Lucifer's Tears (31 page)

Strike one. Filippov is negotiating from a position of strength. He won’t compromise.

“Be reasonable,” I say. “You and Linda murdered your wife, but you’ll go unpunished, and the matter will be forgotten. Saar is innocent. Leave him be.”

He sticks a finger in my face. “You’re wrong. Saar is guilty. He fucked my wife for two years.” He raises his voice. “My wife! Mine! He deserves prison. He deserves worse. He’s getting off easy.”

Filippov pauses, slides another oyster down his throat. “As you pointed out last night,” he says, “my wife was a miserable slut. I can’t punish everyone who fucked my wife, but I can punish him. If he and others like him had respected my marriage and kept their hands off my wife, Iisa would still be alive, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The value of punishing Saar is symbolic to me. His incarceration is nonnegotiable.”

I have to admit, he makes an extreme but compelling argument. I look at Linda, hoping for help, but she only winks at me and chases an oyster with champagne.

The waiter brings their main courses. We halt our conversation while he sets their plates in front of them. Arvid walks in. My bewilderment mounts. The waiter leaves.

Arvid walks over to the table and stands beside Filippov.

“How did you get here?” I ask Arvid.

“By taxi. Cost me two hundred euros. Is this that Russian bastard?” he asks.

“That’s him. What are you doing here?”

He pulls a chair over from the next table and sits next to Filippov. Arvid has on a long overcoat. He shoots the sleeves and shows us the little Sauer suicide pistol that sat on the mantel over his fireplace, only now it has a silencer attached to it. He pulls his sleeve down again to hide it, and jams it against Filippov’s ribs. “As I said earlier,” Arvid says, “fixing our problems.”

Filippov blinks and licks his lips, confused. He knows something has gone wrong. I do, too, but haven’t the vaguest idea what it is.

“Old man,” Filippov says, “who the hell are you and what do you want?”

“Admit that you killed your wife,” Arvid says.

Filippov shrugs his shoulders. “Okay, I admit it.”

“Don’t move a goddamned muscle,” Arvid says.

Filippov senses that Arvid isn’t fucking around. He sits stockupright in his chair and stares straight ahead.

Arvid takes a wineglass from the table with his left hand, stands up, and with his right hand presses the pistol against the back of Filippov’s head. Low, where it meets his neck. Arvid smashes the wineglass on the floor and pulls the trigger, simultaneous. He shoots Filippov at the junction of his brain and brain stem, in the same way that Milo shot Legion. It’s obvious that Arvid has done this many times before. Arvid pockets his gun and holds Filippov up so he doesn’t pitch forward onto the table.

The silencer muffled the sound of the shot and changed its pitch. Diners look around, curious. Arvid goes sheepish and shrugs. His look says, Sorry, folks, I’m just a clumsy and silly old man. They think the sound was only from the breaking wineglass and go back to their conversations. Arvid balances Filippov so he stays upright, and sits down beside him again. Filippov doesn’t look dead, just bored. Arvid’s peashooter didn’t pack enough punch to make a mess. A busboy scurries over, sweeps up the broken glass in ten seconds flat and departs.

I’m so shocked that I start to giggle. Linda gets up, goes over to Arvid and kisses him on the cheek. “You’ve rather changed my plans,” she says, “but thank you. That was the nicest thing anyone ever did for me. Who are you?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know anymore.”

She sits down again. “Would someone please explain to me what just happened?”

“Yeah,” I say, “as soon as I understand it myself.”

Arvid slides Filippov’s plate over and eyes his dinner. “What was he having?”

I’ve eaten here a lot and know the menu. “It’s a grilled fillet of beef with haricots verts, mushrooms, caramelized onions and potatoes au gratin. Can you please tell me why you just killed a man?”

He takes a place setting, cuts a slice of beef and digs in. “You were going to get fucked by this murder investigation. Now, your killer is apprehended, but unfortunately unable to stand trial. You solved the crime and closed the case.”

Arvid helps himself to Dom Perignon. I knock back my kossu. I need it. Filippov remains upright. His eyes are open, staring at me like the dead I imagined earlier on my drive here. Sooner or later, he’ll pitch forward. We don’t have much time. I turn to Linda. “Who are you?” I ask.

