Wolves and Angels (16 page)

“The SS Patrol just called from Hervanta.” Tiikko glanced at his watch. “Not more than two minutes ago. They wanted to talk to someone on the Peltolammi homicide case.”

“I’m the lead investigator,” Koskinen replied impatiently. He could feel water running from the hair on his neck under his shirt and down his back.

“Sopanen said they’re on their way here.”

“I’ll go meet them in the garage,” Koskinen said and then wiped the counter with his sleeve. It only made it wetter.

But Tiikko didn’t let him off that easily. A curious grin formed on his pockmarked face. “So, you’ve switched vehicles?”

Koskinen sighed and wondered how many hundred times he’d had to explain this. As if cycling needed to be defended. “Riding to work combines fun, exercise, and savings. It’s a pleasant way to commute,” he said, sounding like a fitness therapist delivering a lecture.

“In weather like this?”

“It just started raining. I was already halfway here when it started dumping on me.”

“And you’re getting in shape?”

“Big time,” Koskinen said with a snort and then turned to go. But Tiikko still had something on his mind.
“I heard you’re doing the Pirkka Trail Run,” he said to Koskinen’s back. “Racing against Kangas and Havakainen.”

Koskinen closed his eyes, slowly counted to three, and turned. “Who’s spreading that around?”

“Everyone’s talking about it,” Tiikko said, spreading his arms. “Big bets going on in the canteen on who’s gonna win.”

“No way.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Tiikko nodded his large head and then lowered his voice, like he was telling some big secret. “Believe it or not, I put down ten on you.”

“You’re probably the only one.”

“How did you guess?” Tiikko grinned. “You can’t expect to win big without taking big risks.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Koskinen said, trying to leave again, but he didn’t succeed the third time either.

“Wait.” Tiikko leaned out over his counter. “One more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“How’s your love life these days?”

Koskinen was dumbstruck. He knew that Tiikko was one of the most trusted people in the building, a regular guardian of truth and right. But still, the question verged on the limits of impropriety—insofar as there were any limits like that in a police station.

Tiikko tried to explain. “I just mean…my wife’s sister got divorced from her accountant husband a couple of years ago.”

Koskinen was still staring speechlessly at Tiikko’s pudgy, friendly face. “Irmeli is a really nice person, and she isn’t exactly poor,” he continued. “She has he
r own hair salon on Aleksanteri Street
.”

Tiikko winked. “I could maybe set it up sometime that you come over for a sauna one night and the missus would just happen to invite her sister over at the same time.”

Koskinen thought about how to turn down Tiikko’s proposal without offending him in any way. He hadn’t even managed to begin when someone behind him cleared his throat. “Is there only one person working here?”

Koskinen glanced back. A man dressed in a gray Bugatti overcoat was impatiently shifting his weight from foot to foot, waiting his turn to talk to the officer on duty.

“I’ll think about it,” Koskinen whispered to Tiik
ko and set off to the elevator.
It was
still
at the top floor, and while waiting he overheard Tiikko’s new customer begin unloading his troubles.

“I was about to leave on an important business trip to Mänttä, but my Beemer had disappeared overnight from the parking lot. Disappeared into thin air. I tried to call here, but all of the lines were busy, so I had to take a taxi. I can’t believe we can’t even get decent service from the police anymore.”

That was all Koskinen heard before the elevator doors closed. He thought about the recent plans to outsource police services. Would service be improved in situations like the one he had just overheard if people could make crime reports at the ticket booth at the train station, at the bookmakers, or why not at the black sausage stand that
opened at 6 A
.
M
.
every day on Tammela Square?

He made it to the garage just as Sopanen and Saari were climbing out of their Mondeo.

“You had something about the Peltolammi case,” he said while he was still a good distance away, walking
toward
them.

“Yeah, we did,” Sopanen said sullenly.

Koskinen got the feeling the
veteran
officer would have preferred to meet someone else working on the case.

“Well?”

“About the wheelchair in today’s bulletin.”

“Yeah. We’ve been looking for it for three days.”

“We might have seen it.”

“Good.” Koskinen was ecstatic. “Where?”

“In Hervanta. Near the intersection of Tohtori
and Arkkiteh
ti Streets
.”

“And you brought it with you, right?”

Sopanen glanced uncomfortably at his
younger
partner, but Saari was busy inspecting the cuticle of his left thumb.

“Well, it’s like this
…
” Sopanen continued, rubbing his neck
,
“
…w
e saw the chair on Monday night and when we just went to look for it…it wasn’t there anymore.”

Koskinen stared at the officers in disbelief. Both were dressed in coveralls and police baseball caps. Side arms and handcuff holsters hung on their belts.

“It wasn’t there anymore,” Koskinen repeated. “How
is that possible?”

“Well, it was just that we didn’t have time to investigate it then…and…then we forgot and…”

“Forgot!” Koskinen bellowed. “Goddamnit! I don’t think
you
realize
how
important
that
wheelchair
is
for us.”

Koskinen noticed out of the corner of his eye how Mikko Kuparinen, the officer in charge of the garage, had come out of his booth to see the cause of the commotion. Koskinen knew full well that this was exactly how
you got
a reputation as a dickhead. But he still couldn’t control himself.

“You knuckleheads almost had it in your hands, but then you lost it!”

