Below the Surface

by Leena Lehtolainen

  The article listed each stage of my career and commented briefly on my half-year digression into legal practice.

  Apparently Detective Kallio isn’t interested in money—as a lawyer she earned several times more than she does as a police officer. Her selection as the head of the Espoo Police Violent Crime Unit in 1996 was a veritable miracle since she was already scheduled for maternity leave. Employment policies like that only work in the public sector. It would seem that the selection was influenced by Detective Kallio’s success in solving the murder of the figure skater Noora Nieminen. After returning from maternity leave, Detective Kallio led the investigation into the Rödskär serial killings and made waves in Espoo politics when she solved the murder of Councilman Petri Ilveskivi. According to rumors, Kallio’s superiors were under fierce pressure to quash the investigation, but Detective Kallio stood up to them.

  “Maria, the pace of your work seems intense. How do you mesh murder investigations and motherhood? Are you a superwoman like we see on TV?”

  “Not at all!” Kallio exclaims, obviously agitated. “My daughter has a father too, and we found a lovely day care that’s been a good fit for her. Finnish women work, and it doesn’t matter whether they’re police officers, teachers, or textile factory workers.”

  However, there aren’t many mothers whose lives are in danger when they go to work and who have to deal with murderers. One of Detective Kallio’s colleagues was killed in a dramatic standoff in January 1996, and it was pure luck that Kallio didn’t end up a victim of the same prison escapee. Later a bomb was placed in the Kallio family mailbox during the Espoo politics investigation. Kallio won’t comment on whether she always carries a gun.

  “I don’t feel like more guns and walls are the solution to the increasing violence in society. We need to find the causes of violence and focus on prevention,” she says, showing an idealism uncommon among the police.

  “Doesn’t constantly dealing with the dark side of life get to you?”

  “Family is the best antidote to that,” is all Kallio will say.

  Detective Kallio married in 1995. Her husband is a mathematician, and they have a four-year-old daughter. For security reasons she won’t mention their names in the media. A second child is coming in the spring. Kallio is an avid athlete and plays the bass guitar. The family’s pet is a fifteen-year-old cat named Einstein.

  That mention made my eyes tear up. Einstein had died two weeks after we moved into the urban confines of the White Cube. He’d had a free-roaming life at our old place, but that wasn’t possible in our new home. We’d thought about giving him to Antti’s parents in Inkoo, but Antti’s father was seriously ill and my mother-in-law wasn’t interested in looking after a cat too. Sometimes I got the feeling Antti missed Einstein even more than I did—he’d been Antti’s cat originally.

  Explaining to Hackman why I didn’t want Antti’s and Iida’s names mentioned in the article took forever. And I felt uncomfortable having to correct my colleague’s titles and the year of my marriage, when I didn’t think they had anything to do with the subject of the article. Hackman would have liked me to talk more about my private life and the feelings I had about my work, and she was disappointed when I wouldn’t. For a second when I was really irritated I’d thought about saying that dead bodies turned me on, but fortunately I had the sense to keep my mouth shut. With my luck, that would have ended up as the headline.

  Just then my phone started playing Pelle Miljoona’s “Violence and a Drug Problem,” which meant the call was coming from work.

  “Hi, it’s Kemppinen from the front desk. I have reporters asking about the shooting at Lake Humaljärvi. Should I transfer them to you?”

  “What, right now? Didn’t Puustjärvi write up a press release?”

  “Both tabloids and the news wire want to know the identity of the victim. They got a tip that it was some other reporter.”

  Maybe reporters were like cops: when one of their own gets killed, they put even more energy than usual into finding answers. It was 10 p.m., and of course they wanted this homicide for their morning headlines.

  I tried to remain objective about the press, so I decided to take the calls. Maybe working was better than staying up drinking whiskey and watching dumb movies. I selected the first number Kemppinen had given me. I decided not to reveal Annukka Hackman’s identity. I could always say that the family hadn’t all been notified yet.

