The Lion of Justice (22 page)

“You are not accused of anything. We just need to find out how Haapala obtained a mixture of alcohol and windshield wiper fluid that contained methanol. Do you have any idea who usually supplied him?” the officer asked.

“How should we know? Talk to his friend, Veikko Vuorinen. They bought their drinks together,” Monika said.

“Vuorinen claims he has no clue. When he and Haapala went to sleep, neither one of them was carrying any alcohol. They’d run out of beer by nine,” the older officer told us. He wore a beard and looked bored with death.

Monika looked through her planner. “So he passed away during the night between November 3 and 4. Our kitchen closed at eleven that evening, and by one we had the place cleared out and closed. Does anyone here remember anything out of the ordinary about that night?” Monika asked the staff.

Of course nobody did. Except me, who had seen a pant leg and a shoe in the security camera footage. The police hadn’t asked for the tapes, but the officers from the Bureau were more thorough. The younger officer, Chief Constable Sutinen, asked where the cameras were located. Everyone looked at me.

“I deal with the surveillance here, not that there has been much to deal with.” I told them where the cameras were and complained how I stupidly deleted events older than a week. The police were of course free to double-check. The USB stick I’d used to save the images from the evening Ripa had died was safely locked away on Yrjö Street with my gun and the items I’d found in David’s drawers.

“Do you recall seeing anything suspicious on the tapes from that night?” Sutinen asked me, and Jouni took that as permission to get back to work. He took off, trailed by curse words and the rest of the staff. Only Monika and I remained.

“I would’ve brought them to the police if I’d seen someone offering a drink to Ripa. He’d fallen over where the cameras couldn’t see him, so his death wasn’t recorded.” I acted shocked, although my mind was blinded with rage. Why weren’t the police wondering why they hadn’t found a bottle of poisoned alcohol anywhere near Ripa? Had Rytkönen just coolly watched while Ripa drank enough to kill himself and then taken the bottle with him, leaving the man to choke on his own vomit? The pant leg and the shoe weren’t enough evidence against a police officer of his status, and besides, I couldn’t think of a reason why Rytkönen would’ve wanted Ripa dead. That’s what his colleagues would wonder, too, so I kept my mouth shut and didn’t volunteer to help the police. The bearded man was smart enough to ask whether any of us had found the bottle, and my answer in the negative wasn’t a lie.

The police visit gave me another excuse to chat with the staff about Ripa’s death, but no one had any information. Veikko and Ripa had been part of the restaurant, acting as a sort of a human compost, helping with our leftovers, and now we grieved for them. Jouni guessed that come spring, the newspaper-recycling container would host new tenants. I wondered what would be the best time to reveal to Rytkönen that I knew he was a killer. I decided to remain calm; this information could be valuable one day. I copied the security camera tape onto two more USB sticks and hid them in different locations in our apartment. Monika’s cousin was about to come back home, and I needed to find another place to stay. If I had a car, I could move back to Torbacka, if that cabin was available. I’d be close enough to Kopparnäs, the area Usko Syrjänen coveted.

A tabloid headline caught my eye on my way to work the next day: “Usko Syrjänen and Beautiful Julia: Engaged!” I pulled the paper from the display and leafed through it. Syrjänen smiled sweetly in the image, whereas Julia pouted. The paper wrote that Julia Gerbolt, twenty-eight, had been married once before. Syrjänen had left his current wife for Julia, although he wasn’t technically divorced yet. Now Syrjänen’s wife was demanding half of his fortune. No wonder he was renting at Långvik. The story didn’t mention anything else about Syrjänen’s business background except that he owned construction and shopping-center companies that had been expanding rapidly and that he was a good friend to many important politicians. The story mentioned how Syrjänen had become friends with a slightly shady Russian businessman Boris Vasiliev, who had died when Syrjänen’s boat exploded.

Julia Gerbolt was from Moscow and had been a model in Russia. Her first husband was over thirty years older, an oil kingpin who had died of a heart attack the year before. Julia and Syrjänen had met in St. Petersburg at a party hosted by mutual friends. The future Mrs. Syrjänen seemed to be one of those people who could sniff out money. I got a whiff of blood from the money she had inherited from her rich, dead husband. I didn’t know whether I’d be able to say no if Syrjänen offered me a job as Julia’s bodyguard. That would be my shot at the inner circle, where David had once been.

