Snow Woman

by Leena Lehtolainen

  No. It was Ström. He gave Milla a look that was about as friendly as the one he gave the drunks we’d interviewed that morning.

  “Ms. Marttila here is a talented liar,” he said. “From what I hear, your shift the night before last didn’t actually start until ten thirty. According to the schedule, you were supposed to start at eight, but you traded shifts with someone named Tatiana. So where were you?”

  The look Milla shot back at Ström wasn’t any friendlier. “That’s what Tatiana says, is it? She doesn’t know Finnish or English well enough to tell Tuesday from Wednesday. Or does a big pig like you know Russian?”

  “Where were you Tuesday night, Milla?” I asked.

  “Tell that idiot to get lost,” Milla said, indicating Ström. “I’m not saying anything with him here. He should go ask Tatiana for a lap dance while we chat. No Russian language experience required.”

  I nodded at Ström to leave, and luckily he had the sense to comply. Or maybe the girls downstairs were just a bigger draw. Milla’s tough-girl routine was wearing on me. It was as though she was goading me to smash through the act, to order her to cut the crap.

  “Well, go ahead. What happened Tuesday?”

  “I . . .”

  I realized that Milla’s eyelids were fluttering, and black streaks were running down her cheeks toward her jaw.

  “I just couldn’t do it. I called the apartment where all the Russian girls live and asked if someone could work my first couple of hours. Last weekend was so hard, and Mondays the club is closed. I was just . . . tired.”

  “Why don’t you stop doing this?” I asked.

  “For a cop you’re so naïve! Is quitting somehow going to magically fix my life? Maybe I should go back to school and marry some Prince Charming? Don’t make me laugh.”

  Milla pulled a clump of Kleenexes out of the box. Her face looked almost comical smudged with black. “These guys even own my apartment. I wasn’t willing to shack up with a bunch of other girls like the Russians, but the club still pays the bills. How would I get a new apartment? Don’t say in the dorms. I’m too antisocial for that.”

  I still couldn’t find the right words. Only empty advice. Quit the job. Go to therapy and deal with your childhood. Press charges against your father. Instead of saying any of that, I just continued the interview.

  “So were you at home Tuesday night?”

  Milla shook her head. Black lipstick smeared her jaw, and her nose was red under her white face powder.

  “How the hell am I supposed to explain it to you! You’re a cop, not Elina. Sure, I was home, no witnesses. Or maybe I was at Rosberga and whacked Aira over the head because she knew I killed Elina. What the fuck does it matter now?”

  “It does matter.” I rose from my chair and tried to find a way to touch her that felt natural. Touching wasn’t allowed in this room—only looking, emotionally and physically stripping the other person bare.

  “I know I’m not Elina,” I said uncertainly, timidly putting my hand on Milla’s shoulder. “But there are other people besides Elina who can help.”

  Just then the door flew open, this time without a knock. Rami Salovaara poked his head in. “Milla, they want you downstairs. You have a dance at fifteen to—Goddamn it, go clean yourself up! We agreed these interviews weren’t going to get in the way of business.” These last words were directed at me.

  “We’re actually finished here. Thank you,” I said, unsure whether I was irritated or relieved by the interruption. I’d been on the verge of offering to fix Milla’s life, despite having plenty on my own plate.

  After thanking Milla for her time, I went downstairs. Puupponen and Ström were standing at the bar with glasses of beer in front of them. The main evening show had begun. The svelte, underage-looking girl gyrating on the stage seemed of particular interest to Puupponen.

  “I can take the car back if the two of you want to stay and enjoy the view,” I said with a smirk.

  “So we’re not going to arrest her?” Puupponen asked in disbelief. “We know she was lying.”

  “I wish it were that simple.” My eyes swept the room. The stares I was getting made me uncomfortable. I realized I was violating the club’s division between well-dressed men and undressed women, a reminder that I had no business in this place.

  Suddenly I noticed another person who didn’t look like he belonged here, although Milla had mentioned he’d shown up before. There was Joona Kirstilä sitting at a rear table. He looked like an orphan in the sea of strip club regulars in their suits and ties.

