Target: Tinos (22 page)

Trelos shrugged. “It’s been scrambled since you came into the house. Like I said, ‘I do not wish to hasten’ my demise.”

Andreas checked the recorder and put it back into his pocket. “You do realize this is not going to end here.”

“I should hope not. The killers of those poor people must be found.”

“There’s more involved.”

“Are you talking about the Foundation and the ‘robbery of a church’ that’s supposed to happen here this week?” He accented his words with finger quotes.

“How do you know about that?”

“As I said, we are invisible. Many people talk. We listen. But don’t worry, I can assure you that will not happen.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Trelos picked up his iPod and earphones. “Because it’s already happened.” He put on his earphones. “I have no more to say.” And began to dance as Kouros and Tassos came through the front door.

“We didn’t find a thing, Chief.”

Trelos did a quick pirouette, ending with a wink that only Andreas could see.

Chapter Twenty-three

“That’s one smart son-of-a-bitch. He made sure to put you in a ‘your word against his’ situation over a supposed conversation between you and a notorious whackjob who never talks,” said Tassos.

“And how the hell do you scramble a recorder?” said Kouros from the backseat of the cruiser heading toward town.

“You’re asking me?” said Andreas. “I’m still trying to remember what he said.”

“You remembered enough for me to have a chat with my niece. Unless one of us talked where we shouldn’t have, Eleni’s the only other person who knew about the robbery.”

“And what was all that about the robbery having ‘already happened’?” said Kouros.

“Another question for Eleni,” said Andreas.

Kouros shook his head. “What I don’t get is why does everybody in the sister’s family think she needs protection? She’s the one going face-to-face every night in that bar with the hard-ass customers her brother is trying to save. And from the way she got away from us last night, she just might have the biggest balls in her family.”

“I think Trelos has a pretty good size pair,” said Andreas. “Let’s not forget he’s been playing chicken with the Albanians.”

“I’d say leaving dead bodies all over Greece qualifies as more than a game of chicken,” said Kouros.

“But who’s doing it, and why?” said Andreas.

“Isn’t Trelos the obvious ‘who’?” said Tassos. “I can’t see him personally doing that sort of heavy-lifting dirty work, but for sure there’s a hell of a lot of guys in his brotherhood who could. Like he said, that’s why the Albanians don’t want to mess with his ‘army.’”

“Great, so what’s the ‘why’ answer?” said Andreas.

“He’s sending a simple message. ‘This is what happens to anyone who tries to fuck with me,’” said Kouros.

Andreas gestured no. “No, not ‘fuck with me.’ That can’t be the message. As far as we can tell the only threat the victims posed to Trelos was to expose him as the Shepherd.”

“Sounds like a difference without a distinction to me,” said Tassos. “Once he’s exposed, the Albanians would do the fucking.”

Andreas nodded. “Which is precisely why it makes no sense that, if he’s responsible for eliminating those he thought posed a threat to exposing him, he simply out of the blue decided to announce to me who he was.”

“Like he said, he thought you’d find out sooner or later, so he’s trying to con you with misdirection,” said Kouros.

“Bullshit. If he was behind the intricate planning that went into arranging the murders of those five men, plus getting that package to me, and his reason for doing all that was to keep his identity a secret, I can’t imagine that less than an hour of my busting his balls would break him. He knew that even if I suspected who he was there was no way I could prove it. All he had to do was keep playing dumb and wait for the chance to take me out.

“No, we’re definitely still missing the ‘why.’”

“Aren’t you forgetting the ‘robbery’? He could have said what he did to distract you from discovering what he’s planned?” said Kouros.

“Only if the robbery hasn’t already happened. For if it has, even the murders make no sense.”

“Which is precisely why we’re seeing my niece.”

Andreas pulled into the lot behind the Foundation’s offices. “Who gets to play bad cop this time?”

“She’s my niece, my turn.”

***

“What do you mean you have good news and bad news to tell me, uncle?”

“The good news is, we understand from a reliable source that your church won’t be robbed. At least not this week.”

“That is good news, but I never really thought anything like that was possible.”

“The bad news is, you’ve already been robbed.”

“
What
? That cannot be. Who told you that?”

“No, the question is, ‘Whom did you talk to about a possible robbery?’”

“No one.”

“You’re the only one on the island other than the three of us who knew.”

“Honest, I didn’t tell anyone at the Foundation. I kept my word.”

