Wolves and Angels

by Jokinen, Seppo

  “It’s an assisted living center, not a nursing home,” Koskinen corrected and then hung up. Lepola’s comments bothered him—he wasn’t really in support of outsourcing, was he?

  Koskinen noticed a large figure moving at the door to the dayroom. Apparently Anniina Salonen had been standing there for some time listening, and Koskinen had to rewind quickly in his mind what he had said to Lepola. It hadn’t included any police secrets, and Salonen’s snooping was probably just the usual insatiable female curiosity.

  He walked to her and asked, “What are you doing here so late, and on a Saturday night?”

  “The whole day has been just terrible,” Salonen said. “Kaarina wouldn’t have been able to manage alone here. The three of us together just barely got everything done that needed to get done. Lea’s nerves are on the verge of snapping again. It was a close call that she didn’t kill anyone.”

  This last sentence made Koskinen wonder whether she had let it slip on accident or on purpose. But he didn’t dig for an explanation and let Salonen continue.

  “Police have been wandering around since the morning, and we keep having to answer the oddest questions. They couldn’t understand how it was possible that we didn’t know what Hannu was wearing when he left yesterday. And where he could have gone. And we were even supposed to know about his finances. Like how much Hannu had in the bank and how much was in his wallet. How is that any of our business?”

  Salonen’s heavy breasts were trembling under her shirt as she flailed both of her arms to add drama to her account.

  “On top of all the work I had to do, I was still expected to trot around all over the building after these policemen. We had to go over everything in Hannu’s room down to the last little bolt on the bed. How am I supposed to know what’s missing, and what he took with him? This is just appalling.”

  Despite her large size, Anniina Salonen suddenly looked weak and vulnerable. Koskinen rushed to comfort her. “It will all be over soon. Nothing more will happen here. A police patrol will be coming for the night to guard the building.”

  Salonen stared at Koskinen without the slightest shred of relief, so Koskinen tried again. “We’ll catch whoever did this sooner or later. We always do.”

  “Hopefully,” Salonen said. “I’m leaving, and I’m staying at home until Monday and not moving a muscle.”

  She turned toward the staff lounge. The sound of her footsteps had barely faded when Lea Kalenius appeared from the dayroom. Koskinen got exactly the same feeling as a moment before, as if she had been right behind the door listening in.

  “What did our little Anniina have to say?” Kalenius asked casually. “Unloading her heartaches?”

  She walked closer, and Koskinen saw that her lack of concern was not genuine. The face behind her smile was tense.

  “Nothing in particular,” Koskinen answered in the same casual tone. “Just the usual.”

  Kalenius looked like she had lost even more weight over the last few days. The dark bags under her eyes and her chapped lips told of sleepless nights. Her voice rasped like hard metal. “You don’t have to take everything that honey buffalo spouts too seriously.”

  Koskinen was startled by Kalenius’ behavior and confused by the strange epithet. But he just chalked it up to the tense situation. No wonder that everyone’s nerves were stretched thin under the circumstances.

  “You can go ahead and take off too,” Koskinen said. “I’m sure you could use a good night’s sleep.”

  Kalenius turned her large brown eyes on Koskinen. Her full lips were parted as if on the verge of asking a question, and her chest was heaving. It looked like she had something on her mind that she wasn’t able to unload.

  Koskinen took another step closer and touched her upper arm. “You can tell me, whatever it is,” he said supportively.

  “I’m afraid,” Kalenius sighed. “I’m so afraid.”

  “There’s no reason to be. We’ll have policemen on guard.”

  “I’m not afraid here, but out there. I don’t even dare to go home. I’m sure he’s waiting for me somewhere out there to attack me on a dark street.”

  “He who?” Koskinen said, tensing again in anticipation.

  The question made Kalenius even more agitated: “The murderer, of course! What did you think?”

  Koskinen thought about Kalenius’ previous nervous breakdown and extended sick leave. In the context of that he could understand her state of mild hysteria verging on outright dread. Kalenius seemed to be more sensitive than average.

