Snow Woman (21 page)

“What’s your sign, by the way, Sergeant Kallio?” he asked suddenly. I didn’t like the way he was eying me. “I would guess one of the dualistic signs. Gemin
i . . .
No, maybe Pisces.”

“Why is that significant?” The last thing I wanted was to admit to Hanninen that he was right. I really was those two fish eternally swimming in different directions.

“I’d love to do a reading for you sometime. Free of charge of course. Just tell me your precise date and place of birth.”

I smiled uneasily. What would it hurt? I didn’t believe in any of that nonsense anyway. Or maybe I did. Why else would I care if this man studied my “celestial nature” or fate? Maybe I was just bothered by the idea that after reading my horoscope he would think he knew me. His teasing smile finally made me give in. I told him the place, time, and date of my birth. Maybe it would get rid of him.

The strategy worked. He jumped out of the chair and said he’d get right to work and have my birth chart ready by the end of the week. I wondered whether he would bring it to me personally but didn’t ask.

After Hanninen left, I tore into the phone LUDs. I already knew about most of the calls. Tarja Kivimäki had called her parents in Tuusniemi on Christmas Eve, and Niina Kuusinen had called to announce her arrival on Christmas Day. Joona Kirstilä called several times, from both Hämeenlinna and Helsinki, and his claim about the one o’clock phone call was accurate. But before that call was an absolute bombshell: why had Elina received a call at eleven from Leevi Säntti’s cell phone?

12

The rhythmic rocking of the train was a good cradle: I fell asleep within fifteen minutes of departure and didn’t wake up until morning, just a little before we arrived in Oulu. I barely had time to use the bathroom, wash my face, and throw on some makeup.

The train swayed just as I was putting on my mascara, giving me a nice thick brown streak down my nose. It took some hard scrubbing to get it off because I’d forgotten to bring makeup remover with me. There was a reason I usually didn’t do my makeup until I had some coffee, but I’d have to wait until the Oulu railway station for that.

Ten years had passed since I’d last been to Oulu, for a rock festival with some friends. I didn’t remember much of the city, but I knew the police station was close to the train depot. An officer there would accompany me out to Karhumaa, Johanna’s village. I’d made the request after learning Leevi Säntti had called Elina’s personal phone from his cell the night she died. I wanted to conduct an official interview.

The coffee and cheese sandwich I got from the station café were tolerable and helped me clear my head before I found my way to the police station. The desk officer announced my arrival to Officer Rautamaa, and in a few moments a six-foot-tall blond woman about my age dressed in winter uniform coveralls marched over to me.

“Hi, I’m Minna Rautamaa,” she said, shaking my hand. “Weren’t we at the police academy together for a while?”

“Yeah, we were,” I said with surprise. “I think you left early to go on maternity leave. But your name wasn’t Rautamaa then, was it? That’s why I didn’t realize I knew someone here.”

“My maiden name was Alatalo,” she said. “And that baby is already twelve, if you can believe it. Shall we go?”

I remembered my disappointment when Minna Alatalo’s pregnancy had forced her to drop out of the academy. She was the only other woman in my class, and after she left I felt like an orphan.

The sun hadn’t fully risen, and a frigid wind kept the city shivering. In many homes Christmas lights still burned even though Epiphany had already passed. Minna drove at a steady fifty-five as she told me about life as a cop and a mother of three. She had an application in for the NCO course. Now that her youngest was in school, she had more time for her career. I briefly related what I’d been doing since the academy and then moved on to explaining why we were meeting with Leevi Säntti.

“The case was in Nuuksio, right?” Minna asked. “Isn’t that the same place where the hostage incident happened last week? Wasn’t the cop who died from your department?”

“He was in my unit actually,” I said quickly and then turned back to the Elina Rosberg case. Minna cast me a brief glance but had the sense not to pry.

“How old is Johanna Säntti?” Minna asked once I’d filled her in.

“About thirty-three.”

“She must be the same Johanna Yli-Koivisto who was in my class in high school. She was from Karhumaa and got married to a minister of some kind. I don’t really keep up with religious stuff, but Leevi Säntti’s name is familiar. I think he’s one of the main leaders of the Laestadians around here.”

“So you knew Johanna in school! Tell me about her.”

