Sons of Sparta

Chapter Twenty-one

They parked at the southern end of the harbor close to port police headquarters and strolled beside a seemingly endless row of two- and three-story buildings painted various shades of ochre. Tavernas, bars, hotels, and rooms-to-let lined the landside of the harbor-front road for as far as the eye could see.

“My rule is to try the busiest taverna,” said Tassos.

“But not if there’s a hustler outside pulling in tourists,” said Kouros.

“I accept that modification.”

“I prefer the one recommended by the harbormaster. It’s up there on the left.”

“You take away all the fun of the hunt,” said Tassos.

“Don’t worry, I’m paying.”

“Do I have to remind you again that we’re cops and cops-”

“Don’t pay.” Andreas nodded. “But today we’re trying to be inconspicuous.”

“Fine, pay.”

“Here we are,” said Andreas.

They entered the sort of place where all you’d remember about the décor would be the general concept of chairs, tables, windows, and a kitchen somewhere out back, but you’d never forget the food.

Fresh made taramasalata, melitzanosalata, and skordalia. Rigonada of the Cretan sort made with nuts, tomato, and feta, locally grown fried potatoes, Greek salad with caperberries, grilled calamari, sardines, and local sausage. All accompanied by locally grown and produced olive oil and Peloponnesian wine. Yoghurt with local honey and handmade spoon sweets made from reduced cherries and apricots would come last.

For twenty minutes everyone concentrated on the food and kept the conversation to small talk.

“Any word from Stella?” asked Andreas.

“As far as I know she’s taken off for Athens.”

“Can’t blame her,” said Tassos spearing a tiny deep-fried fish with his fork. “Things don’t seem too hospitable for her down in that part of Greece. Which brings me around to asking what you guys have in mind if we actually get a lead on Niko’s whereabouts?”

“Catch him,” said Andreas.

“And then what?”

“Get him to talk,” said Kouros.

“How do you plan on doing that?”

“Threatening him with a visit from my cousin ought to work.”

Tassos shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not with this guy. He’s got his own family looking out for him. Besides, he had to know there was a risk of going to war with your uncle’s family when he decided to go after him. But he still did it. He must have something up his sleeve. Or else he’s expecting a very sweet deal to talk.”

“He’s not going to get one,” said Kouros.

Tassos rocked his head from side to side. “Unless he’s offered something better than taking his chances at trial, I don’t think Niko cooperates. Let’s not forget, the only firsthand testimony we have directly tying Niko to a possible murder charge is the word of that muscle guy who tried torching Yianni. Assuming we find Urich and he corroborates his accomplice’s story, it’s still going to be tough getting a murder conviction in connection with Babis’ death without physical evidence of more than ‘talk’ on Niko’s part getting Babis to take his own life.

“As for Niko implicating himself in the uncle’s murder with what he said to Babis in front of those two guys, to me that’s an even tougher case. At least with Babis’ death we have Niko at the scene, standing around watching it happen. We have no physical evidence whatsoever directly tying Niko to your uncle’s murder.”

Tassos picked up another two gavros with his fingers. “It’s going to be a tough sell to the court on the evidence we have. My guess is the current odds favor him walking.”

“He won’t live long if he does,” said Kouros.

“Who’s to say? As long as he’s breathing he’s ahead of the game. No telling what might happen. He could disappear and never be heard from again. It’s romantic to think vengeance will hunt down the wicked no matter where, no matter how long it takes, but most often things don’t turn out that way. Even in the Mani, memories fade, life events intervene.”

“Not with my cousins.”

“What I think Tassos is trying to say is that catching Niko may not give us the answers we’re looking for.”

Tassos nodded. “Talk only implicates him, and without a deal, why say a word?”

“I’ve lost my appetite,” said Kouros.

“My God, don’t do that,” said Tassos. “I’ve given you the worst possible scenario. Speculation on what’s going through a wanted man’s mind. Thoughts of freedom and escape are the most common, but until we find this guy we don’t know what makes him tick.”

“Hard to imagine that a little two-bit shit like that could have brought down my uncle.”

“Aye, there’s the rub,” said Tassos. “Getting the mouse that roared to talk.”

Andreas leaned forward in his chair. “Not sure If I should thank you, Hamlet, or Peter Sellers, but you just gave me an idea on how we might get this guy to talk if we ever find him.”

“What do you have in mind?” asked Kouros.

“It’s percolating but about all I can say at this point is ‘’tis a consummation devoutly to be wish’d.’”

Kouros picked up a piece of spanakopita and took a bite. “I wish you two would stop.”

“At least it got you eating again,” said Tassos.

Andreas’ phone on the table rang. The screen read BLOCKED CALLER. He picked it up. “Kaldis here.”

