Death Spiral (11 page)

“I was just thinking of your delicate condition,” Ström said, smiling with feigned sweetness.

“Yes, you really were,” I said and continued on back to my office.

On my desk I saw phone messages from Ulrika Weissenberg and Kauko Nieminen. Turning the sticky notes over in my fingers, I decided that I didn’t have the energy. They could wait until tomorrow or Monday. Or could they have something important to tell me?

Even so, I dialed our home number first.

“Oh, hi!” Antti said, panting. “I just came from getting the car. What on earth happened over there? The people in the yard said something about a child being killed. Maria, are you OK?”

I hadn’t dared call Antti earlier because I was afraid that hearing his voice would trigger the tears I’d been fending off all morning. Apparently I was right, because I started sobbing violently into the receiver. The attack didn’t last long, and within a couple of minutes I was able to tell Antti what had happened.

“I’m going to punch Ström in the teeth the next time I see him!” Antti hissed.

“Let it go. I know how to take care of myself. And in a way, Ström’s right. If I want to keep this job, I can’t be turning down assignments.

Maybe I would have a chat with Eva Jensen, Antti’s coworker’s psychologist wife. I didn’t want to turn into one of those cops who never feel anything.

“Come pick me up and let’s go out to eat somewhere fun. I think it’s time for that once-every-other-week drink.”

Antti promised to come immediately, and I moved back to the phone messages. Kauko Nieminen . . . I hadn’t bothered to check the Nieminens’ alibis, since I had a hard time believing the parents would kill their own child. But whose car would Noora have climbed into as trustingly as her own parents? Could Hanna have gone to the ice rink to meet her, or did Kauko pick her up on his way home from work?

Sometimes a parent’s rage could spin out of control. My own mother had a terrible temper when I was little. A few times she’d nearly torn the hair out of my head. My sisters and I thought it was normal—a lot of our friends received full-on beatings. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized my mother’s tantrums were usually out of proportion.

I feared the same tendency in myself. At the police academy I had almost broken another student’s arm because he was such an asshole, and once during a fight I’d tried to bash in the brains of a two-time murderer with bronze statue. I had verbal outbursts almost daily. What if my baby screamed day and night like my sister Helena’s first one did? What would that do to my self-control? The baby books talked about hormones and maternal instincts that made mothers treat their children gently regardless of the situation, but I had seen too many examples where that failed. Abusive parents weren’t really all that different from anyone else most of the time.

Maybe I should check the Nieminens’ alibis.

Antti was waiting in our Fiat in the parking lot outside. A rip had formed in the gray sky, exposing blue with fluffy white clouds racing by. It was like peeking into an alternate reality. But then a gust of wind sprayed my eyes with grit from the asphalt. Taking refuge in the car, where it was actually too warm, I threw myself into Antti’s arms.

“Where should we go?” he finally asked after I had burrowed long enough into his old leather jacket.

“Away. Somewhere I can calm down.”

Antti drove to a cafe overlooking the sea. I ate so much ham-and-onion quiche that felt like I might burst. The Creature seemed to like the food and finally quieted down. My single glass of white wine felt utterly sinful, and I was sure the other patrons in the restaurant were staring at me disapprovingly.

“When are you going to hear about all that promotion business?” Antti asked with his mouth full of raspberry mousse.

“If only I knew. First they have to choose the new police chief. Right now the current captain of the Criminal Division is the strongest candidate. If they do tap him, then they need a new boss for Criminal. If they choose someone other than Taskinen for that, then the whole thing ends there. Nothing’s going to be final before I go on maternity leave, though.”

“And what if they do make you unit commander?”

“Detective Lieutenant Maria Kallio . . . it does have a nice ring to it. But of course, then work will be even worse than it has been so far. The changeover would probably happen around the first of the year, so I’d have to either find a substitute at first or not take the parental leave part of my maternity leave.”

“I can take that leave, can’t I?” Antti looked almost excited. A month earlier the math department had named a new assistant professor who had been opposed by almost everyone working in the department. The mood there was even tenser than at my workplace, and Antti, who had been toiling like a slave the five years I had known him, was starting to want out. A couple of years earlier he had done a postdoc in Chicago, and we were toying with the idea of going abroad again for my maternity leave, this time to England. But I had a hard time imagining myself sitting around in Oxford alone with a baby.

