Her Enemy

by Leena Lehtolainen

  Despite my intoxication, I realized I was running at the mouth—I was supposed to be solving Kimmo’s case, not dropping hints to Ström.

  “What other possibilities? Kallio, if you’re concealing information, you’re going to find yourself joining Hänninen in a cell.”

  “I’m not hiding anything, and enough with the bullying already. Let me out right now!”

  Ström slammed on the brakes without saying a word and illegally pulled off to the side of the highway. We were already back on the mainland at an intersection not far from my house—even walking I would be home in a matter of minutes, but I didn’t need to tell Ström that. Taking off my shoes, I ran the rest of the way in stocking feet. I knew that if I’d used different tactics and been drinking less, I could have gotten more out of my trip to Club Bizarre. I was irritated with myself, but maybe once I sobered up and listened to the tape I would find some useful information. And at least some of the night had been fun.

  9

  “I might be remembering some of the details wrong, but you can’t accuse me of any wrongdoing,” Mallu said angrily to me on the telephone. It was Thursday morning, and I had finally reached her again to ask about where she had been on the day of Armi’s murder.

  “I’ve told the police every single thing I did that day, and, as far as I understand, you aren’t even a police officer anymore anyway.”

  “Mallu, come on. Please, can we just sit down and talk?” I knew Mallu was right: I didn’t have any right to interrogate her.

  My hangover had rendered Wednesday a complete loss. I barely managed to get a little routine work done and spent the evening in front of the TV with a carton of Double Crème & Meringues Mövenpick. Thursday morning began with the euphoria familiar to anyone who has ever suffered a hangover—waking up and realizing I was myself again felt amazing.

  Eventually, I talked Mallu into coming to the office later that afternoon and then headed out to downtown Tapiola to get a little lunch before another client meeting.

  “How’s your bike been working?” Makke asked, standing at the door of his store, having a cigarette.

  I flinched. Was that irony in his tone—or a warning?

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked. “Did you have something to do with this?” I showed him the broken brake wires Antti and I had managed to get back in working order, but only just.

  “Were you in an accident?” Makke sounded genuinely surprised.

  “Oh, my handlebars just came off when I was riding out to the breakwater, and I got dumped in the water. I think somebody fiddled with it.”

  “Your handlebars, that’s weird. Usually thieves just take the back wheel. And I can’t believe anyone would want to steal that old rattletrap anyway. Some kids probably just thought they were being funny.”

  “Maybe. Listen, how long did you and Sanna date before…you know?”

  The sudden change of topic elicited a confused glance.

  “You mean, before she died? Well, not very long, really…Sanna…Sanna died in March, and we met just before Christmas at the bar around the corner there.”

  Despite Makke’s attempt to maintain his relaxed front, this was no longer a casual conversation.

  “Four months of dating. That doesn’t sound like a very long time. But you still seem to be in mourning more than a year later.”

  Makke ground the butt of his cigarette under the ball of his foot as he replied.

  “You can’t understand what it feels like, when you love someone, and your love just isn’t enough. When the person you care about most in all the world kills herself, despite how much you love her. And you’re even there when it happens but you were too fucked up to stop it.”

  “But Makke, no one can really redeem anyone else. Everyone has to save themselves,” I said, sounding like a preacher and hoping I would be able to remember these wise words the next time Antti slid into one of his dissertation-writing funks.

  “Sanna was so amazing. She was a lot smarter than me, always talking about books and poetry and philosophy. Maybe she was a little too smart for this world,” Makke said pathetically.

  “What did you know about Sanna’s previous boyfriends? Who was she dating before you?”

  “She was with this shithead who beat her. He got sent to prison for dealing drugs just before we met. His name was Hakanen or Hakala or something like that.”

  “Otso Hakala,” I said.

  “Yeah, that was him. Sanna showed me some pictures—black hair, really nasty-looking guy. Sanna went to see him a couple of times in jail, and I remember being a little jealous. Why do you keep asking me about Sanna?”