On the Friday before Independence Day, I was just about to head out to the tram stop when a pile of envelopes fell through the mail slot. One of the envelopes was for me. I’d already gotten a few Christmas cards from former classmates across the Atlantic, thanks to the secured e-mail list. This envelope had a stamp: “Forwarded Mail.” Inside was another envelope. I opened it to reveal a Christmas card. It wasn’t just an ordinary card, either; it depicted two lynx curled together. I’d seen these cards in Huelva, Spain. My name had been marked on the envelope under “c/o Mrs. Voutilainen.” The sender was someone named A. Lusis. There was no writing on the card, but the envelope contained a piece of paper folded in half twice.

Merry Christmas, Hilja my dear. I knew I could count on you to secure the contents of the locked drawer. Have you already figured out the meaning of that ring? I had it made for you and would have slipped it on your finger, but I had to escape. I trusted you would take care of yourself, and I was right. Remember to keep on taking care of yourself and the contents of the drawer.

I still cannot tell you where I am. It’s too risky, and I don’t want you in danger because of me. I’ll return when I can, if I can. I wanted you to know that I’m innocent. Things just didn’t go as I had planned. I couldn’t do anything else. I don’t expect you to wait for me, but I still hope for it. I pray for it. I don’t care if you have others in your life.

There was no signature, but David’s wobbly handwriting was easy to recognize, and the name Lusis referred to him, of course.

I was boiling inside. Who did Stahl think he was? Did he really think he could just waltz back into my life whenever it suited him, then disappear again for who knows how long? I was no Penelope who would sit around waiting for her man and decline all others. I wanted to call Trankov right then and set up a date. Instead, when I picked up the phone, I called Teppo Laitio. I had to talk to someone. No, not talk. Scream. It was snowing hard outside. The snow that had fallen in November had never melted, and old ladies slipped their way down Yrjö Street below.

“What do you know, Ilveskero! To what do I owe this pleasure?” Laitio said.

“Are you at home or at the headquarters in Jokiniemi? Is Rytkönen around?” I asked.

“Thank heavens, no. I’m in my office on Urheilu Street.”

“And you’re sure your phone isn’t bugged? We need to meet. I just received a card from Stahl, and I think Rytkönen poisoned a homeless alcoholic who had been living behind Sans Nom.”

By the sound of it, Laitio’s cigar had dropped out of his mouth. I tried to recall all the things I hadn’t shared with him, and I could imagine the fire and brimstone he’d pour on my head once I told him I had met Rytkönen while disguised as Reiska. Laitio had always been a bit unsettled by him. But I could no longer keep secrets from Laitio. I may have been a local champion in lying, but I didn’t have a chance with the pros, and I’d never have a chance to represent Finland internationally. Laitio was at least a judge on the national level.

“What are you talking about? Who did Rytkönen murder and where was the card from?”

I hadn’t even thought about looking at the stamp. The stamp was Lithuanian, and the envelope was postmarked in Kaunas. This supported Trankov’s story about Gintare’s child. David was trying to find the child that had been left at a Lithuanian orphanage.

“It was stamped in Kaunas on November 23. It was first sent to Mrs. Voutilainen on Untamo Street, because David knew the card would reach me eventually, even if he didn’t know where I was at the moment.” My voice had begun to waver, and I could’ve used a cigar or a shot of tequila.

“Get your butt over here then. I have something to tell you about my new best friend Rytkönen, too. I believe he’s capable of anything—even murder,” Laitio said.

“I can’t come now. I have to work, but I’ll try to leave before closing. Could I come after ten?”

“The missus has a bridge gathering. I could claim I have diarrhea to get out of it, but then she’ll sulk for weeks.”

We arranged to meet at his place the following morning, and I’d find someone to sub for me at work. Before leaving I read David’s message over and over. I didn’t understand why he was talking about just one locked drawer. He should’ve remembered there were two, and I had broken both. Who had gone in to check that the drawers had been broken into when the police hadn’t even noticed it at first?

Another thought came to mind. Why did David mention just the ring but nothing about the kaleidoscope or the USB stick? Maybe it was a cover in case the letter ended up in the wrong hands. I now regretted having been so careless when I’d opened it without inspecting the envelope well. Someone could have steamed the envelope open before me.