  “Seems we have a friend here,” I said to Ström, who picked Kirstilä out after a brief search.

  “Elina Rosberg’s boyfriend. So this is where he goes looking for comfort?”

  “Let’s go ask. We can kill two birds with one stone and ask where he was Tuesday night.”

  “Seems strange a pansy like that has the stones to come here,” Ström snorted.

  “So going to strip clubs is a display of masculinity now? I always heard these places were a release for repressed guys who stare at titties instead of committing rape,” I said loudly as I weaved my way through the tables. “Evening, Kirstilä. We keep running into each other in bars.”

  The drunk eyes that stared up at me couldn’t seem to figure out what I was doing at Fanny Hill. Then comprehension dawned. “Is this some kind of raid?”

  “No, that’s another department. Do you think there’s a reason for a raid though?” I asked.

  He didn’t seem to understand my question. Maybe there was too much poetry in his head. Grabbing a chair from a nearby table, Ström sat down next to Kirstilä. I remained standing like a waitress waiting for an order.

  “Hot chicks, huh?” The feigned chumminess in Ström’s voice was new to me. “What would your late girlfriend think if she knew you went to places like this?”

  I didn’t expect such a quick reaction from Kirstilä. Shooting out of his seat, he socked Ström in the nose and started running for the door. I took off after him, knocking over a couple of chairs and beer glasses as I went. I managed to get a grip on the tail of his coat, but he wrenched himself free. He didn’t make it past the bouncer though. Like a true professional, he simply grabbed Kirstilä with his left hand and then wrapped his right arm around his throat. Dainty and short as Kirstilä was, he looked like a child swallowed up by six and a half feet of brawn.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Rami Salovaara came running. He must have seen the scuffle on his monitor. “We didn’t say anything about questioning customers! You’re disturbing my business.”

  I wished I could leave. Just walk out the door while Ström, Salovaara, and Joona Kirstilä sorted out the mess. I wanted to take a taxi home and crawl under the covers next to Antti. Drop this case where none of the clues led anywhere. Every thread we found was just a piece of the same endless ball of dirty gray yarn.

  “Your customer struck an officer. He also just happens to be one of the suspects in our investigation.” Crap, I was going to have to arrest Kirstilä. Ström would demand it. Knowing him, he’d probably press charges and I’d have to testify.

  But Kirstilä’s punch had been pretty pathetic. It hadn’t even bloodied Ström’s nose, which had been broken several times before. Puupponen was grinning behind Ström’s back. It was obvious he considered Kirstilä a friend now.

  “I think our little poet pal is going to be spending the night in the cooler,” Ström said with an unpleasant smile for Kirstilä, who had gone limp in the bouncer’s arms. “Are you going to come quietly or do I need my cuffs?”

  Kirstilä didn’t answer, and I motioned for the bouncer to let him go. As we walked out, Kirstilä between my partners and me behind, I glanced back for a second. There was Milla Marttila, her makeup fixed, standing on the stairs with a horrified expression on her face.

  15

  The mood in t
he police car was downright jolly. Puupponen drove without speaking, while Ström gingerly held his nose in the front seat. I was sitting in the back with Joona Kirstilä. Ström wanted to drag him straight to jail in Espoo.

  Assaulting an officer in the line of duty was a crime, of course, but Puupponen and I thought Ström was making too much out of a little jab, especially since he had provoked Kirstilä. On the other hand, Kirstilä wasn’t much help—he was so drunk he passed out as soon as we got in the car.

  Just as we were leaving Helsinki, he woke up: “You can’t take me to jail. I have to go feed Pentti.”

  “Who the hell is Pentti?” Ström snapped.

  “Pentti is a cat. Does Pentti have water?” I asked.

  Kirstilä nodded.

  Silence fell once again.

