Death Spiral

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “That was definitely the highlight of the year when you dumped that beer and ketchup on Ström’s head,” Koivu said after wolfing down the rest of his pizza. I had only managed to work through half of my sweet-basil pasta, and I was stuffed.

  “Yeah . . . did Ström ever come back to the party?”

  “No, he left. That’s why we had such a good time.”

  Koivu’s phone rang before I could tell him why I gave Ström a bath—someone wanted him at the station. It was probably for the best.

  I spent the rest of the time until Taskinen’s meeting with my head in case notes. The reading was so interesting that I almost forgot the time and then had to go to the bathroom. When I finally arrived in the break room, the others, all ten men from our unit, were already there. Taskinen was aglow.

  “OK, people. We can probably start now that Maria is here.”

  “Maria and guest,” Lähde murmured and then made space next to him. A bit timidly I sat down—the only person who’d be worse to sit with in this situation was Ström himself.

  “As you know, the department is undergoing a major shakeup. Our boss, the chief of police, I mean, is retiring in October. The head of the Criminal Division, Captain Vainionpää, has been selected as his successor. There’s been a lot of speculation about who will take that job. For a while we thought they might bring in someone from Turku or Pori, but now the decision has been made to name someone from in-house . . .”

  Taskinen paused for dramatic effect, even though we all knew what he was about to say.

  “This morning the police commission decided to appoint me. I’ll be moving on starting October first, so this unit will need a new commander. The preference is for making that appointment in-house as well. They want someone who already knows what we do and how we operate. The qualification requirement is a master’s degree or better in law.”

  Silence. I stared at the table, feeling everyone else’s eyes staring at me. To lighten the mood, Taskinen continued:

  “But don’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet. You aren’t getting rid of me. I’m just moving up a rung, so I’ll still be your boss, and you’ll have to fear me just that much more.”

  Puupponen was the only one who had the sense to laugh.

  “Even though I’ll also be leading Narcotics, Robbery, and White-collar Crime, and of course Violent Crime II, you’ll still be close to my hearts. This unit has done great work for the two years it’s existed in its present form. We’re undergoing a lot of change, though. Pihko is leaving and his replacement will be starting in July. Maria is going on maternity leave—”

  Taskinen shouldn’t have mentioned my name. The murmuring began instantly.

  “While you’re on maternity leave, you’ll have plenty of time to come up with new plans for the unit,” Lähde whispered to me.

  “Yeah, and organize all my pictures,” I replied with feigned playfulness. That was what my sisters had recommended I do with my time until the baby came.

  “Does anyone have any questions?” Taskinen asked to put an end to the buzz. Puupponen was first on the ball again and took the hint to congratulate Taskinen, after which everyone got up to shake his hand. I intentionally avoided a hug so it wouldn’t be misinterpreted.

  “Now, let’s get back to business,” said Taskinen. “Where do we stand with our major ongoing cases?”

  Taskinen began with the interrogation of the child molester. Ström was happy to report that the pretrial investigation was almost in the bag. Even though the suspect hadn’t confessed, they had enough positive identifications to put him away. Then came a couple of battery cases: routine disagreements over vodka bottles, the sort we dealt with every week. After that quick review, Noora Nieminen’s case was up.

  “Where are we with this, Maria?” Taskinen asked, even though he knew we weren’t really anywhere.

  “We’re still questioning witnesses. Teräsvuori’s shooting on Friday didn’t have any significant effect on the investigation because we’d just eliminated him from our list of suspects.”

  “And why is that?” Ström practically yelled.

  So I told him about Teräsvuori’s alibi. “The forensic investigation still hasn’t given us a clear answer on where Noora was killed or told us anything about the perp. This afternoon I’m interviewing the person who found the body. Next we’re going to—”

  Ström interrupted again. “Can I ask why Sergeant Kallio is leading this investigation, even though a lieutenant should have responsibility for a homicide case?”

  Taskinen sighed. “I’m the lead investigator, but I also have personal relationships with most of the main players in the case, so I wouldn’t be able to question them impartially. Maria didn’t happen to have anything terribly complicated on her plate, unlike you, for example, Ström. Do you have any other questions, or can Maria continue?”

  I felt as if I were stuttering worse than a seventh-grader giving her first public speech. I explained the progress of the forensic investigation: Janne’s and Järvenperä’s cars had been checked, and fibers had been found in the latter that didn’t match anything in Noora’s wardrobe or anything in the Järvenperäs’ house. I listed the people whose fingerprints had been found on Noora’s skates, but I didn’t mention the blade guards. Even though everything was still depressingly preliminary, summing up everything we’d had turned up so far also did me good. I realized I already knew quite a lot and discovered something was solidifying from Noora’s diaries and the conversations I had conducted with the suspects. I had some new questions for the department’s central server and certain individuals.

  When the meeting ended, I was actually pretty pleased with myself. I had answered Ström’s irritating questions with confidence and convinced everyone else that the case was progressing. I was even starting to believe that myself.

