Cold Trail hh-4

by Jarkko Sipila

  Lieutenant Helmikoski considered his options. The most effective alternative would be to seal off the entire downtown peninsula. Set up roadblocks and restrict all vehicular traffic. But that would cause such chaos that he’d be demoted to sergeant before his shift was over . He had to think of other alternatives. The Gulf of Finland offered an effective boundary to the west, beyond the Hietaniemi Cemetery. He wouldn’t need any units there. He’d have to cut off the escape route north from the Helsinki peninsula. It had already been a good ten minutes; the fugitive would have made it past the city’s narrowest point, the isthmus marked by Hesperia Street. Or would he? Beyond it, the neighborhood of Outer Töölö was such a maze that it would be tough finding anyone there.

  “Send two units up to Hesperia Street. Let’s set up a roadblock there.”

  The sergeant looked at the electronic map and immediately radioed the order to the two closest patrols.

  “One unit over to Ruoholahti to sweep the southwest and two to Mannerheim Street. Tell them to patrol between Stockmann in the south and Hesperia Street in the north.”

  Helmikoski paused to consider the situation from Repo’s point of view. The fugitive had to know that the authorities would be after him by now. He’d have two options: try to get out of the center as quickly as possible or find a hideout somewhere. From the police’s perspective, it would obviously be best if Repo kept moving. What options did he have for getting out of downtown? Bus, metro, tram, or train. Of course foot and taxi were possible too, as was having an accomplice with a car somewhere. In the last scenario, they would have already lost the race.

  “Send one more patrol south to Tehdas Street and the other four to traverse the area. Inform security at the bus terminals and the train stations and give them the description.”

  “Taxis?”

  “Not yet. Let’s not go public with this yet. With our luck there’ll be some journalist in a cab somewhere and the news will be out before we know it,” Helmikoski said, looking at the map. “You okay handling this alone?”

  The sergeant nodded. Helmikoski briefed the other desk officers, too, and told them to keep an eye on the downtown surveillance cameras.

  * * *

  Young, blond officer Esa Nieminen was sitting at the wheel of his patrol car, a Ford Mondeo. The number 122 was painted on the trunk. Sitting at his side was his partner, veteran officer Tero Partio. The police car was waiting at the lights at the intersection of the Boulevard and Mannerheim Street, nose pointed toward the Southern Esplanade. A few cars were idling in front of them. Raindrops splattered against the windshield. Nieminen thought the wipers were making a funny clunk. Which was no surprise, because police vehicle maintenance had always been pretty slapdash.

  “Did he say Code 3?” Nieminen asked.

  “No sirens,” Partio replied. “The convict would hide as soon as he heard them.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Nieminen said. “But that would be cool, ten units tearing up and down the streets, sirens blaring.”

  “Yeah, really cool,” Partio grunted.

  The traffic lights at the Boulevard turned green, and the Mondeo turned left onto Mannerheim Street. Their progress came to a halt half a block later, at the crosswalk near the Swedish Theatre. Now three cars stood between them and the traffic light. A heavy stream of pedestrians was crossing the street in front of the Stockmann department store.

  Nieminen was suddenly alert. “You see that? At least three fifty-year-old guys in black suits just crossed the street!”

  Partio didn’t answer. He was almost forty and had ten-plus years of experience in Helsinki PD work under his belt. “Yeah, I saw ʼem.”

  “Should we pick ʼem up?” Nieminen asked eagerly.

  “Nah, they’re going the wrong way. Our guy is probably headed down the west side of the street. Those suits came from the east.”

  The lights turned green, and the police car was the last vehicle to make through the light in front of Stockmann. The traffic coming from the North Esplanade had filled the lanes.

  It took four minutes to drive the hundred yards to the statue of the Three Smiths. By then, Nieminen and Partio had seen about 30 fifty-year-old men in dark suits.

  * * *

  Helmikoski was looking at the map where the police vehicles appeared as white dots. He turned toward the desk sergeant. “How come they’re not moving?”

