Snow Woman (The Maria Kallio Series Book 4)

by Leena Lehtolainen

  This case still made no sense.

  “But Rosberg was a doctor,” Palo said as I contemplated the crime scene. “She should have known about the drug interaction.”

  “Actually Elina wasn’t a doctor. She was a psychologist who studied some psychiatry. She didn’t have an MD or prescription privileges.”

  I remembered the pathologist saying the danger of interactions between erythromycin and sleeping pills like Dormicum and Halcion had been discovered only recently. Although the instructions for erythromycin now contained appropriate warnings, how often do people actually read the label on a medication?

  I tried to remember how Dormicum tasted. Did it taste like anything? Now I wouldn’t even be able to test that because acetaminophen was about the only drug allowed during pregnancy. But could you drink a large amount of Dormicum mixed into something like whiskey, which I’d heard Elina enjoyed, without detecting the taste?

  “OK, theory number two. Someone wanted Elina to sleep and served her whiskey laced with Dormicum without knowing about Elina’s antibiotics,” I said. “Elina ended up delirious and basically went sleepwalking. Whoever gave her the whiskey didn’t mean to kill her but is afraid to tell us because she thinks we’ll charge her with murder.”

  “Could be.” Palo was watching me intently the whole time, but I could tell he was also listening to the forest. He kept scanning for movement in the trees and jumping at any strange sound. I continued thinking out loud, trying not to feel the cold, which sneaked into every opening of my coat and through the worn rubber of my boots.

  “I have two candidates for that theory: Milla Marttila and Aira Rosberg. Milla could have given Elina the laced whiskey so she wouldn’t hear her sneaking out that night. And Aira admitted she took a sleeping pill so Elina’s coughing wouldn’t keep her up. Maybe Aira took a big swig and then gave the rest to Elina so they could both sleep.”

  “But Marttila left earlier in the evening,” Palo pointed out.

  “Yeah. Maybe she took the medicine earlier. Then again, Dormicum is pretty fast acting.” I shook my head. “I don’t know. This is pointless. Let’s go!”

  We slogged back the same way we came. The moon was nearly full and was now peeking out from behind a cloud. The forest was still very dark. On Boxing Day it would have been barely half full, so it wouldn’t have been a particularly good light source. We hadn’t found a flashlight on Elina, but of course someone could have taken it. I would have to ask Aira whether any flashlights were missing.

  More lights were shining in the house by now, as if Aira had lit the lamps to guide us back. Enclosed within its walls, the house looked inviting and warm, a refuge where neither frost nor Madman Malmberg could threaten us. But that was only an illusion. Evil had slipped through the walls of Rosberga Manor and had somehow lured Elina into the forest to die.

  “Flashlights? I hadn’t thought of that,” Aira said as we sat in the kitchen holding cups of tea. Palo stared dubiously at his. Maybe my theory about Aira and the whiskey had put him on guard. I let the warmth soak from the ceramic cup into my hands, occasionally pressing my numb cheek against it too.

  “We have several flashlights so course participants can go out for walks. I don’t know exactly how many, but I could collect them all and see if any seem to be missing.”

  “You said you took a sleeping pill that night. Did you wash it down with whiskey?” I asked.

  “Whiskey?” Aira sounded dismayed. “I don’t really drink alcohol. Sometimes a glass of wine or a drop of cognac, but I’ve only tasted whiskey once.”

  “Did Elina drink whiskey?” I asked.

  “She did like whiskey, but she was particular about her brands. Only Scottish whiskeys and preferably malt. Sometimes I’d buy her a bottle of Laphroaig.”

  “Did she have any tucked away at the time?”

  “Certainly. I bought her a bottle for Christmas. Just a moment.” Aira rose and opened an upper cabinet. Inside were a few bottles of wine, a half-drunk Meukow, and an almost-full Laphroaig. I could almost taste its deep, smoky flavor on my tongue, but guilt immediately followed the illusion of pleasure. Delicacies like that would be off-limits until August—or longer if I intended to nurse.

