Copper Heart (10 page)

“Hi. Are you working?” I asked when I couldn’t think of any other way to start the conversation.

“No. Kivinen gave me the day off.”

“I’m sorry about your sister.”

“I know. Where did they take her?”

“To Joensuu for an autopsy.”

Pulling a beer out of his bag, Jaska tried to open it with his teeth.

“Don’t start drinking here. Come on. I’ll give you a ride. Do you want me to take you home?”

“Is this you expressing your condolences or is it a police interrogation?”

“Both.”

“Not home then. Let’s just drive around.”

Back behind the Old Mine, I turned toward the Sump and then drove through the cemetery. Jaska stared at his bag of beer but still hadn’t successfully opened a bottle.

“Forget about the condolences,” he said as we turned onto the highway and headed out of town. “It was good Meritta died.”

“Why?” I didn’t recognize Jaska’s voice. I had never heard him so bitter.

“I hated Meritta! At least sometimes,” Jaska said. “She just had to come back here and show off what a big success she was. If she would have just stayed in Helsinki. Or kept her damn trap shut about her musically gifted little brother who never got his big break. Shit!” As he talked, Jaska tried to open a bottle with his teeth again, but it slipped and the cap left a nasty-looking cut on his lip.

“Be careful. Here’s an opener.” I threw my house keys to Jaska, who was suddenly as white as a sheet. Blood was running down his coat, so I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket too.

“Goddamn Meritta! Just talking about her makes things go wrong. She always said she cared about my future. But instead of helping, she just bitched about my ‘failed rock ’n’ roll dream.’”

He must have swallowed some blood along with the beer, because he gagged after the first swig. The second went down easier. “Is there anyone else who could have been fed up with her enough to push her off the Tower, or do you think she jumped? Maybe she finally realized that the best thing she could do for everyone was die. At least for me and Aniliina…”

“We don’t know yet. By the way, what were you doing at the Old Mine yesterday?”

“Gate-crashing, of course! They don’t invite ordinary working stiffs to parties like that.” Jaska was already opening his second bottle of beer. I wondered how many he had already gone through.

“Where did you go from there?”

“To the Copper Cup to get wasted. I was there until closing at two. Then I guess I went home. I don’t really remember. Ask my mom what time I got home. She usually knows.”

Blood was still flowing from Jaska’s lip, with drops falling onto his dingy gray T-shirt. Stopping at an intersection with a side road, I turned the car back toward town. When Jaska was in a mood like this, talking to him was pointless. I remembered the Jaska from our school days, the boy who everyone supposedly kept down. School went badly for him because he said the teachers played favorites. Band practice had to end early because his fingers were sore or his head hurt. His mom didn’t give him enough money, and the boss at his summer job was a dick. His girlfriend, when he happened to have one, never understood.

Jaska had repeated the tenth grade but then somehow managed to wriggle his way through the matriculation examination. After the army, he tried technical school, but it wasn’t interesting enough. The only thing that did hold his attention was playing guitar. He had to have known he wasn’t very talented, but he still kept his dreams of rock stardom alive. Year after year those dreams became more tattered. Jaska was still grasping at the shreds though, trying to make himself believe he was something other than an alcoholic amateur musician in his thirties with no salable skills whatsoever.

Although he was never the type to make friends with women, we had nevertheless been good pals during school. I knew his tantrums, and I knew he easily could have shoved his sister over the railing if she was laughing at him—especially if he was drunk. Maybe he didn’t even remember doing it. Or didn’t want to remember.

Here I was again, full speed ahead, suspecting my friends and acquaintances of murder. Jaska, Ella, Johnny…Who else? As we passed a little hill, the Tower came into sight again. It would watch over us for the entire ride back into town. Meritta wouldn’t have wanted to die anywhere less public. Was it possible no one had seen what happened?

“How are your mother and Aniliina coping?” I asked as I pulled onto the main drag.

“At first Mom was hysterical and then she started planning the funeral. I guess my other sisters and my brother’s wife are coming tomorrow to help. I don’t know about Aniliina. She won’t come over to our house. Just wants to be at home. Maybe her dad will come if anyone can get a hold of him.”

