When the Devil's Idle Read online

  Hail, oh hail, freedom.

  We know thee of old

  Oh, divinely restored

  By the lights of thine eyes

  And the swiftness of thy sword

  He waved a sock around his head and slapped the dresser with it. He’d never fought the Turks. No, his war had been only with her, but by God he’d won it.

  Before leaving for the house, Patronas called his second-in-command, Giorgos Tembelos, told him to pack up Papa Michalis, pour some coffee in him, and meet him at the harbor with a suitcase. “The three of us are going to Patmos. We’ll be there for a while, so come prepared.”

  It was probably a mistake bringing Papa Michalis along, but he couldn’t leave him in Chios, not drunk as he was and singing about Horst Wessel, a dead SS man. The bishop had been seeking to defrock the old man for ages. This would give him the ammunition he needed. He’d allege the priest was a Nazi and that would be that, when in fact Papa Michalis was just the opposite—a genuine war hero. He’d hidden people from the Gestapo and spirited them to safety—courageous deeds he rarely spoke of. He was a good man, a little flawed maybe—he couldn’t hold his liquor, for one—but insightful and occasionally brillant. Patronas trusted him with his life. It was an odd pairing, he knew, a priest and a cop, an atheist and a man of God, but somehow their partnership worked.

  The year before, Patronas had hired him to work part-time in the department, counseling victims of domestic abuse, the drug-addled and an old fool who kept exposing himself, whipping it out and yelling ‘hee haw’ like a cowboy on a cattle drive. Papa Michalis wasn’t very effective with the latter, who persisted in spite of the uproar it caused and the horror on the tourists’ faces, but he worked hard and brought a level of decorum to the station. Tembelos and the other cops were less likely to pass around pornography and comment on it while he was present.

  Addicted to television crime shows, the priest fancied himself a great detective and was always citing Miss Marple or worse, Hercule Poirot, whenever he and Patronas worked a case, even going so far as to refer to Inspector Clouseau on occasion, apparently unaware that the character from The Pink Panther was an incompetent buffoon. In addition, he had memorized The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in its entirety, which he quoted almost as often as the Bible, the omniscience of God and the British detective having somehow gotten tangled up in his elderly mind.

  “Holmes is a fictional character,” Patronas kept telling him. “A figment of the author’s imagination.”

  All to no avail. The priest’s brain was a locked vault. Nothing got in.

  Arterioskilrotikos. Thick-headed in the extreme.

  Truth was, Patronas was fond of the old windbag. Papa Michalis might have mastered the basic vocabulary and techniques of police work, but he had absolutely no understanding of the forces that drove the darker side of human nature. Greed, lust, and anger were abstract concepts for him. Holy fool that he was, he believed everyone was good simply because he was.

  Patronas had survived the last case in part because of Papa Michalis and his abiding faith in the goodness of people. If there was indeed an old man dead on Patmos, he’d be in need of his services again, crimes against the helpless being the hardest part of the job. Thankfully, he’d not seen much of it on Chios. But what he had seen had stayed with him, eaten into his soul like acid.

  As there were no boats that connected Chios directly to Patmos, the journey necessitated going first by ferry to the port of Piraeus near Athens, then catching a second boat to Patmos for a lengthy ride across vast stretches of dark water. The boat was old and smelled of fresh paint. Judging by the sounds of the engine, it hadn’t been overhauled in years. Another victim of the decaying Greek economy.

  The inside of the cabin was hot and stuffy, dense with diesel fumes, and the boat creaked ominously as the crew lifted the anchor. Indifferent to the sound, Tembelos, a large shambling man with white hair, quickly settled down, closed his eyes and went to sleep while the priest, who was still a little drunk, continued to sing off-key. Eventually, he fell asleep, too, his wooly head on Tembelos’ shoulder.

  Patronas looked out the window. Soon he’d be back in the thick of it, examining a dead body and collecting evidence. The thought made him tired.

  Restless, he got up and walked out onto the deck. The Aegean was a wondrous thing in the moonlight, the roiling water dark except where the light played across it. Not wine-dark, as Homer claimed, more the color of a summer sky at twilight.

