Holy Ceremony

by Harri Nykanen

  “I hope you’re serious about that woman.”

  “I’m always serious at the beginning.”

  “Why don’t you try being serious at the end, too, for once. I want to throw a proper bachelor party for you and a blowout wedding. Why don’t you give your big brother and the community that little pleasure? Everyone’s panting for confirmed bachelor Ariel Kafka’s traditional wedding.”

  “So you want me to get married to please you and the rest of the community?”

  “Two perfectly good reasons. At least don’t hem and haw. Make your move as soon as it feels like it.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  “It’s unfortunate that dating isn’t a DVD you can fast forward. Or rewind, for that matter. Marriage has the same problem. Otherwise there are a few scenes I’d skip.”

  “Do you know a lawyer named Henry Silén, who disappeared a couple of months ago?”

  “Everyone knows Henry. Did he turn up? Alive, I hope.”

  “No. What are people in the field saying about his disappearance?”

  “Some say one thing, others say something else. He had a big list of investor clients, and the word on the street is that a lot of them lost their money and that’s why it was wisest for him to disappear. Last two times he was in similar debacles he disappeared to the States for months.”

  “What debacles?”

  “First time was over a dozen years ago. It had something to do with a major endowment from some foundation and investing the money. The endowment was donated about the same time the founder of the foundation died. The family members felt Silén had transferred money overseas that belonged to them.”

  “What happened in the end?”

  “The endowment recipient, I don’t remember who it was, came to an understanding with the claimants.”

  “What about the other case?”

  “You should remember that one. It was about five years ago. He got sixteen months with no probation for aggravated fraud. A classic case. Bought worthless real estate with client money and when the money evaporated, he tried to say he’d just had a run of bad luck with investments. I was surprised Silén let himself make such a basic blunder. He’s not stupid, but he’s greedy. That can blur your judgment. This latest case is unfortunate in that these new investors are on the feistier side, motorcycle gangs and the like.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  “You weren’t dumb enough to give him your rubles to invest, were you?”

  “What rubles? I don’t have any rubles to invest.”

  “A methodical savings plan can work miracles. Well, not for you, maybe. I heard he had a house in Portugal. He’s probably there.”

  “Without saying anything to his wife?”

  “I can’t say until I see the wife. Plenty of men have headed out to buy a pack of cigarettes and disappeared down that smooth road. The only one who knows what’s going through a man’s head is the man himself.”

  “There’s also a rumor that he’s been killed.”

  “I find that hard to believe. It’s pretty rare to get your money back from a dead man. Is there a new development in the case, or why are you asking?”

  I didn’t answer, and Eli griped: “I forgot my little brother whose ass I used to wipe and diapers I used to change doesn’t trust me. That’s the way it’s always been and always will be.”

  “You don’t share information about your clients, either.”

  16

  One of the most miserable sides to this job is waking up with a hangover at the crack of dawn to your boss calling and ordering you to take over a crime scene investigation. Eli and I had hung out at my place for a couple of rounds and then headed out to a local pub to continue. He’d wanted to treat me to a rare island malt. It was refined and expensive, so refined that it tempted me into indulging in an immoderate number of rounds, especially when Eli claimed to have caught a hint of something only a poet could accurately express. By the time we said goodnight, I was moderately inebriated as a result of all this immoderation.

  So of course the phone woke me up immoderately early, in other words a quarter past six. It was Huovinen.

  “Sorry for the early wake-up, but I want you to head out to Roihuvuori and assume responsibility for an investigation.”

  I was having a hard time focusing but managed to ask: “What’s going on?”

  “The bank manager you told me about yesterday has been killed.”

  “Halme?”

  “Yes. There might well be a connection to your present investigation.”

  Halme dead, I thought. He was supposed to send me a list of the members of the Sacred Vault. That’s as far as I got in my musings before my thoughts dissipated.

  “The body was found in the terrain between Marjaniemi and Roihuvuori, near the allotment gardens. He was probably killed late last night.”

