Derailed

by Leena Lehtolainen

  Taskinen wore the same suit as the day before. I had on a uniform-like dark-gray pantsuit, because I didn’t know what the day would bring. Both of us were dressed more formally than we had been in the past.

  “Morning, Maria. Here’s your pass. Kuusimäki and Koivu are waiting in my office.” Taskinen’s speech seemed stilted, and I didn’t try to put on a show of friendliness either. In a departure from his previous habit, Taskinen used the elevator, as if taking the stairs would have been inappropriate for the situation.

  Koivu was eating a sandwich, and Anni Kuusimäki had a cup of herbal tea in front of her. She looked pale, and reflexively I glanced at her tummy. Under her loose jacket she wasn’t showing yet. I settled for nodding to Koivu, since shaking hands would have seemed fake, and I didn’t feel like hugging.

  “So the purpose of this meeting is to provide you with information about the poisoning of Pentti Vainikainen two days ago,” Taskinen said. “Unfortunately, the police were not called to the scene immediately, and the cleaner had already been through before officers arrived. But Anni can probably tell you more about the case.”

  I’d only met Anni Kuusimäki a few times. She’d attended the police academy five years after me even though she was only two years younger. She was tall and broad shouldered, and her dark hair was cut in a pageboy, which emphasized the pallor of her face. The situation must have been hard for her, having the Vainikainen case turned over to me without being given an explanation. Perhaps she felt like her superiors didn’t trust her to lead the investigation. I understood that she didn’t want to broadcast her pregnancy because it was still tenuous. I remembered how my own body had been like public property during my pregnancies, with everyone seeming to feel they had the right to pat my belly. Anni had been undergoing fertility treatments for years, and maybe she saw this as her last chance to have children. Likely she feared losing the triplets. Still, the decision about the partial sick leave had been hers.

  “The victim was Pentti Vainikainen,” Anni said and then repeated the same personal information I’d read online Tuesday night.

  “According to his wife, he doesn’t have any enemies. The possibility that the poison was meant for Vainikainen has been one of two lines of investigation. The other is that the poison was put in the sandwich for Jutta Särkikoski, the journalist. Maria, I understand you’re already up to speed with this line?”

  I told my colleagues about Jutta’s call the previous night. Koivu stopped eating his sandwich. “That’s weird,” he muttered, his mouth full of white bread and ham. “Wouldn’t it make more sense for the perp to keep quiet to avoid attracting attention? Did Särkikoski recognize the voice?”

  “No, though she thinks the same person has called before. My first job is to get her phone records. Have we already requested the case files for Särkikoski and Väärä’s car accident from the Lohja office?”

  “They’re e-mailing it this morning. Our interviews haven’t gotten very far yet, and we haven’t found enough evidence to confiscate anyone’s passport. We should probably discuss how to divide our resources between this and our other open cases,” Anni said.

  “Yes, let’s turn to that. As I’ve already told you, it’s been decided that the Vainikainen case is our top priority and that we should use all necessary resources to solve it. You don’t have any other violent-crime cases without obvious suspects, right?” Taskinen asked Anni.

  “No, but there’s no way to know what the future will bring. The Soukka neighborhood is still pretty restless, and we’re working with the community police to prevent any more gang fights.”

  “Maria and her team can have two rooms on the second floor. You can use the conference room as a case room and shared office, and Maria, you’ll have the separate office, where you can also conduct interviews.”

  “Is there a coffee machine in that conference room?” Koivu asked, clearly to lighten the mood. No one laughed.

  “Requisition what you need. There’s already a line item in the department’s supplementary budget, 71-B. A phone and computer are waiting in your office, Maria, and your car should be in the garage by noon. Contact me if you have any questions. I have another meeting to get to.” Taskinen stood up and left quickly, as if he expected us to throw sandwiches at him. Anni poured herself more tea, and I opened a bottle of mineral water. Koivu glanced back and forth between us like a boxing referee.

