Derailed

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “What have you done, Toni?” Koskelo asked gruffly. “You can tell me. You’re like my own son. But you can also keep it to yourself.” He glanced at me. “The most important thing is that you’re OK.”

  “I’m not sure if I am. Maybe I’ve just been running from this my whole life . . . from my real self.” Väärä brushed from his forehead a lock of hair displaced by the wind, and that was when he noticed me. He stiffened.

  “What are the police doing here? They already interviewed us on Friday.”

  “Hello, Toni,” I said and extended my hand, which Väärä took reluctantly. “Haven’t you been following the news over the weekend?”

  Väärä blushed deeply. “No, I haven’t . . . what do you mean? Did something happen?”

  Väärä wasn’t sweating, and his breathing had leveled off quickly during the conversation. Maybe I could question him right now before he started to get too cold.

  “A bomb went off in the parking lot of the Sports Building. It killed Tapani Ristiluoma.”

  The color disappeared from Väärä’s cheeks. “Ristiluoma is dead? What’s going on?”

  “You tell me. You’re going to have to cancel training today so that we can talk. Can we go to your apartment? Do you have a car, or should I call a taxi?” Väärä looked as if he wanted to run away. Koskelo offered to drive us to Väärä’s apartment, which was near the main railway station. It was a studio apartment that belonged to Koskelo’s aunt, who was spending the rest of her life in a nursing home.

  “I had to hunt down the super last night,” Koskelo said as he pulled out of the sports center parking lot. “It would have been a lot easier if I had a spare key.”

  “Why on earth did you go in my apartment?” Väärä asked angrily from the back seat. I could see his tense expression in the rearview mirror.

  “To make sure nothing had happened to you! I was worried. You’ve never disappeared like that before! I didn’t touch anything. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t injured or something. Two men have already died, and I was afraid you might be next.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Väärä said, suddenly sounding like a bored teenager.

  “Where were you?” Koskelo asked.

  “I’m right here now.”

  We drove for a little while in silence. Koskelo clearly didn’t want to talk in front of me, but I planned to talk to Väärä before his coach could coach him about what to say. He parked his car illegally in a small plaza in front of the building and followed us to the downstairs door.

  “Come to the house for sauna tonight, and we’ll think about how to rearrange the training schedule after this break,” Koskelo said. “And answer my calls from now on!”

  “My battery died, and the charger was in Turku,” Väärä explained as he opened the door. Politely he let me in first and then turned back to his coach. “I can come over tonight if it’s OK with Sinikka. I’ll call you later.”

  “Sinikka always likes it when you visit,” Koskelo said and then stood watching as Väärä and I started up the stairs to the second floor. Väärä had taped a “no soliciting” sign above the mail slot. Again, he let me through the door first. I stepped into the cramped entryway. There were two rows of shoes on a rack, mostly different running shoes and spikes. I took off my coat and hung it on a hook next to Väärä’s track jackets and a dark Ulster wool coat.

  “Come on in. I’m going to put on a fresh shirt,” Väärä said and disappeared into the bathroom. I doubted he would try to make a run for it, and if I needed, I could have everything in his apartment tested for explosives residues.

  Some of the furnishings must have been left by Koskelo’s aunt. It was hard to imagine a young man buying himself a heavy, ornate period furniture set with matching dressers, armoires, dining table, and sofas. Even though the studio apartment was relatively big, the furniture took up so much space that it was difficult to avoid bumping into things. In the alcove was a single bed that didn’t belong to the same set as the rest of the furniture. Above the head of the bed hung a simple metal cross, and at the foot was a poster of the runner Sebastian Coe. It seemed the great runner from the 1980s was Toni Väärä’s idol. I heard water running in the bathroom, and over it came the sound of Väärä humming a song that seemed vaguely familiar.

