My First Murder

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “Are you saying that my son was murdered?”

  “I’m not saying anything yet. But we have to take that possibility into account.”

  “Tommi’s friends are upstanding, highly cultured young people. What reason would they have to kill anyone? If this is a case of murder, which I don’t believe for a second, then it must have been someone from outside. There were a number of vacation home break-ins during the spring, and all sorts of bums have been camping out in the area.”

  It struck me as unlikely that even an amateur would have set out to rob summer cottages in the middle of a prime summer weekend, but I let Peltonen talk.

  “And it may simply be that Tommi tripped. I’m sure they’d all been drinking too much, and sometimes the dock can be slippery.”

  “Yes...What did he hit his head on, then? The edge of the dock is so high above the surface of the water that it doesn’t get wet, so if Tommi hit his head on it, we would still be able to see evidence of it. And the worn, rounded wooden edge of the dock wouldn’t have left such a nasty mark. There aren’t even any rocks next to the dock for him to have hit his head on; the nearest rocks are the ones he was floating against when he was found. We’ve even tested that scenario and established that it’s impossible to hit those rocks falling off the dock.”

  The boys from Forensics had had a good laugh about that test, which had mainly consisted of floundering around in the water, but they had done it anyway.

  Peltonen clearly wanted facts. Theories weren’t going to sway him in the slightest. I was all too familiar with the fact that I was often the one who ended up sitting in the witness chair when I interviewed older, powerful men. I didn’t even bother getting upset about their inquiries into my marital status or correcting their use of “Miss” with “Detective.” Whatever. I was tired of trying to change every little thing about the world. I even used plastic grocery bags every once in a while and occasionally resorted to buying my morning yogurt in single-serving packages instead of the usual liter carton.

  “My wife was also extremely upset that her fingerprints were taken, as though she were some sort of common criminal. You could at least have saved that indignity for a later time.”

  “Did they take your fingerprints yesterday? I’m sorry. That was an error.”

  Someone in Forensics had been rushing things. I had asked them to take the choir members’ prints for safety’s sake, but I hadn’t said anything about the Peltonens. Now I tried to cover my embarrassment.

  “You have another son, Henri Peltonen? And did I understand correctly that he is out of the country for a yachting competition in the United States?”

  “Yes. Henri is the second trimmer on a maxi-class yacht named Marlboro of Finland. We don’t know yet whether we want to notify him of this unhappy news on the boat or wait until the competition is over. This race is very important to him. Another of Tommi’s acquaintances is also on the boat, Peter Wahlroos, whose wife, Pia, was also at Villa Maisetta, if I understand correctly. Hopefully this won’t completely ruin the boys’ race.”

  Again that reaction of focusing on trivialities, I thought.

  I didn’t get much information out of Peltonen, who seemed to have kept up with his oldest son’s life at only the most superficial level. Tommi had visited his parents’ home in Westend for dinner from time to time, and they had met up quite often at the villa, but he had had his own apartment and his own life for ages.

  “It’s true that Tommi may have had a few too many girlfriends and that we were starting to hope that he would settle down. Otherwise, he had his act together. He graduated from the Helsinki University of Technology with high marks, his apartment is paid for, he seemed to like his job at Finnish Metals Incorporated, and he loved music and sailing. Aside from his dealings with women, he lived a normal, quiet life. I can’t understand why anyone would have killed him intentionally.”

  I noticed that the furrows beneath Heikki Peltonen’s tan had deepened. He obviously wanted to make himself believe that his son’s death had been an accident. Easier to endure the loss that way. If Tommi’s death turned out to be murder, it would inevitably lead to painful questions and even more painful answers.

  “What other friends did Tommi have aside from these choir members?”

  “He didn’t have very many other real friends, I don’t think. He had colleagues from work and sailing acquaintances, of course, but I didn’t really know the specifics of his life. Antti Sarkela might know.”

  “When did you last see Tommi? Did he seem like his normal self?”