“That would be a good solution,” I said delightedly. We hadn’t planned for me to get pregnant yet—my IUD had failed. While Antti had been instantly excited about the baby, I had taken a couple of weeks to warm up to the idea. Before Antti I had never even imagined getting married. Life seemed to be tossing me from one new situation to another, but at least I didn’t have time to get bored.

After eating we walked out onto Seurasaari Island and strolled around the museum made up of relocated farm buildings. We admired the budding leaves of the trees and watched the squirrels, which were clearly disappointed we didn’t have any nuts to offer them. When we returned to the car, I glanced at my cell phone. There was another message from Ulrika Weissenberg.

“Hello, this is Ulrika Weissenberg.” The voice was as cold as the blade of a skate just lifted from the ice. “Could you please call me as soon as possible, Sergeant Kallio?”

“I’m off duty right now,” I groused at the phone, but then I called back anyway. Ulrika didn’t sound the slightest bit pleased to hear from me.

“The Nieminens told me you let Vesku Teräsvuori go,” she said, getting straight to the point.

“How could they even know?” I asked.

“Teräsvuori brought them flowers to express his condolences about Noora’s death. Can’t the police do anything about that man? Can he just murder one of the most promising figure skaters in the country and then go around gloating about it like that?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Weissenberg, but Teräsvuori has a solid alibi for the time Noora was killed.”

“So who do I have to call to get that man arrested, the chief of police?”

For a moment I considered siccing Weissenberg and the police chief on each other. It would serve both of them right. Instead, I behaved like a responsible adult and asked whether Weissenberg had spoken with Lieutenant Taskinen.

“Yes, I have, but he said you were in charge of the investigation. As Silja’s father he can’t be too involved.”

The phone connection crackled threateningly as we reentered Espoo from Helsinki. Janne Kivi popped into my mind as we passed his neighborhood. How was he doing? As if in answer to my thought, Weissenberg started chewing me out for arresting him.

“Are you home now?” I asked once the yelling had finally subsided. “Could I come speak with you informally? Maybe we can clear some of this up.”

Antti glanced at me in surprise. Weissenberg was silent for a moment, but then she agreed. I got off the phone and gave Antti directions. He started to say something, but then changed his mind.

“You probably want this case solved before you go on leave,” he said as we pulled up to Weissenberg’s house. I nodded in reply and left the phone with Antti, who said he would head to the nearby community garden and read while I was busy, assuming the drizzle that had just started didn’t get any worse.

The tranquil beauty of the Weissenbergs’ neighborhood still amazed me. No case had brought me here before. Since the Bandidos motorcycle gang had moved their headquarters nearby, we spent plenty of time in the area, but that was still a good mile away. Espoo was full of these quiet little corners, small forests and clusters of homes where you would never end up by accident.

Ulrika Weissenberg opened the door so quickly she must have been waiting behind it. Today’s suit was violet, and her perfume was classic Chanel No. 5—the only perfume I could actually name by smell. Once again I felt sweaty and disheveled next to Weissenberg’s flawless elegance. Apparently she dressed and did her makeup carefully even when she was home.

She led me to her office. The poodle was in the yard on the end of a leash, yapping at a thin black cat sneaking through the bushes.

“There’s that horrid animal in our yard again! Can’t the police do something? The city ordinances forbid letting cats run free.”

“You have the right to catch it and kill it,” I said. Our Einstein broke that ordinance constantly too. There simply wasn’t any practical way to keep a cat in your own yard.

“Well, I wouldn’t expect the police to do anything about cats, since they can’t even solve murders. I hear you arrested Janne Kivi. Why on earth?”

“Have you seen Janne since his arrest?” I asked, avoiding the question.

“He was here last night for dinner. The poor boy. He barely touched his food. How could you think he would kill Noora? They had the same common goal, a world championship.”

