"Tell him in Greek, Egan."

"I don't see why you're in such a hurry. There's nothing you can do."

"Just tell him."

Egan harrumphed and spouted a stream of Greek at the boy.

"Ne, malista." The boy smiled and prodded the nearest sheep in the rear with his staff. A few more deft prods and he had maneuvered the flock onto the verge where they trotted along like a line of obedient, but noisy school children. The boy refitted the ear buds in his ears and resumed his head-wagging dance-walk.

Egan released the brake and rolled on. "Not my nostalgic image of the humble shepherd, but with fifty percent unemployment among Greek youth, it's good to see that at least one has a paying job."

Dinah leaned out the window and called out behind her. "Efkharisto."

The boy waved and smiled.

She fished Papas' number out of her pocket and punched the numbers into her phone.

"Yia'sas."

"It's Dinah Pelerin. Have you found anything?"

"A pair of dark glasses, non-prescription."

"They're probably mine. Anything else?"

"We pried open the trunk."

"He wasn't...?"

"No. We found a man's shoe a few meters distant from the car. It was of Norwegian make."

"So he must have been thrown from the car. He must be down there somewhere."

"It seems so, yes, but..." He faltered.

"But?"

"There is blood on the shoe."

She swallowed. "A lot?"

"Yes. We don't know if it is Inspector Ramberg's blood or if there was someone else in the car. We don't know if the scene is real or if it has been," he hesitated again, "staged. We will keep searching. You may rest assured."

Dinah didn't think that she could rest at all, much less assured. She couldn't understand why Papas was so doubtful. Why would he think that Thor had staged the scene? The shoe proved that he had been in the car at some point and that he'd been hurt.

"Did they find him?" asked Egan.

"Not yet."

"Were you and the Inspector engaged to be married?"

She shook her head. The lump in her throat ached so she couldn't speak. She didn't have much faith in the institution of marriage, but she hadn't ruled it out. Having the option taken away by death filled her with misery. Anger, too. She may have been the architect of some of her disappointments, but this one came courtesy of outside forces. She said, "You speak as if you know Samos well, Mr. Vercuni. Are the police trustworthy? Are they honest?"

"Honest in what way?"

"Zenia seems to think they can be bribed."

"In the Balkans, the trading of favors is looked upon as a show of good will. Rousfeti is how things get done. It has nothing to do with honesty."

Dinah didn't think of Greece as part of the Balkans, but of course it was the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula. She had been on a dig in the Balkans in 2000 when the ethnic tinderbox that made up the former Yugoslavia had erupted. The Albanians attacked the Serbs, the Macedonians attacked the Albanians, her Bulgarian archaeology professor was caught smuggling weapons to the Kosovo Liberation Army, and everybody assumed that everybody else was lying and taking bribes, which justified their doing the same. She was picking up a similar vibe here. "Do you know Savas Brakus?"

"I knew his father Aries well. We grew up together, served in the army together."

"Along with Phaedon Hero?"

"Under Phaedon's command. After Aries left the army, he opened the Marc Antony. Savas took it over when his father began to sugar the lamb and salt the pudding." Egan chortled. "Poor old Aries. Eventually went stark mad. That must have been twenty years ago. Savas aspired to be a great runner and represent Greece at the Olympics, but his mother couldn't run the taverna by herself. An eight-hundred-meter man, I think Zenia said he was. Of course, Zenia never cared for Aries or Savas. Agroikos, she called them. What you would call yokels. I haven't thought about Aries in years. Marilita was his Aphrodite. He worshipped her. Pity he was married and Catholic to the marrow. I think he would have killed for Marilita if she had said the word."

"Was there ever any suspicion that she had?"

"Asked Aries to kill Nasos, you mean? That's rather farfetched."

Dinah kept coming back to Kanaris' allergy to the police. "Have you ever heard of anyone on Samos whose illicit pursuits included arms dealing?"

"Gangsters on Samos? There's one for the books." His laughed a dry, hacking laugh that made his Adam's apple bob up and down. "Not likely. Of course, I've been away for decades. There's more economic hardship and less respect for law and order. And of course a lot of foreigners have moved in."

"Samos is a stepping stone from Turkey and the Middle East into Europe. With so many foreigners passing through, the island would be a perfect transit point for smugglers, don't you think?"

"Samos has its share of minor villains, but no arms smugglers."

His neck squirmed inside his starched collar and she could see that the subject bothered him. "Did you know the Iraqi who was murdered?"

"No. Why would I?"

"I thought you might have seen him at Zenia's house. She hires refugees as day laborers, doesn't she?"

"I'm not the gardener. You'll have to ask her who she hires to prune the shrubbery."

"I intend to. What happened to Thor was no accident and I mean to find out who was behind it."

His forehead puckered and his Adam's apple bobbed, as if he'd just thought of something galvanizing. She could almost hear the cogwheels whirring.

"What are you thinking, Egan? Do you know something about arms trafficking on Samos? Do you have an idea who it was that ran Thor off the road?"

He made a series of dry, raspy sounds that she construed as a laugh. "Zot, no. I was thinking what a coincidence this would be if your Inspector Ramberg is never found."

She clenched her fists. "What do you mean?"

"You and Marilita would have more than your rebellious eyes in common. They couldn't find Nasos' body either. He fell into the sea after she shot him. The police speculated that the currents carried his body into Turkish waters."

Chapter Sixteen.

Dinah sat on a bench in the Kanaris parking lot staring out at the Aegean and waiting for the mechanic with the new tires. A tide of morbid thoughts swamped her. She thought about Marilita's boyfriend, perhaps not yet dead of his wounds, swept under the waves and drowned. Egan was a jerk to suggest that Thor wouldn't be found. It was worse than tactless. It was cruel. But it had deflected her questions about arms traffickers, which may have been what he had in mind.

