Snow Woman

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “What about suicide?” Kirstilä didn’t seem to understand my question, so I clarified. “Could Elina have killed herself?”

  Although Aira’s story about finding the letter from Elina in her purse seemed suspicious, we couldn’t ignore it. Perhaps there was a logical explanation for the scrapes on Elina’s back and thighs, or maybe someone had found Elina and, thinking she was dead, dragged her body under the tree and was now afraid of being blamed for killing her.

  Kirstilä contemplated the idea in complete silence for at least thirty seconds and then flatly rejected the idea. “The only reason I could imagine Elina killing herself would be a terminal illness. But she wasn’t sick, unless you count that terrible head cold.”

  “True,” I said. “So she hadn’t been more depressed than usual lately?”

  “Actually something was weighing on her,” Kirstilä admitted, “some problem she seemed to be having a hard time solving. But it was related to work. She wouldn’t tell me the details.”

  I was about to move the conversation back to Kirstilä’s alibi when Ström’s beeper went off. He hurried to his office to check on it, and I was forced to pause the formal interview.

  “Pretty big shithead,” Kirstilä observed in a conversational tone. Much as I agreed with him, I couldn’t answer in the affirmative. I just grinned lamely.

  “I got arrested once when I was a kid,” he continued. “We were drunk and kind of got out of control. One of the cops was a zit-scarred bully just like that. I wasn’t even resisting arrest, but when he dragged me to the car he managed to yank my arm back so hard it still hurts sometimes. I don’t like pigs.”

  I didn’t know why Kirstilä was trying to be so chummy now that we were alone. Was it because I was a woman and he thought he could charm me or because he knew I’d known Elina? Admittedly the first time we met at his apartment, the interaction was more like acquaintances who were worried about a common friend.

  Well, two could play at that game. I switched off the recorder and leaned forward empathetically. “That isn’t an excuse for lying,” I said softly.

  “What do you mean by that?” he asked.

  My approach was working. Kirstilä’s tone was questioning rather than defensive.

  “You were at Rosberga that night, weren’t you?”

  Or maybe not working so well. Kirstilä again denied being there.

  When Ström reentered the room moments later, Kirstilä was giving me his parents’ telephone number. They could confirm his whereabouts on Boxing Day, he said.

  “You’re getting off easy, Kirstilä,” Ström growled. “We’ve got to go to Mankkaa. But don’t worry, we’ll check your alibi.”

  “What’s up in Mankkaa?” I asked once we’d directed Kirstilä to the bus stop and were headed for the motor pool to get a car.

  “Another popsicle. Probably not as nice to look at as Rosberg though. Some wino, at the dump. Apparently he’s missing some entrails.”

  My stomach did a nasty somersault. If anyone else had been walking next to me in the parking garage, I would have said I couldn’t go because I still needed to schedule interviews with Tarja Kivimäki and Niina Kuusinen. But I couldn’t show any hesitation with Ström.

  At the garage, I turned toward the staff parking area. “I’ll take my own car. I need to head home after this.”

  The sight awaiting us across town was just as appalling as I’d feared. The dead man’s face was etched into agelessness by booze, and since he’d been beaten to death a few days earlier, the birds had pecked out his frozen innards. I only looked once because I had to. I was thankful the cold prevented him from stinking any worse than he did. A lovely start to the New Year’s holiday. The Rosberga case interviews would have to wait on ice for a while.

  The narrow road home was slick. The house was dark, and Antti’s skis were missing from the porch. Einstein greeted me by butting my legs gently in the entryway, almost making me lose my balance.

  Pulling the pregnancy test out of my bag, I went in the bathroom and sat on the toilet. Suddenly the idea of taking the test terrified me. What if I really was pregnant? The image of the corpse lying in the dump in Mankkaa flashed into my mind, and I barely kept down the vomit that heaved toward my throat. At least I wouldn’t have to look at dead bodies for a while.

