Fatal Headwind

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “Goddamn back went out yesterday when I was checking the air in my tires.”

  “Lumbago? Have you been to the doctor?”

  “Of course not, since I can’t get out of the goddamn bed!”

  “Then we should send someone to check you out.”

  “Don’t you fuss over me, Kallio. All I need is a couple of days of rest, and I’ll be fine. But you probably called about work, not to ask about my health. What’s wrong?”

  Attempting to speak as calmly as I could about his open cases, I simultaneously tried to sense whether anything in Ström’s voice indicated that he was hungover.

  “Sic Wang on those Arab devils,” Ström said when we arrived at the fight between the Iranians and the skinheads. “She was hired to handle trouble with other darkies, so let her.”

  “Wang is as close to being Iranian as you are to being Somali.”

  “Why didn’t they put her in Narcotics, since that’s where her kind have been making a name for themselves lately?” Ström continued, referring to a case earlier in the spring in which three Vietnamese men were caught running a drug ring, 70 percent of which was actually Finnish. Still the headlines talked about them as a Vietnamese drug gang. Apparently ethnic criminals sold more papers than your average kid from Espoo who got mixed up in selling amphetamines.

  I ordered Ström to go to the doctor if his back wasn’t better by the next day. I wasn’t interested in making threats. The last thing I wanted was a power struggle with Ström. What he wanted, I didn’t know. Maybe he hoped I would get so difficult that he could switch jobs, claiming that I had driven him out of the Espoo Police Department.

  Just then Wang came to say that Tapio Holma was waiting downstairs, ready for his interview. Riikka Merivaara hadn’t felt up to coming yet.

  “Koivu decided to let her be,” Wang said, rolling her eyes. Koivu’s otherwise excellent police work was hampered occasionally by a soft spot for young women in need of protection, although he didn’t generally fall for obvious eyelash batting.

  Once again I dabbed a little more powder on my shiny nose. It still had a few freckles on it, but my tan was almost completely gone. Winter and long days at work would soon turn my skin pale and darken my hair. Maybe I would need to find time to add some more red to it, because a few new gray strands had appeared on top. My father had gone gray at forty, and apparently I was in for the same fate. Maybe gray hair would finally give me a little gravitas.

  At our previous meetings, Tapio Holma had worn cotton trousers, a sweater, and a field jacket. Today’s nicely cut dark-gray suit and black tie wouldn’t have been out of place on a concert stage.

  “Hello, Lieutenant Kallio.” Holma extended his hand in greeting. “So you’re the one leading the investigation into Juha’s death.”

  “Yes.” I motioned Holma into Interrogation Room 2, where coffee was already waiting. I poured myself a cup, even though the fifth of the day was certain to make my stomach complain, since I’d only been having one in the mornings during maternity leave. My system would probably adjust to police habits soon though: too much coffee, too little sleep, irregular meals of fast food, and exercise at odd hours. I dictated the routine details for the recorder but didn’t manage to start the questioning before Holma asked his own between sips of tea.

  “So what’s this all about? The police still haven’t told us the cause of death, but we’ve been fingerprinted and our clothes were taken. Is that the right way to treat a grieving family?”

  “As I understand it, you aren’t a member of the Merivaara family yet. Or do you live with Riikka?”

  “Not officially. But in practice, yes, Riikka spends a lot of her time at my place.”

  “What did Juha Merivaara think of your relationship with his daughter?”

  “Do we really need to talk about that?” Holma loosened his tie.

  “Yes. Fathers can be jealous of their daughters’ male companions, especially if they happen to be twenty years older than said daughters.”

  From his personal information sheet, I had seen that Tapio Holma was born in 1955, so he was only four years younger than Juha Merivaara.

  “Can we please get to the point?” Holma ran his hand through his smoothly combed hair, which instantly stood up. “I saw Juha’s body. He obviously fell off the cliff. So why all these questions?”

