“I think we’re going to need reinforcements. Call the rest of the boys in. And someone needs to tell the family what happened. Her daughter and brother…and I think her mother’s still alive too.”
“Actually, Meeri Korhonen, her mom, is my neighbor,” Lasarov said slowly.
“Maybe it would be best to notify her first and then let her tell Aniliina…Doesn’t Jaska—doesn’t Jari Korhonen still live with his mother? Lasarov, could you handle it once someone comes to relieve you? Since they are your neighbors.”
Lasarov nodded and then walked a short distance away from us, back to Meritta’s corpse. His lips moved as if he was practicing what he would say to her mother. I wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with him. Antikainen’s phone beeped and then he began giving driving directions to the county forensics team and medical examiner. I found myself thinking of them as rescuers. They would arrive and tell us that Meritta fell by accident and we had no reason to launch a criminal investigation.
Forensics…They would need keys to the Tower, since the door was locked. Information gave me Seppo Kivinen’s number. As I waited for someone to answer the phone, Detective Järvi and Officer Hopponen drove up with Officer Timonen in the backseat. Trading places with Timonen, Lasarov jumped into the cruiser and they set off to break the bad news to Mrs. Korhonen. Antikainen started rummaging around in the back of his police van and emerged with a roll of yellow police tape with the words “Police line do not cross.” After about ten rings, Kivinen answered. I wondered whether he had stayed until the end of the party, as a good host should.
“You can’t be serious!” He groaned after I stated the reason for the call. “A body…Meritta Flöjt! How did she die?”
“She’s lying at the base of the Tower. We can’t say anything definite before the medical examination, but based on her position, we assume she fell from the top.”
Kivinen sounded appropriately upset, but when I explained to him that the police would be forced to close at least part of the mine area, he grew angry.
“Unacceptable! The whole day is already booked solid with museum tours, and we have busloads of retirees coming in from Kuopio. We can’t close down now. Just think of the cost…”
“The sooner we find out what happened, the faster everything will return to normal. At the very least we’ll need the keys to the Tower and the guest list from last night. It would be best if you could come down here right away.”
After ending the call with Kivinen, I saw the county forensics van turn the corner at the bottom of the hill and head toward us. It was eight thirty and in town I could already see morning traffic. Stores would be opening. People would soon be getting into motion. As would rumors, which spread quickly in towns this size. Two hours from now, everyone would know that a body had turned up at the Old Mine.
The county medical examiner, Doctor Turunen, was about fifty years old, thin, and taciturn. As I watched him get down to work, I found myself expecting some sort of miracle, as if he could simply glance at Meritta and declare that she had fallen accidentally. The county police photographer snapped pictures of Meritta, and Antikainen began combing the area around the Tower with the rest of the forensics team. Suddenly Kivinen’s dark-blue Volvo was also in front of the restaurant. I hoped he would say Meritta had been drunk. Maybe he would know why Meritta had been in the Tower in the first place.
But Kivinen still wasn’t interested in Meritta, only the tour buses full of senior citizens that would be arriving at eleven o’clock. As I listened to him grumble for five minutes about how we were getting in the way of his business, I silently counted to ten over and over to soothe my irritation. It didn’t help.
“Mr. Kivinen, has it occurred to you that we’re trying to do our jobs here too?” Yelling at a man whose guest I had been the night before was a bit of a drag. “I understand you knew the victim. Aren’t you the slightest bit interested in how she died? Now cough up those keys and get me that guest list!”
“The Tower is safe. To fall you’d have to climb over the railing. You can’t blame us for this!” Kivinen dropped the pathetically small-looking key to the sturdy Tower door into Detective Järvi’s waiting hand. “And what are you going to do with the guest list? Do you intend to interview all two hundred people who attended the party? Including the mayor and the governor?”
“We just want to find out who last saw Meritta Flöjt alive. And how she got into the Tower. I tried the door at around nine o’clock, and it was locked.”