  “He called us Tuesday evening to confirm that the villa would be empty. It’s been a little while since our last visit because my wife and I have been sailing on the coast of Sweden for the last three weeks. We didn’t arrive home until Monday.”

  Peltonen paused to think. His brow wrinkled as he did so, and at that moment, he looked exactly like Tommi, who’d had the same habit.

  “I don’t know if this means anything, but a couple of months ago Tommi asked me what recourse there was for making a debtor take legal responsibility when there isn’t any promissory note. When I asked for details, he was evasive. I got the impression that someone owed Tommi money and wasn’t willing to pay, but it didn’t seem like the sum was all that great—maybe around ten thousand marks.”

  “Thank you. That may be very important. And finally—and this is just a routine question—where were you anchored on Saturday night? We have to check everyone’s whereabouts.” I was waiting for an indignant protest, but Peltonen just looked resigned.

  “Yes, I understand. We spent that night in a small guest marina a little west of Barösund, and in the morning we had coffee in a café nearby. Our friends Jarl and Brita Sundström were with us, so you can check our...hmm...alibis...with them. I can give you their telephone number.”

  Even though there was probably no point, I decided to follow up on this anyway. Trying to draw conclusions could be stimulating work in theory, but I had such scant material to work with at this point. I knew that I would also have to interview Maisa Peltonen once she had had time to recover.

  After another attempt, I succeeded in getting through to Germany. A “Frau Schön” answered the telephone, and it took me a moment to realize that this was, in fact, Jaana.

  “Hi, it’s Maria Kallio, from Finland. How are you?”

  “Maria! It’s nice to hear your voice after so long. Are you coming this way for a visit? I’m on maternity leave right now with my little Michael. He’s three months old. Just think, me with a baby! Sometimes I have absolutely no idea what to do with him.”

  “Well, I certainly wouldn’t know what to do with a baby either. Unfortunately, I’m not coming to Germany. In fact, I’m calling on business. I’m working for the police department again, but it’s a long story why. In any case, this is why I’m calling: Tommi, your old boyfriend Tommi Peltonen, has died, and he was probably killed.”

  Jaana’s startled cries and sobs on the other end of the line made me realize that I could have delivered the news less indelicately. But Jaana eventually calmed down, and I was able to explain the general outline of the case.

  “I really don’t know why anyone would have murdered him,” she said. “I mean, you remember how Tommi was, always going after different women. It was exhausting, and that’s why I ended up leaving him. He just acted so infuriatingly superior if you ever accused him of being unfaithful or irresponsible. He just laughed in my face and said that he was only ‘living life.’ As if there were different rules for him than for me. He sure raised a big enough stink if I danced too close to someone at a choir retreat or something. Sometimes I felt like he didn’t care at all about anyone else’s feelings. But then at other times he could be perfectly lovely. He certainly didn’t lack charm when he wanted something. But he was a risk taker. Once we were supposed to go out somewhere together and he showed up with his previous date...Hold on a sec, Michael’s crying. I’m going to go give him his pacifier.”

/>   Jaana laid down the receiver. From farther off in the room came a child’s whimpering and Jaana’s tender cooing. It was surreal to hear those sounds coming from my old roommate’s mouth. A few seconds later, the whimpering stopped.

  “I imagine Tommi must have seduced some other man’s girlfriend again,” Jaana said with a sigh when she returned to the telephone. “He always needed all the girls’ attention. Sometimes it felt like anyone would do.”

  “You basically knew everyone who was out at the villa, right? Do you know whether anyone might have had an old grudge against Tommi?”

  “Yeah, I know all of them except for that Riku guy. Let’s see. A grudge against Tommi...” Jaana hesitated before continuing.

  “I’d say Sirkku Halonen probably held a grudge. After that trip to Germany, she ended things with her boyfriend because she and Tommi had had a fling. It was typical Tommi on display during that trip. I broke up with him just before we left, and then I met Franz...When we got back to Finland, Tommi tried to get me back and couldn’t get it through his head that I had left my heart in Kassel. In any case, Sirkku didn’t really get what was going on and kept badgering Tommi and accusing him of tricking her into breaking up with her boyfriend for no reason.”

