Before I Go

by Leena Lehtolainen

  Puustjärvi came to ask for my advice on how to finish up an assault investigation and how to approach the prosecutor. After we’d spent half an hour considering the best way to proceed and poring over the laws on pretrial investigations, Koivu called.

  “We’ve got a nice little situation here at the airport. Eriikka Rahnasto is refusing to come down to the police station. She’s never heard of Petri Ilveskivi and doesn’t see why she has to come in for questioning,” Koivu said. “Will you issue an arrest warrant?”

  “Let’s take it easy. Where is Rahnasto now?”

  “With Anu in the ladies’ room,” Koivu replied.

  Koivu and Wang had arrived at the airport just before the connection from New York arrived. The airport personnel had directed them to the gate. Eriikka Rahnasto had been easy to identify from her name badge, and Koivu had introduced himself. To his surprise, Rahnasto was instantly indignant.

  “I was starting to worry our message didn’t go through because no one replied!” she’d said. “The troublemaker is with the steward and copilot on the plane. We didn’t dare let him out of the handcuffs. And it looks like you have backup coming!”

  When Koivu turned, he saw airport security approaching. Apparently eight hours without a cigarette had been too much for the passenger, and even though the flight attendants had offered him nicotine gum, he had declined their help and chosen to down a few beers instead. He’d been handcuffed after hitting Rahnasto because she’d refused to serve him any more alcohol.

  Koivu and Wang had let Rahnasto explain the situation to the airport police and then pulled her aside. Eriikka Rahnasto was exhausted from the unusually difficult flight. Apparently her training had gotten her through her run-in with the drunk passenger, but the idea of being questioned by the police after all that was just too much.

  “Ask permission to take plaster casts of her motorcycle tires and say that we’ll get back to her tomorrow,” I said to Koivu. “Then look into how much money she and her father, Reijo Rahnasto, both make. I’m going to put Puustjärvi and Puupponen on Väinölä again because we just discovered that he has friends in common with Seppälä.”

  Since I had dealt with Suvi Seppälä and survived my presentation, I decided to go home a little early. For once I had time in the grocery store to choose the best tomatoes and then consider whether to buy chives or basil. Marko Seppälä’s DNA results wouldn’t be in until after May Day. Acting quickly was often crucial in policing, and it also fit my impatient nature, but sometimes you also had to know when to let things be.

  At home in the yard, Iida and I admired the first crocuses. Every spring they tenaciously pushed up through the dead grass. We helped them along a little and then went inside to make dinner. Iida wanted to help. She was thrilled to get to rip the basil leaves into the salad bowl.

  As the chicken casserole was cooking in the oven, I lay on the bed with Iida and read to her from a picture book. Einstein showed up to listen too, jumping up next to me on the pillow. I would have liked to lie there between daughter and cat forever, but hunger forced me out of bed.

  “Let’s go to Villa Elfvik to watch the ornithologists,” Antti suggested after dinner. “I heard that tonight there should be some good migrations. Let’s at least go to smell the spring air and see the ice on the bay breaking up.”

  “What are the snacks going to be?” Iida asked hopefully. She had already learned that the high point of any nature excursion was the snack break. In the cupboard we found chocolate cookies and my secret salmiakki salty licorice stash. My emergency supply at work was completely out, so I would have to stop by the candy shop soon.

  The weather was bright and cold, so I put Iida in her winter overalls. Winter cress bloomed on the shoulders of the road like hundreds of four-petal suns. At Villa Elfvik we traded our sneakers for rubber boots, and Antti pulled the binoculars out of his backpack.

  “Have to blend in,” he said.

  “I’ve never noticed you caring about that before. Look, Iida, that’s the building where Daddy and I got married,” I said, pointing at the Jugend-style villa. Five and a half years had passed since our wedding, and the time had gone frighteningly fast. Only during maternity leave had the days seemed to stretch like chewing gum, but when I was at work they sped past, sometimes leaving me wondering what day of the week it was.

  “When can I go there?” Iida asked, staring in wonder at the horse statue in the yard. “Do you ride a horsey there?”

