The Bodyguard (11 page)

“Do you believe that a homeless alcoholic, who has yet to be identifed, was behind Anita Nuutinen’s murder?” Helena asked.

“I don’t know what to believe. And the information you’ve given me makes it all even more complicated. What do you have to do with Anita’s real estate dealings?”

“I’m just interested in why this particular property is so hot. I have my own theory about it, and we could work together to prove it.”

“What theory?”

“All in good time. That wasn’t the only reason why I wanted to meet you. I was hoping you could help me with security. I remember how good you were at looking after Monika at Chez Monique.”

“So you want me to help you with security? Give me some details and I’ll see what I can do.” I leaned back on the couch.

“I told you that I got divorced fairly recently, and the entire process was unpleasant. I was simply tired of coddling him, and it created a huge mess. It’s funny; being in the public eye can offer protection, but it can also leave you exposed. Tiku Aaltonen, my ex, has given a couple of nasty interviews that were published in trashy magazines. I don’t think my voters really care, but it might encourage some of the loonies to take action. Someone is following me. I’d like you to find out who.”

“Following you? How do you know?”

“Well, not just following me. Some other strange things are going on. Around here our mail and newspapers get delivered to our designated boxes, but I still have a slot in my front door from the previous owner. Someone has been taking my morning papers from my mailbox and dropping them through the old mail slot. And someone keeps moving the rosemary plant around and stealing my apples. Once I found a dead hare in my backyard, and when I took it to the vet, it turned out that the animal had been poisoned. Also, someone has been walking around my backyard. I don’t know how they get in, maybe by climbing over the fence?”

I stood up again and opened the door to the backyard. The small townhouse yards were fenced in with about six-foot-high wooden planks that were so irregularly spaced it would be easy to access the adjoining yard. It reminded me of the practice area at the Queens security academy: they’d had an eight-foot-high brick wall that was difficult to hold on to. Sometimes it was topped with shards of glass, sometimes with barbed wire or an electric wire supplied with eighty volts. Then there was the time when two Dobermans were waiting on the other side of the wall. Yet I’d always survived without a scratch.

“What’s behind the fence?”

“A similar row of townhouses. I went over there to ask if anyone had seen a strange character lurking around, but no one had seen a thing.”

“You can always pay someone to look the other way. You haven’t thought about getting a restraining order for your ex?”

“So far, no. I worry that it would make him all the more eager to go public. I’m in support of the law—I helped to make it—but sometimes I feel it’s only words on a piece of paper. People are threatened or killed despite the court order, and even the police can’t stop all the crazies. Sorry, I suppose I shouldn’t be saying this. But that’s the way I feel—hopeless.” Lehmusvuo stood at the window and pulled the blinds down.

“Is Aaltonen the jealous type? I’m asking because I just thought of someone who would be better for the job than me, but he’s a man.”

Lehmusvuo shook her head. “I don’t want any men in my home—I want to live the way I have. And I need my solitude after all the hours I spend at work.”

“Well, he wouldn’t exactly be an ordinary man.”

“Even if he were gay, it wouldn’t change a thing. He’d still be a man. And, well, Tiku is jealous and possessive, so a male bodyguard might have the same effect on him as a red cape would to a charging bull. To be honest, he’s been spreading rumors that I left him because I like women better. But today news like that doesn’t really ruffle any feathers.”

“I’m not talking about an ordinary guy—I’m talking about Reiska. Reiska Räsänen.”

“Who’s he?”

I didn’t have any of my props with me. Still, I did my best to create Reiska’s stance and facial expression, lowered my voice, and used my Kaavi dialect. I walked toward Lehmusvuo, looking her in the eye.

“Howdy, I’m Reiska Räsänen, a handyman from Kaavi. A good day to you, ma’am. I’ve been lookin’ for a job but seein’ there ain’t much available, and it sure looks like you could use a fellow that’s handy with tools around here. Paint peelin’ off the fence like the devi
l . . .
and it would only take a couple of dry days for a fresh coat! If we strike a deal, I’ll throw in cuttin’ the lawn while we’re at it. A representative of the people has to have a prim and proper yard—what on earth do folks think of you livin’ in this mess!”

Lehmusvuo stared at me, astonished. I put my hands on my hips, scratched my nonexistent balls and looked her up and down.

“You’re not a bad-lookin’ lady at all, though a bit scrawny to my likin’. And I’m not too keen on that party you’re representin’. My daddy was a farmer, and nothin’ grows in Kaavi without fertilizer, and he needs to hunt to get food on the table on top of all the farmin’. The lynx ate all the chicken from the coop as fast as they could, so he had to put all the animals into cages.”

Helena Lehmusvuo cracked up. She had a beautiful laugh.

“Who is this guy?”

“I’m just Reiska, good old Reiska. Your basic Finnish guy. Straitlaced, though a bit of a boozer.”

