Nothing but the Truth hh-3

by Jarkko Sipila

  “I thought you weren’t gonna say anything. I’d think you’d know by now that all we need to detain you is reasonable suspicion. Your lawyer’s waiting out in the hall. I’ll let him in.”

  Korpi sat sulking behind the table. Takamäki stood and signaled for the guard to open the door. On his way out, he passed Korpi’s defense attorney, Mats Martin. The tall, thin man was nearing fifty and had on a gray tailored suit with a well-chosen navy blue tie and crisp white shirt. His hair was blond and his skin still bore a hint of summer bronze.

  Takamäki nodded as he exited.

  “Just knock on the door when you’re ready,” the guard told Martin as he shut the door.

  Martin set his briefcase on the wooden table and sat down. He looked Korpi sharply in the eyes. “Haven’t seen you for a while.”

  “Guess not.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Just found out they’re trying to pin me with a murder. Which I didn’t commit.”

  “What have you told the police?”

  “Nothing.”

  Martin opened his briefcase and took out a notepad. “Well, you know me well enough to know my first question.”

  Korpi nodded.

  Martin continued, “No use playing games. That just wastes everybody’s time. I want you to answer honestly so I can build your defense. And let me be clear: I won’t ask this question again, because if I find out you’re lying, I’ll drop the case.” Martin’s eyes met Korpi’s. “Did you do it?”

  “No.”

  “Did you have any role in it?”

  “No.”

  “And that’s the truth?”

  A seasoned attorney, Martin had developed his own style. It didn’t bother him if a killer got off the hook, but he himself had to get the suspect’s honest account of what happened.

  “This is important. I want the truth. Because if you lie, it’ll backfire on you later, and then I won’t be able to help you.”

  “That’s the truth.”

  Martin nodded. “Okay. So in principle, there’s nothing to worry about. All we need to do is find out what they have on you.”

  “Nothing,” Korpi snorted.

  “With all due respect, cut the bullshit,” said Martin. “Get real. These cops are hardened pros, just like you. Sure, they want you in prison, but they know damn well it’s not gonna happen without clear and convincing evidence. The fact that you’re in custody means they have something on you, but they’re not gonna let us in on it because that could mess up their case. Our number one priority is to figure out what that something is, and the only person who would know is you.”

  “I told you, I don’t know.”

  Korpi had always known what a hardnose Martin was. Still, he didn’t much like his pushy style, even if the guy might have a point from time to time.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what the police just told me. On Sunday, one Tomi Salmela was shot in his home and the police suspect that Nyberg shot him. Nyberg has his own counsel, but I haven’t consulted with her-yet. So tell me what happened after the arrest.”

  “Not much. They gave me a grilling yesterday and put me in a lineup this morning.”

  “Which tells us they probably have an eyewitness. Maybe you and Nyberg were seen together somewhere,” said Martin, and he searched his memory for past murder cases involving accomplices.

  “Maybe. So what?”

  “With your record, the fact that you know the shooter is sufficient grounds for arrest.”

  “I had no idea Nyberg…”

  Martin didn’t let him finish. “That doesn’t interest me. You already told me you had nothing to do with the shooting.”

  “Fuck. The car Nyberg’s been driving was there in front of the house in Kaarela. If I had anything to do with that junkie’s murder, that car would have been toast in about two seconds. And why the fuck would I be driving someone around on hit jobs? Goddamnit!” Korpi slammed his fist down on the table.

  The lawyer looked Korpi smartly in the eyes, “So were you in that car with him on Porvoo Street?”

  “No.”

  “Are you lying?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then you have two choices. Either you tell that to the cops now, or to the court later.”

  “I ain’t telling the pigs a damn thing, that’s

  for sure.”

  “Then it’ll have to come up in court. But this lineup means someone thought they saw you, though we still don’t know if they actually picked you. If you weren’t there, then nobody could have recognized you anyway.”

  Korpi kept his eyes locked on Martin’s. “So who supposedly saw me?”

