Helsinki Blood iv-4

by James Thompson

“So you’re a charming detective and a historian as well.” Her smile disappears, replaced by the expression of a shrewd and calculating woman analyzing me. “What is it you wish to discuss with me?”

  Pistachio is my favorite flavor of ice cream. It’s starting to melt. I lick a ring around it to keep it from dripping. “Several things. Why did you murder your lover?”

  She screws up her mouth with distaste. Or disgust. “Where to begin? I am chattel. My husband, the ambassador, is a wealthy and powerful man. My father is an even more rich and powerful man. They reached a bargain for me. My husband paid for the privilege of my hand in marriage, primarily with oil and gas stocks. Our marriage was a kind of merger.”

  I joke. “No pigs or sheep involved?”

  It gets a grin out of her.

  “And why the shoplifting?” I ask, more out of curiosity than anything else.

  This gets a belly laugh. “Because it drives my husband crazy! I may be his wife, but I’m still Daddy’s little girl. My husband must take everything I do in stride and fix the problems I create for him. I get bored and create problems.”

  “Does ‘everything in stride’ include your affair with Sasha?”

  “In a sense, but he punished me by telling me the truth about Sasha, that he was deeply involved in human trafficking and forced other women to have sex with him. I was in love with Sasha, my husband ruined it, so he got his revenge.”

  “And you got yours and killed Sasha.”

  “He went from my bed to that apartment, where, by the looks of things when I entered, he intended to defile a filthy little urchin. Every person has limits, and I confess, I do tend to let my temper get away from me.”

  “And you possess a keen gift for understatement.”

  She licks her ice cream. “It’s not so terrible being married to my husband. He insists that we have sex twice a week, which amounts to about half an hour of my time. But still, I hate him for ruining what I had with Sasha. It lent meaning to my otherwise futile existence. You do realize that you’re powerless to do anything about the murder, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that. I’m not interested in the murder. Your lover got what he deserved. Less, in my opinion. By the way, are you aware that your husband’s colleagues came to collect Sasha’s body to cover up the murder, and they kidnapped the so-called urchin? I assume because she was a witness.”

  She smiles her charming smile. “Of course I know. I tried to call him but couldn’t reach him. So I called one of his minions at the embassy, who knew where he was. When he finally returned my call, I told him what I had done and to have the mess cleaned up. He was most displeased.”

  “Do you know where the girl is?”

  She takes a bite of the cone. “How would I know that? And why would I care?”

  “I’m here because Russian diplomats are involved in forced prostitution. I believe that this is orchestrated by a woman named Natasha Polyanova. I want to find her and what appears to be about a hundred and eighty women in the region, many housed in at least seventeen apartments in the Helsinki area. I hoped you might help me find her, and the women, so I can put a stop to this.”

  “This, I can help you with,” she says. “The Russian trade delegation owns close to a dozen apartments. They’ve rented several more. Natasha Polyanova manages the properties for the trade delegation.”

  “Can you get me a list of the properties?”

  She broaches no foolishness. Her tone turns put out. “As you can see, I’m a busy woman with weighty matters to attend to. Surely a detective as astute as yourself can secure the list without my assistance.”

  “I can indeed. However, her phone number is no longer in service. Do you know where I can find her?”

  She’s getting a little pissed off. “If she manages so many properties, don’t you think it likely that she lives in one of them? Do I have to do all your thinking for you?”

  “No, you’ve done quite enough.” I reconsider. “One more question: Why leave fingerprints on the door handle and the butcher knife?”

  Her eyes glitter again. “To make more problems for my husband, of course.”

  I thank her for her time.

  “Actually,” she says, “I’m going to do one more favor for you. I’ve considered it for some months, and now the timing is perfect. It will both ruin my husband and help you accomplish your mission of mercy. Or, at the very least, render him unable to do anything to stop you. He’ll return to Helsinki in a couple hours and get his surprise in the morning.”

  My curiosity is piqued. “Would you care to share your plan with me?”

