Helsinki Homicide: Nothing but the Truth

by Jarkko Sipila

  Suhonen hadn’t seen any movement in the house. The Mazda was still parked in the driveway.

  He heard some rustling behind him and whirled around. Turunen was advancing in a crouch, while Joutsamo and Kulta were lagging back. Suhonen motioned for Turunen to get down on all fours. He didn’t intend to be the only one to get wet, even if all the SWAT officers had waterproof gear.

  Turunen covered the final thirty feet scrambling along the ground. “What’s the status?”

  “The wood house there. No sign of life.”

  “Any dogs?”

  “No barking. Not sure otherwise.”

  Turunen drew a pair of binoculars from a case strapped to his back and quietly surveyed the house. The binoculars were military-grade with a built-in laser rangefinder. “Doesn’t seem to be any security cameras, though nowadays they can be small enough to hide just about anywhere.” He read the license plate on the Mazda. “That match what our witness said?”

  “No idea,” Suhonen answered.

  Turunen switched on his headset. “Joutsamo. Here’s the plate,” and he read the number. Joutsamo confirmed the match.

  “Hold on a sec. Let me call Takamäki for the go-ahead,” said Joutsamo. Conducting a raid without probable cause was not a mistake they wanted to make. Takamäki could give them the green light.

  Turunen kept his binoculars trained on the house as he dispensed orders to his men. Almost everyone was already in position.

  “Turunen,” Joutsamo’s voice came over the earpiece. “The matching plate is all we needed. It’s

  a go.”

  “Good. Two minutes till showtime. Everyone in position?”

  The other officers checked in over the radio.

  “Look!” Suhonen rasped. A faint wisp of smoke rose from the chimney of the house.

  “Someone’s inside.”

  “Or we got a new pope,” said Suhonen. “Though I’m more interested in what they’re burning.”

  * * *

  Korpi and Siikala sat round the fireplace, a few fresh newspapers burning under the grate, the flames just beginning to work their way through a pile of birch splits. Beads of sweat glistened on Korpi’s bald head.

  Siikala bent down and blew into the stack, keeping his ponytail away from the mounting flames. Smoke wafted into the room.

  The fireplace was situated in a small room on the first floor. For the most part, the interior looked just as dated as the building, with its old sofa, television, bookcase and a broken grandfather clock. A rag rug lay on the worn hardwood floor and pale, sun-faded floral curtains hung in front of the windows.

  Both Korpi and Siikala had a sheet of paper and pen in hand. No notepads, since the cops could discern what had been written by the indentations on the lower sheets. Korpi had forbidden speaking because of the possibility of microphones. Speech was only allowed in the most random of places where it would be impossible to plant a mike.

  Siikala scratched out a message and showed it to Korpi: Should I ditch the car?

  No need, Korpi scribbled. I didn’t do nothing.

  Nyberg’s in jail!

  His problem. He won’t talk.

  Sure?

  Korpi nodded as he tossed his sheet into the fire. Siikala did the same, pushing them around with the poker enough that no forensic scientist could ever discern anything from the ashes.

  Korpi’s philosophy was simple: leave no trace. Speaking out loud was a great way to wind up on tape. Since phones left a digital trail, they were only used in emergencies; and even then, only on anonymous phones with new, prepaid SIM cards. Korpi even took to wearing Levi’s since reading that their fibers were too common for the police to use as evidence.

  Korpi had structured his organization so that only he understood its entirety. Siikala routed the domestic drug traffic, while Nyberg and Matti Ahola were mainly debt collectors. Ahola was also responsible for hiding the inventory. Beyond that, there was the import racket, but that was for Korpi to run himself. Each of his men knew only his own role, and nothing more.

  Though Siikala, Nyberg and Ahola knew each other, only Korpi knew the entire organization. The trio’s minions weren’t even aware that Korpi was the man in charge, though naturally many had heard rumors. But for every weak link he could think of, Korpi had a safeguard.

