Her Enemy

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “Of course the police interrogated Makke; it took a considerable amount of wheeling and dealing on your boss’s part to keep them from charging him with manslaughter,” Hellström continued. “But everyone who knew Sanna believed it was an accident or suicide. Henrik and Annamari wanted to believe it was an accident, of course. What does it matter now though whether her death was intentional or not? It’s been so long. And why do you think Sanna’s death has something to do with Armi’s murder? Did you have a particular married man in mind?” Hellström looked at me pointedly.

  “No. It’s just a theory…and may be nothing. While I’m here though, I also wanted to ask about Mallu Laaksonen. You’ve worked with her quite a bit during her quest to have a baby, and then she had that accident and the miscarriage. Did she ever express any suspicions to you that Armi was responsible?”

  Hellström sighed. “Mallu never told me about it, but Armi did. As far as I could tell, the whole thing was pure nonsense—no one in a situation like that would have had time to see the driver of the car, even if it hadn’t been dark. I think it was some sort of reflexive fixation in Mallu’s mind, a sublimated manifestation of the jealousy between two sisters.” Hellström smiled faintly.

  Then the telephone on his desk rang.

  “Please excuse me, Maria, but my next client is waiting. Do call me or drop in again if you have any other questions.” Intended to be winsome, Hellström’s parting smile dissolved into a fit of sneezing.

  As I pedaled the four miles north to the Espoo police station, I thought about how Hellström didn’t seem like the loose-lipped talker some of his former patients made him out to be. Too bad.

  With a mental curse at the idiocy of the local traffic planners, I narrowly dodged a pair of old ladies bumping down the bike path. Why did the path suddenly end and then continue on the other side of the street? Why were the intervening curbs so abrupt that riding up them almost sent you end over end? Why was the city designed around the needs of automobile traffic? Didn’t they know this was Finland? I sped up, trying to focus all my aggression on my upcoming meeting with Ström, forgetting that the prosecutor’s office had begun deposing Kimmo.

  The questions were just repetition now, seemingly without any other purpose than wearing Kimmo down in an attempt to make him trip over his words and incriminate himself. The investigation was clearly at a stalemate. No one could prove Kimmo guilty, but as long as the real perpetrator was a mystery, the police would continue holding him. The representative from the district attorney’s office was more businesslike than Ström, informing me that the police had yet to find anyone who could remember anything concrete relating to Kimmo’s movements during the hours in question. When I suggested taking an ad in the paper and pasting notices on utility poles, his attitude was dubious.

  “We needed to have found eyewitnesses earlier. Now anyone could imagine having seen anything. Detective Sergeant Ström has reports of all manner of sightings, but none of them are reliable.”

  “He does? Why haven’t you informed the defense? You know as well as I do that we have a right to know about any potential material witnesses for our case.”

  “Yes, I’ll admit that Ström made a mistake there.”

  “He damn well did! I am sure you’re just about to produce those for me, though, right?”

  My vexed, slightly threatening tone produced results. Maybe I’d make a good lawyer after all. I now had Ström’s list of potential witnesses, which included at least three people I wanted to talk to. One couple remembered seeing Kimmo pass them on a pedestrian bridge over the West Highway at 12:20, and a dog walker claimed to have sighted him a mile south near the swimming beach ten minutes later. The times didn’t match up exactly, but this evidence alone should have been enough to win Kimmo release while things were sorted out. I was pissed at Ström for not considering this information worth revealing to us. The district attorney’s representative also seemed to think it odd.

  “Don’t worry, Kimmo. You’ll be out soon,” I said when we sat down after the prosecutor left. “I’m going to go talk to these witnesses; and besides, I have so much material on other suspects that we’ll nail someone soon.”

  Kimmo looked as though he needed cheering up. I hadn’t seen him for several days, and he looked more depressed than ever. I knew that Risto and Annamari had visited him over the weekend.

  “Dad is flying in tomorrow,” Kimmo said. “And I hear Armi’s funeral will be next Thursday. Do you think they’ll let me go?”

