The Lion of Justice (25 page)

“You never know whose team people are on. Sometimes a player is forced to make a move, even if they don’t want to,” I whispered. I was dying to be on the same team as David, but he didn’t want me.

Laitio spat again off the balcony and took some time to clear his throat. Then he turned to me, his eyes looking sad. “I wanted to talk to you about Keijo Suurluoto, currently known as Keijo Kurkimäki,” he said.

“What about him?” I grabbed the balcony because vertigo was washing over me.

“He’s still in jail, and for good reason. Did anyone ever tell you he escaped about a decade ago?”

I told him I’d found out about it earlier in the fall, but I didn’t really know what to do with the information.

“I think your father came after you. Or he was at least caught on the border between Tuusniemi and Kaavi. He managed to wreak some havoc on his way, too. He raped a seventeen-year-old girl from Tuusniemi.”

“Holy shit! That man is more of a monster than I ever imagined!”

“The girl is the youngest child in a Laestadian family. She became pregnant, and her family didn’t allow her to have an abortion.”

I felt my skin tingle, and the hairs at the back of my neck stood up. I squeezed the handrail even tighter, and the cold iron made my hand ache.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Your sister—or rather your half sister, Vanamo Huttunen, was born at the Kuopio central hospital the following summer. As far as I know, she lives with her mother and her family in Tuusniemi. Eini found this information from the citizen registry.”

“So Keijo Suurluoto has another child, and I have a half sister? Are you sure about this?”

“Her mother, Saara Huttunen, had been a virgin until the incident. And Keijo Suurluoto didn’t deny it. On the contrary, he bragged about it. That part in the trial had been hidden from media due to the victim’s age, but she never changed her name or her town of residence,” Laitio said.

Laitio’s voice was muffled. My legs gave in, and I had to let the handrails support my weight. The whole world was swinging, as if it were nudged off its course. For the past eight years, I had a half sister, and I knew nothing about her. Did she know about me? Did she or her mother even want to know about me? Maybe her mother had gotten married and Vanamo would be a member of this family, and she’d never be told how she was brought into this world.

“Give me that cigar,” I told Laitio although I felt sick.

“Well, aren’t cigars a way to celebrate a birth?” Laitio cut a cigar and gave me the lighter. “The wind here is a bit tricky—watch out.”

I managed to light the cigar on my third try. Its smoke in my throat didn’t stop my hands from shaking and my knees from buckling.

“There are some other interesting facts in this story, too, although they’re harder to prove,” Laitio continued. “The police tried to reconstruct Keijo Suurluoto’s movements during his escape. He was out for two days. The nurse who was watching over him received permanent skull fractures, and she’ll never speak again. It’s not a long way from the ward in Niuvanniemi to Kaavi and Outokumpu. Suurluoto stole a Skoda, only a couple of years old. They found tracks from a car like that on your uncle’s yard in Hevonpersiinsaari.”

“But Uncle Jari drowned . . . He was tangled up in his fishing net.” I had a hard time breathing, but I kept on taking drags off the cigar.

“And he wasn’t found until days later, which made it hard to pinpoint the exact time of death. Isn’t it quite a coincidence that he would’ve died around the same time Suurluoto was on the run?”

I didn’t need to answer that question. The view off the balcony had become blurry. I couldn’t even distinguish the chimneys on the nearby roofs. My entire life I had run away from thinking about my father, doing my best to forget him. I hadn’t realized how present he was in my life and what an effect he had on me. Not only had he taken my mother away from me, he may also have been responsible for Uncle Jari’s death—he had just never been brought to justice for what he’d done to my uncle. My hatred toward Keijo Kurkimäki flamed red inside me, and now I knew why some people were able to kill.

“It’s hard to investigate it, but it won’t be impossible. I can come with you if I’m not convicted. You want to know the truth, don’t you? To squeeze it from your father’s lips if needed? I’m sure he can have visitors, even if he’s in for life,” Laitio said.

“Are you saying I should go see him?” I asked.

“When you’re ready.”

I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be ready. Laitio’s cigar had gone out, and he was shivering. I suggested we return to his room. I had just pulled the door to the hallway open when a male nurse ran over and began to lecture us about breaking the tobacco laws. I had to beg nicely for him to allow me to continue with my visit. When we were finally back in Laitio’s room, he suddenly patted me on my hand.

“Don’t worry, Hilja. Everything will be all right in the end. Right now I can’t do anything about Stahl’s warrant. We’ll get together later to talk about what we know. Come to think of it, I could know everything Rytkönen told us. There were no witnesses to our conversation.” Laitio chuckled. “If you hear from Stahl, let me know. Do you have any plans for Christmas?”

“The restaurant is open, and we’ll have Monika’s and some staff members’ families there for dinner. On Christmas Day I’m moving to Alppila,” I told him.

