Lucifer's Tears

by James Thompson

  “I have to think about it,” I say.

  “You told me that during the Sufia Elmi investigation you felt that a suspect threatened Kate. You developed symptoms similar to a heart attack, pulled your car to the side of the road, put a gun to his head and threatened to kill him.”

  “I’m not proud of it.”

  “That’s immaterial. The point is that your symptoms and responses are consistent with those of severe panic attacks. This lends credence to my suggestion.”

  He’s right.

  He leans forward. “Has it occurred to you that Katt and Kate are almost the same name? A curious coincidence.”

  I’ve had enough, can’t take such ridiculous Freudian bullshit, and resist the urge to mock him. “Let’s call it a day,” I say.

  Torsten is professional and means well, but I doubt I’ll see him again. I realize that if I’m ever really going to open up to anyone, it can only be Kate.

  37

  THE SNOW, already almost waist-high, pours down in a torrent. Lucifer doesn’t relent. Dante states that the devil resides in the ninth circle of hell, trapped in the ice like the rest of us, and I feel that he’s here, watching over us with approval. Except for the fact that the extreme cold makes my bad knee useless, I couldn’t care less. Let the snow fly.

  I find Jyri Ivalo shivering on the stoop of Rein Saar’s apartment building. We nod greeting but don’t speak. We take the lift to the fourth floor. I break the crime-scene tape and unlock the door. We step inside.

  “Look familiar?” I ask.

  Jyri’s face sags. He fumbles with the buttons on his overcoat, but trembles so hard that he can’t open them. He’s experiencing déjà vu and horror. I wait and let the truth sink in. The meanings of the veiled cryptic messages in my conversations with Filippov and Bettie Page Linda are now clear to me. They have no fear of conviction because they’ve framed Jyri for Iisa’s murder. If Rein Saar doesn’t go to prison, Jyri will take his place. He’ll never let the investigation look in their direction. Who better to protect them than the national chief of police?

  Jyri wanders into the bedroom, looks around in disbelief, sits on the bloodstained bed. “Why is this happening to me?” he asks.

  “Describe—exactly—what happened when you came here with Linda,” I say.

  He pulls it together enough to answer. “I told you I was drunk, it’s all a bit blurry. But it happened here, in this room.”

  I stand over him. “I said exactly.”

  “We came into this bedroom and she wasted no time. She stripped her clothes off except for black stockings, and told me to take my clothes off. She had a dildo, as you thought, and took it out of the closet. She sucked me off and used it to masturbate.” He averts his eyes. “Then she used it on me.”

  “Show me where you were and the position she was in when she blew you,” I say.

  He gets up and moves to a spot beside the bed, across from the closet. “I stood here.” He moves his hands to where her head had been. “And she knelt here. The whole thing lasted for maybe ten minutes.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then she went to the bathroom, I guess to wash her mouth out.”

  I shake my head at his stupidity and point at the hole in the closet door. “She positioned you so that she could make a video through there.” I open the door and show him the stool. “That’s where the camera was.”

  He sits on the bed again and buries his face in his hands.

  “You’re known to have had sex with Iisa Filippov. Linda and Iisa look alike. She placed herself so that, with her back to the camera, no one could tell the difference between them. She went to the bathroom to spit out your come and save it, to have a sample of your semen and DNA, damning proof of your affair with Iisa, should it be required.”

  He looks up at me, haggard. His mouth spasms. “How do we fix this?”

  I kneel down and stare into his face. I’ve seldom seen a man look so broken. “When you tell me why they framed you, maybe I can answer that question.”

  He forces himself to focus. “As you said, I had sex with Iisa and Linda. Cuckolding Filippov twice must have driven him to murder and revenge.”

  Jyri needs a moment to come to grips with a situation that could destroy him. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” I say.

  He follows me. I find an ashtray and we sit at the table. I shake Marlboros out of my pack for both of us. We smoke and let a few moments pass in silence.