  On the Turku Highway, Kirstilä started complaining about nausea. Puupponen flipped on the flashers and stopped at the side of the road. Kirstilä barely got the door open before he lost his dinner on the shoulder. The vomit smelled of beer and sausage. Suddenly I felt nauseated too. I tried not to breathe through my nose, but my stomach was doing somersaults when we arrived at the station.

  I expected things to be quiet up in our unit, but it turned out to be anything but. As soon as the elevator doors opened, we could hear someone agitatedly speaking Somali and Taskinen raising his voice.

  The hallway looked as if it held a whole extended Somali family. Most of them were men, but there were also a couple of women in full burkas and some small children.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Ström asked Taskinen, who looked impatient.

  “Arson. Somebody threw a Molotov cocktail through this family’s living room window. That’s what we’re trying to get to the bottom of here. Can any of you help? Or do you have an arrest?”

  “You go, Puupponen,” Ström said before I could open my mouth. A wide-eyed little boy ran into my legs and tripped. Setting him back on his feet, I tried to comfort him, but one of the women in the black burkas snatched him away. I thought I heard a muffled apology through the fabric. The contrast between topless waitresses and fully veiled women was so stark that the Islamic dress didn’t bother me a bit, even though it usually felt threatening to me.

  “Let’s get Kirstilä handled quickly. Jyrki needs our help,” I said to Ström.

  The Somali men stared disapprovingly at Kirstilä, who stank of vomit. As our first order of business, I sent him to the men’s room to wash up.

  “Should I go along and make sure he doesn’t hang himself with that red scarf of his?” Ström asked.

  “That’s all we need! Right now all I want to do is get out of here,” I let slip without thinking.

  “What?” Ström turned back from the restroom door, but then he noticed Kirstilä doing something more interesting. Ström rushed inside yelling, “What do you think you’re trying to stuff down that toilet?”

  The sound following his question was clearly that of a person crashing against the commode. Ignoring the silhouette of a rooster on the door, I burst in after Ström. He had his arm around Kirstilä’s neck.

  “Now I wonder what that could have been,” Ström said, jerking his head toward the toilet.

  Lifting the lid, I cautiously peeked into the bowl. Fortunately the only thing floating in it was a clear plastic baggie about three inches square. There was something brown inside it.

  “Looks like hash. Is this why you were trying to get away? Joona?” Kirstilä was squirming in Ström’s arms, still looking very inebriated.

  Jackass, I thought, not really knowing which of them I meant. If Joona Kirstilä had simply answered our questions at the club about what he was doing Tuesday night, we wouldn’t have nailed him for possession.

  “Looks like our friend here is going for a full rap sheet,” Ström said spitefully as he released the smaller man. “Resisting arrest and possession of an illegal substance. How about that homicide charge? And then there’s the attempted murder of Aira Rosberg up for grabs.”

  Instantly Kirstilä looked more sober. “What happened to Aira?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t even try. You hit her over the head on Tuesday night. Isn’t that right?” Ström said.

  One of the Somali men opened the restroom door but quickly retreated when he caught sight of me. I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. The day had been too long and too full of bizarre crap. I didn’t have a single drop of willpower left to stop it.

  “What’s so funny, Kallio? Get out of here,” Ström said, but his words just made me laugh harder. Kirstilä slumped against the wall with unseeing eyes.

  Finally I calmed down enough to suggest that we go to my office for the questioning. Ström fetched coffee for himself and Kirstilä and cocoa for me while I set up the recorder. Kirstilä drooped on the sofa under my pinup collection, his long black overcoat pulled tight around him. The coffee seemed to rouse him a bit. My cocoa was lousy. I suspected Ström had only put half a pouch of powder in it.

  I asked Kirstilä where he was on Tuesday night.

  “Tuesday night?” Kirstilä said, bewildered. “You mean the night before last? How am I supposed to remember that? I was probably at a bar. Maybe Cosmos . . . or Corona . . . Yeah, first the Cosmos and later the bar at the Santa Fe. They threw me out around one, and I guess I went home . . .”

  “Who were you with?” I asked.

  Kirstilä mentioned the names of a couple of other famous poets who had been at the Cosmos. I asked if he was spending every night now sitting in a bar.

