Her Enemy

by Leena Lehtolainen

  Was this the work of some idiot passerby? Vandals had knocked my bike around before. They had the air let out of my tires more than once, and once someone had even slashed them. Painted bright green, my old men’s bike had its own personality—in the whole world there wasn’t another one like it, and I had no intention of giving it up. Perhaps my easily recognizable bicycle irritated someone. Or—did I irritate someone?

  I like to think my teeth were chattering only from the cold when I finally dumped my bike at our front door. I walked in, tearing my clothes off and dropping them in a wet heap on the dressing room floor, followed by ten minutes under a burning hot shower.

  When I finally stepped into the living room wrapped in a thick bathrobe, Antti looked at me in concern.

  “What on earth happened to you?”

  “I fell into the bay on my bike. Do you want some tea?” I tried to sound calm, even though I was afraid. Despite our earlier fight, being with Antti felt wonderful.

  “How did you end up in the bay? Where?”

  “My handlebars came off just as I was on the path out to the breakwater.”

  “They came off? But we just did a tune-up on both bikes less than a month ago.”

  “I’m thinking someone wanted to play a nice little practical joke on me.” The forced nonchalance in my tone did not fool Antti.

  “That must have been scary.”

  I let Antti take me in his arms.

  “Your nose is still freezing. Put on some wool socks so you don’t catch cold. I’ll get the vitamin C.”

  Antti’s concern brought tears to my eyes. The day had been far too long, and I was afraid. Who had sabotaged my bike? Antti stroked my hair, and Einstein rubbed his head sympathetically against my shins. Even though there might be a murderer on the loose, I still had my tall, dark, and handsome man, and a big, ferocious cat to come home to.

  8

  I was sitting on the breakwater looking out to sea. Suddenly slimy, algae-covered hands stretched out of the water and began pulling me into the depths. Under the water, I saw Sanna’s green face. Her hair swirled around her, moving with the water current, and her body was covered in scales, all the way down to a mermaid tail. Sanna had come to take me away.

  I woke up to Einstein, agitated by my kicking, jumping off the foot of the bed and knocking over the radio sitting on the floor. The clock said five o’clock in the morning, and the birds were already making a racket outside. Pulling my pillow over my ears, I curled up closer to Antti and fell back into a fitful sleep for another two hours.

  After our morning coffee, we gave my bicycle a thorough going-over. There was nothing wrong with it—the handlebars just should not have come loose like that. Now Antti seemed perplexed by the incident as well.

  “Maybe that hideous green paint is getting on someone’s nerves. Although I have a hard time imagining someone just walking around with an Allen wrench loosening handlebars. Do you have any secret enemies?” Antti asked, only half kidding.

  I was starting to get unnerved again. Who would have wanted to hurt me? I remembered Annamari going outside while I was in the house. But would she even have known how to sabotage my bike?

  Then I went through all the places where I had left my bike in the last few days, still ending up none the wiser.

  “Are you sure this bike accident has something to do with Armi’s death?” Antti asked, as I was standing in the yard ready to leave for work. I didn’t know how to answer, and pedaled away.

  With fog rolling in off the water, the day was cooler than the previous few had been, and most of the dog walkers I normally saw seemed to have decided to stay home instead of taking their usual loop around the bay. I found myself riding slower than usual because my knee still hurt a little. Hopefully I would be able to go for a run later. That would help calm me down.

  After lunch, I went to see Kimmo and nearly blew my top when I heard that Ström had questioned him for at least two hours already that morning without any legal representation. If Ström had still been at the station, I would have given him an earful. Instead, I suggested to Kimmo that we file a complaint and refuse any further interviews, but he just shook his head in resignation.

  “What will that help? They’ve already decided I’m guilty. I’m going to prison either way. And what does that matter anyway, since Armi is dead,” Kimmo said, slumped in his uncomfortable chair, his eyes bloodshot. I felt like kicking him in the head.

