Fatal Headwind (31 page)

Jiri chewed his nails, looking sheepish. “I think I watched too much TV when I was a little kid. I thought they must have had an accident with some chick and that she died and the sauna was covered with blood and they had buried her body under that grass. I read a book like that once. I was so stupid I didn’t think to wonder why they would bury a body when it would be so much easier to sink it. I went to the sauna to check, but Dad hadn’t been lying. The dressing room was covered in puke. It was disgusting. The hole in the ground still bothered me, but I didn’t find a body in it. There were just rusted paint barrels and a couple of smaller cans. I don’t know why, but I took one of them and hid it again in the rocks near the west shore. Probably just to irritate Dad. I was a little embarrassed about imagining there being a dead body, though, so I kind of forgot the whole thing.”

Jiri had been the next to get sick and hadn’t gone back to Rödskär until January. By then the rocks had been covered in ice and snow. He didn’t have a vague memory of the paint barrels until the summer and didn’t have a chance to poke around until August, the same weekend we had visited Rödskär on my in-laws’ boat. The barrels had disappeared, but he found the can he had hid. One weekend he stashed it in his sleeping bag and brought it home. The police had failed to find it either time they searched the Merivaara property because Jiri had buried it in the yard under some rocks.

“I tried to ask Mom about Dad’s Lithuanian business partners, but she claimed they were just investors who didn’t have anything to do with the paint the company sold. I don’t know what to believe anymore. There’s gotta be some kind of fucked-up poison in this paint. What if Harri found Dad’s stash? He knew a little Russian. And what if Harri realized that Dad was selling poison paint under the table and Dad killed him because of that?”

Jiri’s face was young and naked. Believing that his dad was another shill destroying the environment just like everyone else was probably easier than thinking that he killed people.

“Did you suspect your father when Harri died?” This direct question almost made Jiri let out a squeak, and he wouldn’t look at me when he responded.

“I thought about it. Dad wasn’t home the night Harri died. According to him he was on a business trip in Tallinn and came back on the early ferry with his bags full of champagne and caviar for Mom’s birthday party. But Mom doesn’t even eat fucking caviar! No one kept track of where Dad was, though, and he went to Tallinn at least once a month because the company had a lot of clients in Estonia. Maybe he was on Rödskär that night, though.”

“But your boat . . . your mother would have noticed if it was gone.”

“Last fall it was still at the marina. Dad didn’t have our beach dredged until this spring.”

A headache seized the back of my head as if someone had been trying to bore through my skull with a corkscrew. I had to get the paint can to the crime lab. I had to interview Anne Merivaara about Harri’s death. That incident had clearly bothered her. Was that because she suspected it was murder rather than suicide? What if she knew Juha had been on Rödskär the night of Harri’s death?

Could Anne have killed her husband in revenge for him killing Harri? Maybe Jiri’s greatest fear was that both of his parents were murderers.

“This can of paint could be very significant. Interpol is tracking down those mysterious Lithuanian investors. There’s something suspicious about them. But that doesn’t necessarily connect your father or especially your mother to any criminal activity,” I said to calm him down.

“Our whole family is a bunch of degenerates. And I thought I was the only one.” Jiri tried to look tough again, but the act resulted in another frenzied bout of nail biting.

“How is your mother?”

“All she does is work. She isn’t sleeping. I can hear her walking around the house at night drinking chamomile tea, but it doesn’t help. Tapio brought her some of his own sleeping pills, but she doesn’t want to take them. And Riikka doesn’t want to see Tapio anymore. I guess she . . .” Jiri hesitated again, then looked at me and almost shouted. “I guess she thinks Tapio killed Dad! She told me that Tapio had a cut on his arm that he said came from the fight in the sauna. Riikka remembers that he didn’t have it when they were screwing that night, but it was there in the morning.”

My head buzzed. Paint, dead birds, and unexplained injuries. I had to have some time to myself. I lied and told Jiri I had a meeting in five minutes and thanked him for his cooperation. He even smiled faintly when I shook his hand.