  Should I wait for Antti? But I had to pee now. Opening the test box, I read the instructions through once and then got down to business. Wet stick and insert into tube. Wait one minute. If a blue line appears in the test window, you’re pregnant.

  One minute . . . Instead of sitting there staring at the tube like an idiot, I marched into the bedroom to look for the instructions that came with my IUD.

  “If you suspect you might be pregnant, contact your physician immediately,” the label read.

  OK. And what if I didn’t? Would the baby die?

  Finally a minute had passed. The trip back to the bathroom felt too short, and I could barely force myself to open the door and turn on the light. Bite the bullet, baby. Open your eyes and look.

  A blue line as bright as the Finnish flag stared back at me from the test window. I was already on my way to the kitchen for a shot of whiskey before I realized that wasn’t going to work now either.

  6

  When Antti came home, I was dozing on the living room couch with Einstein lying on top of me. When Antti turned on the lamp, the light penetrated my eyelids and snapped me out of my slumber.

  “Oh, you’re here. Hard day?” Antti asked.

  “Not as bad as it could’ve been. Ström was just getting on my nerves. Are you going to shower?”

  “I’ve got the sauna heating. Want me to get you a beer?”

  “No thanks.”

  His outing in the snow had tangled the curls of his dark hair into a damp clump that flopped over his forehead. He looked surprised. “What, no beer? Are you sick? Or do you still have to drive somewhere?”

  I shook my head and marched after him to the sauna. Antti smelled like wet wool and ski wax. I considered how to phrase what I had to tell him and wondered what his reaction would be. We stripped off our clothes in silence. When we climbed onto the benches and the water hit the hissing rocks, I remembered my sauna companion from the summer before last, my uncle Pena’s cat, Mikko, who had always liked the heat. Einstein wouldn’t go anywhere near the sauna.

  We sat quietly in the darkness of the wood-paneled room. I stared at my belly button and lower abdomen curving toward my pubic hair. There was someone in there, a tiny bundle of cells who wasn’t even really a person yet. I looked at Antti’s huge nose and then felt my own little snub, wondering how they would combine on our offspring’s face.

  Antti threw a large ladleful of water onto the rocks, and the rush of stinging steam sent me into a crouch. I had to squeeze my eyes shut. My breasts felt hard and heavy against my knees. When I straightened up and looked at Antti’s face, I decided to talk. Straight to the point and without any preparation, the way I always did.

  “Antti, listen. I’m pregnant.”

  “What?” The expression on my husband’s face was even more confused than when I had turned down that beer. Nor was there the slightest hint of amusement.

  “Well, my period didn’t start, and so today I took a test.”

  “But the IUD . . .” he said.

  “They don’t always work.”

  “You know what I think,” Antti said with a smile and pulled me onto his lap. His skin smelled of winter and sweat, and his vacation stubble scratched my cheek. Antti had wanted to have kids from the start, but he’d promised not to pressure me until I was ready. Antti had assured me he’d be as involved as possible when we did have a child, but he knew I was the one who’d be carrying the child and pushing it into the world.

  “What happens now?” he whispered into my hair.

  “I have to get it taken out,”
I said.

  Antti released his embrace, his expression disbelieving. “The baby?”

  “The IUD. Otherwise it can cause problems.”

  Antti’s eyes relaxed, but a hint of alarm remained. For a moment I sensed what it must have been like for Johanna when she told her husband that she’d aborted her child to save her life. I felt alone and abandoned. Antti so clearly wanted this child. I didn’t know what I wanted, and no one had asked me yet. This child had just appeared inside me despite my plans. For years I’d bounced from place to place, from one city and job to another. Now a child was going to shake everything up again, like a hand turning a kaleidoscope.

  “As long as the baby’s healthy, there’s no way I’d have an abortion,” I said, leaning into Antti’s almost hairless chest again. “But I need time before I’m going to be happy about it. I’m still in shock.”

  “Of course. What’s the due date?”

  “Sometime in August. Thank goodness nature set this up so we have time to get used to it.”

