Derailed

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “What was the filling for the sandwiches? Who bought it and who prepared it?” Koivu asked quickly before Hillevi had time to start sniveling. I started to cough, and Koivu stood up and walked to the balcony door. He opened it. Outside, the drizzle had become full-fledged rain, and the fresh air, scented with fallen leaves, penetrated the cigarette smoke. I took a breath.

  “I made the sandwiches. Miikka commented on how nice they looked. They had ham, goat cheese, smoked salmon, parsley butter, and garlic mayonnaise. I set the garlic ones separately from the others in case someone was allergic. Jouni hates garlic. He never eats it. When I was making the mayonnaise, I thought ‘Ha, Jouni, hopefully all the food in jail has lots of garlic.’” Hillevi gave a little giggle. “The parsley butter I made at home and chilled, but I made the mayonnaise at the office. I brought my immersion blender from home.”

  Koivu had sat back down, and now I walked to the balcony door. The view was the yard of the neighboring building. The sound of traffic was much louder now that the door was open. For a minute I watched the people driving to the Big Apple for their Friday shopping. Only a week earlier, I’d met Jutta Särkikoski for the first time, and I hadn’t had a clue where meeting her would take me. It was almost like Jutta was responsible for reordering my entire life. An idea popped into my head but flew away when Koivu continued.

  “Were the extra spreads and meat and such still in the kitchen when you went to buy the gluten-free rolls?”

  “Well, of course I put them in the refrigerator so they wouldn’t spoil! It isn’t far from the Waterfall Building to Stockmann, and because I was only buying a few rolls, I could use the express checkout. Still some of the reporters arrived before I got back, and Merja was terribly angry. I went into the kitchen to make the sandwiches and didn’t dare come back out until the official part of the event was over.”

  “So you were alone in the kitchen the whole time you were filling the gluten-free sandwiches? What did you put in them?”

  “I put garlic mayonnaise in two of them and parsley butter in one. The butter had goat cheese with it and the mayonnaise had ham. I was alone, except Miikka came in at one point and asked if he could help or maybe take the sandwiches out to the table, but he didn’t touch anything.”

  “Tell me the recipes for the mayonnaise and the parsley butter,” I said, and Hillevi did. They were the same recipes everyone had in their cookbooks, without any mysterious ingredients. The parsley butter had been at Hillevi’s home, and then in the common refrigerator at the Sports Building, and then the refrigerator at MobAbility. I asked Hillevi if there was anything else in the kitchen, and she didn’t remember anything out of the ordinary. No eyedroppers in the refrigerator, no drain cleaner on the counter. But lots of people had eaten sandwiches with both fillings, including Merja Vainikainen, Miikka Harju, and Ilpo Koskelo, along with the media representatives, and suffered no side effects.

  Koivu and I made Hillevi repeat her account several more times, but no inconsistencies cropped up. The others had told the same story. Hillevi remembered meeting Pentti Vainikainen only once, when he came to bring Merja flowers. As we interviewed Hillevi, we gradually tidied up: we emptied ashtrays, loaded used coffee mugs into the dishwasher, and stacked old magazines. Maybe a few of our words were beyond the recorder microphone’s reach, but that didn’t matter much.

  “Have you spoken with Merja Vainikainen since Tuesday?” Koivu asked as he poured detergent into the dishwasher dispenser. Hillevi instantly grew agitated again.

  “Merja? She called. I don’t remember what day it was. She was angry and said something about the coffee. That Pentti’s stomach couldn’t handle it and that was why he died . . . But I don’t really remember. What day could that have been?”

  “What exactly did Merja Vainikainen say?” Koivu started the dishwasher and wetted a dishrag, which he then used to wipe down the sink.

  “I don’t remember! Are you blaming me too?”

  We struggled to calm Hillevi down. I gently suggested that a shower might do her good.

  “Are you sure Jouni is still in prison? Have you checked recently?” Hillevi asked once we’d shut off the recorder and were preparing to leave. Hillevi had moved to the balcony, and at that moment she didn’t have a cigarette. Even though the apartment was only on the second floor, the drop from the balcony would be about twenty feet. For some reason the thought of Hillevi alone on the balcony terrified me.