Andreas raised his hand. “Excuse me, but possibly you mentioned something in passing about it to a girlfriend, a boyfriend or—”

“I’m not a gossip.” Her tone was sharp.

“Enough already with that dismissive tone of voice of yours. I don’t like it and it’s not working. I want to know who you told and
I want to know now
.” Tassos was shouting.

“Stop, uncle, you’re making a scene.”

“Not nearly as big a one as I’ll make if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

“Okay, okay. After we met at the taverna, Dad called to ask why the private meeting. I think he was hurt that you hadn’t included him. I told him it was ‘police business.’ That made him worry I was in some sort of trouble, so I told him it wasn’t about me, but the possibility of someone planning to rob a church on Tinos. But I swore him to secrecy before telling him.”

Tassos smacked his hands on his thighs. “Swearing your father to secrecy is about as good as telling a hungry kid not to touch the cookies. God knows how many he told.”

“And considering the source of the information, it wouldn’t take much guesswork to figure out the church was the Foundation’s,” said Kouros.

“Well, at least we have our answer to that part of the puzzle. Now on to the grand prize question,” said Andreas. “When was the last time the Foundation was robbed?”

“And we’re not interested in one-hundred-seventy-year-old stories,” said Tassos.

“We’ve never been robbed.”

“Is that your final answer?” said Andreas.

“Yes.”

“Good, where’s your boss’ office?”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Of course not. It’s just obvious you’re not included in the Foundation’s ‘we’ve-been-robbed’ loop. There’s no doubt in my mind that over the last one-hundred-seventy-years the Foundation’s been robbed. The only question is when and how much was taken.”

“My boss will not see you.”

“Yes he will. I’m Chief Inspector of Special Crimes for GADA, and I’ve reason to believe a robbery has occurred at the Foundation, an institution under the direct supervision of two government ministries. If your boss refuses to see me I’ll be duty bound to present a full report to the appropriate ministers. And by the way, if that’s not enough to convince your boss to see me, suggest that he begin preparing to accommodate all the media that will be joining the pilgrims and
tsigani
camped out around the Foundation. In my experience, government ministers have a harder time keeping juicy secrets from the press than daughters do from fathers.”

Eleni swallowed hard. “I’ll be right back.”

As soon as she left the room Tassos said, “I thought I was supposed to be the bad cop.”

“Sorry, force of habit.”

“What do we do now?” said Kouros.

“Wait,” said Tassos.

Andreas looked at a photograph on a bookshelf behind Eleni’s desk. It was of Eleni with her father and probably her mother. “Yianni, did that cop you talked to about the accident that killed Trelos’ parents remember anything squirrelly about it?”

“No, he said it was straightforward. The father fell asleep at the wheel.”

“Did they check the brakes?”

“Yes, and all the other systems. Everything was in working order.”

“What about toxicology?”

“Only tested for blood-alcohol levels. Nothing out of line there either.”

“Why are you asking?” said Tassos. “Do you think the kiddies did away with mommy and daddy for the family fortune?”

“It’s happened before. And their deaths probably gave Trelos what he needed for his save the world project,” said Andreas.

“And if he’d been able to catch his sister in the car with them it would have increased his share of the estate,” said Kouros.

“What’s happened to your ‘gentle soul’ take on Trelos?”

“I’ve learned to be flexible in my thinking. It comes with maturity.”

Andreas flashed an open palm at Kouros just as the door to the office swung open.

A pudgy man with a neatly trimmed salt and pepper toothbrush mustache stepped inside and shut the door. He was about Kouros’ height and Tassos’ age. He went directly to Eleni’s desk and sat down in her chair.

“I asked Eleni for permission to use her office. She’s using mine for now. I understand you want to speak to her boss about a robbery at our Foundation. As I am responsible for overseeing the protection of the Foundation and its treasures, the vice-president asked that you kindly direct your inquiries to me. Please, call me Dimitri. Now, how can I help you?”

“Thank you for being so concise and to the point. I shall be the same. My name is Andreas, and I’m GADA’s Chief Inspector of Special Crimes.”

“I know your boss.”

Andreas smiled. “Everyone seems to. Then I’m sure you appreciate the delicate nature of the situation as I have not yet brought the details I intend to share with you to his attention.”

“Why did you come to Eleni with your questions and not to her superior directly?”

“She is my colleague’s niece,” he nodded toward Tassos, “And we came to her only for a recommendation of the appropriate person to approach at the Foundation.”

