Fatal Headwind (17 page)

My phone rang before I could answer. Puupponen was calling from the station, asking how to handle one of Ström’s open cases. I moved to the bow to talk, and by the time I had the issue handled, we were almost at the marina. I called Seija Saarela, who said she was available all afternoon. Koivu said he wasn’t going to interview Saarela or fill out a single line of paperwork until he got some food, so I promised him we’d hit Chico’s for steak fajitas before going to see Saarela. We needed to get moving. I remembered I had promised to get home early so Antti could make it to a vintage French film that was being screened at the State Film Archives.

It wasn’t until Koivu slapped me on the back that I realized I was staring at Mikke Sjöberg as he climbed into Holma’s car.

“Maria,” Koivu said cautiously. “Remember that you’re married and that guy is a suspect. You know he’s hiding something.”

“Did you escort Wang all the way home last night or just to the bus?”

After shooting off that comeback, I headed to our car. Damn it. Koivu was getting to know me a little bit too well.

9

“I didn’t particularly like Juha Merivaara,” Seija Saarela said, setting down a mottled violet amethyst the size of a baby’s fist. We had gone to her home, which happened to be next door to Jiri’s high school. The living room of the one-bedroom apartment was full of crystals and polishing implements. Saarela cleared off a chair covered with white chunks of quartz and brought two more chairs in from the kitchen. Through the open bedroom door, I could see a bed with a royal-purple covering.

“So you don’t find it surprising that someone killed Juha Merivaara?”

“Surprising? More like shocking and frightening.” Seija Saarela had a deep, singsong voice, more tenor than alto.

Saarela told us that lapidary and jewelry-making were just hobbies. She was trained as a drafter, but except for a couple of periods of obligatory employment to maintain her welfare benefits, she had been unemployed for the past six years. The crystal gig didn’t earn enough to be a real occupation, and someone on unemployment wasn’t allowed to earn much anyway. She appeared to be trapped. The chances of a female drafter in her fifties being offered a new job were slim. But Seija Saarela wasn’t letting that hurt her life. The energy that radiated from her and the crystals surrounding her was definitely positive.

Saarela reported divorcing her husband eight years prior. Her adult son lived with his girlfriend in Turku. Saarela was free to come and go as she pleased.

“I thought Juha was a sanctimonious snake. There’s no denying he was a good businessman, and it was easy to believe him when he talked about protecting the environment, but he could just as convincingly have preached the benefits of heavy truck traffic or fur farming if he had decided to do that as his life’s work. Juha didn’t like people like me.”

Saarela tucked a gray wisp of hair behind her ear. She wore dark-green tights with a black pattern and a purple-and-green rayon tunic that extended nearly to her knees. Her eyes were reminiscent of small chocolates, and the lines on her face told of frequent laughter.

“The unemployed were the lowest caste in Juha’s eyes. And I’m a fat old lady who isn’t even any use as a woman.” Despite her bitter words, Saarela’s tone was one of amusement.

“Old? He was only three years younger than you.”

“Juha applied slightly different age criteria to women than to men. In his mind he was still in his prime, while Anne, who’s a year younger than him, was on the verge of being geriatric. ‘You should at least drink milk so you don’t get osteoporosis like other women your age’ and things like that. Any woman over forty was basically a crone in his eyes, while men stayed boys until they went to their graves. In his mind it was practically a crime that I seemed to enjoy my life, even though I didn’t have a job or a man.”

Seija Saarela glanced at Koivu, who was listening to our conversation with some self-consciousness. “I probably wouldn’t describe Juha this way to two male police detectives, though. I would probably talk about how Juha tried to highlight his masculinity by forcing Jiri into physical competitions with him: swimming, tennis, skipping rocks. Luckily Jiri had learned to resist, and Juha wouldn’t have been able to control him very much longer, either physically or financially.”

Saarela must have realized the hidden meaning of what she had just said, because she suddenly stood up and asked whether we wanted tea. She usually had a cup around this time of day. We nodded. The spicy fajitas at lunch had left me thirsty.

“Peppermint or rose hip?”

“Peppermint, please,” I replied, since Koivu didn’t seem to have an opinion. This wasn’t the first time he left all the talking to me.

“You said you met the Merivaara family through Mikke Sjöberg. So would you say you’re a family friend?” I asked Saarela as she busied herself in the kitchenette.

“Mikke and Anne’s friend. Juha wasn’t the kind of man to have female friends. He showed me my place by offering me a job in his company—as a cleaner. I think cleaning is honorable and valuable work, but I wouldn’t mop Juha Merivaara’s floors for any price! When I told him my training was in a rather different field, he claimed that all women knew how to clean by nature.”

I snorted. Talk of women’s built-in sense for maintaining order had always made me shake my head. I certainly hadn’t been blessed with that skill—nowadays I cleaned mostly because otherwise Iida ate the dust bunnies and ripped the pages out of any books left on the floor.

“As Anne Merivaara’s friend, maybe you can say something about the couple’s relationship. Was it OK?”

Seija Saarela shifted a box of crystals off the table and set out three dark-green ceramic coffee cups. They were followed by a bottle of honey and a packet of extremely healthy-looking cookies that made Koivu grimace.

“Yes, they were fine actually. They both accepted that they had different values, but they still wanted to stay together. Anne disliked how Juha treated Jiri, but I doubt they fought about much else. Anne and I don’t talk much about these sorts of things, though.”

I didn’t ask what they did talk about because I was afraid I might get a lecture on spiritualism. Instead, I asked about Juha Merivaara’s relationship with his half brother.