  “Who’ll drink the rest of this now?” Aira said to herself. “Elina had a glass with Tarja Kivimäki on Christmas Eve. Maybe she’d like it.”

  Aira put the bottle back in the cupboard and sat down again. “I’ve been writing letters and making telephone calls all day canceling the spring courses. No one could ever replace Elina. I don’t know what’ll happen to Rosberga.”

  “Unless Elina stated otherwise in her will, then I assume you’ll inherit all of this,” I said more pointedly than I really intended.

  “Yes,” said Aira. She seemed unperturbed by my statement. “It would feel strange to move away. Other than a few years, I’ve lived here my whole life. After nursing school I worked at Meilahti Hospital for a while, but then my father got sick, and then my mother. I cared for them, and then Elina’s mother, who suffered from leukemia for years. My brother, Elina’s father I mean, never would have survived alone. When he died ten years ago, Elina and I sold most of the farmland. I worked for a few years before retiring—Elina found me a position at a private rest home in north Espoo so I could easily commute from here. I was born in this house and would prefer to die here too. But—”

  The banging of the front door interrupted Aira’s musings. Footsteps sounded, and at first I didn’t recognize the woman who walked into the room. Johanna Säntti was wearing jeans, and her hair was down. From a distance, she looked like a schoolgirl. But the eyes that looked into my own in greeting were still the eyes of an old woman, surrounded by a web of wrinkles.

  “Johanna is leaving tomorrow to visit her children,” Aira said.

  “It’s good I bumped into you,” I said. “Will you be staying there long?”

  “I doubt it. The closest hotel is in Oulu, and I’ll have to take the bus back and forth to Karhumaa.” There was something new in Johanna’s voice, something that sounded like indignation.

  “Couldn’t you stay at home?” I asked.

  “Leevi will likely refuse to allow it, especially when I tell him I filed for divorce. My parents don’t want to see me either. My little sister, Maija-Leena, is living in my house watching the children. Maybe Leevi will marry her now.” It was impossible to mistake the tone in her voice; the anger and sarcasm were palpable. Johanna Säntti was no shrinking violet. Why had I ever thought so? Transgressing against everything she had ever learned by seeking an abortion must have required immense courage.

  “I met with the lawyer you recommended today, Maria. She convinced me there isn’t any way Leevi can keep me from my children. Some of them might decide not to see me, but at least I’ll see Anna and the little ones.” Johanna’s defiant voice trembled a bit, and I realized that she wasn’t quite as brave as she appeared. I imagined what it would be like to know your entire village was doing its best to turn your children against you, but I couldn’t.

  “Do you mind telling me a little about your life, Johanna?” I asked. “I’m curious, not so much as a police officer but as a woman. I’ve never met someone with nine children before.”

  A sigh came from Palo’s direction. Apparently the patience that had enabled him to stretch out his workday had just come to an end. Fortunately Johanna ignored him.

  “What’s there to tell? Praying and making babies. I don’t really know how to talk about it. Elina told me to write an autobiography. She said it would help me understand my life better. And I did.”

  “Could I read it?” I asked.

  “Why would you want to?” Johanna looked straight at me. A lock of hair fell over her face as she did so, and she brushed it away clumsily, like a woman who had spent her life wearing her hair up. “If I give you what I wrote, will you tell me about your life? You’re the first
female police officer I’ve met.”

  I had a strong feeling that Johanna was laughing at me, but the expression in her eyes was almost childlike in its innocence.

  “It’s a deal,” I replied.

  When Johanna went to get her manuscript, I said to Aira, “She’s obviously better.”

  “Only because she keeps telling herself that her husband killed Elina,” Aira answered dryly. “If he’s guilty, she thinks she’ll get the children for herself.”

  Johanna returned and handed me a stack of neatly printed pages.

  “Milla taught me to use the computer,” she said enthusiastically. “You can keep it. I can print a new version anytime.”

