Holy Ceremony

by Harri Nykanen

  Oksanen had been fidgeting for a while now. He clearly didn’t find the case worth his time.

  “If a working stiff can give his opinion, there’s nothing here we need to be involved in. The guy’s a nutcase. Typical of us to be running around like crazy the second the media does a story.”

  I stared at Oksanen almost as coldly as Huovinen. “We have every reason to suspect that Laurén may have committed two murders, or at least that he has critical information on them.”

  “Some yokel cops blabbed everything they should have kept to themselves at the local pub and now the entire town knows all the ins and outs of the case. That’s all it takes.”

  Even Stenman was caught off guard by Oksanen’s outburst. “So you’re saying you believe Laurén has somehow gleaned the details of crimes that took place in two different towns and is now using them for his plans and doesn’t really know anything about the crimes?”

  “A dozen shrinks couldn’t figure out what’s going through the head of that lunatic.”

  “Two lunatics, you mean. At least two people are involved here,” I reminded Oksanen. “What if Laurén kills someone and we haven’t taken any steps to prevent that from happening?”

  “If I were you, I’d give Laurén’s photo to the press and use publicity to smoke him out. If his picture’s in the papers, he won’t have the balls to go around killing people. Best of all, someone’ll report him. Why is he so jacked to have you investigate the case, anyway?”

  I didn’t want to say anything about Laurén’s “Ariel, Flame of God” ravings, so I lied without batting an eye: “No idea, but I’m OK with it. Arja and I are going to pay Laurén’s ex-wife a visit. I want you to get in touch with the lead investigator in the Sandberg case and talk to the detective who worked on the Anteroinen case again. It was weird how stingy he was with me, so just tell him we’re looking for a connection between the homicides. The tiniest link might be crucial.”

  Oksanen seemed less than enthusiastic and didn’t bother hiding it, but he had to follow orders. I had more stripes.

  7

  Stenman and I met at 9 a.m. outside the residence of the former Seija Laurén. She was using her maiden name again and was now Seija Haapala. She lived in one of the newer apartment buildings in Arabianranta. Her airy home had been decorated in an Indian vibe, dark wood furniture accented with colorful pillows, boxes, candles, and jars. Our hostess looked like an ex-groupie who had retained most of the looks such pursuits demanded. Her hair was dyed red. My instinctive assessment was almost right on the mark.

  “We met in college, when Reka’s band performed at a party we were throwing. I was studying design at the University of Art and Design at the time and Reka was studying music at the Sibelius Academy. We were both so artsy, so artsy. He came back to my dorm afterward and spent the night. The usual story. Our daughter Mandi was born three years later, but we got married before that. The first years were wonderful. He was so much fun when he was sober, but when he was drunk, the darker side started coming out more and more often. He should have stayed away from alcohol and pot. We might still be married if he had.”

  “We’re interested in learning about his friends from childhood and adolescence.”

  “I already told you what I know. Was it you I talked to?” she asked, nodding in Stenman’s direction.

  “Yes. I asked you to spend some time thinking back while looking at old photographs, to see if they might help you remember something.”

  “I did, but it didn’t spark anything. Why don’t you guys just sit back and wait? Reka will come out of the woodwork when he needs help.”

  “We’d like to find him as soon as possible.”

  “Why? Are you afraid he’ll do something to himself…” Seija raised a hand to her mouth. “Has he already done something to someone?”

  “Not to our knowledge,” I said.

  “Two detectives wouldn’t go to the trouble of calling and then coming by if it weren’t something serious.”

  “We want to make sure nothing serious happens. What about his musician friends? Has he been in touch with them?”

  The look of concern didn’t fade from Seija’s face.

  “Two died from overdoses, one lives in Australia, and another one somewhere up in Lapland, in the sticks… all I know about him is his first name, Jukka, they called him Juki… did you know Reka was convicted of narcotics possession about ten years ago?”

  “Your ex-husband ended up in psychiatric treatment during your time together. Why do you think that was?”