  “I’m curious. And I’m sorry I didn’t keep in better touch with her. Maybe I’m carrying a little guilt around too.”

  Makke’s face brightened.

  “Ah, now I get it…You were the one Sanna was talking about—she said that back in that mining town she used to live in, there was only one girl who understood her. You two are a lot alike. Maybe that’s why…” He trailed off.

  “Maybe that’s why what?” I asked, although I could guess the answer.

  “Well, when we met, I hoped you were single,” Makke said, blushing slightly and then walking back into the store.

  Downtown Tapiola was bustling with people. Schoolchildren roaming in raucous or sullen packs, families shopping for supplies for the upcoming vacation season, book-buyers searching for graduation gifts and surveying the summer crop of mystery novels. I was so used to having no vacation during the summer that the whole commotion felt foreign. Of course my parents—both teachers—were always champing at the bit for school year to end. Some weekend soon, I would have to drag myself back to my hometown for a visit, at the very latest when my sister had her baby. Crazy—me, an aunt. What was carrying another person inside you like? How did that feel, those kicks and wiggles of that other being, pressing against your own body? And giving birth?

  I passed a woman pushing a stroller. Her toddler was forcefully repeating the words “mommy” and “poop” as he banged on the frame of the stroller with a toy shovel for effect. I thought of Mallu’s dead baby. Did I want a child? The idea almost frightened me. A child? Me? With Antti? Just imagine what an egotistical curmudgeon it would be, even from birth.

  Although, having a baby didn’t feel completely impossible either. I imagine it was perfectly natural: I was coming up on thirty—that clock was ticking—and I had a mostly functional relationship with a decent man for the first time in ages. “Functional relationship”—how was that for nauseating. Like a piece of furniture, a new couch.

  Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I went for a hamburger and fries, and, after returning to the office, I still had time before my client meeting to make a call to my very own spy in the police archives. As luck would have it, my old partner, Pekka Koivu, happened to be in his office.

  “Hi, it’s Maria. There’s a beer in it for you if you’ll check a couple of rap sheets for me. Hakala, Otso—I don’t know the birth date, but he can’t be much older than thirty—with at least one strike for distributing. And Hänninen, Sanna, born March 2, 1962. If Hakala is still inside, please check to see whether he might have been out of jail for some reason last year on the second of March or Saturday last week. That’s it.”

  “I think I can manage that.”

  “How are things at the old Helsinki PD?”

  “Same old, same old. Kinnunen showed up to work drunk yesterday, and the captain is still just as pompous as ever. Sometimes I think about just giving up and leaving since you aren’t even here anymore,” Koivu said.

  I snorted. I had no desire to return to my old job in the Helsinki Violent Crime Unit. Ström was wrong—I did better as a lawyer than as a police officer.

  I had a whole slew of questions planned out to ask Mallu. However, once she was standing at the door of my office, looking so thin and dressed in black, I didn’t even know where to start. As I offered her coffee, I remembered the Agatha Christie novel in w
hich the sculptor Henrietta Savernake is planning to create a female figure representing Sorrow. With her too-large black dress and face marked by lines that drew downward at the corners of her eyes and mouth, Mallu would have been the perfect model. Just since Sunday, she seemed to have lost several pounds.

  “Have you had any contact with Teemu since we talked? I’ve been trying to get in touch with him, but no one answers.”

  “I haven’t heard anything about him,” Mallu said, growing angry.

  “Haven’t you tried to inform him of your sister’s death? It’s been in the papers too—hasn’t Teemu tried to contact you about this, to offer any condolences at least?”

  Mallu’s expression was withdrawn, almost dreamy when she answered.

  “What does it matter to Teemu? We don’t have anything to say to each other anymore.”

  Not even three months had passed since the accident and miscarriage in March. How could those months have cankered their relationship so thoroughly? How could years of shared life now mean absolutely nothing? Had other issues besides their childlessness come between them?

  “Why did you lie to me about last Saturday? You weren’t home all day. You went shopping in Tapiola.”

