Helsinki Homicide: Against the Wall

by Jarkko Sipila

“Sorry for calling in the middle of the night,” said a man’s voice. “But it says here that I’m supposed to notify you.”

  “About what?” asked Takamäki. He had walked into the hallway and was looking out the window. The ground was still white, but road conditions seemed to be improving. The townhouse complex was quiet.

  “Right, sorry. This is Saarelainen from the Border Guard at the Helsinki Airport,” he introduced himself. “We have a man who just went through passport control, and we’ve been directed to notify you if he tries to leave the country.”

  Takamäki was puzzled—he didn’t remember making such a request.

  “Which one are we talking about?” Takamäki asked, as though he had made several of them.

  “Ilari Petteri Lydman,” the official said and read off the birth date.

  Takamäki wondered if Joutsamo had filed the request. Or maybe Suhonen.

  “Where’s he going?”

  “He’s on the 3:20 to Bangkok.”

  Takamäki rubbed his face, his brain sluggish after having been wrenched from sleep. Lydman and Saarnikangas were somehow connected. Right, and it was Suhonen who suspected Lydman’s involvement in the murder.

  Why was Lydman going to Thailand? Had he planned the trip in advance or was he on the run?

  “So,” the border guard continued. “What should we do? Let him on the plane?”

  “Does Lydman know he’s been flagged?”

  “No. The official at passport control let him through, then notified us. He won’t go anywhere from the transit hall, especially since there aren’t any other departures before the Bangkok flight.”

  Takamäki was still thinking. Thailand wasn’t a problem per se, since extradiction of criminals back to Finland was easy. On the other hand, Lydman could get to just about any place in the world from the Bangkok airport. That could pose a problem, especially if he held a second passport.

  “Uhh,” Takamäki hesitated. “I’ll have to consult with my investigators. Can you give me your number, and I’ll call you back?”

  The border guard gave him the number. As soon as the call ended, Takamäki made another. This number was on speed dial, and the phone rang three times before someone answered.

  “Suhonen,” drawled a groggy voice.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Good. I was just woken up, too. Did you file a request with the Border Guard to have them notify me if Lydman leaves the country?”

  “Yeah… Uhh, yes,” Suhonen said, a little more clearly now. “I forgot to tell you last night.”

  “On what basis?” Takamäki asked, though he knew the question was useless.

  “I thought Lydman might be a key player. By the way, I filed the same request for Saarnikangas. Is Lydman going somewhere?”

  “Yeah. The 3:20 flight to Bangkok.”

  He heard a muffled rustling on the other end. Takamäki guessed that Suhonen was looking at the clock on his phone.

  “So he’s waiting to board his flight right now,” Takamäki offered.

  Suhonen figured the lieutenant wanted his input on whether Lydman should be let on the plane or not. He was torn: Lydman’s significance to the case had lessened now that they had Markkanen in their sights. On the other hand, Lydman was about to fly halfway around the world, and wouldn’t be missed if he was sitting in jail instead. They could keep him a while before word got out.

  “I think we should bring him in.”

  “Do we have grounds for that?”

  “Well, he’s been seen with Saarnikangas a couple times in the past few days, so at least Joutsamo can question him about that.”

  “Should we bring Saarnikangas in at the same time?”

  Suhonen thought for a second. “That’s an option, of course, but maybe not yet. Let’s see what happens tomorrow, at least.”

  “How’d it go last night? Anything new?”

  “Not really. Just trying to make heads or tails of it all,” Suhonen replied with a smirk.

  “Listen, Suhonen. Up till now this has been your case, but we need to talk about how to move forward.”

  “Yeah,” Suhonen said. “Of course, of course.”

  “Especially now that we’re arresting Lydman. At this point, he’ll be charged with murder, right?”

  “Yeah, looks like accessory to murder to me,” Suhonen said. “That’ll give us some ammo for the interrogations.”

