Where Have All the Young Girls Gone

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “Kallio will probably want to be there, along with Koivu, Puupponen, Lehtovuori, and Puustjärvi, who’ve already interviewed the individuals in question. I’ll lead the interrogation, so that will make six of us. That seems like it should be enough. Honkanen, you’ll go with Forensics to take a closer look at Noor Ezfahani’s belongings, since you seem to be an expert on the feminine mystique. From there you can go with Rasilainen to continue interviewing the Ezfahanis’ neighbors. I wouldn’t be surprised if the murder occurred in one of those buildings.”

  “Have we been to the Ezfahani men’s apartment yet? Do we have a search warrant?” Ursula asked.

  “Not yet. Let’s see what comes up in the interrogation. We’ll have to catch Reza junior and Farid at work, and the other—Vafa was it?—will have to be fetched from school.”

  “Aren’t they on sick leave? Surely people get time off when a family member dies,” Lehtovuori said, perplexed.

  “I don’t imagine they’re quite that familiar with the Finnish system yet,” Ruuskanen said with another derisive snort. “And what good would sick leave do? It isn’t going to bring anyone back. It’s best to get back in the saddle as soon as possible, to get on with life.”

  Ruuskanen clearly wasn’t someone who handed out contact information for victim support groups to the people he interviewed. Might he be speaking from experience? I couldn’t ask with the others present. Perhaps someone would know—in a police station, everyone seemed to know everyone else’s business. Our experiences molded us as professionals, but not all in the same way. As a young police officer, I’d had a tendency to handle suspects with kid gloves. Now I knew that the authorities weren’t always the best people to offer comfort, though sometimes a police officer didn’t have any alternative but to take a broken person in her arms until the cries subsided.

  “We haven’t discussed as a group yet that Noor’s cousin Rahim Ezfahani has two assault and battery convictions. He’s only twenty-three. One was in 2003, right after he arrived in Finland, and the other was last year. He wasn’t deported the first time because he was a minor and the whole family was still waiting for approval of their asylum application. The incident last year was a gang scuffle that got out of hand, and Rahim wasn’t the only person convicted. No one was seriously injured, and the Immigration Service didn’t revoke Rahim’s residence permit. In the latter case, one of the prosecution witnesses was one Miro Ruuskanen. Any relation?” Koivu sounded irritated.

  “I’m sure you already know that Miro Ruuskanen is my son. But he was only a witness to the assault, not a party to it. There’s no need for me to recuse myself,” Ruuskanen said testily.

  “But the fight was between Muslims, mostly Iraqis and Kurds, and some Finnish nationalists. The group calls itself Finnish Heartland, and your son is a member. He even has the gang tattoos to prove it.”

  “I see you’ve done your homework, Koivu. But my son and his opinions don’t have anything to do with Noor Ezfahani’s murder. My son is an adult who lives on his own, and I have nothing to do with his politics. We can continue this discussion in private, if you like, but there’s no reason to waste the group’s time on this.”

  “In my opinion, it’s important for everyone involved in the criminal investigation to know that Rahim Ezfahani has two battery convictions. Not everyone had been informed,” Koivu insisted. The red hue of Ruuskanen’s face deepened to the color of brick, but he didn’t reply. Instead, he rustled his papers, like it was time to move on to more important matters.

  I’d heard about the battery convictions yesterday from Tuomas Soivio, so I should have brought them up, but I hadn’t wanted to step on the lead investigator’s toes. Apparently, they were going to get smashed anyway. The recent campaign finance scandal had made the media and the public more inclined to take conspiracy theories seriously, and if we didn’t keep our house in order, people would start thinking the Espoo police were up to shady business too.

  “The group of six I mentioned will remain on standby until all of the Ezfahanis have been rounded up. I’ll arrange for an interpreter, since some of the family members don’t speak very good Finnish. I’ll send out a text when we’re ready to go. Lehtovuori, will you make sure this conference room has enough chairs for everyone? Set up sound and video too. And give some thought to the seating arrangements. If we’re in a circle, we can have one officer between each Ezfahani, but then situating the cameras will be difficult.”

