Snow angels ikv-1

by James Thompson

  “I have to take your car.”

  The alcohol makes him overanimated. He stands up and raises his voice. “Hey, come on, I told you what you want to know!”

  “Shut up and sit down.”

  He does it.

  “Since you had sex with Sufia in it, the car is a potential crime scene. I’ll give it back in a day or two.”

  He gives me the keys. “It’s not fucking fair.”

  “I might be saving your goddamned life by keeping you from driving, you drunk fucking bastard. Go back to sleep, I’m done with you.”

  In the front room, I shake his friends awake. They won’t move, so I yell at them. They sit up and look at me like I’m insane. I point at one of them. “What time did your plane get in on Tuesday?”

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m a pissed-off cop who’s going to arrest all of you for the cocaine dust on the kitchen table if you don’t answer my goddamned question.”

  The kid grimaces. Peter registers fear. I would take them all in, but the chief said no arrest without probable cause for murder. I figure I should trust his judgment on this.

  “Yeah dumbfuck,” I say. “I saw it. You’re lucky I’ve got other things to do right now.”

  “We got in at eleven fifty-eight,” the kid says.

  “How did you get here from the airport?”

  “Peter picked us up.”

  “Were you with him all afternoon?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where?”

  “In Hullu Poro.”

  I check all their IDs and write down their contact information.

  Their boots are in the foyer. “Which of these are yours?” I ask Peter.

  He points.

  I pick them up. They’re size tens, the same as the prints at the crime scene and the same size Seppo wears. He and Seppo also both smoke Marlboro Lights. “I’m taking the boots.”

  He starts to say something, thinks better of it.

  I open the front door. “By the way, you’re a registered sex offender. Who did you rape?”

  “Nobody. She wanted it.”

  “How old was she?”

  He doesn’t even flinch. “Fifteen.”

  I stare at him for a minute.

  “I did my community service,” he says.

  16

  Peter is a waste of humanity, breathing air somebody else could be breathing. He could have killed Sufia. If so, his friends were probably accomplices. Peter and one of the others could have forced her to perform oral sex, accounting for the two sets of sperm in her mouth. One of them, not inclined toward rape, could have been upset by the spectacle and shed the tears that provided the third set of DNA. I wouldn’t put it past them, but I don’t consider it likely either.

  Peter was already getting what he wanted from Sufia, but maybe Sufia wanted more from Seppo than he was willing to give her. Fear that she might destroy his relationship with Heli provides him with one motive. Sufia’s affair with Peter gives him another. Seppo remains the most likely suspect.

  Valtteri calls. Seppo wants to talk to me. I go to the police station. News vans from Finland’s three major television channels are parked in front of it. Reporters and cameramen pile out into the cold, surround me, shine lights in my eyes and start filming. Altogether, there must be twenty of them, and print journalists too. I see Jaakko from Alibi in the crowd. They shout questions. I decline to comment and push my way through them.

  Valtteri is in the doorway. “They wanted to wait inside,” he says, “but I wouldn’t let them.”

  “Don’t. Except for Jaakko Pahkala. After I talk to Seppo, go get him and bring him to my office.”

  The three major Helsinki newspapers, all morning editions, are scattered around the common room. Sufia is on the front page of each. I take a few minutes to read them. Two of them specialize in yellow journalism. Thanks to Jaakko, they pick up on the Black Dahlia theme and compare Sufia’s murder to that of Elizabeth Short, the Hollywood starlet murdered in 1947, whose gruesome killing still remains a source of fascination for murder buffs today.

  Only Helsingin Sanomat, a more sober publication, takes a more thoughtful line and focuses on the fact that Sufia is the first prominent black woman to have been murdered in Finland. Even their treatment is confusing. It leaves me unsure if, in some twisted way, they consider her murder an advancement of black women in our society. I check my messages.

