Her Enemy

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “Erik will be at home if you leave right now,” Eki said after hanging up. “Do you want to take the Honda or ride your bike?”

  I let the company car rest in the garage. The bike ride would give me time to think about what it was I wanted to ask Dr. Hellström.

  When I arrived fifteen minutes later, Erik Hellström was waiting for me on the street-side balcony of his row house.

  “The door is open,” he announced in a trembling voice, seeming to expect that I would find my own way through the house to him. Hellström looked frightened. I had been mistaken in imagining that I would find him calm. I guess the uninitiated always expect calm, collected reactions to death from doctors, priests, and police officers, but from my own experience, I should have known how wrong that is.

  I came through the dark entryway up the stairs, arriving at an enormous second-floor living room.

  Lately I had seen a good number of handsomely decorated homes owned by the Espoo elite, but Hellström’s living room put them all to shame. I don’t know anything about antique furniture, but my instincts told me that the Gustavian-era relics I was seeing were extremely valuable. I glanced apprehensively at my pants, hoping they didn’t have chain grease on them. I was relieved when Hellström invited me out onto the balcony.

  “Perhaps we could chat out here. This lane has so little traffic that it shouldn’t bother us. So, Maria—you don’t mind me using your first name, do you?—what do you want to know?”

  Dr. Hellström lit a cigarette. Nicotine stained the skin on the inner surfaces of the joints of the first and second fingers of his right hand. Perhaps the same yellow had once colored his teeth, but since that would have clashed with his image as a successful physician, he had apparently recently had them whitened. Overall, he had a rather elegant look about him. Moderately tall, his body retained some of the athleticism of his younger years. In different circumstances, his brown eyes might be quite alluring, but now anxiety predominated. Remembering where his gaze had traveled on me two nights before, I couldn’t feel much sympathy toward him.

  “First, give me your impression of Armi. What was she like as a person and as an employee?” I felt somehow stiff addressing Hellström. That he was my father’s age wasn’t what made it difficult. Nor was it the prestige he radiated or the dashing Don Juan silver at his temples. No, something else in him put me on edge. I knew that a large part of my antipathy derived from our run-in at the party, and I was irritated with myself for taking offense at something so trivial.

  “Armi was a pleasant person and a good worker,” Hellström said flatly as he rotated the cigarette between his fingers. Ash fell onto the white planks of the balcony, but he didn’t notice.

  “And where is your office located?”

  “In the Heikintori Medical Center, near city hall. I share the building with several other medical specialists. We are all independent.”

  “Armi was a receptionist in your clinic?”

  “Receptionist isn’t quite the right word. Armi was a nurse with a specialty in gynecology. Of course, she did take care of making appointments for patients and other practical arrangements with the main reception desk.”

  “So she was quite involved with the patients?”

  “Nowadays, we’re calling them clients, not patients.” Hellström picked a single strand of silver hair from the knee of his bottle-green slacks and dropped it over the balcony railing onto the grass. “Armi was happy and unreserved, and usually got along well with everyone. For some of my clients, her manner may have even been a little too informal.”

  “In what way?”

  Hellström paused, seeming to consider the propriety of criticizing the dead, but then he continued anyway.

  “Well, not every client wants to be called by her first name. Armi lacked the social grace that would have allowed more understanding of each client’s preferences. And she may have kept a bit too well abreast of my client’s ailments and other business.”

  “Do you mean that Armi was nosy?”

  Hellström nodded.

  “My clients include more than a few well-known women: actresses, business owners, politicians. I’m afraid Armi may have been in the habit of discussing their private matters somewhat too openly. Otherwise, she was a good worker, and I believe her interest in people came out of a genuine concern for them.”

  Hellström’s last phrase could have served as an obituary. He lit another cigarette, which made me wonder whether he chain-smoked normally or this was just a reaction to Armi’s death.

  “What sorts of things does your practice handle?”

  “A wide range of gynecological services, from checkups and contraceptive prescriptions to prenatal exams and cancer screenings. I have an adjunct professorship at Helsinki University Hospital, so if my clients request it, I can also attend at cancer surgeries and births.”

