Helsinki White iv-3

by James Thompson

  “Such as?”

  “Such as his father is a powerful man and might prefer if his son doesn’t rot in prison, no matter what he’s done. He would be in great debt to us if we made that happen. If you find Antti, call me, and I’ll instruct you as to what’s to be done.”

  I hear myself sigh. Corruption has no limits among the powerful, even when it involves murder. My previous self would have expressed outrage. I’ve hidden my emotional stunting through the remembrance of emotions. I notice that my memories of them are fading, growing more distant.

  “I want you to go, Inspector, and circle each and every island yourself. If you fail to find him, I’ll consider your suggestion.”

  “You understand,” I say, “that this is a wild-goose chase. He would have had to winter there, and it would have taken a great deal of time and preparation for him to do that. The only reason I think it remotely possible is because his father has the means to search to the ends of the earth for him, and this desolate area fills the bill.”

  “I understand, and I agree with you. But after all, he also has resources. He could have made a home winter-worthy in secret.”

  “Very well,” I say and ring off.

  I ask Saukko if I can use his yacht again tomorrow to continue the search, say that it will likely be an overnight trip, and he’s happy to oblige. He wants to come. I suggest that it might be best for all if this was kept strictly police business. If we were to find Antti, his emotions would run high and might lead to something that could impede prosecution. He grudgingly agrees. Finding Antti there truly is only a shot in the dark. He’s abandoned his wife and children, so he wanted out bad. His father has pretty much every resource in the world at his disposal to find Antti. If he really wants to disappear, as I said to the minister, it has to be somewhere at the ends of the earth. It’s a thousand-to-one shot, but northern Aland pretty much qualifies.

  37

  Moreau rides with me back to Helsinki. I tell him he can’t come with us tomorrow. “It’s a snipe hunt, but if we should find Antti and the money, I won’t be able to explain your presence. Maybe you could be at Saukko’s side in his moment of triumph. He’d like that.”

  Moreau agrees. I ask where I can drop him off.

  “I’m staying at that little hostel your wife runs, Hotel Kamp.” I drop him off, pick up more baby formula and go home. Kate looks ghastly. She’s drinking a glass of water with two hands. Her hangover is so bad that she trembles.

  I pick up Anu, bounce her on my knee, and tell Kate all I’ve learned. She couldn’t give a fuck less.

  “Is something the matter, besides your hangover?” I ask.

  “Where should I begin? Maybe we should talk about how I’ve ignored my child for days while I stayed drunk.”

  I’ve learned that in marriage there are times to console with hugs, and times when they aren’t wanted. Right now, it’s the latter.

  “Kate, you tried to run with the big dogs. The people you’ve hung around with the past few days drink a lot. You don’t and couldn’t keep up. Maybe you should have learned from your mistake the first time. But last night, drinking pontikka, it happens to everybody. Anni told me you didn’t even drink very much of it. You’re not a bad mother, you just had a very Finnish learning experience.”

  By the look on her face, I think Kate would be yelling at me now if she wasn’t too sick to manage it. “Have you considered the possibility that I’ve been drunk because I’m so fucked-up that I’m not in control of my actions, even at the expense of our child, and that maybe the reason I’m so fucked-up is you?”

  I thought my work might be affecting her, but not to this extent.

  “You met us at that bar yesterday and Sweetness had blood coming out of puncture wounds in his knuckles. Now, why do I think he got those by knocking out someone’s front teeth?”

  “I’m investigating a murder of historic proportion and dealing with evil people-the kind of people who cut an innocent woman’s head off-trying to solve it. I’m doing whatever I deem necessary.”

  “Is it necessary for you to commit crimes that could put you in jail, and do you see that you’re working with buffoons that don’t have a fucking clue what they’re doing? You came to me with this song and dance about a black-ops thing that was supposed to help people, and I couldn’t bring myself to say no because I thought you might die. But these black-ops actions aren’t to help people, they’re to generate graft for corrupt politicians. I put up with all this because you gave me a choice and I agreed to it in the beginning and I kept my word. I was wrong. We should have left and gone back to the States. You and your team are dupes and pawns, and you’re going to pay a high price for your stupidity.”

