The Lion of Justice (7 page)

“Us folks over at the old En Bee Aye have a real fat folder about you.” Rytkönen flashed a wide smile. His facial muscles were tight, his cheekbones stood high, and his Adam’s apple was ridiculously large, as if he’d made it lift weights, too. “I’ve been hearin’ you’re a gal from Savonia, from Kaavi, to be exact. I’m from close by. Iisalmi.”

I wasn’t enthusiastic to have a friendly chat about my background, especially with a cop who appeared to know more about me than I found appropriate. Had Laitio fallen in the toilet? Why wasn’t he back yet?

There was a cough behind a closed door followed by a flush, soon accompanied by running water. Laitio was in no hurry. He strolled back with a grin, adjusting his pants. I’d seen him very briefly before Christmas. We’d had some
glögi
, similar to mulled wine, and smoked a cigar. His bushy mustache had collected gray hairs during the winter, and his face was pale.

“Rytkönen, I thought you had to be somewhere,” Laitio said. Rytkönen must have been his boss. Laitio was only a chief constable.

“Heck, I had to keep this young lady company,” Rytkönen said, “but I’ll be off now. See you at the meeting tomorrow.” He closed the door behind him.

Only after Rytkönen’s steps stopped echoing in the hallway did Laitio make a move toward me. Neither of us was the hugging kind, and shaking hands seemed forced, so we greeted each other with a nod.

“Damned nosy man. You better not mention any bodies while he’s around. Want some coffee or a smoke?” Laitio walked to his room and closed the window. He reached for a partially smoked cigar in the ashtray and stuck it between his lips.

“The answer to both of your questions is no,” I said. “Let’s get to business.” I sat down, but Laitio remained standing at the window. “Greetings from Tuscany,” I said.

“A romantic little getaway, huh? With Stahl I suppose?”

“Also known as Daniel Lanotte these days. I don’t know how many alter egos David has, but he appears to be in real deep shit, because he took off suddenly.” I tried to keep my voice steady, although Laitio’s humiliating comment had made it tremble. I filled him in on David’s disappearance, how I’d visited the restaurant, how I found the body and David’s phone. I didn’t tell him how I’d broken into the hutch and kept the items inside. I told him I’d found Dolfini’s number in David’s cell phone and that I was pretty sure I’d identified the body.

“And where’s this famous phone now?” Laitio quickly lit the cigar.

“I threw it in a river.”

Laitio walked in front of me and blew smoke in my face. It felt like a slap. “How does a woman as smart as you do something so stupid? You left the body behind?”

“I had no idea who he was. And what if David had killed him?”

“So you’re saying he first ditched you, then he waited until you were gone and dragged this man to the apartment to off him there? Certainly not a man’s logic, but fit for a woman, I suppose. How do you even dare come to me with this nonsense? I wish I’d never heard any of it.”

Laitio was pacing. His brown walking shoes were worn-out, and the right toe was almost poking through. The legs on his dull brown pants were slightly too short, revealing blue-and-mustard-yellow striped socks. Laitio’s stretched-out cardigan was a matching mustard color, and while he was walking around the room, small hairs fell out of it, probably from the cat.

“I want to find out who Dolfini is and why he was killed. You’re a policeman and should be able to contact your Italian colleagues.”

“And what sort of a reason should I give them? How would I even know about this body?”

“You’ll make something up. You can lie as well as I can.”

“But you won’t get into serious trouble with your foreman who wants everything done by the book. I mean, look at Rytkönen. There’s an old saying about Savonians that once they begin speaking, all responsibility is handed over to the listener, but not with him. He’s not a storyteller or a con artist, and he doesn’t understand that sometimes rules have to be bent. He’s getting his law degree and writing a dissertation on some nonsense that has nothing to do with police work. That man hasn’t spent a single day in the field—he’s never arrested a wino, and I doubt he’s ever seen a stiff. And that’s the type of guy we get as our boss these days, goddamn it.”

“So rebel and bend some policies.” I knew I was taking a risk, especially since I forced a smile when my heart was about to beat out of my chest. I could always travel to Lago di Scanno in Italy to have a chat with Mrs. Dolfini, but with what money? I’d drained most of my savings coming back to Finland, and besides, Monika needed me here.

