The Nightingale Murder

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “Come on into the office. I’m sure you could use some coffee. Minttu, hold all my calls. Say I’m in an important meeting,” he yelled to the young woman sitting in a glass booth in the lobby, who nodded to indicate she’d heard him.

  “Minttu is a good girl. She went to the polytechnic in Kuopio, but then she decided to come back home. Her boyfriend works for me too. It’s important to provide jobs for local kids so the place doesn’t end up having just a bunch of old people.” Hytönen opened the door to the office. The coffee pot was full, and there were three rose-patterned cups and saucers on the table, along with cream, sugar, a braided loaf of pulla, and, thankfully, sandwiches. After the bumpy flight, the thought of salami and rye made my mouth water.

  Hytönen invited us to sit and poured our coffee while I took the chance to look around. On the wall of the office was a diploma, and I saw that Hytönen had been voted businessman of the year in Vesanto in 2001. The wall calendar had pictures of rally cars. Apparently Hytönen didn’t trust electronics, since he had forty-some-odd phone numbers written on a sheet of paper taped to the top of his desk phone. Binders organized in alphabetical order bore client names. In addition to coffee, the room smelled of oil, tobacco, and aftershave.

  “So little Mauri Hytönen is an important enough suspect to bring in detectives all the way from the capital. My goodness. And so officially,” Hytönen said as Puupponen placed the recorder and his laptop on the table. “I thought I might turn into some sort of celebrity when I agreed to go on that show, but I never imagined anything like this. Soon they’ll be asking me to run for president, since I’m so brave and I tell it like it is.”

  “I read one of your interviews. Have there been others?” I asked as I stirred two lumps of sugar into my coffee.

  “Practically all I’ve done is talk on the phone and give interviews! A porn magazine even asked if I’d come and talk about the best places to get girls in Tallinn. And ever since the show, all my employees’ wives keep calling and asking what their husbands have been up to with me in Estonia. I just say they should ask their husbands themselves. I’ve never roped anyone into anything, and the few who have gone with me I made swear to use a condom. I don’t want my workers bringing home any unpleasant surprises. But Jesus, it isn’t like I’m going to turn them in to their wives! What do you think, Detective? You’re married. Would you want to know if your old man was out having adventures?”

  “I would, but I’d want to hear it from him. Let’s move on to that fight you got into two years ago with Lulu Nightingale at the Mikado. We’ve read the file, but some details are still unclear to me. Why did you insult Lulu in the first place?”

  “She overpriced herself. So I thought she needed a lesson. It’s a buyer’s market.” Hytönen brushed a crumb out of his mustache. “And, OK, I was drunk. I’d just been in a tough negotiation, and I was pissed because the selection at the Mikado that night was pathetic. But I didn’t want Lulu even though she came and rubbed her tits in my face.”

  “But you knew who she was?”

  “Yes, she was already a celebrity in those circles. She had a website and everything. Don’t get me wrong. In a way, we were on the same side. We both wanted more freedom. But I didn’t think Lulu was doing it as a service to the masses. She wanted to control men. I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised to find out she’d been blackmailing customers. There’s a motive for you.”

  I looked out the window. In the parking lot, workers loaded plastic pipes into another, larger van. Behind the building was a ski track, which looked to be in good condition. Hytönen poured himself and Puupponen more coffee, but I declined a second cup.

  “If you’ve read the court files, you know it was an open-and-shut case. Lulu and her bodyguard confessed, and the whole thing could have been handled through mediation instead of a trial. I never would have pressed charges, but the restaurant staff called the police. The whole mess was unnecessary. And I didn’t have any desire to have anything to do with those people ever again. People complain about the police being underfunded, but you still have money to fly around Finland asking stupid questions. On the private side, no one would have the resources for that.”

  I took another sandwich and waited for Puupponen to chime in. He’d talked to Hytönen before. When he didn’t say anything, I decided to give them an opportunity to talk. “Where is the restroom?”

  “In the hall. We don’t have a separate women’s bathroom because Minttu’s the only one here. Second door on the left.”