  Nine Finnish newspapers request interviews, plus STT-the Finnish News Service-and Reuters. At some point, I’m going to have to talk to the press. The story is going international, and if I don’t, they’ll invent something to keep steam behind it. I had hoped that by the time we got to this point, I could tell them the case was solved.

  I go down to the lockup to talk to Seppo. I open the port in his door. “I hear you have something to tell me.”

  He jumps off his cot. “I figured something out. If I can prove I didn’t kill Sufia, will you let me go?”

  “That’s the way it works.”

  “Yesterday, when you came down here, you said it had been forty-nine hours since Sufia was murdered.”

  “So?”

  “When we went upstairs, I saw a clock. It was three then, so Sufia was killed at two.”

  “That’s right, Sherlock.”

  “I was on the phone around that time, you can check.”

  I start to close the window. “I did check. Nice try.”

  “Wait.” He pushes a hand through the port, holds it open. “I wasn’t talking on my cell phone. The battery was almost dead, so I used the landline in the room. I was staying in a cabin in the Hullu Poro hotel.”

  It’s next to the bar and restaurant. He gives me a name. “I’ll look into it.” I shut the port in his face.

  I check out his story. Seppo was registered there. He made a call a little later than he said, at two forty-one P.M., and talked for nineteen minutes. I get the number and call Seppo’s friend. He confirms the conversation.

  “How would you describe Seppo’s emotional state during your conversation?” I ask.

  “He was Seppo, nothing special.”

  “You detected no agitation in his voice?”

  “He was happier than I’ve heard him sound for a while.”

  “What did you and he talk about?”

  He hesitates. “It was pretty personal.”

  “Seppo is locked in a cell and about to be charged with murder. Is it more personal than that?”

  “It’s about her, then. You arrested Seppo for it?”

  “Are you referring to Sufia Elmi?”

  “Yeah.”

  I wait, but he doesn’t say anything. “What did you talk about?”

  He sighs. “Okay. Seppo talked about that girl.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Shit. Well, I won’t lie for him. The girl had just left. He went on about how she sucked him and fucked him. That’s all he talked about the whole time. That’s why he called me, to brag about it.”

  Now I know where Sufia was abducted. The killer must have driven her straight from the hotel to Aslak’s reindeer farm.

  “Did he say if he had feelings for her outside of their sexual relationship?”

  “You mean was he in love with her?”

  “I mean feelings. Love, hate, whatever.”

  “No, I didn’t get any of that.”

  “Well, what did you get? What was his attitude, his demeanor, when he discussed Sufia Elmi?”

  He doesn’t say anything. I can almost hear him thinking.

  “Listen,” I say, “a woman has been murdered. Bringing her justice is more important than your concept of duty toward a drinking buddy.”

  “Jesus, you just don’t quit. He called her his nigger. You happy now? He said, ‘My nigger got on her knees.’ He said, ‘Nigger looked up at me with those gorgeous eyes while she sucked my cock. I blew in that beautiful nigger’s face. Nigger whore took it in the ass.’ He went on like that.”

  N
igger whore. The words cut into Sufia’s torso. “He used the phrase ‘nigger whore.’ You’re certain.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve got to know Seppo. He doesn’t mean anything. He talks shit, tries to act like he’s a big man. He does it because he feels small. He’s not a bad guy or I wouldn’t be his friend.”

  “Yeah, I’m getting a real sense of his underlying sensitivity. I’ll be in touch.” I hang up.

  17

  Jaakko, gossip columnist and writer of true-crime horseshit, walks into my office. He’s a little guy with a scraggly beard, full of energy. “Thanks for giving me the tip about the murder,” he says.

  I finish the last sentence of my report to the national chief of police and e-mail it before looking up. “I did you a favor,” I say, “treated you like a professional journalist. You repaid me by writing about Sufia Elmi with disdain and disrespect. You released details of the crime I didn’t want published, and the photos you printed were exploitative. I just called you in here to tell you that. Now get out.”