  This all sounded rote; Hellström had presumably repeated it a hundred times in various languages at conferences and promotional events. Suddenly I remembered that I needed to renew my own birth control prescription, but I had no intention of going to Dr. Hellström’s clinic. I patronize only female gynecologists. Besides, did I need the Pill at all anymore, since things with Antti seemed to be going down the toilet?

  “I heard that you treated Armi’s sister’s for a miscarriage some time ago. What was the cause of the miscarriage?”

  “That you’ll have to ask Mallu Laaksonen herself—my clients’ information is confidential,” Hellström said firmly. Since he was right, I didn’t argue.

  “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary in Armi lately? Something she might have been concerned about—or especially happy about? New friends? More money than usual?”

  Down the narrow lane came the rattling sound of a tricycle. A mother with a stroller followed the two-year-old cyclist, the contents of the stroller howling savagely. Hellström remained quiet for a long time before answering.

  “This was about a month ago. Kimmo was visiting his father in Ecuador for a couple of weeks, and during that time Markku Ruosteenoja—I believe most people call him Makke—picked up Armi from work quite often. I asked Armi in jest whether she was thinking of swapping fiancés, but she claimed that her relationship with Markku wasn’t like that.”

  Makke Ruosteenoja…What was it he said to me? Whenever he meets a nice girl, she’s always taken…something like that. Had he meant Armi too? I added Makke to my mental list of people I’d have to interview.

  “What if Kimmo was jealous of Markku?” Hellström asked. “Or Markku fell in love with Armi. Who knows what people are going to do, even people who seem nice enough.”

  Hellström was probably going to be more help for the prosecutor than for me. In order to change the subject, I asked, “You said Armi seemed overly interested in your clients’ business. Do you suppose she could have misused any information?”

  Hellström went strangely pale.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, the cigarette trembling in his hand.

  “Blackmail. You just said it yourself—who knows, even with people who seem nice enough. And your practice is full of perfect material for blackmail: abortions, sexually transmitted diseases—”

  “No!” Hellström shouted, nearly jumping to his feet. “Armi wasn’t like that!” He tried to compose himself. “Excuse me. This has been such a terrible shock. I’m just sick to death about Armi, and then you come here making accusations,” he said, sitting back down. “Armi had a strong sense of justice and good medical ethics. Something as ugly as blackmail wouldn’t have been in her nature.”

  “We have to investigate every possibility,” I said, and then began to collect my things.

  “So it isn’t clear that Kimmo is guilty?” Hellström had noticed my intention to leave and was enough of a gentleman to rise.

  “No, it isn’t clear.”

  As I biked north along the small forested lane, I decided that on my way to Mallu Laaksonen’s apartment I would stop and see whether M
akke was home.

  I didn’t know his exact address, but I remembered him saying he lived behind the tennis center. I knew where he meant—a group of drab five-story apartment buildings on a little hill. Sure enough, the third stairwell directory I checked had a match to his name. I rang the doorbell five times and was just about to head back down the stairs when I heard plodding steps from inside the apartment.

  Makke looked terrible. The previous evening must have involved more than two pints.

  “Maria. Come in. Have you heard that Armi is dead?”

  “I’m the one who found her. And it’s Armi I came to talk about, if you’re up to it.”

  “Yeah…Wait and let me brush my teeth.” Makke slid past me into the bathroom, and I moved on to the living room. This was obviously the home of a dedicated fitness enthusiast. Apart from a TV and stereo, the only furnishings in the room were a stationary bike, rowing machine, and weight bench. Barbell plates and hand weights of various sizes lay scattered around. A narrow bed stood in an alcove, and the kitchenette offered only a small table and two chairs. Sitting down on the rowing machine, I adjusted the seat and pulled.

  Makke pulled a hell of a lot of weight. Before he came back, I made it through ten reps, but I couldn’t have managed many more. Based on the equipment he had at home, he must have visited the gym mainly for the social interaction and the sauna.