  Even though I wasn’t a shrinking violet, the Hytönen HVAC restroom gave me the creeps. It was clean, the fabric hand towels appeared recently changed, and the sinks shone. But there was no way to escape the pinup calendars. One hung above the sink, and another on the door so you could see it if you were doing your business sitting down. The third was behind the toilet itself, clearly intended for those who stood. The March girl, who had silicon breasts the size of soccer balls and a French bikini wax, posed leaning on a drain pipe. The calendar was German. Maybe it was a business calendar. I wondered how Minttu felt when she used the restroom. When I left, I intentionally turned the wrong way and ended up in the warehouse, which was full of pipes, couplers, and electrical wire. I didn’t know half of their names or uses, which, as a woman, I was comfortable with. The average man, however, might have become agitated and felt inferior if he couldn’t immediately identify each kind of wire. Antti was pretty handy, but he despised service stations because the other men there always expected him to want to talk about alloy rims and engines even though he wasn’t interested in things like that. Still, sometimes we talked about building our own house. I sensed that despite it all, that was Antti’s dream, the traditional test of manhood. But now when that dream was within reach, he was rejecting it.

  On the bulletin board in the warehouse there were also pictures of scantily clad women. I walked toward the booth where Minttu sat. She was tall and thin, and her short hair was dyed in a black-and-white 1980s style. She had a nose piercing. Her crop top seemed too skimpy and thin for an industrial workplace, and her ribs poked through the tight fabric. She looked at me with suspicion and then leaned her head out the window of the plexiglass box.

  “What do y’all think Mauri did? Because he didn’t kill nobody,” Minttu said angrily. I noticed a tongue stud as well. “Mauri’s a great boss and he’s never tried nothin’ with me. He gave me a job and didn’t ask if Late and me were going to have kids, even though all the other places did and I never thought I’d find no job. He does what he does, but he ain’t no murderer. Y’all should leave him alone!”

  “So you enjoy working here?”

  “Yes! And I’ve got a full-time job, just like Late. Nobody else from my class has a steady job, except of course Assi since she’s got a farm. Y’all don’t understand what a gift from God Mauri is for this village. And it ain’t against no law if he does go see women in Estonia! I know you big city folk want to make Mauri a laughingstock since he’s from the country. But you listen here: that man would have more women to choose from here than he could count on two hands, but he wants to live the way he lives, and so he does.”

  “And these decorations don’t bother you at all? I mean all these pictures of naked women?”

  “Them’s just pictures. No one touches me, cuz everyone knows I’m Late’s girl. We’re gettin’ married in June, and Mauri already promised to be Late’s best man.”

  Minttu’s skin was gooseflesh, and I was cold too. Someone had opened the warehouse door, and there was a draft.

  “Does Late go to Estonia with Mauri?”

  “They’re leavin’ for Tarttu today! But I trust Late. He’s a one-woman man. Guys like that do still exist!” Minttu slapped the window jam as if to drive home her words. “Guys stay faithful if you’re nice enough to them and you don’t nag about everything. Mauri’s second wife was so horrible. She screamed about every little thing, like leaving the toilet seat up and stupid stuff like that. And she didn�
�t even let him watch hockey. Thank God me and Late like the same things. Why don’t you go back to Helsinki and look for murderers there!”

  Minttu pulled the window shut in front of me and started tapping angrily at her keyboard. In front of her was a pile of bills. Apparently, she also handled the company’s payments. A man in coveralls walked toward me, gave me a glare, and continued on into the warehouse without a word. I decided that Puupponen had had enough time alone with Hytönen and decided to go back in the office. From the hallway I could hear laughter.

  Puupponen’s accent was significantly more pronounced than when he was in Espoo, and he actually seemed to be exaggerating it. Apparently talk had turned to hockey, in particular the coaching situation for the Finnish national team.

  “I played for KalPa in the juniors, but I was kinda slow getting to the puck,” Puupponen was just saying. “I tried hard, though, because I thought players got the girls.”