  “In a circle?” Koivu asked, a note of skepticism in his voice.

  “A little like we’re sitting around a campfire. Won’t that create a homey, trusting sort of feeling? I want them to relax and let down their guard, so they’ll start talking. Then we’ll get some results. I don’t have to remind such an experienced group where murderers are usually found. Kallio, are there any urgent jobs for Puupponen with the other cases your cell is investigating, or can he keep going through the online discussions about Noor’s killing?”

  I didn’t have to think. “A homicide takes precedence over any other investigations. By the way, should we get wiretap authorizations for the Ezfahanis’ and Tuomas Soivio’s phones?”

  “First let’s see what comes out of this interview,” Ruuskanen answered sourly.

  A text message had come in from the same number that had just tried to call me: Vala here. I’m waiting in the Espoo PD lobby next to a gigantic stuffed octopus. The desk says you’re in a meeting. Call me ASAP. Lauri.

  I almost burst out laughing. Vala had the gall to think I would just jump on demand, that all he had to do was give the word! Perhaps he’d gotten used to things working that way in the military chain of command, but I wasn’t his subordinate. I listened to Ruuskanen assigning tasks with one ear. Noor’s schoolmates and teachers would be questioned, and Puupponen and I would get another crack at Tuomas, if deemed necessary after the Ezfahanis’ interview. On the night of Noor’s killing, Tuomas had been chatting online about hockey and his favorite rock bands. It would have taken some pretty cool nerves to kill his girlfriend and then go right back to chatting, but Tuomas wouldn’t have been the first teenager to hide a killer’s heart from his family and the police.

  “Apparently, Sylvia Sandelin managed to persuade Noor’s family to let her go to high school. I’ve already talked to her once, and we had a good rapport, so I’d be happy to continue with her,” I suggested when Ruuskanen came to me in the rotation. He nodded and tried to smile. Maybe he hoped we would form a connection and then team up against our underlings. I didn’t have any desire to get into something like that, but I didn’t intend to start making waves either. I just wanted to make good on my promise to Iida.

  After the meeting I returned to my office and left a message for Sylvia Sandelin to call me. I’d just logged on to the intranet when the switchboard called.

  “I just saw Ruuskanen slip out for a smoke, so your meeting must be over. You have an eager visitor waiting for you down here in the lobby, a Major Lauri Vala. It’s been all I can do to keep him from barging up the stairs and into your office. Do you have time to see him now, or should I tell him to keep waiting or come back tomorrow? You don’t have an appointment with him, right?”

  I mulled over my options. Vala was stubborn. I certainly didn’t want him coming to find me at home. The workplace was a more neutral environment, and in the best-case scenario, Ruuskanen would interrupt his visit.

  I promised to come down and get Vala. I stopped by the restroom on the way. The face that looked back at me from the mirror was in serious need of some concealer under the eyes. I returned to my office, dug the concealer pen out of my bag, and grabbed a lipstick while I was at it. Using a compact mirror, I touched up my makeup. I realized that I was doing so because of Vala—not because I wanted to look attractive, but because I wanted to give the impression of being at the top of my game. That annoyed me. I remembered what Vala had said about a woman’s place, which had irritated me even in the midst of all that grief, and I didn’t want him to think this
murder investigation was too much for me.

  I threw the lipstick and concealer back in my bag, then put Antti’s and the children’s pictures in a drawer. My family wasn’t any of Vala’s business. Maybe it would be a good idea to take the photos home.

  Many Finnish peacekeepers had withdrawn from Afghanistan at the end of last October, before the second round of the presidential elections, but Vala had decided to stay in the country. The troops had been rotated again in February, but Vala had told me in an e-mail that he was on leave and after that he’d go back to Afghanistan. I hadn’t received another invitation to the country after the events of early October; few messages came from the police academy, though they’d promised to report to the Finnish Ministry of the Interior, the school’s partner organization. The academy was still functioning, but under difficult circumstances, because both the drug lords and the Taliban were doing everything they could to disrupt its operations.

