The Nightingale Murder (The Maria Kallio Series Book 9)

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “What did she say?”

  “‘Fucking bastards’ or something like that. She was even thinking about calling the pigs, but then . . . She was too afraid! But what if she did and they killed her . . .” Sulonen pounded his fist on the bed and then realized a split second later how much the motion hurt.

  “Tero, calm down! Did Oksana work for your company?”

  “No! Lulu never took on any Russians. It was too big a risk. But Oksana visited us once. She asked something about the Finnish police, but I didn’t really understand. They spoke English. Lulu was like that. She always wanted to help people in the life, even though she herself was proud of being an independent entrepreneur and not anyone’s employee. Girls like that can’t pick their clients.”

  Sulonen finished his juice. Above his head I read, Marko here again, missing my lady and the kids. Sorry I screwed up again. The date was from seven years previous. The walls hadn’t been painted since then—it was considered pointless given that they’d just be vandalized immediately. Maybe the inscriptions entertained the prisoners. I read them with interest myself. During college, I’d always thought it was lame when they painted over the most interesting compositions on the bathroom walls. Once, in the mid-1980s, I’d even written a snatch of Pelle Miljoona’s “Academic Boy” on the wall of a restroom in the Helsinki University Main. At the time, I was already a police officer and a law student. It had felt like the appropriate level of rebellion.

  “Did you read my poems?” Sulonen suddenly asked, pleading in his voice. “Did the police take them? Can I have them back?”

  “Of course. We’re just reviewing them,” I said, pitying Puustjärvi, who’d been assigned the task. He was supposed to just skim them to make sure they didn’t contain any threats against the author’s muse. Sulonen was our strongest suspect, after all.

  “Lulu . . . Lulu only got to read the best. I couldn’t help it. The poems just came to me. They wouldn’t stop coming.”

  “Writing poetry is a wonderful hobby,” I said distractedly. I was still thinking about Oksana. Had she asked for advice about how to counter Lasse Nordström? Sulonen continued speaking, but I became increasingly inattentive. I didn’t snap out of it until he shook me by the arm. “Are you listening? When we got to the studio, Lulu looked confused when she saw one of the other cars and said, ‘Oh, that asshole’s here too.’”

  “Whom did she mean?”

  “I wasn’t sure. For a second I thought it might be Länsimies—she thought he was a prick. But then I remembered that it was his show, so of course he would be there.”

  Would Lulu have recognized Nordström’s car? That was a risk: the guests might recognize each other before showtime if their cars gave them away. Nordström didn’t advertise that he was an NBI agent, but what about Mauri Hytönen? He ran an HVAC company and might have had a decal on his car.

  “Why does that other one have to be so mean all the time?” Sulonen asked. “The other woman? As if it were a crime to love a person. Why does she think I killed Lulu? You don’t believe that, do you?”

  I smiled and told Sulonen to get some sleep.

  “Sleep? I might as well be dead. Then at least I’d be in the same place as Lulu.” Sulonen sniffed. Tomorrow we’d pump him again for information about Lulu’s individual clients. I could imagine how much Ursula would enjoy that. Fortunately, Puupponen would be the one to handle the questioning with her.

  I was happy to leave work that day. The bitch cop/mother cop act had paid off after all. God, Ursula and I actually worked well together. That was irony for you.

  Autio called just as I pulled into my apartment building’s parking lot.

  “It’s about that apartment downtown. The lease ran until today under the name of a limited liability partnership called Machine Brothers LLC, who rented it for temporary workers. The keys were returned yesterday. Now the apartment should be empty. Should I track down the company or get the maintenance man to let me in? There might be some clues.”

  I cursed. If these were professionals, there wouldn’t be anything left in the apartment that could be useful to us. I asked Autio to find out who owned Machine Brothers, even though I didn’t think he’d have much luck. I decided to send Nordström an e-mail to ask him what he knew about the company.

  I tried to call Eeva and Jarmo. No one answered their home phone, but I finally reached Eeva on her cell. She was picking up their daughter, Aliisa, from her music lesson.

