Before I Go

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “It’s always so hot in here during the summer, and of course the windows don’t open. The engineers trusted the air conditioning. See how well that worked.” Eila Honkavuori huffed as she closed the blinds. Thin rays of light shone through the cracks, casting stripes along the cream-colored wall and burnishing Eila’s hair a shining ebony. With her flawless white skin and striking red lipstick, she reminded me of Snow White. However, the resemblance was marred by the flowing yellow dress the color of sunshine, which emphasized the ample curves of her body.

  “I don’t know if I’m right,” Eila began as she poured us pineapple juice with ice, “but I’ve been poking around, and I get the feeling that Petri learned something about the planning for Laajalahti Bay that someone didn’t want him to know about.”

  “Laajalahti? But isn’t it a nature preserve?”

  “Yes, for now. But there’s pressure to change that, though no one is saying that out loud. At least not to people like me, who don’t always succumb to the majority. The Keilaniemi shoreline is already full of construction, just like around here in Otaniemi. More land acquisitions would align perfectly with what the business community and the university want. Filling in the land between the islands isn’t enough for them. Just think of office buildings stretching all along the bay up to Villa Elfvik. We all know that’s what the city wants, and Rahnasto is leading the charge.”

  “But doesn’t removing a nature preserve from protected status require permission from the Ministry of the Environment?”

  “Of course. And the Ministry of the Interior. The strategy seems to be to gradually degrade the area, although they always call it ‘development.’ I agree that the improvements to the Ring I highway are necessary, but it is bringing more traffic closer to the sea and the protected areas. The wetlands will be the first to go. And then they’ll work their way toward the Villa. You know how intense the demand for new land is all around the capitol. Why waste perfectly good waterfront property?”

  I took a long sip of my juice. This all sounded a bit far-fetched. An issue as big as destroying a nature preserve couldn’t be handled in secret. Besides, how could the elimination of Petri Ilveskivi be related to such a plan?

  “I know Rahnasto and company have received campaign contributions from big corporations that are interested in expanding the technology parks into the Laajalahti nature preserve. And Petri’s last job was those new couches for the Ministry of the Interior,” Eila continued. “The week before he died, he visited their offices to see how the new pieces fit in with the decor. I called him that night. He was in a rush to get to some meeting and couldn’t talk for long, but he said he ran into some familiar faces in the men’s room at the ministry. It was the mayor and Reijo Rahnasto. When they realized he had overheard them, they got out of there real fast. The City Council chair, Aulikki Heinonen, was waiting in the hall, and she didn’t seem happy to see Petri either. Petri promised to tell me more, but when I asked about it that weekend, he said we should wait until after our next Planning Commission meeting to talk about it. But in Petri’s papers I found detailed information about all the property ownership in the area and a sketch, almost like a zoning map, with the entire shoreline full of new buildings. It looked like Petri’s drawing. I didn’t give it any more thought, but when you asked, everything started to add up.”

  “Have you seen Petri’s papers?”

  “I helped Tommi sort them. And I made copies of some of them. Sometimes it can be helpful to get a peek at other parties’ memos,” Eila said with a wicked grin.

  “I know about Petri’s turbulent relationship with Rahnasto. What about his relationship with the higher-ups at the city?”

  “The same. Petri was a harsh critic of the current leadership style and for good reason. Heinonen and company aren’t particularly interested in listening.”

  The City Council chair, Aulikki Heinonen, was an excellent example of how a female politician didn’t need to be soft and compliant to succeed. She was a member of even more good-old-boy networks than the mayor or Rahnasto. She was always carefully groomed and stylishly dressed. Both her supporters and opponents called her the Margaret Thatcher of Espoo. And she was proud of that.

  “I wonder if those three were at the ministry figuring out how to strip protections from that entire shoreline. That’s how things work in Espoo. Just think about the amusement park or when they reclaimed all that land between Keilaniemi and Hanasaari. These decisions are made in secret, without any input from the public. Maybe they wanted to be able to present a final deal to the Planning Commission. The City Council is always complaining about how slow the zoning process is and asking for variances. Sometimes democracy is only a word in this city. The bigwigs decide, and there aren’t very many of them, and speaking out against them can end your political career.”

