Death Spiral (2 page)

1

Kati Järvenperä parked her ancient, dark-blue Mercedes on the mostly deserted upper level of the Matinkylä Shopping Center parking garage. There had been space lower down, but Kati wasn’t in the mood to squeeze the boat of a car into one of the free spots. It was twenty minutes to eight, leaving her just barely enough time to buy her groceries before the supermarket closed. She had spent more than two hours with Olli at the ear doctor. She would have to take the boys with her into the store, and of course Jussi would start whining for her to buy them treats, using the excuse that Olli was sick.

Kati opened the trunk and took out Olli’s umbrella stroller and a crate of empty bottles for recycling. Once the boys were asleep, she definitely deserved a couple of cold ciders. She didn’t bother locking the trunk. It was unlocked most of the time, and nothing had ever disappeared. The car was beat up enough that no one would think they’d find anything worth stealing. Kati sat twenty-one-month-old Olli in the stroller, ordered four-year-old Jussi to hold the other side of the crate, sighed, and dragged herself off to shop.

They managed to get out of the store one minute before eight. Jussi had succeeded in pestering her into buying them chocolate pudding cups and a big bag of xylitol gum. Kati didn’t have the energy to argue. Work at the Helsinki Summer University had been hell that day, and then, when the day care called to say Olli was complaining about his ear again, the catastrophe was complete. Her husband had lectures from six to eight, so Kati had had to take both boys to wait in line at the health center.

Kati planted Olli in his car seat in back and Jussi on his booster, then fastened both boys’ seat belts. She folded the stroller and opened the trunk.

For a moment all she could do was stare. The eyes of the girl crammed in the trunk did not look back; a stream of blood veiled them. Kati felt her legs buckling under her and the world going dark. Not until Jussi yelled, “Come on, Mom!” did she snap out of it.

Gingerly, she checked the girl’s wrist for a pulse. That was what her first-aid course had taught. The hand was still warm, and she easily found the vein, but she felt no pulse.

Kato closed and locked the trunk.

Opening Olli’s door, she told the boys, “Climb back out. The car is broken. We have to call the police.”

“No, we need a mechanic,” Jussi said in protest. “Police officers don’t fix cars.”

“I’m sure the police know a good mechanic,” Kati said. It was strange how steady her voice sounded. The boys didn’t notice anything. Where was her phone? And how the hell was she going to explain the girl’s body in her trunk to the police?

I couldn’t remember such a cold May. As I turned my bike down into the tunnel under the Turku Highway, a chill wind assailed me. The morning temperature was barely fifty degrees, and the finches trying to sing just seemed pathetic. Two weeks until June and the weather felt like October. Heavy rain had fallen all night, and clouds the color of yesterday’s bruise were rising in the eastern sky.

My breasts felt cold, and my nose was running by the time I finally coasted into the Espoo Police Department parking lot. Being seven months pregnant made running difficult, so I was trying to keep myself in some sort of shape by biking and lifting weights. Otherwise everything was going well, and sometimes I barely remembered I was expecting. Maybe that was some kind of protective mechanism. The pregnancy hadn’t been planned; my IUD had failed.

I worked as a detective for the Espoo Police in the Violent Crime and Repeat Offender Unit. Generally I liked my job, but I couldn’t deny occasionally relishing the thought of my upcoming maternity leave. A good break from all the murders and beatings was long overdue. Besides a few months of unemployment, I had been working like a madwoman ever since graduating from high school thirteen years earlier.

“Taskinen wants to see you right now!” our secretary yelled as soon as I stepped into the hall where our unit was housed. I stopped by my office to take off my jacket and switch out of my running shoes.

Detective Lieutenant Jyrki Taskinen sat behind his desk speaking urgently on the phone. When he saw me, he cut short the call. I could tell my boss had barely slept the night before: his usually pale, narrow face was gray as stone, he had bags under his eyes, and his face was covered in blond stubble. Taskinen waved for me to sit. He seemed to have a hard time finding words.

“Morning, Jyrki. What’s new?”

“Well, we had a murder last night, and I want you to investigate. You can have Pihko and Koivu to help, and whoever else you need. I don’t want to give this to Ström because . . .” Taskinen spread his hands. Sergeant Pertti Ström was famous for his lack of tact and his coarse language.

“What kind of case is it?” I asked, hesitating slightly. My maternity leave was supposed to start in barely a month, so I was approaching each new case knowing that someone else would probably have to solve it in the end.

“You remember that ice skating show a couple of weeks ago . . . ?” Taskinen had to force each word out of his mouth. “Noora Nieminen was found beaten and dead in the trunk of a car yesterday.”

“Oh my God! Whose car was she found in?”

Taskinen glanced at his papers.

“A woman named Kati Järvenperä. She’s an instructional designer for the Helsinki Summer University and lives out by the bird refuge in Tiistilä. She says she left the trunk unlocked at about 7:40 p.m. while she was in the supermarket with her kids. When she got back, at one minute to eight according to her report, she found Noora’s body in the trunk.”

I tried to banish the image of Noora’s frightened, pleading eyes—Snow White’s eyes—as she begged the Huntsman to spare her life. Noora’s look of concentration before a jump, her exuberant smile after the program ended . . .

Heartburn rose in my throat, as it had started to do lately, and my pulse sped up. I forced myself to continue asking questions, the answers to which I didn’t want to hear.

“What had been done to her?”

“Beaten in the head and upper body with an object, still unidentified. But the ultimate cause of death was a blow that crushed the back of her skull. They found dirt, moss, and some chips of rock in her skull, so she may have fallen and hit her head on a sharp rock. The body was wet because it was raining yesterday. She was probably killed outside, on her way home from the ice rink. She left around seven, apparently intending to walk home. It’s right across from the marina, less than a mile and a half away.”

