Snow Woman (The Maria Kallio Series Book 4)

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “I can’t be long or Maija-Leena will wonder where I’ve run off to. I’ll probably have to say the taxi was late. Is it my mom you want to talk about? Uh-oh, Grandpa!” Anna ducked down as we passed a stooped man coming from the other direction on a kick sled.

  “Your mother’s father?” I asked.

  “Yes. He’d be angry if he saw me riding with strangers. At least you’re women.”

  “Do you miss your mother?” I asked.

  There was pity in Anna’s smile, as if it were the stupidest question in the world. “Of course. All of us except Johannes want to go with her, but she doesn’t have a house yet. I want out of Karhumaa. I want to go where I can wear jeans and watch TV like everybody else. Do you know when my mom’s going to be well enough to come get us?”

  “Your mother is a lot better already. Didn’t she say so when she came to visit?” I said.

  “She did. And she looked different. A lot younger, and she was laughing again like before Simo and Maria were born. Johannes said Mom is a whore now because she lets her hair down and wears pants. But he’s an idiot.”

  Why was I driving around the snowy countryside with Anna Säntti? What did I think I was going to get from a thirteen-year-old girl? Evidence that one of her parents was a murderer?

  “Maija-Leena is trying to teach the others, especially Maria and Simo, to call her Mom, but I always tell them she’s their aunt, not their mother. Mom will come get us soon. But it’s hard to tell them what’s going on . . . about the abortion and everything. Mom only told me because I asked and asked. How do you explain that to a six-year-old?”

  My next question made me feel like a jerk, but I asked it anyway. “Have you heard your father threaten your mother or the woman your mother was living with, Elina Rosberg?”

  “Oh, the one who died? I heard Dad talking to Maija-Leena about how God is testing them by letting Mom live after committing a sin like abortion. I think Dad wants to marry the stupid idiot! And he’s always talking about how religious people need to stand up against doctors who do abortions, like in America. If there’s one thing Dad knows how to do, it’s talk.” Anna’s tone was cruel. “Since Mom left, he’s always watching me. At night he comes into my room to check if I’m in my bed like I’m supposed to be.”

  I drew in a sharp breath. This was starting to sound even worse than I thought. A popular preacher sexually abusing his children?

  “What does he do?” I asked.

  “He doesn’t do anything. He just looks at me. It’s creepy. He always pats Elisa, and he whispers that he’s glad she’s still a little girl and not a woman. But hey, I need to get home. I can’t stand the questions whenever I’m late.”

  We turned back. Anna again assured me that other than Johannes, all of the Säntti children wanted to live with their mother. I didn’t dare ask more questions. Interviewing a minor without a parent or a social worker present was a sensitive matter. All I could do was take the material to my lawyer friend, Leena. The court had to listen to the children too.

  “So that was Old Man Yli-Koivisto on that sled, was it?” I said to Minna after we dropped off Anna. “Do we have time to stop by there again?”

  “Not if the train is on time,” she said. “Call the station and find out. I have the number here.”

  Before I could dial the number, my phone rang. Taskinen’s voice kept breaking up, but I still got the message: Aira Rosberg was in the ICU, and it wasn’t certain she would survive. At around ten the previous evening she had apparently been attacked as she came home from visiting friends. When Aira got out of her car to open the gate, someone bashed her over the head with the thirty-pound bear statue that stood guard over the entrance to the Rosberga property.

  13

  I wanted to jump on an airplane, but the afternoon flight was full with three standbys, and the evening flight wouldn’t be much faster than taking the train back to Helsinki. Besides, what could I do in Espoo right now anyway? Aira was unconscious, and they didn’t know whether she would ever wake up.

  It was Johanna who’d found Aira, Taskinen explained when I called him back from the train. She’d been watching TV in the library and realized when the program ended that she hadn’t heard Aira come in. She peeked in Aira’s room and on the security monitor happened to see a car standing outside the gate. When she went down and saw Aira lying in the snow, she called an ambulance. The ambulance crew called the police even though Johanna thought the statue had fallen on its own.