  “Sirkku is dating Timo Huttunen now. Do you think that has any significance?”

  “Huttunen? What a pompous ass. Nice-looking though. At least Sirkku hasn’t lowered her standards. I don’t know what might be bottled up inside of Timo. He’s so self-important. I suppose he could be secretly jealous of all of Sirkku’s exes.”

  At the end of the phone call, Jaana asked me to send her regards to everyone, especially Tuulia. I promised to pass the message along and asked her to call if she remembered anything that might be important. Then I called the passport office to have them verify that neither Jaana nor Franz Schön had been in the country over the weekend. They couldn’t give me any information about Jaana immediately because she was still a Finnish citizen, but no German national by the name of Franz Schön had entered Finland, at least through the airports. I also asked the passport office to check whether either of them had exited Germany, even though suspecting the Schöns seemed farfetched.

  The Marlboro of Finland had been out on the Atlantic the entire previous week. No member of the crew had set foot on dry land, so both Peter Wahlroos and Henri Peltonen were out of the picture—as I had assumed they would be.

  I ate a rushed lunch in the police station cafeteria. Fortunately, the tabloids still hadn’t broadcast any crazy headlines about the case. Apparently, a few reporters had been trying to contact me, but the switchboard had been instructed to direct all calls to the captain, who only stated that Detective Kallio was investigating the case. I knew that the papers would love to spin stories about my gender—a female detective was news—and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On the one hand, my example could give other girls the courage to enter less traditionally female professions; on the other, I didn’t want any publicity about myself as a police officer, especially since I didn’t yet know whether I actually wanted to be one. For the moment, the headlines were filled with news about some Estonian prostitute thing: ESTONIAN PROSTITUTE ROBS CLIENTS, screamed the Ilta-Sanomat, and the Iltalehti proclaimed, LUXURY WHORE TAKES MEN’S MONEY. Seemed like that was kind of the point of the exchange.

  After cramming down my parmesan-crusted salmon, I headed back to my office. I heard my phone ringing as I walked down the hallway; a quick fifty-yard dash got me there in time to answer.

  “It’s Huikkanen from the lab. I’ve got this ax here if you’re interested.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Judging from the salt on it, it looks like it was rinsed in seawater, but there’s still some blood on it. Two kinds no less. We still haven’t identified one of them—we might need to start taking blood samples from your suspects—but the other one is definitely Peltonen’s. There’s even a little piece of the back of his head on it, hair and skin and such. And dirt—where did that uniform dig this out of again?”

  “But this is what struck Peltonen?”

  “It looks that way. With the butt, thankfully.”

  “What’s the other blood, then?” I asked.

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure, but given that there was something that looked like scales on the ax too, I think the other blood probably came from a fish. I don’t know what species.”

  Fish...Mira had caught a pike. Could she have finished it off with the ax?

  “Were there fingerprints on the ax?”

  “Loads of them. Looks like our murderer didn’t bother washing the whole ax, but just rinsed the head, because there isn’t any salt on the other end of the handle. There were two sets of prints on it: Sarkela’s and Rasinkangas’s.”

  “Wow. What positions?”

  “Rasinkangas’s prints are pretty interesting. They’re actually only right-hand prints, and they’re positioned in such a way that it would be impossible to strike the way you would normally lift an ax, with the blade toward the ground. In this position, you could strike with the butt, but you’d have to twist your wrist a bit awkwardly to do so.”

  “So the position sounds more like when you’re moving an ax from one place to another.” As I pictured the scene in my mind, I picked up a thick ruler and twisted my wrist, pretending I was wielding an ax. “Maybe she covered her hands for the actual act, but forgot afterward.”

  “Could be. Sarkela’s prints are all over it, and it’s clear that he held the ax in a variety of positions, including the classic wood-chopping one. He must have changed his grip several times. And that’s all there was.”

