Carefully, Andreas laid out every piece of evidence in front of him: the robe, the hat, the undergarments, the sandals, a cross.
‘Where’s the other cross?’
The cop shrugged. ‘I guess they took it for the funeral service.’
‘Who authorized its removal?’
He shrugged again. ‘The captain?’
Hope the idiot doesn’t bury it with him, thought Andreas. Thank God he took the silver one.
Slowly, Andreas began examining every stitch of every garment, as if a Rosetta stone-type secret were woven into the fabric. After twenty-five minutes of this, Andreas noticed the cop was getting antsy. He’d stopped watching every move Andreas made and began glancing around the room. Five minutes later Andreas said, ‘Officer, would you do me a favor and open the shutters, I need a bit more light in here if I’m ever going to finish.’
The cop seemed excited at the chance of finally getting to do something besides watching Andreas’ hands. He stepped behind the captain’s desk, popped open the shutters and returned to the table. By then Andreas had moved on to the cross. He was holding it up to the new light. ‘Thanks, that helped a lot.’
The rookie nodded.
Ten minutes later Andreas said he was finished. He told the two how much he appreciated their cooperation and said, if they preferred, he’d not mention his visit to their captain. They looked at each other and, in Greek chorus fashion, nodded and said, ‘Thank you.’
Andreas walked back to his car imagining what he’d do to anyone under his command that let himself be bullied into opening up his office. No telling what could happen. He touched the item in his pant pocket that he’d purchased less than an hour before in the shop. Well, not really the same item, but one just like it. Someone might even switch crosses on you, he thought.
The first thing Maggie saw on her desk that morning was a sealed envelope wrapped in red ribbon with a scribbled note:
Please transcribe ASAP. Only you are to do it, and only you are to know. There are two voices on the tape, one is still unidentified and the other belongs to the person who made me do this to you. xox, Yianni.
She smiled. They were good kids. Dedicated cops, too. Not many like them. She put aside the things on her desk, opened the envelope, and took out the tape. There wasn’t a decent software program for converting Greek speech into the written word, so she did it the old fashioned way: she put the tape into her transcription machine, adjusted her headphones to minimize damage to her permanent, and hit the foot pedal to start things off.
Maggie could type as fast as they spoke, and once she caught the rhythm of their voices it was easy. She was breezing along listening to the other man’s scholarly description of ancient church intrigues and enjoying every minute of it. She was deeply religious and more aware than most of church history. She quickly realized that the other man was someone who truly knew what he was talking about. She also noticed something familiar about his voice. Probably, she thought, because she’d heard the subject discussed many times before.
The man was five minutes or so into his thinking on modern theological problems confronting the church when she screamed, ‘ Kalogeros Giorgos! I can’t believe it’s you.’
Maggie transcribed the rest of the tape in rigid, concentrated silence. Nothing in life surprised her anymore, but she prayed he wasn’t involved. Not all sacred cows should fall to slaughter. Certainly not this one, she prayed.
Kouros looked at what the abbot had e-mailed as being all his information on the three unaccounted-for monks. It was about as helpful as saying, ‘Huey, Dewey, and Louie live in Disney World.’ Maybe less so. All were from a monastery on Mount Athos that was among the poorest, least developed, and strictest there. Its monks prided themselves on rigorous discipline and endless prayer. They slept on wooden plank benches without mattresses, and regarded as far too liberal a neighbor monastery well known for its strict interpretation of all things and the inscription ‘Orthodoxy or Death’ over its entranceway.
They had no television, no Internet, no telephone, and barely communicated with the outside world. The only way to make contact was by mail or to show up on their doorstep and literally pray for them to let you in. Kouros sighed. He saw a pilgrimage in his future.
Kouros decided to take a crack at something more within his control and ran a check on the Patmos police captain. It came back clean except for a number of citizen complaints that his personality bordered on asshole — coming from the dark side. No surprise there. But an otherwise clean record didn’t necessarily mean anything more than he was careful. Some of the dirtiest cops he knew looked terrific on paper. They’d pull more quality arrests than any other cops in their jurisdiction. Of course they did, because they were paid by their bad-guy partners not just to protect them, but to shut down their competitors through tip-offs. It was a double hit for crooked cops: glory for the collar, cash for the protection. Still, there was nothing to suggest this Patmos cop was dirty. It would require an undercover operation in the middle of nowhere. He’d leave that call to his chief.
8
Stealing evidence wasn’t his proudest moment, but Andreas saw no choice. He had to study it in detail, and if he did so in front of Patmos cops there was no doubt his interest in the cross would get back to anyone on the island with an interest in his investigation. Vassilis died protecting whatever secret it held and Andreas wasn’t about to help give it away.
Switching crosses wasn’t all that difficult, even though he’d relied more on improvisation and luck than practised skill. He’d casually slid his left hand into his left front pant pocket and gripped the duplicate cross as the cop went behind the captain’s desk. The instant the cop turned to open the shutters, Andreas grabbed the evidence from the table with his right hand, and with his left, yanked the replacement out of his pocket and thrust it up in front of him. By the time the cop looked back, Andreas was slowly twisting the duplicate in the light, drawing the cop’s eyes to it while slipping the original into his right front pant pocket.
The only real downside he saw to what he’d done was that unless something truly nasty turned up in the Patmos captain’s file that Andreas could not overlook, a potentially crooked cop was home free. Andreas knew if he pushed for an investigation that ultimately led to prosecution the rookies would tell their captain everything, and his visit would become a key element in any defense. That one incontrovertible fact would be partnered with a lot of made-up ones to yield stories and headlines along the lines of ‘Chief Cop Plants Evidence on Local Cop.’ It was just that sort of take-no-prisoners media approach that broke his father. He wouldn’t risk subjecting Lila and the baby to the craziness. No reason to revive the bad memories for his mother either. No smoke, no investigation. Make that no roaring fire, no investigation.
Andreas sat in his rented car outside the police station and pressed his hand against his pocket. Still there, he thought. He didn’t dare take it out here; one of the cops inside might get suspicious. After all, why would he leave their captain’s office to sit in the parking lot staring at something unless he’d taken evidence? No, he’d find some other place to study it.
This must be what it felt like to be a thief, he thought. No, make that a novice thief who thinks everyone is watching him. Truth was, no one probably cared, but he couldn’t take the chance. He had to find the right place to study the cross and think. But where? He drove up the mountain toward Chora.
The Patmian School was halfway between Skala and Chora. Begun in 1713, it was among the world’s most renowned schools of Greek language and Orthodox theology, and now served as a seminary. Surely, a man sitting outside contemplating a cross would not be out of place.