  “Did it work?” Hytönen asked. Puupponen didn’t reply and cast me a pointed glance. It seemed my entrance had been poorly timed. I sat back in my seat and sucked down the weak coffee, which didn’t help with the chill. Great, all I needed was to catch a cold.

  I made Hytönen retell his account of the night at the TV studio, and he swore he hadn’t seen anyone but Länsimies and the makeup artist, Nuppu Koskela. “Didn’t you think that this kind of fame might put your business at risk?” I asked him.

  Hytönen laughed. “All press is good press. If some tight-ass gets their HVAC work done somewhere else, what do I care? I’ve got more demand than I can handle. Soon I’m going to have to hire more men. Before you know it, they’re going to pin a medal on me for all the jobs I’m creating.”

  “You seem to have extensive experience with Finnish sex workers. Do you know a girl named Oksana?” I stared into Hytönen’s eyes, and I saw his face twitch.

  “You must mean that girl they found all cut up down your way.”

  “That’s the one. How often do you use girls who obviously have pimps, or does that matter to you?”

  “I’m an entrepreneur, and I understand the laws of business.” Hytönen’s voice was suddenly tense, and his dialect had disappeared entirely. “I also understand that a businessman shouldn’t ever get involved in anything that could lead to blackmail. I want my contacts to be safe. So yes, I know who you mean. I knew Oksana. She’s associated with a guy named Mishin, who controls the Helsinki market. And he isn’t a man you mess with. I keep my distance from those thugs. But you aren’t going to find Oksana. She made a mistake when she went to the hospital and let the police find her. She’s probably at the bottom of the Gulf of Finland with weights around her feet.”

  Hytönen stood up and walked to the coffee maker, but he didn’t pick up the pot.

  “Detective Kallio, I know the risks of my hobby. That’s why I want it to be legal, so that the women can be better protected. We’re heading to Tarttu today, where I have one of my regulars, Birgitta. She’s a nice girl who likes money and is studying Finnish at the university. We have a mutual protection agreement, which nobody knows about, because the pimps in Tarttu don’t want any independent entrepreneurs on the market either. I understand that, even though in my business a little competition can be a good thing sometimes. My prices may be a lot higher than what the Estonians charge, but my company is a reliable supplier and my boys do good work. That’s why Finnish companies use me. In the same vein, I don’t pay for the services of women who don’t live up to my standards. That Nightingale lady was just running a scam. Find out who she didn’t satisfy or who she was cheating, and you’ll find who killed her. Now, if you don’t have any more questions, I’d like to get back to preparing for my trip. I need to send Minttu to buy some presents for Birgitta. She likes our Finnish salmiakki.”

  Hytönen extended his hand as if to end the discussion. For a few moments we sized each other up. I didn’t take his hand. Instead I asked about Mishin, but Hytönen denied knowing him. It occurred to me that we’d need to question Nordström again, and Tero Sulonen’s bank accounts would need a close inspection. If Sulonen suddenly seemed to have a lot of extra cash, that might start clearing things up.

  Once I felt as though Hytönen realized that he wasn’t going to be ordering me and Puupponen around, I stood up and declared the interrogation over. Puupponen turned off the recorder, and I looked at Hytönen. His black mustache and hair looked dyed. Maybe he suffered from premature graying. Otherwise he seemed youthful, and his face had hardly any wrinkles, just some scars from adolescent acne. His body was slim and athletic. The thick gold chain that hung around his neck seemed somehow un-Finnish, and it would have been out of place on a job site. I imagined Hytönen used it to show off his success.

  “Just let me know if you ever need any tips for finding female companionship,” Hytönen said to Puupponen as we were leaving, and Puupponen blushed. He didn’t say a word until we were five miles out of town. I thought about Puupponen’s love life. Was his lack of a girlfriend a problem for him, as I’d sometimes sensed?

  “I’ll call Mom and have her put some food on. We can have lunch there,” Puupponen finally said and started fumbling with his hands-free headset to the point that it seemed more dangerous than simply picking up the phone. The call was short, and he just said he was coming with his boss and that we wouldn’t stay long.

