Juror's fear

The summer heat clung to Kaisariani like a sweaty shirt. Myrto Zervou fanned herself with yesterday’s newspaper, perched on her balcony, watching the neighborhood’s slow pulse. Below, her son Aris sanded a wooden chair in his workshop, the rhythmic scrape blending with the cicadas’ drone.

Then she saw him, Nikos Vassilou, the butcher from Plateia, lurking near Mrs. Katerina’s door. Katerina, the quiet woman who had just been selected as a juror in the high-profile trial of a notorious loan shark.

Myrto’s eyes narrowed.

“Ari,” she called down, “bring me some water. And your ears.”

Aris wiped his hands and climbed up, sighing. “What now, Mana?”

“That butcher,” she said, nodding toward Nikos, “has no business at Katerina’s door. Unless he’s selling pork to a vegetarian.”

Aris chuckled. “Maybe he’s sweet on her.”

Myrto scoffed. “At his age? Ha! No, something stinks worse than his meat counter.”

*    *    * *    *    *

That evening, Myrto shuffled to Katerina’s apartment under the guise of borrowing sugar. The moment Katerina opened the door, Myrto saw the fear in her eyes.

“You look like you’ve seen the vrykolakas,” Myrto said, stepping inside without invitation.

Katerina wrung her hands. “It’s nothing, Kyria Myrto.”

“Nothing? Then why is your sugar bowl shaking?”

A long silence. Then, a whisper: “Nikos came. He said… if I don’t vote ‘not guilty’ for Sotiris, bad things will happen.”

Myrto’s jaw tightened. Sotiris Karas, the loan shark, had terrorized half of Athens. Now he was intimidating jurors?

“Aman,” Myrto muttered. “The wolf doesn’t change his fur.”

*    *    * *    *    *

Back home, Myrto plotted with Aris.

“We can’t go to the police,” Aris said. “They’re slow, and Nikos will deny it.”

“Then we make him confess,” Myrto said, eyes gleaming.

The next day, Aris “accidentally” broke Nikos’s delivery van’s tail light. When Nikos stormed into the workshop, shouting, Myrto was waiting.

“Ah, Nikos! Terrible luck,” she said, shaking her head. “First your van, then your other problems.”

Nikos froze. “What problems?”

“The ones you’ll have when Sotiris loses the trial anyway and blames you for failing to scare Katerina.”

Nikos paled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Myrto leaned in. “Oh? Then why did you tell Katerina to vote ‘not guilty’? Or should I ask Sotiris myself?”

Panic flashed in Nikos’s eyes. “He’ll kill me!”

“Or,” Myrto said sweetly, “you go to the police first. Tell them Sotiris threatened you too.”

*    *    * *    *    *

Nikos cracked like a stale paximadi. Within hours, the police had his statement—and a warrant for Sotiris.

That night, as Myrto and Aris sat on the balcony, sipping tsipouro, Katerina knocked on their door, holding a fresh galaktoboureko.

“For you,” she said, smiling. “The trial… I voted guilty.”

Myrto patted her hand. “Good. The snake’s head is crushed.”

As Katerina left, Aris smirked. “Another mystery solved by the Black Widow of Kaisariani.”

Myrto chuckled. “Quiet, pethi mou. Or next time, I’ll let you deal with the wolves.”

And with that, she took another sip, the night swallowing her satisfied grin.

THE END