Wolves and Angels

by Jokinen, Seppo

  “Wait.” Tiikko leaned out over his counter. “One more thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “How’s your love life these days?”

  Koskinen was dumbstruck. He knew that Tiikko was one of the most trusted people in the building, a regular guardian of truth and right. But still, the question verged on the limits of impropriety—insofar as there were any limits like that in a police station.

  Tiikko tried to explain. “I just mean…my wife’s sister got divorced from her accountant husband a couple of years ago.”

  Koskinen was still staring speechlessly at Tiikko’s pudgy, friendly face. “Irmeli is a really nice person, and she isn’t exactly poor,” he continued. “She has her own hair salon on Aleksanteri Street.”

  Tiikko winked. “I could maybe set it up sometime that you come over for a sauna one night and the missus would just happen to invite her sister over at the same time.”

  Koskinen thought about how to turn down Tiikko’s proposal without offending him in any way. He hadn’t even managed to begin when someone behind him cleared his throat. “Is there only one person working here?”

  Koskinen glanced back. A man dressed in a gray Bugatti overcoat was impatiently shifting his weight from foot to foot, waiting his turn to talk to the officer on duty.

  “I’ll think about it,” Koskinen whispered to Tiikko and set off to the elevator. It was still at the top floor, and while waiting he overheard Tiikko’s new customer begin unloading his troubles.

  “I was about to leave on an important business trip to Mänttä, but my Beemer had disappeared overnight from the parking lot. Disappeared into thin air. I tried to call here, but all of the lines were busy, so I had to take a taxi. I can’t believe we can’t even get decent service from the police anymore.”

  That was all Koskinen heard before the elevator doors closed. He thought about the recent plans to outsource police services. Would service be improved in situations like the one he had just overheard if people could make crime reports at the ticket booth at the train station, at the bookmakers, or why not at the black sausage stand that opened at 6 A.M. every day on Tammela Square?

  He made it to the garage just as Sopanen and Saari were climbing out of their Mondeo.

  “You had something about the Peltolammi case,” he said while he was still a good distance away, walking toward them.

  “Yeah, we did,” Sopanen said sullenly.

  Koskinen got the feeling the veteran officer would have preferred to meet someone else working on the case.

  “Well?”

  “About the wheelchair in today’s bulletin.”

  “Yeah. We’ve been looking for it for three days.”

  “We might have seen it.”

  “Good.” Koskinen was ecstatic. “Where?”

  “In Hervanta. Near the intersection of Tohtori and Arkkitehti Streets.”

  “And you brought it with you, right?”

  Sopanen glanced uncomfortably at his younger partner, but Saari was busy inspecting the cuticle of his left thumb.

  “Well, it’s like this…” Sopanen continued, rubbing his neck, “…we saw the chair on Monday night and when we just went to look for it…it wasn’t there anymore.”

  Koskinen stared at the officers in disbelief. Both were dressed in coveralls and police baseball caps. Side arms and handcuff holsters hung on their belts.

  “It wasn’t there anymore,” Koskinen repeated. “How is that possible?”

  “Well, it was just that we didn’t have time to investigate it then…and…then we forgot and…”

  “Forgot!” Koskinen bellowed. “Goddamnit! I don’t think you realize how important that wheelchair is for us.”

  Koskinen noticed out of the corner of his eye how Mikko Kuparinen, the officer in charge of the garage, had come out of his booth to see the cause of the commotion. Koskinen knew full well that this was exactly how you got a reputation as a dickhead. But he still couldn’t control himself.

  “You knuckleheads almost had it in your hands, but then you lost it!”

  Saari stared mortified at his tactical boots, not concealing his embarrassment. However, his partner, who was a couple of decades older, wasn’t willing to take it all lying down.

  “You don’t know what a hellish night it was, Koskinen. You wouldn’t be ripping us a new one if you knew!”

  “Well, tell me!”

  “We were actually just on our way to circle back to look for the chair when this motorcycle whipped a U-ey behind us, and we decided to pull him over. Well, and then what happened, happened. The guy took off and we went after him.”

