Snow Woman (The Maria Kallio Series Book 4)

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “I thought you slept in. You need a lot of rest in your condition,” he said. “I handled the Kirstilä prelims with Haikala.”

  “Where is he now?” I asked, intentionally ignoring Ström’s reference to my “condition.”

  “I let him go. He was so wound up about getting two charges against him.”

  “You’re effing kidding me!” I said. “I wasn’t done with him yet. At least you checked his alibi for Tuesday night?”

  “Haikala’s calling right now.” Ström shoved the last piece of his Danish into his mouth and then stepped close to me and whispered into my ear with exaggerated intimacy, “So when are we going to lose you? When does your maternity leave start?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I snapped, pulling my arm out of Ström’s ostensibly solicitous grasp and striding off toward the elevator. Ström followed me, just getting a leg in before the doors closed.

  “You probably won’t be coming back to this unit though,” he continued.

  “And why not? The kid has a dad too,” I huffed, although I knew it was stupid to actually confirm Ström’s suspicion that I was pregnant.

  “Taking care of a little kid doesn’t work with shifts like ours,” he said, strangely serious now. “Trust me, I know. Sometimes I went weeks without seeing Jani and Jenna other than at the breakfast table. It wasn’t exactly fun.”

  The elevator came to a stop, and I made a beeline for my office, ignoring Ström, who strode after me but stopped when he saw that someone was waiting for me in the hall.

  I’d been right. Tarja Kivimäki had shown up. It wasn’t quite ten yet, but there she was, standing in front of my door in a shiny red pantsuit that looked riotous against the pale-gray walls of the police station. Kivimäki had been to the salon since I’d seen her last: her boring brown bob was now shorter, blond, and curly.

  “Good morning,” I said and opened the door. This was going to be a private conversation. I would only call in a witness and turn on the recorder sitting on my desk if I sensed she had something really important to say about Elina’s murder.

  I hoped she would start talking. I knew I was wading in deep snow. I already had one reprimand hanging around my neck thanks to Tarja Kivimäki, although I really didn’t want to bring that up with her.

  But that was exactly what she wanted to talk about.

  “Martti didn’t call your boss, did he?” Kivimäki asked. Her concern seemed almost genuine.

  “Martti?” I asked just as innocently. But I really didn’t feel like keeping up the charade. “If you mean Interior Minister Martti Sahala, then, yes, he did send his greetings. I would have thought such a high official would have other concerns than the behavior of a single police officer.”

  “I was pretty upset that night.” Tarja Kivimäki tapped the surface of her briefcase with her red nails, which were so shiny she must have painted them that morning. “Actually . . . Actually, Elina’s death has been much harder for me than I’ve been willing to admit. I might have exaggerated your threats a bit. Martti takes everything so seriously.”

  “So you’re in a relationship with the most respected member of the government? I have to say I’m a little surprised. What brought you two together?”

  Maybe it would be better to play friends with Tarja Kivimäki. You tell me your secrets and I’ll tell you mine. We did share a similar background—the trauma of growing up in a one-horse eastern Finnish town.

  “Martti is a completely different man in private from the way he is in public. He isn’t really stiff at all,” Kivimäki said, pointedly looking at me to let me know she was referring to his reputation. “So that’s my big secret. Not many people know about it. Elina was one of the few. Of course a lot of people would love to have something like this to use against Martti.”

  “Does his wife know?” I asked, purely out of curiosity. Personally I was such a hopeless liar that I would never be able to keep another man a secret from Antti. Or the fact that I was expecting a baby, apparently. I couldn’t believe I had let it slip to Ström. The whole department would know before lunchtime.

  “I don’t know,” Kivimäki was saying. “Why tell her when our relationship isn’t a threat to their marriage? Martti’s family lives five hours away in Kokkola, and he spends all his free time there.”

  “But the relationship is hurting your work because you had to leave the news,” I pointed out.

