“Attorney-client privilege. What’s that?”
“As lawyers, we have to keep a lot of things to ourselves,” Lind said. “We can’t tell anyone.”
“Oh, that’s good. I didn’t tell the police this, but you should go talk to the guy upstairs,” the woman said.
“What’s his name?”
“And you’ll keep this…a lawyer secret?”
“Of course,” Lind lied.
“His name is Aarnio. Ask him.”
* * *
The meeting at the police station ended a while ago. Suhonen was drinking coffee at his computer, which was prohibited by police department regulations after too many computers had to be replaced due to spilled drinks. But Suhonen didn’t care.
He had asked Salmela more details about Nortti, but Salmela didn’t know anything else. Suhonen didn’t want to bother the ailing man any further.
The lists of Korhonen’s cell mates and Nortti nicknames didn’t amount to anything. There was no clear breakthrough. Joutsamo would’ve loved to get the Rahkola case to investigate, but eventually Takamäki agreed with the Turku and Vantaa police that the case would go to the National Bureau of Investigation. They’d have more time to try to crack the complicated murder, while the city police departments dealt with daily assaults and rapes, robberies, and manslaughter cases. These used up a lot of manpower, and the NBI didn’t have that problem.
The Rahkola case was no longer their concern. Suhonen had given Nykänen Salmela’s name and asked to be present at Salmela’s video interrogation at the hospital. Nykänen wouldn’t head the case himself; it would be handed to Leppӓlӓ, who was experienced in dealing with complicated murder cases. Suhonen knew the veteran investigator well and was confident it wouldn’t be a problem to arrange Salmela’s questioning.
Suhonen glanced at the clock on the computer. It read 4:20 P.M. He had a couple of hours left of his weekend shift. He might be spared once again from having to go determine an elderly person’s cause of death. But it was no piece of cake to search for a decayed body, either. He remembered vividly how disgusting it had been earlier to stick his finger through the hole in the jeans and touch bone. He’d need a couple of beers tonight.
CHAPTER 27
SUNDAY, 4:50 PM
NӒYTTELIJӒ STREET, HELSINKI
The name on the door read Aarnio, and Lind rang the doorbell lightly.
When she heard a dog barking inside, Lind instinctively took a step back, even though the door was still shut. A stout, fifty-year-old man wearing a plaid shirt opened the door. He had high cheekbones, a receding hairline, and piercing eyes.
“Can I help you?” the man asked, smiling.
Lind told him she was Jorma Korpivaara’s attorney and was asking questions about the homicide last week.
“Interesting,” the man said. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“Nothing?” Lind asked.
“Not really.”
The man cast a sharp glance at Lind.
“You can’t think of anything?” Lind pressed.
“Nothing of value, I don’t think.”
“Anything might be of value,” Lind said with a smile. Maybe the man knew something, and a little flirting might get him to talk.
“Without the whole picture, it’s hard to know what’s valuable,” she said. “You live right here by the murder scene.”
“Yes, yes I do.”
“How well did you know Laura Vatanen?” Lind asked, getting straight to the point.
Maybe the man would talk if the questions were straightforward.
“Well,” the man relented. “C’mon in.”
Lind asked the man’s name and he said it was Mikael Aarnio. He took the dog into the bedroom and shut the door. The apartment was similar to Sini’s in the next building, but this one had only one bedroom. It was to the left of the entrance hall and the living room to the right.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone,” the man said apologetically, quickly picking up a few magazines.
Lind thought the apartment looked nearly impeccable. The furniture was heavy and old and there was a lot of dark wood.
“Coffee?” the man asked.
“You don’t need to make any for me.”
“I have a coffeemaker that makes one cup at a time. It’s no bother.”
“In that case, a cup would be nice.”
The man went into the kitchen and returned quickly. Lind heard the hiss of the coffeemaker.
“It’ll just be a minute. You wanted to ask me about the death of the lady downstairs?”
“Yes,” Lind said.
“The police were here already.”
“As I said, I’m Korpivaara’s attorney, and I’m just doing some additional investigating about the course of events.”
“What do you mean by additional investigating?”
“Well,” Lind said. “I haven’t seen the police reports yet, but I think it’s important to ask about things while they’re still fresh in people’s minds.”
“Are you experienced?”
“Yes, I think I am,” Lind said.
“Are you married?” the man asked, leaning forward in his chair.
“I don’t think that’s relevant.”
“You’re right, it’s not,” the man said with a smile. “What would you like to know?”
Lind thought for a moment. “Do you know Jorma Korpivaara?”
“We’ve said hello and chatted occasionally. It’s important to be on the custodian’s good side, in case you need him someday.”
“What about the neighbor below, Laura Vatanen?”
“Nowadays people don’t know their neighbors, but I knew Laura.”
“Based on my information, they put on some wild parties down there. You must have heard them.”
“I went down there a few times and told them off,” the man said with a smirk.
“Who was there then?”
“Laura and her guy friends, and sometimes the young girl from the next building.”
“Sini?” Lind asked.
The man squinted. “I think that’s her name.”
“What do you think happened last Wednesday?”