  Or so she claimed.

  “But isn’t that possible?” I yelled at Taskinen through the train phone—I couldn’t get reception on my cell.

  “No, the statue was too far to the side,” he said. “We tried it several times to check.”

  “How’s Johanna holding up?”

  “Pretty well, I guess, judging by the way she chewed out Ström when he interviewed her. She’s with Aira Rosberg at the hospital now.”

  “Chewed him out?” I asked.

  “Ström isn’t the only one who thinks she looks like a good suspect. He just isn’t very good at hiding his suspicions. Strange case. Here I was thinking we should put the Rosberg investigation on hold, with nothing new indicating it was even a crime, then this happens . . . Aira Rosberg must have known something dangerous.”

  “I’ve always thought that. I’ll go over to Rosberga first thing in the morning. Did Johanna Säntti get permission to stay at the house for the night?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “And of course there isn’t a guard there. I think you should send someone over to watch the place and tell her she might not be safe. I’ll go myself tomorrow night,” I said.

  “No, you will not! I’ll handle this. Calm down, Maria. You’re obviously too wound up about this.”

  I couldn’t calm down. Sitting on the train doing nothing was incredibly frustrating. I tried to call Antti and then dialed Tarja Kivimäki’s number. She wasn’t home, so I had to talk to the machine again.

  “This is Sergeant Kallio. Unfortunately I have to cancel our appointment tomorrow at ten.” I paused briefly to give her a moment to celebrate thinking she had scared me off. “I have to go to Rosberga because someone tried to murder Aira Rosberg. Let’s change our appointment to Friday at ten.”

  I spent the rest of the journey in a half stupor, trying to fall asleep in my seat, images flitting through my head like a surreal movie.

  What did Aira know? I’d had the feeling all along she was struggling with herself about whether to tell the police something she knew. It was almost as if she wanted to protect Elina’s killer. Maybe that was why she created what I’d come to believe was a fake suicide note. Who was she trying to protect? Only one possibility came to mind: Johanna Säntti.

  Although it was almost midnight, Antti was at the station to meet me after working late at the university.

  “Hard trip?” he asked, taking my arm as we walked outside and headed for the bus stop.

  “No, the trip was fine. I just got some bad news while I was there.” Briefly I related how we now had an attempted homicide connected to the case.

  “Then you aren’t going to have time for anything but work.” Antti sighed. “That freeway-opposition meeting is tomorrow at five. I was hoping you’d have time to come.”

  “I doubt it. But go ahead and forge my signature on all of the petitions and stuff,” I said.

  As we reached the bus station, the biting wind nearly froze me through. Antti complained about the lack of shelters. He was clearly having a bad day. Only half listening, I thought about Aira. Was she still alive? I decided to wait until I got home to call the hospital; we were boarding now, and I didn’t want to disturb the rest of the passengers by yelling into my cell.

  “I don’t know if there’s any point anymore,” Antti said dejectedly as we settled into our seats. “I mean trying to stop the freeway. The plans and
money are all ready to go. How far out in the woods do we have to move to be safe from them paving the whole place? And we don’t even get any say. Some city bureaucrat or developer just decides we need more asphalt and that’s it. No one can do anything about it.”

  “Then fight, man!” I grinned at Antti, and his image, reflected in the bus window, tried to respond in kind.

  “What happened last week was pretty hard for me,” he finally said. “I was scared I’d lose you . . . and the baby. I’m still a little numb.”

  “Me too,” I admitted. “And I don’t want to slow down long enough to think about it unless I absolutely have to.”

  We sat together for a few minutes in silence. Finally I looked out the window. “Should we get off here and walk?” I said. “I’ve been on the train the entire day. It’d be nice to move a little.”

  We exited the bus about a mile from home. The snow muffled the sounds of the city, which glowed with a strange light, and frozen crystals crunched under our feet as if the snow was a thin crust over the earth. Next year at this time we’d be pulling a five-month-old baby in a sled behind us. That felt so far away, and suddenly the picture-perfect family scene made me want to gag.

