Death Spiral

by Leena Lehtolainen

  Koivu and I mostly listened in silence. The case was simple. All we had to do was have Jaana sign an affidavit of her confession and ask the court to remand her for trial. We would probably have that back within a day, and then Jaana would be sent to the women’s prison in Hämeenlinna to wait for her sentencing hearing. Hopefully Jaana’s court-appointed attorney would be competent enough to call attention to the details embedded in the flood of words she was spewing: the childhood in an alcoholic family, the unemployment, the lack of education, the untreated postpartum depression. Jaana’s story was abysmally common, perfectly foreshadowing the tragedy that was to come. There was nothing I could do to stop it from getting even worse. Jaana had drunk heavily since she was a teenager, and in prison she was almost guaranteed to get hooked on pills and who knew what else. I almost hoped some religious group would get to her first.

  “What will happen to me now?” Jaana asked when I began to wrap up the interview. I advised her to get a lawyer and explained she’d be remanded to prison to await sentencing. When she finally realized she was going to be locked up in prison for a long time, she started to wail again. I didn’t want to order her back to her cell, but what else could I do? I was just a police officer conducting an interview, not a social worker.

  “Do you want to talk to a psychologist?” I asked clumsily.

  “Why, do you think I’m crazy? Do you think that’s why I killed Minni?” Jaana screamed, her slender body convulsing as if in pain. Jaana was no longer listening to me. She had killed her child and she was going to prison. She would have preferred to die, which was what she repeated over and over as she was led back to her holding cell.

  “Poor kid,” Koivu sighed once Jaana’s cries had stopped echoing from the hallway. “How does that happen? For a split second you do something stupid and then the rest of your life is ruined. People don’t recover from that, do they, from killing their own child?”

  “It’s hard enough when a kid dies from cancer or an accident,” I said. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it. Like what if my baby dies during the birth or is so disabled that it can’t survive? Just the thought of it hurts, even though it isn’t even born yet.”

  The Creature had become real for me when it started to kick. When I’d first felt it, it had been so strange I wasn’t sure whether I was imagining it or not. Like a little fish cautiously wiggling its tail in a pool of water I didn’t know existed inside of me. I had slowly become used to the movements, and gradually they grew stronger. Now I worried if the Creature dozed too long.

  “Skating practice is at two,” I said to Koivu to get my mind off my own fears. “Before that let’s check the reports of cars people saw near the park and skating rink on Wednesday night. Maybe we’ll find a gold BMW.”

  But it was in vain. I still didn’t have any evidence that Ulrika Weissenberg had gone back to meet Noora that night. Still, some strange sense told me she had. I tried to visualize the area—Matinkylä—with its boxy redbrick apartment buildings in the center of the neighborhood and the trees that softened the otherwise bleak urban landscape. A gold BMW would have stood out there. Maybe we should have a chat with the boys who hung around in the yards playing soccer.

  Before going to the skating rink, Koivu dragged me to a nearby pizza joint. After perusing the nutritional information, I ordered a small vegetarian pie. Koivu got an anchovy-salami pizza but couldn’t seem to get it down.

  “Isn’t it a bit dumb going and interrupting their practice?” he finally said, visibly agitated. “Silja is a top athlete, so I’m sure every practice is important . . .”

  “I don’t want to interrupt either, but I think it will be better to interview Rami and Elena somewhere they feel comfortable rather than the police station. They aren’t even really suspects at this point.”

  Koivu muttered something else—he clearly didn’t want Silja thinking he was a jerk.

  “Eat your pizza and let’s go,” I said in a sisterly tone. But Koivu just pushed pieces of anchovy around with his fork and barely managed to finish his milk. All that was left of my pizza were some crusts, and I felt stuffed and sweaty. I found a piece of gum in my pocket, which got rid of the worst of the greasy flavor in my mouth.