“I don’t know anybody in Italy, and our snitch fund gets cut more every year,” Laitio said. He sat down in a leather armchair behind his desk and pulled out a thick, leather-covered journal.

“Florence . . . is it part of Tuscany?” he asked.

“Yeah, a capital.”

“I wonder if Caruso has already retired. I once saved him from . . . Well, that story’s not really relevant. But let’s just say he owes me one.”

I grinned at Laitio’s attempt to protect me. I’d probably seen worse cases of cops sweeping crimes under the rug. I’d let him keep his secrets. I had mine, too.

“Give me Dolfini’s number. And what was that stuff you said about his legs being different lengths?” Laitio wrote furiously in his journal. I repeated all the details I could remember about Dolfini.

“Now get out of here before I regret this,” Laitio said when I was done. His labored breath sounded like an onset of pulmonary disease. “I’ll get in touch with you when I know something. Only contact me if you hear something about Stahl.”

“Got it,” I said and left. Walking down the stairs, I wondered if I should’ve crossed my fingers behind my back when I made that promise. If David contacted me, I would decide who got to know about it. But he better have a good explanation, one worth protecting a murderer.

7

I didn’t hear from Laitio for days. The entire country had gone crazy because of the ash cloud. People had to cancel their travel plans and come up with ingenious ways to get back home. Mike Virtue had constantly reminded us to never underestimate the power of nature. In the United States, floods and earthquakes were nothing out of the ordinary, and snowfall caused traffic problems in towns not used to it. When I traveled around Finland in my youth, I never saw trains stuck on icy tracks, and if a car slid off the road into a snowbank in the remotest of countrysides, someone with a tractor always showed up to pull the poor sap back onto the road. Planes occasionally crashed, but was anyone forced to get into one? People had gotten so used to changing scenery quickly that long bus rides and overnight trains were now fodder for heroic tales. I swore, these ninnies wouldn’t have survived a summer night in a tent in the middle of a forest. I remembered the wimps we’d had in the army who weren’t able to poop in the forest, even though most of the world doesn’t have access to toilet paper.

Monika returned confused after her visit to the doctor. There was something wrong with her intestines, but the three doctors who had examined her couldn’t say what it was. They’d drawn vial after vial of blood for tests, and now she was scheduled for an x-ray. One of the doctors was concerned about Monika’s years in Mozambique.

I ended up spending my first night at Monika’s cousin’s place searching online for intestinal diseases, southwestern African viral diseases, and worms. Parasites seemed the most plausible explanation, but I didn’t dare mention that to Monika. Who’d want to know they were carrying worms?

Monika spent a lot of her time looking for a good space for the restaurant, and she also had to set aside time to rest, so we hadn’t agreed on a contract for my services. Monika insisted on cooking for us, so I promised to take care of all the physical work. I brought my stuff over from Mrs. Voutilainen’s apartment, but I wasn’t in a hurry to get to Hevonpersiinsaari for my gun. I felt like the ash cloud was still protecting me from Italian hit men.

On one of Monika’s resting days, I went to see what was up with Kopparnäs. I printed the maps from David’s USB stick. I hadn’t figured out when the original text was created, but with a computer translator and a dictionary, I’d gotten the gist of the Russian text. The maps showed a similar luxury resort to the one Syrjänen had originally planned on building in Kotka. It was zoned for a recreational area, but it wouldn’t have been the first time such decisions were overturned. I doubted all the uproar about politicians accepting money for elections would change the way things happened in this country. I’d never been interested in politics, but based on the most recent articles, it appeared politicians were for sale to the highest bidder. I knew I could always get in touch with my former employer and Monika’s friend Representative Helena Lehmusvuo. Helena was one of those people who would do her research and then get busy, so I couldn’t really tell her how I got the maps; I could just hypothetically ask her about changing a recreational area’s zoning. Now that national parks were going to start charging entrance fees, why would valuable plots of land be reserved for the general public?

When I got on the bus at the Kamppi station, I looked around for signs of anyone tailing me, but I didn’t detect anything. It was just me and three Swedish-speaking elderly ladies.

Once we passed Espoo the road looked unfamiliar. Many of the trees had been cut down in anticipation of a new freeway, maybe so the wealthy could take a leisurely drive to Syrjänen’s resort.

