Death Spiral

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “Exactly. How much do you know about figure skating?”

  “I watch it pretty regularly. I was with Lieutenant Taskinen at your spring show.”

  “Ah. Well, so you may know that our competitive season ended at the World Championships in late March. That means now is our basic conditioning season. We only practice on the ice once a day two or three days a week, and that’s almost all new movements. For Silja, that means difficult combination jumps and polishing her triple Lutz. Noora and Janne are learning the triple Salchow, two lifts, and a new kind of death spiral.”

  Grigorieva winced. To herself she said, “That was the very last thing they practiced before their cooldown: the death spiral. Noora’s position kept getting better and better. The back of her head was so close to the ice . . .”

  “Did Mrs. Weissenberg interrupt your practice?”

  “Yes. That woman is always marching around giving orders as if her business is more important than anything else. And of course she takes credit for any success we have. Noora and Janne were just stretching, and Silja was trying out a triple Lutz, triple toe loop combination. No woman can land a combination harder than that,” Grigorieva said proudly.

  “And Weissenberg interrupted,” Pihko said. He clearly wasn’t interested in listening to a lecture on figure-skating techniques.

  “A horrible noise came from the dressing room. Noora was screaming at the top of her lungs at Ulrika. I was concentrating on Silja’s performance, so I couldn’t tell what Noora was saying.”

  “And you didn’t learn what the fight was about later, other than that it had something to do with a sponsorship?”

  “Right. Noora didn’t like Ulrika. And that woman doesn’t like anyone who doesn’t obey her without question.”

  “But Weissenberg left the arena before Noora?”

  “Yes, she was only there for a few minutes. Silja left around six, and we stayed to practice the death spiral. I had the impression that Janne was going to drive Noora home. Noora had a lot of things with her, since she was trying out new skates.”

  “So you remember Noora having her bag with her when she left the skating rink?”

  Grigorieva nodded. Unfortunately she hadn’t seen whether Noora got in Janne’s car or walked home. Her husband had been waiting in their own car, urging her to hurry. It looked as though the only person who would be able to tell us where Noora had gone was Janne Kivi himself.

  “What happened to Noora?”

  Grigorieva’s question surprised me, and I didn’t have time to answer before she continued.

  “Was Noora raped?”

  Taskinen hadn’t mentioned anything about that, not even when he told me about Ström’s child-molester theory. So I said no, simply stating briefly that Noora had been beaten to death and there was no way it was an accident.

  “When did Noora die? Right after practice?” Grigorieva asked.

  “She never went home. The body was found around eight o’clock.”

  A strange expression appeared on Grigorieva’s face that I couldn’t interpret. It was a mixture of anger, fear, and something else.

  “Then she wasn’t at ballet practice this morning! Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  Grigorieva’s voice began to rise again, so I asked quickly whether she came straight home from the arena. The answer was slow in coming.

  “Yes, we came home. On the way we stopped at the corner store, and then I started making food. Fish solyanka.”

  There were still a lot of things I wanted to ask Elena Grigorieva. But first I wanted to meet with everyone else who had been at the ice rink last night. As we left, I hinted to Grigorieva that it wasn’t a good idea for her to be alone, but she just started listing off all the work she had to do.

  “At four we have a juniors group practice I still have to plan. I know from experience that work can help even the worst agony.”

  “Yep, arbeit macht frei,” Pihko muttered as we crammed into the elevator. Within a couple of weeks he would be leaving the department, initially on summer vacation, which he intended to spend studying for his law entrance exams. Pihko was an ambitious guy who wanted to make at least detective sergeant. He didn’t blow his own trumpet much, but he was sharp. If he passed the exams, which I had no doubt he would, he would only be around the department as a summer stand-in for the next few years.

  “I’ll see if Rami Luoto is home,” I said. “He’s been Noora and Janne’s trainer for years. I’m sure the Nieminens have told him already.”

  I couldn’t reach Luoto, just his answering machine. A pleasant, youthful voice asked me to leave a message, but I didn’t.

