“We’ll see you in court, Maria,” Kristian continued. “My client called you to the scene, so for some reason he trusted you. You rewarded his trust with a trip to jail. I’m looking forward to questioning you on the witness stand.”
I laughed. A lone avenger out of a video game and a sardonic defense attorney from an American courtroom drama—now there was a great pair. “Come on, Kristian. We’ve known each other for more than twenty years. You must know by now that intimidation doesn’t work on me. I hope you all have a lovely rest of the day!” I headed for the door and turned to wave to Kristian as it closed behind me. The young policeman sitting at the crime reporting desk looked after me in confusion.
I walked home by a slightly different route than usual, cutting along a small forest path. A yellow house with wooden siding that I didn’t usually walk by had gotten a new paint job since the fall, and someone had built fanciful snow creatures in the front yard. They’d already started to melt in the sun. A strange feeling of exuberance washed over me. Ulrike would never see this spring, so I had to enjoy it for her too. I’d already lived past the average life expectancy for Afghans, after all.
The lady who lived next door walked by with her children. Her daughter, Norppa, was pushing a children’s-size kick sled as her little brother screamed in the stroller.
“We were just playing in the yard with your Jahnukainen,” the neighbor said, “and now apparently we have to get a cat too.”
“You can come over to our place to see the cats any time,” I replied. I had been worried about how the neighbors would react to us letting our cats roam—we were breaking local regulations about loose animals—but so far no one had complained. Antti had a cover for the playground sandbox and did his best to make sure it was in place when no one was playing there.
When I got home, Iida ran up to me before I could take off my coat.
“Mom, did you leave so early this morning because Noor’s murder has been solved? It says online that Tuomas forced Noor’s cousin to confess.”
“It does? On what site?”
“It’s all over the place.”
“Have you been surfing the web all day?” Antti and I had tried to establish ground rules for our children’s Internet usage and to monitor which websites they were visiting. So far, there’d been no big problems, but now that the tabloid headlines had intruded into Iida’s everyday life, it would be no wonder if the online world started to interest her more.
Iida told me the names of the sites, blushing. “The things on that racist forum were revolting, stuff like Rahim should be killed and why isn’t there the death penalty in Finland. I’m glad there isn’t.”
“Don’t go on forums like that.”
I thought about who would have had time to leak the attack on Rahim. Tuomas had been under strict police custody and cut off from the Internet, so it couldn’t be him. Puupponen would still be following the online conversations about the case. Maybe I didn’t need to bother with it—I would get the important details from him anyway.
Now that Noor’s murder was closer to being solved, I could turn my attention to what had happened at the new Afghani police academy. But Iida was the only one home and wanted some company. I boiled water for tea and chatted with her until Antti came home from the store. He recruited Iida to chop onions with him for paella, so I was finally able to get to the computer.
The Police University College spokesperson and the ISAF representative had both sent me statements about the explosion. The police college still didn’t know the victims’ identities, but they promised to inform me as soon as the names could be announced. The ISAF press release focused on who was responsible for the strike:
Drug lords in the area made threats before the police academy was even completed, saying that they would hinder construction activities or destroy the school later. Although no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, one of the main suspects is the heroin producer Omar Jussuf, who is heavily involved with the northern European drug trade and evidently has several falsified European passports. Jussuf controls the Jalalabad and northern Pakistani border-area drug trade. A search is currently underway to locate him.
Lauri Vala had also mentioned Omar Jussuf’s name, so apparently he wasn’t as out of touch as I’d thought. Still I hoped I would never see him again. My Internet surfing was interrupted when Dad and Taneli got home from skating practice. My son announced that he’d landed his double flip several times and demanded to show his favorite figure-skating programs to his grandpa, who assented readily. During the 2002 Olympics I’d been on parental leave and had taken Iida and Taneli to spend a week at my parents’ home in Arpikylä. My dad had completely surprised me by being moved to tears when the men’s figure-skating champion, Alexei Yagudin, wept with joy. Personally, the male half of the winning ice-dancing pair, with his luxurious lion’s mane, had had an even bigger effect on me than Yagudin. I’d used his picture as my computer screen saver for a while after that.
Iida also wanted her grandpa’s attention and brought out the advanced math extra-credit work she’d been doing in school to show him. I sank into the corner of the sofa intending to read, but instead I fell asleep. When I woke up with Venjamin purring on my stomach, it was already nine and Antti was waiting for me in the sauna.
I took Sunday off, but Ruuskanen did inform me that Noor’s fingerprints had been identified in Omar Hassan’s Corolla, and that some of her hair had been found in the trunk of the car. A clever defense lawyer could probably shoot down this evidence too, but things were looking promising. I would hardly have to touch the Noor Ezfahani murder investigation at all until the trial.
More information came from ISAF too. Two of the people who’d lost their lives in the explosion had been women; they had been part of the kitchen staff. One female police instructor and two female cadets were in the hospital with minor injuries. After reading that message I went out for a run in the crisp evening air. The sky was a clear blue, and the ground was slowly freezing. Soon the stars would come out.
