Holy Ceremony

by Harri Nykanen

  The expert, who based on his name tag and appearance was Hyppönen’s son or otherwise of close genetic makeup, was there within ten seconds. He was carrying a laptop.

  “The medical examiner’s office… This detective here needs information on break-ins that occurred at the premises last night and the night before. The same corpse was taken from there twice.”

  “Are you serious—”

  Hyppönen Sr.’s agitation was immediate. “I’m pretty sure the detective didn’t come here to feed us a line. You just have a look with that computer of yours.”

  Hyppönen Jr. attacked his computer. His typing was so smooth that the bossman’s anger melted. “Kids these days have such a different touch when it comes to gadgets. Computers are the future.”

  His sentiment would have been relevant thirty years ago, but better late than never.

  “Our guy went there on both nights to close an external door that had been left open. The first visit took place at 2:42 a.m., and the second one the next evening at 10:17 p.m.”

  “What do you mean, open?” I asked.

  “The alarm system notifies us if a door is left open for longer than ten minutes after office hours. When that happens, we drive to the site to check if the door is locked or if there’s a technical malfunction in the alarm system… the second time it doesn’t look like we even made it there, because the door closed before anyone headed out… the notification indicated there was no cause for concern. Could be that a janitor, police officer, funeral home, or someone else just left the door open by accident. It happens. One time an absentminded driver from the funeral home left the door open and the body in the loading zone. Some drunk kids rolled the stretcher up to the parking lot.”

  Hyppönen Senior wasn’t amused by Junior’s attempt to lighten the mood.

  “I’m guessing the surveillance camera footage will show who removed the body?”

  “Sure. It’s on a hard drive in the control room—”

  “The detective wants to see it, obviously,” Hyppönen Sr. snapped.

  The guy in the screen-filled control room was drinking coffee from a paper cup. When he saw Hyppönen Sr., he jumped and threw the cup into the trash so fast that some splashed out on him. Hyppönen Sr. didn’t comment on this evident infraction.

  Hyppönen Jr. referred to the note he’d made himself and browsed through the footage until he reached the right spot. “There it is.”

  We both bent down to look. A light-colored van parked in the loading ramp. Two men in hooded coveralls climbed out of the vehicle and walked right inside. A moment later they came back out, pushing a stretcher. The body was in the back of the van within seconds. Then they pushed the stretcher back inside, shut the door, and drove off. I wrote down the license-plate number.

  “And the second time…” Hyppönen Jr. muttered as he fast-forwarded through the footage.

  The second instance was a repeat of the first. It was even the same van.

  “So the door was left unlocked on both occasions?”

  “That’s what it looks like… or it was… pretty sure,” Hyppönen Jr. stammered.

  “Was it or wasn’t it?” Hyppönen Sr. insisted.

  “It’s also possible there was a technical malfunction—”

  “How would a technical malfunction happen twice in a row right when the robbers happened to be there?” Hyppönen Sr. barked.

  “I’m just saying—”

  “Do you know who was on the premises when the thefts occurred?”

  “Of course. Every badge leaves a record of every entrance or exit. When the door closed on the first evening or night the only person there was… medical examiner Vuorio, and on the second… forensic chemist Aili Jenssen, plus Vuorio again…”

  5

  I actually enjoyed pulling on-call shifts as lead investigator. Just about anything could turn up. If I couldn’t sleep or wanted to get a taste of fieldwork, I was even known to join patrols for mundane responses. I called the duty desk a little before 1 a.m., just after they’d been notified of a man’s body that had turned up in Kalasatama harbor. Oksanen was on call, too, and I headed over with him in his car. Its tortured engine set the silent streets roaring.

