Fatal Headwind
Authors: Leena Lehtolainen
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Police Procedurals, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Crime, #Murder, #Crime Fiction
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Text copyright © 1998 by Leena Lehtolainen
Translation copyright © 2016 Owen F. Witesman
All rights reserved.
Previously published as
Tuulen puolella
by Tammi Publishers, Finland, in 1998. Translated from Finnish by Owen F. Witesman and first published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2016.
Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503936485
ISBN-10: 1503936481
Cover design by Scott Barrie
CAST OF CHARACTERS
THE COPS
Maria Kallio ………… Commander, Espoo Violent Crime Unit
Jyrki Taskinen ………… Director, Espoo Criminal Division
Pekka Koivu ………… VCU detective
Lähde ………… VCU detective
Juhani Palo ………… VCU detective (deceased)
Ville Puupponen ………… VCU detective
Petri Puutsjärvi ………… VCU detective
Pertti Ström ………… VCU detective
Akkila ………… Patrol officer
Haikala ………… Patrol officer
Hannula ………… Patrol sergeant
Raitio ………… Patrol officer (boat patrol)
Liisa Rasilainen ………… Patrol officer
Yliaho ………… Patrol officer
Hannu Hirvonen ………… Forensic technician
Hakkarainen ………… Forensic technician
Niinimaa ………… Forensic chemist
Laine ………… Commander, Organized Crime Unit
Kantelinen ………… White-Collar Crime detective
Jormanainen ………… Agent, Security Intelligence Service
THE MERIVAARA/SJÖBERG CLAN
Juha Merivaara ………… CEO, Merivaara Nautical
Anne Merivaara ………… Communications Director, Merivaara Nautical
Riikka Merivaara ………… Juha and Anne Merivaara’s daughter
Jiri Merivaara ………… Juha and Anne Merivaara’s son
Katrina Sjöberg ………… Mikke’s mother, Juha’s stepmother
Mikael (Mikke) Sjöberg ………… Katrina’s son, Juha’s half brother
Martti Merivaara ………… Juha and Mikke’s father, Katrina’s ex-husband
Mikael Sjöberg/Merivaara ………… Founder, Merivaara Nautical, Martti’s father
SUPPORTING CAST
Antti Sarkela ………… Maria’s husband
Iida ………… Maria’s daughter
Einstein ………… Maria and Antti’s cat
Marcus Enckell ………… Board member, Merivaara Nautical
Tuomo Haaranen ………… Attempted rapist
Heikki Halonen ………… CFO, Merivaara Nautical
Tapio Holma ………… Riikka’s boyfriend, opera singer
Harri Immonen ………… Ornithologist, Maria’s ex-boyfriend
Kaarela ………… Plant Manager, Malinen Meats
Imants Peders ………… Mare Nostrum shareholder
Vitalis Ramanauskas ………… Mare Nostrum shareholder
Seija Saarela ………… Merivaara family friend
Paula Saarnio ………… Administrative assistant, Merivaara Nautical
Ari Väätäinen ………… Wife beater
1
The island that rose out of the sea burned red, as if the ground were covered in blood. At first I could see only its silhouette, but gradually the smooth slopes of the ruddy granite cliffs along the shore began to take shape. A round lighthouse and fortress left over from the Crimean War emerged above them. Rödskär Island was the southernmost point in Espoo, the last major piece of land before the boundary of Finland’s territorial waters. It had been off limits to civilians for decades. From the sea, it appeared inhospitable and difficult to access.
It was the last weekend in August and my final free weekend before returning from maternity leave to the Espoo Police Department and my new position as commander of the Violent Crime Unit. The forecast had called for sun, so we had set off in my in-laws’ sailboat from Espoo and headed west toward their cabin in Inkoo. We needed to get Iida used to sailing. At nearly twelve months, my baby girl was still taking two naps a day and did fine in her car seat, though right now she was having a screeching competition with the seagulls circling over the boat. Antti was studying the map, and I was enjoying the responsiveness of the helm. I was an inland native, but I had always liked the sea, even though I knew how dangerous it could be.
“If I remember right, the harbor’s on the northeast side. Give it another turn, and then we’ll go the rest of the way with the motor. Docking on Rödskär isn’t easy,” Antti said.
“Can we really just go ashore unannounced?”
“Yeah, it’s been totally legal for a while now. Don’t you remember that Merivaara Nautical bought the island the summer before last and fixed up the lighthouse keeper’s house for public use?”