  I wondered at the echo of triumph in her voice. Maybe Aira was right. Maybe Johanna’s new confidence really was a result of self-deception. I thought of Leevi Säntti, whom I had never met but implicitly detested. Now there was a culprit I could accept.

  As we left, I wished Johanna a good trip. At the same time I considered whether she could have murdered Elina in hopes of framing Leevi for the crime. It sounded fanciful, but since nothing about Elina’s death made sense, why not? There was something ritualistic about a woman frozen in the forest, something both insane and sacrificial. Maybe Elina had been the offering that Johanna believed her God required for recovering her children.

  Or maybe I had read too many bad psychological thrillers.

  Palo resumed his hysterical glancing around as soon as we drove through the gates.

  “You’re wound up pretty tight,” I finally said. “You should take a little time off and get away somewhere so you don’t have to worry about Malmberg.”

  “How am I supposed to get time off?” Palo asked irritably.

  “Go to a doctor . . . or a shrink. Getting a death threat like this is stressful. Anyone can see that.”

  I glanced at Palo, and from his expression I could tell the idea didn’t sit well with him. And I understood. The Finnish police force still followed the old code: officers weren’t allowed to experience emotions beyond anger, irritation, jealousy, sexual desire, and the occasional surge of joy when a family had a baby boy or Finland won the Ice Hockey World Championships. Fear wasn’t on the spectrum. Everyone was afraid sometimes, but you didn’t dare show it.

  I was used to hiding my own fears even better than the men because everyone assumed I’d be the first to feel afraid. Maybe I had succeeded too well at concealing my fears, even from myself. Maybe that was the reason I wasn’t particularly concerned about Malmberg.

  “If I went on vacation, I’d just think about it more,” Palo said. “At work I’m safer. Where else would I always have a cop with me? Although maybe you and I shouldn’t be together, since he wants both of us.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed, just as a call came in over the radio. Ström was on the line. He’d found two eyewitnesses for the garbage dump murder. According to their statements, a stout blond man in his thirties had killed Lindström. When presented with photographs, they identified Madman Markku Malmberg.

  “Bastard killed his own father!” Palo moaned in horror.

  “Have there been any other sightings?” I yelled into the radio.

  “No, none. He has enough contacts to hide as long as he wants if he has the sense to keep his head down. Just remember Larha,” Ström said, referring to another fugitive case two years earlier in which the killer Ilpo Larha had managed to evade capture for three weeks before dying in a bloody standoff with police. I was sure the malice in Ström’s voice was intentional. I was furious. Anyone else in the department would have tried to reassure us. Anyone else would have said they were checking with Malmberg’s contacts and would have him in custody in a couple of days.

  But not Ström. Ström knew full well what a serious miscalculation we’d made in assuming Malmberg was going after his father’s murderer. Instead, he had killed his father himself. I didn’t know how many other enemies Malmberg had, but I was sure of the two names at the top of his hit list now.

  Palo and Kallio.

  That was when I started to be afraid.

  8

  As I drove home, I knew I had to tell Antti about Madman Malmberg. He would wonder why I was carrying a weapon anyway.

  “How dangerous is he?” Antti asked after sitting quietly for a few seconds staring out the window across the dark fields.

  “Dangerous enough,” I admitted. “But he’s also an escaped convict with a new murder charge dogging him. He’ll probably stay out of sight instead of hunting Palo and me.”

  “Couldn’t you get a security detail or something?”

  “We don’t have the resources for that. And his threat was made six months ago. Malmberg might have forgotten about the whole thing by now,” I said. I was trying to convince both of us.

  “This feels lousy coming right when I’m suddenly worrying about two people’s safety.” Antti tried to smile. “Speaking of which, when are we telling our parents and friends the good news?”

  “Let’s wait a few more weeks. Early pregnancy is always risky. Most miscarriages happen before the twelfth week.”

  “I bought some old issues of Two Plus One at the library book sale. They should tell us how to care for a baby.”

