I watched with pleasure as muddy brown water began trickling down the waterway I made, first slowly and then flowing in a little stream, quickly filling the entire trench and gurgling happily down the drain. I cleared the worst of the stones from the mouth of the channel, and when I came back outside after grabbing my purse, the puddle was noticeably smaller.
At the police station a report on drunk driving arrests that I had asked Järvi to write up the week before Meritta’s murder was waiting on my desk. Glancing over it for a while, I discovered that his calculations were completely off. According to Järvi, three plus twelve was eighteen.
I hollered for him to come in from the break room. “This whole statistics section is full of mistakes. Which of these is right, the counts or the totals? They don’t match.” My good mood from successfully draining the pond was gone. And, of course, I knew pointing out the problems in the report wasn’t going to help my reputation as a nagging bitch.
Järvi ran his eyes over the table of numbers, his ears growing red. Finally he had to confess to his poor addition skills.
“Redo this table, and in the meantime I’ll read the text,” I said, trying to sound conciliatory. “We need to send these papers to the county by the end of the day.”
Järvi closed the door with exaggerated caution, so as to clearly demonstrate what he thought of me. I sighed. All these statistics and reports were nothing but pointless bureaucracy, which seemed to be getting worse every year. The new statistical software that the police district ordered was a bear too, and it was probably the original source of the calculation errors. But getting money for machines was easier than securing funds to hire additional manpower.
I had just finished slogging my way, with much sighing, through Järvi’s report when he appeared at my door again.
“Um, Maria…” he began, as if expecting to get yelled at. “Our guys just called from the Sump. They found…well…a body. Floating in the pond.”
“What the hell?” I was halfway through the door before he even finished his sentence. “Where are Lasarov and Antikainen? Call county forensics and Koivu and send Car 2 over. I’m driving out.”
As I backed our other cruiser out of the parking lot without looking where I was going—luckily the street was empty—Järvi ran up with a phone in his hand.
“Did they say who it is?” I asked him.
“No. Some jogger reported it. She ran to the nearest house to make the call and then collapsed. Antikainen left to take her to the health center and question her on the way. All she was able to get out was that someone was floating in the pond.” Järvi’s voice was shaking, but I knew it wasn’t from excitement. He was afraid. He knew the whole city. Whoever had died would at least be an acquaintance…
I drove the Saab as far as I could to the end of the road. The tailing pond at the base of the Sump shone a deep burgundy. At its edge a body lay oddly sprawled, half in the water and half out. I hoped the person was just passed out drunk, maybe after deciding to go for a swim. But as I ran down the loose wall of yellow sand, I knew that hope was in vain. The jogger had probably already checked to see if the person was alive.
I didn’t want to see who was lying at the edge of the wine-colored pond. Johnny? Ella? Kaisa? Forcing myself to approach the heap sprawled on the ground, I looked at the face, its temple a bloody mess. A trail of blood ran into the water as if it were giving the entire pond its crimson cast.
Jaska Korhonen was never going to be a big rock star. But the tabloids would take note of his death, and maybe Sound would give him a few lines too. Jaska’s never-say-die rocker’s uniform looked tragicomical, the leather jacket sopping wet, his sneakers covered in the copper sand of the mine hill. There was dirt under the nails of his right hand, which were significantly longer than those on the left. A guitarist’s hands.
Beside me, Järvi’s breath was raspy. “This isn’t going to be easy for Meeri. First a daughter and now her only son…Should we check to see if he’s maybe still alive?”
“He’s been here all night. He’s soaked through. But yeah, check his pulse. Carefully.”
But of course there was nothing to feel for. As Järvi checked the wrist, I saw a tear drip from his cheek onto the sleeve of Jaska’s jacket.
“Rope off the area,” I said, avoiding looking at Järvi again. Fortunately Officer Lasarov and Detective Antikainen turned up and started the routine. Unsolicited, Lasarov said he would go visit Jaska’s mother.