  “Well, I think I’ve always been objective, but reporting on the actions of an administration that the man I love is a part of is problematic ethically. Anyway, I’d been in the newsroom for six years. I was getting bored with it. Don’t you ever get sick of your work?”

  Now it was my turn to start making confessions. “Of course. That’s why I keep changing jobs. I also studied law and worked in a legal firm for about a year. And then one summer I was deputy sheriff in Arpikylä. How long have you been with Sahala?”

  “A couple of years. Martti was interior minister in the previous government too, so that’s how we got to know each other. Sometimes I wonder what my parents would think if I told them about our relationship. They’re still waiting for wedding bells. Anyway, Martti belongs to the wrong party for them.”

  I couldn’t help smiling at Kivimäki. There was something both irritating and magnetic about her. Maybe her will to walk her own path—even when it meant breaking trail through knee-deep snowdrifts—reminded me of my own. But I couldn’t show that I was actually starting to like her.

  “By the way, where were you Tuesday night between ten and midnight?” I asked.

  The change of subject caught Kivimäki off guard, but then her expression relaxed.

  “Oh, you must mean Aira! That’s why . . . Actually, that’s why I decided to come see you. I don’t like being threatened, but I understand your position. When Elina disappeared, I wasn’t completely sure what happened, but now with Aira . . . She’s going to recover, right?”

  “Hopefully. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Tuesday. I’m sorry, Maria, but I was at work. The late news was doing a report on the dustup in the National Coalition’s parliamentary faction about the energy policy. I was interviewing the chairman. I left work for Tapiola about eleven thirty.”

  At night you could make it from the Finnish Broadcasting studios in downtown Helsinki to Nuuksio in less than half an hour, but I didn’t say that.

  “When we met at Raffaello you said you’d thought of something that could be the motive for Elina’s murder. No more hinting. Just tell me.”

  Kivimäki set down the briefcase she had been holding in her lap as if she was playing for time. I had the feeling she had rehearsed what she was about to say.

  “I don’t know exactly what all this means, but . . . Well, OK, let’s start from the beginning. Elina didn’t really drink much, and usually she only drank whiskey. About a year ago, last January, we were hanging out at my apartment. I’d bought a bottle of Laphroaig just for her, and suddenly she was throwing it down by the glass. I’d never seen her drunk before. We’d been talking a lot about me and Martti and her and Joona, and about how neither of us wanted a commitment—you know, a ‘normal family life’ with screaming children and men’s socks on the floor. I drank a bit too much whiskey too, so I don’t remember everything perfectly, but at one point Elina said she had the chance to start a family once when she was younger but gave it up. I asked what she meant, but I don’t really remember the answer. But I got the impression that Elina had been pregnant at some point in her life.”

  “When? Did she give birth?” I felt my abdominal muscles clench as if they were trying to crush the block of ice that had suddenly dropped into my stomach. Could this be the source of Elina’s cervical scarring?

  “Well, see, that’s what I don’t remember. But I do remember the impression that it was a long-term relationship, even Elina’s one great love. At
first I thought she was talking about a child with Joona, but I’m pretty sure she was talking about someone from a long time ago. Have you talked to Elina’s doctor?”

  Absentmindedly I nodded, wondering whether Taskinen had already given permission to move Elina’s body from the morgue to the funeral home. Probably. It had been more than two weeks since her death. “Did Aira plan to bury Elina next weekend?” I asked.

  “Yes, the funeral’s scheduled for Sunday. Aira and Johanna were organizing it. I don’t know what will happen, with Aira in the hospital. I guess they’ll hold it anyway.”

  I’d never seen a report from Dr. Kervinen in Pathology, so he must have forgotten to schedule the specialist I requested. But if Elina hadn’t been buried yet, we still had time, even if that meant a trip to the mortuary. I would have to talk to Taskinen.

  Tarja Kivimäki and I talked for a few more minutes, but although she tried, she couldn’t remember exactly what Elina had said. It was all so ambiguous.

