Nothing but the Truth (14 page)

WEDNESDAY,

DECEMBER 13

CHAPTER 12

WEDNESDAY, 8:45 A.M.

COURTHOUSE BASEMENT, HELSINKI

At least the coffee’s hot, thought Mari Lehtonen as she sat with Joutsamo in a basement witness room of Helsinki District Court. The long, three-hundred-square-foot room, with its pale gray walls, was every bit as ascetic as the interrogation rooms at police headquarters. In the middle of the room was a long veneered table surrounded by ten chairs. A lone Christmas-themed centerpiece lay on the table: a ring of elves cut from red cardboard.

The only sound was the hum of the ventilation system.

Lehtonen picked up her paper cup, but her hand was trembling enough that she had to steady it with her left.

“Are you scared?” asked Joutsamo.

Lehtonen shook her head. “No. Nervous, yeah. Never been a witness before.”

“Just tell them what you saw. That’s all that’s expected of you.”

“I guess so,” said Lehtonen. Over the past few months, the whole September episode had been gradually fading from her memory, and a semblance of normalcy had returned to her life. But two weeks ago, a summons from the court had snapped her back to reality. Lehtonen had had to go to the post office to pick up the registered letter. Inside the envelope was a summons in cold officialese, demanding that she appear in court.

“Laura was really good in the play the other night. She was probably nervous, too,” said Joutsamo. Mari had sent her a ticket to the show.

“Well, that was a play.”

“Not to Laura. It was real to her.”

“What do you think is gonna happen?” asked Lehtonen, still clutching her paper cup with two hands.

“We’ve done our job, and we have a good prosecutor. You tell them what you know and Korpi will get life.”

“Today’s paper had a little different take.”

Joutsamo snorted. “The papers can print what they want but it won’t sway the court. The judge and jury will look at the facts and nothing more. And that’s all they’ll need to convict him.”

The door opened and in stepped District Prosecutor Helena Muuri, dressed in a dark gray pantsuit. She exchanged nods with Joutsamo then introduced herself to Lehtonen, and the two shook hands. Muuri had left the door open, and the faint sound of music drifted in from the hallway: the voice of the late Curt Cobain, “
I love you, I’m not gonna crack.
”

“Is everything alright,” Muuri said, more as a statement than a question, though her words were directed at Lehtonen.

“Uhh...sure.”

Muuri nodded. “A couple of tips for you. Please tell the court only what you know. If you don’t know something, please say so. Avoid eye contact with the suspect. Korpi’s attorney is going to ask you some questions, but please keep your eyes on him alone. A few other witnesses will come to the box before you, so it’ll take a little while.”

Muuri’s overly courteous style was irritating to Joutsamo. It only made the situation more tense.

“When…” Joutsamo began to ask.

“I don’t know. The judge on the case is the decisive type, so before lunch in all likelihood.”

“And you still want Mari to testify on the witness stand?” asked Joutsamo. The alternative was for Lehtonen to stay in a separate room adjoining the witness room and give her testimony from behind tinted glass.

“Yes. There’s no evidence of any credible threats. A witness who is present in the courtroom is always more believable to the jury.” Muuri looked at Mari. “Your testimony is key to the case because it links Korpi to the crime scene.”

“Do you think he’ll be convicted?” asked Lehtonen. Joutsamo hoped Muuri would say something encouraging.

“I don’t know. That’s for the court to decide.”

No such luck, thought Joutsamo.

“So he might go free?”

“It’s always a possibility,” said Muuri coldly. “Neither of the suspects have said anything to the police during the entire investigation. Today, they’ll spin some tale for the court about how events unfurled. What that tale might be, we don’t yet know.”

Lehtonen fell silent. With a nod, Muuri got up and left.

* * *

TV reporter Sanna Römpötti was seated in the waiting area of the courtroom where Korpi was about to be tried. The long, plainly furnished room had five rows of seating, each composed of five banks of airport-style seating units. Forty-year-old Römpötti was dressed in jeans, sitting with a few other crime reporters from various media outlets. A couple of uniformed officers, white-shirted guards and a few lawyers were also in the room. No photographers were present, since cameras were prohibited in the courtroom. Römpötti’s cameraman was waiting in the courthouse cafeteria.

“Did the prosecutor offer copies of the charges?” Römpötti asked a mustached
Ilta-Sanomat
newspaper reporter with a fox-pattern tie.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “You can get ’em from the bailiff on the first floor once they get started. I can bring some for everyone.”

“Great, thanks,” said Römpötti. The Porvoo Street murder, as it had come to be called in the newsrooms, wasn’t headline material anymore. Nobody from National Public News was even on location. In addition to Römpötti and the fellow from the
Ilta-Sanomat
, reporters from the
Helsingin Sanomat
, The Finnish News Bureau and
Alibi
crime magazine were on site. The usual cast.

Römpötti had been following the case since the beginning. She had done a couple of spots on it then, and as the court date drew nearer, the case began to gather attention again. Much of the interest had to do with Risto Korpi’s background and status in the underworld.

The fledgling conversation hit a lull. Nobody had anything worth saying, not even about last night’s adventures at the downtown bars. Römpötti was tired. In a way, the case seemed fairly routine. She had ordered the case files from the police, which included security camera photographs from the front of the building where the murder occurred. She could easily build her news story based on those, along with interviews from the prosecution and defense. Martin, Korpi’s attorney, was not a well-known lawyer, but Römpötti had already managed to request an interview. That had been fine with Martin, as was often the case with lawyers who liked free publicity. The key points of the case could be easily explained in a minute and a half.

