The Devil Takes Half Read Online Free Page B

and pinpoint where it was found before you remove it.”
    Patronas climbed out of the trench. He’d leave the rest to his men. He’d been in charge of the police force on the island of Chios for over twenty years, and the novelty of violent crime had long since worn off. He’d collected his share of teeth from barroom floors, driven the combatants to the hospital to be stitched up. The sight of blood no longer stirred him. It just made him tired.
    He started going through one of the boxes on the table. A stiff wind was blowing, and above him the tarp swelled with air, the ropes clanging against the metal poles like the rigging on a sailboat. The box contained pieces of clay with numbers painted on them. He guessed Eleni Argentis had been killed because of her work here, because she’d found something so valuable it had drawn the attention of a killer, a killer who’d had enough time to bleed a woman to death in the dirt. He was sure now the blood was hers. There’d been a strip of fabric, too, mixed in with the blood, the front of a shirt. Patronas had inspected it closely before placing it in the evidence bag. Though sodden with blood, he could still see the logo, an alligator. Lacoste, far too expensive to belong to a village boy like Petros. She’d found something this person wanted. It had to be.
    But there was nothing. Only random bits of clay. Nothing worth killing for. He sadly noted the remnants of the archeologist’s stay on the hillside—the abandoned radio, the shabby cardigan on a chair. He found a single blood-soaked leather moccasin on the ground nearby, but no journal or papers of any kind. Some of the equipment was thrown down, a second chair upended.
    He got down on his hands and knees and moved the chair aside. His hand brushed up against something metallic buried deep in the grass. It was a gold necklace with a charm suspended from it. Both the chain and the charm were soaked in blood.
    The priest knew it well. “It’s Eleni’s. It’s her galopetra .”
    â€œ What the devil is a galopetra ?”
    â€œ They’re how Evans found the ruins in Knossos. He’d been working in Peloponnese near Mycenae and noticed the strange amulets the local women wore, carved out of translucent rock. When he asked the women about them, they replied that the stones were talismans to protect them in childbirth—‘milk stones’. Evans followed the stones back to their source in Crete and eventually to Knossos. The amulets, you see, were actually Minoan seals.”
    For an Orthodox priest, he seemed to know a surprising amount about Minoan archeology. “You’re sure this is hers and not something she found here?”
    â€œ Oh, yes. She always wore it. I chided her … an Orthodox Christian wearing a pagan symbol. But she said her father had bought it for her and that she’d never take it off.”
    Patronas fingered the necklace. The charm was a pale blue stone, carved with the image of a woman surrounded by snakes. A superstitious man, he felt a chill as he held it. He pocketed it and returned to his inspection of the site.
    * * *
    Patronas’ second-in-command, Evangelos Demos, arrived a little after ten a.m. with Giorgos Tembelos, a longtime veteran of the force. Alerted by a cloud of flies, Tembelos moved toward a rocky crevice some distance from the dig site and slowly worked his way down to the bottom of it. After a moment or two, he called to Patronas.
    â€œ Boss, you’d better come.”
    â€œ What is it?”
    â€œ I think I found something.”
    Patronas climbed down the crevice after him. The rocks on either side were splattered with blood and the air was thick with flies. Tembelos was kicking gravel away from something with the toe of his shoe, unwilling to touch whatever lay buried there with his hands. The mound was covered with dead weeds and loose stones, and insects crawled over it. Brushing them