  “Janne Kivi or Ulrika Weissenberg?” Pihko asked when we reached the intersection with the main road. But before I could answer, the phone rang to tell me that Noora’s equipment bag had been found in the forest near her home. And the weapon Noora had been beaten with was apparent now. In the bag they had found a pair of figure skates covered in blood.

  2

  The damp, forested strip of land between Noora’s neighborhood and the hilly park that extended to the sports complex was swarming with police. Even Koivu was there. Apparently he had finished his rounds of the shopping center and parking garage.

  “You’ll probably want to see this before they send it to the lab,” Karttunen from Forensics said. When I nodded, he continued. “The bag was shoved back there behind that rock so it wouldn’t be easy to find unless you knew what to look for. The skates were on top. Look.”

  Karttunen opened the bag, which reeked of sweaty sports equipment. But under that I could make out the faintly metallic, nauseating smell of dried blood coming from the skates, which were covered in rust-colored gunk. Elena Grigorieva had said that Noora was trying out new skates. An image flashed through my mind of Noora’s expression as she played Snow White begging the Huntsman not to kill her. Had she looked at her killer the same way?

  “Until the lab runs their tests, we can’t be sure Noora was beaten with these, but it seems likely,” I said more to myself than to Pihko or Koivu, who had walked up behind me. “Send it all off ASAP. We can have a look at the rest of the contents of the bag once the skates have been analyzed. Was there anything else left around, like signs of a struggle or maybe a rock with blood on it?”

  “No. But it rained hard last night. The Man Upstairs did a pretty good job of cleaning up, but we’ll keep looking,” Karttunen said with a sigh.

  “That’s one hell of a murder weapon,” said a voice behind me. Turning, I found myself staring straight into Pertti Ström’s acne-scarred face. His nose, which had been broken multiple times, shone a violet red like an overcooked beet.

  “What are you doing here, Ström? This isn’t your case.”

  “I just happened to be going past on the West Highway when I heard Dispatch calling you. I thought I’d come have a look, just for curiosity’s sake. So, ice skates . . . pretty goddamn sharp. I remember once as a kid I got a blade in the cheek playing hockey. I still have the scar right here. And don’t figure skates have those spikes on them too? You could definitely off somebody with those.”

  “Shut up, you idiot. I can imagine how this nice girl was murdered just fine without your help, thank you very much!”

  Things between Ström and I had become nearly impossible since it came out we were both aiming for Taskinen’s job if it opened up. Ström was resentful that my being a woman might put me in a better position now that affirmative action was finally becoming a priority for the police force. If I did succeed Taskinen, I had no doubt Ström would complain I had only won the job because of my sex.

  “Shit. We had crazy skinheads in Joensuu, but here in Espoo it’s the police too,” muttered Koivu, who had only joined our department a couple of months ago. I had worked with Pekka Koivu a few years before when I was filling a summer vacancy in the Helsinki PD. Then Koivu had moved up north to join the Joensuu force. A couple of summers ago, I had ended up nearby, acting as sheriff for the summer in my hometown o
f Arpikylä. While I was there we had solved the murder of a local artist together. After moving to Espoo I’d missed Koivu, and I was happy to be working with him again. He was more like the brother I never had than just a friend from work. I loved my two sisters, but I never related to them.

  “Did you find anything out at the shopping center?” I asked Koivu.

  Koivu thought our best hope was focusing on contacting people who used the parking garage. Maybe someone would remember another car parked near the Mercedes Noora was found in. Noora’s body had to have been transported to the garage in a car, although the killer had taken a huge risk transferring the body in public. Kati Järvenperä, the woman who found the body, was also a key figure. It was probable that the killer had been in the parking garage when she arrived and seen her leave the trunk of her car unlocked.