  Siikala thought Nyberg had made a surprisingly dumb move, but it was none of his business. Nyberg could run his own crew as he saw fit, though he wondered why Korpi had been behind the wheel during the hit.

  Korpi rubbed his bald head. “You want coffee?” he said without expecting an answer. The coffeemaker had recently sputtered out its last few drops, and Korpi was the one that wanted some. He was on his way to the kitchen when the front door smashed open.

  “Police!” boomed a voice from the door.

  * * *

  Officer Dahlman repeated the warning. “Police!”

  When raiding a gang’s hideout, it was wise to make it very clear who was entering. From the gangsters’ standpoint, the game the cops played was fair, at least at the outset. The cops weren’t out to kill, but the same could not be said of rival criminals.

  The SWAT officers wore composite helmets and black masks. Their eyes were protected with shatterproof goggles.

  “On the floor! Hands on your heads!”

  The first officer through the door, the point man, was wielding a big, black ninety-pound ballistic shield heavy enough to stop a handgun bullet. A small window in the middle of the shield was reinforced with bulletproof Plexiglass. Just after the point man was Dahlman, holding a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun in firing position. The shield provided good cover in the narrow entryway. Just behind Dahlman were two other SWAT officers.

  The men stayed in a tight stack behind the shield. Only the barrel of Dahlman’s gun jutted out from the side.

  “In the entryway,” Dahlman barked over the radio. “We’re moving in.”

  “OK,” said Turunen. The units outside had to be aware of where the team was in the house, so they wouldn’t accidentally fire on fellow cops through the windows.

  Dahlman heard the dog bark behind him a few times—a message to those in the house that fleeing was futile.

  The shield bearer advanced to the entrance of the living room. Dahlman noted the empty room and the fire in the fireplace, then spurred the shield bearer onward.

  “Living room clear. We’re heading into the kitchen toward the stairs.”

  “Copy.”

  The shield bearer pressed on toward the kitchen with a shuffling gait. His left foot always led, the right coming just abreast with every step. In this stance he was always ready to withstand a blow, and the shield came in handy for forcing a suspect up against a wall.

  “We’re entering the kitchen,” Dahlman reported. “Let’s go.”

  The shield bearer inched through the doorway, and when the shield was halfway through, he saw a man sitting at the table. “Suspect in sight,” he rasped, still moving forward. Dahlman pushed the machine gun barrel between the door jamb and the shield.

  “Police! On the ground!” he shouted, but the man at the table didn’t move. That’s when Dahlman noticed a second man sitting on the opposite side of the table.

  Both appeared to be drinking coffee.

  “Get on the ground!” Dahlman shouted, again with no result. The men sat motionless, not even glancing toward the door. Dahlman recalled a training scenario in which a deaf man couldn’t hear their commands. He quickly eliminated that possibility, since he could see their mouths moving and hear them talking.

  “Can’t a man drink coffee in his own house,” said the bald one, whom Dahlman recognized as Risto Korpi, their prime target. The other man laughed.

  “Get your hands in the air!”

  Korpi turned his head toward the door and asked in a calm voice, “With or without the coffee cup?”

  Dahlman kept the dangerous one in the crosshairs. The shield bearer stayed in the middle of the passageway while another sha
rpshooter rounded to his other side. The situation seemed to be under control, but Dahlman paused for half a second before answering, “Put the cup down and your hands on your head.”

  Korpi took a final gulp of coffee before lowering his cup to the table. “What seems to be the problem, officer?” he asked with a doe-eyed stare. “Here we are, having a nice cup of coffee and the Gestapo barges in.”

  “Shut up and put your hands on your head!”

  Korpi complied with a wry smile. “Well, for chrissakes. The whole SWAT team and everything.”

  Dahlman knew his partner on the other side of the room had his MP5 trained on the second man, so he kept his eyes riveted to his target. A quick glance was enough to tell him that the man was Jere Siikala. Dahlman prodded the shield bearer forward enough that he was able to squeeze into the kitchen.