  Two patrol cars were on the scene; the body had already been dragged out of the water. The guy who found it lived on a boat docked at the marina and was waiting for us in the back of one of the police vehicles. After coming home from a night out on the town and climbing aboard his vessel, the beam from his flashlight had struck the corpse, which was floating right next to his boat. It was a simple case. A wallet and driver’s license were in the deceased’s pocket. Based on them, we were able to identify him as a roadworthiness tester who’d been reported missing a couple of weeks earlier. There were no signs of violence. He lived in Hermanni and had disappeared on his way home. A buddy had dropped him off on the harbor road before continuing east in the cab they had shared. Presumably he’d stepped too close to the shore in the darkness and tumbled into the water. The embankment was steep and it was hard to climb out, especially with elevated blood-alcohol levels. In a city the size of Helsinki, there were enough sad fates for every day of the year.

  “You want me to drop you at home or you wanna hit the hot dog stand at Karhupuisto?” Oksanen asked. “Come on, what do you say?”

  I saw he could already taste a meat pie loaded with two sausages and all the trimmings. Because I’m not a cruel man, I agreed.

  I’d lived in Kallio for almost a year during my time at the police academy. We passed my former student digs, on the fourth floor at the corner of Torkkelinkatu. I rewound through all the women I’d managed to lure to the place; I remembered six. They had all vanished from my life, but not without leaving behind their individual traces. One was a bank teller with a hysterical bent whom I’d dated a few times and even made the mistake of giving a key to my apartment. One night when I got home from a drinking binge with my classmates she was waiting for me and made a huge scene. She threw almost every article of clothing I owned out the window. Luckily my apartment faced the courtyard; my second-best sport coat got caught on the third-floor overhang and dangled there until I was able to retrieve it the next day. That wasn’t so serious, but then she chucked out half the vinyl I’d collected. There went my Bellamy Brothers, Harry Chapins, Jacques Brels, Nilssons, Nina Simones, and a whole bunch of other classics.

  According to the car’s temperature gauge, it was only a couple of degrees above freezing outside; the street glistened icily. The early spring night had an utterly unique feel. Summer wasn’t right around the corner, but winter had been whipped. Nothing beat the romance of a drizzly spring night in Helsinki. It was one of the many things residents of warmer countries missed out on.

  The hot dog stand was at the corner of Agricolankatu. We lined up to place our orders and went back to the car to eat them.

  “One of the few joys of the night shift,” Oksanen said, mouth full of sausage hash. He gulped down his food and confessed in a wistful tone: “When my ex and I used to live in Töölö, sometimes I’d go by during night shifts to screw. Now that pleasure is long gone.”

  Oksanen was divorced and, in typical Finnish fashion, argued with his ex over visitation rights. He twisted the radio knob to find a station he liked. The crooner Kari Tapio was bemoaning his fate. Oksanen joined in the chorus.

  The crackle of the police radio prompted him to turn down the music. Dispatch announced that there was a fire in the woods near the postal distribution center at Ilmala; apparently at least one dead.

  “Let’s go check it out, since we’re already on the road,” I said.

  I had to admit: Oksanen knew the city. Apparently there wasn’t a side street or alley in Helsinki he hadn’t raced down in one of his hot rods after getting his license.

  He flipped a U-turn, turned left on Fleminginkatu, crossed Helsinginkatu and curved onto Aleksis Kiven katu, then right onto Sturenkatu and soon left again on Mäkelänkatu. After a few kilometers of racing, we
arrived at Koskelantie, which before long turned into Hakamäentie.

  Oksanen asked for instructions en route: “Calling about the burnt body at Ilmala. Give me a more precise location; I’m on Hakamäentie.”

  “Keep driving down Hakamäentie and turn north on Postintaival.”

  “Wait a sec,” Oksanen said, because we had just arrived at the intersection. He dipped right. “Go ahead. I’m on Postintaival now.”

  “Continue north until you come to Metsäläntie. Turn left, and almost a kilometer later, left again, onto the little road leading into the woods.”

  “Roger.”