  He had envisioned the units sawing back and forth at the edges of the sector, effectively cutting off the area. And had it been nighttime, the plan would have worked, too.

  “Four o’clock rush hour. Nothing’s moving out there,” the sergeant noted in a tired voice, gesturing at the images from the surveillance cameras. Mannerheim Street was jammed with cars from end to end. The streets were teeming with so many pedestrians that you couldn’t make out their faces, and the umbrellas didn’t make things any easier. Sure, you could zoom in with the cameras to get a really close shot, but in reality that required a target that was standing still. And it was pretty unlikely Repo would stop, if he even were headed downtown in the first place.

  One of the junior officers walked up to Helmikoski. “You might find this interesting,” he said. Helmikoski wondered what a guy who looked so fit was doing in the Emergency Operations Center instead of the field. His badge read Lehtonen. “A call just came in from the Perho restaurant. A gray trench coat was stolen from the coat racks. The caller’s name is…”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Helmikoski said, glancing at the sergeant sitting at the computer monitors. He was already informing the patrols that Repo was probably wearing a long, gray coat. That information should aid the search, at least a little.

  “Lieutenant,” yelled a dark-haired female officer sitting further off. “Helsinki Transport ticket inspectors are having trouble with a freeloader who’s threatening them at the Kaisaniemi stop. Can we spare a unit?”

  “Is it a male with short hair and a trench coat?”

  “No, they said it was that old drunk Fuck-Jore . His hands are trembling worse than ever, but evidently his mouth moves just fine. He started going on about some knife in his pocket.”

  Helmikoski considered before responding. “Send one unit. Have the rest keep searching.”

  The officer checked the map, turned to her microphone, and sent over the closest patrol, unit 122.

  * * *

  A smile spread across Nieminen’s face when the orders arrived. The car was still on Mannerheim Street, but had now advanced down to the Sokos department store. “Yippe kay-ay,” he said, flipping on the lights and sirens. Traffic wasn’t moving, but Nieminen bumped the car up onto the sidewalk. The pedestrians started at the noise and moved out of the way.

  “Hey, take it easy!” Partio snapped. He would have much preferred to be at the wheel himself. He instinctively checked his pistol and mace. He always did when it was a Code 3. The third critical thing was his seat belt. That was on, too.

  Partio remembered Fuck-Jore well; he was a regular customer. The fifty-year-old had gotten his nickname from the fact that every third word out of his mouth was “fuck,” or some derivation of it. Not a total skid row bum yet, but well on his way. The gaunt drunk’s eyebrows were as bushy as Brezhnev’s, and he always wore the same flannel shirt. Fuck-Jore used to be a mid-level burglar, but booze had started to taste a little too good. Partio thought it was a minor miracle the guy was still alive.

  At the old main post office, Nieminen whipped the Mondeo onto Posti Street, heading toward the main railway station. He did it a little too quickly for Partio’s taste, missing a pedestrian by less than a yard. The streets were crowded, and everyone was staring at the police car with its lights and sirens blaring.

  Although there wasn’t anything remarkable about him, a man in a gray coat who was staring at one of the Sokos display windows caught Partio’s attention. Partio tried to remember: it was a trench coat, wasn’t it? Why didn’t the guy look at them? Maybe he was deaf, but still.

  Partio had learned t
o register everything out of the ordinary, but the man in the gray coat vanished from his thoughts when Nieminen hit the gas and swerved into the oncoming lane. A number 66 bus was headed toward them, and the Mondeo made it back into its own lane just in the nick of time.

  “Goddammit! Take it easy, will you?” Partio yelled. Luckily, Nieminen would be able to jump up onto the tram lane at Kaivo Street. Driving along them instead of in traffic was safer for all concerned. The man in the gray coat still nagged at him, and Partio grabbed the microphone from the dash.

  * * *

  Timo Repo was sure he’d just gotten caught. He had heard the wailing of the police car before it turned the corner, but it had zoomed past. He had instinctively turned his face toward the display window and hoped for the best. He was envisioning a scene with the officer aiming a gun at him and ordering him to put his hands up.

