Helsinki Homicide: Nothing but the Truth

by Jarkko Sipila

  “No. Not like it’s a novel.”

  After Joutsamo showed her where to sign, Lehtonen leafed through the document, signing each page as she went. Joutsamo did the same.

  “Just a couple more things,” said Joutsamo. “I should remind you that you’re prohibited by law

  from speaking with anybody else about anything we’ve discussed here.”

  “Okay,” said Lehtonen. “I wasn’t going to.”

  “The other issue has to do with security. All your personal information will be kept confidential, so that’s why I left your address and phone number off of the transcript. We are, however, required to include your name and birth date. Since the case is linked to organized crime, do you think anyone would be able to track you down based on that information? There’s no danger, it’s just a precaution.”

  Lehtonen was quiet for a moment. “Why would you need a precaution if there’s no danger?”

  Joutsamo sidestepped the question. “What I’m asking is whether your name, number or address are listed in the phone book?”

  “No. Some years ago I had problems with my ex-husband, so my daughter and I ended up moving and getting an unlisted number.”

  “Good,” said Joutsamo. Removing data from electronic directories was quick and easy, but printed phone books presented a problem. Not in this case, however.

  “Should I be afraid…or something?”

  “No. Just go on with your life as usual. At some point, hopefully soon, we’ll ask you to come back for a lineup. You’ll look at a row of five men from behind mirrored glass and tell us if one of them is the driver. After that, some months down the line, you’ll tell the court the same thing you told me today. And that’s it.”

  “I see…are we are all done here, then?”

  “Yes…and thank you. Your information has been very helpful.”

  Mari Lehtonen nodded as she took her coat off the hook.

  “I can give you a ride back to work,” said Joutsamo.

  “No, thanks,” she said. “I’ll catch the bus.” The policewoman seemed nice enough, but Lehtonen still felt strangely unsettled. It wasn’t fear or nervousness, just an unpleasant feeling. Maybe it was just the atmosphere of the police station.

  * * *

  Suhonen was sitting in the passenger seat of Salmela’s van.

  Salmela was at the wheel, the only other spot to sit in his junker Toyota. He turned onto the entrance ramp heading toward Hämeenlinna and Tampere. They passed a massive bus depot.

  A few light raindrops hit the windshield, and judging by the color of the sky, there would be plenty more.

  Salmela flicked on the wipers, or the wiper, since the one on the passenger side didn’t work.

  “You had this thing inspected lately?” said Suhonen. “Or ever, for that matter?”

  “Sure. All’s in order… Least that’s what the guy told me when he took my three hundred euros for it.” Salmela smirked.

  “You got gouged.”

  They passed Hotel Haaga on the left, and on the right, a forested arm of Helsinki Central Park, where scores of homeless people lived in ramshackle huts. The scene was hardly an uplifting one. Suhonen had pulled plenty of corpses out of these same woods.

  Salmela ground the gears as he jammed the shifter into fourth. He had called Suhonen about half an hour earlier and invited him along, supposedly to show him something. Beyond that, Salmela wouldn’t elaborate.

  “Get any sleep last night?” asked Suhonen.

  “Some. Once I finally got to bed. I had to take care of something first.”

  “What?” said Suhonen. He wasn’t prying, just keeping up the conversation.

  “You’ll see,” said Salmela, and he shut his mouth. The van was doing about fifty miles per hour, just over the speed limit.

  Salmela exited the freeway and followed the signs for Kaivoksela and Myyrmäki. The van circled the cloverleaf and went under the highway. The Kaivoksela shopping center lay on the right and a large car dealer on the left.

  “We picking up a new van for you?” said Suhonen. The game was getting old, even if Salmela had something important to show him. Thankfully, the rain had stopped, so Suhonen could at least see out the window. The sun was hidden behind a thick layer of gray clouds, and the flags at the dealership rippled in the wind.

  “Nah. Just wanna show you this place.”