She sips champagne. “Iisa.”

“Why did you kill Linda?”

Her Bettie Page facade has disappeared. She’s all business now. “First things first.” She points at Filippov. “Like the old man said, you’ve got your killer. After this brief discussion, I’m going to get up, walk out of this hotel, embezzle the assets from Filippov Construction-which rightfully belong to me anyway-and never be heard from again. If not, I’ll expose everyone involved.”

It may be the most reasonable way out of this mess for all of us. “If your story satisfies me, it’s a deal. Tell it fast.”

She kills half a glass of champagne to steady herself. Her voice changes, I presume from a facsimile of Linda’s to her own. “I had agreed to meet Rein at his apartment on Sunday morning. I decided the easiest thing would be to just sleep in Rein’s bed and wait for him.”

“You were going to watch him fuck another girl?” I ask.

She nods. “About five a.m., I hear the door unlock. I think they’ve arrived early and hide in the bathroom. I hear two voices, Linda’s and a man’s. I’m wondering what the hell Linda is doing in my lover’s apartment with some guy, so I wait and listen. She sucks his cock and shoves him out the door.”

“No one saw you?”

“No, I’m good at this game. After the guy left, Linda called Ivan so she could gloat about their plan to murder me. She got off the phone and started getting ready, laid out her toys. I came out of the bathroom, took the taser, snuck up behind her and zapped her with it.”

It’s all clear to me now. “You decided to punish them both. You tortured Linda with cigarettes to disfigure her beyond easy recognition, tasing her occasionally to keep her under control, and made her tell you their plan in detail.”

“And after she did, I put on the protective clothing, so Ivan couldn’t tell the difference between us, and waited on him.”

“Torturing with cigarettes wasn’t part of the plan. Didn’t it piss him off?”

“I told him I got excited and overzealous. He accepted it.”

“And your lover, Rein Saar. You were willing to let him be framed and go to prison?”

She shrugs. “I was in a bit of a predicament. At the time, it seemed like it was him or me.”

“So you just acted out the murder, as explained by Linda.”

“And afterward, I put on Linda’s clothes, did my look-alike thing with makeup and hair, mimicked her voice and pretended to be her until we got to Filippov Construction. Then I switched from Linda’s voice to my own and said, ‘Surprise.’”

I can picture it clearly enough. She only had to fool him long enough for them to drive to work. He was in such a heightened state of excitement after the murder and completion of a dreamlike sex act, it wouldn’t have been hard to deceive him. How could he suspect he killed Linda, not Iisa, after just sharing such an act of demented intimacy?

“I’m surprised he didn’t murder you on the spot,” I say.

“He knew he wouldn’t be able to cover up a second murder. We struck a bargain to sell Filippov Construction, take my life insurance payment, split it all and never see each other again.”

“And pretending to be lovers when I saw you and Ivan here at Kamp on the evening of the murder?”

“As when we spent the night together in Linda’s apartment, we were maintaining a facade.”

“Didn’t you want him punished for planning your torture and murder?”

“I tricked him into torturing and murdering the woman he loved. I felt he was sufficiently punished.”

“And recording the murder, even setting it to music?”

“Part of Ivan’s aforementioned punishment. They had intended to do so when they murdered me, for their further listening enjoyment while they fucked. I simply completed the plan, so that Ivan could listen to the sounds of his lover dying again and again, guiltridden, as he mourns her.”

Even after all my years as a cop, the darkness inherent in human nature still shocks me. Sometimes I feel I’d like to take Kate and our child to live deep in the forest, away from the beasts we call humans. Somewhere peaceful and safe.

“Did you know Linda was your half sister?” I ask.

She cocks her head, uncomprehending. “Half sister? Impossible. She used to have sex with my father.”

“I think that’s why she wanted to murder you. During our last chat, you told me that her fetish was self-negation, that she wanted to be other people. I’m guessing that was because of the self-loathing incest caused her. Your father had an affair with her mother, but didn’t know it resulted in a child. Linda’s mother wrote to him and told him, and he committed suicide out of grief.”