  “You’re being evasive,” I say. “Stop hedging and tell me the truth. All of it. Otherwise, I can’t help you.”

  He nods, steels himself. Coming in here and realizing what has been done to him was a hard jolt, but he’s a tough bastard. I watch him recover by degrees. It doesn’t take long.

  “I don’t know the particulars about Filippov’s relationships with his wife and Linda,” he says, “but I can tell you about his business affairs . . . and a few other things.”

  “Tell.”

  “Filippov wanted to expand his construction business. He wanted government contracts for big projects. He spread a lot of money around in order to get them.”

  “You’re saying he bribed government officials.”

  “Correct.”

  “Which ones?”

  “At this point, their names are inconsequential. I’ll tell you later if the need arises. He spent a lot of money on bribes and was dissatisfied with the results. The reason he came to the party on the night his wife was murdered was to express that dissatisfaction in strong terms.”

  “And the result was?”

  “None. He was told that he’ll get what he gets, when he gets it.”

  “And the ‘few other things’ you mentioned?”

  “I wasn’t the only one to have sex with both Iisa and Linda. There are four of us—officeholders—that I know of. There could be more.”

  “So, in addition to bribing you with money, he was pimping out his wife and mistress to get these contracts.”

  “In retrospect, it appears so.”

  I sit back and take a second to put the pieces together. “My guess is that Filippov and Linda set up the others the same way they did you. Filippov more than likely acquired sex videos and DNA samples from all the corrupt politicians who took his money and fucked his wife. You fucked him as well, pushed him too far.”

  “But why kill his wife?” Jyri asks.

  To give him the whole picture, I tell Jyri about Milo blackbagging Linda’s apartment, about the audio track of the murder and about the video he turned up. Jyri takes it all in.

  “Aside from some bizarre sexual-fetish issues,” I say, “Filippov is a straitlaced guy. His wife was a whore and a constant embarrassment. She refused to have sex with him. She fucked everybody under the sun except him. He had what was apparently a gratifying affair with Linda and got what he needed from her. Iisa became an irrelevant millstone around his neck. Murdering her was both revenge on her and a way of getting what he wanted from the establishment. And also, because of the nature of his and Linda’s fetishes, it got them off.”

  I’m confident that when Iisa was murdered, although he didn’t understand the particulars, Jyri knew that he and other politicians were being set up. He planned to frame Rein Saar to save himself. I’m sure he eased his conscience as Arvid claims Marshal Mannerheim did in regard to Jews. Like Mannerheim, the chief is prepared to throw innocents to the dogs for what he conveniently perceives as the good of the nation. Rein Saar is intended to be a sacrificial lamb.

  We both chain cigarettes off the last ones. “Tell me how you’re going to get me and the others out of this,” Jyri says.

  “The murder was videotaped. More than likely, all of you were also videotaped. And there are your DNA samples. Plus, Iisa Filippov kept a diary. It may contain information damning her husband. If all those things are recovered, it might be possible to cover this up.”

  “Do it,” Jyri says. “I’ll make sure you get all the resources you need. Just do it.”

>   I shake my head. “The thing is, I’m not sure I want to. I won’t let Rein Saar get sent down for a murder he didn’t commit. Filippov has to be convicted of the crime. When he gets his day in court, no matter how much evidence gets buried, all of this is going to come out, and all your careers will be ruined. And, I have to say, you all deserve it.”

  Jyri drums his fingers on the table, thoughtful. “Filippov killed his wife at least partly out of embarrassment. If you recover the fetish videos of him and Linda, I can threaten to release them. I’ll offer to let him commit suicide and leave a confession letter to save himself the humiliation. Given his mind-set, he might take the deal.”

  At first, I have trouble believing he said it. I didn’t realize I was sitting across the table from Machiavelli. If he’ll go that far, I wonder if he would go one step further, fake Filippov’s suicide and have him murdered.

  “I’ll give you anything you want,” he says, “just make this go away.”

  “That’s another problem for you,” I say. “I don’t want anything.”

