My First Murder (9 page)

A bewildered expression appeared on Mira’s face, but it quickly changed to amusement.

“Is that why you wanted me here? Yes, I handled that ax a couple of times. Someone had left it in the middle of the sauna building porch, and I moved it to the side so no one would trip on it. And then later in the evening, I caught that big pike. I yelled for someone to bring me something to bash its head with. Antti brought the ax from the sauna and killed it. I imagine that in all the excitement we left it on the dock.” Mira snorted. “If I were going to kill a person, I would have the sense to use gloves. They talk about them in every single mystery novel ever written.” She paused for a moment, then continued.

“Who else’s fingerprints have you found on it? Antti’s, of course. He chopped the wood for the sauna, since none of the other boys could be bothered to make the effort. Antti said he likes chopping wood, and you can tell just from his biceps,” she said, suddenly blushing.

I remembered what Tuulia had said about Mira’s interest in Antti, and somehow it made her seem more human. She didn’t have poor taste in men, I thought, but then I sighed with disappointment. There was a reasonable explanation for everything. Of course, it was possible that Mira wasn’t telling the whole truth. Antti could have used the ax after chopping the wood as well, and he would have had the strength and coordination for a blow like this. And besides, the blow had come from above, and Antti was the only one who was tall enough to have struck him
from this angle if Tommi had been standing. If Tommi had been seated, though, height would be irrelevant. Mira’s obvious need to protect Antti was a little amusing. At least she didn’t seem to be trying to hide her infatuation.

“Did you have anything else? My coffee break doesn’t last forever, but I’m so close to the station that you can have me run by every day if you need me to,” Mira said brusquely, as though regretting her earlier loquacity.

After Mira had gone, I cursed my stupidity when I realized that I could have at least offered her a cup of coffee in exchange for taking up her break time. On the other hand, an interview over coffee mugs would have felt like a gab session, and I was afraid of creating such congenial situations while working on this case.

While Mira had been calm, Antti at least looked like he was sad. Though it was possible he always wore black jeans and a black T-shirt, his pale face and red-rimmed eyes made it look like more than that. I wondered about the reason for the red eyes—insomnia, drinking, or crying—or perhaps a combination of all three?

“Hi—what was your rank again? Detective? Any results yet in the investigation?” he asked in a tired voice as he slumped down in the chair across from me.

“Yes. We found the murder weapon, and it has your fingerprints on it,” I stated grimly. Antti’s hostility irritated me much more than Mira’s had, and I became even more irritated as I realized I was irritated at all. Back in the day, Tommi had been nice to look at, but Antti had been nice to talk to. Antti wasn’t bad looking either, especially since I had always thought that men with large mouths and Roman noses were sexy. A cross between Mick Jagger and Dustin Hoffman would have been my
ideal. I checked out the biceps Mira had mentioned, trying to maintain an indifferent expression as I did so. The black T-shirt covered some undeniably nicely shaped arms.

“What the hell? Do you really mean Tommi was murdered?” Antti was unable to conceal his alarm.

“It’s starting to look that way.”

“What murder weapon are you talking about?”

“An ax someone tried to conceal under the sauna. Laboratory tests show that it’s the murder weapon.”

“Oh, that ax.” A hint of a smile appeared on Antti’s lips. “I split at least half a cord of wood with that ax. The Peltonens only have one usable ax. Typical for that family—they have at least four different bark scrapers, but only one decent ax. Anyone could tell you about it—about the firewood chopping, that is, not bark scrapers. If you need any more evidence, just look at these blisters on my palms.” Antti spread his hands out on the desk, palms up, so I had no choice but to look at them and see the blisters on his long-fingered hands.

“I’m getting pretty decrepit if I get blisters from a little job like that. So anyway, of course my fingerprints are on the ax.”

“And later in the evening you used it to kill.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You murdered a fish in cold blood.” Antti’s tense expression relaxed as he laughed, which seemed to do him good. My words made me want to laugh too, but I mentally kicked myself in the shin.

“Well, I guess I did. There wasn’t anything else for it, though I admit I would rather have let the fish go. Obviously, we left the ax on the dock and...oh damn it to hell!”

“Did you find your cat?”

“Einstein? He was asleep on the sauna roof when I went back to Vuosaari. He always ends up there in the afternoon when we’re at the villa, because the sun is so warm right there. Einstein was born under that sauna. He’s a kitten from the Peltonens’ old cat.”

Talking about the cat seemed to thaw him out a bit, but I had to get back to business.

“How much did you owe Tommi?” I asked.

“Owe Tommi? What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t owe Tommi anything. Why do you think that?”

“Who owed Tommi money?”

“Tuulia probably owed him some, but I doubt it could have been very much. Riku’s finances have been pretty messed up for as long as I’ve known him, and I think Tommi had loaned him quite a bit. Riku doesn’t have any common sense when it comes to money. He spends it all on champagne for pretty girls in restaurants and stuff like that. Tommi always acted a little like Riku’s older brother and probably wanted to help him out.”

“OK. We’ll have to find out. You mentioned Tommi and Pia’s relationship when we talked yesterday. What was it like?”

A look of vexation passed over Antti’s face.

“If I only knew. It was usually easy to see what role each of Tommi’s women played for him. He never had more than two serious girlfriends, Jaana and a girl named Minna, who he went out with in high school. The others...” Antti spread his hands wide. “Pia was sort of a different case. Tommi didn’t talk to me much about it, possibly because he knew how I felt about it. Maybe Tommi really was in love for the first time in his life. I’ll probably never know.”