  I’ve never seen her like this, so bitter.

  She says I’ve become like the people I swore to combat and have broken my oath to uphold the law. “You’ve gone astray,” she says. “You’ll end up dead or in jail. I’m disappointed, disillusioned, I’ve lost respect for you. You have to change, to be the good man I married.”

  “I’m trying to make things right,” I say.

  “Arvid is dead,” she says. “Your surgery changed you. And everything that came after has changed all of us.”

  “Kate, this hasn’t gone the way I planned, either. Yes, I’ve been duped and used as a pawn. I’m also disappointed and disillusioned. Had I known where this road would lead, I never would have taken us down it. I made a mistake. And yes, I know brain surgery has affected me. I can’t help that. I’m doing the best I can. I’m going on a wild-goose chase tomorrow. We’re going to spend a couple days cruising around Aland. Come with us. It will do you good. And if we should by some miracle happen to find Antti Saukko, the man we’re looking for, you’ll see that we’re still policemen, not just murderous thugs. The sun and sea air will do us all good.”

  She smirks, skeptical. She considers it, her face almost a sneer. “OK,” she says.

  38

  It’s a warm today. The sky blue. A perfect day for sailing, and we have hours until we reach the islands of northern Aland. Saukko had his cook stock the boat with enough food for an army. Saukko thought of everything, from fresh fish bait to a box of the figurado cigars we had smoked. I guess I did a good job of convincing him I liked them. The sea is calm, and I hope the trip will smooth the waters between Kate and me as well.

  After I solve this murder, and I’m near to it, I’m going to solve my work-related problems as well. I didn’t become a cop to be a thug. Time will fix this. I’ll accumulate dirt on powerful people so they can’t hurt me without destroying themselves. I’ve collected much skank, I’m close to it now. Then I’ll do my job on my own terms or just walk away. Resign. Do as Kate said. Take her back to the States with the money I’ve stolen and collect stamps.

  Kate and I slather on suntan lotion, make sure Baby Anu is sun-protected head to toe, and sit side by side in deck chairs that fold out so you can lie down in them. Her hangover fades and her mood improves, and after a while she hooks her little finger around mine. We snack, sun, drink soft drinks, let Milo do all the work. I notice Sweetness isn’t boozing. I wonder if the change in his relationship with Jenna has sobered him up. The sea was crowded with all manner of craft when we left Helsinki, but the farther north we go, other vessels are fewer and farther between.

  Life on a small island in Aland must be interesting. Waterworld. An alternate way of living. Inhabitants take boats to the grocery store, to bars in the evening if they want to socialize. Everywhere.

  Milo has the map, and after several hours he tells us we’re now in waters that contain the islands donated by Saukko’s foundation, and it’s time to start watching. Some are only specks of rock, some are large. Kate softens, her bitterness dissipates. At a certain point, we go downstairs to a cabin and make love. When we come back up, the yacht is moored near a largish island. A dock juts out into the ocean, but beside and behind the dock is a cave. Its roof is several yards high and it goes about twenty yards back under th
e island. We’re on the south side of the island, and this end of it is lightly forested and around a hundred yards across.

  Inside the cave are a twin-engine fishing boat and a Jet Ski. Whodda thunk? We’ve really found Antti.

  “We saw no hurry and waited on you,” Milo says. He edges the yacht up to the dock. Sweetness hops over to it and ties us off.

  I doubt we’ll need them, but we don bulletproof vests and the rest of our gear. After all, if my theory is correct, Antti did kill a man. We follow a narrow path and the smell of cooking meat. We walk about fifty meters and find a big ramshackle hut in a clearing with two people outside it in folding chairs, making dinner on a grill. One is Antti. He’s wearing a tie-dyed shirt, shorts and flip-flops. The other is a pretty woman in her mid-twenties, about eight months pregnant.

