“Where did you live?”
“Savonlinna.”
Mari was cradling her coffee cup in her hands. “When did this happen?”
“Three months ago.”
“And?”
“Last week a policeman came and said that there is still danger.”
Laura was quietly sipping her sweetened tea, but she threw in a question, “How is Nabila doing?”
Agatha smiled. “I think she’s okay. She must wait there until everything is better. That can take some time.”
Mari looked at Laura, who went on, “Why don’t you go to her?”
“If I go, I lose residence permit. Things will settle down. Finland is better country than Turkey. I think Hamid will be deported and so he cannot travel to EU countries anymore. And Turkey will not become EU country for many years. After that, Nabila and I can be safe together.” Agatha sipped her coffee. “I have time to wait for what is best.”
Mari looked at the spruces out the window. Did she too have time to wait for her life to return to normal?
Agatha’s smile was laden with sorrow. “Of course I miss my daughter, but here, I am like a mother to everyone. It helps me to forget.” She stroked Laura’s hair. “I should tell about the laundry room. There is a list there that tells you…”
Mari had a hard time listening. Agatha seemed like a nice person, and Mari was glad that she was able to talk with somebody. Still, the woman’s situation made her wonder. For how long should she be afraid? Was she afraid for her own life or for Laura’s? What if she sent Laura to be with her godmother in Oulu for a few weeks or months while she stayed in Helsinki? On the other hand, she thought, how could she ever be apart from her daughter in the middle of a crisis?
* * *
Mikko Kulta yawned. It was exactly four o’clock in the afternoon, and it seemed to Takamäki that fatigue was not a good sign, even if it was Friday. They, along with Suhonen, Joutsamo and Kannas, had gathered around the large table in the conference room.
With VCU Chief Karila’s help, Takamäki had managed to pass the surveillance of Siikala’s house in Kaarela on to the Narcotics undercover unit, which didn’t have much going on at the moment. In addition to one in the ditch, two others were posted in the parking lot of a nearby office building. More men would be called in to help if Siikala left the house. The arrangement freed up resources for homicide, but had come only on the condition that Jere Siikala was officially named a suspect in Mari Lehtonen’s harassment. Takamäki had decided that the threshold for reasonable suspicion had been met, and had filed for a telephone warrant.
“Apparently nothing new on Siikala?” said Takamäki.
Suhonen shook his head. “Been there all day, and still there-I just checked.”
“What about Mari and Laura?” said Takamäki, turning to Joutsamo.
“Been there all day, and still there-I just checked,” said Joutsamo. “Mari didn’t feel much like talking. Of course, the most important thing is that they’re safe.”
“Pretty down?”
“Sure seemed that way.”
“Is there anything new?” said Takamäki, scanning the faces.
“I probed a bit more into Korpi’s organization and got some leads from Nykänen,” said Joutsamo, handing out a stack of copies. “Here are some names of known contacts with phone numbers and addresses. No guarantees on whether it’s up-to-date, though.”
Suhonen looked over the list. Lots of familiar names.
“Are we expanding surveillance to include these guys?”
“No,” said Takamäki. “Not enough manpower. If you start running into them, we can reconsider. But let Anna know if you find more names.”
Suhonen nodded.
“Good. Did you find anything in the footage from Brahe Street?”
“Nothing of any use,” said Kulta. “I saw the girl a few times, but no car that fit the description.”
“Did you get all the tapes?”
“Yep. I went through all the cameras that were in the database and drove the route to check for any new ones. Found a few additional cameras, but nothing on
their tapes. The picture quality at nighttime is terrible.”
“Okay, at least it was good to try,” said Takamäki, continuing around. “What about the DNA on the envelope. Have we gotten it back?”
“Nope,” said Kannas.
“And you put a rush on it?”
“They promised it this afternoon, but I haven’t heard anything.”
Takamäki paused. “Lots of work, little result.”
“Should we take a more proactive approach?” asked Suhonen.
“Meaning?” said Takamäki.
“Well, we could spread a rumor that all of Korpi’s money has been confiscated and there’s a mole in his organization. In other words, send a message to stay away from him and his outfit.”
Takamäki thought about it. There were pros and cons to the idea. “Okay, you can do the bit about the money, but the mole part could be dangerous. Someone might actually lose their life.”
“Sure,” said Suhonen. “It’d be more effective with the mole part, but I can leave it out.”
“Good. Seems like we have the situation under control. No new threats. The Lehtonens are safe. Just got word from prison that Korpi is in solitary, so he’s cut off from the outside. So for now we just wait for the DNA and the phone data and keep an eye on Siikala. And spread a few rumors, too. Time is on our side.”
CHAPTER 22
FRIDAY, 10:20 P.M.
TAKAMÄKI’S HOME, ESPOO
Takamäki was at home sitting at the kitchen table, a towel around his waist, and his hair still damp from the sauna. A half-empty beer stood on the vinyl tablecloth.
He sifted through a pile of mail from the past week that had never been read: ads from car dealerships and bills, but nothing of any interest. He sipped his beer.
Takamäki’s wife came down the stairs in a T-shirt and yoga pants. “The boys are asleep.”