  In the end it was eleven o’clock before I made it through all the media inquiries. At seven the next morning when I turned my phone on again, four more callback requests were waiting in my voice mail. We’d have to hold a press conference at some point in the afternoon.

  That morning the whole unit was present for our daily meeting. Koivu looked more alert than the previous day. Ursula was painting her nails dark brown, and Puustjärvi sat next to her, grinning. I left the Hackman case for last, because it would involve the most discussion and delegation.

  According to Puustjärvi, nothing definitive had been found at the lake other than Hackman’s car, a red Peugeot 406, which had been sent to the lab. The car keys were missing, as was Hackman’s cell phone. In the glovebox the team had found a receipt from a gas station in Kirkkonummi, which showed that Hackman had filled up there the day before yesterday at 3:40 p.m. After visiting the gas station she’d apparently zeroed out the trip meter; it indicated a distance equivalent to that between the station and the lake.

  “We aren’t getting a location when we ping Hackman’s phone, so it might be at the bottom of the lake too. The dragging starts today,” Puustjärvi said.

  “OK, you continue liaising with the Kirkkonummi folks and handle any possible witnesses in the area around the crime scene,” I said. “Koivu, how’s your profile of Hackman coming?”

  “Sini Jääskeläinen called me yesterday. She claims she knows who killed her stepmother. Before Hackman married Jääskeläinen, she dated a guy named Hannu, and apparently he stalked and threatened her. He claimed she broke a promise to marry him.”

  “Hannu? Did the girl know his last name?”

  “She says she doesn’t. I’ll find out from her dad.”

  “So one line of investigation is this Hannu character. Fine. What else?”

  “Maija Annukka Hackman, maiden name Väänänen. Born in Espoo, graduated magna cum laude from North Tapio High School in 1989. Her marriage to Jääskeläinen is her second, and it started a year ago in the spring. Before that she was married to Janne Hackman, and that marriage lasted from December 1993 until the following summer. She studied marketing communications, and landed her first job as a summer reporter for a local radio station, then Society magazine for a few years, then moved into newspapers at Iltalehti. She’s been a freelancer for the past two years, and she founded her own communications agency, which merged with Racing Stripe Publishing earlier this year. She specializes in motorsports and personal profiles. She’s done articles on everyone from government ministers and race-car drivers to single moms and lady cops.” Koivu grinned at me.

  “OK. You focus on Atro and Sine Jääskeläinen. Ursula, could you start going through Hackman’s coworkers and contacts? This Sasha Smeds book is particularly interesting.”

  “So I get to interview Sasha Smeds?” Ursula asked, faking the innocence in her smile.

  “If necessary. Puupponen, are you the one with the autopsy report?”

  “Nope. There isn’t one.” A wry expression appeared on Puupponen’s face. “Kervinen is on duty, but he won’t open her up. Hackman was an old girlfriend of his.”

  “Girlfriend?” I’d always had a hard time imagining Kervinen being interested in living people. “Why didn’t you say so up front?”

  “One thing at a time, you always say. Hackman and Kervinen dated a couple of years ago. Apparently Hackman was dating Kervinen and Atro Jääskeläinen at the same time and then chose Jääskeläinen.”

  “But that means . . .”

  “Yeah. The threatening ex-boyfriend is
our very own Hannu ‘Carcass’ Kervinen. He was pretty tense on the phone,” Puupponen said with a forced laugh. Even though Kervinen wasn’t technically part of our unit or department, he was still part of our investigative team. And interviewing a colleague can be tough. Many of us had more than enough experience to know that.

  I sighed. “Maybe it’s best if I handle this one. Koivu, you can come with me. We’ll talk to him together. Let’s look at our schedules after the meeting and then you can set up a time with Kervinen—”

  “What do you mean, you two will talk to him?” Ursula half stood from her chair. “I’ve never had anything to do with Kervinen, so I can stay neutral. You’ve known him for years. And Koivu was supposed to interview Jääskeläinen. Maria, let me handle Kervinen!”