  “I’ve heard.”

  “And it’s the same at the national level. How much real power is there outside the Ministerial Committee for Economic Policy? It’s too bad no one has ever done a study on workplace bullying in politics. Of course I’m an easy target because I’m big. Even people in my own party try to trip me up, but I won’t let them. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been called a cow. We all know what’s most important for a female politician is how she looks, not how competent she is. Which is why I didn’t get to stand in the last parliamentary election. They told me no one would vote for a woman my size. I thought, fine, if the voters are only going to see how I look and not listen to my ideas, who needs them. I guess they can’t take a fat woman who talks about poverty and welfare seriously. Their thinking is I should just eat less and give that money to the poor.” Eila gave a crooked smile, and although her eyes twinkled, I could see the rage in them.

  My work was the same. Coworkers, criminals, and victims all seemed to think it was their place to comment on my appearance. Meanwhile, men could look or dress however they wanted without it affecting their chances for promotion.

  “This is all just a theory right now, but I’m trying to come up with something more concrete.” Eila wiped a bead of sweat from her upper lip. My armpits were damp, so I removed my jacket. Could the city’s entire top leadership be mixed up in this? If that were the case, who had given the order to halt the investigation into Ilveskivi’s death?

  “I haven’t heard much about political murder in Finland.”

  “They probably just wanted to scare Petri. We were going to deal with the general plan for the area we’ve been talking about. Petri probably wanted to alert the Planning Commission to what was going on behind closed doors. There was a local reporter coming to the meeting who was interested in the progress of the big hotel project in Tapiola. Of course he would have loved to get a scoop on new plans for the bay.”

  “But why sit on the information until the Planning Commission meeting? Why not start making noise as soon as he learned about it?”

  “The commission includes a wide range of experts on urban planning who don’t always agree with the major party lines. A lot of us would have been extremely upset to hear about a proposal like this. So Rahnasto and his cronies couldn’t let Petri talk.”

  I was still dubious. One mouthy city official couldn’t be so dangerous that silencing him was necessary, could he? But the more I thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. Rahnasto had paid Marko Seppälä to rough up Petri Ilveskivi and then got scared when the whole thing spun out of control. So he shot Seppälä. Rahnasto knew the area around the landfill because the Planning Commission had recently handled a proposal to expand the dump. And elected officials often toured locations like the landfill.

  Plus, Reijo Rahnasto had guns. How could I get the pistols in for testing? Would one of his guns match the bullet we found near Seppälä’s motorbike?

  “Aulikki Heinonen and I have a friend in common, one of the National Coalition Party delegates. I’m going to try to talk to her and everyone else who might have some inkling of these plans. Or should I just ask Rahnasto directl
y?”

  “No! We already have two bodies. Be careful. I’m going to talk to my boss. Seppälä’s murder investigation is still open.”

  Forensics had found a few unidentified fingerprints on Seppälä’s belongings. Where could I get Rahnasto’s prints? They weren’t in any of our databases. Could Kim Kajanus help? I knew enough about fingerprinting that I could tell if two prints were possible matches by looking at them.

  Eila Honkavuori frowned. “Did I remember to tell you about Rahnasto’s cell phone? He had it next to him on the desk through the whole Planning Commission meeting and kept looking at it. He had the sound off but said he was waiting for a text message about work.”

  “Did a message come?”

  “I don’t remember. Rahnasto rushed through the end of the meeting, but that was just a relief at the time. I wanted to call Petri because I was worried.”

  Eila opened a desk drawer, pulled out a large lavender lace fan, and started waving it to cool herself off.

  “This old invention is better than any of the gadgets the engineers have given us,” she said with a smile, looking like a Rubens painting with her fan. I pulled my notebook out of my bag and started sketching an outline of Eila’s theory.

