Sons of Sparta: A Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Mystery (3 page)

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He drew in and let out a deep breath. “There is nothing more important to me than my children. Nothing.”

Uncle walked to the front door and closed it, shutting out all but a narrow spray of light cutting across the room through a tiny, barred window on the north wall and a pale glow fanning down through the trapdoor from tiny windows and narrow gun slits above. He stayed in the shadows by the door.

“Until the day I die I will never understand what drove my grandfather to have my father kill his sister. She was his
daughter
.”

Kouros looked down at the floor.

“I could never bring myself to cause someone to kill my child. Or my sister or my brother. I am not a fool, I know it happens, it is part of our culture, but for me…no…never. Not after all that I saw in this house.

“My father never got over killing his sister. He never spoke of it, but he lived his life as if he’d died the day he murdered her. And when his own children began falling victim to vendetta, he took no steps to save them. As if he saw their deaths as the price God had placed upon his soul to pay for his sin. It was my mother who sent your father and aunt to Athens, and pleaded with the council of elders on my behalf.

“And all the many things he did for all those women he cared for in the village, he did seeking a forgiveness that never came.”

He took a step toward Kouros. “The strangest thing of all is, I don’t think my father’s father ever forgave his son for the killing. My father’s return to the village as a doctor was not just my father’s penance, but became his father’s as well. Every day, the father saw the son and remembered what he’d made him do. It was a festering wound impossible to heal. And when his first grandchild fell to vendetta, Grandfather did not leave his grandson’s burial site for two days and two nights. He returned home with fever but did not send word to his son for help. He stayed in his bed and died of pneumonia as his wife—my grandmother—sat patiently in the corner of the room watching him pass on.”

He took another step closer to Kouros. “They were all sad people. Sad every day of their lives.”

Silence.

“That’s quite a burden you carry, Uncle. But I’m really not the one to help you with this. Perhaps a priest, a—”

He raised his hand for Kouros to stop. “No, that is not the sort of help I need. I’ve lived with this all my life, and will live with it for the rest of it. I have something I want to show you.” He walked past Kouros into the darkest corner of the room and shone his flashlight into a stone, trough-like structure once used to store powder kegs and shot for musket battles.

“My grandmother never uttered a word to her husband about his decision to have their daughter killed, but he knew she never forgave him. He’d murdered her pride and joy.”

“How do you know?” said Kouros.

“She told me after Grandfather died. Long before that, when I was the baby of the family, she took care of me so that my mother could do other things. Like all grandmothers, she liked talking to babies. She had much she wanted to tell, but dared not tell an adult, so she opened up to me. She got used to talking to me about her secrets, and the older I grew the more she revealed. From her I learned things different from what others told me. Proud talk about the honor of vendetta she tempered by showing me the inevitable emptiness of it all, mourning her beloved Calliope every day of her life.

“My Calliope is named after her, Theo and Giorgos after my slain brothers, and their sister after my slain sister. So that I never forget what our family has lost to vendetta.”

Kouros watched as his uncle began removing stones from inside the bottom of the trough.

“I’ve spent my life trying to spare my family the curse of vendetta. I made my decision to lease our land for that same reason. I don’t want my sons and their cousins fighting over what should happen to our land after I am gone. Some, like Giorgos, want to keep it as it is, no matter what. Others, like Theo, see the benefit of selling. Who knows what my sister’s son Pericles may be thinking? He and his brother like the high life in Athens but don’t have the money to afford it. Mangas is only interested in living life as it comes.”

“Following in his father’s footsteps?”

“I hope with the same attitude toward family. One that will never bring the two of you into conflict. But that’s not why I brought you in here.”

He piled up the stones next to the trough and on top of them placed several boards that had lain beneath the stones. He reached into the trough and lifted out a large box covered in cloth.

“What’s that?” said Kouros.

“Calliope’s chest.”

“The murdered Calliope?”