“She had her own key,” Kivinen said as if it were self-evident.
“What?”
“I gave it to her months ago. She—she enjoyed being in the Tower, especially at sunrise and sunset. She was talking about painting the landscape someday. She had my permission to move about the property freely, and she came and went as she pleased. Her paintings are great publicity.” Now Kivinen was starting to sound apologetic. His eyes even began to wander, flitting between the hillside and the medical examiner, who was still busy inspecting Meritta’s body. No longer cold, Kivinen’s toffee-colored eyes looked more frightened now. A few minutes later, I thought I detected sorrow in them. I had seen the same phenomenon before: when faced with tragic news, people try to keep busy with something inconsequential as if that could make the reason for their shock disappear. Then the pain would suddenly hit them. Kivinen seemed to be experiencing that now. Walking a little way toward Meritta, he suddenly turned back and sat on the hood of his car, digging in his pockets as if searching for a cigarette but coming up with only a packet of gum, which he stared at in bewilderment for a moment before popping a piece in his mouth. I realized he was trying not to look at Meritta but couldn’t help himself. It was as if the corpse was drawing him to it. I remembered Jaska’s insinuations about a relationship between them.
“Can I see her?” Kivinen asked finally.
“As soon as the doctor’s done. Do you have that guest list?”
Detective Järvi and the forensics team were in the Tower, and it sounded as though they were arguing about something. I glanced up. One of the county investigators was sitting on the edge of the Tower with Järvi holding on to his arm.
“Let’s go into the restaurant,” Kivinen said, looking as though he might be sick. I turned to follow him, but the medical examiner’s voice stopped me.
“Come over here for a second, Kallio!”
“You go inside. I’ll be in in a minute,” I told Kivinen and started walking back toward the Tower and Meritta.
“I can tell you something already,” Doctor Turunen explained slowly, almost whispering in his Savo dialect. “As far as I can tell, the cause of death was a broken neck. That’s generally what happens in a collision like a traffic accident or a long fall. The spine is also probably broken. The hips are bent very strangely. You don’t end up in a position like that from only a blow to the head. And I don’t see any other contusions on the head that could have resulted in death. Based on the amount of rigor mortis, she’s been dead only a few hours. If I had to make a guess, I’d say she died between three and four a.m.”
“So you do think she fell?”
Turunen’s brow wrinkled. I hadn’t ever met him before, so I didn’t know how quick he was to draw conclusions.
“Fell…or was pushed,” he whispered. “The body does show bruises likely inflicted prior to death. A couple of the fingernails are broken. You should have the guys up top look for them. The knuckles on her right hand are swollen…She may have hit someone before she died. So yes, she may have fallen of her own accord, but it’s just as likely that someone pushed her over after a struggle. I’ll take her to the lab in Joensuu and have a closer look. If I were you, I’d assume she was pushed…although I can’t say that with certainty.”
I didn’t feel like running up the Tower, so I just called the guys up on top and told them what to look for. Signs of a struggle. Pieces of fingernails. He was trying to hide it, but I could hear astonishment in Detective Järvi’s voice.
/> Inside the restaurant, Kivinen was speaking heatedly into his cell phone. He seemed to have pulled himself together again. Judging by the smell, that effort had required a shot or two of whiskey. “You can go see Meritta now,” I said when he hung up.
“I don’t think I want to anymore. You wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette on you?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“I don’t either anymore…theoretically.” Kivinen dug more nicotine gum out of his pocket. “There’s the guest list. I left sometime around one, and there weren’t many people left at that point. I can try to remember who if you want. I am pretty sure Meritta was still at the party. The place was empty by the time my secretary left at two thirty. She didn’t go in the Tower, though, so Meritta could have been up there.”
“And the night watchmen? Aren’t they supposed to drive by once an hour?”
“I’ve tried to call the company, but no one is answering.”