  But maybe I had felt relief too soon. When I turned toward my office, Ström was right on my tail. When I opened my door, he stopped, clearly intending to chat. I was prepared for him to demand that I pay his dry cleaning bill, but to my surprise he was almost friendly.

  “Have you already been to your birthing classes?”

  “Um, yeah. They only do two nowadays. The second one is tonight.” What was going on here?

  “Your husband’s coming to the birth, right?”

  At first I was going to tell him it was none of his business, but then I reconsidered. “Of course. The baby is his just as much as mine.”

  “Now you’re a bad dad if you don’t go. When Jenna was born ten years ago, they wouldn’t even let me in the delivery room. We lived in Turku back then, and they were strict as hell. Dads only got in the way, fainting or paying more attention to all the interesting tools in the room instead of their wives. That’s what they said to me. I had to wait in the hall for hours. They didn’t even bother telling me Marja was going into emergency surgery because Jenna’s cord was wrapped around her neck. When Jani was born, though, they let me come in. It was pretty great. You never forget something like that. They say it brings a family together, but it didn’t help us. That’s water under the bridge, though,” Ström said, then turned and walked out of my office.

  I stared dumbfounded as he left. What was I supposed to conclude from that little monologue? And they say women are unpredictable. I shook my head and returned to my reports.

  When I finally finished reading, every muscle in my neck ached, and my right leg kept cramping up. Over the past few weeks, I’d been having an increasingly hard time finding any comfortable way to rest, and the thought of ten more weeks of that wasn’t exactly cheery. Hopefully the Creature wouldn’t draw things out much past the due date. Any extra waiting would be a serious trial of my natural impatience.

  To limber up my mind and body, I walked to the train station. My walking pace wasn’t very brisk, and at the end I had to sprint to make the train. Even though my belly got in the way, running felt surprisingly good. How soon after the birth would I be able to get moving again?

>   The Helsinki Regional Summer University office was located in an old, gilded building in downtown Helsinki. The lobby was full of students signing up for classes. Squeezing through the crowd, I made my way to Kati Järvenperä’s office. Next to the chaos in Järvenperä’s office, my own looked pristine. Hers overflowed with stacks of folders on the floor, and the pile of course descriptions next to her computer looked as though they went all the way back to the founding of the school. But Järvenperä didn’t make any apologies for the mess, she just moved a stack of binders off the chair onto the floor and asked whether I wanted anything to drink. The Jaffa orange soda she gave me was perfect after my run for the train. Kati had heard about Vesku Teräsvuori’s shooting and asked about it before I started my questioning. I was surprised I could already talk about it as if it had happened to someone else. I didn’t really like it.

  “Earlier today I reread my notes from our discussion and the report from your very first interview. A few things stood out to me I wanted to ask about. You said you backed your car up right up to the wall?”

  “Yes.”

  I didn’t know whether this information was significant, but it meant that the person who had put Noora’s body in Järvenperä’s car probably had to try several trunks before finding one that was unlocked. Maybe it would be worth checking for fingerprints on the other cars that were in the parking garage at the same time. Although it was probably too late now. People washed their cars more often than normal during muddy weather like this. Our technicians hadn’t found any fingerprints to speak of even on Järvenperä’s car. But there was always the possibility that Noora’s killer hadn’t thought of avoiding leaving fingerprints until after finding a place to dump the body.

  “Your older son talked about a ‘sneaky rascal’ he saw in the parking garage the night of the murder. How did that go again?”

  “Sneaky Rascal is sort of an imaginary character in our family. He’s the one who does things like knocking down sand castles at the playground.”

  “Has Jussi ever described him? Does he have any distinguishing features?”

  “Well, no . . . or, well, maybe. Once in this toy ad, there was a Ken doll waving a sword, and Jussi thought he was the Sneaky Rascal. But that doesn’t really mean anything. If you have any experience with children, you know their logic can be pretty random.”

  “I wouldn’t know much about that. What else could seeing the Sneaky Rascal mean?”

  “Jussi thinks the Sneaky Rascal has a white BMW. Once a car like that made a really dangerous pass on the highway. Of course Jussi thought it must be the Sneaky Rascal driving.”

  “Would the BMW have to be white? Would gold work?” I asked, remembering Ulrika Weissenberg’s car. But there was no way to turn Ulrika into the Sneaky Rascal if he was supposed to be a man.

  “No, I don’t think so. Children can be awfully precise about the craziest things. I really think that Jussi just made up the Sneaky Rascal being in the parking garage after the fact. There had to be some reason for the police coming and how strange all the adults were acting.”

  Sometimes I feel as though police work is just repetition. All I could do was ask Järvenperä over and over about what had happened in the parking garage, as if my questions could make her see something that she hadn’t.

  When I stepped back out onto the street, it was raining again. There wasn’t any point going home before the birthing class, so I walked a few blocks to the Fazer Café and ordered an ice cream sundae. Pregnant women need their calcium.

  Focused on the chocolate syrup, pears, and whipped cream, all I cared about was how good the whole thing tasted. The men at the neighboring table, however, were having a heated discussion about the latest tabloids. Teräsvuori’s killing had sparked complaints about the ineffectiveness of the police. Hanna seemed to have public opinion on her side. The men were also commenting on some bitter statements made by a fifty-year-old woman who had lost her husband to a recent beauty queen.

