The Nightingale Murder

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “You met Lulu in early January, then?”

  “I guess so. She said I could come visit, but when she heard that I work the train station and that . . . Then she didn’t want me. She told me to go to the Pro Centre, that they could help me to stop using. She said bad things would happen to me, that whoring and speed don’t go well together. That the Russians wouldn’t look the other way for long. And she was right.” Pamela sat down next to me and took my wrist. “She knew she was in danger too, and she was the best! Why didn’t her bodyguard protect her? Is he dead now too?”

  I stared at Pamela. The previous night I’d been so tired I hadn’t understood how illogical her speech was. Still, how could she have known that Tero Sulonen had been shot when we hadn’t released his name before today’s press conference?

  “Pamela, who told you that Tero is dead?”

  “It was Tero who was shot at the mall, wasn’t it? It had to be Tero. He arranged the meeting there, even though he was afraid. He said the guy was totally insane.”

  “What guy? What are you talking about?” I felt like shaking the girl. She stood up and made for the water faucet. She drank but then spat out the water.

  “Fuck, this tastes like shit! Don’t you have more Coke?”

  “You can have more when you tell me what you know about Tero Sulonen.” There wasn’t time to wait for witnesses. Pamela could repeat her story later in an official interview.

  “Are you stupid? I was there in the train station when Tero was talking on his phone. I saw him hanging around near the flower stand and went to express my condolences about Lulu. He’s always been nice to me, and I thought maybe he’d give me a few coins or buy me a cup of coffee. But Tero said he didn’t have time to talk since he was waiting for a call. He pointed to this guy at the pay phone and said he was a fortune-teller because his cell phone was about to ring. And it did.”

  “What did the guy at the pay phone look like?”

  “I don’t really know because his back was to us. He was just a man, I guess. Not tall. Expensive coat and nice hat. I thought it was weird that someone like that wasn’t using a cell phone. I didn’t see his face, because Tero told me we had to get out of there when he hung up. We ducked out onto the platform. Can I have something to drink now? My mouth is too dry to talk anymore.”

  The guard had orange Jaffa, which would have to do. While Pamela was gulping it down, I asked her what Sulonen had said during the call. She finished it off, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “Tero told the guy that he wouldn’t tell anyone what he knew about Lulu’s death if he got enough money. Then he said OK, he’d come to the Big Apple at five and meet the man in the bathroom at the movie theater. So it was Tero who got shot, right?”

  I nodded because the information was already public. It was hard to imagine Pamela inventing this story, even though she did seem to have delusions about the thugs who’d beaten her.

  “I didn’t know Tero that well, but I think he was afraid. He told me he didn’t actually want the money, that he wanted revenge for Lulu. He asked if I knew anybody he could borrow a gun from, but I didn’t. Then he left.”

  My own mouth was dry too, after Pamela’s story. I called Liskomäki from Patrol to join me and took Pamela to an interrogation room. She repeated her story on tape without complaint. Her description of the man on the phone at the train station matched the eyewitness accounts from the mall, but the man Pamela saw had a normal build, unlike reports of the mall shooter being more heavyset. When asked, Pamela couldn’t swear that it was a man, but based on the clothing, she assumed so. Her testimony that the man was a Russian seemed, under closer inspection, to be her own invention, which lined up with her paranoid delusions.

  I asked Liskomäki to call the child welfare authorities, who could take Pamela into their care. Hopefully they could get her a bed in a treatment facility. The fate of a junkie prostitute on the street was too easy to predict. Pamela swore at me as I left, but I couldn’t release her. I let her swear but decided to track her down later. Hakkarainen and Mikkola from Forensics were waiting in the conference room.

  “Weren’t you supposed to be off?” I asked Hakkarainen.

  “No. I’m saving vacation days for this summer so that my wife and I can go to Australia for a month. Mrs. Saarnio’s office was quite the interesting place. The last time we’d searched it with the same thoroughness as everywhere else and didn’t find anything, but this time there were all sorts of new things. Like this.” Hakkarainen produced two plastic bags from behind his back. One contained the glass I’d seen under the cabinet in Riitta Saarnio’s office.