  I knew the area. A buddy of mine had owned a little cottage in the allotment gardens. It was like a suburb for Santa’s elves. The cabins were teeny, tidy, and red. The garden gnomes looked like the inhabitants, the owners like curious tourists.

  “Are you in any shape to go?” Huovinen asked, after noting the thickness in my voice.

  “Eli and I had a few last night, that’s all.”

  “Sounds like more than a few. Can you drive?”

  “I wouldn’t take the risk, and I don’t have a car anyway.”

  “I’ll have Simolin pick you up,” Huovinen said.

  “Thanks.”

  The thanks was sarcastic, but it was lost on Huovinen.

  Simolin and I drove in silence against the traffic to eastern Helsinki. Once the ibuprofen kicked in, I was able to concentrate on Halme’s death. I was sure it had to do with Laurén one way or another. I just couldn’t figure out why Laurén would have killed Halme, unless he was afraid Halme was about to reveal something about him he didn’t want made public.

  “Where does Halme live?” I asked Simolin, certain that he already knew.

  “Jollas.”

  “So he had some reason to be in Marjaniemi last night.”

  “Halme was supposed to give us that list of names,” Simolin said. “Pretty strange coincidence that someone chose to get rid of him just now.”

  “It’s not a coincidence.”

  I pictured the allotment garden area and had a thought. “Laurén is hiding out somewhere. An allotment garden cottage would be a good hiding place.”

  “Then Halme must have been lying to us. He knew how to get in touch with Laurén, maybe even knew where he is.” Simolin’s tone was disapproving. “But if the killer was Laurén and he’s staying in a cottage, why would he have killed Halme right on his doorstep? He’d be risking getting caught.”

  “I don’t think it was Laurén. Remember, Halme said he was going to make a few calls. Maybe he called the wrong person.”

  “No one kills just because they’re about to be exposed as a member of the Vault.”

  “You’re right, unless they’ll also be exposed as Anteroinen’s or Kivalo’s killer.”

  We reached the spot where the body was found a little after seven. The directions led us from Tulisuontie onto a dirt road. After a drive of about a hundred yards, we reached a green metal side gate. It had a sign that read Forest Gate.

  The morning gloom had brightened into a gray, windy spring day. The body was lying in a ditch, half-covered by a bush and dry underbrush. A pair of legs dressed in un-bank-manager-like jeans rose up to the edge of the ditch. I squatted down. The right cheek was pressed against the soil and crushed rock; the left was clearly visible. Sometimes death froze people in peculiar positions. Some dead people looked alarmed, some surprised, some drowsy. One eye might be open, the other closed, the mouth gaping. Generally people just looked like they had fallen asleep in the middle of dying. Halme looked thoughtful. Maybe it was because the rock under his cheek was pressing the corner of his eye up. The fact that the blood from the gunshot wound had continued the arch of his eyebro
ws might have added to the impression. It looked like a clumsy beautician had smudged makeup into his brows.

  The crime scene investigators were there, along with the duty sergeant, Leimu from Takamäki’s team.

  “Shot at least twice with a .22,” he said.

  “Robbery?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. No phone, though. Wallet was there, driver’s license in it. Made for an easy ID. Dog walker found him around 5:30.”

  Leimu handed me the wallet. In addition to the driver’s license, it contained a little over two hundred euros, a credit card, some business cards, and a couple of parking tickets. Leimu jiggled the keys. They belonged to a Volvo.

  “Any sign of the car? I doubt he came by bus if he had keys in his pocket.”

  “The closest cars are on Tulisuontie,” Leimu said.

  “Could you call in for the registration? We already know the make. Then you check the vicinity to find it. Or just try the key with any nearby Volvos.”

  Through the trees, I saw Vuorio’s Benz pull up. He parked a good hundred yards away on the dirt road.

  “Doesn’t anyone else work at the medical examiner’s anymore?” I asked, as he walked up.

