Lucifer's Tears

by James Thompson

  This was my fear. Jyri will go the obvious route and hang Rein Saar out to dry. “You’d let an innocent man sit for murder?”

  “Do you have a better plan?”

  I think yes, let the truth come out and justice be done. “Not at the moment.”

  “The only other option,” Jyri says, “is to let the case go unsolved. Release Rein Saar on the grounds that he couldn’t have been tased and then murdered Iisa Filippov.”

  This is the lesser of two evils, but unsatisfactory. Ivan Filippov deserves punishment. “What about your precious murharyhmä track record?”

  “An unfortunate necessity.”

  “Because I ruined it, I’ll look like an asshole, like a shitty detective. And it’s not a great start for Milo’s career, either.”

  “True, but on the other hand, you two are both famous hero cops at the moment. Discrediting you and making you disappear would be a way of keeping the black-ops unit secret. I believe the term is sheep-dipping. You go away, then quietly reappear, out of the public eye.”

  And I’m supposed to trust him with this. Not a fucking chance. I make up my mind. One way or another, the murder of Iisa Filippov—whether it’s Iisa, and not Linda, in a cold drawer in the morgue—will be punished. I just still don’t know how to accomplish it. I lie. “Okay, Jyri, we’ll do it your way. I’ll call you later and let you know what Filippov and I work out.”

  “Just buy us some time to find his other mistakes. Make some cockamamie deal, then later, no matter what you agree to, we’ll put the fucks to him.”

  As is Jyri’s habit, he hangs up without saying thank you, fuck you or good-bye.

  I TURN BACK to December Day, think about calling Milo to get his opinion, but decide I don’t want it. I turn my latest conversations with Filippov and Jyri over in my mind, try to find chinks in their armor I can chisel open, but I can’t. My cell phone rings. It’s Arvid.

  “How are you doing?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer straight away, and when he does, his voice cracks. “Son, I’ve been better.”

  Arvid keeps his emotions, except anger, tight. I’m worried. “What’s the matter?”

  “Can you come here? Right away?”

  I look out the window at a blizzard. Snow comes down in a deluge. “I don’t know if I can. The roads might not be passable.”

  “I’m asking you, please.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  Long pause. “It’s Ritva. She’s passed away.”

  It almost brings tears to my eyes. “Jesus, I’m so sorry.”

  “I need you to do her death investigation.”

  “Even if I wanted to, it’s not my jurisdiction.”

  His sigh is long and full of sorrow. “It has to be your jurisdiction. Ritva had bone cancer. I helped her to die. I need you to cover it up.”

  I don’t know what to say, and say nothing.

  “It was her wish,” he says. “I know you can’t just take my word for it. We’ve known this day would come for a long time and planned for it. Ritva wrote you a letter to explain.”

  I still don’t know what to say.

  “Please help me,” Arvid says.

  “Hang tight,” I say. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  43

  THE DRIVE TO PORVOO is treacherous. My Saab slips and slides all over the road, and visibility is nothing. The trip, usually little over half an hour, takes me two hours.

  Arvid ushers me in. He’s wearing his usual starched and pressed pants and his hair is perfectly combed. I get the idea that he made himself as presentable as possible before seeing his wife off to the next world, made their last moments together as special as he could.

  We take our now customary places at his kitchen table. He brings us coffee and cognac. “Let’s drink to her,” he says, and raises his glass.

  I raise mine, too.

  “To Ritva, may she rest in peace,” he says.

  I repeat it after him, and we drink.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” I ask. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

  “Boy, are you going to do me this favor and sign off on her death? I’ll get Ritva’s letter for you.”

  The pain in his voice makes further proofs unnecessary. “I don’t need to see the letter, unless you want me to read it. And of course I’ll help you.”

  “Ritva was eaten up with bone cancer. Her pain got worse and worse, and the days she could even get out of bed were fewer and farther between. In the end, she was in near-constant agony.”

  “Like I said, you don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to.”