  He winces like I slapped him. “If you mean the comparison to the Black Dahlia murder, I meant no disrespect. The two killings are similar.”

  “Putting a Hollywood spin on her murder makes it seem inconsequential. How do you think publishing those photos made her parents feel? I spoke to her father. They’re devastated.”

  He looks penitent. “Can I sit?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry I offended you, but anybody would have published the photos. Alibi even held the presses to get the story in. Sales were up sixty percent. And, well, true-crime stories are a hobby for me. When I heard the details, the Black Dahlia was the first thing that came into my head.”

  “Where did you get the crime scene details?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “How much did you pay the diener?” He ignores the question. “I’d like to interview you about the case.”

  “I’m busy, go away.”

  “Your ex-wife called Ilta-sanomat today.”

  I should have expected this. “And?”

  “She says she left you for Seppo Niemi, and you arrested him for Sufia’s murder. She says you’re framing him. Care to comment?”

  “No.” Something occurs to me. “How did Sufia’s murder remind you of the Black Dahlia case?”

  “I’ll tell you, if you answer a few questions.”

  “You’re out of the loop. I can find out about the Black Dahlia case on my own.”

  “And I can find out about the murder investigation without you. This thing about you and Seppo Niemi, I’ll find that out too.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He turns to leave, then looks back at me. “I’m still grateful to you for the lead, so I’ll tell you this. The Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short, was dumped in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. Sufia was killed in a snowfield, sort of a rural equivalent. Short was cut in half and Sufia had a deep slash in her abdomen. Both had a piece of their breast cut off. Both had writing scratched into their skin. The crimes aren’t exactly the same, but close enough to make me think of it. Most important, though, Sufia had scarred genitals, and Short had a genital birth defect. What are the odds of that?”

  “No interview, but I’ll keep faxing you police reports,” I say.

  Antti comes into my office. The results from Seppo’s house and car are back from the lab in Helsinki. Antti pulls a chair over next to me and we go through them together. DNA from Seppo’s toothbrush matched semen found in Sufia’s vagina and mouth. He drank out of a couple of the bottles and smoked some of the cigarettes found in her room.

  DNA records from the sex offender database validate Peter Eklund’s story. The rest of the bottles and cigarette butts match to him. The blood in the backseat of Seppo’s car belongs to Sufia, the semen is Seppo’s. Hair samples from the car are both of theirs. The source of the tears recovered from Sufia’s face remains unknown.

  We go out to the common room. Valtteri and Jussi are eating lunch. “The beer bottles in Seppo’s refrigerator and the one used to attack Sufia are from the same lot,” Jussi says. “They were sold at a kiosk about half a mile from Seppo’s place.”

  I bring them up to date, tell them about the tears dripped onto Sufia’s face, about my interview with Peter Eklund and about Seppo’s telephone conversation.

  “Let’s look at the timeline,” I say. “Aslak reported the murder at two twenty-five P.M. He saw a vehicle pull away and made the call when he found Sufia’s body. Let’s say it took him three minutes to do it. That puts the vehicle on the road at two twenty-two. When I left Hullu Poro, I drove the speed limit and I got to Aslak’s place in twelve minutes. If Seppo killed her and drove straight back to the hotel, that puts him there at two thirty-four. He calls his buddy at two forty-one. What do you think?”

  “It’s tight,” Jussi says, “but possible.”

  “That nigger whore stuff,” Antti says. “I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

  “Me neither,” I say, “but I wouldn’t call it damning.”

  “My problem,” Valtteri says, “is that I don’t think Seppo is capable of butchering a girl, then going back to his room and laughing it up with his friend to give himself an alibi. If he was a serial murderer, used to killing, then maybe, but Seppo?”

  “I see your point,” I say, “but it’s a mistake to think you know him. I don’t know anyone, including murderers I’ve put away, that I think capable of committing this kind of crime. Do you?”

  “No,” Valtteri says, “I don’t.”