  “The words won’t come,” he said sadly, tossing back the rest of his coffee and reaching for a cigarette. His hand stopped midmotion as he remembered the no smoking rule.

  “And you think you’re going to find them at a titty bar?” Ström said cruelly. “Nothing there looked all that poetic to me.”

  Kirstilä just shook his head. He wouldn’t talk about the hash either, other than to say he’d bought it from some guy the night before. “I don’t remember if it was at the Corona . . . or maybe the Ruffe.”

  If it were Puupponen with me instead of Ström, I would have suggested letting Kirstilä go, but I didn’t feel like arguing with Ström. Instead, I promised to try to be in right at eight the next morning to question Kirstilä again.

  I could barely keep my eyes open as I drove slowly home through another snowstorm. A rabbit dashed across the road, and my headlights caught a skier out challenging the blizzard. At first I thought it might be Antti, but the skier was too short and stout. At home all the lights were on and the house smelled of fresh bread. Einstein ran to meet me in the entryway and Antti followed with a grin. I’d expected to find him discouraged after the Ring II freeway meeting, but he practically glowed.

  “Hey, darling. Still alive after a long day?” Antti wrapped his arms around me. His long hair smelled like pine tar and the wind. His sweater was covered with flour.

  “Barely. That bread smells great. I’m starving to death.”

  “Kirsti called about an hour ago. She and Eva had a little girl, and everybody’s healthy.”

  Such good news after such a hard day instantly made the tears flow. Ninny. I never used to cry when someone had a baby.

  “Everything went well?” I asked as Antti led me toward the warm bread waiting in the kitchen.

  “I guess, although they said it took almost twelve hours. They’re going to spend the weekend in Tammisaari. You remember they were going out there for the birth, right? If you have time, we could go see them on Saturday. I think we could use a break from the city.”

  After four pieces of bread, all my body wanted was a hot shower. It was zero dark thirty when I finally collapsed in bed between Antti and Einstein. In my dreams, bare-chested girls nursed kittens.

  The next morning, I tried to make up for the effects of so little sleep by dressing nicer and doing my makeup more carefully than
usual. My abs were tender from the previous day’s hard training, and I felt sort of strange. My body wasn’t just my own anymore. Someone else was living in it. Someone who didn’t demand much space yet but still sent a bitter coffee burp back up my throat. Someone whose sense of smell had replaced my own and who could pick out gasoline or cigarette smoke anywhere. Someone who needed a lot of sleep to grow, which made me tired too. Someone who made me cry over the smallest emotional thing.

  Soon that someone would start to grow in earnest, and then my waist would spread and I wouldn’t fit in my skin or my clothes. And finally, less than a year from now, that someone would come out of me and be a separate person but still completely dependent on me for years.

  I looked at my powdered face in the mirror and saw that someone’s eyes behind my own—that someone I didn’t even know yet. Suddenly I felt a joy that almost made me ashamed. I quickly wiped a tear from the corner of my eye and left for the station anticipating another hard day. On the way, I dropped Antti off at a bus stop in Tapiola.

  Old Mankkaa Road was in chaos. A semi with a trailer stood blocking the road. Apparently it had slid at great speed down the slippery hill and rammed into an oncoming van. I didn’t want to know what had happened to the driver of the van, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the light-green sheet metal crushed under the semi. The man who was being bundled into the ambulance was apparently the truck’s driver, not the van’s.

  After sitting in gridlock for fifteen minutes, I tried to call Ström, but my stupid piece of junk phone wouldn’t work. Why the force couldn’t just buy decent cell phones for everybody was beyond me. It was already past nine when I finally reached a driveway where I could turn my little Fiat around to backtrack and go another way. When I made it to the station, Ström wasn’t around. Dispatch said he was with Haikala in interrogation room number three.

  When I marched in, the room was empty. I finally found Ström in the break room.

  “I thought you slept in. You need a lot of rest in your condition,” he said. “I handled the Kirstilä prelims with Haikala.”