  “Did Merivaara like the idea of you as his son-in-law? Your relationship with Riikka started so dramatically when you saved her from that rape. How did things progress after that?”

  “I don’t understand what that has to do with Juha’s death, but fine. Part of the story is already in the police record.” Sitting up straighter, Holma began to talk about his performance as real-life hero.

  In mid-April he had learned that his voice probably wouldn’t recover without an operation. He tried to fill the emptiness in his life with birdsong, and he was especially enthusiastic about the spring migration. That was why he set out so early that morning on the last Saturday in April.

  Meeting Riikka had thrown Holma’s plans into confusion. He considered it his duty to escort the girl safely home. When Riikka recognized Holma, he was genuinely flattered. Riikka didn’t hesitate to get in Holma’s car, but she refused to call the police, even though Holma offered her his phone.

  On the way to her house, Riikka calmed down, and once there she delayed getting out of the car. Holma gave her his business card and urged her again to call the police. Riikka was afraid that both the police and her father would say she had practically asked for it by taking a ride from the boys.

  Holma continued on his way to watch the birds, but instead all he could think about was the girl he had met. He had happened along just at the right moment and that seemed to mean something. Holma returned home shortly after noon and fell asleep, waking up around three to the doorbell ringing. There was a flower-delivery person and twelve white roses. Accompanying them was a card in which Riikka thanked her savior.

  Holma called Riikka to thank her for the flowers and ask whether she had contacted the police. She hadn’t, and at that point Holma offered to handle it. Next he had gotten in touch with our unit, at which point he learned that other charges were pending against Tuomo Haaranen. Then he called Riikka again and said he would come with her to the police station.

  Riikka only hesitated momentarily. All she had done since waking up was listen to Holma’s recordings. Filing a police report would be a good excuse to see him again. But first she wanted to talk to him, so they arranged to meet the next day at the coffee shop in the cultural center in downtown Tapiola.

  Holma was surprised how nervous he was. He spent half an hour just choosing a shirt and then despaired of getting his hair under control. Riikka was ten minutes late, and Holma had already started thinking she wasn’t coming. When Riikka finally arrived, Holma didn’t know how to greet her. He chose a central European kiss to the cheek, which embarrassed Riikka.

  “The whole thing was full of awkward fumbling like that. I was amazed and kept trying to talk sense to myself. Riikka could have been my daughter. Men my age aren’t supposed to fall for girls that young. But she was so sweet and seemed so mature.”

  The trip to the police station hadn’t happened that day, since Riikka was still unsure, but the next morning Holma talked her into it. Koivu was matter-of-fact as he filled out the report—he had already questioned Tuomo Haaranen more than once and knew he was a real bastard.

  After filing the police report, Holma took Riikka out for coffee again. They talked for a long time about Holma losing his voice and Riikka’s dream of studying singing. Holma felt as though he couldn’t let Riikka go, that he had to hold on to her, even though at the same time it felt so hopeless. Finally he asked Riikka if she would go to the opera with him some night. Riikka was delighted at the offer and Holma began to hope that the interest might not only be one-sided. As he said good-bye, he kissed her again on the cheek. This time Riikka reciprocated.

  “At first it was a l
ittle hard. Riikka still lived with her parents. But in the beginning Anne and Juha were very friendly. Maybe they thought they were beholden to me somehow.”

  “But later, did Juha Merivaara object to you dating?”

  Tapio Holma frowned and ran his hand through his hair again. The gesture was boyish, completely lacking the straight-backed self-confidence of the Marquis de Posa. Was an embarrassed forty-year-old marching off to his first date with a teenager just one of Holma’s roles?

  “Well, yes . . . Juha didn’t hide that he thought our age difference was too big, and he opposed Riikka moving in with me. We didn’t want to turn it into a drama, since I’ve had entirely too much of that in my life lately. But Riikka was basically living with me.”

