Helsinki homicide: Cold Trail

by Sipila, Jarkko

  Joutsamo rubbed the sleep from her eyes and her thoughts cleared. There was a direct cause for her nightmare—the Repo case.

  Kohonen and Joutsamo had sat for a couple of hours in the half-empty bar at the Hotel Pasila, sipped three ciders apiece, and talked about the old Repo murder case without reaching any conclusions. Something about it bothered her, and Joutsamo couldn’t put her finger on it. But now she couldn’t sleep.

  She got up and walked into her kitchenette without turning on the lights. She wet her hands under the faucet and splashed water onto her face in the dark. It refreshed her, even though she had only intended on rinsing away the clammy sweat. She grabbed the electric kettle, ran some water into it, and put it on to boil. She found a mug in the cupboard and picked out a teabag from the package next to the kettle.

  Joutsamo sat down at her two-person table. There was a laptop at the other spot and old newspapers on the chair. The three-foot-wide window had a view of the neighboring building, now dark. It had about a hundred windows, and only two of them had lights on. Everything looked so peaceful.

  Suddenly Joutsamo realized what had been bothering her about the Repo case. It was a question to which there had been no answer. Joutsamo was irritated that the problem was so elementary—she should have seen it right away at the Riihimäki police station while she was reviewing the reports.

  The wife had been lying in the kitchen with her throat slit, and Repo had been passed out in the bedroom. So who had called the police? The preliminary investigation reports didn’t contain the answer.

  WEDNESDAY MORNING

  CHAPTER 12

  WEDNESDAY, 8:05 A.M.

  HELSINKI POLICE HEADQUARTERS, PASILA

  Takamäki walked down the VCU corridor toward his office. He yawned and thought that the whole building could use a thorough renovation. Sure, police stations were supposed to be uninviting, but not this cold.

  Joutsamo recognized the rhythm of his gait and stepped out of the team room to greet him.

  “We need to talk,” she said. “Now.”

  “Good morning to you, too,” Takamäki replied, continuing past her toward his office. Joutsamo fell in behind him. “We catch our escaped convict yet?” he asked, without looking back.

  “No,” Joutsamo answered.

  Takamäki made it to his office door. “Any hot tips?”

  Joutsamo followed her boss. She was carrying a stack of papers. “Nope.”

  Takamäki hung his overcoat on a hanger next to the door. A dress shirt, tie, and sport coat for impromptu appearances hung on another. Takamäki was wearing the blue Norwegian fisherman’s sweater his wife had given him the Christmas before last. He sat down at his desk. Joutsamo was still standing in the doorway.

  “Well?” Takamäki gestured for his sergeant to sit.

  “Let’s start from the tip.”

  “So we have something?” Takamäki said, reaching down to turn on his computer.

  “Well, sort of. A car was stolen from the Töölö swimming pool yesterday evening.”

  “A car was stolen from the pool?” he looked up at Joutsamo.

  Joutsamo grunted. “The keys from the locker and the car from outside. An intriguing method, and Kohonen went over this morning to get the surveillance camera image.” She handed the print to Takamäki. “Take a look at the clothes.”

  Takamäki examined the image shot at the pool cashier. The camera was at the ceiling, and the brim of an old-fashioned cap shaded the man’s lowered face. His clothing, on the other hand, was clearly visible in the color photo. He was wearing a gray trench coat, and a dark suit was discernible underneath. He was carrying a plastic bag. Takamäki nodded. “That’s our man. At least possibly.”

  “This guy entered the building right after the man whose keys were stolen and exited more or less immediately. The lock had been broken.”

  “What else did he take?”

  “Nothing. Just the car key. According to the victim, the car key had been on the same ring as his other keys, but they were still intact.”

  Takamäki took another look at the surveillance camera image.

  “So he wanted a car. Are there any other cameras on Topelius Street? Did he know this man, or why that specific car?”

  “Doesn’t appear to have any connection. The victim doesn’t have a criminal background, just youraverage joe.”

