The Lavender Ladies Detective Agency: Death in Sunset Grove

by Minna Lindgren

  ‘But I did go and talk to a boy at the police station,’ Siiri said proudly, and Mika knew that, too, of course. He’d read the report on Siiri’s outpouring, a very long and detailed report, and thought it a very creditable one. But Siiri shouldn’t be surprised that the wild stories of a ninety-four-year-old with fainting spells didn’t lead to charges being brought.

  ‘You didn’t file a criminal report,’ Mika said reproachfully.

  Siiri had thought that all she had to do was tell the police about everything. But it seemed she was supposed to have itemized the horrors of Sunset Grove according to the type of criminal charges that could be brought, such as harassment, abandonment, neglect, endangerment, defamation of character, and who knows what else. The police would only investigate things that were presented in the form of a crime, and even then only lazily, if the victim was a nearly dead old woman lying on the police-station floor.

  ‘Most criminal reports don’t lead anywhere,’ Mika said.

  ‘Then why make them, if they’re not investigated?’

  ‘Well . . . often it’s a gamble,’ Mika said, and fiddled with his plait again. He didn’t rake the air with his hands as much now that he had a beard to hold on to while he searched for words.

  ‘Then there’re the Hiukkanens,’ Siiri began bravely, although she feared Mika would think she was batty. ‘I don’t know what to do about them. Virpi’s trying to use medication to make me senile, and when I was on my way here, Erkki was following me again, actually spying on me. But I gave him the slip! That’s the sort of thing nobody would believe, not even you. Can you tell me what possible reason he could have?’

  ‘Be careful,’ Mika said simply. He seemed to believe Siiri and happened to know that numerous criminal reports had been filed about the Loving Care Foundation. The Ambassador wasn’t the only one. According to Mika, the police had only been investigating them for tax evasion and other financial goings on, maybe a few falsified prescriptions, but after the fire there had been a motion to dismiss even those charges.

  ‘There’s that expression again!’ Siiri said, spooning up the rest of her coffee. It was unpleasantly cold by now and there was no getting around the fact that it was half milk.

  Mika said that Siiri ought to be glad that all she got was a daily equivalence fine of forty days. It could have been worse, if Mika hadn’t fought for her. Originally, they had prosecuted her for sabotage, and she would have had to pay a large amount for the costs of repairs. At worst, she might have been sentenced to several months’ parole.

  ‘Parole? You mean a prison term?’

  Siiri started to feel faint. Wasn’t there an upper age limit for prison sentences, like there was for caregivers? Could they just throw anybody they wanted into prison in Finland?

  ‘No, and no. It was your age that made them decide to fine you instead,’ Mika said, as if Siiri’s undeserved sentence was a sign of great clemency, proof of society’s benevolent attitude towards the generation that fought the war.

  ‘You just have to pay it. Kind of like the war reparations,’ Mika said.

  ‘Darn it! I won’t pay it! Let them come and drag me out of the retirement home, if they dare!’

  Siiri pounded on her handbag in her fervour and laid into Mika about all the awful things that had happened to her and finished up by talking about the unfair treatment of the Lottas, although none of her catalogue of injustices was Mika’s fault.

  ‘I was a Lotta on the Front, and I never got a penny for school or rehabilitation or any other help from society, not even maternity leave, and certainly no sabbatical. They make a fuss over the men as if they were the only ones in the war! The Ambassador has been on resort holidays twenty times at the government’s expense, and now they’re letting him take his girlfriend with him, too, sent them on a free trip to Tallinn to splash around in a whirlpool bath.’

  Mika started smiling, and laughed out loud when Siiri told him who the Ambassador’s girlfriend was, and how Anna-Liisa was walking around with her hat on even indoors. Gradually, Siiri calmed down. She felt tired and wanted to go home to her apartment to lie down. Mika walked with her to the tram stop, escorting her beautifully, patiently walking at a slow pace and asking all about Irma and Anna-Liisa’s Onni, but he didn’t get on the number 8, even though Siiri prodded him to with tales of the new canal and bridge and the entire new neighbourhood being built at Ruoholahti.

