Snow angels ikv-1

by James Thompson

  He starts bawling again in big sobs and shouts through his tears, “My wife is dead and I can’t even go to her funeral because I’m in jail.”

  I’ve already considered this. “You can go. I’ll take you.”

  He pauses, wipes his eyes. “Thank you,” he says, then gets down on the floor on his knees, folds his hands and starts begging. “I’m innocent, please help me. I’m innocent, please help me.” He keeps repeating it over and over again.

  I ignore him, shut the port in his door and go up to my office. I call Jorma to make Heli’s funeral arrangements, then check my e-mail. Luck is with me. Interpol sent me a student identification photo from the Sorbonne. It’s twenty-six years old, but the man in the photo bears little resemblance to the man in Finland claiming to be Dr. Abdi Barre. The last the Sorbonne heard of him, Abdi Barre was practicing medicine at Karaan Hospital, to the north of Mogadishu. It wasn’t so much a real hospital as a group of villas that were converted to form a collective center for emergency surgery for those suffering acute war injuries. Dr. Barre was last heard from in 1990.

  Since there’s no agency in Somalia I can turn to, I consider who might be able to trace Dr. Barre. If he was killed, maybe his death was recorded and listed somewhere. Murdering a physician treating civilian wounded might qualify as a war crime. Finland is a member of the European Union, and international cooperation between EU police departments is good. However, the EU has no jurisdiction over war criminals. That responsibility falls to the International Criminal Court, in The Hague.

  When I call the ICC, they give me the bureaucratic runaround. After a while, I get a minor functionary on the phone who explains to me that they’ve been talking about holding war crimes tribunals for genocide in Somalia for some years, but haven’t done anything about it yet. They haven’t even assembled an official list of suspects, let alone put together a list of victims. I ask why not. He doesn’t have an answer.

  When Serbians committed genocide in the Balkans, the ICC took their prosecution of war criminals seriously and is still tracking them down. The message is clear: Europeans find their own lives of great value, but African lives of little or no worth. I ask if any agency might have assembled a victims list. He says the Human Rights Commission monitored violence in Mogadishu during that time frame and suggests I check with them.

  I phone the HRC and speak with a helpful and concerned woman. I give her the year and name of the hospital and she checks their records. There is no victims list, but physicians from the expatriate staff of Medecins Sans Frontieres provided emergency assistance. She has a list of MSF doctors that were there, and can e-mail me their contact information. Two minutes later, I get it and notice that one of the doctors is a Finn. I call her up.

  Yes, she remembers Abdi Barre, his death was very sad. In the first weeks of heavy fighting, it was common for groups of armed soldiers to bring their wounded to the hospital. They dictated tri-age decisions and forced doctors to operate with guns held to their heads. The president’s own bodyguards, the Red Berets, notorious for torture, subjected Dr. Barre to such treatment. When his patient died on the operating table, they took him outside, filled a tire with gasoline, placed it around his arms and chest and burned him to death.

  I’m thinking maybe a Red Beret took his passport before they killed him and used it to get out of the country. The picture of the man claiming to be Abdi Barre has arrived from passport control. I e-mail it to her while we talk and ask her if she can identify the person in the photo. She’s sorry, but the moment was so shocking, there was such chaos and confusion, that she couldn’t identify any of the murderers if they were standing in front of her. I thank her for her help.

  The pieces of the puzzle are coming together. The problem is that I don’t know how to prove any of it. I decide it’s time to call it a day and go home.

  I walk into the living room carrying bags of groceries. Kate is on the couch, typing on her laptop. I lean over for a kiss, but she doesn’t return it. “I put on the sauna,” she says, “I thought it would do you good.”

  “Thanks, I could use it.”

  Sauna relaxes me more than anything else in the world. Like most Finns used to be, I was born in one. Mom had an emergency birth. Dad wasn’t home, they didn’t have a phone then, and a neighbor woman acted as midwife. Maybe going to sauna is like a return to the womb for me. God willing, I’ll die in one too.

  “I got everything for Christmas dinner,” I say.

