Jeffrey Siger - Target - Tinos

“And tell Maggie to see what she can come up with on the two Ukrainian hookers who were supposed to be on Tinos instead of the Greeks. See you this afternoon. Bye.”

Andreas put his cell phone down on the table and picked up his coffee. “Did you hear?”

Tassos nodded. “I wouldn’t bet on finding those two Ukrainian girls before August 15th. If they’re still breathing its probably under a lot of different guys. You’d think they’d know better than to go off on a ship with strange johns. Foreign ones no less.”

They were sitting in a taverna at the foot of Megalochari Avenue, across from where pilgrims began their long crawl up the hill to the Church of Panagia Evangelistria.

“Any luck with your local cop buddies finding those two Polish women I spoke to in the metanastes bar?” said Andreas.

“No word yet. They know where the girls live, but if they’re not at home it’s anyone’s guess where they are. We might have to try catching up with them at the bar.”

Andreas pushed back from the table. “Let’s take a walk up the hill. Maybe we’ll find some inspiration there.”

“I haven’t spoken to Eleni about your card.”

“We can do it now,” said Andreas.

“I thought you might be thinking that.”

“Such a good detective. Let’s go.”

Megalochari Avenue was wide enough to accommodate two-way traffic, one line of parked cars, and a narrow lane partitioned off from the rest of the roadway by orange and white traffic cones for those choosing to crawl. Shops at the base of the hill sold whatever one might need for completing a pilgrimage; candles running from a few inches to several feet in length, metallic shapes called tama symbolizing the purpose of the pilgrimage, and everything else up to and including knee pads.

The thirty-five degree grade up the one-half mile hill was steep enough to have Tassos pausing at each of the half-dozen intersecting streets.

“Perhaps you’d like to crawl a bit?” said Andreas.

“You think that’s easier in this heat? It must be a hundred degrees. Look at those poor women. I don’t see a man out there trying it today. We’re all wimps when it comes to that sort of thing.”

“I see Maggie’s trained you well.”

“Just you wait, mister newlywed.”

Andreas’ phone rang. He looked at the number and answered. “You will live a thousand years. We were just talking about you.” He looked at Tassos. “It’s Maggie.” He held up the phone so Tassos could hear. “So, what do you have for us?”

“I assume you two were saying only extraordinarily nice things.”

“Of course.”

“Good, then I’ll tell you the truth. All we have on the Ukrainian women are arrest records for prostitution and shoplifting. No one has seen either of them in weeks.”

“That checks out with what the Greek hooker in Kordydallos told Yianni.”

“That’s all I have for now. Hardly feel as if I earned my pay today. Say hello to my love. Bye.”

Andreas put the phone back in his pocket. “She loves you.”

“Good, let’s get up to the church already. The sun is killing me.”

The upper part of the avenue was more park-like than the lower and ended at a broad flagstone plaza in front of the church. In a tree-shaded spot at the point where the carpeted lane ended, a massive bronze sculpture of a shrouded, faceless supplicant crawled life-like along a marble base toward the church, right arm outstretched ahead and reaching toward heaven.

Off to the right, another avenue emptied into the plaza from the harbor, and across from each avenue a set of steps led up through a low white-capped stonewall onto a terrace spanning the front of the church. The terrace was as long as a soccer field, about half as wide, and covered in intricate mosaic geometric shapes and patterns created entirely out of black and white pebbles. A small sign on the wall

separating the terrace from the church inside read simply SAINT PELAGIA SQUARE.

The two cops crossed the plaza and took the steps to the right. A carpet resumed at the top of the steps. This one was crimson and twice as wide as the one running up the hill from the harbor. They followed it across the terrace and up another five steps through an intricately carved marble archway appointed with massive black wooden doors bearing carved golden images of the Virgin Mary and Archangel Gabriel.

A broad, marble staircase started just beyond the doorway and ran up to the first level of the church. Andreas noticed that this staircase had three separate crimson runners and at the top fed into an upper, fully carpeted staircase leading to the Megalochari on the second floor. He wondered whether the sudden switch from one lane to three was in order to accommodate additional worshipers only wishing to crawl the final steps of their pilgrimage.

At the top of the first staircase was the white marble courtyard of Panagia Evangelistria. Another staircase off to the left also led to the second floor. Andreas stared up at the facade. It was three-stories of elegant cream and white arches highlighted by discreet blazes of crimson. Arched porticos filled the first two levels and arched windows the third, all crowned by a tiara of more rolling arches surrounding intricate marble carvings. A simple marble cross was atop it all. To Andreas it looked like a giant wedding cake.

Tassos and Andreas took the staircase to the right up to the second floor, turned left, and stopped just inside the middle of three doors to the right. They were now inside the tripartite, basilica-form Church of Panagia Evangelistria. Brilliantly colored icons and tapestries surrounded by gold and silver adorned every wall, and an elaborately carved, icon-clad marble pulpit seemed to float above the floor, but it was the silver and gold creations hanging everywhere that captured Andreas’ attention. Enormous chandeliers of crystal, silver, and gold hung amid rows of hundreds of similarly appointed icon lamps adorned with hanging gold and silver tama offerings of ships, homes, men, women, children, animals, parts of the body, and whatever else the pious brought into their prayers to the Megalochari.

Off to the left behind a low, thin brass-tube fence flanked by massive, sand-filled brass candle stands stood an altar-like structure of carved white marble. The altar held four, fluted Corinthian columns, one on each corner, which in turn supported an ornately detailed four-sided entablature topped by a dome reminiscent of the one above Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, at the other Vatican.

The holy icon, enclosed within a silver case faced with glass and elaborately trimmed in gold, sat between the columns on a stand surrounded by fresh flowers and offerings of gold and gem encrusted cameos. The case was rectangular on three sides and arched at the top. The Megalochari rested inside the case, its back and sides enclosed within a golden frame, its front covered in relief gold plate encrusted with rings, medallions, brooches, earrings, precious stones, and pearls. The whole case was no more than three feet high, by two feet wide, by one-half foot deep-a simple thing to carry for anyone used to manual labor.

Andreas stepped out onto the black and white checkerboard part of the marble floor and walked over to the icon. Guidebooks described it as portraying the Virgin Mary to the right, kneeling in a room with her head bent in prayer before a small, low stand. A book on the stand was open to the words she pronounced when the Archangel Gabriel announced to her that she would be the mother of Jesus. Facing the Holy Virgin and to the left, stood the illuminated figure of Archangel Gabriel holding the symbolic lily of purity in his left hand as, in the top center of the icon, the Holy Spirit descended from heaven in the form of a dove.