I snorted. Was I really going to believe that David had enemies among the Lithuanian and Finnish mail carriers? When it came to David, I shouldn’t have been surprised about anything anymore. He’d made his way to Finland undetected last March like a lynx to his hiding place, and reports about someone creeping around Sans Nom in the fall seemed to indicate suspicion that David was in Finland with me. I suddenly recalled the shadowlike figure on the seashore when I had visited Yuri at the studio the first time. That couldn’t have been David. Then again, it would’ve served him right to see me make love to Yuri Trankov and fall asleep next to him. Served him damned right.

I almost broke the peeler when I accidentally threw in a spoon, and I also managed to spill tomato soup on one of our regulars. I was angry at myself, letting David Stahl have such an effect on me. I could see his light-blue eyes gazing at me as if he were standing right there.

“Screw you, David Stahl. I don’t care about you one bit,” I whispered when I did my routine check of the security cameras. All I saw was an empty field of snow. I had lost my status as local lying champion when I couldn’t even fool myself anymore.

21

Only when I was sitting back in the tram did I wonder if I was a complete moron. Stahl was wanted for Dolfini’s murder, I’d been hiding information from the Helsinki Bureau officers, and Laitio was their colleague. He was surely obliged to relay the information about this fugitive who had been in Kaunas a couple of weeks earlier, or else he was guilty of misconduct. Why did I feel like someone had to protect David? He should be caught, that bastard.

The snowplow was pushing fluffy snow along Urheilu Street, and the heated grass on the soccer field looked unrealistically green. I took a deep breath before I buzzed Laitio. He growled unintelligibly into the speaker and was already waiting for me at the door when I climbed the stairs. We hadn’t seen each other for one and a half months, and I was startled by the change in him: his skin was gray, his hair was visibly thinner on the crown, his mustache drooped, his eyes were double-bagged underneath, and his jowls drooped like a hound’s. I detected three sets of chins. Laitio had lost weight. The familiar mustard-yellow cardigan was now baggy on him.

“Hi. Come and take a seat. Want a smoke? I made some coffee.”

I didn’t light the cigar. I just watched Laitio go through the ritual of cutting the end of his cigar and taking a drag before tasting the coffee. He’d fixed a mug for both of us, and Laitio had apparently used some sort of an espresso roast, because the amount of caffeine would make me climb walls and give me a heart attack.

“How are you, Hilja?” he asked. “They want to get rid of me. Early retirement and blah, blah, blah. All sorts of bullshit. Rytkönen has convinced the bosses that this is a good idea, but upper management is not sure. I’ve worked as a cop since that guy was still pooping his pants. If you have any information that puts him in a bad light, I’ll buy you cigars for the rest of your life. But first, let’s talk Stahl. Did you bring the card?”

I pulled out the card from my bag and handed it over.

“And you’re sure this came from Stahl?”

“That handwriting is his, and these are the cards we used to buy together in Huelva. The last name is also a hint—it means lynx.”

“So this man has been carrying a card all over the world just to tell you at an opportune time that he’s still alive? How romantic.” I hadn’t thought of the card from that angle, and I had to fight against the fuzzy feeling slowly spreading inside me. Laitio turned his computer on.

“I don’t know who orchestrated this whole story and made the Italian police believe Stahl was responsible for Dolfini’s murder. It has to be someone with good connections to the local police.”

“And you don’t believe he’s guilty?”

“No, and neither does Caruso. Someone wants to catch Stahl because he knows too much. This means at least one man in Europol has been paid off—if that man isn’t Stahl. Furthermore, some Belarusian is after Stahl. Our intelligence found out that some of the money Vasiliev handed over to Gezolian was forged.”

“Do you think Stahl stole from them?”

“How do you think he’s been able to feed himself all these years?”

I, too, had been treated to meals and enjoying life, renting cars, and joyriding around Andalusia and Tuscany with the dirty bomb money. I got immediate heartburn from the coffee.

“I guess it’s better that Stahl has the money and not Gezolian. He’s hiding in Belarus, and no one can find him. Under the protection of the president and who knows what other crooks. But what on earth is Stahl doing in Lithuania?” Laitio asked.

“He’s looking for his child.” He listened carefully and asked whether Stahl had told me this.

“No, it wasn’t Stahl. I heard he didn’t know about the kid until earlier this year.”

“So who told you then?”

“Yuri Trankov.”

“Trankov? That weasel and Rytkönen’s minion? Don’t believe a single word that comes out of that man. He’s less trustworthy than ten Savonians altogether,” Laitio yelled.

I felt my cheeks flush, but I tried to remain calm.

