Sons of Sparta

Chapter Ten

Maggie opened the door to Andreas’ office. “Chief?”

Andreas looked at his watch. “Why are you still here?”

“Curiosity.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Curious about what?”

She walked over to his desk and handed him a large flat envelope. “It’s our techies’ take on the autopsy of Yianni’s uncle. They called to tell me it was on the way, so I waited.”

“That was fast.”

She smiled. “Someone lit a fire under them and they did the same to the local guy who performed the autopsy.”

“So, what’s it say?”

“Chief, I don’t open your mail.”

“Right. I forgot. It arrives that way from the mail room.”

Maggie shrugged.

Andreas unwound a string holding the cover flap closed, slid out a document, leaned back in his chair, and began to read.

Maggie sat across from him.

The first page recited all the customary exculpatory language to the effect that the author’s conclusions were based solely upon data provided by someone else so that if the data were in error the conclusions might change.

He slid the first page across the desk to Maggie and started reading the second. Halfway down the page he sat up in his chair. “Jesus.”

“What is it?”

Andreas held up the page and pointed with a pencil to four words. CONCLUSION: DEATH BY POISON.

“My God. Yianni was right. His uncle was murdered.”

Andreas went back to reading the report. He finished and slid the pages across the desk to Maggie.

“This technical stuff is all Chinese to me, Chief. What does it mean?”

Andreas tapped his pencil on his desk. “If the report is correct, his uncle died from exposure to an exotic poison lethal to the touch that rapidly brings on a massive heart attack in an otherwise healthy individual. According to the victim’s medical history, his heart was sound and asymptomatic for heart disease or any other suspect cause for such a natural death.”

Andreas leaned forward and with the eraser end of the pencil drew the report back to him. He looked at the second page. “According to a blood analysis done by the local coroner, there were traces of markers to the poison. Not of the poison itself, because it breaks down rapidly, but of the byproducts of its disintegration. We got a break with a quick autopsy, otherwise all evidence of the poison would have disappeared.”

“Doesn’t sound like the local coroner was involved in a cover-up.”

Andreas nodded. “My guess is once he found signs of a massive heart attack, he took that for the cause and didn’t bother to look any further. But even if he had, picking up on this poison would require sophisticated forensics skills I doubt he had. Even our guys couldn’t tell how the poison was administered.”

“So, how can they say it was death by poison?”

“It’s the old ‘within a reasonable degree of medical certainty’ routine. In other words, they’re pretty sure he was murdered, but it’s up to us to find out how.”

“Was it something he swallowed at the taverna?”

Andreas gestured no. “That would have killed him on the spot,” said Andreas.

“What about a needle?”

“Not as far as they could tell. It’s possible bruises and cuts sustained in the crash covered up a needle mark, but that would mean whoever planned it to look like an accident left to blind luck whether the injection site would be discovered on an autopsy. I don’t see whoever’s behind this as being the sort to take that kind of risk. This was planned as a ‘no comebacks murder.’” Andreas emphasized “no comebacks” with finger quotes. “A simple, obvious heart attack with no links back to the killer.”

“So, how do we figure out how he was poisoned?”

He smiled. “Push the techies harder. That’s your job. Starting first thing tomorrow morning.”

Andreas resumed tapping his pencil on the desk. “The big question for me is, why did they work so hard to make it look like an accident?”

“They didn’t want to trigger a war in the Mani?”

“Death threats tied to an old vendetta don’t make sense if you’re trying to make a murder look like an accident so as not to start a war.”

“So, which of us passes the news on to Yianni?”

“I’ll do it,” said Andreas. “And let’s keep this to ourselves for now. The last thing we need is a bunch of crazy Maniots running around the Peloponnese chasing after suspects. That sort of paranoia runs up the body count pretty quickly.”

Andreas picked up the phone. “I sure wish Yianni had been wrong.”

***

“Poison!”

“Yes, a rare sophisticated one. Not something you’d find in a gardening shed or local pharmacy.” Andreas picked up the report. “It says here that ‘depending on the method of administration, the onset of a heart attack would be in two to ten minutes.’”

“That meant he was poisoned just before leaving the taverna,” said Kouros.

“Or inside his car.”

“But that would require some way of administering the poison inside the car. A needle, gas canister, or some other device, and that sort of thing should have turned up in the examination of the car after the accident.”

“Maggie will push the techies to take a closer look for needle marks and ask them if the poison could have been administered as a gas. You better check out the car just to make sure no one missed something.”

“I hear the taverna’s pretty busy in the mornings, so anyone tampering with his car there would have been taking a hell of a risk. But if it happened inside the car, it could have been set up somewhere else and rigged to go off when he drove away from the taverna.”

“Just to be sure, you ought to verify how busy that taverna actually is in the mornings.”

“I’m beginning to become a regular there.”

“Look at it as your chance to bond with your sparring partner from this morning.”

“You mean my numero uno choice as my uncle’s killer?” Kouros told him of his afternoon conversation with Babis.