The sleepy tenor of the waiting room was abruptly shattered by a voice over the loudspeaker: “The court calls prosecution versus Korpi and Nyberg.”

Martin and the other lawyer grabbed their thick briefcases, and the reporters let them go in first.

* * *

Mari Lehtonen and Joutsamo were sitting alone in the witness room when a middle-aged, spectacled bailiff cracked the door open and informed them that court was now in session and that he would come for Lehtonen when it was time. There were no loudspeakers in the witness room.

“Thank you,” said Joutsamo with a strained smile.

Lehtonen sat in silence with a pensive expression on her face.

“We won’t…that is…
I
won’t be coming in. It’ll just be you,” said Joutsamo.

Lehtonen looked hard at her. “Uhh…”

“What is it?”

“Well, I don’t really know about this. I mean…I’ll go, of course. Just got a bad feeling about it.”

“I know,” said Joutsamo, not really sure how to respond. Should she break out the pep talk or just sympathize? Neither option seemed very sensible, nor did quoting legal clauses about mandatory testimony and potential prison terms for perjury.

Lehtonen waited for a response.

“What do you want me to say?” said Joutsamo.

“I guess there’s not much to say. If Korpi gets acquitted, he’ll be out on the street.”

“True, but we probably won’t have a verdict today. Usually takes a couple weeks. Besides that, we’re in good hands with Muuri. I’m very confident in the case we’ve built.”

Joutsamo too had begun having doubts after their talk with Muuri. It was clear that Nyberg would try to shoulder the blame—he’d do everything he could to whitewash Korpi. By now, the defense knew exactly what evidence the prosecution would present, and they could simply tailor their testimony to that.

* * *

District Prosecutor Muuri clicked onto the final slide of her presentation. The heading read “Summary.” All eyes in the courtroom, some twenty or so people, were on the screen projected over the judge’s bench. Each of the judge and three jurors had their own private screens in front of them. Judge Tuomela, presiding, was seated in the middle.

At least
almost
all eyes were on the screen, for the two guards next to Korpi’s table kept their eyes firmly on him, as did the two assigned to Nyberg.

Muuri had read the charges, which Korpi and Nyberg had denied. Muuri then took about half an

hour to make her opening statements, which were just now coming to a close.

The high-security courtroom was about seventy-five feet long and forty-five wide, exceptionally large for a courtroom at the Helsinki district court. The wainscotted walls and wooden floors were stained light brown, and the room was bounded by four crested columns. All in all, there were forty seats arranged around six tables, in two rows of three, for defendants, plaintiffs and lawyers.

For security, or at least supposedly so, the room had no windows to the outside. A four-foot-tall iron railing stood between the defendants’ table and the bench, as did an identical one between the defendants and the spectators. Behind the bench also stood a door through which the judge and jurors could make a quick exit if needed. On the other wall, to the judge’s left, were two blackened windows. From behind one of them, security personnel could survey the crowd without drawing attention to themselves. The other was reserved for witnesses who chose to remain anonymous.

Muuri’s opening statement was quite brief. Forensic evidence indicated that Nyberg had been in the apartment and shot Tomi Salmela. She contended that a turf battle between competing drug dealers had been the motive, and mentioned that a narcotics officer would be testifying more on that later.

She also emphasized that the murder was carried out in collaboration with Korpi.

“As we later found from file fragments on his computer, Korpi has been running a drug-dealing operation. A narcotics officer will be testifying as to the victim’s role in a competing drug ring. As we all know, competition in the illicit drug trade is fierce, and gangs will stop at nothing to curtail competition, case in point,” said Muuri, gesturing toward the screen. “For committing the murder, Nyberg would certainly gain status in Korpi’s organization. Moreover, we know that Korpi is Nyberg’s godfather, also indicating a close relationship between the two men. Clearly, the two are co-conspirators.”

“Taking all of the evidence into account, I intend to show before this court, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Korpi planned Salmela’s murder, and that Nyberg carried it out. Despite the fact that Korpi was in the car at the moment of the murder, he is every bit as culpable for Salmela’s violent death as Nyberg is.”

Muuri shut off the projector.

“All right,” said Judge Tuomela, a stern-faced, fifty-something man in a gray suit. “Nyberg’s defense, please.”

Counsel Hanna Aaltonen was wearing a black pantsuit. When trying a homicide, an unspoken code among lawyers demanded a certain reverence be reflected in their dress. The brunette’s black pantsuit made her seem much older than her thirty-five years, though this impression was partly due to the tightly wound bun she wore her hair in.

Nyberg sat quietly next to Aaltonen in a dark green T-shirt and camouflage pants. A fucking military tribunal, he thought.

“My client pleads not guilty to the charge of murder, but admits to aggravated assault and manslaughter in excess of justifiable self defense. My client did in fact go to the apartment that Sunday, not with the intention of murdering Salmela, but to collect four hundred euros for a television that Salmela had purchased. My client will comment more about this later on the witness stand. Salmela did not wish to pay the sum and threatened my client with a gun, leaving my client no other alternative than to draw his own weapon and attempt to frighten Salmela by shooting him in the foot. Unfortunately, in the confusion, the shot didn’t hit him in the leg, but elsewhere. This was an accidental shooting, which regrettably resulted in Salmela’s death. There was no motive related to drugs, and Risto Korpi was not involved in any way. That is our opening statement—we will provide further details when my client takes the stand.”

Muuri asked for permission to speak, which Judge Tuomela granted.