  The computer demanded a user ID and password from Takamäki; he complied.

  “Two conclusions that would point toward it possibly being Repo. One: he doesn’t know how to steal a car. Two: he doesn’t have friends who’d steal one for him. So he’s on his own.”

  Joutsamo nodded. “That’s what I was thinking, too.”

  “Why the Töölö pool? Is it the best place in terms of where he’s staying now, or just somewhere he’s been before? Somehow it seems an MO like that would demand a familiar milieu, at least familiar enough that he had used the lockers at some point and realized that it would be possible to pull off there.”

  “Hmm,” Joutsamo said. “I don’t know. Those locks aren’t exactly theft-proof at any pool.”

  Takamäki handed the photo back. “In any case, we’re a good twelve hours behind. Car hasn’t been found?”

  “No. Of course an APB was sent out immediately, but no reports yet. Too bad that the victim’s phone was in his coat pocket, not the glove compartment. It would’ve been easy to position it.”

  Joutsamo was right. A car theft was grand larceny, and they had reason to suspect Repo. Now they could use more stringent measures, like wiretapping, if they only had a potential target to apply them to.

  Takamäki kept thinking out loud: “But he’s in Töölö? If you draw a one-mile radius around that pool, it contains tens of thousands of residents.”

  “Not one of whom seems to know Repo,” Joutsamo added.

  “Why would he want a car?” Takamäki said.

  Joutsamo shrugged. “Had to move. Is it possible he had some hideaway somewhere nearby where he holed up right after the escape for twenty-four hours? And now he had to get moving.”

  “In any case, he might be anywhere now. The car indicates a longer trip.”

  “Exactly. The Border Guard has been alerted about the car, but let’s see what we can do here in town.”

  “If he’s driving out of the country, I’d guess he’d head north and cross over into Sweden. Did he ever work there? Does he have any other connections to Sweden?”

  Joutsamo shook her head. “No foreign contacts have come up, Finnish ones either. We don’t know. This is one nasty manhunt.”

  “We’ve definitely had some easier ones,” Takamäki admitted, opening up his email.

  “Kulta and I dropped by his father’s neighbor’s place, and something’s going on there. We’ll probably swing by again today,” Joutsamo said.

  “Heard anything from Suhonen yet?

  “Sleeping. He sent a text message that he was out chasing Saarnikangas down all night, but no luck. Promised to come in this afternoon.”

  “Okay,” Takamäki said.

  Joutsamo tossed the day’s Iltalehti onto Takamäki’s desk. “Which takes us to item number two, which is also the number of the page where you’ll find the article—in addition to the front page, of course.”

  The lieutenant looked at the front page. The lead headline was about some TV celebrity’s drunken shenanigans. He didn’t recognize the name, but he was sure that his wife and sons would. Takamäki wasn’t interested unless the guy committed a violent crime or ended up the victim of one. According to the headline, all he was guilty of was being a sloppy drunk. At the bottom of the page, in clearly smaller print, it read “Murderer Escapes.” The lieutenant turned the page and was blasted by huge letters stretching across the spread: “SWAT Team Hunts Down Dangerous Convict.”

  In the main photo, armed and helmeted men were entering a building. It was a six-column shot—Takamäki realized that he now owed Turunen a beer. There was a balloon across the photo: “Il
talehti along for the raid.” Takamäki briefly scanned the article, but it didn’t offer any new information. A shorter piece featured a photo of Takamäki and a few of his comments. The set also included Mary J. Juvonen’s commentary, where she criticized the prison authorities for their laxness. The police took a beating as well, for not immediately releasing the news about the fugitive’s escape and holding back Timo Repo’s photo.

  “What about the other papers?”

  “Blurbs, single column.”

  “Well, this’ll give them a jolt to join in our manhunt,” Takamäki said. At that moment, his phone rang; it was a blocked number. Takamäki glanced at Joutsamo before growling hello.

  “Römpötti here, hi.”