  Makke marched straight to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of beer. He waved another toward me, but I shook my head. Pouring the beer into a glass, he added two effervescent tablets to the mix and threw a pill into his mouth before downing the bubbling liquid. The rest of the bottle he sucked down just as fast and then opened another.

  “What was in that?” I asked in concern. Makke came and sat down next to me.

  “Nothing dangerous. An antinausea pill, a vitamin C, and an aspirin. Taken with the finest Finnish pale lager. Markku’s Miraculous Morning Cure.”

  “All that’s missing is the raw egg,” I said with a grin. “So I take it you’ve been drinking?”

  Makke passed his hand through his wet hair. Apparently, when he went into the bathroom he had also put his upper body under the shower. His pectoral muscles glistened, and a small line of drops trickled straight along the centerline of his abs toward the fly of his well-worn jeans. He wore nothing else. Distracting.

  “So it’s true, is it? Shit,” he groaned. “That’s what the guys were saying yesterday. Stögö Brandt came into the store a little before three and said that Armi’s street was full of cop cars. He was glancing out his window when he saw them wheeling a stretcher and a body bag away from Armi’s place. So then we went to Hemingway’s to see what the word was on the street and get a drink, and we just stayed. Who killed her?”

  “They’ve arrested Kimmo. So you were at work yesterday?”

  “Yeah. The store is closed on Saturdays in the summer, but I stopped in to finish up doing inventory, and Stögö came in, probably just looking for someone to tell. Why?” An apprehensive look crept onto his face.

  “How often did you and Armi go out?”

  “What the fuck? You aren’t saying Kimmo killed her because he was jealous of me, are you? Armi didn’t give a shit about me. I’m a drunk…” Makke took another generous swig of his second beer, then picked up a fifteen-pound weight in his left hand and started curling it mechanically. The muscles of his arm and shoulder bulged, and the color of the violet veins pulsing under his skin reminded me suddenly of Armi’s swollen, purple face.

  “My left delt is a little behind the right. A lot of reps with a little weight like this will help it catch up. By the way, we’re going to have rowing machines like that coming on sale, if you need one. They’re really handy—”

  “Makke, listen!” I interrupted. “You and Armi had been going out together a lot lately? Did you see her yesterday? Did she call you?”

  “You keep talking like we were dating or something. All I did was go over to her house sometimes to talk. She made me pulla and offered me a shoulder to cry on. I couldn’t talk to anyone else about…about Sanna.” Makke turned his face away from me, but I could see the muscles of his neck tense as he swallowed. “It’s my fucking fault,” he said to the poplars outside the window.

  “Armi’s death?” I asked, suddenly more alert.

  “Armi’s? No, Sanna’s. Why didn’t I see that she wasn’t playing that time?” Makke turned and brought his face close to mine, not even trying to conceal his tears. “Even if I live a hundred years, I’m never going to forgive myself. Even though Armi said it wasn’t my fault.”

  I could almost hear Armi’s soothing voice, her blonde hair bobbing left and right. I could nearly smell the pungent cardamom aroma of the fresh-baked pulla. Dr. Hellström had talked about Armi having genuine concern for people. Perhaps I should take a lesson from her and not go around bullying the bereaved. No, figuring out who killed Armi was more important than people’s feelings, I thought. I’d have to put off suppressing my malicious nature at least until tomorrow.

  “You talked to Armi a lot about Sanna?” I said, continuing my line of questioning.

  “Yeah, and about the Hänninens in general. She was nervous about marrying into their family and what kind of mother-in-law Annamari was going to be. That bitch can’t stand me. I was never good enough for Sanna—just a nobody with a degree in business administration from a second-rate school. She almost landed me in prison after Sanna’s death. Armi was one of the only people who didn’t blame me for anything. Just last Friday she said that I didn’t have to be sorry anymore, that Sanna really did love me and that someone else entirely was responsible for her death. Like maybe her fucking mother! On Friday at the party, Annamari came up to me, all misty-eyed, talking some nonsense about reconciliation. But when her daughter was alive, she didn’t give a damn about what was going on in Sanna’s life.”

