Behind God's Back

by Harri Nykanen

  “That was it?”

  “What else should there be?”

  “Dad’s pistol.”

  “What about it?” Eli asked, avoiding my gaze.

  “Did you give it to Max?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “It was found in Max’s car.”

  “That’s just great,” Eli snorted. “Are you going to tell whose weapon it is? It’s not like it’s on the books. I doubt anyone’s interested in it; it’s not the murder weapon, is it?”

  “Luckily not. Both of us would be screwed if it were. Why the hell didn’t you tell me about the gun?”

  Eli was right in that the weapon was of no significance to the investigation proper. But the thought of concealing the gun’s origins felt distasteful. I started fuming, at myself as well as Eli, and decided I’d tell Simolin and Huovinen about the weapon.

  “There wasn’t a good moment.”

  “There wasn’t? It doesn’t matter; I still have to tell my boss about it.”

  “Why? It won’t look good if a well-known detective is found in possession of an illegal firearm,” Eli said.

  “Actually, the gun was in the possession of a well-known lawyer.”

  “It was both of theirs; a family heirloom.”

  “Why did Max need a gun?”

  “He said he had received some threatening phone calls. Didn’t give me any more details. I could tell he was really scared, so I gave him the gun. I shouldn’t have, I know. But what’s forcing you to be such a goody-two-shoes and tell about the pistol?”

  Eli took a glass from the cocktail cart and poured in some expensive vintage whisky far beyond the reach of men like me. He offered me some too, but I declined.

  “Goody-Two-Shoes,” Eli repeated, taking a long swig.

  “What time did you meet Max?”

  “About six o’clock.”

  “Why then? Had he received another call?”

  “Apparently.”

  That made sense, and would explain why Max had changed his mind and wanted to talk to me. He was afraid, and he figured that talking would be to his advantage. What I didn’t understand was why he had asked Eli to prepare the loan papers for Jacobson’s company. Maybe the papers were nothing more than a ruse to see Eli and ask for the gun.

  “I saw you two on the street after the funeral. What were you discussing?”

  “I asked Max if everything was all right. He seemed strange, subdued… I thought maybe he had taken something…” Eli realized he had said too much, and backpedalled. “He said he was just tired because he wasn’t sleeping and was working too hard.”

  “We want more information on Jacobson’s loan. You don’t have a problem with that, I take it?”

  “Who does? You do?” Eli stared at me coolly. “You’re the one leading the investigation.”

  “Joint decision.”

  “You know full well I can’t just give out that information. Corporate loans are confidential. Wouldn’t it be easier to ask Roni?”

  “Maybe I will. Have you ever met Benjamin Hararin, the owner of Baltic Invest?”

  “Do we have to talk about this right now?”

  “Yes. The more time passes, the harder it will be to solve the case.”

  “I don’t get how this information is going to help you with that. OK, we met once. When Max and I were in Tel Aviv.”

  “By chance, or was it a business meeting?”

  Eli had already emptied his glass, and poured himself more whisky. “This is starting to smell like an interrogation,” he said morosely.

  “It would be better for your sake if we talk now, not when it’s too late.”

  “What do you mean, for my sake?”

  “Leave the questioning to me. It’s what I get paid for.”

  “Everything is off the record, then,” Eli said petulantly. “It was a vacation, but when Hararin heard we were in town, he wanted to meet us.”

  “What was your impression of him?”

  “Smart guy.”

  “What about Amos Jakov?”

  “I haven’t met him.”

  “But what do you think about him?”

  “There’s no smoke without fire. He’s never denied the criminal contacts from his youth, but guys like that are a dime a dozen in Israel. That place has more mafiosi than Sicily.”

  “Do you believe Hararin takes orders from Jakov?”

  “So it would seem. Seem, mind you, nothing more.”

  “Could Jacobson have borrowed money from Baltic Invest without your knowledge?”

  “Maybe, but then it would’ve had to have happened somewhere besides Finland. Finland is our territory.”

