Copper Heart

by Leena Lehtolainen

  I had just poured our first shots of Black Jack after coming out of the sauna when the phone rang. Antti’s voice seemed as though he were just a few feet away.

  “Hi Maria, are you OK? My mom called and said there was a murder in Arpikylä.”

  “I’m fine. We’re not even sure it was a murder. How are you?”

  Antti’s colorful description of a recent trip to New York made me jealous.

  “You remember Hans, the one I was supposed to go to California with at the end my fellowship? Well, he broke his leg. He’s flying back to Germany in July. I don’t think I’ll bother going alone, so I’m going to come home a couple of weeks early if I can get my plane ticket changed. Do you have anything against that?”

  “Of course not, stupid!” Suddenly I felt bubbly inside. “By the way, Koivu is here. Should I say hi for you?”

  “Oh, so you’ve taken up with Pekka, have you?” Antti’s feigned distrust didn’t sound very believable. He knew Koivu and me too well. “By the way, was the person who died someone you knew?”

  “Kind of. But don’t worry about that. Have you run into Warshawski?”

  Searching for V.I. Warshawski and the bar she frequented in Sara Paretsky’s novels had been one of our favorite diversions while I was visiting Chicago.

  “I haven’t had time. I’d rather see you anyway.”

  When I heard that, I hurried to end the call before how much I missed him really had a chance to hit me.

  After two whiskeys, Koivu decided to call Anita again. At least this time she answered and didn’t hang up on him until he told her where he was.

  “What’s her problem?” I asked, not daring to suggest that the obvious answer was a case of chronic bitchiness.

  “Our relationship has been on the rocks for a while now,” Koivu said, cramming his mouth full of Uncle Pena’s homemade sauerkraut, which we were eating for dinner along with the whiskey and a few bratwurst from the freezer. “We almost set a wedding date for the end of August, but then Anita decided it would be nice to get married in the winter, sometime just before Christmas when there would be snow…Now she’s not even talking about that.”

  “Do you still want to marry her?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I don’t know. Sometimes she’s so fanatical. You know I don’t like sissy girls, but Anita is so absolute about everything. And I had no idea she was some sort of racist sympathizer.”

  “Can you have a sensible conversation with her?”

  “She isn’t a very good listener. She just preaches and I agree.” Koivu looked miserable. Once again, I was feeling as though I should tell him to run and never look back, but I had the good sense to keep quiet. Koivu needed a listening ear more than advice.

  We talked until almost two before I headed to bed, me in my room and Koivu on the living room couch. Apparently his cares didn’t weigh on his ability to sleep because within just a few minutes I could hear his contented, snuffly whiskey snores coming from the other room. As I watched the pale stars winking through the gap in the curtains, I wondered whether anyone had found Meritta’s purse.

  7

  Detective Sergeant Järvisalo took a long pause before stating, “In light of the forensic investigation so far, it appears highly probable that this was a homicide.” He looked around the room, pleased with the impact of this statement. Detective Antikainen was flushed with excitement, and Detective Järvi stared, stunned, at the Sergeant. I was sure my own expression was just as odd. Only Koivu appeared calm.

  “But, of course, what we don’t know yet is whether we’re looking at murder or manslaughter,” Järvisalo clarified. Apparently he was practicing for his interview with the local radio station. “In any case, this was a violent death and not by the victim’s own hand.”

  Even Järvisalo’s theatric delivery couldn’t dispel the cold feeling I had inside. “Here we go again,” I said to Koivu, who was sitting next to me. He squeezed my hand under the table, and my internal temperature rose a few degrees.

  “I have a search warrant, so we can investigate the deceased’s residence. Maria, could you come along? The victim’s daughter is likely to be present…”

  Child welfare was one of the few things that wasn’t part of my job, but I agreed to go anyway. I was curious to see Meritta’s house, especially her studio. And Aniliina.

  The Flöjts also lived on the border of the subsidence zone. From their yard you could see the Old Mine hill glowing yellow. The shadow of the Tower seemed nearly to reach their house.