  “This isn’t much fun,” she said. “Of course, the kids don’t want to move, and I don’t either. But where is Jarmo going to find a job in Northern Karelia? He’s talked a little about setting up a consulting firm, but mostly he’s just been moping. And drinking beer.”

  “Jarmo isn’t usually much of a drinker, is he?” I couldn’t remember seeing my sister’s husband drunk since the Midsummer holiday in 1995.

  “Now he is. A six-pack doesn’t even last two nights.”

  Eeva’s voice was tense. She’d always been the most fastidious of us Kallio girls, and any upcoming visit still sent me into a cleaning panic. Eeva always had a hard time accepting it when things didn’t go according to plan. Before hanging up we arranged for Aliisa to come spend some time with Iida during the summer. They got along well, because in addition to playing violin, Aliisa was also a figure skater.

  After dinner, Antti went to the library with Iida, and I stayed home with Taneli to tidy up, even though mostly we just played with the Legos that were spread all over the floor. The phone rang just as I completed a monster from outer space.

  “Hi, it’s Marjatta. How are you all doing? The papers have been making it sound like you’ve got your hands full.”

  “I do.” I wondered why my mother-in-law was calling my cell phone rather than the landline or Antti’s phone.

  She asked whether Antti was home, and when I said no, she replied, “Good. I think it’s best to talk to you about this first. Tauno would have wanted this, and I talked about it with him many times. I intend to move in with Marita. I don’t need much, and Marita’s boys will be moving out soon for the army and school. I’ll split Tauno’s legacy between her and Antti—the money from selling the house in Inkoo and the stocks. You won’t have to keep scraping by paying that terrible mortgage, and you can buy a proper home.”

  My breath caught. I didn’t know what to say.

  “I know what Antti thinks. He’s too proud to accept help. Stupid boy. The rest of the money will be yours eventually, but I’m a tenacious old lady, and I might live another twenty years yet. In the meantime, you’re wasting your lives with him going back and forth between different sides of the country. The children need their father. With my husband’s money, you’ll be able to buy a house, and Antti can spend some time unemployed if he needs to. What do you say?”

  I found myself blinking, and tears weren’t far off. “Marjatta, that sounds lovely, but you have to talk to Antti, not to me. This is about his father’s money.”

  “But that boy is so stubborn!”

  I laughed, which made the tears fall onto my cheeks. “Yes, he is. And he likes his work in Vaasa. I don’t know if he’ll want to give it up. Of course, I can tell him your proposal, but wouldn’t it be best for you to talk to him yourself?”

  Marjatta still wanted me to broach the subject first. I understood why. Antti’s relationship with his mother wasn’t a simple one. In the later stages of Tauno Sarkela’s illness, she had leaned on Antti for support and tried to convince him to clear up some longstanding quarrels with his father, which Antti wouldn’t even talk to me about. I’d tried to play the mediator between mother and son, since my mother-in-law seemed to think I was a sensible, level-headed person. Antti had a habit of shutting down during difficult situations, and his mother’s truculence didn’t help. The best thing now would be for me to forget my own feelings about the matter, although of course I hoped Antti would accept the money.

  I didn’t bring it up immediately once Iida and Antti got home, and
I waited until the kids had gone to sleep before telling him about his mother’s call. He listened quietly, but he fidgeted the way he always did when he was nervous or irritated.

  “Why does my mom have to use you as a go-between?” he asked once I was done.

  “I asked her to call you directly, but she refused. But it doesn’t matter. Think about it. This is a great solution! The kids can have their own rooms, and you can have an office that isn’t just a corner of the living room table.”

  “Well, yes, that would be nice, but does Mom really think I’d leave my job in Vaasa? I like what I’m doing. I don’t want to live on my inheritance. It would be a waste of my education. Would you consider moving? We could get a really nice house in the Vaasa area with that much money.”

  “There aren’t any positions open, and I happen to like my job too.”

