Wolves and Angels

by Jokinen, Seppo

  Koskinen began cranking out instructions immediately: “Split everyone in the building, both residents and staff, into two groups and wring out every possible thing they know about Timonen.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Kaatio answered impatiently, but Koskinen still had more to say.

  “A resident named Taisto Toivakka claims that Timonen was picked up from here by a handicap taxi on Monday night. Confirm the time with him one more time and look for even the smallest things the other residents might have noticed around the same time. I’m going to track down the taxi driver and order him down to the station for questioning.”

  To Jalonen, Koskinen mentioned the alert phone bracelet. In the best case scenario, the person who had ripped it off would have left his fingerprints on it. Also, all of the bedding would have to be sent to the lab for fiber analysis. Koskinen wanted to know whether the lint found in Timonen’s airway was from his own pillowcase.

  Finally he turned to the woman standing at his side. “This is Mrs. Salonen. She’ll show you to Timonen’s room and help you with interviewing the residents.”

  “Just Miss,” Salonen replied demurely.

  Kaatio and Eskola looked like little boys next to her.

  Koskinen retrieved his backpack from the dayroom and walked out. It was getting close to nine o’clock. On the opposite side of the street was a small grove of birch trees. The sun had climbed high enough in the sky that a golden light shone across the tree tops.

  The same two men were still sitting by the front door in their wheelchairs. As he unlocked his bike, Koskinen noticed out of the corner of his eye that one of them was rolling closer. He sensed that the man had something so say, so he waited—it might be something important.

  The man stopped six feet away and spat to the side.

  “You think you’re some fucking Lance Armstrong riding around on that nut crusher?” he hissed.

  Koskinen took off without responding. He was surprised at the man’s sudden hostility and wondered what had caused it.

  8.

  Koskinen didn’t know how to ride a bicycle slowly—this time he made the mistake of racing a city bus for a good mile and a half until reaching a bridge going over train tracks and cut onto the side roads before finally turning into the station parking lot.

  He succeeded in slipping through the lobby and into the stairway without being noticed. He climbed at a half run to the third floor, and his good luck held—not a single person in the hall. The last thing he wanted right now was to get stuck talking to someone while all sweaty. He would fetch a towel from his closet and go down to the gym to shower. After that it would be a good time to dig into the reports and other routine tasks waiting on his desk.

  He opened the door to his office and saw Milla sitting in front of his computer. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Milla bounced out of the chair and spun around. The fright stretched her face into an even rounder shape, and the antenna on her hat was sticking straight up toward the ceiling like an exclamation point.

  “Crap, you scared me!”

  “And for good reason,” Koskinen snapped and then repeated his previous question. “Why are you on my computer?”

  Milla glanced helplessly at the computer behind her, swallowing twice, and then began explaining: “I was just organizing things a little.”

  “Organizing?” Koskinen wasn’t able to keep his voice under control. They could probably hear it all the way downstairs. The sweat that had welled to the surface while he was running up the stairs was coursing down his temples, his sodden undershirt was making his back itch, and all of that just multiplied his indignation.

  “What the hell are you doing organizing my computer?”

  “Resource management,” Milla explained skittishly. “Your files were all mixed up and—”

  “From now on remember to keep your mitts off,” Koskinen said, interrupting her. “The machine works, and that’s enough for me.”

  Milla spread her arms, looking hopeless. “I was just trying to help.”

  Koskinen raised his finger and pointed at the door. “The best way you can help is by getting out and not coming back until I call for you!”

  Milla didn’t need to be told twice. She quickly slipped through the door, slamming it behind her. Koskinen gathered up the change of clothes under his arm, threw a towel over his shoulder, and headed downstairs.

  It didn’t start to eat at him until he was in the shower. The girl had meant well. And she couldn’t have done anything really bad to his computer. The sensitive files were protected by usernames and passwords, and those weren’t exactly handed out to interns and temps.

  Koskinen stood for a long time under the steaming shower thinking about what had gotten into him. He lost his temper more and more easily nowadays, and over less and less important things. And that was nothing but worrying.

  He turned off the shower and started drying his body with vigorous, scrubbing strokes, as if to punish himself. But that didn’t help either. He was regretting flying off the handle, and his skin wasn’t dry yet before he pulled on his change of clothes. He didn’t bother to rake down his hair until he was in front of the mirror in the elevator—a few strokes with his hands sufficed.

  The elevator had barely gained any speed after leaving the basement level before it was already braking, and the doors parted with a hiss. Tanse stepped into the elevator, and Koskinen cursed his bad luck. His boss was dressed in a chalk-gray suit, white shirt, and a blue silk tie. First he stared at the towel and the bundle of clothing under Koskinen’s arm, then he raised his eyes to the wet hair, and only then did he look at his watch.

  It was already well after ten, Koskinen thought, and correctly guessed his superior officer’s next question: “You’re coming from the shower?”

  Instead of answering, Koskinen said, “We’ve identified the body from the Peltolammi case. He lived in an assisted living center called Wolf House. I’m just coming from there.”

  “Via the shower?”

