I think of preeclampsia, hypertension, obstetric catastrophe. Fear runs through me. “Okay, Milo, spill it. I have to go home. No drawn-out stories. I appreciate the drinks, and after today, I think we deserve them, but keep it short.”
He puts on his hurt look, doesn’t say anything. He starts his computer and plugs a memory stick into it. We drink beer in silence while the computer boots up. I watch him. He’s pissed off because we went through a life-altering experience today—he needs friendship and offered his hospitality—and I’m declining it. I would give him what he needs if I could, but my first responsibility is to Kate.
He opens a video file. “I found this in Linda’s computer,” he says. “It was shot in her bedroom.”
Even though Linda and Iisa impersonated each other, Filippov is—I presume—with Linda, because the video was shot in her bedroom and was in her computer. They strip. He dons an industrial toxic-cleanup respirator and long black vinyl protective gloves. She kneels in front of him beside the bed. He grabs her by the hair and ears. She sucks his cock, sticks the big green double-donged vibrating dildo in her cunt and ass and masturbates with it. He’s rough with her. She’s not giving him a blow job as much as he’s holding her head like a bowling ball and fucking it. She tremors and orgasms. He spreads his legs. She sticks the dildo up his ass and deep-throats his dick. He grunts and comes, collapses onto the bed, dildo still in place. She swallows, looks up at him with profound satisfaction, with gratitude and bliss. End video.
From within their black holes, Milo’s eyes reflect triumph. “They like weird S&M. I think she was at the crime scene, and while Iisa died, they enacted the sex game we just watched.”
“Given the audio recording,” I say, “it must have gone down that way. Get some rest. We need to figure out how to use your illegally obtained evidence to build a case against them. Let’s meet in the morning and talk about it.”
I stand to go and put on my boots. He stays quiet. “You did a good job today,” I say. “I’d like to stay here and drink with you, but my wife needs me.”
He just stares at me, expression flat.
“If you stay up for a while, I’d like you to Web-search a 1950s pinup and soft-core fetish porn star named Bettie Page. The reason will be self-explanatory.”
He slurps out of the kossu bottle. “Okay.”
“And we need to run background checks on Iisa Filippov and Linda Pohjola. I want to know who these women were and are. Whichever one of us has time first should do it.”
He quaffs again. “Yeah.”
“See you in the morning,” I say.
“Yep. See you in the morning.”
I think he’s waiting for me to leave so he can cry. I don’t look at him as I walk out.
28
OUR BEDROOM IS DARK, but I know the sound of Kate’s breathing when she’s sleeping, and I can tell she’s not. I don’t bother to take my clothes off, crawl in bed beside her and put an arm around her.
“I thought you were working?” she says.
“I was.”
“Then why do you smell like booze?”
“I went to Milo’s place to talk about the Filippov murder. He had something to tell me in private. We had a hard day. A couple drinks was good for us. I didn’t want to leave you alone any longer than necessary and made it home as fast as I could.”
She turns toward me, wraps her arms around me, buries her head in my shoulder. “You could have died today.” She sobs, then bursts into tears.
I wish I could deny it. “But I didn’t.”
“The news said a man tried to make you commit suicide, but Milo killed him.”
“That’s what happened, but the man was emotionally disturbed. It was the guy I made drink a bottle of vodka outside the school a couple days ago. He didn’t shoot anyone and he just wanted to scare me, to punish me for hurting him. I’m pretty sure he just went to the school to die. He got what he wanted.”
“Kari, I saw the news and it reminded me of Kittilä and the Sufia Elmi case and you getting shot. I started to shake and my heart started to pound. I’m scared, and I’m afraid I’ll lose this baby, too. I can’t fail as a mother again.”
I hold her tighter, confused. “What are you talking about? You didn’t fail as a mother. Miscarriages happen all the time.”
She sobs, pauses, collects herself. “I went skiing when I shouldn’t have and I fell. The doctors said it didn’t, but I think that fall caused us to lose our babies.”
