The Lavender Ladies Detective Agency: Death in Sunset Grove (33 page)

Siiri asked them to sit down with her so that they could chat. They told her about their grandparents who were really old, maybe seventy, and always travelling, mostly in France, where
they’d bought a vineyard. They didn’t have girlfriends, and they were both christened, but they didn’t believe in God and didn’t know what happens after you die. Siiri told
them she was going on a date with a thirty-five-year-old cook, and they laughed easily because they didn’t believe a word she said.

‘Fucking tough dudette,’ the bolder one said when he thought she couldn’t hear him.

Mika Korhonen was waiting for Siiri at the Tram Museum Cafe. He looked different somehow and it took a moment before Siiri realized that he had grown an unusual-looking beard,
very small, but long, and tied in a funny little plait.

‘Well, you certainly look cute. I mean, it’s fun – your . . . plait. Your beard, I mean.’

Mika smiled happily and tugged on his chin plait. He had bought her a bowl of hot drink.

‘Lactose-free latte,’ he said, as if he had to explain or apologize.

It was coffee mixed with hot skimmed milk, but Siiri said it was good so as not to hurt Mika’s feelings. She remembered Margit Partanen talking about her sister who ended up drinking
tomato soup out of a coffee mug when she couldn’t tell which buttons were for food and which were for drinks. That was what happened when you had to get everything at a cafe out of a lot of
machines, pressing buttons while the staff stood behind the counter and watched to see if you’d survive the ordeal.

‘Yep,’ said Mika, who wanted to talk about the most important things first. He was very curious to hear what the letter from the Judicial Registry said. Siiri took the letter out of
her handbag, apologized that the envelope was torn, and let him read it. To her surprise, Mika wasn’t shocked to see his own name in the letter.

‘Speak of the devil. I’m representing you in this thing, since I’m your advocate.’

So Mika had known more than Siiri had about this police matter the whole time, and he hadn’t bothered to call her! This made her angry, but Mika defended himself, saying he had wanted to
protect her, because of her heart and everything.

‘Everybody has a heart. Don’t be ridiculous,’ Siiri said hotly, but she relented when he took her hand sweetly, looked at her with those blue eyes, and said that Siiri’s
heart was bigger than most, so it was more important that some person who’d been hardened by life such as himself should handle her police matters and criminal cases.

‘But I did go and talk to a boy at the police station,’ Siiri said proudly, and Mika knew that, too, of course. He’d read the report on Siiri’s outpouring, a very long
and detailed report, and thought it a very creditable one. But Siiri shouldn’t be surprised that the wild stories of a ninety-four-year-old with fainting spells didn’t lead to charges
being brought.

‘You didn’t file a criminal report,’ Mika said reproachfully.

Siiri had thought that all she had to do was tell the police about everything. But it seemed she was supposed to have itemized the horrors of Sunset Grove according to the type of criminal
charges that could be brought, such as harassment, abandonment, neglect, endangerment, defamation of character, and who knows what else. The police would only investigate things that were presented
in the form of a crime, and even then only lazily, if the victim was a nearly dead old woman lying on the police-station floor.

‘Most criminal reports don’t lead anywhere,’ Mika said.

‘Then why make them, if they’re not investigated?’

‘Well . . . often it’s a gamble,’ Mika said, and fiddled with his plait again. He didn’t rake the air with his hands as much now that he had a beard to hold on to while
he searched for words.

‘Then there’re the Hiukkanens,’ Siiri began bravely, although she feared Mika would think she was batty. ‘I don’t know what to do about them. Virpi’s trying
to use medication to make me senile, and when I was on my way here, Erkki was following me again, actually spying on me. But I gave him the slip! That’s the sort of thing nobody would
believe, not even you. Can you tell me what possible reason he could have?’

‘Be careful,’ Mika said simply. He seemed to believe Siiri and happened to know that numerous criminal reports had been filed about the Loving Care Foundation. The Ambassador
wasn’t the only one. According to Mika, the police had only been investigating them for tax evasion and other financial goings on, maybe a few falsified prescriptions, but after the fire
there had been a motion to dismiss even those charges.

‘There’s that expression again!’ Siiri said, spooning up the rest of her coffee. It was unpleasantly cold by now and there was no getting around the fact that it was half
milk.

