My First Murder

by Leena Lehtolainen

  I moved on to the arm curl bench. Hitting Tommi had obviously required some strength. That seemed to rule out Pia and Sirkku, and possibly Riku too. I could definitely have taken Riku in a fight, since he weighed considerably less than I did. Timo had the requisite strength, but could he have snuck out of his room without Sirkku’s knowledge?

  My biceps were burning, so I shifted to the bench press. “Who wants to live forever,” asked Freddie Mercury’s ghost from the speakers in the ceiling. Tommi hadn’t been given a chance to choose. “And we can love forever.” Had Tuulia been in love with Tommi? Didn’t she trust me enough to have told me if that were the case? That thought made me feel lousy. The bar I was lifting was heavy—I had put on ten pounds too much. I did this frequently—overestimating my own strength.

  I jogged back home, showered, and started to clean my apartment. The workday was behind me, and I was done with my weight training, but the hardest part of my day still lay ahead. I was supposed to go to the train station to meet my parents and then put them up for a night at my place before they left for their annual two-week summer vacation in the Greek Islands. They almost never visited me otherwise. Though they had both studied in Helsinki years before, the city felt big and frightening to them these days, and they didn’t know how to make their way from the station to my place without help.

  “I like having a police escort,” Dad said with a grin as we climbed onto the tram.

  “Have you been able to study at all?” Mom asked, clearly concerned. I had bluffed them into approving of my temporary gig at the VCU by claiming that I would be able to take some of my exams on the side.

  “I’ve been getting ready for one of my tests.”

  That wasn’t actually a lie. I had picked up the books for my criminal justice final from the library, and my parents believed what they wanted to hear. Uncle Pena wasn’t an alcoholic—he just drank too much sometimes. The students weren’t intentionally mean—they just had hard home lives. I would go back to law school, get a good job, and find a nice husband. My parents weren’t actually interested in me so much as in the façade of my life.

  My freshly cleaned apartment felt hot, cramped, and dusty. I had made ham and onion quiche and salad for dinner, and now I steeped some tea. The last time I had seen my parents was at Christmas, which I had dutifully spent at their house. Over the last six months, several more wrinkles had appeared on my mother’s forehead, and my father’s shoulders had slumped significantly. Fall semester was becoming more unpleasant for them each time it came around, but they still had a couple of years to go before they could retire.

  My parents gave me an update on everything that was happening back home, none of which I particularly cared to know. Ten years had already passed since I left home, and I didn’t even run into people I knew from there anymore. Then they asked politely about my work, and I replied just as politely—and vaguely—appealing to professional discretion. They told me about their plans for Greece and showed me a picture of their hotel from a travel office brochure. Then we watched the news and sports report on TV. We drank the rest of the kiwi liqueur, but even that didn’t do anything to relax the tension in the air. We were all relieved when Dad observed after the ten o’clock news that it was probably time to head to bed. Their flight was at seven the next morning, so we would have to be up before five.

  Though I hadn’t gotten much rest the night before, I couldn’t sleep. As I lay there listening to Mom’s snuffling and Dad’s occasional snoring from my creaking sofa bed, I realized how strange it felt to be sleeping in the same room with someone. It made me sad. On every form I filled out, I put my mother’s name as my next of kin, but were we really anything more than strangers to each other anymore? What did I know about my parents, and what did they know about me? If I died suddenly, as Tommi had, would they recognize the person whose things they would have to sort through?

  It was my fault. I visited only a couple of times a year, and while I was there, I always adopted a distant, self-assured stance. We hadn’t revealed any of our thoughts or feelings to one another for years, and I only ever heard about their reactions to the twists and turns in my life from my sisters.

  I had never really forgiven them for not wanting me. They wanted a boy and had even picked out a name for him. Mom had been sure that the person in her womb was a Markku, since he kicked so enthusiastically. I had tried to be their boy because all I had were little sisters, and had even gone so far as to choose every little boy’s dream job.