I turned off the light. The day was overcast and dark. Flopping down on the couch, I closed my eyes and tried to relax, starting with the tips of my toes. But emptying my head was impossible with the details of the Merivaara case and Ström’s bloodied face whirling around in my head like a jerky carousel with a bad motor. This was going nowhere. It was 3:15, and I had been logging enough overtime recently that I thought it was fine to go home. Just a few more seconds on the couch and then I would get up . . .

Apparently I nodded off, because I startled awake to a knock at the door and then Koivu stuck his head in.

“Sorry. Were you napping?”

“Come on in,” I said. My mouth tasted like yesterday’s chewing gum.

Koivu sat down next to me on the couch, and for the first time I noticed wrinkles around his eyes. Even bear cubs couldn’t stay young forever.

“I just interviewed Seija Saarela with Anu.”

“And?”

“She spent an hour telling us the sad story of her marriage. Shotgun wedding at twenty, guy just wanted to fish and drink booze. They got divorced after a few years and never saw each other again except at their son’s graduation. There’s no way she cared enough about her ex-husband to kill Juha Merivaara over him.”

I closed my eyes again. That was probably true, although it seemed like quite a coincidence that Seija became friends with the Merivaara family after her ex-husband’s death. I wasn’t completely ready to cross her off the list of suspects. She at least had several good reasons for protecting Juha Merivaara’s murderer.

“I also got hold of the Immonens. Guess how happy they were when I reminded them of their son’s death.”

“No, thanks.” With some effort I got myself into a sitting position.

“They sold their son’s computer to Mikke Sjöberg in the spring.” Koivu glanced at me as if wanting to say more, but thankfully he didn’t.

So the Olivetti laptop in the cabin of the
Leanda
was Harri’s old computer. Why hadn’t Mikke mentioned that? Probably just because he didn’t see any significance in it. He was sure to have wiped the hard drive clean.

I asked Koivu about the files he had found on Harri’s computer during the initial investigation of his death. He didn’t remember much.

“There were some bird charts. I wasn’t very interested. For me it’s enough that I can tell a magpie from a crow. There was something about environmental toxins, fertilizers causing sea-eagle deaths, and stuff like that. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with Rödskär. But ask Sjöberg about it. Mrs. Immonen said he bought all of Harri’s old disks too.”

16

Resting in the forty-five-degree water, the rain on my face felt warm. Only the lone light of the sauna pierced the darkness of the world. The water was deadly. Half an hour in it would lead to hypothermia. I looked down at my breasts floating, white and warm. I didn’t have to be so careful about them anymore. The food for Iida, who slept peacefully in her bassinette in the cool entry of the sauna building, no longer flowed from them.

The parents of Arttu Aaltonen, the teenager who had drowned, had asked whether we could tell from where we found his body whether he had regretted his decision to commit suicide. They feared that after their son jumped in the water he had changed his mind and tried to swim ashore but couldn’t anymore. I couldn’t offer them any comfort other than to say that based on where we found him, Arttu had swum quite far out to sea before drowning.

The wood of the dock was wet and smooth, unlike my own gooseflesh skin. The cold made my teeth chatter and my nose run. I couldn’t help contemplating what Ström had thought just before he pulled the trigger. Shooting himself was at once easier and more cruel than drowning. With the latter there was always the risk of being saved, but Ström, who had been the best marksman in our class at the police academy, had chosen a sure death.

I grabbed the ladder. My arms were strong, pulling me toward the warmth, and my legs, also strong, pushed me out of the water. Rain pelted my face. I felt the bite of every drop and the lash of the wind on my back. Turning my face to the sea, I laughed in its black face and then rushed back into the warmth of the sauna.

“Was the water still warm enough for swimming?” Antti asked. I snuggled against him and let my skin tell the story as I soaked up the steam coming off his body. The salts of sweat and seawater intermingled, and the chill left me, inside and out, replaced by a desire for our bodies to be one.

On Friday, I had asked Koivu to retrieve Harri’s old computer from Mikke Sjöberg’s ship and Puustjärvi to arrange a meeting with Anne Merivaara for Monday. Then I had turned off my cell phone, left it on my desk, and gone home. The department didn’t have my in-laws’ phone number. Koivu was the only one who knew it, and he also had the weekend off.