He nodded. “Grandmother hid it here the night of her murder. She feared Grandfather would destroy it. Later, she worried that showing it to my father would only bring deeper sadness to his life. She showed me where she’d hidden it just before she died and made me promise to pass it on to my daughter when I had one, or someone else I thought would treasure the memory of Calliope and ‘could forgive her for the mistake of loving a boy too much.’

“She made me promise to follow her instructions to the letter.” He stood and carried the chest to Kouros. “But I never could bring myself to open old wounds. So I left it here, buried in my grandmother’s shawl.”

“But what does this have to do with me?”

He put the chest down at Kouros’ feet. “Because the vendetta isn’t over.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Uncle sighed. “I wish I weren’t. But vendettas can go on for generations.”

“This isn’t that sort of vendetta, Uncle. There’s been no bad blood between the families for fifty years.”

“I thought the same thing until last week. When I received a threat.”

“What sort of threat?”

“One written across the back of my morning paper.” He pulled a folded newspaper page out of his back pocket and read: “
Your father took his sister’s and her lover’s lives to preserve our ways. We shall take yours to save our Mani. You have one week to change your plans or die
.”

“That sounds crazy.”

“I know.”

“May I see it?”

Uncle handed him the page. The message had been carefully pasted onto the newspaper with words cut out of other newspapers.

“Any idea who did this?”

Uncle gestured no.

“What plans are they talking about?”

“My guess is the hotel.”

Kouros scratched the back of his head. “In your line of work, Uncle, you must have made a lot of enemies. What makes you think the threat didn’t come from one of them?”

“I thought that, too, at first. But I’ve had death threats before and my enemies know they don’t scare me. Besides, if any of them wanted to make a macho point to impress some third party with how tough they could be by taking me on, I can assure you it would be for a flesh-and-blood real reason, not some generations-old vendetta bullshit. They’d know this sort of threat would make me think the sender a fool, one I’d never take seriously. And I didn’t. Besides, I was too busy working on completing the hotel deal to worry about it.”

“Then why are you taking it seriously now?”

He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a mobile phone. “Yesterday, I received this anonymous SMS.” He held the phone so Kouros could read the message: YOUR TIME TO CHOOSE IS OVER. NOW IT IS YOUR TIME TO DIE.

“I will die someday. How, when, and where is in God’s hands. Or maybe the devil’s. But I don’t want my death resurrecting a vendetta that will take more of my family. My sons are hotheads. Proud of being Maniots, but they don’t know what it means to mourn a lost sibling or child, or to live in fear of what your neighbor might be about to do to you at any moment.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I want you to find out who’s threatening me.”

“Then what?”

Uncle locked eyes with Kouros. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Uncle, I can’t set someone up for execution.”

He put a hand on Kouros’ shoulder. “That’s not what I have in mind. That would only fuel the vendetta. If I know who is behind this, perhaps I can reach out and make peace.”

“And if not?”

Uncle shrugged. “All I ask is that you think about it on your drive back to Athens. See if there’s some way you can bring yourself to help that won’t compromise your principles. If you can, I’d be grateful. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you’d take Calliope’s chest with you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. As I said, I promised my grandmother to give it to someone who would treasure her daughter’s memory and not judge her for her mistake. I don’t see that in either of my daughters, as much as I love them. So, just in case I never get around to keeping that promise, I’d like you to be the one to do it for me.”

Kouros swallowed. “I’m honored.”

He picked up the chest and handed it to Kouros. “And if you do decide to help me find who’s behind this threat, I promise you no one will die because of it.”

Kouros smiled. “Promise?”

“My word of honor.”

Chapter Three

“
Maggie!”

The door to Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis’ office on the fourth floor of Athens’ General Police Headquarters swung open and a sturdy, five-foot three-inch redhead stuck her head in the doorway. “You rang, Chief?”

They’d long ago settled on his yelling as far more efficient than the intercom.

“Where’s Yianni?”

“On the way back from the Mani.” She looked at her watch. “Should be here in about an hour.”

“What’s he doing on the Peloponnese?”