  Ursula Honkanen had landed her place in our unit thanks to her indisputable competence. She was twenty-eight years old. After initially studying economics at the University of Tampere, she grew bored of how theoretical everything was and joined the army, after which she applied to the police academy. She’d spent a year in Lahti working white-collar crime but then transferred to us as resources were shifted nationally from financial to violent crime. Ursula was an attractive woman, five foot ten and thin, with short blond hair. I’d heard Puupponen and Autio debating whether she was packing any silicone, since certain parts of her seemed out of proportion with the rest of her slender frame.

  “Ursula, the Smeds angle might be important and requires some delicacy. You said you’d be happy to interview him. Does anyone know where he lives?”

  “Inkoo. That’s where half the rally drivers in Finland live,” Puustjärvi replied. “But I doubt he’s home now. The Australian rally just ended.”

  I divided the rest of the tasks, then started polishing another news release with the department press officer. Publicity was frequently useful, since regular people liked helping the police. But sometimes it was also difficult to decide which facts would help an investigation and which would hurt it if made public. The moose hunters knew that Hackman had been shot and someone had leaked that to the press. Now it was time to release the victim’s identity. Koivu confirmed that all next-of-kin had already been notified.

  “Kervinen’s on his way over,” Koivu announced after I wrapped up my meeting with the press officer. “He took the rest of the day off. If there’s a bright side to this, it’s that we won’t have to bother Jääskeläinen to identify the body. Kervinen confirmed that it’s her.”

  I’d never particularly liked Hannu “Carcass” Kervinen. He didn’t engage in the dark humor most pathologists seemed to indulge in, something I’d always figured was a natural, human defense against the macabre nature of their work. In fact, Kervinen didn’t joke at all. To him, bodies were strictly research subjects that only aroused an intellectual interest. Maybe that was a defensive measure too.

  “Bring him to my office and ask for some coffee and sandwiches. We won’t have time for lunch since we have the Jääskeläinen job in the afternoon.”

  “Are you coming along on that too?”

  “You help me here, and I’ll help you there. Did you sleep last night?”

  “Five hours straight. I think that’s a record.”

  I laughed, remembering all too well those nights when Taneli was an infant. I’d often sleep on the living room couch with ear plugs in while Antti attempted to calm Taneli’s cries in our bedroom. I never would have survived those first months alone, especially with Iida demanding her own attention as well.

  “Do you know if Kervinen’s married?” I asked Koivu, who immediately started a search on his laptop. I couldn’t remember seeing a ring on the medical examiner’s hand. We’d never talked about children during either of my pregnancies. Still, Kervinen was a couple of years younger than me, and unattached men that age were rare. More than once I’d gotten the feeling that Kervinen didn’t even know what sex was. Apparently I’d been wrong. It was hard to imagine him threatening anyone, though.

  For far too long, the most dangerous thing a woman could do was to leave a certain kind of man. Often there had been previous violence in the relationship, but not always. Sometimes it took being left to set off the late-night phone calls, the skulking in bushes, and the hate mail. The recent legislation creating a system for restraining orders had been long overdue. But the Hackman-Jääskeläinens hadn’t filed a complaint against Kervinen. Maybe Sini had exaggerated the harassment. She hadn’t even remembered Kervinen’s last name after all.

  Koivu stood up to go get Kervinen as Puupponen came by and announced that the autopsy would be performed in the afternoon. He offered to go observe. If Kervinen was the murderer, he probably took steps not to leave any evidence. Shooting was a clean method for a killer since it didn’t require close proximity to the victim. Kervinen would have known to protect himself from gunpowder residue as well.

  When Koivu walked back into my office a few minutes later, carrying a tray of coffee and food, I almost didn’t recognize the man he brought with him. Usually I saw Kervinen in a lab coat, carefully coiffed and groomed. Now his caramel-colored hair stuck up wildly, the collar of his shirt protruded from his winter coat, and his shoes were wet. Kervinen’s frequent changes of aftershave had been a topic of general derision in the department, but today he only smelled of sweat. He sat down in an armchair but didn’t want coffee or tea, and seeing the sandwiches made him look like he was going to be sick. His usually precise hands trembled. I didn’t recognize the expression in his eyes, but it scared me.