  “This city is playing quite a game. The economy is improving—you can’t deny that—but at whose expense? City hall thinks that everyone should just to look out for themselves. I wouldn’t be surprised if they came up with a rewards system for local taxes: if you earn enough, they lower your taxes because you’re probably so rich that you don’t use public health services anyway. They’re only too happy to hunt down unemployment scammers and graffiti taggers, but who ends up in court if a child is injured in an understaffed day-care facility? The deputy mayor in charge of health and social services?”

  Eila’s cheeks were flushed, and suddenly she hid her face behind the fan.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot this is a police interview, not a campaign event. God, I’m just so frustrated and angry. Petri was a good friend, and he could get my mind off these things when I felt like I was just beating my head against the wall. He was an optimist, sometimes to the point of naïveté, but he believed we could change things.”

  I collected my things. Listening to Eila Honkavuori’s harangue would have been fun, but it wasn’t going to solve any murders. She promised to call immediately if anything new came to light. As I was closing the door, she asked again, “The photographer, Kim Kajanus? He was at Petri’s funeral. Why?”

  “Ask him yourself,” I replied and left. The parking area was unsecured but had enough traffic that someone would have noticed if anyone had tampered with my car, and it had an alarm. I took my keys out of my bag and opened the door. My prescription was still in there with all the other papers. I still hadn’t remembered to stop by the pharmacy. And I didn’t go now either. Back at the station I wrote up a memo about my conversation with Eila Honkavuori and all the other evidence that indicated Reijo Rahnasto might be behind both murders. Then I saved it on my hard drive behind two passwords and also put copies on two different disks. Then I called Taskinen.

  “It’s me, Maria. Have you had lunch?”

  Taskinen’s sigh was clearly one of disappointment. “Yes, and now I’m headed to a meeting with the county administrative board.”

  “Are you going to be gone all day?”

  “I’ll be lucky if I get to go home at all tonight. Do you have something urgent? Is it about taking some leave?”

  Now his voice sounded hopeful.

  “No. How is tomorrow, before our unit meeting?”

  “Doctor at eight. I might have a stress fracture. Ten thirty would work. What about you?”

  That fit with my schedule and would give me more time to develop my theory. I sent Eija Hirvonen online and to the library if necessary to look for a picture of Rahnasto’s company’s vans. Someone could go show it to the man who lived near the dump who had seen a strange van on his road the night of Seppälä’s death.

  The next day was still warm. I looked at the new mailbox Antti and I had installed the night before. The shiny red paint looked garish next to the aging house. On Sunday we had read through the real estate advertisements and stopped to look at a duplex in Masala on the way back from Inkoo. At the moment we had exactly one summer vacation plan: find a new home. The representative of the estate that owned our current house had deduced from the newspaper story that the police lieutenant whose house had been bombed was me and called to express his in concern. But he didn’t care about us. He was just worried about damage to the property.

  “The big ash tree got hit with some shrapnel. We’ll have to see if it pulls through,” Antti replied, and the lawyer’s worrying had ended there.

  I hadn’t wanted to give a statement to the press, so I let the NBI investigators handle the media. We had agreed to draw as little attention to the incident as possible. Salo’s threats were just intended to bolster his reputation in prison, and we didn’t want to dance to his choreography.

  Monday night we went to see Einstein. He seemed tired. A belt-like bandage wrapped around his belly, and a plastic collar was attached to his neck to prevent him from licking the wound. In his collar he looked like the court feline to Elizabeth I. If his recovery went as expected, he would be able to come home on Friday. Leaving him yowling with loneliness in his barren cage felt horrible. If it had been Iida, I never would have left the hospital for a second. I had asked Helvi to call me immediately if she saw anyone strange around the day care. I hated infecting other people with this fear, which was sure to spread from Helvi to the parents of the other children. Salo would have enjoyed this if he’d known.