“I couldn’t say,” Aarnio said. “I left for work that morning and the police came to ask questions that evening. That’s all I can tell you. Now you tell me what you think happened.”
“It’s hard to say,” Lind said. “But I don’t believe Jorma Korpivaara killed Laura Vatanen.”
“Based on what? The paper said he confessed.”
“I found someone who said Korpivaara spent the entire morning with them,” Lind said, wondering why she would tell a complete stranger about it. Apparently she had a need to talk to someone.
“But the police say the man confessed.”
“The police don’t know everything.”
“They don’t?”
“No.”
The coffeemaker stopped hissing and beeped.
“The coffee is done,” Aarnio said, standing up. Milk?”
“Black’s great,” Lind said.
Aarnio came back with a coffee mug and handed it to Lind. He had started a second cup dripping.
“So who killed Laura Vatanen, then?” he asked.
Lind shrugged and took a sip of the hot coffee. She liked it, and wondered what blend it was.
“I don’t know. Can you give me a hint?” she asked, taking another sip. It was relaxing.
She realized she was famished.
“I don’t think it was Jorma Korpivaara,” the man said, smiling.
“But who then?” Lind asked. She was feeling flushed and uncomfortable now. Suddenly it dawned on her. “What did you put in the coffee?”
The man just smiled. Lind tried to get up, but she had no energy in her legs and she collapsed in the chair.
“Don’t worry, you’ll fall asleep soon. But you should know you were right. Korpivaara didn’t kill Laura Vatanen, I did. Laura wouldn’t drink the coffee, but you did.”
You did…you did…you did… The words rang in her head until she blacked out.
* * *
Suhonen was playing Tetris on the computer when his phone rang. It was an unknown number. He answered and Toukola sounded irritated on the other end.
“Did you guys have any action on Nӓyttelijӓ Street?” the Narcotics officer asked.
“Why do you ask?”
“My guys are staking out in Kannelmӓki for any aftermath from yesterday, and there’s quite a ruckus going on.”
“Hold on and rewind so I can get onboard,” Suhonen said and stopped playing Tetris.
“Goddamn reporters and cameramen are swarming the place and a lawyer is there, too. Pretty hard for us to operate.”
“You lost me.”
Toukola drew a deep breath.
“First of all the junkie stakeout you told us about last night at the Kannelmӓki bar has been a complete waste of time. It didn’t lead to anything, and I’m shutting it down.”
“Yeah,” Suhonen said.
“We followed that third guy you talked about and he went home to his place in Haaga. Anyway, the name on the door was Aarnio.”
“The third guy was Aarnio?”
“Yep, and you didn’t need to be Sherlock to figure that out. Kimmo Aarnio: drug deals, a rape, and other such niceties. He got out of prison last summer.”
“Are you sure it’s Kimmo Aarnio, and not Mikael?”
“Who the hell is Mikael Aarnio? You gone off the deep end?”
Suhonen drew a breath. “How do you know it’s Kimmo? According to our info, it’s Mikael Aarnio who lives there.”
“Suhonen, have you had too much police station coffee?” Toukola said laughing. “Are you nuts? If I say it’s Kimmo Aarnio, it’s him. I have a picture that looks the same as Kimmo. I don’t know of any Mikael.”
Joutsamo heard the upset tone and came in the room.
“Toukola, give me ten seconds.”
Suhonen turned to Joutsamo and said, “It could be that the Aarnio above Vatanen’s apartment is not the guy we thought. Did Aarnio’s fingerprints on Vatanen’s door get run through the system?”
Joutsamo nodded and quickly got the papers.
“What the hell,” Joutsamo spurted after ten seconds. “Aarnio’s prints were not recognizable on the computer and couldn’t be found in the database. Kulta matched them after he collected information from neighbors and compared the fingerprints. Shit, Kulta!” Joutsamo yelled.
Kulta was having coffee in the next room and heard Joutsamo. He could tell from her tone he wouldn’t be finishing his coffee.
“What’s going on?” Kulta asked at the door.
Joutsamo looked mad. “You obtained Mikael Aarnio’s prints from his apartment. How’d you know it was him?”
Kulta was confused.
Suhonen heard Toukola on the phone. “Hello, are you there?’
“Hold on a minute,” Suhonen replied.
“Aarnio told me his name,” Kulta said.
“Did you ask him to show you ID?” Joutsamo asked.
“No, should I have?”
Joutsamo turned to Suhonen and said, “We’re not sure of Aarnio’s identity.”
“Did you hear that?” Suhonen asked into the phone.
“Yep. You guys don’t know whose fingerprints you have, which is a pretty good accomplishment.”
“It happens,” Suhonen said. “But tell me what’s going on over there.”
“I’m at the station, but my guys say the lawyer that Römpötti interviewed on TV the other day has been buzzing around the apartment building for the past few hours, and now Römpötti is there, too, filming. It’s pretty hard for us to conduct a secret police investigation in the middle of all that.”
“That shouldn’t be so hard,” Suhonen said and let out a small laugh. “Nobody’s going to pay any attention to your guys.”
Toukola laughed too, and said, “You may be right. But our targets won’t dare do anything either, so we’re pulling the team.”