“How did you come up with him?”

I changed back into Hilja.

“Haven’t you ever thought about how fun it would be to impersonate a man? It comes in handy. You can become invisible and take your time in situations where a woman might draw unwanted attention. I mean, you never know at first glance if a lynx cub is a boy or girl. In the Ähtäri wild animal zoo, they named a cub Ines, but then it turned out that it was a boy, so now it’s called Matikainen. I’m kind of like that, too. And I actually agree with Reiska—this place could use some sprucing up. You don’t think it could use a paint job? How many rooms do you have upstairs?”

“Two bedrooms and an electric sauna that I’m not using. If I end up staying here, I’ll tear it down and make it into a gym.”

“Then there’s plenty of room for Reiska or, if necessary, Reiska can turn back into Hilja sometimes. Do you have house guests often?”

“My son, occasionally. Aapo is studying architecture in Otaniemi.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Completely! He’s only too happy that I’ve left Tiku.”

“It’s a deal, then. You’ll hire Reiska. You’ll enter into an agreement with him and pay his fee directly to his bank account.”

“Does Reiska pay taxes? I can’t pay him under the table!”

Hilja could keep her unemployment benefits if Reiska was the one working. I briefly considered the various possible tax scenarios, but my gut told me to play it straight.

“Maybe it’s better if you make the agreement with me rather than with Reiska. But he can do the renovations. That will explain why he’ll be around here for a few days. I’ll let your neighbors know that you’ve hired a handyman from Savonia and he’ll be staying with you for some of the time. The tax officials won’t be peering through the window. I’ll come back tomorrow if you need me to.”

“Sunday evening will do. I’m traveling to Turku for a meeting tomorrow morning—the entire cabinet is working on a strategy at the Ruissalo spa for the upcoming election. I doubt anyone will come after me there.”

I let out a sigh and looked into her tired brown eyes.

“Listen, Helena. You’re not overreacting about your safety. Although you might think that Tiku is your most likely threat, you can’t disregard any other potential enemies. Think about it: there are all kinds of accidents that could happen at a spa. People drown, slip on soap and hit their heads, or are electrocuted by poorly serviced equipment. If you’re working with me, you need to remember this: there are no safe places. I’ve had to learn that the hard way.”

Helena Lehmusvuo attempted a smile, but her lips were quivering. That was a good sign; it meant she understood the danger. I could not let her meet Anita’s fate, not even if I had to risk my own life for hers.

11

Each time I take on a new case, I spend a significant amount of time doing background research. I was happy to have already done some of it on Helena Lehmusvuo. She was part of the small group of government officials I would have recognized on the street. I had never been interested in politics; I only voted when I had time in my schedule to do so. Helena had hired me, but I didn’t need to get entangled in her ethics. There were risks involved in becoming buddies with a client, as Monika had shown me. I let Helena pour me more tea before I began with my basic questions.

“Do you always come back here to spend the night, or do you have another place in Helsinki where you stay?”

“I have a room in a two-bedroom apartment. Two women share the other bedroom. One is a member of our group from Oulu and the other is a member of the Swedish People’s Party from Ostrobothnia. She inherited some money and used it to pay for the apartment. We haven’t talked about this arrangement in public. Her constituents are pretty conservative and they would worry about her integrity being compromised if they knew she was living with two members of the Green League.” Helena laughed. She then told me that her temporary apartment was in Töölö, in a newly renovated house where the front door was always locked. The apartment door had a peephole, a latch, and a security lock—Helena’s colleague from Ostrobothnia was the suspicious kind. Nevertheless, I decided to check out both roommates’ possible connection to Paskevich.

“I’d like to take a look at your place in Helsinki as well, but for now, let’s focus on this townhouse. When I’m dressed up as Reiska, I will install a security system, including motion detectors and surveillance cameras. What about the backyard? Are there already lights out there?”

“No. And do you really think all of these devices are necessary? Do they use a lot of energy?”

“I can definitely look into more energy-efficient options. But you should think about how much energy you spend on being worried about your safety. We haven’t calculated a price for that yet.”

Helena thought about it for a second. She played with her jacket sleeve in a way that would not have looked good had she been on TV.

“I’ll let you install the equipment, but I’m saying no to the bright outdoor lights. We’ll have to make do with surveillance cameras and streetlights. I mean, come on—I’ve been the one in the cabinet to oppose any Big Brother legislation and now I’d be allowing it in my own yard!”

I let Helena steam for a moment. It was easy to rail against surveillance cameras when you had nothing to worry about. “Tell me more about your ex. How long were you two together? Where does he work?”

Helena had met Tiku Kunto Henrikki Aaltonen four years earlier at an election campaign event. Aaltonen had self-published a collection of environmental poems and offered to sell it at campaign events for the Espoo Green League. It hadn’t worked out, but Helena had taken a liking to the poems and bought fifty chapbooks to give out at various events. This had prompted Tiku to write poems about her.

