The house was just where the driver said it would be, and virtually invisible from any road but the one they were on. There was a car parked by the front door and Kouros had the driver honk so as not to alarm whoever was inside. It turned out to belong to the owners. Not Germans, but a French couple. The driver had guessed right about the rental part though. They’d rented out the house for the week the two Greek hookers stayed there.
A woman had phoned them in France and said that she saw the sign on their house while trekking along a trail that ran by it. She wanted to rent it for a week, starting immediately. The rent was paid in advance through a cash deposit made directly into a bank account the couple maintained on Tinos. They didn’t know the woman but said she spoke French with a decided Greek accent. Her name was a strange sounding one, and the husband couldn’t remember it. The wife said she thought she’d marked it down somewhere and found it in her calendar. She showed the name to Kouros: Manto Mavrogenous.
It was a name known to every Greek. She was their country’s legendary female hero of the War of Independence; her father was a member of Filiki Eteria and her fiance the brother of Filiki Eteria’s leader, Alexander Ypsilantis. Manto Mavrogenous was aristocratic, highly educated, wealthy, beautiful, and dedicated to freedom for Greece. She had risked not just her life but her entire fortune for that cause. She also was among the first of Greece’s war heroes to pay homage to the Megalochari and, though her family’s roots were on Mykonos, for a while she’d made her home on Tinos.
This time on the taxi ride in from the house it was Kouros who said not a word to the driver.
“This is getting freakier by the minute,” said Tassos. “Now we’ve got male and female war heroes giving us grief.”
Kouros pointed across the taverna table at a bottle of water. “By the way, neither of them was born in Greece,” said Kouros.
“And Mavrogenous’ life didn’t have a fairy tale ending,” said Tassos. “Her home was destroyed by fire, her remaining fortune stolen, and her engagement broken off. She was never able to get the Greek government to reimburse her for all she’d contributed to the war effort and died penniless and in oblivion at fifty-four on Tinos’ neighboring island of Paros.” Tassos pointed due south in the direction of that Cycladic island.
Andreas put down his fork and handed Kouros the bottle. “Not sure what any of that means.”
Kouros took the bottle. “And just what part of all this are you sure of?”
“Good point.”
Tassos said, “I’ll get someone at the bank to see if there’s a way of finding out who put the money in the French couple’s account, but my guess is the odds of getting any where with that are between slim and none.”
“Looks like we’re back to trying to catch up with those two Polish girls,” said Andreas.
“After what happened to the Pakistani they might have taken off,” said Kouros.
“That would have been the smart move,” said Tassos. “But if they did, they didn’t take anything with them. The Tinos’ cops checked their place and everything seemed to be there, including their clothes.”
“I’ll take that as a sign that we have a shot at finding them tonight…” Andreas threw an open palm gesture at the ground, “or that Shepherd already has.”
As far as the cops sweltering in the rented van could tell, the heat of the day hadn’t realized how close it was to midnight and the Cycladic winds that generally made mid-August bearable had taken the night off. They were parked down the road from the turnoff to Petros’ metanastes bar in a spot that gave them a view of its entrance. They watched a man in a blue tee shirt park his beat-up motorbike as close to the front door of the bar as he could get it. He was wearing standard metanastes dress: tee shirt, jeans, and work boots. The man went into the bar and the cops put down their binoculars.
A fat man was sitting at a table just inside the doorway and an old-looking woman in a housecoat and slippers was doing something behind the bar. He walked past them and stood in the doorway to another room. His eyes moved from table to table. He turned and went back to sit on one of the stools in front of the bar.
“You looking for someone?” said Petros.
The man in the blue tee shirt gestured no.
“Do you want something?”
The man pointed at a beer bottle.
“You don’t talk much do you?”
The man gestured no.
“Get him a beer,” said Petros to the woman. “But make sure he pays first.”
The man placed two euros and a cell phone on the bar.
The woman put a bottle in front of him and shuffled off into the other room. Petros went back to doing whatever he was doing. The man took a sip of his beer, put it down, and sat as still as a stray cat hoping for dinner to pass by.
Thirty minutes passed and the man had taken no more than three sips of his beer. He’d glanced at everyone coming through the door but hadn’t moved from his stool.
Two blond Polish women, one tall and one short, walked through the door, passed the man at the bar, and went into the other room.
The two said hello to some men at other tables before sitting down at a table in the middle of the room. The man in the blue tee shirt pressed a button on his phone before putting it into his pocket, picked up his beer in his left hand, and walked toward the women. He reached behind his back with his right hand as he stopped at their table. The women didn’t seem to notice him until that moment but immediately gave him their best smiles. The smiles vanished the instant he brought his right hand around from behind his back.
“My badge ladies. Detective Yianni Kouros at your service.” Kouros sat down and put his beer on the table “Don’t mind me, I’m just your baby sitter. My friends will be here any minute.”
Thirty seconds later, Andreas came through the front door headed straight toward Kouros. Tassos was right behind him.
Petros stood up. “What’s this?”
Tassos pointed at Petros’ chest. “Sit down and shut up.”
Petros paused for a second and sat.
“Smart move. Now send a round of beers over to that table.” He pointed to Kouros. “Understand?”
Petros nodded.
“Good.” Tassos patted Petros on the shoulder and went to join Kouros and Andreas. They sat where each could cover the other’s back.
“Sorry about the drama, ladies,” said Andreas. “But since we couldn’t seem to find you to make an appointment, and didn’t want any of your friends in here who might recognize us calling you to suggest you’d be better off not showing up tonight, we thought we’d give you the chance to meet detective Kouros.”
Kouros nodded. “Ladies.”
“Yeah, but your grand entrance just fucked us,” said the tall woman.
“Such language,” said Tassos.
“Now everyone on Tinos will be saying we’re working with cops.”
“Does that have you worried?” said Andreas.
“The Pakistani is dead!”
“One of many,” said Tassos.
“I told you we should have left the island,” said the short one.
The tall one said something to her in Polish.
“Uhh, uhh, ladies. Remember the ground rules. Only Greek,” said Andreas.
“Or what? That you’ll arrest us? That would be safer than being loose on this island,” said the short one. “Why do you think we haven’t been back to our place? It’s too dangerous.”
“But you still come here,” said Tassos.