Death Spiral

by Leena Lehtolainen

  What kind of world would my little Creature live in when it was my age? I didn’t know what the baby’s sex was, and I didn’t want to know. I had been a disappointment because I was a girl—something repeated to me many times as a child—and my parents’ disappointment only multiplied as their following children were also the wrong sex. In a way, my childhood had become more real for me over the course of this pregnancy. No longer was it like a translucent veil of memory but instead more like a mole or scar I carried with me throughout my life. That was precisely what made having a baby so frightening, the knowledge that there were so many thousands of mistakes I could make. In thirty years this child would be lying on a psychiatrist’s couch blubbering about all the neuroses I had heaped on him or her. Or drinking them away at a local bar.

  Shaking off these unpleasant thoughts, I headed for lunch. The sausage soup was tasteless stomach filler, and I wanted some rye bread with it, but I’d left my heartburn medication at home.

  Pihko happened to be lunching at the same time, so I was able to delegate the fingerprinting to him. He would start with Ulrika Weissenberg, who we both expected to resist.

  “When you talk to Janne Kivi, tell him his car is free too. And check into the trash bag thing.”

  Pihko’s eyes went wide, but as a well-bred person he emptied his mouth before asking why.

  “The shopping center garbage will have been emptied ages ago, and that’s where we would have hunted for the bloody trash bag, but maybe there’s still a way to connect the piece of plastic Forensics found on Noora to a certain store or company. Oh, and by the way . . . the gold BMW might not be Weissenberg’s only car. Maybe they have a Renault Clio too. Will you check that?”

  I knew these were disjointed ideas, but we had to branch out in more directions with this investigation.

  Just then Puupponen came by to ask me about another case, and ended up dragging me to his office to thrash it out. He was a talkative kid from Savo, and at two, the time of my interview with Ulrika Weissenberg, I had my work cut out tearing myself away from him.

  By then Pihko was able to report that Weissenberg did have another car, a black Volvo station wagon. Unfortunately that would have melted into the mass of traffic much more easily than the BMW. Pihko promised to do a quick review of the eyewitness reports.

  The piece of fingernail I had requested had come over from Forensics. It was maybe an eighth of an inch long, and the tip had broken unevenly. The polish looked the same color as Weissenberg’s, but you couldn’t base an investigation simply on a visual evaluation.

  Weissenberg arrived two minutes early. She had obviously come straight from the hairdresser, her black hair piled in a curly beehive. Her makeup was in purple hues, nicely matching the dark violet of her skirt suit and silk sweater. How long did she spend every morning doing herself up? I glanced at Weissenberg’s nails. They were long and painted flawlessly in crimson. None of them was any shorter than the others, although I was sure I had seen one of them broken during our previous meetings.

  Pihko began with the fingerprinting. Weissenberg was surprisingly accommodating once we told her why we needed them, although she did demand to visit the ladies’ room to wash her hands afterward. I led her to the end of the hall and waited. She took an amazingly long time just to wash her hands. When she came out of the bathroom, her cheeks were more purple than before, and the color had spread nearly to the tips of her large ear lobes. One more brush of the rouge and she would have looked more like someone who had just received a beat down than a woman with too much makeup.

  “I hear you’ve taken over arrangements for Noora’s funeral,” I said, shooting for a conversational tone. I knew it didn’t sound natural, though.

  “Yes. Poor Hanna isn’t up to it, and Kauko has enough on his hands with his business. When will the body be released?”

  Saying the word “body” in connection to Noora seemed significantly easier for Weissenberg than for me. No doubt she would arrange a marvelous funeral for Noora, but hopefully no saber arch of ice skates for the casket. I told Weissenberg that Noora could be released immediately.

  “I understand you happened along just as some reporters were interrupting practice,” Weissenberg said in an almost friendly tone as I opened my office door for her.

