Death Spiral (7 page)

“Janne, let’s go. It’s cold in here.”

Luoto’s voice was quiet, but his words still echoed strangely in the empty arena. Even though people complained about how small the facility was, I felt strangely small and alone surrounded by the rows of empty seats.

“If you want to take Janne home, we can meet tomorrow at the police station,” I suggested. Actually I was wondering whether we should take Janne to a doctor. But then he raised his head just enough to hiss at Luoto.

“Leave me alone, Rami! I’m fine.”

Still not looking at us, Janne started unlacing his skates.

Apparently Rami Luoto took this as a sign that Janne was in good enough shape to leave alone, because he started walking down the hall toward the locker room. Koivu and I followed, but when the hallway turned, I glanced back. Janne’s hands were frozen over his skates, and he was staring out at the ice again as if he could still see Noora there, in motion and alive.

Luoto opened the door into a small dressing room where a single red towel hung on a hook, looking forgotten.

“We can talk in here. Janne will probably join us when he can.”

Koivu set up the recorder again, and I rattled off information into the microphone as if I were a recording too. Luoto answered the questions I posed. He hadn’t seen anything or anyone outside either, and when he left, Weissenberg’s car had been gone, as had Tomi Liikanen’s. Noora and Janne were already gone too.

“You said practice yesterday was unusually difficult. Why? Was it because of Noora and Ulrika Weissenberg’s disagreement?”

Luoto nodded.

“Noora was sort of . . . strong willed. If she had a bad day, that day was bad for everyone else too. As a coach, you really had to work to keep her emotions in check. And besides, the commercial idea was pretty stupid. I told Ulrika as much. I knew Noora wasn’t going to approve it, but no one believed me. And when Noora heard that I had known about it but didn’t make a bigger stink, she got angry at me too. She was furious at Janne, though, because he was fine with the idea.”

“And Janne was furious back, right? What about you?”

“A coach’s job isn’t to get angry, it’s to smooth things over. I tried to calm the situation so we could have practice, and in the end it worked.”

“So Noora was difficult to coach?”

I was a little surprised when Luoto burst out laughing, but he quickly stopped.

“Terribly difficult and also perfectly lovely! She was so talented and extremely disciplined. Skating was her life. She had a really hard time when puberty started messing with her body, though. She had serious problems with her jumps and her endurance. We had to tell her she probably wasn’t going to be competitive as a singles skater.”

“Why? Because of her jumps?”

“Among other things. Skating mechanics are complicated. But she was so incredibly talented every other way, and when Janne had the same kinds of problems—he’s too tall for some of the hard jumps, like a triple axel—I had the idea to try turning them into a couple. And that turned out to be the right decision. I’m still proud of it.”

“So you coached them for a couple of years and then Elena Grigorieva came last winter?”

“Right.”

“I’ve heard claims that Noora might have only wanted one coach,” I said directly, even though I didn’t believe that Luoto would have murdered Noora just because he didn’t want to stop coaching her. But Luoto went silent for a few moments before answering.

“It isn’t any secret that Noora wanted Elena to take over all their training. And it’s true that the most progress has come since Elena joined the team. But I think I was still needed. Elena’s and Noora’s temperaments are too similar. They can’t calm each other down. Without me between them, there would be bodies.” Luoto started to grin at his own joke, but then he realized what he had said and blushed.

“We even saw that yesterday,” he said suddenly. “It was like a contest to see who could yell the loudest. And I think Elena is too authoritarian with Noora, like she’s still back at the figure-skating academy in Moscow. There a coach is like a demigod. In terms of technique, she’s fantastic. I fully admit she’s better than me.”

“So who was arguing with who yesterday and why?” Koivu interjected, apparently tired of hearing about the ins and outs of figure skating.

“Well, yesterday’s practice wasn’t a very good example of either of our coaching skills. We should have taken a real vacation, but the ice show got in the way. The season was good, but it was hard on all of us,” Luoto said as if to himself, and Koivu started showing signs of impatience again.

“So Noora was fighting with everyone here?” he said, interrupting again.

“Not exactly everyone. For some reason she left Silja alone. And Silja left earlier while we stayed to work on some new pairs moves. Noora was able to concentrate well despite it all, but she still seemed irritated when she left. I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised if she accidentally walked into the middle of the street and got run over by a car.”