  She still hasn’t looked up. “Who’s going to cook it and eat it?” I want to make amends, so I ignore the slight. “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Catching up on e-mails. If you’re going to work through Christmas, I might as well do it too.”

  She’s pissed off and I don’t blame her. “I don’t intend to work through Christmas.”

  She keeps typing. “No?”

  “I’m close to solving this. It should be over tomorrow.”

  She closes the laptop, and with effort moves her broken leg from the couch to a stool. She pats the seat beside her. “Sit down and tell me about it.”

  I tell her about the day, about Seppo and what I learned about Abdi, about arresting Eklund and what Valtteri said about my father. “So to sum up,” she says, “you conclude that in Helsinki, before they came to Kittila, Heli overhears Seppo on the phone, bragging about fucking Sufia, his nigger whore with the beautiful eyes. He talks about her strange vagina. Heli learns he’s going to Levi to be with her. She’s worried he’s in love with Sufia. If he leaves Heli, she’ll lose everything. She follows him to nip this in the bud. Am I right so far?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She starts thinking about teaching Seppo a lesson. She covers her real purpose for coming here with a story about rediscovering her religious roots. She’s a crime buff. Seppo talking about Sufia’s strange vagina inspires Heli to copycat the Elizabeth Short killing. She meets Heikki, opportunity presents itself. She uses his beliefs against him, tells him niggers and whores are sinners. She sucks his cock, tells him it’s not intercourse and so not a sin. She knows Seppo and his big mouth. He’s been going on about his gorgeous nigger whore to anyone who will listen. Am I still on track?”

  I don’t like where this is going. “Yeah.”

  “She gets Heikki to cut the words into Sufia’s belly-damning evidence-so that if she has to, she can blackmail Seppo into marrying her, insurance in case he falls in love with another young beautiful girl. She also has the boy gouge out Sufia’s eyes, a way of punishing Seppo because he loved them. Afterward, she pushes Heikki over the edge to suicide by rejecting him, forcing him to the realization that he committed murder and will suffer eternal damnation for nothing, and so all the evidence against her is gone. It’s a well-executed murder. She just didn’t count on being murdered herself for revenge.”

  “That’s about it,” I say.

  “And then the father of the victim,” she says, “who pretends to be a doctor, is actually a former torturer, a deranged man. He kidnapped your ex-wife and burned her to death to exact retribution for the loss of his daughter.”

  “I think so.”

  “But if that’s not the way it happened, it could have been your father, because your distraught coworker said cryptic things about him, and your father is the only one who would remember where your sister died.”

  “I don’t want to think that, but I have to consider everything.”

  “But just in case it wasn’t your father either, the murders might be the result of a sexual cabal, involving several people, for reasons unknown.”

  I can’t understand why she’s doing this. “You’re not being fair. You’re trying to make me sound stupid.”

  “And yet you’re close to solving this case and you’ll be here with me for Christmas dinner.”

  She’s backed me into a corner, made me uncomfortable. “I know you’re angry, but you don’t need to insult me.”

  “Who’s your next suspect? Your mother? Where was she at the time
of the murder? Maybe she set this diabolical plan in motion, waited years for the opportunity to exact revenge on the people who hurt her son. It could have been me. Jealous of your ex-wife, I seduced Heikki and we murdered Sufia together as a cover for our final intent. I drove him to suicide to erase all traces of my crime, then destroyed Heli with fire. Maybe it was Pirkko Virtanen, and stabbing her husband to death was the final act in her murder spree.”

  I’m not just insulted, I’m furious, but I don’t want to show it because this is my fault. I’ve let this case interfere with our relationship. She has cause for her anger and I can’t muster a worthy response. “You have no right to talk to me like this,” I say.

  “Let’s look at what you’ve got here. A theory about a copycat murder. Why? Because your ex-wife can’t spell in English and two women killed sixty years apart both had genital deformities. I read about the Elizabeth Short murder on the Internet. Yes, there are a few similarities in the cases, but the differences far outweigh them. You’ve got Abdi Barre, a grieving father with a bad personality who said a few untoward things. Nothing suggests he’s a killer who’s been hiding in this country for the better part of twenty years. Your sister and your ex-wife being killed in the same approximate location was most likely coincidence. Stranger things have happened.”