  “I want to. She was only seventy-six, but I’m ninety. I do my best, but I’m not strong enough anymore to take care of an invalid. The time came where she had to go to a hospital to die, and she didn’t want to do that. She wanted to die here with me. In our home, and in my arms. So today, we renewed our wedding vows, and I overdosed her with morphine. She fell asleep and passed without feeling any pain.”

  He starts to cry a little. He needs privacy. “Let me go have a look at her,” I say, “just to make sure you didn’t leave any clues somebody might pick up on.”

  He nods.

  I go upstairs and find their bedroom. She’s covered with a sheet. Ritva’s eyes are closed and her arms are folded across her chest. Her hair is done up in a neat bun. I pull back the sheet. She’s wearing a long silk nightgown. I don’t see anything that might cause suspicion of anything but death due to cancer, no reason for an autopsy.

  I go back downstairs. “Everything is fine,” I say. “You did everything just right. Do you want me to call the mortuary now?”

  “Give me a few minutes with her first,” he says.

  I sit by myself for a while. When he comes back, he tells me to make the call. I do, and sit with him while we wait.

  “Tell me about your goings-on with the Filippov case,” Arvid says.

  At this moment, he looks every day of his ninety years. He just lost his life partner of more than fifty years. His face is all grief and pain. I guess he wants to think about something else for a little while.

  I bring him up to speed, tell him that it looks to me like Filippov—protected by the powers that be—will walk away from murdering his wife. If it is his wife and not her half sister. An innocent man may be made a scapegoat and have his life ruined. And I have a feeling I’m going to be hung out to dry and have my career destroyed. I say I have no idea what to say or do when I meet Filippov at Kämp at five, but come hell or high water, I’m determined to convict him.

  “Kämp,” he says. “I used to love that place back in the war years. Great food. I miss that food.”

  “My wife is the general manager of the hotel,” I say. “Come there sometime, I’ll ask her to comp us and we’ll have a nice meal together.”

  “Sounds good,” he says. “But this Filippov case. It’s going south on you. One way or another, you’re going to be the one hurt by it, and the bad guys are all going to walk away like it never happened.”

  I light a cigarette. He takes one, too. “I smoked like a train when I was young,” he says. “Always loved smoking. I’m going to take up the habit again.”

  “Sometimes, Arvid,” I say, “I think these cigarettes are the only things keeping me alive.”

  He stubs out a cigarette, lights another, finishes off his cognac. “You’re a good boy. This situation of yours. We’re going to have to do something about it.”

  I have no idea what he means by “we.” Sometimes I wonder if he’s still whip-smart or mentally feeling the effect of his years. “You have your own problems at the moment.”

  His smile is knowing. The old man has depths I don’t fathom. “Well,” he says, “I guess we better do something about them, too.”

  He switches gears. “You know anything about the Arctic Sea case?” he asks.

  “A little. Why?”

  “The ship the Arctic Sea left Kaliningrad, in Russia, in July of last
year and picked up a little less than two million euros’ worth of wood in Finland. Depending on who you listen to, the ship either was or wasn’t tested for radiation. If it was, the paperwork has disappeared. Shortly after departing Finland, it was hijacked by eight men, supposedly of various nationalities from former Eastern Bloc countries. But the hijackers spoke English to the Russian crew. In this day and age, despite current technology, the ship disappeared. When finally located, the Arctic Sea was three hundred miles off Cape Verde, thousands of miles from its original destination. Who the fuck commits piracy for timber?”

  He seems fascinated by the event. “What’s your interest?” I ask.

  “It’s clear that the ship was loaded with secretly sold nukes, their destination unknown. High-level cover-ups always interest me.”

  The hearse arrives and stops our conversation. I stay with Arvid while he sees Ritva out of the house.

  “You better go,” he says. “With this weather, you won’t make your appointment with that murderous Russian bastard if you don’t.”

  Right now, the Filippov case doesn’t seem so important to me. “Fuck that Russian bastard. I can stay here with you for a while. Or if you want, come and spend the night with me and Kate. The house is a little full at the moment, but we’ll make room.”

  He pats my back. “Thank you, son, but no. This old man needs to be alone for a while.”

  I would, too. I leave him to his memories and his grief.