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  I left Vuorio to do what he did best and stepped aside. Simolin and Leimu followed me.

  As I looked around, I had a flash of inspiration. I remembered a trick a crime scene investigator had taught me during an investigation of the murder of two Arabs at Linnunlaulu.

  “Just a sec.”

  I rushed back over to the body and bent down to examine Halme’s footwear. A pair of walking shoes with deep grooves. The grooves contained bits of the jagged gravel that covered the paths in the allotment garden.

  Vuorio shot me an amused look. I returned to Simolin and Leimu. I addressed Leimu first: “Bring in more officers to cordon off the area and search the garden cottages. The dead man might have met an individual we’re searching for in one of them. And I want you to take over the cottage searches,” I said, lightly jabbing Simolin.

  Simolin eyed the gardens stretching out beyond. “There are quite a few of them, a couple hundred at least.”

  “They’re still empty this early in the year. If my memory serves me right, you’re not allowed to move in until May Day. If someone is staying in one, it will be obvious… or wait one more sec.”

  I had Laurén’s wife’s number in my phone. Judging by how chipper she sounded, she’d been awake before I called. I’d pictured her as the sleeping-in type. After identifying myself, I asked: “Do you know which one of your ex-husband’s friends has a cottage at the Marjaniemi allotment gardens?”

  “What makes you think any of them do?” she said. “None, as far as I know.”

  “There was an old picture in your photo album from a garden party. There was a white cottage with green trim in the background. Whose was it?”

  “Oh, that. Now I remember. That was in Marjaniemi. It was before Mandi.”

  “Whose cottage is it?”

  “Sotamaa’s, or I guess it was his parents’ back then. I only went there once… what about it?”

  I thanked her and hung up. “Laurén’s college buddy has a cottage here. He might be holed up there… wait one more sec.”

  My next call hit the bullseye. This time, there was no doubt Sotamaa had been roused when the phone rang.

  “Your family has a cottage at Marjaniemi. I want the address and number.”

  “What the hell… calling in the middle of the night… what cottage—”

  “Stop yanking my chain,” I snapped. “Give me the address. And if you call Laurén to warn him after we hang up I’m going to make sure you face charges of hindering an investigation.”

  Sotamaa frittered away a few seconds as he weighed the situation.

  “Puolukkatie 177. How the fuck did you guys find out… can we make a deal that you won’t tell—”

  I covered the phone’s mic and whispered to Simolin: “Puolukkatie 177.” He understood me the first time and went and grabbed a police patrol to accompany him.

  I continued grilling Sotamaa: “Why don’t we agree here and now you’re going to tell me what’s going on. You’ve been misleading the police. You might not believe it, but that’s a bad thing.”

  “Come on, it can’t be a crime to put a roof over an old pal’s head… you guys weren’t looking for him back then… and I still don’t know what he’s suspected of, so I can’t be guilty of doing anything.”

  He was right, but there was no point letting him know that.

  “Besides, I’m pretty sure I told you I like cops as much as I like having ticks on my balls. For me, they represent the machinery of violence. Not ticks, cops.”

  It was a new slur, and I gave Sotamaa some points for that. Usually we had to listen to the same old tired jokes and unimaginative insults.

  “If you really want to know, he’s suspected of a couple of murders. As a tiny cog in the machinery of violence, it’s my job to investigate such things.” I was exaggerating, but I figured a fearful, guilt-ridden Sotamaa would be more talkative than a self-confident cop-hater. “If he commits another one, part of the burden will fall on your shoulders.”

  Sotamaa couldn’t think of anything else to say than “Fucking fucking fuck.”

  “What was the reason he gave you for needing a place to stay? He has an apartment in Töölö.”

  “Because some crazy bastard from his drug-using days was after him.”

  “When did he move into the cottage?”

  “About a week ago.”

  “What else did he tell you?”

  “Nothing. I gave him the keys and told him not to show his face outside, because you’re only supposed to stay in the cottages during the summer.”