  “I don’t have that information, but it’ll come out in due time, once we get the case files.”

  “The son-of-a-bitch will never make it to court.”

  “Now there’s a stupid idea. Again, we don’t really know what the lineup was about, and if something happened to the witness before your court date you’d definitely take the fall for it. The cops will figure out a way to pin it on you for sure.

  “I always like to be honest with my clients. Nyberg is a member of your outfit, so if he gets convicted for murder, your odds are about fifty-fifty of taking the rap too. The police will bust their asses on this case, but if you say you’re innocent, we have a good chance at winning an acquittal, eyewitness

  or not.”

  “So you’re saying leave the witness alone.”

  “Absolutely,” said Martin. “Eyewitness accounts are pretty easy to poke holes in once we’re in the courtroom.”

  CHAPTER 10

  TUESDAY, 2:10 P.M.

  KULOSAARI HARBOR

  Salmela tossed Suhonen a red life vest from the bottom of a small fishing boat.

  “Put it on.”

  “Fishing?” said Suhonen, eyeing the rack of rods on the gunwale. The sixteen-foot aluminum boat was docked just off the East Highway. The rain had stopped, but the clouds still lingered.

  “Why, you busy?”

  Suhonen considered briefly. “No, not really,” he said. At least not anymore, since he’d already ditched Raija at the coffee shop.

  “We’ll just troll around for a few hours.”

  Only now did Suhonen notice that the rods were stouter than the usual ones. He stripped off his leather jacket and proceeded to pull on some coveralls. Salmela was fastening what appeared to be a fish finder and GPS unit to the rear side of the windshield, just adjacent to the wheel.

  “Whose boat?”

  “A friend’s,” said Salmela. “Borrowed it for

  the day.”

  Suhonen got his coveralls on and glanced over at a nearby concession stand. “What about something

  to eat…”

  “No need. I got coffee and a few sandwiches.”

  Suhonen climbed into the boat and looked at the rods. “Deep sea fishing, or what?”

  “Yup. The big boys-salmon, maybe.”

  “What’s the weather gonna be like?”

  “Nothing to worry about.” Salmela started the forty-horse outboard. “Not blowing too much. Untie the rope, will ya?”

  Suhonen did so and Salmela backed the boat away from the dock, swung it around and headed out.

  “I don’t have a license,” said Suhonen.

  Once outside of the harbor buoys, Salmela opened the throttle and the wind bit against Suhonen’s face. “Doesn’t matter. Neither do I.”

  “You know some good spots?”

  “Nah, but the GPS does. My buddy saved the coordinates for some nice underwater gullies. The fish like to hang along the rim where the cool water rises up. The gullies are tough to find, and there’s still no guarantees.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “Could be the water’s still too warm. Hey, grab some coffee if you want.”

  Suhonen nodded and rustled a thermos out of Salmela’s rucksack. He filled the cup only halfway because of the pitching of the boat.

  Within half an hour, Salmela had
managed to pilot the boat to the outer islands west of Helsinki. She was planing smoothly now in the shallow chop. On a few occasions, the boat hit the swells at just the right angle to shower Suhonen with water. It felt good. He had never been an avid boater. Cars and motorcycles were more his style. But this wasn’t so bad.

  The GPS unit beeped, signaling that they had arrived at the first spot. Salmela eased up on the throttle to a couple of knots and switched on the fish finder. Suhonen watched as Salmela dug a planer board out from beneath a bench, tossed it into the water and rigged it to the boat with some plastic line.

  “We’ll rig the line to the leader on the planer with these clips…” Salmela muttered as Suhonen looked on. The idea was for the planer board to keep the lines far enough apart that they wouldn’t get tangled as they trolled along. “You take the wheel. Just hold the course.”

  Salmela took the first rod and dropped the lure into the water. It fluttered along easily next to the boat. He let out the line about fifty feet, made a small loop and clamped it with a spring-loaded clip that had a ring for the planer leader. Salmela let out the line till the ring reached almost to the planer, then he propped the rod up in the holder.

