The Nightingale Murder (The Maria Kallio Series Book 9)

by Leena Lehtolainen

  According to the hospital staff, Oksana wasn’t in mortal danger, but if her wounds weren’t cleaned regularly she could suffer some serious inflammation and possible infections. I’d ordered Koivu to continue working through all the Oksanas listed in the official records and to check the immigration logs from the past few weeks. A lot of sex workers used three-month tourist visas. Koivu knew what to look for.

  After the morning meeting, I conferred with Katri Reponen about a rape case that was going to trial, and then it was time for lunch. Since Katri was in a rush, we had to settle for going to the cafeteria. It was nice to trade news after having not seen each other for a while. Katri mentioned an open position in the criminal prosecution office and tried to convince me to apply.

  “You seem exhausted lately. A change of scenery would do you good. Leena and I were talking about going to a spa for the weekend sometime soon. Maybe Haikko Manor or Caribia. You should come with!”

  I promised to think about it. A moment later the thought of changing jobs crossed my mind again when I ran into Assistant Chief Kaartamo in the hall.

  “We need your womanly sweetness at our morning leadership coffees,” he said. “Don’t you want to come anymore now that Taskinen isn’t around?”

  “I have to be at my unit’s morning meetings. We’ve got some complicated cases right now,” I said evasively.

  “Oh, you mean the broad who disappeared from Jorvi? What’s one more Russian whore, anyway?” Kaartamo scoffed. “The world’s full of them. What’s the point wasting time on her?”

  “We don’t know that the woman is Russian any more than we know that she’s a prostitute. And usually people don’t just disappear from the hospital like that.”

  “Didn’t she leave voluntarily? Got her twat stitched up and walked out. Good riddance.”

  “How do you know about her wounds? As far as I’m aware the preliminary report isn’t finished yet.”

  “You think word wouldn’t spread when there are actual pictures of them in evidence? Boys will be boys, Kallio. I’d think you would have learned that by now.” Kaartamo continued on his way, apparently not interested in hearing my response. That was well enough, since no appropriate quip came to mind.

  Koivu was in the hospital all afternoon, interviewing members of the staff and Oksana’s roommates, but he called in to report midway through. They’d made some progress: according to the roommate with the cast, the phone in the room had rung half an hour before Oksana disappeared. Oksana was the one who answered. She’d communicated in grunts and looked frightened, claimed the roommate.

  “A phone call? Strange. How could anyone have known what room she was in? Talk to the hospital switchboard. I’ll get access to the phone records,” I said.

  People downstairs in the hospital had seen Oksana leave, but where she’d gone no one could say, and no one knew anything more about who she was. An anonymous girl from nowhere, whom no one but the Espoo Police Violent Crime Unit missed.

  I stopped by the grocery store on the way home, since Antti had picked up the kids. I was going to have the whole weekend off with my family, and it felt like a holiday. At the house, Iida showed us the plaster cup she’d made in school, and Antti asked her if he could take it to Vaasa to make his guest room at the university feel more like home. All winter we’d planned to go visit him there, but Antti’s father’s illness and funeral had messed up more than just those plans. And besides, it felt silly going on a trip to visit my own husband.

  After dinner, we played cards. Taneli already knew his numbers and held his own at Last Trick and Black Maria. Antti opened a beer, and I poured myself a glass of red wine. Around eight Taneli nodded off, and I carried him to bed. When I returned, Antti was watching the news. Iida shouldn’t have been there, since at any moment they might show starving children or mutilated bodies from the conflict zones in Africa. I was relieved to find that the broadcast was only about corporate restructuring.

  “Copperwood Limited, a manufacturer of heavy forestry equipment, has announced impending layoffs at its factory in Arpikylä. At the moment, the company employs thirty-six people. Copperwood belongs to the Finnsteel Group, which has seen increases in revenue, particularly in Asian markets, in recent years. Arto Saarnio, Finnsteel CEO, joins us now. Mr. Saarnio, what’s the cause of these layoffs?”