  “Good. I was thinking I’d go out to the crime scene again today, but I have to handle a few other things first. I assume I’ll get your report once it makes the rounds?”

  I looked through my notebook for Mira’s and Antti’s phone numbers. Mira had a summer job at the city courthouse, which was close to the police station. Funny.

  “Hi, this is Detective Kallio. I’d like to meet as soon as possible. Would two o’clock work?” Mira did not sound surprised by my call and replied with uncharacteristic meekness that she would try to take her coffee break around two. Antti was more difficult to reach at the university, but I finally got him on the line in the math department library.

  “I make my own schedule, especially during the summer when there aren’t any classes. I could be there at, say, three.”

  Antti didn’t ask for any additional explanation either. I called the motor pool to reserve a car, because I still meant to head out later that afternoon to investigate the dock and the site where the ax was found. Though an honest confession would be welcome, I doubted I would be arresting either Mira or Antti today. I was tired just thinking about it all.

  Mira arrived precisely on time. Although nothing about her behavior indicated sorrow, her black skirt and white blouse looked like mourning garb. She could just as easily have been visiting the bank to make a withdrawal from a fat checking account as in a police station for an official interview.

  “Did you have a good send-off party last night?” I asked brutally. I wanted to provoke her to express some kind of emotion. Any emotion.

  “It did us all good.” Still no feeling.

  “In what way?”

  “It was clear that no one wanted to go home alone—except for Antti, though of course we tried to get him to join us. It did us good to talk and think about what happened.”

  “Well, what conclusion did you come to?”

  “That it must have been an accident. Hopefully. We’re certain that Tommi didn’t kill himself. He liked himself entirely too much to do anything like that. But could someone really have killed him? Though Tommi could certainly be irritating, that seems a little too farfetched. But we all understand, of course, that we will all be treated as potential killers until you solve the case. Sirkku was particularly hysterical about that.”

  “Were you blaming each other?”

  �
�Some of us suspected Antti and thought his reserve was a sign of a guilty conscience, but we don’t all agree on that. Riku claimed he was positive he heard Antti going into Tommi’s room during the night, but Riku was so drunk there was no way he could have heard anything. If someone did murder Tommi, my nominee is still Tuulia. Her fits of rage can be...appalling.”

  “I still don’t know yet whether we’re talking about murder, but we’ve found an ax with Tommi’s blood on it. It had your fingerprints on it too. How do you explain that?”

  A bewildered expression appeared on Mira’s face, but it quickly changed to amusement.

  “Is that why you wanted me here? Yes, I handled that ax a couple of times. Someone had left it in the middle of the sauna building porch, and I moved it to the side so no one would trip on it. And then later in the evening, I caught that big pike. I yelled for someone to bring me something to bash its head with. Antti brought the ax from the sauna and killed it. I imagine that in all the excitement we left it on the dock.” Mira snorted. “If I were going to kill a person, I would have the sense to use gloves. They talk about them in every single mystery novel ever written.” She paused for a moment, then continued.

  “Who else’s fingerprints have you found on it? Antti’s, of course. He chopped the wood for the sauna, since none of the other boys could be bothered to make the effort. Antti said he likes chopping wood, and you can tell just from his biceps,” she said, suddenly blushing.

  I remembered what Tuulia had said about Mira’s interest in Antti, and somehow it made her seem more human. She didn’t have poor taste in men, I thought, but then I sighed with disappointment. There was a reasonable explanation for everything. Of course, it was possible that Mira wasn’t telling the whole truth. Antti could have used the ax after chopping the wood as well, and he would have had the strength and coordination for a blow like this. And besides, the blow had come from above, and Antti was the only one who was tall enough to have struck him from this angle if Tommi had been standing. If Tommi had been seated, though, height would be irrelevant. Mira’s obvious need to protect Antti was a little amusing. At least she didn’t seem to be trying to hide her infatuation.