  I walked down the stairs and saw Vala through the glass doors, standing with his arms akimbo and his brow furrowed in front of the giant yellow octopus. He was wearing fatigues, and I realized I’d never seen him in civilian clothing. Surely, he was allowed to dress casually while on leave. Was he trying to stand out from the crowd? His hair was even shorter than before, just stubble really, which had become sprinkled with more gray during the intervening months.

  I opened the door, and he turned suddenly, as if waiting for an armed threat.

  “Hello, Major Vala.” I extended my hand in greeting and received the familiar bone-crushing handshake.

  “Detective Kallio. It’s been a long time. Is there somewhere we could talk in private?”

  “My office.” I’d only been using it for a few days, but already it felt like my own. “Have you gotten your visitor badge? Good. Let’s go.” I opened the door and started jogging up the stairs. Vala’s combat boots knocked along behind me, and the visitor card hanging from his collar clicked against the metal buttons of his uniform. Koivu passed us in the hallway.

  “I’m getting coffee and donuts. Should I get some for you and your visitor?” he asked politely, unable to conceal his curiosity. I’d told Koivu what I could about Lauri Vala without risking a breach of confidentiality. His last name was sewn on his jacket, which was one difference from the uniform he’d worn in Afghanistan. There it was best for soldiers to remain anonymous.

  “Do you want something?” I asked Vala.

  “No, thank you. Police coffee is even worse than army coffee, and I haven’t eaten a jelly donut since bible camp.” Vala was the kind of guy who watched his waistline.

  “No? OK. Maria, one small thing when you get a moment. Preferably before Ruuskanen’s big meeting.”

  “OK.” I opened the door for Vala. I’d been at work for less than a week, so the desk hadn’t had time to collect piles of files and papers, and the bookshelves were waiting to be filled too. The computer screen saver was a picture of a three-month-old Jahnukainen stalking Venjamin’s tail. But they could be any two cats from the Internet, not necessarily from our family.

  Vala closed the door behind him and sat down in one of the armchairs. “So, you’re riding the Espoo police gravy train again.”

  “For the time being. We have a murder investigation going on, and I’m on the clock. How can I help you? I can’t waste my day catching up.”

  “Hey, slow down. Are there any surveillance cameras in here?”

  “No. Just in the hallway.”

  Vala nodded. He pulled his cell phone out of his breast pocket and pressed a button that made the phone vibrate, and then the screen went black.

  “Please turn off your cell phone. You never can be sure how these devices work.”

  Vala seemed serious. He stared at me expectantly.

  “Lauri, dear, my phone isn’t bugged. This is Espoo, not Afghanistan.”

  “Fine. We won’t talk. I’m leaving.”

  That would have been a relief. I knew the military monitored the mental health of peacekeepers, so maybe Vala wasn’t on leave—maybe he had been sent packing and failed to mention it to me. But he didn’t get out of his chair; he just looked around the room as if searching for microphones or video equipment. I sat down behind my desk and opened the Espoo police homepage, logged in to the intranet, and started to read a report about car break-ins and traffic stops. Vala just sat there. “You were going to leave,” I pointed out after several minutes. “Please do. I have work.”

  Vala sat quietly for a moment and then got up and walked around the desk, then stood behind me so he could see what was on my computer. A vehicle burglary in the parking lot of the old Matinkylä sports bubble. Anyone who knew anything about the incident was asked to contact the Espoo police. He was so close to me that I could feel his breath on my hair, and it took some effort for me not to turn to look at him. Then the computer screen dimmed, and the screen saver appeared, reflecting Vala’s face in the dark background of the photograph. The strange expression in his eyes felt oppressive.

  “At least turn off the computer. How many cell phones are there in this room?”

  “Stop clowning around.” I turned my chair toward Vala, almost kicking him in the shin. “State your business and then get out. I don’t have the time or desire to play spy games.”

