‘I’d never find my way home at night.’
‘Who said I’d ever leave?’
‘Gentlemen, please, come with me.’ The man gestured toward the open front door. He showed them into a room most would call a living room but, between the front door and where they stood, they’d passed through so many others Andreas would call a living room that he couldn’t guess what this one might be called.
‘Please, wait here. Would you like something to drink?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Andreas. He felt out of place in these surroundings, or maybe it was the purpose of his visit, but whatever the reason he sensed his hand might shake slightly if he held a glass. Adrenaline could do that. He preferred his hands free.
The man left, leaving Andreas and Kouros standing in the middle of the lavishly decorated room, facing a doorway, and looking conspicuously ill at ease. Andreas was still struggling to think of the right words to say. All he could think of was, ‘Yianni, you tell them.’ Andreas smiled at the thought of the deer-in-the-headlights look that order would get from his taciturn partner.
‘Chief Kaldis?’ The question came from behind them. He and Yianni turned to face the voice. A couple was standing in another doorway. The man looked much older than the woman.
‘Yes, sir, and this is officer Kouros.’
Kouros nodded hello.
‘We understand you have a personal matter to discuss with us.’
Andreas drew in a breath. ‘Yes, sir, I do.’
‘I hope it’s not something we should have our lawyer here for.’ He was smiling as he said it, but it showed Andreas this man knew his way around police. For if he did need a lawyer, Andreas must tell him now.
‘No, sir, absolutely not.’
The man’s smile was gone.
‘What’s wrong? What’s happened? Are the children all right?’ It was the woman. She was squeezing the man’s arm.
Andreas hoped it wouldn’t come up this way, so abruptly and directly to the point. But that’s how most mothers reacted to police appearing at their homes unexpectedly: had something happened to her children or her husband? And usually in that order.
He must now give these people probably the worst news they’d ever hear. He hoped his voice wouldn’t crack. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it’s about Sotiris.’
‘What’s happened? Is he all right, did he wreck the car, did he hurt someone, did—’ Before she could finish the man cut her off.
‘Please, dear, let me handle this.’ He looked at Andreas. ‘Whatever trouble he’s in I’m sure we can work it out. I have a lot of friends.’
Andreas knew how to handle this sort of approach, but not today. No matter how obnoxious or pretentious this guy might be, he would get a free pass on this.
‘I’m sure you do, sir, but it’s not that sort of situation.’
The man started to say something else, but Andreas put up his hand and said, ‘Please.’
Perhaps it was the look of anguish on Andreas’ face or a paralyzing, simultaneous chill felt in each one’s spine, but each stood perfectly still, quietly waiting for Andreas to speak.
Andreas only paused long enough for them to look directly into his eyes. ‘A terrible thing has happened, Sotiris has been killed.’ Unconsciously, he crossed himself.
No one moved, not a word was said. It was an eternity. It was three seconds.
‘Noooooooooo …’ The word went on forever. The mother kept pitching it higher and higher, twisting her hands about the man’s arm, then grabbed her face in her hands. Still struggling to scream, but without the breath for it, she started pounding on the man’s chest. He did not move. He did not blink.
Andreas did not know what more to say, and so he said the obvious. ‘I’m so very sorry, Mr and Mrs Kostopoulos.’
3
Andreas never got used to delivering such dreadful, unexpected news. He didn’t want to; his skin was thick enough. He watched Mrs Kostopoulos go from pounding on her husband’s chest to sobbing against it, but he wasn’t judging how they chose to mourn. There should be no rules for grieving. Especially for a child.
Ginny Kostopoulos was twenty-four when she met fifty-year-old Zanni. Like so many other Eastern-European beauties migrating to Greece in search of work, she put her natural charms to good use on celebrity-filled island beaches catering to the desires of thirsty sun worshipers. Zanni’s were obvious from the start, and Ginny, an unwed mother of a four-year-old son, did not object. They married as quickly as he could divorce wife number two. Zanni adopted the boy, giving him the name Sotiris after Zanni’s late father. He had two grown daughters from his previous marriages and, together with Ginny, twin ten-year-old girls. Sotiris was the only son.