He listened for twenty seconds before putting it back down on the table. “Well, we have an address for Niko.”

“Where?” said Kouros.

“On Kranae, wherever that is.”

Kouros turned and pointed off to the right. “You get there across that narrow, concrete causeway. It’s an arrow-shape island two hundred yards offshore. The whole island’s only about five hundred yards long, east to west, and one hundred yards wide at the broadest point.”

“What’s on it?” asked Andreas.

“Mostly dirt, rocks, and pine trees. There aren’t many places to hide. It’s got a lighthouse at the far end, a church on this end, and a battle tower and connected mansion from the early 1800s in the middle. The tower’s been renovated and expanded to house the Historical and Cultural Museum of the Mani. And, aside from a couple of fishing shacks just beyond the church, a restaurant and taverna on the island end of the causeway, that’s it.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” said Andreas.

“My mother makes me take her to the museum practically every time we’re down here.”

“Whoever called you must be pulling your leg,” said Tassos.

“We’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to find out.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because someone other than Mihalis Petropoulakis just said to me, ‘Niko will meet you at the tower on Kranae at ten tomorrow morning, right after it opens.’”

“He wants to meet with us?” said Kouros.

Andreas nodded. “Yes. But to be precise he also said, ‘And please be sure to bring along that cousin with the shortened last name who works with you.’”

***

By nine the next morning Kouros and Andreas sat in a rental car off the edge of a gravel and dirt parking lot watching the seaside entrance to the museum.

Andreas lifted a two-way radio to his lips. “Anything yet?”

“Nope,” said Tassos. “What about you?”

“Not a thing here, but we’re hemmed in by pine trees. No telling who might be out by the lighthouse or back inside the church.”

“Or on a boat tied up offshore,” said Tassos.

“I think we’ll take a drive around just to see if we’re as alone as it looks. Give us a shout if anyone comes over the causeway.”

“Will do.”

They drove toward the lighthouse at the end of the island. Aside from rocks, trees, and a few crumbling sheds within a fenced in area securing the lighthouse, this part of the island offered no place to hide. The lighthouse doors and windows stood securely locked and showed no signs of forced entry.

Andreas turned the car around, drove past the museum, and parked thirty yards before a bright-white church with a terra-cotta-tiled dome roof. Next to the car, a half-dozen small, weather-beaten fishing boats lay scattered on the ground or propped up on pieces of scrap wood. Beyond the boats, down by the water, two tiny shacks looked in worse shape than the boats. They found no one in the shacks or boats.

The restaurant at the end of the causeway had a sign marked CLOSED, and none of the five men in the taverna next to it came close to matching Niko’s description. Andreas and Kouros walked to the church and tried the front door. Locked.

“A lot of people come here to get married because this island is where Paris and Helen spent their first night together before sailing off to Troy.”

Andreas smiled. “I sure hope things end up better for the newlyweds than it did for those two.”

They turned and stared across the water toward the harbor-side road in Gytheio. That got them a quick wave from Tassos sitting in a parked car on the other side of the causeway.

By nine-thirty Andreas and Kouros were back in their spot by the entrance to the museum.

Twenty minutes passed, filled with small talk of the anxious sort cops do while waiting for all hell to break loose. Nothing serious about family or futures, just silly things to keep their minds off what might erupt at any second.

Tassos’ voice barked through the two-way. “You’ve got company coming. A van full of tourists.”

“He might be using that as cover.” said Kouros.

“Anything’s possible,” said Andreas.

“You’d have thought our records guys could have found a photo of him,” said Kouros.

“Never got arrested and keeps himself out of the papers. Let’s just hope he hasn’t dyed his hair.”

They waited for the van to make it across the causeway and the additional three hundred yards to the museum parking lot.

“Motorbike coming now. It might be our guy,” said Tassos.

“How can you tell?” asked Andreas.

“He’s wearing a helmet, and since practically no one in Greece wears one, it makes me think our guy is trying to hide something.”

Andreas smiled. “We’ll keep an eye out for him.”

They watched the motorcycle overtake the van just beyond the church, pull into the lot, and park at the head of the path that ran past them up to the museum entrance. The driver wore jeans, work boots, a light blue jacket and a full-face black helmet. He got off the bike and walked by them, up to the museum’s front door without taking off his helmet.

“He must like his helmet a lot,” said Kouros.

“Careful, Yianni, he’s reaching in his jacket pocket for something.”

Both cops pulled their guns and opened their car doors slightly in case they had to move quickly.

The driver never turned around. Just fiddled with the front door until it opened and went inside.

Andreas let out a breath. “He was reaching for keys.” He spoke into the two-way. “False alarm. It was a museum employee opening up the place.”

“First time I’ve been wrong today,” said Tassos.