  “You sure you won’t give me an interview for Studio A?” Kivimäki asked as she opened the door to leave. When I declined again, she let the matter drop and just wished me good luck trying to solve Elina’s murder and the attack on Aira.

  After she left, I thought about what she’d told me. She had been open and cooperative during the whole interview, but I still wondered about her. Was she lying about Elina’s pregnancy? And if so, why? To deflect attention away from herself? But why would she kill her best friend?

  Taskinen confirmed that Pathology had sent Elina’s body to the mortuary. I spent the rest of the day trying to find out when Elina was being buried and whether I could find a qualified gynecologist to look at her body. I was lucky. Johanna Säntti had called the mortuary the day before and asked for a delay in the funeral. The funeral director had been put out, but apparently Johanna possessed some of her husband’s rhetorical gifts, because despite the inconvenience for the mortuary, she convinced them to push the funeral back a week, when Aira might be well enough to attend. I also managed to schedule a gynecology specialist for Monday.

  Doctor Wirtanen also called with an update on Aira. She had been conscious all morning, but she was still tired and unable to remember much. Cursing the upcoming weekend, which would interrupt any momentum we were gaining, I said I’d drop in to see Aira on Monday at the latest. With any luck, she would be ready to answer questions by then.

  “You said that Ms. Rosberg was suffering from temporary short-term memory loss. Can something like that be faked?” I asked Dr. Wirtanen before hanging up.

  “Sure, of course, but probably not for very long. Do you mean Ms. Rosberg might be pretending not to remember in order to protect her attacker?”

  “Either to protect or avoid.” By now I was relatively sure someone had tried to kill Aira Rosberg because she knew how her niece had died, but I didn’t want to reveal too much to Wirtanen. Instead, I said, “We can’t rule out the possibility that she’s faking the memory loss. She’s a trained nurse and I believe she used to work with the elderly. She knows how complicated human memory is.”

  “I know you’re a police detective and your job is to suspect people, but that sounds a little far-fetched to me,” said the doctor. “But who knows? I’ll bear this in mind and keep my eyes open.”

  I was looking up Milla’s information in the population registry when Puupponen knocked frantically at the door. “Do you speak French, Maria?”

  “I studied it in high school, but I’m pretty rusty.”

  “We have a crowd of immigrants who only speak French. Their Finnish is terrible, and we can’t find an interpreter anywhere. Could you help for a minute?”

  “Is it the Molotov cocktail thing again?” I asked.

  “No. Moroccan students who got in a fight at a university dorm last night,” he said.

  “Students who don’t know Finnish or English? That sounds suspicious. I’ll be right there, but I have to be at Internal Affairs for an interview at two.”

  Quickly I checked Milla Marttila’s government records. There was no mention of an adoption. According to her records, her parents were Risto Juhani Marttila and Ritva Marjatta Saarinen. I knew the adoption would be recorded somewhere in the database even if it didn’t come up automatically using a basic search. I needed Milla’s birth certificate to get more information, but I didn’t have time to make the request right then.

  My half-forgotten French wasn’t much help, but I still spent fifteen minutes trying to sort out the brawl. One of the Moroccan students was seriously injured, but the others claimed the incident was a harmless showdown between two clans and really just part of their culture. I was happy I had an excuse to leave it to Taskinen and Puupponen. I was looking forward to taking a break on the train ride into Helsinki before being questioned about the botched cabin raid.

  Actually, it wasn’t much of a rest. Although I hadn’t been actively trying not to dwell on Palo’s death, I must’ve subconsciously kept my head filled with the Rosberg cases to avoid the issue. On the train I had nothing to do but think, and unfortunately it was Palo and Malmberg who crowded my mind. The therapist had advised us not to repress our grief and fear, so I didn’t fight it, but I certainly didn’t feel rested when I walked out of the station.

  My interview with Internal Affairs was being held at my old workplace, the same building where I had solved my first murder a few years earlier. I had questioned Antti during that investigation. The idea that I’d once suspected him of murdering his best friend was surreal now.