  “So your case gets priority over everything else,” Anni said. I nodded, trying to convey that I didn’t want this, but I don’t think I succeeded. “At the moment there are seven officers in the department besides me: Koivu, Puupponen, Puustjärvi, Honkanen, Karttunen, Lehtovuori, and Autio,” she continued. “You know everyone but Karttunen, right?”

  I nodded. It had started pouring outside, and pine needles flew against the windows with the water. A red umbrella escaped from its owner and tumbled across the parking lot. The umbrella rose six feet in the air before tumbling down again, and Officer Akkila, who was rushing toward the door, barely managed to dodge it. A cutup like Puupponen would have made a production of apprehending the killer travel accessory, but Akkila didn’t have much sense of humor and didn’t even attempt to grab it.

  “You can have three officers, and a fourth part-time. I’d prefer not to give up Petri or Lehtovuori, since they’re in the middle of a gang fight case. You’ll be doing me a favor if you take Hon—or, no, never mind.”

  “Do you have an issue with Ursula?” I said before I had time to consider whether asking such a question was unwise. Anni glanced at Koivu as if to say that she’d like to talk about it later in private. I redirected the conversation to the matter at hand. “Since Koivu and Puupponen are already involved in the case, I’ll take them. Pekka, I’ll call your wife, because I have a feeling we’re going to be working some long hours. What about this Karttunen? Does he have a family?”

  “Yes,” Anni and Koivu said in unison.

  Anni continued, “A girlfriend and a one-year-old daughter.”

  “OK. So Honkanen can be our third, and Autio will be the alternate, since his kids are already teenagers.” I thought about my own children, whom I would see shamefully little in the near future, and decided right then that this case was going to get solved with unprecedented efficiency. Then I could get back to my real life.

  “So it’s agreed.” Anni eased to her feet. Even though her pregnancy wasn’t showing yet, she moved as slowly as a woman in her ninth month. Suddenly I felt a wave of compassion for her. Let Anni’s pregnancy go well, I prayed to what people surer in their faith called God.

  “Anni, wait. You know I didn’t ask to be on this case,” I rushed to say before she could leave.

  “I know.” Anni held the door open for me, and I walked out, then waited for her. She closed the door behind us on a dumbfounded Koivu. “I also know Taskinen told you why I can’t lead this investigation. I completely accept the situation—I was the one who decided not to tell everyone about my condition. I’ve been hoping for one baby for the last ten years, and now I’m expecting three. The most important murder investigation of the year can’t be led by a person who might end up on bed rest at any moment.”

  We exchanged a gaze full of mutual understanding, and then Anni left. I already felt better, and even more so when Koivu came out and finally gave me one of his big bear hugs. He’d managed to develop a proper belly now. His fortieth birthday loomed on the horizon.

  “You’re furious, right?” he said when he let go of me.

  “Yes. I never could have imagined walking into a trap like this.”

  “Well, I think Taskinen has been missing you since he got back from Canada. Puupponen and I have a conspiracy theory: Taskinen and Rajakoski intentionally engineered your research project contract so they could use it to drag you back here. And a couple of times I’ve heard Taskinen say you guys moved so close to the police station because you couldn’t stand being away from us. Should we head down to our new HQ? Ville is probably already decorati
ng.”

  I followed Koivu three flights down. On the second floor we turned away from the Violent Crime Unit. Our rooms were located right inside the glass doors, on the left side of the hall. Puupponen was in the conference room, hanging crime scene photos on the wall, and when he saw me, he started singing an off-key Schubert’s “Ave Maria.”

  “Cut it out!” Koivu bellowed.

  “But it fits the situation perfectly! Hail Maria, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!” Puupponen jumped down from the stool and gave me a combination hug and slap on the back.

  “At what point did you turn into a Latinist?” I asked as I inspected the room’s furnishings. It was as big as our break room in the Violent Crime Unit, but the furniture was newer.

  “Last summer I dated a chick who was Catholic. I even went to mass a couple of times. But nothing came of it—the religious schism was too great.” Puupponen gave a deep sigh like the male lead in a soap opera. I couldn’t help but laugh. Outi and Jarkko were great colleagues, but apparently I’d missed Puupponen’s dumb jokes.