Koivu and I stared at each other for a second in surprise, and then I remembered what Elena Grigorieva had said about Noora getting run over like her first husband. Even though I told her that wasn’t the case, in her shock Grigorieva must have misunderstood and told Rami Luoto the same thing.

“Noora wasn’t run over,” I said, “and it wasn’t an accident. She was murdered.”

Luoto’s face went an icy gray, and his whole body started shaking. Collapsing on the bench, he wept like a child.

Koivu was a traditional Finnish man, and seeing other men cry irritated him. He turned his head away while I made a notation in the recording that we were taking a break. Then I let Luoto cry.

“I’m going to find Kivi,” Koivu said, clearly trying to escape. I fetched a stack of rough paper towels from the restroom and handed them to Luoto.

Luoto stopped crying suddenly. In a couple of minutes he was himself again and asked what had happened. I didn’t say anything about the skates, but I did say she had been beaten and found in the trunk of a car.

“Do you have any idea who did it?” Luoto asked, but I didn’t have time to answer before Koivu returned with the janitor.

“I can’t find Kivi anywhere.”

We rushed out into the hall as if it were an emergency. The janitor and Luoto yelled for Janne and checked the other dressing rooms. Finally we went out to the parking lot, but he wasn’t there either. Rami Luoto frowned.

“Janne probably just went home. I don’t see his car anywhere, do you? It’s a little Nissan Micra.”

4

“Where does Janne live?” I asked Luoto, who clearly didn’t realize why we were staring at him like he was a ghost.

“Across town in Otaniemi, by the university campus.”

I wanted to talk to Janne Kivi. Immediately. I took off at a jog for our car, and Koivu sprinted after. Opening the door, I wedged myself into the driver’s seat. My belly was already getting in the way, and it was hard getting used to not moving as easily as usual. Luoto grabbed the car door.

“You can’t really suspect Janne! You saw how distraught he is. If you barge in there making wild accusations, it will just make it worse. Who knows what he might do!”

Koivu jumped into the passenger seat, and I almost slammed the door on Luoto’s fingers as I hit the gas.

“Call the DMV and check the plate on Janne’s Nissan so we aren’t jumping to any conclusions,” I panted as I swung through an intersection onto the West Highway. I wondered whether I should turn on the siren, since we were in a blue-and-white for once, but I decided not to bother. People moved over when they saw a police car coming up behind them regardless. I scared myself a little with how fast I went through a construction zone with narrowed lanes, but we needed to hurry. I didn’t even know whether Janne had gone home. Maybe we were hot-rodding across the city for no reason.

“Red Nissan 1994 Micra, AZG-577. Janne’s car, that is. We can ask him to drive it over to the parking garage and get that witness to take a look. And order a fiber analysis, of course.”

“Yeah. But let’s talk to him first.”

When we arrived at the parking lot of Janne’s apartment building, there was the bright-red Nissan. He had clearly been in a hurry, because the car was parked askew across a stall line.

Janne lived on the third floor. Usually I could climb that many stairs without getting out of breath, but this time I started running out of oxygen by the second flight. Koivu reached the door first and rang the bell furiously. On the third set of rings, a shout came from inside.

“Leave me alone, Rami!”

“Open up, Janne, it’s the police!” I yelled back. Where did the manager live? How hard would it be to get a master key? But I didn’t need to pursue the thought, because Janne opened the door.

His forehead glistened with sweat, and his breath reeked of vomit. His skin was as white as Noora’s skates.

“Get lost! I don’t have anything to say to you.”

Janne didn’t have the nerve to push me out of the doorway, though, probably thanks to my belly. He disappeared into the bathroom, and a moment later we heard the sound of retching, which made my own stomach turn. I moved out of the entryway so I wouldn’t have to listen to him throwing up. On the right was a kitchen with only enough space for a small table and two chairs. It was spotless other than a flattened juice carton and half-eaten cup of yogurt on the table.

The other room was a combined living and bedroom. The double futon was opened to the sleeping position, the sheets bunched messily under the comforter. Koivu flopped into the only armchair. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I started organizing my thoughts. Koivu fidgeted in his chair and then stood up to check whether the bathroom door was locked.