  Within five minutes, all four lines were in the water. “Once you get a hit, the fish will jerk the clip off the line and you just reel him in. That’s it. You take the first hit, I’ll take the next. Just remember to brace yourself when you take the rod out of the holder.”

  Suhonen began to suspect that this wasn’t a friend’s boat after all. Salmela seemed to know his way around it well enough. Or maybe he had more than borrowed it.

  “What’s next?” Suhonen asked as Salmela took the helm.

  “We troll around for a few hours and hope for

  a bite.”

  “You brought a knife, right? If we catch something?”

  “Figured you could do the honors with your Glock. You brought it, right?”

  Suhonen smiled. The boat was cruising along smoothly at a couple of knots, the planer keeping the lines neatly spaced outboard of the gunwales.

  “Heh,” Suhonen began. “So this one time one of our detectives ends up in a foot chase with this guy who must have been some kinda track star or something, and slowly but surely he starts losing the guy. You know, it’s really embarrassing if the bad guys get away on foot, so he starts cursing the fact that there’s never a dog around when you need one. So he barks real loud a few times and hollers, ‘Stop! Police K-9! Stop or I’ll release the dog!’”

  “He barks?”

  “Ruff! Ruff!”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “He really did. So the runner stops in his tracks and lays face down on the pavement in the X-position, all on his own. Detective comes up, slaps on the cuffs and hauls the guy up. He goes, ‘Where’s the dog?’ The detective says, ‘They already took him back to the wagon…he’s got a mean streak.’”

  “Ohhh. That’s rough,” said Salmela with a laugh. “I like dog stories. I ever tell you about the time I was lifting stuff from this grocery store about ten years back? Might have been earlier, but anyhow this security guard almost busted me. I managed to split just in time, but he spots me heading into the woods on the other side of a little field. So I dive under a tree and hide. Just then this squad car pulls up and they start talking to the security guard. The guard opens the hatch on his wagon and out pops this huge fucking dog. I still remember its name because the guard kept going, ‘Search, Nemo, search!’ So the dog takes off straight towards me, just jerking at his leash. The cops come slogging through the mud after them and I think one of them lost a shoe in the muck. I’m pretty much scared stiff and about to give myself up when the dog stops about thirty feet off and takes a shit. Once he finished up, he just wanted back in the wagon. The slack-jawed cops just watched the whole show and finally headed back to the road cursing up a storm. So then the security guard’s petting the dog and one of the cops asks him, ‘So…you train him all by yourself?’”

  Both men laughed.

  Salmela dug a small silver flask out of his breast pocket and offered it to Suhonen, “French cognac.”

  “No, thanks.”

  Salmela took a swig.

  “So how you been?” asked Suhonen. Already at the dock it had been obvious that Salmela had set up the fishing trip so they could have a little privacy to talk. Suhonen also knew Salmela wasn’t going to bring up his son’s death himself. He would have to be the one to ask.

  Salmela took another swig and sighed. “Like shit. I spent all day yesterday trying to play detective… With Korpi and all, but then last night it hit me hard. That’s why I…”

  “I know.” Suhonen nodded as he looked his friend in the eyes. Salmela thumbed away a tear.

  “Just got to thinking about all the shit I should have done. What I could’ve done to keep this from happening. How I could’ve been a better dad. Not that I had much choice with the ex and me always going at it. But I could’ve tried harder. Or should have, at least.”

  Suhonen had encountered many people grappling with the death of a loved one. For some, the grief spiraled into overwhelming emotional problems. Salmela seemed ashamed of neither having been the kind of father he would have wanted to be nor having taught his son the ways of the criminal world. But the past was gone.

  Suhonen thought for a moment. Salmela had spent time in prison, had seen the darker side of life. Maybe it was best to just be straight with him. That was Suhonen’s style anyway.

  “Yeah, grief ain’t easy,” he said. “Some struggle with it their whole lives. For you it’s just starting. But there’s one thing you need to keep in mind: letting go of grief is hard because you can’t help but think it’s an insult to the dead. You shouldn’t stop grieving today or tomorrow, but soon. And that doesn’t mean you have to forget your boy. Those memories will always be with you.”