  “But somebody did it,” I say. “It could have been Seppo, or Peter, or the third man who cried in her face. I’m inclined to think it was two men. The evidence against Seppo is piling higher all the time. Maybe he had an accomplice.”

  My cell phone rings. It’s the national chief of police. “I just got a call,” he says, “from a reporter named Jaakko Pahkala. He says the guy you’re holding for murder had an affair with your ex-wife. She claims it’s an attempt at revenge. The reporter claims you refused comment. Would you care to tell me about it? It might have been courteous to mention it.”

  Jaakko screwed me because I wouldn’t give him an interview. The chief is right, I should have told him. “He’s my ex-wife’s common-law husband. I didn’t tell you because it seemed like a simple case. I thought when the DNA test results came back yesterday, they would prove him guilty. It’s turned out to be more complicated than that.”

  “You didn’t tell me because you thought I would remove you from the investigation.”

  It’s partly true. I don’t say anything.

  “Are you?” he asks.

  “Am I what?”

  “Carrying out a vendetta?”

  “Of course not. I think he did it.”

  “I’m trying to be fair here. Assuming you didn’t manufacture the evidence, which I don’t think you did, he seems guilty, and I would have thought it was an open-and-shut case too. But now the Eklund boy is in the picture, and I’d say there’s enough evidence to hold him for the crime as well. And this thing about the third man and the teardrops, well, that’s just fucking weird.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “it is.”

  “So, we’ve got a public relations problem. There’s evidence against one man, and he’s in a jail cell. There’s evidence against another, and he’s not. The man in jail screwed your ex-wife, the one who’s not is the son of a wealthy financier. This could be construed as more than a little biased, wouldn’t you say?”

  His sarcasm grates on me. “I did what you told me to do. I arrested Seppo, let Eklund go free for the moment.”

  “But you didn’t tell me about your ex-wife and Seppo. I would characterize that as a major fuckup.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “When it comes out in the newspapers today that you arrested the man who broke up your marriage, you’re going to look like an asshole.”

  “I know.”

  “Your best bet is to cite conflict of interest an
d recuse yourself from the investigation.”

  “Then it looks like I framed him and got caught. I still look like an asshole.”

  “It’s called cutting your losses.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “I know you don’t. I also know you’ve done a good job and collected a mountain of evidence in a short time. The case is in its fourth day. To be honest, I’d replace you, but if I send somebody up there to take over, it’s going to take him a couple days to get up to speed. That’s a lot of lost time, and I want this case solved now.”

  “I’m going to solve it. When I locate the third man, the one who cried on Sufia Elmi, he’s going to connect to either Seppo Niemi or Peter Eklund.”

  “Here’s what you’re going to do. Issue a written statement to the press. Give enough detail to show that Niemi’s arrest was warranted. Talk about his affair with the victim and about the blood and semen in his car. Paint him black to make you seem justified.”

  “That’s unethical.”

  “It’s a tough world. Do it.”

  I’m not going to. “Okay.”

  “Then you say he has an alibi and release him. You come off looking fair and honest.”

  “Are you out of your mind? I’m almost certain he killed her. If he did, he’s fucking psycho, and I’d be unleashing a danger on the community. It would be worse than irresponsible.”

  “If you don’t, I’ll replace you, and he’ll be released anyway.” I’m backed into a corner. I don’t bother to respond.

  “Call me and report tomorrow,” he says and hangs up.

  Valtteri, Antti and Jussi look at me. “We have to release Seppo,” I say, and try to imagine how I can explain this to Sufia’s father.

  18

  I unlock Seppo’s cell door and lie to him. “Your alibi checks out, I’m considering setting you free. You should have told me about the phone call earlier-you could have been out yesterday.”

  “Considering?” he asks.

  “Your buddy says Sufia had just left when you called him. Besides her killer, that makes you the last person to see her alive. You’re a material witness in this investigation. I want you to cooperate with me. I can still hold you for another day.”