Behind God's Back

by Harri Nykanen

  “We’re interested in knowing what exactly Max was involved in. No one is killed this way for no reason. Evidently he was in some sort of predicament. Do you know what it could have been?”

  Ruth fiddled nervously with her wedding ring. Her fingers were long and beautiful, and Ruth wasn’t bad-looking herself. She had a gentle domesticity about her. I could imagine her taking her prodigal, careworn husband into her arms and comforting him like a little boy who had cut his finger.

  “As his wife, I suppose I should know. Unfortunately I don’t, no matter how badly I wish I did. He had been acting strange for several weeks, letting trivial things upset him, but when I asked him what was wrong, he just put it down to pressure at the office.”

  “How did he react to Jacobson’s death?”

  “I could tell he was shocked, but he didn’t want to talk about that, either.”

  “Are your financial affairs in order?”

  Ruth looked almost offended. “Max handled them, and everything should be fine. I asked Max if that’s what it was, and he said that the money was the last thing he was worried about.”

  “This is an expensive house,” Stenman continued tentatively.

  “Lawyers make a good living,” Ruth retorted.

  “Did Max have enemies, or did he ever mention having received any threats?”

  “As far as I know he didn’t have any enemies nor had he been threatened – at least he didn’t mention anything of the sort.”

  “We have reason to believe he was being blackmailed, but why, we don’t know. Money is the first thing to come to mind,” I said.

  “Don’t lie to me. You know you believe Max was being blackmailed because of his other women,” Ruth snapped.

  “Did he have other women?”

  “Of course he did, and you know it. But in their infinite wisdom, our mothers taught us that a smart wife turns a blind eye. Max knew that our marriage wouldn’t have ended over something like that. That couldn’t have been the real reason.”

  I struck an unexpected blow: “And what about you? Did you have other men?”

  Ruth’s breath seemed to catch for an instant, and she glanced at her sister.

  “I don’t suppose it makes any difference any more… I did, but only once. It happened last spring, when a friend saw Max kissing a young woman on the street. God knows how many times it had happened before, and I decided I’d get my revenge. You can be sure it had nothing to do with Max’s death.”

  “Who was the guy?”

  Ruth snorted glumly. “I don’t think you want to know.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “Your brother. We screwed on the sofa in the office.”

  The word “screwed” sounded incongruous uttered by milk-and-cookies Ruth. It was even harder imagining her and Eli having wanton sex on the leather sofa where I had sat in innocent ignorance. I was a little shocked.

  “Not money, not women – what’s left? What about his reputation in the congregation? Could he have been blackmailed with, for instance, photos of a sensitive nature being sent to members of the congregation and his clients?”

  “Blackmailed how?”

  “Into providing information about Jacobson, for instance.”

  “I suppose it depends on the information. As an attorney, Max’s reputation was important to him, but how important, I don’t know. Do you think that Max had something to do with Jacobson’s death?” Ruth asked, proving that she was anything but stupid.

  “Max handled Jacobson’s company’s loans, and the company Max represented is suspected in Israel of money laundering. Max called Jacobson twice only a few hours before he was shot.”

  “Max was fond of old man Jacobson. He never would have got involved in anything that would have caused problems for him.”

  “Did Max ever mention Jacobson?”

  “Nothing involving work. They were both on the congregation’s board and met at each other’s homes in that capacity. They didn’t socialize otherwise.”

  “Did Jacobson come to the house?”

  “Yes. Most recently, three weeks ago.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  “I don’t know. They were in the office. I went in to bring them coffee, but I didn’t stay to listen. I imagined it had something to do with congregation business.”

  “More coffee?” Ruth’s sister asked, filling my cup without waiting for an answer. Her cheeks were still burning from her older sister’s revelation.

  “And did Max ever meet Jacobson’s son, Roni?”

  “Why would he have?”

  “Roni had also taken out a loan through Max.”

  “Max didn’t care for him, and they had very little to do with each other.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. He spoke as if the company’s troubles were the son’s fault, not the father’s. I thought it was unfair, because wasn’t the recession really the underlying cause?”

  “Did Max ever talk about the company he brokered loans for? The name of the company is Baltic Invest.”

  “No… or once he said something to the effect of it having been a mistake getting involved in the finance business. He didn’t say any more, and I didn’t ask.”

  “Do the names Benjamin Hararin or Amos Jakov mean anything to you?”

  “Nothing. I’ve never heard of either.”

  “Is Jakov that Israeli billionaire?” the sister asked.

  “That would be him.”

  “Why should I know an Israeli billionaire?” Ruth asked.

  “He owns Baltic Invest, and Max met him when he went to Israel.”

  “Max didn’t talk about his business affairs, because he knew I wasn’t interested.”

  “And did Max ever mention Jacobson’s daughter’s husband, Joel Kazan?”

  “Only that he saw him and Jacobson’s daughter when he went to Israel. My understanding was that Kazan acted as a host of sorts.”

  Ruth’s sister gave me a look indicating that it was time for the interrogation to come to an end.