“I was such a fool! All the men I’d dated before were either economists or politicians. My son’s father, who used to study economics with me, is now one of the head honchos of the Nordea bank group. Tiku is completely different from these men. First I thought it was fine to use my salary to sponsor a talented poet who just hadn’t managed to find a publisher for his work. As if I understood literature at all. I’d show some of his stuff to you, but I donated everything he gave me to the library; I didn’t want his books on my shelf anymore.”

I didn’t understand poetry, either. Uncle Jari had had only a few books on his bookshelf, one of them the collected works of our national treasure, Aleksis Kivi. When he’d had a bit too much to drink, he would start stammering the poem about a squirrel sleeping comfortably in the tree. That was the only poem I knew by heart—well, most of it—if you didn’t count the lyrics of rock songs as poetry. In any case, I didn’t know a thing about Tiku Aaltonen’s work.

When Helena and Tiku began dating, Helena’s son Aapo was sixteen years old, and he had not gotten along with Tiku at all. Having to relocate was one reason. Helena bought the family a three-bedroom apartment in Matinkylä, and although it was only a few blocks away from their old apartment, Aapo was unhappy about the move and the addition of a new family member. He retreated to his room, rarely joining Helena and Tiku for lunch or dinner, even though Helena would rearrange her demanding schedule to make sure she was around for meals, which she viewed as sacrosanct family time. Until then Aapo had been certain he’d enter civil service instead of the army, but once he found out that Tiku had done civil service as well, he began to talk about joining the army. Helena was caught in the middle between the two men in her life, each of who were acting childish. Aapo had also begun making comments about how Tiku didn’t have a job; instead, he sat at bars and squiggled in his little notebooks, although he never found anyone to publish his work.

“He’d be roaring at Tiku about how he was just using me as a sugar mama; Tiku’s response was that Aapo was doing exactly the same thing, that he didn’t even work in the summer like other teenagers did. Jarmo, Aapo’s dad, has always given him plenty of money, and it’s true that he’d had it pretty easy. I thought things would calm down once Aapo and Tiku got to know each other better. Aapo lived with us until the end of last fall, but after being on the wait-list for a student apartment, he got a room with five other boys in Otaniemi. I guess that shows how much he hates Tiku; he chose sharing a student apartment over staying in a three-bedroom home with his family.”

Helena said she’d realized only later that she’d made Tiku out to be better than he was, partly because she didn’t want to be one of those pushovers who let her kids choose how she should live her life. Only after Aapo moved away did she begin to view Tiku in the same light as Aapo and her friends had. Monika had brought up Tiku to me once; I distinctly remember that she’d wondered why women like Helena fell for scam artists like him. Although I saw Helena at Chez Monique many times, I didn’t remember seeing her accompanied by anyone.

“Do you have a picture of Tiku?”

“I have CDs here somewhere with pictures from two summers ago when we went on an orchid-hunting trip to Saaremaa. All the discs are labeled. Do you mind looking through them? I’ll turn my laptop on for you to use.”

“I’ll check out the CDs after you tell me why you two separated. I assume you instigated it?”

“There were many reasons why. Or I suppose the underlying reason was that I felt I was being used. Tiku did live off my money for the four years we spent together. It was a classic scam, really: we’d be sitting in a restaurant and he’d tell me it was his treat, but then, oops, he left his credit card at home. I’m ashamed to tell you how naive I was when we purchased that apartment on Aapelinkuja: we each paid for half of it but took out a joint loan to pay the difference between the price of my old place and the new one. You can probably guess how much money Tiku spent on mortgage payments.”

I used my index finger and thumb to form a zero; Helena nodded. The law had been on Tiku’s side; half of the place legally belonged to him, even though Helena paid all the bills. Tiku tried to publish his poems. In every pitch letter, he’d mention that he was representative Helena Lehmusvuo’s common-law husband and that the doe-eyed, orchid-loving woman in the poems was Helena. He thought this would interest women’s magazines and guarantee poetry sales. His poems must have been terrible.

“Tiku started to pressure me into contacting my publisher, although I have absolutely no say in what they decide to print. They’ve only published a couple of my political pamphlets. That’s where I drew the line; I told him he had to make it on his own. He cried and begged me, saying he was exhausted from being constantly misunderstood.”

As Helena was going on with her story, I slid off the couch to take a look at her piles of records and books. Her CDs were in heaps near the foyer door. Her taste in music wasn’t particularly surprising: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and a lot of classic jazz. Reiska wouldn’t enjoy any of it. He was a fan of good old Finnish acts such as Eläkeläiset and Popeda. The picture CDs were underneath all the music.

