Death Spiral

by Leena Lehtolainen

  Still no answer. Koivu stood up restlessly, walking to the bookcase, which held significantly more music and random junk than books. He bent down to pick up a large, framed picture with jagged shards of glass protruding from it. Without a word he handed it to me. Based on the costumes and the background, it was from the Edmonton World Championships. The skaters had their arms around each other’s necks and wore wide smiles. Janne was looking at the camera, and Noora was looking at Janne with an expression that was impossible to mistake. She worshipped him.

  “When did you break this?” I asked.

  “Can’t you understand I don’t have anything to say!” Janne screamed so loudly that the picture slipped from my hand and the broken glass made a superficial cut on my palm between the thumb and index finger. Janne jumped up, looked around, but then collapsed back to sit on the bed. Sweat still beaded on his face, and his eyes were glued to the floor.

  There was no point trying to get him to answer any questions. The only thing he was willing to say was that he had nothing to say. I didn’t know what to do. Even though I had a hard time believing Janne was guilty of Noora’s murder, he was acting exactly as if he were guilty. And he was clearly disturbed—leaving him alone could be dangerous. Should we call Taskinen and ask how to proceed? No. I had to make these decisions myself. If I ever became head of the unit, I wouldn’t be able to lean on anyone else. We were going to need an arrest warrant from a detective lieutenant, though.

  “Gather your things,” I finally told Janne. “We’re going to the police station to continue this.”

  “Did you hear what Sergeant Kallio said?” Koivu snapped when Janne didn’t react. “We also need your car keys to send them for analysis.”

  Now Janne looked me straight in the eyes for the first time. “What’s going on? Are you arresting me? I’m not going anywhere unless you carry me.”

  “You have the right to counsel during your interrogation. Would you like to call a lawyer now?” I asked, trying to stay calm. I didn’t want to drag Janne off to jail by force. I preferred to scare him into talking.

  When he didn’t make a move to stand up and get dressed, I opened a wardrobe door, where I found socks and shirts. I handed Janne a green sweater and black socks and ordered him to dress. Not answering, he just sat motionless and stared at the floor.

  During my entire police career, there had been only a couple of situations in which I’d been this at a loss. Part of me said that arresting Janne was an extremely bad idea, since there wasn’t really any evidence he’d played a part in Noora’s death. But refusing to cooperate at all was strange, although it could have been a result of the shock at hearing the news of Noora’s death.

  But I was getting angry and I wanted to go home.

  “Then we’ll dress you. I’ll count it as practice, although you’re a bit big for a baby,” I said and started pulling the socks onto Janne’s long-toed feet. The situation was absurd. Of course I had undressed drunks and conducted strip searches on all manner of misfits, but Janne was handsome enough that touching him embarrassed me. Fortunately Koivu came over and put Janne’s sweater over his head while I grabbed a pair of deck shoes and a jacket from the entryway.

  “The car keys,” I said. “And anything else you want to take with you.”

  Janne didn’t react, so I told Koivu to search Janne’s jacket pockets, and there were the keys, along with the keys to the apartment, which I also collected. I asked Janne to stand, but he had been serious about not leaving without being carried.

  “Should I get the handcuffs from the car?” Koivu finally asked. Luckily no one else was present to witness the sorriest arrest I had ever made. Koivu sometimes trusted a little too much in my ability to handle things.

  “Oh, we can manage him without,” I said and lifted Janne by the shoulders.

  “Goddamn it, don’t try to lift him in your condition!” Koivu bellowed with surprising anger in his voice, then grabbed Janne and jerked him to his feet. Koivu was a couple of inches taller than Janne and thirty pounds heavier, and although I was small and pregnant, lifting a third of Janne’s weight was not an issue. Ultimately he gave in enough that he started moving his legs, and we were able to get him down to the car with some of his—and our—dignity intact. Koivu sat next to him in the backseat. When we turned onto the Turku Highway, to my surprise Janne started to talk.

  “On what basis am I being arrested and my car being searched?”