  “Hi,” Takamäki answered. He knew the TV reporter well. “Look, I’m in kind of a rush right now.”

  “This won’t take much time,” Römpötti replied, clearly annoyed. “Next time you invite reporters and photographers along on your raids, can you give me a call, too?”

  “That’s not exactly how it went,” Takamäki said defensively. “But we can talk about that later.”

  “So Repo’s still on the lam?”

  “Yep,” Takamäki replied. The call ended with Sanna Römpötti promising to call back.

  Takamäki lowered his phone to the desk. “And now the other reporters think we’ve been giving Iltalehti preferential treatment.”

  “Oh, shit,” Joutsamo said.

  “I’m betting Skoog can handle this Iltalehti case for us. I think he’d actually enjoy it. Knowing our deputy chief, he’d probably initiate a criminal investigation into Juvonen’s actions.”

  Joutsamo laughed. “Resisting police authority? That’s pretty nasty, but I don’t have a problem with it. On to item number three.”

  “How many of these are there?”

  “This is the last one.”

  “Well?”

  Joutsamo briefly considered how to formulate her words. “There’s something strange about that Repo murder case.”

  Takamäki looked his best investigator in the eye. “Tell me.”

  “I can also write you a memo, but last night I realized what’s been bothering me about it the most.”

  “Is that why you have those bags under your eyes?” Takamäki asked.

  “You’ve got some pretty nice ones yourself. And where’d you get that scratch on your cheek?”

  “All right, continue,” Takamäki replied, before the conversation got off on the wrong track.

  “I read the reports, but nowhere does it say how Repo’s wife’s murder came to the police’s attention. All that was written in the reports was that a patrol went to the scene.”

  “It could have been some neighbor, couldn’t it?”

  “A neighbor would have called the police if the sounds of arguing or other noise would have been heard coming from the apartment. But no one heard anything or reported anything of the sort.”

  “So in your view, a third person was at the scene who left and anonymously called it in to the police. And this third person has never been found.”

  “Everyone considered the case so clear cut that no one was interested in the third person, or just to be safe, let’s say the potential third person.”

  “That also sounds like an issue we might want to take upstairs to Skoog.”

  “You think we should dig a little deeper?”

  Takamäki nodded. “I trust your instincts here. When you have time, write up a memo about the investigation reports and the verdict, and we’ll talk about how to proceed from there. Was there anything new in the night-shift reports?”

  Joutsamo shook her head and stood. “Some residential B&Es, assault and battery at a grill, petty theft at a grocery store, and about twenty pounds of dynamite went missing from a residential construction site. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Takamäki nodded and Joutsamo exited. Thefts of explosives didn’t happen every day, but they were by no means unheard of. Evidently construction crews stole them from each other. This conclusion was based on the fact that the stolen explosives were rarely recovered.

  After Joutsamo left, Takamäki thought for a second. He picked up his phone and took another look at the two photos he had shot the previous night in Tuomarila. He pulled the Sello surveillance camera images out of his desk drawer. Neither shot was particularly high quality, but it was the same car. The license plate alone confirmed that.

  Takamäki had talked with Jonas that morning. His son remembered the car having been green, but he’d been confused about other details, too. According to Jonas, he had been in a hurry to get home because he was supposed to go to hockey practice. The only problem was, Jonas’s team didn’t practice on Mondays. He didn’t remember the trip to the hospital at all. The doctor had ordered him to stay home from school at least until the end of the week.

  Takamäki lifted the receiver of his desk phone and tapped in Lauri Solberg’s number. The Espoo investigator answered right away. Takamäki asked if he’d have time for Takamäki to bring the photos by today. That suited Solberg. Takamäki also told him that his son didn’t remember the events clearly. Solberg still wanted to talk to the boy, and Jonas would have to bring the medical reports along to the interview, but they could agree on a day later.

  “By the way,” Solberg said. “I don’t want to talk about those surveillance camera images over the phone, but just out of curiosity, is the vehicle a Toyota?”

  “Yeah.”

