Darling (19 page)

“Everything alright?” Joutsamo asked.

Suhonen looked Joutsamo straight in the eyes. “Not really.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“I’m alright, but you might remember Eero Salmela.”

Joutsamo knew of Salmela, though she didn’t know him personally. He was Suhonen’s old friend and informant.

“Did something happen to him?”

“He’s in the hospital because he had a
severe heart attack last week and another one yesterday, luckily milder this time.”

“Oh, no,” Joutsamo responded. “Is he in Meilahti?”

Suhonen nodded.

“He’s in good hands, then. How’s he doing?”

“They wouldn’t let me see him yesterday.”

Typing his password into the computer, Suhonen said, “I’ll call tomorrow and see if I can drop by.”

“He’s your…I mean our age, isn’t he?”

“He’s had a tough life,” Suhonen said, “but it’s still hard to believe when it happens to
one of your friends.”

“Yeah,” Joutsamo agreed, and reminded herself that she should call her dad in Hyvinkää to see how he was doing.

“I guess he’ll be alright,” Suhonen said. “How are things around here?” he asked, opening the police database and typing in his password.

“Nothing urgent…a busy night, but nothing came to us. I already went and flipped over a grandma this morning, though.”

“It’s been a while since I had to do that.”

“I’d venture to say you may get a chance today.”

The Violent Crimes Unit did about 1,500 cause-of-death investigations every year, with cases varying from someone jumping under a subway train to someone hanging themselves in their home, from heart attacks to crib deaths to accidents. These investigations kept them much busier than violent crimes. The police investigated every single death that didn’t occur in a hospital or other institutions.

“I can hardly wait.”

He typed the name Maiju Rahkola into the police database. The results were what he expected: The woman was reported missing by Turku Police in June 2010. The case was still open, which meant that she hadn’t been found.

Salmela had mentioned that name to him at the hospital, and maybe he was onto something.

“Anna,” Suhonen said. “Does the name Maiju Rahkola ring a bell?”

Joutsamo shook her head.

“She’s a woman who disappeared in Turku a couple of years ago. She was seventeen at the time.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar. We constantly get missing person reports. I can’t even keep up with the cases in Helsinki.”

“We could check out a lead I got on the case,” Suhonen said. “But first I need to do something else.”

CHAPTER 18

SATURDAY, 12:30 P.M.

KAARINA, SOUTHWEST FINLAND

The Mercedes taxi turned off the
main highway onto a narrow dirt road not wide enough for two cars. The road was flanked by small single family homes with traditional wood siding, surrounded by yards just big enough for a couple of apple trees or a small garden.

Real estate developers had built some new, larger houses in the area, but they hadn’t yet gotten their hands
on this little islet. Reporter Sanna Römpötti wondered if one of the homeowners was too stubborn to sell, thus making it unfeasible for the developers to buy the other lots. But eventually these homes would be torn down and replaced by a townhouse ghetto.

“Number four would be the one on the right, the green one,” a silver-haired
, fifty-year-old cab driver said with a west coast drawl.

“Okay,” Römpötti said.

“That’ll be twenty-two euros,” the driver told her, and Römpötti handed him a credit card. She had taken the train from Helsinki that morning, and now the taxi had brought her to the small town of Kaarina, about six miles southeast of Turku.

The driver piped up just as
Römpötti was getting out of the taxi and thanking him.

“If I might say, I like your stories. They always have good angles.”

“Well, we’ll try to keep them that way,” Römpötti replied with a smile.

Once outside, Römpötti looked around and listened for a minute. She noticed the house could’ve used a new layer of paint and
other upkeep. Traffic hummed on the Helsinki-Turku freeway half a mile away, but otherwise it was almost eerily quiet here. Römpötti drew in a deep breath of the fresh autumn air, which felt nice after the cab driver’s cheap cologne. She wondered why Helsinki got a lot more snow than southwest Finland.

Römpötti lifted the wooden hook off the top of the waist-high fence gate. Crooked concrete squares paved the way to the house. Römpötti climbed the steps and knocked on the door.

“It’s unlocked,” said a woman’s voice from inside the house.

Römpötti opened the lightweight door. A blue table and one chair sat on the covered porch; perhaps the widow drank her afternoon coffee here. Römpötti recognized the cold and damp smell of an old house: a mixture of mold, mice, and insulation.

“Hello,” said a seventy-year-old woman dressed in a brown cardigan and black pants. She had deep creases on her face and looked like she had worked hard her whole life.

“You’re Römpötti?
”

Römpötti nodded and shook the woman’s cold, bony hand and then hung her coat on a hook on the wall. The ho
me décor dated from the sixties; the colors were faded and the furniture was worn. A staircase led upstairs from the front door, and on the left was a beige door with a sign for the bathroom and sauna. The living room opened to the right and a small kitchen and dining room were tucked behind it.

“Römpötti,” the woman repeated. “Are your roots in Karelia?”

“No, born and bred in Helsinki. Third generation,” Römpötti replied.

She knew there was a village by the name of Römpötti in Karelia, but her last name didn’t come from there. At least she didn’t think so—she had never done the genealogy. But the reporter would rather have claimed Swedish royalty. She had read somewhere that Römpötti was the common name for the Sprengtporten family of counts and military leaders.

“Your news reports are a bit Helsinki-centric, too.”

Römpötti didn’t quite know what to say to that. She didn’t want to irritate the woman in any way, especially after all the coaxing it took for her to agree to the interview in the first place.

