Cold Trail (20 page)

“O
ccupational mishap. Two years, two months for aggravated assault. Got caught on a surveillance camera I didn’t know about.”

Arsenal Fan and Moustache M
an nodded sympathetically, but clearly a little uncertainly.

“W
ho are you looking for?” Moustache Man asked.

“H
ow so?” Suhonen’s tone was so coy that the other two could tell he was definitely looking for someone.

“A
n enforcer
like you in a neighborhood pub. Drinking a Coke. You think we’re stupid?”

“I
don’t think you’re stupid. And this Coke is warm. Suikkanen,” Suhonen said. His motivation was clear: by introducing himself first, he brought himself to the same level as his drinking buddies.

“S
uikkanen.” Moustache Man savored the name. “Never heard.”

Suhonen
flashed a cold smile. “You’re not supposed to have.”

“
Yugi,” Arsenal Fan said, extending a hand.

Moustache M
an eyed his buddy coldly, and Yugi pulled his hand back. Moustache Man introduced himself: “Eki.”

“N
ice to meet you,” Suhonen said, giving another smile.

“I
’m going to ask repeat the question, if you don’t mind,” Eki continued. “Who are you looking for? Who’s in trouble?”

Suhonen
stroked his chin. “No one would be in trouble if everyone just paid their debts.”

Arsenal
Yugi and Moustache Eki were silent. Both were pleased that neither had any debts to speak of. The enforcer in the leather jacket seemed like a bad guy, one you didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time around.

“J
uha Saarnikangas.”

“J
uha?” Yugi let slip. Eki gave his friend an evil look. Now there was no point denying it, even if they wanted to.

“T
hey said in Kontula he might be here.”

“H
ow much does he owe?” Eki asked.

Suhonen
shrugged. “It’s none of my business.”

“W
hat is your business?”

“F
inding him.”

“A
nd then what?” Eki asked.

“N
ow, that’s none of your business.”

“W
hy would someone send a torpedo like you after some small-time junkie? That’s a pretty stacked deck.”

“Y
ou want to join in?” Suhonen asked, looking intently at Eki
.
“Would it be more even then?”

“I
’m not too fond of your tone.”

“Y
ou don’t have to be.”

Y
ugi had taken a swig of his beer and now managed to get a word in. “I don’t give a shit about the guy. He stole a wallet from some twelve-year-old kid in Tallinn Square
once, goddammit. I was having a drink and happened to see it. It was completely out of control,
and I ran the clown down. When I brought the wallet back to the kid, who was bawling his head off, the cops were there, and I had a hell of a time explaining what happened. Luckily they believed the kid that I wasn’t the one who took it. In the end they even thanked me.”

Suhonen nodded.
“Touching story. But where can I find him?”

Y
ugi continued, “He was here about three hours ago, but he shot up in the john, and the bouncer threw him out. Got banned from here for a month, for a change. I think he’s crawled back to some hole for the night. I doubt he’ll be out again.”

“W
hat hole?”

“I
don’t know. He’s got some bitch here somewhere nearby, but he’s always hanging around the Itäkeskus Mall parking lot in the morning, checking to see if someone left their car door unlocked and their stuff inside. That’s where I’d look for him if I had to.”

“A
nd would you?”

“I won’t
,” Moustache Man said quickly.

Suhonen
ignored Eki’s response. “A C-note if you tell me where to find him.”

“I
don’t have to do anything else?”

“A
ll I need is to know where I can find him.”

E
ki tried to curb his buddy’s enthusiasm. “Think for a second about what you’re getting mixed up in.”

“I
’m not getting mixed up in anything except helping someone give the idiot what he deserves.”

“Y
ou’re drunk,” Eki said, standing up. “Sorry, I’m not interested in this conversation anymore.”

Suhonen
gave Moustache Man a hard look as he rose.

“N
o worries. I already forgot,” Eki said, heading in the direction of the bar.

“G
ood,” Suhonen growled, writing down the number for his off-the-record line on a scrap of paper he found in his pocket. The prepaid phone couldn’t be traced back to the police.

* * *

Joutsamo saw a knife. Not some gleaming dagger; just a rusty old all-purpose Mora. She realized she was in an empty, windowless room. A lone light bulb dangled from the ceiling. A second knife fell from somewhere, and then a third. Soon the floor was covered in knives. They reached up to her ankles, her knees. Joutsamo wanted to run, but she couldn’t move.

She
woke up in a sweat. She had kicked off her blanket and was sprawled in bed in her T-shirt and underpants. She looked at the red lights on her clock radio: 3:32 a.m.

She
lay there for a moment, breathing. The windows of her one-bedroom Töölö apartment gave onto the large interior courtyard. The curtains were drawn, but yellow light from the yard gleamed in through the gap.

Her nightmares had returned.
Joutsamo wasn’t able to predict when they came, and it made going to bed unpleasant. Violence had been stored to her mental hard drive. At times Joutsamo wondered whether she should go back to Narcotics or transfer to other duties. But something about violent crimes fascinated her. Maybe it was that evil was so unpredictable. People committed senseless acts for such trivial reasons. Joutsamo had always been interested in the motives behind a crime, especially if one was never found.