“How should I know?”

“Because you know everything about everyone in GADA.” GADA was the nickname for central police headquarters and Maggie served as its unofficial mother superior. She’d ended up as Andreas’ secretary when the retirement of her longtime boss coincided with Andreas’ promotion back to GADA from a brief stint as chief of police for the Aegean island of Mykonos.

“He said it was a family matter.”

Andreas nodded. “Okay, but tell him I want to see him as soon as he gets in.”

“Your wish is my command.”

Andreas waved his hand in the air. “Please, Maggie, not this early in the morning. I’ve a meeting this afternoon with the minister and need practice at being respectful to my boss. You’re not setting a good example.”

“As if you’ll be able to carry off that act for long.”

He smiled. “I wonder what’s on Spiros’ mind.”

Maggie stepped inside the office and closed the door.

“According to his secretary, our distinguished minister of public order is scared to death about something having to do with Crete.”

“How do you know that?”

“Spiros Renatis is your boss, and so that makes him my boss, and I like to keep up with what’s going on in my bosses’ lives. It makes mine easier.”

Andreas sighed. “Why do I even bother to ask? So what do you know?”

“He’s insecure, worried about every little thing. Ever since his wife’s name showed up on that list the French gave our finance minister of two thousand Greeks with undisclosed bank accounts in Switzerland, he’s been afraid of being booted out of his ministry position.”

“Doesn’t seem like much to worry about to me,” said Andreas. “For two years, all the finance ministry did with that list was hide it. It took a journalist to make it public and the only one prosecuted was the journalist. Twice, and both times unsuccessfully.”

Maggie grinned. “Well, at least it got the prosecutors finally doing something.”

Andreas threw an open hand curse gesture at the windows of his office. “I’m still waiting for the first crooked bastard on the list to go to jail.”

“Aren’t we all? Spiros’ story is that the account held earnings on his wife’s investments outside of Greece on which all taxes were paid. But he’s worried some hot-shot prosecutor out to earn a reputation might not buy that and decide to make his wife the first to stand trial, dragging Spiros into the middle of it.”

Andreas shrugged. “But what’s any of that got to do with whatever has him worked up over Crete?”

Maggie shrugged. “That’s all I know. Would you like me to guess?”

Andreas patted his forehead with the fingers of his right hand. “Maggie…”

“Someone’s squeezing his privates big-time.”

“Who?”

“No idea, but whoever it is has a vise grip on them. So, be careful of your own.”

“Thanks for the motherly advice.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiled and left.

Andreas leaned back in his chair. He knew he ought to head down to the gym for a workout. Too much time behind the desk these days. He was coming up on forty and needed to keep a handle on the old waistline. Better yet, keep a handle off of it. He stood up, stretched his arms, and bent his six-foot, two-inch frame in half, fingers aimed at the toes.
Can still touch them
.

He straightened up and stretched again. He stared at the windows, walked over, and pulled back a curtain. There wasn’t much to see. The interesting sites—Greece’s Supreme Court and the stadium of one of the country’s two most popular soccer teams—lay in other directions. Andreas let the curtain fall back in place.

I wonder what flaming bag of shit Spiros plans on dumping in my lap this time.

***

Andreas looked at his watch. He’d been waiting half an hour. His mobile phone rang. “Kaldis here.”

“It’s Yianni, Chief. Am I interrupting something?”

“No, Spiros has me waiting out here with his secretary trying to make me think he’s actually busy. Even had the poor woman tell me, ‘The minister’s on a very important international conference call.’” Andreas spoke loud enough for the secretary to hear but she acted as if she weren’t listening. “She deserves a raise for all the bullshit he puts her through.”

She smiled.

“Sorry I missed you at the office, Chief. I got hung up in traffic. Farmers protesting tax increases blocked the highway with tractors. It was a mess for hours.”

“So what else is new? Everything’s a mess these days. How are things with your family?”

“Terrific.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Good news.”

The secretary’s phone buzzed, she picked it up, listened, and nodded at Andreas.