I hadn’t been to Degerby in a year and a half. I’d parked my rusty bike in front of a bank before I’d left. On the off chance that the bike was still there, I’d packed a pump and a tire repair kit, and believe it or not, my bike was still there. The back tire was flat and had a gaping hole, but at least the front tire still had some air. I carried the bike to a nearby playground and flipped it on its seat and got to work. The chains were dry but not broken. Surely the bike could handle another ten miles.

Fields along Kopparnäs Road were still brown and too wet for farmers to bring out their plows. Only the miniature suns of dandelions growing along the ditches gave off some color. Storks were making a commotion in the reeds as I approached the bay. Ice had already melted, and wherever the sun hadn’t reached on the north side of the bay, piles of snow were left, covered in gray soot and dirt. Compared to this, Tuscany’s summer had been in full swing, but the gray suited my mood better. The sun tried to peer through the clouds but quickly retreated from the bone-chilling winds of spring.

As I drove deeper into Kopparnäs, memories flooded my mind; that road would take me to the inn where David and I made love for the first time. I needed to erase the thought and focus only on the moment.

I drove to the tall cliffs where a wind energy station had been. According to Syrjänen’s maps it would be the future location of a restaurant with a sea view and a ballroom, with some of the building hovering over the water so customers could dance on the deck as if they were on a cruise ship.

I walked from the cliffs to the beach, where I found a camping shelter. It protected me from the chilly wind, and I had just managed to pour a cup of tea from my thermos when my phone rang. The number was from the National Bureau of Investigation. It was Teppo Laitio.

“How often do you see ghosts, Ilveskero?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Shoeless corpses, for one. I thought the days when you tried to pull a fast one on me were over. My friend Guido Caruso has been investigating the body found in Montemassi. The police in Siena had received an anonymous tip about it last week, but they weren’t able to check in on the apartment because the owner was stuck in London because of the damned ash cloud, and it took a while for him to get a seat on the train through the Chunnel. The police got the keys this past weekend, and they didn’t find a body or anything else. It seems Stahl had gone back to get his stuff. The owner claimed everything in the apartment was his.”

My throat was dry. I took a sip of tea.

Laitio continued. “Rent was paid until the end of May. Daniel Lanotte has not been seen since, and no laws have been broken.”

“But how about Carlo Dolfini, the man who went missing? Did the police check on him?”

“Caruso went through the missing persons reports. None was made about Dolfini. He also gave Mrs. Dolfini a call, but she said Carlo was visiting relatives in New York. His cousin has a pizza place in Little Italy, it turns out.” Laitio pronounced all the English words as if they were Finnish. I would’ve laughed at him under other circumstances.

“But I saw his body,” I insisted.

“Did you take any photos of it?”

“No. I remember perfectly well how he looked without photos.”

“You know how these things go. No matter how the lion of justice roars in Finland, his roars will not be heard all the way in Italy.”

“But isn’t Italy part of the EU? Surely they have some laws about this.”

“What sort of law would believe you over two competent police officers and a landlord?”

David’s landlord had claimed that nothing was amiss in the apartment. But what about the hutch I had broken? I couldn’t understand why the landlord, Brother Gianni’s friend, hadn’t mentioned it, unless he, too, was in on some conspiracy. I couldn’t fight Laitio further without revealing that I hadn’t told him everything. I had dug myself into a hole.

“I’ll ask around about Stahl,” Laitio continued. “But I doubt they’ll tell me anything. The big boys were already pissed off about how much I knew about the boat explosion. They’re still reminding me to never talk about it. And Rytkönen has no clue.” Laitio’s laugh had an odd, hissing quality to it.

“Ilveskero, are you planning on sticking around for a while, or are you going to wander all over Europe chasing after Stahl?” he asked.

“I’m certainly not going to follow him. I’m changing careers,” I told him.

“And what are you going to do?”

“Work at a restaurant.”

“As a bouncer, I hope. In that job you’re allowed to be mean. I couldn’t imagine you as a waitress. A shitty customer would have a face full of beer or pasta in no time. And I doubt you can cook.”

I let out a sigh. I didn’t feel like bullshitting with Laitio. I did end up telling him about Monika and her restaurant plans.

“I see,” he said. “I bet a box of cigars that as soon as you hear from Stahl, you’ll go after him, all the way to the deepest parts of Africa if necessary. Speaking of traveling, my summer vacation is in July, and Caruso was hoping I’d visit Florence to enjoy its treasures. He says Lago di Scanno is beautiful, too. So we thought we’d drop by there. Maybe Carlo Dolfini will be back from New York by then.”