  And that’s how it had gone down eight years ago. He couldn’t imagine a worse way to wake up. The police officer slapping his face and shouting. Opening his eyes to find himself looking down the barrel of a pistol. And then the third thing he noticed was how sticky his hands were, and the sweet, sickening smell in the air. Repo remembered it all like it was yesterday. Coca-Cola? No, something red. Blood. He decided not to pursue those thoughts any further.

  He needed to get out of downtown, and fast. The police car bothered him. Why had it passed him by? Why didn’t it stop? Why didn’t some gorilla in blue coveralls jump out, waving a gun?

  Repo jogged a couple of steps and accidentally bumped a skinny punk in a hoodie.

  “Fucking faggot. You wanna get your ass kicked?”

  “Sorry. Late for my train,” Repo apologized without stopping. In his younger days he might have mashed the guy’s face into a pizza, but not now.

  At the corner, Repo crossed over to the post office side of the street and set course for the central train station.

  Just then a police car pulled up to the railway station taxi stand and two officers stepped out. Both scanned the crowd.

  Repo turned in the direction of the all-glass offices of the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, which stood behind the restaurant Vltava. Further ahead, toward Finlandia Hall, he saw another police car. He rapidly ticked off his alternatives: the old post office? No, he’d be trapped if he went in there. A small doorway nearby had a sign indicating it would lead him to the underground parking lot below Eliel Square.

  Eliel Square was a busy transportation hub, with buses pulling into and backing out of loading zones.

  At that instant a woman in a red coat ran past, and Repo noticed a bus on the verge of pulling out. He sprang after her. The bus was his best chance. It was already sliding back out of its parking spot, but the woman smacked its side. The driver stopped and opened the door. She stepped in, and Repo followed.

  “Sorry,” she said to the grouchy driver, flashing a card in front of some sort of reader that Repo didn’t recognize. “Have to pick up my kid from daycare.”

  The driver didn’t respond, just looked at Repo, who was clueless. “You wanna pay so we can get out of here?”

  Pay! He didn’t have any money. His hand reached into the pocket of the trench coat, where at least there was a comb. He fished deeper and felt coins. Repo pulled them out, but they looked strange. He had heard of euros, of course, but he had never held one before. The prison store worked on credit.

  “Sorry,” he said, trying to act the yokel. It didn’t take much effort. “How much is it?”

  “Where are you headed?” the driver asked.

  Repo didn’t even know what bus he was on. “Umm… End of the line.”

  “Three sixty,” the driver snapped.

  Someone yelled from the back, “Hey, asshole! Why don’t you pay so we can get out of here!”

  Repo fumbled with the coins, trying to see how much they were worth, but they all looked the same to him. He slapped them down on the driver’s little tray. “You mind? Eyesight’s bad,” he said.

  “So get some glasses,” the driver retorted, picking through the coins for the fare. Repo took his ticket, swept up the remaining coins, and moved farther back into the bus. He kept his eyes on the floor and found a seat up front, on the left. The woman in the red coat was sitting next to him, but she didn’t so much as glance in his direction.

  The bus backed up and Repo stole a glimpse outside. The police car that had approached from the Helsingin Sanomat headquarters had stopped fifty yards away.

  Repo examined the coins in his hand. One was bigger than the rest and had a big 2 on it. The second-biggest one was yellow and it was worth 50. Repo counted his funds and came to the conclusion that he had 4 euros and 70 cents. He noticed the woman in the red coat eyeing him, and he slipped the change into his coat pocket.

  The bus drove past the police car. It passed the newspaper’s offices on the left and some new hotel on the right as it continued down the street, following the railroad. Up at the front of the bus, red lights formed what appeared to be the numbers 194. Repo didn’t have the faintest idea where he was headed.

  CHAPTER 2

  MONDAY, 4:50 P.M.

  HELSINKI POLICE HEADQUARTERS, PASILA

  Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamäki was in his office browsing through his copy of Finland’s statutes, which was marked with colored Post-it notes cut into narrow strips. Written on the Post-its in tidy, tiny stick letters were words such as MURDER, ARSON, TELESURVEILLANCE, POLICE LAW.

