Roni took the call and talked with Ethel for a second.
“… I have to get off. I’ll be there in just a minute.”
Once the call ended, I pressed on. “There must be a good reason for your father’s murder. Do you have any idea what it might be?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Anti-Semitism. I heard he got a threatening letter at work.”
“Yes, we heard about that, too, and went and met with your staff. We don’t believe that the letter has anything to do with the murder.”
“What do you mean?”
“We have our own information, but we can’t discuss it yet.”
“In that case I have no idea…” Roni looked disappointed. Evidently anti-Semitism would have been an agreeable motive for the murder. Anything else meant complications.
“The perpetrator was very methodical. That implies that the motive was not something random. Could the firm’s finances have anything to do with the crime?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re in a bit of a tight spot at the moment, like thousands of other companies, but it’s nothing more than that. Our debt load is relatively low compared to our assets and net worth.”
“Your father wanted to take out a new loan in Finland and pay off the Estonian loan. Why?”
“It was some bee he got in his bonnet. We couldn’t have got a loan any more cheaply here than from Estonia.”
“So you were opposed?”
“It would have been six of one, half a dozen of the other.”
“How did you end up taking a loan from Estonia in the first place?”
“We received an offer when we started planning construction of the new building.”
“From whom?”
“Max Oxbaum. I happened to mention to him at some event that Dad wanted to build new offices for the company. Max said that he represented an Estonian finance company and could arrange a loan. It was all above board.”
“Were you opposed to the construction project?”
“No. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I might feel differently now. But no one else predicted the recession, either.”
“Could your father have taken out another loan under the table?”
“Not a chance. And why would he?”
“Say, some personal reason, and then maybe he left the loan unpaid?”
“No,” Roni snapped. “Like I said, the company and Dad had assets. Why wouldn’t he have realized his assets instead? I’m pretty sure most people would rather pay a debt than die.”
“You’d think so.”
We stopped at a traffic light. Stenman glanced back. “When did your father intend to retire?”
“By sixty-four at the latest, in other words a little under two years from now.”
“Was he in good health?”
“Sure. He was a little overweight and had high blood pressure, but otherwise he was healthy. What does this have to do with Dad’s murder?”
“Did he have life insurance?”
Now Roni was upset. “Yes, and Mom’s the beneficiary. You guys can’t be turning this into insurance fraud.”
I tried to calm him down and explain that the police have to ask unpleasant questions. My reassurances didn’t have the desired effect.
“Can’t we talk about these things later…?”
“Unfortunately not. Did Oxbaum handle all the loan arrangements himself, or did you meet representatives of the lender?”
“I didn’t meet anyone but Oxbaum.”
“But I assume you looked into the finance company, to see if it was solid?”
“No. Dad might have, through his contacts in Israel. He told me that he trusted Max… Besides, it’s your brother’s company, too,” Roni gloated, as if he had found a weapon to use against me.
“Does the name Benjamin Hararin mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“What about Amos Jakov?”
“You mean the Israeli billionaire?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s about the extent of my knowledge. He’s an Israeli billionaire. What does he have to do with this? It sounds like you guys are letting this case get the better of your imaginations —”
“He and Hararin own the finance company Max was representing.”
“So? They’re way off in Israel and we’re here. Are you finding some significant connections between the two?” Roni asked sharply.
Stenman pulled up in front of the Jacobsons’ house.
“You can go. We’ll be in touch.”
Once Roni had stepped through the gate, I asked Stenman, “What do you think?”
“I didn’t like him, but that’s not what you asked.”
“Roni has always thrown money around. When he was twenty, he drove a Porsche, and he also had a big boat. Sort of a minor-league jet-setter. I heard that a year or so ago he moved into a new place in Marjaniemi: 3,000 square feet, sea views.”
“What if this is about the son’s spending, not the father’s, and Pops just ended up footing the bill? Maybe Roni had been given his final warning and he hightailed it off to Lapland. He asked the old man not to leave the house.”
“He couldn’t have stayed away forever.”
“Maybe he was trying to drum up money to pay off his debts in the meantime.”
“Roni said that his Dad was going to stay on as CEO until he turned sixty-four, so well over a year from now. According to Ethel, Samuel had planned on retiring earlier. Samuel had told his neighbours the end of this year. Sounds like Samuel had decided to push back his retirement. Roni probably wasn’t too thrilled about that.”
“Still, it’s not likely he’d kill his Dad… What was all that about Hararin and Jakov?” Stenman asked.
“Don’t worry about that yet.”
Stenman eyed me evaluatively. Roni’s gibe about my brother hadn’t gone unnoticed. “All right, I won’t worry about that… yet. Is Roni Jacobson a family man?”
“Two children from a previous marriage, and one from the new one.”
“Wouldn’t it have made more sense to send muscle to threaten his family instead of his father?”
“Maybe the person making the threats figured that the old man was the one with the money. He doesn’t care who pays, as long as he gets his dough.”
