Cold Trail (19 page)

Joutsamo
nodded. Probably wasn’t Repo, but if it was, he already had an hours-long head start. Plus, the car’s license plate and description had already been sent out to all units, so Joutsamo didn’t need to take any action. Of course tomorrow she could ask the responding patrol if they had gone to the swimming pool and retrieved a surveillance camera image of the thief.

“Hey,” Joutsamo said to Kohonen. “You wanna go grab a drink at the Hotel Pasila bar?”

“I
thought you were never going to ask. As long as we don’t talk shop or get pony-faced.”

Joutsamo
’s curiosity was piqued. “Pony-faced?”

“W
ell, right after I had turned eighteen, I was at the disco with a bunch of my friends from the stables. We had been there drinking all night, and then I noticed this really familiar-looking person standing in front of me. I tried to walk around her, and bam!—I slammed into the mirror face first and shattered it to bits,” Kohonen grinned.

“O
kay,” Joutsamo laughed. “No getting pony-faced. I want to get your views on this old murder conviction of Repo’s.”

CHAPTER 11

WEDNESDAY
, 12:45 A.M.

TUOMARILA, ESPOO

Takamäki
drove his Toyota station wagon into the small, empty, tree-ringed parking lot in the Helsinki suburb of Espoo. There were no houses nearby, but several dumpsters of various colors stood in the clearing. Not everyone had bothered to throw their trash inside; some lay
on the ground, too.

The thermometer read 35° F
, and the sleet had eased off. Takamäki turned off the engine. He hadn’t been able to sleep; the Sello surveillance camera images had been eating at him. He had to see if he could find the car based on the address.

Takamäki
turned on the Toyota’s dome light and examined the images of Jonas’s accident in the weak glow. He made a note of the point of contact between the gray car and the bicycle, in front of the front left tire.

Takamäki
climbed out of the car and locked it. Other than the sounds of his car locks clicking, Tuomarila was completely quiet.

Takamäki
looked around again. Tahko Lane began across the street from the parking lot. He crossed the street and started climbing up the dirt road.

Tuomarila
was a residential area located between downtown Espoo and Finland’s wealthiest municipality, Kauniainen. Takamäki remembered having come to look at an apartment here years ago, but his family had ended up a few miles closer to Helsinki, in the Espoo neighborhood of Leppävaara.

According to the address
info, Manner, who had the lease on the car that hit Jonas, lived on Tahko Lane. The online maps showed his house as being located just below the crest of the hill. The neighborhood was a mix of single family houses and townhouses. Takamäki assumed that Manner lived in a single family house, because the address didn’t include any letters or apartment numbers.

At its foot,
the slope rose steeply. Takamäki remembered the area as having been much more forested and sparsely populated, but it had since been built up into a townhouse slum. Takamäki grunted
as he passed a posh brick complex that sloped back along the contours of the terrain. Okay, so maybe the neighborhood wasn’t a total ghetto after all.

After a hundred yards, the
grade eased off. Good jogging terrain, Takamäki thought. Over in Leppävaara they didn’t have such long, steep climbs.

The a
ddress Takamäki was looking for gleamed from a
cube-shaped lamp on the corner of a
brick-red garage. The brick house had two stories and three big windows on the street side—they were dark. The streetlamp in front of the house illuminated the front yard, which consisted of the driveway and a handful of bushes. The acre-sized backyard looked like it was undeveloped and forested.

Takamäki
continued past the house as if he were a local resident coming home on the late bus. He noted a blue BMW in the garage. Takamäki was disappointed, but a few more steps revealed another car on the far side of the beemer: a gray Toyota. The street light wasn’t strong enough to illuminate the license plate.

Takamäki’s pulse quickened.
He walked far enough past the house that he couldn’t be seen from the windows and glanced back once more. There was no one around. Takamäki slipped
into the woods. He crouched down and listened for a moment. He was out of breath, but it wasn’t the climb that had winded the habitual jogger.

Still cro
uching, Takamäki carefully edged past a large spruce. He saw the Toyota between the trees, about ten yards ahead. It was parked nose first in the garage, and Takamäki was to its right. He’d have to circle between the brick house and the garage in order to get a look at the left side.

Enough street
light made it through the branches that Takamäki didn’t have to move in total darkness. He stopped for half a minute to listen. Silence. The garage was open from three sides, and firewood had been stacked along the back wall. Takamäki crept closer, keeping low. A branch cracked under his foot, and he stopped. He smiled at himself, because there was no way anyone could have heard it. There weren’t any security guards around.

He was
now about five yards from the car. Luckily, the house had only one small window in the side facing the garage. Takamäki guessed it was a ventilation
window for
either a bathroom or a storage room.

Takamäki
rose back up to a hunch and started rounding the garage to get to the car. A spruce branch scratched his cheek. He brushed the back of his hand against his face and noticed a drop of blood.

The
brush reached right up to the edge of the garage. He was only a couple of yards from the car, but he’d have to get over to the left side. Touching the vehicle would be a bad idea, since it was a late enough model that it probably had some sort of alarm. Takamäki continued around behind the garage. The gravel crunched under his shoes. He glanced into the backyard. It looked open, but he couldn’t make out the details in the dark.

Takamäki
made it to the rear edge of the garage and warily glanced in. Still silent. The car was within arm’s reach, but there was so little light that Takamäki couldn’t tell whether or not there was a dent in it. He pulled out a flashlight and his cell phone. He opened up his camera app and gingerly stepped forward.