Andreas waited patiently; he knew the question would come soon. It always did.
‘What happened to our son?’ It came from Zanni.
‘He was …’ Andreas swallowed hard. ‘He was murdered.’ A priest or a social worker might have put it differently, but Andreas was a cop. And cops want reactions. They’re more telling than words.
‘Murdered? Murdered!’ It was Ginny. She dropped her arms from around her husband and turned away from all three men. Her right hand was over her mouth and her eyes fixed on the floor.
‘Who did it … how did it happen?’ Zanni did the asking. Ginny didn’t move from her spot.
‘We don’t know yet, sir. It occurred a few hours after midnight. Your son’s body was discovered at dawn and the coroner hasn’t completed his examination.’ Neither parent responded. Andreas’ instinct was to say more. ‘But we think it was directed at your family.’
Zanni’s expression did not change. His face had turned to stone since Andreas first said his son was dead. Ginny was frozen in place, her breathing increasing rapidly, as if about to hyperventilate.
They were in shock, a normal and expected reaction.
‘Thank you, Chief, for your concern.’ Zanni sounded as if tipping a waiter.
Andreas thought perhaps he hadn’t made his last comment clear enough or they may have missed it in their grief. ‘Mr Kostopoulos, did your son or your family receive any threats? Or can you think of anyone who might have done such a horrible thing as a message to your family?’
Zanni stared straight ahead. ‘No, sir.’
Andreas pressed him harder but got no better an answer than an interviewer trying to force genuine beliefs from a politician. Nor was there a hint of Zanni’s legendary temper; no matter how hard Andreas pushed him it was always the same: ‘No, sir.’
Zanni eyes stayed focused somewhere in the middle-distance while Ginny stood with hers fixed on the floor, clutching her arms across her chest and swaying from side to side. She said not a word and was no longer crying.
The chief of Athens Special Crimes Division had just asked the parents of a murdered boy if their son’s death was a message to their family, and neither asked what the hell he was talking about. Shock or no shock, Andreas knew their silence definitely was not normal.
They were sitting in their car in front of the Kostopoulos home. ‘So, what do you think?’ It was the second time Andreas asked that question in the three minutes since they’d left the house.
Kouros’ first answer to the question was a summary of what the boy’s parents and the household staff told them: Sotiris was almost seventeen, into girls not guys, and well-liked. He’d been playing backgammon at home with two male classmates until eleven when all three were picked up by a taxi for some late-night clubbing. He hadn’t been expected home until late Sunday afternoon, at the earliest. Those weren’t unusual hours for him or for his friends on weekends, and, yes, they were underage for the clubs, but so were a lot of kids from fancy neighborhoods who hung out there. They got in because they could afford it or some family celebrity-status made them attractive customers. Some, like Sotiris, got in for both reasons.
This time Kouros’ answer was, ‘About what?’
‘Mr and Mrs K.’
Kouros shrugged. ‘They were pret
ty much out of it. Especially her. Until that doctor got there with a sedative, I thought she was going to lose it big-time.’
‘Me, too.’ Andreas stared at the gate. ‘Something’s not right about this. They couldn’t name one person with a possible grudge against their son or them. All they needed to do was open a newspaper, any newspaper, and find Linardos spelled in capital letters. But they didn’t even mention the name. It was as if that family didn’t exist.’
‘He had to be thinking the same thing we were. The most obvious suspect was someone tied into the Linardos family.’
Andreas nodded. ‘For sure, but he’s never going to tell us. It’s not in his DNA. He can’t ask for help. Certainly not from cops.’
‘The wife seemed pretty close to saying something. I thought she was going to explode.’
‘What I’d give to be a fly on their wall when she wakes up and starts tearing into him.’ Andreas gestured for Kouros to start the car. ‘May as well stop hoping for miracles and get back to police work. Let’s find those two friends of the boy. We’ll come back here in a day or so, after the funeral, and try to get her to talk. They’re not going anywhere.’