  44

  I DRIVE BACK TO HELSINKI at a crawl. The migraine snaps on sudden and bad. The white of the snow hurts my eyes. It’s hard to see. I think about poor Arvid, alone after all those years with Ritva. I picture her pretty, dead face. Then a procession of dead faces from childhood forward.

  My sister, Suvi, her panicked dying eyes looking up at me through a sheet of ice on a frozen lake. A slew of murder victims from over the course of my career as a policeman stare at me, judging. Then Sufia Elmi, but she can’t look at me because her eyes are gouged out. My ex-wife, Heli, who can’t look at me because her eyes are burned out. My ex-sergeant, Valtteri, his eyes fishdead, his brain blown out. His son, Heikki, hanging from a basement rafter, his eyes bugged out. Sufia’s father in flames, eyes open wide and angry. Iisa Filippov, if it is Iisa, her face destroyed by cigarette burns and lashings, glares at me with her one remaining eye and demands justice. Legion, his eyes at peace. I see starving and helpless prisoners of war looking up from inside a bomb crater, their eyes imploring. Arvid and my grandpa machine-gun them to death, and a tractor covers the pit with dirt.

  My cell phone rings and breaks my unholy reverie. It’s Milo. I don’t want to answer but do it anyway. “Guess where I am,” he says.

  “No guessing games today. Where are you?”

  “I’m at Meilahti hospital. Guess why.”

  My mood is foul. “What the fuck did I just say?”

  “Jesus, don’t have a cow. Sulo Polvinen’s father took matters into his own hands. He came here and stabbed the bouncers to death in their hospital beds.”

  I can hear the glee in Milo’s voice.

  “He plugged them in their chests with a hunting knife and didn’t even try to escape, just sat down in a chair after he killed the second one and waited to be arrested. He confessed to the attack at the Silver Dollar, too.”

  “He didn’t attack them at the club. Sulo did. I’m sure of it. He confessed to keep Sulo out of prison so he wouldn’t lose a second son.”

  “So? Taisto Polvinen got some justice, after all.”

  I resist the urge to scream at Milo. “Has it occurred to you that Sulo has now lost his brother and his father? His mother lost a son and a husband. He’s going to rot in a cell for ten years for avenging his child.”

  Remorse isn’t Milo’s strong suit. “Well, no, I hadn’t really thought about it, but still. . . .”

  I hang up on him, can’t stand to listen to unadulterated stupidity at the moment. I’m ten minutes away from downtown Helsinki and Hotel Kämp, and I still don’t have a fucking clue how I’m going to deal with Ivan Filippov.

  45

  DESPITE THE COLD AND SNOW, Kämp’s restaurant is bustling. The hotel’s guests, mostly foreign businesspeople, need a place to eat and drink, and it’s easier to do it here than to go out in the cold and snow. Filippov and Linda sit side by side at a window table, he on the inside, she next to the glass. The table next to them is reserved and so unoccupied for the moment. I take a seat across from Filippov. They’re noshing on caviar and drinking Dom Pérignon.

  “It’s a pleasure to see you again,” Linda says. “Ivan, did I tell you how charming the inspector is?”

  “You mentioned it.” Filippov gestures toward the champagne. “Inspector, would you care for a glass? Since dinner is on you, we thought it best to show no restraint.”

  “No, thank you,” I say.

  A waiter takes my drink order. I take kossu and beer.

  “So,” Filippov says, “you have a proposition for me. What is it?”

  I aim for middle ground, just to see if it will work. Jyri was right, I should promise him anything he wants to buy time, but if I seem soft, he’ll smell the lie.

  “The murder goes unsolved,” I say. “You and Linda walk. You get the contracts you felt you were promised. We get the videos.”

  The waiter brings my drinks, and a dozen raw oysters for Filippov and Linda. He takes a break from speaking to chow down, slurps an oyster, dabs his mouth with a linen napkin. “Unacceptable. My wife was brutally murdered. The culprit is Rein Saar. He has to serve a lengthy prison sentence.”

  Strike one. Filippov is negotiating from a position of strength. He won’t compromise.

