The Bodyguard (3 page)

There were enough Russian vehicles in Joensuu for me to stop worrying about each of them. After driving for twenty minutes and passing Ylämylly, the traffic cleared, and mine was the only car on the road. Another twenty minutes and I was on the one main street in Outokumpu, which was quiet, too. I hadn’t been there since Uncle Jari had died.

Hevonpersiinsaari was located in the municipality of Kaavi, but Uncle Jari had applied for my school placement elsewhere because it was so difficult to get to Hevonpersiinsaari. Back in the ’80s, the grade school was in nearby Rikkaranta, but once I got to middle and high school, it took me almost an hour to reach school on foot and by bus. That didn’t leave a lot of time for socializing. Uncle Jari had a car only occasionally; when he was short on cash, it was the first thing he stopped spending money on. He had a friend, a used car dealer, who offered up his Ladas and Datsuns; I grew up believing that automobiles were supposed to be full of rust.

The bushes along Munaniemi Road looked the same as they always had, and the road was covered in fist-size rocks. Late summer’s willow herbs lined the logging site. Hevonpersiinsaari had always been surrounded by dense forest, which created a sense of security. As I drove farther, though, I realized how much the scenery had changed. The clear-cutting had been cruel, leaving behind a denuded forest. The tufts of willow herb seemed to be placed in the clearings to purposely soften the stark views. The areas near Hevonpersiinsaari had not been saved—a road sign indicated zoning for multiple construction projects.

The zoning folks must have given Hevonpersiinsaari a slightly less-offensive name in official documents. I’d been teased about being from Horse’s Ass in middle school, but I had made sure the taunts didn’t last long. Grade-schoolers didn’t care about my past, but once I’d had a few of my tantrums in seventh grade, one of the teachers put two and two together. The word got around: like her namesake the lynx, Hilja Ilveskero shouldn’t be messed with, and I did my best to reinforce my reputation. I was no pack animal; I didn’t miss having close friends.

Soon it would be dark. It had started to drizzle. Hakkarainen had kept his word: the gate was open. Although it would not prevent other cars from getting on the island, the gate did make me feel slightly safer. The island wasn’t exactly an island, but was instead a thin strip of peninsula that connected a tiny isthmus to the mainland—like a horse’s ass connecting to its torso—easily reached by foot or boat. The Hakkarainens had worked on improving the island’s look; heather blossomed on both sides of the road and sunflowers had been planted in pots. Brittlegill mushrooms were growing together with lingonberries on the side of the road, reminding me of Uncle Jari’s tasty desserts. I could hide here from Paskevich and his goons, but not from my childhood.

When I pulled up to the yard, I noticed the crocheted curtains in the cabin windows. Uncle Jari had done his best to keep the yard neat, but he had never been one to spruce up the house, unlike Maija Hakkarainen, who would not watch TV or stop by for coffee at a friend’s house without a crocheting project in her hands.

I stepped out of the car and sat still for a while, listening. It was nearly silent and very dark. People didn’t come to their cabins on a weekday evening in September. I felt for the key in its familiar spot under the shed stairs. The shed had been painted, and the new layer of brown had completely hidden Frida’s scratch marks. She never existed for the Hakkarainens—only my uncle and I ever knew that we had been hosts to a female lynx for a couple of years. There was that one time when Matti had commented on the strong smell of urine in our yard, but Uncle Jari had convincingly blamed it on the dogs who were allowed to run off-leash in the area.

I was eight when Frida came into our lives, in July of 1984. I remember that evening vividly. It began with Uncle Jari getting a phone call that obviously made him upset.

“Goddamned Kauppinen,” he cursed under his breath while looking for his coat. “You’ll need to tuck yourself in tonight. You can manage, right? I’ll be back as soon as I take care of something.”

“What?”

