Fatal Headwind (12 page)

“How can you think Jiri could have murdered his father? He wouldn’t even kill a horsefly if it bit him!”

I didn’t answer. Surely Anne knew that after seeing Jiri’s fight with Officer Akkila at the McDonald’s, I wouldn’t be so easily convinced.

“Let’s forget Jiri for a second. What was your marriage like? Were you happy?”

Anne sat down at the table again and poured herself another cup of tea.

“What do you mean by ‘happy’?”

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I just drank more coffee.

“I’ve wondered many times why people always have to be seeking happiness. Yes, I look for balance, but happiness? When I was younger I thought that happiness was the same as falling in love. Even though I constantly saw examples to the contrary, I still thought there was some sort of all-encompassing love that could last a lifetime. You know, ‘And they lived happily ever after to the end of their days.’ Maybe other people can make you unhappy, but only you can make yourself happy.”

Anne took a sip of tea before continuing.

“At first happiness for Juha meant having a cute little wife and a profitable company. Happiness was a new house and a bigger boat. Juha’s happiness was in things and accomplishments, like being able to sail nonstop without sleeping for fifty hours from Finland to Föglö. Happiness for him wasn’t about our children’s smiles or even my love for him . . .”

Tears filled Anne’s eyes, and one rolled slowly down her left cheek.

“And there’s nothing wrong with that. For me happiness was knowing that Juha and the children were happy. But I wanted something more than new accomplishments. Although when we came up with the idea together to produce green boat paints, I was very happy.”

Anne wiped her eyes and tried to smile. “Actually the whole idea started with Riikka. Since she was tiny she’s been crazy about animals, and it was a real tragedy when she was about ten and we realized that she was allergic to anything with hair: cats, dogs, horses, even hamsters. I started investigating where the allergies could come from, and part of that was learning about environmental toxins and that sort of thing. At the same time Juha was starting to think that the company needed to carve out a more specific niche to keep up with the competition in the paint business.”

Anne lifted her cup to her lips and drained it. Her wrist looked too delicate even to hold the oversized cup. How could those hands have beaten a person to death?

“But in the past few years we’ve been growing in different directions. Juha didn’t understand spiritual values, and he lacked the ability to stop and consider things or meditate. He always had to be charging forward in such a rush. And Juha didn’t feel like nature had intrinsic value—he believed in protecting it just so long as it benefited people. He and Jiri were always arguing about it because Jiri thought that every last bug was just as valuable as he was.”

The conference room phone rang, and Anne looked at me apologetically before answering. Apparently it was the secretary asking about some sort of business negotiation. Anne said it would have to be moved to the following week. When she spoke about work, her voice was almost commanding, and her facial features turned sharper. I wondered at her ability to continue handling the business, even though her spouse had died just a few days earlier. Maybe she thought the best way to honor Juha’s memory was to continue his work.

“How did your growing apart show in everyday life?” I asked once Anne returned the receiver to its cradle.

“We didn’t do much together anymore. Juha wasn’t interested in my meditation retreats, and I wasn’t interested in tennis vacations in Portugal. It didn’t matter, though, because between work and home, we’ve spent almost every hour together the whole time we’ve been married. Getting a little extra space was good for us.”

“Did this extra space also apply to your sexual relationship?”

Anne Merivaara didn’t answer, but I noticed she pulled the azurite out of her pocket and started rubbing it again.

“Did you have other relationships?”

“I didn’t,” Anne said slowly. “I don’t really know about Juha . . . I imagine on the business trips he took, women were part of the entertainment, but I don’t think he had anyone permanent.”

Could Anne Merivaara’s indifferent ignorance be genuine? Maybe she noticed the confusion in my eyes, because she continued talking.

“Yes, I loved Juha. It isn’t that. Our needs were just so different. For the first ten years of our marriage just the idea of Juha being with someone else felt like such a horrible insult. Gradually my attitude changed, though. You can’t own another person—not their body or their soul. Commitment has to be voluntary, no matter what the topic.”

