Dinah's nervous circuitry could handle only so much. A breaker had tripped and she had no capacity to worry about K.D.'s antics. She put on a pot of Starbucks to brew and looked out the open window. Roses bloomed and birds chirruped and the Aegean sparkled in the sunshine, but the beauty was wasted on her. All she could think about was Thor. She should have been more observant, more sensitive to those fjord-like, Norwegian depths. If he were here this morning...but he wasn't. The old adage was true. You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

She sat down and tried again to jimmy a little information out of Alcina. "I know I've asked you before, Alcina, but please. Try to remember the last time you saw Thor."

"Yesterday morning."

Her prompt cooperation astonished. "Did you speak with him? Did he say anything at all?"

"Not to me."

"Was someone else here?"

"Just Ramberg, talking here in the kitchen."

"You didn't hear any other voices?"

"Just his."

A phone call, thought Dinah. "Did he call anyone by name? Did you pick up any words?"

"Grouch." Her bosom heaved with indignation.

Dinah didn't think that Thor would complain about Alcina to anyone other than her. Maybe he had been talking to his ally. She took a bite of her cinnamon bun. It really was delicious. She made a mental note to ask K.D. for the recipe on the off chance that someday there would come a morning when she'd feel happy enough to bake pastries.

The coffee pot burped. She got up, poured herself a cup, and changed the subject. "Tell me about your friend Stavros."

"Tell you what?"

"He seems fond of you. Do you see him often?"

"He went away when I was young."

"Has he been back to visit you?"

"Okhi."

"No? Not ever?"

"He writes letters." She took a second bun and licked the icing off the corner.

Getting information out of Alcina was like tapping a sugar maple on a cold day. The desired product didn't flow. She wished she could see one of his letters to see if the handwriting looked anything like Nasos' scrawl. She remembered that the words were large and loopy and slanted to the right. She shouldn't have bothered to have it copied. She should have snitched the original. "Do you still have Mr. Stavros' letters? Or some of them?"

"Some."

Dinah perked up. "What does he talk about in the letters?"

"He says nice things about my mother. He told me not to let anyone tell me she was a bad person."

"Do you remember her friend Nasos?"

"He gave me presents." She tilted her head back and lowered a braid of the cinnamon bun into her mouth like a rope down a well. A dollop of white icing dribbled down her chin and her eyes shone with an expression akin to ecstasy. Dinah watched, transfixed. The woman seesawed between extremes, one day bawling her eyes out and the next exulting in epicurean rapture. How much was owing to bipolar syndrome and how much to put-on was debatable. In some ways, she seemed childlike and coy, but Dinah sensed an underlying guile.

"What kind of presents did Nasos give you?"

"A Pentax ES Two. I still have it, but it's hard to buy film."

Dinah didn't want to evoke painful memories and set off the waterworks, but she felt compelled to ask her about the day of the murders. "Were you with your mother and Nasos the day of the shooting? Did you take their picture on the beach?"

"Zenia says I wasn't there. She says I dreamed it after seeing a horror film at the sinema."

"But you think you were there?"

"I was. We went on a picnic to Megalo Seitani. Nasos was teaching me how to swim. Three masked men with guns came and then Brakus took me away."

"Brakus?" She must mean Brakus Senior. "Do you mean Aries Brakus? Did he come to the beach with a gun?"

"No. One of the bandits walked me back to the road and called him to come. When he got there, the man told him to take me and leave." She licked her fingers, wiped them off on a kitchen towel, and stood up. "Yannis doesn't think it was a dream. Neither does Galen."

Dinah wasn't sure what to think, but Alcina's "dream" certainly reshuffled the possibilities. She wondered what Thor had seen at Megalo Seitani all these years later. "What do you remember about the men with guns? What did the bandits say to Colonel Hero and Nasos?"

"I don't know. But my mother didn't shoot anybody. She was a great heroine, an iroida. An ieromartyras, like the paper says. Galen says her justice will come."

"Did you talk with her after that day? Or did Galen?"

"No-oh-ayee!" Her voice piped out of control and tears started down her cheeks.

Dinah couldn't quite believe those tears. Crying on cue must be second nature to the daughter and niece of actresses. "Did Marilita speak at her trial? Did you testify?"

From her violent head-shaking, Dinah presumed not. Alcina was one of those people whose testimony would be easy to discount. Even if she were entirely credible, a story of masked men attacking a party of picnickers would have been a hard sell, although Dinah found it easier to picture masked men as the perpetrators than a bikini-clad actress. But why would they spare Brakus Senior and Alcina?

Alcina continued to bawl and Dinah could think of no words of comfort. She tried to tune her out and construct a plausible bridge between then and now. The more she dug into the past, the more certain she became that the past held the key to the present.

"What an awesomely divine morning," said K.D., pirouetting into the room with an expansive wave of her arms. She halted in mid-stride and pulled off her red, heart-shaped glasses. "Whoa! What's the matter with Alcina? Is she stoned?"