Back at home the news was on, and the hosts were discussing whether Finland should donate more funds to rebuild the academy, since we’d been involved in the project before. Three out of four people interviewed on the street had been against it. “How about we take care of our own people here?” was a common sentiment. Indeed.
On Monday I received a text message from Puupponen before I’d even managed to drink my morning coffee: Have you seen the tabloids? One has an interview with Tuomas S on the cover and the other is already quoting him on their website. Dude’s turning into hero. Internet full of TS.
My first thought was to check the stories on my home computer, but I decided to wait until I got to work. The gas station on the corner by the police station was the closest place to buy the tabloids. The morning paper also had coverage of Noor’s murder. Ruuskanen had issued a statement about the progress being made in the case and condemning the disturbance in Kuitinmäki. Most of the news media remained relatively objective in their reporting on immigrant crime, at times being so restrained that some accused them of holding back information. But online everything was different—there the anger and recrimination roiled freely, and I was afraid the tabloids and gossip magazines would soon have to follow suit if they wanted to please their readers. Reporters loved their scoops, but few of them really wanted to fan the flames of a race war, no matter how much attention the resulting headlines would garner. We wanted to hold on to our fairytale of tranquility.
How would I have reacted if I’d been forced to stay in Afghanistan? How closely would I have followed the customs of the land? I wouldn’t have changed my religion, even though I didn’t know exactly what I believed in. At least not for a religion that demanded I hate those who believed differently.
Ruuskanen hadn’t invited my cell to his morning meeting, so after I got to my office my first task was to log in to the intranet. There wasn’t any more information there about the investigation. There was an
e-mail waiting for me, from the Bosnian police. They had talked to Sara Amir, who did not in fact have any kind of passport, and who, when questioned, admitted that she had last lived in Finland. Attached were a few pictures of a scared-looking girl in a headscarf, who looked very much like several pictures I’d seen of the Sara Amir from Espoo. We would have to go talk to her family members here. If they had sent Sara to Bosnia against her will, the case was more appropriate for Child Protective Services than for the police. At least she was alive.
I heard a commotion in the case room as Puupponen loudly fumbled around for something. There was a printer in there, so I could print the pictures I’d received of Sara for the wall. I went to see what the fuss was about.
“Hi, Maria. Did you already see these? Aren’t we all just so glad that cell phones have such good cameras?” Puupponen tossed one of the two main tabloids to me. Even though the picture was blurry, I could make out Rahim bound to the tree. A black bar had been photoshopped over his eyes. The profiles of Himanen, Sutinen, and myself were even more unclear.
“Apparently, there’s a video on YouTube too. It makes me long for the good old days of steaming letters open and tracking down anonymous tips pasted together with letters cut from magazines. So, I’m guessing that no one told Soivio not to talk to the papers? Although, in the interviews it was actually his lawyer doing the talking.”
“None of this is our mess to clean up; Ruuskanen is leading the investigation. Now let’s just concentrate on what we found out from Bosnia. Let’s go meet Sara Amir’s family. Koivu, will you find out if they’re home? Then . . .”
My work phone rang. The number seemed familiar, so I answered.
“Good morning, Detective Kallio. This is Sylvia Sandelin. I have something I need to talk to you about. Would you be able to meet with me today? Perhaps I could offer you a light lunch at my home.”
“What is it about?”
“I’m sure you can guess, Detective. Noor Ezfahani. I would very much like to talk with you about how we should present the truth about Noor to the girls at the club, what the police recommend. Something like this can’t happen again. My girls have to be able to be themselves, to be free from this sort of thing.” Sandelin’s voice was agitated, oddly raspy, as if she’d been weeping violently just before calling.
“I have my hands full here.” Then I realized that I was my own boss. I could send Koivu and Puupponen to meet Sara Amir’s family. I owed the Girls Club this visit, and Iida, who would see the headlines and likely yell at me for not having told her what had happened. “But around one o’clock would work. You don’t have to serve me anything, though.”
“It’s more pleasant to eat in company. The address is Otsolahti Street 5 C, down near the shore. I look forward to seeing you.”
Koivu had already started making phone calls, and Puupponen was still grappling with the Internet, huffing and snorting as he read. The printer spit out the pictures of Sara. I thought about the birth control pill disk in her drawer. Was that why she’d been sent away? In early Finnish films, girls from the country were always falling into dens of iniquity in the cities, being corrupted, or having to serve as maids in manor houses where a bold university boy would be waiting to seduce them. Then the innocence disappeared, and sex became recreation, something that wasn’t supposed to have much emotional impact. How would people who were used to Muslim standards of modesty react to this kind of world?
Our case room door opened, and there stood Puustjärvi. “Good morning! May I introduce the new Violent Crime trainee, Junior Officer”—Puustjärvi nudged the young woman into the room—“Jenna Ström!”
Puustjärvi stepped in and closed the door behind him, and the four of us formed a ring around Jenna. She looked between us, at first bewildered by the wicked expression on Puustjärvi’s round face, Koivu’s confusion, and the sudden understanding that flashed in Puupponen’s eyes.
