Snow Woman

by Leena Lehtolainen

  “Elina. She was an amazing therapist. I started individual sessions in December too, but . . .” Niina shrugged. The casual gesture made her mass of hair tremble.

  I wondered what Niina was seeing a therapist for, so I took the liberty of asking.

  “Depression. Abandonment complex. Lack of a healthy self-image. It started when Mom died. Everything happened so fast: when they diagnosed her with cancer, it had already spread to her liver, pancreas, spleen, and lungs. Three months later it was all over. My world just fell apart. How did Kari, my old therapist, say it? The stars spiraled out of their orbits and the whole world looked different.”

  A therapist who talked about stars spiraling out of their orbits. It made me think of Madman Malmberg. Then I remembered that Niina had tried to discover Elina’s whereabouts by looking at her horoscope. Maybe the expression was just a figure of speech from an enthusiastic astrology buff. I asked Niina about her previous therapists. Maybe one of them could tell me whether Niina was potentially aggressive.

  “First I saw the psychologist at the health center here in Tapiola, but he was kind of dull. He just listened and nodded but never gave me any answers. Then I went to the Student Health Service: same thing. After that I got mixed up with Scientology for a while. That was the summer after Mom’s death. I didn’t have any money and wanted to sell some of the stock I inherited from her to pay for my first course with them, but Dad stepped in. Thankfully. Those guys are a bunch of crazies.”

  I nodded, thinking of the many insincere do-gooders who preyed on the sick and lonely by promising beauty, health, and money. How people found their bliss was all the same to me. Let them believe in benevolent beings in UFOs or healing rocks, just so long as they didn’t try to manipulate and scam other people too. About ten years before, I’d made the mistake of taking a Scientology personality test. Based on their test they said I was in urgent need of “auditing.” Fortunately I had the sense to decline that honor.

  “Then I found astrology at the Spirit and Knowledge Fair,” Niina continued. “I’ve always been interested in horoscopes. I think they make a lot of sense. They aren’t bogus like some people think. They’re a way to take control of your life and help other people. I have my own call-in number now and do readings for people. That’s a kind of therapy too. But I’m not nearly as good as Kari. He has a degree in psychology too.”

  “Kari who?”

  “My last therapist before Elina. Kari Hanninen. He’s an astrotherapist. He combines astrology and brief therapy.” That sounded suspiciously like Malmberg’s therapist. I had seen the man in court, and he seemed seriously full of shit, a first-class manipulator. In fairness, his analysis of Malmberg’s mental state had lined up pretty well with the statement from the psychiatrists who conducted the official examination. Hanninen, however, gussied up his own diagnosis with all kinds of astrology BS. Because Malmberg was a Scorpio, by nature he harbored destructive energy. This, combined with a difficult childhood, had ensured his development into a psychopath. I had been a little surprised that the defense had called on Hanninen to testify, both because of his diagnosis and how crazy he sounded.

  “Why did you leave Kari Hanninen for Elina?” I asked.

  “Well, because Kari only does brief therapy, and our ten sessions were already done. He did offer to be available for me and to help me interpret star charts if I needed.”

  I wondered whether the Finnish Psychological Association allowed someone who practiced such a unique brand of therapy on its list of recommended providers. Maybe Kari Hanninen would be worth a phone call once I got back from Johanna’s village.

  “I guess I need to look for a new therapist now,” Niina said quietly. The sorrow in her eyes was genuine. “Elina’s death was a little like losing my mother again. I guess that’s what I was looking for in her, a mother figure to replace the one I lost.”

  According to my calculations, Niina was at least twenty years old when she lost her mother. Maybe losing a parent was traumatic no matter how old you were. The relationship between a child and a parent was lifelong—or even longer, I guessed, since it lasted until both parties were dead. My own future flashed before my eyes again, immediately followed by fear of what I was getting into. Fortunately my job was to ask people about their business rather than having to think about my own.

  “Since we talked last, have you thought of anything that might help us figure out what happened to Elina?” I asked.