  Sopanen glanced at his partner, giving him an expression that he should continue. Saari took his cap off and started bending the brim.

  “We saw the guy drive into the side of a Mercedes. He went flying into space like Yuri Gagarin. It’s hard to forget seeing something like that.”

  Saari’s final words came out muffled, finally lost in a long swallow.

  Then Sopanen continued. “I’d think you would understand. You’ve seen things too. And then the paper made it seem like the accident was caused by the police who were chasing him.”

  Yes, Koskinen understood. He probably would have forgotten the wheelchair too in the same situation. Still, it annoyed him.

  “But how didn’t you remember it until now? It’s been in the AVAC system for ages.”

  “We’ve been pulling graveyard shift all this week,” Sopanen said defensively. “The night patrol only reads the AVAC in the evening, as you know. And the computers were down all Tuesday night.”

  It wasn’t the first time some equipment upgrade or software update had caused an interruption in the network. Koskinen had run into the same thing himself aggravatingly often. Sometimes he longed for the good old days when notices and instructions were shoved into the squad leader’s boxes on sheets of paper and the officers on break killed time with actual physical playing cards.

  “And last night?” he asked more calmly.

  “The computers were down for a couple of hours too and only came back online at eleven, but we didn’t have time to check AVAC until later,” Saari explained submissively.

  Then Sopanen took over. “Right when we came on duty, two house calls came in. At the first one this Asian guy had been following the old time traditions of his homeland and disciplining his daughter with a two-inch thick pole. The girl had missed her curfew by about twenty minutes. You should have seen the marks, Koskinen. They were like zebra stripes on her skinny back.”

  “Okay, don’t worry about it,” Koskinen said, waving his hand. “Before you head home go talk to Lepola and explain exactly when and where you saw the wheelchair. Lepola can send somebody from the morning shift over to comb the area. Say that Koskinen told you to.”

  Koskinen turned and walked toward the elevator. He heard a low grumbling behind his back. “Oh, so it’s an order from Koskinen, is it?”

  The anger that had subsided momentarily boiled back up, but he still kept going. He knew the score: he didn’t have the slightest bit of authority over Lepola or any patrol officers for that matter.

  He wasn’t able to look at his reflection in the mirror, instead closing his eyes and rubbing his temples—he felt the early signs of a headache coming on. He had slept poorly the night before.

  Riding home from the bar, his hunger had intensified into a mouth-tingling craving for something savory. He had made it to the store just before closing time, and fell for two frozen pizzas. They had barely managed to thaw in the oven before he pulled them out and wolfed them both down.

  The result had been heartburn that lasted all night and nightmares that jolted him awake at regular intervals. It had been the same recurring dream where his limbs stopped working. He was in a strange country. His bicycle had disappeared, and he was in a rush to get to the harbor. The ship’s whistles had already blown, but he couldn’t get his legs to budge.

  This time no one else happened to board the elevato
r along the way, and Koskinen made it happily up to the third floor. His ill-tempered behavior toward the two men who had just finished the night shift bothered him. That would be the last time today. Instead of wasting his energy bitching and moaning, he decided to focus all of his energy on work.

  He marched straight to the department secretary’s door, bade her the obligatory good morning, and then started issuing orders: “Call Pekki, Kaatio, Eskola, and Lundelin to my office at 8:30.”

  Milla was wearing her now-familiar antenna beanie. She looked at Koskinen with wide eyes. “What are you doing riding a bike in weather like this? You look like a drowned greyhound.”

  Koskinen’s decision about his incombustibility lasted precisely seven seconds. He saw a pair of scissors on the desk and felt a sudden urge to cut off the antenna. He knew what would happen though. People would be talking about it for ages, and someone would almost certainly read some sort of sexual harassment in it.

  He contented himself just to snap at her. “Were you listening to anything I just said?”

  Milla wagged her hands on either side of her head like elephant ears. “I was listening. I was listening! Pekki, Kaatio, Eskola, and Lundelin into my office right now.”