  When I pulled the car into the parking lot of the ice rink, I noticed some sort of fuss around the front doors. A gaggle of little girls were bustling out to meet parents waiting in their cars, but it seemed as though the custodian was also trying to drive someone out. Koivu and I jogged over to the door and, closer up, I saw that the men trying to barge their way in were carrying microphones and cameras. Reporters.

  The news that had broken the night before about Noora’s homicide had apparently set off the tabloids. The identity of the girl found dead at the shopping center had not been publicized, but the reporters had put two and two together. The parents of the young figure skaters seemed alarmed by the incident, and even from a distance I could hear two voices trying to shout down the reporters’ questions.

  It was hard to tell who was more furious, Elena or Janne.

  “You have a lot of nerve to barge in here and interrupt our practice!” Elena bellowed. “We don’t know anything about Noora’s death other than that it happened after she left here! Go away!”

  “It must be horrible for you, Janne,” one of the reporters said, feigning empathy. “You’re still here, though. Do you intend to keep skating?”

  “Go to hell!” There was nothing fake about Janne’s rage, and for a second I thought he might attack the reporter. Then he noticed me and Koivu. “There are the police officers investigating Noora’s death. Go bother them!”

  It was too late to retreat. Janne grinned maliciously as the wave of questions turned toward us. I felt like sticking my tongue out at him.

  “Is it true that Noora Nieminen’s body was found in the trunk of a car just like the drug dealer Jack Daniel Morre last year? Whose car was it? Is the owner a suspect? No? Who is, then?”

  I didn’t have authority to be handing out information to the press, but I also didn’t want to call Taskinen on a Sunday afternoon. Some of the parents had turned around when they heard the word “police,” and they gathered around me in a wall of demands.

  I told them that Noora Nieminen had indeed been found dead in the trunk of a car in a nearby parking garage and that the police were investigating the incident as a homicide. I could not give any further details because the investigation was still ongoing. I didn’t reveal the identity of the car’s owner, and fortunately Kati Järvenperä wasn’t the kind of woman to go looking for cheap publicity. Taking advantage of the opportunity to talk to the press, I appealed to anyone who had been in the area that night, especially around the parking garage:

  “Please contact the Espoo Police if you remember seeing anything suspicious. Every clue is important.”

  One of the little figure skaters had started to cry—Noora had been an important role model for all of them.

  “But you’re here to interview Noora’s coaches and her partner, aren’t you?” asked the reporter from the local radio station. I’m sure he thought he was very clever.

  “Noora Nieminen was killed on her way home from this ice rink. We’re just trying to get the lay of the land,” I said as patiently as I could. “That’s all we can say at this stage in the investigation.”

  It was so easy to say “we” or “the police,” as if I didn’t have any personal responsibility in how the investigation was going. Surprisingly, the reporters moved aside politely when I started marching toward the door with Koivu on my heels. Ten-year-old girls were still tumbling out after what was obviously a group lesson. Elena Grigorieva was talking to one of the little girls, but when she saw me she immediately abandoned the girl and strode my way.

  “You drove those reporters off? Good! They came right in the middle of beginners’ level practice! And of course Ulrika wasn’t here, even though we needed her for once!”

  Since my first interaction with her, I’d been surprised by
how well Elena spoke Finnish. The words came without her having to pause and search, her conjugation and declension were nearly perfect, and even though her l’s were a little too singsong and her s’s too hissing, her accent in no way prevented understanding what she meant. I knew she had only lived in the country for a couple of years, so she must have been gifted with languages.

  “And what do the police need here?” she asked. “Is it your turn to torment us now? We’re still practicing.”

  “I know. But in your description of your movements Wednesday night—”

  Suddenly a little girl as delicate as a bird interrupted and rushed into Elena’s arms.

  “Mama, mamochka! Gde Tomi? Ya hazu . . .”

  “Irina, speak Finnish! We aren’t in Russia anymore.”

  “Mama, where is Tomi? I want to go home. There’s a movie on TV . . .”

  “Tomi can’t come get you now, dear. He’s busy. You’ll need to wait with me until Silja is finished.”