Jouni’s sister had agreed to let me stay at her place while she was backpacking for a couple of months with her boyfriend. Monika would live with her cousin until the New Year, and then she’d move to her own place in Ruoholahti, a short walking distance from Sans Nom. It felt good to have temporary living arrangements. My life was in such turmoil that I didn’t see a future in Sans Nom.

“Well, Merry Christmas then, and try not to worry yourself sick. You’re not my daughter, but hell—blood is not always the thickest. I do like you quite a lot, Hilja,” Laitio said. He patted my hand again.

I leaned over and gave him a peck on each of his cheeks, although his mustache was unbearably tickly.

I started my walk from Töölö to Sans Nom. Windows were shining with Christmas lights, and people rushed through the snow with their shopping bags. The world seemed strange and meaningless, like I was not a part of it. David, Trankov, Jaan Rand, and Rytkönen floated in my mind in an odd, painful mess that I couldn’t solve with just a snap of my fingers. Rytkönen had been Gezolian’s snitch, and he’d tried to locate David. So far he’d failed, so I assumed David was still alive. Rytkönen had been willing to let another interested party catch David for murdering Carlo Dolfini, even if it took fake evidence. Trankov claimed eyewitnesses had seen David in Kaunas, but Rytkönen had been looking for him in Helsinki on Yrjö Street and at Sans Nom. I recalled again the dark figure on the shore across the villa in Långvik. For a moment I had thought it was David. Then I remembered the letter where David claimed he didn’t care if I had other men in my life. You don’t see the lynx, but the lynx has already seen you. There was no point in me looking for David. I had not lied to Trankov. I honestly did not know anymore who I loved.

23

Kuopio was on a high enough latitude that it got pitch-black there by three. My train had been an hour late, and I’d spent some more time having lunch in the city before I turned my rental car east. It was negative five degrees, and the world seemed to have frozen. I’d asked the Hakkarainen couple to heat the Hevonpersiinsaari cabin for a couple of days before I’d get there, but I’d still brought a sleeping bag that was fit for the breeze on top of Mount Everest. No heating system could take away the chill inside me. I was afraid of what I might find.

It took only about an hour to drive from Kuopio to Tuusniemi—the roads were completely clear. I wasn’t prepared to be at my destination so quickly. I turned onto a road leading to the village center and parked the car at the gas station, where I took some time to study the map. I could’ve included a GPS with my rental, but I wanted to keep my orienteering skills in check. I memorized all the intersections: take a left at the third turn, then a right at the second turn, then take the first turn on the right. It wasn’t easy to read the signs in the dark, but I was able to find my way without stopping to take a better look. Even the smallest village roads had been well plowed, and the house I had been searching for looked like it had gotten a fresh coat of paint the previous summer. The farm was surrounded by three buildings. I left my car behind the barn, hidden away from the main building’s view. The family could have still been inside, as it was not yet time to milk the cows.

I hadn’t told anyone I was coming. What would I have said? I didn’t want anyone to make a big deal out of this. I got out of the car, and the freezing air took my breath away. The air smelled like my childhood winters in Hevonpersiinsaari, and the snow crunched underneath my shoes like I was walking over Styrofoam. I expected a dog to lunge at me from the dog house, but all I saw was an empty leash. It was too cold even for a watchdog.

Then the door opened, and a small figure walked out. It was covered in so many layers it was hard to tell which sex it was. This person stumbled down the steps to the path in the yard and didn’t notice me, only concentrating on the task at hand. The person was carrying candles and a gas lighter. The path was lined with five frozen ice lanterns. When the person walked closer, I could see it was a girl. A long blond braid fell out from under her beanie, and her nose was red. She was about eight years old, and she was testing the lanterns out. She first removed the old candles and tossed them onto a pile, then placed the new candles under the lanterns and lit them. The flames began to glow in the dark. Only after she was done did the girl turn to look at me.

It felt as if someone had turned my childhood mirror image upside down. I recognized her eyes and the determined yet curious expression on her face. She wiped her straight nose with her mitten, then looked at me fearlessly and smiled a little.

“I thought you were Laura from next door. Who are you? My name is Vanamo.”

I couldn’t say a word. I stepped closer and hugged her. Until this day my only sister had been a lynx. Now I had a human sister.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo © Charlotta Boucht

Finland’s bestselling female crime author, Leena Lehtolainen first rose to fame with her series starring feisty detective Maria Kallio. She won the Finnish Whodunnit Society’s annual prize for the best Finnish crime novel twice and was nominated for the prestigious Glass Key Award for the best Nordic crime novel. Her books have been translated into twenty-nine languages and sold over two million copies. Lehtolainen currently lives in Finland with her husband and two sons.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Photo © Kochun Hu

Jenni Salmi is a translator and localizer living in Seattle. She was born and raised in Eastern Finland near the Russian border, where she learned English, Swedish, German, and Russian. After mostly forgetting the other languages, she earned her master’s degree in English literature at the University of Joensuu. She has also translated the first novel in Leena Lehtolainen’s The Bodyguard Series,
The Bodyguard
.