  There weren’t many books in the room, and the TV and DVD player were on one of the small tables, which likely had been for flower arrangements at one time. I sat down in one of the two armchairs. This wasn’t a reclining lounger; instead it forced you to sit up straight like you were visiting the pastor’s wife for coffee. When I shifted my legs into a more comfortable position, I kicked a dumbbell under the chair. Luckily, I hadn’t taken off my shoes as was customary in a Finnish home, so they cushioned the impact. Over the years I’d concluded that a police officer was more authoritative with shoes on than in her socks.

  Väärä stepped out of the bathroom, wearing just a T-shirt and a towel around his waist, to grab a pair of jeans from a closet in the entryway. Out of consideration, I turned away. After another minute he came into the main space, now dressed but his hair still wet.

  “Did you come to Turku just to look for me?” he asked as he went to the kitchen nook and opened the refrigerator. He pulled out a half liter of mineral water and took a drink straight from the bottle. “Can I offer you anything?”

  “No and no. I came to see your coach, but since you’re here now, you can tell me what you’ve been up to since you left the Espoo police station on Friday. Senior Officer Puupponen has been trying to reach you. It seems awfully convenient that your phone ran out of battery.”

  Väärä bustled in the kitchen, then brought a pitcher of juice and two glasses to the coffee table. “Currant juice my mom made. Please, help yourself. We don’t let visitors go thirsty where I’m from, including police. And I didn’t lie to you about my phone battery. I left the charger at home and . . . and where I spent the night there wasn’t a charger that fit.” Väärä sat on the couch, which, judging from his posture, was just as uncomfortable as the chair. I waited for him to continue, but he remained silent. His face looked young, somehow unformed, but in ten years he might be a good-looking man. A phone rang somewhere, and Väärä jumped off the couch and returned to the kitchen. On closer look, I could see a cell phone charging there.

  “Hi, Dad. I’m at home. No, there’s nothing to worry about. My battery was dead. I’m sorry, but I have a guest, a police officer. No, I didn’t do anything! I’ll call later. Blessings to you too, and to Mom and the kids.” Väärä returned to the couch, carrying the phone, and then dropped it on the table and flopped down hard enough that the sofa springs complained.

  “Why is everyone always calling me? Can’t a grown man have two nights of peace? It’s no one’s business where and with who I spent the night! But I guess I have to tell you what I did, since . . . since Ristiluoma is dead, and you think I had something to do with it.” Väärä gave me an angry stare as if I was denying his right to a private life. I forced a friendly smile onto my face, which seemed to encourage him.

  “When I left the Espoo police station, I jumped on a bus to downtown Helsinki. I got off in Kamppi. I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do, but I wanted . . . Ah!” Väärä pushed his wet hair back from his forehead with both hands and avoided looking at me as he continued.

  “I wanted to see if I really belonged there . . . with them . . . I found a couple places online, but I was nervous. Do I really have to tell? I didn’t go near the Sports Building, and I never saw Ristiluoma! When I got off the bus, I went for a salad and then bought new jeans and a shirt that I could wear to the club. I changed in the bathroom at the bus station and thought about booking a hotel room. The last train to Turku leaves at eleven, and I decided to take it, because . . .”

  “Can anyone attest to your movements Friday? Do you still have the bus tickets or receipts from the stores?” It was possible that someone in one of the stores or restaurants had recognized Väärä,
but finding out would take time and resources. We only needed to establish his whereabouts for a few hours, from the time he left the police station to the time of the explosion. If he had been at the Sports Building, someone would probably remember. I couldn’t quite picture him poisoning someone or planting a bomb, although I knew that extreme feelings of guilt could drive a person to strange behavior. A lot of people thought Väärä had good reason to hold a grudge against Jutta Särkikoski—because of the accident, he’d missed an entire season, just as he’d been on the verge of an international breakthrough. And if he didn’t remember the crash, it would be easy to blame Särkikoski.

  Väärä took his wallet out of his pants pocket and rifled through it.