  The trill of a cell phone interrupted Holma’s narration. I almost burst out laughing because the phone played the Toreador Song from Carmen, and it sounded idiotic. Escamillo the bullfighter was a baritone, so was that one of Holma’s preferred roles too?

  When Holma turned the phone off instead of answering, I asked him about the night of Juha Merivaara’s death.

  “We already talked about this once. I didn’t notice anything strange about that night. Juha gave a very nice speech about Anne and we raised our glasses. Jiri was sulking, but that wasn’t anything new. He wanted to be in Turku protesting a fur fashion show, not on Rödskär eating cake.”

  Holma hadn’t heard anything strange during the night, but he usually slept soundly. He had woken up at seven fifteen to Mikke pounding on their bedroom door.

  “What did he say?” I asked curiously.

  “Mikke? He was white as a sheet and said that Juha had fallen off the cliff and that he needed a phone so he could call for help.”

  “Are you sure about the word ‘help’?”

  “What do you mean? No, I’m not sure of anything. I’m not at my best in the morning, and of course Riikka and I were both in shock.”

  If Mikke Sjöberg would have said something about calling the police, that would have meant he suspected Juha’s death wasn’t just an accident. If he was trying to protect himself, he would have wanted to give the impression that Juha had fallen accidentally. How had Sjöberg reacted to having his clothes confiscated? I would have to get a report from Puustjärvi before heading home.

  “Why did you go with Sjöberg to where the body was to make the call?”

  “He didn’t want to go alone. He was confused, as we all were. Katrina Sjöberg was the only one in control of herself. She told Seija to make tea and tried to calm down the Merivaaras. Anne wanted to rush to Juha, and the rest of us had our work cut out for us convincing her there wasn’t anything she could do anymore.”

  After Holma left I pulled up the criminal records database again. Besides Jiri, everyone who had been on Rödskär was clean. Finally I pulled up Juha Merivaara’s record. His list of speeding tickets was as long as my arm, but that didn’t interest me. In December seven years ago, Juha’s sailboat had collided with a small outboard, killing the driver. Juha Merivaara’s blood-alcohol level had been 0.12.

  6

  On Tuesday morning Antti announced he was taking Iida to the city, which in Espoo-speak meant downtown Helsinki.

  “I thought we’d go to the bicycle demonstration this afternoon,” he said. “On the first Tuesday of every month, nonmotorized vehicles and pedestrians block Mannerheim Street.”

  I had heard of the event, which the Helsinki Traffic and Patrol Divisions monitored closely. There hadn’t been any serious blowups yet, but some drivers were more than a little frustrated. They grouped the protesters, who opposed unnecessary solo driving, with more violent environmental extremists, and so they felt justified in spitting and throwing rocks at the demonstrators.

  “Wear your best smile and make sure Iida’s hair looks nice. The SIS is sure to be there with its cameras,” I said and kissed them both before I left. Our cat, Einstein, slipped out with me. Mice had been scratching around under the floorboards all night, trying to flee the autumn chill. They’d made Einstein restless, and he wanted to see whether he could get at his quarry from outside.

  It wasn’t raining, so I biked to work. Antti had suggested that we sell our rattletrap Fiat because my new position earned me a brand-new Saab from the department. Ethically there wouldn’t be anything wrong with me stopping by the supermarket on the way home from work. Although I couldn’t have survived maternity leave without a car, Antti had no problem making small food purchases and shuttling Iida to activities at the library using the bus and his bike. I guessed it was a matter of principle for him.

  The first person I saw when I reached our unit was Ström, walking stiffly down the hall. When he heard me coming, he turned slowly, but a little coffee spilled from the cup he was holding. His “hi” was even more spiritless than usual.

  “Are you really ready for work?” I asked cautiously.

  “Not really, but what damn choice do I have? My cases are moving slowly enough as it is. Is there any word about that junior-detective position?”

  “It’ll be months before they fill it. Next they’re hiring someone for White-Collar Crime.”