Järvi and Antikainen set up barricades and tape around the pond. While they worked, I looked out past the hole where the second mine tower had once stood beside the lake and shivered. Goddamn it, Jaska. You knew something. Why the hell didn’t you tell me? You just had to go playing Marlowe. But Jaska wasn’t cut out for that sort of thing. He would have been as bad a private investigator as he was a guitarist. Even after all these years, he still couldn’t play anything with more than three chords.
Then the tears came. I tried to screw up my face to stop them, but it was no use. I didn’t want my colleagues to see me crying, but I couldn’t leave. I was determined to wait for Detective Sergeant Järvisalo and Koivu so we could decide what to do next.
“Um…Should we look for footprints or something,” Antikainen suggested hopefully.
“He’s probably been here all night. The rain will have washed the sand clean.”
“Was he killed here?” Antikainen asked.
“It’s almost like the killer was trying to sink the poor guy to the bottom of the pond,” Järvi said with a sniff. “Why didn’t the bastard finish the job?”
Then Hopponen yelled from the direction of the parked cars. “The county is halfway here. They want to know if they can get all way to the pond in their van.”
“The whole damn wall of sand would give way. Of course not!” I yelled back.
As if to emphasize my point, Hopponen’s feet suddenly slipped on the edge, sending yellow sand pouring down the slope.
When we were kids, Jaska and I used to play cops and robbers here with the other kids in our class. A few years later we smoked our first nauseating Marlboros in the pits of the Sump. The sand still smelled of copper and sulfur. Walking farther along the edge of the pond, I stopped and squatted to pick up some pebbles. Polished from the rain that had washed away the dull yellow dust, they shown with deeply saturated reds and greens. I wished I could have sat down in the sand and spent the rest of the day just looking at the vibrant rocks and the Tower, made darker by the rain. Anything to forget that Jaska lay dead a hundred feet away.
Why hadn’t I gone with him to the Copper Cup the other night? Why hadn’t I asked him yesterday what he was implying when he said he needed to check on something? Jaska had said he needed money for his band’s second demo tape. Maybe he had been trying to blackmail someone? If so, he failed miserably at that too.
I threw one of the phosphorus green stones into the red water, and it plopped into the middle of the pond, sending ripples in every direction. I watched as the tiny ripples gradually reached the opposite shore where Jaska lay, kissing his outstretched hand.
“What are you playing with, Kallio?” Hopponen yelled down to me from on top of the sandy ledge. I was squatting by the pond, sifting pebbles through my fingers, when Lasarov began striding toward me taking long, sliding steps down the slope. But the wet sand gave way more than he expected and he slid the rest of the way down on his rear end, almost landing in my lap. But when I saw his face, any amusement I might have felt evaporated instantly. He shouldn’t have gone to Jaska’s house alone. A support person should always go with an officer delivering news of a death, but that practice hadn’t reached Arpikylä yet.
“I just pray to God I don’t have to go there for a third time,” Lasarov said when I asked how it had gone. “Luckily Jaana, the youngest daughter, was there, so Jaska’s mom doesn’t have to be alone. And my wife promised to take them dinner.”
I wanted to comfort Lasarov with a hug, but all I could do was pat him on
the shoulder.
“Thanks for going.”
“This was in Jaska’s room,” Lasarov said, digging from his pocket a wrinkled envelope originally sent from the Arpikylä Employment Center. Jaska had closed the envelope shut again with masking tape and scrawled “Maria Kallio” on the front.
Feeling something hard inside the envelope, I tore it open. A small copper key fell into my hand. Just a key, no chain of any kind. It looked like a key to a box or a very old safety-deposit box.
Inside the envelope was also a scrap of paper.
Hi, Maria. If you’re reading this, something happened to me. It’s Meritta’s. She said she didn’t dare keep it herself so she gave it to me. It’s supposed to be valuable. Jaska.
The idiot had known he was in danger! Why the hell couldn’t he have just told me what he knew? Could trying to extract money from someone have been that important to him?
“Was Jaska’s mother able to shed any light on where he was yesterday?” I asked Lasarov.
“I didn’t think to ask…Maybe I can go back later and talk to Jaana. She’s been here since Meritta died.”