  He leans toward me. “I’ve been thinking of putting together a black-ops unit. Anti-organized crime. The mandate is to go after criminals by whatever means necessary, to use their own methods against them. No holds barred.”

  “We already have such a group. It’s called SUPO.”

  “There’s a problem with SUPO,” he says. “They don’t work for me.”

  I shake my head again, this time in amusement. “So you want to be some kind of Finnish J. Edgar Hoover.”

  “Yes.”

  This makes me laugh in his face. “No,” I say.

  His face twists so much that he reminds me of a gargoyle. “You think I don’t know you, but I do,” he says. “You suffer from a pathetic need to protect the innocent. You think you’re some kind of a Good Samaritan in a white hat, but you’re not. You’re a rubberhose cop, a thug and a killer, as you’ve demonstrated. You’ll do anything to get what you view as justice. Let me give you an example of how badly we need this kind of unit. Only about a half dozen cops in Helsinki investigate human trafficking. In Finland and the surrounding countries, thousands of gangsters orchestrate the buying and selling of young girls, and hundreds or thousands of those girls pass through this country every year. With our limited legal resources, we can’t possibly make even a dent in the humanslavery industry. Picture all those victims and how many of their bright shiny faces you could save from abject misery, abuse and terror, from being raped time and time again.”

  He’s got something there.

  Jyri senses I’m beginning to be intrigued. “Milo knows black-bag work,” he says. “He’s a genius with great computer skills, and he’s also a killer. He could be your first team-member acquisition. Then you can staff it with whoever you want.”

  “I’m not killing anybody,” I say.

  “I’ll leave that to your discretion.”

  “Milo is a loose cannon and a liability.”

  “Milo is a nervous puppy. He needs a firm hand to guide him. Yours.”

  “It would take a hell of a lot of money,” I say. “Computers. Vehicles. Surveillance gear.”

  “In two weeks, Swedish and Finnish gypsies are going to make a big drug deal for Ecstasy. A hundred and sixty thousand euros will trade hands. You can intercept it and use the money for the beginning of a slush fund.”

  I’m tempted, but not that tempted. “No.”

  Frustration wells up in his face. For a second, I think he’s going to punch me. “I told you I know you, and I do. I can see into your soul. You hate your job. You’re frustrated because you can’t make a difference. You’re a failure. To your dead sister. To Sufia Elmi and her family. To your sergeant Valtteri and his family. To your dead ex-wife. To your dead miscarried twins and, as such, to your wife. To that pathetic school shooter Milo capped. You’re a failure to yourself. You failed everyone you’ve touched, and you’re going to have to save a hell of a lot of people before you can make it up. You’ll take this job to save yourself. I’m offering you everything you ever wanted.”

  He’s worked hard at building a dossier on me to have all this information at his fingertips. He’s been considering me for this position for a long time. “Why me?” I ask.

  “Because of your aforementioned annoying incorruptibility. You don’t want anything. You’re a maniac, but you’re a rock. I can trust you to run this unit without going rogue on me.”

  I’d like to dismiss the idea, but I can’t. “I’ll think about it.”

  He reaches across the table and takes my hand. It shocks me. “No one ever finds out about any of this,” he says. “I’ll organize everything, get you the manpower. This evening, you and Milo oversee while they tear apart Filippov’s and Linda’s apartments and his business. Rip the walls down to the studs with crowbars if you have to, but you find that evidence, show it to me, then burn it.”

  I don’t trust Jyri. I’ll find the evidence and keep it, in case of a contingency, such as betrayal. “Okay,” I say.

  He shakes my hand with both of his. “Fix this for me,” he says, “and run my black-ops unit.”

  I’m not ready to agree yet—I don’t want to give him the satisfaction—but I know that I will.

  38

  ON THE WAY TO PORVOO, Snow and fierce winds batter my Saab, make it hard to keep it on the road. My phone rings. It’s Milo. I don’t answer. It rings again. I don’t recognize the number but answer anyway. “Vaara.”