Her breath catches, but she doesn’t interrupt and so must want all of this bitter truth. I also want her to have it, and I give it to her. “You received unconditional love from your father. Linda had to suck her daddy’s dick to get it. She must have hated you for it. You were cruel to your husband, but she loved him. You had everything she wanted. With you dead, she could become you, a new and improved version, and Linda, the unwanted and abused child, could cease to exist, once and for all.”

She stands, expressionless. I have no inkling of how she feels. “I believe our business is concluded,” she says.

“Not quite. I need the videos.”

“I’m keeping them.”

“Nope. That’s the deal-breaker. I’ll let you embezzle the money and disappear, but if you don’t give me the videos, or if I find out you made copies of them, I’ll find you and prosecute you for your sister’s murder.”

She eyes the door, anxious to leave, considers the ramifications. “They’re buried in snow, triple-wrapped in freezer bags. Walk four paces off my back porch, turn left and take four more paces, and dig. Are we done now?”

“Disappearing isn’t as easy as you might think. If you’re lying to me, I’ll track you down and see you punished. I doubt it would take me more than a couple days.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Then yes, we’re done.”

I watch her walk away and wonder how she can live with herself. I suspect she won’t be able to, and I may find myself investigating her suicide. She may not pay for murder, but she stands punished.

Arvid is busy scarfing Filippov’s meal. I say to him, “The crime is solved and the case closed, but you’re going up for murder.”

He washes down steak with champagne. “Au contraire, quite the opposite. I faced extradition to Germany and a lengthy trial for accessory to murder. Now that I’ve committed murder in Finland, I’m not liable for extradition until my trial here is concluded. While I await trial in this country, as an old and frail man, and a war hero to boot, I’ll be released on my own recognizance until I’m convicted and sentenced. You’ll be the investigating officer in this case, a number of important officials want the truth buried, and I’m sure that between us all, we can delay my trial for some years. Years I don’t have. I’ll be in a grave before it goes to court.”

This smacks of pure and crystalline genius. I can only shake my head in wonder and amazement.

“Besides,” Arvid says, “with Ritva gone, I don’t have anything left to live for, and I wanted to kill one more goddamned Russian before I die.”

He pulls Linda’s plate over. I don’t wait for him to ask. “Sauteed hare, globe artichoke, fava beans and roasted pine nuts over pasta. How are you going to explain why you shot a suspect in my case?”

“Over the past couple days, I’ve been busy making phone calls. To the president and various ministers and generals. Out of respect for my service to my country, they’re willing to take my calls and listen to an old man ramble for a few minutes. I intend to claim that Filippov was a Russian spy and saboteur involved in the Arctic Sea affair, and I killed because it was my patriotic duty. As phone records will show, I learned of his involvement through chats with highly placed government officials, who regularly take me into their confidence in the hopes of gaining insight into weighty matters through the sage wisdom of a revered elder. Because the killing of Filippov involves issues of national security, my trial must be conducted in a closed courtroom, the details never released to the public. In addition to my achievements as a war veteran, I’ll pass into the annals of Finnish history as one of its greatest heroes.”

“You seem to have thought of everything,” I say.

He wolfs pasta. “Yes, I have.”

“Fancy silencer on that pistol,” I say. “Where did you get it?”

“I bought it yesterday. No law against it. Should we order dessert?”

I smile and shake my head. “Sorry, there’s no time. You have to go to jail soon.”

He nods agreement.

“All this ‘boy’ and ‘son’ and ‘call me Ukki’ stuff. You’ve been playing me all along, haven’t you, preparing for this moment?”

He leans forward and folds his hands on the table in front of him. “Boy, I said you were naive beyond words. Not this specific moment-I didn’t know for certain that I would kill this Russian bastard beside me until yesterday-but yes, I planned all along to use you to keep me from being extradited to Germany after Ritva was gone. But it wasn’t all a lie. You really are a good boy, and in truth, I’ve come to feel affection for you. And I did save your ass, didn’t I? It’s not as if I’m not grateful for all you’ve done for me.”

“And everything you told me about the Civil War and the Second World War and about my grandpa. Was it all one big lie?”

“No, I told you the truth about Toivo and myself at Stalag 309. About the rest of it? Well, let’s say the exact truth about this country’s history is going to die with me. I believe it’s for the good of the nation.”