“Did you fall in?” he yelled at Janne, who was still retching. The reply was incomprehensible muttering, but a few seconds later we heard a bang and a flush. Janne appeared in the doorway, drying his face with his T-shirt, which he had pulled off. Involuntarily my eyes wandered to his beautifully muscled upper body and washboard abs, which trembled from the vomiting. Then I started feeling like a dirty old woman and turned my eyes away.

Janne collapsed next to me on the futon and hid his face in his shirt. I glanced at Koivu, who started the questioning.

“Rami Luoto says you left the ice rink at the same time Noora did. Where did you leave her?”

No answer. His face remained hidden under the black fabric, and his muscles continued shaking. Koivu met my eyes, lifting his eyebrows and shaking his head. I wondered whether this could really be Noora’s murderer huddled here.

“Janne, this isn’t helping anything. Tell us what happened yesterday and we’ll leave you alone.”

Still no answer. Koivu stood up restlessly, walking to the bookcase, which held significantly more music and random junk than books. He bent down to pick up a large, framed picture with jagged shards of glass protruding from it. Without a word he handed it to me. Based on the costumes and the background, it was from the Edmonton World Championships. The skaters had their arms around each other’s necks and wore wide smiles. Janne was looking at the camera, and Noora was looking at Janne with an expression that was impossible to mistake. She worshipped him.

“When did you break this?” I asked.

“Can’t you understand I don’t have anything to say!” Janne screamed so loudly that the picture slipped from my hand and the broken glass made a superficial cut on my palm between the thumb and index finger. Janne jumped up, looked around, but then collapsed back to sit on the bed. Sweat still beaded on his face, and his eyes were glued to the floor.

There was no point trying to get him to answer any questions. The only thing he was willing to say was that he had nothing to say. I didn’t know what to do. Even though I had a hard time believing Janne was guilty of Noora’s murder, he was acting exactly as if he were guilty. And he was clearly disturbed—leaving him alone could be dangerous. Should we call Taskinen and ask how to proceed? No. I had to make these decisions myself. If I ever became head of the unit, I wouldn’t be able to lean on anyone else. We were going to need an arrest warrant from a detective lieutenant, though.

“Gather your things,” I finally told Janne. “We’re going to the police station to continue this.”

“Did you hear what Sergeant Kallio said?” Koivu snapped when Janne didn’t react. “We also need your car keys to send them for analysis.”

Now Janne looked me straight in the eyes for the first time. “What’s going on? Are you arresting me? I’m not going anywhere unless you carry me.”

“You have the right to counsel during your interrogation. Would you like to call a lawyer now?” I asked, trying to stay calm. I didn’t want to drag Janne off to jail by force. I preferred to scare him into talking.

When he didn’t make a move to stand up and get dressed, I opened a wardrobe door, where I found socks and shirts. I handed Janne a green sweater and black socks and ordered him to dress. Not answering, he just sat motionless and stared at the floor.

During my entire police career, there had been only a couple of situations in which I’d been this at a loss. Part of me said that arresting Janne was an extremely bad idea, since there wasn’t really any evidence he’d played a part in Noora’s death. But refusing to cooperate at all was strange, although it could have been a result of the shock at hearing the news of Noora’s death.

But I was getting angry and I wanted to go home.

“Then we’ll dress you. I’ll count it as practice, although you’re a bit big for a baby,” I said and started pulling the socks onto Janne’s long-toed feet. The situation was absurd. Of course I had undressed drunks and conducted strip searches on all manner of misfits, but Janne was handsome enough that touching him embarrassed me. Fortunately Koivu came over and put Janne’s sweater over his head while I grabbed a pair of deck shoes and a jacket from the entryway.

“The car keys,” I said. “And anything else you want to take with you.”

Janne didn’t react, so I told Koivu to search Janne’s jacket pockets, and there were the keys, along with the keys to the apartment, which I also collected. I asked Janne to stand, but he had been serious about not leaving without being carried.

“Should I get the handcuffs from the car?” Koivu finally asked. Luckily no one else was present to witness the sorriest arrest I had ever made. Koivu sometimes trusted a little too much in my ability to handle things.

“Oh, we can manage him without,” I said and lifted Janne by the shoulders.

“Goddamn it, don’t try to lift him in your condition!” Koivu bellowed with surprising anger in his voice, then grabbed Janne and jerked him to his feet. Koivu was a couple of inches taller than Janne and thirty pounds heavier, and although I was small and pregnant, lifting a third of Janne’s weight was not an issue. Ultimately he gave in enough that he started moving his legs, and we were able to get him down to the car with some of his—and our—dignity intact. Koivu sat next to him in the backseat. When we turned onto the Turku Highway, to my surprise Janne started to talk.