“Got to go, Yianni, his majesty will see me now.”

Andreas crossed in front of the secretary’s desk and opened the door to the minister’s office. Before stepping inside he looked at the secretary and said loudly. “I meant what I said about you deserving a raise.” He turned to Spiros. “Don’t you agree?”

“Please,” said Spiros, “just close the door and sit down.”

Andreas closed the door and sat in one of the chairs by Spiros’ desk.

“You must learn to show me more respect,” said Spiros.

Andreas smiled.

“Did you hear me?”

“Are you recording this?”

A flash of anger crossed Spiros’ face. He drew in a breath, reached for a glass of water on a silver tray sitting atop his desk, and took a sip. “Okay, so we’ve had some rocky times. Can’t we put them behind us?”

“Did you bring me here to have that conversation?”

Spiros gestured no.

“I didn’t think so.”

“I could fire you.”

Andreas shrugged. “Or I could resign. Either way you’d have the media to contend with. They know me, remember. And like me.” He didn’t have to add,
far more than they do you
.

The anger had returned on Spiros’ face.

“Don’t forget who I am,” said Andreas. “I’m that ‘crazy bastard who can’t be bought or fired or set up.’ I’m the only excuse you have to all those potbellied patrons of yours pressuring you to make nasty things about them on your desk go away.” Andreas pressed his forefinger on Spiros’ desktop. “Without me to blame you’d have long ago lost your ministry for not doing favors, or be facing prison time if you had.”

Andreas pulled his finger back from the desk. Greece’s track record for prosecuting corrupt ministers hovered at just above zero, but times were changing so the risk was there and Andreas knew Spiros wasn’t a risk taker. “We both know you need me more than I need this lousy-paying job.” That part wasn’t a bluff. Andreas had married the socially prominent daughter of one of Greece’s oldest and wealthiest families.

Spiros took another sip of water. “Like I said, I don’t think we should dwell on the past.” He put down the glass.

“Okay, so let’s talk about the
now
. Why am I here?”

Spiros bit at his lower lip. “I’m not a crook.”

Andreas leaned back in his chair. “And precisely what’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re right about the pressures exerted on this office. More so today than ever before. The people are screaming for prosecutors to cut off every politician’s head. The corrupt are looking for ways to make as much as they can while they still can, and opportunists are trying to buy up government assets on the cheap.” Spiros brought his hands up to his face and rubbed at his eyes. “Now I’m being dragged into the mess.”

“Is this about your wife’s bank account in Switzerland?”

Spiros gestured no as he kept rubbing at his eyes. “For now that’s just an annoyance.” He dropped his hands. “I’m talking about serious pressures involving more than a trillion euros.”

Andreas cleared his throat.

“It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that all the talk about huge natural gas deposits off the southern coast of Crete has a lot of people wanting in on the action. And not just Greeks.”

“I’d be surprised if that weren’t the situation,” said Andreas.

“We’re talking pipelines, drilling rights, construction, shipping, maintenance. Everything you can imagine, all the way down to who gets the right to open a taverna. There’s enormous money in play.”

“And claims by Libyans to the same gas deposits.”

Spiros nodded. “If Gaddafi were still in power, our government could have worked things out with him. But who knows what the Libyans will do now, or more likely, who will tell them what to do? The Americans, Chinese, Europeans, and Russians are all jockeying for influence in the region.”

Andreas shrugged. “Big money attracts big players.”

“I know. Look what happened after gas and oil were discovered in the Mediterranean off Cyprus. Every country in the area laid claim to the deposits. It has Israel teamed up with the Republic of Cyprus against Turkey’s claim through Northern Cyprus. And with Cyprus’ banking economy shot to hell, the Russians are licking their chops to get a piece of it.”

“But how does the gas find in Crete involve you?”

“There are rumors that certain private foreign interests are attempting to influence Greek government officials improperly in the awarding of drilling and pipeline rights.”