  “Be reasonable,” I say. “You and Linda murdered your wife, but you’ll go unpunished, and the matter will be forgotten. Saar is innocent. Leave him be.”

  He sticks a finger in my face. “You’re wrong. Saar is guilty. He fucked my wife for two years.” He raises his voice. “My wife! Mine! He deserves prison. He deserves worse. He’s getting off easy.”

  Filippov pauses, slides another oyster down his throat. “As you pointed out last night,” he says, “my wife was a miserable slut. I can’t punish everyone who fucked my wife, but I can punish him. If he and others like him had respected my marriage and kept their hands off my wife, Iisa would still be alive, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The value of punishing Saar is symbolic to me. His incarceration is nonnegotiable.”

  I have to admit, he makes an extreme but compelling argument. I look at Linda, hoping for help, but she only winks at me and chases an oyster with champagne.

  The waiter brings their main courses. We halt our conversation while he sets their plates in front of them. Arvid walks in. My bewilderment mounts. The waiter leaves.

  Arvid walks over to the table and stands beside Filippov.

  “How did you get here?” I ask Arvid.

  “By taxi. Cost me two hundred euros. Is this that Russian bastard?” he asks.

  “That’s him. What are you doing here?”

  He pulls a chair over from the next table and sits next to Filippov. Arvid has on a long overcoat. He shoots the sleeves and shows us the little Sauer suicide pistol that sat on the mantel over his fireplace, only now it has a silencer attached to it. He pulls his sleeve down again to hide it, and jams it against Filippov’s ribs. “As I said earlier,” Arvid says, “fixing our problems.”

  Filippov blinks and licks his lips, confused. He knows something has gone wrong. I do, too, but haven’t the vaguest idea what it is.

  “Old man,” Filippov says, “who the hell are you and what do you want?”

  “Admit that you killed your wife,” Arvid says.

  Filippov shrugs his shoulders. “Okay, I admit it.”

  “Don’t move a goddamned muscle,” Arvid says.

  Filippov senses that Arvid isn’t fucking around. He sits stockupright in his chair and stares straight ahead.

  Arvid takes a wineglass from the ta
ble with his left hand, stands up, and with his right hand presses the pistol against the back of Filippov’s head. Low, where it meets his neck. Arvid smashes the wineglass on the floor and pulls the trigger, simultaneous. He shoots Filippov at the junction of his brain and brain stem, in the same way that Milo shot Legion. It’s obvious that Arvid has done this many times before. Arvid pockets his gun and holds Filippov up so he doesn’t pitch forward onto the table.

  The silencer muffled the sound of the shot and changed its pitch. Diners look around, curious. Arvid goes sheepish and shrugs. His look says, Sorry, folks, I’m just a clumsy and silly old man. They think the sound was only from the breaking wineglass and go back to their conversations. Arvid balances Filippov so he stays upright, and sits down beside him again. Filippov doesn’t look dead, just bored. Arvid’s peashooter didn’t pack enough punch to make a mess. A busboy scurries over, sweeps up the broken glass in ten seconds flat and departs.

  I’m so shocked that I start to giggle. Linda gets up, goes over to Arvid and kisses him on the cheek. “You’ve rather changed my plans,” she says, “but thank you. That was the nicest thing anyone ever did for me. Who are you?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know anymore.”

  She sits down again. “Would someone please explain to me what just happened?”

  “Yeah,” I say, “as soon as I understand it myself.”

  Arvid slides Filippov’s plate over and eyes his dinner. “What was he having?”

  I’ve eaten here a lot and know the menu. “It’s a grilled fillet of beef with haricots verts, mushrooms, caramelized onions and potatoes au gratin. Can you please tell me why you just killed a man?”

  He takes a place setting, cuts a slice of beef and digs in. “You were going to get fucked by this murder investigation. Now, your killer is apprehended, but unfortunately unable to stand trial. You solved the crime and closed the case.”

  Arvid helps himself to Dom Pérignon. I knock back my kossu. I need it. Filippov remains upright. His eyes are open, staring at me like the dead I imagined earlier on my drive here. Sooner or later, he’ll pitch forward. We don’t have much time. I turn to Linda. “Who are you?” I ask.