  “Here’s the bus ticket,” he said and handed me a single-ride fare, which had been stamped on Friday at 1:25. I didn’t bother reminding him that he just as easily could have used the same ticket to travel to Pasila, which was only one stop north of the central Helsinki railway station and the nearby Kamppi shopping district.

  “And here’s the receipt for the clothes. I paid for them with my credit card. So this proves I was in Kamppi,” Väärä said triumphantly. The timestamp said 3:15. He searched for the last receipt, but then looked at it and snorted.

  “I don’t think my mineral water from Don’t Tell Mama is going to help, since they didn’t ring me up until 11:45. Obviously, I didn’t make that last train.” Väärä held the receipt in his hand as if it were a precious treasure and then pressed it flat before returning it to his wallet. “Do you think he really meant it?” he asked after a pause, staring at the tips of my shoes.

  “Who meant what?”

  “Ilpo, when he invited me to sauna today.”

  “Why wouldn’t he have meant it?”

  “Because I’m sure he can guess where I was! We only talked about it once, back before the accident. I told you that Pentti Vainikainen promised me anything I wanted if I joined his biomedical training program and dropped Ilpo as my coach. I wasn’t interested in the women, but I thought that Vainikainen probably knew lots of people, so he might know men like me. I started toying with the idea that I could . . . that I wouldn’t have to hide anymore. I was going to Helsinki for that sponsor event, and they’d promised to pay for a hotel room. I told Ilpo that maybe it was time for me to look for some companionship and be more open about who I am, and that I could do that in Helsinki. But Ilpo . . . he lost it and started yelling at me. He said that I couldn’t say anything like that ever again and that I’d lose all my supporters if I didn’t keep my mouth shut. He was probably right, but it still felt like the end of the world. We didn’t talk any more about it—I considered maybe I should join up with Vainikainen, since those people have seen more of the world and think differently. Then someone from our club came in, and then Särkikoski showed up. Ilpo was probably afraid I’d tell her.”

  Jutta had thought Koskelo was trying to hide Väärä’s doping by preventing the interview. But in reality, Koskelo was worried Väärä would tell Jutta he was gay. And apparently Vainikainen had been afraid that Väärä would tell Jutta about the offer he’d made. Quite a merry-go-round.

  “Did Koskelo change his mind after the accident?”

  “How should I know? We never talked about it! In the beginning, I really didn’t remember much about the days before the accident, and later, when I started to remember, it seemed best to claim I didn’t since Ilpo was acting like nothing had happened anyway. And he has his reasons. Ilpo’s son-in-law’s company has the same kind of van as the one that tried to run us off the road. What if Ilpo tried to come after us . . .”

  “Which of Ilpo’s daughters are we talking about?”

  “Minna. Her husband’s name is Mikko Matilainen. He gives me rides sometimes. I can’t afford to get my own car.”

  “So you really didn’t see who was driving the van?”

  “No. It was rainy and dark, and I was sitting in the passenger seat.” Väärä took a sip of his juice and grimaced slightly because it was so sour. “I’m actually relieved that Ilpo hasn’t brought it up. I mean, about who might have forced Jutta off the road. Not the other thing. I haven’t talked about the other thing except with some people online, and they don’t know who I really am. When I was a kid, I didn’t know there were others like me, and then I heard at church that those kind of people are monsters. But now that I know what it’s like to be with a man, I don’t think I can pretend anymore!”

  Väärä looked at me, a challenge in his eyes. I’d heard confessions like this before. People thought police took the same kind of vow of confidentiality as a priest or a therapist. Väärä barely knew me, and it was probable we’d never meet again. And clearly he needed someone to talk to. If he’d had his first real sexual experience this weekend, it was no wonder he felt his world had been turned upside down.

  “When my dad was the same age I am now, he was already a husband and father. A couple of years ago, our family started looking for a suitable wife for me from the Smith’s Friends. Luckily, I’ve been able to put them off because of sports. I don’t have the money to support a family on random stipends and sponsorships. I can barely pay Ilpo. I only pay the maintenance fees for this apartment, and another person wouldn’t fit in here anyway . . .” There was panic in Väärä’s voice.