A
powerful light burst on, momentarily blinding Takamäki. He expected some sort of alarm, but none came. The light was attached to the wall of the house at a height of seven feet. If it had an alarm, it was a silent one. Takamäki guessed it was equipped with a motion sensor, but the light was so bright he couldn’t tell.

He put his flashlight back in h
is pocket and took two steps closer to the car. The light made photographing the car easier.

He could hear a dog bark
inside, and based on the sound, the pooch was a big one.

Goddammit,
Takamäki thought. He quickly bent down toward the car and saw a dent and scratches near the front tire. Some of the blue paint from Jonas’s bike had even been left behind on the body.

Takamäki
snapped two pictures with his cell phone. Then he heard the door open around the corner, in the front yard.

“
Caesar, what is it?” said a man’s voice. The dog barked a couple of times.

Takamäki
made a rapid retreat behind the garage. For a moment, he considered stepping forward. In all likelihood, the guy was guilty of reckless endangerment, causing bodily harm, and fleeing from the scene of an accident. And the victim had been Takamäki’s child. He had verified the facts he had set out to verify. But maybe the real reason was that he wanted to ask the guy why he hadn’t stopped to help the victim.

Maybe the guy needed a
lecture about taking responsibility.

Or
maybe what he really needed was to get his butt kicked.

“I
s it the foxes again?” Takamäki heard him say, and the dog barked a final time.

Takamäki
cautiously backed up along the edge of the garage and behind the big spruce. Maybe this wasn’t the right moment for a conversation.

“
Caesar, quiet! I don’t have time for this. Now go to sleep,” the man growled and closed the door.

Takamäki’s heart was pounding
, and he stood still for a few minutes before backing deeper into the forest.

He stayed in the
trees until he made it back to the quiet dirt road. He decided to take the longer route to return to his car, so he wouldn’t have to walk past the house.

Maybe he should leave these
gigs to Suhonen from here on out, Takamäki thought.

* * *

The Hurriganes’ “Get On” was playing in the bar, but not as loud as Suhonen thought the seventies rock classic deserved to be. A tip he’d heard in a Kontula bar had brought the undercover detective to this dive in the run-down Puotila shopping center in eastern Helsinki. He had no problem hearing the conversation at the next table.

“H
ey, did you hear about that guy in the Skulls?” said a rat-faced guy with a buzzed head and an Arsenal tracksuit. He took a long swig of his beer before continuing. “He had to play Russian roulette to be able to get out of the club.”

His audience of one
had a green sweater, a thick walrus moustache, and hair that fell down into his eyes. Suhonen also noted his large hands. Suhonen guessed his age was somewhere in the vicinity of forty to fifty, about ten years older than his buddy in the Arsenal tracksuit.

“A
nd he had shitty luck. The dude pulled the Nagant’s trigger, and of course he died. The rest of the Skulls got out of there, and the cops chalked it up as a suicide.”

“T
here wasn’t anything about it in the papers,” said Moustache Man.

“
’Course not, because the cops said it was suicide. They don’t report cause-of-death investigations to the press,” replied Arsenal Fan.

Suhonen
could have stepped in and informed them that the story was a crock of shit. He had heard it three weeks ago and had, of course, checked all the suicides among known motorcycle gang members and hang-arounds for the past six months. There hadn’t been a single one. Numerous suicides had been committed with handguns in general, but nothing indicated that the story was true. Suhonen was more inclined to believe that the gang had started spreading the tale themselves purely to reinforce their reputation.

“T
hose Skulls are totally nuts. You don’t want to stick your nose too far into their business.”

“H
eard anything from Foppa lately?” asked Arsenal Fan.

“
Visited him a couple of weeks ago.”

“W
hat about his old lady?”

Moustache M
an grunted. “You should know...”

“
I should know what?”

“H
ow she’s doing. You’re over there all the time. Everyone knows that…”

Arsenal
Fan went quiet. “Does Foppa know, too? I’m kinda tripping about that.”

“I
didn’t tell him, and we didn’t really talk about her anyway.”

“O
kay, good,” the buddy replied, taking a swig of his beer.

Suhonen
was drinking a Coke and considering his next move. The mention of Foppa’s name gave him an opening. Suhonen made his decision quickly and rose with his glass. His odds were low, but sitting at the bar was starting to get old... There had been no sign of Saarnikangas. His dark mood suited his role.

“H
ey, guys,” he said without smiling, and sat down at their table. Arsenal Fan and Moustache Man looked at the intruder without saying a word.

“Y
ou were talking about Foppa. I know him.”

N
either one said anything until Moustache Man figured it was best to announce, “So do I.”

“G
ood,” Suhonen said. “That’s what it sounded like a second ago.”

“W
ere you eavesdropping?”

“N
o,” Suhonen replied, his voice clearly softer. “You guys were talking loud enough for half the bar to hear. Not smart.”

Moustache M
an eyed Suhonen intently. “Where do you know Foppa from?”

“D
id time in the same block.”

“W
hich one?”

Suhon
en felt the urge to smile, but it didn’t suit his role. Moustache Man had tossed out a control question.

“
East block, third floor.”

“W
hat were you in for?” Arsenal Fan asked, a little shyly. Suhonen figured he was wondering whether the stranger had heard the story about him taking care of the wife.