“Nothing children should worry about. Get the macaroni casserole leftovers and heat them up in a pan. Remember to add enough butter so that it doesn’t burn, and don’t forget to turn off the gas,” Uncle Jari instructed. He packed up a couple sandwiches and some blueberry juice from concentrate to take with him. He touched my cheek quickly, grabbed both his hunting rifle and a shotgun, and was out the door.

The account of how he found Frida was one of my favorite bedtime stories, although Uncle Jari was ashamed for having played a role in it. There was a chicken farm several miles from us, and its owner, Kauppinen, had long suspected that a lynx had been casually snacking on his free-range chickens right from his yard. He’d even seen a lynx nearby. Kauppinen had a devilish dog—a spitz/Karelian bear dog mix—that he usually kept in the yard on a leash, but today he’d let the dog roam free. It had picked up the lynx’s scent and chased it to its hole, and Kauppinen had called Uncle Jari and a couple of other men who weren’t too concerned about shooting an animal outside of the official hunting season, which for lynx was between December and February. The chicken thief needed to go now.

The lynx had a den in some woods an hour away in Maarianvaara. When Uncle Jari finally made it there, the other men had taken the dog back home, and my uncle saw Kauppinen, Hakkarainen, and Seppo Holopainen lying in wait for the lynx right at the hole. Uncle Jari didn’t get along with Seppo. The men stuck around waiting for the lynx. It must have been starving—why else would it be on the move while it was still daylight? The animal would eventually have to peek out of the hole, and when it did, it was Uncle Jari’s task to prevent it from going back in.

Around three in the morning, the lynx finally appeared. It was a female, thin and small; although Uncle Jari hesitated when he saw her, he still jumped to block her way. She panicked and ran toward the forest, then came to a sudden halt when she smelled Holopainen, who had been fortifying himself with booze. He aimed and hit a tree stump. The lynx turned back toward the hole. Uncle Jari got a good look into her terrified eyes.

“I couldn’t shoot, even if just one shot would have ended it there. She was so beautiful,” my uncle would recollect later.

Kauppinen screamed and cursed, and Holopainen shot again and missed. Kauppinen landed the first hit: he shot the lynx in the hip. She tried to run away, but collapsed at Hakkarainen’s feet. He killed her.

After binding the lynx’s feet and hanging her from a tree branch, the other men started to fight about whose wife would be the lucky recipient of a nice lynx stole. They were ready to go home and celebrate with a drink. But Uncle Jari had dropped his compass, and he stayed behind to look for it.

“I had no desire to go to Kauppinen’s place to party. I felt as if I had murdered someone, and I regretted even going out there to help them. When I found my compass near the lynx, I heard the most pathetic sound. A tiny lynx cub, probably the runt of the litter, peeked out of the little cave and said meow. She obviously missed her mother. We fools had broken the law twice, first by hunting out of season and then by killing a female with a cub; they were always protected,” said Uncle Jari, his voice wavering every time he retold me the story. Not that he cared about the laws that much; he was just upset that he had been party to the death of the lynx.

“I knew Kauppinen would kill the cub if he ever saw her, and she would never survive alone in the forest without any hunting skills. Poor thing. She was timid but quick and slipped back into the cave, but I finally pulled her out, although it almost cost me my nose. I put her into my backpack, made sure she had some air to breathe, and hoped that she wouldn’t meow and kick too hard. I wondered what she’d eat.”

“And in the morning I woke up to her hunting for my toes,” I added every time, providing the ending to the familiar tale. “Ever since then Frida and I were best friends.”

I stirred from my reverie when the image of Anita caressing a lynx fur coat popped into my head. What else could I have done but quit? I had to do it for Frida’s sake.

I carried my pack and groceries inside, felt for a light switch, and found it next to the door. The cabin looked strange in the electric light. And that wasn’t the only thing that was new: I spotted a fridge, a microwave, a coffee maker, and even a TV. I walked back to close the gate and decided to take a swim.