  “Mama . . .”

  “No whining! Fetch your homework and go to the dressing room.”

  Irina muttered something but then took off down the hallway, her nonexistent rear end sashaying angrily. The graceful self-assertiveness in the girl’s movements was unusual for a child. Rami came down the hall to meet Irina, and the girl said something to him as he passed, dramatically spreading her arms wide. Rami patted her on the shoulder. Irina Grigorieva was probably doomed to be a top figure skater. Maybe in five years she would be the one scooping up world championships. By then the Grigorievas would have earned Finnish citizenship too.

  Rami Luoto looked harassed. It almost looked as if there were more gray in his sideburns than a few days before.

  “Did the reporters leave? Well, good. I was afraid Janne would punch one of them. Since that arrest he’s been a completely different person,” Luoto pointedly said to me. “What did you do to him at the police station?”

  “Just talked. That’s all.”

  “I hear you have his car too. Is he really a suspect?”

  “Everyone is a suspect,” Koivu shot back.

  We had been promised preliminary results on Janne’s car by tomorrow and would also have to go see Noora’s body, along with the equipment bag the lab had returned.

  It was four weeks until Midsummer and the start of my maternity leave, although you wouldn’t have thought so based on the weather. There was no use talking about how light the nights were getting, because the sun couldn’t force its way through the damp gray that blanketed the sky. I wondered if the suicide statistics were up this year with spring not keeping its promises again.

  Without any particular agreement, we had moved into the building, Rami and Elena leading, Koivu and I following as if we actually knew what we were doing there. Janna and Silja were sitting in the hockey players’ box, Janne talking excitedly. Silja’s hand was on his shoulder and her expression was surprisingly similar to Lieutenant Taskinen’s when he was listening to a subordinate’s woes. Even if Silja and Janne weren’t dating, they were obviously good friends. I could sense Koivu shifting next to me, and I felt like giving him a sympathetic clap on the shoulder, but of course I didn’t. I wasn’t concerned about the skaters—Elena Grigorieva was the one I wanted to talk to.

  “Janne, if you want time on the ice, get to it,” Grigorieva said sternly. “And Silja, start warming up. We don’t have any time to waste before Canada.”

  “I don’t think I feel like skating today,” Janne said evasively and brushed his hair off his forehead. A small gold ring seemed too thin for his large, nicely shaped right ear.

  “You don’t feel like it? Sitting around wallowing in self-pity isn’t going to move you forward. Get up and into the dressing room, or are you intending to throw away years of work just like that? You know your skating career doesn’t have to end with Noora’s death. So get moving!” Elena spoke so quickly that the echo off the arena walls muddled her orders.

  Elena’s words worked on Janne, who stood up, threw his large sports bag over his shoulder, and started off toward the dressing rooms. Rami Luoto was rapidly sorting through a stack of CDs, apparently looking for warm-up music for Silja.

  “Hi, Maria,” Silja said, walking over in her skates. The blade guards made her movements awkward. “Hi, Pekka. What’s up?”

  “Nothing much. We just came to sniff the air,” Koivu said, trying not to gawk at Silja.

  “Did you arrest Janne because I told you he said he wanted to kill Noora?”

  “No, absolutely not,” I said. “But have you thought of anything else? What about at school? Did Noora have any enemies there?”

  “At school? We were in different grades, so I don’t really know. I don’t think Noora had many friends, though. She spent most of her time skating. She was the only one who didn’t complain about showing up to practice at six o’clock in the morning to practice in this freezer. She was so fanatical. I guess she kind of thought she was a little better than everyone, that she always knew everything. Sometimes that was a little irritating.”

  Silja stretched as she spoke. Placing her right leg up on the boards of the rink, she bent her upper body toward her foot. I’ve never been particularly flexible, and I couldn’t imagine doing the splits even before I was pregnant, but Silja seemed to bend every direction. If I remembered right, she even did a Biellmann spin in her free skate.