  Chapter 55

  On Saturday morning, Siiri’s telephone rang but she didn’t answer it because she was sitting in her armchair watching Une Famille Formidable. It always put her in a good mood, the way the French characters loved each other, ate long meals with gusto, and forgave everything, even when their spouses were unfaithful and their children bizarre. She liked the French language and was watching the show with such concentration that she nearly died with fright when Virpi Hiukkanen was suddenly standing beside her. Siiri hadn’t heard her come in.

  ‘So this is where you’re loitering,’ Virpi said, her eyes darting around as they always did. She had new black-rimmed eyeglasses just like the ones Siiri’s husband had worn in the 1960s.

  ‘Where else would I be? Why are you coming into my home like this?’

  Siiri didn’t bother to get up, she just turned up the volume on the television. Virpi grabbed the remote out of her hand and turned the TV off with an angry punch of a button.

  ‘I came when you didn’t answer your telephone, even though I knew you were home.’

  Then Virpi softened, spoke in a gentle murmur and looked like she might start petting and caressing Siiri at any moment, like Director Sundström. She said she was very worried about Siiri, since she was alone and having these constant problems with her heart and sometimes even seemed to have lost her zest for life.

  ‘You refused a pacemaker. We here at Sunset Grove want to do everything we can to ensure that our residents are safe and feel happy. You might participate in the Sunset Alert mental-health group sometimes, so you wouldn’t be alone with your problems.’

  Siiri looked at Virpi’s thin hair and wondered why she dyed it that mango-melon colour. Having your hair dyed was terribly expensive, and Virpi must go for a touch-up nearly every month. Then it occurred to her that Virpi was afraid of getting old. The idea of grey hair was probably dreadful to her, and she was reminded of it day after day by the retirement-home residents. Siiri got up and walked to the front door.

  ‘Can you please leave? I’m quite all right.’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about your elder-care advocate,’ Virpi said, and aimed the remote at her as if it were a map pointer. ‘You may not know what sort of criminal Mika Korhonen is. If I were you, I would dissolve that advocacy agreement immediately.’

  The falser Virpi’s words were, the tenser and higher-pitched her voice grew. Soon she was marching quickly back and forth across the small room, like she had when Siiri had passed out on the floor of her office. She said that Mika Korhonen was a well-known player in organized crime and was mixed up in all sorts of shady goings-on, which Virpi seemed to know about in remarkable detail for someone whose life’s work was championing the well-being of the elderly. She was spouting the same stuff about falsification of prescriptions and drug dealing that Mika kept talking about.

  ‘You’re being taken advantage of in a perilous way. Of course, there’s no way you could have known about Mika Korhonen’s friend Pasi Peltola, who’s just been given a long prison sentence for the crimes these two gentlemen have committed. It’s just a matter of time until your advocate is brought to justice for what he’s done. I, at least, had the good sense to act quickly when our poor cook, Tero, killed himself while he was under arrest. I insisted that Pasi Peltola be given the sack right then and there, because the Loving Care Foundation cannot condone any kind of illegal activity among the staff.’

  Virpi was trying to turn everything upside down. How could Mika be involved in the business, if he was the one who had turned Pasi in? Siiri had to walk back to her arm
chair and sit down to collect her thoughts. How could she tell who was right, Virpi or Mika? She looked at Virpi, who was standing in the hallway waving her arms around and shouting profanities until she was hoarse. Siiri compared her to the always imperturbable Mika with his angelic blue eyes. She couldn’t help it, but as Virpi Hiukkanen zipped around the room, she reminded Siiri of some sort of swift-moving reptile.

  ‘An iguana,’ she said, when she’d thought of it. Virpi stopped yelling and stood still for a moment.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Could you please give me my remote back and leave my home?’ Siiri answered with a sweet smile. ‘You have no right to interfere with my advocate or listen to my telephone calls. You won’t get anywhere, sending your husband to follow me around and spy on me when I go out. I don’t know how, but my advocate and I are going to find a way get to the bottom of the fire in the Group Home so that the real culprit can be caught, and it isn’t going be me. I just have to hope that I don’t die before we’re done, like Olavi Raudanheimo did. He was treated abysmally in this retirement home and in the end he killed himself. He stopped eating in the hospital.’