“Did you tell her what you’re about to share with me?”

“Only that it concerned a possible robbery at the Foundation.”

Dimitri nodded. “Good. This is the sort of thing that can spread harmful unnecessary gossip. We can’t have things getting out of hand, can we?”

Andreas nodded. “No, but nor can we afford to have more bodies turning up. Five dead and counting is a pretty good indicator that things are already out of hand.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see how any of those deaths could possibly have anything to do with the Foundation.”

“All I’m saying is that bad guys tied into the murder victims seem to know that the Foundation has been robbed. It’s only the good guys who are in the dark.”

“Five dead souls.” Dimitri crossed himself. “How can you be sure their deaths are related to the robbing of our church?”

“Shall I take that as a ‘yes’ as to whether you’ve been robbed? Because believe me, there are three murders on Tinos and two in Athens tied into it.” Andreas let his words sink in.

Dimitri seemed lost in thought. “We noticed the first one about ten years ago.”

“The first one?” said Andreas. “How many have there been?”

“That’s hard to say?”

“What do you mean, ‘hard to say’?”

“They’re not wholesale thefts of treasures, just one here, one there, hardly noticeable except when we take inventory.”

“How often do you take inventory?”

“Depends. For some items it’s done once a year, for others not so often.”

“Are you saying you’re still being robbed?” said Tassos.

Dimitri nodded. “With each inventory we’re missing more things.”

“And you never tried to catch the thieves or at least stop them?” said Andreas.

“Of course we tried. We suspected everyone, still do, even ourselves. We installed security cameras wherever we could, but the thieves found ways to get around them and things kept disappearing.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?” said Andreas.

“As you said, Chief Inspector, it is a situation of an extremely ‘delicate nature’ and new donations more than replenish what is lost. We’ve come to accept it as God’s way of tithing us for the many contributions we receive in the Holy Virgin’s name.”

“Wow, that’s some way to look at being robbed, tithing!” said Kouros.

“Tithing means ten percent. Are you saying you’ve been loosing ten percent of donations every year for the past ten years?” said Tassos.

“I see no reason to put a number on it. You get the idea.”

“Now that’s what I call a very serious motive for murder,” said Andreas. “I want a list describing every stolen item. If we can find one missing item we might have a shot at tracing it back to the thieves.”

Dimitri shook his head. “I’m sorry, but although we log in every item before it’s sent off to storage, the description is no more than the weight of a ‘gold ring’ or the size of ‘diamond earrings’ and that sort of thing, except for the most precious of items and those have never been stolen.”

“What do they steal?” said Tassos.

“Simple things of value, but not valuable enough to be unique. Gold jewelry, gems, items like that.”

“All portable?” said Kouros.

“Yes.”

“Great,” said Tassos. “We’ve got thieves acting like careful mice, taking only what they can carry away in their cheeks.”

“Where did the robberies take place?” said Andreas.

“There was no one place.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our main vaults are here, in caverns and rooms underneath this complex, but we have other places for safekeeping all over the island.”

“A sort of ‘not keeping your eggs in one basket’ approach to security?” said Kouros.

“Yes, but once we thought we’d secured one location things would disappear from another.”

“And you’ve been robbed at all locations?” said Andreas.

“Yes.”

Andreas put his right elbow on the desk, and his forehead in the palm of his hand.

“I know just how you feel, Chief Inspector. It is a burden I’ve carried for the Foundation for many years.”

Andreas looked up, “You mean the Foundation’s commission doesn’t know about any of this?”

Dimitri said nothing.

“I want a map showing every site where you’ve been robbed,” said Andreas.

Dimitri gestured no. “I cannot possibly do that. The locations are top secret, known only to a handful of persons completely above suspicion. And that includes the few longtime, trusted employees who inconspicuously transport items from the Church to our places of safekeeping.”

“Plus, let’s not forget the thieves. They seem pretty well informed. Dimitri, that was a non-negotiable request. You’ve left us no other place to start. Either I get the list from you or I start asking government ministers to get it from the Foundation for me. And believe me that most definitely will ‘
burden
’ the Foundation’s commission.”

“But—”

Andreas cut him off. “How you choose to deal with all those robberies is your own business. Frankly, unless you force my hand, I don’t want to get involved in any of that or go public with your ‘delicate’ decade of details. But how I choose to deal with solving five murders is my business. Do we understand each other?”