  “They were pretty good times,” said Salmela, wiping tears openly now. “Damn, this fucking wind…” he said with a sad smile.

  Suhonen nodded.

  “But the more you get to thinking, the more you start to regret,” said Salmela. “I’ve made a lotta dumb decisions.”

  “And that’s what they’ll always be,” said Suhonen, as he put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You can’t think like that…in hindsight. Life is pretty random-some days are good, some bad.”

  “Feels like the bad have been coming outta my ears lately.”

  Suhonen kept his hand on Salmela’s shoulder. “Well, then they are. That just makes the good that much better…like this fishing trip.”

  Salmela laughed. “Yeah, right. But tell me this…”

  “What?”

  “You say it’s all random…”

  “Right, and nothing you can do about it. No point blaming yourself for what happened to Tomi. You didn’t get drunk and drive him off a bridge. You didn’t bounce his head off the pavement. Nyberg came to the door and shot him.”

  Salmela looked Suhonen sharply in the eyes. “I know all that. I’m talking about something else. Back when we did that attic job in Lahti. I got busted and you didn’t, ’cause you were sick at home. How you make sense of that?”

  “Pure chance. Had I gone with you guys, I doubt I’d be alive right now. It would’ve changed the course of my life. No doubt about it.”

  “Yeah. Sometimes I wonder how you’re still kicking, being a cop and all.”

  “I’m not so sure I’m better off for it, either. At least you got the memories of your son. All I got are a bunch of random women and motorcycles.”

  “But you’re a hero, a police officer.”

  “It’s a shitty job… Ain’t much different than a criminal’s-except the government gives us the guns, so we don’t have to buy them off the black market.”

  Salmela waited a while before responding, “I’ve always considered you a hero.”

  Suhonen laughed. “Right.”

  “If there’s anything I can be proud of, it’s that I can cal
l you a friend.”

  Suhonen gulped. “Getting kinda serious here.”

  “Gotta be serious sometimes. If you don’t, you never realize what really matters.”

  “Yeah…you’re right.”

  Slowly, the forty-horse engine pushed the boat onward through an empty sea. The fish weren’t biting, but the coffee was good.

  * * *

  Takamäki was on the phone when Joutsamo stepped into his office at Pasila police headquarters. “Hockey? Sure, I can bring him,” Takamäki was saying as he glanced at Joutsamo. “Least I think so… Let’s see, one-thirty now. I suppose around three I’ll know for sure… Yeah, I’ll be there… Bye.”

  “Driving the hockey shuttle?”

  “Among others. How’s things with our interview subjects?”

  “Neither one’s much of a talker.”

  “No surprise.”

  Joutsamo sat down on the opposite side of Takamäki’s desk. “What about Guerrilla? Hold onto him or let him go? The twenty-four-hour holding period will be up soon.”

  “The prosecutor’s position on that was pretty clear. And I’m not arguing, either. He wasn’t in the car and nobody’s fingered him, but still, if he’s not Korpi’s right hand, then he’s his left. If the hit was planned, then what are the chances he would’ve known?”

  “I’d say pretty good.”

  Takamäki looked his best detective in the eyes. “How good? What standard of proof are we

  looking at?”

  “What, this the lieutenant-level test?”

  “No. You already know I think you ought to go for lieutenant. Just mulling some things over.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like might Siikala cross the threshold of reasonable suspicion for murder based on the fact that the NBI classifies Korpi’s outfit as an organized crime ring and Siikala is high up in the ranks.”

  “So you want to keep him?”

  “Well, no, actually. If he’s not talking, he’s no use to us. But might he talk to someone else?”

  Joutsamo nodded. “I see where you’re going. Phone tap or bug?”

  “Why not both? Let’s start with a phone tap and see how far-reaching Korpi’s outfit really is. That might tell us if there’s any cross-over between their contacts and Tomi Salmela’s.”