Joutsamo
rubbed the sleep from her eyes and her thoughts cleared. There was a direct cause for her nightmare—the Repo case.

Kohonen and
Joutsamo had sat for a couple of hours in the half-empty bar at the Hotel Pasila, sipped three ciders apiece, and talked about the old Repo murder case without reaching any conclusions. Something about it bothered her, and Joutsamo couldn’t put her finger on it. But now she couldn’t sleep.

She got up
and walked into her kitchenette without turning on the lights. She wet her hands under the faucet and splashed water onto her face in the dark. It refreshed her, even though she had only intended on rinsing away the clammy sweat. She grabbed the electric kettle, ran some water into it, and put it on to boil. She found a mug in the cupboard and picked out a teabag from the package next to the kettle.

Joutsamo
sat down at her two-person table. There was a laptop at the other spot and old newspapers on the chair. The three-foot-wide window had a view of the neighboring building, now dark. It had about a hundred windows, and only two of them had lights on. Everything looked so peaceful.

Suddenly Jout
samo realized what had been bothering her about the Repo case. It was a question to which there had been no answer. Joutsamo was irritated that the problem was so elementary—she should have seen it right away at the Riihimäki police station while she was reviewing the reports.

The wife had been lyin
g in the kitchen with her throat slit, and Repo had been passed out in the bedroom. So who had called the police? The preliminary investigation reports didn’t contain the answer.

WEDNESDAY MORNING

CHAPTER 12

WEDNESDAY
, 8:05 A.M.

HELSINKI POLICE HEADQUARTERS
, PASILA

Takamäki walked down the VCU corridor toward his office. He yawned and thought that the whole building could use a thorough renovation. Sure, police stations were supposed to be uninviting, but not this cold.

Joutsamo
recognized the rhythm of his gait and stepped out of the team room to greet him.

“W
e need to talk,” she said. “Now.”

“G
ood morning to you, too,” Takamäki replied, continuing past her toward his office. Joutsamo fell in behind him. “We catch our escaped convict yet?” he asked, without looking back.

“N
o,” Joutsamo
answered.

Takamäki
made it to his office door. “Any hot tips?”

Joutsamo
followed her boss. She was carrying a stack of papers. “Nope.”

Takamäki
hung his overcoat on a hanger next to the door. A dress shirt, tie, and sport coat for impromptu appearances hung on another. Takamäki was wearing the blue Norwegian fisherman’s sweater his wife had given him the Christmas before last. He sat down at his desk. Joutsamo was still standing in the doorway.

“W
ell?” Takamäki gestured for his sergeant to sit.

“L
et’s start from the tip.”

“S
o we have something?” Takamäki said, reaching down to turn on his computer.

“W
ell, sort of. A car was stolen from the Töölö swimming pool yesterday evening.”

“A
car was stolen from the pool?” he looked up at Joutsamo.

Joutsamo
grunted. “The keys from the locker and the car from outside. An intriguing
method, and Kohonen went over this morning to get the surveillance camera image.” She handed the print to Takamäki. “Take a look at the clothes.”

Takamäki
examined the image shot at the pool cashier. The camera was at the ceiling, and the brim of an old-fashioned cap shaded the man’s lowered face. His clothing, on the other hand, was clearly visible in the color photo. He was wearing a gray trench coat, and a dark suit was discernible underneath. He was carrying a plastic bag. Takamäki nodded. “That’s our man. At least possibly.”

“T
his guy entered the building right after the man whose keys were stolen and exited more or less immediately. The lock had been broken.”

“W
hat else did he take?”

“N
othing. Just the car key. According to the victim, the car key had been on the same ring as his other keys, but they were still intact.”

Takamäki
took another look at the surveillance camera image.

“S
o he wanted a car. Are there any other cameras on Topelius Street? Did he know this man, or why that specific car?”

“D
oesn’t appear to have any connection. The victim doesn’t have a criminal background, just youraverage joe.”

The computer demanded a use
r ID and password from Takamäki; he complied.

“
Two conclusions that would point toward it possibly being Repo. One: he doesn’t know how to steal a car. Two: he doesn’t have friends who’d steal one for him. So he’s on his own.”

Joutsamo
nodded. “That’s what I was thinking, too.”

“W
hy the Töölö pool? Is it the best place in terms of where he’s staying now, or just somewhere he’s been before? Somehow it seems an MO like that would demand a familiar milieu, at least familiar enough that he had used the lockers at some point and realized that it would be possible to pull off there.”

“H
mm,” Joutsamo said. “I don’t know. Those locks aren’t exactly theft-proof at any pool.”

Takamäki
handed the photo back. “In any case, we’re a good twelve hours behind. Car hasn’t been found?”

“N
o. Of course an APB was sent out immediately, but no reports yet. Too bad that the victim’s phone was in his coat pocket, not the glove compartment. It would’ve been easy to position it.”

Joutsamo
was right. A car theft was grand larceny, and they had reason to suspect Repo. Now they could use more stringent measures, like wiretapping, if they only had a potential target to apply them to.

Takamäki kept thinking out loud:
“But he’s in Töölö? If you draw a one-mile radius
around that pool, it contains tens of thousands of residents.”

“N
ot one of whom seems to know Repo,” Joutsamo added.

“W
hy would he want a car?” Takamäki said.