Taskinen’s voice trembled. I had only seen him cry once before, when an officer in our unit was killed by a shotgun blast from a man who had taken him hostage.

“What’s happened so far? Has the family been notified?”

Taskinen related that the patrol who initially responded to the call didn’t recognize Noora. Her face was scratched and stained with blood, and she didn’t have a purse or wallet with her. The doctor at the hospital who declared her dead was an avid figure-skating fan and realized who she was. By then Lähde from our department had arrived and had the sense to call Taskinen to verify the identification. Then Taskinen had to go tell Noora’s parents, who had already started to wonder where their eldest was.

“You’ve probably been up all night. Does Silja know?”

“I stopped by home an hour ago to tell her. She completely went to pieces. Terttu had a meeting she had to get to, so she couldn’t stay to calm her down either. She was at practice at the ice rink yesterday too, but she left earlier and was home by six thirty. Our neighbor, Mirjam, was just stopping by our place and saw Silja. Janne and Noora stayed behind with Rami and Elena to practice a new jump combination.”

There was relief in addition to the pain in Taskinen’s voice. Although Silja would hardly be at the top of the list of suspects for Noora’s murder, the investigation’s chain of command would be much simpler if the lieutenant’s daughter had a solid alibi for the time of the incident. But we would have to interview her. Taskinen’s position was tricky because a family member had been a friend of the victim.

I stood up and walked over to the map of Espoo hanging on the wall behind Taskinen’s desk. South of the ice arena in Matinkylä was a park that extended all way to Noora’s neighborhood. On a clear night the half-mile walk would have been pleasant, but why would Noora want to slog her way home in the pouring rain?

“Has the area between the ice rink and her house been searched already?”

“Forensics headed that way at six this morning, and Koivu and a couple of others are interviewing all the regular users of the parking garage. They’ll put up notices on the bulletin boards in the shopping center, and if that doesn’t help, we can use the radio and newspapers. We’re already having a look at the garage surveillance tape, but the camera only covers the entrance and exit. Of course we can check every car that went in or out between seven thirty and eight if we have to. That’s just a hell of a lot of work.”

Taskinen already had the investigation off to a good start. And it didn’t take much thought to realize the only reason he hadn’t called me to come in during the night was because I was so pregnant. It was both touching and annoying. Once my pregnancy became common knowledge, I constantly had to assure relatives and colleagues that I could continue working at my previous pace. Mostly I sat behind a desk anyway, interviewing people and doing paperwork. During my entire career as a police officer, I’d only ended up in a few tight spots.

“Maybe it’s best to leave Noora’s parents alone for the morning. I’ll probably start with the three who were at the rink when Noora left,” I said.

“Actually, there were other people there besides Janne and the coaches, at least when Silja left. Elena Grigorieva’s husband, Tomi Liikanen, was still there, and Ulrika Weissenberg from the Espoo Figure-Skating Association was there too. And we can’t rule out Vesku Teräsvuori either. Noora’s parents are already blaming him.”

“I’ll probably need to ask for the file on the stalking case, then. Teräsvuori is definitely suspect number one. But one thing at a time.”

“Ström suggested it could also be the same guy that’s been molesting little girls around that neighborhood for the last couple of months.”

“Those girls were all younger than Noora, though, more like ten years old. Ström is handling that case, isn’t he?” It was more a statement than a question. Maybe Ström could finagle Noora’s murder investigation for himself if he could convince everyone the perpetrator was the same prowler he’d been hunting. The professional competition between Ström and me was already bad enough, and I didn’t want to get into some sort of pissing contest about what case was whose.

“Ström’s case has been stalled for a while now. And I don’t think the connection is very credible, but of course we have to consider the possibility.” Taskinen’s voice was half an octave lower than normal from the exhaustion. He yawned.

“Of course. Jyrki, shouldn’t you go get some sleep? Silja needs you at home.”

“No good. I have that interview with the county police commission today.”

Now that the chief of police was retiring, a major hole was opening up in the career ladder. Taskinen was one of the strongest candidates to head up the Criminal Division, but unfortunately he wasn’t a card-carrying member of any political party. Some of the police commissioners seemed to think that was more important than his impeccable service record. If Taskinen was chosen, our unit would be in an interesting position because two people with basically identical credentials would be competing for the job: Ström and me. We both had law degrees, and while I had better grades, Ström had wider experience as a cop. The biggest obstacle to my selection would be that I would have to start my new job while on maternity leave.

I didn’t know whether I should wish Taskinen good luck with his interview or not. He would definitely be a good captain, but I couldn’t stand to have Ström as a boss.

“Is the interview report from the woman who found the body ready yet?” I asked, my hand on the doorknob.

“No. She hasn’t even been questioned properly. When the first patrol arrived on scene, Järvenperä was completely calm, told them what had happened, organized her groceries, and started calling a taxi. The patrol offered to take her and the kids home. When they finally got her there and she passed off the children to her husband, the shock hit. They ended up having to call an ambulance.”

I nodded. I had found a body once too. Even though I’d seen several bodies in the course of my work, the experience was still awful. And apparently Noora had been badly beaten. I would need to head over to the Institute of Forensic Medicine to have a look. But by then the blood would have been washed away, her limbs placed in a resting position, and the fear of death gone from her eyes.

The realization started to set in that someone had killed Noora Nieminen, one of our country’s most promising young athletes. I would have preferred not to think about the implications, to simply be able to operate on routine. Although that rarely worked for me in a murder investigation, no matter who the victim was. The irreversibility of death always affected the investigation whether I wanted it to or not.