  Maybe that was what turned me off about pregnancy—the incomprehensible glory of motherhood, the expectation that somehow I was supposed to turn into this soft, warm, understanding person. I resented the idea of being a housewife with extra matronly pounds and curlers. OK, stereotypes were made to be subverted, but a child was still a child, and someone had to take care of it or it would actually die.

  I thought of my taste for whiskey and the physical torture I routinely put myself through when I ran. I thought of the woman who dictated her own schedule and enjoyed losing herself in work. I thought of Antti, whose head was full of mathematical theories most of the time when he wasn’t making love to me.

  Whether I liked it or not, we were going to be parents. And parenthood would be easier for Antti than for me. To be a good dad all you had to do was show up at the birth, change the occasional diaper, and teach the kid to ski once he or she could stand. Still, I hoped the pastel parenthood I saw in Two Plus One would stick to us like chewing gum on a shoe and not come off until our kid received a graduation cap.

  When we reached our yard, Antti turned to look at me. A grin lit up his face.

  “My snow woman,” he said softly, brushing the end of my nose with his mitten. The condensation from my breathing had turned the hair around my face white, and the snow falling from the tree branches covered my hat and shoulders.

  “At least I’ll eventually melt,” I said, thinking of Elina.

  I called the hospital before going to bed. No significant changes in Aira Rosberg’s condition. She was still unconscious, and they weren’t sure of the extent of her brain injuries. Her internal organs were functioning properly. Other than the head trauma, she wasn’t really hurt. At the end of the call, the doctor told me he was cautiously optimistic that she would pull through. I wondered how Johanna was doing at Rosberga. Would she be turned out on the street or allowed to live there with Aira gone? Surely it was good that someone was there to watch the house?

  The next morning I went straight to the hospital. I didn’t expect to interview Aira or even be allowed to see her, but I hoped the doctors could at least update me on her condition. I realized I’d have to reschedule the next couple of days because of Aira’s uncertain prognosis, which reminded me that I was going to be questioned about the Nuuksio shooting incident the next day, Friday afternoon. It put me in a bad mood. I already knew how the interviews and subsequent legal proceedings would end. One of the cops giving orders in the field would be sacrificed, while the men who’d really led the operation would never be accused of anything.

  My little Fiat looked as if it were drowning in the crowded parking lot of the enormous hospital. Stepping through the exit doors, I realized that in seven months’ time, this hospital would swallow me too. It was not a comforting thought. I’d dreaded hospitals ever since I’d had to lie on my back in one for two weeks as a fourteen-year-old because a hungover surgeon had botched my tonsillectomy and the bleeding wouldn’t stop. The doctors and nurses had treated me like a nuisance and forced me to eat sickening macaroni gruel.

  To me, hospitals felt less like places where they took care of you than places where they forced you to do things. They didn’t treat you like a person; they treated you like a leaky tonsil incision, an inflamed appendix, or a broken leg. Was the maternity ward also like that?

  At the information desk I had to explain several times who I was before the receptionist would tell me where I could find Aira and the intensive care unit. Colored lines led along the halls to the different units. For me, they led to an elevator.

  More red tape was waiting for me in the ICU. I had to first explain my reason for being there to a nurse assistant and then to a nurse specialist. Only after that did I get to talk to the doctor treating Aira. Dr. Mikael Wirtanen, the department head, was so friendly that I assumed it was calculated. It’s always harder to pressure a pleasant doctor into giving permission for questioning.

  In Aira’s case, it was out of the question anyway.

  “She’s conscious, but very confused,” he explained. “She doesn’t seem to remember what happened at all. She’s also in a lot of pain, so we have her on some strong medication. So far it’s difficult to assess how permanent her injury is. Ms. Rosberg is seventy years old, and at that age recovery is much slower than in someone your age, for example.”

  “How much will her emotional state affect her recovery?” I asked. “Her niece, who was very close to her, died suddenly a couple of weeks ago. That’s two major traumas in a short time.”

  “Everything affects everything. Unlike some of my colleagues, I strongly believe that a person is a psychophysical entity,” said Dr. Wirtanen. “Fortunately Ms. Rosberg is in good shape overall for her age.”

