Below the Surface

by Leena Lehtolainen

  When Koivu and I reached the unit secretary’s desk, she was still in the process of collating pages of technical reports and witness statements. I searched through the pile for the fingerprint analysis of Kervinen’s computer keyboard. There weren’t any foreign fingerprints, and Kervinen’s own were smudged. Other fingerprints had been found in the apartment, including mine, as well as a hair that they presumed belonged to me. Kervinen really hadn’t cleaned since Hackman’s death. The most interesting thing I saw was a report taken from a witness who had seen Jääskeläinen ringing Kervinen’s downstairs buzzer but hadn’t seen him leave. The morning paper included our request for assistance, and officers were still interviewing neighborhood residents.

  Later, at the morning meeting, Ursula made an appeal to interview the Smeds family once more, this time at the station. “We’ve let them off far too easily, talking to them in their home,” she said. “We should drag the whole lot of them down here. At the very least we need to check their alibis for the night before last.”

  “Maybe Sasha’s just pretending to be hurt and caught a private jet back here to kill Kervinen,” Puupponen suggested.

  We all laughed—which was something we desperately needed. The fall days had grown darker and darker as our investigation had gone nowhere. The night before, I’d dreamed that we found a confession in Kervinen’s apartment, but it was only a dream. Puupponen and Puustjärvi began to outline Kervinen’s activities from the past few days. He’d been at work since the beginning of the week, so maybe his coworkers and the doctor who prescribed his sick leave would be able to tell us whether he’d said anything about suicide. Ursula was right about the Smeds family. We would have to question them again.

  “Ursula and Autio, get Heli Haapala and the Smedses in here for questioning. As far as I know, Rauha and Viktor are unaware of Heli and Andreas’s affair. I don’t think we have any reason to tell them.”

  “Well, aren’t we being tenderhearted,” Lähde said. “If those turds betrayed someone as great as Sasha Smeds, why should the police protect them? God, we’ve got enough work to do already.”

  Lähde was eagerly awaiting the end of his days as a cop, with disability pension papers working their way through the system. His back was constantly acting up. It mostly had to do with his sixty-five pounds of excess weight and complete lack of exercise, but Lähde said he’d rather die than eat rabbit food or give up smoking. We hadn’t had any serious run-ins for ages, not since he’d finally accepted the fact that he had to answer to a female boss.

  I sighed. “You know, Lähde, I just feel like protecting people’s right to privacy and their right not to know some things. OK, you all have your orders. Ursula, please let me know what you work out with the Smeds family once you’ve contacted them.”

  In my office I remembered what Heli Haapala had said about the organic inspector and calving cows. A couple of times Antti had suggested that he could take up raising organic sheep if he didn’t find any other work. My Uncle Pena’s farm on the outskirts of my hometown up north had been empty for the past couple of years. Since his death, the estate had tried in vain to sell it, and Antti had threatened to move there.

  “That sounds fine. At least your math skills would go to good use. I imagine you already know that nowadays the life of a farmer is mostly filling out paperwork and deciphering EU regulations,” I pointed out. Antti had lived his whole life in the city, so it was easy for him to yearn for the romance of a rural idyll. Although a lonely cottage in a northeastern backwater of Finland did sound more pleasant than the White Cube. The digging machines and chainsaws had already started making noise by the time I’d left to take Iida to day care, and poor Antti would have to listen to them for half the day. If none of the Smedses could come in today, I’d go home to let him work.

  I reviewed Hackman’s and Kervinen’s autopsy reports. Kervinen’s cause of death was a broken neck. His body showed various bruises and contusions, the most interesting of which was an abrasion on his neck. “Probably caused as a result of a nylon rope approximately two centimeters in diameter being tightened around the neck,” the report stated. The injury had occurred before Kervinen’s death. I remembered the light-blue nylon rope lying on the floor of his bathroom. We should have it analyzed for DNA. Had he tried to hang himself first—or had someone strangled him until he went unconscious, then pushed him off the balcony? The samples taken from under Kervinen’s fingernails were currently being analyzed. Was his phone call to me cut off when someone wrapped the rope around his neck? A violent headlock could render someone unconscious in under a minute.