“Don’t do that,” Suhonen said and told him quickly about Aarnio’s potential involvement in a woman’s death he’d found out about that afternoon.
“Okay, so homicide will pay for the overtime.”
Suhonen couldn’t care less about who paid for what. “Tell them to observe for now. No rush and no need to react; just watch.”
Joutsamo found Kimmo Aarnio’s information. The rape happened in Pori, out of their jurisdiction, so they hadn’t handled the case.
“That’s him,” Kulta said, looking at the picture of the surly man.
* * *
The attorney’s phone rang, but Kimmo Aarnio didn’t want to answer it. He waited for it to stop and then removed the battery. That’s what he’d done before.
Aarnio glanced outside and saw the cameraman and the reporter in a dark coat. He couldn’t go out yet. He’d have to drive the car around to the front door, wrap the woman in a rug, and put her in the trunk. It wasn’t too smart to do it in front of television cameras. So he had time.
The unconscious woman lay on the couch in her jacket. Aarnio got turned on, thought for a moment, and got busy. He pulled off her pants and underwear. The rape took three minutes. He didn’t want to do it in his apartment, but he just couldn’t help himself.
Aarnio went to the bathroom and returned. The half-naked woman was conked out on the couch. Aarnio made some coffee and drank it. He thought of the young girl from Turku. It had been an easy case, just like this one. He dropped the drug into her glass and dragged her out of the restaurant. His van was parked nearby. He drove farther out and raped the girl repeatedly in the back of the van. The girl had woken up in the middle of the act, so he strangled her. He buried her body behind the Helsinki airport.
He thought he had handled it professionally. It didn’t always work out so well, and for a few of the cases—Aarnio always referred to the rapes as cases—he was sent to prison. While in prison he was given a strange drug that made him lose his memory. Part of his time in the slammer was a blur, until he started flushing the pills down the toilet. His memory was spotty.
Aarnio raped the woman again.
Then he looked out the window and didn’t see the reporter anymore. He still had time. The woman would stay unconscious for a few more hours. He could enjoy each of them. He turned the TV on and watched a reality show about cops. They were stupid.
The case of the attorney was going as planned—unlike the young woman downstairs. He had listened to the noises from downstairs many times and pleasured himself in bed. The one time he rang her doorbell, the girl was in a foul mood. She made coffee, but saw him slip something into the cup and refused to drink it. But Laura didn’t get it. Nobody told him no. Laura had been standing in the living room with her back to the door, when he came in from the kitchen carrying a knife. He had planned on forcing her to have sex with him, but it didn’t work. He realized it when he came into the living room and didn’t feel anything between his legs. It was her fault, he thought, and just slashed her throat from behind.
He had killed a woman before, but this was different. Kimmo Aarnio had panicked, returned quickly to his apartment, and tried to figure out how to get out of it. He thought of the building custodian. The guy ran his own little whorehouse and made his money by selling Aarnio’s drugs to teenagers.
The boozing grandma across the hall had called the cops before Aarnio had a chance to set the apartment up, but somehow the police hadn’t recognized him. The apartment was leased in his second cousin’s name. If you paid your rent on time, the city didn’t care who lived there.
The custodian had unlocked the door for the police and Aarnio had paid a visit to Korpivaara a few hours later. Korpivaara was shocked and pretty wasted. Aarnio demanded he pay his debts and threatened Sini.
Now he laughed. It was all going according to plan. The attorney’s crotch calle
d to him again, and he raped her a third time. He was actually hoping the reporter would come knocking on the door.
The drug’s effect would last at least four more hours. By then it would be dark outside and he could move the woman somewhere. He couldn’t let her live, but couldn’t return to the apartment since the attorney had gone around to several apartments asking questions. Aarnio came to the conclusion he had to move on. He began packing his most important things.
Aarnio looked at the woman. He wondered if he even needed to bother getting rid of the body, if he was going to be linked to her anyway. But he decided he should do it to keep things from being too easy for the cops.
* * *
Römpötti was standing in front of the Haaga strip mall, when her phone rang. It was Takamäki.
“Whereabouts in Haaga are you now?” the detective asked.
“What’s it to the police?”
“Tell me,” the detective said in a tone that left Römpötti no choice.
“I’m taping in front of the Alamo Bar.”
“You’re not by the apartment building anymore?”
Römpötti thought for a moment. “If you know I’m in Haaga, how come you don’t know exactly where?”
“Don’t be a smartass. This is serious. When’s the last time you saw Lind?”
“I saw her by the Nӓyttelijӓ Street apartment building, from afar. I planned to wait outside for her, but thought maybe she’d already left a different way, and we headed over here.”
“Okay. Did you try to call her?”
“Yep, once. After that her phone’s been turned off… Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Takamäki said and thanked her for her cooperation. “This is important—don’t go over there. Please.”
“Serious?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Fine,” Römpötti said. “We won’t go there until we see flashing lights.”
“Okay,” Takamäki said.
Römpötti turned to the cameraman, who had a quizzical look on his face.
“Let’s get some coffee and see what happens here.”
She was glad she had the cameraman with her to capture any action, though she worried about Lind.
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