  “No, at 8:30,” Koskinen corrected. “And in my office.”

  He continued along his way sullenly and, when he made it to his office, didn’t even waste time sitting down at his desk. He just grabbed the phone. Someone answered at Wolf House after the sixth ring.

  “Lea Kalenius.”

  “Koskinen here, from the Violent Crimes Unit. Morning. Why didn’t you mention yesterday anything about a nurse called Pike, who was fired during the summer?”

  Nothing came from the earpiece, and Koskinen was about to repeat his question.

  But at that moment, Kalenius groaned. “I forgot. Her name is Pirkko-Liisa Rinne. We’ve had too many of these temporary workers for me to remember them all.”

  “I want a list of every employee at Wolf House over the last five years, even if they only lasted half a day.”

  Koskinen realized that he was starting to get pushy again. He tried to find a gentler tone. “I had something else as well.”

  “Yes?”

  “Did Timonen ever visit Hervanta? For example, did he have any relatives or friends in that direction?”

  “Not that I know of. Why?”

  Koskinen told her that Timonen’s wheelchair might have been seen in the area. Finally he asked for Pirkko-Liisa Rinne’s contact information and then hung up.

  He took a towel and change of clothing from the closet and headed downstairs to the shower. It wasn’t until he was under running water when Koskinen calmed down enough to be able to cobble together some sort of an action plan. Undoubtedly, the most important item was to bring in Harjus and Ketterä for official interrogations. Those two knew more about Raimo Timonen than anyone else in the whole assisted living center. They also needed to find Pirkko-Liisa Rinne. Koskinen was curious about how much truth there was behind Harjus and Ketterä’s claims—surely no assisted living center would really have fired a nurse for caring too much about its residents. Something else must be going on.

  He dried himself hurriedly and then went back up to the third floor at an easy jog. The shower had cheered up his mood, and he reaffirmed his decision not to lose his temper for the rest of the day no matter what happened. It would be best for everyone involved.

  Ulla was already waiting for him in his office. She was sitting with a coffee mug in her hand on the corner of Koskinen’s desk, even though the chairs were empty.

  “I should have guessed!” Koskinen said as he reached the door. “That damn girl couldn’t handle this assignment either. I told her that the meeting wouldn’t start until 8:30.”

  “Isn’t it a bit early to be quite so testy?” Ulla said with a laugh. “Milla did her job perfectly. I just thought I would come in and chat before the others.”

  That sounded nice to Koskinen. He swept his hair into place in front of the closet mirror while listening to what Ulla had on her mind.

  “How did it go yesterday when I was away?”

  “What can I say? The Timonen case hasn’t really gone anywhere. And we picked up another one. An old man suffering from cancer was beaten within an inch of his life in his own back yard, and Pekki thinks it’s the same guy in both cases.”

  It looked like Ulla was not listening to her lieutenant’s account at all. She was drinking her coffee in small sips and then suddenly asked, “Did Ursula call?”

  Koskinen realized that Ulla hadn’t come early to talk shop. At the same time he remembered Ursula’s call from the day before—he had decided to give Ulla a tongue lashing over it. She had told her friend that it was Koskinen’s idea for them to go out. But then he remembered the other decision he had made a moment ago: no more irritated outbursts today.

  “She did.” He pretended to be in a good mood. “We’re going out on Friday night… Dinner and drinks…and…who knows after that.”

  “Really.”

  Koskinen was confused by the dryness of her response. She stood up from the corner of the desk, collapsed into one of the chairs, and started looking at her palms. Koskinen tried to understand what was going on. Maybe the visit to the doctor the previous day was weighing on her mind.

  He looked for delicate a way to ask her about it, but then he just blurted it out, “What did the doctor say?”

  “What does that matter?” Ulla tossed her head and then stared out the window at the wall of the phone company building across the street. Koskinen was at a loss. He had never understood women, let alone had any grasp on their emotional lives, but this time the situation was completely bewildering.