  “Antti!” In bewilderment I stared at the stack of magazines. A beautiful mother with an even more beautiful baby graced each brightly colored cover in blissful symbiosis. “Do I have to read those?”

  Antti’s expression was a mixture of satisfaction and embarrassment. “I’ve been so stressed trying to get these papers submitted and about the whole beltway construction thing, you’ve got to let me be happy about this,” he said a little apologetically.

  “Of course you can be happy.”

  I sat in Antti’s lap and buried my face in his black sweater. The heat of his body was so arousing that I started kissing his neck below the ear, his jaw, his lips, and soon Antti was pulling my shirt up and off. Ignoring Einstein’s disapproving looks from the bookshelf, we made love on the living room rug.

  Sex left me feeling awake and refreshed, so I picked up Johanna’s autobiography and settled on the bed to read. Occasionally Antti interrupted me with a ludicrous quote from Two Plus One, but after I shushed him a couple of times, he realized I must be reading something important.

  I had always liked autobiographies. Voyeurism must be part of that, my innate desire to invade other people’s lives. To me, the most interesting life stories were about perfectly ordinary people. A spate of these had been published in recent years, and now I tried reading Johanna’s account as I would any of them—just a description of the life of an unknown thirty-three-year-old Ostrobothnian woman, but it didn’t really work. The neatly printed pages with their understated lines told me far too much.

  I was born thirty-three years ago in the village of Karhumaa in Yli-Ii County, a little north of Oulu, Finland. At that time the village had an elementary school, a church, two stores, two banks, a health center, and the Farmers’ Society Hall, which was also used as a prayer room. The county seat, Yli-Ii, was twelve or thirteen miles away, so people didn’t leave the village much. My parents were farmers, as were their parents before them. I had three older brothers and after me came one more brother and then my little sister, who is ten years younger than me. Six children actually wasn’t very many in our village. Many families had ten children or more, because at least ninety percent of the people in the village are Conservative Laestadians. Our religion forbids contraception and abortion. A large number of children is considered a blessing from God.

  Despite the strict religion, I remember my childhood being happy. There were lots of children in the village to play with, and I learned to bake and do farm chores. Because I was the oldest girl in the family, the role of mother’s helper naturally fell to me. By five years old I could milk a cow, and by seven I was cooking right alongside my mother. I was ten when my littl
e sister was born, and I remember being the proudest child in the world because Father didn’t think we needed anyone to take over the housekeeping while Mother was recovering because I could handle everything.

  I have good memories of elementary school too. Because I could already read when I was five, they put me in school a year earlier than usual. Our teachers were strict and sometimes heavy handed, but as I was a good, obedient student, they never had any reason to scold. I did have one problem though: my hair. My curls were so tight my hair would never stay in nice, clean braids. I received constant reminders about my curls falling out of my braids, but cutting my hair was out of the question too. Early on I realized there was something worldly and evil about curly hair, but I can also remember letting my hair down sometimes when I was alone and enjoying its weight on my shoulders and the way it tickled my face.

  I got onto the academic high school track mainly because the new school system was coming the next year, which would have meant my next required grade was moving to the middle school in Yli-Ii anyway. I remember getting the best scores in my class on our entrance exams, an achievement I was secretly proud of. I awaited middle school with a mixture of enthusiasm and dread. On the one hand, I was thirsty for more learning and excited about new subjects and teachers, but on the other hand I was afraid of having to interact with sinners at my new school. The summer before middle school was full of warnings from family and community members. When I first started school, my oldest brother was already in tenth grade, my second brother, Simo, was repeating the eighth, and my third brother was in seventh grade. Simo being held back was a source of shame for the entire family. I can still remember my father’s face when he heard about it and the beating Simo got.

  I imagine my brothers were told to make sure I behaved myself in school. Actually, we all watched out for each other. That was always a part of life in our village. The bus took us to school at five to eight and left for home at three fifteen. We didn’t have much time left to sin. In the early years, most of my teachers were in the faith too, so things like watching television in school or dancing weren’t a problem yet.