Below the Surface

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “What the hell?” His speech was slurred, and he closed his eyes again. He didn’t have a belt, the top buttons of his shirt were open, and his shoes had been taken away. The heel of his left sock had been carefully darned with black yarn. Andreas turned onto his other side, and a little spittle dribbled from the corner of his mouth. Questioning him could definitely wait until tomorrow.

  In the car I wondered whether I should notify Heli Haapala about Andreas’s detention, but then I rejected the idea. I’d let things proceed on their own. Why had Heli fallen in love with Andreas even though he was a reckless drunk who seemed unable to control himself? Was it the typical female misapprehension that only her love could save him? Maybe Sasha was too good for Heli: successful, good looking, pleasant. Maybe Heli felt overshadowed by her famous husband. Maybe it was easier to share the shadow with Andreas.

  A terrifying thought crossed my mind: I’d started liking Taskinen more after he turned out to be imperfect like the rest of us, after he’d bowed to pressure to give up on a politically sensitive investigation. After that I wasn’t looking up to Jyrki anymore; he was on the same level as me. I’d done my idol worshiping as a teenager; as an adult I wanted someone who could let me be weak or strong depending on my needs. Lately I’d been forced to be the more stable partner, but the situation would balance back out again once Antti figured out his work.

  The fog had grown even thicker, and I didn’t notice the man in the crosswalk until the last second and had to swerve onto the sidewalk to miss him.

  The parking lot at home was quiet, and the neighboring buildings were hidden in the fog. I could feel the humidity curling my hair.

  Everything was quiet inside the apartment as well. I checked Taneli’s forehead, and his temperature was still normal. Iida seemed to be fine too.

  I found Antti sitting on the sofa reading. “Well?” he asked.

  “We’ll see what he says tomorrow when he’s hungover. That’s when we usually get the best confessions. There may not be any cause for celebration. One of my colleagues really provoked him.” I sat down next to Antti and wrapped my arms around him. We kissed, and it was the restrained kiss of an old married couple, not anything seductive. Still, it was good to just sit together.

  Unfortunately, my phone started ringing again. It was Taskinen this time.

  “Hi there,” I said hesitantly. I knew Jyrki wouldn’t have called so late if the news about Terttu was good.

  “Hi, Maria. Well, now we know. Terttu’s cancer is malignant and she’s going in for surgery on Monday, skipping all the lines.” Jyrki’s voice was quiet, as if he was calling in secret.

  “I’m really sorry.” I felt the tears coming and tried to blink them away. Jyrki didn’t need me crying now. “What are her chances?”

  “There’s always some hope. I made her take a sleeping pill, and I think she’s finally resting. Poor thing. I still have to call Silja. She has a break from practice in an hour.”

  “Say hi from me. And to Terttu.”

  “It’s probably best that I don’t tell Terttu we spoke. I’m taking tomorrow off. We can talk again on Monday.”

  “Call anytime you need. My phone will be on. I’m on call over the weekend.”

  I heard a deep sigh on the other side of the line. “Thanks. I already feel better. Good night, Maria.”

  “Good night.”

  I didn’t realize until I’d hung up that I hadn’t remembered to tell him about Andreas Smeds’s confession. But perhaps that was best. This call hadn’t been from a coworker; it had been from a friend. I started to cry again. Antti didn’t ask any questions; he just pulled me into his arms. And that was a good place to be.

  17

  In the morning my phone was full of messages again. I decided to allow myself some coffee and toast before I answered any of them. But some of that coffee ended up splashed on the morning paper when I saw the headline “Confession in Journalist Murder.”

  According to unconfirmed information received by this newspaper, a decisive breakthrough has occurred in the investigation of the murder of reporter Annukka Hackman. The murderer has confessed and is now in police custody awaiting arraignment.

  Goddamn Ursula. Who else could have leaked that? No wonder I had so many messages. Of course the reporter wouldn’t reveal his source. My intention had been to put off holding a press conference until Andreas had been questioned again. Now I’d have to rethink that. Reluctantly, I checked my voice mail. One of the messages was from the department press officer and another was from Heli Haapala.