  Koskinen did not reply. As soon as the elevator stopped at the third floor, he quietly walked out, and let Tanse continue his ride up one more floor by himself. If the captain had any more wise and important questions like the one he had just asked, he could pick up the phone and call.

  Koskinen set his biking clothes to dry on hangers in the closet and laid the towel out over the closet door. Then he started working. First he called Lepola from Patrol and asked him to send out a bulletin about the missing wheelchair. Every cop out on the beat needed to keep his eyes open. Next he looked up the handicap taxi driver, Ilmari Laine, and called his cell phone. Laine immediately picked up. Koskinen introduced himself and asked Laine to come by the police station on Sorin Street to be interviewed.

  Laine didn’t respond, so Koskinen continued with intentional dryness: “Check in with the officer at the front desk, he’ll tell you where to go.”

  It was only then that Laine started talking. “What on earth for? What have I done?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough. Be here… Let’s say…at two o’clock on the dot. Remember to be on time!”

  Koskinen hung up the phone and decided to dig himself out from under the obligatory paperwork that had been piling up. He had a feeling he’d have more than enough work over the coming days. Experienced detectives were in short supply, and despite his lieutenant position, he might even have to participate in the fieldwork.

  But he didn’t have anything against that.

  He started sorting through the piles of paper on his desk. Most of it was meaningless memos and directives. He collected all that in a pile that was headed for the recycling bin and started going through the investigation reports. That took three hours. Koskinen had a hard time concentrating; every once in a while he lost his train of thought, and had to go back to the beginning of the page or paragraph. His thoughts kept straying to Milla—how badly were her feelings hurt? All he needed was for her to quit on her second day or, even worse,
complain to the labor rep about unfair treatment. Who knew but that maybe she’d turn the whole thing into a sexual harassment case, like she had warned Koskinen with her very first words.

  Koskinen got up and stood by the window. That didn’t settle his mind either. The scenery had been permanently ruined—the old Kesoil service station had been replaced by TeliaSonera’s new four-story office colossus, obscuring his former view of Lake Pyhäjärvi and Pyynikki Ridge. He used to gaze at the beautiful view while deep in thought or trying to solve some thorny case. Now all he could see was a narrow street and an ugly, uninspiring wall.

  He sat back behind his desk and started writing a response to a statistical request from the National Legal Policy Research Institute. However, his work was cut off almost immediately when Milla waltzed through the door with the morning paper.

  “Hey, are we investigating this?”

  She waved the paper in her hand. She had folded it so the top page was the article about the unidentified body found in Peltolammi. Koskinen smiled involuntarily at Milla’s use of the word “we.”

  “Yes. That’s exactly what we are investigating.”

  “Sweet!”

  Milla was radiating excitement, and Koskinen realized he had worried about nothing—it looked like she had completely forgotten the incident a few hours earlier.

  “How was he killed? A knife or a gun?”

  “Probably neither.”

  “Has the murderer been found?”

  “We don’t even know if it was a murder,” Koskinen said, trying to rein her in. “And we don’t know much else either.”

  Apparently Milla noticed Koskinen’s reluctance to talk about the case at all. She rolled the paper up. “Should we go eat soon? It’s almost twelve thirty.”

  “You go ahead,” Koskinen answered as nicely as he could. “I still got work to do.”

  Milla disappeared into the hallway, and Koskinen continued writing. After an hour, the door opened again. Kaatio and Eskola marched in and sat down without saying a word.

  Koskinen glanced at his watch.

  “Was five hours long enough to get anything?”

  “Nothing in particular,” Kaatio said, starting to flip through his notepad. “This Timonen, Raymond, as they called him there, seemed to be a pretty happening guy.”

  Koskinen lifted his eyebrows questioningly, and Kaatio began to explain.

  “Disability was no obstacle to him. He was running all over town even though his legs didn’t work and his arms weren’t that great either.”

  “I heard that too,” Koskinen said. “He had an electric wheelchair.”

  “Did they tell you where he went in it?”

  “Not specifically, no.”

  “Raymond spent most nights at the Cat’s Meow.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A pub in Kissanmaa, about half a mile from Wolf House.”

  “Did he go there alone?”

  “No, he went with a couple of his pals, both residents at the home.”

  “Also invalids?”

  “Yep. Although these other guys’ arms work a little better, and they can roll themselves to the bar.”

  “Names?”

  Kaatio flipped through his notebook for a moment, “Tapani Harjus and Hannu Ketterä. Both paraplegics. I interviewed them separately, and neither of them seemed too sorry to hear that their drinking buddy was dead. More like the opposite.”

  “Really?”

  “They didn’t mince words. Apparently Raymond was a ‘liar’ and a ‘backstabber.’ Just an all-around asshole.”

  “Strong words for a fellow victim of fate.”

  Eskola had been following the exchange from his chair. He cleared his throat as a signal and said, “There is one other noteworthy fact.”

  Koskinen and Kaatio turned their heads in surprise.

  “Well, what?”

  “Every resident of the building I interviewed felt strong antipathy toward Raimo Timonen.”

  “Why?”