  “Maria! Someone murdered my sister. I must have been in shock or something, and I took a couple of tranquilizers on Sunday morning to keep myself together. I didn’t lie; I just remembered wrong. When the police asked, I told them about it. I bought frozen fish, even though what I wanted was wild mushrooms.”

  “Armi was supposed to call before two o’clock. Did she manage to before her death?”

  “To call?” Mallu sounded genuinely confused. “Armi didn’t call me. Who said that? I mean, she could have called, but I was at the store.”

  “When we talked on Saturday about Sanna Hänninen, you said that you wouldn’t be surprised if one of them was mixed up in Sanna’s death, meaning one of the Hänninens. Armi was convinced Sanna’s death was a homicide. Did you know that?”

  Mallu buried her face in her hands. Rather than a gush of tears, the gesture seemed more like a fierce attempt at concentration. The sun flooding through the window landed on the thick silver streaks on her bowed head, which glittered in the light like Christmas tinsel.

  “You mean that Armi was murdered because she knew that Sanna…” Mallu muttered through her hands.

  “That is one possibility. Does it seem plausible to you?”

  “Yes, actually, it does.” Mallu raised her eyes and looked straight at me. “I can imagine exactly how Armi could slap Sanna’s murderer in the face with the truth, not having the slightest clue how much danger she was in. And I don’t mean blackmail or anything. Armi just enjoyed having the upper hand.”

  “Who could you imagine murdering Sanna?”

  “I guess her father is the one I always thought of. He’s just so strange.”

  “Strange how? I’ve only ever met him once.”

  I remembered the tall, slender, slightly stooped frame and the dark Leonid Brezhnev eyebrows. Henrik Hänninen’s mouth was wide like Sanna’s, but there was something cruel about it.

  “It’s like Henrik lives in some other world,” Mallu continued. “He’s sort of cold and frightening. Maybe it’s just the eyebrows, but he reminds me of the hit men in those old gangster movies. But he couldn’t have killed Armi—he’s in South America. But maybe he killed Sanna and then someone else killed Armi to cover that up. Like maybe Kimmo.”

  Or Annamari. Or Risto. Oh, how I hoped the solution would turn out to be Otso Hakala.

  “By the way, when you were coming in, did you notice whether my bike was still standing up against the wall?” I asked as Mallu was leaving. “I left it leaning there a little precariously.”

  “Your bike? I only saw one bike, a bright-green one, and it was still standing.” The mention of the bicycle seemed to have no effect on Mallu, so apparently she wasn’t the one who had sabotaged my handlebars.

  A phone call back from Pekka Koivu destroyed my wonderful Otso Hakala theory. Otso was currently sitting in his prison cell and would be there for at least another year. Over the past year and a half, no extenuating circumstances had warranted him leaving prison. Sanna’s and Otso’s criminal records were long enough that my old friend and I decided we’d go through them more carefully on Sunday over beers. Despite the knockout blow to my theory, seeing him would be nice, since we hadn’t done anything together since my law school graduation party. Koivu’s passionate congratulatory kiss had aroused some mild yet entirely unjustified jealousy in Antti.

  My phone rang again.

  “Is this Maria Kallio?” the quavering voice of an elderly man inquired. When I confirmed that I was Maria, he continued by asking whether I had misplaced my bus pass.

  “Yes, on Monday night on the beach in Toppelund by the breakwater.”

  “That is exactly where I found it. I have it here with me.”

  “Excellent!” So 150 marks hadn’t gone to waste after all. Fortunately, I hadn’t yet had time to get a new one. I arranged to pick up my bus card that evening. Perhaps this meant things were taking a turn for the better. Perhaps I would find some hint about her murderer in Sanna’s papers. Her father and brothers burning her diaries was a shame, though.

