Fatal Headwind (6 page)

Tapio Holma had called in the report, so I assumed that he had found the body, but Mikke Sjöberg spoke up.

“I found Juha on the west shore.”

I didn’t have time to ask whether Juha had been found in the same place as Harri, because Mikke immediately strode off across the wet grass. Koivu, the photographer, and I followed. The lichen on the rocks was bushy now—back in August the dryness of the summer had laid it low on the surface of the rocks. Mikke continued past the place where we had sat drinking Laphroaig those weeks before. Then he pointed to the shore where the westerly was tossing up four-foot waves.

Juha Merivaara lay on his stomach on the rocks, barely out of reach of the breaking waves. His hands and feet floated in the water, but his back and thighs were in the wind. I walked as close to the edge of the cliff as I dared. A fifteen-foot fall didn’t sound like much, but when I looked at the boulders jutting out of the sea, I realized that surviving it would be impossible.

“Did you go down there?” I asked Mikke.

“Yes. I slipped and went straight into the water.” Mikke’s left hand was bandaged, and there was a scrape on his jaw.

“Be careful,” I said to Koivu and Myller as we started down. The rock was extremely slick. The wind the previous day must have sent up waves at least seven feet, and the drizzle kept everything wet.

Closer up, it was apparent that Juha Merivaara’s left temple was sunken in, but there were also contusions on the back of his head and his neck. Koivu cast me a questioning look, but I didn’t say anything because Mikke Sjöberg was there.

“What time did you find him?”

“A little before seven. I went to check the ropes on the
Leanda
, my boat, because the wind had been blowing all night. I noticed a break in the clouds to the south and thought I’d go up to the lighthouse to watch the sunrise. From the window I noticed something on the shore, and at first I thought it was a ghost.” Mikke grimaced. It was easy to understand how he felt, since I had thought the same thing. “I ran to the cliff and saw that it wasn’t Harri lying in the water, it was Juha . . .”

Juha Merivaara was fully dressed in cotton trousers, a peacoat, and deck shoes. His body looked strong, since the cold had kept the muscles hard.

“Have you touched the body?”

“Yes, of course!” Mikke snapped. “I pulled him out of the water! I looked for a pulse and tried mouth-to-mouth, even though I knew it wouldn’t help. That’s always the first thing you do—not worry about police investigations.”

“Has anyone else been here?”

“Tapio came back with me, and we called the police from his cell phone. We didn’t touch anything again, even though it felt like we should move Juha farther up and cover him.”

Mikke tried to conceal a gulp by sucking on his pipe. I hadn’t realized how upset he was.

“Thanks for the help. You can go get out of the rain now.” I would have wanted to say something more friendly or even pat him on the shoulder, but I didn’t know how.

“So he fell . . . probably slipped,” Koivu said once Mikke was out of earshot.

“It really is pretty damn slick here, but Merivaara should have known to be careful. That bang on his temple is in a strange place, though. You’d think if he fell he would have hit the back of his head, not the front. His face is probably scraped up too.”

Pulling on a pair of exam gloves, I carefully lifted Merivaara’s head. His face was bloody, his nose broken. Brain matter had spilled out on the rock where Mikke had moved his brother’s corpse. Would slipping on these rocks have caused damage like that? Usually people fell on their back, as Harri had. Or had the facial injuries happened after he was in the water? But dead bodies weren’t supposed to bleed. From how high had Merivaara fallen to end up in the water? Fortunately the wind had been coming from the west, so the waves had kept the body onshore.

It was too great a coincidence for two men to die on the same island in the same way, exactly a year apart.

I was starting to feel clammy; though it was only sprinkling, the humidity was probably near 100 percent. I suggested to Koivu that we go inside. The photographer stayed to document the grisly scene. Puustjärvi had assembled everyone in the kitchen. In the light of the storm lamps it looked homey, and Seija Saarela, the woman with the dark hair, was at the stove making tea.

“I’d like to express my condolences,” I said to everyone, but in return only received vague murmurs.

“My mom is in one of the bedrooms, and Mikke’s mom is in there trying to help her calm down,” Riikka burst out. “This is too much for her. First Harri and then Dad exactly a year later . . . Just like there’s some sort of . . .”