It had stormed all Saturday, but that hadn’t stopped us from pulling on our rain gear and putting the cover on Iida’s stroller. We took a walk in the surrounding forest, and although the moss looked empty at first, we eventually found some chanterelles. When I went deeper into the forest to grab a plastic bag some idiot had left, I happened upon a veritable treasure trove. And now a mushroom quiche was in the oven.

I had managed to avoid thinking about work almost all day. That was mostly thanks to Iida, who had an amazing case of verbal diarrhea. After only saying one word at a time up until now, except for that once, all of a sudden she was saying three-word sentences. “Iida want ood.” “Mommy give milk.” Antti and I listened more enraptured than by any master poet’s lines. Iida had delighted us with her first smile, first crawl, first standing, and first steps so much that we just stared at her for hours with stupid expressions of joy on our faces. We didn’t have videos or even very many pictures of these moments, but I still believed we would remember them always.

After our sauna, we turned on the television, but all four channels were showing murder mysteries and they reminded me too much of work, so I shut it off. Antti fell asleep quickly, and I listened to his steady breathing and Iida’s quiet snuffling. The sandman seemed to have forgotten me, because I tossed and turned in bed, listening to the sea storming outside. The digital display of the alarm clock showed 12:30 when I decided to get up and go for a short walk. With the thermometer reading thirty-three degrees, I pulled on three layers of clothing and a poncho.

The wind beat me awake instantly as I climbed the trail along the shore. A few hundred yards past Antti’s parents’ property line, a steep cliff rose out of the sea, providing a view far out on the open water. The twin towers of the Inkoo power plant were lit up to the west, and to the east wound the occasional lights of the Porkkala Peninsula. The sea didn’t care about anything but itself, quarreling with the wind and slamming waves against the rocks. It had conquered the algae blooms, but now it faced its yearly struggle with winter. Last December we had been in Inkoo on the night the water froze. The sea had howled in pain as it was tamed beneath that shell, but the ice had crackled and popped with joy as if the winter had been opening champagne bottles to celebrate its victory.

I thought of Juha Merivaara, who two weeks earlier had died on the cliffs of Rödskär Island. That night had been wet and stormy just like now. Had Juha gone out looking for the sandman too and met his murderer instead? I thought of Mikke Sjöberg, sleeping on the
Leanda
in the Espoo marina when he should have already been on the west coast of Denmark. The south wind whipped the whitecaps higher and tried to sweep me along too. Raising my arms I let the poncho flap like wings around me. The storm blew through me like electricity, and as I had earlier that evening in the water, I felt alive again: hard muscles, soft curves, and warm, thick blood. I walked back to the cabin and fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.

In the morning paper, I found Juha Merivaara’s obituary. The scrap of hymn Anne had chosen as a remembrance was impersonal, as if she hadn’t had the time or desire to pay the task much mind. The funeral would be on the following Saturday. Would Ström’s funeral be on the same weekend? Although I understood his abhorrence of funerals, sharing grief helped alleviate it. We had all learned this two years earlier at our colleague Juhani Palo’s funeral. Ström and I had traded smirks in the corner at our bosses’ stiff speeches and then later tried to resurrect the real Palo. The memory brought tears to my eyes. Then I remembered more. I remembered how Ström had sat next to me in the church and tried not to let anyone see his swallowing during the eulogy. I cried for Ström, even though in his letter he had doubted anyone in the department would mourn for him. I had seen Lähde’s face when Ström’s belongings were moved out of their office, and thinking of that hurt too.

Even though they had despised him, Ström’s death stung for Puupponen and Koivu as well. The hardest thing for all of us was that we could understand why he killed himself but not accept it. Still, the worst burden fell on Lähde. For the rest of his life he would be wondering whether he could have said something on the phone that would have made Ström change his mind. I was thankful Ström hadn’t called me. Even though I knew that it was hard to stop someone who had decided to kill himself, it was everyone’s duty to try. I didn’t trust my ability to talk anyone out of anything anymore. A little before I went on maternity leave, I had tried to talk down a woman with a shotgun from shooting her former lover, whom she suspected of murdering her daughter. I had failed, and the woman executed the man in cold blood. He wasn’t even guilty. The memory of that case still haunted me, even though one of the skills a cop had to have was forgetting past failures. I was afraid that in a similar situation I would screw up again.