  I’m trying hard not to yell at her. I’ve never done it before and I don’t want to start now. “All right genius, since you’re the cop all of a sudden, you figure out the murders and explain them to me.”

  “Before, you talked about finding the most elegant solution. Let me tell you what I think happened. Sufia had the semen of two men in her mouth. There was no sex cabal. She had two lovers. She was a slut and sucked them both off within a few hours. Heikki’s suicide note said he or she made me do it. He meant Seppo. They killed Sufia together, for love or money or whatever, and then, for some reason we don’t know, Seppo killed Heli. Maybe he’s just fucking crazy. You don’t seem to have thought of that.”

  “That leaves too many things unexplained,” I say. “I’m looking for the truth.”

  “Then I’ll give it to you. You’re an emotional mess. You look like shit. Last night, I watched the strongest man I’ve ever known fall apart because he never came to terms with the death of his sister, and probably never truly dealt with the fact that his ex-wife left him. Instead of grieving for her, you’re demonizing her rather than admit to yourself that you loved her and she hurt you. You’re tearing yourself apart.”

  She takes my hand, puts my palm on her belly. “The truth is in here. You have two children growing inside me and you’re going to be a good and wise father to them.” She puts my other hand against her cheek. “And here you have a wife who loves you. You need to heal, to give these murders to another investigator and to be here with me so I can take care of you.”

  I love Kate so much. Sometimes I wish I could crawl inside her, be a part of her, flow in her veins, drown in her blood. I wish I could say this to her.

  My cell phone rings. It’s the national chief of police, so I answer. He tells me they searched Seppo’s Helsinki residence. A computer contained a number of true-crime files downloaded from the Internet. They also found a copy of The Black Dahlia, the novel by James Ellroy, based on the murder of Elizabeth Short, and also a video of the movie based on the book. I tell Kate what he said.

  “You’re not going to stop, are you?” she asks.

  I don’t respond.

  “You can’t, can you?”

  I shake my head no.

  She sighs and holds my hand. We sit in the quiet for a few minutes.

  “When it’s over,” she says, “I’ll be here, and I’ll help you put yourself back together.”

  I realize that I know how to end this. I know it’s irresponsible and I shouldn’t do it, but I’m equally certain I’m going to do it anyway. I go to the sauna to be alone, to prevent myself from telling Kate what I intend to do.

  33

  The next morning, I put on a sweater and wool socks and step out to the back porch for a cigarette. The weather turned even more severe overnight and the cold hurts me, like somebody threw a handful of razors in my face. It almost drives me back inside. The thermometer reads minus forty, like it was a week ago today when Sufia was murdered, but now the bitter cold is accompanied by a driving wind that makes it almost impossible to bear. By the time I finish my smoke, my ears are numb and burning.

  I have two funerals to attend today. I put on a black suit and a thick, full-length wool coat over it. My dress hat is made of heavy fox fur. I pull down the inner ear flaps and steel myself for a miserable frozen day.

  At the police station, I bring Seppo up from his cell to my office and call Valtteri in to join us. Seppo looks bad, but he doesn’t cry or beg, and his lack of emotion surprises me. I suspect he’s gone through so much that he’s numb inside. I pour us all coffee and we sit around my desk. Seppo and I light cigarettes.

  “Seppo,” I say, “unless something changes, you’re going to be convicted of double homicide.”

  His expression stays flat. “I know.”

  “Both your girlfriend and your wife are going to be buried today, Sufia at eleven this morning, Heli at four this afternoon.”

  He nods.

  “I don’t know if you killed them or not. Do you want to confess and make things easier for yourself? If you do, you’ll shave time off your prison sentence, still have some good years left when you get out.”

  He sips coffee. His voice doesn’t change as he replies. We could be talking about what we’re going to have for lunch. “I didn’t kill them.”