Yes, I did remember. A couple of years ago, the military had sold off some of its old island fortifications. They had offered to lease Rödskär to anyone who would agree to renovate the dilapidated buildings. Some art handicraft cooperative had been in the process of staking a claim when Merivaara Nautical, an eco-friendly boat paint manufacturer, slapped down an offer to buy the island outright. Of course the Ministry of Defense couldn’t refuse, but the sale had caused a brouhaha in the sailing community. That subsided almost immediately, though, when it came out that Merivaara Nautical had no intention of closing the island and would welcome any boaters who happened along.
I was eager to see Rödskär for myself. Antti had shown me pictures from his sailing trips, and the local paper in Espoo had praised the stark beauty of the island. Most importantly I wanted to see the place where Harri had died.
I had only dated Harri for a few months, and that had been more than a decade ago. Last October, just a couple of months after Iida’s birth, I noticed his obituary in the paper. It didn’t mention a cause of death—no talk of a sudden illness or a car accident. It only listed the place he died—Rödskär Island—and that a small family service had been held.
The lack of details had bothered me. Harri couldn’t have gone and killed himself, could he? After we had stopped dating, we didn’t have any reason to keep in touch, and, since we ran in such different circles, I hadn’t seen or heard about him in years.
Harri had been a passionate ornithologist and botanist, and I’d enjoyed learning to identify birds and flowers with him. Otherwise, we weren’t a good match. Harri was too kind and gentle and felt most at home in the woods with his birds, while I was at the peak of my partying phase in my second year of law school. I walked all over the poor boy. He would want to go hiking, but I would be too hungover. He would spend hours staring at birds through binoculars while I hitchhiked to the nearest bar. We were both relieved when we decided to bring the relationship to a close.
After seeing the obituary in the paper, that night I unearthed an old photo album. I found a few pictures of Harri, always gangly and wearing his round glasses—in one, he was setting up a tent; in another, he was watching a pair of eider ducks mating. I had a hard time believing that I had ever made love to this man-boy I barely even recognized. What circumstances had taken Harri to die on this distant island? I had wanted to call Harri’s sister and ask her what had happened, but I didn’t have the nerve. She hadn’t particularly liked me, and she had probably been justified in thinking that I treated her brother pretty poorly. Back when I read the obit, I had called my colleague Pekka Koivu, figuring he might know something about Harri’s death.
“Harri Immonen? Yeah, I remember. He drowned. Wait a sec and I’ll pull up the report,” Koivu said, once he had passed on the latest department gossip. “It happened three weeks ago, during that recent storm. Immonen was probably watching the fall crane migration. Based on the tracks in the moss, our best guess was that he went out at dawn and slipped and hit his head on a rock. Then he slid into the water unconscious. His BAC was still 0.06, so he must have been on a real bender the night before. He was alone on the island, and it was just by chance that someone from the company that owns the island happened to come by the next day and wonder about the sleeping bag and other gear in the hut.”
“So it was definitely an accident?”
“I went there myself. The west side of the island is really steep, and you know how slick that polished bedrock can get after a rainstorm. Forensics came up with a theory that Immonen’s spotting scope must have tipped over on its tripod and he slipped trying to grab it. Why do you ask? Did you know him?”
“I did, but we haven’t seen each other in years.”
I hadn’t had much time to think about Harri’s death since then, because the first few months of motherhood went by in a blur of interrupted sleep that only eased off as Christmas approached. Harri had receded into the distant world of memory.
But when Antti and I started scanning nautical maps for good places to camp, I suggested a trip to Rödskär. For some reason I had to see with my own eyes the place my former boyfriend had died.
The water was a grayish green, like spoiled pea soup. The previous night we had spent nearly an hour and a half looking for somewhere to land that wasn’t choked with algae blooms. We wanted to swim and our fresh water reserves weren’t large enough for both washing dishes and cleaning Iida’s bottom. Antti had reminisced with equal parts nostalgia and anger about the seawater of his youth—water so clear you could boil your potatoes in it without a care. But this summer had been unusually warm, so the cyanobacteria had invaded the inner islands and even the Espoo swimming beaches.
A quarter mile offshore we struck the sails. I had a hard time making out a safe place to dock between the steep cliffs and the rocks protruding from the water, but Antti said he knew where the harbor was. We made the final approach under motor power with a crosswind that threatened to smash us against the cliffs. Antti calmly steered toward the eastern shore of the island, and suddenly a small harbor appeared behind the rocks. Iida nibbled a piece of bread, and I was preparing to jump onto the dock with the rope when a shout came from the cliff.
“Throw the rope here!”