Antti noticed my wet cheeks and pulled me close. Thankfully he didn’t say anything. The storm had moved on, and the sun once again ruled the earth, making the trees glow. We spent the day raking leaves and playing in them. It was impossible to be sad watching Iida’s eyes flashing beneath the red maple leaves.

On Monday morning reality hit again. A mountain of faxes had piled up on my desk, and over the weekend there had been a nearly fatal beating, a stabbing, and a shooting. The topmost fax was from the Haapsalu police in Estonia. Thankfully it was good news.

Our missing mushroomer economist and her Toomas had been found in the most expensive nightclub in Pärnu during an unrelated police raid. She had been irritated at the interruption of her amorous adventure, but otherwise she was fine.

This information caused whistles and foot-stomping in our morning meeting, but the boisterousness felt forced. I guess we were trying hopelessly to act as if Ström had never existed. This weekend’s shooting would have automatically gone to him, since he was the best gun-crime investigator in the unit. I wondered if the staff at Merivaara Nautical was operating this mechanically, trying to forget that their CEO had been murdered and that the communications director, his wife, was one of the suspects.

“Koivu, did you get Harri Immonen’s old computer?” I asked when we finally got to the Merivaara murder.

“I did, although Sjöberg claimed all we would find on it were his travel plans. Apparently he deleted all of Immonen’s files from the hard drive and the disks. I checked the floppies, even though it took half the night.”

“Where is the computer now?”

“I took it and the disks to the computer experts in White Collar like you asked. Sjöberg claimed he formatted the hard drive, but we’ll see what the IT guys turn up.” Koivu shrugged.

“How did Sjöberg react when you asked for the computer?”

“He seemed confused. He said it hadn’t even crossed his mind that there might be anything worth saving other than Immonen’s reports about the birds on Rödskär. He asked if confiscating the computer meant that Immonen was murdered after all. I told him to ask you.”

“Thanks. Puustjärvi, is the meeting with Anne Merivaara lined up?”

“Two o’clock at their office.”

At the end of our morning meeting, Puupponen asked whether there was any hope of getting a replacement for Ström.

“I promise I’ll keep riding the brass about it.” The depressing crop of crimes from this weekend would at least be a good argument for rushing a new appointment. I’d been told there wasn’t anyone appropriate in the department and a search was underway for qualified sergeant-level candidates elsewhere.

Out of curiosity I checked the situation on my computer once I got back to my office. A few people had submitted online applications, including one of my friends from law school, Marcus Huttunen, who had also specialized in criminal justice and had been working for the past few years as an assistant prosecutor in Vantaa. Why did he want to move over to the police? A couple of the other applicants seemed good too. I’d need to have Personnel arrange interviews with them.

In the stack of faxes, there was also an update from the Lithuanian police. Peders and Ramanauskas had worked for a product-development department in the Soviet navy, and their specialties had included paints. A natural connection to Merivaara Nautical. I faxed back a request for more information about exactly what kinds of paints they had developed. The men’s location was still unclear. Nice reported that they had set sail toward Corsica and Sardinia a couple of weeks earlier. Where were two former Soviet navy officers getting money to live it up on the Riviera?

I called Tapio Holma. No one picked up at his house, but he answered his cell. The connection was fuzzy, and in the background I could hear the screeches of gulls.

“Can we talk?”

“Not right now. I’m on the bay, and I’ve never seen this many smews.”

“Smews?” While I’d heard the name before, it had always conjured up a strange combination of disturbing images with no association to ducks or the sea. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real live smew. I don’t want to ruin it for you, but could we chat while we watch the birds? Where can I find you?”

“Do we have to?” Holma sounded irked. “OK, fine. I’m in the marsh in front of the Villa Elfvik Nature House. You should bring some rubber boots.”