  “Okay, I’ll ask the Border Guard to take him into custody, and we’ll bring him to Pasila in the morning. We’ll have a meeting first thing at nine, then.”

  “Alright.”

  “Well,” Takamäki smirked. “Try to get a few winks over there in the middle of that Kallio ruckus.”

  “I’ll try.” Suhonen hung up and buried his head in the lush Hotel Katajanokka pillows.

  FRIDAY

  NOVEMBER 28

  CHAPTER 23

  LINDSTRÖM’S APARTMENT,

  TEHDAS STREET, HELSINKI

  FRIDAY, 8:40 A.M.

  Kalevi Lindström heard the doorbell ring. He set his coffee down on the table and strolled to the door in his robe. He still had to do his morning workout. The trainer wasn’t due till nine, but maybe she was early.

  He looked out the peephole, recognized the man standing outside and opened the door warily.

  “Morning,” said the sixty-something man. His gray suit matched his hair. Von Marzen lived upstairs.

  The man’s expression was dour. “I have something to tell you, neighbor.”

  He spoke decent Finnish, but with a German accent. Lindström knew he had moved to Finland in the eighties and didn’t start studying Finnish until then.

  “What is it?”

  “Somebody broke into our garage.”

  “What’d they take?”

  “Didn’t take a thing. But they did something on your side.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing on my side, but your car…ehhh… schwein…” he groped for the words, “had pig head on the hood.”

  “What? A pig’s head?” Lindström looked incredulous. He wanted to ask why, but Von Marzen wouldn’t know.

  “Right. A pig’s head. But not to worry. I called police about the break-in and told them about the schwein.”

  Lindström ran his hands over his face. Eriksson dead, and now this. Clearly a warning. It couldn’t be anything else. What was happening? He ought to call Markkanen. Maybe he could shed some light on the situation. Who the hell was behind this?

  * * *

  Suhonen was perplexed. What was going on here?

  At headquarters, he had checked the plate numbers for Markkanen’s BMW and the Mercedes in the garage. They were owned by different companies, but the ultimate owner turned out to be the same person. Suhonen’s colleagues in the Financial Crimes Unit said the guy was some shady lawyer. The similarities didn’t end there, though. Two junkies, well-known to the police, sat on the boards of both firms.

  Why in the world was Markkanen’s Beamer registered under the same owner as the pig’s head Mercedes?

  The connection got him thinking, and he considered the various possibilities.

  With one phone call, he identified the driver of the Mercedes. The building super said that Kalevi Lindström owned the garage, and that he also lived in the building.

  Lindström’s name didn’t turn up in any police records. Nothing on the Web either, nor in any business journal archives. Apparently, they weren’t dealing with a major industrialist.

  A former criminal with a violent streak and an apparently wealthy sixty-year-old man were at odds, but somehow in cahoots as well. Their backgrounds revealed common denominators, such as the shared car ownership. And how was Eriksson mixed up in this?

  Suhonen was aching for coffee and decided to brew a pot.

  It would have to wait. The GPS system in his phone alerted him that the green dot had begun to move. Green was for Markkanen.

  * * *

  “
A pig’s head?” Markus Markkanen looked baffled. “Why?”

  “I’m wondering the same thing,” Lindström responded.

  The men were sitting in Lindström’s sumptuous library. Lindström had cancelled with his trainer and summoned Markkanen for a meeting.

  “It’s definitely a threat. Somebody thinks you’re worthless. I remember this one shithead back in the nineties. We used to put dried pigs’ ears through his mail slot,” Markkanen went on. “They were fine for pet food, but the message was clear: you’re worthless.”

  “But, why?” Lindström wondered.

  Markkanen could smell the old man’s fear—Lindström wasn’t used to playing hardball. That was good.

  “Somebody wants something from you.”

  “But what?”

  Markkanen looked out the window, brooding.

  “It’s gotta have something to do with Eriksson. He must’ve been involved in something or pissed off someone. And what’s worse for you…or us, is that they’ve connected the dots from Eriksson upward to you.”