  The van turned left at a stoplight, followed a curve gently to the left, then to the right. The small houses on the passenger side gave way to tall apartment buildings. Suhonen knew that the road led to the Vihti Highway, but he doubted they would go

  that far.

  At the intersection, Salmela swung left onto a side road and pulled into a small parking lot on the right. “The moment you been waiting for,” said Salmela.

  Suhonen said nothing, not that Salmela had expected him to. The lot had spaces for maybe fifteen cars but now there were only five. Nobody else was around.

  “You did right by me last night…just like a friend ought to. First I figured I’d just get hammered, but then I got a taste for blood in my mouth. That’s why I picked this up…” Salmela pulled out a stout, short-barreled pistol.

  “What the hell have you done?” Suhonen hissed. Salmela’s gaze was cold and unflinching.

  * * *

  Mari Lehtonen was sitting in her cubicle, her mind still at the police station, her work piling up on her desk.

  A smiling Essi Saari popped her head around the corner. “Hey, you eaten yet?”

  Lehtonen shook her head.

  “Wanna go? Salad bar today.”

  “Not hungry.”

  “What is it? Something wrong?”

  Lehtonen paused just a bit too long. “No…it’s nothing.”

  “Come on…I know you,” she said, as she came round the partition and approached Lehtonen. “So, what is it?”

  Lehtonen didn’t respond.

  “So you told them.”

  “Yes, but don’t start with your lectures, I didn’t…”

  “I’m not gonna lecture you. Actually, thinking back, I think you were right. If you hadn’t already called, I would’ve made you.”

  Her words were comforting. “Really?”

  “Yep, we gotta side with the good guys... So what was it like?”

  “They said I can’t talk about it.” Her mood seemed to lift somewhat.

  Saari seemed disappointed. “Come on, you can tell me something.”

  “I don’t really know what’s so secret about it. They showed me some pictures and one was of the guy I saw in the car. So I told that to the cop, and she typed it out on her computer and then had me sign it. That’s all it really was.”

  “Who was the guy?”

  “I dunno. The lady cop seemed really surprised when I pointed at him.”

  “So it must be one of their repeat customers if they already had a picture of him.”

  “I guess.”

  “Is he dangerous?”

  “She didn’t really say anything about him.”

  “Well, you already have some experience with psychos,” Saari laughed.

  “I guess.” Lehtonen couldn’t bring herself to smile. “Anyway, I doubt anything bad will happen. He’ll probably just go to prison.”

  “Yeah. Should we go eat now?”

  Mari got up. “Sure.”

  Then she stopped. “What do you think I should tell my daughter?”

  * * *

  Takamäki scrolled through his cellphone directory till he landed on the number. He pressed “Call.”

  “Nykänen,” answered a raspy voice. Lieutenant Jaakko Nykänen had been a detective on Takamäki’s team until a few years ago, when the walrus-whiskered veteran had been promoted to lieutenant in the neighboring city of Espoo’s narcotics unit, and then last spring to the intelligence unit at the National Bureau of Investigation. A number of these units were established throughout the country in 2004 to help gather and coordinate actionable intelligence on organized crim
e. In addition to the police force, the border patrol and customs were also involved.

  “Hey, it’s Takamäki.”

  Due to the interdepartmental squabbling of the last few years, Takamäki’s relations with the NBI were rather cool, but when it came to his old colleague and family friend, they were still quite warm.

  “Hey there.”

  “You in a hurry?”

  Nykänen gave a dry laugh. “What, in this job? We’re never in a hurry. Intel just rolls in and we mull it over and hatch our clever theories. How’s the boys’ hockey going?”

  “Fine. No games yet, but they were at camp last weekend. Gets pretty crazy with soccer and hockey doubled up in the fall.”

  “The coaches pushing them into one or the

  other yet?”

  “No. Kalle’s definitely better at hockey, but they’re both doing well.”

  “Yeah. Keep ’em in hockey. It’s a fine sport. I’ll have to come to a game sometime.” Nykänen guessed that Takamäki was probably busy, so he wrapped up the chitchat. “So?”