  “Kimmo, stand up for yourself! This isn’t some Kafka book—this is real life. They can’t put you in prison if you’re innocent. Why the hell didn’t you tell them about Armi’s theory that Sanna was murdered?”

  “Armi’s theory that what? I didn’t,” Kimmo muttered, so wormlike that I felt like marching right out the door. “I don’t know how Armi got that idea into her head. I thought she was just trying to offer my parents some comfort. But I’m one hundred percent sure that Sanna committed suicide.” Kimmo looked past me at somewhere only he could see.

  I remembered the green-faced Sanna from my nightmare and wondered whether Kimmo dreamed about his sister.

  “Sanna did talk about how she meant to have a fresh start, a new life, after she turned thirty and how she was happy with Makke, but she was pretty hooked on the booze and the pills at that point. Armi didn’t know Sanna like we did, so she could believe her stories. Maybe Sanna killed herself because she felt like she would never be able to change her life. You should read the poem she left on her desk. Even Antti thought it was intended as a suicide note.”

  “Why would Armi start bringing up this theory and talking so much about Sanna being murdered now? It’s been more than a year since it happened.”

  “She said she never understood the whole context of the poem until now, that she’d never read the Finnish translation before. She claimed it was a story about rebirth, not just death. I don’t know—I’m not a literary scholar! Read it yourself.”

  Kimmo’s last comment bothered me though. Armi didn’t seem like much of a student of literature either. I tried to remember whether her bookshelves contained any poetry beyond the standard Collected Works of Eino Leino. Analyzing Sylvia Plath really didn’t seem in character for Armi.

  I left Kimmo with a couple of books Antti had sent, hoping they would make his time in jail pass more easily. Then after work, I went to Marita’s to alter my leather skirt. To my disappointment, she didn’t have any time to talk because one of her friends from work was visiting, sitting in her living room. “Gossiping,” Marita said darkly, as she led me to the kitchen and set up the sewing machine. I hadn’t realized what a stir Armi’s murder was causing in Tapiola. Maybe instead of investigating the hard way, I should be sitting downtown, in the square, listening to rumors and chatting up winos.

  As Marita bent down to show me how to thread the bobbin, I again noticed the bruise under her ear, which was starting to turn yellow around the edges.

  Just as I was backstitching the seam, the twins came bouncing into the kitchen and attacked the juice pitcher. Only after it was empty did they have time for me.

  “Maria, was it you who arrested Kimmo, since you’re a policeman?” Matti asked.

  “No, not me. It was other policemen. And I’m not a police officer anymore,” I said as I snipped the last thread end.

  “Are they bad policemen like sometimes on TV?”

  I didn’t feel up to doing my bit to instill in the rising generation a deep and abiding faith in the Finnish justice system, so instead I just nodded.

  “Some bad policemen took Otso too, and Sanna cried,” Mikko explained.

  Otso, Otso Hakala. The one Angel and Annamari had mentioned. The man who beat Sanna and was serving out a drug sentence.

  “Is Kimmo a murderer? Why doesn’t anyone ever tell us anything?” Mikko asked pointedly, but before I could answer, the boys were already tumbling out of the room as if they didn’t want to know the truth after all. I knew that Marita couldn’t wait for school to end on Friday. She meant
to send the boys to their Sarkela-side grandparents in Inkoo until the situation here resolved itself.

  As soon as I reached home, I hurried out for a jog. My knee was holding up really well, but a stabbing pain shot through my left shoulder whenever my left shoe struck the ground at too severe an angle. I ran south, crossing under the highway to Karhusaari Island to admire the old Sinebrychoff Mansion; a construction crew had just freed it from its tarps after a renovation of the exterior.

  The shore of the island was deserted as I jogged into the shade of the forest, dodging the protruding roots of the trees. The noise of the West Highway was on the far side of the island now, and birdsong was all I could hear. Once back on the shore, I did a few stretches and then ran leisurely back along the forest path.

  Then from behind I heard loud, thudding steps and heavy panting. Someone was coming up on me, running like he thought he was Carl Lewis.