  “Not because of me, that’s for sure. Maybe it ran in the family. Reka said his mom was schizophrenic. Since the family was upper crust, it was kept secret as long as possible.”

  “Did something happen while you were together that triggered the illness?”

  “I think it was the marijuana. When we divorced, Reka moved to Tibet for more than two years to seek enlightenment. He sure didn’t find any there, came back darker than ever. If you have a family history of schizophrenia, smoking pot’s a bad idea. I can tell you from experience that marijuana isn’t the innocent natural product people say it is.”

  “Did you ever talk with the doctors who treated him?”

  “They wouldn’t say anything, even to me. Patient confidentiality, apparently. They wouldn’t have told me if he’d confessed he planned on killing during his next visit home. OK, he didn’t kill me. So I guess the treatment worked.”

  “What about the names I mentioned, Lars Sandberg and Leo Anteroinen?” Stenman asked.

  “They still don’t say anything. Who are they?”

  “Anteroinen was born in 1951, comes from Kurikka, a custodian or maintenance man, moved to Kouvola at some point. Sandberg was born in Pietarsaari in 1953 and was a financial officer by profession. Worked at a bank, an insurance company, and the B.E. Kajasto Foundation in Kotka.”

  “They’re both ten years older than Reka. He didn’t hang out with anyone that old… why do you think he knew them?”

  “We just want to find out if he did.”

  “You guys don’t try to figure out stuff like that for no reason… what did the one guy do for a living, again?”

  “CFO.”

  “The other one.”

  “Anteroinen was both a custodian and a maintenance man.”

  Haapala ruffled her red mane, clearly trying to access memories that had faded long ago. I reflected that she must have been really hot when she was younger. She was still beautiful and seemed to subconsciously give off lighter-than-air sex molecules. Arja probably didn’t notice it, but I was having a hard time concentrating.

  “Something crossed my mind, but I lost it. I think Reka talked about some custodian once in a negative tone. It somehow stuck with me, because he usually talked trash about the big shots and left the grunts alone.”

  “When was the last time he was in touch with you?” I asked.

  Seija looked at me as if she were weighing something up. What was going through her head, I had no idea. I suppose I’d assessed her appearance, too. Maybe she’d sensed that.

  “It’s been months, I can’t even remember exactly. Had to do with spending time with his daughter. We agreed that he’d call when he wanted to see Mandi. They usually met in town, went out to eat, the usual.”

  “Do you know, does he have a second home – a summer cabin or the like? He has to be living somewhere.”

  “Not that I know of… at one point he talked about buying an RV, but I don’t know if he did.”

  I jotted down in my notebook: RV? It was the first note I had made.

  “If your ex-husband hated something, do you know who or what that would be?” Stenman asked, shrewdly.

  “Reka was an angry young man. At one point he hated everything, especially authority figures: politicians, police officers, rich people, teachers, deans, professors. The last of these was presumably because he was kicked out of the university, even though he loved music.”

  “Was he religio
us?”

  “Was he ever, and probably still is, at least in his own way. That ran in the family, too. His dad was religious; that whole side of the family was. I think there were even a couple of pastors in there, or at least preachers. That was probably one of the reasons we broke up. When Reka was flying high, he wanted me to believe, too, and to get involved in that scene, but I wouldn’t.”

  “What about when he was flying low?” I asked.

  “Pure hell. He was constantly flitting between heaven and hell. When he was young, he planned on studying theology. I suppose he studied it at some level at the Daybreak Academy, too, but then music entered the picture, along with booze, weed, women, me…”

  “The Daybreak Academy?”

  Seija chuckled. “And the boarding house was called the Daybreak House. Pretty pious, huh? The Academy was run by the Church of the Redemption. Reka attended high school there. The couple of friends I mentioned were from that period. I heard one is a professor at Oxford these days. The other was a doctor but shot himself. I don’t know either of their names. Reka never wanted to introduce me to his friends, and to be honest, I wasn’t that interested in meeting them.”