Mika said that Siiri ought to be glad that all she got was a daily equivalence fine of forty days. It could have been worse, if Mika hadn’t fought for her. Originally, they had prosecuted
her for sabotage, and she would have had to pay a large amount for the costs of repairs. At worst, she might have been sentenced to several months’ parole.

‘Parole? You mean a prison term?’

Siiri started to feel faint. Wasn’t there an upper age limit for prison sentences, like there was for caregivers? Could they just throw anybody they wanted into prison in Finland?

‘No, and no. It was your age that made them decide to fine you instead,’ Mika said, as if Siiri’s undeserved sentence was a sign of great clemency, proof of society’s
benevolent attitude towards the generation that fought the war.

‘You just have to pay it. Kind of like the war reparations,’ Mika said.

‘Darn it! I won’t pay it! Let them come and drag me out of the retirement home, if they dare!’

Siiri pounded on her handbag in her fervour and laid into Mika about all the awful things that had happened to her and finished up by talking about the unfair treatment of the Lottas, although
none of her catalogue of injustices was Mika’s fault.

‘I was a Lotta on the Front, and I never got a penny for school or rehabilitation or any other help from society, not even maternity leave, and certainly no sabbatical. They make a fuss
over the men as if they were the only ones in the war! The Ambassador has been on resort holidays twenty times at the government’s expense, and now they’re letting him take his
girlfriend with him, too, sent them on a free trip to Tallinn to splash around in a whirlpool bath.’

Mika started smiling, and laughed out loud when Siiri told him who the Ambassador’s girlfriend was, and how Anna-Liisa was walking around with her hat on even indoors. Gradually, Siiri
calmed down. She felt tired and wanted to go home to her apartment to lie down. Mika walked with her to the tram stop, escorting her beautifully, patiently walking at a slow pace and asking all
about Irma and Anna-Liisa’s Onni, but he didn’t get on the number 8, even though Siiri prodded him to with tales of the new canal and bridge and the entire new neighbourhood being built
at Ruoholahti.

On Saturday morning, Siiri’s telephone rang but she didn’t answer it because she was sitting in her armchair watching
Une Famille Formidable
. It always put
her in a good mood, the way the French characters loved each other, ate long meals with gusto, and forgave everything, even when their spouses were unfaithful and their children bizarre. She liked
the French language and was watching the show with such concentration that she nearly died with fright when Virpi Hiukkanen was suddenly standing beside her. Siiri hadn’t heard her come
in.

‘So this is where you’re loitering,’ Virpi said, her eyes darting around as they always did. She had new black-rimmed eyeglasses just like the ones Siiri’s husband had
worn in the 1960s.

‘Where else would I be? Why are you coming into my home like this?’

Siiri didn’t bother to get up, she just turned up the volume on the television. Virpi grabbed the remote out of her hand and turned the TV off with an angry punch of a button.

‘I came when you didn’t answer your telephone, even though I knew you were home.’

Then Virpi softened, spoke in a gentle murmur and looked like she might start petting and caressing Siiri at any moment, like Director Sundström. She said she was very worried about Siiri,
since she was alone and having these constant problems with her heart and sometimes even seemed to have lost her zest for life.

‘You refused a pacemaker. We here at Sunset Grove want to do everything we can to ensure that our residents are safe and feel happy. You might participate in the Sunset Alert mental-health
group sometimes, so you wouldn’t be alone with your problems.’

Siiri looked at Virpi’s thin hair and wondered why she dyed it that mango-melon colour. Having your hair dyed was terribly expensive, and Virpi must go for a touch-up nearly every month.
Then it occurred to her that Virpi was afraid of getting old. The idea of grey hair was probably dreadful to her, and she was reminded of it day after day by the retirement-home residents. Siiri
got up and walked to the front door.

‘Can you please leave? I’m quite all right.’

‘I wanted to talk to you about your elder-care advocate,’ Virpi said, and aimed the remote at her as if it were a map pointer. ‘You may not know what sort of criminal Mika
Korhonen is. If I were you, I would dissolve that advocacy agreement immediately.’