“The four of us were your father’s coworkers. That redhead is Ville Puupponen, and the pretty blond is Pekka Koivu,” I told Jenna. “Welcome to the department.”
We stood in silence for a long time, with only Jenna’s eyes moving from person to person. In the end Puupponen took Jenna by the shoulders and hugged her. Koivu followed, then me, and finally Puustjärvi, who had known Pertti Ström for the shortest amount of time of any of us. We had all made mistakes with Ström, and he hadn’t played favorites in being a bastard to all of us. With Jenna things would be different. We owed that much to Pertti Ström’s memory.
15
I agreed to Sylvia Sandelin’s lunch invitation because I wanted to know more about a few of the girls from the club. One of them had been killed, two were still missing, and a fourth had been sent back to her former homeland. Did some immigrants see a threat in multicultural activities that encouraged girls to think independently? Heini and Nelli probably knew the girls who went to the club better than Sandelin, but the idea for the Girls Club had been hers, and she funded the organization.
I took the bus to Tapiola and got off at the stop next to the Stockmann department store. I walked past the Tapio Square parking lot, a recently expanded hotel, and the church, toward the older part of Tapiola and Otsolahti Bay. The Girls Club was located just a few blocks from Sandelin’s home. The trees along Otsolahti Street were enormous, many of them having grown undisturbed for half a century. The old WWII bunkers up the hill had been among Antti’s favorite places to play as a child; his family had lived just a short distance away, on the east side of the bay. He and his friends had whittled rifles from tree branches to fight in and around the bunkers, but despite that early interest Antti had opted for civil service instead of the usual obligatory stint in the military. Like their parents had before them, children Taneli’s age played with toy guns of the airsoft variety in the nearby woods. Boys and girls just a little older satisfied their need to shoot and blow things up in online games. War toys had been forbidden during my childhood, but even a piece of crispbread could be chewed into the shape of a pistol by the truly driven adventurer. It seemed that the impulse to attack and defend was written deep in our DNA. Maybe someday the scientists would be able to identify the anger gene and disarm it.
Sandelin’s house was one of the most attractive buildings on the shore of Otsolahti Bay. The two-thousand-plus-square-foot home seemed too big for one person. I remembered someone saying back when the Girls Club was founded that of course the old bat wouldn’t want to let teenage girls and who-knew-what thieves into her home, even though there would be plenty of space.
The doorbell played the opening strains of Johann Strauss I’s Radetzky March. One of the New Year’s Day traditions of my childhood had been watching the Vienna Philharmonic concert, and because of those concerts my sister Helena had started taking ballet lessons, which, like so many of her fleeting fancies, hadn’t progressed beyond a single spring of experimentation.
Sandelin came to the door wearing a dark-gray skirt suit, reminiscent of a uniform, and patent leather shoes of the same color with four-inch heels. Her hair was perfectly styled. Maybe she went to the salon up the street every morning to have it done. The March wind had whipped my own hair into a tangle of frizz. I should have had the sense to put it in a ponytail. I took my shoes off in the entryway because I was afraid the gravel stuck in the soles would leave marks on the polished parquet and luxurious white rugs. There was still too much snow and ice for the city to start bringing an end to its yearly ritual of graveling and sweeping.
“Detective Kallio, welcome. Now we can talk without any interruptions. You don’t have any food allergies, do you?”
“No.”
“How singular. These days if I hold a luncheon for twelve people, I have to compose the menu based on what each person can’t eat. It’s very limiting. On the other hand, some of my girls have lived nearly their entire lives on only cornmeal or cassava, since in their fathers’ minds girls are least in need of food. And still the undernourished twelve-year-olds get pregnant. But my eat
ing carrot soup and oatmeal porridge for the rest of my life wouldn’t save them, so let us enjoy some food. Mojca has prepared the drawing room. There is more light there than in the dining room, and God knows we need that after the long winter.”
I followed Sandelin from the entryway into a space about seven hundred square feet in size, one wall of which was entirely glass, just a window opening onto the bay. The sea ice on Otsolahti Bay was dark and thin looking, but a couple of ice fishermen were still tempting fate a few dozen yards offshore. Though the house was between the West Highway and the Ring I Beltway, the sounds of traffic couldn’t be heard inside.
“The windows are so well insulated that they don’t allow any heat to escape. Sometimes I do wonder if it’s dangerous to have such good soundproofing. If those daft men were to fall through the ice right now, I wouldn’t hear their cries for help. Even at retirement age some men still imagine they are invincible. Sit facing the sea, Detective. I get to look at the view every day.”
A round table, adorned with decorative carvings, was covered with a white linen tablecloth without even a hint of a wrinkle. Soup bowls had been laid out at the center of the table, with service plates underneath and bread plates beside. I didn’t really know dishes, but I wondered how much my homeowner’s insurance deductible was and whether the policy would cover it if I happened to break Sandelin’s fine china. The water glasses were decorative as well, bringing to mind the glass shops in the Czech Republic or Poland that I never dared go inside because I was sure I would smash something.
Where Have All the Young Girls Gone Page 20