“Curse,” Seija Saarela said as she brought the teapot to the table. “The rocks of this island have so much negative energy trapped in them. So many restless spirits from so much fighting—”

“Seija, don’t!” Mikke groaned and placed a hand on her arm.

“We’d like to interview each of you briefly. Riikka, do you think we’d be able to talk to your mom?” I said.

“Ask her yourself!”

I left the others to sip their tea and knocked on the door Riikka had pointed to.

“Stig in,”
said a female voice that wasn’t Anne Merivaara’s. I entered a pleasantly decorated room that seemed to be for the Merivaaras’ private use. Anne lay on her side in an unmade bed, and next to her sat a diminutive, wiry woman in her sixties with brown skin and a steel-gray hair cut in a rough bob.

“Hello. I’m Lieutenant Maria Kallio from the Espoo Police,” I said.

Sitting up abruptly, Anne Merivaara exclaimed, “Thank goodness it’s you! Now everything will be OK.” She swung her legs over the bed, but the woman with the steel-gray hair grabbed her shoulders.

“Anne, take it easy. You don’t have to go anywhere.”

Her Finnish had a clear Swedish lilt, but not the Espoo Swedish I was used to. She extended a strong, slender hand.

“Katrina Sjöberg, the deceased’s stepmother.”

Her handshake was cool and firm, bringing to mind that of her son Mikke. Her eyes were the same elusive sea-blue that changed colors according to the lighting.

“Would you both be up to answering a few questions—such as when the last time was you saw Juha alive?”

“I can, yes,” Katrina Sjöberg said. “But does Anne really need to be questioned now? The rest of us know just as much as she does. Anne was the first to go to sleep, at around eleven o’clock. She doesn’t know whether Juha ever joined her. She didn’t wake up until Mikke came to tell us that Juha was dead.”

I wondered why Katrina Sjöberg was fussing over her stepson’s wife when Anne had seemed like such a sensible and independent person.

“I’m fine if we can talk here,” Anne said. “Katrina probably has to leave, right?”

I nodded. We still didn’t know whether we were investigating a homicide or just recording the events surrounding a fatal accident.

From outside came the sound of a boat motor—Forensics had arrived. I hoped they would be able to take a quick look and determine that Juha Merivaara had slipped on the cliff and fell, that everyone would say Juha was fall-down drunk and that was the reason for the accident. But I knew full well that Forensics wouldn’t be able to do any analysis that quickly and that they might not be able to declare a cause of death for weeks, if ever.

The sound of the motor died, and I looked at Anne Merivaara again.

“Why did you come to Rödskär? The weather isn’t exactly inviting.”

To my surprise Anne nearly smiled.

“To celebrate my birthday. It was yesterday. That was why Juha and I came last time too, when we found Harri. That left me with nightmares. I started fearing my birthday, and Juha thought the best medicine would be to come right on back out here. But now this . . .”

Anne’s voice was hollow, as were her eyes as she stared out the window.

“Everything happened just like Katrina said. I was tired and anxious. I went to sleep at eleven and took two sleeping pills so I wouldn’t have any nightmares. When Mikke came to wake me up, for a while I thought I was still dreaming.”

Anne’s voice broke, and I didn’t have the heart to push her for more information.

“This is enough for now. Try to take care of yourself. You live in Espoo, right? I have a brochure with me about various crisis services if you need support.”

Pulling the paper out of my bag, I asked Anne whether she wanted to be alone or if I should send someone to her. It would probably be about an hour before any of them would be able to leave the island.

“I’m not afraid of being alone. There isn’t anything to be afraid of anymore. Nothing worse than this can happen,” Anne said in a lifeless voice.

“I’m sorry,” I said. There weren’t any other words. Closing the door quietly, I returned to the kitchen, where the mood was somber. Jiri had his hands wrapped around his teacup as if he were praying to it for strength. Mikke stood at the window looking out. Tapio Holma held his arm protectively around Riikka’s shoulders.

“How did Dad die?” Riikka asked. “Why isn’t anyone telling us anything?”

“I told you Juha fell off the cliff,” Tapio said quietly.

“Fell! Then why are there all these police here?”

“Riikka, you come first,” I said, hoping I sounded friendly, even though this was a pure calculation. Because Riikka was agitated, getting information out of her might be easier than the others. Of course I knew that the group of them had had plenty of time before the police arrived to agree what they would say.