  Before Kervinen’s death, I’d sent copies of his diaries to our criminal psychologist. I now sent an e-mail asking him to look for any hints of suicidal tendencies. Unfortunately Kervinen had stopped writing the day before Hackman’s death. Still, perhaps the psychologist would be able to tell us something useful.

  The weekend was coming, and it would probably be the busiest time for Christmas parties. That would mean at least a few assaults, and maybe a rape too. It was my turn to be on call, so I was almost guaranteed to have to come in to the station. Antti had his office party on Saturday, and neither of us had remembered to arrange childcare. Damn it.

  I ran through the options and landed on the one that Iida and Taneli would enjoy most, Matti and Mikko, their cousins on Antti’s side. The boys were sixteen now, and they seemed to enjoy playing with their younger cousins. Antti’s sister, Marita, could come in a pinch, but she’d just started a new relationship with a man who lived in Tampere, and they usually met on the weekends. Antti had taken his sister’s divorce in stride, but his parents had been shocked even though they knew her husband had abused her repeatedly over several years. In the end I’d intervened when I couldn’t stand listening to Marita lie anymore about where her black eyes and broken wrists had come from.

  I was sick of knowing too much about other people’s lives. I didn’t want to read about a tango queen constantly forgiving her husband for beating her or where some professional model had had something trimmed or something added. After the Myyrmanni Mall bombing, Antti was furious when the news showed a picture of the bomber’s home.

  “Is that what people really want, to go look at the house where a terrorist lived? What are they going to do with that information? I can understand publishing his picture in every newspaper—I guess that can help the police—but this is nothing but voyeurism. The other people in that building still have to live there.”

  Of course, most of the revelations printed in the papers were carefully constructed messaging. I would have much preferred to read a detailed analysis of the prime minister’s child benefit plan than what his kids’ favorite bedtime stories were. But a man who read bedtime stories to his children couldn’t be a beast whose decisions would swell day care class sizes and reduce elderly people’s diaper allowances, could he?

  We knew so much more about so many things than our grandparents did, but how much of that information made us wiser than them?

  I was just about to call Antti to tell him I was coming home when Ursula appeared at my door.

  “I talked to Andreas Smeds. Apparently the parents are on some outing in Turku with the Heart Foundation. Andreas said he can come in for questioning after milking, but Heli’s waiting for a calf to be born. What do we do?”

  “You interview Andreas today and the others tomorrow. How long will the Turku trip take?”

  “Until tomorrow. The cow is supposed to have her baby any second, and there’s some inspector there too.”

  “It would be good if you videotaped the interrogation so Puupponen can analyze it later if necessary. I’m headed home now with these papers. Call if anything important comes up. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  A surprised expression appeared on Ursula’s face. “You’re going home in the middle of the day when we have a homicide investigation going on?”

  “My son is sick.”

  Ursula shrugged. “It was the same
in Lahti. Everyone with small kids was constantly skipping out and making the people without a family do all the work. Then they complain about how hard it is to combine work with family life. But you chose it yourself. No one forced you to make the little brats!” Ursula turned and slammed the door after her. Ten years ago I probably would have agreed. I thought I didn’t want a husband or children, that I got along best by myself. The worst thing was that I still had those thoughts sometimes.

  When I got home, Taneli only had a slight fever and wanted to play, so I didn’t get much paperwork done. Around three he finally went down for his afternoon nap. I read interview records and more lab reports about tire treads, the cars seen around the lake (most of which belonged to local residents), and unidentified fibers found in Annukka Hackman’s car. As expected, no meaningful link had been found between the moose hunters and Hackman. We just had to continue our footwork and believe that time wasn’t only an enemy.

  At four thirty I went to check on Taneli. He was still asleep, and I’d have to wake him to get Iida. His pajamas had blue-and-red cats on them, and his reddish hair curled slightly. He’d inherited that from me, along with his nose, which curved upward like a ski jump at the end and was the same as my father’s. Sometimes I thought of couples whose marriages ended in anger. How did they stand to see the person they hated in their children’s faces? How did they refrain from directing their anger at their kids?