  “But Baltic Invest doesn’t use extreme collection methods?”

  “We use the same collection agencies as everyone else, but I can definitely say that there were no payment problems with Jacobson that would have gone that far. Like I said, we came to an agreement about the late payments. That’s why I don’t understand why he wanted to switch to another lender.”

  “What else happened in Tel Aviv when you and Max were there?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you do anything there you regret, you and Max?”

  Eli looked at me, mouth hanging slightly. Suddenly his defences crumbled. He looked like someone who had been caught in a trap. It wasn’t pleasant seeing my brother that way. Now I knew that my childhood friend Dan, who had worked for the Mossad, had told the truth about Eli and Max’s escapades in Tel Aviv. Their sexual shenanigans had been videotaped, and someone had them in a headlock. The question was whether they had already been blackmailed.

  “Actually there’s no point in me asking, because I know you did. Have the videos already been used?”

  “What videos?”

  “The ones you don’t want your wives to see. Have you and Max been blackmailed with them already?”

  “Come on, leave it —”

  “Maybe Max was being blackmailed into helping out with Jacobson’s murder somehow, and when he refused, he was killed.”

  Eli didn’t take my theory seriously. “Let’s assume that Max screwed around and there was proof, say a video. So what? He’s not going to help someone murder his friend just because he doesn’t want his wife to watch the tape. I know what Ruth’s like. Max knew how to twist her around his little finger.”

  “Maybe someone threatened to send the tapes to the leaders of the congregation?”

  “That would have been a tougher spot for Max, but that’s still no reason to become an accomplice to murder.”

  “Can you think of anything so major that it could have been used to blackmail Max?”

  “No,” Eli pouted.

  “You told me that Max acquired the Baltic Invest representation through his connections. I heard from Lea that her husband arranged it because he wanted to help out his father-in-law.”

  “Max knew Lea’s husband, Joel Kazan. It’s almost the same thing.”

  “So it was Kazan who lured you into the honey trap?”

  “Honey trap,” Eli snorted. “He’s the one who took us out in Tel Aviv, but I’m not sure about the after-party. There was so much going on, and so many people around. We were at Hararin’s place at that point… there were a lot of people and a lot of women, really nice Jewish girls. Have you ever seen a blonde Jewish girl? There were a bunch of them there that night. They wanted to stay over… These things happen…”

  “When did you find out that your antics had been secretly videotaped?”

  Eli decided to reveal his hand. “About a month ago. Max found out – I don’t know how – and told me. He promised to handle it one way or another. Of course I understood that the tapes were part of the picture, but he wouldn’t tell me how. I thought everything was over, especially when Max said he had taken care of the problem. Evidently he hadn’t.”

  “And you didn’t ask how he had taken care of the problem?”

  “Of course I did. He said that it was better if I did
n’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. And I wanted to stay out of it, because no one had blackmailed me.”

  “Can you guess what it was about?”

  “I think Max gave the killer some information that he used against Jacobson, and Max didn’t realize until Jacobson’s death that he had helped the murderer. It’s dangerous to know who the murderer is, and it’s even more dangerous to know who paid the murderer.”

  “Are you sure that you’re not making the case and the motive too complicated? What if the murder was about money? What if Max embezzled funds from Baltic Invest and got caught? They didn’t want to kill a golden goose – just Jacobson, who was causing problems anyway. As a warning.”

  Eli was clearly offended on behalf of his former partner. “You think you can treat me like some goddamn fungus: keep me in the dark and feed me shit? Max had enough money for the life he led. He had an inheritance, and it’s not like Ruth comes from a poor family. Max didn’t have any reason to embezzle anything from anyone.”

  “Maybe he had expensive hobbies: gambling, drugs, women?”

  “He wasn’t a saint, but I would have known if he had gambled and… a woman now and then wouldn’t have sent him to the poorhouse.”

  I guessed the reason for Eli’s evasion. “Did Max use drugs?”

