Cold Trail (16 page)

“F
air and fair. Stop complaining, Leevi,” the coach said, blowing his whistle. The game continued.

Repo
watched Joel’s every move. In his day, he had played Division II soccer himself and knew a lot about the game. But that didn’t make any difference now. He didn’t look where Joel was positioned or whether his touches were clean. He wasn’t interested in whether Joel knew how to
tackle properly, or whether he led too much with the soles of his feet.

Repo
simply watched his son, mesmerized. He felt like running out onto the pitch and hugging him. Telling him how proud he was of him. Tears rose to his eyes as he understood what he had lost.

Repo
clearly heard the words when one of the parents standing next to him said to a man in a green ski cap, “That Joel
of yours
is definitely the best player we’ve got. He’s not going to be hanging around
here too
long before they move him up.”

The words
cut Repo to the quick. That Joel of yours.
Of yours.

The boy was
his
Joel, not anyone else’s. He wasn’t that green-capped guy’s Joel. Repo felt like shouting, but he knew he couldn’t.

Eight years
earlier, Joel was a tow-headed toddler he had taken to the soccer fields dozens of times to kick the ball around. Where had the years gone? Repo knew the answer all too well: prison. And for no reason. His wife was dead. His mother was dead. His father was dead, and his son was gone. What did he have left? Nothing.

Repo
wondered how Joel would react if he walked out into the field and told him he was his real father. Could they still have a life together?

What would his life be like if his wife were still alive?
Once again, thinking hurt too much.

Repo
saw now that coming here to stand at the sidelines had been pointless. His son wouldn’t recognize him. What had he been thinking? That Joel would run up to him, stop, and say, “Dad?” That they’d hug and walk off into a new life together? Repo chuckled to
himself. The boy wouldn’t remember him, and probably wouldn’t even know his name. The guy in the green beanie was his dad now. Not him.

Repo
took a final look at the man in the green cap. Take good care of my son, Repo silently told him, and headed toward the car he had stolen. Where had his life gone?

CHAPTER 10

TUESDAY, 8:
30 P.M.

HELSINKI POLICE
HEADQUARTERS, PASILA

“What are you going to do about Juvonen?” Joutsamo asked. Takamäki, Suhonen, and Kulta were also sitting in the austere conference room at police headquarters in Pasila. Someone had drawn a big question mark on the flipchart.

“W
hat do you think I should do?” Takamäki asked.

Joutsamo was incensed.
“Nail her to the wall. That was a really dirty trick.”

“W
hat’s the crime?”

“I
don’t know, but you can’t mislead the police like that.”

Takamäki
was silent for a moment. “Resisting police authority. It includes false reports. As I recall, the maximum is three months in jail.”

“T
hat’s not going to get you a search warrant for her phone,” Joutsamo noted.

“D
on’t need it. Let’s call her in for questioning and confiscate it. That’ll let us check the numbers called,” Takamäki said. “But we also have to think about costs and benefits here. It’s not in our best interest to create a rift with the media.”

“T
hat’s not what we’re talking about, hopefully,” Joutsamo said. “No one else in the media behaves that way. They always want photos, but we’re going to be screwed if this is how they’re going to start acquiring.”

“O
r was it just a one-off overstepping of bounds?” Takamäki wondered out loud. “Happens to police, too.”

“W
ere you guys planning to continue this conversation on media ethics much longer?” Suhonen yawned. “If we can get back to the case… I think the key is figuring out why Repo took off.”

“Y
ou have any ideas?” Joutsamo asked.

“S
ome ideas, but not too many facts.”

“M
aybe he’s offed himself?” Kulta suggested. “Was so shocked by his old man’s death that he
flew the coop
and ran into Töölö Bay. At least that would explain why we can’t find him.”

“I
f he wanted to, he could’ve killed himself in prison,” Joutsamo said.

“B
ut if it was the funeral. Temporary insanity.”

“G
ive me a break,” Joutsamo replied. “When we went to the old man’s house, there was a photo where Timo Repo’s face had been blacked out. They weren’t close. But I bet you’re on the right track, that the dad’s death has something to do with the motive for the escape.”

“O
kay, theoretically it’s possible that he had been planning to split for a while, but this was his first chance,” Kulta said.

“
He could’ve got himself sent to a hospital, if he faked it well enough,” Joutsamo noted.

Kulta
wouldn’t give up. “Revenge? Bitterness?”

“
Toward whom?” Suhonen continued. “He stopped filing appeals. Guys like that are psychologically wired so that
if they’re bitter about something, it snowballs and they start seeing conspiracies everywhere. If Repo was spinning out of control, the guards would have noticed something. It would’ve showed somehow in the pen, overall edginess or continuous bitching. But he’s been a total sheep ever since he gave up appeals,” Suhonen said. “He wasn’t cracking. We’re missing something here.”

“O
r not,” Kulta reflected. “It could just all be in his head. Something no one else can understand.”

“B
ut even that would have been evident in the pen.”

“W
hat if he hasn’t changed? What if he’s been screwed up the whole time, but was able to hide it?” Joutsamo suggested.