  The whole stairwell echoed with Taneli’s protests at being woken up early, and I didn’t have the energy to try to calm him down. I wasn’t at my best when something woke me up in the middle of a sleep cycle either. I left him in the car to listen to a tape of one of his favorite stories while I went in to get Iida. I locked the car and made sure it couldn’t go rolling off anywhere even if Taneli did manage to disengage the parking break. By the time Iida and I came back, he’d nodded off, but in the parking lot at home he started yelling again.

  “Make him stop, Mom!” Iida whined. Someone had filled the elevator with cigarette smoke again, so Iida refused to use it, and we took the stairs. When we finally got inside the apartment, I sat the kids down in front of the TV so I could concentrate on making dinner, although canned pea soup didn’t demand any great gastronomical skills.

  Antti came home around seven. I’d just taken Taneli’s temperature, which was normal. I was starting his bedtime story when the phone rang.

  “Autio here. I thought you should hear right away. Andreas Smeds confessed.”

  I felt as if I’d been punched hard in the gut.

  “What!” My voice was ridiculously shrill.

  “He was screaming his head off and saying ‘yes, I fucking shot her.’ He was pretty sauced, so we threw him in a cell to sleep it off.”

  “Wow. Did you videotape the interview?”

  “Yes.”

  I told Autio I’d swing by the station and asked him and Ursula to wait there for me. I read Taneli a short book about a bunny and left Antti to handle the rest.

  “A confession,” I proclaimed. “Maybe we can get this Hackman case wrapped up. If so, I’m definitely taking a few days off.”

  Antti laughed. “I’ve heard that one before,” he said, then took over reading to the children.

  I was so excited that I couldn’t help speeding. The world looked more tolerable now too as fog softened the brightness of the lights and gave the buildings a homier feel. Nothing could make the police station beautiful, though: it was a colossus designed to make a person feel small. I ran up the stairs to our floor and knocked on Ursula and Autio’s door. Ursula was in the office alone. Autio was out smoking.

  “Congratulations! How did you get the confession out of him?” I said. I couldn’t remember Ursula smiling at me that warmly since her job interview.

  “Come watch the video. He is drunk, but that shouldn’t reduce the value of the confession.”

  I wasn’t so sure of that. The media room was cold. Her hands shaking, Ursula fiddled with the VCR.

  Andreas was pale and his eyes were bloodshot. On the video his voice sounded hoarse and unclear. At first he answered Ursula’s and Autio’s questions with decorum, but as the interrogation proceeded he became increasingly intoxicated, as if he’d downed a bottle of booze fast just before coming in.

  “Where was your family’s Land Rover on Tuesday the fifth of November?” Ursula asked.

  “At home in the yard as far as I remember. It’s been more than two weeks since then.”

  “Did you drive anywhere that day?”

  “If I remember right, I was home all day working on the tractor. I’ve already told you this. You should try taking notes.”

  Autio had taken the observer’s role, while Ursula pressed Andreas. Andreas said he was at home asleep on the night of Kervinen’s death.

  “I didn’t even know the guy. I read in the paper that he was Hackman’s old boyfriend. I would have preferred not to know her either.”

  “So your brother doesn’t know about your relationship with his wife. What about your parents? They do live under the same roof after all.”

  A wicked smile appeared on Andreas’s face.

  “They couldn’t imagine that even I could be that presumptuous. Although I guess I’m going to have to tell them now before Hackman’s book comes out, once Sasha recovers a little. I’m leaving. I’m moving . . .” Andreas swayed in his chair and his speech began to slur. “Heli’s leaving tomorrow to bring Sasha home. They woke him up, and the doctor gave him permission to travel. I guess Citroën will charter a plane.”

  “Is Heli traveling tomorrow? That may not work. We’ll have to ask Detective Kallio. What was your brother, Sasha, doing on the day of Annukka Hackman’s death?”