  “This isn’t a game!” Vala roared. He paused, clearly alarmed by the volume of his voice, then continued in a near whisper. “Please turn off your computer and all of your cell phones. I’m begging you. I trust you but not the other police.”

  “My work phone has to stay on during work. I can turn off the other.” I logged out of the intranet and exited all the other programs I had open, then turned off my personal phone. Hopefully the children wouldn’t have any emergencies in the middle of the school day. That didn’t happen very often, and besides, both my father and Antti were available. Why was I even worried about that?

  Vala sat back in his chair. His posture was erect, his hands resting crossed in his lap, but he was twiddling his thumbs nervously. “I understand. At work you always have to be available. Do you have it in a safety-deposit box?”

  “What?”

  “The necklace. Ulrike Müller’s necklace.”

  “How do you know I have that?”

  “She asked for your address. Helga Müller, Ulrike’s mother. Of course, I didn’t give it to her. I reported her daughter’s death to the next of kin. It was my duty. That was how she knew to contact me.”

  “Did Ulrike’s mother tell you what she intended to send me?”

  “Yes. She asked if I thought it would be appropriate. Where is it?”

  “At home, in my jewelry box.”

  “It’s locked, right?”

  I started to get nervous. I kept my jewelry box in one of our bedroom dressers, because none of the jewelry in it had any particularly great monetary value. My great-grandmother’s emerald earrings and brooch were dear to me of course, but the golden cross pendant my godmother had left me was entirely too big, and it represented a faith I was too unsure of to display front and center. I hadn’t ever worn Antti’s grandmother’s hair comb, which was silver, with two aquamarine gemstones. The rest of my jewelry collection was made up of cheap earrings and punk-era kitsch. Even though Ulrike’s choker was unique and clearly made by a designer jeweler, I hadn’t thought it needed to be put under lock and key.

  “So, it isn’t locked up. How could you be so stupid? You’re a police officer! Take it to a safety-deposit box before it’s too late.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  Vala shook his head. “It wasn’t a coincidence that we were attacked that night. And that roadside bomb wasn’t intended for any random ISAF or NATO personnel. They knew that Ulrike Müller was in the first vehicle.”

  That night on the road between Jalalabad and Kabul was still too clear in my mind. Vala’s presence brought back the smell of smoke and the muzzle flashes in the blackness along the road. I hadn’t even touched Ulrike’s necklace, not sin
ce that night we spent with the Koivus. I’d felt its weight too heavily around my neck.

  “Ulrike was killed because she knew too much. I’m sure that necklace was sent to you because it contains a hidden message about what she knew.”

  10

  The war must have really messed with Lauri Vala’s head. Customs, the Interior Ministry, and our own mailroom had checked the package that contained the necklace. It had been scanned repeatedly using X-ray machines and metal detectors. The package had most likely been opened, the contents checked, and the whole thing retaped. Helga Müller wouldn’t have sent something with valuable or dangerous information through the normal postal service.

  “Ulrike Müller was a German police officer. How much did she tell you about her mother?” Vala demanded. I tried to think. I’d pushed Ulrike into the back of my mind with everything else I didn’t have the energy to think about right now, what with the new job demanding my full attention.

  “Nothing, really. Her mother was a retired widow.”

  “Retired from what?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Helga Müller was also a policewoman. Strange that Ulrike didn’t mention it. Why would she conceal that? It’s not common for both a woman in her seventies and her forty-year-old daughter to be policewomen. Isn’t the German police force still predominately male?”

  There was fire in Vala’s eyes. He’d crossed his hands over his knees, but I could see that they were shaking. I was glad when my phone rang, though the caller wasn’t Ruuskanen ordering me to come down for the interview.

  It was Sylvia Sandelin. I didn’t want to talk to her in front of Vala, so I went into the hallway, though I was certain that Vala would go through my desk drawers while I was away. They were almost empty anyway, but he would find my family photos.

  “Detective Kallio, you left a message for me to call you.”

  “As you can guess, it’s about Noor Ezfahani, or, more precisely, about her schooling. I’ve been told you were instrumental in persuading the family to let her continue high school. Is this true?”