  “Where do you live?” Koskinen asked.

  “In North Hervanta on Kanjonin Street.”

  “I can take you home then.”

  She sighed with relief and went to change. In the meantime Koskinen traded a few words with the cadet. In faltering, roundabout terms, the boy expressed his concern about how the day’s events might affect his field training evaluation and his police academy diploma. Koskinen comforted him, saying that if it was up to him, then it wouldn’t. Koskinen went outside, leaving behind a much relieved and presumably much more vigilant guard.

  He sat in the car and stared at Wolf House, lost in thought. The long, squat wooden building looked defenseless in the darkened evening light. Besides the tall windows of the lobby, the drapes were all tightly drawn. All of the window hangings in the residents’ rooms were different colors and different patterns, but the fear behind them was the same. It was the common terror of an unknown danger.

  After five minutes the nurses came out; Kalenius hopped into Koskinen’s car and Salonen drove off in her Fiat.

  Koskinen drove smoothly the whole way to Hervanta and tried to calm his passenger with genial chatter. He said that he also lived in Hervanta, had for almost twenty years now, and listed off from memory the statistics showing how low the crime rate was in the area compared to the Tampere average.

  This tidbit didn’t seem to lighten her mood at all. She just stared forward, silent, holding on to her seatbelt with both hands. After the canyon bridge he turned right and under Kalenius’ direction drove up to a four-story, red brick apartment building.

  Kalenius didn’t open the car door immediately. She turned to look at Koskinen and, in a shy voice, asked, “Could you come up with me? I’ll make us some tea and something to nibble on.”

  The woman’s direct request caught Koskinen off guard. “I’d normally be happy to, but in this situation it’s impossible.”

  Disappointment flashed across Kalenius’ face, and Koskinen hurried to buoy her up: “You don’t have to be afraid of anything at home. I’ll wait here until you get into your apartment. What floor do you live on?”

  “The third. The windows face this way too.”

  She thanked him for the ride and then got out and quickly ran across the street. Koskinen waited until a light came on in one of the third-story windows and saw her wave between the curtains.

  He swung the car around the way he had come and started driving back downtown. On the highway, the regrets started—he should have stayed. But he had piles of work waiting for him at the station, and he was supposed to have returned his vehicle ages ago.

  It was the first time in a long time that Koskinen found himself wishing he had his own car.

  25.

  Kuparinen was waiting for him in the garage, charging out of his booth as soon as he saw the Vectra pull in. He circled the car looking it over intently and occasionally testing with a fingertip whether something was a scratch or just a harmless splash of mud. Finally he even stretched in to look at the odometer.

  “You drove more than a hundred and twenty miles!”

  Koskinen could hardly believe his ears. “You can’t really remember the mileage on every car here?”

  Kuparinen didn’t say anything.

  He also looked under the hood and then, yawning, expressed his displeasure: “Now the rest of us can go home too. The wife’s been waiting with the sauna hot all night.” He looked at Koskinen accusingly and added, “Some of us
have a life outside of work.”

  Koskinen doubted that. Sometimes he got the feeling that Kuparinen lived in the garage.

  He took the elevator straight up to the third floor. The station was quiet; and the hallways were completely deserted. He turned on the lights in his office and immediately noticed the chocolate bar. It had been left on his desk on a piece of paper about the size of his palm. Someone had drawn a slightly misshapen heart on the paper and the letters MILLA.

  Koskinen snorted in amusement and sat down at computer. He opened a connection to the social security database. Only one Lea Kalenius lived in Tampere, and he searched for anyone else living in the same apartment, but found none. She lived alone.

  Koskinen stared at the screen for a moment wondering what he was looking for. Suddenly his daydreaming irritated him. He had been acting strangely all day. He closed the database and opened his email program. He had four messages, one each from Taru Eskola, Ursula Katajisto, Emilia Koskinen, and Ilari Tiikko.

  He chose to open them in order of interest. Taru wrote, “Thank you, Sakari! I knew I could count on you. Antti is a completely different man. He’s so enthusiastic!”