“Is Aniliina all alone now then?”

“No, Kaisa Miettinen is there. She’s the only person Aniliina can stand these days.”

“How long has Aniliina been anorexic?”

“Just last summer she was still a little butterball. She wasn’t a total fatso; her tits and ass were just a little too big for her age. Then she just started shrinking. This spring she was even in the hospital for a while because she wasn’t eating anything at all. Maybe now she’ll get better because her crazy bitch mother is gone. I saw a program on TV once that said anorexia comes from a bad relationship with your mother.” Jaska said this last part cheerfully.

I snorted. “I’m surprised they haven’t decided hemorrhoids are caused by a bad relationship with your mother,” I said. When we drove by the Copper Cup Bar & Grill, Jaska asked me to drop him off.

At the police station, only Lasarov remained. Everyone else had left to start doing interviews. After eating the remaining pepperoni pizza, which had long since grown cold, I left Koivu
a message and headed home. I needed to feed Mikko since I had decided that I might stay over at my parents’ cabin. At least the idea of a sauna, a few cold beers, and my mother’s cooking was tempting. And seeing Saku, my eleven-month-old nephew, would be fun.

Mikko purred and rubbed up against my legs as if I had been away for days. I plunked down a full can of cat food and a cup of milk and left the bathroom window open a crack so he could get out in case of an emergency. He could survive one summer night under the stars if he did get shut out. I wondered how many mice Einstein had caught in Inkoo at Antti’s parents’ home. And how Antti’s work was going in Chicago. Two months left now. He had promised to bum around here with me for the last few weeks of my summer job when he came home.

I looked at my naked left ring finger. Was it missing something? Antti thought that if we wanted to continue our relationship and live together, we should just go ahead and get married immediately. The thought of me with a veil on my head was so ridiculous that I laughed out loud. Mikko glanced at me, looking hurt.

“Silly kitty, I’m not laughing at you. And I wouldn’t wear a veil anyway. Antti doesn’t even belong to the church. Maybe the courthouse and regular clothes will do…”

I drove the back roads to my parents’ lakeside cabin, avoiding the center of town. I was deliberately avoiding driving past the police station, knowing the temptation to stop in hopes of getting new information was too great. Driving down the dirt roads, I pretended I was Mika Häkkinen going for a Formula One victory in Monaco. The cows applauded as I drifted the rear end of the Russian Lada station wagon, spraying gravel into the fields.

As I was making the final turn, I suddenly realized we hadn’t found Meritta’s handbag. That was a bit odd. Wouldn’t you expect a woman who had so carefully painted her eyelids copper to bring something to touch up her makeup during the course of the evening? And she had to have kept her key to the Tower somewhere. Where had her purse ended up?

My parents’ cabin had no phone, so I would have to leave the mystery of the purse for the next day. I parked Uncle Pena’s Lada behind my parents’ red Opel and was barely out of the car before Saku was careening toward me.

The poor child appeared to have inherited the Kallio family snub nose, which looked especially funny on an eleven-month-old. Tousled blond hair had also started sprouting on his head. Scooping Saku up and throwing him over my shoulder, I carried him back to the sand pile where he had been playing with my father. Mom and Eeva were sitting on the garden swing.

“Where’s Jarmo?” I asked, since I didn’t see Eeva’s husband.

“He stayed in Joensuu. He had some sauna night to go to. Something about foreign guests at work. It’s nice to see you on time for once.” Eeva was knitting a tiny pale-blue cotton sweater, and my mother was crocheting lace. A hammer had always felt better in my hand than a crochet hook, although I did know how to darn socks.

“What time does Saku go to sleep?”

“Sometime around nine.”

“I should have time for a little jog, then. Should I start the sauna stove first?”

“It’s already burning. Is there any new information about Meritta’s death? Timo Antikainen already stopped by our house asking if we saw anything.”

“Yeah, since this is an unexplained death, it’s routine to question everyone who was at the party. We want to know why and when Meritta went up in the Tower.”

“Was it an accident or murder?” Eeva asked curiously.

“We still don’t know,” I said evasively.