“Sure sounds like he had a reason for disliking your uncle. Just not sure it’s enough of one to murder him. And why now? From the threats your uncle received, his murder seems more likely related to his hotel project, and I don’t see anything linking Babis to that.”

“I was wondering the same thing.”

“What about the girl? She might know something. Ask around, but be careful. We don’t want your kinfolk thinking we suspect murder.”

“The one I’m worried about thinking that way is Mangas. Once he gets that into his head, there will be no stopping him.”

“Isn’t he who asked you to make sure it was an accident?”

“Yes, to get his sister off his back. That’s my explanation for why I’m asking all these questions. But he’s pressing me for my take on the autopsy report and I don’t want him thinking I’m hiding something.”

“How much longer can you stall him?”

“I told him I’d send the report on to Athens this morning but that they needed additional information from the coroner. Between that and what I assume he shares with the rest of Greeks as a universally low opinion of the work habits of our public employees, I should be able to stall him for another two days, three at most.”

“I hope we have our killer by them.”

“I don’t want to think about it if we don’t. I wish I could lie and tell him it was an accident. Not telling him what we know is as far as I’m prepared to go. After all, he is family.”

“Sounds like the priorities on your moral compass are still in working order.”

“Yeah, but I’m beginning to worry about my other parts.”

Andreas laughed. “Just be careful. Bye.”

Andreas put his feet up on his desk and stared out the window. Kouros’ cousin should lose his patience with the Greek police’s official investigation into his father’s death at just about the same time subpoenas started flying all over Crete, Orestes started flying all over Spiros, and Spiros all over Andreas. The elements of a proverbial perfect shit storm massing in Greece’s two most violent-tempered parts just waiting for the perfect moment to come together in the middle of Andreas’ desk.

Andreas decided to follow his own moral compass. He took his feet off his desk and went home to his family.

***

It started out innocently enough. Andreas returned home at a reasonable hour, something quite unreasonable for him, but he’d forgotten Lila was at a charity event with her mother. He toyed with the idea of catching a movie, souvlaki, and beer at the open-air theater in the park just across the street from their apartment but decided instead on what he thought a much better idea: a “whatever you want to do” good time with his son.

“Finger painting” was not among the answers Andreas expected, but a deal was a deal, especially with a three-year-old. So, after changing into jeans and a white t-shirt, and covering the laundry room floor-to-ceiling in plastic, Andreas plopped Tassaki amid a sea of glossy finger paint paper and surrounded him with an array of brightly colored paint jars.

Andreas looked down at his handiwork and said, “Let’s do it!”

It was a peaceful beginning. Tassaki carefully opened one jar, dipped in one finger, brought it out, and showed a blood red fingertip to his father.

“Terrific start. Now rub it on the paper to make a picture.”

Andreas watched with a smile as his son carefully selected and began rubbing his finger on one particular piece of paper.

Tassaki looked at his father and held up his finger. “It’s all gone.”

“That’s okay. Dip your finger into the jar to get more.”

Tassaki dipped his finger and with studied care went back to his painting. Five minutes later, Andreas smiling through every second of it, Tassaki held up the paper. It was a circle, with dots inside and out, and three relatively straight lines roughly intersecting the circle.

“It’s beautiful,” smiled Andreas.

“It’s you.”

“Me?”

Tassaki nodded.

Andreas leaned over and kissed him. “Thank you. Now, I think you should make one of Mommy.”

“But I need more colors.”

Andreas wasn’t quite sure how to take that, so he just said, “Fine,” and opened two more jars of paint.

“All of them.”

“You want all of them open?”

“Yes, it’s for Mommy.”

Andreas had started down this road, so there was no going back.

Andreas opened the remaining jars one by one and placed all ten in front of his son.

Tassaki pulled a clean sheet of paper in front of him. Very carefully he dipped a separate finger into each jar before proudly holding up ten different colored fingertips to his father.

“Now what?” smiled Andreas.

Tassaki placed his fingertips at the top edge of the paper and carefully brought each hand out, down, and around to form two five-ring, rainbow semicircles roughly joined together at the top and bottom. He finished by pulling his fingers straight down and off the paper in ten nearly parallel lines.

All Andreas could think of to say was, “Wow.”

“Mommy.”

Andreas pulled Tassaki to his chest, hugged, and kissed him. “Yes, your mommy is very beautiful.”

Tassaki pulled back and pointed at the front of Andreas’ t-shirt, now bearing the handprints of a three-year-old Picasso. “You’re shirt is dirty, Daddy.”

Andreas nodded and dipped his fingertip into a jar of blue paint. He stared at it for a moment, considering the ramifications of his intended act. “And so is your nose,” drawing a blue line straight down the center of it.

Ten minutes later Lila returned home to the sounds of giggles and laughter in her laundry room. Inside she found her husband and son rolling around on the floor in what looked to be a psychedelic Jackson Pollock painting come to life.

When the two rainbow bodies rolling around on the floor realized Lila was standing in the doorway, the room went suddenly quiet.

Lila cleared her throat. “Darling, remind me to make a point of sending a drum set to the child whose parents gave Tassaki those finger paints for his birthday.”