  I considered whether Aira’s life was still in danger. If the same person who drugged Elina and left her for dead hit Aira with the bear statue, the MO seemed to indicate they were most likely to strike at night when there was no one around. The ICU was always crawling with people during the day, but what if the assailant snuck in after hours for a second attempt?

  Fleetingly I wondered who would inherit Aira’s property if she died. I knew real cases weren’t like those in an Agatha Christie novel, but I couldn’t help imagining Joona Kirstilä as Aira’s illegitimate son come to claim his inheritance. I gave a snort of disbelieving laughter, and Dr. Wirtanen glanced at me in surprise.

  “Can I see Aira?” I said quickly. “Even through the glass.”

  “Do you know her other than through your work?” the doctor asked.

  “I’m also investigating Elina Rosberg’s death, but I knew Aira before that.” It felt like an eternity since my lecture at Rosberga Manor. That had happened in another world, a world in which Palo was still alive and I didn’t know about the baby hiding in my belly.

  “Seeing her won’t tell you anything, but OK. Come on.”

  The top half of the room’s door was glass, and I peeked through it cautiously, as if afraid Aira would see me. But she didn’t see anything. Her closed eyes were sunk deep into her head, and her high cheekbones protruded like stumps from the moss on a forest floor. Her mouth hung open like a swampy pond, dead and disconcerting. I wondered again what that mouth had refused to divulge. Aira looked lifeless and alone surrounded by the vibrantly flashing machines. At least she didn’t seem to need a ventilator anymore. It had been pushed against the wall.

  “She might regain consciousness for longer soon, or she might not,” Wirtanen whispered.

  “But will she live?” I asked.

  “I think so. But it’s too early to say whether she’ll recover fully.”

  I mentioned to Wirtanen that Aira might still be in danger, hoping he’d take the h
int to be more vigilant. When I got to the station I’d look into whether we could send over a guard. Wirtanen promised the hospital would notify me if any changes occurred in Aira’s condition, and I shook hands with him as I left.

  A very pregnant woman entered the elevator with me. Why was she in the hospital before the birth? Was something wrong? I’d heard stories about women who ended up on bed rest for months because of preterm labor. I’d go crazy if that happened.

  Outside, I stood breathing the fresh air for a while before I got in my car. On the radio, the DJs were bantering. I hoped they would play something upbeat. As if the radio announcers had heard my wish, immediately after the Pet Shop Boys’ “Go West” came the Rehupiikles’ ridiculous but catchy rural Finnish take on the 1960s anthem about going to San Francisco wearing flowers in your hair. My left hand automatically started drumming the steering wheel. Antti was horrified by my taste in music. What appealed to me most was mindless pubescent rock like Popeda and Klamydia. The only rock albums I had that Antti actually listened to were old ones by David Bowie and Pink Floyd.

  At the station, I traded my Fiat for a police car and picked up Pihko. Then we set off on the now-familiar route toward Nuuksio and Rosberga. I really didn’t know what I was looking for, but I still felt compelled to go.

  Pihko asked about my trip to Oulu and told me what Johanna had said about Aira’s injury during her interview. Aira must have lain at the gate for nearly two hours before Johanna found her, because a good amount of snow had fallen on her. Ström’s questioning had started out fairly objectively, but at the end he asked Johanna bluntly whether she had waited for Aira, knocked her over the head, and then conveniently “found” her two hours later.

  “Then Ström said something like ‘Wasn’t it a shame that Aira didn’t die from the blow or freeze to death like her niece?’ and ‘wasn’t it too bad Aira had thought to wear a coat?’ ” said Pihko. “The Säntti lady was so timid during the interview Ström was lucky to get a yes or no out of her, but when he said this she got so angry so suddenly I almost fell out of my chair. She screamed ‘Why would I kill Aira Rosberg? She’s the only protection I have in the world!’ Ström was completely flummoxed. Puupponen was in there with us taking notes, and he about died laughing. He hates Ström almost as much as you do.”