  “Of course. Even if you were still under arrest, you could go with a police escort, but you’ll be out by next Sunday. I promise,” I said, sounding like a mother talking to a child quarantined with the measles.

  “You really think so? Maria, I’ve promised myself if I get through this, I’m never doing S&M again.”

  “Why? What do you have to punish yourself for? Oh, yeah, you’re a masochist,” I said, realizing as the words came out that it was a poor joke.

  “I don’t know how I’ll go on living without Armi,” Kimmo said, sniffing.

  What could I say to that? Life always goes on, even if it isn’t the same? Or did I have anything else equally banal to offer? Instead, I changed the subject and asked about Sanna’s boyfriends.

  “Sometimes they changed so quickly I couldn’t keep up. Sometimes she lived in the city and sometimes with Otso. She didn’t move home again until that last summer when she was totally broke.”

  “Can you remember who Sanna was going out with the winter before she died? Was she still dating Hakala when he was sent to prison? And then was there anyone between Hakala and Makke. You’d probably remember this one, and I’m sorry to ask it, but was there any cheating, maybe going with another man at the same time as Makke?”

  Kimmo thought so intensely that I felt as though I could almost see the gears turning beneath his thinning blond curls.

  “Are you getting at what Armi said about Sanna’s death? That it was murder? Listen, lately I’ve been having some doubts too. Maybe it is possible. You knew Sanna. She was so manic she could make anyone insane. Like Otso. I only remember her going to see him in prison once. She wanted so badly to be done with him—and had for a long time. Him going to prison was a relief for her, I think, and I guess that’s why she had the abortion, even though she said all the time that she wanted to have kids. But not with Otso. I do know she loved Makke. She thought she could start a new life with him.”

  His cheeks flushing pink, Kimmo seemed to gain energy as he thought, happy to get his mind off his own situation, no matter how unpleasant the subject.

  “Sanna started dating Makke pretty soon after Otso went to prison. But I think she did have something else going in the meantime. I just don’t know with whom. She was seeing someone, but obviously wanted to keep it private.”

  “Did you ever notice any tension between Sanna and Eki Henttonen?”

  Kimmo looked shocked. “You mean the Eki you work for? The lawyer? Not in a million years! You think that he and Sanna…No, I don’t believe it…” Kimmo shook his head.

  Then, after a moment, he added, “But Sanna had been with older men before, even in high school. She always talked about her daddy complex.”

  I remembered Sanna’s letter again. A daddy complex? Strange that I didn’t have one myself, since my father never gave me his approval. Or maybe my issues manifested in some other way in me than getting mixed up with older men.

  “One last thing. Are you certain that on the night of Mallu’s accident Armi didn’t go out driving?”

  “I’ve gone over that night in my head a thousand times. Teemu and I drank way too much, and, to be honest, I got into bed and passed out right after Mallu and Teemu left. I had my dad’s car parked in the driveway—wait, let me finish—but why would Armi have gone out, especially when she had been drinking too?”

  “But in theory it would have been possible?”

  “In theory; I was dead to the world, so I can’t really know. But Armi woul
dn’t have done that. She hated drunk drivers. She was always preaching at Sanna about it. And Armi never would have left the scene of an accident. She was a nurse, for God’s sake.”

  “OK, I believe you. What kind of car was it?”

  “A white Opel Astra.”

  When I hugged Kimmo, I promised I would return the next day unless something massive came up. As I rode away, I was still cursing Ström for withholding information. Should I file a misconduct complaint? Did I even have the energy? Suddenly I felt overwhelmingly tired and decided to ride back to Tapiola along one of the city nature paths to reenergize myself. The last of the wood anemones were persevering along the edge of the forest, and birds hopped out of the way as if competing to see which could get closest to my wheels without injury. At the top of one of the hills, I stopped for a few minutes to eat a chocolate bar and socialize with a stray cat. It sported a red-and-white striped tail that reminded me of a candy cane. The chocolate and feline company did me good, and I felt ready to continue my work.