  “No one has escaped from any prison in Finland for ages, and Jouni doesn’t have the right to furloughs at this point. Why do you ask?” Koivu inquired.

  “Could it have been one of Jouni’s friends, then? Maybe someone saw me buying the rolls and thought they were for me. I wouldn’t have noticed anything since I was in such a hurry. And then I had to pee so bad, which is always what happens when I’m nervous. Jouni made fun of me for that too.” Hillevi sniffed. She’d told me previously that sometimes she lost control of her bladder when she was frightened. “I didn’t want to go to the bathroom at MobAbility because there’s only one and everyone can see it and the men use it too, so I used the bathroom downstairs in the lobby. I was so rushed that I left the rolls on the edge of the sink. What if someone went in there and put poison in them! How do I know Jouni didn’t tell his friends to kill to me? He swore he wasn’t going to let me get rid of him so easily . . .”

  “I can’t imagine anything like that happening. Hillevi, you shouldn’t be alone right now. Who could you ask to come be with you? Could you go stay with your parents?” I asked. Her friends had gradually fallen out of her life because Jouni never let her go anywhere alone, and for the final months before the stabbing, they had only socialized with Jouni’s acquaintances.

  “I don’t know . . . Everyone has read the newspapers and probably blames me.”

  In addition to her parents, Hillevi had a brother who lived in Lohja. I looked up his number and asked Hillevi to call. I said that I could tell him I was the detective in charge of the Pentti Vainikainen murder investigation and that Hillevi wasn’t being accused of anything.

  I couldn’t swear that Hillevi wasn’t a suspect, because that would have been a lie. She smoked so much that her sense of taste must be damaged, and maybe she wouldn’t have smelled the nicotine if there had been a small amount of it in one of the spreads. Hillevi’s brother promised to come pick her up for the weekend, so Koivu and I left the apartment. We’d be wearing its stench for the rest of the day.

  I wanted to get home as soon as possible to change my clothes and wash my hair. Koivu made it out of the Big Apple parking garage with only one clutch failure. Just as we merged onto Ring 1, my phone rang. Puupponen had news.

  “Hi, it’s Ville . . . The shit just hit the fan. I’m here with Ursula in Pasila, at the Sports Building. There’s been an explosion. Not in the building but in the parking lot. A car, and there was a person inside it. There’s no way they survived the blast. Maria, it was Jutta Särkikoski’s car.”

  10

  Installing the emergency light on top of the moving car wasn’t easy, but somehow I managed it. With sirens blaring we sped toward the Sports Building. Ring 1 and the Turku Highway had the usual Friday traffic, but we still made reasonably quick progress. The surface streets closer to Helsinki were a different matter, though. Some cars pulled over onto the sidewalk, but a few drivers didn’t seem to notice the flashing light and wailing siren. Fortunately, no one’s life was in our hands. It was already too late—I’d failed to catch whoever tried to murder Jutta. He had gotten a second chance, and she had gone up in flames with her car. Jutta had told the police about a possible bombing; one of the death threats had mentioned it. I’d failed her. Should I ask to be relieved of duty?

  Koivu finally managed to get back on a thoroughfare, and I put out an APB to pick up Salo and Terävä. Steroids increase aggressiveness, and there was no knowing what else the pair had taken. They had every reason to hate Jutta. Now I regretted wasting so much time on Pentti Vainikainen. This wasn�
��t about him. The poor man had just happened to eat the wrong sandwich.

  We came upon some construction, and Koivu swerved dangerously between the concrete barricades, banging the passenger-side mirror hard enough to bend it. I opened the window and straightened it. We weren’t actually in a hurry. There was nothing we could do, at least not for Jutta. And although Ursula and Puupponen happened to be at the building when the crime occurred, investigating the explosion would fall to the Helsinki police unless I could convince my colleagues there that the explosion was linked to my case. Still, we would need all the help we could get tracking down and interviewing eyewitnesses. Dozens of sports associations had their offices in the Sports Building, along with some other companies, so there would be hundreds of people on the scene.