  A faint mist hung over the sea, magnifying the moonlight, and Patronas saw a school of fish close to the surface, tiny flecks of silver against the blue-black water. After the cabin, it felt good to be outside. He leaned over the railing and inhaled the briny air, droplets of spray stinging his face.

  The strange thing about Patmos was the lights, he remembered. That shimmering crown of lights, so high they seemed to be part of the night sky, which appeared long before the actual island came into view. Patronas had never approached Patmos by day—the boat from Piraeus always docked after midnight—but the memory of those lights had stayed with him for years.

  It was almost one a.m. when he caught the first glimpse of the lights.

  As he’d expected, they disappeared for a time, only to reappear a few minutes later. Although he knew they were from a village high on a mountain and the mysterious lights that came and went were only streetlamps, they made him think of stars, a constellation of stars almost within reach.

  He’d been to Patmos once before—on his honeymoon nearly twenty years ago. His new bride had been a pious woman and wanted to see the Monastery of St. John and its holy relics.

  That boded ill for his marriage, although he’d not understood it at the time, had not understood that piety had little to do with kindness or compassion or love, that his wife, who’d kiss the bones of dead saints by the hundreds, would be more than a little reluctant when it came to kissing him. He didn’t fault himself. He’d been twenty-two at the time, a policeman for less than six weeks, and under pressure from his widowed mother, who’d thought Dimitra would be their ticket out of poverty. There’d been other clues, but he hadn’t read those either. Her voice, for one, which went off like a siren whenever he displeased her, or the way her jaw jutted out like a boar’s when she was angry. Yes, there’d been plenty of signs. He should have seen it coming, but he hadn’t.

  He shook his head sadly. Who reads the cautionary notes the Almighty leaves for you at twenty-two, the modest hints that you might want to rethink your choices? Had Napoleon felt a chill as he was plotting the assault on Moscow? The German army as it approached Stalingrad? We’d all be better off if God quit His hinting and used a bullhorn, he thought. Better yet, if He took up skywriting, spelled it out with flashing arrows: “Retreat! Retreat!” Maybe Moses could decipher the message in the burning bush, but Patronas was sure if it had been up to him, he would have grabbed a bucket and thrown water on it.

  St. John had written the Book of Revelation on Patmos, a vision of misery and doom if ever there was one, which just about described his honeymoon and the ensuing years of his marriage. Ach, what a fool he’d been.

  A moment later the boat slowed to a standstill, shuddering as it turned toward Skala, the commercial port of Patmos. The wind gusted suddenly and the crew fought to secure the ropes on the quay. As far as the eye could see, the surface of the water was frothy, white in the moonlight.

  As soon as the crew locked the gangplank into place, Patronas roused Tembelos and the priest, and the three of them exited the boat.

  “Careful, Father.” Patronas placed his hand on the priest’s arm to steady him as they walked down the metal gangplank.

  The propellers were still turning and the water beneath the ramp was a whirling vortex, swirling and eddying at their feet.

  Evangelos Demos was waiting for them under a streetlight. He hadn’t changed much since Patronas last saw him—a little grayer at the temples now, stouter and more walrus-like. He’d grown a mustache,
too, a big one like Stalin’s.

  What is he thinking? Patronas wondered. No one in his right mind wants to look like Stalin. Perhaps Evangelos’ politics had taken an ominous turn, Perhaps it was ‘Comrade Demos’ now.

  “I appreciate your coming,” Evangelos told him, reaching for his bag. “As a general rule, Patmos is very peaceful. A little shoplifting or public drunkenness, but little else of note. I must say this murder took us by surprise.”

  “Where’s the body?” Patronas asked.

  “Still at the scene. In Chora.”

  Patronas picked up his pace as he followed Evangelos Demos through the streets of Skala. The sun would be rising in less than three hours. They’d have to hurry if they wanted to bring out the body before the island awoke.

  “Let’s get started,” he said.

  Chapter Two

  It has reached the ears of the gods.