  Just then the door to the conference room swung open. Ursula Honkanen walked in, looking as impeccable as always. Her hair was in a stylish asymmetrical cut, and black lace pantyhose emphasized her long, beautiful legs, which ended in five-inch pumps. Her black dress looked as though it was sewn right onto her. I hadn’t seen her in a while, and for a moment I couldn’t help but stare. Puupponen and Koivu seemed to be immune to their colleague’s charms, however.

  “I was ordered to come over here,” Ursula announced and then sat in the nearest chair. “Look, it’s Maria. Did you decide that we couldn’t get along without you?”

  I didn’t answer. Before I resigned, we’d managed to create a friendly rapport, but Ursula seemed to have forgotten that. I asked Koivu to tell me exactly where they were in the investigation.

  “As you know, the doctor at Jorvi Hospital notified us about his suspicions of poisoning the night before last. Ville and I got straight to work. First, we interviewed the wife, Merja Vainikainen.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “At six in the morning. That was when she called us back. She was pretty messed up. Then we visited the scene of the crime, but it had already been cleaned up. Hillevi Litmanen, who we also tried to interview, told us she’d thrown the sandwiches away. Of course, being the conscientious person that she is, she put them in the compost, which was emptied the following morning. Anni hasn’t ordered a search of the composting facility. What do you think?”

  Taskinen had promised me all possible resources. Should I request a platoon of soldiers to search for a few gluten-free sandwiches in an ocean of compost?

  “Here are signed interview records for Litmanen, Vainikainen, and Tapani Ristiluoma,” Koivu said, placing them on the table. “I put them together last night. Read them for yourself.”

  “Thanks. Ville, in the meantime, will you call the composting facility and find out how accurately they can identify the location of a specific load of garbage? If they know where we should look for those sandwiches, tell them not to dump anything more in that area.”

  “Got it, boss! Can we use this as an excuse to get them to shut the place down entirely? That dump is already overflowing, and you can smell the stink for kilometers around.”

  “Sure, give it a try. Ursula, will you see if the autopsy report for Pentti Vainikainen is ready? They already opened him up, right? Which one of you was there? And what about Forensics?”

  “The body is in the queue, and we don’t even have the drug panels back yet,” Puupponen said.

  “Well, Ursula, if you’ll find out when the autopsy will be . . . Koivu, you start putting together a schedule of interviews. We need to get Jutta Särkikoski in here ASAP, or we can go to her home. I also want to visit the MobAbility office and Pentti Vainikainen’s work and home. We’ll continue with the lines of investigation Anni laid out, which means we’re staying open to the idea that the poison was meant for Vainikainen even though it looks like it was intended for Jutta Särkikoski.”

  “What about the other possibilities?” Ursula asked. “Number three: the poison was meant for someone else entirely; and four: the whole thing was an accident.”

  “As in, Hillevi Litmanen intended to add some Tabasco to the mayonnaise but grabbed a bottle of drain cleaner by accident?” Koivu asked pointedly. Ursula still didn’t seem to be one of his favorite people. Quite soon after her arrival in the department, Ursula had falsely accused Koivu of sexual harassment, and I had been forced to operate according to protocol and transfer Koivu to other duties until the harassment investigation was complete.

  “We’ll investigate every possibility,” I said with a sigh and picked up the stack of interview records. “We’ll split up into pairs as necessary to do the interviews. Pekka will come with me, and Ursula will go with Ville. Let’s get going.”

  With that I went to look at my so-called private office. It was a tiny box, like most of the offices in the building. The desk was by the window, which provided a view of the parking lot and the nearby apartments to the north of the building. At least it was a change from my old view of the Turku Highway. A narrow couch with room for two just fit between the desk and one straight-backed armchair against the wall. The computer’s wires hung unplugged. Ursula would be able to connect them more quickly than I would. On the desk waited a cell phone, which I picked up and turned on. Someone had left a note with the phone number and current PIN next to it. The model was new to me, and learning how to use it would take up valuable time. Maybe Iida could teach me its secrets. It was depressing to admit I was technologically behind my eleven-year-old daughter.

