Mykonos After Midnight (2 page)

Sergey was the same slob he’d been when they’d lived together, always waiting for someone to pick up after him. But now that someone was used to maids.

How can I ever go back to this?

Anna sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the icon on the wall between the room’s two dirty windows. She didn’t pray, only stared, waiting to hear him at the door.

There were a lot of things she had to tell him.

Chapter Three

Tassos turned back into the house and went straight upstairs to Christos’ bedroom. It was messy, but slept-in messy, not ransacked. The safe was where the maid had said, its door wide open and insides empty. He looked around. There wasn’t a thing in the closet or bedroom that looked as if it might have been in the safe. The killers must have taken everything in it, he thought.

He went back downstairs and found the coroner working in the living room. “There’s a safe upstairs, Costas. It’s wide open so let’s get the tech boys on it doing their thing. But I doubt they’ll find anything more than the victim’s prints.”

“Why so pessimistic? Even cops get lucky sometimes.”

Tassos shook his head. “Not on that safe we won’t. My guess is Christos opened it for them. As messy as this killing was, if they’d murdered him first there’d be blood tracked somewhere upstairs or on the steps. Besides, the smart move was to get him to cooperate.”

“Unless they already knew the combination.”

Tassos nodded. “Yes, but even if they did, I doubt they’d have killed him first. Still, have them check for blood traces up there just in case I’m wrong for the first time in my life.”

“What do you think happened?”

“I think Christos opened the upstairs safe but they were looking for more than what was in it. And not just money or jewelry.”

“And how do you come to that conclusion?”

“They took everything in the safe. I mean everything. Most people keep at least some personal papers in a safe. Deeds, a will, an old photograph or two, something they think important enough to protect. Sure, there may be some blackmail value in some of those things, but I can’t believe every scrap of paper in there would interest a thief.
Unless
, what they wanted wasn’t in the safe and they thought the papers might hold a clue to what they were really after.”

“But why kill Christos if he gave them what they came for?”

“The point is, I don’t think he did. The maid said there was a second safe. Maybe the killers knew about it, maybe they didn’t. But I think he died because he didn’t give them what they were looking for. Something they knew he had hidden somewhere. Either in a second safe or someplace else.”

“What the hell was worth dying for? Certainly not money.”

Tassos shrugged. “Who knows what people are willing to die for? You and I know better, because we’ve seen this before.” Tassos waved his hand at the bodies of Christos and his dog. “But most folks, don’t think this could ever happen to them. Especially on Mykonos, where violent crime is practically unheard of. When something like this starts to go down, they think it’s just a bad dream that’ll end when they wake up.”

“But if he opened the upstairs safe without a fight, and the killers realized he hadn’t given them what they wanted, why didn’t they beat him up in the bedroom instead of bringing him down here to do it?”

Tassos shrugged again. “That, my friend, is a question to ask them when we catch them.”

Tassos walked over to the fireplace and began tugging at the tiles. When a section of them shifted, he pulled harder, and the tiles swung open just as the maid said they would.

“Bingo.” Inside was a closed safe door twice as large as the one upstairs. “Care to bet whether the killers ever found this one?”

Costas gestured no with his head. “But I still don’t understand what could be in it worth dying for.”

“Me either, but our answer might be inside. Besides, if you’re right about the first blow taking him out, Christos may not have had a chance to change his mind and give them what they wanted.”

Costas shook his head. “Poor bastard.”

“Can any of your boys open a safe?”

“Professionally?”

“No jokes. I need someone who can do it and keep his mouth shut. Too many loose lips among the local police.”

“One of my guys has done that sort of thing before, though he might be reluctant without a court order.”

“Just get it done.”

Costas nodded.

Tassos turned and pointed to a bookcase in the far corner of the room by the door leading to the backyard. “Did you see that?”

“If you mean the camera? Yes. It’s pretty well hidden but I saw it. One of your men found where the recorder used to be.”

“Used to be?”

“Yes, everything’s gone. Whatever was recorded is no more.”

“Sounds like whoever did this really knew the house.”