  Shaking her head, Niina repeated the same account of the events of that Boxing Day evening. The only new thing she said was that she’d listened to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio on her headphones lying in bed before going to sleep. She seemed interested in discussing what might have happened to Elina, but perhaps more eager to learn what the police knew than to help solve the case.

  From the Cultural Center, I walked to the nearby mall and bought a ticket for the sleeper train to Oulu. Maybe the local cops could give me a ride to the village of Karhumaa. I’d have to call and ask. The idea that Milla and Aira were mistaken and Elina had actually met with Leevi Säntti seemed more appealing by the minute. I knew I was seriously biased—I could just imagine the slick traveling preacher duded up in his shiny suit threatening old ladies with hellfire if they didn’t stop watching their soaps.

  Niina Kuusinen was hard to figure out though. Tarja Kivimäki thought Niina’s problems were just for show, but to me, Niina seemed genuinely messed up. Hopefully the stars would bring her brighter times.

  I had barely made it back on the road in my car when my cell phone rang. I didn’t usually drive and talk at the same time, but I answered anyway. Maybe they’d nailed Malmberg.

  “It’s Ström. You don’t need to worry about Malmberg anymore. We know where he is. He’s barricaded himself in an abandoned cabin in Nuuksio, and he has a hostage. He grabbed Palo on his way back from picking up sedatives from the doctor.”

  9

  Nuuksio was no longer quiet. The main road wasn’t closed, but a uniformed police patrol—a couple of guys from our department—guarded the lane leading to the cabin where Malmberg was holed up. They only let me through after I explained exactly why I was there.

  The cabin was deep in the forest on the bank of a small pond. It was only about a mile from Rosberga Manor. Why was Malmberg in Nuuksio? Did he know the owner of the cabin?

  There were fewer police cars at the cabin than I had assumed there would be and no hovering helicopters or military vehicles. But almost everyone had a weapon out. I saw Ström, Taskinen, and Pihko in the crowd. Ström was smoking and Pihko was wearing a helmet. I asked the nearest uniformed officer for permission to approach them. The cop, a nervous-looking kid, led me to them along a path formed by cars and sandbags. Taskinen was on the phone in a heated conversation. It seemed to be related to bringing in more backup. When he saw me he came over. For a second I was sure he was going to hug me, but then he froze and turned back to his call.

  “Do you want a vest and helmet?” Pihko asked without saying hello.

  I nodded, and he went to get them. I asked Ström what happened.

  “Taskinen ordered Palo to see a doctor. I guess he thought Palo needed some sick leave. He’s been totally panicked over this Malmberg thing. But the doc says Palo didn’t want a break; he asked for sedatives. Malmberg must’ve followed Palo when he left the police station. Apparently he broke into Palo’s car and was waiting in the backseat when Palo came out of the doctor’s office. He told Palo to drive here, and then they called us.”

  “Has anyone talked to Palo? Are you sure he’s still alive?” I asked.

  “He was fifteen minutes ago, and we haven’t heard any shots. Hopefully his heart can handle this. He had a pretty bad arrhythmia a couple of years ago.” Ström was trying to adopt his usual cold, cynical, who-gives-a-shit tone, but it wasn’t working. I could hear the rage and fear under his façade. He was smoking an unbroken chain of cigarettes,
although he was having trouble holding the lighter. Pihko brought me the bulletproof vest and helmet, which I put on.

  Malmberg had chosen his hideout well. The single-story log cabin was situated along a narrow forest road. Someone had cut the brush back from the pond so that the view was unobstructed, and there were clear lines of sight from each window. To the left of the cabin was a sauna with a window that faced the road as it curved away toward the base of a craggy, forested hill. A good shooter could cover someone moving toward the cabin from almost any direction.

  Still, Malmberg’s position was hopeless. Why had he drawn attention to himself by taking a hostage? Was revenge really the main thing he was after?

  “Has he made any demands?” I asked Ström.

  “The usual. Money and a car. He says he has a cache of weapons and explosives in the cabin. He might be serious. He’s been out of jail long enough to stockpile them.”