  “How?”

  Idiot, Markkanen thought. You should have thought of that when you hired that kid to do my job. Of course, he had the in with Customs, but loyalty should be respected. I shouldn’t have been humiliated like that.

  Markkanen watched two little boys cross the street, and it made him think of his own family. He had called his wife in Turku the night before. Everything was going well at the spa and the boy was happy to have an extra vacation. He had even made a new friend.

  He turned away from the window and looked Lindström in the eyes.

  “I don’t know. This is strange.”

  Lindström stood up. “What should we do, then?”

  “I’ll ask around some more and see who’s behind this, but after that we have two choices.”

  “And those would be…”

  “Either we take action or pay up.”

  “Violence or money?” Lindström summarized.

  Markkanen nodded. “Well, there’s always a third alternative, but it doesn’t apply here.”

  “What?”

  “Sex… But I doubt the enemy is interested in either of us like that.”

  Lindström smirked. “That’d probably be the easiest alternative.”

  Markkanen looked at his boss, not sure if he was joking.

  Lindström settled back into his armchair. “I got a message from the Russians. In three days’ time, a shipment of washing machines will be arriving in Kotka.”

  “Washing machines?”

  Lindström nodded. “Yes. Several hundred. The entire shipment is headed straight for the border, and the buyers want to know if the goods are being tracked.”

  Markkanen picked a handwritten note off the table that showed the details of the shipment.

  “Soo-o. The name of the ship is M/S Gambrini,” Markkanen said. “These are all going straight through?”

  “Like I said, directly to Russia. If they make it through Finland as some kind of junk, the Russian authorities won’t be interested either. It’s all about taxes. Or evading taxes, rather.”

  “How much do they make?”

  Lindström shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. That’s their business; we’re just here to help.”

  Markkanen nodded. He was glad that Lindström was speaking more openly about the scheme.

  “Okay. So you’re sure there’s no trouble with the Russians?”

  “Yes. If there were, they’d have contacted me directly. Our problems have nothing to do with them. The Russians are reliable partners, and we have open lines of communication.”

  “You know...back to Eriksson,” Markkanen said. It was time to throw more fuel on the fire. “The more I think about this, the clearer it becomes. Given what happened to him, it looks like the Skulls have been sicced on us.”

  “The Skulls? Why?” Lindström looked puzzled.

  “You’d have to ask Eriksson. It just reeks of a professional hit, and that’s what the Skulls do.”

  “Then why was the body found? Looks to me like they messed up.”

  Markkanen shook his head. “Could be, but I’ll find out more. Maybe someone got a whiff of your business.”

  “And is trying to cut in?”

  “Or take over.”

  Lindström stared at Markkanen for a long time, then shook his head. “Maybe.”

  “The danger here is that if the enemy thinks they won’t get a big enough payoff, they’ll rat us out to the cops for revenge.”

  “But wouldn’t that connect them to the murder?”

  Markkanen laughed. “Of course not, the tip would be anonymous, and focus on the Customs stuff. You’d…we’d get busted and someone else would scoop up the business.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Like I said. Either take care of it with money, or play hardball. Both have their risks.”

  Lindström seemed to be thinking. “Indeed.”

  “Are you protected well enough? I don’t wanna know anything about it, but if the cops bust through that door, is the money safe?”

  Lindström tried to smile, but his eyes darted toward a painting on the back wall. Markkanen caught the movement and guessed the safe was behind the painting. There probably wouldn’t be much cash, though there might be some info on his other assets.

  Lindström chuckled dryly, his manner serious. “Listen, find out who’s behind this and let me handle the business side. Let’s both stick to what we know.”

  * * *

  Dressed in new police-issue green overalls, Lydman sat in the dreary, windowless interrogation room, his bald head hung low.

