Wolves and Angels

The lifeless body of an unidentified disabled man is found on a cold
fall night in the Finnish city of Tampere. The police learn that the
deceased was a member of the “Fallen Angels,” a gang of wheelchair-bound
motorcycle enthusiasts. Soon there are more attacks on the disabled and
ailing. Detective Sakari Koskinen and his eccentric team spring into
action: How are these events linked? Is there a serial killer on the
loose playing angel of mercy?Critically acclaimed Wolves and Angels,
winner of 2002 Finnish Crime Novel of the Year, is a gripping story
about the struggles of the disabled coping with their new lives and the
strains on those who care for them. Nuanced depictions of interpersonal
relationships and personal challenges make Jokinen's characters come to
life on the page. Seppo Jokinen is a bestselling author who lives in
Tampere.

WOLVES AND ANGELS

A DETECTIVE KOSKINEN MYSTERY

SEPPO JOKINEN

Translated by

Owen Witesman

Ice Cold Crime LLC

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, incidents
,
and situations depicted in this work are wholly the creation of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations, places
,
or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author, the translator, or the publisher.

Originally published in Finnish as
Hukan Enkelit
by
Karisto
, H
ämeenlinna
, Finland.
2001
.

Translated by
Owen Witesman

Published by

Ice Cold Crime LLC

5780 Providence Curve

Independence, MN 55359

Printed in the United States of America

Cover by Ella Tontti

Copyright © Ice Cold Crime 201
2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher.

Ice Cold Crime LLC gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of:

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012938092

ISBN-13: 978-0-9824449-
5-5

ISBN-10: 0-9824449-
5-8

WOLVES AND ANGELS

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Sakari Koskinen
………………
...
...
Detective l
ieutenant

Risto Pekki
………………..………
…
…
.
VCU
sergeant

Ulla Lundelin………………………..
..
..
VCU
d
etective

Antti Eskola……………………..........
...
VCU detective

Markku Kaatio……………………......
..
VCU detective

Tauno “Tanse” Niiranen……...………...
..
VCU captain

Risto P. Jalonen.……..………...
...
Forensi
c
investigator

Sopanen
and
Saari
………
..
……
….
…….Patrol officers

Milla
………
..
……...………
..
…
...
…...
..Temp secretary

“Ra
ymond
”
T
imonen………
..
Aggressive Fallen Angel

Hannu Ketterä.
…....
………
….
Redheaded Fallen Angel

Tapani “Tappi” Harjus.....…
….
.Muscular Fallen Angel

Rauha Salmi…...………..……...
...
Wolf House resident

Lea Kalenius...………..……........
..
...Wolf House nurse

Anniina Salonen...………..…….......
..
..Heavy set nurse

Kaarina Kauppila………..……
...
....Evening shift nurse

Pirkko-Liisa
“
Pike” Rinne.............
..
........….Fired nurse

Ilmari Laine…………..……...……
...
…..….Taxi driver

Taru Eskola…………
….
Former secretary, Antti’s wife

Tomi Koskinen…………
...
..……...……....Sakari’s son

Emilia Koskinen………….
..
.…….......Sakari’s ex-wife

Riipinen..…………..……..........
...
.Night s
hift detective

Ursula
K
atajist
o
…………..……....
...
Police psychiatrist

For Leena

Prologue

Two motorcycles raised a dust cloud over a country road. Two teenagers sat on each bike—a boy in front
with
a girl in back,
each with her
arms tightly wrapped around
the boy’s
waist. It was June, 1986.

They had left the city half an hour earlier. The girls had wanted to leave much earlier, but the boys had insisted on watching the end of the soccer match on television. Maradona had made two goals against England within a matter of minutes. The boys thought the first was a hand ball. But the referees had still counted it. They couldn’t know then that people would still be talking about the “Hand of God” decades later. There were a lot of other things they didn’t know yet either. But the Hand of God would come to occupy both of their minds.

The motorcycles turned
o
nto
a
narrow
forest
road
at a red barn, bumping along a little way and finally coming to a stop in the yard of a
green
summer cot
tage
. The driver of the second motorcycle ran to the shore, pulling his clothes off as he went. He sped up as he hit the dock, jumping high in the air, executing a beautiful pike and diving headfirst into the water.

He registered the blow to the crown of his head and felt a brief, electric pain run down the back of his head into his spine. Then everything went black.

1
.

Tuesday, September 26, 2000
,
had just begun, and at one minute past midnight, Saari yawned for the first time.

It
irritated Sopanen. He had been working the graveyard shift for
more than
twenty years and had never yawned, not even in the quietest hours of the early morning. Unlike these newly-hatched chicks from the academy
,
who didn’t even know how to stay sharp. But Sopanen kept his mouth shut; it wasn’t his job to raise other people’s children.

Saari knew full well how much yawning galled his patrol partner. That was why sometimes he stretched his jaw just for fun, even if he didn’t really feel the need. Everybody at the station called them the “SS Patrol.” Their squad car number was 341, and their beat was Hervanta, the most densely populated urban neighborhood in Tampere. It was an odd mixture of sleepy residential streets, blighted prefab tower block farms,
and raucous university housing. A densely
populat
ed area of over
25,000
combined with a
large infus
ion of immigrants and refugees
ma
d
e interesting times
for the cops during weekend nights
.

But the night between Monday and Tuesday was one of the slowest of the week. No reason to expect much from this shift. At l
east not before Hervanta’s half-
dozen bars closed their doors. After that they might get a few sporadic house calls and have to cart some member of the family, usually the father or an adult son, downtown to cool off.

At the Shell station, Sopanen turned the car east toward an industrial area, still without saying a
word
. Saari could sense his partner’s crankiness. He swallowed his next yawn and sneaked a glance to his left.
Sopanen’s angular face was still tense, its lack of humor emphasized by his spiked black hair. But early on
,
Saari had learned a few tricks to modify his senior partner’s state of mind.

“At night like this you notice how slow this
piece of shit
Ford is.
”

Saari felt a gentle jerk in his neck as Sopanen suddenly accelerated.
A
sign that his sullenness was letting up, at least momentarily.

“This will always beat that old Saab piece of junk. Don’t have to hold onto the wheel with both hands even at a good clip.”

Sopanen paused for a moment, and Saari knew that what was coming next would be a heartfelt tribute to the old warhorse.

“Although, the
Saab
wasn’t all that bad,” Sopanen said affectionately. “Never left you in the lurch.”

Saari tried to guess what memory was next in the queue. He had heard dozens of them, all several times over.

Sopanen chose an old standby—the fish story. He described the details as if it had just happened yesterday, although it had actually been back in the early eighties. It had also been late in the fall. Dawn had just broken, and he was finishing up a night shift with his partner at the time. They were driving toward the station from the south
ern
part of town, and stopped at the lights at the Viinikka roundabout. Sopanen had been the first to notice a delivery van behaving strangely. The vehicle was approaching the city from the south, swaying from one side of the road to the other. It started around the roundabout going clockwise, but made a full extra
circuit bef
ore cutting to the right toward
downtown. Sopanen switched on the lights and set off in pursuit. However, the vehicle did not obey and pull over, taking off instead. The chase ran through the waking city, continuing all the way to Piispala on the northwest side of town. The van had drifted side-first on
to the highway that went toward
Nokia, and the centrifugal force had ripped the back doors open. When the vehicle accelerated, its whole load tumbled out onto the road right in front of the police Saab.