At the next table over, Suhonen heard a heavy-set guy recounting his weekend escapades to a couple of buddies. “Check it out, we were there at the strip bar and this chick came over to give me a lap dance and just kept going, ‘Tip me, tip me.’ So I dug a fistful of change out of my pocket and dropped it into her panties.”
“Dude, hell no,” laughed one of the other guys.
“And that’s not even the best part,” Fatso continued. “I figured she’d go right over to get the bouncer so I took out one more two-euro coin. I heated it with my lighter and when the goon showed up, I said, ‘My bad,’ and put the red-hot coin in his hand. Fuck, that dude screamed loud! I hauled ass out of there as fast as I could.”
As the group burst out laughing, Salmela entered and walked straight to the bar. The forty-year-old regular had short hair and a brown bomber jacket; its faded lambskin collar was wet. He got his pint in no time and came over to sit next to Suhonen.
“What’s up? Any good gigs lately?” Salmela asked.
Suhonen glanced over at the guys sitting at the next table. “Nothing worth talking about here.”
Salmela tapped the heavy-set guy on the shoulder.
“Hey, why don’t you guys move over to that corner table. Watch some TV for a sec.”
Fatso was about to say something, but his buddy stepped in. “Sure, okay. No problem,” he said, picking up his beer. The others followed in silence.
“Your reputation’s growing,” Suhonen joked.
“Sometimes it even comes in handy,” Salmela answered. Suhonen looked him in the eyes. Suhonen thought they looked even harder than before. Suhonen and Salmela had been friends since childhood. They had both grown up in Lahti, a town of about 100,000 an hour’s drive north of Helsinki. When they were teenagers, they had belonged to a small gang that burglarized attics. When the gang was finally busted, Salmela got caught, but Suhonen was at home with a raging fever. The best friends had ended up on opposite sides of the law, but their friendship hadn’t ended. It had actually blossomed—Suhonen picked up street intel from Salmela and, in return, had helped his friend out of a few legal jams. Salmela had continued to earn his living fronting stolen goods, but now there were rumors that he had ratcheted up into more serious crimes.
“What about your gigs?
“Bah,” Salmela said. “It’s been quiet. Quiet.”
Suhonen wasn’t completely sure he believed him.
“You had something you wanted to talk about?”
“The name Timo Repo say anything to you?”
“Repo?” Salmela thought. “Unusual name. Nah, the only Repo I know is the guy who’s doing life for icing his wife.”
“That’s the one,” Suhonen said. He took a sip of his pint and waited for Salmela’s reaction.
“A softy. I didn’t know him personally. He pretty much kept to himself, like most wife-killers. They’re not tough guys, usually they just snap. Sometimes for a reason, sometimes not. What’d he do?” Salmela asked, sipping his beer.
“Skipped out.”
“From Helsinki Prison?” Salmela was intrigued. “That’s interesting. How?”
Suhonen shook his head. “From his old man’s funeral. Ditched the guard.”
“Hmmm. Okay, not so interesting anymore. What’s he to you guys?”
“C’mon, a lifer escaped. We need to get him back behind bars before the media gets its panties in a twist.”
“But the guy’s a total nobody,” Salmela wondered.
“Still a murderer. Lieutenant figured we need to find him fast.”
“Well, I can ask around, but I gotta say I’m a little confused by your, or I guess Takamäki’s, enthusiasm. Old man’s death can be a tough spot for a soft con like that. My money’s on him downing a bottle of vodka and walking up to the prison gates to turn himself in once the hangover clears.”
Suhonen shrugged.
* * *
In the Homicide break room, Joutsamo poured hot water into her mug and dipped in a bag of tea. It was some green variety she didn’t particularly care for, but it was all that was left. She’d have to remember to pick up some more Tiger’s Daydream.
She walked back down the harshly lit corridor to her room, set her mug down on the sole corner of her desk not covered by stacks of paper, and sat down.