  “But we’re always living on your terms, Maria!” Antti stood, shoved his feet into his shoes, and grabbed his coat. “I’m going for a walk. I have to think. None of this is as simple as it seems,” he said, and then he was gone. His wanting to be alone was his typical reaction to conflict. I was used to it, but it still irked me. Why couldn’t Antti talk it out with me for once? I remembered the way he had laughed with his colleague, Virve, on the phone. Workplace romances were common enough, and I’d been in danger of getting mixed up in something like that with Taskinen more than once. I had to admit that Antti had had good reason to be jealous a couple of times when I’d felt too much for someone other than him, but I’d never actually acted on those feelings. I’d always trusted Antti, but now I didn’t know anymore. What had Mauri Hytönen said about men’s sexual needs?

  I’d thought the recent tepidness of our sex life was simply due to lack of opportunity. We were both rarely home at the same time, and by the time the kids were asleep we had hardly any energy left. I didn’t need anything special, just the touch of the person I loved. I thought about Lulu Nightingale’s arsenal. Did I need to get some naughty lingerie or a nurse’s costume? The very thought depressed me.

  I didn’t know what Virve looked like, only that she was ten years younger than me and a prodigy who earned her doctorate in economics before the age of thirty. I realized I was imagining her as an assertive blond like Ursula.

  Antti had left his phone on the table next to his wallet. First, I opened his wallet. This was no big deal—I’d taken money from it countless times before. The same familiar pictures were there in their plastic covers: me at our wedding, Taneli and Iida’s most recent day care and school pictures. I felt under them just in case. I found one more picture, but it just showed our kids a couple of years ago. Taneli’s eyes looked as big as an alien’s.

  There were also sixty euros in the wallet, Antti’s credit card, and a stack of library cards. Under those I found a restaurant receipt, but it wasn’t from Vaasa—it was from Nykarleby, a small town about halfway between Vaasa and Espoo. Strange. Antti hadn’t mentioned going there. The receipt was from the previous Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. Antti had paid for a bottle of red wine, two pepper steaks, and two coffees with cognac. What on earth was this? Why hadn’t Antti mentioned going to a town I’d never been to before? I felt my breathing accelerate and my heart rate pick up. What was he up to?

  I put everything back in his wallet just as I’d found it and set it on the table, then picked up his phone, which was unlocked. But what would it prove if Virve’s name was in his contacts or even if he’d called her? They could just be talking about work. What about text messages . . . Oh hell, what was I doing? Violating my husband’s privacy, that’s what. I felt dirty. Was I really this big an idiot? I put his phone down, then took a shower, scrubbing myself with a brush until my skin shone. The feeling wouldn’t go away, however, even when I got out and put on a clean nightgown. I got into bed to read and wait for Antti. He came home twenty minutes later, his hair wet from the snow outside. He told me that he was going to see his mother in the morning. An issue this big deserved a face-to-face conversation. I understood that well enough.

  I could hear that Antti couldn’t sleep either. We lay awake in the same bed without touching each other. That felt much worse than being alone.

  11

  On Wednesday morning, I woke up at six to have time for a jog. The sun was already rising, and the light cast the trees in sharp relief against the horizon in a red-and-yellow line. The sky was a dazzling blue, and a half moon hung above the trees. I ran about three and a half miles, greeting the familiar people out jogging or walking their dogs. It was cold and windless, which increased the stench from the exhaust of the cars as they idled at each intersection. It was a beautiful day for a funeral.

  When I returned from my run, I wasn’t as depressed as I’d been when I woke up. Antti had already made coffee, and I ate a hearty breakfast after showering. He would take the kids to school and then head for Vaasa after seeing his mother. Then she would come watch the children in the afternoon.

  “I was thinking about staying over on Friday for Virve’s party,” Antti said. “Maybe it’s good for me to have some time to myself to think things through.”

  “What’s so hard about accepting free money?”

  “That’s exactly the point. I didn’t earn it! What right do I have for things to be so much easier for me than someone else just because my dad’s family happened to have money and he had a good job?”

  Of course, I understood Antti’s logic. He’d always felt guilty about his father’s family being so rich. I hoped he didn’t think I was pushing because I wanted us to take his inheritance. If Antti accepted the money and we used it to buy a house, it might be a good idea to sign a postnup. Apparently, there was still a little bit of the lawyer left in me.

  “You’ll be fine with the kids, right? Mom’s happy to help. She enjoys getting into our business now that she doesn’t have Dad to care for anymore.”

