Darling

by Sipila, Jarkko

  Jorma took a sip and laughed softly. “She was a little sweetie. She didn’t have all the marbles in the bag, but she was a nice girl.”

  Everyone but Quiet Guy laughed vaguely.

  Suhonen faked a laugh, though he would’ve liked to punch their faces in. “Was she some local lady of the evening?”

  “Well, not exactly, even if she was everyone’s darling. Her name was Laura, and she had a bad temper.”

  “I’ll say,” Mustache Guy added. “She could go off for no apparent reason.”

  “Plenty of broads fit that description,” Suhonen snorted.

  “She’d put out sometimes, too,” Mustache Guy said, leaning toward Suhonen, “if you flattered her enough, you know. She was pretty easy then, heh-heh.”

  “Heh-heh,” Suhonen joined in. “The whole gang or one at a time?”

  “Oh, just one at a time. But she could get mad outta the blue, just like that,” Mustache Guy said, snapping his fingers. “She’d go totally nuts.”

  Suhonen had reason enough to haul the whole gang to the station, but he still had to figure out if any others had been to the apartment.

  “So who stiffed her then?” Suhonen quipped and faked a chuckle at his own pun.

  Niskala stared at Suhonen coolly.

  “We don’t know. And if we did, we wouldn’t be broadcastin’ it in here.”

  Suhonen answered with a cold stare. “Good answer. I wouldn’t, either.”

  He finished his beer and got up. He considered buying everyone a round of drinks, but decided against it. Being overly friendly would seem suspicious; Officer Suhonen might do it, but not Suikkanen.

  Suhonen walked to the counter and said, “I’ll have one more.”

  The bored bartender nodded and filled a glass while Suhonen dug change from his jeans pocket.

  “The guys were saying that some customer had been killed somewhere around here this morning.”

  “Yeah, I heard. It’s too bad,” the bartender said, nodding.

  “Yep, that’s what the guys said,” Suhonen repeated.

  “It’s sad news.”

  “They said she hung out with them sometimes.”

  “Yeah, guess she sat over there occasionally, but elsewhere, too. These groups get mixed sometimes and such.”

  “Yeah,” Suhonen said. “So these guys weren’t shitting me, then?”

  Suhonen wanted to explain why he was asking questions, as if he was just verifying what the guys had told him.

  “Nope, they weren’t. Laura seemed to like to hanging around with those four. I didn’t quite get why, but that’s really none of my beeswax. My job is to sell beer, not to get mixed in customers’ business.”

  “You’re alright,” Suhonen grinned at the bartender. “I like you. You’ve got a good attitude.”

  Suhonen picked up his glass and walked back to his table. He got the sense from the bartender that the core group was all here. That was enough.

  He sat quietly, and the guys at the other table didn’t talk to him anymore. He pulled his phone out and texted Joutsamo. “At the Alamo Bar. Niskala and three of Vatanen’s buddies are here. Probable cause.”

  Suhonen knew Joutsamo would reply right away and the incoming text alert would give him an excuse to leave. He had made a point of looking at his phone when he walked in. Joutsamo replied with a short text: “Should we come now?”

  “Thirty minutes so I can get out of here,” he answered.

  Ten minutes later Suhonen finished his beer and got up. He nodded to the group and said he was going to work. That was the truth.

  Irwin’s song “Saint Paul and Reeperbahn” blasted from the loudspeakers.

  CHAPTER 5

  WEDNESDAY, 9:00 P.M.

  HELSINKI POLICE HEADQUARTERS, PASILA

  Kulta took a bite of his pizza and noticed Joutsamo approaching. She was walking fast—and smiling, which was unusual.

  “Bingo!” Joutsamo said as she joined the others. Takamäki, Suhonen, Kulta, and Kohonen were sitting at one of the tables in the lunchroom. A kitchenette on the side sold candy on the honor system.

  The homicide team was in temporary quarters at the old courthouse while the Pasila police station was being renovated. The structure, built in the 1980s, had major mold issues and had to undergo a total remodeling. The building was visible from the homicide unit’s lunchroom through the old court building’s high open lobby. Outside, the glare from the streetlights made the falling snow appear yellow.