Saari stared mortified at his tactical boots, not concealing his embarrassment. However, his partner, who was a couple of decades older, wasn’t willing to take it all lying down.

“You don’t know what a hellish night it was, Koskinen. You wouldn’t be ripping us a new one if you knew!”

“Well, tell me!”

“We were actually just on our way to circle back to look for the chair when this motorcycle whipped a U-ey behind us
,
and we decided to pull him over. Well, and then what happened, happened. The guy took off and we went after him.”

Sopanen glanced at his partner, giving him an expression that he should continue. Saari took his cap off and started bending the brim.

“We saw the guy drive into the side of a Mercedes.
He went flying into space like Yuri Gagarin. It’s hard to forget seeing something like that.”

Saari’s final words came out muffled, finally lost in a long swallow.

Then Sopanen continued. “I’d think you would understand. You’ve seen things too. And then the paper made it seem like the accident was caused by the police who were chasing him.”

Yes, Koskinen understood. He probably would have forgotten the wheelchair too in the same situation. Still, it annoyed him.

“But how didn’t you remember it until now? It’s been in the AVAC system for ages.”

“We’ve been pulling graveyard shift all this week,” Sopanen said defensively. “The night patrol only reads the AVAC in the evening, as you know. And the computers were down all Tuesday night.”

It wasn’t the first time some equipment upgrade or software update had caused an interruption in the network. Koskinen had run into the same thing himself aggravatingly often. Sometimes he longed for the good old days when notices and instructions were shoved into the squad leader’s boxes on sheets of paper and the officers on break killed time with actual physical playing cards.

“And last night?” he asked more calmly.

“The computers were down for a couple of hours too and only came back online at eleven, but we didn’t have time to check AVAC until later,” Saari explained submissively.

Then Sopanen took over. “Right when we came on
duty, two house calls came in. At the first one this Asian guy had been following the old time traditions of his homeland and disciplining his daughter with a two-inc
h thick pole. The girl had missed her curfew
by about twenty minutes. You should have seen the marks, Koskinen. They were like zebra stripes on her skinny back.”

“Okay, don’t worry about it,” Koskinen said, waving his hand. “Before you head home go talk to Lepola and explain exactly when and where you saw the wheelchair. Lepola can send somebody from the morning shift over to comb the area. Say that Koskinen told you to.”

Koskinen turned and walked
toward
the elevator. He heard a low grumbling behind his back. “Oh, so it’s an order from Koskinen, is it?”

The anger that had subsided momentarily boiled back up, but he still
kept going.
He knew the s
core:
h
e didn’t have the slightest bit of authority over Lepola or any patrol officers for that matter.

He wasn’t able to look at his reflection in the mirror, instead closing his eyes and rubbing his temples—he felt the early signs of a headache coming on. He had slept poorly the night before.

Riding home from the bar, his hunger had intensified into a mouth
-
tingling craving for something savory. He had made it to the store just before closing time, and fell for two frozen pizzas. They had barely managed to thaw in the oven before he pulled them out and wolfed them both down.

The result had been heartburn that lasted all night and nightmares that jolted him awake at regular intervals. It had been the same recurring dream where his limbs stopped working. He was in a strange country. His
bicycle had disappeared, and he was in a rush to get to the harbor. The ship’s whistles had already blown, but he couldn’t get his legs to budge.

This time no one else happened to board the elevator along the way, and Koskinen made it happily up to the third floor. His ill-tempered behavior toward the two men who had just finished the night shift bothered him. That would be the last time today. Instead of wasting his energy bitching and moaning, he decided to focus all of his energy on work.

He marched straight to the department secretary’s door, bade her the obligatory good morning, and then started issuing orders: “Call Pekki, Kaatio, Eskola, and Lundelin to my office at 8:30.”

Milla was wearing her now-familiar antenna beanie. She looked at Koskinen with wide eyes. “What are you doing riding a bike in weather like this? You look like
a
drowned greyhound.”

Koskinen’s decision about his incombustibility lasted precisely seven seconds. He saw a pair of scissors on the desk and felt a sudden urge to cut off the antenna. He knew what would happen though. People would be talking about it for ages
,
and someone would almost certainly read some sort of sexual harassment in it.

He contented himself just to snap at her. “Were you listening to anything I just said?”

Milla wagged her hands on either side of her head like elephant ears. “I was listening. I was listening! Pekki, Kaatio, Eskola, and Lundelin into my office right now.”

“No, at 8:30,” Koskinen corrected. “And in
my
office.”

He continued along his way sullenly and, when he made it to his office, didn’t even waste time sitting down at his desk. He just grabbed the phone. Someone answered at Wolf House after the sixth ring.

“Lea Kalenius.”

“Koskinen here, from the Violent Crimes Unit. Morning. Why didn’t you mention yesterday anything about a nurse called Pike, who was fired during the summer?”

Nothing came from the earpiece, and Koskinen was about to repeat his question.

But at that moment, Kalenius groaned. “I forgot. Her name is Pirkko-Liisa Rinne. We’ve had too many of
these
temporary
workers
for
me
to
remember
them all.”

“I want a list of every employee at Wolf House over the last five years, even if they only lasted half a day.”

Koskinen realized that he was starting to get pushy again. He tried to find a gentler tone. “I had something else as well.”

“Yes?”

“Did
Timonen
ever
visit Hervanta? For example, did he have any relatives or friends in that direction?”