  Wait…Eki was Sanna’s lawyer before she died. That meant our office had files on her. I went into the firm’s records room—that is, the Henttonens’ rec room—which had boxes and shelves piled high with folders and papers from past clients. Dust particles danced in the light filtering through the windows high up on one wall. Apparently, no one had been in to vacuum in ages. In appropriate alphabetical order, I found a red binder with HÄNNINEN, SANNA typed neatly on the label. Would anyone notice if I borrowed it for the weekend? I was just pulling the binder off the shelf when I heard the doorknob rattle.

  I don’t really know why I crouched down out of sight behind the bookcase, but when I peered through the gap on the lowest shelf, I saw a familiar pair of light-gray, thick-soled shoes. Eki.

  I knew I should have come out and claimed to have dropped an earring or something, but I didn’t—I eased myself farther back behind the shelving. Eki was doing something with the cabinet where he kept his boating gear. I was sure he would hear my breathing. When he started walking straight toward me, I stopped inhaling altogether.

  Eki stopped right at the H’s, snatching a binder off the shelf and leafing through it furiously. Dust particles danced toward my nose. Oh hell—I felt a sneeze coming on. I listened as Eki ripped a page out of the binder and then, a moment later, crumpled it up. Then he shoved it into his pocket, replaced the binder, and left the room.

  After another two minutes, I finally dared to leave my hiding place. My heart pounding, I returned to Sanna’s binder and saw immediately that it had been moved: the shelf in front of it was free of dust. Why would Eki remove a page from Sanna’s records? I was irritated at not having come five minutes earlier, and seeing myself in a mirror increased my irritation. One more set of clothes headed for the washing machine.

  As I pedaled around the bay that evening, I was still in a bad mood. A message from my mother hadn’t helped, and after I called her back, I had to listen to her “You should come visit” griping and “I’m so worried about Eeva’s pregnancy” hand-wringing for fifteen minutes. Then my youngest sister called.

  “Isn’t the house you and Antti live in pretty big?” she asked right off. When I said yes, Helena informed me that she and her boyfriend and Eeva and her husband needed somewhere to stay on Monday night. They were leaving on a cruise to Stockholm together, and wouldn’t it be so nice to see each other?

  Of course I had to agree to this, even though I had plans to go to the movies with a friend from school that night. There was nothing I could do but cancel. Actually, I was a little curious to see Eeva’s big belly. What irked me was that they only ever condescended to come see me when they had some other reason to be in Helsinki—it was never just to visit me. I had become used to being
little more than some sort of Helsinki rest stop for my parents and siblings, a convenient bed close to the harbor and the airport. I was also the one they called and sent to buy things at the main Stockmann store in the city when they saw sale ads in the national media.

  Although a trip to Stockholm with my sisters and their boring men would have been pure torture, I was still put out that they hadn’t even bothered to invite Antti and me. Of course, Eeva and Helena were much closer to each other than to me. The difference in ages between them was only a little over a year, and between me and Eeva was a gap of more than two. Our mother must have had quite a time of things after Helena’s birth, what with two in diapers and me a defiant three-year-old. And all three, unfortunately, girls.

  As the oldest and most spirited, I took on the role of the boy of the family. Living hundreds of miles away from the rest of the family and only seeing them infrequently, I had such a habit of telling them only the most superficial things about myself that I felt like no one in the family really knew me. But did I know them? What did I know about, say, what Eeva thought about her pregnancy?

  Maybe I lacked the ability to get close to people. Even Antti needed a vacation from me. After coming home from work, he had announced his intention of taking the morning bus to Inkoo because he wanted some time alone in the woods.

  “I thought I’d take a tent and row out to this one island I know for the night…”

  “Oh. Well, I was planning to go out and party a bit on Friday, because last weekend I was working the whole time.”

  Antti suggested that I come to Inkoo on Saturday so we could go out for the second night together. When he assured me Einstein could get along just fine by himself for one night, I agreed out of pure curiosity. Years had passed since I had spent any serious time camping. Still, I was irritated by the way Antti had announced his plans—“I’m doing this, and you can do whatever you want”—even though I knew we had an agreement that we wouldn’t get in the way of each other’s pursuits.