  “Sure,” I said. “But he killed his father with a saw, not a gun. And he doesn’t have much of a history with gun crimes. Usually he uses a knife or his fists. But that may not matter in this situation. Do we know who owns the cabin?”

  “An elderly couple from Helsinki. We’re trying to reach them now. We haven’t found any connection between them and Malmberg, but you know places like this. They’re usually empty during the winter, so breaking in is easy.”

  Having finally finished his phone call, Taskinen walked over to us. His eyes looked anguished; the gray was several shades darker than usual. The skin on his face was stretched like a mask and lacked all color despite the cold air.

  “Maria. You didn’t need to come,” he said, extending his hand and touching me on the shoulder like a shy teenager.

  “Where else was I supposed to go? It’s just the luck of the draw that it isn’t me in there instead of Palo,” I said.

  Finally saying out loud what I’d been thinking the whole drive over, I started to crack. I wanted to cry and scream, but the cold had frozen the tears deep inside me. Something was constricting my throat, preventing the sound from escaping. Only my legs weren’t frozen. They had turned as soft as newly fallen snow and could barely hold me up.

  “Maria? Are you OK?” Although Taskinen’s face was close, his voice sounded far away. He grabbed my shoulders, trying to calm the uncontrollable shaking that had me in its grip. The visor of my helmet fell over my face, and I didn’t bother to lift it when I pressed it against Taskinen’s shoulder. His embrace felt almost desperate, and I realized he needed human touch right now as much as I did.

  The sound of vehicles approaching interrupted the moment, and we both looked up. Something red and shiny appeared behind the blue-and-white police vans. A fire engine—two, in fact.

  “I don’t know if it’s smart to pile so many troops in here. I’m afraid the situation will only get worse if we have helicopters flying around and Special Forces climbing in the trees. Not to mention TV and the newspapers.” Taskinen groaned when he noticed the news van trying to squeeze through the road barriers.

  He picked up his phone again. “Didn’t we agree to keep the media at a distance for now?” he snapped and then turned to me. “Luckily I won’t have to decide. The big boss men will be here soon. But we don’t need another Huohvanainen or Larha. We were all at Hirsala when that happened, Ström, Palo, and me. You wouldn’t believe how fast things went to hell. And this time we’ve got one of our own in there.”

  “But what were we supposed to do in Hirsala?” Ström demanded. “Were they just supposed to let Huohvanainen go on shooting at cops? Were they supposed to let him get away? I’m so goddamn sick of listening to bleeding hearts criticizing cops for doing their jobs!”

  Ström’s familiar bluster made me feel somehow safe. It shifted things back into their usual place so that the world looked almost normal again. I felt my leg muscles begin working and my voice coming back.

  “The most important thing is to get Palo out of there in one piece. Who’s leading the operation?” I said.

  “The county police have already claimed jurisdiction. Since you’re here now, you could stay with them once they show up. You interrogated Malmberg with Palo, so you know him a little and how much he hates the two of you. They should probably include you when they plan how to proceed.” Taskinen hesitated a moment and then added: “If you’re up to staying.”

  “Of course,” I said. “But I have to call Antti before he hears on the radio that Malmberg took one of us hostage.”

  Although we’d met during a murder investigation—Antti had been one of the suspects—and he was used to my police routine by now, he still struggled with the danger involved. Antti knew I threw myself into my work and that I sometimes took risks I shouldn’t. Antti was frequently more afraid for me than I was for myself. That was obviously the case this time. He was furious when I told him what was happening.

  “Get the hell out of there!” he yelled. “Doesn’t he want to kill you too? Let me talk to Taskinen right now!”

  “I won’t be in the line of fire,” I said calmly.

  “You can’t do anything there!”

  “I know. But I’m not leaving until someone kicks me out. Which will probably happen. They’ll call in SWAT and the Guard, and then they won’t have much use for us regular cops.” I was surprised by how bitter I sounded. I guess all the negative talk in the past few years about itchy police trigger fingers had affected us all.