  It was only a couple of years ago that I started to grasp that my parents weren’t responsible for the messes in my life. I had even made a few attempts at drawing closer to them, but it was too late. The polite status quo between us was unlikely to change. Occasionally, when I listened to my mother and little sisters gossiping gaily together, I felt like a child who had been shut out of a fun game for no reason.

  12

  That spring will come again and a new dawn yet will break

  I put my parents on a bus to the airport at five fifteen and then returned home and crawled back into bed to sleep for a couple more hours. In my restless dreams, I saw myself with a fishing pole, reeling in a body that had been beaten beyond recognition out of the sea. It was my mother. But when I finally got her out of the water, my mother had turned into Tuulia, whom I tried hopelessly to revive by kissing her.

  I rode my bicycle up to Pasila. The fog had started to lift, and the Ferris wheel came slowly into view as I pedaled past Linnanmäki Amusement Park. I hoped there would be something symbolic about this dawn. I braked at a stoplight just as my chain derailed. As I fiddled with it, I managed to get grease on my best jeans. The chain fell off once more after that, so I didn’t make it to the station until ten after eight. As I passed by Kinnunen’s office, I glanced inside, but it was empty. Was he still out on drinking leave? A message from Heikki Peltonen and an order to see the captain had already appeared on my desk.

  I called Peltonen first, who was looking for Tommi’s car keys and thought we still had the spares.

  “I’ve never seen any except the one set—the ones that were in the ignition. We didn’t find any others, at the villa or in Tommi’s apartment.”

  “Strange. I’m quite certain that there are at least two other sets of keys somewhere. We’d been meaning to sell the car as soon as the estate inventory was complete, but now we’ll have to have the locks changed.”

  I remembered the phone message from this M person asking to borrow the car. Did M have the missing keys? What had M done with the car? Transported drugs? Why would he have used Tommi’s car? I tried to assure Peltonen that the investigation was progressing, but avoided telling him how unpleasant the truth about his son’s life was turning out to be.

  Tapsa still hadn’t received his tapes back, so I grudgingly went to see the captain to report on my current cases. He blew cigar smoke in my eyes and listened to me theorize about Tommi’s involvement in various trafficking businesses with an incredulous expression on his face.

  “Aha. How much of this information do you have actual evidence for and how much is made up—or should I be calling it women’s intuition?”

  I told him about Koivu’s outings, about the rapist, and about the bottles of moonshine, which we would be getting analysis on that afternoon.

  “So it’s possible that the murderer was someone from the outside, then?”

  “Not necessarily. I think some of my current suspects were at least mixed up in the bootlegging.”

  “Theories are all well and good, but we need results!” Another cloud of smoke wafted into my eyes. “You have until Friday. Make an arrest by then. I’ve had my hands full keeping the tabloids quiet about this case.”

  “So am I still the lead? What about Sergeant Kinnunen?”

  The captain got an uneasy look.

  “Well, Kalevi...” he started to mumble but then rallied. “Yes, well. All the work that happens in your section is Kinnunen’s responsibility, of course. However,
we spoke this morning about trying to delegate more authority to junior officers. Of course you should also be reporting to Kinnunen, but you’ve already gotten pretty far with this case, so go ahead and wrap it up on your own.”

  So Kinnunen was back from sick leave, but it seemed that the situation was tense. I decided it might be best for me to talk to him myself.

  We spoke briefly about the other cases I was working on. When I asked the captain for permission to use Koivu as my main assistant, he agreed.

  Then, seemingly in passing, he said, “The end of September isn’t that far off anymore. Saarinen called last week to say that his back is so bad that his sick leave might turn into permanent disability retirement. At the very least, he’ll be out until the end of the year. Have you thought about staying on?”

  “No, I haven’t had time,” I said evasively.

  “It would be good for the unit to have at least one woman on staff, even if it’s just for our image. And you seem to be able to keep up with the boys,” the captain said, oblivious to the fact that he had just said precisely the wrong thing. Fortunately, his secretary put an urgent call through from some higher-up right then, and I was able to slip out.