  “Then who did?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If what you tell me is true, I want to help you, not because I care what happens to you, but because I want to see justice done. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have an idea. It’s risky, but if you agree, we’ll try it.”

  He takes a drag off his cigarette. “What is it?”

  I explain what I learned about Abdi Barre. “Sufia’s father thinks you killed her,” I say. “I believe he killed Heli as an act of revenge, to pay you back. I think if he has the chance, he’ll try to kill you too.”

  He raises his eyebrows, his first show of emotion. “You want to let him try to kill me?”

  “I’m going to tell him that even though I know you murdered Sufia, I can’t prove it, and if he doesn’t kill you-the man who first defiled and then brutally murdered his daughter-you’re going to walk free, that you’ll never be punished for what you did. I’ll tell him I know he’s not who he claims to be and that he killed Heli. I’m going to say I’m glad he did it because what the newspapers say is true: I hated her, and I hate you for what you did to me. That I want you dead and I want him to kill you. And I’m going to give him the chance to do it. I’ll tell him we’ll make it look like you committed suicide.”

  I turn to Valtteri. “The point of this is to elicit a confession, and I need your help. I’ll take Seppo out to the lake where Heli was killed, and tell Abdi to meet us there. I want you hidden in your army winter camouflage, a little way into the forest. I’ll wear a wire. You bring recording equipment and a video camera. And a rifle, in case things go wrong. I get the confession, you document it, and we arrest Abdi.”

  He looks confused, uncertain.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “but I think you and I both know Heikki and Heli killed Sufia. We just don’t know if Seppo killed Heli. If Abdi confesses to the second murder, and further investigation of forensic evidence clears Seppo of the first one, as I think it will, he can go free. Justice will be served.”

  I sit back and look at them. “What do you think?”

  “Do you really hate me?” Seppo asks.

  “I don’t give a shit about you.”

  “What would prevent you from taking me out there and letting him kill me?”

  I shrug. “Nothing could be easier. I could just say you escaped from my custod
y while I escorted you to your wife’s funeral, and I don’t know what happened to you afterward. You can take your chances in court or with me. It’s easier for me if you just stand trial for double murder. Either way, I’m done with this today.”

  “What happens if Sufia’s father doesn’t take the bait?”

  “You go to prison.”

  Seppo stares at me for a long moment. Maybe he still thinks I killed Sufia and Heli, and now I’m going to kill him too. “Okay,” he says.

  “If it works,” Valtteri says, “when it comes out how we did it, we’ll be reprimanded for an irresponsible act. We could even lose our jobs.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But we could solve all this today,” he says, “put all this behind us forever.”

  “Exactly,” I say.

  For the first time since the death of his son, I see Valtteri smile. “I like it,” he says.

  At eleven, I go to the cemetery. I find Sufia’s mother, Hudow, in a far corner by herself. She’s shivering in the cold and dark, next to an open grave with a modest tombstone at its head. I grew up here and even for me this weather is punishing. I can’t imagine how painful it must be for her. I express my sympathy for the loss of her daughter.

  “I glad you come,” she says. “Thank you.”

  “Where is everyone else?” I ask.

  She stifles a sob. “Abdi come. He explain.”

  It’s too cold for life, human or otherwise. Besides the sounds of wind and snow crunching under our feet, the graveyard is silent. No birds sing, no animals stir. My eyes run and the tears freeze before they can roll down my cheeks. I brush the ice off with gloved fingers. The wind cuts into us, hurts us. My face aches, then goes numb. Wind in this part of the country is seldom this fierce. It feels like a bad omen. A frozen tree branch breaks. The noise makes me start.

  The hearse pulls up. Abdi steps out, motions me over. He doesn’t offer his hand but gives me a slight bow. “Thank you for coming,” he says. “Whoever attends a janazah, a Muslim funeral, until it is finished will earn a qirat, and whoever stays until the burial will earn two qirat s.” He offers a weary smile. “A qirat means a reward as big as a mountain.”