  “Does the name Kai Halme mean anything to you?”

  “Of course I know Kaitsu. Old Daybreak crew.”

  “Who else knew where Laurén was staying?”

  “No one, as far as I know. I didn’t tell anyone, that’s for sure. When I brought him to the cottage, some custodian saw us, but… Now I have a couple of questions of my own to ask—”

  I left Sotamaa in the throes of a healthy uncertainty and ended the call.

  “The gate’s locked,” Simolin said. I glanced over and saw the fence was crowned with four-inch finials. One of those in the wrong place would feel highly unpleasant.

  Sergeant Leimu followed the fence and called out: “There aren’t any spikes on the pedestrian gate.”

  The smaller gate was a good ten yards from the one intended for vehicles. It was low enough that scrambling over it was no problem.

  “This is Muuraintie. There’s got to be a map of the area somewhere near the main gate,” Simolin said, as we marched toward the eastern edge of the gardens.

  “If we only knew where that was,” Sergeant Leimu said.

  The gravel crackled under our feet. A sky-blue cottage, apple trees, and decorative ironwork gate; Mustikkatie, a pale-yellow cottage, and a red toolshed. Bushes and flowerbeds and a couple of apple trees.

  Sergeant Leimu noticed it first: “Puolukkatie.”

  “147. The next one is 149. The numbers increase as they move northwards,” Simolin announced.

  After walking almost a hundred yards, I recognized the cottage from the photo album. The number 177 on the doorjamb helped. The cottage was more decrepit than its neighbors. The unpainted wooden gate was as weathered as an old barn. The felt roof looked like it was sagging. The windows were trimmed in decorative light-green woodwork. Sotamaa hadn’t seemed like much of a handyman; he probably didn’t even own a power drill. He had blithely allowed the cottage tended with such care by the previous generation to fall apart.

  As I moved closer, I noted the dark curtains pulled across the windows.

  “Who are we looking for, the killer?” Leimu asked. He’d been resolutely silent up until now.

  “I think Halme came to see whoever is staying in the cotta
ge.”

  “Is he dangerous?” one of the police officers asked, reaching for his Glock.

  “I don’t think so. You guys go around and approach the rear from the neighboring lot. He might try to escape out the back.”

  The police officers headed off to look around the back. I gave them two minutes. Then I opened the gate; the hinges squeaked, begging to be oiled. There was no movement anywhere, or any sign that there was anyone inside the cottage.

  I paused to listen outside the door before knocking loudly. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the policemen approaching in the cover of the trees.

  “Laurén! Come out, it’s Ariel.”

  Using my first name, which carried symbolic value for Laurén, was a conscious tactic. I knocked again, but still nothing. I tried the door. It was unlocked, and cracked open.

  “Laurén, I want to talk to you,” I announced, stepping in. I sniffed the air like a proper bloodhound. It smelled of damp rag rug, coffee, and butane.

  The cottage was tiny, so I hit the rear wall almost immediately. To the right there was a combined living room and bedroom, with a green sleeping bag bunched up on the bed. A small dresser butted up against the foot of the bed; an armchair covered with a green blanket stood in the corner. The decor consisted of a cheap color print on the wall, peasants making hay. The sun-drenched work was clearly a copy of some famous oil painting. As I glanced at the floor, I discovered the source of the butane smell: an old-fashioned heater next to the wall. I turned left toward something resembling a kitchenette. The table there had a coffee mug on it, along with a pint of low-fat milk, a package of margarine, a hunk of cheese, a couple of bananas, an opened strawberry yogurt, and a loaf of rye bread with a slice cut out of it. I tested the kettle. It was still hot.

  We had interrupted Laurén’s modest breakfast. He fled from us a hungry man.

  I silently cursed Sotamaa. My threats hadn’t frightened him enough. He had warned his buddy after all.

  I peered out into the yard from the rear window. I saw a pair of policemen crouched down behind a berry bush, weapons raised. I turned right back to Simolin, who had followed at my heels.