  Virpi Hiukkanen looked bewildered and downright afraid and, for a second, it looked like she might dry up completely, like Olavi Raudanheimo’s gravy lying on a hospital plate. She trembled, then jerked, then burst into tears. She sobbed out loud and great big tears fell on her brown shirt, leaving dark spots on the fabric. She threw the remote on the floor, tore at her mango-melon hair, dashed frantically back and forth, and generally behaved like a maniac.

  ‘You are going to drive me crazy! You’re all crazy! I’ll lock the lot of you up in the Group Home! Are you sure you’re taking all of your pills? What do I have to do to you? What is wrong with you?’

  Siiri walked calmly to the door, picked up the telephone receiver, and laid it on the table, although she was sure that Virpi Hiukkanen’s hysterical breakdown could be heard downstairs with or without the phone. And lo and behold, for the first time ever, the Sunset Grove security system worked as it was supposed to and help arrived quickly. Director Sundström was standing in front of Siiri’s door with a strongbox in her hand, her hair askew, staring dumbfounded at the deranged head nurse.

  ‘Virpi . . . good gracious, Virpi, dear . . . What’s happened? What have you done to Virpi now?’

  Sinikka Sundström cast a shocked look at Siiri and took Virpi in her arms like a small child. They stood there for a good while, leaning against each other, and then Sundström led the sniffling head nurse away.

  ‘Not Erkki too. My poor Erkki. What is happening to my Erkki . . .’ Virpi sputtered as they went down the corridor.

  ‘Stop crying now, sweetheart. Everything’s all right,’ Sundström soothed, and gradually their voices disappeared into the lift.

  Siiri closed her door, put the phone receiver back in its cradle, and picked the TV remote up off the floor. Then she got herself a glass of wine and started reading Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Enemies, a Love Story. It was about Jews who survived the holocaust.

  Chapter 56

  In June, Mika and Siiri went together to file a complaint about Siiri’s fine at the Pasila police station. Everyone was very polite, which was no doubt due to the fact that Mika was with her. He had left his ever-present leather jacket at home and looked quite dapper, in spite of his chin plait. The police explained that the prosecutor would have another hearing on the case if there was new information. It was also possible that it could be brought up in district court.

  ‘How exciting. Will I have to come and testify?’

  Luckily, they didn’t need to decide that now. Mika could represent Siiri because she was so terribly old, and he was her advocate. But it would be a long time before the hearing. The official at the police station told them all this as if he was afraid Siiri might drop dead before the case made it to court.

  ‘Is that what you’re afraid of? That I’ll die? But I’m never going to die. They said so in the newspaper.’

  ‘In that case, there’s nothing to worry about,’ said the official. ‘But I thought it would be best if you knew our normal schedule for hearings.’

  Siiri had no interest in discussing the matter further, and the official promised to discuss the case with Mika. Getting Irma home from the hospital was the important thing. Anna-Liisa spent every day with the Ambassador, flitting around who knew where. They didn’t feel like playing cards any more, which was odd, since it had once been the Ambassador’s one and only passion. The last time she’d seen the two lovebirds had been in passing, in the lobby at Sunset Grove, on their way to the antiques fair.

  ‘And in June we’re going to Stockholm to see the Passion exhibit at the national museum. Won’t that be fun?’

  Siiri had asked a bit too sourly whether their trip to Stockholm was also a war veteran’s affair, although she didn’t actually want to cross a sea to look at erotic pictures herself, whether the government paid for it or not. She had read a lot of books, listened to music, and played solitaire, and all of it was pleasant, but sometimes she needed someone to talk to and someone with whom she could do all the fun things that Irma always used to think up. She’d lost weight, too, because she didn’t feel like warming up a liver casserole or blood pancakes just for herself, so she just had a sandwich, or a banana, and not much else.