  “Keep your hands where they are,” he shouted, advancing about six feet toward Korpi. With his finger nuzzling the trigger, Dahlman hoped the blowhard would stop provoking them with those sips of coffee. One sudden movement could trigger a bloodbath.

  Dahlman wanted to minimize the risks. The suspects, though outmanned and outgunned, were extremely dangerous. He came around behind Korpi, and with his wing man behind Siikala, gave a nod and they jerked the chairs backwards.

  Korpi reeled back and crashed to the floor before Dahlman flung him onto his stomach, drove his shoulders into the floor with his knees and slapped the cuffs round his right wrist first, then his left, the backs of his hands trapped against one another.

  Just as quickly, the wing man cuffed Siikala, while the shield bearer and the fourth man in the stack covered the stairs leading to the second level.

  “Anyone else in the house?” Dahlman asked the men, but neither responded.

  He repeated the question, but when silence prevailed, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a black hood, and pulled it over Korpi’s head. The others hooded Siikala in the same way.

  “Two suspects in custody in the kitchen,” Dahlman said over the radio. “We’re going upstairs.”

  Dahlman signaled for the fourth man in the stack to stand watch over the two suspects on the floor. The others would continue on up the stairs.

  * * *

  Korpi could feel the pitted hardwood floors through the coarse hood against his cheek. His wrists were throbbing. The pig had slammed the cuffs on him so hard that his fingers were beginning to tingle from lack of circulation.

  The awkward position compelled him to relax, as tensing up only made him more uncomfortable.

  He knew Siikala was lying on the other side of the table, though he couldn’t see a thing. From the sounds in the room, he could tell one of the officers had stayed back to stand guard while the others went upstairs with that shield-wielding shithead.

  Korpi had little appreciation for cops, but he felt a certain respect for the SWAT team’s approach: cold and professional. He had no doubt they would have shot him at the first sudden movement. Their protocol was utterly controlled and predictable. Every man knew his task. Nothing like the bungled jobs of strung-out criminals that only ended in needless corpses and life sentences. Korpi decided he’d need a hit squad just like the SWAT team. One capable of the most demanding jobs. Maybe he could even piggyback on their reputation, their uniforms, their sinister presence. It would shock his rivals, at least.

  But how in the hell had they found him so quickly? Not that it was much of a surprise. His working assumption, after all, was that he was under constant surveillance. Had the cops rented the house next door? Was there a bug in the wall? But that was an issue for another time. Korpi was more interested in why, and he couldn’t think of any other reason than Nyberg’s hit job.

  He worried briefly about it, but the worry faded quickly. Either someone had talked, or the cops knew about his connection to Nyberg from previous surveillance.

  “Jesus,” he groaned. “Getting gangrene over here. Your boss put these cuffs on too tight. Can’t you loosen ’em up a bit?”

  His wrists were throbbing and drool was spilling out of the corner of his mouth onto the hood.

  The cop in black didn’t react in the slightest. No compassion, thought Korpi. Just like the TV images of American soldiers with Iraqi POWs.

  “Relax a little, will ya?” said Korpi. The cop didn’t. Korpi pictured the barrel of the MP5 sweeping back and forth between Siikala and himself before deciding to take his own advice.

  * * *

  Suhonen and Turunen were still lying low in the woods. “Nobody upstairs,” came Dahlman’s voice over the radio. “House is clear.”

  As he stood up, Turunen nodded at Suhonen. “We can go in now.”

  Suhonen struggled to his feet, his right arm now numb. His pants and jacket were soaked. “Good, but I think I’ve had enough fun.”

  “You’re not coming in?”

  “Nah,” said Suhonen, wiping the mud and leaves off his jacket. “Gotta go find you guys some more work.”

  Joutsamo caught up to the two. “Should we

  go in?”

  “Let’s go.”

  Turunen noticed the gentle way Joutsamo patted Suhonen on the shoulder. He could have used a pat too.

  Joutsamo and Turunen covered the distance to the house quickly. On the way, Joutsamo notified Takamäki of the arrests and requested that Forensics inspect the house.