  Her face returns to its former reflection of innocence and her laugh is delighted and genuine. “Inspector Vaara, hasn’t anyone ever told you that you should be careful what you wish for? Come visit me in my room at Kamp tomorrow morning. All will be clear then.”

  She takes out a wallet from her purse and offers me a key card. “Let yourself in.”

  “I already have a card,” I say. “I took Sasha’s wallet.”

  “Efficiency,” she says, “something I admire.”

  And with that, she gets up and walks away.

  30

  I find the situation at home much as usual. Sweetness and Jenna slurp beer. Milo lying on my couch, his head propped up by pillows, my laptop balanced on his knees. His eyes are blood red. I take it he’s stoned.

  “Where is Kate?” I ask him.

  “In the bedroom with Anu.”

  I feel foolish, but we haven’t established the rules of engagement, and I knock on my own bedroom door.

  “Come,” Kate says, and I feel like I should be in livery, awaiting her instructions.

  She’s lying on top of the covers, wearing sweatpants and shirt, old workout clothes. No books or magazines are in evidence. She’s staring at the wall, a vague expression of terror on her face, and doesn’t look at me when I enter. “Am I in the hospital?” she asks.

  “No, you’re in your home. Do you know who I am?”

  Her eyes don’t waver. “No.”

  I sit on the edge of the bed. “I’m Kari, your husband.”

  “I’m tired,” she says. “Would you leave so I can rest?”

  “OK. Can I take Anu with me, so I can feed and change her?”

  She nods. I pick up Anu and close the door behind me as I leave.

  I sit in my chair, Anu in my lap. Katt hops on top of the chair, now mended by Jenna, and mercifully only wraps his paws around my neck as if trying to strangle me rather than using me for a scratching post.

  “How’s Kate?” Milo asks.

  We keep our voices low. Kate sometimes understands Finnish. It depends mostly on the subject matter. “Bad. How’s your diabolical plan to overthrow the government coming?”

  “Pretty well. Every Saturday, Osmo Ahtiainen and Jyri Ivalo play golf together at the Vuosaari Golf Club. They’re members, tee off at eleven, play the first nine, have lunch in the restaurant, then play the second nine. So I’ve placed them together in an open area. In Phillip Moore’s iPad, it says that Veikko Saukko ‘drives’ every day at noon, including Saturdays. He, incidentally and unfortunately, plays golf on a course every Sunday, and not at the Vuosaari club. I need to know what ‘drive’ refers to. It sounds promising, some kind of activity that takes him out of his house. As far as the two Corsicans go, I only have their work schedules.”

  “Are you still going to murder them all?”

  He looks up at me. “Oh, yes, there’s no doubt about that. Of course, if Moore follows through and murders the Corsicans, it’s one less thing we have to do.”

  “And after all these people are dead, what becomes of us? Do we wait a reasonable length of time, leave the country and live on our accrued ill-gotten wealth? Just cite our injuries and retire from the force? What?”

  He chuckles. “Well, speaking for myself, I’ll just go back to being a cop, solve crimes, that sort of thing. I like my job. Why would I leave it?”

  I mull it over.
“I guess that goes for me, too. Like they say: do what you know. But why kill Osmo and Jyri? They’ve done nothing overt to harm us.”

  “And they haven’t because they’re too smart for that. They put Jan Pitkanen together with Veikko Saukko and knew the consequences would be disastrous for us. And with them gone, I don’t think that leaves anyone alive who knows enough to get us indicted for any crimes. And without Osmo to cover his ass, Pitkanen has to be prepared to do a prison jolt as a cop killer, and it would be a long one. I doubt he’s prepared for that.”

  “And if I forbade it?”

  “I would ignore you. I’m going to leave the Crown Vic here tomorrow and take a bus to my summer cottage to get my sailboat tonight. I’m going to Roope Malinen’s cottage. I’ll take some small belongings to implicate him in the video. His boat is docked there and I want to check it out. I either have to steal his on Go Day, or make mine look like his, swap the GPSs on our crafts, put his serial number on my boat, and make it appear that he used it for transportation while committing his string of barbarous murders. Stealing Malinen’s boat seems the more elegant solution. Then I’m coming to Porvoo. I’m going to dock my boat near your house and start working from there. Soon, I’ll sail down and surveil Saukko’s place from the sea and find out what ‘driving’ refers to.”