  I told him about the red Nissan Micra that had been seen in the parking garage around the time Noora’s body was dumped. When he heard this, he gave an involuntary groan, and in the rearview mirror I saw how his head fell between his hands. I felt as if a lump of ice was stuck in my throat. I wanted to solve Noora’s murder quickly, but not this way.

  That was all Janne was willing to say. Once at the station, I left him to wait with Koivu while I asked the lieutenant on duty in a neighboring unit for an arrest warrant. He carped a little at first but then signed the paperwork. Fortunately Ström wasn’t on shift, or he would have wanted to grill Janne through the night. Now the kid could spend that time thinking about whether it wouldn’t be better to start talking in the morning.

  Despite everything, I felt sorry for Janne as I handed him over for processing. I asked him whether he needed a doctor, a psychologist, or a legal advisor, but he still didn’t say anything. He didn’t even ask me to notify anyone about his arrest.

  Lähde was still in his office typing up his report about the parking garage interviews. He dug out the phone number for the witness who had seen the Micra and arranged for him to come in at eight the next morning to have a look at Janne’s car. That was when I realized the car was still at Janne’s apartment.

  “I can get it in the morning,” I suggested. Koivu lived on the opposite side of town. “Or should we take it to the lab right now? We need to have them check the trunk ASAP. If they find blood there—”

  “Nah, let’s call it a day!” Koivu said, but when I said I would go alone, he came along with some grumbling. I took an unmarked car so I could keep it overnight. My bike would have to wait at the station.

  “Don’t pregnant women need a lot of sleep?” Koivu asked once we were back on the Turku Highway.

  “Was that some kind of hint? I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway as long as that car hasn’t been tested. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure how smart it was to arrest Janne.”

  “He sure did everything he could to make himself look guilty. How did you stay so calm? I thought I might blow a gasket when he just kept sitting there staring at the floor!”

  “It’s the miraculous influence of pregnancy. You wouldn’t believe how calm and tender I am now.”

  “Are you scared?” Koivu asked. Up until now he had completely avoided the whole baby issue. “Having a baby’s supposed to hurt a lot.”

  “I’m not so afraid of the birth as what comes after it. Being a mother. I guess plenty of people have figured it out, but . . . I think I’m going to be one of those women who can barely wait until their maternity leave is over and they can go back to work.”

  Two brown hares stood watch on the grass outside the university as we passed but took off when a jogger appeared. The Nissan was still parked askew in the lot at Janne’s building, and some irate neighbor had already left a note under a windshield wiper encouraging the owner to learn how to drive.

  We’d brought a crime-scene investigation field kit with us, and we put on gloves and took out flashlights, although fortunately the clouds had cleared a little, so we could see without them.

  I don’t know what I was expecting when I opened the trunk, maybe a pool of blood. But there was nothing in it, not even a spare tire or a floor mat. Only a traffic triangle and a bottle of motor oil lay on the black metal surface.

  The rest of the car was perfectly clean too, as if it had just been vacuumed that day. That seemed bad for Janne.

  “Remember to cover the seats in the morning. I’ll try to talk to Kati
Järvenperä and Noora’s parents, but let’s stay in touch.”

  “How about I drive it over to the station right now? I’ve got time,” Koivu said and then started spreading a plastic bag from the crime scene investigation kit out over the driver’s seat.

  “Well, that looks professional.” I was joking but inside I felt sick. It was nine o’clock. I had long since burned through the pea soup I’d had for lunch, and my blood sugar had dropped through the floor. Luckily in the bottom of my backpack, I found an emergency chocolate bar Antti had bought me two weeks before. I’d exercised amazing self-control, given the chocolate was still there. After shoving three pieces in my mouth, I started driving home.

  For the last year we’d been living in a run-down wooden house rented from Antti’s coworker’s parents. The windows on the east side had a view onto fields of grain that had just sprouted. Although we lived in Finland’s second-largest city, we were almost in the country, far from any store and with limited public transportation. We loved the property, but most of its charm would soon be ruined by freeway construction. My husband, Antti, was still fuming about that.