  When Aniliina came to the door, Sergeant Järvisalo was speechless. She looked more dead than alive. Wearing a tight black sweater and thick black tights, her ribs and pelvic bones protruded alarmingly. Her face was white, her hands so transparent, so thin, that you could almost see the doorknob through her left palm. Only her eyes were alive, dark, and angry.

  “Hi, Aniliina, I’m Maria Kallio. This is Arvo Järvisalo and Pekka Koivu from the police,” I said. “We need to search your house. Is Kaisa here?”

  “She left for practice. Do you have a search warrant?”

  Still disoriented, Järvisalo dug the form out of his pocket, and Aniliina inspected it closely before nodding. I guess she was trying to act the way she had seen people do in cop shows. Maybe acting out a role that could fit on a little screen made the pain easier to bear.

  “What exactly are you looking for?” she asked as she handed the warrant back to Järvisalo.

  “Anything that could help us solve your mother’s death. She painted here, right?”

  “That side over there is the studio. And make sure you clean up after yourselves!” Aniliina beckoned us inside, trying to look tough, like an adult. From the street, the house looked like just one of the thousands of one-and-a-half-story houses built after the war, and the kitchen was like any other. But in place of the living room was an open space that stretched all the way to the roof, penetrated with light from an enormous skylight. In the studio was also some sort of sleeping loft, apparently for Meritta.

  “My room is over there, but you probably don’t need to see it, right?”

  Järvisalo shook his head, as if bewitched by this emaciated apparition. He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when she went into her room, slamming the door behind her.

  Koivu and I went into the kitchen. It was excruciatingly clean and sterile, and looked recently renovated. The pantry was crammed full of flour, bran, sunflower seeds, and assorted tins of tea. The refrigerator was full of cheese and vegetables, as well as various products for the health conscious: diet soda, nonfat yogurt, light margarine, low-fat cheese.

  “Looks just like our fridge,” Koivu said with a grimace.

  The kitchen appeared to be a place where people spent a lot of time. Spacious enough to accommodate a pull-out sofa and an armchair, the centerpiece of the room was a large oak dining table. A small television had been stuffed into a cupboard and was visible from the couch. Perhaps the kitchen also functioned as the Flöjts’ living room. Meritta’s dishes were colorful ceramics, and I remembered seeing a picture in a women’s magazine of an Easter table setting she had done for a contest. Stored on the counter above the cupboard that held the pots and pans were a couple of full bottles of cognac, imports judging from the labels. Otherwise we didn’t find anything worth mentioning in the kitchen.

  Järvisalo was investigating the bookshelf in the sleeping loft with surprising care. When I climbed up beside him, he suddenly put down a book on Japanese erotica.

  “Could you take a look at the sauna and bathroom?” he asked. “You understand women’s stuff better than any of us.”

  “I know the difference between a drill and a chainsaw too,” I groused before heading downstairs to the bathroom, which, along with the sauna, looked to have been built within the last few years. The tub was round and jetted, and an orange telephone was mounted on the wall above it. The toiletries and cosmetics were not luxury brands by any means. Meritta had clearly been a loyal Body Shop customer, but all her
products had one thing in common, all claimed to be free of animal testing. The laundry detergent was an eco brand, and instead of tampons or pads, I found a strange contraption that appeared to be a reusable sanitary alternative.

  But something was missing. Nowhere did I see mascara or a powder box, even though Meritta clearly had used both products. But, of course, most women kept those things in their purses.

  “Has anyone found Flöjt’s purse?” I asked after climbing the stairs back up to the studio.

  “Purse? No. We didn’t find a wallet or keys either. Did she usually carry a purse?” Detective Järvisalo raised himself off the floor of the sleeping loft where it appeared he had been peeking under Meritta’s double bed.

  I had tried feverishly to recall whether Meritta had been carrying a handbag with her at the party, but I just couldn’t remember. Best to ask Aniliina.