  “Max called me and asked me to come to the boat to talk to him. He promised to give me confidential information about something that would help me in my investigation of Jacobson’s murder. That proves that Max was mixed up in the case somehow. When I went there, I found him dead. You do understand, don’t you, that if you know anything about it, it’s to your own advantage to tell me?”

  Ruth looked at me coldly, but didn’t respond.

  “One more thing,” I continued tenaciously. I had been wondering why Max warned me about buying a Benz SUV even though I had no intention of doing so. Had he been losing his grip and blurting out whatever popped into his mind, or did his words contain a message of some sort? “This may sound a little odd. Eli said that the last time he saw Max, Max warned me not to buy the same kind of SUV he drives, because it only gets a hundred kilometres to thirteen litres. I’d never mentioned anything to Max about buying a Benz SUV, nor did I have any intention of buying one. Why would he say that?”

  Ruth looked moved.

  “Maybe he was losing it… That’s the only thing I can think of —” For the first time, Ruth’s control failed her. She made a noise that sounded like the howl of a dog and then sobbed: “It would have been our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary next week.”

  16

  I couldn’t keep from swearing the moment we stepped outside. “Fucking Eli!” Stenman watched me, curious, but didn’t interfere with my rant. I pictured Eli as an imbecilic little boy who was always underfoot, bouncing around as aimlessly as a pinball. It almost felt like he was making my life difficult on purpose: Baltic Invest, sex videos, an illegal weapon, and now screwing a murdered man’s wife.

  At the car, I paused for a moment and gazed out over the sea shimmering in the autumn sun. The northern wind already felt cold. I didn’t understand why I had taken Eli’s womanizing so seriously. Maybe as his little brother, I subconsciously expected him to act as some sort of moral example. M
y father had died when I was eleven.

  “Do you want to talk?” Stenman asked, walking over to me.

  “No thanks. I just want to get some fresh air for a minute.”

  A flock of barnacle geese flew southwards across the bay. I started thinking about what would happen if the birds didn’t come back one day. Absurd. A criminal investigator who should be chasing a murderer is reflecting on the migrations of birds.

  “All right, let’s go,” I said, climbing into the car.

  “What was that SUV thing?” Stenman asked, once we were headed towards the Western Expressway.

  “I think it was a clue Max left for me, even though I don’t understand why he couldn’t speak openly, why he had to drop hints.”

  “Has Oxbaum’s car already been examined?”

  “Forensics is working on it right now. Simolin and I took a quick look through it last night. I didn’t find anything interesting except the pistol, which happened to be my grandfather’s prize of war. It doesn’t even have a permit. My best-friend’s-wife-screwing brother gave it to Max because he was afraid of something. But Max didn’t say what.”

  “Is that a bigger sin for Jews than it is for us Lutherans?” Stenman asked.

  “What?”

  “Screwing your friend’s wife.”

  “Just as big.”

  “What’s your relationship like with your brother?”

  “Good, at least up till now. He could stop sabotaging my life.”

  Fortunately, Stenman didn’t fixate on my revelation. She concentrated on driving, because we were turning onto the highway.

  Once she found a gap in the lane headed downtown, she said: “There must have been something else in there, too. Parking stubs, unpaid tickets, stuff like that. There is in every car.”

  I remembered the receipts for coffee and gas from the service station. Max had purchased thirteen litres of gas…

  “Thirteen litres of gas,” I said out loud.

  “What?”

  “There was a receipt in the glove box showing that Max had bought thirteen litres of gas from a service station in Vantaa, and a receipt for coffee showing he had bought two cups of coffee, meaning he paid for someone.”

  “That’s a strange amount,” Stenman said. “Why would anyone buy so little gas for an SUV… unless you’re buying with cash and that’s all you have on you.”

  “It wasn’t a cash receipt – it was a credit-card receipt.”

  “Do you remember the date?”

  “I do, and the time, too.”

  I could tell Stenman was thinking the same thing I was. She beat me to the punch. “Why don’t we head out there right now?”

  The car had satellite navigation, so finding the place was easy. There were a few pumps under a canopy; behind them stood a tacky, boxy service station with an attached cafe. It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for. The service station had a surveillance camera, or actually two. One was on the wall under the canopy; another was on the ceiling behind the register.

  I addressed the twenty-year-old cashier. “I’d like to speak to the manager, please.”

  She pointed at a man who was stocking the shelves with multi-grade motor oil. I showed him my badge, and he dropped the oil for a second.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “How long do you keep the tapes from the surveillance cameras?”

  “They’re recorded on a hard drive, not tape. A month, unless there’s some reason to keep them longer.”

  “We’d like a copy of a specific hour, to begin with.”

  “What hour?”

  “1:30 to 2:30 p.m. last Friday.”

  17

  It’s hard to imagine a job that would give you such an intense feeling of success as being a police officer when the case you’re working on starts to open up, especially if it’s a violent crime.

  The silent movies from the service station’s surveillance cameras gave us just about everything we could have hoped for: the first role was played by Max, who drove up in his Mercedes-Benz SUV. He pumped the gas, moved the car and went inside. The interior surveillance camera showed Max pay with his credit card and walk over to the cafe, where he took a seat.