Andreas learned early on as a cop that sixteen-year-old boys lived forever. They all knew that rule. It applied to all boys, not just those with doting parents forgiving all trespasses, indulging all whims, and setting no boundaries. It was a hormonal thing, so every cop knew they were at the core of the most dangerous age groups to predict. Children died of war, famine, disease, and other, far too remote causes, to raise even a passing thought of personal mortality in most sixteen-year-old minds. Thankfully, most grew up unscathed in any serious way.
He also knew not all were so lucky. A few died, some survived close calls, and others were left to grieve the fates of their peers. But even the most personal of accidental tragedies, a friend’s horrific, deadly motorcycle crash, rarely had but short-term influence on their behavior. In their minds, they were protected from a similar fate by greater skills, better judgment, and the ever-intoxicating bravado of their hormones.
But that rationale would not help Sotiris Kostopoulos’ friends deal with his death. Perhaps, if he’d died in a car or boating accident, or they were kids from a violent neighborhood where crime on the streets many times brought death, it would be different for them, but murder was outside the experience of the Athens Academy crowd.
Andreas and Kouros spent hours speaking separately to the boys in the presence of their parents. That was the quickest way of gaining the parents’ cooperation. Now, though, it was time to speak to the two boys individually, and away from hovering adults. When the parents objected, Andreas courteously explained their choices: one, accompany their children to police headquarters for a formal interrogation with stenographer, lawyers, and all; or two, allow the police to complete the questioning, informally, in a private home.
Andreas thought that would get him the desired cooperation, but Greeks were notorious negotiators, even with police, and the father of one of the boys would not relent. Andreas was certain the two friends weren’t suspects and knew if he pressed it to the point of involving lawyers it might be days, perhaps longer, before he got to speak to them. So, they compromised: no parents, but the boys remained together.
The home they chose was only a few blocks from the Kostopoulos residence, but settled in another world, one far more familiar to Andreas. He sat on a straight-back dining room chair in what he knew could be the home’s only living room, facing two boys seated on a plush-cushion bright-red and green floral-pattern couch. The boys looked about to be devoured by the pillows. Kouros sat off to Andreas’ right, at the end of the couch, in another straight-back chair.
Theo Angelou and George Lambrou were dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and pimply. Theo, at five-feet five inches tall, was noticeably overweight. George, though the thinner of the two, was only an inch or so taller. No doubt blond, blue-eyed, six-foot Sotiris Kostopoulos had been the face-man of this crew. The two struggled to sit up straight on the couch. It was obvious from their faces what was going through their minds: there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I.
Andreas spoke to them as men, not boys, aiming to create camaraderie and attain a hoped for franker discussion of a very important – stunningly attractive – detail they’d been sheepish to talk about in front of their parents.
‘A taxi driver you knew, from the car service you always used, picked you up at Sotiris’ house and took you straight to the Angel Club off Pireos Street in Gazi?’
Both nodded.
‘That’s been your hangout for the past four months?’
More nods.
‘And every weekend night it’s open there’s a specific table reserved just for you whether or not you showed up?’ Andreas hoped his tone didn’t show what he thought of high-school kids with private tables at one of Athens’ hottest clubs, and of the parents who paid.
Perhaps he hadn’t masked it well enough or, perhaps, the glamour of claiming such privilege was gone, but the boys didn’t nod. George looked at Theo, then back at Andreas. ‘Yes, sir, that’s right, but really it was Sotiris who had the table. Everyone knew they could find him there after midnight.’
‘Ever go to any other clubs, like in Kolonaki?’ Kolonaki was Athens’ most fashionable and expensive downtown neighborhood, and where Andreas expected these kids to gather, rather than in the dicier clubs of Gazi.
‘Not really, Angel was our place. We didn’t want to hang out in Kolonaki clubs with everyone else from around here. Once in a while, maybe, if there were a special party somewhere else, but most of our friends came to party with us at Angel.’