A few postcards were pinned to her cubicle divider, the most recent one from Panama. It had been sent by Joutsamo’s good friend, TV reporter Sanna Römpötti. Joutsamo wondered where Römpötti got the money for her overseas trips, since Joutsamo could barely make the rent on her one-bedroom in Töölö. Maybe reporters made that much more than cops.
Takamäki had given her the background info on Repo, and Joutsamo had now fleshed it out. The Social Security database revealed that Repo was born on June 16, 1955 in Hämeenlinna, so he would be fifty-two now. His current address wasn’t much use: Helsinki Prison.
Repo’s mother had died in the ’90s, and his father was deceased now as well, although that information hadn’t been updated yet. Joutsamo had jotted down the father’s address, which was somewhere in northern Helsinki, probably Malmi. Repo had a son born in 1995, Joel. The records indicated Child Protective Services had taken Joel into custody immediately following the crime. Timo Repo’s mother tongue was Finnish, and he was a member of the Lutheran Church. He also had a brother, Martti, who was a couple of years older. Joutsamo tapped the brother’s address into her computer, too.
The police database provided basic facts on the crime Repo had committed on November 3, 1999 in the city of Riihimäki. He had been charged with murder right from the start, rather than a lesser homicide charge. It also revealed that Repo had been sentenced to life in prison in 2000. Joutsamo had written down the number of the police report. It would lead her to the investigation documents, which might prove useful in tracking down Repo’s acquaintances.
Repo didn’t own a car. There was no mention of him in the “usual suspects” database, aka the register of repeat offenders.
She also had access to the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper’s premium archives. There, Joutsamo had discovered a blurb titled “Riihimäki Wife-Killer Gets Life.” The text itself was short and to the point, “The Riihimäki District Court sentenced Timo Repo, convicted of killing his wife in November, to life in prison. The court found the act unusually cruel and brutal: forty-four-year-old Repo slit his wife’s throat with a knife. Alcohol was involved. Repo admitted to the crime in court.”
Takamäki entered the room, carrying a cup of coffee.
“Do we have anything?”
“Not much more than a couple of addresses: father’s and brother’s homes,” Joutsamo replied. “I thought I’d go by and check them out once Suhonen gets back from his field trip. Tomorrow I’m going to head up to Riihimäki to take a look at his preliminary investigation papers and see if I can find any mention of Repo’s acquaintances in them. After that, make the rounds and ask anyone if they’ve seen him.”
“Okay.”
“You see this? The old Helsingin Sanomat piece about Repo’s crime?” Joutsamo said, holding up a print of the article.
Takamäki read it. “Cold-blooded way to kill. We’d better round him up before he decides to cork another bottle. Of course, it may already be too late.”
His cell phone prevented the lieutenant from further reflection. Caller ID said it was Kaarina, his wife.
“Hey hon,” Takamäki said.
“Jonas got hit by a car. The Espoo Police called,” Kaarina said urgently.
“How bad?” Takamäki asked. Sixteen-year-old Jonas was the older of Takamäki’s boys. Kalle was fourteen.
“They don’t know yet. The ambulance took him to Jorvi Hospital.”
Joutsamo could tell something had happened and perked up her ears.
“When did it happen...and where?”
“I don’t know exactly. Apparently not long ago, according to the policeman. Jonas had been riding his bike near the Sello shopping mall.”
Takamäki thought for a second. “I’m heading straight to the hospital. How’s Kalle?”
“He’s at home. I’ll come, too.”
“Good,” Takamäki said, ending the call.
Joutsamo gave her superior an inquisitive look.
“Jonas got hit by a car and was taken to Jorvi. I have to go out there.”
“How bad?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Anything I can do?”
Takamäki shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
“You want me to call a cruiser to take you?”
“No need. I’ll drive myself.”
Joutsamo stood up and gave Takamäki a quick hug.
CHAPTER 4
MONDAY, 7:20 P.M.