So many coincidences. Zenia waited for decades to lease Marilita's house and then leased it to a policeman. Thor had been engrossed by Marilita's crime. His car crashed on the road where Zenia and only Zenia lived. And he had called her last night to ask about armories on the island. Dinah believed in coincidences, but they didn't come in swarms. Those American weapons that Thor was investigating were tied in some way to Marilita or the coterie of people who surrounded her.

A service truck rumbled up the mountain and nosed into the parking space next to the Picanto. The mechanic didn't speak English, but he had brought the right sized tires, thanks to Mentor's earlier explanation, and he set about his job without any social preliminaries. While he jacked up the Picanto, she paced around the parking lot, lobbing an occasional look across the Aegean. The meltemi had come up and the water was rough and choppy. Bad news for anyone sailing against the wind, or swimming against the current.

Heat radiated off the pavement and, with the incessant wind, she began to feel as if she were being baked in a convection oven. Thor would be miserable in this heat. Beyond rational thought, at some elemental level of cognition, she knew that he was alive. If he had been in the car when it crashed, he had obviously escaped the brunt of the impact. He was hurt, but he was strong and resourceful. He could have climbed out of the gorge, been picked up by a passing motorist, and taken to a hospital. Maybe the hospital had called the land line at Marilita's house and the message hadn't gotten through. Maybe Alcina wasn't around to translate for K.D. But if Thor wasn't in the car when it crashed, where was he and how did his bloody shoe wind up in the gorge?

The mechanic blotted the sweat off his face with a greasy towel, slung the fourth tire out of the truck, and started to mount it. Dinah took out her phone and called K.D. Suddenly, she wasn't so gung-ho to hustle her off to Atlanta. In Thor's absence, she had become by default the closest thing Dinah had to a friend on the island.

"Dinah!" She sounded breathless.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, but Yannis is here. He knows about Thor's accident. I heard him say it served him right for mixing in."

"I didn't think Yannis spoke English."

"Well, he does. He's speaking Greek right now with Alcina, but they shift in and out of English."

Dinah's chest tightened. How could Yannis know that something had happened to Thor? Had Papas or one of the other policemen phoned to give him a heads-up or had he been there when the car went over the cliff?

"I think he's getting ready to leave again," said K.D., "but if you want me to, I'll stall him."

"No." Dinah was still assimilating the fact that he knew what had happened. Had he run Thor off the road to get back at him for having him arrested? She couldn't think what to do. Did she dare question him face to face? Would he pretend he didn't understand? Would he turn violent?

"He's walking down the hall right now. Should I...?"

"Stay out of his way, K.D. I'll be there as soon as I can."

The mechanic was tightening the lugs on the last tire. Dinah counted out a wad of euros, roughly the amount Mentor had said it would cost.

"Efkharisto," she said, thrusting the money into his hand. "Thanks very much."

She gave a second's thought to calling Papas, decided he couldn't help, and hopped in the Picanto. Stoked on adrenalin and suspicion, she barreled up the road without regard to the town ordinance or the safety of its inhabitants. She took the corner past the taverna too fast, hit a pothole and bonked her head against the roof. The pain slowed her down and reminded her that she hadn't the foggiest idea what she would say to Yannis. She bumped down the lane to Marilita's house, rubbing her head and racking her brain.

She parked beside the veranda. Before she cut the engine, K.D. flew out the door.

"I told him you wanted to talk to him and he'd better not run or you'd have him arrested again."

Well, that should set the tone for a productive dialogue, thought Dinah. She got out of the car and tried to rally her courage. This was the man who, regardless of a lack of evidence, may have gunned a man down in cold blood. He could be armed to the teeth right now.

He shambled out the door wearing the same ratty straw hat he'd worn when Fathi confronted him.

She squared her shoulders and stepped up to meet him with a bravado she didn't feel. Up close, she saw that his eyes were a disconcerting Celtic blue, not unlike Alcina's glass mati. They regarded Dinah with undisguised animosity.

"How did you hear about what happened to Mr. Ramberg's car, Yannis?"

"Dhen katalamvano."

"In English, please. I know you understand."

He snorted. "I understand you have no power. You have no right."

"I do have power. I know American senators, important people who can pull all kinds of strings with the Greek officials. They'll make sure you tell the truth or send you to prison until you do."

A piercing yip made Dinah jump. She looked up and saw Alcina hovering in the doorway.

Yannis muttered something in Greek to her and turned back to Dinah. "He missed the curve. It has happened on that road before."

"Did you see it? Were you there?"

"No."

She didn't believe him. "This is the second violent incident connected to you. If you're innocent, you need to cooperate. If you weren't at Pegasus Point, who told you about the car?"

"The monk."

"Brother Constantine? How did he know it was Inspector Ramberg's car?"

"The police. They are everywhere in the lagkadi."

Dinah supposed that Yannis had called or visited Constantine to inquire about his little envelope and the brother had filled him in. She probed deeper. "What did you and Fathi argue about?"

"Yannis didn't kill him," cried Alcina.

He raised a hand to shush her. "He tried to sell me stolen komboloi. Worry beads. Coral and silver. I told him to go to hell."

"If you didn't shoot him, who did?"

"I wasn't there. I didn't take the gun."

Her phone rang and her stomach knotted. She glanced at K.D., walked to the edge of the veranda, and answered.

Sergeant Papas said, "He's not in the lagkadi."

"You're sure?"

"Very sure. We have combed the area."