  “We’re on the hunt for one Risto Korpi,” said Takamäki. He outlined the main points leading up to Nyberg’s arrest. Nykänen was tapping on his keyboard on the other end.

  “Sounds like a tough case,” said Nykänen. “I remember Korpi from a drug case back in Espoo. We got a tip about his involvement, but the case dried up because no one had the balls to testify against him. Out of several pounds of dope, we couldn’t pin any of it on Korpi.”

  “Yeah. Apparently a pretty violent guy.”

  Nykänen kept typing. “Makes good on his threats. Says here he rules by fear. Only reason people respect him is because they’re afraid, not because he’s a born leader. Looks like nothing acute going on with him at the moment.”

  “What’s acute mean in your language?”

  “None of our units have any open investigations on him. He lands in the three-to-five-year bracket here. In other words, we’re looking to open a case and bust up his little outfit within that time frame. His gang is classified as organized crime, though...”

  “So why such a long time frame?”

  “Not enough boots on the ground. Resources are slim and we gotta set priorities. Maybe things will improve next year. Apparently the interior ministry’s making organized crime the big theme for next year. Might actually get some funding.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Gotta set priorities,” said Nykänen, his voice filled with sarcasm. “We got about a thousand criminals in the database that make up these gangs. About a hundred and fifty are behind bars and about the same number are foreigners. Just think how much manpower we’d need to track them all.”

  “I know. The numbers are never pretty.”

  “Say we need ten cops minimum for every bad guy. That makes about ten thousand cops over here at the NBI. And I’m talking good street-smart cops.”

  “Yeah,” Takamäki grumbled.

  Nykänen returned to Korpi. “Yeah is right. Anyway, I did get a couple hits. Korpi was spotted in June in a Kannelmäki liquor store with the same Nyberg you got in the cooler. Then in early August he was seen with a gangster by the name of Jere Siikala meeting some Estonian guy in the West Harbor.”

  “So you have him under surveillance, then?” Takamäki wondered.

  “Nah…just stuff we’ve gotten in connection with other investigations. Our guys were after someone else and Korpi just happened to be there.”

  “You don’t have an address, do you? We’ve got a couple questions for him.”

  “Sorry. Don’t see anything here.”

  “So nobody has an open case on Korpi?”

  “No, but I’ll put a note here that you do.”

  “Good. We might be able to get a life sentence… Anything to help clear your logjam.”

  Nykänen knew his ex-boss meant business.

  * * *

  Suhonen and Salmela stepped out of the van just as a light drizzle began to fall. The fine mist didn’t have the weight to penetrate their coats, but the men could feel it on their faces.

  “This way,” Salmela said, as he circled a gray office building toward the rear.

  “Where we going?”

  “Patience. You’ll see.”

  Suhonen’s hand found its way to his hip pouch where he could feel the butt of a Glock 26 through the fabric. Salmela’s reticence had started to make him suspicious, though Suhonen doubted his old friend would set him up.

  The two high-stepped through a thicket toward the rear of the building. Once past the office building, they continued on between two houses and into a small forested area.

  Salmela looked back. “Kinda reminds me of playing cowboys and indians in the woods back

  in Lahti.”

  “More like cops and robbers,” said Suhonen. Salmela laughed.

  The underbrush grew thicker as they advanced a couple hundred feet further. The ground was littered with fallen leaves and small branches, which crackled beneath their feet.

  “You know people were already living here six thousand years ago?” said Salmela.

  “How you know that?”

  “Read it in prison in some history book on Helsinki. Poor saps probably lived in mud holes and loafed around in the dirt daydreaming all day.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Suhonen. “How ’bout we cut the shit. Like now.”

  Salmela stopped and squatted down. “Well, this is it. Come on over here, but get down low.”

  Suhonen did as he was told and clambered up into a shallow depression along the ridge of a small hillock.

  “Look over there. The house, and especially

  the car.”