  “This forest seems like the probable scene of the murder,” I said contemplatively. There were no houses on the north side of the nearest street, and the mushy ground of the pine forest ended in a dense willow thicket. Behind it was a tall hill overgrown with grass and crisscrossed with walking paths. The willows partially obscured the view into the forest, which was shaded by the tall pines. Noora’s home was on the south side of a street that wound along the seashore, just a few blocks away. How would Noora’s parents feel, seeing the police cars parked in the lot next to the forest and the red-and-yellow-and-black-striped tape cordoning off the area where we were combing for signs of their daughter’s murderer? Would they ever be able to walk through this park again without remembering that their daughter was beaten to death here?

  I had to stop thinking so much about people’s feelings. I would do them far more good by concentrating on things like how the murderer had got hold of Noora’s ice skates. Top figure skaters like Noora had their boots and blades custom made and took good care of their equipment. No way would Noora have been carrying a brand-new pair of skates bare—they would have been stored in soft cloth bags. The plastic guards used when wearing the skates off the ice caused the blades to rust. So why were the skates out of Noora’s equipment bag at all? Did Noora take them out or did the murderer? And where were the bags they should have been in?

  I moved off to the side to call Taskinen. He’d decided to check in on Silja at home before his interview after all.

  “Ulrika Weissenberg? I don’t know her very well. We were invited to her place once, but she doesn’t seem to think that a police officer and a day-care administrator are very glitzy people.” Taskinen’s voice contained a surprising edge—clearly he didn’t like the chairwoman of the figure-skating association any more than Elena Grigorieva did. He did give some basic background, though.

  Ulrika Weissenberg was the chairwoman of the Espoo Figure-Skating Association and vice chair of the Finnish Figure-Skating Federation. She didn’t hold a steady job, devoting herself instead to the organizations she’d become attached to twenty years before when her own daughter was a figure skater. The daughter had given up the sport relatively quickly, but Ulrika remained involved. As I understood it, the Finnish Figure-Skating Federation was one of the most contentious sporting organizations in the country, and the power-hungry Weissenberg was no peacemaker. She was happy to be in charge, but she often crossed skates with the athletes.

  Taskinen mentioned that Weissenberg’s husband was an important division head at Nokia. Ulrika Weissenberg didn’t sound like an easy interviewee, but I really wanted to know what she had been arguing with Noora about the night before.

  “Koivu, will you do me a favor and call Ulrika Weissenberg? Pretend you’re from some charity or something. I want to know whether she’s home but not let her know I’m coming.”

  “Why me? Why not you or Pihko?”

  “Because we’re going over there right now if she’s home.”

  Koivu muttered something and went to the car to make the call, but he came back almost immediately, his bearish face in a grin.

  “That lady’s hard as nails. She went off like a siren yelling at me. Apparently she already donates to the children’s hospital and Church Aid, so she doesn’t have time for any other panhandlers.”

  “Well, what did you ask for a donation for?” Pihko asked.

  “A shelter for retired police dogs . . . No, actually I said I was from an AIDS Council. That was the first thing that came to mind, but based on the reception I don’t think it was a very good choice.”

  “Thanks, Koivu,” I said. “We’ll see you later today. How about we meet up around two and compare notes? Pihko, come on, let’s go!”

  I didn’t want to hang around the earthy-smelling forest looking for signs of murder any longer. The baby was bored of being in one place too and was swimming around inside me restlessly. Although I would have preferred to climb the grassy hill and stare at the clouds while I felt the movements in my belly, trying to calm down and concentrate on the interviews ahead of me, I knew direct action was the best medicine for the angry pain that was blazing inside of me. I wanted to nail the son of a bitch who had beaten this gifted young girl with her own figure skates.

  The Weissenbergs lived in an expensive old Swedish residential area filled with single-family homes. The yards were big, and each house was more attractive than the last. The Weissenberg’s house seemed to be one story until you noticed how it rambled cleverly down a sloping hill in back. The front door was hard to find among all the rose bushes. I rang the doorbell, but no one answered. We were just about to leave when we heard scratching and then barking, which was cut off by a snapped command. The door swung open, and I found myself staring at the woman from the performance of Snow White, who had been wearing the fur coat and trying in vain to get the kids to be quiet after their performance.