  The dirt road was so inconspicuous we almost drove past in the dark. As soon as we turned, I smelled the reek of smoke, and it wasn’t long before I saw flashing blue and yellow lights. The road was so narrow, branches raked the sides of the car. Then Oksanen’s lowered Audi bottomed out on a rock. He swore but kept driving, this time more slowly. Searchlights swept across the forest, which closed in more and more brazenly, twigs angrily slapping the Audi’s sides. When a patrol car appeared in front of us, Oksanen pulled off to the side.

  At first it looked as if a traveling circus had been erected in the middle of the secluded clearing. People were bustling about in the glow of the flashing lights. When I stepped out of Oksanen’s car, I was assaulted by the pungent smell of smoke. The fire had been lit in the center of a small glade, and the pile of logs and branches was still smoldering. I had no trouble picturing the flames illuminating the treetops like an ancient sacrificial fire just twenty minutes earlier.

  The fire chief on duty had already taken off his helmet. He walked up to me: “PD, I assume?”

  “Yup. Dispatch said there’s at least one body here.”

  “There’s one.”

  “Where?” I asked. I’d been expecting a forest shack, or some dilapidated shed.

  “There,” the fire chief said, pointing at the smoking embers.

  I stepped closer and pointed my flashlight at the charred wood. It took a moment to make out the foot sticking out from the logs, blackened with heat and smoke. Small and delicate, it had to belong to a woman, or a child.

  “Someone’s been taking inspiration from Indian funeral pyres,” the fire chief said.

  I moved closer, taking care not to leave any prints. My caution was unnecessary; the water from the hoses had transformed the vicinity into an enormous mud puddle. I circled the entire bonfire before I spied the right arm, the bone exposed by the flames. The rest of the body had burned to a crisp and was trapped in the smoldering wood.

  “Who called it in?”

  “One of the postal workers working the night shift, who took a shortcut on his way home. He lives in Pohjois-Haaga. He’s sitting up there in the lead car, the Land Rover. This place is surrounded by hundreds of feet of dense forest. The flames weren’t visible from any direction. We’re guessing the fire had been burning for at least half an hour before we got here. We came from Haaga, so it only took us a few minutes.”

  I studied the structure of the fire. It had been constructed of crisscrossing logs, branches, and boards.

  “Where did he get the firewood?” I mused out loud.

  “Probably brought it in by car, same as the body. Most of that is sawn birch; the logs are over three feet long. You don’t find that lying around. That means he needed at least a van. Gasoline was used as fuel.” The fire chief shook his head. “I’ve seen plenty in my day, but I’ve never come across anything like this.”

  Oksanen walked up to me. “The tech team will be here in a minute.”

  “I guess our work here is done,” the fire chief said. Then he appeared to remember something, and pulled an envelope out of his overall pocket. “Since you guys are with the PD, you probably know where to find this guy.”

  I took the envelope and glanced at it. A name had been printed on it: Detective Ariel Kafka.

  “It was left on a stone a few meters from the burn. There was a little rock on top so it wouldn’t blow away. You guys know this detective?”

  I nodded. “Believe so.”

  “Well, then you can probably deliver it to the right man. Good luck with your investigation.”

  Oksanen sidled up to me and peered over my shoulder. “More fan mail? Take a look and see if it’s from the same guy.”

  I went back to my car and turned on the overhead lights. I carefully slit open the envelope with gloved hands and pulled out the letter. Oksanen sat down next to me.

  “The suspense is mounting,” he muttered.

  Detective Ariel Kafka

  This letter was written so the police don’t squander scarce resources on hunting down a nonexistent murderer. The body that rose to the heavens in the form of smoke is the same one you found yesterday in the apartment in Töölö. The immolation was her wish, which I promised to carry out, and did.

  She was a good woman who deserved a beautiful send-off. A pure soul rises from the flames to return to the bosom of the Lord. An evil soul gets a foretaste of the agonies of hell even as it burns.

  I also promised something new. If I were you, my dear Ariel, I would find out what happened to a man named Lars Sandberg.

  Respectfully,

  The Adorner of the Sacred Vault

  “What does it say?” Oksanen asked.

  I told him that, according to the author, the body was the same one we found in the apartment.