  The reply to my knock on her door was an angry “What?” I entered and found Aniliina squatting on a low stool next to the radiator and reading some sort of chart, which she quickly hid. The room was stiflingly hot, but I still got the impression Aniliina was freezing.

  “Yes, she had a purse. Orange suede. Maybe the size of a normal book. She used it to carry her makeup, keys, wallet, and a little notebook. She never went anywhere without it. Didn’t she have it with her when she…” Aniliina couldn’t complete her sentence; instead she wrapped her bony arms around her waist as if to protect herself.

  “We haven’t found it.”

  “Where is it then?” There was fear in Aniliina’s voice.

  “Good question.” I didn’t like the situation. If Meritta’s house keys were missing, whoever had them could get at Aniliina any time of the night or day. I wondered how I could suggest changing the locks without alarming her.

  Then Koivu yelled for me from the studio. “I thought you’d want to see this,” he said, displaying an oil painting nearly six feet tall.

  It was Johnny, in the nude. Meritta had painted him obliquely from the rear with his waist twisted as he turned to look toward the viewer. His eyes looked directly into mine over his shoulder as if in challenge. Meritta had succeeded brilliantly in capturing the rotating movement of the body, the light gleaming on the muscles, the arcing shadows of the limbs. Although Johnny was clearly identifiable, Meritta had obviously approached him as a model and not as a subject for realistic portraiture. The painting conveyed something akin to an ancient Greek or Roman statue, an arousing masculine radiance that reminded me once again of Johnny’s smell and the feel of those glowing muscles under my hands.

  “There are more of the same over there,” Koivu said, motioning toward a corner of the room under the loft that seemed to function as a storage area. Just then Detective Järvisalo’s cell phone rang. He said a few curt words into the phone and then turned to Koivu, looking serious.

  “We have to get back to Joensuu. It’s those Somalis and neo-Nazis from Friday night again…Knife fight in the hospital.”

  “Any dead?” Koivu’s face had gone white.

  “One of the skinheads. A nurse got a knife in the side, but she’s not in any danger.”

  I could see from his face that Koivu was thinking of Anita. He was already halfway to the door before Järvisalo realized he should follow. Grabbing the cell phone, Koivu yelled a few words at the duty officer in Joensuu. The answer he was looking for came as he opened the car door, and I could tell by the way his body relaxed that the wounded nurse was not Anita.

  “I can wrap this up,” I yelled after them.

  Now I had time to look around the studio properly. At more than four hundred square feet, the room had a ceiling at least fifteen feet high at its tallest, with windows opening in two directions in addition to the skylight. The smallest window had a view of the Tower. Meritta had looked at it every day as she painted, not knowing her life would end at its base.

  The studio also had an armchair and sofa, between them a small smoking table. Other furniture included only a couple of supply cabinets and easels of various sizes, two of which supported blank primed canvases. Meritta had clearly been actively working. Climbing up to the sleeping loft, all I found was an armoire, a bookshelf, and a bed about six feet wide covered with an orange duvet. In addition to women’s poetry, the bookshelf held a large collection of books on erotic art. Picking one at random, I flipped through it. On one page two men with skin the color of chocolate kissed each other, and on the next two women with skin one shade darker did the same. The book, which was printed in black and white, was meant to illustrate contrasting skin tones with sexy and amusing photographs. I decided to buy it if I could find a copy at the Academic Bookstore in Helsinki.

  I returned to Meritta’s paintings down in the studio. In the first stack, I found a few familiar images, some powerful landscapes of the Old Mine, and a series of pencil sketches of Kaisa throwing the javelin. On the bottom of the first stack, I found a grotesque picture of Meritta’s brother. I doubted Jaska had agreed to sit for Meritta, so she had probably painted it from memory. Jaska was in his rocker uniform of worn-out jeans, a leather jacket, and a black T-shirt. A guitar hung around his neck. He was posing on stage with his legs spread in classic axman stance. His alcohol-swollen face wore a smug expression.

