Snow Woman

by Leena Lehtolainen

  3

  After I called the station, I tried Tarja Kivimäki’s number, but she didn’t answer her phone. I was secretly relieved, because now I wouldn’t have to drive all the way to Tapiola. Since nothing particularly important was waiting for me at the station, I headed home to regroup before trying to track down Elina’s boyfriend.

  Antti was still at the university. During the holidays it was quiet there, which meant he could concentrate on his research, which was good. Antti was working on a couple of articles he needed to publish in order to beef up his CV, and the deadlines were approaching. An assistant professorship was opening in the math department, and Antti intended to apply.

  “If you get the job, I’ll be a professor’s wife. That sounds pretty damn fabulous,” I’d said teasingly when Antti told me about it.

  “I don’t have a very good shot. Kirsti Jensen is the strongest candidate. But it’s good practice to at least apply.”

  I was tired again. Maybe I had a vitamin deficiency. I felt like crawling into bed and calling Antti to cheer me up. But I’d promised Aira I would visit Joona Kirstilä. Boiling a pot of super strong coffee, I washed off my work makeup and changed my clothes. This refreshed me a little, although there was something strange about the coffee, a sort of metallic flavor.

  I tried one more time to get Tarja Kivimäki on the phone. This time her answering machine picked up and announced that if I had urgent business, I could try to reach her at her work number at the Finnish Broadcasting Company. Then something clicked in my mind, and I knew why her name was familiar. Kivimäki was the political correspondent for the news on FBC. Unlike her colleagues, Kivimäki never appeared in front of the camera. Viewers only heard her husky, often aggressive voice, sometimes seeing a flash of a hand with long fingers and no rings thrusting a microphone at an interviewee. Kivimäki rarely let people off easy, and I always enjoyed watching her leave even slick operators like the Minister of Finance flustered and tongue-tied. I tried in vain to remember what Tarja Kivimäki looked like. I wasn’t sure I’d actually ever seen her.

  I dialed the number the answering machine had given but still didn’t get through. According to the receptionist, Kivimäki was in the editing room working on a report that had to be ready for the evening broadcast. I left a request that she call me back at my work number in the morning, threw The Ramones’ debut album on the record player, cranked it up to eleven, and then started redoing my makeup. When Antti called, I told him I was going to try to find Joona Kirstilä downtown, and we agreed to meet for a beer at the Ruffe Pub afterward.

  The thought of a strong, dark Belgian beer was inviting, but first I had work to do. I didn’t want to warn Kirstilä that I was coming. If for some incomprehensible reason Elina was holed up in his apartment, I wanted to surprise her there and catch her off guard in order to question her. Maybe the reason for her disappearance from Rosberga was simple. Maybe Elina had just grown tired of her flood of Christmas guests and wanted to spend the rest of the holidays in peace.

  Wet snow dripped from the sky as I slogged to the bus stop. I nearly fell asleep in the warm bus. As I waited for the next one at the transfer station in Tapiola, the icy wind woke me up again.

  Joona Kirstilä lived in an apartment above the Kabuki Restaurant, just east of the main Helsinki cemetery. He was home. I heard him pad to the door, and then there was a moment of silence as he looked through the peephole. Finally he opened the door just a crack, leaving the chain in place.

  “What do you want?” he asked brusquely. Maybe admirers of his poetry banged on his door every night.

  “Sergeant Kallio, Espoo Police. Good evening.” I flashed my badge through the crack. “I’d like to talk to you about Elina Rosberg.”

  “Why are the police interested in Elina?” Kirstilä sounded incredulous.

  “Elina Rosberg is missing. I thought Aira Rosberg told you.”

  “Aira called me yesterday, but . . . What do you mean missing? What’s this all about?”

  “If you let me in, I’ll tell you. Or if you’d prefer to talk somewhere else, we can go to a café.”

  He hesitated but finally unfastened the door chain. “Ignore the mess. I haven’t had time to do much cleaning lately.”