  “I had my suspicions. I think he used cocaine on occasion. Lots of people do in these circles.”

  It had been a long day, and I was getting tired. I was having a hard time keeping my thoughts collected.

  “I think that’s enough for tonight. We want the Jacobson loan papers, so if you’ll set them aside…”

  “Didn’t Ruth have any ideas as to why…?”

  “I couldn’t ask her, not yet.”

  “Max’s will is in the safe at the office, like mine. We agreed that the one who lived longer would handle the other’s affairs.”

  “Does the will contain any surprises?”

  “No, it’s completely normal. Ruth and the kids get everything.”

  “For your sake, it would be best to let us know immediately if you remember anything that could help us. It might be something totally trivial. You haven’t been very helpful up to this point.”

  I was pulling on my coat when Eli asked: “Are you buying a car?”

  “No, why?”

  “You didn’t talk to Max about buying a car?”

  “Nope. I haven’t even seen him in months, except today at the funeral.”

  Eli stroked his jaw. “That’s weird. I remembered something. When Max left, he asked me to say hello to you and tell you not to buy the same kind of Benz he has, because it guzzles thirteen litres per hundred kilometres, and you have to fill it up all the time.”

  14

  The next day one more investigator joined the case when Detective Jari Oksanen returned from vacation. Oksanen was nuts about cars, and one of the driving forces behind the police rally club. He drove a customized Audi with an exhaust modification that must have been illegal, because the thundering and popping of the engine preceded his car by a hundred yards. I could hear it in my office when Oksanen turned onto Radiotie, accelerated the final yards, and plunged into the parking garage.

  At the morning recap, I explained to Oksanen where we were with the case. He was as full of pep and energy as his over-tuned ride. All I had to do was channel that energy in the right direction. Oksanen required a little more steering than Stenman and Simolin, who carefully considered their every move. On the other hand, Oksanen’s spontaneous blundering sometimes led to surprisingly good results. Either that, or he was exceptionally lucky.

  We listened for a minute to Oksanen’s most recent Formula One report, then forced the conversation back to work matters. I was just getting started when there was a knock at the door, and without waiting for a response, Huovinen stepped in.

  “Got some interesting info.”

  Huovinen was smiling so broadly that whatever it was couldn’t have been very serious.

  “Takamäki’s team solved the Seeds of Hate case. The kidnapped professor wrote the letters himself.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “He hit on one of his students at a party and went home with her. Her boyfriend walked in on them, clobbered the guy, and tossed him out in his underwear. The bloodied professor was looking for a cab when he ran into a patrol, and couldn’t come up with anything except that he’d been kidnapped. He’s married to a hot-blooded Spaniard, and didn’t want to get busted for stepping out on her. To make the case seem more believable, he wrote a few racist threats the next day and sent them to relevant targets.”

  Oksanen guffawed.

  “How did they figure that out?” Stenman asked.

  “The boyfriend who kicked the professor’s ass chucked the professor’s stuff in a dumpster, where someone found it. Rocky’s fingerprints were all over it. He’d had a previous assault conviction, so the police paid him a visit, and that was all she wrote.”

  “That professor’s going to be sorry once the papers get hold of that story,” Oksanen said, still chuckling.

  I briefed Huovinen on the status of my case, and he went on his way.

  Simolin had gone through all of Jacobson’s telecommunications data; it hadn’t revealed anything new. Max’s phone hadn’t been found, but the call data had already been requested. The examination of the killer’s Golf had proved to be an investigative dead end, and the Estonian police didn’t have anything new for us. The divers from Search and Rescue had hunted for the weapon on both sides of the bridge without any luck. The dives at the other bridge, the one that crossed the canal near the Tammisalo marina, were just beginning. The sketch that Jacobson’s neighbour’s kid had drawn of the killer had been shown on the ten o’clock news, and it was in both tabloids and the Helsingin Sanomat the next morning. Even though the picture was good, it hadn’t generated a single solid tip.