I had no idea she felt this way. She bursts into big sobs and blurts out, “I failed you and them and I feel so guilty all the time.”
I pull her tight while she sobs, and wait until she quiets down before speaking. “Kate, that’s not true. If anything, the stress I caused you by pursuing the Sufia Elmi case to the ends of sanity caused you to miscarry.”
She tries to keep her voice down and whisper-shouts. “No. No no no no no. It was my fault. My failure. That’s why I wanted to start trying to get pregnant again as soon as I could, so I could give you a baby to replace the ones I took away from you with my selfishness and stupidity.”
She cries so hard that she shakes. I feel awful because I didn’t recognize that she was carrying all this around inside her. “No, Kate. It was my selfishness and stupidity. And I’m terrified I’ll do something selfish and stupid again. I worry myself sick. I thought you were upset with me tonight because I got myself into another dangerous situation that could make you stress and miscarry.”
She wipes her eyes. “Kari, these notions of yours are just silly. I’m upset because I saw you on TV and I realized I’ve been lying to myself. We came here and I’ve been happy in Helsinki, but I’ve ignored the fact that you haven’t been. I’ve made English-speaking friends in the international community, and I thought we had built a safe and cozy life. I believed we had left madness, depression and senseless violence behind us in the Arctic Circle. I realized tonight that Helsinki is the same, and it scares the hell out of me. Your job is dangerous and I’m frightened of losing you. I’m afraid for our little girl growing up surrounded by crazy people. You’ve been different since the Sufia Elmi case, and I’m worried about you, too. Right now, everything scares me.”
I brought Kate to Helsinki to quell her fears about life in Finland for nothing. Once again, I’ve failed her. I have no consoling words, her fears are justified. “Kate, there are no safe places in the world. It’s something all of us have to live with. But your belief that you caused the loss of the twins is unfounded. It’s just silly and you have to let it go.”
“You never let anything go,” she says.
She’s right. “I won’t lie and say the Elmi case didn’t hurt me, but I’ll get past it. I just need time, and I need time to adjust to Helsinki.”
“Will you ever?” she asks.
“For you,” I say, “there are no limits to what I can do.”
“And my brother and sister,” she says. “There’s something wrong with both of them. I raised them and I failed them.”
I don’t like to talk about my childhood, but I want to prove to her that she’s wrong, that she didn’t fail them. “Do you think there’s something wrong with me?” I ask.
She props herself up on her elbow and looks into my eyes. “I think you have a mild case of posttraumatic shock from what happened last year, but given the circumstances, no, I think you must be solid as a rock to have survived all you’ve been through as well as you have.”
“Did I ever tell you why I wear my hair cut short?”
“No.”
“When I was a little kid, back in the seventies when it was in style, I had longer hair. When my dad flew into drunken rages, he used to snatch me up by the hair, pick me up off the ground, swing me in a circle or jerk me around like a rag doll. Once, I tried to get away, and Dad chased me in a circle around the kitchen table. We stopped for a moment. He gave me a tiny smile and made me feel safe. I thought he was proud of me for sticking up for myself and all was forgiven. I
nstead, he used that smile to make me let my guard down, then caught me and swung me around by the hair like usual, then beat me for running. I never felt safe around him again. That’s why I wear my hair short to this day.”
Kate’s eyes water up again. “Kari, I’m so sorry.”
“That’s just one example of how I was sometimes treated. You don’t need to feel sorry for me. The point is, you treated your brother and sister well, but they came out a little weird. Dad treated me like garbage, and I came out solid. People survive their childhoods, but even the best childhood doesn’t guarantee a stable adult.”
My head hurts. I take a sleeping pill.
“Did you see Jari?” Kate asks.
“Yeah. I need some tests. He and his family are coming over for dinner on Thursday evening.”
“That’s nice.”
She’s lost in thought for a moment. “I still feel like a guilty failure,” she says.
“Me too,” I say.
Me and Kate. Two of a perfect pair.