“I think Juha had a lot of contempt for Mikke, but he was also jealous of him. Contempt because he thought Mikke had neglected his duty to continue on in the family business, jealousy because of Mikke’s freedom and his reputation as a sailor. In sailing circles Mikke is a rock star, or he would be if he wanted to.”

The warmth in Saarela’s voice was unmistakable.

“When is Mikke going to get to leave?” she asked. “He’s probably pretty anxious to get going before the autumn storms. You can’t suspect him of killing Juha. He wouldn’t have any reason—”

“How did Mikke get along with his brother?” I interrupted. Saarela fetched the teapot from the kitchen and poured the steaming, brisk-smelling tea before answering.

“Sometimes he would be amused, sometimes agitated. Mikke said that there were times when Juha reminded him of their father in scary ways. They didn’t seem terribly close, so I’m surprised Mikke is so out of his mind with grief. Please, have some tea.”

Koivu sipped greedily, burning his mouth, and I started asking about the events of the night of Juha’s death. Saarela said she had slept restlessly and also heard her room companion, Katrina Sjöberg, tossing and turning as well.

“I can sense if there are powerful energy fields nearby. And that night there were.”

“Who or where was the energy coming from?” I decided to use Saarela’s conceptual framework. We were both seeking the same thing—who had been angry enough with Juha Merivaara to kill him.

“From Juha,” Saarela said but refused to reveal any more than that. She said that during the night she had heard people moving around the fortress. When I finally asked whether anyone else had come to the island during the night, she responded hesitantly.

“I’m not quite sure . . . I was in and out of sleep so much. I could never swear to this, but I did get the impression that a boat had at least approached the island. People have showed up there in the middle of the night before, but it was pitch black. No moon or stars.”

When I asked Seija Saarela who she thought killed Juha Merivaara, she curtly said that she was going to leave that to the police. Her telephone rang, and based on her side of the conversation, the caller must have been Saarela’s son.

“I have guests right now. Well, not really guests. The police. No, no, I’m fine. An acquaintance was involved in an accident. Can I call you a little later?” Hanging up, Saarela said that she had an appointment in just under an hour. When I called her earlier, she hadn’t mentioned anything about an appointment, but I thought we had pressed her enough about events on Rödskär enough anyway.

So we left.

I was exhausted when I got home. When I opened the door, Einstein slipped out as if fleeing the commotion, because Antti was playing the piano and Iida was banging pot lids together. Emptying the cupboard with the pots and pans was one of her favorite games. Right now I didn’t have any tolerance for noise, and I felt like fleeing upstairs, but when Iida saw me, she flung down the pot lids, clambered to her feet, and toddled over to me.

“Momm-eeee!” she screamed, wearing a huge smile. From the front of her shirt I could see the day’s menu had included beef casserole and whipped porridge. I scooped up my little girl, turning her back toward me.

“Antti, this child is filthy!” I shouted over the Bach flooding from the piano.

“So? No one’s here to see. I didn’t feel like changing her clothes, since she’s about to eat again.” Antti didn’t interrupt his playing.

“But—” I started, but then I thought about it:
But what?
I ignored the ancient ur-mother in me who was saying that a child’s clothes always had to be clean and pressed, especially since I never had the energy to iron, not on maternity leave and not while I was working. If I didn’t, why would Antti? Even so, I dragged myself upstairs to change Iida’s shirt so she didn’t get everything else dirty. I pulled on my running clothes too before we jumped on the bed for a quick snuggle and some mommy-baby exercise.

“Baby animal,” I said and tickled Iida’s neck under her downy blond hair, and she responded with a giggle. It had taken a few months before we learned each other’s languages—for the first six weeks I had been almost helpless whenever she cried. I offered her my breast and changed her diapers, but the little person we had been calling the Creature while I was pregnant just kept screaming. My shoulders tense and my head fuzzy from lack of sleep, I had felt betrayed whenever Antti took her because she calmed down instantly. It was like there was something wrong with me, as if my maternal-tenderness aura was on the fritz. After I went back to work, the situation changed though: now Antti was the one Iida whined at, and I was the one she was always sweetest with.

Bench-pressing a twenty-two-pound child was surprisingly effective, and Iida giggled happily. During my maternity leave she and I had gone to a new mothers’ aerobics class, and that’s where I had learned most of the exercises we were doing. Iida was patient about it all. Back when Antti was still going to work, I used to take her out jogging in her stroller too because I was compelled to run and babysitters were rarely available.

Antti appeared at the door to watch our exercising. “I ran into Ström at the supermarket today,” he said.

“Oh. What did he say?” I croaked as I pressed Iida upward with my legs.

“He pretended not to notice us. He was buying a case of beer and four pouches of Marlboro loose.”

“Interesting diet,” I said, but I couldn’t help worrying.

When I went out to run, I alternated between thoughts of Ström and Juha Merivaara’s murder. Not until about the halfway mark of my loop did an extremely well-chiseled male specimen jog by and get my mind off of work. After that I was finally able to enjoy the autumn forest. The fine brush of the evening frost had traced each leaf and blade of grass individually, finding the perfect shades and color combinations for each one. A maple bled red, another tree shone like the sun, and the mugworts looked like they were carved out of chocolate. The colors streamed past me, filling my veins with an energy that conjured wings for my heels. Being happy was obligatory—the colors allowed nothing less.

When I got back, Antti left for the movie, and he planned to have beers with some friends afterward. Once I had put Iida down, I tried to call Ström, but there was no answer at his home number. I found myself simultaneously concerned and relieved, because he probably would just have told me to go to hell and stop coddling him.