I nodded. “Try to get a hold of Antikainen to see if he has a statement from the jogger yet.”
From up above the pond came the hum of a car engine, which turned into a desperate whine as the vehicle became stuck in the loose sand. The ambulance following the county forensics team was more careful. Eventually Koivu, a county crime scene technician, and Dr. Turunen all climbed out to push the van free. Hopponen stood by and shouted advice. Was Järvisalo sitting comfortably in the front passenger seat thinking bosses didn’t need to exert themselves?
Once they dislodged the vehicle, everyone started down the slope, but I still didn’t see Järvisalo. I walked back along the edge of the pond toward Jaska to meet them. My shoes were yellow and wet from the sand, and I wished I were still wearing my rubber boots.
“Järvisalo is in Helsinki for a meeting,” Koivu explained.
“So are you in charge now?”
“Don’t look at me!” Koivu blurted out with surprising irritation. Then he apologized. “The last time I had a good night’s sleep was at your place. So let’s run through the routine. The deceased is Flöjt’s brother, right?”
After recounting my discussion with Jaska the previous day, I showed Koivu the key and note. He shook his head.
“Do you want to hear how he got found?” Detective Antikainen appeared from out of nowhere munching on a ham sandwich. “Kaisa Miettinen cuts through here almost every day on her morning run and saw a strange shadow in the pond. She went down to have a look and found Korhonen. Brave girl. Then she ran back to a friend’s house in town and called me. She even came with me to show where the body was, even though it was pretty hard on her…So then I took her to the health center so she could calm down.”
“Is she alright?”
“Yeah. I drove her home. That’s what took me so long. She said she checked his pulse but didn’t touch anything else. Smart girl. I guessed she wouldn’t want any publicity for finding a dead body, which is why I didn’t tell Järvi right away who had found him,” Antikainen said, obviously pleased with himself.
“So she came back from Helsinki yesterday…” I said thoughtfully. I had checked and verified that Kaisa really had flown to Helsinki the night before the break-in at Meritta’s house. So she couldn’t have been the intruder, but the intruder didn’t necessarily have to be the same person as the murderer. Jaska had wanted to speak with someone yesterday. What if Jaska had found what he was looking for and the person he needed to talk to was Kaisa? Trying to throw investigators off by finding the body was a common killer’s trick. But why would Kaisa have murdered Jaska?
I looked around. The forensic techs and Dr. Turunen were deep into their work. Just then one of the technicians motioned for Antikainen to come over. Seizing the opportunity, I grabbed Koivu by the waist and pulled him toward me. So what if someone saw? I didn’t care how it looked. I just needed a hug. Swinging his right arm over my shoulder, he turned his head to look me squarely in the eye. When his image started to blur, I pulled a handkerchief out of my jacket pocket and wiped my tears, presumably also smearing mascara on my cheeks.
“I didn’t spend last night at home,” Koivu whispered into my hair. “Anita got mad about the nightgown and threw me out. I think that’s the end of the road for us.” Koivu showed me his left hand. On his fourth finger all that remained was a white stripe where his gold engagement band had blocked the sun.
“Was it really about a scrap of cloth or your stance on Somali refugees?”
“What does it matter?” Koivu shook his head, sending a drop of rain down the tip of his nose. “I’ll have to start looking for a new apartment. I’m not sure why I’d bother staying in Joensuu after this though…” When Dr. Turunen started trudging toward us, Koivu removed his arm from my shoulder.
“Our friend’s been dead for almost ten hours. Someone hit him on the head, possibly with a tire iron. I’ll have a closer look at the wound back at the lab. He didn’t die immediately, since there was so much blood. It appears he held on for quite a while.”
“Conscious?” I asked, alarmed.
“Not after an impact like that. The rigor mortis is a little strange. He may have been carried after the blow. Forensics doubts he was killed here.”
Later, as we were sitting in the break room back at the police station having a meeting, the head forensic technician confirmed as much. The dirt on the soles of Jaska’s shoes was different from the sand around the pond, which indicated he had likely been dragged down from the roadside. Unfortunately the rain had washed away all the footprints, but forensics decided to continue their search after lunch.