  When Teemu Laaksonen stepped into my office at three thirty, I knew immediately why he hadn’t returned my calls the previous week. His face tanned, Mallu’s husband had clearly been somewhere far to the south of Finland. The hand that shook mine was hard and rough, and his manner was reserved.

  “I’m sorry that getting back to you took so long, but I was in Ibiza for the week. I had to get away from things for a while, so some friends and I arranged a little tennis vacation.”

  “When did you leave?”

  “Last Saturday. The same day Armi died. My flight was at four that afternoon. No one told me what happened, so I just got on the plane. Mallu isn’t speaking to me, and my dad says he didn’t want to spoil my vacation. How is Mallu doing? I’ve tried to call—when she hears my voice, she just hangs up on me. Her parents had to tell me what happened.” Teemu stood and walked to the window, the suppleness of an avid tennis player apparent in his movements.

  “When did you last see Armi?”

  “That Saturday. Just a little while before she died, I guess.”

  Now I stood up too. “What? What time?”

  Teemu stared at me, failing to comprehend the meaning of my question. Then his expression darkened. “If you think that I…”

  “This isn’t about that. I’m trying to prove Kimmo’s innocence. What time did you see Armi? And why were you there?”

  “I went there looking for Mallu sometime around twelve thirty. I wanted to see her before I left. She wasn’t home, so I called her parents’ house from a telephone booth. But no one answered there, so I decided to drop by Armi’s.”

  “But Mallu wasn’t there? Was anyone else?”

  “No. She said Kimmo had just left and she had a guest coming. She actually brought up the accident again. She asked again why I thought I saw her behind the wheel of that car.”

  “And what did you say?” My mouth was suddenly dry.

  “That I didn’t even know myself. It was just a momentary impression, and I’d been drinking a lot. I even accidently left my keys at Armi’s house. Luckily, Mallu had hers so we could get in at home. We had started to cross the street. Then that car came, and I remember Mallu slipping. She fell. The car just grazed her, but…The accident was our fault too, not just the driver’s, but they should have slowed down when they saw us, and should have stopped after hitting her…”

  I could hear in Teemu’s voice that he had replayed the chain of events every day in his mind, always coming up empty. He still couldn’t clear his conscience.

  “What did you see, Teemu?” Even though this was a formal meeting, I realized I was using his first name. Our generation just didn’t know how to stick to protocol with people our own age.

  “Blond hair. I could have sworn the driver was wearing a red scarf exactly like Armi’s. It was this sort of big cyclamen-red wool shawl she always wore in the winter. She bought it on vacation in Santorini. That was why I recognized it, because I’d never seen one like it on anyone else. I could always pick her out in a crowd when she was wearing it.”

  “And you thought Armi was on her way to bring you your keys but lost control of the car?”

  Teemu waved in the air as if hitting an invisible tennis ball he wanted to lob as far away as possible.

  “I know it couldn’t have been her. Armi wouldn’t have done something like that. Armi would have stopped even if it hadn’t been her own sister. But how can I get Mallu to believe that?”

  “Is that why you divorced—because you couldn’t get Mallu to believe it wasn’t her own sister who killed your baby?”

  “We aren’t divorced; we’re just separated. And I don’t want a divorce—I want my wife back!” Teemu stared at me, his face desolate. “Mallu’s the one who kicked me out. She said she didn’t want to try any more, not for a baby, not to make our marriage work, not for anything. Mallu needs help. I want to help her, but she won’t let me. She makes up all kinds of crazy stuff. That I think she’s worthless because she can’t have a baby. That I blame her for the accident. Nothing I say makes any difference.”

  Teemu waved his arms again. He made a gesture full of rage, as if he were trying to tear away a membrane isolating Mallu from him.

  “And now you’re afraid these delusions made Mallu kill Armi,” I said, more as a statement than a question.

  “I guess. And it’s my fault. I was the one who said I saw Armi in that car.”

