"If I have useful information, a benefaction in return would be only fair."

"Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. Is everything in this country for sale?"

He guffawed. "The government is selling the train system to the Chinese. The Acropolis and the site of the Oracle of Delphi are available to rent. Two years ago the government planned to sell off a number of uninhabited islands to pay down the debt. The natives grew restive, so the politicians backed off. Instead, they will ask for long-term leases on the islands and public lands, but it amounts to the same thing. It is an auction. Ne, malista, in Greece, everything and everyone is for sale. The only question is price."

She thought, God forbid I should ever become that cynical. "You can't want money. Zenia Stephanadis says your monastery cheated the government out of valuable real estate and it made you rich. She says you've set off a treasure hunt in the gorge."

"She has tantalized the villagers with the idea of chests of buried euros." He threw back his head and laughed. "She would enjoy watching them shovel and sweat. Perhaps she has salted the earth with fool's gold. She is a vindictive woman. She blames the villagers for the satisfaction they took from her husband's murder."

"So you're not rich?"

"My money is safe in a Swiss bank. The brothers weren't the only ones to profit. There were those in the government who received their benefactions, as well."

"Did the other brothers leave the country with their loot?"

"Some. Others have chosen to remain in the monastery. To me, it is a waste to have so much money and live a life devoid of the pleasures money can buy."

"Living like a hermit in the woods doesn't seem much like a life of pleasure.

"You are right. Zenia gives me money for my immediate needs, but she can't give me what I need."

"Zenia gives you money? Why?"

"When I entered the monastery as a young novitiate, I shared a cell with a wily old monk named Demetrius. He told me that six months before Colonel Hero was murdered, he contracted a severe case of pneumonia and nearly died. A priest could not be found and Demetrius was called to hear the Colonel's confession and administer last rites. When the Colonel recovered, Demetrius came into a great deal of money. It was a double miracle." Constantine broke into another gut-shimmying laugh.

"Are you saying the monk blackmailed him?"

"Let us say, they negotiated. The Colonel's sins must have been splendid. I asked Demetrius for the details, but he declined to share. But all I had to do when I came to Kanaris was mention his name and our close friendship and Zenia could not do enough to help me."

Dinah felt a wave of revulsion, but she had ceased to be surprised. The corruption just kept coming. What horrible sins had Phaedon committed that Zenia would pay to keep quiet. Torture, rape, murder? Or had he confessed to being a closet commie who aided and abetted the enemies of the junta? To this day, that would be intolerable to a right-wing zealot like Zenia.

Constantine said, "The Norwegian was here."

She reined in her emotions. He would use any sign of desperation against her. "When?"

"The morning the car went over. At the marble quarry."

"What did you see?"

"What can you give me in return?"

Hot anger spurted. He was toying with her. The gorge and surrounding forest ran for miles. One fat, beer-swilling monk couldn't keep tabs on the whole area. "I can't think of a single 'benefaction' that I have or could get that would help you. My thoughts are actually running along the lines of having you drawn and quartered if you don't tell me."

"I want a card that will permit me to reside in the United States. I think I would like southern California."

She almost laughed. "Is the climate in the German Republic not salubrious enough?"

He frowned as if he missed the allusion and she didn't elaborate. "You're barking up the wrong tree. I'm not in a position to dole out U.S. green cards."

"You're an American citizen. Americans can appeal to their elected representatives. I've read about this. Your politicians are applauded for their beneficence. They will win good publicity for helping a man of the cloth."

"Why don't you buy a green card? All you have to do is invest a half million dollars in an American business and they'll let you in."

"With my legal problems, I would have to overcome too many obstacles. Say that I am being persecuted for my deviant orthodoxy. You will think of something."

"You've been specific about what you want. You've offered me nothing."

"I will show you something. If it helps you to find Inspector Ramberg, do we have a bargain?"

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"Because I will show you what I have found before you speak to anyone on my behalf. That is good faith, is it not? It is the Christian thing. Do you promise?"

"Yes. I'll do what I can."

"Let us go then. It's a short walk to the quarry, but steep."

Chapter Twenty-eight.

Constantine's extreme corpulence and flapping cassock fooled Dinah. He bounded up the trail like a mountain goat. She found herself breathing hard to keep up. She was still chafing over Yannis' prediction that Thor was dead. She loathed Constantine, but she wanted desperately to believe that he could lead her to Thor, or some clue to his whereabouts. Constantine had prophesied correctly that the climb would create a serious thirst and he had supplied her with a bottle of water. She paused under an ancient rock wall and drank. Anxious as she was, she still marveled at the grit and ingenuity of the people who had planted olive trees up the side of this mountain and built these enduring terraces.