“She was quiet. A really good student who always had perfect grades and got crazy good scores on her college entrance exams. We didn’t run in the same circles though. The Laestadians kind of kept to themselves. I guess they weren’t allowed to spend time with us normals. But I do remember one thing about her. It was probably during our first year in high school. Johanna was pretty even though she tried not to show it by dressing in weird sack dresses and keeping her hair up in a bun all the time. But that didn’t—”

A logging truck came toward us around a snow-covered curve, and Minna broke off to quickly do an evasive maneuver. The car slid for a while before she got it back under control.

“Flippin’ heck. That guy was going at least fifteen over!” Minna huffed. “We should go after him, but I’m not really interested in rally racing in this snow.”

“I hear you,” I said. “When I was younger I had the energy to jump on every little thing. So what was this about Johanna in school?”

Minna told me about Jari Kinnunen, the class bad boy who had fallen for the beautiful, quiet Johanna Yli-Koivisto during their freshman year. Jari would try to talk to Johanna between classes and he sat next to her in the cafeteria. He even brought her chocolates and wrote her love songs.

“Do you keep up with rock music?” asked Minna. “Have you heard of a band called Brain Drain? Jari’s their guitarist.”

I did know Brain Drain. They played a fun brand of retro punk. I had assumed the band members were much younger than me.

According to Minna, Jari was the last person Johanna would have gone out with. At first she seemed irritated by all the attention. But as the fall wore on, Johanna started to thaw. To everyone’s surprise, she showed up at a Christmas party at Minna’s house, even though her brother made it clear she couldn’t stay long and he would pick her up by ten.

At school that day, Jari had bragged to his friends that he would finally wake his Sleeping Beauty that night. And that’s exactly what happened. When Johanna’s brother came to pick her up, she wasn’t in the living room, where the rest of the class was chatting and getting drunk.

“He found them kissing in my little brother’s room, surrounded by all his car tracks and hockey sticks and stuff. Just kissing, mind you. Completely innocent. But Johanna’s brother totally flipped out. First he hit Jari and then Johanna, and the language he use
d . . .
I didn’t think religious people knew swear words like that. In the middle of it, he yelled something about Johanna whoring again. Then he dragged her out to the car. Jari wanted to go after them, but the rest of us convinced him that fighting her brother would just make things worse for her.

“The next Monday at school, Johanna was quiet and didn’t say a word about what had happened. She wouldn’t talk to Jari at all. The last class of the day was gym, and although Johanna tried to hide in the corner of the dressing room, the other girls saw that she was covered in bruises.

“In hindsight we should have done something.” Minna sighed. “But we were so used to the religious kids living their own lives, we thought it was best to leave her alone. Then in the spring Jari quit school anyway because he got a spot in a touring tango band. Johanna didn’t participate in prom or our graduation ceremony, and when she came for our college English test, she was wearing an engagement ring. I think she wanted to go to medical school, but instead she got married.”

We had arrived in the town of Ii, where the road turned east along the Ii River toward Karhumaa and Yli-Ii. In the summer the riverside road would probably be a fun bike ride. Gradually the sun began climbing in the sky. Its slanted rays made the snow sparkle in a kaleidoscope of colors. I looked out at the landscape rather than the road until a wave of nausea hit me so hard that I had to ask Minna to stop the car so I could open the door and puke.

Of course Minna guessed immediately that I was pregnant. With the experience of a mother of three she began sharing nausea prevention tips. I looked for a service station where I could stop to rinse my mouth before we arrived in Karhumaa, but there weren’t any. In the end I asked Minna to stop again about half a mile outside the village. I filled my mouth with snow from the side of the road and waited for it to melt. Just like when I was a kid, at first it tasted fresh and clean, and then oily and gritty.

The village was small and had only one main road. Our directions were good, and we easily found the Säntti home about a mile past the center of the village, right along the river. Evidently the lot had been lopped off from the land belonging to the farmhouse farther along the bank. The Säntti home, like all of the houses in the village, looked spacious, as if every builder had been preparing for a family of twelve, but it was more attractive than the others: a white brick rambler that had to be more than three thousand square feet. In the driveway stood a classy dark-gray Volvo sedan and a minibus of the same make. Of course a minibus was the only kind of vehicle the Säntti brood could fit in. Cross-country skis and kick sleds stood in the yard in a row. The frilly curtains in the windows looked as if they had been cleaned yesterday. Contrary to my expectations, the house didn’t look the slightest bit dreary. The man who opened the door and stood waiting for us was different from what I expected too.