The falser Virpi’s words were, the tenser and higher-pitched her voice grew. Soon she was marching quickly back and forth across the small room, like she had when Siiri had passed out on
the floor of her office. She said that Mika Korhonen was a well-known player in organized crime and was mixed up in all sorts of shady goings-on, which Virpi seemed to know about in remarkable
detail for someone whose life’s work was championing the well-being of the elderly. She was spouting the same stuff about falsification of prescriptions and drug dealing that Mika kept
talking about.

‘You’re being taken advantage of in a perilous way. Of course, there’s no way you could have known about Mika Korhonen’s friend Pasi Peltola, who’s just been given
a long prison sentence for the crimes these two gentlemen have committed. It’s just a matter of time until your advocate is brought to justice for what he’s done. I, at least, had the
good sense to act quickly when our poor cook, Tero, killed himself while he was under arrest. I insisted that Pasi Peltola be given the sack right then and there, because the Loving Care Foundation
cannot condone any kind of illegal activity among the staff.’

Virpi was trying to turn everything upside down. How could Mika be involved in the business, if he was the one who had turned Pasi in? Siiri had to walk back to her armchair and sit down to
collect her thoughts. How could she tell who was right, Virpi or Mika? She looked at Virpi, who was standing in the hallway waving her arms around and shouting profanities until she was hoarse.
Siiri compared her to the always imperturbable Mika with his angelic blue eyes. She couldn’t help it, but as Virpi Hiukkanen zipped around the room, she reminded Siiri of some sort of
swift-moving reptile.

‘An iguana,’ she said, when she’d thought of it. Virpi stopped yelling and stood still for a moment.

‘What?’

‘Could you please give me my remote back and leave my home?’ Siiri answered with a sweet smile. ‘You have no right to interfere with my advocate or listen to my telephone
calls. You won’t get anywhere, sending your husband to follow me around and spy on me when I go out. I don’t know how, but my advocate and I are going to find a way get to the bottom of
the fire in the Group Home so that the real culprit can be caught, and it isn’t going be me. I just have to hope that I don’t die before we’re done, like Olavi Raudanheimo did. He
was treated abysmally in this retirement home and in the end he killed himself. He stopped eating in the hospital.’

Virpi Hiukkanen looked bewildered and downright afraid and, for a second, it looked like she might dry up completely, like Olavi Raudanheimo’s gravy lying on a hospital plate. She
trembled, then jerked, then burst into tears. She sobbed out loud and great big tears fell on her brown shirt, leaving dark spots on the fabric. She threw the remote on the floor, tore at her
mango-melon hair, dashed frantically back and forth, and generally behaved like a maniac.

‘You are going to drive me crazy! You’re all crazy! I’ll lock the lot of you up in the Group Home! Are you sure you’re taking all of your pills? What do I have to do to
you? What is wrong with you?’

Siiri walked calmly to the door, picked up the telephone receiver, and laid it on the table, although she was sure that Virpi Hiukkanen’s hysterical breakdown could be heard downstairs
with or without the phone. And lo and behold, for the first time ever, the Sunset Grove security system worked as it was supposed to and help arrived quickly. Director Sundström was standing
in front of Siiri’s door with a strongbox in her hand, her hair askew, staring dumbfounded at the deranged head nurse.

‘Virpi . . . good gracious, Virpi, dear . . . What’s happened? What have you done to Virpi now?’

Sinikka Sundström cast a shocked look at Siiri and took Virpi in her arms like a small child. They stood there for a good while, leaning against each other, and then Sundström led the
sniffling head nurse away.

‘Not Erkki too. My poor Erkki. What is happening to my Erkki . . .’ Virpi sputtered as they went down the corridor.

‘Stop crying now, sweetheart. Everything’s all right,’ Sundström soothed, and gradually their voices disappeared into the lift.

Siiri closed her door, put the phone receiver back in its cradle, and picked the TV remote up off the floor. Then she got herself a glass of wine and started reading Isaac Bashevis
Singer’s
Enemies, a Love Story
. It was about Jews who survived the holocaust.

In June, Mika and Siiri went together to file a complaint about Siiri’s fine at the Pasila police station. Everyone was very polite, which was no doubt due to the fact
that Mika was with her. He had left his ever-present leather jacket at home and looked quite dapper, in spite of his chin plait. The police explained that the prosecutor would have another hearing
on the case if there was new information. It was also possible that it could be brought up in district court.