  “Yeah, I guess we should move tomorrow,” I say. “How do you sail with one hand?”

  “I don’t. I can’t negotiate the ropes or tie a proper knot, so I put a big engine in the back and keep the sails furled.”

  My phone rings. It’s a doctor from Meilahti Hospital. He’s sorry to inform me that Mirjami is dead.

  “How can that be?” I ask. “I just saw her today. She was talking, her prognosis was good.”

  “Such severe burns cause trauma that sometimes the body can’t cope with and it just shuts down. The burns on the lower portion of her body were very bad indeed. Nothing went wrong, her treatment was excellent. She just died anyway. Again, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “This is now a murder investigation. I want an autopsy performed.” I’m angry with the doctor, want to shoot the messenger, and ring off.

  “Milo, it’s bad news. Mirjami died.”

  Jenna and Sweetness hear me. We all just sit and stare at one another for a while. There are no words. After a while, Sweetness motions to me with a tilt of his head to come to the dining room table. He pours us all Koskenkorva, and we drink to Mirjami. I’m glad that the last time I saw her, I lied about my feelings for her. At least in that small way, she could die believing what she wanted to be the truth.

  None of us speak for the better part of half an hour, then Milo says, “You still think my plan is too harsh?”

  “Do what you want,” I say. “Jan Pitkanen belongs to me.” He and I don’t have a vendetta, we have a reckoning. His blowing up the car, burning Mirjami to a crisp and hurting Jenna in a murder attempt created a situation in which one of us must die. I wonder if he recognizes this as well. I wonder if he created this situation out of jealousy, because he was the golden boy of illegal activity, Osmo Ahtiainen’s chief axman, and then all the dope money and power that goes with it, illegal surveillance, strong-arm work, as well as the nation’s most prestigious crime cases, all fell to me. I would have been happy to hand it all over to him. Spilt milk. Now he has to play for blood.

  Even as I plot revenge, I realize that my thoughts about them are false and I want to push them all out of my mind. I’m sickened by corruption, death and murder. I want to live in harmony with my family. Nothing more.

  Kate comes out of the bedroom in her bathrobe, a smile on her face. She says hello to everyone and disappears into the bathroom. She comes out, goes back to the bedroom and returns in a summer frock and her hair done up in a chignon. The ten years that fell upon her when she came unglued have disappeared. She looks like my Kate again.

  “Anybody have a beer for me?” she asks.

  Torsten didn’t mention anything about her staying away from alcohol altogether, and I don’t want to deny her and ruin this good moment.

  “There’s plenty in the fridge,” I say.

  She cracks one and sits down with us. We’re all a bit mystified by the mood swing, but what the hell, it’s great to see her happy.

  “What’s with all the glum faces?” she asks.

  I answer. “Do you remember Mirjami? You and her and Jenna spent a lot of time together this spring.”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course I remember her.”

  “She died today.”

  Kate’s brows furrow as she ponders this. She doesn’t think to ask how Mirjami died. “Mirjami would want us to celebrate her, even if we’re mourning her at the same time.”

  Words of wisdom. She would indeed.

  “I’ll put on some music,” Kate says. “What should we listen to?”

  Sweetness doesn’t hesitate. “Some tango, please.”

  Kate can’t picture Sweetness being a tango fan. I suppose I’ve never told her about the tango palaces all over Finland. Our tango is usually sad music in minor keys, appropriate for this moment. I choose a CD by Unto Mononen. The song “Satumaa” comes on.

  Sweetness asks Kate if she would like to dance. She giggles. “My feet are bare. Are you going to stomp on me and break them?”

  With pride, Jenna says, “Sweetness is one of the best dancers I’ve ever met.”