  A knock came from the door, and Koskinen glanced at his watch. It was exactly 8:30 down to the second. Eskola walked in only after being invited and remained standing at the door despite one of the chairs being free.

  A couple of minutes later, Pekki and Kaatio stepped into the room without knocking, and Koskinen began the meeting. First he told them about the uniformed patrol that had sighted the wheelchair on Monday night.

  Pekki began sounding off immediately: “What would we do without brothers like them? How can anyone be such a dunce to forget to check on something like that? Fucking hell!”

  “Hey, clean up your language!” Ulla snapped at Pekki. “Your soul stinks enough as it is.”

  “Well, excuse me. Holy mother-friggin’ dog snot.”

  “The situation isn’t that simple,” Koskinen said. “They had their reasons.” Koskinen found himself fervently defending Sopanen and Saari. “They got sucked into a high-speed chase and...witnessed that motorcyclist hitting the side of the cab and flying head-first onto the street. I dare say that in the same situation any of us would have forgotten everything else, even if we had just seen the English crown jewels lying on the side of the road.”

  Pekki glowered at Koskinen discontentedly, and Kaatio’s expression wasn’t any sunnier.

  “I tried to get Saari to play on the department soccer team last spring,” he said sullenly. “Any pro hockey player should be able to play soccer at our level at the very least, but apparently he wasn’t interested in our company.”

  “Now that’s something,” Ulla said, feigning horror. “That explains everything. Someone like that could never be a good policeman.”

  “And on top of it all he’s an Axes man,” Koskinen added. He knew that would be worse to Kaatio than a religious heretic, a half-breed, and a sexual deviant all rolled up into one.

  Apparently Kaatio realized he was treading on thin ice—he quickly changed sides. “Koskinen’s right. There’s no point blaming Sopanen and Saari. You can’t remember every little thing after an incident like that.”

  But Kaatio’s words didn’t make Koskinen feel any better. He was terrified by the idea of how word would spread during the day: a Violent Crimes Unit lieutenant had raked two uniforms from Patrol over the coals, and as things had a habit of bei
ng exaggerated as they traveled from mouth to mouth, it wouldn’t be long before the whole station would be talking about an insane outburst of rage. However, he ignored the topic, and then turned to Pekki.

  “How is the cancer patient’s case progressing?”

  “I was just getting to that.” Pekki adjusted his glasses. “Adolf Kantola still can’t speak. He’s hovering on the verge of consciousness and will probably die of his cancer before he recovers from his head injury. The case has taken a new turn anyway.”

  “What kind of a turn?” Koskinen was interested.

  “His son came from Espoo to see his father and stopped by the house. He immediately noticed that a valuable piece of art had disappeared from the backyard. He even had a picture of it. The sculpture was made of stone and stainless steel. It shows a raven with its wings spread.”

  “That means that these incidents aren’t connected after all.” Koskinen tapped the desk with his pen. “This one was a theft, but we still have no motive for Timonen’s killing.”

  “Taking the statue could just be a ruse,” Pekki said.

  Koskinen shook his head incredulously. Pekki’s idea still sounded like a shot in the dark. He didn’t want to get bogged down in that conversation, though, and instead moved the meeting along. He reported on his previous night’s visit to Wolf House and the Cat’s Meow, giving a detailed account of the conversations he had had with Hannu Ketterä and Tapani Harjus, including Harjus’ aggressive behavior at the end of the night.

  “Why were you there? Why not Pekki?”

  Koskinen was surprised by how crabby Ulla sounded.

  “Pekki was tied up all day in Ikuri and didn’t want to stay for overtime.”

  Now Ulla turned her irritation on Pekki.

  “Why not?”

  This caught Pekki off guard. “I was at the art museum.” It just slipped out.

  “At the art museum!” Ulla yelped. “You?”

  “How is that so remarkable?”

  “Remarkable? That would be like Koskinen taking up ballroom dancing.”

  “It’s not that strange!”

  “What was the exhibit?”

  “An art exhibit.”