  A few SWAT officers had filtered out of the woods toward the house. “I want the whole place taped off along the property lines,” shouted Turunen. Kannas and the Forensics team would have to comb the lot for footprints. If the rain didn’t get any heavier, they might still be able to find some around the Mazda.

  Joutsamo considered whether she should go in. Inside, there was the possibility of tarnishing any potential prints, but a quick breeze-through could also turn up something to go on. In the end, curiosity prevailed and she asked Turunen to wait outside. Joutsamo mounted the short flight of stairs to the front door, drew a pair of blue plastic booties from her pocket and slipped them over her shoes. Once inside, the smell of smoke mingled with a stuffy odor. Either the house had mold issues or it hadn’t been cleaned or ventilated properly.

  The narrow entryway led into the living room, where Korpi and Siikala had been moved. Four SWAT officers were standing guard.

  “What should we do?” asked Dahlman as Joutsamo came into the room.

  “Let’s take ’em in.”

  Korpi protested from beneath his hood. “Uhh…on what grounds?”

  “You’re suspected of murdering Tomi Salmela.”

  “Who’s that? And who killed him?”

  Joutsamo stopped in front of Korpi. A sharp kick in the ribs would do the scumbag some good, but the sergeant let him be. “We’ll talk about it at the station,” she said.

  When Korpi launched into a whistled rendition of Leevi and the Leavings’ “Would you shed tears of joy,” Joutsamo recognized the verse.

  “Would you shed tears of joy, if I banged you right and proper?”

  With a smirk, she made up the next verse, “The whole damn town surrounded, the culprits in the hopper.”

  The SWAT guys were amused.

  “Let’s take these leavings downtown in separate cars,” ordered Joutsamo.

  Dahlman nodded to the others and they dragged the suspects to their feet. “You searched ’em, right?”

  One of the SWAT officers who’d been standing guard the entire time nodded. “When we moved ’em out of the kitchen.”

  Joutsamo glanced into the fireplace where the flames from a couple of logs were dying down. Nothing else of interest in the living room.

  She continued on into the kitchen. It wasn’t very big. There were dirty dishes piled in the sink. A faded photograph of what was perhaps a ten-year-old boy fishing off the dock on a sunny summer day was taped to the window. Judging by the boy’s clothing, the photo was taken sometime in the eighties. He didn’t look like Korpi, so apparently the photo was part of the old woman’s estate. Strange sense of hum
or for Korpi to just leave the pusher’s picture there. Or maybe it just never occurred to him to

  move it.

  Joutsamo looked out the window toward Suhonen’s stakeout spot. It was far enough away that she wouldn’t be able to make out anyone from here. Nice spot, she thought.

  She inspected the downstairs bathroom, but nothing in particular caught her attention. She continued up the stairs to find a couple of bedrooms and a small chamber lined with bookshelves. The bedrooms proved uninteresting and the only remarkable item in the chamber was the computer, but Joutsamo left it alone. That was for the pros.

  Hmm, thought Joutsamo. No bodies, no dope, nothing. She hadn’t expected to find much, but of course there was some disappointment in raiding what appeared to be an empty house. Perhaps Kannas’ men could turn up something.

  CHAPTER 8

  MONDAY, 4:00 P.M.

  PASILA POLICE HEADQUARTERS

  Korpi sat dressed in green coveralls in a bare, windowless interrogation room. The vents hummed. A computer and recording equipment rested on a worn veneer table. There were four chairs, two of which were empty. Joutsamo was seated opposite Korpi. Mikko Kulta was standing behind Joutsamo puffing on a cigarette.

  “Shall we begin?” said Joutsamo as she pressed the record button. She recited the date and time. “Risto Korpi, you’re being held under suspicion of the murder of Tomi Salmela, which took place yesterday afternoon. This is a preliminary interview. Do you have anything you’d like to say?”

  Korpi started whistling the same Leevi and the Leavings song.

  “That was funny once. Not anymore.”