“Maybe not. Has anything occurred to you since we last spoke that might help with the investigation?”

“No. The whole thing is still just as senseless to me as before, I’m afraid. I spent all last night thinking about old friends like Pia and Tuulia and trying to decide if one of them could have killed my best friend. And now you tell me Tommi was definitely murdered. Do you get what’s going to happen here? We’re all going to start spying on each other and turning against one another just to save our own skins. I’m already feeling like I need to hurry and come up with a murderer for you before you arrest me.

“And then there’s EFSAS...” Antti paused for a moment. “We call our choir director ‘Hopeless,’ although that might be a better description of the whole choir at this point. Hopponen is his real name. He called me today. Mira told him about what happened: best bass singer dead, paying gig canceled, bad press for the choir, and to top it all off, one of the other core members probably a murderer...Although I’m sure he’d prefer to twist things to have it be Tommi who made that hole in his own head.”

“Who do you think did it?”

“That’s for you to find out, Miss Detective. The funeral will probably be within a couple of weeks. Don’t arrest anyone before then. We’ll need as many of our singers there as possible.” Antti buried his head in his hands and then shook himself as if to chase away his own bad thoughts. “It would be best for Maisa...for Tommi’s mother, that they bury him as soon as possible. She isn’t mentally stable as it is, and I’m afraid all of this will crush her once and for all. This is a terrible thing for her.”

Since my return to the force, I had investigated a dozen or so homicides, all of which had turned out to be manslaughter of one type or another, mostly crimes of passion. They had always been terrible for someone, not just for the victim and perpetrator but for their friends and family as well. They caused insecurity,
self-accusation, fear, and doubt. Though I had always tried to keep my emotions in check, I couldn’t help but feel them. Now I felt even worse. I wished there were a switch in my head I could flip to turn off all my feelings, leaving only a robotic crime-solving machine.

“About the ax again...How did you leave it after you finished off the fish?”

“I rinsed the worst of the scales off the blade and then probably left it on the right side of the dock. It would have been right there for anyone to pick up. If I had just taken it back to the sauna...”

“Don’t start what if-ing.” It came out more as a command than friendly encouragement. I muttered a quick farewell and then kicked him out of the office. I was in a hurry since there were so many things I needed to check on-site. But one thing had become clear: this was probably premeditated murder, not manslaughter. Anyone could have remembered that the ax was down on the dock and lured Tommi there. But unless the murderer was Mira or Antti, we were missing a set of fingerprints. And the perpetrator of a premeditated murder might also have had time to plan how to throw off the police.

Rocks scraping underfoot we walk

It was surprisingly calm on the East Highway for late afternoon traffic. I was driving a faded gray Russian Lada that belonged to the department, and listening in as the boys from Forensics traded stories over the seats. I had gotten them to drop what they were doing and come with me because I thought I would probably be able to lift the restrictions on the Peltonens’ villa after this visit.

There was a speed trap on the Vuosaari Bridge. I was driving significantly over the sixty kilometers per hour speed limit, but I calmly zipped past the baby-faced traffic cop. It felt like an eternity since I had done my stint in Traffic, as though I had been a completely different person six years ago.

Being in Violent Crime was easier in the sense that my current work didn’t generally cause moral dilemmas. There was always sense in chasing down rapists and killers. As a patrol officer, however, I had felt like a nitpicker lying in wait for speeders—which hadn’t been as big a problem then—arresting drunks, and handing out tickets to old ladies riding their bicycles without headlights.

Then I received the transfer to Vice that I wanted. I imagined I could save the world, but the only thing I’d felt was complete helplessness. One woman’s goodwill couldn’t do anything
to combat the revolving doors of institutionalization and drug abuse. The underage prostitutes and abused children were the hardest. In school, I guess I had upheld this image of myself as a kind of Mother Teresa of law enforcement, but in reality, I couldn’t do a thing for anyone. I reacted too strongly to everything happening around me, and I didn’t realize until afterward that I was just too young to endure the constant chaos of crime I had been submerged in. My departure to study law was an escape, a desperate attempt to make some sense of the system in which I found myself spiraling downward.

And now I was back at square one, as a police officer. I remembered the captain’s comment earlier that morning that my placement could continue after September if I wanted. The person who actually held my position, Saarinen, was on an extended sick leave with a bad back. Rane claimed it was more of a psychosomatic problem: Saarinen was bored with his work and tired of covering for Kinnunen’s drinking and fixing Kinnunen’s mistakes, so he was putting off returning to work for as long as possible.

In a lot of ways, continuing on would be the easy answer. I still wasn’t interested in going back to school, and I didn’t have the energy to contemplate changing professions yet again. I had piled up enough student debt already. Of course it didn’t make any sense to leave my degree unfinished with just a thesis and a couple of big tests left, but I lacked the necessary motivation.

They were dissecting the Narcotics Unit’s latest clown act in the backseat. If the impatient cops had waited just another week to start making arrests, they would have collared a good chunk of the capital’s newest properly organized drug ring. As it was, all they had netted were a few hash dealers who didn’t know much of anything about the ring’s organization.

I sneered along with the technicians as they made their jabs. I knew I didn’t want to be a drug cop. Their work had grown a great deal more dangerous in recent years. Lately, the Violent Crime and Narcotics Units had been liaising a lot, since a good number of homicides had been turning out to be internal score-settling between the drug gangs. The work was completely different from my police academy days when all you had needed to know to work Narcotics was how to arrest and interrogate the odd pot smoker.

The sea appeared for the first time along the road. A cat bounded after a bird in a field full of yellow tansies along the side of the highway. I rolled the car window down all the way.