MALMI, NORTHERN HELSINKI
Timo Repo sniffed the stale air and opened the window. He drew back the curtains giving onto the street. Not all the way, but far enough for the cold blue light of the streetlamps of Vallesman Road to filter into the living room. He was still wearing the black suit. The stolen gray trench was flung across the arm of the couch.
His dad had lived for years in an old wooden house in the north Helsinki district of Malmi. The elder Repo hadn’t diverged from ingrained habit: the key had been under the mat, just like decades before.
Timo recognized some of the belongings. He had bought the Aalto vase as a gift for his mother in the 1980s. The china was the same old set.
The living room contained a threadbare sofa, an armchair, and an old TV. The room opened onto the kitchen at the far end. Near the dining table, a door led to the bedroom.
Repo’s gaze fell on an old photograph on top of the TV. It had been taken some time in the late ’60s, when the family had taken a weekend cruise to Stockholm. Mom and Dad smiled in the middle, with the boys on either side. His buzz-cut brother, Martti, grinned broadly in the photo. Timo remembered that he had had the same kind of haircut. You couldn’t see it, though, because his face had been scrawled out with black marker.
Repo was exhausted. He didn’t have time to sleep, but he could rest for a while on the couch. First, though, he went into the closet in his father’s bedroom. He found a 9mm Luger in a brown leather holster in the hatbox on the upper shelf. It also held three small cardboard boxes, each containing twenty-five bullets.
He knew the gun. Dad had taught him to shoot it back in the day. The gun was still in good shape; it had been oiled well enough. He pulled back the pistol’s slide, checked that the chamber was empty, and pulled the trigger. The gun clicked. He ripped open one of the boxes, loaded six bullets into the magazine, and pushed it back into the old gun. Repo drew the slide again. The bullet slid in impeccably. Good, no chambering problems. Repo clicked on the safety and shoved the gun back into its holster.
He stretched out on the couch and decided to close his eyes for a minute.
* * *
Suhonen was driving a green Peugeot 206 he had signed out of the police HQ garage. Joutsamo was sitting in the passenger seat. An old song by Metallica was playing on the radio. Joutsamo, a fan of heavy music, thought it was bubblegum rock. Suhonen disagreed heartily.
The car turned onto Vallesman Road. The houses were old and relatively small, and both sides of the street were lined with parked cars.
“I know this area. Picked up a member of the Skulls three, four blocks from here a few years back,” Suhonen said. The Skulls—or, as it read on the gang members’ leather vests, MC Skulls—wasn’t a genuine motorcycle club; it was a criminal organization. “Found two Swedish submachine guns.”
“Let’s drive past it first and see if there are any lights on,” Joutsamo suggested. “If there are, then we can stake the place out or call in the SWAT team.”
“You got it,” Suhonen said.
Joutsamo checked the numbers on the houses. “Two more, then it’s the next one. At that streetlamp.”
Suhonen slowed down and the car slid past the house, going under 20 mph. The place was dark.
“I didn’t see any movement,” Joutsamo said.
“And you’re saying you would have been able to tell if there had been?”
“Of course. Should we wait or go in to have a look?”
Suhonen turned right at the next corner and started circling around the block. It would attract less attention than flipping a U-turn on a residential street. Joutsamo didn’t get a response, because Suhonen’s phone rang. It was his fiancée, calling to ask if and when he might be coming home. Suhonen said he didn’t know. The call was a brief one, and Joutsamo chose not to comment on it.
Suhonen returned to the situation at hand: “We can’t hang out in the car on a residential street like this. We’d need to get a van or do it from one of the neighboring houses. Maybe we should just go have a look and see what there is to see, if anything.”
“Yeah, but if we’re going by the book, I suppose we ought to have some reason to believe that the suspect’s in there,” Joutsamo said. Once the prison had asked for the help of the authorities in hunting down Repo, the search had turned into a police investigation. “And we don’t have a warrant to conduct a search of that house. Our job is to find the convict.”