“Finally, I simply bought myself my freedom,” Helena continued. “I told Tiku I was leaving him and that he could continue to live in the apartment if he wanted to. If he didn’t, we’d sell it and he’d get half of the money. Tiku went berserk—he didn’t have the money to buy me out, and now I was about to throw him out of the best and most artistically inspiring home he’d ever had.”

I spotted a CD labeled “Saaremaa,” with a date from May of last year. I also noticed the pieces of the CD shelf leaning against the wall. Putting the shelves together would have taken thirty minutes max, so why hadn’t Helena bothered doing it? She sure knew how to talk, though, just like a real politician.

“Then I did something I consider the most shameful act of my entire life. I convinced the banker who gave me the loan to give Tiku another loan that he could use to pay me back my share of the apartment. The rest of the mortgage was turned over to Tiku—and he didn’t have a cent of income! This is exactly the type of loan that made banks collapse two decades ago and here I was, a guardian of society, doing exactly the same thing. The banker was sure that the apartment was enough to guarantee the loan. They’ll never get that money.” Helena’s cheeks were glowing red and she couldn’t look me in the eye. I started putting the CD shelves together while I listened to her rant.

“That’s how I washed my hands of Tiku, and all I have left of him now is a few funny pictures and memories from four years of hell. Aapo asked me why I never sued the guy—he thought there had to be some sort of law I could invoke. But it was my fault for having been so trusting, and I didn’t want anyone exposing that in the media. Good thing Tiku is not the smartest man and that he really thinks the papers are interested in his bizarre claims, like the idea that I’m having an affair with another woman. Even the worst gossip columnist at the most awful rag wouldn’t buy that. If he knew what a mess my finances are in and leaked that to a political journalist with an axe to grind, though, I’d be doomed.”

Helena’s laptop had booted up. The picture on her desktop was of a rocky islet supporting a scraggly pine where an eagle stood on a branch. I picked up the machine, propped it on my lap while sitting down onto the floor, and inserted the CD. There were a couple hundred photos; I clicked through them quickly. I wasn’t interested in orchids. There was Helena posing on a bike, showing off her slim legs and remarkably toned calf muscles; next, she was standing in the rough waves at the shore with her arm around a dark, slim man. Tiku Aaltonen’s nearly black curls reached down to his shoulders. The red bandana around his head, the blue shirt, and the blue-and-white clam diggers made him look like a poor man’s Johnny Depp trying to play Captain Jack Sparrow, but Tiku wasn’t displaying any of Depp’s devilish charm. Aaltonen was barely taller than Helena, five foot five at most, and he looked even skinnier than her. Unless he was into martial arts or marathon running, he’d be no match for me in close combat.

I glanced at a few more pictures; Johnny Depp was no longer present in any way. If I were Tiku, I would have used that pirate picture in an online dating ad. There were women who were especially interested in men who had dated a celebrity.

“Could you do me a favor?” yelled Helena from the kitchen where she was putting the tea cups in the dishwasher. “Just delete all the pictures showing Tiku, no matter how good they are. I want to forget that entire part of my life.”

It looked like I was becoming a real go-to guy in Helena Lehmusvuo’s household. I did as I was asked. Luckily, most of the pictures featured flowers and scenery. It wasn’t until the second-to-last picture that my interest was piqued: first it looked like a moor at dusk, but when I looked closer, I saw a lynx running in the background. I tried zooming in, but the animal disappeared into large pixels. I clicked on the next picture but saw only birds.

“Did you see a lynx during your Saaremaa trip?”

“One ran by at dusk when I was on an evening stroll. Tiku wouldn’t believe it when I told him; he said I must’ve seen a dog or a large fox. You also think that that’s a lynx in the picture, right?”

“I know my lynx. This looks like a fox lynx.” A yearning took hold of me and for a moment I could feel Frida’s presence in the room. “OK, I’ve deleted all the pictures of Tiku. Let’s deal with the paperwork now, shall we? First we need to create a contract that we can refer to should we run into any major disagreements, not that I think we will. Then I would like a detailed list of where, when, and how you have been harassed. Have you kept any notes?”

Helena let out a little laugh, but this time it wasn’t so pretty—she could only muster a snort.

“I’ve been on the board of a national domestic violence organization for years, but as soon as I’m a victi
m . . .
well, it hasn’t been so easy to do what I know I’m supposed to. Hang on a second, I’ll check my calendar. It’ll help me remember.”

I pulled my own laptop from my bag. I had created a folder on Lehmusvuo the day before, and now I began to make notes in it. Someone with less experience would have thought Lehmusvuo’s concerns were just in her head: the wind had knocked the rosemary plant over, a neighbor had noticed that her newspaper would have gotten soaking wet outside so she’d dropped it into her mail slot, and so on. But all these seemingly unconnected events were clues, warning Helena that she was being watched. I remembered how David Stahl had been sneaking around after me in Degerby in the middle of the night. It was pure luck that I’d spotted him.