  Pihko was still gone taking the fingerprint package downstairs, so I tried to keep the conversation going. “I’m actually surprised they’ve done such a good job leaving the skating team alone. Noora’s death is a hard enough experience for Janne and Silja without being interviewed about it on TV. But we need the public’s help solving this case, which is why we announced that Noora had been killed. How many requests have you gotten from the press?”

  “Many. But couldn’t we write some sort of remembrance about Noora now, or do you still have something against that?”

  “Of course not. Please just avoid sharing any details we haven’t released about the case.” Then, as Pihko returned to the room, I moved back into interrogation mode. “Has anything new occurred to you about last Wednesday evening?

  “Is that all this is about?” Ulrika said. “Harping on the same things over and over?”

  “You said you had a fight with Noora. Where in the ice arena did this fight occur?”

  “In the dressing room hallway.”

  “Was anyone else there?”

  “No. Silja and Noora came out of the dressing room at the same time, but she didn’t stay to listen to our conversation. Although I imagine everyone could hear us.”

  “How was Noora’s hair during your conversation? Was it in a bun, a ponytail, or down?”

  Confusion spread across Weissenberg’s face, followed by misgiving. She was clearly trying to figure out where my questions were aiming. When she was found, Noora’s shoulder-length hair was down, but when she was skating she probably had it pulled back with something. How easy was it for a nail covered in several layers of polish to split? I had never learned to wear my nails long, because the few times I had tried, they were constantly breaking.

  “Wait . . . I think she had her hair in two silly pigtails on either side of her head. That’s the fashion right now apparently.”

  The piece of fingernail had caught about three inches back from her hairline on the left side, so if Noora had her hair in pigtails, the nail could have caught at the ice rink. Maybe Noora and Ulrika’s fight had been so heated that they’d laid hands on each other. I looked at the fingers on Ulrika’s right hand. The nail of her index finger looked a bit narrower than the others. Of course there were fake nails. Maybe Ulrika couldn’t condone any faults in her appearance and had put an artificial nail over the broken one. I pulled the piece of fingernail out of my desk so that Weissenberg couldn’t see. The color appeared to be the same as that of Weissenberg’s nails.

  “As I just mentioned, the analysis of Noora’s body is complete. We found a piece of fingernail in her hair. Does this color of polish look familiar to you?”

  I lifted the small plastic bag with the piece of fingernail inside. Weissenberg looked for a second, and then suddenly a hand with long fingernails like the crooked foot of a bird of prey shot out to grab the bag. A scraping sound came from Pihko’s direction as he shot up, expecting Weissenberg to attack me.

  “How did your fingernail end up in Noora Nieminen’s hair?” I asked.

  Ulrika Weissenberg’s face contorted in rage, but I thought I also saw fear peering out from deep within her dark-brown eyes.

  “I didn’t kill Noora!” she hissed. “Noora just used such offensive language that I slapped her on the cheek. My nail broke. It felt beastly.”

  “Did this happen at the ice rink or later?”

  “At the ice rink, of course! I’ve told you a dozen times I didn’t see Noora any more that night.”

  “What did Noora say that made you lose your temper to the point that you struck her?”

  “That’s none of your business! It doesn’t have anything to do with her death.”

&nb
sp; “I think I’ll be the judge of that,” I said tiredly. I detested dragging people down to the station to bully them, but apparently that was the only approach that would get Ulrika Weissenberg talking. What hole in her life was she trying to fill by running the figure-skating association? Did she receive some sort of pay for her position or did she do it just to make herself feel important?

  “She said I was a bossy old witch,” Weissenberg blurted. “And I had done so much work to get that commercial deal. I thought her behavior was extremely ungrateful. Are you satisfied now, Sergeant Kallio?”

  This time my title came out right. Maybe it was a tactical move. However, the most important thing was that Weissenberg had been able to provide a credible explanation for how a piece of her fingernail ended up in Noora’s hair. I didn’t have anything else to ask, so I just reminded her again to not reveal to the media the means of Noora’s death.

  Once Weissenberg and Pihko were gone, I grabbed Noora’s diary again. An entry from a month back caught my eye almost immediately.