Lake Rikkavesi was icy cold; it cut right through me. It also heightened my senses, and I listened and smelled the darkness like I had as a child, when I was envious of Frida’s ability to see in the dark. Later, when I’d tried on night-vision goggles at the security academy in Queens, I felt like a true feline.

I really should become more acclimated to the dark; after all, Moscow was a testament to the fact that I was slipping. Back in the cabin, I missed the homey feel of an oil lamp and wished that Hakkarainen had left at least one of them behind. I had to admit that electricity was good for something, though. I wouldn’t have to recharge my laptop in the car, and I could set up motion sensors around the cabin. A pro would notice them right away, but it would work for petty thieves. Working swiftly by the light spilling out of the cabin’s windows, I set up the sensors.

We hadn’t needed motion sensors when Frida was around. She had even detected a sneaky thief, who had come by quiet rowboat to steal Uncle Jari’s motorboat. Frida was tame and no more dangerous than a household cat, but she did wake up Uncle Jari. He ran to the pier brandishing his shotgun, which scared away the would-be thief, a neighbor’s teenage boy. He never learned that the weapon wasn’t loaded.

I microwaved a couple of the savory pies, had a beer, and then went straight to bed. I had bought a high-tech, extremely light silk sheet that folded up to the size of a napkin. It was meant to be used inside a sleeping bag, and I carried it everywhere. I wrapped it around me and crawled between the mattress and the blankets. They smelled strange. Apparently, Maija had washed them with something scented.

Frida’s paws had always caused the floors to creak. Ever since she was a cub, she had wanted to sleep in my bed. Uncle Jari explained that it was because my body temperature was higher than hers. In the beginning Frida was much smaller than I was, but by the time spring rolled around, we were the same size. Even in the middle of winter I didn’t need more than a single blanket; I had Frida to keep me warm. As I recalled this memory, I could feel her soft fur in my toes, the breath that smelled of rotting meat. Frida had been my sister. I fell asleep next to her that night as I had so many times before.

I woke up to a terrible racket. I grabbed my pistol from the chair I had used as a nightstand. It was a bit after seven and already light outside. I peered through the window and saw a familiar character running away from the cabin. Maija Hakkarainen. She had been startled by the alarm I had hooked up to the motion sensor.

“Maija!” I called after her as I shut off the alarm. The basket bearing her gifts had toppled over on the cabin steps, egg yolk seeping through the weave. Sweet Maija had decided to bring me some fresh treats. How could I have forgotten that the Hakkarainens set their clock according to their cows? They woke up every morning at five. I shoved the pistol into my pajama pants pocket and started after Maija on bare feet.

“Hey, Maija! It’s Hilja! Come back!” Maija was in her sixties and had bad feet, so I had no problem catching up to her. I blamed the god-awful sound on the car alarm and hoped that Maija couldn’t see through the lie. I invited her in for coffee. Luckily only one of the eggs she’d brought had broken, and the milk bottle was so tightly sealed it hadn’t leaked at all.

“Were you away in America again?” Maija asked. My going to New York had been quite an event. I told her that recently I had been focusing on Russia instead, which prompted her to tut-tut about the situation in Georgia and how Hevonpersiinsaari was simply too close to the Russian border. She did have some nicer news, though: my favorite childhood horse Cutey’s foal had had her own baby the week before. I promised to come by as soon as I could. I gave Maija the gifts I had brought. She said Matti would be delighted by the bottle of rum, although she would keep an eye on his drinking.

Once she left I turned on the TV. It was still weird to see it in the cabin. The news was just starting. A grave-looking anchor turned to the screen and intoned, “A Finnish businesswoman was killed in Moscow. She was found on Tuesday morning near the subway station in Frunzenskaya. Moscow militia is investigating.”

3

Although the businesswoman’s name wasn’t mentioned, I was sure it was Anita. The pieces came together too conveniently. The coffee I had drunk earlier seemed to be creeping back up; I felt woozy. Killed near the Frunzenskaya subway station. The police didn’t mention how she was murdered or when, but she had been killed before Tuesday morning, when I was still in Moscow. I had absolutely no recollection of even being near that station. Then again, I couldn’t remember anything about what happened between Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon.

