Page 9 of Breakdown
“I did not say he was wearing a mask,” Nik contended.
“Mr. Petrakis, come on, your statement’s right in front of you.”
Nik shook his head. “It does not say that. I will read it again for you, Mr. Luskey: ‘He had a black shirt and a skull mask.’ I did not say he was wearing it over his face; the strap was around his neck. I apologize if there was some confusion.” Nik’s voice was hard, his hackles raised. “As you said earlier, English is not my first language.”
Luskey was going for the jugular, but Nik was holding his own. If this was the worst the lawyer had to throw at him, Nik might make it out of there relatively unscathed.
“Oh, the apology is all mine,” Luskey said with a sneer. “I too often note items of clothing that peoplearen’twearing when making statements to the police. It happens.”
He shrugged theatrically in the direction of the jury and then pressed on before Booth could object.
“Now, I hate to repeat a question myesteemedcolleague Mr. Booth asked you, but are you absolutely certain the man you saw that night was Stavros Giannopoulos?”
“I am certain Stavros Giannopoulos shot my wife that night. He was there,” Nik said. Peter noticed the subtle shift of wording in his answer and he wondered if the lawyer did too. As much as he could, Nik was avoiding the lie.
“And you don’t have any grounds to be, oh, I don’t know, biased against my client for any reason, do you?”
"Other than the fact that he is the man that murdered my wife? No, I do not believe so."
Luskey turned away from the stand for a moment to stretch his legs, and Peter saw the triumphant smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. "Let's circle back to your new garage for a moment, shall we? One of your employees there is a Mr. Peter Bauer, correct?" The bastard actually winked at Peter, and Peter realized with dawning horror that everything he’d asked before now had just been foreplay.
Nik’s brows knit; Stu hadn’t prepared him for this. "That is correct," he said carefully.
"And Mr. Bauer spent some time in jail before coming to work for you, didn't he? For auto theft no less. Kind of you to give a second chance to an ex-con."
"People change."
"What a generous outlook you have. But to be clear, Mr. Bauer is not just an employee, right? The two of you are romantically involved?"
"We are."
"And were you aware, Mr. Petrakis, that, before you, Mr. Bauer was also romantically involved with my client?"
This time it was Stu that shot Peter a look that made him shrink down lower in his seat. He hadn't told Stuart, hadn't expected his dirty laundry to be aired quite so publicly. He certainly hadn't expected his past indiscretions to jeopardize the whole damn trial. But it was typical, wasn’t it? Peter’s past was never going to go away or die or stop haunting him, and if Nik stayed around, it would inevitably ruin his life too.
He tried to gauge Stav’s reaction. His old lover must have been desperate to try this. It meant admitting that he was gay. It meant he’d never be respected in the underworld again. Stav had his back to Peter. He was looking down at his knees and his spine was ramrod straight.
Luskey basked in the revelation, twisting the knife. "From what I understand, your new boyfriend and Stavros go way back."
"I did know this, yes." Nik couldn't hide his distaste as he stared Stavros down from his seat. "As you mentioned, Peter used to run with an unsavory crowd."
“It’s just strange that you weren’t able to provide an ID on my client until after this relationship with Mr. Bauer began. And for his ex to be the same person that you think is responsible for the death of your wife—” The smile Luskey panned from the jurors back to Nik was indulgent and patronizing. “I mean, you are asking the jury to accept an awfully big coincidence, Mr. Petrakis, don’t you think?”
Peter gripped hard to the bottom of his seat as the courtroom stood hushed, expectantly waiting for a response. Luskey was getting to them, eroding their confidence in Nik away. For his part, Nik stayed mute, his hands in his lap, too honest and taciturn to a fault. Even if he had been a good liar, Peter didn’t think there was anything Nik could say that would restore the jury’s faith in him. Now that he’d been linked to Peter, Nik was sullied.
After a long moment, Nik cleared his throat. It sounded painful. “When it became clear that my wife was not going to recover, Mr. Luskey, do you know what I heard the most from people? ‘Everything happens for a reason.’”
“Tragedy makes people prosaic. No doubt very frustrating, Mr. Petrakis, but that was not my question.”
Nik continued on as if he hadn’t heard Luskey. “And I know they had the best intentions—my friends, they saw that I was drowning in grief and they were only trying to find something to provide me with some sort of comfort—but it made me so angry at the time. ‘Bullshit,’ I wanted to say to them. ‘What reason could there be for Helena’s life to be cut so short? What reason was there for me to lose the woman I loved? What reason could there possibly be for my daughter to have to grow up without her mother?’
“Still, I did what I was supposed to do. I took care of my daughter to the best of my abilities. I mourned as privately as I could. I answered the police’s questions. I waited for justice to be served for my wife.
“And then the days became weeks, and the weeks, months, and they were no closer.The detectives stopped calling me with updates. I accepted it as best I could. What else could I do? How couldIfind the man who did this? Even the police did not seem to be able to.”
“Mr. Petrakis I—”
“Mr. Luskey, I am answering your damn question.” Nik took a shaky breath. “I met Peter after that. I have to admit, I was not in a good place at the time, and I think it is fair to say that neither was he. It was not easy for me—not after Helena. And Peter was struggling, the same as I was; his ex had not been particularly kind to him when they were together. No one had been particularly kind to him. But, in spite of everything, we managed to find some comfort in each other.
