Fatal Headwind (22 page)

“How so?”

“I’ve got a meeting starting right now. I’ll call you this afternoon.”

After slamming down the phone in frustration, I tried once again to reach Mikke Sjöberg. He hadn’t pulled a runner, had he? I asked Dispatch to send a car over to check whether the
Leanda
was still at the marina. Then I had to leave for the next meeting of the day, the Criminal Division unit commanders’ weekly meeting. In the hall, my cell phone rang. It was the patrol car reporting that the
Leanda
was indeed still at anchor.

“Should we go arrest someone?” Haikala asked enthusiastically over the phone.

“No. I’ll take care of it myself.”

I tried Mikke’s number one more time, again with no success.

The whole meeting was taken up by the meat-plant fire. Even though the SIS was handling the case, we had to be ready for more attacks. Orion, a pharmaceutical company, had been receiving anonymous messages threatening their animal-testing facilities. Following the arson, Orion had requested stepped-up police patrols.

“I asked them to talk to their security company,” Taskinen said calmly. “Unfortunately the police can’t be everywhere at once. I’ve told Patrol, and Organized Crime is looking into other possible targets.”

“Hey, Kallio, how strong are your husband’s connections to these eco-terrorists?” Laine from Organized Crime suddenly asked.

“Antti doesn’t have anything to do with Animal Revolution,” I said, taken aback.

Laine’s eyebrows went up, and his thick, dark, slicked-back hair shone.

“Maybe not with them, but didn’t he participate in that anticar rally last week with your baby?”

“So what?” I had to fight to stay calm.

“The spouse of a police lieutenant shouldn’t be running around with criminals. It makes people ask questions about police neutrality.”

“But those protesters aren’t criminals! Doesn’t the freedom to assemble apply to police officers’ families too? I’m not going to start telling my husband what he can and can’t do. And he isn’t in charge of my opinions either!”

I could barely keep myself from shouting, and Taskinen quickly turned the conversation to other matters. Because the Merivaara case was stuck, the rest of the meeting was taken up by a drug ring Narcotics had busted.

Then, as Taskinen was just wrapping up the meeting, Makinen from White-Collar Crime asked, “What about Lieutenant Ström? Is he going to be on administrative leave for long?”

Taskinen shook his head. “I’m hoping the case will move quickly. The investigation is still ongoing. I think Officer Puupponen is giving a statement to the NBI today.” Taskinen shot me a questioning look, and I nodded.

“Koivu and I are going over tomorrow for our interviews,” I said. “We’re all probably going to have to testify too. He’s going to get at least assault-and-battery and aggravated abuse of authority.”

Just then my phone rang. It was Puustjärvi, asking for an arrest warrant. I had to leave the meeting early, and when Taskinen shouted after me about the lunch we kept not having together, I just shrugged.

I managed to dig into the SIS report on Animal Revolution at two o’clock while I ate the yogurt and sandwich I had picked up in the cafeteria.

In addition to Harri, there were a couple of other names on the previous spring’s membership list that didn’t show on the newer list. Harri didn’t have his own file, but Jiri Merivaara did. The kid definitely would have been flattered if he could have seen how much trouble Security Intelligence had gone to tracking his movements. The youngest AR member with a file was fourteen years old.

Koivu could contact Harri’s family and friends, although reopening that investigation would be painful for them. I called Mikke Sjöberg again, and again I got no answer. Looking outside, I saw that the day was clear and cloudless. A trip to the marina might be a nice pick-me-up. I didn’t need to take anyone with me. This wasn’t going to be an interrogation. The good part of being unit commander was that I didn’t usually need to account for my movements or investigative methods.

Most of the people who kept boats at the marina had already taken their crafts out of the water because the weather was getting too cold for boating. A few motorboats still floated at the dock, but there were only two sailboats. The all-wood
Leanda
was easy to pick out among all the white fiberglass. The sun was shining pleasantly, so it wasn’t any surprise Mikke Sjöberg was sitting on deck reading.

“Hi, Mikke!” I yelled and found myself smiling much more broadly than I intended.

Mikke got up and came to open the gate in the chain-link fence that controlled access to the docks.

“Hey.” He didn’t sound very enthusiastic.

