Wolves and Angels (17 page)

“Not that I know of. Why?”

Koskinen told her that
Timonen
’s wheelchair might have been seen in the area. Finally he asked for Pirkko-Liisa Rinne’s contact information and then hung up.

He took a towel and change of clothing from the closet and headed downstairs to the shower. It wasn’t until he was under running water when Koskinen calmed down enough to be able to cobble together some sort of
an action plan. Undoubtedly, the most important item was to bring in Harjus and Ketterä for official interrogations. Those two knew more about Raimo
Timonen
than anyone else in the whole assisted living center. They also needed to find Pirkko-Liisa Rinne. Koskinen was curious about how much truth there was behind Harjus and Ketterä’s claims—surely no assisted living center would really have fired a nurse for caring too much about its residents. Something else must be going on.

He dried himself hurriedly and then went back up to the third floor at an easy jog. The shower had cheered up his mood, and he reaffirmed his decision not to lose his temper for the rest of the day no matter what happened. It would be best for everyone involved.

Ulla was already waiting for him in his office. She was sitting with a coffee mug in her hand on the corner of Koskinen’s desk, even though the chairs were empty.

“I should have guessed!” Koskinen said as he reached the door. “That damn girl couldn’t handle this
assignment
either. I told her that the meeting wouldn’t start until 8:30.”

“Isn’t it a bit early to be quite so testy?” Ulla said with a laugh. “Milla did her job perfectly. I just thought I would come in and chat before the others.”

That sounded nice to Koskinen. He swept his hair into place in front of the closet mirror while listening to what Ulla had on her mind.

“How did it go yesterday when I was away?”

“What can I say? The
Timonen
case hasn’t really gone anywhere. And we picked up another one. An old man suffering from cancer was beaten within an inch of
his life in his
own
back yard, and Pekki
thinks it’s
the same guy in both cases.”

It looked like Ulla was not listening to her lieutenant’s account at all. She was drinking her coffee in small sips and then suddenly asked, “Did Ursula call?”

Koskinen realized that Ulla hadn’t come early to talk shop. At the same time he remembered Ursula’s call from the day before—he had decided to give Ulla a tongue lashing over it. She had told her friend that it was Koskinen’s idea for them to go out. But then he remembered the other decision he had made a moment ago: no more irritated outbursts today.

“She did.” He pretended to be in a good mood. “We’re going out on Friday night…
D
inner and drinks…and…who knows after that.”

“Really.”

Koskinen was confused by the dryness of her response. She stood up from the corner of the desk, collapsed into one of the chairs, and started looking at her palms. Koskinen tried to understand what was going on. Maybe the visit to the doctor the previous day was weighing on her mind.

He looked for delicate a way to ask her about it, but then he just blurted it out, “What did the doctor say?”

“What does that matter?” Ulla tossed her head and then stared out the window at the wall of
the
phone
company building across the street. Koskinen was at a loss. He had never understood women, let alone had any grasp on their emotional lives, but this time the situation was completely bewildering.

A knock came from the door, and Koskinen glanced
at his watch. It was exactly 8:30 down to the second. Eskola walked in only after being invited and remained standing at the door despite one of the chairs being free.

A couple of minutes later, Pekki and Kaatio stepped into the room without knocking, and Koskinen began the meeting. First he told them about the uniformed patrol that had sighted the wheelchair on Monday night.

Pekki began sounding off immediately: “What would we do without brothers like them? How can anyone be such a dunce to forget to check on something like that? Fuckin
g
hell!”

“Hey, clean up your language!” Ulla snapped at Pekki. “Your soul stinks enough as it is.”

“Well, excuse me. Holy mother-friggin’ dog snot.”

“The situation isn’t that simple,” Koskinen said. “They had their reasons.” Koskinen found himself fervently defending Sopanen and Saari. “They got sucked into a high-speed chase and...witnessed that motorcyclist hitting the side of the cab and flying head-first onto the street. I dare say that in the same situation any of us would have forgotten everything else, even if we had just seen the English crown jewels lying on the side of the road.”

Pekki glowered at Koskinen discontentedly, and Kaatio’s expression wasn’t any sunnier.

“I tried to get Saari to play on the department soccer team last spring,” he said sullenly. “Any pro hockey player
should be able to
play soccer at our level at
the very
least, but apparently he wasn’t interested in our company.”

“Now that’s something,” Ulla said, feigning horror. “That explains everything. Someone like that could
never be a good policeman.”

“And on top of it all he’s an Axes man,” Koskinen added. He knew that would be worse to Kaatio than a religious heretic, a half-breed, and a sexual deviant all rolled up into one.

Apparently Kaatio realized he was treading on thin ice—he quickly changed sides. “Koskinen’s right. There’s no point blaming Sopanen and Saari. You can’t remember every little thing after an incident like that.”

But Kaatio’s words didn’t make Koskinen feel any better. He was terrified by the idea of how word would spread during the day: a Violent Crimes Unit lieutenant had raked two uniforms from Patrol over the coals, and as things had a habit of being exaggerated as they traveled from mouth to mouth, it wouldn’t be long before the whole station would be talking about an insane outburst of rage. However, he
ignored the topic, and then
turned to Pekki.

“How is the cancer patient’s case progressing?”

“I was just getting to that.” Pekki adjusted his glasses. “Adolf Kantola still can’t speak. He’s hovering on the verge of consciousness and will probably die of his cancer before he recovers from his head injury. The case has taken a new turn anyway.”

