Darling (29 page)

The case of the attorney was going as planned—unlike the young woman downstairs. He had listened to the noises
from downstairs many times and pleasured himself in bed. The one time he rang her doorbell, the girl was in a foul mood. She made coffee, but saw him slip something into the cup and refused to drink it. But Laura didn’t get it. Nobody told him no. Laura had been standing in the living room with her back to the door, when he came in from the kitchen carrying a knife. He had planned on forcing her to have sex with him, but it didn’t work. He realized it when he came into the living room and didn’t feel anything between his legs. It was her fault, he thought, and just slashed her throat from behind.

He had killed a woman before, but this was different. Kimmo
Aarnio had panicked, returned quickly to his apartment, and tried to figure out how to get out of it. He thought of the building custodian. The guy ran his own little whorehouse and made his money by selling Aarnio’s drugs to teenagers.

The boozing grandma
across the hall had called the cops before Aarnio had a chance to set the apartment up, but somehow the police hadn’t recognized him. The apartment was leased in his second cousin’s name. If you paid your rent on time, the city didn’t care who lived there.

The custodian
had unlocked the door for the police and Aarnio had paid a visit to Korpivaara a few hours later. Korpivaara was shocked and pretty wasted. Aarnio demanded he pay his debts and threatened Sini.

Now h
e laughed. It was all going according to plan. The attorney’s crotch called to him again, and he raped her a third time. He was actually hoping the reporter would come knocking on the door.

The drug’s effect would last at least four more hours. By then it would be dark outside and he could
move the woman somewhere. He couldn’t let her live, but couldn’t return to the apartment since the attorney had gone around to several apartments asking questions. Aarnio came to the conclusion he had to move on. He began packing his most important things.

Aarnio
looked at the woman. He wondered if he even needed to bother getting rid of the body, if he was going to be linked to her anyway. But he decided he should do it to keep things from being too easy for the cops.

* * *

Römpötti was standing in front of the Haaga strip mall, when her phone rang. It was Takamäki.

“Whereabouts in Haaga are you now?” the detective asked.

“What’s it to the police?”

“Tell me,” the detective said in a tone that left Römpötti no choice.

“I’m taping in front of the Alamo Bar.”

“You’re not by the apartment building anymore?”

Römpötti thought for a moment. “If you know I’m in Haaga, how come you don’t know exactly where?”

“Don’t be a smart
ass. This is serious. When’s the last time you saw Lind?”

“I saw her by the
Nӓyttelijӓ Street apartment building, from afar. I planned to wait outside for her, but thought maybe she’d already left a different way, and we headed over here.”

“Okay. Did you try to call her?”

“Yep, once. After that her phone’s been turned off… Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Takamäki said and thanked her for her cooperation. “This is important—
don’t go over there. Please.”

“Serious?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Fine,” Römpötti said. “We won’t go there until we see flashing lights.”

“Okay,” Takamäki said.

Römpötti turned to the cameraman, who had a quizzical look on his face.

“Let’s get some coffee and see what happens here.”

She was glad she had the cameraman with her to capture any action, though she worried about Lind.

* * *

Takamäki turned to
Nykänen and said, “Römpötti saw Lind by the apartment building.”

They stood behind the desk of the
on-duty lieutenant at Helsinki police headquarters. The desks had screens, and on the back wall was a large screen showing all the patrol cars’ locations on the map, with a live feed from the police surveillance cameras.

Joutsamo came into the room. “I have location
data from her phone. It was last spotted around the Nӓyttelijӓ Street apartment buildings.”

“That’s not good,
” Nykänen said.

T
he Narcotics surveillance team was in the apartment building’s parking lot and the on-duty lieutenant, Helmikoski, had a police radio connection with them.

“Anything new?”
Helmikoski asked.

“No. The
lights in the apartment are still on and there’s no change in the situation. It’s too high up for us to see in. The man has been to the window a couple of times.”

“I’m sure you heard,”
Helmikoski said. “Should we go in?”

Takamäki and
Nykänen exchanged looks. Joutsamo stood next to them.

“Would we ruin anything by going in?” Takamäki wondered.

“The Rahkola case is still under investigation. If it was just about that, I’d say we wait. But it isn’t.”

“If we can prevent something, then let’s go in,” Joutsamo
offered. “But what would we be preventing? We don’t know where Lind is. Maybe her phone battery died. On the other hand, she sent the text about Korpivaara’s innocence, so she must be up to something.”

“We don’t have many pieces to the puzzle, and they may give the wrong impression,” Takamäki said. “
Look at them individually: Is Aarnio involved in Lind’s possible disappearance? No idea. Is he involved in Maiju Rahkola’s murder? No idea. Laura Vatanen’s murder? We don’t know. Is he connected to all of these somehow? It’s likely.”

“We don’t have the SWAT guys together yet, but the dogs are ready,”
Helmikoski said. “They can be in there in two minutes.”

* * *

Kulta rang the doorbell carefully.

“Coming,” the woman screeched.

Twenty seconds later the drunken Mrs. Ridanpӓӓ opened the door.

“Well, we know each other.”

Mikko Kulta pushed the woman aside and walked in.

“Aren’t we feeling frisky today,” she said, breathing red wine into his face.

