Chotas said, “Good. You just saved your life, Costa.”
I’ve saved more than that, Demiris thought triumphantly. I have a hundred million dollars hidden away where no one will ever find it.
Chotas’s meeting with Spyros Lambrou had been a difficult one. He almost threw Chotas out of his office.
“You want me to testify to save that monster’s life? Get the hell out of here.”
“You want revenge, don’t you?” Chotas had asked.
“Yes. And I’m getting it.”
“Are you? You know Costa. His wealth means more to him than his life. If they execute him, his pain will be over in a few minutes, but if you break him and take everything away from him, force him to go through life without any money, you would be giving him a much greater punishment.”
There was truth in what the lawyer said. Demiris was the greediest man he had ever met. “You say that he’s willing to sign everything he has over to me?”
“Everything. His fleet, his businesses, every company he owns.”
It was an enormous temptation. “Let me think about it.” Lambrou watched the lawyer wheel himself out of his office. Poor bastard, he thought. What has he got to live for?
At midnight, Spyros Lambrou telephoned Napoleon Chotas. “I’ve made up my mind. We have a deal.”
The press was in a feeding frenzy. Not only was Constantin Demiris being tried for the murder of his wife, but he was being defended by a man who had come back from the dead, the brilliant criminal attorney who had supposedly died in a holocaust.
The trial was being held in the same courtroom where Noelle Page and Larry Douglas had been tried. Constantin Demiris sat at the defendant’s table, cloaked in an aura of invisibility. Napoleon Chotas was next to him in his wheelchair. The State was being represented by Special Prosecutor Delma.
Delma was addressing the jury.
“Constantin Demiris is one of the most powerful men in the world. His vast fortune gives him many privileges. But there’s one privilege it does not give him. And that’s the right to commit cold-blooded murder. No one has that right.” He turned to look at Demiris. “The state will prove beyond a doubt that Constantin Demiris is guilty of the brutal murder of a wife who loved him. When you are through hearing the evidence, I’m certain that there’s only one verdict you can bring in. Guilty of murder in the first degree.” He walked back to his seat.
The Chief Justice turned to Napoleon Chotas. “Is the defense ready to make it’s opening statement?”
“We are, Your Honor.” Chotas wheeled himself in front of the jury. He could see the look of pity on their faces as they tried to avoid looking at his grotesque face and his crippled body. “Constantin Demiris is not on trial here because he’s rich or powerful. Or perhaps it’s because of that that he has been dragged into this courtroom. The weak always try to bring down the powerful, don’t they? Mr. Demiris may be guilty of being rich and powerful, but one thing I am going to prove with absolute certainty—he is not guilty of murdering his wife.”
The trial had begun.
Prosecutor Delma was questioning Police Lieutenant Theophilos on the stand.
“Would you describe what you saw when you walked into Demiris’s beach house, Lieutenant?”
“The chairs and tables were overturned. Everything was all messed up.”
“It looked as though a terrible struggle had taken place?”
“Yes, sir. It looked as though the house had been burglarized.”
“You found a bloody knife at the scene of the crime, did you not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And there were fingerprints on the knife?”
“That’s correct.”
“Who did they belong to?”
“Constantin Demiris.”
The eyes of the jury swung toward Demiris.
“When you searched the house, what else did you find?”
“In back of a closet we found a pair of blood-stained bathing shorts that had Demiris’s initials on them.”
“Isn’t it possible that they had been at the house for a long time?”
“No, sir. They were still wet with sea water.”
“Thank you.”
It was Napoleon Chotas’s turn. “Detective Theophilos, you had a chance to talk to the defendant personally, didn’t you?”