"The quarry is just ahead," said Constantine. He hurdled over a fallen log and turned back to wait for her.

She took a last drink of water and pressed on. He reached back over the log and offered her a hand. She ignored it. He grunted and continued to climb. She followed. The near perpendicular incline kept her eyes mostly on her shoe tops. When she looked up again, he had stopped. She drew alongside him and looked down into a deep rectangular pit, like an inverted skyscraper. She stumbled back from the edge, nearly falling into Constantine's arms.

He said, "The quarry dates back to ancient times. Some of the marble was used to build the Temple of Hera. When Zenia's husband bought the land in the mid-sixties, production ceased. It hasn't been mined for many years."

She inched forward and peered into the depths. Water had collected at the bottom. If Thor had fallen or been pushed...

She picked up a stone, threw it into the pit, and listened for the plonk. It seemed to take a long time. She edged around to the other side. There were two other pits, not quite as deep. None had barriers or warning signs. Driving heavy blocks of marble down that narrow, serpentine road would have been a hazardous job. The turnaround area had to have been wider when the quarry was operating in order to accommodate the trucks, but a thicket of pine saplings had encroached. Hillocks of tailings and fractured slabs of marble that must have been unsalvageable as counters and table tops enclosed the area and extended out into the road. A rusted-out dumpster overflowed with cans of lubricant and scrap metal and miscellaneous waste. It probably hadn't been emptied since the quarry was abandoned. A screen of trees along the edge of the road didn't quite hide a large area of clearcut.

"Yannis Thoma comes in the afternoons with his chain saw when Zenia is away at the theater. He steals the wood and sells it in the winter when people are cold." Constantine obviously didn't share Yannis' ethic about one Greek not sticking a knife in another.

She said, "I assume you didn't bring me here to show me an illegal logging operation."

"Here." He beckoned her toward the dumpster.

Her throat constricted. Dumpsters were notorious receptacles for dead bodies, butchered body parts, and horrors galore.

On the ground beside the dumpster, a black tarp had been spread like a shroud over something smallish. He lifted the tarp with his foot. The body part he uncovered was a forearm, gray-veined white marble. Her eyes fastened on the reddish stain on the outside of the elbow. Was it Thor's blood? Had somebody bludgeoned him with that arm and thrown his body into this dumpster?

She looked at Constantine with redoubled loathing. "Did you watch him beaten? Is that why you know about this...this thing?"

A suggestion of doubt flitted across his face. "I didn't see the man."

"You said that you did. Are you now saying you lied?"

"I saw his car. I know every car in the village and who drives it."

"You've put yourself at the scene of a crime. This arm links you to whatever happened here."

"I was harvesting honey in the forest. I saw the blue car. It was here and when I looked again, it was gone. I hiked up to see what the policeman had been doing and I found it."

"And thought you could use it for personal gain." She was quivering with rage. "Are you conducting an auction to see who'll give you the best price, me or the people who beat him up?"

"I am not someone you can shame, Miss Pelerin. If this object was used to club your friend, I have given you a valuable clue. There is only one man on Samos who owns fine sculpture. Mentor Rodino."

She had shelved Brakus' accusation because antiquities, stolen or not, seemed unrelated to Thor's investigation. Constantine's discovery seemed altogether too neat, but she couldn't process the implications at the moment.

She looked at the dumpster. It was unlikely that the kill...kidnappers would have unloaded all that garbage, thrown Thor inside, and heaped the garbage back on top of him. But this was a derelict site. Nobody came to collect the trash. She had to be sure. She set her water bottle down on a rock and turned to Constantine. "Help me empty the dumpster."

His head reared back in disbelief, but he appeared to recalculate and began to pull a few pieces of junk off the top.

"Set the plastic bags on the ground over here."

He reached in, hauled out a couple of sacks, and laid them at her feet. They weren't big enough or heavy enough to hold a body, but she pictured Yannis brandishing a chain saw and untied the string. Holding her breath, she dumped the contents on the ground. Cookie boxes, wine bottles, yogurt cartons, cigarette boxes, antifreeze cans, diverse gadgets. The heavier one contained a corroded car battery.