Andreas smiled. “I get it. Our countrymen are pissed off at having to compete with non-Greeks in a free-for-all bidding war for the favors of our accommodating government officials.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“I know. Real wars are fought over oil. Just ask the Americans. But you have to admit it’s ironic.” Andreas smiled again.

“A lot of powerful people are clamoring for me to start an investigation.”

“I assume you’ve been asked to be selective in choosing targets.”

Spiros nodded. “All of them want me to go after their competition. The trouble is, in something this big everyone in the hunt has powerful friends asking me to do the same thing to everyone else.”

“In other words, you’re caught in the middle.”

Spiros put his hand to his forehead. “Tied to a spit like an Easter lamb waiting to be slow-roasted the moment any of the losers starts shouting ‘government corruption.’”

“Because their corruptors weren’t as good as the winner’s?”

“The reason won’t matter. They’ll point to our investigation, find something we missed, and say the other side obviously bought me off. The corrupt in government who actually were part of it all will righteously agree and make me their sacrificial scapegoat.”

“Isn’t that the way it’s always been? Set up the good to protect the bad? If you think everyone’s corrupt and an investigation won’t make a difference, why bother to open one? Just say no.”

“Everyone may not be corrupt, and even if they all are, I still can’t say no. If I refuse, the big players demanding I act are powerful enough to drive me out of office and put someone in this chair that they can control.”

“Don’t tell me you’re doing this out of loyalty to country.”

“Is that so hard for you to believe?”

Andreas studied him. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to look into this and come up with something I can use to get everyone off my back.”

“Do you have any idea what that ‘something’ might be?”

“No.”

“You do realize, Spiros, that you’re sounding a bit crazy?”

“No, ‘desperate’ is the word. I don’t want to end my public life under a cloud. If I can’t find a way out of this I’m ruined.”

“You could resign before this goes any further.”

“If I resigned now, the media would say it’s because of that bank account in Switzerland.”

Andreas shook his head. “I wish I could help you, but if anywhere near a trillion euros is involved, I have about as much a chance at finding the lost city of Atlantis as that ‘something’ to get your alphabet list of world powers and who-knows-how-many connected Greeks off your back.”

“All I can ask is that you try. You’re the only one I know who might be able to pull it off.”

Andreas fixed on Spiros’ eyes. “Spare me the Vaseline. Just don’t forget two things. One, if I start, there’s no going back, no matter who’s involved.”

Spiros nodded. “Understood.”

Andreas leaned forward. “And, two, if I find out you’re trying to set me up to take a fall for you…” Andreas let his voice trail off.

Spiros did not look away. “No need to say it. I understand that, too.”

Andreas leaned back in the chair. “Fine. I need a copy of your files on this mess.”

“There are no files.” Spiros picked up a pencil, wrote something on a piece of paper, and handed it to Andreas. “But here’s whom you should speak to.”

Andreas read the name, looked up, and stared at Spiros. “You weren’t kidding about who’s involved.”

Spiros nodded. “As you said, ‘Big money attracts big players.’”

***

Kouros was in his office when the call came through. “Detective Kouros here.”

“It’s me.” The voice sounded strained. It was Uncle’s oldest son, Mangas, successor to his father’s criminal enterprises.

“You sound gloomy,” said Kouros. “What’s the matter, did I leave my toothbrush at your father’s house?”

“I’ve bad news.”

Kouros’ heart skipped a beat.

“My father’s dead.”

Kouros held the phone, frozen, and didn’t speak.

“Did you hear me?”

Kouros nodded at the phone. “Yes.” He drew in a deep breath. “What happened?”

“He was driving back alone from morning coffee with his friends at the taverna in Marmari on the road to Cape Tenaro…”

Kouros listened to his cousin struggle against tears. Cape Tenaro sits at the southernmost point of mainland Greece where the Ionian and Aegean seas meet and Greek mythology placed as the entrance to Hades, home to the god of the dead. Some moderns called it by its Italian name, Cape Matapan; the ancients had called it Tainaron.