Kulta corrected him, “Those of the deceased, you mean.”
The corners of Karppi’s mouth turned up in a slight smile. Joutsamo immediately saw how Karppi had lured Kulta into a trap. Now the old man knew that the police knew that Repo was dead, and of course it was easy to draw conclusions from that. His body might be old, but there was still plenty of spark running through that brain of his.
“Okay, let’s drop the games. You know why we’re here,” Joutsamo said. “Of course we’re looking for Erik’s son Timo, who ditched his escort at the restaurant.”
“That’s obvious,” Karppi said, smiling a little more broadly now. His teeth were badly yellowed. “Haven’t caught him yet?”
“No,” Joutsamo answered.
“Well, I haven’t seen him here, and no one has been to Erik’s house since the day before yesterday, which is when I think you visited there last,” he said, smoothing and tidying his sparse hair.
“Do you have any information on where we might find Timo Repo?” Joutsamo asked.
“I don’t know him at all. We met at the funeral, but that’s the extent of it.”
“You were there?”
Karppi looked irritated. “I just said I managed my old friend’s affairs.”
“I have one more question, just to verify,” Joutsamo said. “You’ve been emptying Erik Repo’s mailbox. Have you found anything inside that would help us in locating the escaped convict?”
“Not really. It’s mostly just ads these days.”
“All right,” Joutsamo said, digging a card out of her pocket. “If you spot any movement at the neighbors’ or if Timo Repo contacts you, please call the number on this card.”
Karppi took the card. “Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” the officers replied, turning back toward their vehicle. Karppi closed the door, and Joutsamo could hear the rustling of the chain from a few yards away.
The detectives returned to the car, and Kulta climbed in the driver’s seat. Joutsamo gazed at the quiet street and asked Kulta, “If he saw Suhonen and me the first time, why was he afraid of us this time?”
“You guys didn’t talk to him. He didn’t know you were cops.”
“He didn’t know, but Karppi isn’t dumb. He was there when the escape took place at the restaurant, and I’m sure he understood that the police would be looking for the escapee at his father’s home.”
Kulta started up the Golf. “Where to?”
Joutsamo continued her train of thought. “There was something fishy about that. Why would he be afraid of us or hide from us?”
“Everyone’s afraid of the police,” Kulta laughed. “But maybe he knows more than he let on. And he didn’t even offer us an espresso.” Kulta steered the car onto the street. “Would he hide Repo in his house?”
“It’s possible, of course.”
“Should we start staking out Karppi’s place?”
“No!”
“Why not?” Kulta asked.
“You could come and sit here in the car, but think about it. Karppi was old man Repo’s friend, and the father and son didn’t have a close relationship. I don’t think he was close to Timo Repo at all. But he was hiding something from us. If we can’t find Repo by tomorrow, then we’ll come by and talk to him again.”
* * *
A little after 9 p.m. Suhonen was driving northwards on Sörnäinen Shore Drive in his grimy old Nissan. He had chosen to take his own car rather than the usual department Peugeot. Traffic was almost nonexistent. He left the concrete colossi of the Hakaniemi housing complex behind on the right and the tall apartment buildings of Kallio on the left. He passed the gas station and continued toward the Eastern Expressway. He was driving 55 mph, even though the speed limit was 45.
As Suhonen passed a taxi he glanced at his phone, lying on the passenger seat. The thing pissed him off. Suhonen remembered the early ’90s, the good old days when mobile phones didn’t exist. What bliss! You could work at your own pace, all you had to do was produce results. And on top of it all, it had been a Finnish company that had introduced the mobile phone to the world. Now proletariats around the world had cause to despise his little homeland for helping to create the 24/7 work culture.
But work wasn’t what was eating at Suhonen at the moment. His fiancée, or more like his soon-to-be-ex-fiancée, had called and wondered what was keeping him. In Raija’s opinion, he should be on his way home.