  In the meantime, a round package from the lab had appeared on my desk.

  Before I even had a chance to open it, my phone rang. It was Anu, the second soprano from the choir, returning my call.

  I got straight to the point. “You told me that when you overheard Tommi on the phone, he said something to the effect of, ‘Listen, Emma, I can’t talk now.’ Could it have just been, ‘Listen, M’ instead of “Listen, Emma?”

  Anu thought for a moment.

  “Yeah, I think you might be right.”

  “Good. And this M wanted more of something than Tommi had?”

  “That was the impression I got.”

  I told Anu I might need an official statement from her later. She sounded relieved that was all.

  Then I turned my attention to the package from the lab. It contained one of the bottles of moonshine from Tommi’s apartment, along with another bottle, the lab results, and some photographs. I looked at them and whistled. This was starting to get interesting. I stuck the moonshine in my desk drawer so that it wouldn’t create any temptation for the boys in the department, especially Kinnunen. Now I had the office bottle I had been wanting.

  I reserved a department car for myself and Koivu, who was refreshed and in good spirits. I praised his accomplishments from Saturday night, and he laughed with satisfaction.

  “Yeah, that place was full of fresh meat for sale. Girls or boys if you had the money,” Koivu said. “Do you remember that Estonian woman who got arrested for robbing a client? It was a couple of days before Peltonen’s murder. She might know something.”

  “Good boy, Koivu! Will you find out if she’s still in custody and get permission to talk to her? But before that let’s tackle these other interviews,” I said as Koivu started monkeying with the car phone to get the scoop on the Estonian. It turned out she was still remanded in Pasila.

  First we made our way to Koskela to look up Tomi Rissanen—otherwise known as “Tomppa.” A beautiful boy with hair like an angel opened the door after several rings of the bell. He was rubbing his eyes as though he had just woken up. He wore only a skimpy white G-string, which emphasized the tan of his muscular body.

  “Koivu and Kallio, Helsinki PD,” I said and showed Tomppa my badge. “We have some questions about one of your...friends.”

  Tomppa looked more confused than afraid. Had Mäki warned him? On closer inspection, he looked more like a schoolboy. I wasn’t the least bit surprised that he found takers, but this kid didn’t have any business hanging around the Kaivohuone Club. I could see that a face like that would be lovely to look at and touch though. The Mäkis, both Tommi’s boss and her husband, seemed to have the same taste in men, since Tomppa looked like he could have been Tommi’s little brother.

  Tomppa confirmed that he had spent the whole night with Mäki at the Vaakuna Hotel. Since the guest register at the hotel had also confirmed this, it looked like Mäki could be crossed off the list of suspects.

  “You were nice to that kid,” Koivu said with a grin as we walked back to the car.

  “How could I be hard on a cutie-pie like that?” I snorted. “But seriously, I saw enough of those guys in Vice. They never believe your friendly advice or threats until it’s too late.”

  We drove north to Ring 3, making our way to the farm equipment store where Timo worked, which I found without Koivu’s help. Tractors and threshers stood gleaming on the lot, bringing back distant memories of piling hay with my Uncle Pena when I was a child. I had bragged that I was able to lift a bigger pile of hay on my pitchfork than my cousin, who was a couple of years older than I was and a boy. While my little sisters had been content to help our mother work in the kitchen, I had ridden the horse and driven the tractor. Mother had never enjoyed our summers in the country because she was always shut up in the kitchen. Since Uncle Pena wasn’t married, she had been responsible for preparing all the meals for everyone working on the harvest. No doubt she would have preferred to lie on the grass reading Agatha Christie all day. At the time, I thought she had chosen her place in the kitchen; in those days, I still believed that adults did only what they wanted.

  When we pulled up, Timo was moving a load of fertilizer sacks into the sales yard with a tractor. He was clearly confused when I ordered him to come with us. I explained to Timo’s boss that I urgently needed Timo’s help with an investigation. I didn’t want to needlessly sully his reputation, but at the same time I wondered why I was bothering to be so nice.