  “How would Noora have reacted if someone she didn’t know attacked her?” I asked. “Would she have tried to defend herself or run away?”

  “Oh, so you’re thinking Noora pulled the skates out of her bag herself and tried to hit her attacker with them?” Silja asked, completing my thought. “Yeah, Noora could have done that.”

  “Silja, on the ice!” Elena Grigorieva shouted from the north end of the arena. A terrible instrumental version of a Queen song, which had been playing in the background, grew louder. Silja shrugged, swept the guards off her skates, and stepped onto the ice.

  Quickly leaning over to us, she said, “Elena knows no mercy. She would keep us skating even if the sky was falling in.”

  Then she accelerated across the rink. At first she just warmed up, getting a feel for the ice. Crossovers, rocker turns, three turns—Silja made the basic figure-skating steps look dulcet. I glanced at Koivu standing next to me as his eyes wistfully chased Silja in her gray tights and sweatshirt around the ice. Poor Koivu’s heart was in serious danger yet again.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” I said gently.

  “Amazing. But I swear I’ll kill you if you even hint about this to anyone at the station,” he croaked.

  I’ll kill you. How easily those words came, and they didn’t mean anything more than “please keep your mouth shut.” Janne had said he could kill Noora, but he probably hadn’t meant anything by it either.

  It would be best to go chat with Grigorieva while Silja was still just warming up. Janne appeared on the ice too, sliding along alone, tentatively at first. He probably hadn’t skated since Thursday. What was he going to do? Try his luck as a singles skater? Or were they already looking for a new partner for Janne?

  Koivu and I edged our way over to Grigorieva, who was leaning on the boards. Her thick brown overcoat was very necessary in the eternal winter of the skating arena. The grandiloquent string music accompanied the hissing of the skates on the ice, with the occasional stop sending ice crystals flying.

  “Mrs. Grigorieva, we’d like to speak with you regarding Wednesday night . . .”

  “Go away! Can’t you see I’m working?”

  “As are we. You said you went to the store with your husband and then home. However, according to a witness statement, your husband was still at his gym just prior to seven o’clock Wednesday night.”

  Having stared at the ice until now, Elena angrily turned toward us.

  “When did I say that?”

  “Thursday, when Officer Pihko and I visited you.”

  “Thursday! That was when you came to tell me Noora was dead. I w
as upset. I could have said anything.”

  “So you admit you didn’t tell the truth?”

  “I didn’t lie on purpose, if that’s what you mean! You can’t hold me responsible for anything I said then. Think about it. Did I seem rational to you?”

  And she was right. I remembered the crying fits, the thrown vase, and the stubborn impression that Noora had been run down by a car. She had even said as much to Rami Luoto, as if she didn’t understand what we had told her. But was that all just a well-planned smoke screen?

  Rami was out on the ice now too, skating the same sorts of warm-up steps as Silja and Janne. He still moved as smoothly as a younger person, and it was sort of funny seeing this gray-haired man out there, since skaters were usually in their teens and twenties. All three built up tremendous speed with their skates, seeming to fill the ice even more completely than two full hockey teams. Maybe they found the gelatinous version of Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga” playing over the loudspeakers inspiring. I would have preferred to listen to Freddie than these tremulous violins.

  “Janne! Head up!” Grigorieva yelled at Janne as he flitted past. The right head position was critical in figure skating, determining not only the general character of the skating but also the success of jumps and pirouettes. Silja stopped at the edge of the ice to stretch, opening her shoulder blades and upper body, then flexing her fingers like a pianist might. This winter the music for Silja’s free skate had been a medley of old blues standards. Hopefully their choices would be as successful next year—the wrong music ruined a lot of programs. Although on the surface Silja looked like a cool blond perfectly made for classical music, there was a pizazz to her skating that demanded more of a rock ’n’ roll sound.

  “What really happened Wednesday night?” I asked Elena, who seemed to have completely forgotten us as she concentrated on her skaters.