“You think so, huh? No wonder you’re chief homicide investigator.”

Tassos shot him the middle finger as he shouted, “Adonis, where are you?”

Ten seconds later a lanky, dark-haired uniformed cop in his early twenties stuck his head through the doorway out to the backyard. “I’m out here, Chief, looking for footprints.”

“Forget about that for now. I want you to check out every house that has a sight line on this place. See if any of them have security cameras aimed in this direction. If you find any, get everything they have going back a week. And I mean everything.”

“Yes, sir, right away.” He disappeared.

Tassos said, “Good kid.”

“Why, because he listens to your every word? And don’t bother giving me the finger this time. I’m too busy concentrating on my work to notice.”

Tassos gave him the finger anyway.

***

Anna lay stretched out on her side across the foot of the bed. The apartment’s windows faced front, across a busy commercial street three stories below, and the little light still in the sky came from behind the building. She fell asleep to the din of the traffic.

She awoke in the dark and slid off the bed to make her way to the bathroom next to the front door. She turned on the light, did her business, and stepped back into the room making up the rest of the apartment. That’s when she saw the men asleep with their heads resting across their forearms on the kitchen table over by one of the windows.

From the number of empty beer bottles on the table, Anna guessed that she’d had the company of her two traveling companions for quite some time. They must have tired of waiting outside the apartment and come in to pass the time drinking and whispering to each other about what they’d like to do to her as she slept on the bed. But she knew all they’d dare do was fantasize. After all, she was Sergey’s girlfriend.

Where is he? She’d spent six miserable days with these degenerates getting to Mykonos and back on schedule, and Sergey couldn’t bother to be here waiting for her?
Bastard.
In addition to maids, Anna had become used to better treatment from her men.

The whole trip would have taken two days, three at most, had they flown. But that would involve closely checked identification at security checkpoints. Boats, buses, and trains were a pain in the ass to travel between Bialystok and Mykonos but that was the way Sergey wanted it done. It was his plan and they’d stuck to it faithfully––except for the part about what happened to Christos.

Bang!

Anna jumped up and spun around to face the door.

Bang, bang, bang.

Someone was hammering away at the door with a fist.

“Who is it?” she said.

“Your happiness and joy.”

“Sergey!” She hurried to the door, undid the bolt, and swung open the door.

A tall, broad-shouldered man with Romanesque features stepped inside, arms spread wide and smiling as if he were a kid on Christmas morning. Fair-skinned, with pale blue eyes and shoulder-length, bright white hair, he seemed almost albino, except that his eyebrows and lashes were jet black.

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard on the lips.

Sergey brought his arms in toward her body and gave a sort of a hug with his elbows.

She pulled back, her hands still around his neck. “Is this how you show how happy you are to see me?”

He waved with one hand to the two men at the table. They waved back, smiling.

“Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for hours,” she said.

Sergey leaned in and kissed her quickly on the lips. “My darling, I’ve been buying vodka to celebrate.” He pulled back from her grip and brought his hands around to show a plastic grocery bag in each hand.

“Here, put them on the table so we can share with our friends.” He handed her the packages and started walking toward the men.

“What’s the matter, you couldn’t carry them over to the table yourself?”

He paused for an instant, but said nothing and kept going.

The two men stood up and embraced Sergey.

“You did it, my friends. Congratulations. Well done.” Sergey slapped both men on the back.

Anna hadn’t moved. “‘Well done’? These imbeciles beat him to death before we had the chance to find where he’d hidden what we were looking for. They ruined everything. Destroyed our plan.”

Sergey turned and walked back to Anna. He took the packages from her hands. “Relax, it was an accident.”

“
Accident?
You weren’t there. They never gave him a chance to tell us where it was. I did just as you said. I told him the two had kidnapped me and wanted money to let me go. That’s when he took us upstairs and opened the safe.”

“But what we wanted wasn’t in there,” said the shorter of the two men.

“There were other ways to get him to tell us,” she said.

“We tried,” said the tall man.

“Throwing him down the stairs wasn’t what I meant.”

The tall man shrugged.