  Puupponen’s parents lived in an apartment complex on the north side of Kuopio. Now retired, his father had worked for the railroad, and his mother had been a secretary at the police station. At their front door they greeted me as an honored guest, and they refused to call me anything but Detective Lieutenant. Puupponen’s mother was particularly excited to learn how her son was doing as a police officer in the big city, so I took every opportunity to praise him, along with the fresh dill flavoring of the beef stew she had made. It appeared he’d inherited his sense of humor from his father, who dropped puns left and right in his thick dialect, while Puupponen’s mother glanced at me now and then, apparently worried that her husband’s jokes might be too risqué. In the end, we had to rush to get to the airport, but as luck would have it, the plane was late again. After takeoff, Puupponen took out his laptop and began the interview report. I tried to nap but failed. All I could think about was what Hytönen had said, and seeing Ursula and Kaartamo together in the cafeteria at the police station.

  I checked my phone after we’d landed—there were four messages, but I decided to let them wait. Once we were sitting in the privacy of the car, I asked Puupponen if he knew anything about Kaartamo and Ursula’s relationship. Puupponen had a good, professional relationship with Ursula, better than any of the rest of us did.

  “Come on, Maria, do you really not get it?” Puupponen said with pity in his voice. “It’s easy to understand why Ursula is fawning over Kaartamo. She wants to get into the noncommissioned officers course, and so she’s going over your head to Kaartamo in hopes he’ll recommend her.” Puupponen swerved to avoid a car abandoned by the side of the road, its rear driver’s side smashed in. The radio said that four people had been killed in the storm, along with dozens injured. Thank God not a single fatality had occurred within our jurisdiction.

  “Why does Ursula think I wouldn’t recommend her?”

  “Because you don’t like her.”

  “I don’t approve of some of her methods, but I think she handles most of her work well enough. Why is she so damn intent on imagining that I’m trying to get in her way? Especially after I stood behind her in that—” At which point I cut myself off since Puupponen didn’t know about Ursula’s adventure at the Mikado. “I would definitely recommend her for the NCO course, although it certainly wouldn’t help with our staffing shortage.”

  “Kaartamo is plenty willing to take payment for his services,” Puupponen said. “Maybe we should warn Ursula.”

  “Payment?”

  “I’ve gone out for drinks with Kaartamo after work parties a few times, and I know how he operates. Ursula thinks she
’s a tough chick, but I don’t think she’s quite cynical enough to sleep with Kaartamo just to get him to sign off on a training course.”

  “Do you really think Kaartamo—” I began, but then the phone rang. It was Mira Saastamoinen.

  “Hi, Maria. I finally caught you! Where have you been hiding?”

  “On an airplane coming back from Kuopio.”

  “I’m over at the Big Apple Mall. There’s an investigation underway. A man was shot in the head, and the whole thing stinks to high heaven . . .”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, first of all we have no idea what the weapon was. It couldn’t have been any normal firearm. And second, there’s the victim . . . It’s Tero Sulonen.”

  13

  Puupponen immediately turned us toward the mall. It felt inconceivable that someone had been shooting in the middle of a crowded shopping center. Professional criminals didn’t usually take risks like that. Even though the snow had let up, traffic was still a mess, and along Ring II there were more stranded cars that had yet to be towed away.

  I called Koivu, who had taken command of the unit in my absence and organized the morning meeting. The DNA results from Lulu Nightingale’s body had come back. The National Bureau of Investigation crime lab had nearly set a record with their turnaround time. But the results weren’t anything surprising. They’d found one of Tero Sulonen’s hairs on her blouse, there was nothing under her fingernails, and her vagina had been free of semen. There was a small blood stain on her skirt, but it was her own blood.

  “Ursula and Autio are questioning Lulu’s clients. That’s taken a fair amount of persuasion. Do you trust Ursula not to leak to the press again?” Koivu asked. A few years earlier we’d suspected Ursula of leaking the identity of a prisoner, but we’d never found any hard evidence. “Some of them deny any connection to Lulu, understandably. Lulu’s notes won’t hold up in court because we don’t have any pictures or other evidence yet. We still haven’t found Lulu’s safe deposit box.”