Looking up, I saw a muscular man with a pipe hanging from the corner of his mouth.
“With a southeaster you need to put your head line here and your stern line on the dock. You get banged around less that way.”
So I tossed the coil of rope to the man, who caught it easily and began yelling docking directions. Swallows swooped over us and the sun shone straight in my eyes. The smooth granite cliffs radiated the stored heat of the hot summer.
“You go first, Maria, and I’ll hand you Iida,” Antti said.
I felt our welcoming party watching me as he tied the stern line, as if assessing whether I could make the jump to the steep rock on my own. Apparently he decided I could, because he started walking uphill before I jumped. The ground underfoot was hard and smelled of lichen. Unloading didn’t take long, since we still didn’t know whether we would spend the night in the boat or in the hut on the island. Because the harbor was on the windward side of the island, a night aboard would mean a lot of rocking. In addition to our boat, two other vessels were moored in the harbor: a swanky speedboat that was tied up with some sort of complicated arrangement of ropes to the southwest end of the dock, and a thirty-foot wooden sailboat, a real beauty. I didn’t get any time to admire the wooden boat, though, because I was distracted by a clump of grass behind a rock that suddenly started to move. Rising up, it became a boy with green hair wearing a green army jacket and camouflage pants. He glared at us and then, without a word, took off running, giving us a glimpse of his red sneakers.
Antti loaded Iida into her baby backpack, and we headed up the steep hillside. The fortifications, which appeared impenetrable when seen from the sea, were sturdy indeed: ten-foot walls with firing ports surrounding a blocky, U-shaped, two-story building with the massive round lighthouse rising from the center. To the south and west of the building grew some small patches of grass and a few deformed junipers, and on the leeward side to the north, a few alders rustled in the wind. The meadowsweet was still blooming, and the willow herb was covered with seed tufts.
When we reached flat ground, a door in the wall opened and a short, blond woman painted brown by the sun walked out.
“Welcome to Rödskär! Are you staying the night?”
Antti said we were, and the woman approached and extended her slender hand.
“Anne Merivaara. There’s one room free in the hut. There are only five of us here right now. And the sauna is heating up.”
The woman spoke as if she owned the island, which, it turned out, she did. Anne Merivaara was a principal shareholder in Merivaara Nautical, chief communications officer, and wife of the CEO, Juha Merivaara. We introduced ourselves, and when Antti said he had visited Rödskär before, Merivaara’s demeanor turned even more genial. She led us into the fortress with the bearing of an experienced tour guide. The wooden floor of the hut was lacquered and new, and the wood-paneled interior walls looked like they had been put up as part of the renovation.
“Here’s the kitchen with a gas stove and refrigerator that we all share. You can have the southwest room, which is right here.”
The room had two bunk beds, which looked simple enough but were probably expensive designer pieces, a wooden table with blue stain, two chairs, and a sea chest. Small windows looked out on the horizon.
Antti took Iida off his back and returned to the boat to get the sleeping bags and our overnight kits. I looked out the window at the rocks glowing rosy red in the evening sun and at the light reflecting off the water. Iida tugged at my hair, her eyes still sleepy. I hoped Antti would have the good sense to bring the whiskey. A little Laphroaig would be just the thing for a night on an island with a lighthouse.
After a couple of nights cooking in our tiny galley on the boat, preparing food in a real kitchen felt like a luxury. I pulled off a veritable feast: potatoes, pickled herring, country-style liver pâté, our last smoked flounder, salad, island-style malt rye bread, and goat’s cheese. Iida demanded to taste the herring in mustard sauce, and though she initially grimaced, she later begged for another piece. After two potatoes, a piece of liver pâté, and a cup of milk, her head began to droop promisingly. Just then the green-haired boy padded into the room, and Iida perked up again.
“Mom told me to ask you if you want to go to the sauna. Riikka and Tapio promised to watch the baby,” the boy said in a surly tone.
“Thanks. We can wait until Iida falls asleep,” Antti said to the boy, who apparently belonged to the Merivaaras. His clothes hung off his lean body and his face was still boyish, but his voice was that of a man. I guessed he was about sixteen. He didn’t bother introducing himself; he just grabbed a bottle of green liquid that looked like homemade cabbage wine. “Mom is in the sauna, and Riikka and Tapio are going next. If the baby falls asleep, you should go before me and Mikke.”
Antti went to put Iida down, and I emptied my beer and started cleaning the kitchen. Just as I was finishing up the dishes, I heard a female voice behind me.
“Hi, I’m Riikka Merivaara. Do you need a babysitter?”
