Wolves and Angels (32 page)

“And you didn’t stay to see if Ketterä made it in?” he whispered.

Now Eskola’s whole face went red.
“
I didn’t have time. I had stopped on the corner because I couldn’t follow him onto a quiet side street. He would’ve made me immediately in his
rearview
mirror. I had to turn around and go after him. Luckily he hit a red light at the next intersection. Otherwise he would have slipped away
and—”

Eskola was getting muddled as his explanation dragged on. Koskinen interrupted him by clearing his throat.

“You did exactly what you were supposed to do. I ordered you to tail Laine, not his customers. No one could have known at that point that Ketterä was in danger.”

He was silent for a moment and then sighed deeply. “Actually, we don’t even know that yet. He might have just blown off the appointment and show up tonight at Wolf House more or less hammered.”

Then he remembered something important. He directed his next word
s to Kaatio.

“
We had a
guard stay at the center, right?”

“Lepola promised to set it up.”

“Who do we have on duty?”

“Riipinen.”

“Again?” Koskinen said in surprise. “Doesn’t he work day shift at all anymore?”

“He claims it’s easier to keep from smoking on the night shift.”

“I would have thought it would be the other way around.”

“There are a lot of things you’d think would be the other way around in this job,” P
ekki
said with a sneer. “Should I make you a list?”

Koskinen waved his hand as an encouragement not to. Then he turned to Kaatio again.

“Riipinen can head up the search for Ketterä tonight. Also call the night cop at Wolf House and tell him to notify Riipinen immediately if Ketterä returns there.”

Kaatio nodded. “Okay. I’ll handle it from my own office.”

“While you’re at it, make sure Ketterä hasn’t already slipped home.”

“I doubt it,” Pekki said ominously. “I’m pretty sure that Ketterä is our serial killer’s third hit.”

Koskinen rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes under his palm. He could have stopped Rauha
Salmi
’s killing. Would he have Hannu Ketterä on his conscience now too?

How could anyone have foreseen things happening this way? Should every Wolf House resident have been put under surveillance and not let out without a bodyguard? That would have seemed like serious overkill.

But they should have done it anyway.

He suddenly lifted his head and asked Eskola to rehearse the events from the rest of the day.

“Nothing else significant happened,” Eskola began hesitantly. “I followed Laine to Hatanpää where he picked up an elderly male individual and took him to Koukkuniemi. After that he drove to the Shell station by the stadium and ate a quick lunch: a sausage skillet, two slices of rye bread, and a glass of buttermilk.”

“What does that have to do with this?” Kaatio guffawed, but then shut his mouth when he noticed Koskinen glowering.

Eskola shifted his feet and continued his rhythmic,
military report.

“After that Laine drove back to the therapist’s office. He waited for Ketterä to come out, pacing back and forth nervously and smoking two cigarettes. Then he went into the building. The physiotherapist told him that Ketterä hadn’t show
n
up for their session at all. Laine returned to his vehicle and called Wolf House. They were
equally confused
.”

Koskinen could hear from Eskola’s voice how his mouth was getting dry. Eskola swallowed twice before he continued.

“At that point, Laine called us. Niininen in dispatch knew about my stake-out and forwarded the call to my mobile phone. I got out of the car and walked over to Laine. You can imagine how surprised he was. The person he was on the phone with was actually standing right next to him.”

No one was smiling. Eskola continued, still off balance: “Then I ordered him to drive in front of me down here.”

Koskinen nodded. “Well done, Eskola,” he said emphatically.

Eskola
flushed
again.
This
time
apparently
in pleasure.

Koskinen repeated: “Very well done. You didn’t let Laine out of your sight for a moment, and because of that now we know that he can’t be behind Ketterä’s disappearance.”

However, Kaatio still insisted on minimizing it. “It still doesn’t prove anything. Laine could have an accomplice.”

“You don’t even believe that,” Koskinen said and noticed from Kaatio’s posture how he began to rotate his ankles even more vigorously.

Koskinen pretended not to notice and turned to Pekki. “Where’s he now?”

“Still in a holding cell,” Pekki said. “He made a racket when we didn’t let him go. Apparently he still had to drive a couple of old Jehovah’s Witness ladies home after their fellowship meeting at the
K
ingdom
H
all.”

Pekki paused briefly and then lowered his voice significantly. “
Y
ou
should
write
up
an arrest warrant for him.”

“Why? We just found out that Laine can’t be responsible for Ketterä’s disappearance. You don’t believe in the accomplice theory too, do you?”

“Even without any accomplices we have plenty on him as it is. His taxi was seen Monday night in the parking lot at Wolf House. He doesn’t have an alibi for the night in question, nor for the night Rauha
Salmi
was killed. And now he’s mixed up in the disappearance of a third handicapped person. How is that not enough?”

Koskinen glanced at Kaatio. But it was pointless looking for support from that direction and turned his eyes to the window. He couldn’t even see the sky, the moon, or the stars anymore, just a dark wall and the reflection of the street lights on black glass. He was having a hard time making a decision. He did not think Laine was an angel, not even close, but it was hard to imagine him as a murderer or an accomplice to murder.

Whenever he closed his eyes even for a second, he immediately saw the outlines of a group of shadow-like, defenseless human forms. The only sharp details visible
were Rauha
Salmi
’s withered arms and Hannu Ketterä’s frail shoulders.

