Sons of Sparta by Jeffrey Siger

Author:Jeffrey Siger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2014-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Kouros left his car at the hotel and walked into the port. He hadn’t been in Gerolimenos in years and wondered if that crazy priest with the long black hair, jeans, and dirty cowboy boots still hung around the harbor. Kouros was never actually sure he was a priest, even though he wore the cassock. And considering the colorful history of priests fighting alongside the Mani’s bandits and pirates, he wouldn’t be surprised at anything.

He stopped at the southern edge of the harbor next to a lone pay phone. It had no handset, the same as the last time he’d been here. In this day of mobile phones no one probably noticed. Certainly never complained. This village always struck him as a combination of traditional Greece and the American Wild West. The harbor scene was quintessential, old-time, tiny Greek fishing village taken to perfection. But behind the busy row of harbor-front buildings stood a single row of open spaces and tired, nondescript two-story homes bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the quaint images portrayed one street over. It made him think of the false-front towns used in making old-time American cowboy movies.

His phone rang. “Yes, Chief.”

“I thought you were going to call me back?” said Andreas.

“Just finished an interview with the owner of the hotel where my uncle was screwing Babis’ Stella.”

“Then you’ll love what I have for you. I just read our tech guys’ final take on the autopsy report. Your uncle definitely was poisoned, but they’re still not sure how. The only new information they thought might be relevant was a bruise on your uncle’s body containing traces of wax.”

“Wax? What’s wax got to do with anything?”

“For that I have to thank Tassaki.”

“Huh?”

“The other night we were playing with finger paints and I remembered Tassaki kept coating his fingertips with paints. That got me to thinking. If you’re a killer looking to administer a poison lethal to the touch in front of a lot of people, you have two primary concerns. One, doing it in a way that doesn’t get you noticed, and two, not killing yourself in the process. Since this hit happened in a taverna, it wouldn’t be a big deal to melt some wax in the kitchen and dip your finger in it before touching the poison. Especially if it’s your kitchen.”

“Sounds like something out of a BBC mystery.”

“I know. But I went online and you’ll never guess what I came up with. Applying wax to a fingertip was an ancient ninja method used for administering poison through a finger thrust to a penetration point. The question is, how was our killer able to get to your uncle and apply that sort of force in a crowded taverna without anyone noticing?”

“Where was the bruise with the wax?” said Kouros.

“On the side of his neck by the carotid artery.”

“Jesus, Chief. Babis must be our man. This morning I saw him slapping backs and squeezing necks as his customers were leaving. It was his style. No one would have noticed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.