Suhonen grunted. “If you say so. You’re the one who’s always talking about studying to become a lieutenant, but we wouldn’t be here in the first place if we didn’t believe Repo could be in that house, now would we?”
He parked a few houses down from the target. “You know, I’m a ‘probable cause’ kind of guy,” he continued, as they stepped out of the car.
“In what sense?” Joutsamo asked.
“Police ops, of course. ‘Probable cause’ is a pretty good foundation for any operation. If I have probable cause to suspect something, I can do whatever I want. All I need is to meet the criteria for ‘probable cause.’”
Joutsamo laughed, but she also checked to make sure the bulletproof vest she was wearing under her sweater was on straight. Her leather jacket was open, and her gun was holstered under her arm.
“Go around the back?” she suggested.
“I don’t think there is a back door. At least there wasn’t one at that gang member’s house, and this one looks the same.”
“Are we going to ring the doorbell?”
“No,” Suhonen said, revealing a small, screwdriver-like device he had in his hand.
“You have a jigger?” Joutsamo wondered. You could open a standard lock in a split second with a jigger, if you know how.
“Yup,” Suhonen said. “Search warrant regulations state you can only force entry when circumstances demand. This way we won’t be forcing our way, plus we won’t need a repairman to fix the door.”
Joutsamo would have been interested in finding out where Suhonen had gotten the burglary tool in the first place, not to mention where he had learned to use it, but Suhonen wouldn’t have told her. Besides, there was no point entering the premises making noise, so she kept her mouth shut.
* * *
Timo Repo was dreaming about the ferry cruise to Sweden. His dad was carrying two bottles of Coca-Cola to the table for the boys and Carlsberg elephant beers for the grown-ups. Everyone was smiling, but no one was saying anything. The young woman at the next table looked Timo in the eye. Repo recognized her as his wife, and she was smiling, too.
A shadow fell between them and quickly disappeared. It wasn’t part of the dream, and Repo’s eyes popped open. He couldn’t see anything out the window, but he was certain that someone had moved under the streetlamp.
He cautiously got up. Was that rustling coming from outside? Repo snatched his gun and his coat from the coat rack. He wiped the floor with the sleeve of his black suit just in case any water drops had fallen from the coat, and then he slunk into the bedroom. There was a bullet in the barrel of his gun, but he decided to hide in the closet. This wasn’t the time for a confrontation yet.
* * *
Suhonen carefully twisted the jigger, now in the lock, from a small crank at its tail end. The device was designed to
move the detainer disks into the same position as a key would.
It took Suhonen less than twenty seconds to open the lock. The door creaked slightly as Suhonen pulled it by the handle. Joutsamo winced. The noise was definitely loud enough for someone who was awake inside to have heard it, but had it been loud enough to wake someone up? Not necessarily.
Suhonen pulled out his Glock 22, crouched down, and entered first. He didn’t linger in the doorway—the street light behind him effectively turned him into a silhouette target. He edged right and waited there against the wall for a moment. It was darker inside than it was outside, and his eyes needed a moment to get used to the dimness.
The house smelled like it had been uninhabited for a while.
The living room appeared empty. Suhonen carefully rose and advanced, hugging the wall. Joutsamo followed, silently closing the outside door.
Suhonen waited at the corner of the dining room while Joutsamo slowly crept ahead, circling around behind the sofa. It didn’t take long before she had a view of both the dining room and the kitchen in their entirety. They were empty, too. Joutsamo gestured Suhonen onwards. The bathroom came first, and Suhonen quickly checked it.
There was only one room left. Suhonen pulled open the bedroom door. The detectives crouched down on either side of the doorway. The interior walls of the old house wouldn’t offer much protection from bullets. Suhonen glimpsed in quickly. There were curtains in front of the windows, but they let in enough light for him to note the twin bed in the middle of the room. On the left wall there was a desk and on the right, a closet.
Helsinki homicide: Cold Trail Page 4