I still had Anita’s scarf in my backpack. How the hell had I gotten it? I took it out and thought about burning it in the sauna stove. If I threw the ashes into the lake, nobody would ever know that I’d had it.

I turned my phone on and inserted the SIM card for the number I had once given to Anita. She hadn’t tried calling me. I did find ten or so other calls. The most recent call, voice mail, and text message were all from my roommate, Riikka, and they all contained the same basic message.

“Hey, Hilja, the police were looking for you, but they didn’t say why. I told them you might be out of the country on business, but I didn’t know where. Chief Constable Teppo Laitio from the National Bureau of Investigation asked that you to call him at 071-8787-007 or e-mail him at teppo-dot-laitio at poliisi-dot-fi.”

The National Bureau of Investigation had representatives in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, but Laitio wasn’t one of them. They wouldn’t find me that easily, but I understood why I was one of their main suspects. How could I even answer their questions when I had no idea where I was at the time of the murder? Chief Constable Laitio had called me twice. He’d left a voice mail and a text message. He probably wouldn’t tell me a thing about the case; instead, he’d try to squeeze information out of me. There was also a voice mail from an unknown number; the call was made before Laitio had tried to reach me. It was in English.

“You don’t have any idea who is behind your boss’s murder. No ide
a . . .
if you don’t want to end up as dead as those lynx on your boss’s fur coat. You understand?”

The speaker was male, with a thick Russian accent, the kind that would be easy to imitate. He could have been Finnish, Estonian, or Polish. I tried to recognize any similarities between his voice and the rowdy patrons in Bar Svoboda, but I couldn’t remember their voices well because I had focused so hard on avoiding them altogether. That had been a big mistake.

I wanted to know more about this murdered Finn in Moscow, to confirm that it was indeed Anita. I couldn’t use the Internet at the cabin, but at least there was a news service on my phone. I started scrolling to find more information, but each channel had the same snippet I had already heard that morning on TV. Did I really have to drive thirteen miles to Outokumpu to buy the newspaper for this? The Hakkarainens probably only subscribed to the local newspapers
Savon Sanomat
and
Maaseudun tulevaisuus
, which were aimed at farmers and foresters.

It didn’t make sense for Anita to be near the Frunzenskaya subway station alone. What was she doing walking by herself in the middle of the city, anyway? Anita, who you couldn’t pay to take a subway in Moscow. We’d spent countless hours in traffic inside cabs reeking of cheap tobacco
before we found Shabalin. I tried calling him again, but I only heard a recording that seemed to indicate that the number was no longer in service. Of course. Was his real name even Shabalin? Having a business card was handy not only for giving people your contact information but also for helping to create a false identity. Had Shabalin abandoned Anita, who then had been too scared to use another cab and instead had thought she’d be safer in a crowded subway?

Frunzenskaya was southeast of the Kremlin, close to the Moscow River. Gorky Park loomed on the far riverbank. I had occasionally jogged through the area to reach the river when I knew Anita was safe behind her locked hotel room. The place itself didn’t feel sketchy and there were always plenty of people around. If I were a hit man, I would try to find a more remote location for my work.

I didn’t want to call Laitio back right away; I was afraid the police would try to trace the call to the cell tower where it had come from. I deleted the English threat after I wrote it down and saved it on my USB stick, where I kept all my files on Paskevich. I opened my previous notes on his and Anita’s connections.

Paskevich had been employed by the KGB before the fall of the Soviet Union, but Yeltsin’s era of chaotic capitalism had allowed him to nab as many properties as he could. Nowadays you could have called him a
silovik
, a person of the ruling class and protected by the president and the prime minister, which in practice meant that he operated above the law in Russia. Considering Paskevich’s status, it was a miracle Anita had stayed alive even this long. Paskevich had a villa in Bromarf, in the town of Tammisaari, which gave him an excuse to visit Finland every now and then. He’d suggested to Anita that they meet a month before our Moscow trip, but she had politely declined. She didn’t believe his claims about reaching a truce—she was certain it was a trap.