  “Where?” I asked and lifted her onto the back of the statue, since that was why it was there.

  “When we go get married.”

  Antti explained patiently what being married meant while I enjoyed the quiet of the villa grounds and the smells of the wetlands. Memories of our wedding made me like this place even more. It was one of the city’s oases, even though the combined noise of the two nearby highways did detract from the effect.

  Birds and ornithologists flocked along the shoreline. I looked in interest at the latest trends in cameras, spotting scopes, and outdoor clothing. Antti tried to teach Iida how to look at the world through the binoculars while I focused on the spectrum of greens and browns, the feathered violet tassels of the knapweed and the ruddy willow branches that you never notice in the summer because of all the leaves. I liked the rainbow of colors in a leafless willow stand, almost as fantastic as the colors of autumn.

  Suddenly from the southern sky came an excited honking, and I learned what Antti’s bird-crazy coworker had meant by good migrations. There were at least fifty geese, all organized in a perfect wedge with a smaller wedge on one side. Last fall I had waved to the departing geese with Iida and practically begged the wagtails to stay. The geese were already back, and we wouldn’t have to wait long after May Day for the wagtails to be fanning their tails and teasing Einstein. The bird-watchers pointed their scopes at the skein of geese, but I waved and Iida joined in with a serious look on her face.

  We circled the cane grass to the north until we came to a peaceful meadow with patches of blue-and-white anemones on the shore. A fascinating collection of dwellings surrounded the meadow: little huts built from branches and grass, apparently left over from the previous summer’s play. Iida was so enchanted by the little huts that she demanded to inspect each one and then eat her snack in the one that seemed most fun.

  “Let’s hide in that one back there while Iida’s busy with her chocolate cookies,” Antti whispered as he pulled me into his arms. We slipped into the stick hideaway to make out, giggling like teenagers who had snuck away from a school field trip. Just as I was getting to Antti’s zipper, Iida realized that her parents had disappeared, and that was the end of that. Iida’s face was so sticky that we had to wash it in the frigid seawater. All the cookies had tasted just right.

  As if to make up for interrupting us, Iida fell asleep in her bike seat and didn’t even wake up while I undressed her for bed. The chocolate cookies would have to do as her bedtime snack, but the adults would indulge in each other. Before falling asleep, I wondered if making love would feel different if the goal was to create a new child.

  11

  The next morning the sky was spitting sleet, and even though a cop should have been happy about the turn in the weather just before a major drinking holiday, I grumbled all the way to the station. Koivu was uncharacteristically irritable in the morning meeting, stating that we should drop all our other lines of inquiry on the Ilveskivi case unless the DNA test results ruled out Marko Seppälä. So far the serial number on the bill hadn’t turned up anything. Maybe Suvi had just given us part of her change from the corner store or maybe the advance Seppälä received was legally earned money. How much did it cost to have somebody taken out? A few thousand marks would have been enough for Seppälä if there was a promise of more once the job was done.

  But had someone really paid Seppälä to kill Ilveskivi? Had the Rahnastos wanted to take revenge on Ilveskivi for seducing Kim? Both the father and the daughter had the money. Reijo Rahnas
to was the CEO and majority shareholder in a company that made security systems. The company’s market value was tens of millions of marks. Eriikka had earned a degree in tourism before landing a job as a flight attendant. She hadn’t taken out any student loans and had bought herself an apartment with money inherited from an aunt. Eija Hirvonen had an astonishing ability to get her hands on theoretically secret information. I was afraid White Collar Crime would notice her talents and steal her away from us.

  My answering machine said I had four new messages, and I was just deleting them when the phone rang. I barely managed to say my name before an angry male voice launched into me.

  “Why the hell are you harassing Eriikka? What have you told her?”

  “Good morning, Kim,” I replied dryly. “We aren’t harassing Eriikka. We’re simply conducting a routine investigation of everyone who owns a motorcycle with Metzeler ME 99 tires. You didn’t mention that Eriikka owns a motorbike.”

  “I didn’t think it mattered. Eriikka didn’t even know about me and Petri! You aren’t going to tell her that . . .”