“My sister the police hero is solving another murder,” Eeva said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Why doesn’t anyone call me a hero for changing Saku’s diaper before I’ve had my morning coffee?”

I laughed. “I certainly would. I’m going running now, and then hopefully I can have a sauna with Saku before bedtime.”

Besides the birds, the forest road was quiet. A lone frog hopped out of my way into a ditch. After running just a mile, I again was reminded that I’d slept only four hours the night before. My legs burned, and my breathing was labored. Slowing my pace, I eventually turned back a little earlier than I had planned. Still, running was relaxing. The past twenty-four hours had contained altogether too many emotional ups and downs, and I was drained.

I dipped myself in the lake before going into the sauna. For Saku, sauna meant sitting on the floor in the largest washbasin at the cabin, splashing water all around. The hissing of the rocks when I threw water on them made him laugh. The only thing that upset him was when I wouldn’t give him a taste of my beer.

“He’s a pretty dangerous little guy,” I said to Eeva as we were drying Saku in the dressing room. He peered at us beneath the hood of his towel, his eyes already a little sleepy.

“Are you starting to want one? You should just do it. Or does Antti have something against kids?”

“It’s more about me. It changes your life so much.”

“You’re right, but once they come, you get used to the change. Actually, Saku, you might as well have your bedtime
milk right now.” With that, Eeva took her son to her breast, and Saku smiled in satisfaction before latching on and becoming one with his mother. Slightly bewildered, I watched their symbiosis. The thought of another person getting food directly from my body was beyond strange.

“I hear you and Johnny were pretty hot and heavy on the dance floor last night,” Eeva said teasingly. “Mom says his wife didn’t like it one bit.”

“They’re getting a divorce. And don’t be stupid. Anyone can dance with whoever they want!” Startled by the irritation in my tone, Saku disengaged. My family seemed to think I was ready to give Antti the old heave-ho for some guy from a million years ago who might have murdered his mistress…Damn it, Johnny. Get out of my head!

After the sauna, I took a walk out to the boat dock, watched for a few seconds as the tiny fish rose in the lake, and then dunked myself again. The water was cool but not cold. A hopeful tern dove at the fish now and then. After a few attempts, it rose, satisfied, into the sky, carrying its prey in its beak.

After my parents came out of the sauna and Saku had fallen asleep, the conversation quickly drifted back to Meritta’s death.

“I’m worried about Aniliina,” my mother said as she dished freshly smoked whitefish onto our plates. “That girl has had enough hard things in her life already. She’s as smart as can be, just like Meritta was, but in many respects completely different from her mother.”

My parents, who had taught for more than thirty years at the only middle school in town and then at the junior high and high schools after the grades in the schools were combined, were walking encyclopedias on the lives of local residents. Almost every person under the age of forty-five had been in one of their
classrooms, and they were well into their second generation of pupils. I wondered whether my own tendency to stick my nose in other people’s business was a result of all those conversations around the dinner table about the day’s dramatic events, including all their students’ backstories. Sometimes our parents’ occupation was a pain for us girls, since we could never cut class without our parents finding out, and sometimes other kids accused us of getting good grades simply because our parents were teachers. All of us had also shamelessly exploited the situation, secretly reading our crushes’ English essays, as I had done with Johnny’s papers—ambitious attempts at stringing dictionary words together. Mom probably would have killed us if she had ever found out.

“Aniliina is going to high school with the best GPA in the school, despite her hospital stay,” said my father. “Her report card is almost straight tens.”

“And last year she won a national art competition. She does take after her mother in some ways. And her father too, I imagine. She is an extremely good violinist,” my mother added.

“Sounds bad,” I said with a grin. “Isn’t it the smart girls who usually get anorexia?”

“When Aniliina got sick, I talked with Meritta about it, since her daughter was in my class,” said my father. “There have been a concerning number of these cases in our school in the last few years. And yes, the ones afflicted with it are usually good students. Meritta seemed to think her daughter’s sickness was caused by pressure to conform to outdated beauty ideals from when women filled more traditional roles.”

“That’s one theory. We have anorexic students in our school too,” Eeva interjected. “Is Aniliina’s father interested in his daughter’s welfare at all?”