29
ONCE AGAIN, I wake before the others. It’s eight a.m. The couch is empty. John didn’t come home last night. I enjoy quiet mornings alone and don’t miss his company. I doubt Kate will feel the same. I make coffee. While it brews, my cell phone rings. “Inspector. This is Ivan Filippov. I trust you’re enjoying a pleasant morning.”
“Well,” I say, “I was.”
“I told you at our last meeting that if I came upon something of interest, I would deliver it to you. Could you meet with me this morning, perhaps around ten o’clock? I could come to your office.”
“Might this thing of interest be your wife’s diary? I’d very much like to see it.”
“Iisa kept no diary.”
“I’ve been informed otherwise. Bring it to me, or I’ll get a subpoena and seize it.”
“We’ve had this discussion. You can try. I’ll get the subpoena quashed. Will you meet with me or not?”
“Sure, Ivan, because you’re such good company. See you then.”
I can’t imagine what Filippov wants to show me, but I doubt I’ll like it.
I go outside to the balcony. We got fresh snow overnight. I kick some to the sidewalk below to clear myself a dry place to stand, and smoke my first cigarette of the day. The sky is ash-gray. A fierce wind almost jerks the cigarette out of my hand. The cold hurts my face. I check the thermometer. Minus twenty-five. It turned even more frigid overnight. The wind burns down my cigarette so fast that I only get three drags off it before it self-extinguishes.
I sit on the couch, sip coffee and think about Arvid. I could follow his instructions, relay his message to the interior minister and tell him, as Arvid put it, “to stick his charges up his fucking ass.” But that won’t help Arvid. I feel certain he’ll end up on trial in a German court. I like Arvid and don’t want that to happen. I call him.
“I saw you on the news,” Arvid says. “Well done.”
“I’d rather not discuss it,” I say.
The image of standing in front of Legion, holding a gun to my own head, the boy whimpering in his clutches, is so vivid I forget for a moment that I’m talking to Arvid.
“Boy,” he says, “what do you want? I expressed my thoughts on this horseshit in a most clear manner. Our business is concluded.”
I snap back to reality. “I respect both you and your wishes, but you have a problem. I’d like to assist you with it, if you’ll let me.”
“What problem?”
“I’ve done some minor investigating. You’ve been disingenuous. You were at Stalag 309. If I can find the truth in a day, anyone else can, too. If I handle this situation in the way you told me to, it won’t go away. You’ll find yourself in a jail cell. We need to clear you of the charges leveled against you.”
The pause is long. I hear him sigh, then swear under his breath. “You’re a good eater. I like that. Come here today for lunch at twelve and we’ll talk about it.”
I thank him for his indulgence and hang up.
I GET TO the Pasila station about nine a.m. I check Milo’s office. He’s already at his computer. “What are you working on?” I ask.
“Getting bio material on Linda and Iisa.”
Dark circles render his eyes almost invisible red slits. Looking at his face is like staring into an abyss. “Get any sleep last night?”
The abyss stares back at me. “Some.”
“Ivan Filippov called and wants to meet with me at ten. I expect some kind of antagonistic confrontation. I’ll do some digging, too. Finish getting whatever info you can in the next little while, then come to my office and let’s compare notes. It might help me prep for my discussion with him.”
He nods, turns back to his computer.
I go to my office and give the main newspaper Internet pages a quick scan. Vesa Korhonen, Milo and I are splattered all over them. I don’t read the articles. Jaakko wrote a piece in Ilta-Sanomat stating that Iisa Filippov and Rein Saar were tased before being brutalized. He implies cover-up. I call him.
“Hi, Kari,” he says. “Congratulations for yesterday.”
“We’re not friends. Call me Inspector Vaara.”
“All right Inspector Vaara. What do you want?”
“More dirt on Iisa Filippov and Linda Pohjola.”
“I anticipated your wishes. Gotta give to get.”
“I want to know more about Ivan and Iisa Filippov’s relationship, and about Linda’s relationship to both of them.”
“That will cost you dear,” he says.