I wondered how old Ulrika Weissenberg really was. Beyond laugh lines, she didn’t have a single wrinkle, and her makeup made her skin much clearer than my own. The black of her hair was definitely enhanced, her body that of a former gymnast or skater. Only her hands betrayed that Ulrika had already celebrated her fiftieth birthday. I wondered how she could do anything with such long fingernails. Or maybe she didn’t have to do housework. Imagining Ulrika Weissenberg cleaning a toilet was next to impossible.

“What state of mind was Janne in?”

Weissenberg’s eyes narrowed. She clearly hadn’t expected me to ask that.

“Janne? Tired and very sad. I offered to let him stay here, but he said he wanted to go home. I’ve been like a foster mother to him for years, since his parents divorced. His mother lives in Paris with her new family, and Janne’s father doesn’t care about figure skating. He thinks it isn’t manly.”

“Who was paying for Janne’s skating, then?”

“His mother has helped, and of course the figure-skating association has done what we can, but he’s had to scrape and scrounge. Last year he made some money modeling, even though he didn’t like it.”

Compared to the tone Weissenberg had used when talking about Noora, her attachment to Janne was more than obvious. Janne didn’t have any money to spare . . . cancellation of the commercial deal because of Noora’s capriciousness would have been a setback.

“The night of Noora’s death, you called the Nieminens and said you were going to come over to try to convince Noora to agree to the commercial. But you never made it. Did you run into Noora on the way?”

“What are you talking about?” Weissenberg’s cold exterior was not easy to crack. “Why are you harassing innocent people and letting the real murderer walk around free? What is this supposed alibi of Teräsvuori’s? Are you sure he didn’t pay off some disgusting animals like himself to lie for him?”

“Then he would have had to pay a whole restaurant of people for his alibi. Now let’s talk about your movements, Mrs. Weissenberg. Do you deny going out Wednesday night to see Noora?”

“I never left home!”

“But your car was seen just before seven thirty in Noora’s neighborhood. A gold BMW,” I lied.

“Who says they saw me? That’s impossible! I already told you I wasn’t there. I was here at home! Who do you think you are going around accusing innocent people? Are you even competent to be leading this investigation?” Weissenberg glanced dubiously at my round belly and my shirt, which had wrinkled over the course of the day.

“You’ve known the Nieminen family for a long time. What did Noora think about her mother moving in with Vesku Teräsvuori?”

This question surprised Weissenberg, who had to stop to remember and search for the right words.

“That whole episode was strange,” she finally said. “Before, Hanna was the model skater’s mother. She took care of everything and was ready to make all the sacrifices necessary for Noora’s career. It was a huge surprise when she took off like that with another man. Although Kauko Nieminen isn’t what you’d call romantic. Actually he’s quite vulgar . . .”

This case was turning into such a soap opera that I had to smile. But Weissenberg was surprisingly in the know about the Nieminens’ family life, which was helpful.

Hanna’s wild infatuation with the King of Karaoke had been a shock to her husband and children. At first Sami responded by isolating himself, while Noora vented the anger and confusion over her mother’s departure by throwing herself into her skating.

“I had to help to keep Noora’s affairs in order while her mother was away. Figure skating demands great sacrifices, so a skater’s support network has to be rock solid. I thought Hanna was terribly irresponsible leaving like that. And I told her as much.”

Weissenberg seemed to be deeply mixed up in Nieminen family business. She had sent her own cleaning lady to take care of the house while Hanna was away, and she claimed to be the one who eventually convinced Hanna to leave Teräsvuori and move back home.

“Of course it was a difficult time for Kauko. The trucking company’s revenue tripled when the border with Russia opened. Expecting him to drive Noora to practices would have been unreasonable. He doesn’t understand much about skating anyway. His support has always been more financial than moral.”

Weissenberg seemed to enjoy talking about how much influence she had over other people. I let her run at the mouth, listening as she criticized Elena Grigorieva as a person even while she clearly respected her as a coach. Rami Luoto in turn was good at dealing with young people but simply didn’t have the qualifications to take skaters of Noora’s, Janne’s, and Silja’s caliber to the top. Apparently Weissenberg had decided it was time for Rami to step back and only train junior-level skaters.