  Instinctively I sped up. I hate it when someone tries to overtake me. I attempted a look over my shoulder, but all I saw was a dark tracksuit disappearing into the trees as my Olympic pursuer turned onto the trail leading to the interior of the island. Perhaps he would cut across and be waiting for me farther along the shore, ready to push me into the sea like Sanna.

  Almost tripping on the root of a pine tree snapped me back to my senses. Why did I think someone was stalking me? I was making far too big a deal out of my bike accident. Still, getting back into the mix of other people and dogs on the pedestrian path along the highway was a relief.

  At around nine o’clock, I started getting dolled up for Club Bizarre. First, I pulled out a shiny black leotard I sometimes wore at the gym. Over that came fishnets and the leather skirt, followed by four-inch stilettos, which I might someday learn to walk in if I wore them enough. Fifteen minutes and half a can of super-hold hair spray later, my hair was in a messy, edgy style. The lower stratum of my makeup arsenal yielded white face powder, black eyeliner, and fire engine–red lipstick. Occasionally, I cursed myself for not bothering to throw out my old stuff. Apparently keeping some had been a good idea after all.

  When I was ready, I swayed into the entryway and pulled on my old leather jacket. Teenage Maria stared back at me from the full-length mirror—tasteless punk makeup, that mane a small animal could nest in, and the same leather-jacket security blanket. But I wasn’t the same person I had been back in high school. Although I may not have looked that much older, I was different all the same. My eyes radiated more self-assurance, and I was less afraid. I wouldn’t go back to being that age for love or money.

  Click-clacking down the stairs, I knocked on Antti’s office door.

  “Mind if I come show off?”

  The way Antti’s eyes went wide made me laugh.

  “Wow. You should dress like that more often. Turn around a little. Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about. What do you have on under that leather jacket? Maybe I should go with you after all,” Antti said with a grin. “You’re going to get into trouble dressed like that.”

  “I think I can take care of myself,” I said with a smile. “We’ll just have to hope none of my office’s clients are on the bus.” I hesitated. “I thought I’d have a pick-me-up before I leave. Want to come up?”

  “Yeah, I can take a break, but I still need to work tonight.”

  At this rate, Antti would have his dissertation done before the end of the year, despite the occasional bouts of despondency that made him fling his notes across the room, asking me whether I’d still like him even if he never amounted to anything—“anything” being a brilliant, PhD-anointed mathematician. He still had three years of fellowship funding remaining, but he had been talking about going abroad immediately after graduation the next spring. He would probably go to the United States. Where I would have nothing to do. Or could the FBI use a Finn for something?

  I poured myself a generous shot of the lemon vodka Antti’s parents had brought and then added some Sprite. I shouldn’t have been drinking, since I was going to work, but I felt like I needed some liquid courage.

  “If you were a murder suspect, would you want me to rip open your whole life, exposing everything if it meant proving your innocence?” Antti asked suddenly.

  “I don’t have any deep, dark secrets, Antti. Do you have a problem with what I’m doing for Kimmo?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just a little jealous. Why are you going to so much trouble for him?”

  I almost burst out laughing. At most, the feeling I had toward Kimmo was the fondness of an older sister. “I would go to fifteen times more trouble for you. And part of it is that I just really want to know the truth. You can bet your ass there’s more to this case than meets the eye.” I thought of what Sari had said about Sanna’s death, that Armi thought Sanna’s boyfriend—whoever she meant—was responsible. However, I didn’t want to discuss that, even with Antti.

  Antti walked me to the bus stop. I had to pay with cash because I couldn’t find my bus pass anywhere. It must have fallen out into the water during my bike crash the day before. Damnation!—there were still nearly two weeks left on it. The bus carried me across the series of bridges and islands between Espoo and Helsinki, depositing me across the highway from the Finnish Orthodox cemetery. Although I met only a few people on my short walk through the wall of new glass office buildings to the older, grittier part of the neighborhood, I had the distinct feeling that there were eyes watching me closely.