  “One last question,” I said. “Does the Sacred Vault say anything to you, or the Adorner of the Sacred Vault?”

  “It sure does. The Sacred Vault was a secret society founded by the kids at the Daybreak Academy; Reka was one of the founding members. Try and guess if I got sick of hearing about Sacred Vault this, Sacred Vault that when he was drunk.”

  Stenman and I exchanged glances. Seija’s revelation might prove a shortcut to the secret.

  “What was the point of the secret society?”

  “What’s the point of any secret society boys join? I guess it satisfied some yearning for excitement and mysticism in a rigid environment. I think it kind of goes with the territory at that age, like building forts and mopeds. Now kids that age have computer games and Harry Potter.”

  “Your ex-husband must have told you something about this club, if he mentioned it frequently?” Stenman said.

  “It had religious undertones, but there’s nothing weird about that, either, when you consider that a lot of those boys came from religious families. One of their dads was a bishop, I think, and there were a few who were pastors’ sons. It was all about some battle between good and evil; the boys from the Vault represented good, of course. They had their own persnickety rules and rituals they weren’t allowed to talk about or they’d be denied God’s goodness and truth for thirty years. The number symbolized the thirty pieces of silver given to Judas.”

  30 pieces of silver, I wrote in my notebook.

  “So who represented evil, then?” I asked.

  “The conversation never got any deeper than that, because when he saw I thought the whole thing was silly, he got mad and shut up like a clam.”

  “Apparently Reka held a high position in the society’s ranking?”

  “I guess. One time he showed me a picture of him posing in some ceremonial outfit. It was a white apron and a short cape with a hood. I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. Reka was furious.”

  “Was there anyone else in the picture?”

  “Three other members of the club. They were the only ones who had the right to break the seals that contained the Gospel of the Three Angels.”

  Seija laughed, but suddenly her laughter turned into gasping tears. “I shouldn’t have laughed. It was a big deal to Reka. He thought of himself as some sort of champion of truth.”

  I rewound a little: “Going back to evil, did he ever even hint as to who represented evil to them?”

  Seija took a moment to wipe her eyes. “According to Reka, they had one ceremony where they symbolically slayed evil. In it, evil was represented by a wolf in sheep’s clothing. That’s all I remember. I think evil was an abstraction for them, not real. What would boys that age know about genuine evil? They’d all lived sheltered lives.”

  Seija’s cell phone rang on the hall table, and she hurried off to answer. Based on what we could hear, it was her daughter calling.

  “Sorry. My daughter. Where were we…? I made it clear I thought the whole secret society business was childish. Reka was somehow stuck on it, even though it had been God knows how many years since high school.”

  “Do you have the photograph of the Vault members posing together?” Stenman asked.

  “Are you kidding? Reka guarded it with his life; it was his only picture of the whole thing. Besides, like I said, everything was supposedly top secret.”

  “What about other pictures of your ex-husband?”

  “Of course.”

  Seija started rummaging through the living-room cabinets and hoisted a thick brown photo album onto the table.

  “Here are a few of the most recent ones.” The photos were loose between the pages, and Seija handed them to Stenman. I’d seen the twenty-year-old picture of Laurén we had requisitioned from the driver’s licensing office. These photographs, on the other hand, showed a narrow-faced forty-year-old gazing somewhere over the photographer’s left shoulder. He had an absentminded stare on his face, as if pondering some personal problem that demanded rapid resolution. He looked like he hadn’t been getting much sleep. The stubble, greasy dark hair, and red plaid flannel shirt gave a disheveled impression.

  “We’ll borrow these,” I said.

  “Feel free. They were taken about three years ago. He helped out when Mandi and I moved here.”

  “Can I have a look at the album?”

  Seija hesitated, but then handed it to me. Stenman came and stood next to me so we would be seeing the same thing.