Kivinen had told me that security at the Old Mine was handled by a company run by a couple of young local men who had promised to patrol the area several times a night.
“How well did you know Meritta Flöjt, Mr. Kivinen?” My voice echoed in the empty, stone-walled restaurant.
“Isn’t it a city ordinance that we’re all supposed to be on a first-name basis? Call me Seppo.” Kivinen extended his hand, which I shook, though I was a little taken aback as I muttered my first name. Under the circumstances, Kivinen’s familiarity seemed out of place, even though I could tell he wasn’t joking about the city ordinance. Small towns had a habit of passing peculiar laws, and this one was instituted while I was in high school. My art teacher had been one of the main opponents of the measure, arguing that we didn’t have to copy every idiotic idea the Swedes dreamed up.
“Yes, I knew her…She was a member of the committee that helped develop the concept for the Old Mine renovation, the same committee that your uncle Pena was on. And…well…There’s no point trying to hide it, since someone will tell you eventually anyway. Last winter Meritta and I spent a few nights together. It wasn’t anything serious. I’m married and I intend to stay that way.” Kivinen didn’t seem the slightest bit uncomfortable talking about his relationship with Meritta. That didn’t mean anything though. People cheated on their spouses without any qualms all the time. So why was I so messed up over one friendly kiss with Johnny?
“Your relationship was over, then?”
“Yes. I think she was with someone else this spring. And there wasn’t any love between us, so we weren’t bitter. You saw yourself yesterday how well we got along.”
“Yes, I did.” I didn’t want to think about Meritta’s other male companion.
Next we quickly ran through the guest list and then began discussing which areas on the property to cordon off. Without too much resistance, Kivinen agreed to close the Tower and delay opening the restaurant until the evening. In order to cause as little inconvenience as possible, the lower area where the museum and other attractions were located would continue operating as planned.
When I came out of the restaurant, Meritta’s body had disappeared, and Lasarov and Hopponen had returned from reporting her death to her next of kin. The local cops were powwowing intensely with the county police. The photographer was still snapping away up above.
“There were all sorts of neat things up there,” Detective Antikainen said. “The pieces of fingernail you were expecting, a little blood…” Cheerfully Antikainen waved a transparent evidence bag with something orange inside, which one of the county forensic technicians grabbed out of his hand and added to his collection of samples. “That piece of cloth is probably from our vic’s skirt. And this Kalevala brooch must be hers…”
Horrified, I stared at the heavy medieval-reproduction brooch in the other bag Antikainen was holding up. The palmette ornamentation was unmistakable; I knew I had seen someone wearing it yesterday, but not Meritta. Ella had been wearing it as part of her folk costume.
“Well, what did the ME say? Do we have a murder on our hands?” Antikainen asked blithely. Lasarov coughed, and Järvi also seemed irritated with him. To date, the high point of Antikainen’s police career had been a knife fight between two rival Gypsy gangs that resulted in two fatalities.
I felt sick to my stomach. “Let’s have Forensics and our detectives meet down at the station. Lasarov, you come too to represent Patrol. Timonen and Hopponen, will you be OK here? We’ll keep the Tower closed until further notice, and we’ll send someone up at noon to relieve you so you can go eat.”
Descending the stairs back to my car felt unreal. The lightning rod on top of the Tower, shining innocently in the morning sun, reflected beams of light directly into my face. It was almost as if the Tower were winking at me. And the blood up there—was it Meritta’s or someone else’s? Meritta’s murderer? Then there were the pieces of fingernail. And Ella’s brooch? What the hell was happening? Had I come back to my boring old hometown just to get caught up in another murder of an acquaintance?
Everyone else was already waiting in the break room by the time I arrived. Detective Järvi was looking downcast at the empty coffeemaker. “There isn’t even any coffee,” he said to me in an accusatory tone.
“So go ahead and make some. You must know how.” Goddamn it. I was Järvi’s boss. Did he really expect me to handle the coffee just because I was a woman?