  I called Heli back as I drove from the day care to work, knowing she’d be up early for milking. The hands-free got tangled in my hair and popped out of my ear, though, so I had to hold the phone with one hand and drive with the other. It was one of those mornings again. The ground was covered in frost and the trees in rime so that sun’s rays shining low on the horizon made the branches shimmer with dozens of tiny prisms.

  “Andreas didn’t come home,” Heli said before I’d finished saying my name. “Is he in police custody?”

  “Yes.”

  “The newspaper says he confessed . . . That can’t be right!”

  “Did one of the papers publish his name? That would be a serious mistake for the leaker and any reputable paper.”

  “No, but they said someone was arrested, and since I haven’t seen Andreas and he won’t answer his phone, I assumed it must be him. He hasn’t disappeared like this for years. Viktor and Rauha are beside themselves, and I’m supposed to be leaving for England this afternoon. Sasha’s surgery went well; he’s being transported to Finland the day after tomorrow.”

  I stopped at a crosswalk for a gaggle of little girls dressed in bright-colored snowsuits. Someone honked behind me—apparently the city’s Give us a Brake! Campaign from the beginning of the school year was now a distant memory, as new, more shocking headlines had replaced the news of a young girl’s death in a crosswalk.

  “I’m glad Sasha’s recovering. We need to hear from him as a witness too.”

  “But Andreas can’t be guilty! He swore to me that he didn’t . . .” Heli’s voice broke with crying, and she hung up. I threw my own phone down on the seat since I needed both hands to shift gears and change lanes. I felt like letting the battery go dead by “accident,” but of course I couldn’t do that.

  At work I dipped into my emergency salmiakki stash for a quick sugar boost, but that didn’t help my nerves. The overnight duty officer had delivered reports on familiar themes: domestic violence in a Russian-Finnish family in Suvela and a beating in front of the Big Apple Mall. I decided to start the morning meeting with those to get us moving. First, though, I checked Andreas Smeds’s condition in Holding. He’d woken up with an obvious hangover, but he seemed lucid and hadn’t asked to call anyone. He’d just asked for a shower.

  I glanced at my phone one last time as I walked up to the conference room. A familiar tabloid reporter had sent me a text message. According to the Internet, Andreas Smeds has been arrested for Hackman’s murder. Is that correct?

  Oh hell! Of course the newspapers didn’t dare to publish the name of the suspect we were holding without confirmation, but everything was different on the Internet. I was really getting angry. It would be a stupid waste of resources to try to investigate where the Internet rumors had started. And the publicity could work in our favor. Now that we had a named suspect, we’d probably get more eyewitness reports.

  “Good morning,” I said as I entered the meeting room and took my place up front. “As many of you may have been surprised to read in the paper, we had a breakthrough in the Annukka Hackman case yesterday. Andreas Smeds confessed to shooting her. Congratulations to Honkanen and Autio. However, I’d be interested to know how this information ended up on the Internet. Does anyone have any ideas?”

  Sitting by the window, Ursula didn’t move. Her red suede skirt was new. Was that the secret to her expensive new clothing? Tip bounties? We had our own tip hotline, of course,
as did the papers. Heli and Andreas would become the focus of national criticism, and Sasha would be seen as an even more tragic hero, with no shortage of people wanting to comfort him. Personally I didn’t want a role in this soap opera. At least now I didn’t have to worry about Heli slipping away, since she’d be under close media scrutiny for the next few days.

  “No? No one? I’m afraid this leak might make the investigation more difficult. We’ll talk about how to proceed later in the meeting. First, though, a couple of new cases.” I tried to calm down as I listened to Lehtovuori discussing an assault investigation that was ready to go to the prosecutor.

  “So Honkanen and Autio will continue questioning Andreas Smeds,” I said as the meeting circled back to the Hackman case. “I want specific facts: how did Smeds know Hackman would be at Lake Humaljärvi, how far was the shot, how many shots, where did he hide the weapon, and so forth. Just ‘Fuck yeah, I shot her’ isn’t enough. I’ll hold a press conference this afternoon, maybe around two. I need facts in hand before then. Puustjärvi, is there anything new from Forensics or the lab?”