  The photos were the typical shots taken of a budding relationship. First came kisses and caresses, then a little more distance. Pictures from Linnanmäki theme park, Jim Morrison’s grave, the Eiffel Tower, parties, a summer cabin – apparently the in-laws’. A few shots of the band, with Laurén playing solos. A group of people standing around an old-fashioned Lucifer grill, grilling sausages. In the background, berry bushes and apple trees and a cute white cottage with green trim. Judging by the size of the apples, it was already August. Then the daughter, Mandi, appeared in the young couple’s life and grew in leaps and bounds. Mandi at the maternity clinic, Mandi crawling on the lawn, Mandi in her kindergarten nativity play, Mandi at the beach somewhere in southern Europe, Mandi at Särkänniemi amusement park, and, before long, we were already at Mandi’s first day at school.

  “The dad and daughter seem to have a close relationship,” I offered.

  “Two peas in a pod.”

  “Could we have your daughter’s phone number?”

  “She’s a minor,” Seija immediately said.

  “She’s not suspected of anything. Maybe she’ll remember something her dad told her that could help us.”

  “I’d feel better about it if I knew why it is you need our help.”

  As investigative lead, communicating about the case was my call. I was also free to discuss the investigation if necessary. I decided to avail myself of my right and crack the veil of secrecy.

  “Your husband contacted us, and the conversation left us with the impression that he intends on committing a violent crime. If that’s the case, we want to prevent it, so he doesn’t get himself into deep trouble.”

  Seija didn’t appear to take this information very seriously. “Who was he threatening, supposedly? Reka isn’t violent; at most he talks tough. When he used to get mad at me, he’d slam the door and disappear for a few hours. He never displayed any violent tendencies. I was more violent with him. I threw a glass at him once, and another time I broke the skin at the corner of his eye with a wooden hanger. But he never responded violently.”

  “He suffers from schizophrenia,” I reminded her.

  “He did back then, too.”

  “We don’t want to leave anything to chance. It’s for his own good, too. Can we get Mandi’s number?” Stenman asked again.

  Seija wrote the number down on
the corner of the newspaper, tore it off, and handed it to Stenman.

  “One more question. According to the information we have, your ex-husband was dating. The woman’s name was Roosa Nevala. Did you ever meet her, or did he tell you anything about her?”

  “No. Sometimes he hinted that he had no shortage of women. He might have even been telling the truth. He knew how to get women to like him if he wanted to.”

  “What do you think?” I asked Stenman as we stepped into the elevator. At the same time, I pulled out my phone and saw Huovinen had called three times and texted me: Call ASAP! The message had arrived fifteen minutes ago.

  “Did you notice what—” Stenman began.

  “Wait a sec. Huovinen.”

  I brought up Huovinen’s number. “Sorry I couldn’t call. We were talking to Laurén’s ex-wife and my phone was on silent.”

  Huovinen ignored my apology. “Have you seen today’s Ilta-Sanomat?”

  “No. What’s in it?”

  “That funeral pyre in Metsälä the night before last. They were on the scene, filming, when that lunatic lit it. It’s also online. There’s a limit, even with the tabloids. I think we’re talking about criminal incitement.”

  “Who wrote the article?”

  “That same reporter who went public with the theft of the body, Maisio or Moisio or whatever. For some reason, Laurén has taken the guy into his confidence. Could you talk to him again? I’ll have a word with the editor-in-chief.”

  Huovinen and I agreed that I would come see him the minute I got back to the office.

  “What now?” Stenman asked.

  I related what Huovinen had told me. “There’s a reporter who hasn’t spent a lot of time considering what it’s going to feel like for that woman’s loved ones to see her body go up in flames. You were saying something before I called Huovinen.”

  “Laurén’s wife claimed his fellow band members were either dead or have been out of the picture for years. That’s not true.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you see the shot of the band called Holy Night?”

  “What about it?”

  “The other guitarist was Ola Sotamaa. He’s a regular presence on television, one of the music shows. He’s some sort of music journalist.”