  Their temporary quarters didn’t have a cafeteria, and the officers had to eat out or pack a lunch. Kulta had picked up three salami pizzas from a pizzeria at the Pasila train station, and the officers were eating them with their fingers.

  “Well?” Takamäki asked, chewing on his pizza.

  “We found a match for the prints on the coffeemaker.”

  “Who?” Kulta got excited and the others stopped chewing. The fingerprints would very likely lead them to the killer.

  “Jorma Korpivaara,” Joutsamo said with a smile. “The custodian.”

  “Really?” Kulta said with awe. “How about that! I’m surprised he kept his cool when he unlocked the door for the police.”

  Joutsamo nodded and said, “He has some explaining to do.”

  The police had picked up Niskala, Korpivaara, and the two others from the bar around seven. Despite the men’s protests, the detainment went without too much drama. The bartender had confirmed to Joutsamo about Vatanen hanging out with these four men, like Suhonen had said.

  Korpivaara, Niskala, Mustache-Raksa, and Quiet Guy Heku were sitting in their cells at the station. The men were examined and fingerprinted, and their DNA samples were taken before they were put into individual holding cells. Mustache-Raksa’s real name was Pekka Rautalampi and quiet Heku was Heikki Lahtela. Rautalampi had a few misdemeanors on his record, and Lahtela had been arrested several times for public drunkenness and vandalism.

  Kulta grabbed the last slice of pizza from one of the boxes, leaving a few in the other two.

  “If I remember correctly, Korpivaara never mentioned being in the victim’s apartment that morning, when we met him at the door.”

  “No. He said he was at home having a beer and watching a movie. Besides, he knew the victim better than he let on, and they even had some sort of a relationship. It looks pretty promising, if you ask me. I believe the DNA samples will confirm that he’s been in the apartment.”

  Kulta continued, “We might even have a motive—sex. He wanted it and she didn’t. They argued and Korpivaara got fired up. It might explain the cut on his hand, too. He could’ve gotten it during the slashing.”

  “What about the others?” Kohonen asked.

  “We’ll get to the bottom of it,” Joutsamo said. “Niskala might’ve been there too that morning, since his fingerprints were on the fridge, but we don’t know when the prints were put there. I’ll talk to the men tonight, but we can’t legally interrogate them until tomorrow because they are still legally drunk from all the beer they had.”

  “I’d say at least five,” Suhonen inserted. “But probably closer to ten.”

  Joutsamo glanced at her notes. “Looks like the latter is more accurate. They each blew around 0.2.”

  “Alright,” Takamäki said. “Next we should check out the suspects’ apartments. Who’s going?”

  Kohonen glanced at Kulta, who nodded. “We can go.”

  “Good. I’ll take care of the paperwork.”

  “Can I have those?” Joutsamo asked, eyeing the last two pieces of pizza.

  “Go for it,” Kulta replied.

  * * *

  The man was sliding his finger down the list of names on the smudged piece of paper, slowly and with hesitation. The list was titled “Attorneys.”

  The interrogation room was bare; no interior decorators needed here. The VCU detectives knew the room needed to have gray walls and wooden furniture—no windows or plants, nothing to give the suspects a focal point.

  “No rus
h, take your time,” Sergeant Joutsamo said, sitting across from Jorma Korpivaara. The man glanced at her with misty eyes but didn’t say anything. Joutsamo noticed his finger trembling slightly.

  The smell of cleansers lingered in the room, now mixed with the stench of booze and sweat.

  The man kept reading through the long list of attorneys in Helsinki. He recognized several of the names from TV: Arvela…Fredman…Jaatela…Lampela.

  Anna Joutsamo focused on the man’s face rather than his finger. He kept his gaze on the list. Suspects had the right to an attorney; they only had to ask. The man requested an attorney early on, and he did it nicely, so Joutsamo was confident he would confess quickly. Especially since he was no professional criminal.