We went into the same room where Iida and Antti and I had stayed six weeks earlier. Then the sea had been blue glinting in the sun, but now it hissed, angry and gray. The beds were carefully made, but in the corner there were a suitcase and a backpack, and on the table were a couple of books and bottles of organic cosmetics.

“Tell me why you came here this weekend.”

“Yesterday was Mom’s birthday. Dad wanted us to celebrate it here. Jiri didn’t want to come, but Dad talked him into it, probably by blackmailing him with those fines. Tapio is here because he’s part of the family these days. Mikke was going to sail by Föglö to take his mom home and then head south.”

I didn’t know where Föglö was, but I would find out. I remembered Mikke Sjöberg saying in August that he was planning to sail to Africa by way of Madeira this winter.

“And who is this Seija Saarela?”

“Seija is Mikke’s friend, and my mom’s too. I guess Seija is mostly here to say good-bye to Mikke before he leaves on his trip.”

That was interesting, but I moved on to ask about the previous day’s events. The motorboat party with the Merivaaras and Tapio Holma had arrived on Rödskär around noon. The Sjöbergs and Seija Saarela had come in around three on the
Leanda
. Once everyone arrived, they had afternoon tea; trips to the sauna and dinner preparations began soon after. By eight everyone had bathed and the group gathered for the party in the kitchen.

“Dad made a speech about Mom, even though forty-five isn’t any special age. We ate and drank. Mom, Jiri, Seija and I had vegetarian like always, and the others had grilled whitefish. Then came the carob cake with tofu cream, which even Jiri will eat. Sometime around eleven, Mom started getting tired and said she was going to sleep. Then I think Jiri disappeared too. He was in a bad mood like he always is at family parties.”

I asked what the sleeping arrangements had been. Anne and Juha Merivaara had slept in the room where I had just interviewed Anne. Seija and Katrina had been in the room where we were sitting now, and Mikke was sharing the next room with Jiri. Tapio and Riikka were sleeping in the east room. There weren’t any other rooms on Rödskär at the moment, since the northeast building was still being renovated.

“I don’t know anything more, because Tapio and I went to sleep next, a little after twelve.”

“How much did your father drink?”

“Aperitifs, wine, and some whiskey with the cake, but that’s what he always has. He’s a big guy, so he doesn’t get drunk easily.” Riikka’s brow furrowed as she realized she had used the present tense. I waited for the tears, but they didn’t come.

Finally I asked whether anything strange had happened during the evening. Riikka said no, but after she stood up she added, “Every now and then I got the feeling that something wasn’t right. Dad and Mom and Mikke were tense for some reason, even though they were trying hard to act like a normal family having a party.”

Apparently there had been no mention that it was the anniversary of Harri’s death. Still it was strange that Riikka didn’t bring that up, since it had happened on her mother’s previous birthday.

Next I called in Tapio Holma, who hugged Riikka at the door.

“Your mother wants you,” he said.

Holma said the same things as Riikka, except that he thought everyone had seemed happy and that the night had been perfectly pleasant.

“Just the usual grumbling from Jiri about eating our brother fish. That boy really has no idea how to enjoy life.”

After Tapio it was Seija Saarela’s turn. She was a forty-nine-year-old unemployed construction drafter who lived in Espoo. With her flowing batik clothing, gray hair tied in a topknot, big earrings, and lots of natural stone rings, I would have expected to meet Seija Saarela at an occult convention rather than on an island in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Her talk of the bad energy on the island had me prepared for a bunch of mystical mumbo jumbo, but Saarela seemed sensible and calm given the circumstances.

“Yes, Juha was a little drunk, but so were we all,” she said. “It was at least one when I went to sleep, and Katrina went to bed at the same time. Mikke said he was going to go grab a book from the boat. My impression was that Juha was going to bed too, but I wasn’t keeping track of him. To tell the truth, I never liked him much.”

“Why?”

“There was a lot of good in him. He was genuinely interested in protecting the sea, but at the same time he was always thinking about money. Of course you can understand that when you remember that he was raised his whole life to inherit the family business. Given that, the radical changes he made so the company could go green are something to admire. But he could never hide that deep down, he was always a bully.”