  Finding the right warehouse required several minutes of tottering around the deserted industrial area in my high heels. The warehouses wouldn’t be there much longer; soon the crews would be arriving with their explosives and heavy equipment to raze these buildings too, to make way for a new upscale condo project.

  Techno music pulsed past the shaved-headed young man in leather overalls standing at the door, turning my trepidation into a rapidly intensifying anticipation—I hadn’t been to a serious party in ages.

  The place looked like something from another world: two old warehouses connected to each other, lit by only a few lights and dozens of candles. There were a couple of tall tables, hardly any chairs, and, farther toward the back, a bar. I could also see a stage, which was set up with all sorts of strange apparatuses. The song switched to ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” As I paid to get in, I asked a girl dressed in a glittering wig and black velvet whether Angel had arrived yet.

  “Over by the bar, the one with the long hair.”

  In the front room, two screens had videos going: one a wobbly amateur sex tape and the other Madonna music videos. I swayed farther into the room, finally starting to feel more comfortable in my shoes. A surprising number of men were dressed in street clothes, and I could feel their leering gazes on me. Never before had I felt so vividly like a sex object.

  Angel was right when she said she would be the one with the longest hair. Seeing it now, I realized I had frequently seen the same hair and its owner at the university and had even watched it bouncing around in front of me at my aerobics class. It would be hard to miss that hair: golden blonde with subtle waves, it streamed in a thick mass over Angel’s rear end, all the way down to her thighs.

  She was equal to her name in other respects as well. Her face was like something out of a Renaissance painting. Her clothing, which consisted of an extremely tight black rubber dress that widened at the knees into a floor-length skirt, was a fascinating contrast to her natural, not overly made-up face. The bodice had long sleeves and an open neckline revealing glowing white skin. Yes, she was an angel—and certainly the fulfillment of many a fantasy.

  “You must be Angel…Elina. I’m Maria, the one who called about Kimmo Hänninen.”

  “Oh, hi. Grab a drink, and then we can find somewhere to talk.”

  Since I didn’t have the patience to fiddle with a glass, I drank straight from the mouth of the half bottle of wine once the bartender opened it.

  As we walked to the edge of the room, I asked Angel for permission to record our conversation with
my miniature voice recorder that always made me feel like Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks. I tried not to stare at the implausible creations that kept entering the room. The fog belching from the smoke machine at irregular intervals added to the surreal feeling, as did the music, now something that sounded like Klaus Nomi.

  I asked Angel about the club’s activities. Other than the hobby itself happening to be a little eccentric, it seemed like any other normal association of people with a common interest.

  “But isn’t this also sort of a pickup joint? How many men come here looking for sex partners? Why are some of the men dressed in regular clothes?” I had already made it halfway through my bottle of white wine, and the worst of my inhibitions were starting to fall away.

  “I don’t know about calling it a pickup joint per se. As you can see, the ratio of women to men is about one to three and at least half of the women are lesbians too. Of the other half, most of the club members come with a steady partner. So you see, there aren’t many potential targets to hit on. You should watch yourself,” Angel said with a disconcerting grin.

  “What was Kimmo looking for here?”

  “The same thing as most people. The knowledge that they aren’t the only person in the world who gets turned on by S&M. A place to show off their new outfits and see what others are doing. Kimmo wasn’t looking for sex. As I said on the phone, he was far too stuck on his girlfriend. As I understood it, he kept this part of his life completely separate from her. But he was really active in the group. He even helped organize parties and did the member newsletter with Joke,” Angel said, pronouncing the nickname like the English word. “Joke should be coming tonight. I’ll introduce you.”

  “What were your ‘performances’ like?”

  “Well, as you know, Kimmo is a masochist. I’m whatever anyone needs though, submissive or dominant, and I like men and women.” Now there was a challenge in Angel’s smile. “With Kimmo I did these scenes where I would torture him in different ways: binding, whipping, breath control. Kimmo was always really aroused, but he would never allow himself anything more. He’s a completely different man up there on the stage, not at all shy and reserved like usual. Sorry, hold on a sec—I’m being waved to the door.”