Andreas and Kouros watched a small group of foreign tourists unload from the van and head toward the front door.

“They look like pensioners from Germany,” said Andreas to Tassos.

“They’re about the only pensioners with money these days,” said Tassos.

“Unless the bus driver’s our guy, I’d say Niko’s late for our appointment.” Kouros pointed at his watch. “It’s ten after.”

“Tassos, we’re going inside. Just in case Niko got here before we did. Let us know if more company shows up.”

“Be careful.”

Andreas and Kouros holstered their guns as they got out of the car. They scanned the windows of the museum buildings as they hurried along the stone path, down and up steps toward the entrance.

Inside, an elderly couple stood reading a poster on a wall next to a desk with a handwritten sign, TICKETS HERE. A pockmarked man wearing a black baseball cap marked MANI in white letters sat behind the desk in front of a door marked OFFICE.

“May I help you?” said the man in the hat.

Andreas walked over to him. “Yes, sir. My friend and I were supposed to meet someone here at ten.”

“There are about a dozen visitors inside. Maybe your friend’s in there.”

Andreas shook his head. “No, we’re looking for someone younger. In his forties. With a line of white hair down the middle of his head.”

As they spoke a tourist couple moved in front of Andreas. “We’ll take the senior special,” said the woman, pointing for the man with her to get something out of his belly bag. “My husband has proof of our age.” She spoke English with a heavy German accent.

The man in the hat smiled. “That won’t be necessary. I believe you.” He handed them two tickets, the couple paid, and went inside.

“Sorry about that, gentlemen.”

“No problem,” said Andreas.

“So, you’re looking for a man with a silver streak in his hair?”

“White. Like a skunk,” said Kouros.

The man nodded. “I see. You mean like this?” and he pulled off his hat. “You’re late, gentlemen.”

Andreas hoped he didn’t look as startled as he felt. “That was you in the motorcycle helmet?”

“Yes, officer. It’s the law to wear a helmet, and I obey the law.”

“It’s Chief Inspector Kaldis, and this is Detective Kouros.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Niko extending his right hand.

Neither man took it.

“You know that whatever you say will be used against you?” said Kouros.

“Of course, but I have nothing to hide. Though I do think we should move into the office for this discussion rather than having it in front of the tourists. Some of them may understand Greek.”

Kouros went behind the desk, opened the door, and looked inside. He nodded to Andreas.

Andreas gestured for Niko to get up.

Niko stood as tall as Andreas, but much slimmer in a sinewy, not lanky, way. Andreas followed Niko inside the office and closed the door behind them, never taking his eyes off Niko for a second.

Kouros pulled up a metal folding chair. “Sit.”

Niko did. Andreas and Kouros did not.

“We’re here to arrest you in connection with the murder of two men and the attempted murder of two others.”

“Including me,” said Kouros.

“I assumed that’s why you were looking for me. But for the life of me I can’t figure out why. So, I asked one of my cousins to allow me to take his place here as a volunteer this morning. I wanted the chance for us to talk. To show you that everything I’ve done was an attempt at preventing harm from coming to anyone. ”

“You have a strange way of doing that,” said Kouros.

“Not sure what you mean.”

“You and your buddies talked your family’s old friend Babis into killing himself,” said Kouros.

“Oh yes, poor, Babis. I tried my best to convince him not to take his own life, but he was so wracked with guilt at what he’d done to your poor uncle that I just couldn’t talk him out of it. And, yes, perhaps the fact that he’d also betrayed my father made him feel doubly guilty. But I was there simply to end any further bloodshed in the Mani.”

“Yeah, right. Too bad your buddy we arrested tells a different story. He has you pissed at Babis for screwing up my uncle’s murder and leaving you exposed as his accomplice.”

“I don’t know what he told you, but his Greek isn’t very good and he must have misheard. I went there to tell Babis he was crazy to have killed your uncle. That it would never get him back in the good graces of my family. Yes, I did for a moment lose my temper with him, but that was when he said he’d tried to make it look like part of an old family vendetta. I called him a ‘fuck-up’ because the idiot was threatening to get my wife’s family involved in his crazy twisted thinking. And, yes, I might have said I’d see that he died far more painfully than he could ever imagine if he got my wife’s family involved in his craziness. But I certainly wasn’t suggesting he take his own life.”

“Nice try,” said Kouros, “but how would you know Babis murdered my uncle if you weren’t involved? Only the chief and I had any evidence of that.”

“I’m afraid I do have the advantage on you, Detective. You see, I knew long before it happened that someone wanted Babis to kill your uncle. So when he turned up dead I knew who must have done it.”

For a second time in minutes Niko had Andreas struggling not to seem startled. He could see that Kouros felt the same. “And you did nothing to stop it?”