“I’ve been trying to call, but you haven’t been answering your phone,” I said as I hopped onto the deck of the
Leanda
.

“Nope, I haven’t been. Is it something important for you to come all this way?”

“Yes and no.” I climbed along the boat and we sat next to the helm. Had Mikke been out sailing in the morning? The mainsail was on the mast, although lowered.

“Want some coffee? There’s probably some left in the thermos.”

When I said yes, thank you, Mikke got up and opened the hatch to the cabin.

“Welcome to my floating palace,” he said with a crooked smirk and motioned for me to enter. I climbed down the ladder into the main cabin. It appeared surprisingly roomy, with a collapsible navigation table big enough for full-size charts. Right now an Olivetti laptop and a couple of books were out on it. It was an older laptop model that didn’t have much battery life, so I wondered what Mikke was doing with it on the boat.

“The sleeping berth is in the fore cabin,” Mikke said calmly, as if I were any old visitor. “Do you take milk or sugar?”

“Milk, please.” I glanced into the fore cabin, which had one wide bed. A toilet and an open closet were between the cabins. On the right-hand side of the main cabin, in the aft corner, was a compact kitchen with a range and water filter. The shelves lining the main cabin were full of books, including fiction, travel books, and guides to birds and plants.

“
Leanda
. Doesn’t that come from an old thriller?” I asked, grabbing the coffee mug Mikke offered. His fingers brushed against mine.

“Have you read it?”

“I have, although that was years ago,” I said, thinking that Mikke must really be a romantic at heart if he had named his boat after the idealistic heroine of Andrew Garve’s novel.

“
A Hero for Leanda
is still one of my favorite books.” Mikke grabbed an old book off the shelf. The green binding of the books from the long-running detective series was easily recognizable.

“I prefer to read in Finnish when I’m traveling. Otherwise I get rusty. Sometimes I get mixed up about what language I’m supposed to be using in different countries. Would you like some chocolate cookies?”

I was never one to turn down chocolate. Mikke sat down on a couch in the main cabin, and I lounged on the other side of the navigation table. I wolfed down half a cookie, which was more chocolate than anything else. So much for my healthy lunch.

“Did you come to talk about Jiri?” Mikke asked, licking chocolate off his upper lip.

“Not really. Have you seen him since they let him go?”

“I visited the house yesterday because Anne asked me to. Jiri was a very quiet young man after sitting in jail for two days. He wouldn’t say anything about his part in the fire. What happened out there anyway?”

I gave a brief account, and Mikke’s expression hardened. He looked pensively out the window. Then his face suddenly relaxed into a smile.

“I probably shouldn’t, but I was thinking about going for a little spin after coffee. Maybe out to Hirsala and back. Come with me.”

“Bad idea,” I said, looking at my coffee mug and not Mikke.

“Why? You know how to sail. You can make sure I don’t run away.” Mikke’s smile contained a challenge, and I found myself blushing.

“Actually I wanted to talk about Harri Immonen. He was also in Animal Revolution.”

“Harri? That’s hard to believe. He was so—well, you know. Gentle.”

“I doubt he participated in any riots or arsons. Maybe he just went to their protests. That would be enough for the SIS to put him on their list. So Jiri and Harri didn’t seem to know each other from anywhere else?”

Mikke said no. Harri had been nothing to Jiri, although Jiri once had said to Mikke that at least Harri was interested in birds as a part of nature, unlike Tapio Holma, who thought bird-watching was some kind of competitive sport.

“It is kind of crazy that guys go driving hundreds of miles to stare at some little skylark. Not very environmentally friendly, burning all that gas chasing them,” I said with a nervous laugh, and Mikke laughed back. Then he suggested the sailing outing again.

And stupid me agreed.

“Just let me rig the spinnaker. At first we’ll just use the mainsail, but once we get moving east we’ll have a fair wind. Are you wearing enough? I have some sweaters and long underwear.”

I was wearing jeans and a leather jacket because I had biked to work. I pulled my earmuffs out of my pocket.

We started the motor, and Mikke criticized his own laziness. “And if I mess up the sails, I’ll never live it down in your eyes,” he joked. After we left the harbor we raised the mainsail and went into a close haul.

“Tapio was furious with Jiri yesterday. Jiri gave it back to him, though. He even accused Tapio of killing Juha!”