“Rytkönen’s minion. What does that mean? I thought they didn’t know each other.”

“Shit always finds its way to another pile. Did you think Syrjänen’s involvement with Vasiliev wasn’t investigated at the Bureau? Ever since then he’s been under the foreign department’s surveillance. First he was under my jurisdiction, but later Rytkönen demanded to handle the case. What would be more beneficial than having his own snitch as Syrjänen’s right-hand man? Paskevich got knocked over on his head—or perhaps some other body parts would be more appropriate—during that botched Lehmusvuo kidnapping, so he doesn’t dare return to Finland, even now that he’s no longer banned. His bastard son, however, is another story. Who do you think was behind allowing him back in? Rytkönen, of course.”

My heart wasn’t racing just because of the espresso. In my mind I replayed the tape showing Trankov and Rytkönen sitting at the same table. So it hadn’t been a coincidence, and although outsiders wouldn’t have gotten much out of their conversation, I’m sure it had been filled with coded language.

“When did you chat with Trankov? I told you to stay away from him.”

“At the villa Syrjänen is renting in Långvik. I was modeling for him.”

Laitio sighed heavily. He made futile attempts at wiping the partly dried flecks of coffee off his cardigan. When his phone rang he took a look at the screen, then answered it.

“What is it? I’m working.” I couldn’t hear what the other person was saying, but a smile began to slowly manifest. “Yes, that’s fine by me. Like I said, I’m busy. You and Irmeli just have your lunch in peace. I’ll find something for myself. And I won’t forget to feed Kokki. Kiss, kiss, my little bunny.” Then a confused expression came over Laitio’s face. I wanted to have the upper hand, so I flashed a rude smile and blew a kiss to him. That didn’t save me from his attack. He still wanted to know what the hell I had been thinking, agreeing to model for Trankov. What an idiot. I told him a condensed version: I’d modeled for Trankov until the painting was finished. Then I switched subjects.

“There has to be a connection between Syrjänen and Stahl, right? Why else would that USB stick containing the Kopparnäs papers be in David’s drawer all the way in Montemassi?” I asked.

“And what was the reason he left it for you to find? Based on the message inside the kaleidoscope and his letter to you, he knew you’d rummage through the place before you’d take off. And you did exactly as he expected. Stahl really has you wrapped around his finger,” Laitio huffed, and I wanted to smack him. “If those papers had anything worth hiding, Stahl put you in terrible danger when he gave them to you. What a selfish prick.”

I was kind of flattered by this. David believed I could take care of myself and the information that was important to him. I switched topics again.

“Rytkönen has been stalking me. Recently he came in to Sans Nom and threatened me. He accused me of hiding Stahl somewhere in Finland and said he’d throw me in jail. Not only that, he’s been spying on me at my apartment and at Sans Nom. Look. Isn’t this Rytkönen?”

I pulled the USB stick out of my breast pocket and inserted it into Laitio’s computer. I showed him the images from the security cameras, both from the night Ripa had seen an odd character lurking about when Sans Nom was broken into and from the night Ripa was killed.

“See? Isn’t this the same man? And I bet it’s Rytkönen,” I told Laitio.

First he nodded, but then he shook his head.

“I recognize those shoes and that gait, but all you need is a second-year law student to convince the judges that these tapes have no standing, especially when you’ve hidden them from the police. And why would Rytkönen have killed a homeless man?”

Veikko and Ripa had lived out of the recycling container behind Sans Nom, so they were probably just protecting their home and questioned what Rytkönen was looking for. Maybe Rytkönen had been afraid Ripa would recognize him and let me know it was him, although Rytkönen hadn’t really committed any crime at that point. He had just been looking for David. I thought about the break-in before the restaurant had opened. Veikko had seen men who looked like bodybuilders, but Rytkönen was much shorter than those guys. Maybe they were Rytkönen’s buddies. Usually burglars kept on doing it and would eventually get caught, but this break-in was unsolved.

“Why is Rytkönen so obsessed with David anyway? He’s Kassi after all. David trusts him.”

Laitio sighed again. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve looked into Rytkönen and found that he came from Europol, from the same intelligence department where Stahl works. They used to work together.”

“And that’s why Rytkönen is Kassi, David’s trusted man?” I asked.