  Solberg read off a license plate number that stunned Takamäki into silence.

  “Yeah, that’s a match,” Takamäki muttered.

  “That Toyota burned last night in the parking lot at the Espoo ice arena.”

  “Burned?” Takamäki wondered.

  “Yup,” Solberg said smugly, pleased to have caught the lieutenant off guard.

  “What time?”

  “Why?” Solberg asked, but continued nevertheless. “The fire department got the alarm at 5:53 a.m. Someone in the neighborhood called it in. Of course we were in contact with the lease holder. An Espoo resident by the name of Tomi Manner, who said he noticed the car had been stolen when he came home late last night from a business trip. Says he would have reported it missing this morning.”

  “Interesting,” Takamäki managed to say, before asking a question to which he already knew the answer. “Who owns the car?”

  “An Espoo leasing company.”

  The first thought to pop into Takamäki’s head was that Manner had torched the car so he couldn’t be traced to the hit-and-run, but on the other hand, since Jonas hadn’t been badly injured, it wouldn’t have gotten him more than a fine. Then again, Manner didn’t necessarily know about the extent of the boy’s injuries. The next thought was insurance fraud. Something bizarre was definitely going on with the car, especially since he had seen it last night at Manner’s place with his own eyes. But he wasn’t about to tell Solberg that. At least not yet.

  “Hello,” Solberg said. “You still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, this could be insurance fraud or something related to your son’s hit-and-run, so I sent Forensics out to check his house in Tuomarila. Manner’s story might not be a total crock, because preliminary information indicates that someone other than Manner had been moving around in the vicinity of the garage where the vehicle was parked.”

  Takamäki reflexively wiped his cheek with the scratch on it. He wondered whether he had smeared blood somewhere or left fingerprints behind. What about footprints? He had been wearing Nike running shoes, thousands of pairs of which had probably been sold in Finland. He didn’t have anything to hide, but still he decided to not say anything to the Espoo police officer. “Okay, I’ll call you this afternoon to set up a time to bring those photos over.”

  “Sure. And, oh yeah,” Solberg added. “Nice shot of you in Iltalehti.”

  Takamäki ended the call, and his phone immediately rang again. It was Deputy Chief Skoog, ordering Takamäki and Suhonen to a
ttend a noon meeting. Evidently the topic was important, but Skoog didn’t want to discuss it over the phone. What would Homicide be getting lectured about this time?

  * * *

  Joutsamo stepped into the office of Detective Lieutenant Leinonen at the Riihimäki Police Department. The big-bellied sixty-year-old was sitting at his computer again, and his brown sport coat hung from the back of the chair, just like during Joutsamo’s previous visit. He was also wearing a white shirt again, too. Maybe it was even the same one, because Joutsamo caught a pungent whiff of sweat.

  “Well, what is it this time?” Leinonen growled. Joutsamo had called in advance to announce her visit. Before Joutsamo could get a word out, the gray-haired lieutenant continued, “Haven’t found him yet, huh?”

  “No,” Joutsamo smiled. “We’re trying hard.”

  Leinonen laughed. “I’m sure you are. I read about the raid in Iltalehti. Do you guys down in Helsinki have to use the papers to handle all of your work?”

  Joutsamo was on the verge of giving a snappy response, but changed her mind. There was no point escalating the tension. She just stood there in the doorway, since Leinonen hadn’t asked her to sit. “Listen, one question did come to mind.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Who informed the police that Repo’s wife, Arja, had been killed?”

  “Huh?” Leinonen rumbled. “I can’t remember, and I don’t have time for this shit.”

  “You didn’t seem to have time for it during the investigation either,” Joutsamo continued. “Tell me, how did the police know to enter the apartment?”

  Leinonen didn’t respond immediately. “What exactly is it you’re getting at?”

  “Think about it. According to the preliminary investigation reports, none of the neighbors heard any sounds of arguing or fighting. The police go in and find the wife dead and Timo Repo passed out on his bed. Neither one of them called the police, that’s for sure. So who did?”