Constantine tossed out an empty propane tank and two more bags. She sifted through the garbage inside the bags as carefully as if they contained archaeological artifacts. Had Thor come here looking for weapons and interrupted a different crime? Somebody's secret apati-Yannis cutting down Zenia's trees, Papas peddling forged cards to refugees, Mentor lifting a stolen antiquity out of a hidey-hole?

Constantine wiped his hands on the front of his cassock. "That is as far down as I can reach. You can see that he is not here."

She chinned herself up on the side of the dumpster and peered over the rim. Caked mud and gravel, some sort of rusted cutting tool, a rotten rope.

He said, "Zenia will be at home today. She has no performance on Thursdays. I will walk down to her house and collect my weekly envelope. If I ask nicely, she may offer a poor brother a hot bath and a warm meal."

Dinah didn't know whether she felt more contaminated by the garbage or the brother. She said, "I'm surprised she hasn't shot you by now."

He laughed. "Whether you find your Inspector dead or alive, you have made a bargain. I will see you again."

He loped off down the road and she looked over the mess she'd made. The afternoon meltemi had begun to blow, sending yogurt cartons and cookie boxes flurrying. Mostly to give herself time to think, she gathered up the emptied sacks, spread them across the garbage, and weighted them down with rocks. She wrapped the forearm in the tarp. Why would the only man on Samos associated with fine sculpture break it and use it as a weapon, then leave it lying about like a personal signature? The thing must weigh close to ten pounds, more than enough to fracture a man's skull. She tried not to picture it swung against Thor's head, but she did picture it. She walked behind the dumpster and vomited.

When she was done, she found the water bottle, rinsed her mouth and hands, and took out her phone to call the police. It was dead. She'd forgotten to recharge it last night. Maybe it was a sign from the gods. She tossed the empty water bottle into the dumpster, slung the tarp with the forearm over her shoulder, and started down the mountain toward Kanaris.

Chapter Twenty-nine.

"Pugh-ooh! You smell gross." K.D made a face of disgust. "Where have you been?"

"Dumpster diving with Brother Constantine." Dinah blew into Marilita's kitchen and laid the bloody forearm on the table. "Go upstairs and bring me some clean clothes, will you? Underwear, shoes, everything. And a towel."

"Why don't you go upstairs and take a shower?"

"No time." She kicked off her shoes and looked for her purse. Where had she left it? "Where's your phone? Give it to me."

K.D. set it on the table, but her hand remained closed over the screen. "There's private stuff in here."

"Sounds racy. I'll save it for the next time I'm bored."

"Jeez." She rolled her eyes and flounced out of the room.

Dinah sorted through her purse for the card Papas had given her. It listed both the main station number and his cell number. She called the main number. After a few rings, she heard a recorded message in Greek. She left a message in English to the effect that she had obtained new information regarding the disappearance of Inspector Ramberg and was on her way to visit Mentor Rodino. Damn. What call-back number should she leave? She covered the phone and shouted, "K.D., what's your number?"

K.D. shouted back from upstairs.

Dinah left both K.D.'s cell number and land line number and as an afterthought, stated the date and time.

She stripped off her shirt and shorts, filled the sink with hot water and suds, and gave herself a sponge bath. She scrubbed her hands and arms, but the bouquet of garbage seemed to have infused her pores.

K.D. returned with clean clothes.

"Where's Alcina?"

"Yannis came by and she left with him. I tossed her room, but couldn't find any letters."

"Did she tell you anything else about Nasos?" Dinah dried off and changed quickly.

"Only that she lights a beeswax candle for him every Sunday just like she does for her mother to light their way in the darkness." She lifted the edge of the tarp. "What's this?"

"It may be the weapon somebody used to bludgeon Thor."

"Jesus. He was bludgeoned?"

"I don't know." Dinah recalled Papas' reservations about the car wreck being staged for his benefit. She had a feeling that the discovery of that forearm had been staged for her benefit.

K.D. ticked a fingernail against the marble arm.

"Don't touch it. There may be fingerprints. If the police call the house, tell them about the arm and tell them they need to get a forensics expert to analyze it pronto." Dinah looked around for a place to hide the thing until the police arrived. Hastily, she shoved it behind the pipes under the sink. "If Papas shows up to take it, don't give it to him. Tell him I put it in the trunk of my car."

"Where are you going?"

"To pay a visit to Mentor Rodino."

"The guy with the zombie wife?"