Rein Saar won’t enjoy seeing this in the newspapers, but it will help him in the long run, and like the rest of us, he also has to give to get. “Iisa Filippov had an affair going on with Rein Saar for about two years. It was based on voyeuristic sex games. He was supposed to arrive home that morning with another woman. Iisa intended to hide in the closet and watch them fuck.”
“Inspector, that’s exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for. You’re a man after my own heart.”
“Give.”
“Iisa’s father died in 1998 and she inherited a decent sum of money. She set about spending it dilettante-style. She went on a party trip to St. Petersburg and met Ivan there . . .”
I cut him off. “Year?”
“Two thousand two. They had a whirlwind romance and marriage soon followed. They moved to Helsinki, and she used much of the remainder of her daddy’s money to finance Filippov Construction. Ivan proved himself a good businessman and has done well.”
“How did Iisa go from happily married woman to trophy dick- collecting fuck monster?”
“Her boundless affection soon waned. Ivan was twenty-four years older than her. I guess she wanted a replacement for Daddy, then decided romance with the new daddy was dull.”
“And Daddy number one. Where did he get his money?”
“This is where it gets interesting. Her first daddy was one Jonne Kultti. He had his fingers in a lot of pies, but made the bulk of his money with an escort service.”
I take the ashtray out of my desk drawer, crack the window and light up. “Escort services come in a lot of flavors and varieties. What kind was his?”
“The soft kind, as such things go. Expensive. Gorgeous women mostly catering to foreign businessmen. Kultti’s escorts didn’t necessarily provide sex including orgasm, but some of his girls offered S&M, bondage and other fetishes.”
“And Iisa knew Linda how?”
“Linda, as you may have noticed, looks much like Bettie Page. She went to work for Kultti in 1997, in the midst of a worldwide Bettie Page revival. She turned tricks as a Bettie Page impersonator. I would assume that Iisa met Linda while she worked for her father.”
“And the Linda-Iisa-Bettie Page look-alike game?”
“I don’t know how that came about, or anything else about their early friendship.”
“Keep digging, I’ll keep giving. Anything else of interest?”
“Jonne Kultti didn’t insist that all his escorts actually engage i
n sex with customers, but he did make them all audition for the job by blowing him. Apparently, he took quite a shine to Linda. I think Linda was sucking Iisa’s daddy’s dick on a regular basis.”
“More?”
“Jonne Kultti committed suicide by putting a hunting rifle under his chin and pulling the trigger with his toe.”
Good stuff. I thank him and hang up. The phone rings with my hand still on the receiver.
A receptionist says Filippov is in the lobby. I request that he be escorted up to my office.
Milo walks in and sits, puts a sheet of printer paper down on my desk. “I went through some databases and made some followup phone calls,” he says, “and put this together.”
I read it:
LINDA POHJOLA:
SSN# 090980-3828
DOB September 9, 1980.
Mother: Marjut Pohjola.
Father: not listed on birth certificate.
Marjut Pohjola deceased November 13, 2000. Marjut died of a cerebral brain hemorrhage after spending ten years in Oulun Palvelukoti, a rest home for people with mental disabilities near Oulu.
IISA FILIPPOV:
SSN# 030280-7246
DOB February 3, 1980.
Mother: Noora Kultti.
Father: Jonne Kultti.
Noora Kultti deceased February 3, 1980. Complications during childbirth. Jonne Kultti deceased September 16, 1998. Suicide death.
Milo isn’t speaking much today. He’s still hurt about last night. He killed a man less than twenty-four hours ago and is still an emotional wreck, still looks like shit. I bring him up to speed on Iisa’s and Linda’s backgrounds, as per my chat with Jaakko.
He grimaces. “Where did you get all that from?”
I guess he spent a lot of time getting basic info, and my having learned so much so quick has injured his self-esteem. I grin and joke. “You’re not the only detective in the room.”
The joke fails to lighten the situation. Milo can’t stand to be bested in anything. He grips the arms of the chair and his knuckles turn white. He doesn’t speak. His ego is on the ropes.
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