  I found him sitting in the downstairs living room reading. Einstein, our cat, was lounging on the couch. He barely bothered cracking an eye in greeting. Apparently he had already had his evening tuna fish.

  Taking off the uncomfortable pumps I had been suffering in all day, I crawled into Antti’s arms.

  “Bad day?” he asked and kissed my neck.

  “Very. Yours?”

  “OK. Mostly grading exams. The end of the semester is always horrible.”

  Antti was an assistant in the math department at the University of Helsinki and often worked long, irregular hours just like I did. According to all the baby books, a child was going to force us to bend our lifestyle into a more normal shape.

  “A little neck rub would do me good, or maybe my whole back,” I said.

  “How’s our little Creature doing?” Antti had made up a working title for our baby.

  “It’s still rolling around in there. Here, feel. Apparently it’s part dolphin.”

  Antti pressed his ear against my belly and laughed when the baby kicked his head.

  “Have you eaten? There’s fresh bread in the kitchen. I took it out of the oven fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Fantastic. Maybe I’ll have some before that massage . . .” With that, I broke away from Antti’s long arms, took off my coat, and went into the kitchen. Suddenly awake, Einstein zipped after me, butting his mottled white head against my legs, but to no avail. The tuna fish can was already empty.

  Antti had to rub my shoulders for a long time before I was calm enough to sleep. But even half conscious, I thought of Noora lying in cold storage at the morgue, and Janne, deposited in a cell for the night.

  The next morning I had barely reached my office before Taskinen’s familiar knock came at the door.

  “Come on in, Jyrki!”

  Taskinen looked significantly better than the previous morning. His skin was its normal pale, wheat-bread color, his straight hair was combed, and his shirt was pressed. But his expression didn’t look promising.

  “You arrested Janne Kivi last night,” he said without greeting.

  “Yeah. He was acting really strangely,” I said and started relating the events of the previous evening. Taskinen nodded but didn’t look terribly convinced. I seemed to have messed up again.

  “You could have called me first,” he said, interrupting my description of how we finally had to dress Janne.

  “It was late. I didn’t want to bother you, and it was easy to get hold of the lieutenant on duty. I was really afraid Janne would do something to himself.”

  “Probably a well-founded fear. But do you really think Janne is guilty? We haven’t even checked Teräsvuori’s movements yet!”

  Jyrki was abnormally agitated. I remembered Koivu’s suspicions about Silja and Janne dating, so I asked him directly.

  “No, there isn’t anything like that between them, although I don’t think Janne would have anything against it. Silja isn’t interested, thank God! This is hard enough as it is. Yesterday I spent an hour on the phone with Ulrika Weissenberg to convince her to wait on issuing a press release.”

  Taskinen’s tone had softened, but his gaze was still stern. He clearly didn’t like what I’d done.

  “Have you talked with Noora’s parents this morning? Can we interview them today?” I asked hopefully.

  “No, but I’m going to call them soon. Handle Janne first, though. Unless he confesses to murder, I think letting him go would be best. I’d prefer you concentrated on Vesku Teräsvuori. You’ve read the case file on the stalking, right?”

  “Yes, yes. Don’t you remember I talked to him yesterday? He’s off somewhere in flipping Vaasa. I’m going to send a patrol over to his place to pick him up as soon as he gets back.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you want to come in for Janne’s interview?” I asked pointedly, which made Taskinen glance at me in amusement.

  “I’m sure you can handle that without me. I think Pihko is free.”

  “Can you ask the Nieminens how they told Janne Noora was dead? Then call me in Interrogation Room 2.”

  The officer manning the holding cells said the night had gone peacefully, although Janne probably hadn’t slept. He hadn’t eaten any breakfast either. I asked for coffee, tea, and sandwiches for the interrogation room and called Pihko to join me. Then I requested the patrol team for Teräsvuori’s apartment. Just in case, I visited the restroom before going into the interrogation room. We might be with Janne for a while, and my current pace of bathroom breaks was about one every hour. There was no denying that being pregnant impeded my ability to handle my duties to some degree.