“What kind of a turn?” Koskinen was interested.

“His son came from Espoo to see his father and stopped by the house. He immediately noticed that a valuable piece of art had disappeared from the backyard. He even had a picture of it. The sculpture was made of stone and stainless steel. It shows a raven with its wings spread.”

“That means that these incidents aren’t connected
after all.” Koskinen tapped the desk with his pen. “This one was a theft, but we still have no motive for
Timonen
’s killing.”

“Taking the statue could just be a ruse,” Pekki said.

Koskinen shook his head incredulously. Pekki’s idea still sounded like a shot in the dark. He didn’t want to get bogged down in that conversation, though, and instead moved the meeting along. He reported on his previous night’s visit to Wolf House and the Cat’s Meow, giving a detailed account of the conversations he had had with Hannu Ketterä and Tapani Harjus, including Harjus’ aggressive behavior at the end of the night.

“Wh
y
were you there? Why
not
Pekki?”

Koskinen was surprised by how crabby Ulla sounded.

“Pekki was tied up all day in Ikuri and didn’t want to stay for overtime.”

Now Ulla turned her irritation on Pekki.

“Why not?”

This caught Pekki off guard. “I was at the art museum.” It just slipped out.

“At the art museum!” Ulla yelped. “You?”

“How is that so remarkable?”

“Remarkable? That would be like Koskinen taking up ballroom dancing.”

“It’s not that strange!”

“What was the exhibit?”

“An art exhibit.”

“An art exhibit,” Ulla said, imitating the way Pekki
had croaked his reply. “Of course, but whose art exhibit?”

“Some artist.”

Ulla shook her head despondently.

Pekki didn’t conceal how insulted he was. He tossed back his black bangs and asked, “Why can’t I be interested in culture?”

“We’ve all been wondering the same thing for years.”

“I met a nice woman at the Crazy Horse a couple of weeks ago,” Pekki explained. “She’s a person of culture and
...
”

“And of course you said you were too, without any ulterior motives…I know you.”

Koskinen couldn’t help but wonder at Ulla’s sudden peevishness. And he was starting to worry about this taunting erupting into an all-out war of words.

“Enough!” he growled. “Somewhere a killer
’s
on the loose
,
and here we are going over and over the same old shit!”

It worked. Ulla and Pekki stopped poking at each other. Both turned to look at Koskinen, and he began divvying out assignments.

“All of Pekki’s time will probably still be taken up by the cancer patient case. Ulla can go interview
Timonen
’s sister. As far as I know she’s his nearest relative and may be able to tell us where
Timonen
got all his money. At Wolf House everybody talked about how much money he had, but no one knows its source.”

Koskinen wrote the name and address down on a piece of paper and offered it to Ulla. She didn’t take it.

“Why me?”

“Alternately, you can go to the Cat’s Meow.”

“What are we doing there?”

“We have to interview all the customers one by one. Someone has to know something about
Timonen
’s past. He had some sort of love-hate relationship with the regulars. He bought them drinks in exchange for being able to pick fights with them.”

“I’ll take the sister.”
Ulla snatched the piece of paper from Koskinen’s hand and left.
“You only have to be away for one day and…”
she
mumble
d
to herself.

Pekki watched Ulla
leave
, and then w
aited until the door was closed
. “What’s eating her?”

Koskinen shrugged. “You tell me.”

He turned to Kaatio. “You start wading through the databases. First look into Tapani Harjus’ past. Maybe something there will tell us why he attempted suicide. After that look up information on the
Fallen Angels
who left Wolf House.”

Koskinen leafed through his notes for a moment. “Ruomala and Simo Supala. The first joined some Laestadian church in Ostrobothnia, and the second got sent somewhere in the Helsinki area after he pushed
Timonen
down the stairs. It’d be a good idea to check his alibi for Monday night.”

“Are you suggesting that he came back to Tampere to finish what he started?”

“I’m not suggesting anything.”

Koskinen gave Kaatio the men’s
contact
information. “And also dig into the background of the owner of the
Cat’s Meow. Harjus and Ketterä called him Urpo. I’m sure you’ll find his real name in the city business records.”

Kaatio looked disgruntled at the paper Koskinen was handing him. “Quite a pile of work all at once.”

“It won’t take you more than a couple of hours. The uniforms can go pick up Harjus and Ketterä from Wolf House with one of their vans. You formally interrogate them both, separately.”

“Why are you shoving everything on me?” Kaatio said and then pointed at Eskola who was still standing at the door. “Doesn’t soldier boy’s job description include anything but holding up walls?”

“It most certainly does. Eskola gets the smokiest job. The one that Ulla didn’t want.”

Eskola straightened his posture and everyone heard how his heels clicked together. Koskinen pointed at him with his pen. “You go to the Cat’s Meow and pry out every possible thing they know about
Timonen
.”

The threesome left the room, and Koskinen decided to clear up the backlog of paperwork on his desk.

He didn’t even get started—a loose note fell out from among the papers, and he cursed in irritation. He had entirely forgotten Pirkko-Liisa Rinne, the
nurse
who got fired from Wolf House. She should have been the first one to be interviewed. He thought for a moment about who to give it to, but then decided to handle it himself. He was curious about what Harjus and Ketterä’s had been saying last night: Pike had cared too much about the residents.
How did
that get
her
fired?

It could take a while to bring her in for an interview. She wouldn’t have to show up the same day, or even this
week. A citizen could always appeal to other obligations whether personal or
professional.