  It was a spiteful painting, perfectly merging how Jaska viewed himself with how the rest of us saw him. I hoped Jaska would never see it. Actually, I wished I had never seen it.

  The second stack was mostly Meritta’s series of Kaisa and Johnny. In some of the paintings they were together, and Meritta used light and shadow to play with the similarities and differences of the male and female form. Some of the paintings depicted Kaisa with her javelin. Depending on the mood of the piece, the spear sometimes seemed like a phallic plaything and at other times like a weapon. In one of the pictures, Johnny, barely recognizable because he was covered in so much mud, stretched to reach a soccer ball.

  I don’t understand much about art, but I liked Meritta’s work instinctively. Something told me it was high-quality work. The way she could transform familiar people into images that portrayed so much more than the models themselves was fascinating.

  Did the paintings belong to Aniliina now? I wondered what price they would fetch.

  On the bottom of the second stack were two more paintings. At first glance they were almost black, but upon closer inspection the minimal light in them revealed holes, tunnels, and endless caverns. They were at once disturbing and familiar.

  Meritta had told Matti that all of her mine-themed paintings were in her gallery in Helsinki. But what else could these be, and why had Meritta lied? Did she want to conceal them from Matti for some reason?

  I stared at the paintings for so long that their blackness made my eyes throb.

  “So all the men left?”

  I jumped. Aniliina had crept up behind me. She ran her thin hands through her tangled hair, and her mouth appeared almost blue in her wan face. Everything about her conveyed one simple message: I am miserable. And the misery had begun long before Meritta’s death.

  “Yeah, and I’m about done too. But before I go, would you mind answering a few questions? You must have known your mother best.”

  “I didn’t know her at all. And she didn’t know me.”

  Nevertheless, Aniliina led me into the kitchen, where we sat down, I on the couch and she curled up in the armchair in the sun. Compared to Aniliina, talking to Ella and Johnny had been easy.

  I thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t fifteen or even nineteen anymore. Especially at fifteen, life had been pure misery. I was desperately in love with Johnny, wanted to leave home, didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up, and didn’t recognize my own body. While choosing a career was still difficult, and loving Antti was tricky, all in all life felt much better now than it had fifteen years earlier. Maybe that was growing up.

  “I feel like coffee. Can I make some?” I asked Aniliina, nodding toward the coffeemaker. “Do you want some too? Coffee or something else?�
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  “I don’t want anything.”

  “You really should try to eat.”

  “No I shouldn’t!” Aniliina’s voice was furious, as if I had attacked her. I considered what I actually knew about anorexia. Why wasn’t Aniliina in the hospital anymore? She looked appallingly thin.

  “I don’t want to end up a fat-ass like my mom or my grandma. They’re so ugly. How can you even stand having breasts?” Aniliina looked curiously at my body, which I considered only moderately curvy although clearly feminine.

  When the coffee was ready, I poured Aniliina a cup anyway.

  Aniliina got up and went into the kitchen. “There’s some pulla and cake here if you want it with your coffee.” She pulled the pastries out of the cupboard and practically pushed them at me. “Grandma’s chocolate cake is to die for. Have a taste.”

  I took a piece of the delicious-looking cake as Aniliina stared at me triumphantly. I wondered what my acceptance signified to her. Sure, I knew lots of women who watched what they and others ate, like my sister Helena or Koivu’s girlfriend, Anita, but I had never experienced anything this intense.

  “Had Meritta been acting strange lately? Was she happier or more depressed than usual?”

  “She was fucking thrilled just like she always is when she’s painting something new. And of course her new man, that Johnny guy, was keeping her all cheery. Mom was really into him.”

  “So everything was good?”

  “Except me.” Aniliina rubbed her coffee cup between her palms like a hiker might on a cold winter day, sipping gingerly. “Me, she just screamed at. First she wanted me out of that prison—the hospital, I mean—and then she was constantly threatening to send me back. And I’m not going back there, not ever!” Aniliina’s dark eyes burned in their sockets.