  There was still the slightest drop of liquid in the bottom. “We already sent a sample to the lab,” Mikkola said. “But look what we have in bag number two! Ta-da!” Mikkola lifted the second, larger plastic bag containing the slingshot.

  “They found this in the trash at the Big Apple. It just came in. Of course there weren’t any prints.”

  “What? Why wasn’t I told about this?”

  “We tried to call, but you didn’t answer! Someone said you were in a press conference. Is this what Söderholm’s been going on about in the break room?”

  “It must be, and you’ll be friends for life if you call him and tell him to come have a look at it. How much strength does it take to shoot this thing? Do you have some gloves?” I asked because my own kit was in my office. Mikkola handed me a pair. I verified that they didn’t intend to dust for prints again, then pulled them on and took the slingshot out of the bag. It was surprisingly heavy and sturdy. I placed it in my left hand. It was a little too big for me. Then I pulled the rubber tubing back like a bow string. The slingshot bucked a little when I let go. I looked for something I could shoot. Paper clips were too light. “Take this,” Hakkarainen suggested and handed me a five-cent coin. The ball taken from Sulonen’s head was slightly smaller across than the coin, but significantly heavier. I pulled back the rubber tubing and aimed at the conference room wall. I tried to hit a dark stain on the wall bequeathed to us by my former colleague Lähde. He’d leaned against the white wall wearing a jacket with oil on it. It had never come out completely, and there wasn’t money to repaint the wall over something so minor.

  The slingshot was surprisingly accurate, and I hit within two inches of where I’d aimed. The coin banged against the surface and then ricocheted forcefully, landing on the floor several feet away from the wall. When I went closer, I saw a dent in the wall less than a quarter-inch deep.

  “Here, let me,” Mikkola said, and aimed at the door.

  “Don’t you dare,” Hakkarainen said, and just in time because right then Puustjärvi walked in.

  “Dumbass,” Hakkarainen said to Mikkola. Puustjärvi grabbed a cup of coffee and joined in our baffled admiration of the slingshot. These grown men reminded me of Taneli when he got a new toy car. Puustjärvi rubbed his eyes. Staring at security camera tape was boring, but luckily, he knew the time to pay special attention to.

  I went to my office and tried to think. How could Länsimies have first tried to kill Sulonen at the Big Apple and then run a live television broadcast as if nothing had happened? I could also ask how he could have performed on live TV while waiting for the poison he’d given Lulu Nightingale to work.

  I called Ursula to check in about how the interviews with the West Man Productions crew were going. They’d just finished with the cameramen and Nuppu Koskela. They hadn’t questioned Länsimies yet. I remembered him mentioning an important meeting, which seemed to be taking an awfully long time.

  “Try to get Länsimies down here for questioning and notify me when he arrives,” I said to Ursula. “If necessary we’ll move the three thirty meeting. What have the other staff members said?”

  “They’re all in shock. According to them, Riitta Saarnio was the last person at the studio. Länsimies left with one of the guests, a Foreign Ministry official in charge of military affairs. The technical crew stayed to break down their eq
uipment. Nuppu Koskela was the last one to talk to Saarnio. She was really upset. And of course the survival of the show and the whole company is jeopardized now.”

  “OK. Try to get hold of Länsimies.”

  Ursula grunted something. She must have been driving. Was Länsimies avoiding us? What if he’d already fled the country? Should I alert the border stations? But no, I didn’t have any evidence yet, nothing but speculation based on an overheard conversation. That wasn’t enough to draw conclusions from. And if Länsimies intended to run for president, wouldn’t he try to keep his background as clean as possible?

  A call from the psychiatrist who’d treated Riitta Saarnio, Iiris Erkko-Salonen, interrupted my ruminations. First, we arm wrestled over patient confidentiality. Finally, she agreed to confirm that Riitta Saarnio had been suffering from depression for an extended period of time, and sometimes it affected her ability to work. But she disputed the idea that Saarnio could have been a danger to anyone but herself.

  “Had she threatened suicide?”