Suhonen and Raija, who worked at an insurance company, had moved in together under the condition that work might keep Suhonen in the field after hours from time to time. Which would, of course, be balanced by extra time off now and again.
Lately Suhonen had been getting the feeling that the arrangement was no longer satisfactory to Raija. She thought Suhonen should apply for a supervisory position; he’d make more money, his work load would be easier, and he wouldn’t end up in risky situations anymore.
This is what Raija had been nagging him about over the phone earlier. In return, Suhonen had suggested that she could get a late-night shift at McDonald’s, and then they’d work the same hours. Raija had hung up on him.
Suhonen grabbed the phone from the seat and pressed the green headset twice. The phone dialed a number that Suhonen had already tried a few times. A woman’s voice announced in a cool tone, “The number you have dialed is currently unavailable.”
Goddamn Salmela. The guy had changed his number without telling Suhonen. They’d have to have a talk about that.
Suhonen sped past the first few exits. He was headed for Kontula, to a couple of bars where Saarnikangas was a regular. It seemed like there were an infinite number of them. Suhonen had already gone through the bars in Kallio and Hakaniemi without finding the guy.
The speed limit climbed to fifty, and Suhonen slowed down. He tried to calm himself—he should never let his emotions interfere with his work. He turned on the radio: Ari, the latest Idols winner, was singing his bubble-gum hit, and Suhonen clicked it right back off.
* * *
Joutsamo was sitting at her desk, tapping away at her computer. The portable TV on Kulta’s desk a few feet away was on. Kulta had already gone home, as had Takamäki. The only ones left in the office were Joutsamo and Kohonen.
The sports highlights program wrapped up, and a current affairs show began. On the screen, a grave-looking Sanna Römpötti was explaining that the topic of this evening’s episode of Hot Seat was justice. The guest was Aarno Fredberg, chief justice of the Supreme Court. In line with the show’s format, Römpötti got right down to business: “Chief Justice Fredberg, you said in a newspaper interview last Sunday that prison sentences don’t do any good. What would you propose as an alternative?”
The question was tough enough that Joutsamo paused to watch.
Fredberg was coming up on sixty and his appearance resembled a corporate attorney more than a Supreme Court judge, who weren’t known for always being impeccably coiffed or wearing the latest suit from Hugo Boss.
“The alternative is clear. Take fires, for example. If they started occurring with significantly greater frequency than they do today, it probably wouldn’t make sense to increase the number of fire stations, but rather to look into the causes of the fires.”
Römpötti pressed him. “But fires are very different from felonies.”
“I wouldn’t say so. In both cases, the issue is some type of a societal disruption. Fires are often a matter of technical flaws, and it’s easy to impact, say, the fire safety of TVs. And although a lot of research has been conducted on it, the human mind is a more complex phenomenon.”
“What would you like to change?”
“Criminal justice policy needs to be opened up to broad-based discussion. Nowadays we apply this fire station model to crime by increasing resources for law enforcement and prosecutors, like they’re always doing in America. This leads to an increased amount of prisoners, escalating the cycle of marginalization.”
“Isn’t that a bit disingenuous? Isn’t endin
g up in prison one of the end points of a cycle of marginalization?”
“You’re right. As a matter of fact, you’re right at the heart of the matter. Prisons don’t rehabilitate anyone. Prison doesn’t act as a deterrent for people who commit crimes. It’s crucial to understand this. We have to change our focus now. People can’t be allowed to end up in circumstances that lead them to commit crimes in the first place.”
Joutsamo listened, her mouth agape. You could have expected this from some leftist politician, but had the country’s chief judge gone insane?
Römpötti continued her battery of questions. “So if a wino runs out of booze, and he’s about to burglarize a store to obtain more alcohol, society should provide a place where he can get booze for free.”