I pulled out my spare phone and inserted my prepaid SIM card into it. I called Riikka, but she didn’t pick up. Then, through a new Hotmail address, I started typing an e-mail to Monika on the phone. The police would have to work a bit harder if they wanted to read my e-mails. I wrote her that I had left my job because I had been angry at Anita, and now Anita was dead.

I missed Monika. Ever since Uncle Jari had died, she’d been my most cherished confidante, a sort of substitute big sister and aunt. Despite its name, her restaurant Chez Monique specialized in Finnish-Scandinavian cuisine, with an emphasis on local and environmentally friendly ingredients. For her, food equaled politics. I guess this had pissed off quite a few competitors. First, someone had pulled out the cold storage fuses, spoiling thousands of euros’ worth of food. Soon after, some customers got food poisoning, which was traced back to a batch of goat cheese that had been injected with salmonella. That was when Monika decided to get a bodyguard, and I happened to be the only woman available for the job.

I hadn’t been working for Monika very long when someone tried to poison her. The perp had bad luck; I took a sniff of Monika’s cup of tea before I let her drink it. Not everyone can detect the smell of cyanide. Worried that the news would scare away customers, she didn’t file a police report. After that, I tasted all the food and drink that had not been made in her own kitchen. Three days later one of the chefs called in sick and never returned, and that was the end of the incidents. Still, Monika kept me on her payroll. We liked each other, and I ended up also working as her part-time housekeeper and chauffeur. She was a Swedish-speaking Finn, so we mostly communicated in Swedish, which improved my language skills immensely.

Mike Virtue would have been pissed off if he’d seen me using the security skills he’d taught me to do domestic work. Working for Monika was almost like being on vacation. I would have grown tired of it eventually; when she decided to turn her life upside down and move to one of the poorest countries in the world, Mozambique, I was actually relieved because it forced me to focus on my career. Monika was an idealist; she believed that everyone should have access to good food regardless of wealth, and she planned on using the money she’d collected from rich Finnish foodies to help those who were hungry in Mozambique. This created some buzz in the media, even outside of Finland, because people couldn’t accept what she was doing—why would someone leave a successful institution like Chez Monique and her role as a famous television chef to live among the poor and cook them antelope or whatever it was they ate in Africa?

On the last day before the restaurant closed, Monika hosted a dinner for her regulars, and one of them was Anita Nuutinen. During the meal Anita asked Monika how she had the guts to go to Mozambique alone, while she was afraid to go by herself to nearby Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

“You wouldn’t happen to need a bodyguard, would you? I have just the woman for the job,” offered Monika instead of answering Anita’s question, and that’s how I ended up working with Anita. And as I found out, that job was tougher than working for Monika. Anita had just one goal in life: to make as much money as possible. Then again, it was pretty easy to handle a person like that. Money forced Anita to take risks, but mostly in the financial sphere—she’d already done her best to protect her physical well-being. So no, it wouldn’t have made any sense for her to be traipsing around by herself near the Frunzenskaya subway station. It was an area where she would have never walked alone.

Avoiding the police would put my guard’s license at risk. I needed to work with them on this case. I wished I could remember anything at all about what happened after I’d stepped out of the bar. All I could still see in my mind’s eye was the solid wood door. Had that door been hiding a guard who had seen what went down on the street? Could he tell the police he had seen me leave without Anita? Or had he witnessed something else?

I knew I needed to take a break to practice my breathing or I’d have a panic attack. Once I calmed myself down, I weighed my options. I would have to give myself more time to try to remember what had happened. Meanwhile, I’d attempt to get in touch with Paskevich. I didn’t know to what extent the Moscow militia was investigating Anita’s case. In fact, now that I thought about it more, it was weird that someone had called to threaten me. Wouldn’t that mean that Anita’s death could in no way be a hit-and-run? Was Paskevich really so full of himself that he thought I’d hide in my corner like a hurt lynx?