“On what basis am I being arrested and my car being searched?”

I told him about the red Nissan Micra that had been seen in the parking garage around the time Noora’s body was dumped. When he heard this, he gave an involuntary groan, and in the rearview mirror I saw how his head fell between his hands. I felt as if a lump of ice was stuck in my throat. I wanted to solve Noora’s murder quickly, but not this way.

That was all Janne was willing to say. Once at the station, I left him to wait with Koivu while I asked the lieutenant on duty in a neighboring unit for an arrest warrant. He carped a little at first but then signed the paperwork. Fortunately Ström wasn’t on shift, or he would have wanted to grill Janne through the night. Now the kid could spend that time thinking about whether it wouldn’t be better to start talking in the morning.

Despite everything, I felt sorry for Janne as I handed him over for processing. I asked him whether he needed a doctor, a psychologist, or a legal advisor, but he still didn’t say anything. He didn’t even ask me to notify anyone about his arrest.

Lähde was still in his office typing up his report about the parking garage interviews. He dug out the phone number for the witness who had seen the Micra and arranged for him to come in at eight the next morning to have a look at Janne’s car. That was when I realized the car was still at Janne’s apartment.

“I can get it in the morning,” I suggested. Koivu lived on the opposite side of town. “Or should we take it to the lab right now? We need to have them check the trunk ASAP. If they find blood there—”

“Nah, let’s call it a day!” Koivu said, but when I said I would go alone, he came along with some grumbling. I took an unmarked car so I could keep it overnight. My bike would have to wait at the station.

“Don’t pregnant women need a lot of sleep?” Koivu asked once we were back on the Turku Highway.

“Was that some kind of hint? I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway as long as that car hasn’t been tested. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure how smart it was to arrest Janne.”

“He sure did everything he could to make himself look guilty. How did you stay so calm? I thought I might blow a gasket when he just kept sitting there staring at the floor!”

“It’s the miraculous influence of pregnancy. You wouldn’t believe how calm and tender I am now.”

“Are you scared?” Koivu asked. Up until now he had completely avoided the whole baby issue. “Having a baby’s supposed to hurt a lot.”

“I’m not so afraid of the birth as what comes after it. Being a mother. I guess plenty of people have figured it out, but . . . I think I’m going to be one of those women who can barely wait until their maternity leave is over and they can go back to work.”

Two brown hares stood watch on the grass outside the university as we passed but took off when a jogger appeared. The Nissan was still parked askew in the lot at Janne’s building, and some irate neighbor had already left a note under a windshield wiper encouraging the owner to learn how to drive.

We’d brought a crime-scene investigation field kit with us, and we put on gloves and took out flashlights, although fortunately the clouds had cleared a little, so we could see without them.

I don’t know what I was expecting when I opened the trunk, maybe a pool of blood. But there was nothing in it, not even a spare tire or a floor mat. Only a traffic triangle and a bottle of motor oil lay on the black metal surface.

The rest of the car was perfectly clean too, as if it had just been vacuumed that day. That seemed bad for Janne.

“Remember to cover the seats in the morning. I’ll try to talk to Kati Järvenperä and Noora’s parents, but let’s stay in touch.”

“How about I drive it over to the station right now? I’ve got time,” Koivu said and then started spreading a plastic bag from the crime scene investigation kit out over the driver’s seat.

“Well, that looks professional.” I was joking but inside I felt sick. It was nine o’clock. I had long since burned through the pea soup I’d had for lunch, and my blood sugar had dropped through the floor. Luckily in the bottom of my backpack, I found an emergency chocolate bar Antti had bought me two weeks before. I’d exercised amazing self-control, given the chocolate was still there. After shoving three pieces in my mouth, I started driving home.

For the last year we’d been living in a run-down wooden house rented from Antti’s coworker’s parents. The windows on the east side had a view onto fields of grain that had just sprouted. Although we lived in Finland’s second-largest city, we were almost in the country, far from any store and with limited public transportation. We loved the property, but most of its charm would soon be ruined by freeway construction. My husband, Antti, was still fuming about that.