  We stayed up late into the night marveling at our new situation. Antti was clearly trying not to show how excited he was, but a couple of times I caught him staring eagerly at my belly. When I finally yawned so wide you could fit a whole orange in my mouth, Antti started fussing about how I needed to sleep more.

  “Don’t you go nannying me now or I’ll kick your ass,” I snapped. I despised all the mollycoddling and pink softness associated with motherhood. Based on what my sisters had told me, the reality was something else entirely. Eeva was already expecting her second; Saku would be a big brother in April. And Helena had Janina, who had just turned one.

  “At what point in the pregnancy do you start craving pickles and ice cream?” Antti asked. I decided to retreat upstairs, thankful for the excuse of an increased need for sleep. I didn’t have to fake the intense exhaustion that glued me between the mattress and blanket.

  The next day we were still stunned by the sudden change in our lives, and so in the end I was grateful that Antti’s friends, the Jensens, had invited us over for New Year’s Eve. It would take our minds off the pregnancy. Because I wouldn’t be drinking more than half a glass of wine and could be the designated driver, we took the car. The Jensens lived about a mile and a half east of us in a newish-looking duplex. One of the mail slots read “40A, Jukka and Lauri Jensen” and the other read “40B, Eva and Kirsti Jensen.” I wondered which mail slot the three Jensen children’s mail went through, but maybe it didn’t matter.

  We knocked at the door of 40B, because it was Kirsti Jensen, Antti’s coworker, who had invited us over. Although Antti had been to the house before, I had been forced to cancel because I was busy with work—as I remembered, I had collared a serial rapist that night. Antti and Kirsti shared an office at the university, so Antti didn’t have much choice when it came to learning the ins and outs of Jensen family life.

  In addition to the four adults and three children, two golden retrievers greeted us in the entryway, doing their best to knock me down. Eva, who was in her third trimester, shooed the dogs back inside. Meanwhile Jukka appeared wearing an apron and carrying a tray of drinks while Kirsti comforted the smallest of the children, who had been jostled by the dogs and all the adult legs. The noise was incredible, but it wasn’t aggressive. It was homey.

  I tasted my drink and then handed the rest of the glass off to Antti. Lauri Jensen, an architect by trade, took me on a tour of the house while Eva and Jukka put the finishing touches on dinner. The middle child, four-year-old Kanerva, came with us.

  Although the Jensens’ home had two entrances, for all intents and purposes it was a single household. Each couple had their own bedroom and study in their half of the house, along with a separate kitchen. In the middle were a shared dining room, living room, and library. The children’s bedrooms were clustered around the living room. The cellar contained storage space, a large sauna with two bathtubs, and a pair of washing machines. The house was roomy and bright; the furnishings carefully selected but still casual and made for use.

  “Did you plan this from the ground up, or is it a remodel?” I asked Lauri.

  “When we bought it, it was sort of a standard seventies duplex, but the footprint was just what we needed,” Lauri said. “When our oldest, Juri, was born, we were living in neighboring apartments, but that arrangement didn’t really work. We were constantly running in and out.”

  “Dad, let’s show Maria me and Juri’s bikes,” Kanerva demanded, so we went outside to see the shed too. The children had built a small snow fort in the backyard.

  “Is Eva the only original Jensen?” I asked once we’d finished the tour and were seated at the table eating wild mushroom soup.

  “I’m a Jensen too,” Lauri said with a laugh. “No relation though, as far as we know. Eva and I met at a pride event in the early eighties. We thought it was funny we had the same last name. Then we just got along and became friends. When Eva and Kirsti decided to have a baby, I knew they would ask me to be the dad.”

  Antti had told me a lot about the Jensens, but I was still curious about a few things.

  “So Juri is your and Eva’s son?” I asked Lauri. I thought I could make out Lauri’s large brown eyes and Eva’s wide, smiling mouth in the six-year-old’s face.

  Kirsti laughed. “Yes, but in practice all of the children are everybody’s. All of them have a dad, a daddy, a mom, and a mommy,” she said. “But biologically, Kanerva and Kerkko are mine. Jukka is Kanerva’s dad and Lauri is Kerkko’s.”