  Looking at Teemu, thirty years old and the picture of health and vitality, I remembered how happy Mallu was in the Christmas portrait she had showed me. They were a beautiful couple, like something straight from the pages of an Italian fotoromanzo. Their story just didn’t seem to have a happy ending.

  “Teemu, listen. It would be best for you to contact the police yourself and tell them you visited Armi at twelve thirty. This is a matter of life and death for an innocent man. It could set him free. Call the lead investigator”—I gave him Ström’s direct number—“and say you have important information about Armi’s murder. If you want, I can come with you to your interview. Now, when did you leave Armi’s house, and where did you go?”

  “I went to the airport at about twelve forty-five. It was an international flight and I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time.”

  “Twelve forty-five. So you were probably the last person to see Armi alive—except, of course, for the murderer. Can anyone confirm your schedule?”

  “Wait…There was a traffic jam on Ring One because of an accident, so I was stuck in my car awhile. I didn’t make it to the airport until two. My friends can back me up—they were pretty bent out of shape when I showed up at the last minute like that. We still had to go through security and find the gate, and the lines were huge.”

  I thanked Teemu, and he left after giving me his new address. I sat down to think about his account of events. How strongly did he believe he saw Armi in that car? Teemu wanted Mallu back. Did he blame Armi for their separation? Could he have lost his temper and murdered her?

  This all would have been easier, I thought, if Armi hadn’t been so busy on the day she was killed. Quite a crowd had traipsed through her backyard that morning, and putting each visitor in order would have taxed even a certain fictional Belgian detective’s gray matter. Kimmo said he’d left Armi’s at twelve fifteen; Kerttu Mannila, the baking neighbor, tried to visit at one; and I came at two. Teemu and the murderer also visited. Then there were the phone calls. In homage to the esteemed Monsieur Hercule Poirot, I decided to draft a proper timetable of events:

  According to my timetable, the murder must have occurred between one o’clock and one thirty. Simple. Now I would just have to ask the police to work out where each of my main suspects were during that half hour. But I already knew. Mallu, Annamari, Makke, and Eki were all in downtown Tapiola. Teemu claimed to have been on his way to the airport, but no one had confirmed that yet for me. Perhaps the police would have a record of the accident on Ring I that had backed up traffic.

  The
office was already empty. Feeling the guilt an alcoholic must experience when opening a bottle after promising himself he was done for good, I walked over to Eki’s desk. I wanted to see his calendar. Sanna’s thirtieth birthday was the second of March. Pisces, like me, even though I don’t put any stock in horoscopes. Would there be an entry on her birthday? Would there be records of other meetings with Sanna?

  The old calendar was in Eki’s top desk drawer. My hands trembled as I leafed through it. March, March second—

  KENYA. Only one word written over the entire week. KENYA. Since I had seen the pictures, I knew what it meant—Eki and his wife had been on a safari that week in Africa. The greatest trip of their lives, they called it. So Eki couldn’t have been in Finland to push Sanna into the water. Perhaps no one had been on the breakwater with her after all, and the old man just imagined the black-clad figure of Death. Perhaps he had an even more active imagination than I did.

  13

  Before making my tired way home, I had to stop at the grocery store. My sisters’ visit had me wound up, and at the store, I came within an inch of losing it at a flock of bargain hunters jostling around the discount displays in the produce department like chickens. I hated food shopping, I hated my bike wobbling under the weight of the bags, and I hated the herd of little boys blocking the bike path.

  I hated that I knew Kimmo was innocent but that I didn’t have anyone to offer up in his place.

  When I arrived home, Antti was busy cleaning the entryway, and I nearly tripped over the vacuum cord. Idiot—why didn’t he vacuum before I came home? After shoving the dirty dishes into the washer, I started making a Greek salad and blue-cheese–pineapple quiche. Easy dishes even I couldn’t screw up.

  “Hey, can I talk to you?” Antti asked, cautiously poking his head into the kitchen. I couldn’t help laughing. Apparently, he knew how to read my face well enough to tell when I was dangerous. “Is there anything else I can help with?”