  I sat down behind the desk and took out the interview with Merja Vainikainen. She had been completely out of her mind. According to her, her husband had occasionally complained of chest pain, but the doctor’s examination hadn’t found any indication of heart trouble. She had known about the threats against Jutta Särkikoski and considered it possible that the poison had reached the wrong person. When asked about the perpetrator, she responded that she didn’t have a clue. Anni and Koivu had let the grieving widow off easy, so I would have to be tougher when I spoke with her. According to Tapani Ristiluoma, the three members of the staff of MobAbility, meaning himself, his secretary, and the bookkeeper, had participated in the campaign launch, but the other two had left the premises at the same time as the press. They’d been served coffee, tea, and cookies, while the sandwiches were reserved for the small group of invited guests, which had included Vainikainen, Ristiluoma, Jutta Särkikoski, Toni Väärä, and Ilpo Koskelo, and Hillevi Litmanen and Miikka Harju from the Adaptive Sports Association. Hillevi had handled the food. According to the crime scene pictures on the wall in the conference room, the kitchen at MobAbility was a typical small office kitchenette. Koivu had also included a floor plan of the office in his notes. There was only one door into the kitchen.

  According to Hillevi Litmanen, she’d brought some of the serving dishes from home, and some were from the Adaptive Sports office. Theoretically, anyone could have entered the kitchen, but Ristiluoma had claimed that he would have noticed if anyone from the media had gone in there. But Hillevi hadn’t gone to get the gluten-free bread until after the media left. And she had made the sandwiches herself.

  In her interview, Litmanen had obviously been confused. She’d responded to almost every question by saying that she didn’t remember. We’d have to talk to her again as soon as possible. Had the Adaptive Sports staff all been coming to work as normal? We’d find out once Koivu contacted everyone.

  What if Leena had been present for the campaign launch? Then could I have recused myself because a suspect was one of my best friends? For a moment I got lost in the fantasy, but then I realized how pointless it was to spend time on what-ifs.

  At this point the only evidence I had of the most recent death threats was Jutta Särkikoski’s word. I needed to trace last night’s call to her phone. Then we could comp
are that to the other death-threat calls from before the accident. Receiving permission from the district court should be routine, given the possibility that someone had tried to kill Jutta. I didn’t believe that the phone records would actually help, since the call likely came from a burner cell, but we had to try everything. And if we did find calls from a prepaid phone, that would at least prove that someone was trying to hide their identity.

  I’d left the office door open, so Ursula walked in without knocking.

  “They’re performing the autopsy on Vainikainen today at three, and we’ll have the report tomorrow morning. Do we need to go for it?”

  “No need unless you really want to, since it’s probably poisoning.” I motioned to the computer. “This is a job for IT, but who knows when they’ll come. Could you help with all these cords?”

  Ursula laughed. “So you’re trying to put us in our place from the get-go, is that it?”

  “It’ll just mean less swearing if you do it. I promise to watch and learn. Could you also handle the machine in the conference room?”

  “Fine.” Ursula sat down at the desk and started inserting cords into the computer and the electrical outlet under the window. Then she booted up the machine, checked the software, and made sure the firewall was up to date and that the connections to the intranet and Internet worked. Then she told me to create a password.

  “I think this should be a shared computer, since you might need it too. I’ll just protect my own files as needed.”

  “Whatever you want,” Ursula said, sounding somewhat pacified. Maybe it had to do with the thought of getting on her boss’s computer. “You don’t know how to use Dragnet, do you?”

  “What?”

  “The new internal police messaging system. We started using it in October 2006. Come here, I’ll show you.” Ursula nearly purred with satisfaction as she introduced me to the new intranet application. I knew she would be even more pleased if I turned out to be completely hopeless with it, but I didn’t feel like pretending to be an idiot. And besides, Dragnet was relatively user-friendly, so Ursula was free to get back to arranging the autopsy ten minutes later.