Suspicion rippled through Dinah's veins like ice water. She pushed away the last bite of her cinnamon bun and glared.

Chapter Twenty-five.

Dinah eagle-eyed the cinnamon buns and found no suspicious specks of marijuana. "Lucky for you," she said to K.D. "Has Alcina shown you her stash?"

"I've seen where she keeps it, if that's what you mean. But you needn't worry. I don't smoke dope."

"I'm glad to hear there's one vice you leave alone." Dinah rationalized the hypocrisy of what she was about to say. "Alcina likes you. This afternoon, after she's had a few hits of her tranquilizer, I'd like you to wangle your way into her room, get her to show you Stavros' letters, and when she's not looking, slip one of them into your beach bag."

K.D. blew a mare's tail of cigarette smoke out the side of her mouth and regarded Dinah with a sardonic little smirk.

"What's that look about?"

"Oh, nothing. I was just remembering that sermon about how you wouldn't do anything to contribute to the delinquency of a minor."

Dinah eyed the cigarette, but fought down her craving. "Your delinquency was in full flower before you left home. Anyhow, I just want to look at the letters. As soon as I get them translated, you can return them." She rinsed the plates and cups, placed them in the dishwasher, and unplugged the coffee pot. "I wish I'd copped the original of Nasos' letter to Zenia. I'd like to compare Stavros' handwriting."

"Don't you watch crime shows on TV? Only an expert can match handwriting."

"Without looking at the writing side by side, I don't expect a match. I just want to know if they're similar."

"They won't be because nobody writes letters by hand anymore. Galen probably printed them off his computer."

"If you can get hold of one of them, we'll know, won't we?"

"Are you going to tell me what it is that you suspect or treat me like a dorkbrain?"

K.D. had many shortcomings, but dorkiness wasn't one of them. At this point, Dinah couldn't see a reason to keep her in the dark and it would be helpful to have a sounding board. "I don't believe Nasos Lykos died on that beach with his mother and the Colonel. I think he's come back to Samos, either to avenge Marilita and his mother or because he knows something about the missing weapons Thor was investigating."

"You think Nasos is Galen?"

"Conceivably. He's been away a long time, but then so has Egan. Mentor, too, although he claims to have been here since his wife died five years ago."

"You think Nasos, whichever one he is, had something to do with Thor's disappearance?"

"I don't know. That's what I'm trying to work out. If Alcina is to be believed, three masked men with guns crashed Marilita's picnic."

"Bandits, like she told me."

"I don't think they were bandits in the ordinary sense. Zenia insists that Alcina was dreaming, but I'm inclined to believe the dream was real and for some reason, Zenia doesn't want to believe it."

"Or doesn't want anybody else to believe it."

Dinah was beginning to enjoy K.D.'s astringent observations. Zenia hadn't been at the scene of the crime and yet she sat like a spider in the center of the web. What terrible sin was Nasos accusing her of and why had he waited until now to come back? She said, "It's possible that Nasos was in cahoots with the gunmen and they let him get away. But surely he wouldn't have stood by while they killed his own mother."

"Maybe his mother killed his father," said K.D. She fiddled with her cigarette, shaping the ash on the side of a seashell ashtray. "Orestes and his sister Electra murdered their mother Clytemnestra because she murdered their father."

"When did you become such an authority on Greek myths?"

"I borrowed your mythology book this morning."

"You sneaked into my room?"

"With Thor not here, I didn't think it was like, a forbidden zone. You were zonked and I needed something to read while the cinnamon buns were baking."

Dinah took the cigarette out of her hand, ground it out in the ashtray, and tossed the ashtray in the trash. Before she left the house, she would have to remember to count her money and make sure that her bank card was where she'd put it. "In the photograph, Nasos' mother looked like a pleasant, respectable woman. I'm sure she didn't kill Nasos' father or anyone else."

"It was just a brain wave." K.D. flopped onto the bed on her back and scrutinized her fingernails. "So what do you suppose the bandits wanted?"

"I think they were after information that only the Colonel had. They forced it out of him and then they killed him. They killed Nasos' mother and they must have thought they'd killed Nasos, too. But either he played possum or he fell or dived into the ocean and saved himself."

"But why," asked K.D., "didn't they kill Marilita? They'd already killed one woman."

"I don't know. I can understand they might have shrunk from killing a child, but why didn't they kill Aries Brakus? Was he a co-conspirator?"

"Not necessarily," said K.D. "They needed somebody to take Alcina away and they knew he couldn't identify them because they wore masks."

"But why didn't he stay and help them fight off the bandits? Egan told me that Brakus had been in the army under the Colonel's command. He was a friend, or at least a comrade in arms at one time, and he was smitten with Marilita."

"Maybe he didn't know what they planned to do."