  Joona Kirstilä’s home was a small one-bedroom apartment. A partially opened door off the living room revealed a chaotic-looking bedroom. Next to the bedroom was the cramped kitchenette, with barely space enough for a hotplate, microwave, and an ancient, whirring refrigerator. But the high ceilings of the old building lent the main room, with its piles of papers and books, a certain charm. It resembled Antti’s old digs before I moved in. Only the piano was missing. A black typewriter, at least as old as the poet himself, sat on the desk beside a slick-looking laptop.

  Kirstilä shifted a stack of papers off the couch and motioned for me to sit. He sat on the floor and lit a cigarette. When I’d seen him on TV and in the tabloids, I’d always suspected he played the stereotypical poet deliberately. His dark, wavy hair was worn below his ears and occasionally fell in front of his eyes, triggering a compulsive gesture to sweep it away. His skin was pale, and he had large, long-lashed brown eyes that seemed to burn intensely. His nose was straight and narrow, his lips slightly downturned at the corners. It was just the sort of face you assumed a poet would have. Although he was in his early thirties, Kirstilä looked younger. He was short, barely over five foot six, and very thin. His standard outfit of tight jeans and a thick black sweater—with protruding wrist bones poking out of the sleeves and small, artistic hands—heightened the impression of delicacy. His fingers were long and thin, as if made to hold a quill pen. I’d read some of his poetry collections and admired his unique use of language, although the general mood of the romantic poems was a bit too masculine for my tastes.

  “What do you mean Elina is missing?” Kirstilä asked again, blowing streams of smoke at me. Before I could answer, the books on top of the nearest bookcase started shaking strangely. I just managed to get out of the way before they fell, nearly landing on my head.

  “Pentti, stop it!” Kirstilä snapped at a cat with dun-colored stripes and a white breast. Pentti nimbly jumped from one shelf to another, bounced onto the floor, and rushed to sniff my shoes, probably smelling Einstein.

  “His name is Pentti? I assume for Pentti Saarikoski?”

  “Yeah. At least one of us should be a famous poet. I’m sorry. He’s too curious sometimes. But about Elina . . .”

  Kirstilä’s worry seemed genuine, and it increased when I told him that no one had seen or heard from Elina in days. He lit a new cigarette immediately after putting out the first, and Pentti retreated to the kitchen looking annoyed after receiving a face full of smoke.

  “I don’t have a clue where she is!” Kirstilä stood and walked to the window. Stubbing out his cigarette on the wide windowsill, he leaned his forehead on the pane for a moment. His dark eyes shone in the glass’s reflection as if in a mirror.

  “You don’t talk every day?”

  “Not usually,” Kirstilä said, still leaning against the glass. “When I’m writing, I don’t want to know anything about the rest of the world. And Elina has her courses. We arranged to meet sometime before New Year’s. Elina’s coming over here then . . .” Kirstilä’s voice faded again. I wondered whether he always left his sentences unfinished.

  “When did you last see Elina?”

  Kirstilä’s reply was surprising: “When did Elina disappear?”

  “On Boxing Day. The night before last.”

  “It was the day before Christmas Eve,” Kirstilä said. “In the afternoon, a little before I left on the train to see my parents in Hämeenlinna.”

  I wondered why he was lying. Aira had been all but convinced that Elina had been out walking with him, and Milla had claimed she’d actually seen the two of them together. But I wasn’t investigating a crime, just trying to determine Elina
’s location, so I didn’t accuse Kirstilä of lying yet. Instead, I asked when he had returned from Hämeenlinna. Kirstilä claimed he’d arrived home early the previous morning.

  “So Aira Rosberg called right after you got home?” I asked.

  “I’d just gone to sleep. I’d been up all night drinking with old friends. That’s probably why I didn’t even realize Aira was saying Elina was missing. Usually I’m the one who does the disappearing act.”

  Despite his delicate appearance, Kirstilä was known for upholding the legendary boozing traditions of Finnish poets. He seemed an unlikely choice as a lover for a woman like Elina Rosberg, but I guess human emotions aren’t always about logic. If I’d let logic rule my life, I never would have married Antti—or anyone else, for that matter.