As a cynic I figured Anne Merivaara knew it was in her best interest to give the police the impression that she didn’t care about her husband’s other women. That took care of at least one possible motive for killing a spouse.

Now I was the one to stand up and walk to the window. If only my own office window gave a view onto brown fields of freshly tilled earth instead of the endless stream of cars on the Turku Highway.

“Anne, when you’re dealing with a homicide, concealing information is unwise at best. Worst-case scenario, it can lead to charges of aiding and abetting,” I said, trying not to sound threatening. “I’d like to question Jiri as soon as possible. Is he going to be home today after school?”

“Jiri doesn’t know anything!” Anne’s voice broke for the first time during our conversation. “And besides, he’s going straight from school to some demonstration.”

Probably the same one Antti and Iida were attending, I thought with amusement. “How is Jiri doing in school?”

“Fine, although he argues with his teachers. They say he criticizes their teaching too much. But Jiri wants to get into college. His big dream is to use science to demonstrate that consumer culture is unsustainable.”

“Ah.” So maybe Jiri had adopted at least a little of his father’s attitude about how to influence the world.

Just then I realized that if I still intended to interview Paula Saarnio before I had to get back to the station for yet another pointless organizational-development meeting, I would have to wrap up my conversation with Anne Merivaara, even though I didn’t feel like I had gotten anything from her. I took one more carrot scone, since I was hungry and there was no time for lunch. Tonight I would have to get out for a run. Otherwise my head would explode.

“Six years ago your husband was in a boating accident in which one person died,” I said. “Did that bother him?”

At first I had been excited about the boating accident, but after a close look at the case file, I learned that Juha Merivaara hadn’t been charged with anything. Back then the standard for boating under the influence had still been a BAC of 0.15, and according to water traffic regulations the boater who died, one Aaro Koponen, should have given Merivaara’s sailboat the right of way. There had been a thick fog, and Koponen’s BAC had been above 0.2. Based on Juha Merivaara’s account, the investigators decided that Koponen simply hadn’t seen the other boat with Juha Merivaara and a couple of business associates aboard.

Anne looked at me as if she didn’t understand my question at first.

“Oh, that,” she finally said. “I had forgotten the whole thing. Juha couldn’t do anything about it. The man came straight at them out of the fog. Juha even jumped in the water and tried to save him. He almost drowned himself.”

Even so, I decided I should at least find out who Aaro Koponen was. The possibility of revenge from someone on his side couldn’t be completely ruled out.

Paula Saarnio’s office was between Juha Merivaara’s office and the front hall. Saarnio was talking on a cell phone and typing at her computer. I knocked, and without a pause she managed to nod to me to enter. I stepped into the room and walked through into Juha Merivaara’s office. Kantelinen was working on copying Merivaara’s hard drive. But I was more interested in personal belongings than the company finances.

I opened the door to one side of a large closet. A dark-brown wool suit, dress shirts that were perfectly pressed, and several ties hung from a row of hangers. There was a pair of brown brogue-pattern leather shoes and a tennis racket on the floor, and I found tennis attire and a pair of the latest Adidas tennis shoes on the shelf.

I reached into one pocket of the jacket and then the other, where I found a coin. I tried the breast pocket, which was empty. There was nothing in the pants pockets or in the tennis shorts.

The other side of the closet was full of binders. According to the labels, they contained correspondence and product-development memos.

“I’ll go through those soon,” Kantelinen said calmly.

“Have you found anything interesting?”

Kantelinen shook his head. “I’m just doing a general survey right now. I’ll get into more detail back at the station. What are you looking for?”

“A motive.” I walked over to the desk and opened the top drawer, which contained a thick daily planner that I would take with me. On the desk stood a picture of a smiling Juha Merivaara with his family. They were on the deck of a sailboat, and it must have been from a few years earlier. Riikka and Jiri had long hair, and Jiri still looked like a child.

The next drawer contained papers, company PR brochures, financial reports, and such. In the bottom drawer I found brochures from Tapiola Tennis and the Esport Center and a flyer from a boat show.