  Erkko-Salonen hesitated. “Saarnio had mentioned it as a possibility. After her daughter’s family moved to Brussels, she became increasingly unhappy. I think her grandchildren had helped her enjoy life a little more.”

  I thanked the doctor, then hung up. Ursula and Autio managed to break away from their interviews for our meeting. Koivu said that Sulonen’s condition remained unchanged, although the signs on the EEG were grounds for optimism. There was hope that his speech centers hadn’t been damaged, but the doctors predicted paralysis of his lower extremities. At least his legs weren’t moving yet. His arms did, though.

  “He probably knows who shot him,” Koivu said. “He wouldn’t have gone to that mall without a reason. The shooter must have arranged a meeting and used the situation to his advantage.” The others muttered in agreement. That had been our working hypothesis all along: the attempted murderer had called Sulonen from the pay phone at the railway station.

  Ursula and Autio had established a timeline of Riitta Saarnio’s movements the previous day, but independent evidence was sparse. When the cameramen had arrived after five, Riitta Saarnio had already been at the studio.

  “OK. Let’s focus on Riitta Saarnio as our prime suspect, but keep the other lines open. Expand the circle of interviews to Mrs. Saarnio’s friends. Honkanen and Autio can take that on. Why don’t you drop by Länsimies’s house too? Notify me when you find him. Everyone else, continue with what you’ve been doing. I’ll continue with Arto Saarnio.”

  “What is his status, Maria?” Puupponen asked. “Are you treating him as a witness? What if he’s behind all of this? Maybe he’s running a prostitution ring and the whole thing about falling in love with Oksana Petrenko was just horse puckey. Maybe he wants to find the girl so that he can take revenge.”

  “Saarnio could have gone to pick up his wife from work on Thursday night and slipped the poison in her glass,” Koivu added.

  “Saarnio came in on the last flight from Sweden,” I snapped with more of an edge in my voice than was necessary.

  “Has anyone checked that?” Koivu snapped back. “Finnair or SAS?”

  “How about you check both of their passenger manifests?” I tried to keep my voice calm, but I was at my limit. I missed my children, and it was insane that both their father and mother were putting everyone else ahead of them.

  “OK, boss,” Koivu said, adding a sarcastic emphasis to the final word. I pulled a face at him, but all I got back was a cold glare.

  “When is Riitta Saarnio’s autopsy?” I asked him in an attempt to get us back on track.

  “Not until Monday morning. Nice way to start the week. Can I skip the morning meeting?”

  “Go ahead.”

  My exhaustion was so intense that I decided to just go home. I’d just have to arrange with my sister- and mother-in-law to take the kids if Länsimies came in later for questioning. The sun was still high in the sky as I drove home. The willow branches were taking on their usual ruddy spring color, and there was violet in the birches. Little streams ran along the roads, and I could almost hear their murmuring in the car. I called Marjatta to tell her I’d stop by the store to pick up some groceries.

  It felt good to do something normal. How many gallons of milk did we need? Was there any yogurt left? What about cheese? A new brand of hard cider had appeared on the shelf, so I grabbed a couple of bottles to give it a try. Antti thought drinking cider was perverse, that it tasted like artificial flavoring. But I liked it, and I was waiting for someone to invent a salmiakki cider. Salmiakki vodka went down my throat so smoothly that I only let myself buy it in exceptional circumstances. I bought Venjamin some kidney, which was his favorite. Whenever I heard the way he purred eating it, I forgot the sharp scent of urine it gave off. Iida wouldn’t pick him up as long as the smell lingered on his breath.

  As I pulled into the parking lot at home, a text came from Koivu informing me that Arto Saarnio had been on the final Finnair flight of the day from Stockholm. He also said that he was headed home too. His wife, Anu, was at her wit’s end after the past few days, even though she was well aware of how consuming police work could be. Even so, I’d never led such a knotty and multilayered investigation—usually only one homicide happened in Espoo per year. Statistically the city was safe, especially given its size. Finnish homicides usually happened in smaller localities, and my home area of Northern Karelia was listed depressingly high in the rankings. Killings there were usually the result of showdowns between drug users or drunks.