  I left Kirstilä shaking his head in bewilderment and set off for the Ruffe Pub to meet Antti. I was annoyed. So far all I’d succeeded in doing was scaring people. I’d found no clues as to Elina’s whereabouts.

  Antti was sitting at a table near the window trying to read by the light of a candle. The shadows cast by the flickering flame made his features look thinner than ever. When I knocked on the window above him, a wide, boyish smile spread across his face.

  “What are you drinking?” he asked when I came in.

  I looked with interest at the bulbous glass in front of him, which was graced by a red heart and a chubby little man.

  “Belgian Oerbier,” Antti explained. “It’s a real winner.”

  I tasted it but decided to stick with my standard, Old Peculier. The cigarette smoke in the pub seemed thicker than normal and made it difficult to breathe, and for some reason my beer didn’t taste as full-bodied as usual. We chatted about Joona Kirstilä’s poetry for a bit, but then I began to feel tired and asked if Antti minded heading home. Was I getting old?

  At home I passed out, and the next morning I woke up with a hangover despite only drinking two beers the night before.

  At work a new case was waiting for me: a restaurant break-in during the night looked professional enough that Palo and I got on the computer and started searching for backsliders. We had narrowed it down to a few possible candidates when Taskinen appeared at the door.

  “Someone found the body of an approximately forty-year-old woman in the forest in Nuuksio. In a nightgown. Interested in having a look, Maria?”

  Actually, the answer was no. I wasn’t interested in seeing Elina Rosberg or any other woman dead. After a moment, I rose wordlessly from my chair and started pulling on my warm outer clothes. Palo said he’d stay behind to fight with the computer.

  “Ström’s downstairs checking out a car. I’ll get my coat,” Taskinen said as I went down the hall to tell Dispatch I was leaving.

  Ström was just turning the ignition in the department’s most presentable Saab when I reached the motor pool garage. I climbed into the front seat—Taskinen could sit in back. Someone on the radio was calling Forensics.

  “Nuuksio . . . The same road that goes out to the nature center?” Ström asked.

  “I don’t know where they found the body yet. Ask Taskinen,” I said.

  Taskinen got in the car lugging a large duffel bag. “Nuuksio Road to the turnoff for Rosberga Manor. We can’t get anywhere close by car, so I brought boots. The ones I got for you are probably too big, Maria,” he said.

  “What do you mean we can’t get there by car? Where the hell is the carcass then?” Ström growled in his usual sweet way.

  “Next to a ski track about half a mile from the road,” said Taskinen. “A skier found her and called the police from the nearest house.”

  “From Rosberga?” I asked. Aira and the others would have known immediately who the body was.

  “No, another neighbor,” Taskinen said. “The skier rang the bell at Rosberga’s gate, but no one answered.”

  “So it’s one of those goddamn lesbians who bunk there?” Ström angrily wheeled the cruiser onto the street, spraying slush on the sidewalk and onto an old man walking by. From the corner of my eye, I saw Taskinen’s mouth tighten. He didn’t like Ström’s driving any more than he liked his way of speaking.

  “The owner of the estate, Elina Rosberg, has been missing for a couple of days,” answered Taskinen, his even tone betraying none of his irritation. Grabbing his phone, he dictated driving directions to Forensics.

  “We should’ve brought skis,” Ström muttered. “Now we’re going to be wading up to our asses in goddamn snowdrifts.”

  The skier who had found the body was waiting for us in the lane leading to Rosberga. In his bright-blue cross-country ski bibs and with ultramodern skate skis strapped to his feet, he looked like he’d dropped in from Mercury. I felt sorry for him. He’d obviously been sprinting and was now freezing just standing in the cold. And then Ström started taking his information in his usual friendly fashion. I turned away, disgusted, and surveyed the terrain. The sight of the deep drifts surrounding the skier’s tracks didn’t make me particularly happy, but there was nothing to be done about it. Ström was right—we should have brought skis.

  “It’s easier once you move farther into the forest. The rain last night melted a lot of the snow,” the skier said, sensing my trepidation.