  “I would have interviewed you and Sirkku last night, but you weren’t in town,” I said to Timo in the backseat. “Didn’t we talk about you informing me if you went anywhere?”

  “We were just in Muuriala, at my parents’ house, I mean...” Timo explained, bewildered. “We didn’t think you would need us over the weekend anyway.”

  We drove downtown. I parked the car illegally on a sidewalk and left Koivu with Timo while I headed in to the cosmetics counter of the large department store where Sirkku worked. Her makeup was showy, as I would have expected given her place of work, but it was not especially flattering. She wore too much of it, for one thing, and I didn’t think pink lipstick suited her. The artificial lighting of the store made her look like an overgrown doll. Then I saw myself in a magnifying mirror and quickly averted my eyes.

  “Hi, Sirkku. It looks like I need you to come up to Pasila for another interview. Who is your boss? I’ll tell her.”

  Sirkku braced herself against the sales counter in such a way that a perfume bottle display that was set up on it collapsed to the floor with a clatter. She glanced around with such a frightened look that the department manager, who looked like she should be on a soap opera, came to ask what was the matter.

  “I need a little help from Ms. Halonen on an investigation. I’ll bring her back within the hour.”

  Sirkku went to hang up her work coat and punch her time card. I wondered whether they would dock her pay for the time she was gone, then realized it was stupid to think about something that petty. I escorted Sirkku to the car. When she saw Timo, she turned so pale she looked ill. I ordered Koivu into the backseat with Timo and made Sirkku sit next to me. Her pink nails were trembling at the tips of her fingers. Actually, I didn’t even need to ask my questions anymore. Sirkku had already confessed everything through her demeanor.

  She calmed down a bit when we got into my office and she could hold Timo’s hand. Koivu brought them coffee, and a cup of tea for me. He sipped a Coke. I pulled the bottle of moonshine out of my desk cabinet, and Koivu made a hopeful gesture. I gave him a grin that indicated he should behave himself, though the thought of fortified tea sounded pretty good to me too all of a sudden.

  “Is this bottle familiar to you two? Or do you need to sample the contents first?”

  Timo and Sirkku glanced at each other
. Finally Timo said weakly, “Yes, I recognize it.” Now Timo’s face was surprisingly pale too.

  “Well, why do you recognize it? I imagine you know what’s in it.”

  “Moonshine,” Timo said, forcing the words out.

  “And might I ask who made it? We found this bottle and dozens more like it in Tommi’s apartment, but we didn’t find a still there or in the villa in Vuosaari. If I need to, I can get a warrant for both of your apartments.”

  “But it isn’t...” Sirkku began quickly, then squeaked when Timo squeezed her hand.

  “But what isn’t what? The still isn’t put together anymore? We found both your fingerprints on the bottle samples,” I lied. I figured we would probably find Sirkku’s fingerprints on the ones in Tommi’s attic storage locker. But my simple ruse worked on Sirkku in her frightened state.

  “They can’t have my fingerprints on them! Timo’s the one who bottled it!”

  “Idiot,” Timo sighed, shaking his hand free of Sirkku. I bit my lip to keep from laughing. Sirkku’s loud makeup looked grotesque in the light of day, and Timo’s expression was defeated.

  “Where did you make it, then?” I directed my words at Sirkku, but Timo had clearly decided he should take over from here. He spoke slowly and deliberately, as though carefully weighing each and every word.

  “We’ve been cooking our own moonshine out at Muuriala for decades. My granddad’s dad probably started making it during Prohibition, and then we just kept up the tradition. Every once in a while, I brought in bottles for choir or student association parties. Then last summer, Tommi asked if I could get him a little more if he paid me. I asked my father about it, since he’s the one I’ve been making it with the last few years, but he was totally against it. We’ve never sold liquor at Muuriala; we just made it for our own use. I was annoyed of course, because Tommi thought that we could make upward of two hundred percent profit, since the grain was basically free from Muuriala. He said he wanted to sell it to friends at work.