  I was a newly minted academy grad when two SWAT team members opened fire during a hostage situation in Mikkeli. No sooner had that brouhaha died down than the Larha and Huohvanainen incidents happened, and then the poor kid in Vesala who pointed a toy gun at the police when they tried to arrest him for robbing a taxi driver. People had accused both sides of being too trigger happy.

  Around the same time, the army had started admitting women and the government was filling the sky with expensive new fighter jets. Gun clubs and mock combat training for civilians were suddenly in vogue. I wasn’t the only one who wondered if all of this was connected, if society was turning more violent in general. When I was a teenager, the boys were writing long epistles to avoid the draft. We were part of the generation that actually believed the slogans we shouted at peace marches. A lot of my friends thought I’d gone over to the dark side when I enrolled in the police academy, but even I never could have predicted the obsession with guns and the military in recent years.

  Ström had once asked me whether I would have gone into the army if I’d been young enough. I wasn’t sure how to answer, although of course I should have expressed a clear, pointed opinion. Although I probably wouldn’t have joined. I guess I didn’t think participating in stupid things thought up by men had much to do with the fight for equality. And my militarism only went about as far as jogging to “Rock the Casbah.” But here I was freezing in Nuuksio now, wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet and wondering whether I could shoot the fugitive who had kidnapped my colleague.

  County Police Commissioner Jäämaa arrived, and although Taskinen had brought him up to speed on the phone, he wanted to review the course of events again. Apparently the detective chief superintendent from the Ministry of the Interior was of the opinion that because the situation had a direct bearing on the credibility of the entire nation’s police force, they should initiate a large-scale operation to get Palo out alive. I knew what those grandiose words meant: the SWAT team, helicopters, and maybe even armored personnel carriers. Everything that Taskinen had feared.

  “How’ve you been keeping in touch with Malmberg?” Commissioner Jäämaa asked.

  “He called us on Palo’s cell phone. He hasn’t responded to any of our return calls, but there’s nothing stopping you from trying again,” Taskinen replied. Beneath his official tone lay a thread of anger. I suspected he was having a hard time handing over command.

  “We reached the daughter of the couple who own the cabin,” Taskinen
continued. “She said her parents spend the winter in Spain, so they may be hard to contact. According to her, the cabin has a fireplace and an oil stove that should be operational. There’s no electricity, but there are candles and a couple of flashlights. The daughter says the pantry is stocked with cans of food. We haven’t seen any smoke from the chimney, so Malmberg must be using the stove for heating.”

  Unlike the Hirsala hostage situation, we couldn’t cut the electricity because there wasn’t any. Dark would be coming soon, and the county teams were already setting up floodlights. The smell of coffee wafted from an open car window, and to my astonishment I realized I was hungry.

  Taskinen related Malmberg’s background to the county commissioner, who said he’d already been in contact with the central prison. Malmberg’s threats of breaking out and exacting revenge had come up several times, the commissioner said.

  “Malmberg had a therapist. Would it be worth contacting him?” I asked and couldn’t help mumbling, “We don’t want to repeat all the Hirsala mistakes.”

  “Who are you?” Commissioner Jäämaa asked rudely.

  Taskinen told him before I could open my mouth, and the commissioner said he would like to have a word with me in his car. But first he was going to try to contact Malmberg.

  “Be our guest,” Pihko groused once the commissioner was out of earshot. “Does anyone else need grub? I’ll get it. Isn’t there a store on the highway?”

  “Pick up a microwave and extra long johns while you’re at it,” Ström said.

  Standing in the middle of the forest waiting for something to happen felt unreal. Waiting had always been hard for me. I was used to acting, often without much forethought. I couldn’t help speculating about what I’d be doing right now if it were me in there instead of Palo. But it was pointless. I only knew the broad outlines of the situation, not details such as how Malmberg was armed. But I did know that he was acting alone. It was just Malmberg and Palo in the cabin. And it was all too easy to imagine how scared Palo was. He was a cop, so he knew how situations like this usually ended. From watching TV you might think it was a simple matter of sending a sniper scampering down the chimney to tap the bad guy between the eyes.