Anna nodded toward the short man. “That asshole never gave me a chance to get him to talk. He just started beating Christos with a statuette until his head split open, while
you
did the same thing to the dog.” She pointed at the tall man.

“The fucker bit me,” said the tall man waving a bandaged hand.

Sergey sighed. “There’s nothing we can do about it, my love. Let’s just move on.” He kissed her on the forehead, took the packages to the table, and gestured for the men to open them.

“How can we move on? I can never go back to Mykonos. I’m no longer a kidnap victim, I’m part of a murder.”

“We took all the videos,” said the tall man.

She shook her head. “It’s still too big a chance for me to take. I’ll always be a suspect.”

Sergey nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid you’re right about that. But look at the bigger picture. Christos is no longer. The king of Mykonos nightlife is gone. Hail the new king.” He pointed to his chest.

“Are you crazy? You’re not Greek, let alone Mykonian, and you’ve never even been to Mykonos.”

He smiled. “Details, my love, details.”

“You
are
crazy! What about all those things he bragged about to me? The things you said we
must
have for the plan to work?”

He shrugged. “I assume the police will find all of that and we’ll be able to buy what we need from them. If not, we shall find other ways.”

“And what are we going to use for money?”

He shook his head. “Oh ye of little faith. Remember, police aren’t as expensive as they used to be.”

“Stop bullshitting me, Sergey. What’s going on?”

The tall man opened one of the bottles of vodka as the short man put out four mismatched water glasses.

“Like I said, we’re celebrating.”

“Tell me or I’m out of here!”

“But to where? Where can you go now that is safer than here?” He waved toward the two other men, “With us?”

She blinked.

He walked over to her and put his arm around her shoulder. “Come my love, it’s time to celebrate.”

And so they did.

***

The screen lit up and a buzz vibrated along the tabletop. Tassos put down his coffee and reached for his phone. He looked at the name of the caller, ANDREAS KALDIS, and pressed ACCEPT.

“I was wondering when I’d hear from our country’s feared head of its Special Crimes Division.” The two cops met when Andreas served as chief of police on Mykonos, and they’d remained fast friends after his promotion back to Athens as chief of the division charged with investigating matters of national concern or potential corruption.

“Tell me about it. If it weren’t for a court appearance I had this afternoon, Spiros would have had me on Mykonos busting your balls for answers to feed the press.”

“Ahh, Spiros Renatis, our distinguished fearless leader and minister of public order. How nice of him to still take an interest in my work after all these years. He should have dropped by, I’d have been more than happy to see him. At least he could have called. I’m hurt.”

“Yeah, I bet. He’s more afraid of you than he is of his wife,” said Andreas. Tassos had been on the force so long that everyone either owed him a favor or feared what he knew about them––on both sides of the law.

“You mean the one who gives him his social standing?” said Tassos.

“Hey, easy there fella, you’re hitting close to home.” Andreas’ wife was the daughter of one of Greece’s oldest and wealthiest families and the socially prominent widow of a shipowner before they married.

Tassos laughed. “How is Lila, Andreas,
mou
?”

“My bride is fine and sends her regards.”

“So, what can I do to help you?”

“As if you didn’t know. Christos Vasilakis had a lot of friends, he was a media darling, and Spiros sees the chance to become a headline hero again with a quick arrest.”

“Well, it won’t be quick, but we’ll make an arrest.”

“You’ve solved it already? I’m impressed.”

“It wasn’t that hard. There were three of them. Christos’ girlfriend and two other guys. They showed up at Christos’ house in a car they’d stolen from the old port, killed him, drove the car back to the old port, left it there, and took the Sea Jet to Athens.”

“How the hell do you all know that?”

“Got your attention, huh?”

“Always do.”

“I had one of my guys check the neighborhood for security cameras. He found video covering practically the whole route between Christos’ house and the old port. Do you have any idea how many cameras are out there? They’re everywhere.”

“Good thing my secret liaison days at deserted fields and beaches are behind me.”

“You better believe it. These days whatever you do outdoors you’re likely doing for an audience.”