  A moment later, a familiar blue Golf pulled up under the canopy. It passed the pumps slowly as if looking for the best deal, then turned into a parking space. The driver sat in his car for at least a couple of minutes before getting out.

  Simolin, Stenman, Oksanen and I were glued to the monitor and the man approaching the camera. He was about six or seven yards away before he noticed it on the wall. He turned his head and passed the camera with his head tilted at a strange angle.

  “Dammit, he noticed the camera,” Stenman said.

  “Didn’t want to show his face,” Oksanen continued. “Clear sign of guilt.”

  “Go back a little,” I said, and Simolin rewound the recording. The image paused at the moment where the man noticed the camera.

  He was about fifty years old, average height, slim. He had a light, relaxed stride. His hair was cut short, his face thin, his nose slightly hooked. The hook had been exaggerated in the sketch, so it was no wonder no one had recognized him. Otherwise, he looked surprisingly similar to the drawing, down to the sunglasses.

  Simolin read my thoughts. “It’s the guy from the picture.”

  “If he’s still in the country, we’ll get him with that shot, that’s for sure,” Oksanen said.

  “Fast-forward so we can see them when they come out,” I said.

  The meeting between Max and the man in the sunglasses lasted about twenty minutes. This time he was prepared. He exited looking off to the side, so his face wouldn’t be visible. But the evasion came too late.

  I called Huovinen, and he promised to come right over. Once he showed up, he looked at the still in satisfaction.

  “Nice work. How did you find the place?”

  I told him about the dated receipt we had found in Max’s car.

  “Does this mean that Oxbaum knew to anticipate his fate and left you a clue?”

  “I think so. I’m pretty sure he left the receipts in the car so we’d find Jacobson’s killer. Just to be sure, he told Eli to warn me against buying a Benz. He knew that by then at the latest I’d start wondering what he was talking about.”

  “Why didn’t he just tell you?”

  “For the same reason Jacobson didn’t dare to reveal the person who was threatening him. Both were afraid that their loved ones would be targeted for vengeance. This way it looks like we got on the trail on our own – and we did, in a way.”

  I guess Max was smarter than I thought he was.

  “What did the killer want from Jacobson and Max? What did they have that could have interested someone so much?”

  “I’m not sure. It just occurred to me that if Jacobson didn’t give the killer what he wanted, and neither did Max, will he move on to victim number three? It can’t be about money, because Max definitely would have paid up if doing so would get him out of whatever mess he was in.”

  “Could the motive have something to do with Jewishness after all?” Simolin asked.

  Huovinen looked at me. “What do you think, Ari?”

  “It’s possible, I guess.”

  “Any other suggestions?” Huovinen asked.

  “Maybe the killer’s real target was some third party, say from the Jewish congregation, and the killer had been blackmailing Jacobson and Oxbaum for their help,” Stenman suggested.

  “Jewishness isn’t the only thing Jacobson and Oxbaum had in common. Baltic Invest is another,” Simolin noted.

  I reconsidered the entire case, and for the first time I found a new take on it.

  “We’ve assumed that the killer has something to do with Baltic Invest, because the Golf was owned by it and Jacobson’s company’s loan was from there. But we can also flip the idea around: Baltic Invest – or someone from there – is the killer’s real target, and Jacobson and Max are only vehicles for getting a
t whoever that is. Max knew the owner of the company, Amos Jakov, and his frontman Benjamin Hararin. Jakov is originally from Russia; he has old criminal contacts there. He’s also ex-high-level Mossad, and probably has plenty of enemies from those days. And then Jacobson’s son-in-law Joel Kazan is a director at Baltic Invest.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Huovinen said. “But that means the killer probably isn’t Finnish.”

  “This guy looks Finnish,” Oksanen said.

  I continued explaining my scenario to Huovinen. “Hararin’s companies have been investigated in Israel under suspicion of money laundering, but no conclusive evidence has been found.”

  “Could you put some more pressure on the police there for further information on the investigation? We could also send them that still to take a look at; the guy might be from Israel. In any case, we have something to work with now. Let’s not release that photo yet, though, so we don’t spook him. We’ll use our own people to look for him first. Send that photo out to the patrols and warn them that they’re not to attempt arrest. Nice work,” Huovinen said again, before leaving.

  As soon as the door shut behind Huovinen’s back, Oksanen asked: “What about us?”

  “Simolin, send the photo to the Tallinn police for identification. While you’re at it, go ahead and send it to the Israeli police. Use Interpol. Arja, you email it to all investigators and patrols, and Oksanen, you and I will go show it to the neighbour who saw the gunman and the kids who found the car.”

  Stenman’s eyes asked why I had elected to take Oksanen with me and not her. I had my reasons for everything.

  It was my first ride in Oksanen’s latest acquisition. Legally it was an automobile, but judging by the sound it was an earthmover.

  “I changed out the engine chip, got fifty more HP just like that.”

  Out of politeness, I asked: “How much does this tractor get off the field?”

  “About thirteen litres per hundred kilometres in the city; you can get down to about eight or nine on the highway. You have to be prepared to pay for your hobbies. Simolin has his redskins; I’ve got anything that rumbles and roars.”