“What?” The wind threw my hair in my eyes, and for a moment I couldn’t see Mikke’s expression.

“No, it’s ridiculous. I know Juha and Tapio fought that afternoon in the sauna, but that probably blew off most of the steam.” Mikke pulled his pipe out of his jacket pocket and asked me to hold the helm while he lit it.

“If someone killed Juha, which is hard to believe, I wouldn’t suspect Riikka or Tapio.” Mikke took back the helm, and again his hand brushed mine. The touch slid through my whole body. Flecks of light danced in the sea, and the east wind had stripped the birch trees onshore of their leaves. My eyes began to water.

“Did you say you heard Jiri go outside that night? Are you sure he was only gone a minute? I know you don’t think you fell asleep between when he went out and came back, but what if you did?”

“I didn’t.” Mikke’s voice was sure. “I was as excited as a kid on Christmas Eve about leaving, and I was too restless for any kind of real sleep. It’s always that way when I’m setting sail, which makes it hard and wonderful all at the same time. And then the first night on the boat I always sleep like a log. Here I’m home.”

Mikke turned his eyes to mine. “Jiri is pretty fanatical, but he isn’t a murderer. He’s like his dad, despite it all. I’m worried about the kid, though. He’s probably going to do something really stupid one of these days.”

“I think he might have already done it.” I tried to put my hair under the band of my earmuffs so it wouldn’t keep flying in my face. My hands were stiff. The rain at the soccer game had ruined my gloves. I should have borrowed some from Mikke.

“Sometimes I think I should stay for the winter, no matter what happens. But I can’t. I have to leave. I can’t go for that many months without sailing.”

The sun brought out the blue in Mikke’s eyes, making them look deep and sad. Then he sucked on his pipe and veiled himself in a cloud of smoke, giving me a good reason to cough and look away.

I had to focus to collect myself so I wouldn’t be the next one to do something really stupid. During my ten years as a cop, I had interviewed a lot of different types of people. Powerful executives, moronic petty criminals, mothers who had killed their children, psychopathic bastards.

Never before had I felt such a draw to someone I was interviewing, though, not to Antti and not even to my teenage crush, Johnny, who had been a suspect in a murder case a few years earlier back in my hometown. There was something about Mikke Sjöberg that put me off balance. Few would have called him handsome. His muscular body was trim to the point of being bony, his face hard, and his gaze furtive. Still I seemed ready to forget that I was happily married and that I suspected Mikke of murdering his half brother.

But I couldn’t forget my work for anything more than a few fleeting seconds of daydreaming.

“Animal Revolution demands direct action from its members. Over the weekend I read their platform documents. Could Jiri have killed his father in their name?”

Mikke’s face quivered, though he tried not to let it show. He didn’t reply, but shook his head. I couldn’t stand the silence that drew me toward Mikke.

“Not Riikka, not Tapio, not Jiri. So what about you? What did you think of your brother?”

Again another cloud of smoke in which Mikke’s eyes disappeared. Then he stood up and spoke quickly.

“Time to change course. Take the wheel. I’ll raise the spinnaker. Turn west when I tell you to.”

I grabbed the helm, cursing myself for coming out on this stupid sailing trip. My work was already complicated enough without being infatuated with one of my suspects. Mikke cranked the spinnaker up and loosened the sheet on the mainsail.

“Jibe-ho!”

The boat turned to catch the wind with the spinnaker billowing, and the mainsail swung around. The wind wasn’t making very big waves, so the
Leanda
sped forward steadily. We were headed toward the Porkkala Peninsula, and Rödskär was also visible as a ruddy spot off to the south. When Mikke sat down again, I continued my questions.

“Could your brother have killed Harri?”

Mikke’s eyes went wide.

“No one killed Harri!”

“What if they did?”

“Hell no. Why?”

“You tell me.”

Mikke stared toward the horizon. “I thought we agreed Harri was a gentle man. Who would want to kill someone like that?”

“Did Seija Saarela know Harri?”

“They both sailed with me a couple of times. But this is insane. You can’t think that Seija . . .” Mikke sighed, his face twisting into a white mask as his hand squeezed the helm. It looked like his knuckles might break the skin.