  Antti smiles. “Damn, it’s been a year. I thought you’d have stopped looking by now. And we were going to leave next week and move to Fasta Aland where there’s medical care, before Mari gives birth. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m sorry to say this,” I tell him, “but I have to arrest you.”

  “For what?”

  OK, we can play this out if he wants. “The faking of your kidnapping, your sister’s actual kidnapping, the theft of ten million euros, and the murder of Jussi Kosonen.”

  He sits back, crosses his legs and sips at a beer. “I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about. I was kidnapped and released. When they released me, I decided I didn’t want to go back to my old life. I came here with Mari for the peace and quiet, waiting to be forgotten. There’s no crime in any of that.”

  “I’m pretty sure that when we search, we’ll find the ransom money. That’s our proof.”

  “Search to your heart’s content,” he says.

  Mari hasn’t said a word, but she looks scared. “Are you OK?” I ask her. “Do you need anything?”

  “Just for you to go away.”

  “Let’s start inside,” I say. “Antti, would you please accompany us?” I want to keep an eye on him.

  What we find inside startles me. He’s built a small but lovely modern home with all the amenities, and then camouflaged the exterior with boards from old fishing cabins.

  “This is great,” I say. “I’m impressed.”

  “Thanks,” Antti says. “I did everything myself in my spare time. Took me five years. I’ve been waiting to get away from my old life for a long time.”

  “Couldn’t you have found an easier way?”

  He shakes his head. “You don’t know my father.”

  He’s so relaxed and amiable that we ignore procedure. We don’t cuff him. No nothing. Like idiots. I bend over to look under the bed. A gunshot scares me so bad I almost piss myself. The bullet whizzes past me and shatters a window on the other side of the bedroom. The next round hits me in the side. The bulletproof vest stops it, but the shot knocks the wind out of me. Milo was drawing his pistol as Antti took aim at his head. And then boom after boom after boom, all hell breaks loose and Antti jerks like a puppet until half his head flies off and he falls. Then Sweetness stands over him and dumps the remainder of his ammo in Antti’s face until his.45s are empty.

  After sixteen rounds in the chest, face and head, there isn’t much of him left. It’s a real fucking mess. His girlfriend tries to come in but Milo pushes her out so she won’t see it.

  For a couple minutes we all just stand there, uncertain what to do, then a familiar voice repeats the phrase I first heard it utter. “I hope I haven’t interrupted you at an inopportune moment.”

  I turn, and Moreau stands in the doorway, Kate in front of him with Anu in her arms. The muzzle of his Beretta touches her head.

  “Shall we step outside?” he says. “The stink of open intestines is a bit overwhelming in here.”

  We trail out and he tells everyone to make themselves comfortable. He takes his gun away from Kate’s head and brings a chair for her. “Please, one at a time, place your weapons at your feet and kick them toward me.” Milo, God bless him, tries to prove himself the pistoleer he always wanted to be and quick draws, tries to save us all. Adrien is like lightning and puts a bullet through Milo’s wrist. His gun drops and he holds his arm up to look at it. He tries to wiggle his fingers but they don’t move.

  “I told you,” Moreau says, “Deputy Dawg can never beat Yosemite Sam. I’m the rootinest tootinest here outlaw in the West. Your carpal tunnel and radial nerve are wrecked. I doubt you’ll ever use that hand again. It’s going to hurt like hell in a minute.”

  “Fuck you,” Milo says. His repertoire of comebacks is limited at the moment. He slumps to the ground but sits up, holds his wrist with his other hand.

  Moreau collects our Colts and piles them well out of our reach.

  There are only two chairs. Kate has one, I take the other. “What do you want?” I ask.

  “The ten million. Hand it over and I’ll leave you in peace.”

  “Antti died before he told us where it is.”

  “I am sorry. I cannot believe that you would be so stupid as to kill him before he told you.”

  He’ll never believe I was too stupid not to cuff and guard him, but I try. “He pulled a gun, Sweetness shot him.”

  “And with verve! Still, you are just not that stupid.”

  I consider pleading with him. Nothing I say or do will make any difference. He’ll stick with whatever agenda he’s planning. “Do you know everything?” I ask. “For instance, who killed Lisbet Soderlund?”

