie Osgood are also up there. If we run into them, they’ll help us.”

“Be a bit strange, getting a suspect in one case to help you catch suspects in another case. But, sure. We may need all the help we can get.” Bondurant stopped and took a deep breath. “Now, who has a cell phone with them?”

Luc and Marco both pulled phones out of their pockets.

“Good. Let’s input each other’s numbers and get moving.”

I looked around and realized we were the last folks left on the boat.

Chapter Twenty-seven

David Bondurant groaned when he saw the line for the cable cars. It snaked along the shoreline from the entrance at the ticket booth all the way back to the dock. What he couldn’t see was that, inside the building at the base of the cable, the line continued, winding through a labyrinth of halls. Another hundred or so folks inched along inside, sweltering in the heat from the tropical sun beating down on the roof and the sweat of a hundred bodies, a hundred pairs of lungs sucking out whatever oxygen remained. Marco and Luc had quickly disappeared into the entrance and beyond his line of sight. Dotsy and Sophie had taken their place at the end of the line, as he told them to do.

The foot path snaked up the cliff to the right of the cable. From his vantage point Bondurant could see some stretches of the path but not others. Donkeys wound their doleful way both up and down, outnumbering the humans who plodded along on foot. People walking down seemed to be evenly divided between those walking alone and those who were riding or leading a riderless donkey down to pick up another tourist. In places the path switched back and disappeared behind jutting rocks.

Bondurant flipped open his phone and punched Villas’s number on his speed dial.

“Bondurant here. I’m at the ferry dock. Where are you?”

Villas answered in his heavily accented English, “I’m in a cable car halfway up the mountain. It took me nearly an hour to get through the line, and now the damn thing has stopped.”

From where Bondurant stood, he could see six cable cars, like pearls on a string, partway up the mountain and another cluster of six on the descending part of the loop. “Where’s Endicott?”

“He’s two cars ahead of me.”

“Look. We’ve got a situation here. We’re chasing two folks who’re trying to abscond with stolen artifacts from the ship. Nothing to do with the murders, we think, but we need your help. Have you seen Brittany Benson? She’d be carrying a very large potted plant. And a man dressed in black—blond hair—carrying a huge black case?”

“Yes, I have. Miss Benson and her plant were on the tender with me coming over . . .”

There was a pause. Bondurant said, “What’s that? Hello?”

“Sorry. We started moving again and it surprised me. The man with the suitcase. He’s about four cars ahead of me.”

“Right now? He’s on his way up right now?”

“Yes, and we’ll all be there in about one minute.”

“Listen carefully, Villas. Here’s what I want you to do.”

* * * * *

Marco and Luc, both dripping with sweat, bullied their way past two hundred people and to the front of the line. There, Marco turned and shouted to the sea of scowling faces behind them. “We are sorry! We are policemen and we are trying to catch someones. Thank you for your patience!”

His cell phone jangled. “
Pronto.
Quattrocchi.”

“How’s it going, Captain?” Bondurant said.

“We are at the top of the line. We will be on the next cars going up.”

“Did you pass Miss Benson on your way?”

“No.”

“Anyone else you recognized?”

“No. No one.”

“Our man with the box, and Endicott and Villas as well, are on the lift now.”

“Are they all in the same car?”

“No, three different cars. Now, look. When you and Girard get off up top, find Villas. Try to cover the area between the lift and the city square as well as between the lift and the donkey path.”

“Right.”

* * * * *

I could hardly stand the thought of waiting in the interminable line at the back of which Sophie and I found ourselves. The sun beat down and the line was barely moving. Yanking off her sling, Sophie tried to blow air into her arm cast. We’d both worn shorts and our four legs, with their antiseptic-gold and bruise-purple splotches, were attracting stares and comments. For the first time since breakfast, I thought about my cracked collar bone and how much it hurt. I had intended to wear the clavicle brace today, but I hadn’t had a chance to go back to my room after breakfast. Sophie squinted up the hill toward the donkey path as if she was getting ready to suggest going that route. If she did, I had news for her. My aging legs would not make that trip and the last time I tried to climb a cliff like it, I’d had a panic attack. I’d scooted on my butt down a half-mile of trail, clinging to every sapling along the way.