“For example. Although it might be preferable to try and influence matters in such a way that we don’t have winos, if that’s the word you want to use. There are a good ten thousand people caught up in a cycle of incarceration. Let’s give them a free place to live, substance abuse treatment, and, for instance, a sheltered job. Let’s anchor them in life.”
Joutsamo thought the other way around—from the victim’s point of view. People shouldn’t end up in situations where they become the victims of crimes. Evidently the permissive criminal policies of the 1960s were making a strong comeback.
“Sounds like a pretty utopic agenda,” Römpötti remarked, setting her pen down on the desk.
“Because it hasn’t been attempted yet,” Fredberg answered.
“Who will pay for it?” the reporter asked. Funding was always a critical factor.
“A day in prison costs 125 euros, a month 3,800 euros, and a year 45,500 euros. When you add the costs of law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges on top of that, you easily get to a figure that’s twice as high. And this sum multiplies exponentially when you include the other costs of crime, like damage to property and insurance payments.”
The reporter tried to interject, “But...”
“Please don’t interrupt,” Fredberg growled, giving Römpötti an angry look. “We have almost 150 prisoners serving life sentences now. With each of them doing 12–14 years, the costs of incarceration alone are 550,000–640,000 euros per prisoner. With that kind of money, you could prevent the majority of homicides from ever happening. And if someone tells you any different, they’re lying.”
Römpötti tried again, “But...”
Sitting at her screen, Joutsamo wondered how the chief justice would happen to be able to pick out in advance those particular individuals in whose lives it made sense to invest half a million euros.
“I already asked you, please don’t interrupt! Society should prevent crimes from taking place in the first place, or if we want to think realistically, decrease them significantly. An inmate is imprisoned for an average of a little under ten months, so 7,000 convicts are released from prisons every year. One in three starts off homeless, 60 percent have substance abuse problems, and one-fifth have serious mental health issues. This is the target group we should concentrate on first.”
“So commit a crime, and you’ll get money, a job, and a place to live,” Römpötti said, but she didn’t let Fredberg respond. “Let’s move on to the next topic.”
The reporter glanced at her papers. “We reviewed your twenty-six-year history at the Lahti District Court and the Kouvola Court of Appeals, as well as your last four years in the Supreme Court. Now this number may not be completely accurate, but according to our information, you’ve participated in handing down at least 36 life sentences for murder. Do you believe that those people could live normally as part of our society as well?”
“Perhaps you’ve misunderstood me. The majority of our homicides take place among alcoholic men. If we could get to the point that violent situations didn’t arise among them, the number of murderers would decrease. As a matter of fact, the model that I presented earlier came to me when I was thinking about this specific group of convicted individuals. Now, it’s the role of the judge to ensure equal protection for everyone under the law. But whenever a crime takes place, society has failed.”
“So no one needs to take responsibility for themselves? Society will take care of everyone’s problems?”
“Yes, it would be to everyone’s advantage. There wouldn’t be criminals or victims of crimes. Of course I understand that we also have the mentally ill, but they belong in mental hospitals. For professional criminals, we would of course still need the heavy machinery at society’s disposal, but not as extensively as we use it today.”
“So we’ll basically turn these people into aquarium fish,” Römpötti said.
“We need to think about how we want to use our money. Parking enforcement is being privatized at a rapid rate. Why couldn’t traffic enforcement also be privatized? Do we need to train police officers for two years so they learn how to read vehicle speeds from a radar? I don’t think so. A private company would do it more efficiently, saving the police resources for more serious problems.”
To Joutsamo, Fredberg’s proposals seemed dangerous. As a judge, the guy obviously had experience in criminal cases, so what he was saying couldn’t be considered complete hogwash. But privatizing traffic enforcement? Joutsamo’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of her desk phone ringing. The judge and the reporter kept talking as Joutsamo answered.
“Helsinki Police Department, Anna Joutsamo.”
“Hi, this is Mauri Tiainen, attorney at law.”