  “They haven’t found Atro Jääskeläinen’s fingerprints in Hannu Kervinen’s apartment, or fingerprints from anyone else we think might be mixed up in this case. The analysis of the boots came up with bupkis, so we still have no idea who that print belongs to,” Puustjärvi said. “Kervinen killed himself and just left that weird message to screw with us. Mark my words.”

  “But the message on the computer was saved after he called me,” I pointed out. “We can’t dismiss the possibility that someone else wrote the message.”

  “But why would this other person, let’s say it’s Andreas Smeds, leave a message that refers specifically to Annukka Hackman’s murderer?” Koivu asked. “Or do you think there could be two different perps here, first Smeds and then someone else?”

  “If only I knew. Let’s wait for the DNA results from the rope we found in Kervinen’s apartment. If someone strangled him, maybe they left something behind. Where in an apartment like that could someone try to hang themselves? Lähde, will you go have a look when you have time?” I tried to remember Kervinen’s bathroom. Could he have tried to hang himself on some part of the shower? Forensics hadn’t mentioned anything being broken in their report, and few hooks or curtain rods in a normal home would support the full weight of an adult man.

  When the meeting was over, Koivu said he wanted to talk privately in my office. I asked him if it could wait, since I first had to organize the press briefing. Two o’clock should give Ursula and Autio plenty of time for questioning, so I went back to my desk and asked the press officer to set it for then. The sun was halfway through its journey to the top of the sky, and seeing it gave me new hope. If only Andreas’s confession didn’t turn out to be a sham.

  “What’s up?” I asked Koivu once he was sitting on my couch in his usual position, with his hands behind his head and his legs spread wide.

  I was expecting to hear something about trouble at home, but instead he said, “It’s this Ursula thing . . .” Then he had a hard time continuing. He closed his eyes, and his glasses trembled with the movement of his face muscles.

  “Yeah?”

  “It bothers me. I mean, was that it? She makes these baseless accusations against me that half the department hears, then she retracts them. Has half the department heard that too? Shouldn’t she have to apologize or something? I can hardly sleep. What if she starts up again? Or accuses someone else?”

  Koivu was right. I hadn’t really dealt with the situation. On the other hand, forcing a grown person to make an apology felt like the wrong move. That was what you did in a day care or an elementary school. Humiliating Ursula wouldn’t bring anyone any kind of satisfaction; it would just be the same sort of power play she’d been making.

  “I’m just embarrassed . . . I guess I should ignore it, but some of the guys have been razzing me, asking if I gave Ursula a go because Anu isn’t putting out anymore since the baby.”

  “What guys?”

  “Oh, just some shitheads in Patrol. There’s no point naming names. And of course a man shouldn’t get bent out of shape over stuff like that, but . . .”

  “But you are,” I said, finishing his thought. Koivu blushed. “I’ll try to get both of you around a table after the press conference this afternoon. Then we’ll see. Think about what you want to say to Ursula. If the Hackman case really is solved, you should take your comp days. Is Anu planning to extend her maternity leave?”

  Koivu shook his head and told me I should ask her myself, which was fair. I wouldn’t have liked it either if Antti was telling my coworkers my plans. After Koivu left, I tried to focus on paperwork and sending e-mails, but I was restless. What would Andreas Smeds say today?

  I got my answer just after noon as I was coming back from lunch. Autio was on his way in from outside—there weren’t many places to smoke in the building.

  “He says he already told us everything yesterday, and he doesn’t have anything more to say. He won’t answer any questions and doesn’t want a lawyer.”

  “Ah. Send him for gunpowder analysis and talk to search and rescue about getting divers back in the lake. We need to find that gun. Smeds can have it his way. We’ll put his picture in the paper and ask for eyewitnesses. His name is already online. You don’t know anything about that, do you?”

  Autio shrugged. “Someone always leaks. Andreas Smeds is a public figure.”