  Of course a confession alone wouldn’t be enough, but it would go a long way to support other evidence they had gathered in the case. Joutsamo had hoped Korpivaara would confess during initial conversation, but something seemed to hold him back. That’s why the man had said he needed an attorney. When a suspect requested a lawyer it meant they were halfway to a confession anyway; an innocent person would deny everything and want to leave as quickly as possible.

  The man was drunk and obviously had trouble thinking clearly. A couple of times he started to say something but quickly changed his mind. Joutsamo glanced at the corner of the room to make sure a trash can was at the ready in case he had to vomit.

  Korpivaara’s finger stopped on a name. “This one,” he said.

  Joutsamo peered at the name. She didn’t recognize it. The lawyer wasn’t one of the regulars at the station.

  “Why that one?” she asked.

  “You said I could pick whoever I wanted.”

  “Yeah, that’s your right, but…”

  “That’s the one I want,” he stressed with drunken determination.

  “Alright, I’ll make a call and see if they’re available. Some of them are quite busy.”

  “Okay.”

  Joutsamo decided to try one more time and took a chair across from the man. She looked him in the eye—not piercingly, but with police-like urging.

  “We can talk about this some more, just so it’s all clear. That’s for your good, too.”

  The man ignored her effort by lowering his eyes to stare at the table.

  “I told you I don’t remember anything. I…uh…well.”

  “Where did you…?” Joutsamo began, but the man interrupted her.

  “How ’bout we talk when the attorney gets here.”

  “Fine, we’ll do that,” Joutsamo said and stood up.

  This was nothing new to the sergeant. It wasn’t personal. The man was afraid to confess, but he’d eventually do it. For a fleeting moment, Joutsamo felt sorry for the man, not for the act of killing, or his fate, but because he lacked the courage to confess. Six months ago, in the spring, she had questioned a tattooed career criminal for assault and battery, and right away the guy admitted to beating someone with a baseball bat. Stone-faced, he said, “If you can’t take the heat, stay outta the kitchen.”

  Korpivaara was not ready to face the consequences. Not yet.

  “The guard will take you to your cell,” Joutsamo said in a neutral voice. They’d sit in the same room several times in the next few days, and making the guy mad wouldn’t help the case move in the direction she wanted. If it wasn’t for that, she would’ve cussed him out as one of the biggest assholes and cowards she’d ever met—and she had met plenty of them over the years.

  * * *

  A scooter buzzed past a trendy street café in the Trastevere district of Rome. The waiter, Alberto, was carrying two glasses of wine on a small black tray. His shirt was spotless—the restaurant had the staff’s uniforms laundered daily—and he skillfully carried the pasta and salads to the tables without spilling anything. The restaurant could seat about fifty customers, counting both the indoor and outdoor tables. The two steps leading to the terrace were the trickiest spot; last spring a fat Finnish tourist—drunk, naturally—had surprised him, and a plateful of pasta carbonara had splattered all over the man’s T-shirt.

  It was obvious who was at fault, but this was Rome and you didn’t anger the tourists. The manager felt that in this internet age, the customer was more right than ever. He didn’t want to see comments about the restaurant’s rude service on travel review websites. Restaurants abounded in Trastevere, and travelers, especially the Americans, would read reviews on their smart phones right in front of the restaurants. The overweight Finn had been appeased by profuse apologies and, after a flood of cursing, grunted what Alberto interpreted to be his acceptance of the apology.

  The busiest tourist season had ended a couple of months earlier, but the outdoor terrace was still open. At nearly sixty degrees, it was a warm evening for December. The gas heaters were placed outside in October. Alberto was carrying a basil salad and instinctively slowed down on the stairs. He didn’t see anyone and stepped down. Alberto smiled as he approached the four-person table where a woman sat alone. While this wouldn’t have been possible in August, there were only a dozen people on the terrace—all tourists, because the locals wouldn’t dine al fresco in this cool weather.

  The woman fascinated Alberto. In the summer, the tourists dressed according to their home countries’ standards—mostly shorts and T-shirts in the daytime and loose-collared shirts and jeans in the evenings.

  This Basil Woman—Alberto named his customers by the food they ordered—didn’t fit the tourist mold. Even though she wasn’t Italian, she was dressed in the latest fashion. The waiter tried to figure out what gave the woman her classy look, and he finally realized it was her shoes.