“A
ll of these lead back to the suicide theory one way or another,” Takamäki noted. “A desperate man commits a desperate act, and because we don’t know why, we assume the only answer can be suicide.”

“T
here’s not always an explanation in cases like these,” Kulta said. “Sometimes a human life hangs by an extremely slender thread.”

“B
ut if we go back to the act itself,” Joutsamo began. “His wife’s murder.”

Takamäki
waved a hand. “Not right now. Let’s go back to it tomorrow. Suhonen, you have anything going on tonight?”

Suhonen
shook his head. He never had anything going on that would’ve taken precedence over work.

“F
ind Saarnikangas. That’s the only name on the outside that has come up. Being a junkie, he’s probably on the move at night, even if Repo stays holed up. That might lead us somewhere.”

“M
aybe,” Kulta said.

“Y
ou got any better ideas?”

“N
o, I just don’t think it’s a very strong direction.”

“I
t’s not,” Takamäki admitted. “But it’s the only one we have.”

“W
e could go check the old man’s house again,” Joutsamo suggested. “Mikko and I could drop by.”

“O
h, we could, could we?”

“Y
es,” Joutsamo smiled.

“S
ounds good,” Takamäki said, standing and flipping over the sheet with the question mark.

* * *

Takamäki quietly opened the front door of his house. It was a little before nine o’clock. He figured Jonas might already be in bed. Kaarina wasn’t, though. She was sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop.

“H
ey,” Takamäki said softly.

“H
ey,” Kaarina answered. Takamäki detected a coolness in her voice.

“H
ow’s it going?”

“F
ine. Nice you could make it home so early.”

Takamäki
took off his coat and hung it up in the entryway. The lower floor of their townhouse contained a kitchen and a living room. The three bedrooms and a sauna were upstairs. The house had been built around 1990, and had suffered serious water damage a few years back.

“T
here’s food in the fridge if you’re hungry.”

Takamäki
sat down at the table. “Not really,” he replied, browsing through the day’s mail. Nothing important: the latest issue of
Technical World
, a bank statement, some bills, a couple of ads.

“H
ow’s Jonas?”

“W
hat about him?”

“H
ow’s he doing?”

“N
ot great. I gave him some ibuprofen that ended in a huge string of zeroes.”

“T
he samples you got from work?”

Kaarina
nodded. She was a head nurse at the municipal hospital.

“H
e’s sleeping now. He did ask for you a bunch of times earlier this evening.”

Takamäki felt bad
. He should have been there to answer his son’s questions.
“What did he want?”

“M
ostly he was interested in whether the entire hockey season was gone thanks to his arm. I didn’t know the answer.”

Takamäki felt a pang of regret.
“He should have called me.”

“Y
ou’ve told the boys time and again that they shouldn’t call you at work. I’m assuming that’s why he didn’t want to bother you.”

“W
ell, the season probably isn’t totally gone yet. It’ll be six to eight weeks, I’d say. Or guess.”

“
Jonas probably would have liked to hear that. But there’s no point waking him now. His arm was really sore, and he had a hard time falling asleep.”

Takamäki
went over to the fridge and took out a beer.

Kaarina couldn’t resist needling him:
“There’s food in there, too.”

Takamäki
didn’t bother answering; he popped off the cap with the opener on the fridge and drank straight from the bottle.

Kaarina
turned back to her laptop for a moment, but then interrupted herself. “Who hit him?”

“D
on’t know.”

“T
he Espoo Police must be looking into it.”

“Y
eah.”

“N
o one from there has called me. Did anyone call you?”

“I
called the investigator,” Takamäki said. “As a matter of fact, I dropped by Sello and picked up the surveillance camera images.”

“W
hy? Shouldn’t the Espoo Police take care of that?”

“T
hey should, but I thought I’d make sure it happened.”

“
Can you see the hit-and-run in the pictures?” Kaarina asked hesitantly.

Takamäki
nodded.

“H
ow bad did it...?”

“T
here were a few stills. You can see the collision and the car’s license plate number.”

“S
o he’ll get caught?”

“P
ossibly. You can’t make out the driver.”

“W
hose car is it?” Kaarina asked.

Takamäki
took a swig of his beer. “I don’t know. Let’s allow the Espoo Police to do their job.”

“W
ell, they don’t sound very efficient, since they haven’t even questioned Jonas about the incident yet, and you had to pick up the photos.”

“T
he investigator’s pretty busy. I promised I’d take him the photos tomorrow.”

* * *

The green Volkswagen Golf turned onto the Tuusula Expressway, as sleet slapped into the windshield.

“H
ave you ever played boardless chess?” Kulta asked Joutsamo. He was at the wheel.

“W
hat?”

“B
oardless chess. Chess without a board and pieces. Let’s give it a shot,” he suggested, turning off the highway. They still had a mile or so to go. “I’m white, so that means my pieces are in squares one and two. You have seven and eight.”

“H
uh?”

“I
’ll make the first move. Pawn from D2 to D4.”

Joutsamo
smiled. “OK, knight...ummm, B8 to C6.”

“G
ood,” Kulta said, slowing down. He let an old woman cross the road. “Pawn from E2 to E3.”