  He was a few years ago, I thought, and now he is again. I tried to psyche myself up to play the triumphant senior detective who only had good news for the media: a breakthrough had happened in the case, one of the suspects had confessed, and the investigation was proceeding apace. Once again it was time to put on my mask, to tie my hair back, touch up my makeup, and straighten my collar. I asked Ursula and Autio to join me since they’d done the dirty work.

  During the briefing, the fluttering of camera shutters increased when Ursula commented briefly on the previous night’s interrogation, how it had started out routine and ended in a confession. She sounded nervous and overwrought, but she enjoyed the cameras and flashed them the parade smile her colleagues rarely saw. Perhaps she was even irritated when she had to turn the microphone back over to me.

  “We have a confession but no motive, and a lot of other details are still unclear.”

  The public relations officer had brought pictures of Andreas Smeds. I repeated that the police still needed eyewitness reports. One of the tabloid reporters suggested several possible motives, but none of them hit on the real bombshell. The leaker had been smart enough not to reveal Andreas and Heli’s affair. If they had, it would have narrowed down my pool of suspects, since only a limited number of people knew about that yet, theoretically just my unit and Jouko Suuronen.

  I’d expected to hear from Suuronen, and, sure enough, after the press conference I discovered a message on my phone, full of shouting.

  It’s Suuronen. I’m at the airport. Tell Andreas to contact my lawyer right now! It’s bullshit that I can’t talk to him directly! The plane is leaving now. I’m going with Heli to get Sasha. Keep the reporters away from Sasha!

  I called Antti to ask him to get the kids from day care, then went to say hi to Andreas in his cell. This time he lay on his back and didn’t seem at all hungover.

  “Hello, Detective,” he said almost cheerfully.

  “Hello, Andreas. Jouko Suuronen says hi too. He wants you to contact his lawyer.”

  Andreas sneered. I sat down on the cement table; besides the cot, there was nowhere else to sit. Everything from genitalia to bible verses had been scratched in the walls.

  “We can keep you detained until tomorrow at seven o’clock, then we have to decide whether to arrest you formally. I just held a press conference and identified you as the person who confessed to Annukka Hackman’s murder. Is that what you wanted?”

  Andreas sneered again. “I may have exaggerated slightly last night when I was drunk,” he said.
r />   I sighed. “Do you intend to recant?”

  “Well, if it says in the newspaper tomorrow that I’m guilty, then I guess that’s the truth. What story do you want to hear, Detective Kallio? I drank half a bottle of booze and then drove to the lake. I shot Annukka and pushed her body in the water. Then I threw the pistol in too.”

  “What kind of pistol was it?”

  “I was so drunk I don’t remember. And why do you ask? This conversation can’t have any value as evidence.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Is that going to be your answer for everything? ‘I was so drunk I don’t remember’?”

  Andreas sat up. He had Viktor’s eyes, which would recede more deeply into their sockets as he aged, just like his father’s. At least Andreas was Viktor’s son. That much was obvious.

  “Do you remember when Sasha was born?” I asked on a momentary whim. Andreas had walked to the sink and was noisily drinking water. His black jeans were grubby, and his plaid shirt stank of sweat.

  “I wasn’t quite two, so I don’t really remember much at all. Dad took me to the hospital to see Mom and the baby and bought me ice cream at the hospital coffee shop. Why do you ask? Are you trying to build a motive for me from some early childhood jealousy? Go right ahead.” Andreas tried the cell door, which I’d closed behind me. “Will I have to sit here for long, or will I be transferred somewhere else?”

  “You’ll sit here exactly as long as I see fit. You seem to have a lot of faith in the Finnish legal system. Just remember that no system is infallible! I’d recommend you either contact Suuronen’s lawyer or some other legal counsel. Misleading the police is a crime no matter how drunk you were.”

  I banged for the guard to come open the door. I still had to deal with Ursula and Koivu’s reconciliation before I could get back to the company of sensible people, namely my children. At least the day care hadn’t called to report that Taneli’s fever had come back.