Against the Wall (8 page)

A year ago, he had gone to look at a small studio nearby. But on his salary, it would be impossible to get a mortgage even for such a small pad. Either he’d have to find a rich woman to marry, or continue to rent.

Kulta had left his unmarked Ford Mondeo next to the strip mall. On the east side, the single-story mall bore the bare aesthetic of the late fifties, and on the south side, the land dipped down, making room for two levels. A cement staircase cut through the center of the mall. In front of a body shop on the lower level were a half-dozen cars, each waiting its turn.

Kulta spotted a blue maintenance van in front of staircase B. Though the distance to the door was only ninety feet or so, he pulled up the zipper on his blue fleece jacket. The rain had stopped, but the wind had picked up—thin clouds skirted swiftly across the sky. Earlier in the morning, the sun had peeked out at least briefly.

Kulta thought about his upcoming basketball practice—he’d have to skip it. Duty would devour his free time, as usual. Debris from a tall grove of birches littered the pavement.

When he reached the van, the maintenance guy was nowhere in sight, so Kulta banged on the side panel. A narrow-faced man in his fifties scrambled into the driver’s seat. He wore blue overalls and a black cap, from which tufts of messy gray hair stuck out.

Kulta noticed a scar on his left cheek. It had been poorly cared for, making it a distinctive feature. He wondered what kind of colorful past he’d find if he looked into the guy’s record.

“Hello,” Kulta said, “I’m from the VCU.”

“You wanna show me a badge?” the man replied dryly.

Kulta dug his wallet out of his side pocket and removed a small plastic card. It had the same blue and white colors as an ordinary Finnish ID card.

The maintenance man squinted at it for a long time, then nodded. “Alright. Just standard procedure.”

“Let’s go. Staircase B, second floor.”

The front door was unlocked, and Kulta entered first. The stairwell smelled musty. Two strollers were parked at the base of the stairs. Kulta took the stairs two at a time; the maintenance man struggled to keep up.

“What’s the hurry?” he panted.

“Just standard procedure,” Kulta remarked flatly and pointed to a tan door. The name on the mail slot read Sainio, but according to Kulta’s information, it was occupied, or rather had been, by Jerry Eriksson.

In Kulta’s pocket was a search warrant signed by Takamäki. Finnish police could search apartments with a lieutenant’s authorization, but phone taps needed court approval.

The maintenance guy sifted through his keys till he found the right one.

“Shouldn’t we ring the doorbell first?” he asked.

“What do you mean
we
? Just open the door,” Kulta said. To be on the safe side, he opened the zipper on his jacket. His gun was in the shoulder holster.

* * *

Kirsi Kohonen wore a black wool hat, but that didn’t help her freezing toes. Ought to start bringing warmer shoes to work, she thought. These thin-soled running shoes didn’t cut it anymore. The door opened and a tall, elderly woman appeared. She looked close to seventy, was at least four inches taller than Kohonen, and wore a blue blouse with plain slacks.

A shrill bark came from somewhere inside. The distance from the crime scene was about a hundred yards, but there was no direct line of sight to the abandoned house. Kohonen showed her badge to the woman.

“Detective Kohonen from the VCU.”

“Glad you said it, too; that badge is just a big blur to me without my glasses,” the woman laughed.

Kohonen put her badge back in her pocket. “We’re trying to gather some info on a recent incident and…”

“What incident?”

“Well, actually, I can’t say.”

“Why?”

“It’s confidential. I’m not authorized.”

The woman stared at Kohonen. “I see.”

“Anyhow… Have you noticed anything unusual in the past few days?”

“Where?”

“Here in your neighborhood.”

“Nothing unusual ever happens here. What could I have noticed?”

Kohonen kept a straight face. She had to persist. It was possible the woman didn’t know anything, but she couldn’t be sure yet. “Have you seen any cars or people recently that seemed suspicious? Either last weekend or the early part of this week?”

“Well, there’ve been those police cars over there at number eight. They wouldn’t let me over there, though,” the woman said, pointing towards the red mail box.

“I meant earlier, ma’am.”

The woman appeared to think for a moment.

“What does ‘suspicious’ mean?”

“Any cars or people that you don’t normally get in the area.”

“I haven’t seen anything like that.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary?”

“What happened over there? Drugs? Murder? What?”

Kohonen wondered if the woman had been a journalist in her younger days. “I’m not at liberty to say. Sorry.”

“Well, I haven’t seen anything either. So the score’s tied: zip-zip,” the woman grinned.

“Are you sure?”

She started to close the door. “Yes.”

“What about your husband?”

“Oh,” she chuckled, still closing the door. “He hasn’t seen anything either. He died a year ago.”

“Thank you,” Kohonen said to the door. Well, she thought, shaking her head, when it came to dead bodies they were also tied: one-one. This neighborhood was too quiet.

* * *

The maintenance man opened the door cautiously. A pile of junk mail lay on the floor.

“Okay,” Mikko Kulta said, waving the guy off. “You can go now.”

The man turned to leave, but paused on the landing. A dirty look from Kulta was all it took to get him moving again. The man muttered something that Kulta didn’t catch. He sifted through the junk mail, looking for a newspaper, but didn’t find one. From the detective’s standpoint, a newspaper would have been helpful. It made it easy to figure out the last time someone had been in the apartment. Unfortunately for the police, too many people were dropping their subscriptions.

Kulta stepped inside quietly, his gun holstered but ready. It was dark in the apartment, and the curtains were closed. He flicked on the hallway lights. On his right was a coat rack and on his left, the door to a bathroom. Five or six jackets hung from the hooks.

Kulta had been in dozens of drug flats, and this didn’t seem like one. More like the opposite: an oriental rug in the foyer and furniture that looked middle-class.