Now I regretted deleting the threat from my voice mail. My typed version would carry no weight as evidence. Of course, I didn’t know what kind of police officer I’d be working with. People didn’t get into the National Bureau of Investigation because it was easy or because they had a friend there. In high school I had considered applying to the police academy, but given my history, I knew I wouldn’t be accepted.

Getting my blood moving always helped me to think clearly. I put on my running pants and a sweat-wicking T-shirt but had to make do with regular sneakers. I also had my jump rope with me; it was lightweight and compact and could come in handy if I needed to tie someone up. First I checked the shed to see whether Hakkarainen had kept Uncle Jari’s old weights. Yup, still there, along with his own training contraption, a bench press of questionable safety. Uncle Jari used to go into the shed to lift weights, even if it was minus thirty outside. Now it was still warm, about fifty-nine Fahrenheit according to the thermometer. I jumped rope until I broke a sweat and then started to wrestle with the weights. First some light free weights, ten pounds per arm. I’ve known how to perform a perfect bicep curl since I was ten.

Uncle Jari had competed on the regional level as a weight lifter, but his career ended because he was a lousy competitor. I hadn’t inherited that from him. Even in the army I had enjoyed showing off, sometimes carrying other people’s backpacks in addition to my own. At the Queens security academy, I had to prove I was the strongest woman, even if it meant I might get injured. I sometimes trained by giving a double-piggyback ride to two men weighing 170 pounds each, which had made Mike Virtue howl with laughter.

He wouldn’t be laughing now if he’d heard what I had done. Most likely he would have asked me to turn in my certificate from the academy. My muscles started to ache. Even if I had been able to bench press 200 pounds, I still wouldn’t feel better about Anita.

A noise startled me, but it was only a squirrel jumping from tree to tree. Frida had followed a squirrel to a tree a couple of times, and we’d done our best to convince her that such a small animal was not a substantial meal for an adult lynx. Eventually, Uncle Jari took to hunting hare without telling his hunting buddies. According to their code, it was all right to break the law, but a catch had to be shared. I remember a time when Frida had gnawed happily on the hind leg of an elk that Hakkarainen had poached. He had honestly thought we would eat the gristly meat. Maija was so upset with him for keeping the best cuts for himself that she brought us some ground meat as compensation, which was a treat. We didn’t use store-bought meat often and, when we did, it was usually meant for Frida. We didn’t need meat; living on a lake meant we could have as much fish as we wanted.

I took a quick dip in the lake and marveled at the water pump in the sauna. I hadn’t thought much about my uncle’s fascination with asceticism until I reached adulthood, when it started feeling weird; until then, we’d gotten by just fine without electricity and running water. When I was in middle school, we did get a generator because Uncle Jari needed electricity to listen to his CDs. His prized musical possessions were his ABBA albums. He and his army buddies watched the Eurovision song contest when ABBA won, and he had fallen in love with the singer Frida. Yes, the lynx had been named after the most beautiful creature Uncle Jari had ever seen and I had no say in the matter, although it was hard for me to pronounce this foreign name.

I got out of the lake and brewed a big pot of black tea, but even that didn’t clear my head. I still couldn’t recall what had happened in Moscow. I switched to my official phone number and called Chief Constable Laitio.

“Hello, this is Hilja Ilveskero. You left me a voice mail. I’m hiking in Lappland, Norway, and there’s not much cell coverage here. Could you tell me what your call was about?”

Laitio was quiet for a minute. I had come up with the Norway story while I was lifting weights. This would buy me at least a couple more days and I could pretend that I had not heard about what had happened to Anita. I doubted Laitio would start tracing my call unless the police had orders to arrest me.