  Thirty-six people didn’t seem like much, but in my hometown of Arpikylä, that was a lot. My sister Eeva’s husband, Jarmo, was the chief information officer for Copperwood, so this might mean he would be out of a job too. Prior to its purchase by Finnsteel a few years earlier, Copperwood had been a family business. Contrary to many people’s expectations, no downsizing had followed the buyout, and I’d only heard good things from Jarmo about the new owners. But last fall Finnsteel had brought a new CEO onboard: Arto Saarnio, who had earned the nickname “Hatchetman” after his work reorganizing a couple of electronics companies. He was so effective that each company’s stock price had doubled, but the number of personnel had also been cut by half.

  I tried to call Eeva, but all I got was a busy signal. My mother must have beat me to her. I turned off the television and took Iida into the shower with me. Jarmo and Eeva probably still owed more on their house in Joensuu along the Pielisjoki River than we did on our White Cube in Espoo. If he lost his job, would Jarmo be able to find work in his field in Northern Karelia? As I pulled on my nightshirt, I thought with envy about my parents’ generation. For them an academic degree had ensured lifelong employment.

  It was Antti’s turn to read to Iida, so after she and I had dried off and put on our pajamas, they headed into the bedroom. I returned to the living room couch and turned the TV back on. Now it was for work, in a way, since tonight’s theme on Ilari Länsimies’s talk show, Surprise Guests, was prostitution. “Should it be legal?” read the promo in the newspaper. “Should buying sex or selling sex be illegal? Or should brothels be an acceptable place of employment?” I wasn’t interested in the topic just because of Oksana. Prostitution and its effects were constantly present in violent crime and drug policing. In fact, late last fall the Helsinki Patrol Division had completely given up on monitoring street prostitution, because the charges were usually thrown out of court for lack of evidence. And the same men who demanded harsher punishment for thieves and violent criminals were unwittingly supporting the world of organized crime whenever they bought sex. I’d just watch the show until Iida fell asleep, I thought to myself, and then Antti and I could enjoy some time together. Venjamin climbed into my lap and started to purr.

  I muted the sound when the jaunty theme song began to play. Then the host, Ilari Länsimies, came on. He was about fifty, with a long and varied résumé that included stints in politics, business, and various media concerns. He seemed very comfortable in front of the camera. He had charisma, and he always did well in the women’s magazines’ “sexiest man” polls.

  Surprise Guests had been on the air for about six months. The concept of the program was that the participants never knew ahead of time whom the other guests would be. According to Länsimies, this sparked more spontaneous conversation. The guests were marched out one at a time, and the cameras filmed the reactions of the others already seated. Of course, the more appalled the reaction, the better. Länsimies enjoyed it when the discussion devolved into a screaming match. Once, early on, Länsimies had lined up the foreign minister, a general, a peace activist, and an official from the Finnish Red Cross and made them argue about land mines. The woman from the Red Cross had ended up calling the foreign minister and the president “naive idiots.” The media had had a field day with that one.

  “So today we’re discussing a topic that everyone’s interested in: sex. However, we’ll be focusing specifically on sex in exchange for money. Many of us would argue that the church tends to take a negative view of sexuality, and the recent scandal surrounding the divorce of the bishop of Turku has only reinforced that impression. But what does the church think about prostitution? Let’s we
lcome Pastor Terhi Pihlaja from the parish of Tapiola.”

  The pastor was a woman in her thirties. Her black bob and pale face fit well with her clerical collar, but her bright-red lipstick and large earrings were incongruous with the costume.

  “Good evening. First, I should say that my opinions don’t represent the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church or the Tapiola Parish. Everything I say is mine alone.”

  “What about God’s opinion?” Länsimies quipped, and Pastor Pihlaja looked irritated. There was no studio audience on Surprise Guests, since it would have detracted from the intimate mood. Länsimies was the only one laughing.

  Pastor Pihlaja stated that she wanted to outlaw the selling and purchasing of sex. She said that people weren’t commodities.