He closed the door behind him and glanced into the bathroom. Seemed pretty standard: a bathtub, sink, toilet, and wastebasket. Everything was spotless. This was definitely not a drug hole.

There were two toothbrushes, but no makeup arsenal. A bachelor pad then.

At the end of the hallway, the apartment opened up to the left, revealing a spacious studio. A large window reached to the floor, leading out to a small balcony. The kitchenette was situated behind the bathroom. Kulta checked around: nobody here, breathing or not.

He noted that the room was quite stylish, especially compared to his own flat. A queen-sized bed, sofa, table and flat-screen television were arranged thoughtfully.

Kulta glanced briefly at the entertainment system: Xbox, stereo, games, DVDs, and CDs. Apparently, Eriksson had liked rock from the sixties and seventies; the music included Led Zeppelin, The Who, Rolling Stones, and others in the same vein. Kulta almost felt a fondness for the guy—at least there was no “gangsta” rap.

A closed laptop computer rested on the coffee table, just in front of the couch. Kulta didn’t touch it.

Forensics could go over it with a fine-tooth comb and check for prints. The drug-sniffing dogs would come later. His job was to perform a superficial examination to see if there was anything that could speed up the investigation.

It suddenly occurred to him that this might be the wrong address. This seemed more like an apartment of some jet-setting Nokia engineer.

No envelopes or bills were around to reveal the resident’s name.

Kulta opened the closet and immediately noticed a photograph on the inside of the door. He knew the spot: the bottom of the Särkänniemi Log Chute. It was one of those automatic photos that you could buy after the ride. Kulta recognized Eriksson. In front of him sat a young, blond woman, leaning back in his arms. Now who could that be? The photo was dated August of the previous year. At any rate, it seemed likely that this was, in fact, Eriksson’s apartment.

Kulta slipped on a pair of latex gloves and carefully removed the photo. He’d have to explore some more before Forensics arrived. Otherwise, the techies would claim, once again, that homicide detectives just sat behind their desks, waiting for others to do the dirty work.

* * *

Lieutenant Takamäki sat at the wheel of his unmarked Volkswagen Golf on Mannerheim Street. He was waiting at a red light at the corner of the National Museum, yawning. In the eighties, the Museum had posed as Moscow’s Kremlin in the American movie
Gorky Park
. A crane had hoisted a red star to the top of the tower.

Helsinki’s main drag, named after Marshal Mannerheim, ran north from downtown. An equestrian statue
of the revered military and political leader stood a few hundred yards ahead, roughly opposite the stone Parliament House.

Suhonen had called at three in the morning to tell him about the body, and the investigation had started without regard for the time of day. The VCU tackled their cases with dogged efficiency. There was no need to make an art of it. But this murder was clearly trickier than the typical drunken stabbing. The killer was still on the lam and was enjoying a generous head start.

The trip to the Board of Customs on Erottaja was only about a half mile, but in this traffic it would probably take twenty minutes.

Takamäki’s thoughts were swimming. The manner and location of Jerry Eriksson’s murder seemed to indicate a dispute between professional criminals: a shot to the head in an abandoned garage. His team would probably have to work overtime to solve the case. That didn’t matter, although a break from the hustle and bustle of homicide investigations every now and then was nice.

The problem with working in the Violent Crimes Unit was that, no matter how much the team accomplished or how hard they worked, more cases kept pouring in. They never stopped. Every night in Helsinki, someone was arrested for assault and battery or worse. And every morning, Takamäki’s team got to clean up the mess.

Takamäki was confident that this case would be solved. He
had
to think that. In some cases that had dragged on much longer, the press had eventually asked, “Will the perpetrator ever be caught?”
In those situations, he had no choice but to answer, “Yes, of course.” But still, the cases weren’t always solved.

The line of cars lurched forward another twenty yards before brake lights brought everything to a halt again. A giant 140-million-euro music center was under construction, and the trucks were blocking traffic.

Takamäki’s phone rang, and he dug it out of the breast pocket of his blazer. The call was from home. His younger son wanted to know if Dad would be able to take him to hockey practice tonight. Takamäki said he couldn’t promise anything and told him to ask Mom just in case. Had the detective lieutenant’s pay been better, he’d have spent the twelve grand to buy a microcar for the kid. Though the legal driving age in Finland was eighteen, fifteen-year-olds were allowed to drive these 5.5 horse two-seaters.

The trip to Erottaja took twenty minutes, as he had guessed. Surprisingly, he found a parking spot and made it just in time for his noon meeting.

The security guard in the lobby told him to wait while somebody came down to meet him. Takamäki had only one question, and Assistant Director Leif Snellman was the one to answer it: what did Customs know about Jerry Eriksson?

An assistant escorted him through a maze of hallways to Snellman’s office. When they arrived, Snellman rose from behind his desk and approached Takamäki. The office was spacious enough for a large walnut bookshelf with glass doors and a hardwood conference table with space for six.

“Hello,” Snellman said, extending his hand. His handshake was limp.

“Hello,” the lieutenant answered. He had run into Snellman several times at various seminars, but never actually had the chance to get to know him.

“I’m glad we’re able to cooperate with other agencies like this,” Snellman remarked, and gestured for Takamäki to sit at the conference table. A thermos of hot coffee and a couple of cups were waiting. “With drug cases it’s just not very common, and we don’t have much expertise in violence.”

Takamäki knew that the Helsinki Police and Customs had had their fair share of conflicts in drug investigations. Snellman poured Takamäki a cup of coffee without asking.

“So,” Snellman began. “On the phone you mentioned a Jerry Eriksson and wanted some information on his connections to Customs. What kind of a character is this guy?”