“Should we take a closer look at the company’s finances, and the son’s, too?” Stenman asked. “Maybe it’s worth having another word with CFO Pekka Hulkko.”
I couldn’t have agreed more.
7
I got to my one-bedroom apartment in Punavuori around 9 p.m. and was greeted by the fug of loneliness that clings to every bachelor pad. I had a reputation of sorts as a ladies’ man, although I didn’t get where it came from. Maybe I was paying for my years of youthful experimentation and unsavoury stories were being passed from one Jewish family to the next as a cautionary example. The fact was that it had been over six years since I had last lived with a woman. At the time, I had been in a relationship with a Finnish teacher named Suvi whom I had met at a colleague’s wedding. I still wasn’t sure why the relationship had ended, but apparently the blame was mine.
Living alone had its advantages, but it wasn’t a dogma or principle for me. It was ninety per cent sad, especially when your wildest partying days had passed and you started valuing other things.
I don’t know what my problem was, but I attracted the wrong sort of women. They represented one of two extremes: either they were too bossy and domineering, or too meek and adaptable.
Another problem was that all the women my age were divorced and usually bitter about it. Plus they had children, and even though I had met some nice kids, I didn’t want to be a father to the children of a man I didn’t know.
As a bachelor over the age of forty, my relatives considered me a strange bird. I was continuously dodging their attempts to marry me off. “Good Jewish girls” were foisted off on me under any variety of pretences.
I may not be qualified to comme
nt, but I think women found me pretty interesting, and pretty good-looking, too. Something in my melancholic disposition aroused their protective instincts. Plus I kept myself in shape, owned a place in a good neighbourhood, and had a respectable job. I should have been a good match, but I just wasn’t able to sell myself to anyone.
I shook myself out of my gloomy musings, popped open a beer and wondered what I should do about Eli. I eventually made my decision and called him. We used to get together at least once a week, but now it had been three weeks since we had last seen each other. We must have overdosed on each other’s company at the cottage.
Eli was the first to speak. “What’s up, little brother?” I knew him well enough to tell he was drunk – not very, but still.
“Are you at home?”
“Yeah, I’m sipping some pricey vintage whisky. Got it from the father-in-law. What about you?”
“I need to talk to you about something.”
“Is it about Jacobson? I heard someone shot him.”
I wasn’t the least bit surprised Eli knew about the case. He was on the executive council of the congregation, just like Jacobson, and even if he hadn’t been, he still would have heard about it. Someone called someone else, and that someone called a third person. Two hours later, half the Jews in Helsinki knew about it. We had always been good at disseminating information.
“Are you investigating?”
“Yup. Why would you think I’d be interested in discussing Jacobson with you, of all people?”
“Because I know him and —”
“You have time to meet?”
“There’s plenty in this bottle for the both of us. Come over and join me.”
“No thanks. Half an hour, at the shore?”
“At the same old spot?”
*
The same old spot was the Compass Terrace at Kaivopuisto marina. When we were kids, Dad would take us down to the shore and regale us with all sorts of stories about the city. At one point, we had an old wooden fisherman’s boat, and it had been moored down at the marina, too. An autumn gale had smashed the hull, and it sank a day before Dad was supposed to pull it out for the winter. We never went out in it, because Dad didn’t trust the engine, but we’d often take day trips down to the dock. We’d sit in the boat and fish, and Dad would cook for us on a camp stove. We even spent the night a couple of times. I’ll always remember the smell of diesel and damp wood that rose from the engine and the bilge.
Eli only lived a couple of hundred yards from our meeting place, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had shown up in his car. He came on foot, though, and as if by tacit agreement, we headed down the shore towards Cafe Ursula.
Eli broke the silence. “You dated Jacobson’s daughter for a while, didn’t you? Wasn’t her name Lea?”
“You have a good memory.”
“It’s a small world.”
“Smaller than you’d think. Jacobson’s wife told me that they took out a loan for their company through you and Max.”
Eli shrugged. “Could be. Max handles that side of the business. Besides, you’re talking as if we’re a bank. All we do is refer clients to the finance company and receive a certain compensation for that. It’s not enough to get rich off.”
“Where does the money come from?”
“A lot of places. The company I represent has operations in numerous countries. Do you think we have something to do with Jacobson’s death? Is that the reason for this clandestine rendezvous?”
“Well, do you?”
“Hey, don’t joke around about serious stuff. What the hell is going on here, little brother?”
Even though Eli was trying to keep the tone light, I could sense the fear in him.
“Jacobson wasn’t killed by some neo-Nazi or crazy racist. The killer was dressed like a police officer because Jacobson knew that something might happen to him. He had barricaded himself up at home. He was frightened. And he wouldn’t tell anyone why, even his wife.”
“What reason would anyone have to murder a guy who sells office machines?”
“Depends on whether he was just a guy who sold office machines. Or something more.”
“A spy?” Eli chuckled. “It’s hard to imagine anyone more strait-laced than Jacobson. People like that don’t get mixed up in anything dangerous.”