  “Maybe that won’t be necessary, if you cooperate more fully. Does Eriikka smoke?”

  “Sometimes, when she’s partying or maybe if she’s nervous. A flight attendant can’t have a nicotine addiction.”

  “I would think not. Now, take it easy, Kim. Our only goal is to eliminate Eriikka from our list of potential suspects. If she can explain to our satisfaction what she was doing when Ilveskivi was killed, we won’t bother her anymore. I believe Sergeant Koivu has an appointment scheduled with her today.”

  “Eriikka said she was meeting with a detective at eleven, so she’s probably on her way there. Someone already came and took a cast of her motorcycle tire. It wasn’t even eight yet! Why do you even suspect Eriikka? I saw her the same night Petri died. She had a couple of days off, and we spent them together. She wasn’t acting like someone who had just stabbed a person to death. I don’t understand this. I told you private information to help with Petri’s murder investigation, and now you’re going to screw up my entire life!” Kim Kajanus said, then hung up. Cell phones weren’t as dramatic as landlines because you couldn’t slam the receiver down the same way you could with an old-fashioned phone. I considered calling back, but just then Koivu entered my office without knocking.

  “Eriikka Rahnasto will be here in fifteen minutes. Do you want to sit in?”

  “I think you and Wang can handle it without me.”

  “A third party would be useful,” Koivu said, and I realized that the investigation wasn’t the only thing responsible for his bad mood.

  “You guys having a tiff?”

  “It’s the marriage thing again. I don’t understand why it’s so important.”

  “But you’re still moving in together?”

  “The apartment is good, but Anu’s principles are getting in the way.” Koivu spread his arms, looking miserable. He then blushed. “You wouldn’t talk to her, would you?”

  “To Anu? Uh, no. And besides, I’m the wrong person to talk about not getting married, since my marriage is so happy.” I still felt a pleasant pain in my abductors from last night, and I knew there were bite marks on my right shoulder.

  “This week,” Koivu said huffily and then apologized immediately. I agreed to help with Eriikka Rahnasto’s interrogation only because I was curious. Koivu had reserved Interrogation Room 2. As I walked there, I realized I needed to get moving on assigning them new partners.

  Wang escorted Rahnasto into the interrogation room. Eriikka resembled her father, but what was forgettable and expressionless about his face created a pleasing symmetry in hers. Her gray-blue eyes were set just the right distance apart, her nose was delicate, and her cheekbones were high. Those she must have inherited from her mother. Her cotton pantsuit was at once casual and stylish. Apparently Eriikka had come by some other mode of transportation than her motorcycle. Her straight blond hair was fastened at her neck. When she heard my rank, her carefully plucked eyebrows went up.

  Eriikka Rahnasto gave her personal information politely but impatiently. Koivu explained the situation to her again and told her that she was being interviewed as a witness, not as a suspect.

  “I’ve never heard of Petri Ilveskivi,” Eriikka said, and nothing we knew contradicted that.

  “Are you sure? He was a highly visible local politician and served on a committee with your father.”

  “I’ve never been interested in politics. I probably developed an allergy to it, since my dad was never home because of it. I don’t even know what committees he’s sitting on these days.”

  Eriikka Rahnasto lived in Helsinki and therefore would have no reason to follow Espoo politics. I had lived a couple of blocks from her apartment at one time, and every now and then a certain nostalgia for the place bubbled to the surface. And even I didn’t know the name of the chairman of the Espoo City Council right now, let alone all the other members.

  “I would have thought that in a country like Finland, the police wouldn’t drag people in for questioning just because they own a certain kind of motorcycle tire,” Rahnasto continued. Her voice was low and carefully trained, with the simultaneously warm and impersonal tone of a flight attendant. “Couldn’t we have handled this over the phone?”

  “You would have had to come in to sign the interview record anyway,” Wang replied calmly. “Tell us, what were you doing last week on Tuesday, the twenty-second of April?”

  Eriikka Rahnasto looked from Wang to Koivu to me, and then bent down to get her calendar out of her purse.