“Good. Kinda early isn’t it?”
“I guess they had tough practices today. Games tomorrow, too,” said Kaarina. Joonas was fifteen and Kalle was thirteen. The Takamäkis had been married for almost twenty years, after having met at a joint party of police officers and nurses. The parties, popular in the eighties, had paved the way for dozens of cop-nurse couples, some of them still together. In the beginning, the Takamäkis’ rigorous work schedules had created problems, but Kari’s promotion to lieutenant and his wife’s advancement to management had helped to smooth out the wrinkles.
“How was your week?” asked Kaarina.
Takamäki shrugged. “Two life sentences, so I’d say pretty good, but…”
“But what?”
“But…well…there’s been a threat related to the case.”
She bristled. “Against you?”
“No,” he said quickly.
Several years back, Takamäki himself had been threatened, but he had kept it from his wife to save her the worry. This had created a crisis in their marriage, which they had resolved only after months of tense discussion.
“Against someone on your team?”
“Why are you so interested?” said Takamäki, turning the questioning around. Usually she wasn’t terribly interested in his work.
“I want to know. Tell me.”
He sensed that she felt like chatting, so he told her the story about Mari Lehtonen’s role as star witness, and how she had ended up at the safe house. He also mentioned the threat against Lehtonen’s daughter, which darkened his wife’s mood substantially. Takamäki finished off his beer and took another bottle from the fridge. Three remained in the six-pack.
“So what happens next,” she asked. “And I’ll have a beer, too.”
He grabbed a second beer and handed it to his wife along with a glass. He preferred it straight from the bottle. “Well, the situation is under control for now, so we’ll just wait and see if the bad guys come out of the woodwork.”
> Kaarina was quiet for a while. “Sad story.”
“Uh-huh,” Takamäki nodded.
“I mean for the lady.”
“Right.”
“In a way, you’ve ruined her chance at a normal life.”
“What do you mean ruined? We didn’t do anything.”
“You made her testify.”
“That’s the law. Witnesses have to testify. Besides, she’s the one who called us.”
“Well, the law ought to be changed if this is what happens. Society can’t expect people to sacrifice their everyday lives for the sake of some criminal case.”
Takamäki sipped his beer. “Well, there’s no telling what’ll happen, if anything. It might already be over.”
“For you, maybe. But this poor woman will be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life.”
“Hey, we’ll protect her.”
“How? By locking her up like the murderer?”
Takamäki studied his wife. “So it would be better if this Korpi were on the streets dealing drugs and having people killed?”
“Of course not. But why should this woman serve the same sentence?”
“Uh-uh. It’s not the same thing. Right now, this safe house is the most sensible and secure solution. Maybe it’ll be weeks, but certainly not months.”
Kaarina looked him in the eyes. “That kind of an experience can really scar a person. Especially the little girl.”
“So we should just forget about witnesses, right?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Impossibility is more like it. It’s out of the question! Witnesses are far too important. The police need the support of the community that we protect.”
“But you have to consider the witness and their family before you make them testify,” she went on. “You’ve got phone taps, surveillance, hidden cameras, undercover agents, GPS tracking and who knows what else. Certainly with all that you should be able to build a case well enough to leave innocent citizens alone.”
“Better yet if the criminals would leave us all alone,” said Takamäki, his annoyance beginning to show.
“That’s not much of an argument.”
“What I’m saying is that testifying is a civic duty. The police can’t go it alone-we aren’t some kind of island apart from the rest of society.”
Kaarina was about to say something when Takamäki’s phone rang. He dug it out of his jacket pocket in the entryway and looked at the screen: Joutsamo.
“Yeah,” he said, lingering in the entryway.
“Hi. Sorry to bother you,” said Joutsamo. “The night shift guys called to say that Siikala’s phone records are in. We can get the real-time data on the computer. You want me to go in and check it out?”
“You at home?”
“Yeah.”
Takamäki considered it briefly. “Uhh…probably alright if we wait till morning. But check with Narcotics to make sure the guy is still at the house.”
“Well, they promised to let me know if he goes anywhere. I haven’t heard anything.”
“Alright. Let’s talk tomorrow.”
“Bye,” said Joutsamo, and she hung up the phone.
Takamäki came back to the table. His wife looked at him inquiringly.
“We’ve got the suspect under surveillance and now we have the call data. We’ll look at it tomorrow.”
“So you’re going to work tomorrow?”
“Looks that way. Someone’s gotta look after these witnesses.”
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16
CHAPTER 23
SATURDAY, 1:40 P.M.
PASILA POLICE HEADQUARTERS
Joutsamo set the handset back on the base. No answer. Nothing. The call had gone directly to voicemail. She was sitting at her desk when Takamäki came in.
“Anything?” he asked.
Hope rarely had a place in the VCU’s line of work, but Takamäki was hoping for a yes. Joutsamo shook her head gravely.
“Damnit.”
Mari and Laura Lehtonen had disappeared. Joutsamo had found out about an hour earlier after she tried to call Mari’s cell phone and it went straight to voicemail. Apparently, the phone was off. Joutsamo had Laura’s number too, but the result was the same.