  —Greek Proverb

  All was quiet in the port of Skala. A lone Pakistani, hosing down the cement pavement in front of a shuttered coffeehouse, watched them approach with studied nonchalance, seemingly intent on his work. Illegal, Patronas judged, taking in the man’s demeanor, his sweat-stained shirt, and cheap plastic flip flops. He greeted him in Greek and the man answered in kind, his tone friendly but careful. “Hairetai, kyrie astifilaka.” Hello, Mr. Policeman.

  Interesting, Patronas thought. He knows the word for cop.

  He was struck by the man’s presence on Patmos, an island in the farthest reaches of the Aegean and one of Christianity’s holiest places. No doubt there were others like him here, all Muslim, all illegal, seeking work in a country that was almost bankrupt. It had taken him, a Greek policeman, nearly twenty-four hours to travel here, two lengthy boat rides and a significant wait in Piraeus, so how had this man come? Judging by his threadbare clothes, he had no money. So who’d smuggled him here and why? Some right-wing politicians alleged the recent influx of immigrants was a plot by Turkey to destabilize Greece. The Turks had been burning down Greek forests for years—every August, millions of trees went up—so why not this? Each immigrant who washed ashore, just another stick on the pyre.

  He looked back at the immigrant. The man had put the hose aside and was talking to a young boy, dark-skinned like himself. The child waved at Patronas and called out ‘Yeia sou.’ Hello.

  Patronas called back with more enthusiasm than he felt. “Yeia sou, paidi mou.” Hello, my child. Sometimes he didn’t recognize his own country.

  Evangelos Demos pointedly ignored the pair. “If the government doesn’t do something, and do it quick, we’re going to be overrun by these people, outnumbered in our own country.”

  Not ‘Comrade’ Demos, Patronas decided, one of those fascists in the political party, the Golden Dawn, who had declared war on the immigrants and were always beating them up.

  “Most of them Pakistani?” Patronas asked.

  “They’re from all over—Albania, Africa—you name it, they’re here.”

  “How many?

  “Who keeps track? This is a way station, a stop on the way to somewhere else. People come, people go.”

  On a side street, the Pantelis Taverna was exactly as Patronas remembered it, as was the ocher-colored façade of the Arion Bar with its large portico and paneled interior. The blue cement fountain still stood at the center of the cobbled square, dry now as it had been on his honeymoon. But for the most part, Patmos wore a different face. The stores that had once sold duty-free umbrellas and liquor were all gone, replaced by upscale dress shops. A group of sleepy looking tourists were standing at the taxi stand, waiting to be ferried to their hotels, their suitcases piled up next to them.

  Seeing the cellphones the tourists were consulting, the iPads and God knows what else, Patronas shook his head.

  Once people had only needed food and water when they went on vacation, a towel to dry themselves after they swam. Now it was every kind of electronic device, as if sand and sunlight weren’t enough, as if the sea itself, mother to us all, held no glory.

  The police station was located on the top floor of a castle-like building overlooking the harbor. Its tower with its sculpted frieze was one of the abiding symbols of Patmos. The exterior of the building was outlined in brightly lit bulbs, giving it a fairytale aspect, a sense of playfulness at odds with its mission. Three police motorcycles were parked in front. A small force, but larger than Patronas had expected.

  In spite of the hour, a pretty young woman in a uniform was sitting behind the front desk. Two Pakistani men were arguing with her in broken Greek, gesturing with their hands in an effort to be understood.

  “You have to rent a room or leave the island,” she told them. “You can’t just flop down on the beach like a pair of dogs and sleep.” She made no effort to hide her contempt.

  Patronas had been surprised to see her—the force on Chios was resoundingly male—and he listened to the exchange with a sinking heart. The young female officer was nothing special. Just one more recruit for the Golden Dawn. She wanted the immigrants gone from her country. Women, men, it was all the same now in Greece.

  Evangelos picked up the Tyvek suits and booties he’d set aside for them and a box of forensic supplies, an ancient fingerprinting kit and two spray cans of the blood-detector, Luminol, the labels yellow with age.