  “He had a bad habit of making a ruckus and waking up the whole building in the middle of the night when he came home drunk from the pub.”

  “Didn’t anyone intervene?”

  “At night there weren’t any nurses around. Sometimes one of the residents would call the janitor from the neighboring building to calm him down.”

  “The janitor,” Koskinen repeated. “Does he have his own key to the building?”

  “Yes.”

  “Kalenius forgot to mention that,” Koskinen said, remembering his morning visit to Wolf House. “She said that no one had keys except for the nurses and the residents.”

  He made a note—someone would have to go interview the janitor. Then he returned to the previous subject, addressing his words to Eskola.

  “That was an important observation you just made—Raimo Timonen wasn’t exactly popular at the center. That gives us somewhere to start.”

  Eskola’s face was beaming with pleasure and he sat up even taller than before. Kaatio, on the other hand, was shaking his head sullenly.

  “I wouldn’t put too much weight on everything they’re saying.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not one person living at Wolf House is firing on all cylinders. I mean other than physically. One old lady even thought I was asking her to dance.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yep. I didn’t even have time to open my mouth before she starting repeating ‘no dance, no dance.’ Her speech was so garbled I just ended the interview right there.”

  “I heard that a couple of the residents have problems speaking,” Koskinen said. “You should have asked one of the nurses to help out.”

  “The big blond…” Kaatio glanced at his notebook, “…Anniina Salonen. She was there, but couldn’t make any sense of her gibberish either.”

  Koskinen recalled his own visit at the center. Kaatio was obviously talking about the same elderly woman Kalenius had been feeding breakfast. She had tried to say something, but Koskinen hadn’t been able to understand a word, and now he started wondering whether he had been spurned as well.

  Could long-term disability cause hallucinations? Neurotic escapism from the harshness of everyday life? Maybe that woman was living in the memories of her distant youth when young men fought each other to get to spin her across the dance floor.

  The thought was cut off by a knock at the door. It cracked just enough to reveal Milla’s eyes and the antenna on her stocking cap.

  “Somebody named Laine is here. He’s asking for Koskinen.”

  Koskinen glanced at his watch. It was exactly two o’clock. Laine appeared to be unusually punctual.

  “Ask him to wait a moment,” Koskinen said, and the antenna disappeared. He told Kaatio and Eskola that he was about to interview the handicap taxi driver, and asked whether they had interviewed the resident who had reported seeing the taxi pick up Timonen that night.

  “Yes,” Kaatio said. “I chatted with him.”

  “Did he see the license plate?”

  “No, but he still claimed he knew the vehicle.”

  “How?” Koskinen wanted specifics. “How could he positively identify it in the dark, at night, just from the tail lights?”

  “I asked him exactly the same thing,” Kaatio said. “One of the nurses happened to be there, and she explained that Laine’s rig is the only old-fashioned van-style taxi that comes to Wolf House. The others are newer minibuses.”

  Koskinen shook his head, dissatisfied. “Did anyone know anything about Timonen’s wheelchair?”

  “No, they all wondered how it could’ve disappeared.”

  “Yeah, of course,” Koskinen said with a snort. “It’s unlikely Timonen lost it all by himself.”

  “Nope, not very likely.”

  “Did either of you ask how Timonen was paralyzed in the first place?”

  “No.” Kaatio shook his head. “Does that matter?”

  Koskinen sat and thought. In a murder investigation not even the sma
llest detail was insignificant. At times something in the victim’s or perpetrator’s distant past could be the decisive connection to present-day events, to their causes and consequences. On the other hand, when the heat was on and manpower was limited, everything irrelevant had to be shut out to save resources. Drawing that line was usually hard, and it was easy to make irreversible mistakes.

  The door opened again. Pekki swept into the room and wagged his forefinger at Eskola like it was an earthworm. “Up, boy.”

  Eskola obeyed and Pekki collapsed into the chair. He took his glasses off and started rubbing them on the hem of his sleeveless sweater vest.

  “I just had a hell of a morning in the Ikuri clothes-line jungle,” he said, starting his report. “It’s just strange how little people know about their neighbors’ business… The victim’s name is Kantola. The old man has lived in the house for forty years, but even the people living right next to him weren’t able to say much about him. At least I found out that he has lived the last five years all by himself…since his wife died.”

  He put his glasses back on and continued: “Adolf Kantola retired in ’93 from teaching and has lived the life of a hermit ever since. His neighbors did tell me that he never had visitors.”

  “So what happened to this Mr. Kantola?”

  Pekki sighed at Koskinen’s question. “If I only knew. The paperboy found him lying bloody in the front yard. That was at 4:50 A.M.”

  “Did you find any weapons?”

  “No. Nor any motive. At least it doesn’t seem like a robbery.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “See, Kantola had left his front door open, and the house was full of valuables. Of course, it’s hard to say whether something specific is missing, but at least the paintings, clocks, and silver weren’t of interest.”

  “Any footprints?”

  “Nothing in the house, but there were a lot of prints in the yard. Especially between the currant bushes, like someone had been hiding there, spying.”