Jeffrey Siger - Target - Tinos

The blaring of the horn from the car behind him jolted Andreas out of his daydream. “Okay, I get it, the light’s green.” He drove through the light and saw his mother standing on the sidewalk. Enough about saving the world, he thought. Time to focus on what really matters. Andreas smiled. “I’m back to thinking like a Greek.”

It was turning into a beautiful late afternoon. No Albanian gang war and no more lawyers. Andreas even got to surprise Lila when he walked into their apartment.

“My God, were you fired?” Lila kissed him on both cheeks.

“Not that lucky.”

“Then maybe my watch is broken. It reads five-fifteen.”

“That means I’ve only been up for a zillion hours.”

“How did the fitting go with your mother?”

“Fine.”

“How does the dress look?”

“Fine.”

“Boys. You’re all alike. Are these the sort of one word answers I can look forward to from our son?” Lila smiled.

“Yes.” Andreas stretched his arms and yawned. “Where is he?”

“I put him in for a nap. But if you want to-”

“No, don’t wake him, I’m too exhausted to be much fun to play with. I better take a nap myself.”

“Good, I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed until the first guests arrive. You need to get some sleep. Our flight to Mykonos is first thing in the morning.”

Andreas thought this might be the right opportunity for mentioning that as soon as they landed he’d be catching a boat to Tinos. Wrong move, stupid, said a little voice inside his head. Take the nap and keep your mouth shut.

On the Thursday evening before a wedding, close family and friends traditionally gathered together at the home of the bride and groom for to strosimo tou krevatiou — the preparation of the wedding bed. Amid food, drink, much joy, and playful teasing, the unmarried girls (alleged virgins all) attempted to make up the bed while the young men waited around to undo it. It was a playful match, with a young man interested in the attentions of a particular girl making care to undo her handiwork. That undoing ritual took place three times before it was on to tossing gold coins and jewelry on the wedding bed amid a shower of confetti, rice, and money.

But the most precious commodity tossed upon the bed, and the truest indicator of the real purpose of the practice, was saved for last: children. Giggling, laughing children, carefully bounced about by giggling, laughing parents. Tradition had the first child on the bed a boy, for superstition held that a male child symbolized good luck. Perhaps as a sign of changing attitudes-or intrigues yet to come-it was not unheard of in modern days for a future bride to coordinate the efforts of her girlfriends at assuring a girl child landed first.

The tradition was rarely practiced when the couple already had a child, but holding it was not forbidden from any religious perspective and Lila wanted to observe it “for Tassaki.”

The party went on until three in the morning, and though Andreas had far less to drink than at his bachelor party, the combination of all the toasts he’d been cajoled into joining and no sleep for two days had him feeling about the same. He wasn’t even sure if he slept at all before their early morning taxi ride to the airport, and could barely remember their flight to Mykonos. He was also fuzzy about precisely how he’d told Lila on landing that he was going to Tinos and “should” be back that night. But he distinctly remembered her response.

Lila clutched the front of Andreas’ shirt, pulled him down to her eye level, and said a single word, “ Sunday!”

“How are you feeling, Chief?” were Maggie’s first words when Andreas called her in the office.

“Not as bad as I’d thought I’d be.”

“Where are you?”

“On a ferry from Mykonos to Tinos. Should be there in twenty minutes. Just checking to see if Christina and Angelo have anything to tell me.”

“Just a minute, I’ll check.”

Andreas looked at his watch. It wasn’t even ten yet.

“Chief?” It was Christina.

“Can you talk?”

“Yes. We’re on our way into the office. Just left the taverna.”

“How’d it go?”

“We found the girl. She was there with her uncle. It’s his place but he said he didn’t know any Punka Carausii and couldn’t remember the names of any of his customers. We showed him a photograph of Punka and he said he didn’t recognize him.”

“My, what a surprise.”

“I tried to speak to the girl but he told her to ‘shut up’ in Romanian. He didn’t realize Angelo’s girlfriend was Romanian and she always told him the same thing.”

Andreas heard “fuck you” from Angelo in the background.

“Angelo told the uncle that since he couldn’t help us, we’d have to justify our visit by having him prove to us that he was a law abiding taxpayer. Angelo had him pulling invoices for every item in the place. That shut him up. Also got him away from the girl.”

“And?”

“She was scared. I showed her Punka’s photograph and she said she’d never seen him before. I said, ‘Do you remember the man who came into the taverna the day before yesterday to see Punka?’ She acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about. I asked her if she’d like to meet ‘that man,’ and tell him personally that she ‘never saw Punka before.’ She looked like she was going to cry. That’s when I said, ‘I’m wasting my time here. Get your things you’re coming with us to police headquarters.’

“She burst into tears, said her uncle would ‘beat’ her if she told us anything. I said, ‘He’s going to beat you anyway.’”

“Glad to see you’re so understanding,” said Andreas.

“Thanks, Chief. That got her to talking. She told me Punka was a regular and, yes, he’d come back into the taverna after you dropped him off, but he didn’t speak to anyone. Her uncle tried to get him to talk about what happened but Punka wouldn’t tell him a thing.”

“Why was the uncle so interested?”

“She said he’s ‘a gossip.’ Like every other taverna owner in Greece.”

“Did she know I was a cop?”

“Yes, she overheard you.”

“Dammit.”

“Uhh, Chief.”

“Yes.”

“You were right about the girl and the tabloids. She scavenges them from the rubbish to look at the pictures. Seems your upcoming wedding made two of the biggie magazines this week, and after you left she realized where she’d seen you before.”

Andreas cleared his throat. “And, of course, she told her uncle.”

“He likes to be a big man with the gossip. It made her look good to him when she pointed you out in the magazines. One magazine gave your title and the uncle told everyone in the taverna and anyone else he could find that the head of GADA Special Crimes was in his place questioning Punka about the murder of his brothers.”

“What did the lying son-of-a-bitch say when you confronted him.” Andreas made no attempt to hide his anger.

Christina paused. “We didn’t confront him.”

“ You didn’t what?”

“Chief, we figured the uncle wouldn’t tell us anything anyway, and if he knew the girl had talked to us he might do her some really serious harm.”

Andreas shut his eyes, drew in a breath, and let it out. “You did the right thing. See you at the wedding.” He hung up.

Andreas stared out the window. The ferry was preparing to pirouette up to the dock.

It was my screw-up. That’s why Punka’s dead. No reason for someone else to get hurt because of me. Besides, with Punka gone there’ll be no more leads coming from that direction. Andreas slammed his fist into the back of the empty seat in front of him.

We have to find another place to start.