  “I’ve won tango contests,” he says. “My mom made me take lessons, and I studied gymnastics, too. I know Kari thinks my dad is a piece of shit, and he’s probably right, but about once a month he made up for making Mom miserable by taking her out to tango. I’ve been doing it since I was a little kid. Watch this,” he says.

  He has another kossu to fortify himself, moves to the middle of the living room floor for space, and does a standing backflip. A six-foot-three-inch, two-hundred-sixty-five-pound man. I never would have believed it possible of him. “Will you dance with me now?” he asks.

  Kate giggles with delight. “I don’t know how to tango.”

  He takes her hand and urges her from her chair. “I’ll teach you.”

  Kate limps from a broken-hip injury, but has learned to move so it’s hard to notice. Sweetness guides her, moves her about, and before long she does a basic tango. She’s in heaven. They dance for near an hour while Jenna and I look on, and then I see Kate start to fade. She takes a break and sits down, breathless. She still smiles, but soon announces she should go to bed.

  I make sure she takes her medicine, tuck her in and tell her I’m going to stay up for a while. In truth, I’m afraid she’ll wake up next to me and panic for one reason or another, perhaps not recognize me. I have one more beer with the others, medicate, and go to sleep in my chair.

  31

  I wake early, about eight a.m. The first thing that comes into my mind is that when I was in the sixth grade, a boy in my class and his mother were abducted and driven into the forest. He was kicked in the head multiple times and left for dead. Her throat was slashed. Was this a dream, or did it happen? It seems real to me, but after brain surgery, I sometimes doubt my own perceptions. I send my brother Jari a text message and ask him if he remembers the Ruoho murder case from when we were kids, and if so, what was the outcome?

  The way I remember it is that Tapani Ruoho came back to school after a couple weeks. He sat in front of me in homeroom. One morning not long after, he asked me to feel his head. I ran my fingers through his hair and felt a big scab from the kicking. He told me he played dead, the man tied his mother to a tree and cut her throat while he watched. He said nothing about rape, just pure murder.

  I remember the newspapers following the murder. The prosecution had a solid case against a man, based on forensic evidence and Tapani’s testimony. But Tapani stuttered. The defense used this to discredit Tapani, portrayed him as a confused mental defective. Not true. He was a bright kid, he just stuttered. His family moved away not long after the trial.

  Jari texts back. Yes, he r
emembers. The defendant was acquitted. I’ve blocked this from my memory for all these years, never once thought of it. Does this mean my brain is returning to working order, or that the emotional events of recent days have triggered something in me? It leaves me in a quandary, disturbs me.

  And then I remember something else. When I was eleven, I wore hand-me-downs and wasn’t well-nourished. At the time, the tax returns of every citizen of working age were published in a book, allowing, through extrapolation, a determination of income. At school, a child from a well-to-do family stood on his desk and read from said book, pointing out certain children, saying, “Your family is poor.” “Your family is poor.” “Your family is poor.” I was among those singled out.

  In the seventies, many people then considered middle class would be considered almost destitute by today’s standards. However, it was the first time that I realized I was entrenched as a second-class citizen. I haven’t thought of that day in thirty years.

  Although the tax book is no longer printed, tax returns remain a matter of public record, and each year, due to my phobia about poverty, I check the record and compare myself to others, to reassure myself that I’m no longer poor. Until this moment, I had no idea why I feel this compulsion. Further, I realize that most likely it was these suddenly recalled memories that led me into police work, as it’s the second-most-respected occupation in Finland, after the medical profession. Why am I remembering these things now?

  I think about Kate. When she ran away, Torsten said he could help her in a short time, if given the opportunity to treat her. I know enough about psychology to comprehend that his statement was simplistic and overly optimistic. I ask myself: What if she never recovers? Will I sleep in this chair and tend to her for the rest of my life? At present, a frequent topic of conversation and much written about in magazines is the importance of personal happiness. The trendy belief is that without personal happiness, we can’t make others happy. A euphemistic way of saying that selfishness is paramount, and a twisted argument that disavowal of responsibility is desirable, not only for oneself but for the good of others.