“What were the terms of the loan like?”
“What you’re asking is confidential information.”
“I doubt Jacobson’s very concerned any more.”
“Who would take a loan from us if the terms weren’t good?”
“What about collateral?”
“Totally normal. Corporate real estate and the house.”
“So why did Jacobson want to switch banks if everything was so good?”
Eli slowed down and looked at me. “I don’t know anything about that. Where did you hear that?”
“His wife.”
“I seriously don’t know anything about that, but I can ask Max… or you can ask him yourself.”
“You didn’t tell me anything about the company you represent. What’s it called?”
“Baltic Invest. It’s an investment and finance company.”
“Estonian?”
“No, it’s part of a larger international concern.”
“Come on, who owns the company?”
“It’s part of an Israeli conglomerate. The principal shareholder is a businessman named Benjamin Hararin.”
“A Jew.”
“What could be finer than the success of one of our own?”
“How did it so happen that you and Max became the company’s agents in Finland?”
“Through Max. A friend of his knows Hararin and suggested it to him. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but Max felt like free money was being thrown into our laps. All we had to do was introduce potential borrowers and lenders to each other. We’d get a slice of every loan – a slim one, but it wasn’t much work. Once Max filled out the papers for a million-euro loan in fifteen minutes. We got 20,000 euros for that. Pretty good hourly rate.”
“Does the name Amos Jakov say anything to you?”
“What you’re trying to insinuate isn’t true,” Eli said. He was starting to get angry.
“What is it I’m trying to insinuate?”
“I know what’s been written about Jakov in Israel. That Hararin is his frontman and launders Russian mafia money for him. The police there have been investigating it for years, but they haven’t found any proof.”
“If my brother says so, it must be true. How much have you guys brokered in loans?”
“We have several hundred clients, and they have a total of sixty million in loans. Jacobson was one of them.”
I did some quick mental calculations. If Max and Eli earned a similar slice for each loan, they had raked in 1.2 million euros from them. Not bad, considering that the business had only been in existence for a couple of years. Two men of modest needs would have no trouble living off that.
“How did he know to turn specifically to you and Max for a loan?”
Eli was genuinely irritated. “Max, again. Although you’d never guess it, he’s pretty agile when he wants to be. It’d be nice to know by what logic you’re trying to connect us to Jacobson’s murder.”
“Money’s always a good motive.”
“Was Jacobson’s company in financial hardship?”
“The wife says no, but maybe she didn’t know everything. Maybe you do. Did Jacobson make all his payments on time?”
Eli avoided my gaze. “Come on, spit it out.”
“The last few payments were late, because Jacobson’s company lost a lot of big orders and clients over a short period of time. We tweaked the payment schedule and everyone was happy. We weren’t worried, because Jacobson’s corporate and personal assets added up to much more than the amount of the loan, and we have collateral for every single cent.”
“Then maybe Jacobson had vices his wife didn’t know about.”
&nb
sp; “Gambling and wild women?”
“The wife said he didn’t gamble. I’m not sure about the women.”
“Believe me, you can drop that line of investigation. That much I knew about the guy.”
“So try and come up with a better one,” I said.
“I’d start from something more prosaic. Maybe he had fired someone who decided to take revenge. It happens. You know that motives can be pretty unbelievable sometimes. When I was sitting on the bench in municipal court, I had this one case where a guy had locked his buddy in the sauna and set fire to it – and all because his friend had a better hunting dog than he did. It had kept him awake at night, and eventually it sent him off the deep end.”
Eli stopped to eye a new, expensive-looking boat moored at one of the docks. “I was thinking I’d buy a boat. How do you like that one?”
“Knock yourself out, as long as you don’t ask me to co-sign. You’re old enough to make decisions like that yourself.”
“You remember Dad’s old wooden boat that sank in that autumn storm?”
I nodded.
“I’ve always wondered why he never took us out in it,” Eli said.
“Because the engine was a piece of junk.”
“That’s what Dad said. So why didn’t he fix it?”
“Why do you think?”
“That he was afraid something would happen to us and to him – that the boat would capsize and we’d drown. The sea scared him and lured him at the same time. He solved the conundrum by buying the boat and keeping it at the marina. Pretty weird coincidence that he drowned.”
“Come on, we had a good time at the dock.”
“I’m not saying we didn’t, but it could have been fun to take the boat out to some nice little island, drop anchor, fish and spend the night. We could have turned up the stereo and danced butt-naked around the bonfire, drunk off our asses.”
I had no problem imagining Eli at the helm in a captain’s hat and a navy-blue Polo cardigan. Imagining him dancing naked around a bonfire was harder, but not impossible. Sometimes he would get seriously blitzed. One night that week at his cottage, he had sat at the shore singing “Jambalaya” for a good half-hour straight, sounding like a bear with bronchitis. At one point he had mixed up the words and bellowed about “Polish piroshki down the bayou.”
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