  Eija Hirvonen had found a picture of the model of van I wanted. I meant to give it to Mela, who was the least busy of all of us. He could practice interviewing the elderly, and he was sure to like the idea that a positive identification would be a huge step forward in a homicide investigation. But during our morning meeting, I changed my mind. I wanted to talk to Taskinen first. Seppälä’s case was still moving slowly. Puustjärvi was looking for weapons that could match the bullet, but that wasn’t likely to help much because the guns drug dealers used were usually illegal.

  After the meeting, I motioned for Koivu and Wang to come to my office. Koivu was wearing blue-and-white-striped shorts with his strong thighs and yellow-fuzzed knees peeking out timidly.

  “You two have time this afternoon, don’t you? Go show Reijo Rahnasto’s picture to Suvi Seppälä. Maybe she’ll recognize him.”

  “Rahnasto? You mean the politician? We interviewed him right after the murder along with everyone on Ilveskivi’s committee. He didn’t know anything,” Koivu said.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

  “Why didn’t you assign this during the meeting?”

  “Because,” I began, but only completed the sentence in my mind. Because I don’t know who I can trust. Because gossip spreads at the shooting range and in the men’s room.

  “I just forgot to mention it. This is connected to Seppälä’s shooting.”

  Koivu nodded and exchanged a doubtful glance with Wang.

  “OK, boss,” Koivu said, emphasizing the final word in a funny way. I wish he would have told me directly what bothered him about the setup, but he stayed silent. Wang and Koivu left elbow to elbow, so apparently things were going well again. At least better than things were going for me.

  Agent Muukkonen called and said that their second interrogation of Salo hadn’t gone anywhere either.

  “He has a secret, and something seems to be bothering him. Like he’s irritated that no one died. We haven’t come up with anything from our usual bomb makers either, but we’ll keep at it. Your husband and I are going to talk this afternoon. I think we’ll have this wrapped up before school gets out.”

  How would Antti do in his interview? A couple of times I had been questioned as part of an internal investigation. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was educational, and sitting on the other side of the
table had made me a better interrogator. Agent Muukkonen had a pleasant eastern Finnish accent that made me wish I was somewhere with forests, lakes, and silence. One summer I had served as the acting sheriff in my home town in North Karelia, and sometimes I threatened Antti with the prospect of my applying for the county police commissioner job there once the previous officeholder retired. We could buy an abandoned farm and get ten cats. Antti only nodded in amusement. He didn’t think me and country living were a very likely combination.

  I had prepared very carefully for my meeting with Taskinen. We met in his office because I didn’t want to share my theories in the conference room, not to mention the cafeteria. Taskinen’s office was in the northeast corner of the building, so the sun only reached it on summer mornings and left it alone the rest of the day. The desk and couch were the same as my own, but Taskinen had two armchairs. That had to be some sign of hierarchy.

  We traded news before getting down to business. Only rest could heal the stress fracture in Jyrki’s right leg. He would have to skip the Helsinki City Marathon, and he was worried about how he would cope with the forced lack of exercise. I suggested swimming. He had removed his suit jacket, and his shirt was a restrained red pencil stripe that matched his tie. On his chin he had a small scrape—maybe his razor had slipped that morning.

  “I think I know why Marko Seppälä attacked Petri Ilveskivi and then who killed him to cover it up,” I finally said and started laying out my story. As I worked through my argument, Taskinen’s face became increasingly expressionless, and the fingers of his right hand rotated his wedding band, which was dulled by years of wear.

  “How much do you really know and how much are you just guessing at?” he asked when I finished.

  “I don’t have any conclusive evidence yet. I’d like to get Rahnasto’s fingerprints because we found two prints on Marko Seppälä’s motorbike that we don’t have matches for. Rahnasto works in the security industry, so he’ll know all the tricks. His company also owns a small guard business. It doesn’t handle security at the landfill, but Rahnasto has trained businesses to protect against break-ins. I found a brochure online about a seminar he gave last fall that demonstrated the easiest ways to defeat common locks. Of course the purpose was to show potential customers that locks aren’t enough and that they need electronic security systems.”