He looked at Theo.
‘Yes, sir, that’s right.’
Andreas paused. He almost was up to what he wanted to cover most, but first, a subject he hadn’t raised in front of their parents. ‘I understand Sotiris didn’t have a girlfriend?’
‘That’s right,’ said Theo.
‘Was there some special girl in his life? Anyone?’
‘Not that I knew of.’
Andreas looked at George. ‘Did he ever have a girlfriend?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Okay, guys.’ Andreas leaned forward. ‘I’ve got to ask this question. Was he gay?’
There was genuine surprise, even a flash of anger on Theo’s face. Perhaps because of what the question suggested about the three of them.
George spoke. ‘No way, he was the best there was with girls. They were all over him. We’d hang around waiting for the ones he tossed back.’
Andreas shook his head. ‘You’re not convincing me, guys. You tell me he had no girlfriend and yet girls were all over him. Doesn’t sound to me that he liked girls.’ Andreas knew he was pushing an uncomfortable subject on already traumatized boys and didn’t like it, but he had no choice.
George stared at a photograph of his parents on the coffee table next to Andreas. ‘I don’t know what else to tell you. He didn’t have a girlfriend.’ The boy paused, as if emphasizing what he was about to say. ‘None of us did.’ Then he looked at Andreas’ eyes. ‘But Sotiris wasn’t gay. Neither is Theo.’ No disclaimer for himself.
Interesting kid, Andreas thought, he’s implying he might be gay to establish his murdered buddy was not.
George continued. ‘He didn’t want to be tied down to any one girl. That’s the way a lot of guys are these days. If you have sex with the girl she thinks it’s serious, and if you have it with her regularly she thinks you’ll marry her.’
This I’m hearing from a high-school kid, thought Andreas. He smiled at how much simpler his own teenage years might have been had he known that little secret then. Even now, it might be useful.
Time to see if his challenge to teenager machismo resulted in an among-us-guys discussion of his real subject of interest. ‘Okay, George, so tell me more about this hot girl Sotiris met last night at the Angel.’
‘We never saw her before. As I told you, she looked about twenty, light bro
wn hair, green eyes, great figure. Taller than me.’
Andreas smiled. ‘So, guys, now tell me exactly what you said when you first saw her. Let’s start with what Sotiris said. Don’t worry, I can handle it.’ He leaned over and gave Theo a man-to-man smack on the knee.
‘“Look at those tits.” Those were Sotiris’ first words. “Fantastic ass,” were mine. George said, “She must be Olympiakos” – we’re big fans of soccer – because she was wearing red.’
George added, ‘Not just red, Olympiakos red. The dress, an Armani, drapée mini, and Jimmy Choo stilettos perfectly matched in our favorite team’s color.’
Andreas nodded. ‘Theo, anything to add?’
As if consciously trying to distance himself from whatever impression George may have been trying to create about his own preferences, Theo said, ‘George’s parents are in the fashion business; he knows that sort of stuff. Personally, I thought she was the greatest piece of ass ever to walk alone into that place.’
‘We all agreed on that, Theo,’ said George. ‘But Sotiris said she had to be a hooker. “Nothing that beautiful could be in here for free,” he said. We thought she was waiting for someone. But she sat alone at the next table just listening to the music. Didn’t even try starting a conversation with us.’
‘Was that unusual?’
‘Well, a lot of people tried breaking into our crowd. They’d do whatever they could to get noticed by us,’ said Theo.
He wondered if these kids had any idea how the other half – make that 99.5% – lived. Andreas actually felt a little sorry for them. In a few years they’d be breaking into a new crowd, one the Greek media liked to call ‘the 700ers,’ kids raised among the clothes, cars, money, boats, and vacations of their (often debt-strapped) parents, thinking life always would be easy for them, until running head-on into the typical Greek university graduate’s starting salary of seven hundred euros per month. Hardly enough to pay one night’s bar bill at the Angel Club.
‘So, how did they hook up?’
Assassins of Athens Page 3