“I doubt it,” I said. “But maybe you’ll locate Mrs. Dolfini.”

“Caruso is on it. He’s looking into Dolfini’s background. I believe you, you know.”

In the background, his cat’s impatient meows had grown loud and distracting.

“Kokki demands shrimp. I need to go before he pees in my shoes. Take care.” Laitio hung up.

I sipped my sweet black tea. Brits thought it was the cure for everything from shock to heartaches. It didn’t seem to work on me, though. I may have needed to try the Finnish version of a national cure, Koskenkorva vodka, although since my time in New York, tequila had been my poison.

I was wondering whether David had really murdered Dolfini, if the body had even been Dolfini’s, and if David had left the body for me to worry about. I tried to think of what he had wanted me to do with it. And who had come back for David’s belongings? Brother Gianni had arranged the apartment for David, so he knew the landlord. I contemplated getting in touch with him, but a monk may not have been the most talkative informant. I supposed all men of the cloth were very disciplined, abstaining from sex and whipping themselves to tolerate pain better, or so I had read. Brother Gianni wouldn’t have been swayed by verbal or physical threats. What’s more, he was a former cop. Why had he quit his job?

The Syrjänen documents I pulled out flapped in the wind. Maybe my next move should be to contact him. It was no secret that Syrjänen was a ladies’ man. His pretty Russian girlfriend may have slowed things down, but Syrjänen was known to wander, and it was good to know someone’s secrets could be bought with sexual persuasion. Mike Virtue had warned us about two types of clients: addicts and nymphomaniacs. Anyone whose life was dictated by desires was a slave to those vices, and they could be convinced to do almost anything for a fix. Mike had been above addictions, although he occasionally joked about how obsessed he was with exercising, but that was more of a virtue. Sound mind in a sound body.

I strolled toward Kvarnträsket. Spring was taking its time to arrive, so I didn’t have my hopes up about finding morels in the forest. I happened upon the clearing where I’d met David, and I could almost see him standing in the grass in his camo gear. Back then I hadn’t known whose side he was on, and for the next year and a half, I had convinced myself it was mine.

Walking toward the shore I spotted familiar animal tracks. There were about ten sets of paw prints that were well-defined, a message left for me to read. A lynx had passed here. I swallowed and tried not to think about it. Of course there would be lynx in Kopparnäs, but they had nothing to do with me. Syrjänen would probably catch them and display them in his vacation paradise.

According to the newspaper and web articles, Syrjänen was the type of man who had visions no one had even dreamed of, and he had the money and drive to make them come true. This area was over a thousand acres and could easily fit a luxury resort for millionaires, but surely Syrjänen didn’t really think such an endeavor could pop up overnight. There had to be someone else who would benefit from turning the public lands of Kopparnäs into private property.

Between 1944 and 1956 the bay had been included in areas that were leased to the Soviet Union as a result of the Continuation War, and if the original plan had gone through, it would have been returned to Finland in the late 1900s. The Gulf of Finland was at its narrowest in Porkkala, making it easy to survey. When the Soviets left Finland, they tried to destroy everything that could have imparted information about their military strategies, or so I had learned at the small museum back in Degerby village. Kopparnäs had been used as shooting grounds. Maybe something was left behind that Syrjänen and his new business associates were interested in. Had David left me the map on purpose so I’d go after Syrjänen? I went from peaceful to livid. Here I was, trying to make a flimsy connection to David when I was supposed to just forget about him. I’d once grieved for him, thinking I’d left shards of my heart on the snowy banks of Hevonpersiinsaari, but all that crying had been in vain, and I wouldn’t let it happen again.

I picked gypsy mushrooms in the forest. Monika could make delicious dishes out of them. There were no mushrooms next to the inn. Instead it looked like armored vehicles were growing there, indicating a potential warehouse for the armed forces. A chain-link fence and signs made sure outsiders wouldn’t walk in. What would happen to the warehouse if Syrjänen bought the area?

The mushrooms gave off an intoxicating smell on the bus. I’d occasionally nod off and dreamed of picking black trumpets with David. Back at the apartment, Monika was gravely ill. She hadn’t made it to the bathroom and had thrown up on the foyer floor.