  Our unit had been down a junior detective for three years, even though Taskinen and Ström fought to fill it during their tenures. The latest budget had lacked funding for any supplemental appropriations, so the position would probably stay unfilled for the foreseeable future. The only good side of the staffing shortage was that I could get away from paperwork to help conduct interrogations.

  “If those goddamn politicos would come out in the field, they’d see what this work is like! Why isn’t anyone in the media talking about how strapped for money the police are? They sure whine enough when a cop shoots some nutcase who’s randomly popping off shots.”

  This was Ström’s favorite topic of conversation. Over the last year and a half, ever since an escaped convict abducted one of our colleagues and held him prisoner in a secluded cabin in the woods, everyone in our department had been forced to answer questions about when police had the right to use deadly force. Our fallen comrade, Palo, and his kidnapper, “Madman” Malmberg, were both killed in the standoff. The leaders of the operation and the SWAT team members who shot Malmberg were still facing charges as the investigation dragged on. I had been called in for questioning myself more than once during my maternity leave. Ström thought charging the officers involved was a travesty and that Malmberg had caused his own death.

  “Be careful with your back so you don’t make it any worse. And go see a doctor,” I said.

  “What’s a doctor going to do? Shove some pills down my throat and send me back to work. Last time they prescribed the same thing my old lady used to take for menstrual cramps,” Ström growled and then disappeared into his office.

  The officers I was taking to interview the employees of Merivaara Nautical had gathered in the conference room. Along with Koivu, Puustjärvi, and Wang, who had been on the case from the beginning, were Puupponen and, from White Collar, Kantelinen, who would be able to evaluate the financial situation of the company.

  “But doesn’t it look pretty likely that someone on the island did it?” Puustjärvi said doubtfully. “Is there any point going to the company’s offices?”

  “I want to know what kind of person Juha Merivaara was, and this is going to help with that. Besides, one of our initial interviews indicated that someone might have come to the island during the night. Has the Coast Guard given any new information?” I asked Puupponen.

  He shook his head. Rödskär wasn’t near enough to the territorial water boundary that they would have regularly patrolled the area. It was possible that another boat could have visited the island without being noticed. I still didn’t consider Katrina Sjöberg’s observation very reliable. The story about another boat could have been an attempt to protect someone.

  The offices of Merivaara Nautical were located in a small industrial park near a major retail development. From the police station, the fastest route was a narr
ow, winding road that cut south from the Turku Highway. It was hard to believe the fields we passed were only a mile from the center of the second-largest city in the country. The fields were quickly being filled in by construction sites on which rows of nearly identical town houses would be erected. People would move there thinking they were going to live surrounded by nature, but that wouldn’t be the case. In the years we had been living in our house, new construction had been popping up like toadstools after a rain.

  The Merivaara Nautical building represented typical 1960s boxy industrial architecture; later attempts to spruce it up involved three different shades of blue paint. But the result was strange rather than classy.

  Evidently Anne had received word that a police car had arrived, because she was waiting for us in the lobby. Her black pantsuit made her look even more fragile, but her voice was firm and businesslike.

  “Hello, Lieutenant Kallio. Welcome to Merivaara Nautical,” Anne said, as if we were here for a building tour. “Let’s go upstairs to our conference room, and you can tell me what it is you want.”

  Anne Merivaara moved confidently, but she was fiddling with something in her left hand, and she kept clenching her hand into a fist around it. We followed her to the elevator. The building had three stories, and part of the upper story was a large, open space. From the corner windows there was a view north to the remaining fields and meadows.

  “Of course you may interview all of our staff if you wish. Juha’s secretary, Paula Saarnio, will be happy to help,” Anne said, introducing a tall woman with dark hair and a look of efficiency.

  “That sounds fine. Sergeant Kantelinen here would also like to see your latest financial report and have a look at your books.”

  “Very well, but why?” Now there was confusion in Anne Merivaara’s voice.

  “I’m sorry, but your husband’s death was most likely a homicide.”