  “You weren’t in love with Armi?”

  Makke snorted. “Armi…Am I ever going to be able to love anyone but Sanna? And why are you asking all these questions anyway? Are you trying to be some kind of cop again?”

  “Kimmo asked me to defend him. I’m collecting evidence to prove his innocence.”

  “I don’t know anything about any evidence. I guess Kimmo could have been jealous of me. We weren’t exactly best friends. By the way, how did Armi die? If somebody smothered her with a rubber hood, then Kimmo is your man. His biggest sex fantasy was to have someone do that to him.”

  Cold shivers again. One more point for the other side.

  “You seem to be pretty well-informed about Kimmo’s sexual preferences. Why would that be?”

  “Sanna told me about it,” Makke replied without looking at me. “Both of them were masochists. Sanna was just into more hard-core stuff. I was probably her first boyfriend who didn’t hit her. I didn’t, not even when she wanted me to…” Makke emptied his bottle. “And Kimmo was the same. He and Sanna even went to some sort of S&M club together. Sanna said Kimmo would end up peeling potatoes if ‘the Army’ ever found out. She was always making cheap digs like that.”

  Makke retrieved a third beer from the kitchen. I was growing tired of listening to him wallow in self-pity. Let him booze away his sorrows by himself—I needed to go talk to Mallu.

  “Hey, don’t go,” Makke begged, as I climbed off the rowing machine.

  “I have to work. And you should go to a bar to drink instead of moping around here alone. No, wait, that’s not what I’m supposed to say. How about this: Haven’t you had enough already?”

  Another snort. “I’ll be OK,” Makke said with a wave of his bottle, his face distorting into something approaching a smile.

  For some reason, I had a hard time believing him.

  As I biked through the sports park toward Mallu’s neighborhood, a pair of pheasants waddled across the bike path, and I suddenly had an urge to take off after them like Einstein, who two weeks before had chased a male pheasant right up a tree. The bird screeched in indignation
from the branches for at least an hour, with Einstein circling down below. I could have sworn he was smiling.

  Dandelions were blooming along the path of the underground heating pipes running back toward Makke’s apartment complex. I wished I could forget work, ditch my bike, and go off wandering through the meadows looking for unusual plants in the vacant lots surrounding the park. That flower at least was stitchwort. Suddenly an image of my ex-boyfriend Harri flashed through my mind. He’d tried to teach me all the common birds and plants. These days, I could hardly remember that I had once dated people other than Antti.

  I guess nine months is long enough together that you get used to having another person around. Imagining being alone felt difficult. Even though I liked being alone. Talking to anyone before my morning coffee was still a chore, and I despised having anyone tell me I needed to turn down my music. Antti usually understood, though, and he needed his space too.

  The jungle of overgrown grasses ended at the indoor tennis center and a parking lot. If the hockey fans got their way, soon the meadow wouldn’t exist anymore, and a new ice stadium, surrounded by a sea of asphalt, would rise in its place. I had heard that the city council hadn’t had time to deal with anything other than this tug-of-war over the ice rink lately. Looming cuts to social services seemed incidental in comparison.

  Mallu wasn’t home. She was probably at her parents’ place. I couldn’t see a telephone booth anywhere close, and hunger gnawed at my stomach, despite Eki’s pulla, so I pedaled back to the other side of the bay and home. Perhaps Antti would be in more of a talking mood now.

  On the way, I rehearsed what I would say. Fortunately, I didn’t have to interrupt Antti’s work, because he was sitting in the backyard reading.

  “Hi, Antti. I had a few minutes, so I thought I’d stop by home. Could we have a talk?”

  “Hmm…” came the answer from behind the book.

  “I know that Armi’s death is a real shock for you, but this situation isn’t my fault. I’m sorry to involve your relatives. Still, Kimmo asked me to help him, and he’s in a really tough spot. If I’m going to help him, I have to do my job, and that might mean asking some uncomfortable questions.”