Joutsamo had then tried the front desk at the Kirkkonummi safe house, and what she heard from the guard nearly made her drop the phone. According to the log, Mari and Laura had left the safe house at 10:45 A.M. No reason was indicated. The guards had changed at noon, so the current one couldn’t tell her anything about what had happened.
Joutsamo had wondered why the police hadn’t been notified. According to the guard, they had no such protocol. The safe house was not a prison, so the guards couldn’t stop them from leaving. Joutsamo had acquired the morning watchman’s cellphone number, and after calling him, she had learned that Laura and Mari had simply walked out. Just the two of them. The guard hadn’t seen a car, taxi or any other vehicle on the cameras. Mari had been carrying a bag.
The watchman had noted that they appeared to be heading for downtown Kirkkonummi, just over two miles away. And the weather was good for a walk: sunny and just a few degrees below freezing. That’s where the trail ended, at least for now. If yesterday the case had seemed to have cooled down, now it was blazing hot again.
Tracking down Mari and Laura was now their first priority, but as such, the situation could certainly be worse. By all appearances, their departure had been voluntary, so they hadn’t been abducted. Takamäki and Joutsamo were most worried about the fact that neither of the Lehtonens had their cell phone on. Of course, it was possible that both batteries were dead, but that was unlikely.
Kulta had been sent to Kirkkonummi to try to determine their route and track down any leads. Where were they headed? To the store? The train station or further? Back to Helsinki?
Takamäki had analyzed the situation, and issuing a nationwide APB didn’t seem prudent. Instead, he had notified the Espoo PD, since Kirkkonummi was their jurisdiction. If the pair was spotted, the Helsinki VCU was to be notified.
Mari and Laura’s disappearance was not the only active front in the case. Joutsamo had already called Takamäki at around ten to fill him in on Jere Siikala’s call data. Two days prior, the phone number that the police had on file for him had been in contact with an unidentified prepaid phone. Takamäki had already obtained a warrant from the district court for the new number.
He had also obtained warrants for the cell towers in the vicinity of the Kaarela house, which had turned up three other prepaid SIM cards. There were also other active cell phones in the area that might belong to Guerrilla. Joutsamo had already looked into these other phone owners’ backgrounds, suspecting that Guerrilla, aware of police interest in prepaid numbers, might have registered a phone with a false name. According to Suhonen, mobiles registered to phony names were a hot commodity in many bars. The phone companies had promised fresh data by late afternoon.
“Anything new on Guerrilla?” asked Takamäki.
“Apparently still in the house. He was observed in the kitchen. Making toast,” said Joutsamo.
Takamäki laughed. “Suhonen must’ve found a pretty good spot if they can see into the kitchen. At least we’re getting regular updates.”
“Narcotics was asking how long they should keep it up if the guy’s not doing anything.”
“Hell. I’d say indefinitely…at least with the current situation.”
* * *
Mikko Kulta was driving along a dirt road leading away from the safe house. The road was familiar to him because he had just driven it in the other direction five minutes earlier. At the building, he had checked Mari and Laura’s room. Empty: the deserters had taken all of their belongings. He had also interviewed a Kurdish woman, who hadn’t known anything about the pair’s whereabouts.
Kulta had updated Joutsamo on his findings. The empty room changed his search tactics: no need to check ice cream parlors or coffee shops. The pair had jumped ship entirely, optin
g to tread water on their own. Joutsamo had sent a patrol to their home address and started hunting for close relatives. As the police didn’t know much about Lehtonens’ friends, they began searching for them, starting with Mari’s co-workers.
Kulta came upon a couple of houses on the side of the road, but decided to skip them. It was possible that neighbors had seen a woman and a girl, but more than likely the pair had continued on. Maybe somebody had given them a ride to Kirkkonummi. His first stops would be the Kirkkonummi train station and bus depot, and if the pair wasn’t there, then he’d search the cab stands. Of course, it was also possible that someone had been waiting to pick them up somewhere in town, but if that were the case, how in the hell would he ever know.
The drive to the train station took about five minutes. Kulta was playing a CD he been burned with some favorite hits. Blue Oyster Cult was playing now: “…don’t fear the reaper.” Advice Kulta wasn’t inclined to take. The case had already had its share of ominous overtones, and this latest stunt was not a positive development.
Kulta pulled his little Nissan into an angled spot at the Kirkkonummi train station.
He stepped out of the car, lit a cigarette and headed straight for the train schedule next to the main wooden building. Someone had spit on the glass in front of the departures display, but Kulta could still make out the text. He knew from his car’s odometer that the trip from the safe house to the station had been 2.1 miles. The Lehtonens had left the safe house at 10:45, and it would have taken them at least half an hour to walk there, more likely forty-five minutes. Thirty minutes seemed like a good number to Kulta.
All trains to Helsinki left on the hour and half hour, so the first possible train had left at 11:30 and the next at noon. Another train had left at 11:00, but the pair would have never made that without a ride. Even Kulta had spent almost ten minutes getting from the safe house to the platform.
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