  Ulrika is HILARIOUS. How can she drool over Janne like she’s in love with him or something? She could be his mother. Or actually she’s almost too old for that. She’s over fifty! Everyone knows what she’s doing whenever she touches him, as if she were just fixing his hair and clothes. It’s a wonder she doesn’t grab his crotch!

  Isn’t Ulrika’s own husband enough for her? Or does this happen to everyone? Even my own mom fell for that stupid crap karaoke singer. If I can’t have Janne, I’m not just going to settle, though.

  Today Ulrika really outdid herself. In Edmonton she promised to put on a fancy dinner for Silja, Janne, and me to celebrate. We went to her house, supposedly because we could drink wine there, even though Silja and me are underage. Ulrika thinks a glass of wine never hurt anyone, but Elena would have killed us if she’d seen that Silja and I had two and Janne drank at least three. Janne is just like that. He’s always trying to get away with things. Skating isn’t as serious for him as me.

  Ulrika had bought all of us jewelry, these really nice silver Kalevala crosses for me and Silja. I’d love it if it had come from anyone but Ulrika. She could have got Janne a cross too—boys wear them too—but Ulrika didn’t think it suited him. She’s always complaining, saying his hair is too long too. Well, she had bought Janne this tie clip with diamonds and emeralds—Ulrika said the emeralds were the same color as Janne’s eyes. That thing must have cost thousands! She hugged us all and gave us the jewelry—wow, her perfume was so strong! She held Janne for a long time and kept kissing him on the cheek, and when her husband came home she put a record on and wanted to dance. Her husband danced with me and Silja. We weren’t really into it, but Ulrika just latched on to Janne. In the end Silja said she had to go because we had school in the morning. Ulrika said Janne didn’t need to hurry, but he managed to get away in the same taxi as us. He didn’t say anything but he hid the tie clip in his pocket as soon as we got in the car. Poor Janne. It must be horrible having a harpy like that practically molesting him. But I LOVE JANNE!

  Was that why Ulrika Weissenberg hit Noora? Because Noora had mocked her infatuation with Janne? I wondered. But had Ulrika been angry enough to come back later to beat Noora bloody with her skates and finally bash her brains in on a rock? Right now that theory was surprisingly believable.

  9

  Just as I was preparing to leave work, Ström opened my door.

  “Two of those figure-skating fags are wandering around the halls looking for you. The older one shook my hand. I’ll have to go wash it now.”

  “No, you should definitely go get an AIDS test immediately. Did you leave them out in the hall?”

  “They ran into Taskinen. How can he let his daughter run around with people like that? ‘Could you possibly direct me to Sergeant Kallio’s office?’” Ström parroted with a clichéd gay lisp. Where did Ström get it into his head that Janne and Rami were gay? Maybe figure skaters just had that reputation, like ballet dancers. Figure skating was nearly the only sport where men had to express sensitivity as well as strength. But I had never spent much time wondering about Janne or Rami’s sexual orientations. I would have assumed Noora would have said something about it in her diaries if Janne were gay.

  A moment later Rami Luoto, Janne Kivi, and Lieutenant Taskinen walked into my office. Taskinen held the door, looking as if he couldn’t quite decide whether to come in or not. Perhaps he still wasn’t sure how active he should be in the investigation.

  “Hello. We came to get Janne’s car, since we heard it was ready,” Luoto said.

  “So you got the message. Good. We also need your fingerprints. We already have Janne’s, since he spent that night here.”

  “What do you need my fingerprints for?” Luoto asked in confusion.

  “Mostly just to eliminate yours from the others we’ve found, since it’s likely we would find your prints in Janne’s car and on Noora’s skates anyway.”

  Janne had been keeping quiet in the background. Now a look of horror struck his face.

  “Noora’s skates? What do those have to do with anything?”

  I was getting a little confused myself about how many of my suspects knew the truth about how Noora had died. At first I had tried to keep it secret, only telling Silja and the Nieminens, but Rami and Ulrika also seemed to know. Based on his expression, Janne was in the dark. On the other hand, I knew he was a relatively competent actor, even if Noora had called him a hack.