  She was wearing a thick coat of carefully applied makeup and her dark-brown hair was pulled back in a large bun. Gold jewelry framed a tanned, aquiline profile. Her black suit with white trim looked simple but had probably cost a cop’s monthly salary. The heels of her black pumps were at least four inches tall. Ulrika Weissenberg was just the kind of woman who always made me notice the unruliness of my hair and the wrinkles in my shirt. I hadn’t bothered to put on makeup that morning either, since I had biked to work.

  “Hello. I’m Sergeant Kallio and this is Officer Pihko from the Espoo Police. May we come in?”

  Weissenberg ordered the white poodle yapping at her feet to back off. Her gaze scanned me and then Pihko.

  “I imagine you’re here about Noora Nieminen’s death,” she said.

  “So you’ve heard?” I asked as I stepped next to Weissenberg in the entryway, even though no invitation had come.

  “Noora’s father called me an hour ago. Yes, of course, come in. I’ll try to be of any assistance I can, although I don’t know much about the incident. Let’s go to my office.” Weissenberg turned, and I followed in the jasmine-smelling perfume wake she left.

  Weissenberg’s home was just as neatly groomed as its owner. Her office was located at the north end of the house, with a view of a forest growing from exposed bedrock. Separated by only half a mile, the contrast with the bare concrete walls of Elena Grigorieva’s apartment was striking. The furniture was Italian, with delicate lines. Pihko gingerly sat in a tripod chair, as if expecting it to fall over. I sank into a black leather couch.

  “Hopefully this won’t take long. I need to visit Noora’s parents, then prepare some sort of press release. I’ve been trying to reach Lieutenant Taskinen. You may know him. His daughter is also a member of our figure-skating association. But Jyrki wasn’t in, so perhaps you can tell me how investigation has proceeded so far. Has the maniac who murdered poor Noora been apprehended yet?”

  Weissenberg clearly didn’t know which of us was higher in the hierarchy, which of us she should address her questions to. I was older and had been doing all the talking, but on the other hand, I was a woman and pregnant. Ever since my belly had started showing, I’d noticed how some people treated a pregnant woman like some sort of half-wi
t. Maybe a police detective who was pregnant was a strange sight. While Pihko was a man, he was younger and more reticent. He didn’t open his mouth now either, letting me answer.

  “No one has been arrested yet. What do you mean about a press release?”

  “The Espoo Figure-Skating Association and the Finnish Figure-Skating Federation must make an official announcement! The press will be very interested in the death of an athlete of Noora’s caliber. Noora’s parents certainly won’t be able to handle this sort of publicity, so it will be up to me to deal with it.”

  “You would do best to coordinate the content of your press release with the police,” I said sternly. Weissenberg going solo could easily interfere with our investigation.

  “That was precisely what I intended to confer with Lieutenant Taskinen about.” Weissenberg’s voice rang like an icicle falling on metal, and her inch-long nails drummed the table in irritation. I noticed the nail of her right index finger was short but was also coated with polish the color of dried blood.

  “Could we get to the questions please, Officer?”

  I didn’t bother correcting my title, even though she clearly meant to offend. It didn’t matter what she called me; I still had the power to make her life difficult. I began in an accusatory tone.

  “You were one of the last people to see Noora Nieminen alive. I’ve heard the two of you argued yesterday at the ice rink. You didn’t hang around to continue the argument, did you, say, in your car?”

  Pihko took a quick intake of breath, apparently shocked by my interrogation technique.

  The smell of Weissenberg’s perfume intensified, and a genuine, dark color rose beneath her rouge. “Are you implying that I—listen, Officer Whatever-your-name-is, I won’t say another word if I’m treated in this fashion! I won’t speak to anyone but Jyrki Taskinen. I demand that you leave immediately!”

  Pihko drew another breath and with surprising authority in his voice said, “Sergeant Kallio had no intention of accusing you of anything.” Pihko’s eyes flitted to mine as if encouraging me to apologize so we could continue the interview. My pride resisted, but the cop in me won out.