On the wall were two framed black-and-white photographs. One was of a man with a carefully trimmed mustache and glasses. On the frame was a small metal plate that read “Mikael Merivaara, 1874–1947.” The narrow face and prominent Adam’s apple of the man in the other picture was familiar, and I wasn’t surprised to read that this was Martti Merivaara, Juha and Mikke’s father, who had lived from 1919–1982.

I remembered the family tree Katrina Sjöberg had given during her interview. Mikael Merivaara’s father and brothers had been sea captains, but he had left Åland for Helsinki to study engineering. Mikael fell in love with the daughter of an ardent Finnish nationalist, changed his name from the Swedish Sjöberg to Finnish Merivaara, and used the money he inherited from his father-in-law to found a shipping-equipment company, Merivaara Nautical. Martti Merivaara was Mikael’s only child. Martti inherited the company, but he was not a particularly skilled businessman. Only a couple of years after his father’s death, he had been forced to sell half of his stock in the company.

The shares were purchased by Gustav Enckell, whose daughter, Fredrika, was ten years older than Martti. Enckell died soon after the purchase, and Martti came up with a plan to marry Fredrika in order to win back control of the company. Martti and Fredrika married in 1950, and Juha was born the next year. They didn’t have any more children because Fredrika was diagnosed with leukemia, which she died of in 1959.

Juha inherited his mother’s half of the company. Martti controlled Juha’s assets, but the trustees of the boy’s estate forced him to take better care of them. The company began to thrive in the 1960s as Finns began to have more money for things like recreational boating.

Both Mikael and Martti Merivaara looked uncompromising and stubborn, the sort of men who would brook no argument. How soon would Juha Merivaara’s picture be added to the wall?

There were more binders on the shelves, along with a few trophies and some model ships. I took down one of the trophies to inspect it. Hanko Six Meter Regatta Champion 1978. So Juha Merivaara had sailed competitively, unlike Mikke, who just liked sailing for itself.

Among the binders were bird books, English-language books on navigation, and one novel, Herman Melville’s
Moby-Dick
. I didn’t recognize the smiling woman in the decorative frame on one shelf, but based on the early 1950s hairdo, I deduced it was Fredrika Merivaara. I recognized something of Riikka in her grandmother’s features: dynamic jawline, long neck, determined eyebrows. Juha Merivaara hadn’t looked particularly like either of his parents.

“Is there anything personal on the computer?” I asked Kantelinen.

“No, but I haven’t looked at all the disks yet. What are you looking for, love notes from a mistress?”

“Maybe. Anything personal that might shed some light on what kind of person Juha Merivaara was.”

I remembered our brief meeting on Rödskär and how his use of “little mother” in regard to me had aroused my revulsion. Juha Merivaara had exuded masculinity and a sort of heedless forcefulness that was difficult to square with his environmentalism. But maybe he had seen nature as some sort of weak feminine character whose virginity had to be protected so people with pure intentions could enjoy its graces.

A knock came at the door and Paula Saarnio walked in. She was probably five foot eleven, and her height was exaggerated by the three-inch heels she wore. Her dark hair was fluffed in a round hair helmet, and the masculine cut of her pinstripe suit emphasized her wide shoulders and narrow hips. Saarnio was in her early to midthirties. On her left ring finger she wore two thin diamond rings, and she had small diamond studs in her ears. Her lips were painted a deep brown, but the rest of her makeup was more subtle.

“I have time to answer your questions now,” she said in a low-pitched voice that must have sounded extremely pleasant on the telephone.

Walking back into Saarnio’s office, I sat down in one of the chairs and pulled my notepad out of my shoulder bag.

“How long have you worked for Merivaara Nautical?”

“About five years. The old secretary, who had been with the company since Juha’s father’s time, retired then.”

“How have you gotten along?”

“Very well.” Paula Saarnio sat down in her office chair, crossed one leg over the other, and then interlocked her hands around her knee. Her nails were painted the same color as her lips.

“What kind of man was Juha Merivaara?”

“Demanding but fair. He expressed clearly how he wanted things done and didn’t waffle about his decisions.”

“So the two of you got along well? What was your relationship like?”