Niko shrugged. “What could I do? Someone came to me and asked if I thought I could get Babis to do a job. When I asked what kind of ‘job’ and was told it was to kill your uncle, I passed. The plan was well thought-out but required Babis to think all would be forgiven by my family if he took revenge on the man who’d set my father up to die in prison. I tried discouraging the idea by saying I doubted that would get Babis to turn on your uncle. After all, your uncle had been protecting him for all these years, so what reason would Babis possibly have for betraying him now? Besides, Babis didn’t need my family’s forgiveness as long as he had your uncle’s protection.”

Niko ran his fingers through his hair and stretched. “That’s when I was shown a photograph of your uncle and Babis’ girlfriend coming out of a hotel room together. Whoever planned this knew how to push Babis’ buttons. But I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to do the pushing.”

“An even better story than before,” said Kouros. “But why did they come to you and not go to Babis directly?”

“At first I thought because Babis would insist on direct assurances from my family that we wouldn’t come after him once his protector was dead. But then I realized my family’s guarantee didn’t really matter, because if the kill went off as planned, he’d still not lose the protection of your uncle’s family. What really mattered was that Babis never learn who was behind the hit. I thought that if I refused to act as middleman the plan could not possibly go forward. Obviously, I was wrong.”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” said Andreas. “Who was your mysterious visitor with the plan and photograph?”

Niko stared into Andreas’ eyes. “His cousin.” He switched his stare to Kouros. “Your uncle’s daughter, Calliope.”

“You lying shit,” said Kouros moving toward Niko.

Andreas raised his hand. “Easy, Yianni.”

Niko raised both hands in a gesture of innocence. “I understand how you feel, Detective. But please, answer this question for me. How would I possibly know about that photograph if someone hadn’t given it to me? And if you want to know who that someone was, ask the photographer.”

“Do you have a name for this photographer?” said Andreas.

“No.”

“I didn’t think you would,” said Kouros.

“But I have a description. Your cousin told me it was a legitimate photo taken by an old friend of hers. A priest. And if you can’t trust a priest, who can you trust?” Niko crossed himself.

“Do you have anything else to say?” said Andreas.

“I’ve told you all that I know, freely and with a clear conscience. And I wanted you here,” he said to Kouros, “so that you could share with your family all that I’ve told you. After all, I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings on the part of your family that could have them thinking I had anything to do with their terrible tragedy. We all know how violent your family can be if they feel dishonored.”

Andreas looked at Kouros. “Did you get the message?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Now cuff the bastard and let’s get him out of here.”

***

After briefing Tassos on their conversation with Niko, Andreas and Kouros hauled Niko up to Sparta and deposited him with the local police. They agreed to meet back in Gytheio in about four hours. Tassos said not to worry. He’d hang out with his friend who’d brought him there from Syros.

Niko didn’t say much on the ride up. Nor did Andreas and Kouros. And at his booking Niko said little more than, “I want to see my lawyer.” Everyone knew that as soon as he went before a judge he’d be released from jail while awaiting trial. Still, Andreas and Kouros stayed around to make sure all legal formalities were followed. No way they’d let a convenient official screw-up destroy this prosecution, no matter how weak it might now seem.

Andreas drove Kouros back to Gytheio. “He sure as hell gave us a lot to think about.”

“Sociopaths can be very creative,” said Kouros.

“Yes, but even a sociopath would have a hard time coming up with a story like that and expect it to fly. I thought the way to make him talk when we found him was to play up to his ego. Hardly needed to do that.”

“He obviously knew everything the bear told us, and worked the details into his alibi story.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he got the details from the bear’s lawyer. No doubt Niko’s paying him. But there is that other point…”

“I know. Calliope.”

“Quite a story.”

“I can’t believe she had anything to do with her father’s murder. No, not ‘can’t.’ I will never believe that she did.”

“Okay, I understand your reaction. But there is that part about the priest and the photograph. Hard to imagine he’d make that up since it’s so easy to verify.”

“Not so easy. The priest won’t talk about anything having to do with my cousin. He even denied telling her about seeing her father and Stella together at that hotel.”

“I know, but maybe this time things will be different.”

“What do you mean, ‘this time’?”

“While you were busy helping out with the paperwork on Niko, Tassos called me. His buddy who brought him to Gytheio is from one of those old Syros families that once did a lot of business with folks in Gerolimenas. Tassos wanted to know if I thought it okay to ask him if he knew the priest. I said, ‘yes,’ and it turns out he knows the mother even better. So, Tassos and his friend are on their way down to see the mother and the son.”

“Why did you wait until now to tell me?”

“Because I’d rather you threw a fit alone with me in the car than in front of our suspect.”

“Fuck you.”

“Finished?”

“For now.”