  “But you support marrying gays and lesbians in the church? Isn’t there a logical contradiction there?”

  From the pastor’s expression it seemed as though that this wasn’t the first time someone had asked her this. “I don’t approve of the selling of human beings. I do approve of people voluntarily pledging themselves to each other. Where’s the contradiction?”

  “Are you married?” Länsimies asked. Guests on the program understood from the start that they could be asked about anything, no matter how personal. Once Länsimies had pressed the prime minister’s father about what he would have done if his son had married a black woman.

  “I was married once, but now I’m divorced,” Pastor Pihlaja replied, but Länsimies had already moved on. “What do we think the law has to say about this? For that perspective, we’ve invited Special Agent Lasse Nordström from the National Bureau of Investigation. He specializes in crimes related to prostitution.”

  Every now and then I crossed paths with Lasse Nordström. He used to play squash with my college boyfriend Kristian, and a few years ago we’d served together in a working group focused on domestic violence. I’d always thought there was more to Lasse than met the eye, that his joviality was partially an act. He had broad shoulders and a buzz cut, and today he’d worn a brown corduroy jacket and jeans to create an intentionally relaxed look. I couldn’t help but think, This man does not want to look like a cop.

  “Agent Nordström, as we all know selling sex in public is against the law, but the trade seems to be flourishing on the streets, in bars, and on the Internet. The Helsinki Police have made it clear they believe that the current laws are ineffective, that convictions for street prostitution are so difficult to get. What are your thoughts on this?”

  “We have a duty to uphold whatever laws Parliament passes, even if we feel like our own list of priorities might be different than those of the government. We try to follow a zero-tolerance policy in all criminal activity.”

  “Isn’t that unrealistic?” Länsimies asked.

  Nordström looked uncomfortable, and he seemed too big for the plush brown armchair he was sitting in.

  “That’s all a matter of resources. Everyone knows the police force is already stretched thin as it is. And this summer’s Track and Field World Championships are only going to make that worse.”

  “What’s your personal opinion? Should buying and selling sex be illegal, or should we let people do what they want?”

  Nordström declined to give his opinion. In an attempt to steer the conversation in another direction, he began citing statistics. I would have also found it awkward to express my own opinions on TV. A public servant was supposed to be loyal to the state no matter how we felt personally.

  Eventually Länsimies took back the reins and invited the next guest, Anna-Maija Mustajoki, to come out. She had caused a stir the previous fall when her memoirs had been published. She’d devoted five whole pages to a description of a visit to a male prostitute in the late 1960s, in California. Since the author was a well-known feminist who had just retired from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, this revelation was guaranteed to cause a scandal. The reporters weren’t interested in Mustajoki’s analysis of the evolution of gender roles in Finnish society or her experiences working for UNICEF in Africa; they were interested in only those five pages. And Anna-Maija Mustajoki herself became a cottage industry for columnists and cartoonists alike. It was easy to portray her as a standard feminist caricature, with her shoulder-length gray hair, round glasses framing a face without makeup, and pointedly masculine clothing.

  “Anna-Maija Mustajoki, you think that buying sex and pimping should be illegal, but that selling sex should not. Why?”

  “Most women who work as prostitutes in Finland are human trafficking victims who end up in the industry because they have no other options. They need help, so placing them outside the law makes no sense. If they’re afraid of retribution, they won’t come to the police when someone mistreats them. Instead of focusing on punishing them, we should be chasing the pimps and human traffickers.”

  “According to your interpretation of the law, you committed a crime yourself forty years ago . . .”

  Anna-Maija nodded, and her expression was reserved.

  “Wasn’t the exchange helpful to that young male prostitute, Jimmy? Why shouldn’t the same thing be possible in Finland? These girls are earning money instead of starving.”

  “What I gave Jimmy probably bought him his next hit. But what he really needed was a stint in rehab.”