  “And this new arrival is mine and Jukka’s,” Eva explained, touching her beach ball belly. I looked at my own belly, which was still flat enough to fit into even my tightest jeans and thought about what it would feel like at the end of the summer when my stomach was as big as Eva’s was now. I dropped my soup spoon into the bowl with a clatter. Was I already accepting the idea of being pregnant?

  “So now we’ve tried all of the genetic combinations,” Kirsti said, laughing as she began clearing the bowls from the table with Juri and Kanerva helping. “The biological parents are always listed as the children’s guardians on all the official paperwork, but we’re raising them together. And it’s so handy since everyone has the same last name. Jukka and I had to fight a bit with the county government before they’d put our name changes through. Apparently they felt it was setting a strange precedent.”

  “Four parents sounds like a good system,” I said. “You probably don’t have much trouble finding child care.”

  “We all have pretty flexible schedules. Architect, restaurateur, researcher, and psychiatrist,” Eva explained. “Although my office hours have been more regular the last couple of years. Speaking of work . . . I know it’s probably confidential, but are you investigating Elina Rosberg’s death? We were all so shocked! Do you know anything? The tabloids are saying it was suicide, but we just can’t believe that.”

  “I’m on the case,” I admitted. From the other side of the table, Antti’s eyes telegraphed that I shouldn’t get into police business. I shoveled a serving of roast beef onto my plate before adding that we didn’t know anything for certain yet.

  “Did you know Elina well?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “She was my therapist during school,” said Eva, “and we’ve stayed friends. She was here visiting just three weeks ago.”

  “Did she say anything that—” I started, but when Antti’s eyes gave me the equivalent of a swift kick in the shins, I stopped myself. “Sorry, no shoptalk now. Eva, do you think we could meet to talk about this more? You were Elina’s colleague and friend, so your insight might be useful.”

  “Just name the time. I’m already on maternity leave,” said Eva.

  We agreed that I’d give her a call after the holiday.

  Watching the Jensens’ harmonious domestic hullabaloo made me both wistful and hesitant. I had a hard time imagining myself putting up with the n
oise, the insane mess a one-year-old learning to eat made under his high chair, or the constant questioning of a four-year-old. And yet a few moments—one-year-old Kerkko’s strawberry sorbet-stained cheek pressed against my own, Kanerva’s and Juri’s boundless enthusiasm as the first fireworks blasted into the crisp, clear night sky, or Kerkko’s drowsy snuffling on the couch—gave me a glimpse of the rosy side of life with children. It did exist. I still felt things were moving too fast, but I also found myself worrying whether the IUD would hurt my baby and hoping I’d get in to see the doctor right after New Year’s.

  The chaos waiting when I returned to work after the holidays was comforting in its familiarity. I was used to the callback requests and stacks of paperwork, and I was prepared for the New Year’s Eve beatings and stabbings that would keep us busy after we cleared the pile still left over from Christmas. And I wasn’t even surprised at the news from the county penitentiary that “Madman” Markku Malmberg had fled prison two days before New Year’s. Malmberg had been convicted in the fall of three armed bank robberies and two assaults in the Espoo area. He had only been out on parole from his previous convictions for a few weeks before the holdups started. Palo and I had tracked him down using American law enforcement profiling techniques. The unusual approach made serious waves in Finland, and although it might have brought to mind some sort of Silence of the Lambs scenario, with supercops chasing supervillains, in Malmberg’s case, it had worked.

  Because Malmberg had threatened to kill Palo and me when he got out, the prison called to warn us. Why they hadn’t called sooner was anyone’s guess. I didn’t know how seriously to take the threat, but I remembered how enraged Malmberg had been that one of the officers who caught him was a woman. Violence toward women was central to his profile. While his bank jobs were otherwise fast and efficient, he always took time to attack at least one female bank employee. In addition, one of his other assaults was a rape.