  I was surprised at the bitterness in Antti’s voice, and Virve’s party had me terrified. Why did I think it was just going to be a party for two? I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t call Antti’s cell phone on Friday night. I still had my pride. The kiss we exchanged before I left for work was a formality, but we didn’t dare go without it. We weren’t actually fighting, after all.

  I scraped the frost off the side mirrors and thought about Iida’s teacher’s promise to speak to Miro Miettinen’s teacher. She’d said that, sadly, it was difficult to do much about a child’s behavior if the parents weren’t cooperative. Maybe Miro was from a family where name-calling like that was allowed. Antti was right. A child didn’t choose their parents or the values they were raised with. I’m sure Iida and Taneli would have liked to have parents who were home more often.

  Snow began falling gently, and the car ahead of me slid every time it braked. Maybe its driver had taken a risk and switched to summer tires already. In the morning meeting, we went over a report from Helsinki. No one at any of the state liquor stores in south Helsinki remembered Lulu Nightingale or Tero Sulonen buying any Fernet Branca. I decided to widen the search to every Alko outlet in the metro area, even though it felt like a waste of time. Then we worked on profiling Lulu’s murderer.

  “The situation is unique, because no one could get into the studio without ending up on the security tape. On the other hand, we can’t rule out Lulu Nightingale having brought the Fernet Branca herself. Her handbag was plenty big enough for a liquor bottle to fit. It’s a shame it doesn’t really show up on the security camera. If Lulu brought the bottle, then the killer had to rely on chance. If he didn’t act until they were at the studio, it must have been spur of the moment. So what kind of person are we looking for?”

  “Someone who takes risks,” Ursula said.

  “And someone who can seize an opportunity,” Puupponen added.

  “A gambler.” Puustjärvi’s voice was more assertive than usual. “Someone who’s willing to bet everything on one card. He must have risked everything before and won.”

  “A professional,” Koivu
said. “For a professional, breaking into Lulu’s car would have been no sweat. The fact that Lulu died at the TV studio was pure chance.”

  “She said it in one of the interviews I read on background,” Puupponen said. “Lulu, I mean. She said that she didn’t drink much alcohol but that when she did her favorite was either ultradry champagne or Fernet Branca. So anyone could have known that.”

  We stared at each other in frustration. This was going nowhere. I stood up to get a cup of tea. I was sick of coffee.

  “Have the DNA results come back?” I asked Puustjärvi.

  “They’re still processing. I’ve been riding the lab,” Puustjärvi replied. “This is their top priority.”

  After the meeting, Koivu and I drove to the West Man Productions studio. Riitta Saarnio had asked to meet us there. In the light of day, the studio looked like a boring box, which fit in well with the car dealerships and warehouses that had sprung up in the fields that had once blanketed the area. Koivu rang the bell, and Riitta Saarnio came to let us in. She was dressed all in black, which heightened the paleness of her skin, and the blood red of her lipstick didn’t help. Even though her voice was calm, I got the feeling she was trembling inside.

  “Luckily no one else is here yet, so we can chat in peace. I don’t want my personal business being spread around.” Riitta Saarnio led us to a room I’d only glanced into in passing while investigating the crime scene. It was part office and part conference room: in the middle of the room was a table with four chairs around it, and in the far corner of the room was a workstation with a computer and a filing cabinet.

  “I can’t believe my husband did this to me,” Riitta Saarnio said after sitting at the head of the table. Her lipstick had already started to spread to the lines running vertically above her mouth, making her upper lip look like it was bleeding.

  Arto Saarnio had told his wife about our discussion, so I was saved from having to reveal the ugly truth. On the other hand, that robbed me of the opportunity to surprise her. Koivu set a voice recorder on the table and rattled off the routine interview information while I watched Saarnio. The tremor that plagued her during our first interview still bothered her. Her hands wouldn’t stay in one place. Her pink nail polish was flaking, and the backs of her hands were more wrinkled than her face and neck. She gave the impression of holding herself together with the final shreds of her strength, but I couldn’t allow pity to prevent us from questioning her.