  She wasn’t interested in getting to know the new residents at Sunset Grove. They mostly kept to themselves, like her new neighbour, Mrs Vuorinen, who must have been in severe pain because she yelled loudly every night, louder even than Margit Partanen on a good night. Eino Partanen was in such bad shape that Margit was exhausted with taking care of him and prayed every night for him to die. She had even calculated what it would cost to move to Switzerland and give him a euthanasia pill, but apparently it was so expensive that they couldn’t afford it.

  This late spring had been the loneliest in Siiri’s life; in fact, the first one in which she’d ever suffered from feeling lonely. To be alone wasn’t a bad thing in itself, but this was something else, a desolate, oppressive feeling, and it made her feel so weak sometimes that she had to force herself to get out of bed in the morning. Sometimes it took her two hours before she was dressed and on her feet, she’d got so stiff and sluggish.

  On the way home from the police station, Siiri thought of a fun game. She suggested that they only get off the tram at stops shared by at least two routes.

  ‘And then we always have to take the first tram that comes along. It will make the trip an adventure!’

  Mika was a little doubtful of the idea. They might end up going around and around without ever getting anywhere. But Siiri informed him very authoritatively that there was no tram that didn’t cross paths with another.

  ‘We can get to Mannerheimintie, you can be sure of that. Let’s get off here!’

  They switched from the number 7 to the number 9 at the Bell Bridge stop, then to the number 6 in Sörnäinen, and the number 1 at Hakaniemi market. Siiri thought her new game was brilliant.

  ‘You may not know it, but every tram route has its own feeling. The seven is unpredictable, the eight is melancholy. The number four is safe, so it’s kind of boring. The number three is my favourite: it’s quick and cheery. But, hmm, this number one is one I’m a bit unfamiliar with. Don’t you think it’s a little antique-looking?’

  ‘You’re brave,’ Mika said abruptly. Siiri didn’t understand. Was he talking about the tram adventure? But then he started talking about the fire and her sentence. He wouldn’t have thought Siiri had it in her to fight for her rights, because her position wasn’t a terribly strong one. And there was always the possibility that her sentence could be changed to an even more severe punishment.

  ‘But I have nothing to lose,’ Siiri said airily. She wanted to know something about Mika, too, for once. ‘You don’t talk much about yourself.’

  Mika sat silent and looked out of the window.

  ‘I really don’t know anything about you.’

&n
bsp; Mika squirmed in his seat and Siiri saw the outpatient laboratory orator get on the tram through the middle door.

  ‘I’ve been thinking that—’ Mika began, but then the lab assistant started her presentation on styrofoam boxes, livers and kidneys, Kai Korte and Paavo Lipponen, and finished up with the itching feet. Mika laughed when she said everything just as Siiri had predicted, but Siiri was tired of this tram artist. They switched from the number 1 to the number 3 at Senate Square.

  ‘Were you going to say something?’ Siiri asked as the tram turned onto Urho Kekkonen. The driver took curves at such high speed that Siiri had to hold on to Mika’s arm.

  ‘This is like the rollercoaster at Linnanmäki!’ she shouted, and Mika smiled. ‘Are you starting to like the tram?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Nothing would make Mika say what he had been about to say. Siiri lightened the mood by telling him about the composer Ilmari Krohn, who went out every day in the winter for a ski on the rocks at Temppeliaukio, where the church was now, and Yrjö Kilpinen, who walked across the school playground at the Girls’ Normal School every day in his dressing gown for a morning swim at Hietaniemi, always when the girls from the school were on their break, of course.

  ‘He swam naked, you see. You probably don’t know who Yrjö Kilpinen is, do you? Or Ilmari Krohn? The Normal School doesn’t exist any more, but the building is still there; it was designed by Onni Tarjanne, the same architect who designed the National Theatre. You must know the National Theatre? If you ask me, it’s an ugly building, but the old girls’ school is beautiful and well-proportioned.’

  Siiri looked at Mika, her big, handsome angel, who didn’t quite fit in a tram seat.

  ‘Hey, at the Tram Museum Cafe you said that I have a big heart and that you’ve been hardened by life. What did you mean by that? You’re still a young man!’