  Max’s murder had also made the papers, despite the fact that we had agreed that it wouldn’t be reported until tomorrow. From the information included in the articles, we deduced that the leak had been either the security guard or the harbourmaster. The tabloids were already talking about the second “Jewish killing” and wondering if the victims’ Jewish background was just a coincidence. I drafted a brief release and sent it off to the STT, the national news agency.

  In other words, the fourth day of the investigation had started off in somewhat depressing circumstances. Like you had blown a month’s salary on lotto cards and ferociously scratched one after the other, only to have them all turn up blank.

  “You think Oxbaum’s murder is connected to the Jacobson killing?” Oksanen asked.

  “One way or another,” I said. “The National Bureau of Investigation promised results from the ballistics tests this afternoon. Then we’ll know.”

  Oksanen had his own, completely new theory about events.

  “What if Oxbaum shot Jacobson?” he enthused. “If Jacobson threatened to reveal something that would be bad for Oxbaum.”

  “Who killed Oxbaum, then?” Stenman asked. “Both were shot with a .22 calibre weapon, and Oxbaum had a 9 mm.” Stenman found Oksanen’s habit of thoughtlessly bandying about theories annoying.

  “The description doesn’t match Oxbaum; neither does anything else,” I said. “I believe he felt guilty about Jacobson’s death and thought that he had put other people’s lives at risk. That’s why he wanted to meet me. But the killer got there first.”

  “And just in the nick of time,” Stenman said.

  “That’s quite the conspiracy theory,” Oksanen said. “Did anyone besides you see this canoe guy?”

  “The kayak was stolen from the marina, and it turned up at the West Harbour. Presumably the killer had a car there that he used to continue his journey. Unfortunately not a single eyewitness has turned up. No fingerprints were found on the kayak, or anything else that would help the investigation.”

  “Of course not.” Oksanen sounded resentful, as if he thought it was unfair that the criminal ha
dn’t left any clues behind. And maybe that is what he thought; who knew?

  “You and Jari start by paying a visit to Oxbaum’s secretary. Go through Max’s office and bring in the computer and anything else necessary so we can check it out,” I said to Simolin. “Arja and I will go see his wife. Simolin, you can also put your Estonian connections to use and get us more information on Baltic Invest. Tell your buddy on the force there that our killer might be Estonian; maybe some suitable candidate will come to mind.”

  “What about your brother?” Simolin asked uncomfortably.

  “What about him?”

  “How should we treat him?”

  “The same as anyone else. Just do your job.”

  15

  The Oxbaums lived in Lauttasaari, in a big, light-filled brick house. You could tell the place was no package design for the average homeowner; it was an architect’s custom work that integrated the terrain and orientation. The picture window in the living room faced onto a view of a pine-dotted rock, and beyond that the sea. A view like that cost a nice chunk of change.

  I had always considered Ruth a naive, almost pathetic figure, because she accepted Max’s misdeeds with endless good nature and a hen-like maternalism. I had wondered on more than one occasion whether she was stupid, whether she was lying to herself, or whether she just didn’t care. She had been a housewife for as long as I could remember. She didn’t appear to have an iota of professional ambition, even though she had a master’s degree in political science. Her ambitions were channelled into her home and her children – those arenas she had managed brilliantly. The house could have graced the cover of an interior design magazine any time.

  I was surprised by how calmly Ruth was able to discuss Max’s death, even though she had been a wreck the previous evening. Her sister was still there supporting her, and intermittently shot me cautionary glances.

  “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask about some unpleasant matters.”

  “It’s fine. I understand.”

  Ruth was leaning forward on the buttery-soft Italian leather sofa. Behind her hung an enormous abstract, an acrylic glowing in vivid yellows and oranges. With the dazzling autumn sun shining on it, it seemed to illuminate the whole wall. I recognized the artist, and guessed that the work cost as much as a mid-priced automobile.