“Hello,” Joutsamo said. She couldn’t immediately place the name, but it did ring a bell. Before the attorney could continue, Joutsamo remembered. Tiainen had been Repo’s district court representation.
“Yes, I don’t think we’ve met, but I represented Repo, this escaped convict, in district court.”
“I know,” Joutsamo rapidly responded. The guy sounded like he was about fifty, even if the agitation in his voice made it difficult to judge.
“So why wasn’t I informed?” the attorney demanded.
Joutsamo was stunned. “About what?”
“The escape, of course.”
“Umm...and why would we have informed you about that?”
“Because that was what was agreed with the Riihimäki Police. Wasn’t it in your records?”
“You’re speaking with the Helsinki Police Department. We don’t know anything about any such arrangement.”
“Goddammit!” Tiainen snapped. “That’s just wonderful!”
Joutsamo lightened her voice a touch. “It’s unfortunate that the arrangement wasn’t communicated to us, but why should the police have informed you about this incident?”
“Because he vowed to kill me.”
“Timo Repo?”
“Of course. After the murder conviction in district court, he was really upset and said he’d kill me the first chance he got. From my perspective, that chance is now.”
“Hasn’t it been eight years since then?”
“That guy’s so nuts he definitely won’t forget. In the early years of his incarceration, he sent me repeated letters about his threat. I took them to the Riihimäki Police, but they just said they couldn’t do anything about it, because Repo was already doing life. A life sentence isn’t going to get any longer because of a few death threats.”
“Why would he want to kill his own lawyer?”
“Well,” Tiainen squirmed. “His wife’s homicide was a completely unambiguous case, but Repo didn’t remember anything about it because he was so drunk. I suggested to him that he confess, and we’d try to get it lowered to manslaughter. In that case, Repo might have gotten a six-year sentence, maybe. But the district court viewed it as murder and slapped Repo with life. That sent him over the edge.”
“Okay,” Joutsamo replied.
“Then the Court of Appeals upheld the murder conviction, so in that sense no injustice took place at district court.”
“But he was upset with you for advising him...”
Tiainen interrupted. “Upset is put
ting it mildly, but you’ve got the picture.”
“So he didn’t want to confess?”
“Hard to say. Repo was pretty messed up back then. He didn’t know what to do, and I thought it was the smartest decision in that situation. There was no reason to contest the case. He would have been convicted regardless.”
“So it was a clear case?”
“Absolutely clear-cut,” Tiainen said. “I’ve handled about thirty homicides over my career and in this instance there was no uncertainty about the perpetrator. The only open issue was that Repo didn’t remember anything about the act.”
“Why did Repo kill his wife?”
“Agh, I don’t remember. Or as far as I remember there was no reason. Maybe they had an argument,” the lawyer guessed. “Which is exactly why I’m going to take a weeklong vacation somewhere! Preferably abroad.”
“Do you have any idea where he might be?” Joutsamo asked quickly.
“Haven’t the foggiest.”
“You don’t know or remember who he was hanging out with back then?”
“Not a clue. He was being held as a suspect at the Riihimäki jail, and that’s where we met. We didn’t discuss friends, and hopefully we don’t have anymutual ones.”
“Well, just so you know, according to our information, Repo settled down after a couple of years, and neither the guards nor the other prisoners had heard about any vendettas.”
“Well, why did he escape then?” Tiainen asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Exactly. That’s not going to get me to cancel my vacation plans,” the lawyer huffed.
Joutsamo asked Tiainen to be in touch if Repo tried to contact him, and he promised he would. The call ended right as Kohonen walked into the room.
“I think I’m going to head out. These thirteen-hour days are killing me.”
“Go ahead. I was also thinking I’d leave pretty soon, as soon as I get a chance to talk to the lieutenant on duty about Repo.”
Kohonen put on her blue parka. “Did you notice the report in the system? A car was stolen in Töölö in a pretty unusual way.”
Helsinki homicide: Cold Trail Page 12