  “I can’t believe these bitches! Sure, it’s fine for them to be dykes or crossdressers or whatever, but if a man wants someone a little younger, not even jail bait, they can’t shut up about it.”

  Spotting a free table farther back, I moved my ice cream indulgence there. I got enough of bullies at work. During my free time, I wanted peace and quiet.

  I’d brought one of Noora’s diaries from about two years ago. In it I’d found something very interesting, namely a hole. Noora had made regular entries since she was twelve years old, not daily, but at least three times a week. But two years ago in the spring, there was a break of almost three months, from April into June.

  At first I hadn’t noticed because I was only giving it a cursory reading, searching for names. Then I had realized that the narrative suddenly jumped from winter to summer, and I checked the dates.

  Noora could have just been busy. She didn’t give any explanation for the missing entries. Just before the break Noora had been looking forward to a training camp and writing that Janne was “like, so incredibly hot.” After the break came a dismayed entry about her mother’s boyfriend and plans to leave the family.

  I was sure the break was important. What had Noora left out?

  Now and then Noora had pasted pictures into her diaries. One of them was right before the break, the photograph likely one of the first of Noora and Janne skating together. Janne had a funny short haircut and was generally more angular than now. Noora was still a child, but she held her head up high, and her eyes sparkled like a champion. I placed my hand on the photo as if it could connect me to Noora.

  But it didn’t help. I stood up, used the restroom, and brushed my teeth. Then I started trudging through the endless rain.

  18

  Covered in blood and sticky whiteness, the head of the baby squeezed out of its mother. Along with a bout of excretions came the mottled body, and the child screamed its first, demanding cry.

  “Yuck,” someone said behind me, and someone else giggled nervously. I mostly just wanted to cry, watching the bewildered, happy father and the mother who had just been moaning in pain. Next to me Antti was taking notes about the breathing instructions.

  I tried to focus on the information flooding through my ears. Epidurals, birthing positions, episiotomies. Of course I had read the same things in books and noticed how differently the various birthing gurus viewed the simplest of things. Even in the birthing video, the woman lay on her back panting, even though all the active birthing books said there wasn’t any worse position for pushing, except maybe standing on your head. I was already raising my hand to ask why when a raft of completely different questions popped into my mind. I had to talk to Silja as soon as possible. That hole in Noora’s diary might be more important than I had thought.

  I had to force myself to listen to the instructions about nursing, even though I knew I was going to need them. Neither the Creature nor I had any previous practice. But concentrating was difficult. Part of me was rushing to the office to check my notes and then to the ice rink to question Silja. Finally the Creature started jostling around in my belly as if to remind me how important it was. That brought me to my senses. For the rest of the hour, I filled my brain with the mysteries of newborn care.

  “Is it OK if I drop you off at home and then take care of a couple of work things?” I asked Antti after the class was done.

  “More work?” Antti asked in confusion and maybe a little irritation, and then offered to come with me to the ice rink.

  “I wouldn’t recommend it. They’re practicing for Noora Nieminen’s memorial service.”

  That was all I needed to say. Antti’s best friend, Tommi, had been killed about four years earlier. They had sung in the same choir, and the choir had performed at Tommi’s funeral. That performance and the rehearsals leading up to it had been some of the most trying experiences of Antti’s life. He still had nightmares about Tommi’s drowned body and the killer, who had also been his friend. Watching the practice for Noora’s memori
al would probably lead to another sleepless night. The passage of time hadn’t dulled his feeling that he could have prevented Tommi’s death if he had just intervened in time. I didn’t know whether that was true, and I hadn’t performed particularly brilliantly as I solved that case either.

  When I pulled into our driveway, I thought about staying. I was so exhausted. But instead, I drove to the ice rink after stopping by the police station to pick up my notes.

  Our unit was silent. Maybe whoever was on call had been sent out into the field for some reason. I felt a strange, biting feeling when I thought of my upcoming maternity leave.

  I needed a break so badly, and I couldn’t wait for my baby to come, but still . . . how long would I be able to stay at home? My sisters said you never got bored with little kids around. Would that happen to me too? Would I be too exhausted to think about anything but doing laundry and keeping up with the latest soaps? Somehow I didn’t think so.

  I opened my office door. Having my own office was an incredible luxury. Whenever the men in the unit were too much to bear, I always had somewhere to retreat, and I could interview people informally without being interrupted constantly. When I came back, I probably wouldn’t have the same level of peace and quiet. I didn’t know whether I could handle working in a unit led by Pertti Ström. And if they made me the unit commander, that would really be the end of any semblance of serenity. Still, I desperately wanted the promotion to lieutenant. I’d never been afraid of new challenges before.

  I grabbed my notes and a couple of Noora’s diaries. Then I drove to the now-familiar parking lot of the ice rink and walked in through the concessions entrance. I sat down in the bottom stands of section E, on the opposite of the arena from where the figure skaters usually congregated, because I didn’t feel like climbing over the barriers separating the seating areas.