  The detective lieutenant had a problem. A thirty-two-year-old redhead, Jana Puttonen, was being held in a cell at police headquarters.

  The detainee, who originally hailed from central Finland, was a teacher at a North Helsinki elementary school. A few hours ago she had been arrested on suspicion of blackmail.

  Detective Sergeant Anna Joutsamo had interrogated the suspect and then briefed her sharp-featured, close-cropped lieutenant. Three separate police reports had spurred the investigation. In each instance, Puttonen had sent dubious photographs to the homes of three separate individuals. The North Helsinki precinct had connected the dots between the incidents, and the case had been transferred to the Violent Crimes Unit, which handled blackmail cases.

  In and of themselves, the photos were relatively innocuous. One was of a kiss; in another, a woman had her arms around a man’s neck; and in the third, a woman’s hand was placed provocatively on the man’s thigh. There was a different man in each photo, but the woman was the same. In the pictures, Puttonen was wearing heavy makeup and a black wig.

  During the investigation, the police had quickly figured out that all the men were fathers of students in Puttonen’s class. The photos had unexpectedly arrived at the men’s homes in the mail, the envelopes addressed to their wives. The fingerprints had matched Puttonen’s, and she didn’t deny having sent the letters. The problem in terms of a criminal investigation was that Puttonen wasn’t demanding anything from the men or their wives. She had simply sent the photographs.

  The teacher had revealed her motive during Joutsamo’s interrogation. The children of the families had harassed her at school, and Puttonen wanted to get back at them. She had tried changing schools, but new bullies always surfaced. Puttonen had claimed she had no problem dealing with the thumbtacks left on her chair, but the sexist slurs and the vandalism, like the gum in her car lock, were too much. She had even arranged special parent-teacher nights on the theme, but the parents of the problem children never showed.

  So she had wanted to get back at the parents. She had figured out who the fathers of the bullies were, and, at an opportune moment, had flirted her way into their company. Finding someone to take a photo with a cell phone was never a problem. Puttonen had told Joutsamo that she didn’t have any demands as far as the men were concerned. Getting back at them was enough.

  Takamäki had initially opened the green-covered book at the Post-it marked “EXTORTION.” In order to meet the description of the crime, the perpetrator had to be guilty of coercing the other party to relinquish assets u
nder a force of threat. The photographs could be interpreted as a threat, but no assets were at stake.

  The photographs could also be interpreted as causing suffering or slander, but the disseminating of information infringing on one’s privacy required that the photos be made accessible to a number of people. That had not occurred.

  Libel was not an option, because no false statements were involved, nor did the images degrade the men. Their expressions indicated that they had been perfectly happy to appear in them.

  Disturbing the domestic peace? Puttonen hadn’t entered anyone’s home or caused any sort of public disturbance, and she had only sent one photograph to each family.

  Vandalism? Nothing had been broken. Fraud? No financial loss was involved. Violating a restraining order? No restraining orders had been filed in the case. They wouldn’t be able to wring any kind of sex crime out of it-the prosecutors would laugh in their faces.

  Takamäki couldn’t come up with a crime, which didn’t actually disappoint him. To tell the truth, his sympathies were with the teacher. If families didn’t keep their brats in line, why should teachers have to? Especially when they had been stripped of all means of doing so. Not that Takamäki missed those days. He remembered his own detentions all too well, which during the 1970s had meant standing on the school’s tile floor: your feet had to stay within one twelve-by-twelve-inch square.

  This was one of the more bizarre cases to come to the Violent Crimes Unit. Still known colloquially as Homicide, the unit got all sorts of incidents to investigate, from improperly installed electric stoves to beached boats to missing persons.

  Takamäki’s cell phone interrupted his reverie, but it didn’t matter anymore. He had already decided that they’d release Puttonen for the simple fact that no crime had been committed. One-time harassment was not a punishable offense.