When the Devil's Idle by Leta Serafim

Tells her schmutzige Wäsche, dirty
clothes, gives her the hamper and she does the laundry.”
    Patronas was
liking them less and less. “Where is she now?”
    “ The
housekeeper? I sent her home.”
    “ Was
she here on the day of the murder?”
    “ Yes,”
said Gerta Bechtel. “She came in the afternoon and stayed on to
prepare our dinner.”
    “ Let’s
go back to the deceased,” Patronas said. “Did he have friends on
Patmos? People he visited?”
    “ No,
he rarely left the house.” Gunther Bechtel was very emphatic on
this point. “Once he got here, he remained, except for a few times
when he joined us for the day at Campos. He loved the garden and
liked to sit outside under the trees.”
    “ So he
came with you from Germany, and except for two or three trips to
the beach, stayed within these walls?”
    “ That
is correct.”
    Patronas felt a
touch of pity for the old man. Confined to this hillside, he must
have been very lonely. Maybe he’d been afraid to venture off the
estate, afraid he’d fall and break his hip. After all, he’d been
over ninety. Still, it seemed wrong. Everyone in the family had
been occupied elsewhere: his nephew in Africa and his grandchildren
and their mother at the beach, their hosts in Turkey. Aside from
the housekeeper, he would have spent most of his time alone, and
she didn’t speak or understand German. If he’d wanted to
communicate with her, he would have had to use sign
language.
    “ He
had everything he needed,” Gunter Bechtel insisted stubbornly. “My
friends arranged to import food, German beer, newspapers, books,
and videos for him. It was just like at home, only warm and sunny.
He thanked us many times for bringing him here. He was
happy.”
    “ How
did he pass the time?” Patronas asked.
    “ He
gardened a little. He was an old man, Chief Officer. Mostly, he
napped.”
    “ What
was his relationship with the neighbors?”
    “ We
are summer people living in a borrowed house. We have no
relationship with the neighbors.”
    “ What
about the Germans who live on Patmos?”
    “ We do
not know people on Patmos, German or otherwise.” Again, Bechtel was
emphatic.
    “ Did
your father know the people who gave you the house?”
    “ Of
course he knew the Bauers.” His tone was hostile. “They are our
friends. Surely you don’t think they had a hand in
this?”
    “ It
appears unlikely, but we will still have to check.” Patronas
continued to write. “What was your father’s relationship with his
grandchildren?”
    “ His
relationship with the children was good. They played cards.
Especially my son, Walter. My daughter, as you saw, is a teenager,
not so interested in adults.”
    “ Was
your father a veteran? Did he serve in the war?”
    “ What
possible relevance does that have?”
    “ There
was a swastika carved on his forehead. Why would someone do
something like that?”
    “ I
have no idea.” Bechtel bit off the words.
    “ I’m
sorry if I upset you. I’m just trying to get a sense of who he
was.”
    “ I’ll
tell you who he was. He was an old man with arthritis who liked to
sleep in the sun, who liked to drink Lowenbrau in the afternoon and
listen to the music of Mahler on an old-fashioned phonograph. He
loved the smell of lilies because they reminded him of his mother.
He especially loved pickles.” For the first time, there was a hint
of emotion in the man’s voice. Sadness. “He never bothered
anybody.”
    “ Do
you have any idea who might have killed him?” Evangelos
asked.
    He shook his
head. “Perhaps it was a random event, someone attacking him because
he was German. Germans are not so popular now in
Greece.”
    Patronas drummed
his pencil on his notebook. “What about the scars on his face? The
old ones. Where did they come from?”
    “ Oh,
you mean his Mensur scars,” Bechtel said, visibly relaxing.
“They are from dueling. The sport was very popular in the
universities of my country when my papa was young. They called