  Joutsamo read off Lydman’s ID into the microphone. The video camera sat in the back corner, so Lydman could see it. He had declined counsel—at this stage, getting a lawyer might seem like an admission of guilt.

  “What can you tell us about Jerry Eriksson’s murder?”

  “No comment.”

  “What were you doing between last Monday evening and Tuesday morning?”

  “No comment.”

  Joutsamo was not surprised by his answers. She and Kulta had picked him up from the airport detention cell, and he had said nothing on the way back to Pasila.

  “Why were you going to Thailand?”

  “No comment.”

  “Why don’t you want to answer my questions?”

  “No comment.”

  At this point, Joutsamo wouldn’t reveal that they had connected Saarnikangas to the case, and Lydman to Saarnikangas. If Lydman wanted to share any relevant information, he’d volunteer it of his own accord.

  He was on their turf now and his “no comment” strategy suited them just fine. It would provide further grounds for his arrest and continued detention. In upcoming interrogations, Joutsamo would gradually reveal more about how he’d been connected to Saarnikangas, slowly breaking down Lydman’s protective armor.

  She was sure Lydman would talk. It might take a few weeks or even a month. He would talk, though. Well, maybe.

  “Can you tell us anything about the circumstances surrounding Jerry Eriksson’s death?”

  “No comment.”

  Joutsamo ended the interrogation.

  * * *

  Eero Salmela was in the cellblock kitchenette, plugging in the coffeemaker. The window opened onto the empty prison yard.

  The kitchen boasted a refrigerator, a microwave oven and a sink. The range had been removed after someone accused of narking got their palms fried on the burner.

  Salmela measured the coffee carefully. Two cups would be plenty. He’d drink both himself.

  The majority of inmates in his cellblock were employed in the license plate factory or in other workshops. Some were still trying to finish their education, but Salmela wasn’t interested in working. His days were spent loafing, reading, and filling out crossword puzzles.

  Salmela turned on the coffeemaker and heard footsteps in the corridor. Curiosity got the better of him and he peeked out. Someone was
standing at the door to his cell.

  “What’s up?” Salmela asked.

  An enormous man covered in tattoos turned to face him. Salmela recognized him as one of Larsson’s gorillas. He stared at Salmela without speaking. The tattooed gorilla moved towards him, and Salmela considered his choices. He couldn’t get out; he was trapped in the kitchen. Maybe he could use the wooden chair as a weapon. The gorilla grinned.

  “You’re having a visitor today.”

  “Huh?” was all that Salmela managed.

  “A visitor. Get it?”

  Salmela bobbed his head. Of course he understood.

  “Good. Talk with him, then tell Larsson what he wants. Immediately. If he has any requests, figure out a code.”

  “A code,” Salmela repeated.

  “Right,” the gorilla went on. “So we can let him know over the phone whether we agree or not.”

  “Okay,” Salmela said, and the messenger left.

  The coffeemaker gurgled and Salmela wondered what it all meant. Apparently, he had become a messenger for the Skulls.

  * * *

  “Strange,” Mikko Kulta remarked.

  “What?” Kirsi Kohonen asked. Joutsamo and Suhonen were there too, seated at the VCU conference table. The meeting was due to begin soon, but they were waiting for the boss.

  “Just happened to see this report about a pig’s head turning up in a downtown garage.”

  “A pig’s head?” Kohonen marveled.

  “Who wants coffee?” Suhonen asked, getting up.

  “Yeah. Someone broke into a garage on Tehdas Street and dropped a real pig’s head on the hood of a car. It was a shared garage, and the neighbor filed a complaint.”

  “Whose car was it?” Kohonen went on.

  “Don’t know. I didn’t get to the end yet.”

  Suhonen was getting the coffeemaker going when Takamäki stepped in. The lieutenant was wearing a suit coat, but no tie.

  “Mornin’,” Takamäki grunted, and took his seat at the head of the table. He glanced at the timelines on the wall. Apparently, nothing new had come up.