  “Weight training. We have a gym set up in one of the barns. He helped me on the tractor too. And he slept. I’m not my brother’s keeper. He didn’t leave the house, though. He enjoyed having some time at home. He’s a good homebody, our Sasha.” Andreas grimaced and leaned one of his hands on his knee. He belched, and Ursula retreated from the smell.

  “Did you know Annukka Hackman carried a pistol?”

  “Everyone knew. She showed it off to us the second time she visited. Mom was horrified. She’s always hated guns. Grandpa was a pacifist, and Mom didn’t even want us to go into the army. She started crying the first time she saw me in uniform . . . God.” Andreas swallowed. His voice sounded dry. “What do you mean we have to talk to the detective about Heli leaving? Heli didn’t do anything! Are you crazy?” Suddenly Andreas stood up, and Ursula reacted by also getting to her feet.

  “Take it easy. Or should we put him in a cell to sober up?” she asked Autio, who shook his head.

  “Sit down, Smeds.” Autio spoke for the first time during the interview. Andreas flopped back into his chair. “Can anyone testify that you were at home asleep in your bed the night before last?”

  Andreas blushed. “You’d have to ask the others who were at the farm then.”

  “So you and Heli weren’t sleeping together?” Ursula asked. She tapped her long, golden fingernails on the table. Andreas started laughing.

  “No. That isn’t a pleasure we enjoy very often. You seem awfully interested in it, though. Cops and reporters. You’re all the same. Did you become a pig so you could go rooting around in other people’s sex lives?”

  Next to me in the media room I heard Ursula draw a breath, then her nails started tapping the chair in front of her.

  “Your sex life interests me exactly as much as it relates to the crime we’re investigating,” she continued on the tape. “You all had a reason to fear and hate Annukka Hackman. How did you know she was at Lake Humaljärvi that night?”

  Andreas started chuckling again, although the laugh lacked any joy. I noticed Ursula’s muscles tense when she heard the laugh.

  “Yes, I fucking shot her. Are you satisfied? I destroyed her life before she could destroy me and my family. And everyone will read about it tomorrow in the papers, right? To hell with the con
sequences.” Andreas tried to look Ursula in the eyes, but his gaze was erratic.

  “Where did you throw the gun?”

  “In the lake. Is that enough for you? I’m tired.” Andreas closed his eyes. Ursula tried to get more out of him, but he didn’t answer. After a few minutes he started to snore, and at that point Ursula cut off the interrogation.

  “Then we took him to a cell. Should I continue questioning him tomorrow with Autio?”

  “Yes, go ahead.” I knew Ursula was expecting praise and congratulations, but there was no reason for that. Andreas had obviously realized that if he confessed to Hackman’s murder, the police would let Heli out of the country to get Sasha. I asked Ursula whether they’d checked Andreas’s blood-alcohol level. They hadn’t. Could he have just been pretending to be drunk? And if he had been drunk, would he have been able to put on a farce like that, to ensure that Heli got to travel?

  “So there’s our solution,” said a male voice behind us, making me jump. I hadn’t heard Autio come into the room.

  “Kervinen’s death must have been suicide. Anything for love, I guess.”

  “We’ll see whether Andreas tells us the same story tomorrow,” I responded unenthusiastically. “The confession alone won’t be good enough.”

  “I’m the one who got Andreas to confess. Is that why it isn’t good enough?” Ursula shouted. “Because it was me?”

  “It has nothing to do with that. You did well. Keep doing the same thing tomorrow. I’m going to go have a look at our suspect in his cell, then I’m going back home.” I was insanely tired, but I wanted to see with my own eyes what kind of shape Andreas was in.

  When the cell door opened, he didn’t react; instead, he just lay on the cot. Under his head was a pillow, but he’d tossed the blanket to the floor. I walked up to him and could smell the alcohol on his breath. Maybe Koskenkorva vodka. I shook him by the shoulder, and he mumbled something in response. I picked up the tin cup that was next to the sink. Then I filled it with a little water and dumped it on Andreas’s face. He spluttered and opened his eyes.