  “The skates were used to beat Noora,” I said as gently as I could.

  Janne collapsed on the couch and didn’t say anything for a long time. Rami Luoto and Taskinen glanced at each other, but I couldn’t interpret what the look meant.

  “You probably realize not just anyone would have known Noora had skates in her bag,” Janne finally said and then for once looked straight at me, his eyes narrowed.

  “Actually, quite a lot of people would have known,” Taskinen said. “You don’t know how famous you and Noora are, Janne.”

  “Let’s do the fingerprint thing and get out of here,” Rami said. Through the whole discussion he had been shifting on his feet and moving his arms around as if he were somehow short on his daily dose of exercise.

  Pihko had already left for home, so I took Rami and Janne downstairs to the fingerprinting room myself.

  “This really makes you feel like a criminal,” Rami said, trying to joke, although rolling his fingers in the printer’s ink and then pressing them to the paper cards obviously made him uncomfortable, judging from the way his hands trembled.

  Janne was leaning against the wall. “I’m the real criminal; I even got to go to jail,” he shot back. Then he pulled a dirty-looking tissue out of the pocket of his faded brown leather jacket and tossed it to Rami so he could wipe his fingers. The paper didn’t fly far enough, though, and fell at my feet, along with something else that clinked on the floor. I bent down to pick up both items, and even though my belly hit my thighs, I was still faster than Janne. Our heads collided when I started standing back up, making me topple to the floor. I swore emphatically. Janne maintained his balance but bent over to pull me up.

  “Are you hurt?” Rami asked, pushing me up from behind.

  I burst out laughing. Apparently they thought a woman seven months pregnant was like a tottering battle tank that couldn’t right itself under its own power.

  “No, I’m fine,” I said, even though my head was ringing and the jolt had woken up the Creature, who was now wriggling uncomfortably underneath my rib cage. Once I was up, I opened my hand, which held the object Janne had lunged to grab.

  It was a thick gold tie pin with a line of glittering stones, diamonds and emeralds, set in a slightly winding pattern. It must have been the one Noora described that Ulrika Weissenberg had given Janne. I’m no jewelry expert, but I had to guess the piece had cost something in the five figures. And Janne was just casually carrying it around in his pocket.

  I handed the pin back to him without any q
uestions, and he shoved it in his pocket, looking embarrassed. Then I led Janne and Rami to the impound area.

  “Check to make sure nothing is missing and then sign here,” I said to Janne. He looked at his car as if he’d never seen it before, stuck his head in, and then opened the trunk. Was I mistaken, or was there fear in his eyes? Inside there was nothing but a dented oilcan.

  “Everything is fine,” Janne said, ignoring the fingerprint dusting powder still on the dash. “So I can take it?”

  “Yeah. We’ll contact you if the analysis gives us a reason to. Don’t go far from Espoo in the next few days without notifying the police.”

  “Can I go to Helsinki?” There was amusement in Janne’s voice.

  “Sure, but think twice about Sipoo,” I said with a wink and then fled the stench of gasoline in the garage, which had already started making my headache worse. I decided walking home would help me feel better. The north lanes of the Turku Highway were still noisy, but once I crossed over and got into the fields and forest on the other side, things calmed down. This landscape had been the same for decades, now dominated by the green of the shoots in the fields, which were late because of the weather. Some of the other fields were brown from having just been plowed and smelled of horse manure. The grain planted in the furrows would grow with my child, and by late August both would be ripe. The thought of giving birth during harvest season was fantastic—that whole spring I’d felt more like a part of nature than I ever had. I felt the Creature’s first kicks around the same time the blackbird first trilled in the birch tree in our yard, and by the time the first coltsfoot appeared, I had learned to tell which part of my womb the baby was in at any given time. In late summer I would nourish it with strawberries and turnips, growing round like them from their nutrients. And then, like ripened grain falling from the ear, my child would begin its own life and tell us who he or she really was.