  The road was blocked at the MTV3 building, but we got through after showing our badges. A television camera was hunting for shots, and the cameraman began filming me, apparently recognizing me from the previous day’s news conference. Damn it. The reporters didn’t have access to the scene of the explosion yet, but it wouldn’t be long before they were grilling me again. Even the dimmest reporter would realize that, for those who wanted to silence Jutta, the second time had been the charm.

  The central Helsinki police station was only a couple of blocks from the Sports Building, so the place was crawling with cops. The gate that led to the Finnish Broadcasting Company campus was closed, and the next intersection was blocked by police tape. That didn’t stop the FBC’s crew from trying to capture what they could. I managed to catch a glimpse of an ambulance speeding south with its lights and sirens on. Maybe Jutta hadn’t died. Or maybe someone else was injured. We’d know soon enough.

  Koivu parked in front of the Sports Building. Police in tactical jumpsuits were everywhere, and a hearse was pulling out of the courtyard. So there was Jutta. I bowed my head. What else could I do? The smell of the explosion still hung in the air, and I could see several damaged cars in the courtyard and several lower-level windows that had been blown in. The bomb squad was already checking the other cars for explosive devices. In the middle of the chaos were the remains of a silver Renault. Around it were spatters of blood. I saw Puupponen and a couple of plainclothes cops I knew from Helsinki conferring near the door to the building. I didn’t even bother saying hello. I wanted to know the truth as soon as possible.

  “Was anyone else hurt?” I asked Puupponen, the words nearly catching in my throat.

  “Jutta Särkikoski caught some shrapnel in her face and torso, but her injuries aren’t life threatening. She was conscious when we put her in the ambulance.”

  “Särkikoski? Jutta Särkikoski? She’s alive?”

  “Yes,” Puupponen replied. Relief washed over me like a warm shower after a long day of skiing, but then I realized there was no reason to be relieved.

  “But what about the hearse? Who was in that?”

  “According to Särkikoski, a man named Tapani Ristiluoma was in the car at the time of the explosion. There isn’t much left of him for his family to bury,” Detective Perävaara from Helsinki said. “Do you suspect this is connected to the poisoning case you’re investigating in Espoo?”

  “It is the same target,” I said, feeling helpless. “What was Ristiluoma doing in Jutta’s car?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Puupponen replied. “According to the receptionist, they were holding a meeting at Adaptive Sports about extending their campaign. Miikka Harju was with them. The receptionist also remembers Ristiluoma, because he had to sign him in.” Had Jutta offered Tapani Ristiluoma a ride?

  “Pekka, order twenty-four-hour security for Jutta Särkikoski. Are you in charge of this investigation?” I asked Detective Perävaara, who confirmed that he was the senior detective on call. I suggested we meet to coordinate our efforts. He and I had always worked well together, since neither of us had any grandiose professional ambitions, and Perävaara’s team included a couple of pleasant female colleagues with whom I went out for drinks occasionally. I didn’t expect Perävaara to make this a power struggle, but there was no telling what our bosses might do.

  While Perävaara was talking to the leader of the bomb squad, I retreated a bit to call Antti.

  “I don’t know when I’ll be home. Things just got complicated.” Antti wasn’t one of those people who always kept the radio on or spent his days surfing online, so he probably hadn’t heard about the bomb yet. I gave him the short version of what had happened, and he didn’t bother commenting. He was going to be a single parent until this case was solved. For a moment I missed my children so badly that I felt like I’d been the one to take a shard of metal to the chest. I hung up the phone and put it in my pocket, and I noticed my hands were shaking. Jutta had been given another chance. My job was to stop the person who was trying to kill her before they got lucky.

  Ursula walked out of the building looking tense, and a tall man in a police jumpsuit tried in vain to stop her. When Ursula noticed me, she walked over.