"That's possible. But when the shooting was over, he knew that Marilita was innocent." Dinah tried to glean some logic from the various players' actions and inactions, but if there was a link that made sense, it eluded her. She decided to relegate the mysteries of the past to her subconscious to marinate and concentrate on the present. "I'm going out for a while. I want you to stick to Alcina like a cocklebur. See if you can induce her to say anything else about her mother or Nasos or Galen Stavros."

"Steal the letters, interrogate the witness, anything else, chief?"

"It would be great if you could find an old map of Samos, the more detailed the better."

K.D. sat up cross-legged like a yogi. "Where are you going?"

"To look for Thor. How many places can there be to hold someone captive in a village the size of Kanaris?"

The walk into the village energized Dinah. She breathed in the tonic scents of thyme and honeysuckle and kept up a steady, purposeful gait. Someone was playing the piano again, "Flight of the Bumblebee." The tempo caused her to quicken her gait. Where the lane curved toward the village, she peeked through a flimsy, flowering hedge to the back entrance to the Marc Antony. The windows were shuttered and she didn't see anyone about. It was just ten thirty. They wouldn't begin serving lunch until one or two.

The village seemed strangely deserted. She met no one on her way down the hill toward the winery and, to her surprise, the winery was deserted. Either the bruiser with the black mustache hadn't arrived at his post yet or it was his day off. Of course, he could be inside. A whole battalion of bruisers could be inside. She glanced up at the security camera and kept walking.

At the sign to the trailhead, she casually strolled into the woods and continued on for about fifty yards. The woods were thick, but there wasn't much underbrush. She darted a surreptitious look behind her, filtered into the trees to her right, and doubled back toward the winery. If she had guessed correctly, she should emerge near the rear entrance, if it had a rear entrance. She'd brought along a couple of paper clips in the hope that she'd encounter just a simple padlock. If there were more sophisticated locks and security cameras mounted on the back, she wasn't sure what she'd do. Knock on the door and ask for a liter of wine, maybe. She would have to wing it, but one way or another, she was determined to see what was so precious it had to be guarded like Fort Knox.

She dodged from tree to tree, skittish at the slightest noise or movement. When the rear of the winery came into view, she stopped to collect herself. Windowless and barn-like, the back of the building looked more ramshackle than the front, although there were two roof-mounted cameras trained on the overgrown yard below, one at either end. Weeds grew knee-high in front of a single wooden door, as if no one had entered or exited that way in a long time. There was no padlock, only a rusted knob and lock plate. She edged closer. Did that mean there was no alarm system? Were the cameras just for show?

She gauged the distance between the electronic eyes. Fifty feet, give or take. In order to reach the side door, she would have to cross at least ten feet of ground surveilled by the camera at the near end of the roof, but the sun was high and almost directly behind her back. In a backlit situation, focusing an ordinary camera was practically impossible. How much better could a security camera be? If it caught her, she might be obliterated by the lens flare. In fact, the weeds were tall enough to hide her if she crouched low and moved quickly. The movement might look no more suspicious than a gust of wind whiffling through the brush.

Hunching her back, she broke for the door. The weeds thrashed against her arms and legs and she swatted them out of her face. When she got to the building, she turned around and leaned her back against the door. So far, so good. She took a few deep breaths, pushed her hair behind her ears, and was turning to face the door when she saw the snake approximately two inches from her left foot.

It looked like a decorative rope, charcoal-colored diamonds against a gray, scaly background. Its head was raised inquisitively above its coils, round coppery eyes fixed on her left shin, tiny forked tongue flicking in and out to detect the nature of the disturbance. In South Georgia where she'd grown up, copperheads and cottonmouth water moccasins were common. The white lips and pointy snout of the water moccasin indicated that it was venomous. She studied the physiognomy of the customer at her feet. Did that distinctive horn on the end of its snout indicate the same?

She stood stock still. Except for its constantly moving tongue, the snake didn't budge either. It seemed unable to decide whether to attack or retreat. She counted off the seconds. A minute dragged by, then two. It was a Mexican standoff and she had no idea how long it might go on.

She was starting to sweat. Did she smell like predator or like prey? Afraid even to lift her wrist to look at her watch, she kept her eyes glued on the serpent. If a water moccasin was threatened or riled, it bared its fangs and lunged or else crawled away. She wasn't used to a snake that couldn't make up its mind, like freaking Hamlet.

The sun burned the back of her neck and she began to feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. She thought of Ladon, the never-sleeping, hundred-headed serpent that Hera installed in her orchard to protect the tree that produced her golden apples. Had the man with the mustache sown this field with snakes?

Her left foot cramped sharply and she whimpered, which didn't matter vis-a-vis the snake because snakes are deaf, but if anyone inside the building was listening...

A sound like the crack of doom exploded overhead. Her hands flew to her ears. She looked up as a pair of F-16s scorched across the sky directly overhead. The door vibrated against her back and the ground vibrated under her feet. She looked down and in one quick, sinuous movement, the snake uncoiled and slithered off into the weeds.