Maybe I made a mistake calling out Shepherd so close to the wedding? Andreas shook his head and swallowed. No reason to chase that thought. If Shepherd takes the bait and comes after me, there’s nothing more I can do about it than I am. Andreas bit at his lower lip.
He looked out the window. The sea was calm. Tomorrow should be a beautiful day. He crossed himself.
“No, no. I want something larger. That is too small.”
The salesgirl said, “I’m sorry, madam, I misunderstood. You said you wanted a silver bowl for a wedding gift, so I showed you our most popular size for that occasion. What size are you looking for?” This was the shop of the most famous jeweler in Greece, an international legend and a man of impeccable reputation.
The woman in the huge sunglasses, a tent of a long sleeve dress, and an enormous floppy hat pointed to a display of hammered silver bowls and pitchers, a hallmark of his craft. “I’ll take that one, the big one.” It was a foot and a half in diameter and about six inches deep.
“Certainly, madam. Here, let me tell you the price.”
“It doesn’t matter. My employer said I am to buy ‘the biggest.’”
“Yes, madam. Is there a card you wish to put inside?”
The woman nodded.
The salesgirl put out her hand to take the card.
“I’ll put it inside myself. I’m supposed to arrange it in a particular way.” She shrugged. “Those are my instructions.”
The salesgirl smiled. “As you wish.” She took out a large red box, symbolic of the store, arranged the bowl amid tissue paper, and pointed the customer to the bowl. “Please.”
The woman said, “Could I trouble you for a filter coffee?”
“No trouble at all. How do you like it?”
“Medium sweet, no milk. Thank you.”
The salesgirl left. By the time she returned the box was closed. She carefully placed the coffee on a table by the customer, finished wrapping the gift with ribbons, put it into a large red shopping bag, and sealed the bag shut.
“How will you be paying?”
There was no attempt to bargain. The woman reached into a large beach bag she carried on her shoulder and handed over cash in the exact amount owed. The salesgirl noticed the woman was wearing white cotton gloves of the sort used to handle silver and had not touched her coffee.
“Thank you,” said the salesgirl. “Will there be anything else?”
“Could you possibly have this delivered to the church? My employer doesn’t want to carry it there herself.” She spread her arms and shrugged her shoulders again. “What can I say, those are my instructions?”
The salesgirl smiled. “I understand. We all have our bosses. Where is the wedding?”
“In Ano Mera at-”
“The Vardi-Kaldis wedding?”
“Yes.”
“No problem, our owner is invited and he’s bringing presents from several of our clients with him. Consider it done.”
The woman smiled. “Thank you. You have no idea how happy you’ve just made my employer.”
Chapter Fourteen
Every faith considers marriage a primary rite. Most also accept it as the excuse for one hell of a party. The Greek Orthodox Church was no exception, especially on Mykonos. On the night before a local boy married a local girl, the groom spent the night partying with his guy friends, and his bride with her girlfriends. It was sort of a “kids’ last night out,” for after the wedding locals no longer called them “boy” and “girl,” but “man” and “woman.” Lila and Andreas, though, were not locals, and no one was likely to call them kids, so they skipped that ritual and stayed home Saturday night. Not that either got much sleep.
Andreas was on the balcony outside their bedroom staring at the sea. Sunlight was breaking over the horizon bringing color back to the sky.
Lila came up to him from behind and pressed her face against his bare back. “Nervous?”
“About becoming your husband until death do us part, forever and ever, until the sun stops rising in the morning, until-”
“So, you are.”
“A bit.” Andreas smiled.
“Me too.” Her tone sounded serious. “But it’ll be worth it for the party.”
Andreas turned around and hugged her. “Do you know how much I love you?”
“Yes, but feel free to tell me again.”
“Words fail me.”
Lila laughed.
“So, where do I have to be today and when?”
Lila cocked her head. “Why, do you have plans?”
“Nothing more important than whatever you want me to do.”
“Nice try, Kaldis. What’s on your mind?”
He didn’t want to tell Lila about the threat. He also didn’t want to lie. So he decided to break his rule against discussing his cases with her. But just a little bit. “The Tinos murders.”
“What about them?”
“Until now the case only involved metanastes and tsigani bad guys killing each other. That’s the perfect way to keep Greeks from caring much about it. We love pointing fingers, blaming others for our troubles. We blame immigrants for crime, drugs, and change to our way of life. We ignore that few in this country want to pay taxes, corruption is everywhere, and only the honest seem to get screwed. Our system is ‘every man for himself,’ so why are we surprised when new arrivals want to get their piece of the action, too? But, for some, violence is the only way they know, they’re not sophisticated or connected enough yet to do it with a pen, and that makes the lot of them perfect scapegoats for whatever goes wrong here.”
Lila stared at him. “You’re on a rather cynical rant for so early in the morning. Even for a cop.”
“I know, but it’s as if someone were taking great care to make sure that only tsigani and metanastes were involved. Then out of the blue two Greek women pop up as potential killers. It just doesn’t fit. Or, more likely, I’m missing something.”
Lila snuggled her head against his chest. “As long as you don’t miss the wedding. Only twelve hours to go.”
Andreas kissed her on the forehead. “I think you’ve mentioned something like that to me before.”
“Hopefully the message has sunk in.” Lila leaned back and smiled. “But, I think for this morning you should go off and play with your buddies. You’re way too serious for our wedding day.”
Tassos and Andreas were sitting in a scruffy, virtually deserted kafeneion by the edge of Ano Mera’s town square, thirty feet and a few steps up from the entrance to the monastery of Tourliani. Most of the town’s early rising locals seemed to have headed to the harbor for their Sunday morning coffee and gossip. Ano Mera was the other town on Mykonos, with roots tracing back to 4500 BC. It sat at the island’s rural heart, five miles from the far better known harbor town bearing the island’s name.
Tradition had it that two monks from the nearby island of Paros, while escaping pirates, found asylum in a small Ano Mera church and decided to establish a monastery there. During its construction in 1542, an icon of the Virgin Mary was found on a beach on the west side of the island. According to legend, each time the icon was placed at another site, at night it miraculously found its way back to the monastery and now resided within its walls as the revered icon of Panagia Tourliani, the protector of the island.
“You know, if someone were interested in stealing a priceless icon it would be a lot easier going after this one than the Megalochari.” Tassos nodded in the direction of the monastery.
“Or practically any other icon in Greece. But the Megalochari is the big prize.”
“So, how do you want to handle security?”
Andreas bit at his lower lip. “Shut everything down as much as we can.” He pointed to the town square only a few feet away from where they sat. One-story buildings, virtually all tavernas, surrounded a flagstone square containing a broad walkway encircling a slightly elevated central oval set off from the rest of the square by a foot-high stonewall. Within the oval children played and the town celebrated civic events and festivals.