  Oksanen was stunned. “You’re kidding. The same body was snatched twice?”

  I watched the line of fire trucks make a leisurely departure. “Yup. The body was taken from the pathology lab again.”

  “What a nutcase. Why is he writing you these letters?”

  “Maybe he likes me,” I said. To get rid of Oksanen, I added, “Bring the eyewitness over.”

  I sat down on the cold rock to ponder the letter. It had to be Laurén’s handiwork again. If stealing the body and using it as a notepad was the first move in the game, as Vuorio suspected, was burning it the second one? Or had Laurén just called the game off?

  I reread the line: An evil soul gets a foretaste of the agonies of hell even as it burns. It made me think of Anteroinen, who was badly burned before he was drowned. And what did the tip-off about Lars Sandberg mean? A thorough search of his name might bring some clarity to that.

  “No, this is just the beginning,” I said out loud.

  “What’s just the beginning?” Oksanen asked, catching me off guard as he walked up with the witness.

  “Never mind.”

  6

  “What about Lars Sandberg? Who’s he?” Huovinen asked, twirling a pen between his fingers.

  “I looked him up in the database and asked Stenman to dig a little deeper. He’s a retired CFO, was murdered in Kotka two years ago. That case was never solved, either. A fisherman found Sandberg’s body drifting in the outer archipelago. The legs had been weighted down, but the rope had rotted or chafed free and the body had risen to the surface. The corpse had been in the water over six months, so it was in pretty bad shape. The autopsy indicated that Sandberg was alive when he got the heave-ho. The most interesting detail was that his wrists were bound with heavy chains. That was never shared with the public.”

  “Aside from it being unsolved, does anything else link it to the Kouvola case or to Laurén?”

  “Not yet, but we’re looking into it.”

  “If there is a link, why is Laurén so intent on getting himself mixed up in such a serious crime? That makes as little sense as everything else to this point. I guess there’s some consistency there, at least… I wonder if Arja has anything else for us yet…”

  I called Stenman on the spot, and she promised to come right over. I asked her to pick up Oksanen on the way.

  Before three minutes were up, they had both appeared in Huovinen’s office. Stenman took a seat and started rifling through her papers. Oksanen remained standing behind her.

  “Sit,” Huovinen ordered. I could see the coolness in his face. Oksanen grabbed
a chair and sat down between us.

  “Sandberg is from Pietarsaari,” Stenman said. “Had a business degree. Worked in payroll at the Turku shipyards, then at an insurance company and a bank for a long period, after which he became chief financial officer at the B. E. Kajasto Foundation, retired on a disability pension in 2006. Married but divorced. One child, a 25-year-old son who’s studying economics in Toronto. The ex-wife teaches high-school religion. According to her, Sandberg spent a lot of time at his cabin and was involved in his church youth group. I got the impression that he was a bit of a bore, not very social. Neither Laurén’s or Anteroinen’s names meant anything to the ex-wife.”

  “Was there a note?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “Maybe we should call the Pope, have him send an exorcist over to solve this case,” Oksanen muttered.

  “I also found two of Anteroinen’s former co-workers who say that Anteroinen didn’t have much going on, especially toward the end, except boozing with the local tough guys, betting at the racetrack, and going to baseball games. In his younger days, he had been a union activist of sorts, even served as union rep at the company. One of the friends thought he was a closeted homosexual.”

  “Great,” Oksanen huffed.

  “I had another chat with Laurén’s ex-wife about Anteroinen and Sandberg. She didn’t remember the names either.”

  “What was the foundation called where Sandberg worked again?” Huovinen asked.

  “The B. E. Kajasto Foundation. Bertil Erik Kajasto was the founder. A shipbuilder and timber baron from Kotka who funneled the bulk of his sizable fortune into the foundation. Died in 1981 in a car crash.”

  I said I’d never heard of a foundation by that name.

  “It’s relatively well off, has had holdings in real estate, land, stocks, etc. Sandberg worked as CFO for nineteen years.”