  The corridors smelled the same as they had then, and some of the walls on the Finnish Broadcasting Company side of the building were still under repair after the bomb attack in the fall. I was tempted to peek down my old hallway, but I didn’t want to bump into Kinnunen, my old boss. I’d heard he still had his job despite all the hours in the day he spent drinking.

  In the restroom, I checked my makeup and added a little more waterproof mascara while repeating that I wasn’t going to cry in front of the review board. As far as investigations went, my situation wasn’t that bad. No one was accusing me of anything. I was just one of the pieces the review board needed for putting together a picture of what happened on that night in early January. Still, the picture would be incomplete and distorted because Palo and Malmberg could not tell us what had been in their minds.

  The board was on schedule: at two minutes to two, an officer stepped out of the meeting room. At one minute past two, he asked me in.

  The setup was as formal as it could possibly be. The lighting was bright and artificial and the room was a blinding white. Sitting in a row at a long table along one wall were five stiff-looking men. The clerk, also a man, had his own table to the left of the examiners. One of the officers motioned for me to take a seat in a relatively comfortable-looking armchair facing the long table. When I sat down I realized my legs didn’t reach the floor. Male policemen were generally at least eight inches taller than me, so this was nothing new. Still, I felt like a rag doll propped on the edge of a bed.

  The review board introduced themselves. They were high officials from the police hierarchy and the Ministry of the Interior. Before beginning the actual questioning, they expressed their condolences about the death of my coworker. Everything was controlled, orderly, and correct. It was clear they were going to ask about facts, not opinions. They knew I hadn’t had an official role in the hostage operation; I was only there because of my relationship with Palo and Malmberg.

  The goal of the board was obviously to demonstrate that Malmberg had been a dangerous psychopath whose behavior was impossible to predict. And that was why the use of force and the SWAT team’s surprise attack had been justified. I answered as truthfully as I could, although the leading questions of one of the lieutenants irritated me. Kari Hanninen probably would have had fun with this board. I didn’t.

  “You and Sergeant Palo handled Markku Malmberg’s cas
e last year. Why did he hold such a grudge against the two of you?”

  In other words, what had we done wrong in Malmberg’s case?

  “You worked with Sergeant Palo for a little over a year. What was he like as a partner? How capable was he in emergency situations?”

  Had Palo maybe fumbled the situation? Could they blame him for his own death?

  “Palo was afraid,” I answered curtly. “So was I. There was no one available to guard us. I’ve heard civilians who’ve received threats like this talk about how frustrating it is when the police can’t do anything before a crime actually occurs. Now I understand them better.”

  “How do you think the situation should have been handled?”

  You could have given us guard details, I thought angrily, or hunted down Malmberg more actively, or secured the prison better. Or you could have written to Santa Claus and asked him to protect all the good girls and boys.

  Frustrated, I swung my dangling legs and glared at the five cautious men who didn’t actually want to get to the bottom of the incident. All they wanted was to sanitize the reputation of the police. I realized suddenly that this case could go on for months. My baby could well be born before they came to any conclusions, and whatever they decided, someone would be dissatisfied. I had joined the police force to serve truth and justice, and when I couldn’t find that in policing alone, I went to law school. And here I was still forcing myself to believe in those ideals, even if the shine had worn off in places. If I lost that, if I stopped believing, I’d have to quit.

  The interview lasted less than an hour, but by the end I was exhausted. I’d spent the whole time walking a tightrope, trying to find a balance between the answers they were looking for and my own feelings. And in the end, what I said wouldn’t really matter. Palo was dead; his funeral was on Tuesday. Maybe we could have saved him by stalling Malmberg, maybe not.

  Outside the train window the world was gray. The lights along the tracks shone through my reflection in the glass. I suppose that was how everyone saw the world, filtered through themselves, overshadowed by whatever was going on inside their own heads. Through those filters, one person saw a justification for murder, another for beating immigrants, a third for setting foxes free. I just had to find the people who looked through themselves and saw a reason for killing Elina and attempting to kill Aira.