  The lady looked to be in her mid-thirties. She had straight, dark hair to her shoulders. She was slightly overweight, but Alberto found himself wanting to flirt with her—he was interested in her. What was this shoe woman about? She spoke fairly fluent Italian when she ordered her food.

  Alberto approached the table and the woman noticed him. Alberto figured that with the slightest effort he could end up spending the night in one of Rome’s four-star hotels. She wasn’t flirty, so it was up to him to make the move. Complimenting her Italian skills was the easiest way to approach her.

  “Your meal, beautiful lady,” he said, and the woman granted him a warm smile. He wouldn’t sit down, of course, but if he kept coming back and rendering service, he could get her to agree to meet him that evening. Now he had to come up with the first step.

  “Where did you study Italian? You speak so…” Alberto began, but just then the woman’s cell phone rang, and she pulled it out of her designer purse. She made an apologetic face and answered the phone. Alberto studied the purse and saw it was a Luis Vuitton. That made the woman even more interesting; a woman like that wouldn’t walk around Rome carrying a knock-off.

  The woman spoke into the phone and Alberto thought it sounded like the language the fat man had spoken earlier. Strano lingua finlandese. The strange Finnish language.

  Alberto realized the person on the phone had the woman’s full attention. The language sounded strange, but somehow Alberto recognized from her tone that she was asking if the caller was the police. At least that’s what it sounded like. If the woman had shown interest in Alberto earlier, she wasn’t the least bit interested after the phone call.

  Alberto gave it one more effort, but the classy Finnish lady ate her food, finished her white wine, and asked for the check. Alberto saw on the credit card that the woman’s name was Nea Lind. It was a beautiful name, but he didn’t think it sounded particularly Finnish.

  After paying the bill, the woman left without looking back, which disappointed him greatly.

  CHAPTER 6

  LATE WEDNESDAY TO EARLY THURSDAY

  JAIL AT HELSINKI POLICE HEADQUARTERS

  Jorma Korpivaara woke up and for a minute didn’t know where he was. He was lying on something hard, and he had to take a piss, badly. He felt a backache first, and then realized his head was killing him. He opened his eyes and
saw a dim light in the corner. The room was narrow, and its walls were bare and green. What the hell, he thought as he scrambled up. What time was it? Where was he?

  Korpivaara walked to the iron door. It wouldn’t open; it didn’t even have a handle. He panicked. Shit, he was locked in some closet. He pounded the door and yelled, “I want out! Goddammit, I want out!”

  The iron door thundered from the pounding.

  A small hatch opened and a guard in a blue uniform said in a bored tone, “Be quiet.”

  “I fuckin’ want out.”

  “You can’t get out.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “The door’s shut, and I have no intention of opening it.”

  “Where am I?” Korpivaara asked in tears.

  “This is the jail and you’ve been arrested. You’re being suspected of a crime,” the guard said and closed the hatch with a clank.

  Korpivaara’s shoulders slumped as he stood behind the door. Drained of strength, he tried to pound the door one more time. He turned and saw a toilet in front of the bed, which was bolted to the wall. Two seats were attached to the opposite wall and some sort of a legless table was bolted between them.

  He walked to the toilet and urinated.

  Goddammit, what happened? He sat down on the bunk and buried his face in his hands. His mind was fuzzy like a TV screen with static.

  His throat was parched. The previous day’s events were a blur and they came to him in a reverse order. At the police station he was stripped and handed overalls a size too big. He was riding in the back of a police van. He was arrested in the Alamo Bar. Beer and more beer. He unlocked the apartment door for the police.

  “Oh, shit,” Korpivaara cursed. He tried to see what time it was, but he didn’t have his watch. And of course his phone wasn’t in his pocket. Rubbing his head, he tried to remember what had happened. He felt miserable. He had a headache and his skin was clammy.

  Korpivaara walked to the small window at the end of the bed, but the frosted glass only let him see that it was dark outside. He lay down on the bunk, breathing heavily…in…out…in…out. He folded his arms on his chest like a body awaiting burial. Maybe that’s what he was.