  “Of course. I’ve known all along. This is the way it works,” Moreau says. “I am going to torture the group of you until I have the money. We have all the time in the world, and I will cause you immense pain. I would spare you that. Please give me the money.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “I would if I had it. But I don’t.”

  “Then I’ll fill you in on the details as you suffer,” he says. “As leader, you must suffer first. As once you were, so again you shall be.”

  I try to blank my mind, to steel myself for what’s to come. I don’t ask him to spare Kate, because the sign of weakness might entice him to hurt her first.

  “I will start at the beginning,” Moreau says. “Over a year ago, my former Foreign Legion comrades engineered the kidnapping of Kaarina Saukko with Antti. They found Kosonen, the dupe. He frequented their shop, and they took his children. They planned the crime, robbed the home, did the technical work. Antti knew the user name and password at the security company because he had been there while they planned the system, watched the technician open his computer and memorized them. No magic there, but the B amp;E at the company made the robbery seem more sophisticated and less of an inside job.”

  I have shorts on. Moreau examines my knee, puts his pistol to the exact point of entry from when I was shot before, and fires. The bullet passes through the old exit scar. The pain is awful and I grunt, but won’t allow him the satisfaction of a scream. Good-bye, reconstructed knee.

  “The patsy collected the ransom money, Antti killed him, betrayed my colleagues and disappeared. He left them the paintings, I suppose as recompense, without considering that they have provenance and are worthless without a pre-heist buyer for a private collection. Apparently, he came here, to this island, to meet his girlfriend.”

  She nods and confirms this.

  “As punishment for betrayal, they shot Kaarina. They assassinated her with a.308 Winchester, which they, arrogantly enough, kept rather than disposed of. Find it. You’ll have your murder weapon and no doubt solve the crime in short order. Then they set about looking for Antti, with no luck. They surveilled the police for a year, kept up with their progress. The police couldn’t find him. If they could follow the police but jump one step ahead, as police act cautiously while they build cases, they could take their ten million. Too much time passed. Afraid police interest in the case would wane, they called me, offered me a split, and used their connections to convince Veikko Saukko to have me brought in. I contacted you to co
nvince you that the Saukko kidnap-murder and the Soderlund assassination were likely related, to keep the Saukko case a police top priority while I remained informed of developments. Then I could kill Antti and take the money back. To aid in this effort, Marcel and Thierry committed the robberies posing as Islamic fundamentalists-they wore charcoal camo stick to disguise themselves as blacks and spouted some rhetoric in ridiculous accents-and also committed the racial murders, simply to make it appear they were related to the Soderlund assassination, to keep your enthusiasm high.”

  He examines me with a speculative eye. “Open your mouth.”

  I refuse.

  “Well,” he says, “it’s either my way or I shoot you through both jaws.”

  Wisdom dictates I open my mouth. He sticks the barrel in it, blows out the bridgework from where my own teeth were shot out, and creates a wound that will leave a scar just like the one I had removed. The pain is awful. I feel woozy. He reaches in his pocket and hands me something. “It’s a bindle of heroin. Sniff only a tiny bit. You are what is called opiate naive. If you use too much, you will overdose, or at least pass out. I want you aware.”

  He moves to Antti’s girlfriend. “If you do not tell me where the money is, I will kill your baby.”

  She screams and covers her belly with her hands. “I don’t know, he never told me.”

  “You have ten seconds,” he says.

  She cries, begs, pleads. He counts. I open the bindle, pour some heroin on my thumbnail and snort it. The pain melts away. Relief makes me sigh. I’m not opiate naive. I used narcotics to combat my headaches. I remain coherent.

  He counts to zero and fires at an angle through the side of her belly. The bullet exits the other side of her stomach. The baby, if not dead, soon will die. She only moans and weeps silent tears. Her man, her dream, her child. She’s lost everything.

  “We now have a time constraint,” Moreau says. “If she does not receive medical attention, she will die of internal bleeding.”