Closing the door, Kulta asked, “Do you remember who I am?”

“You’re one of
the cops, and didn’t you go get me that wine?”

“Good,” Kulta said. “Listen, Mrs.
Ridanpӓӓ, I need to ask you something, and I need you to answer me straight. Did a brunette lady in a jacket come see you today?”

“The lawyer? Yeah, that fancy lady was here.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That’s a secret!” the drunken old woman said, pressing her finger to her lips. “She’s a lawyer, so I told her. Cops will spill it
to everyone.”

“If you don’t tell me,” Kulta said, looking at the woman angrily, “I’ll get you sent to a rehab place for old alcoholic women. They’ve got no
red wine there, only tea and water.”

The woman looked horrified. “
They don’t have places like that.”

* * *

Suhonen rang the doorbell of the apartment on the top floor. He had his ID ready. A twenty-year-old bearded guy in a T-shirt and shorts opened the door.

“Police,” Suhonen said, showing the guy his blue-and-white card.

The guy’s face was beet-red. “I’m not…”

“Oh, hell,” Suhonen said, as he noticed the sweet smell of pot coming from the apartment.

“I, um… for my own use,” the man whimpered.

“What’s your name?” Suhonen asked.

“Vesa Mӓkinen,” the guy blurted out.

Suhonen pushed the man
in and down in the only chair in the living room. A mattress lay on the floor and a TV and an Xbox console by the wall. The guy had been playing “Call of Duty.”

“And I bet you haven’t paid your cable bills either
,” Suhonen ventured.

“Well, no.”

“Sit there and don’t move.”

Suhonen peeked into the bedroom where several bright lights and pots of healthy-looking cannabis plants sat on the floor. The flowers would be made into hash and the pedals into marijuana.

“I…um…”

“Vesa
Mӓkinen,” Suhonen said tensely. “Sit quietly. Don’t do anything. This has nothing to do with your plants.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Just sit there and don’t move,” Suhonen said.

The undercover detective almost wanted to laugh. He had picked the apartment because he wanted to see into the next building fifty yards away, specifically into
Aarnio’s apartment. And of course it had to belong to a pothead.

He turned off the living room lights and glanced at
Mӓkinen, who was sitting still.

Suhonen looked into the binoculars and found the right apartment. He saw a man by the window and recognized him from the bar in Kannel
mӓki: Kimmo Aarnio.

Suhonen leaned against the wall to steady the binoculars. He could now see details in the apartment. He noticed a woman’s bare leg.

He grabbed his phone and called Takamäki.

“
Aarnio is in his apartment and there is someone else there. I can see a leg.”

“Alive?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Okay,” Takamäki said.

* * *

Pave,
a K-9 dog, walked silently by its master. The only sound was its nails scraping the stairs. That could’ve been prevented with dog socks, but today it wasn’t necessary.

Four uniformed officers waited behind the door
, and Kulta was standing to the side. Kulta heard the same command in his earpiece as the K-9 patrol: “Go in now.”

The first officer broke the lock and
dropped the ram. Between his knees he held cutters that he would use next to cut the safety chain. But the chain wasn’t latched, and the door opened. Two officers went in and the dog waited by the door. They heard a dog bark inside the apartment.

“Police!” yelled the officer, who looked like TV’s Jack Bauer, pointing a gun.

They reached the living room in two seconds and saw Kimmo Aarnio lying on top of a woman in a chair.

“
Disengage! Move away from the woman!”

The man didn’t react.

The officers were only a few feet away, but the man kept on. The Jack Bauer-lookalike kept his weapon aimed at Aarnio. The other officer jumped over the chair and tackled Aarnio by the waist, dropping him to the floor.

The officer with the gun came to help, an
d within three seconds the naked Aarnio was sprawled on his stomach on the floor, his hands cuffed behind his back.

“Police
brutality,” Aarnio grunted. “Fuckin’ cops. The Attorney General’s gonna get you for this. I want a lawyer.”

TWO WEEKS LATER,

DECEMBER 22
, 2011

CHAPTER 28

THURSDAY
, 8:55 A.M.

HELSINKI
POLICE HEADQUARTERS, PASILA

With the wind from the northwest, the smell of smoke drifted all the way to the Pasila Police Headquarters.

The
fire department had received the call at 2:50 A.M.

The fire trucks arrived at the scene within five minutes but were too late. The fire was exceptionally ravaging. The
rest of the Haaga strip mall could be saved, but the Alamo Bar was gone.

Joutsamo and Takamäki found out about the fire from Sanna Römpötti’s morning report on TV. Takamäki woke up at
six forty-five and watched the seven o’clock news after his shower.

Joutsamo
didn’t watch the news until seven thirty.

Römpötti reported that the fire started around closing time. The cause was unknown, but the fire chief suspected foul play. Römpötti said it was likely that people died in the fire, but it wasn’t until the eight o’clock news that they learned there were four victims. One person
, the bartender, was rescued.

Takamäki got a ca
ll on his cell phone after eight o’clock. The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, wanted to meet with him at the police station at nine. She said she had information about the Alamo fire, and she requested to have Detective Sergeant Anna Joutsamo present as well.