  “Last Tuesday . . . in the morning I flew in from London. I’d spent all Monday flying back and forth between there and Helsinki. Wait a second . . . I don’t have anything on my calendar. But I probably slept in, did my laundry, went to the gym. Stuff like that. In the evening I met my boyfriend, Kim Kajanus. We had a dinner date at seven. Someone at the restaurant might remember us. We go there pretty often. Kim even had an exhibition there once. He’s a photographer. We had dinner and then went to Kim’s apartment, and I was there for the next couple of days. Is that sufficient?”

  “So you don’t have anyone who can confirm where you were between five and six?” Wang asked.

  “I don’t even remember what I was doing then! When I’m at work, everything is planned to the minute, so on my days off I hardly ever look at the clock. Maybe I was at aerobics. Maybe I was riding my motorcycle . . . which of course is exactly what you want to hear. This is absurd. Why would I have beaten someone I don’t even know?”

  “Just think back,” Wang said calmly. “We have time. Do you keep a diary?”

  Eriikka Rahnasto shrugged.

  “Why would I? I really don’t remember. I can think about it, though, and maybe my boyfriend will have some idea what I was doing. Or . . . wait.”

  Eriikka flipped back in her calendar, then forward, and nodded to herself.

  “I must have been at the gym on that Tuesday from four to five thirty. I try to go to a class at least three times a week, and I didn’t have time on Sunday or Monday, so I must have gone on Tuesday. I can’t swear to that, but maybe someone there will remember seeing me.”

  “Are your visits recorded anywhere?”

  “I have a monthly pass to the Adlon just off the square near my apartment. That’s all I can tell you, though. I don’t particularly like the idea of you going to my gym and making everyone think I’m suspected of murdering someone, but I can’t stop you either. My father told me to get a lawyer, but why would I need one?”

  “You probably don’t. Thank you for your cooperation. Please call if you happen to remember anything more specific about that Tuesday. Our forensic team says the imprint of your tires is good, so we won’t need to do that again. That should be enough to eliminate your motorcycle,” Wang said and then escorted Eriikka Rahnasto back to the lobby.

  Koivu sighed. “Poor girl,” he said as we walked back to our offices. “Should we have told her?”

  �
��It isn’t any of our business. Could you come to my office for a minute? I’ll go put a note on Wang’s door, because I need to see her too.”

  Koivu went to get coffee for himself and Wang, while I stuck to water.

  “Pretty strange situation,” Wang said as she walked in. Koivu was sprawled on the couch, but she took one of the armchairs instead of sitting next to him. “I almost hoped that the tire prints and DNA would knock Eriikka Rahnasto off our list.”

  “She isn’t the first woman with a boyfriend who cheated on her,” I said lightly because I wanted to move on to discussing the unit-partner situation.

  “Do you think it’s somehow more acceptable to cheat on a girlfriend with another man than with another woman?” Koivu asked acerbically.

  “No, but if Kajanus is bi—”

  “He can’t help it, is that it?” Koivu said, interrupting me. “Sometimes it feels like you have this idea that gays and lesbians are somehow better people than us heteros, as if there was something special about being a minority—”

  “There isn’t anything special about it. I think we all know that by now,” Wang said, interrupting in turn. “At least Kajanus’s and Rahnasto’s alibis seem to match up. Should we go to her gym and the restaurant to check?”

  “Let’s wait for the lab results,” I said. “I’m still betting on Seppälä, but that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you two about. I have a question for you: Do you feel like it’s a good idea to keep working as partners after you’ve moved in together?”

  Wang stood up angrily.

  “Who says we’re moving in together?”

  “I was under the impression that you’d looked at an apartment,” I responded patiently, even though I was feeling like I had had just about enough of this situation. Usually Koivu and Wang were the kinds of coworkers who gave me strength rather than sapping it. If I didn’t have people like that around me, this line of work would be impossible.

  Koivu didn’t look at me or Wang, instead focusing on cleaning his glasses with a paper tissue that seemed to be doing more smearing than polishing. Wang looked me in the eye and said, “You probably know that Pekka and I disagree about moving in together without getting married.”