  In the restroom, I added a fresh coat of brown mascara to my eyelashes. I had even needed blush this morning. My red hair was as unruly as ever, and my bangs were too long. According to my sisters, I was expecting a boy because my snub nose hadn’t swollen during my pregnancy. The cold spring hadn’t brought out the freckles on it yet. My eyes looked back a grayish green from the mirror. My lipstick was too orange, which made my lower lip look extra pouty, and I wiped most of it off so I would seem more credible. Then I headed for the interrogation room.

  Janne hadn’t arrived yet, but Pihko was devouring a sandwich as if he’d missed breakfast.

  “Have you heard yet?” he asked excitedly. “Yesterday we found a witness who claims he saw Nieminen and Kivi walking away from the ice rink together into the park at about seven fifteen. This guy was out walking his Rottweiler.”

  Janne’s situation was looking worse by the minute. I asked how reliable the witness was and how he had recognized Noora and Janne. Apparently the man watched Sports Update every night and even paid attention to the figure-skating segments.

  Before I had time to fully digest this, Janne was escorted in. Apparently he had resisted, because he was wearing handcuffs.

  “Morning, Janne,” I said as nicely as I could. Maybe now it was time to put to work that maternal tenderness I had just been advertising to Koivu. I wasn’t exactly surprised when Janne remained silent.

  “What’s with the cuffs?” I asked the guard who had come with Janne.

  “Shit, there was no other way to get him to move!”

  There were all kinds of guards in the department, and this one happened to be one of the more heavy handed.

  “Let’s take them off now so he can sit more comfortably. Then you can go.”

  Surprise flashed in Janne’s eyes. After the handcuffs were removed, he looked at his wrists for a moment as if expecting them to have changed.

  “Sit down, Janne. There’s sandwiches, tea, and coffee. Have some if you want.”

  Janne sat in the corner of the room, at the same table as me, but that was all I got out of him once again. I poured myself a cup of tea, which wouldn’t cause nearly as much heartburn as the coffee. The sandwiches looked good, but achieving the p
roper authority as an interrogator would be difficult with a mouth full of food.

  “We found a witness who saw you walking away from the rink with Noora. Come on, tell me what happened the other night.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  At least that was a complete sentence, so this was going well. I decided to have a piece of rye bread topped with cheese and lettuce after all, and offered the platter to Janne too. No reaction. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. His cheek muscles clenched as he ground his teeth.

  Then, without opening his eyes, he said, “You were there at our Snow White performance, weren’t you?”

  I quickly swallowed. “I was. That was a great show.”

  “Send that other cop out and I’ll tell you what really happened.”

  I motioned for Pihko to go but leave the recorder running. Once the door had closed, Janne poured himself a cup of coffee. His hands weren’t quite obeying, so some ended up on the tray too, and he stared at it helplessly, not knowing what to do. I tossed a napkin on the worst of it. Janne drank a couple of gulps and then closed his eyes again as if to gather strength. I felt my abdominal muscles clenching and my pulse rising. Was he about to confess?

  “Rami probably told you about that last practice. What’s your name, by the way?”

  “Maria Kallio. Yes, Mr. Luoto told us it was a brawl.”

  “Noora was being completely impossible. She wouldn’t agree to that stupid commercial, and she couldn’t understand how Rami was explaining a trajectory. I held her hand the wrong way and on and on and on. Finally I’d had enough. I decided to tell Noora we were done skating together. I was such an idiot . . .”

  Janne buried his face in his hands again. I looked at the attractive curve of his neck and his thick blond hair. And waited for what he would say next.

  “I waited in the hall for Noora to come out of the shower. When she finally came out, I offered to drive her home, since it was raining so hard. I said I had something I wanted to talk about too. Noora screamed that she wasn’t going to ride home with a bastard like me and took off running like a crazy person through the rain with that big bag of hers over her shoulder. I ran after her and yelled for her to wait. But she just went. Then I yelled that I was going to quit skating. That was enough to make her stop, even though the rain was dumping on us. Guess what she said.”