  “I have to admire Anna-Maija’s honesty in her writing about her adventures in California. It’s hard to find someone who is willing to go public as a customer of sexual services.” Ilari Länsimies grinned. “Most of us assume that johns are losers who can’t get it any other way. But according to the studies, men who buy sex are no different from anyone else. And here we have one of these gentlemen to talk about this issue. Come on out, Mauri Hytönen!” Länsimies clapped. No one else joined in.

  The man who stepped onto the stage looked to be in his midforties, was of average height and was well dressed. His black hair and mustache looked dyed and stood in stark contrast to his pale complexion.

  “Mauri Hytönen, you were one of the few men brave enough to volunteer, through the Surprise Guests website, to come on live television to tell us why you pay for sex. The floor is yours.”

  Hytönen straightened his tie. “I like to live life at my own pace. I’ve been married twice, but steady relationships just don’t suit me. It’s hard to find women who can have sex without then demanding commitment. With a professional, the rules are clear, and I can get what I want.” Hytönen’s voice had a note of Savo dialect, even though he tried to hew to standard Finnish.

  “How do you choose your women?”

  “I have girls I visit regularly. Some of them are here in the Helsinki area, and some are in Tallinn. I’m happy to pay for quality, and I prefer women who aren’t junkies or under the thumb of some pimp. I think it’s crazy that brothels aren’t legal. That would be a lot safer for both the girls and us customers. No one would have to be afraid of getting ripped off. In my mind it is an honest transaction.”

  “Not as long as it’s illegal,” Lasse Nordström said.

  “Aren’t human relationships always about some sort of exchange, for good or ill?” Anna-Maija Mustajoki added, but Länsimies talked over her:

  “But how many women’s magazine articles suggest that men should clean the house to get their wives in the mood? Isn’t that a transaction? The man is paying for sex, just in a different form.”

  “It’s not always the man paying for it!” Pastor Pihlaja exclaimed. “Is sex something that only men want, and for women it’s just a chore they sometimes submit to? That’s just another way to say that a woman who wants sex is somehow sinful.” Anna-Maija Mustajoki nodded so hard that her large breasts swayed and a lock of hair fell into her face. Länsimies raised his hands to interrupt the discussion. There was a dramatic pause.

  “We’ve already heard several perspectives, but we’re still missing the perspective of a woman on the other side of the transaction. Now I’d like to . . .” Ilari Länsimies trailed off, and he stared into
space. Apparently, his producer was relaying instructions through his earpiece. “In just a moment I’d like to introduce you to a person who is . . .”

  The woman who rushed onto the stage was clearly out of her mind. She was wearing a suit skirt and seemed to be shouting, though she wasn’t wearing a microphone. Reading her lips, I thought she might be saying the word “dead.” Lasse Nordström jumped up.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, grabbing the woman by the shoulders. She was shaking. “Who’s dead?”

  “Is it Lulu Nightingale?” Ilari Länsimies had also stood up from his chair and was now standing next to the woman in the suit, and I saw her nodding and trying to explain something through her tears. Then Länsimies seemed to remember that the show was live.

  “Shut off those cameras!” he bellowed. First the sound went dead, and then the screen showed people rushing about and waving their arms, and then a test pattern appeared. I turned on my cell phone. The studio of West Man Productions, where Surprise Guests was taped, was located in Espoo. A death there would fall under my unit’s jurisdiction. I sprang off the couch, and Venjamin sank his claws into my thigh before leaping to the floor. Puupponen was on duty, so I grabbed my phone and started to dial his number. But then I paused. Was I jumping the gun here? Just because someone had died didn’t mean a crime had been committed.

  Antti came out to let me know that he and Iida had finished reading. I put my phone in my back pocket and then walked to the kids’ room to oversee Iida’s toothbrushing and tuck her in. The phone rang just as I closed the door behind me. The display read “Puupponen.”

  “Hi, I’m on my way to the TV studio in Tontunmäki. Something strange just happened. A death. The last guest on the program didn’t come on stage, and they found her dead on the floor of her dressing room. There’s a guy from the NBI already there. He called an ambulance and us. He thinks the death is suspicious.”