Järvi glanced at me with a slight frown and then slipped out to get some water for the coffeemaker. I did feel a bit ashamed of myself. Bossing around a guy who had been a cop almost as long as I had been alive felt gauche. And besides, growing up, everyone had always known him as the nice cop in town. He came to our elementary school and taught us to look both ways before we crossed the street. He came to our junior high to warn us about shoplifting and souping up our mopeds. He came to our high school to lecture us about drinking and driving. Always just as thin and gray, he had looked more or less the same for as long as I had known him. Fortunately, the cop who had once written me a ticket for riding my bike at night without a light had retired a few years earlier.
“Otherwise we had a pretty quiet Friday night,” Järvi observed as he poured the coffee grounds into the filter. “There isn’t anybody in the tank. Antikainen and I don’t really have a backlog either, so we can start the investigation immediately. I don’t think we need the county at all. If we need reinforcements, we can call guys in from other nearby towns.”
“I don’t see how that’s an if,” I said, “when the first thing we have to do is interview nearly two hundred people.”
“But most of them are just going to say they left before you did. And when you left, Flöjt was still there,” Antikainen pointed out. “And the boys can help.”
By “the boys” presumably he meant the local patrol officers.
“They have Karttunen and Säkkinen out on vacation already. And the rest of you are supposed to be taking your summer breaks soon. And there’s the comp time you’ve been building up. I don’t see what the problem is with working with the county. Do you have some issue with them?”
“What’s your problem?” Antikainen suddenly yelled. “You go spend a few years in Helsinki and now you think us local cops are a bunch of yokels who don’t know how to do anything?”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to have to lead the investigation,” Järvi suggested.
I couldn’t help nodding, since Järvi had hit the nail on the head. If the brooch we had found in the Tower was Ella’s, and if the rumors about Meritta and Johnny’s relationship were true…I couldn’t handle a third summer in a row of rummaging around in my friends’ dirty laundry. Approaching Meritta’s possible murder professionally would be impossible. Based on my two previous experiences, I knew how investigating a murder felt when my own emotions were in play. Even though I had handled both incidences well enough and good things had come of them—the first case had reintroduced me to Antti and in the second case, a relative of Antti’s sister would have ended up in jail if it w
eren’t for me—recovering had still taken time.
“I was at the party myself, as were my parents and a few of my friends. I may not be a suspect, but someone will still have to question me. And are any of you really looking forward to running around grilling your friends and neighbors?”
“That’s all we ever do. I even had to lock up my brother-in-law once when we caught him drunk and waving a knife around,” Lasarov said.
Still, I decided to stick to my guns. “The county is a resource, not a liability. They aren’t going to take over the case. I’ll call them in a few minutes. In the meantime, let’s figure out what we need to do first.”
The county forensics team took the evidence back to their laboratory in Joensuu. Antikainen and Järvi stayed behind to gather addresses for everyone on the guest list, and Lasarov went to spell the guards at the Tower while they took their lunch break. I retreated to my office to call the county crime division. Their lead detective, a Sergeant Järvisalo, promised to come and bring another detective provided that the medical examiner’s final report indicated a crime had in fact occurred. So I stayed in my office to drink coffee and wait. I imagined Mikko would have found himself something to eat by now. I only hoped the front porch wouldn’t be covered with bird carcasses when I got home.
I may have nodded off at my desk, because Antikainen’s shrill voice outside my door snapped me out of a strange, dazed state. “You can’t go in there!”
“Just try to stop me.” When I lifted my eyes, Johnny was standing at my door, looking like he hadn’t slept in a year.
“Maria. I had to come. Is it true what they’re saying in town about Meritta?”
“What are they saying?” I motioned for Johnny to sit. How had he managed to grow three days of stubble in one night? When I looked into his eyes and saw their empty depth, I knew the truth about his relationship with Meritta.
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