  “I can tell you for certain that Ilpo Koskelo was truly worried about you. Worried the way you worry about someone you really care about, about someone you love. Are you sure your family would reject you if they knew you were gay?”

  The word startled Toni. He was so used to using euphemisms, even in his own mind. That seemed to trigger him, and he started talking again about all the things his religion considered sins. It was like he was giving himself a spiritual scourging, because sexual sins were the very worst and were sure to open the gates of hell.

  “It’s the same in sports. When I was younger, I played club baseball and wrestled, but I couldn’t stand the other kids. The constant homo jokes were too much. It’s no different now. ‘Go run for Sweden, faggot’ is what they’ll say if I tell, and they won’t let me in the locker room, let alone the sauna.”

  “The whole world doesn’t think that way. You must have found that out this weekend. You had fun, didn’t you?”

  I’d already missed one train, but I didn’t want to leave Toni Väärä yet, as worked up as he was.

  “Fun? Is that what you call something that’s wrong and sinful but also completely right and natural? I did have fun, at least after I met Janne. At first I didn’t give him my real name . . .” Toni’s voice had the semihysteria of someone who hadn’t gotten much sleep lately. “If we had the same laws today as we did forty years ago, you’d have to arrest me for indecent behavior!”

  “Good thing we’re living in the twenty-first century. All kinds of people work at the police station, and I know a family made up of a male couple, a female couple, and their four shared children. They all live in the same house. You can do what you want, and you have no obligation to tell anyone about your personal life. It isn’t like I go around advertising that I’m hetero.” I nearly added that one of my colleagues, meaning Ursula, did put that front and center, but that was beside the point. “If I were you, I’d go over to Koskelo’s house for that sauna. He wouldn’t invite you unless he wanted to. I’ll tell Detective Puupponen that I met with you. The next time, answer your phone when the police call. We spent six man-hours just trying to figure out if you were in jail, the hospital, the morgue, or out of the country. We have much more important things to do.” I considered whether I should ask Väärä for the phone number of this Janne person he’d mentioned, but that didn’t have anything to do with his alibi for the time of the explosion.

  I drank the rest of my juice and stood up. Väärä’s apartment was a few hundred yards from the train station, and I’d have just enough time to grab a bite before the next train. I gave Väärä my card and told him to call me if anything new occurred to him. I hoped he understood
that I was referring to the car accident and murders, not that I was available as a personal confidant.

  Next to the park across the street from the train station was a quiet Chinese restaurant, where a couple of families were having Sunday dinner. Decorations from the previous Christmas still hung from the ceiling, or they’d been put up three months early this year. In the corner was a children’s play area, inside of which a toddler had nodded off. His parents were in no hurry as they ate their deep-fried bananas. I ordered jumbo shrimp in chili sauce and managed to eat nearly all of it before I had to rush out. It wasn’t until the train was pulling away from the station that I noticed the Thai massage parlor next to the restaurant. Was that where Väärä had been surprised by the add-on services?

  During the ride, I called my team to ask them to meet me at the police station. Koivu had already made it home, but Ursula and Puupponen were still out working. I told Ursula to look at the original accident report to see whether a van registered to Mikko Matilainen had been checked. After a moment’s thought I said that the vehicle might also be under the name Minna Matilainen or Minna Koskelo, although the name Koskelo probably would have attracted the investigators’ attention. Maybe Ilpo Koskelo made a habit of borrowing his relatives’ property when he was up to no good.

  Töölö Hospital reported that Jutta’s condition was stable, and her recovery was off to a good start. Her parents had just left. I had the nurse transfer me, then asked Jutta whether she needed anything from home. I told her that I could drop by with Leena, since she knew where everything was. Jutta mentioned a few books, clean underwear, and some cosmetics, and gave me permission to reveal her location to Leena, who had a spare key because she was the only person Jutta trusted. Lucky for me.