  “Kallio, what the hell is going on?” she asked as if I’d been the one who’d rigged Jutta’s car. “We’re here interviewing Pentti Vainikainen’s coworkers, and everybody thinks he’s the most decent guy in the world. A bona fide saint, if not the second coming of Jesus Christ. Then the parking lot explodes, and surprise surprise, one of our persons of interest is lying in her own blood outside. We don’t even know whether she’s the intended victim or the prime suspect! I think I set a new Finnish record for the 400 meter running down the stairs. Ville called it in while I was responding.”

  “Did you see the explosion?”

  “Not the explosion itself. I didn’t happen to be looking out the window since I was talking to the chairman of the Athletics Federation. Strange guy. He stared at me the whole time like he’d never seen a woman before. Or not so much me as my tits.”

  “Were you the first one in the courtyard after the explosion?”

  “There were a couple of other people too: one woman screaming her head off and some old man who’d called the police. Maybe they heard the bang at the Pasila Station, since there were sirens going by the time I got to Särkikoski. At first, I thought she was dead too, since she was just lying on the ground motionless. But she was just in shock. I’d left my coat upstairs, so I made the old guy with the phone give me his. He was none too happy about that, but I can be very convincing when I need to be. I used it to warm up Särkikoski before the ambulance got here.”

  “The alarm came in at 15:43,” Perävaara said. “The first patrol car arrived within two minutes of the alert, but the ambulance took nearly fifteen minutes.”

  Now it was 4:15. Perävaara had already organized all the officers on scene to interview the employees in the building. We went into the lobby, which was buzzing with people. No one would be allowed to leave until their contact information was recorded, and anyway the cars in the parking lot were still being searched in case there was another bomb. Everyone would have to get permission before they could go.

  The guest parking cost one euro per hour. According to Perävaara, there was no video surveillance of the lot. The bomber had taken the risk of being seen, but enough people visited the building for it to be easy to get lost in the crowd. Now only one name was on my mind, the name of the person who had been at this building today and at MobAbility on Tuesday. I asked Puupponen to figure out whether Miikka Harju was still inside. I wanted to have a word with Perävaara alone, so the receptionist let us into a conference room.

  “The owner of the exploded car has been receiving death threats, and we’re in the middle of investigating. I propose we work together: Helsinki investigates the explosion itself, and my group investigates the Jutta Särkikoski angle.”

  “So we do all the dirty work and when the case is over Espoo gets all the glory?” Perävaara grinned.

  “Trust me. You can have all the glory if you figure out who set that bomb in Jutta Särkikoski’s car. Do you have any idea about the type of explosive yet?”

&n
bsp; “We’ll send the car to the lab as soon as rush hour is over and the flatbed can get here. I’ve mobilized all of our terrorism and explosives resources, and I assume we can borrow more from you if we need to, right?”

  I nodded, although I didn’t know who worked in the ad-hoc Espoo police terrorism and explosives group nowadays. That work was sporadic, so the experts tended to have other assignments as well.

  “Who was the dead guy?”

  I told Perävaara what I knew about Tapani Ristiluoma, then called the hospital. Jutta Särkikoski was still being stitched up. She’d lost some blood and was in mild shock, but according to the doctor, we could visit her as soon as she was out of the procedure room. A guard was already in place. I ended the call since another was coming in from Puupponen. He was in the lobby with Miikka Harju. I went out to find Harju white as a ghost, his hands trembling so much that he could barely shake my hand. He immediately shoved them back in his jeans pockets. How much would a former firefighter know about explosives? Harju confirmed the receptionist’s account of why Ristiluoma and Särkikoski had been at the Sports Building.

  “Tapani called pretty soon after I got to work from our interview at the police station. No one else was in the office. I don’t know who has official sick leave and who doesn’t. Ristiluoma demanded to know how we intended to continue the campaign, and of course I said I didn’t have a clue, that he’d have to ask Merja. I didn’t dare disturb her, since she’s in mourning, for God’s sake, but Ristiluoma said he would contact her himself. I didn’t know what to do, so I just tidied up, and every once in a while, someone from elsewhere in the building would come in with some excuse for stopping by, although they probably just wanted to see a glimpse of the scene of the drama. I wondered if I should start charging admission!” Harju laughed nervously.