“Dotsy, look! It’s Brittany!”

It took a minute to see where she pointed, but she was right. On the trail above us, a white donkey trotted along, a girl with tousled auburn curls and a large potted plant on his back.
We’ll never catch her
, I thought. Sophie, however, had already taken off toward the path.

At the foot of the path, a row of donkeys awaiting riders stood tethered to a rail. The path itself, I noted, was divided into broad, flat steps made of cemented cobblestones speckled with donkey poop. Hundreds and hundreds of piles of donkey poop. There was a retaining wall along the outside side of the trail but it wasn’t nearly high enough to assuage my acrophobia. I had no choice, though, did I? I looked around and couldn’t see Sophie anywhere.

“How much for a donkey?” I asked a man, and then realized I had no money with me. I’d have to walk, but I knew I’d never catch her that way. I considered stealing the one at the end of the row. The one that looked like Eeyore.

Like an angel, Sophie reappeared behind me. “I paid the man for two donkeys, Dotsy. Let’s go.” She had a bit of trouble swinging with only one arm into the saddle, but when she looked fairly settled, I put the reins in her good hand.

An attendant already had my donkey untethered and ready. I mounted, nudged the little animal with my foot, and together we took off up the side of the caldera. I passed Sophie almost immediately. She didn’t look as if she knew much about riding, but I, having grown up on farmland in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, was in my element. This animal and I understood each other. If only we weren’t clopping up the side of a sheer cliff. I steered my steed to the inside of the trail and he responded by scraping my right leg against the red pumice rock. As pain shot up through my leg, my right arm caught the full impact of the next protruding boulder.

I couldn’t tell how far ahead Brittany was, because, as we rounded a sharp bend, we found ourselves at the back of a four-donkey caravan. I kicked my long-eared friend out into the passing lane, although the path, no more than ten feet wide, scarcely allowed room for two donkeys with riders to pass. My little guy loved it. It was as if he said to himself, “Finally! A rider who knows what she’s doing, and she wants me to haul ass! Watch this.” We passed the whole line in a flash, taking the next stretch at a virtual gallop.

I forced myself not to think about the hundreds of feet of open air between me and the sea below, or to think about our chances of slipping on a pile of donkey poop and my donkey’s hooves flying out from under him. The woman on the last donkey we had to pass was Kathryn Gaskill. I turned abruptly and looked over my shoulder. I’d certainly have missed seeing her if I hadn’t been determinedly not looking out to sea. Kathryn was talking on her cell phone as her donkey plodded upward.

Before rounding the next bend, a hairpin turn, I looked up and saw Brittany some twenty feet above me. Unfortunately, she also saw me, removing all hope I might sneak up on her. She nudged her donkey to hurry. I looked down the path behind me and caught a glimpse of Sophie, some thirty yards back and weaving dangerously in her saddle.

“Go!” I kicked my donkey into high gear and we flew around the hairpin turn so quickly I had Brittany’s donkey by the reins before he even had a chance to respond to his rider’s command. “I need that krater, Brittany.”

She tried to jump off the right side of her donkey because I was close on its left but there wasn’t room. She’d have hit the caldera wall. Sliding off the rear end, she hit the ground hard, wobbled, and the krater in her arms swayed forward. The tips of the snake plant’s tall spikes grazed my cheek. I hopped off and tried to grab both her and the krater, desperate to stabilize the careening spikes, but to no avail. The krater, snake plant and all, flew out of her hands and over the side of the retaining wall. I felt sick. After all this, the krater was gone, smashed to bits, and it was my fault. If I hadn’t forced her off her donkey, it wouldn’t have happened.