  Through the trees, Suhonen could make out a dingy, ramshackle two-story house and a dark Mazda sedan in the yard. The car was nearly a hundred yards away, and without binoculars, Suhonen couldn’t make out the license plate.

  “Korpi’s place. Not sure if he’s there, but he was last night. Saw him through the window.”

  “You sure?” said Suhonen with a stern expression.

  Salmela nodded. “Positive. Korpi took the house as payment for a twenty-thousand-euro dope haul that a low-level pusher lost somehow. Who knows if it’s true, but apparently this dealer got the house when his mom died. Her estate has never been closed, so the house couldn’t be foreclosed.”

  “And you heard this yesterday?”

  “Yeah. I happen to know one of the dealer’s buddies. Anyway, I was pissed off about Tomi last night so I started asking around about Korpi. Came here last night thinking I’d put a bullet through the fucker’s brain, but then it started to seem like a dumb move. Maybe I got cold feet…I dunno. I ain’t afraid to use a gun, but I didn’t want to study any more history in the joint. And that’s exactly where you would’ve put me. So I figured I’d let the cops handle the payback.”

  Suhonen was silent, his gaze fixed on the house. What he wouldn’t do for a pair of binoculars. He took his phone out of his pocket.

  “Later,” said Salmela, and he set off back toward the van, flipping up his collar as he went.

  CHAPTER 7

  MONDAY, 2:00 P.M.

  PASILA POLICE HEADQUARTERS

  The mood in the SWAT team conference room was tense.

  “It’s a tough location. Dead-end street and all,” said SWAT team commander Turunen as he examined a computerized map projected onto the wall. Three roads came together to form a sort of stylized K with the target residence at the terminal point on the lower leg.

  Turunen was wearing the SWAT team’s trademark black coveralls. Helmets and weapons lined the walls of the conference room, which resembled a sort of classroom. In addition to Turunen, Takamäki, and Joutsamo, ten other black-garbed SWAT officers were sitting at the table. Kulta was leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest.

  “So where exactly is Suhonen?” Turunen asked.

  “Not completely sure, but I’d guess somewhere around here,” said Takamäki, pointing to a spo
t about halfway down the lower leg of the K.

  “It’s pretty wooded there but he has a visual on the house. Hasn’t seen any movement.”

  Half an hour earlier Takamäki had been interviewed by Römpötti, but he had stuck to the basics and managed not to mention the upcoming raid.

  “Can Suhonen scout out the terrain for us?” wondered Turunen.

  “I can ask him.”

  Joutsamo cut in. “Why don’t you just use

  the net?”

  “That’s where the map’s from,” said Turunen.

  Joutsamo strolled over to the laptop and pulled up Google Earth on the browser. After loading for a moment, an image of the earth appeared. She rotated the image to the Eastern Hemisphere and closed in first on Finland, then Helsinki. In less than twenty seconds they were viewing an aerial photo of the house where Korpi was believed to be. “There’s terrain for you,” said Joutsamo. “You can zoom in and out right here.”

  Joutsamo showed them how detailed the image could get. Once the viewing altitude dipped below a hundred and fifty feet and only the target residence remained in the image, the contours of the image began to pixelate. “If this is a free service, just think how detailed the military satellite photos must be.”

  “Hmm,” said Turunen. “You’re always full of surprises. Let’s go with it.” Turunen began to plan the raid based on the aerial photo. On screen he could see a field on the north side of the house, while the other three quadrants were forested. A gravel path that wasn’t marked on the map appeared to cut through the woods on the eastern end.

  * * *

  Suhonen lay on the damp leaves, half-sheltered by a tree trunk, examining the house. The rain had soaked through his leather jacket and clothes. Initially he’d been squatting, but his knees had started to hurt. Salmela’s words about ancient Finns lying in the dirt had started to sink in—the bastard had known full well what Suhonen would end up doing. Suhonen suppressed the urge to curse his friend. Without Salmela’s help, they’d have no idea where Korpi was.