  “This is the interior minister.”

  I’m feeling a bit flip. “How ya doin’?”

  “I’m fucking pissed off is how I’m doing. You were supposed to bury the Arvid Lahtinen matter. I’m told you now claim he’s a war criminal. That wasn’t what you were instructed to do.”

  What a fucking asshole. “I only repeated what Arvid told me.”

  He screams in my ear. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what that old man says! There are no fucking Finnish war criminals!”

  “In fact,” I say, “that’s not true. Several thousand Finns were accused of war crimes—usually killings of or violence toward POWs, according to the standards of the Nuremberg principles—and hundreds were eventually convicted.”

  He keeps yelling. Louder now. “Listen, fuckwit, I repeat, there are no Finnish war criminals! Get that through your thick head!” He calms down, lowers his voice. “Write the report the way you were told, or I’ll have you fired. You’ll never work as a cop again. We clear?” He rings off.

  I’m not concerned. If he hadn’t hung up on me, I would have told him to fuck himself. His ire doesn’t surprise me. One of the anomalies of Finnish self-understanding, regarding the war, is that these trials have failed to make any impact on the national consciousness whatsoever, and most people would say there are no Finnish war criminals. I suspect most Finns of our generation would be shocked to learn otherwise.

  I’M LOOKING FORWARD to lunch with Arvid and Ritva. I haven’t enjoyed the company of others besides Kate so much in a long time. Arvid opens the door before I knock. He’s been waiting for me.

  “You’re late,” he says.

  Arvid looks tired, seems nervous. Maybe the war-crimes accusations have gotten to him. For the first time since we met, he seems old to me. “I got hung up with a case. Is it a bad time?”

  He points at a snow shovel in the corner of the porch. “Ritva isn’t feeling well. I have to tend to her for a little bit. The boy that shovels snow for us didn’t come today. Could you do it for me?”

  I suppress a smile. He’s treating me like I’m twelve years old. “Sure, I can do it.”

  “Come in and make yourself at home when you’re done.”

  He closes the door.

  It’s minus eighteen, but shoveling his porch and walk only takes about twenty minutes, and I don’t mind doing it for him.

  Afterward, I go inside and take off my boots and coat. He’s got a good blaze going, and I warm up in front of the fireplace. He comes downstairs and sits at the t
able, tells me to join him. I sit across from him.

  “Got any cigarettes?” he asks.

  I lay a pack and a lighter on the table in between us. “I didn’t know you smoke.”

  “I don’t much, but once in a while, I get the yen.”

  He goes to the kitchen, comes back with two cups of coffee and an ashtray. “Son,” he says, “I’m not up to making lunch today. If you’re hungry, I’ll make sandwiches for you.”

  “That’s okay, I don’t much feel like eating.”

  He gives me his appraising look. “How’s your head?”

  “Hurts.”

  “They know what’s causing it yet?”

  “No. I’ll have some tests run soon. What’s wrong with Ritva?” I ask.

  “We suffer from old people’s maladies. She’ll get past it.”

  We share an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. I get the idea he has a lot on his mind and would rather be alone to sort it out. We smoke and drink coffee in silence for a while.

  “Got any interesting cases?” he asks. “I mean, besides mine.”

  I nod. “Some real interesting stuff. I shouldn’t talk about them, though.”

  He forces a smile. “You want to hear all my secrets. You’re going to have to tell me yours if you want to get them. Let an old man vicariously relive his detective years through you.”

  Much like when Arvid told me to call him Ukki, this raises my suspicions about his motivations, and I wonder if he’s looking for information to augment his blackmail strategy. Then I decide, if he is, why not let him? Let the truth prevail. Besides, I can use him for a sounding board. Sometimes articulating problems helps me solve them. I tell him about the Filippov murder, about its bizarre and aberrant circumstances, how in the end it’s come down to a blackmail scam, and that if I can make it go away, I’ll be put in charge of a special black-ops unit.