  Koskinen wondered what Taru might mean by “enthusiasm.” Her gratitude seemed genuine, but it didn’t warm his heart at all. To the contrary.

  He quickly moved to the next email from his ex-wife. “I spoke to Tomi. He understands how busy you are. He’s worried about you working too much without any time for yourself. We still care about you.”

  This message didn’t make him any happier either. He didn’t know quite what to think about it—he wasn’t sure whether she was rehashing the old accusations. If only he could have heard the tone of her voice. In the good old days, people at least called each other, but nowadays in the age of email and text messages human contact was just cold letters on a screen, separating people more than connecting. There would never be a real replacement for speech. Someone’s tone could give up their mood, and at times a moment of silence revealed more than a hundred emails.

  Ursula’s message was brief. “Thanks for the pleasant evening. When should we do it again?”

  Koskinen tried to recall exactly what had been pleasant about the evening, and then moved straight on to the last message, from Officer Tiikko at the front desk: “My wife’s little sister dropped by last night. I hinted that I know a lieutenant who’s single. She seemed pretty interested. What would you think about us setting up a blind date for the two of you? She’s pretty hot if I do say so myself.”

  Koskinen started laughing at Tiikko’s unrelenting eagerness and didn’t notice that someone had stepped into his office.

  “What are you chuckling about all by yourself? Did you win at solitaire?”

  Ulla closed the door behind her, and Koskinen looked at her, confused. “You’re still here?”

  “Us poor people have to…” Ulla noticed the chocolate bar on the table, and her sentence trailed off. “Is that from Taru’s replacement, the one with the antenna hat?”

  “Milla.” Koskinen turned off the computer. “Yes.”

  Ulla leaned on the corner of Koskinen’s desk with her left buttock, and her brow wrinkled in concern. “Is it true what Pekki’s been saying?”

  Now it was Koskinen’s turn to be concerned. “Pekki hasn’t been going around telling everyone, has he?”

  “No one but me,” Ulla said and looked at Koskinen seriously. “Isn’t she a little bit young?”

  Koskinen shook his head in amusement and then explained where the roses had come from. He told her how he had originally bought them for Ursula Katajisto, but had changed his mind and given them to Milla. She had been overjoyed about the flowers and Koskinen had decided that they could be an apology for losing his temper that morning when Milla had taken the initiative to reorganize his bulletin board, and had thrown his sailing picture into the recycling bin by accident.

  Koskinen started opening the chocolate bar. “Apparently this is Milla’s consent to a permanent ceasefire.”

  Koskinen’s story made Ulla burst into bright laughter. “So Ursula didn’t get any flowers.” Suddenly she swallowed her laughter and shook her head with feigned seriousness. “That may have been a mistake. The flowers might have saved the whole evening and who knows, maybe you would’ve gotten—”

  Koskinen silenced Ulla by pushing half of the bar into her mouth. He ate the other half himself. It already had been half a day since Riitta Makkonen’s meatballs, and the chocolate tasted delicious. For a moment he thought about rifling through Milla’s desk drawers to look for more.

  The chocolate had gone over well with Ulla too. She licked her lips in satisfaction and said, “I did have something I wanted to talk about.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We located that Wolf House nurse who got fired last summer.”

  “Pirkko-Liisa Rinne?”

  “Yeah. It was a real chore. Even her parents didn’t know anything. I did get a long list of names and numbers from them, but it looks like she’d lost touch with most of her friends, not to mention neighbors and acquaintances. I finally caught a break with her old roommate. She knew that Pirkko-Liisa was supposed to be a bridesmaid tonight in the wedding of one of her high school friends.”

  Koskinen made a quick decision. “Let’s go have a talk with her.”

  “Right now?”

  “Got anything better to do?”

  “Not much.”

  “The killer had to have access to the building. That’s the inescapable starting point for everything. Lea Kalenius told me this morning that Pike lost her key over the summer. They looked for it long and hard, but it never turned up.”