  Pulling on my boots, I was relieved I’d decided to wear my thigh-length down coat rather than my long Ulster. I tried to keep up with the skier, Ström, and Taskinen, but the competition was stacked against me. Ström was over six feet tall, Taskinen was a marathoner, and the skier had on skis. I wasn’t in bad shape, but I was much shorter and my legs were feeling unusually weak.

  Only a couple inches of snow lay in the more thickly forested areas, but it was frozen and slick. And in the clearings, the snow was deeper than our boots. The wind made me grimace, and the fir needles slapped my cheeks, leaving tiny scratches.

  Because of the ski tracks, our destination was easy to find. The body was lying on the top of a tiny knoll, under a dense spruce tree. Only bare, slender legs protruded. They must have been covered by snow before, but last night’s rain had melted it. Ström was the first one to carefully part the branches of the tree. I heard his deep intake of breath, and then I stepped up to take my turn.

  The body was unquestionably Elina Rosberg. She wore a delicate pink satin robe, and the hem of her matching pink nightgown, no longer frozen solid with ice because of the runoff from the tree, moved when I recoiled instinctively. Frostbite covered her bare legs and feet, but her face with its high cheekbones was calm, almost smiling. But still dead.

  Her eyes were closed, the eyelids bluish. There were no apparent external signs of violence. It was as if she had calmly lain down under the tree and fallen asleep like Sleeping Beauty. But the kind of prince who could wake her only existed in fairy tales.

  “It’s Elina Rosberg,” I said, nodding to Taskinen as he moved in to look. My feet were icy cold, and a strange pain scratched in my throat. Ström talked with the skier in hushed tones. It was as if finding Elina’s body had tempered his crude bluster for once. The forest around us was silent until a clattering started from the road and Taskinen’s cell phone rang. Forensics was on their way.

  The routine was comfortingly familiar. Photographs, measurements, the futile search for Elina’s footprints. It looked as though Elina had died from exposure, but we couldn’t confirm that until the autopsy.

  “I think that’s about it,” Taskinen sighed after the forensics team informed him they had found no evidence of anyone else being under the tree with Elina. “Maria, do you know who the next of kin are?”

  “Elina’s aunt lives at the estate. I don’t think she had a husband or children. I’m pretty sure her parents are dead.”

  “Well then, on to Rosberga Manor,” he said grimly.

  With that Taskinen trudged away toward the road. Forensics had tramped a wide path, and their sleds, loaded with heavy equipment, had compacted the snow.
The walk back to the cruiser was almost too quick for me because I was trying to think of what I would say to Aira.

  “Are we supposed to stay here in the car and wait since those broads won’t let us in?” Ström asked as our car spun out trying to make it up the hill to the manor. Ström seemed to have a good understanding of the rules of the house.

  “I don’t see much sense in that,” I said.

  When we reached the gate, I got out of the car and rang the bell. Aira must have seen us on the security camera because she opened the gate remotely instead of coming down herself. As our car glided up the drive, I wondered if Taskinen and Ström were the first men to enter Rosberga Manor this decade.

  Aira opened the front door. Her face had aged since I last saw her, and her shoulders slumped when she looked at us. She knew why we were there.

  “You found Elina. Where?”

  Taskinen told her where the body was found, emphasizing that we didn’t have any idea yet how Elina had ended up under the tree or whether a crime was involved. Aira stared somewhere past Taskinen into the distance. Her eyes were free of tears.

  “Can I see her?” Aira finally asked, and I told her that we did need an official identification.

  “Would you like to come now, or would you prefer tomorrow?” I asked. “We’ll have to interview you again anyway, along with everyone else who was here that night.”

  Aira was about to answer when a shriek came from upstairs. A door slammed and Niina Kuusinen charged down the stairs, screaming hysterically. She rushed at Ström, who stood nearest to her: “No men allowed!”

  Niina tried to shove Ström toward the front door, but her attempt was useless. Although she was tall, Ström was much too big for her. I dragged Niina off Ström, mostly because I didn’t want him to hurt her.