  At parents’ night for Iida’s class, someone had mentioned a study that claimed it was possible to predict as early as age eight whether a child would become a criminal later in life. The other parents had pressed first the teacher and then me—they knew what I did for work—about whether something so disturbing could be true. Iida’s teacher carefully responded that studies like that were done so that the indicators could be spotted early enough to intervene. And that the parents of the problem cases usually didn’t show up for parents’ night. I thought of Pamela and wondered what she had been like as an eight-year-old. I was in a debt of gratitude to her, and I had to pay her back somehow.

  I was inside my apartment building when Söderholm called. “This slingshot is a nice piece of work,” he said enthusiastically. “The Crime Museum would probably like it for their collection.”

  “I have no doubt.” I struggled to keep my balance as I opened the elevator door while carrying the grocery bags.

  “I hear you play bass guitar. We’re going to have an opening in our band, since Kantola is moving to Tampere. Any interest in coming by for an audition?”

  “What kind of music?”

  “Police punk,” Söderholm said with a laugh. “The other guitarist is Montonen from the city. He mentioned that you and he just ran into each other at an arrest.”

  “It’s not the worst idea I’ve heard today. I’ll think about it and give you a call,” I said as I stepped out of the elevator.

  At my own front door the children rushed at me with glee, and Marjatta poked her head out of the bathroom to say she was washing Taneli’s good rain pants, which had been waiting in the laundry hamper for days. I hadn’t even remembered them. She agreed to take the children in at her house in Tapiola if anything surprising happened. Before leaving, she asked again whether I’d talked to Antti, and I claimed I hadn’t had time. That was almost true.

  I made pasta with ham, which we all liked, and I drank half a bottle of beer with it, even though I wasn’t sure if I’d need to drive again today. I baked brownies with Iida and cleaned up the kitchen, read them an Astrid Lindgren story they both liked, and then mended a tear in Iida’s skating tights. I didn’t try to reach Antti—let him enjoy his party in peace. Of course, I knew that wasn’t the real reason I didn’t call. I was afraid if I did he wouldn’t answer at all or, if he did answer, he’d be evasive and tell me half truths. I didn’t want to make him do that.

  Ursula called at aroun
d eight.

  “Hi. We caught up with Mrs. Länsimies at her shoe store this afternoon. Mr. L. is at a Ministry of Transport and Communications seminar in Kuopio today and tomorrow. Mrs. L. doesn’t think Mr. L. will be accepting calls because he doesn’t want to comment to the media on his business partner’s death. According to her he’s a very sensitive soul.”

  “That’s a new side to him. Did she know when he’s coming back? Is he flying or driving?” It was hard to imagine Ilari Länsimies sitting on a bus or train.

  “He’s flying into Helsinki-Vantaa at 4:25 tomorrow. Shall we go welcome him home?”

  “Definitely. I’ll call in the morning to let you know if I can come along. If so, Autio can stay home. OK? Now go on home—you need some time off too.”

  “Actually, I have a date tonight. So never say there’s no such thing as a free meal. Because now there is,” she said mysteriously and hung up.

  The kids begged to be allowed to sleep in Mommy and Daddy’s bed, and eventually I gave in. Since the lieutenant from Narcotics was on duty, I went ahead and shut off my phone. Taneli fell asleep first, while Iida spent another half hour sitting up reading. After she nodded off too, I went into the living room and took out my bass guitar, which I plucked at absentmindedly as I channel surfed. Confirming Antti’s return time tomorrow would have been a good excuse for calling him, but I resisted the temptation. I’d have plenty of time to call him in the morning. When the evening news ran their tape of me and Kaartamo, neither of us looking our best, I cracked open a bottle of cider. Venjamin climbed onto my neck and started grooming my hair. His paws kneaded my shoulders pleasantly, but when he brought out his claws, I had to push him off. I fumbled through some basic scales on my bass guitar and fantasized about playing with the amp turned all the way up. Sometime after ten, I crawled in between the kids, and Venjamin followed me. I had a dream in which Vladimir Putin had decided to run for president of Finland too.