  “So you identified Annukka Hackman?” The conversation had to start somewhere, and the only thing I could think of was to get straight to the point.

  “I thought it was just some routine case. I didn’t even look at the name. I just opened the bag. Those eyes . . . and that upper lip . . . But no lower lip, and no jaw. Oh dear God! And then Puupponen calls and asks if it’s an interesting case. Was he fucking with me?”

  Koivu and I glanced at each other. Kervinen didn’t seem like he was in any shape to be questioned.

  “Hannu,” I said, trying to sound comforting. “None of us had a clue that you’d dated Annukka Hackman.”

  “Dated! I was engaged to her. I even bought a bigger apartment so we could move in together. Then she went off with that Jääskeläinen bastard. She was such a goddamn opportunist! Doesn’t her marriage to Janne Hackman tell it all? She just married him for his Swedish last name. That’s the only reason. ‘Väänänen’ wasn’t fancy enough.”

  “How did you two meet?”

  “She was doing a story on the pathology department. That was right when those dismemberments and a few other sensational murders happened, and she was interested in what I knew about that. I guess she thought forensic pathology was like on TV, that I was solving crimes with the police or something . . . Then when she learned the truth, she wasn’t interested anymore.” Kervinen rocked restlessly in his chair. I’d never seen him like this before. I’d only ever known Dr. Kervinen, the professional; the person sitting before me was the private-life version of that man. He was a stranger.

  “You said Annukka was an opportunist. What else can you tell me about her? How else would you describe her?”

  Kervinen slapped his hands on his knees. “The same as you. She had this obsession with finding out the truth and telling the world. She thought people had a right to know what politicians and celebrities did in their free time. She could have been a good detective. She was ready to do anything to get a juicy story, and that was probably why she went to bed with me. And I don’t believe she cared about Jääskeläinen either. She wanted to do a book about Sasha Smeds, but no respectable publisher wanted to get involved with a project that didn’t have Smeds’s consent. She needed Racing Stripe to publish her exposé.”

  I prodded Kervinen to tell us more about their relationship. He responded in a violent tirade, entirely opposite the slow, reserved way he spoke as a pathologist. Occasionally he fingered a bundle of keys clipped to his belt loop,
which also held a couple of small scalpels in plastic cases. Kervinen had bought a diamond ring for Hackman. He’d also sold his beloved studio apartment in the historic center of Helsinki so he could purchase a two-bedroom flat in Tapiola. But as their moving day approached, Annukka announced that she’d decided to marry Atro Jääskeläinen instead.

  “I understand that wasn’t where you left things.”

  “I didn’t do anything bad to her. I just wanted her to take responsibility for her actions, for breaking our engagement and ruining my life.”

  Stalkers often had ways of justifying their actions, especially if the motive for the harassment was unrequited love. Presumably Kervinen had believed that if he tried hard enough, if he rang Hackman’s doorbell at six in the morning and sent endless text messages, she’d come back to him.

  “Have you ever really been in love?” he asked. “So in love that you feel like you’ll die if you can’t get what you want? That your body won’t listen to your brain?”

  Koivu didn’t answer, and neither did I. Finally I asked the question I had to ask.

  “What were you doing the night before last?”

  “I was sitting at home listening to music and missing Annukka. I’ve missed her every damn day since she announced she wanted Jääskeläinen instead of me. Every goddamn day. Maybe it’ll get easier now that she’s dead.”

  Perhaps Kervinen thought we’d suspect him in any case so why not serve up a motive on a silver platter? I leaned toward him, even though the stench of his perspiration made me cringe.

  “Can anyone testify that you were home?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re headed for powder residue testing.”

  Kervinen stood, and for a second I thought he intended to strike me.

  “God, Kallio, don’t you have more respect for me than that? I’m a professional. If I’d shot Annukka, I never would have left a trace.”