Koivu went out with Lasarov to eat and then visit Jaska’s house again. I wasn’t hungry. I stared at the key, shining copper on top of the green plastic writing pad on my desk. Had Meritta really given Jaska the key or did Jaska find it in Meritta’s purse? I remembered the burglar and his smell: grime, sweat, tobacco. Jaska’s smell. That had to be it. But how did Jaska get his hands on the purse? Did he murder his sister? And then who killed Jaska? And if Jaska found what he was looking for at Meritta’s house, why did he leave me the key? And what lock did it fit?
With an infuriatingly shrill explosion of sound, the phone rang.
“Tuija Miettinen here. People are saying around town that a body turned up in the Sump. It isn’t Johnny, is it?”
“Is Johnny missing?”
“He was supposed to come fix Tuomas’ bike this morning, but by the time I left at noon, he still hadn’t showed up.”
“Don’t worry; it isn’t Johnny.”
Tuija’s sigh sounded relieved, despite her petulant tone.
“Well, good. He isn’t much of a husband, but I wouldn’t want my children losing their father.”
“Should I ask him to call if he shows up?”
“Don’t you know where he is either?” Tuija hissed and hung up.
I was so taken aback that, for a second, setting down the phone didn’t occur to me. What did Tuija mean? Did she really think there was something between Johnny and me? Hopefully not. The last thing I wanted was rumors circulating in town that Johnny Miettinen murdered Meritta and then got off because he was having an affair with the summer sheriff.
Meritta’s key felt heavy and hot in my hand. I remembered the lock on the Tower, but that was an ordinary ABLOY cylinder type. Going to the Flöjts’ home would probably be best, and maybe Aniliina and her father would be there. Since that was where the burglar had been, the key probably fit some lock at Meritta’s house. Damn Jaska! He could have left a better explanation about the key. Or maybe he hadn’t known?
Outside, the rain had picked up again with heavy drops creating furrows in the gravel path to the parking lot from the station. Just the thirty-foot walk to my heap of a Lada left me soaked. Driving to Meritta’s house, I passed the Sump again. You would have thought the incessant rain would somehow
dilute the color of the pond, but it glowed just as deep a burgundy as ever. Oddly, Jaska’s hand hadn’t been dyed purple by soaking in the water.
The Sump’s vibrant colors were strange given how dead and denuded the ground there was. The mining company had extracted the minerals from the bedrock, hollowing out the city’s foundation, and chewing up and spitting out its inhabitants in the process. After the copper seams tapered off, the company calmly withdrew, leaving behind a ghost town every person under the age of thirty wanted to escape. Only the elderly and people like Jaska nursing empty dreams chose to remain on the fringes of this spot of sinking earth. Fortunately people like Meritta, Matti, and Seppo Kivinen had returned to revive the land left scarred by the mining company.
No one came to open the door at the Flöjts’, but that was probably because of the music blaring inside, drowning out any other sound. The front door was unlocked, so I slipped inside.
In the studio I found Aniliina and an almost-bald man sitting curled up on the floor and staring out one of the large windows at the rain, which was beating down as if it were trying to get in. Meritta’s stereo was turned up all the way, filling my ears with a cello lament, which was then joined by a mournful bass vocalist. “L’amour per me non fa…” or something like that, the whole thing sounding vaguely familiar. Aniliina was almost hidden under her big shirt. Perhaps sensing the vibration of my steps on the floor, the man turned toward me.
In terms of looks, Aniliina clearly took after her father, although his face had more meat on it and his lips were different. A remote control silenced the music, making Aniliina take notice of my arrival too. I introduced myself to Mårten Flöjt, and Aniliina said she would make some tea.
“Thank you for taking Ani into your home the night of the break-in,” Mårten Flöjt said once we were alone. “I couldn’t come any sooner because the orchestra was in the middle of recording Don Carlos and I happen to be the solo cellist.”
Copper Heart Page 15