  Idly, Patronas wondered what kind of murder book Evangelos was keeping, if he was using a quill pen to make his entries. Modern technology like so much else, had simply passed him by.

  Well-acquainted with their colleague’s methods, Patronas and Tembelos had brought their own gear from Chios, and seeing the rusting cans of Luminol, Patronas was glad now they had.

  The police car was located in a back alley. An elderly Jeep Cherokee, it was a veritable tank compared to the other cars on the road, the Suzukis and tiny Fiats.

  Patronas had assumed Evangelos would speed up once they got underway, but he continued on at the same steady pace, peering over the steering wheel and taking each turn with great deliberation. Less than ten kilometers an hour they were traveling. It was embarrassing. A bicyclist could pass them.

  Growing more and more impatient, he drummed his fingers on the armrest. It wasn’t a tank he was in, it was a boat, and Evangelos was rowing it. The corpse would be decomposed by the time they got there.

  As part of his master plan, he’d insisted the priest sit in the front with Evangelos, saying it would be more comfortable for him.

  Excited by the case, Papa Michalis was all wound up and ready to go. Let Evangelos deal with him now. Death by talking.

  As expected, Papa Michalis started right in, discussing the victim’s German origins and that country’s tortured political history. Then he moved on to the strange and varied cuisine of that land, which according to him was based largely on pig in all its unholy manifestations—head cheese being a prime example.

  “A terrine of jellied meat. It’s easy to make. First you remove the whiskers from the jowls of the pig; then you split its skull and remove the eyeballs. It’s probably a good idea to remove the wax from the ears, too, before you get down to boiling it ….”

  Patronas rolled his eyes. He’d sampled Papa Michalis’ cooking, a lengthy meal he still regretted. From what he’d seen, pig jowls were right up his alley.

  Next the priest spoke eloquently of Martin Luther and the problems he’d had with his bowels and how they led to the Protestant Reformation—Germans as a rule suffering greatly from constipation.

  It was easy to follow his train of thought. First a man eats and then a man … or in Martin Luther’s case at least, a man tries to.

  “What about World War II?” Patronas asked, deciding enough was enough. “Was constipation the cause of that, too? Not enough prunes in Berlin, you’re saying?”

  The priest laughed good-naturedly, going along with the joke. “No, the Nazis had much more serious problems than that.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, for one thing, they were all psychopaths.” />
  The size of the car necessitated taking a roundabout route out of Skala—a bumpy, unpaved road used by construction vehicles. They entered the main road a few minutes later and slowly wound their way up the mountain, passing the Patmian School, a Greek Orthodox seminary, and the Cave of the Apocalypse, a World Heritage Site where St. John had heard the trumpet of the Lord and written the Book of Revelation. The air smelled of pine, a thin forest covering the land above and below the cave.

  A second World Heritage Site, the Monastery of St. John the Theologian, dominated the landscape. From the very top of the mountain, it resembled a storybook castle, its crenellated towers and walls so vast, they could be seen far out to sea.

  The village of Chora, where the German had been murdered, lay at the base of the monastery.

  Patronas was surprised to see two flags flying in front of the city hall where they parked the car, the yellow and black banner of the Orthodox Church with its two-headed eagle and the blue and white flag of the modern Greek state. The pairing was unusual and indicated that areas of the village were under the direction of the Patriarch in Constantinople. Not quite like Vatican City, but similar. Patronas hoped the duality would not impede his investigation. Dealing with the government in Athens was hard enough. Petitioning the holy fathers in Constantinople for anything would be a nightmare.

  The wind was fierce and it thrashed the leaves of the eucalyptus trees along the road. A flock of black and white swallows, xelidoni, were circling high overhead, their cries faint against the wind.

  Initially, Patronas had wanted to stop for coffee, but he decided against it. Victim’s been dead a while, he told himself. We’d best keep moving.

  He and Tembelos quickly unloaded their equipment and followed Evangelos Demos through the village—Patronas lugging a forensic kit of his own devising and Tembelos, the camera and plastic body bag. Evangelos said he’d already done the preliminary work at the crime scene, stringing up yellow police tape and hanging a tarp over the victim