Although Leevi Säntti’s voice on the phone had been controlled and pleasant, I had still imagined a short, round man with his greasy hair parted down the middle, 1960s-style glasses, and high-water pants.

In reality Leevi Säntti was six feet tall with broad shoulders and short, neatly groomed brown hair that had definitely seen some styling product. His facial features were pleasant, and he was wearing dark-blue corduroys and a casual blue-and-brown mottled sweater over a light-blue striped dress shirt. He didn’t look a day older than his age of forty-one.

He invited us into a roomy entryway with a handsome row of cabinets. From farther inside the house came the sounds of small children. Suddenly a three-foot-tall, towheaded little girl appeared at the end of the hall, pointed at me, and, proud of her newfound skill, said, “Auntie. Auntie.”

The child couldn’t be more than two, so she was probably Maria, Johanna’s youngest. I felt like running over and sweeping her up in my arms, but before I could do that, a girl of about six came to get her.

“We should go in my office, where we can talk without interruptions,” said Säntti. “I don’t want the children to hear the police asking about their mother. At least you came in a civilian car.”

“This is just a routine visit,” I said reassuringly. On the way to his office, I managed to catch a glimpse of a traditional-looking living room and a children’s bedroom complete with guardian angel pictures and bunk beds.

“I’m actually just a part-time minister. My main job is at my father’s sawmill,” Säntti explained as I looked curiously at his bookcase with its rows of religious texts and woodworking manuals. “I actually need to be at the mill this afternoon, so we should get down to business. Maija-Leena will be in shortly with coffee.”

There was something about Leevi Säntti that reminded me of Kari Hanninen. It wasn’t his pleasant appearance or soft-spoken speech, which forced you to lean in close to hear him. I couldn’t put my finger on what the characteristic was. I doubted Leevi Säntti believed in astrology.

“Do you have any objections to me taping this conversation?” I asked.

When Säntti shook his head, I continued. “Elina Rosberg, whose home your wife Johanna has been staying at since she left here, died recently under mysterious circumstances. I’d like to talk to you about your wife’s mental health. She has experienced some very difficult things. The decision to have an abortion and to leave her family, even temporarily, couldn’t have been easy. Do you think she might have snapped?”

“Do you believe in God, Sergeant Kallio?” Säntti asked.

Although the question was off topic, I decided to answer anyway. “I don’t think I know what I believe. Why do you ask?”

“With Johanna I wouldn’t talk about mental illness but rather defying the will of God,” said Säntti. “The Bible forbids murders like abortion, and it gives clear instructions on a wife’s subservient position to her husband. It’s also very clear that a mother belongs with her children. I don’t know my wife anymore. Her brothers remember how during her school years she transgressed the will of God several times, but for years she’s been a good mother and obedient wife. Given her behavior, I don’t know whether she’s possessed or not. She already killed one person—and I think she very well could have killed another.”

“Did you hold Elina Rosberg responsible for your wife’s abortion?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Leevi Säntti seemed genuinely surprised, although I had no doubt he understood what I was getting at.

“Elina Rosberg encouraged your wife to have an abortion and offered her a place to stay,” I said.

“I didn’t know that.” A defensive note had entered Säntti’s baritone voice. “I just thought Ms. Rosberg operated some sort of women’s shelter.”

“A shelter? For battered women?” I asked, probing.

“What are you insinuating?”

“I’m not insinuating anything. I just want to know what your understanding was of Elina Rosberg and the activities of the institute she operated.”

Just then the door opened and a slender young woman entered carrying a tray. I assumed it was Maija-Leena Yli-Koivisto, Johanna’s sister. The likeness between the two was striking, although Maija-Leena didn’t look nearly as sad or exhausted as her beaten-down sister. Despite the grandmotherly dress she wore, she was a very pretty young woman.

On the tray with the coffee was rye bread with
pulla
that looked and smelled homemade. Minna glanced at me as if encouraging me to eat to ward off the nausea. After setting down the tray, Maija-Leena wordlessly left. I wondered whether I might be able to interview her after Leevi Säntti left for the sawmill.

The bread tasted like summer at my uncle Pena’s farm. I’d eaten almost a whole piece before anyone spoke again.