“The news stories are meant for everyone,” Römpötti said softly. She wanted to keep the conversation going.

“Would you like some coffee?” the woman asked.

“Yes, please,” Römpötti replied and dug a small paper sack from her purse. “I brought some sweet rolls.”

The woman’s face lit up, and Römpötti knew her stop on the way there had been worth the trouble.

Ansa Korpivaara had set porcelain cups on the coffee table in the living room. She brought the coffee in from the kitchen, along with saucers for the sweetbread. They each had a large cinnamon roll.

“So, you wanted to talk about my son,” Ansa
Korpivaara offered. She knew that her son was a murder suspect. “But I have one question first. What makes this case so interesting that you had to come here all the way from Helsinki?”

Römpötti had pondered the same thing and didn’t quite have
an answer. When the news chief had made a comment that homicides didn’t get their fair share of investigating, he meant it as a joke. But perhaps that was the reason. The fact that the victim had a mental disability made the case extremely intriguing. What kind of a man was capable of killing a mentally disabled woman?

In t
he best scenario for reporters, two or three investigative journalists worked together, driving and supporting each other on the story. Römpötti worked alone, but she was helped by Nea Lind. Lind might also be right in saying that something didn’t make sense in the case. Römpötti might be on a wild goose chase, but at least she was on a chase.

She molded a different answer for Mrs.
Korpivaara.

“I don’t know if it’ll lead to anything, but I want to
investigate the background for the homicide. It intrigues me. Is that a good enough reason?”

“I suppose it’s as good as pure curiosity,” Mrs.
Korpivaara said.

Römpötti looked into the old woman’s eyes. They were filled with determination, but also grief. It could be summed up as life experience.

“The police are investigating how it happened. I want to know why.”

Römpötti had
given dozens of lectures on investigative journalism for the police, prosecutors, and judges. Each time she had stressed the fact that reporters weren’t at the crime scene to satisfy their own curiosity. But this time she had to admit that she was curious.

Römpötti wanted to interview Mrs.
Korpivaara on camera, but the woman refused. She agreed only to supply background information.

“Jorma was a normal boy. He wasn’t too interested in school, but he was no dummy. He preferred soccer to books.”

“Did you live here during his childhood?”

“I’ve lived here since the early sixties. My late husband, Rauno, built the house
and this is where I’ll die. If they want to haul me to the hospital, they’ll have to tie me up.”

Römpötti wondered if it was
her who had kept the developers away from the area.

“There were probably a lot of children around back then.”

“Yeah. And now it’s just old people, and some environmentalists.”

Römpötti sipped her coffee and took a bite of her cinnamon roll. The woman was talking, but she wasn’t giving out very much information. The reporter thought about pulling out her pencil and notebook, but she was afraid it might make the woman even more
guarded.

“How often is Jorma in touch with you?”

“He’s called now and then, and he stops by occasionally.”

“Does he have siblings?”

“He’s an only child,” Ansa Korpivaara said, shaking her head.

“How long did Jorma live here?”

“He was in his early twenties when he moved away. It was a year after that incident.”

Römpötti perked up, but the old woman seemed to regret her slip and broke off a piece of her cinnamon roll.

“What was the incident?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Please. It’s extremely important,” Römpötti pleaded.

Of course, Röm
pötti didn’t know how important yet. The woman had brought it up and would eventually talk about it. Römpötti figured the mother of a killer would feel the need to explain things. Her son committing a serious crime was bound to make her feel she had failed somehow.

“Yeah,” the woman said, with a measured look. “I suppose it won’t hurt anything, since he’s going to prison now. The boy shouldn’t have done it, but it was the booze.”

“Jorma drank a lot?”

“Too much. Booze is what killed his father, too, eight years ago.”

Römpötti didn’t see the point in offering her condolences so long after the man’s death.

“Alcohol is rarely the cause for good,” Römpötti said. “Did Jorma’s life change after the…incident?”

Mrs. Korpivaara glanced down and sipped her coffee.

“It…it was always referred to as an accident, but it was no accident.”

Römpötti waited for the woman to continue.

“They said the boy ran into a rock on his motorcycle and got hurt. Psh.”

“What happened exactly?”

“Jorma was twenty-one and the girl was sixteen,” Mrs.
Korpivaara said, her face softened now. They dated in secret, but the girl’s father found out about the relationship. He couldn’t accept this older boy from a working-class family. When Jorma gave her alcohol, the father lost it completely. He interrogated his daughter, and she told him about the sex. The hot-tempered man beat the living daylights out of Jorma and called Rauno to come and get his son. Jorma was a bloody mess, but Rauno agreed with the man not to report it to the police. Rauno made up the motorcycle story to tell at the hospital. I disagreed, but my opinion didn’t count. Rauno was ashamed of his son.”

Römpötti listened in silence.

“His face was a mess and the doctors discovered he had serious head injuries, so he had to stay in the hospital for a while. He changed—became introverted. He used to be so active and now he just stayed cooped up in his room and wouldn’t go out with his friends. He wasn’t interested in school, either. I kept trying to get him to do things, but eventually he got tired of that and moved to Helsinki. He didn’t do well there, either, and he just moved from one temp job to the next.”

“It’s very sad,” Römpötti said.

“Life is sad,” Ansa Korpivaara added.

“Did the girl live nearby?”

“She lived about eight miles north of here, in Lieto. They met at a disco, or a dance hall.”

“And after that they didn’t keep in touch?”