  “There could be something hidden in that, of course,” Ulla said and then slid off the corner of the desk. “Let’s get moving then.”

  “Where is the wedding?”

  “Kangasala.”

  Koskinen didn’t have the temerity to bother Kuparinen anymore and instead called Dispatch and asked for the nearest patrol car to give them a ride.

  Ten minutes later they were sitting in the back of a Saab. Koskinen gave an account of the day’s events to Ulla as they drove—the interview with Hannu Ketterä’s parents, the visit to Sanni Standerskjöld’s house in Toijala, and finally Tapani Harjus’ fumbled suicide attempt. He omitted a few things, like Riitta Makkonen’s diner and giving Lea Kalenius a ride to Hervanta.

  The officer who was acting as their chauffeur turned the car into the parking lot of a hundred-year-old, two-story brick colossus. It was the former Kangasala organ factory. Not many churches or chapels had been built in the last few decades, and the factory shut down. The empty space had been turned into a restaurant and hotel.

  Downstairs was a pub and the hotel reception desk. The large rooms on the upper floor were rented out for events. Approaching the building, they heard music coming from above, and Koskinen recognized the piece as the “Pyynikki Waltz.”

  Ulla started up the stairs, crooning, “Do you remember when we were young, on bright and white nights by the light of the moon…”

  Suddenly she turned and said to Koskinen. “Now it’s time to dance, Sakari.”

  “Not gonna happen!”

  The old factory floor had been transformed into a reception hall, spruced up with colorful floral arrangements and translucent silvery fabric draped all around. The massive wooden support pillars had been decorated with pink cardboard hearts and silk rosettes.

  Koskinen and Ulla stood in the doorway. They immediately aroused the attention of the wedding guests. And Koskinen didn’t have to wonder why. He was dressed in a checkered button-up shirt and gray corduroy sports coat. Ulla was wearing a hooded pullover and black jeans.

  A gentleman with silver at his temples approached them. He had on a dark suit with a white rose in the button hole. Koskinen made a mental guess about whether he was the father of the bride or the groom.

  “I’m sorry, but this is a private event.”

  “We don’t intend to int
errupt your party,” Koskinen said. “We just need a word with Pirkko-Liisa Rinne.”

  The man sized them up and then asked suspiciously, “Why?”

  “It’s private.”

  “Wait here and I’ll get her.”

  The man disappeared into the crowd of partygoers. Clearly the festivities had been in full swing for several hours already—many of the guests appeared to have had a particular affinity to whatever the hosts were serving as their waltzing looked more like bastardized polka. The bridal couple were dancing grandly, however, with long steps and arcs of fluttering veils. Koskinen heard a deep sigh beside him. Ulla was watching the couple enraptured, her head cocked dreamily to one side.

  One of the dancers suddenly broke away from the rest of the group, and it wasn’t until she was only a few yards away that Koskinen recognized her—Pirkko-Liisa Rinne had undergone a complete makeover since Thursday when Koskinen had last seen her. Her shabby clothes had been replaced by a black, tightly form-fitting silk gown. Her neck was covered with a dark blue scarf and her jet black hair was combed back in a boyish part. However, she hadn’t given up the gold studs that pierced her earlobes and nostril.

  She looked at Koskinen and Ulla demandingly. “What do you want from me?”

  “Just a couple of questions,” Koskinen said. “This is Detective Lundelin.”

  Rinne nodded at Ulla coldly. “I’m Pike.” Then, in a sudden moment of shock, she said, “Just tell me you didn’t introduce yourself as police officers to Heli’s dad just now!”

  “Of course not,” Koskinen said, raising his hands to allay her fears. “We just asked to speak with you.”

  “Then let’s talk quickly. I just left my dance partner on the floor.”

  “Since we last met, another resident of Wolf House has been the victim of a homicide.”

  “I heard about it on the radio,” Pike said with a tremor in her voice. “I was sorry about Rauha. I can’t understand what kind of a pig could have done that. It seems incomprehensible.”