Rarely did Koskinen
cave to peer
pressure, but this time he gave in. “Fair enough. We’ll keep him at least until tomorrow.”

“Attaboy,” Pekki grunted in satisfaction. “I’ll have him moved over to the lockup.”

Pekki’s self-congratulation irritated Koskinen.

“Hold your horses there, and let’s think a bit more about his motive! Why would he knock off regular customers, cutting off his own source of income?”

“As I remember, didn’t that former Wolf House employee tell you that
Timonen
and Laine had threatened to kill each other?”

“But what about Rauha
Salmi
then? You aren’t trying to implicate her in the taxi voucher scam too, are you? Ketterä
could’ve been
in on it, but
Salmi
? Never.”

“Maybe they had
argued over rides
.”

“Brilliant!” Koskinen said tiredly. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Pekki looked at him from under his eyebrows. “I don’t think we should use the word ‘sense’ at all in connection with these cases. Whoever did this is insane.”

“Laine doesn’t seem like that kind of crazy.”

“And you would know?”

“I have met a few of them in the course of my career, and I’m not just talking about
my
co-workers.”

Koskinen couldn’t help smiling. After getting to a certain point, the investigation and the team doing the investigation always took on some of the same
characteristics. An outsider would think that the relationships within the group were strained, but in reality the arguing and squabbling were a part of their regular dialogue.
C
hallenges were an important part of
a
criminal investigation
—n
othing could be taken for granted. They weren’t needling each other intentionally,
but
were just testing the weight of their own viewpoints and trying to figure out what
actually
had happened.

Koskinen ripped a page out of his note
pad
as if to signal that it was time to get serious again. He drew a double line across the top of the blank sheet.

“Let’s look at it from another perspective. What do
Timonen
,
Salmi
, and Ketterä have in common?”

Pekki took his glasses off and supplemented Koskinen’s question: “Besides being disabled and sharing a place of residence.”

“Exactly. Do we know of any other commonalities between them?”

Pekki wiped his glasses on a sleeve of his shirt as he spoke. “A lot between
Timonen
and Ketterä. Boozing, chasing women, and an interest in motorcycles. And of course their Fallen Angels gang.”

He squinted at his glasses against the ceiling light before he put them back on. “These ‘angels’ are like night and day from the rest of the residents. They’re malcontents disgruntled over their care who are hostile to everyone, while most of the others have adapted pretty well to their lot in life, as I understand it.”

Kaatio dug in one ear with a finger, looking thoughtful. “I wonder why?”

“Hard to say,” Koskinen said. “But it just occurred to me that all three angels,
Timonen
, Ketterä, and Harjus
were paralyzed in their prime, more or less accidentally.

“That would probably make anyone bitter.”

A sudden realization flashed through Pekki’s clean eyeglasses. “Do you guys remember Matias Honkanen? The cop who was shot on that house call in Linnainmaa?”

Koskinen and Kaatio nodded together
—i
t was impossible to forget. About ten years ago, the police had been called to an apartment in a relatively quiet residential area. The neighbors had heard frantic cries for help and the inconsolable wailing of children coming from the apartment. The nearest patrol car responded, and Officer Matias Honkanen had gone to ring the doorbell. A shot had come from the apartment, and a rifle bullet had penetrated the door, continuing through Honkanen’s stomach and not stopping until it reached his spine. He had survived, but had been paralyzed from his ribs down.

Koskinen understood what Pekki was driving at: similarity
to
Ketterä and Harjus. Honkanen had grown bitter about his disability in the same way. They had passed the hat around at the station and collected a significant sum of money for their injured colleague. However, the assistance hadn’t been appreciated—Honkanen had sent the money back in the same envelope. On it he had written, “Use this to wipe your asses! I don’t need your charity!”

Kaatio finished the story: “Honkanen is doing well now. I hear he owns his own business and a brand new house in Hallila, and has a good-looking young wife to top it off.”

“That’s nice to hear,” Koskinen said and then led the conversation back to the previous track. “As far as the
bitterness of the Fallen Angels goes, it’s hard to see that as the motive for the murders. Could a burned-out nurse suffocate a vulgar patient with a pillow, or could
it have
been
a fellow sufferer who was tired of his neighbor’s rowdiness keeping him awake?”

“People have killed over less,” Kaatio said, but then he started shaking his head. “But that doesn’t fit
Salmi
’s murder.”

“Not at all,” Pekki said. “
Salmi
was the exact opposite of the Fallen Angels. If they were black, then Rauha was gleaming white. She got along with
everyone
, didn’t complain about anything, and tried to be as little trouble as possible. That’s why it’s so strange that her and
Timonen
’s cases are so similar.”

“They aren’t exactly the same,” Kaatio said, raising a finger. “Both were smothered with a pillow, but one was transported out of the building, while the other was found in her own bed.”

“I don’t want to jinx us,” Pekki said. “But if the same pattern continues, Ketterä’s body is going to show up under some bushes by tomorrow morning.”

This made Koskinen uneasy. He looked around absent-mindedly, as if searching for something.

“Where is Ulla?”

“She went home at six,” Kaatio answered. “To take care of the kids. Apparently her husband is out of town until tomorrow morning.”

“Why?”

“He has a gig out in Huittinen at some hotel.”

“Of course.” Koskinen nodded. “It is Friday night after all.”