“Hold your horses. Returning to Finland and joining the Bureau was practically a demotion for him. I happen to know he wanted Stahl’s position in Europol, but Europol didn’t want Rytkönen in the Gezolian operation, because he has no official training as a police officer, which worked against him. So Rytkönen actually has reasons for holding a grudge against Stahl. I’m sure he’d love to see the man with a tarnished reputation rotting in jail for murder, although it looks like Stahl is doing a pretty good job of screwing up his reputation with this solo career he’s leading.”

“So you’re saying Rytkönen is a trusted man who turned out to be a traitor?”

“Rytkönen is most definitely not the original Kassi. It’s that Estonian police officer, Jaan Rand.”

“Jaan Rand? But that’s Brother Gianni, the monk over at Sant’Antimo monastery. I met him there. He told me he and David were classmates in Tartu.”

“They were classmates, but Rand was also a cop. Stahl’s colleague in Europol. But then there was that ugly incident. He shouldn’t have felt the need to retreat to a monastery because of it, though.”

“Which ugly incident?”

Laitio looked like he was in pain. “We all have our weaknesses. Rand’s was very young women.”

“How young?”

“Too young. I don’t know the details. Twelve, thirteen.” Laitio lit a cigar. “Really disgusting.”

“I’m sure I’ve heard worse.”

Laitio puffed a couple of times before he launched into the story of how Rand had not just been protecting an Estonian-Russian child prostitution ring but also used their services. Once the ring was busted, Rand helped his colleagues catch the people behind the operation, and this had been deemed as a mitigating circumstance. Rand got off with probation and had to resign. Then Rand became riddled with guilt. He converted to Catholicism and took off to live the life of a monk in Italy. Stahl demanded that this childhood friend remain as his contact. He didn’t accept anyone else. For some reason people followed these orders, or at least in the beginning they did.

I recalled Brother Gianni’s curly blond hair and his ascetic, thin body. His white shroud had been spotless like a bride’s wedding dress. David had told me to seek him out. I was a grown woman, so I doubted Brother Gianni could’ve been a sexual threat to me. I imagined him lurking in the monastery shadows, peeping at little girls who kneeled in front of saintly images. But what had Eva Stahl told me over the phone? Something about Jaan Rand being mistreated. Surely she didn’t believe Rand was innocent. Or maybe David told his mother something even Laitio didn’t know. Or he had tried his best to protect his mother from the terrifying truth that her son’s long-time friend was a sexual criminal.

Laitio continued. “Rytkönen finally convinced the big boys that Rand could no longer be trusted because he could be led astray with little Lolitas. Stahl became Rytkönen’s responsibility.”

“So you’re saying Rytkönen thinks he knows everything about Stahl?”

“I suppose so.”

“But he doesn’t. He doesn’t know that Stahl has never used an alias called Bengt Näkkäläjärvi. Still he believed in it enough to enter the information into the Bureau database. I’m sorry, Teppo—one time you left your login information out in the open when you went to check on Kokki. I couldn’t resist.”

I predicted I’d get another lecture, but instead Laitio burst out laughing. Finally, his face gained some color and even his mustache seemed to perk up.

“Oh, dear Hilja. How stupid do you think I am? I know you. You’ll pounce as soon as you can.”

“Are you saying you left your login information on purpose?”

Laitio chuckled. “Hell yes, I did! I know you as well as Stahl does, if not better. But if you tell this to anyone I’ll of course deny it.”

“Who would I tell? Rytkönen? I wasn’t planning on adding him to my Christmas card mailing list.”

“Did you feed Rytkönen that bogus agent name? Bengt Näkkäläjärvi? What a goofy name.”

“It’s a Sami name. I thought pronouncing it would keep Europol cops busy for a while. To be honest, I didn’t come up with it, Reiska did.”

I let Laitio in on how Reiska and Rytkönen had met. I could’ve added my sexual exploits with Trankov—it couldn’t have gotten worse. Laitio had a better curse word vocabulary than Captain Haddock. I listened to his screaming. I knew I was an idiot.

“Here I had been hoping you had fallen out of love with Stahl. The only future I wish for you two involves sending long letters to a jail cell or taking flowers to a grave, if they ever find his body. But how the hell does Rytkönen know that Gezolian’s men are after Stahl?”

“Maybe he just fooled me?” I suggested. We took a long, hard look at each other. Laitio finished his cigar, and I thought about everything I knew. Trankov’s treachery wasn’t hurtful—after all, I had been expecting it. It just wasn’t the kind of treachery I had been waiting for.