Authors: Harri Nykanen
Nights of Awe (12 page)
“Judging by the necklace and the horoscope medallion, the deceased is pretty young. With that information and the name and birth date, we could try and pinpoint an identity.”
Toivola nodded and showed me the buckle.
“This was in the back seat, a purse buckle, and this junk here is the contents of the purse, a tube of lipstick and the mirror from a powder case. If I’m right, there was also a woman in the car at some point. What do you think?”
I took a couple of steps back and looked around.
“About the woman?”
“About the whole thing.”
“There’s been a search out on the car since yesterday morning. It seems a little odd that it didn’t burn until now.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Toivola agreed. “What do you make of that?”
“If there had been a firebomb in the car, it could have been on a delayed detonator with a long fuse so that the car wouldn’t be found too fast.”
Toivola kicked at a hunk of rock.
“Do you know what this place is?”
“What?”
“A spot where the local kids come to spawn. Maybe that’s what the victim was up to.”
“Could you find out if are there any Kimis in the area who were born on 17 June?”
Toivola promised to check and suggested: “Should we agree that you hold on to the case for the time being and we provide backup? The other alternative is to ask the NBI to help out.”
I already had my hands full with the four earlier bodies, but if the fifth was part of the picture, I needed it to put the whole puzzle together.
“Sounds good.”
Toivola stepped aside and made a call. In the meantime, I went over to the investigator.
“Find any footprints leaving the car?”
“The ground is too compacted and the firefighters made a mess of the rest, but let’s see what we come up with. It’ll still take hours for us to search the terrain… You have a pretty big case under investigation in Helsinki, don’t you? And this on top of everything else.”
“When do you think the fire started?”
“The call came in at four-thirty. The car was still burning hard when the firefighters arrived, so it hadn’t been burning for very long.”
I glanced at my watch. Twenty to eight. I knew that Huovinen would be awake by now, maybe even at work, so I called him and told him where I was and what had happened.
“We need you here, too. The deputy chief ordered the release of the victims’ photographs today if the final body isn’t identified. You probably haven’t seen the tabloids yet?”
“Nah, what are they saying?”
“Both of them are linking the killings to terrorism and the sraeli – Palestinian situation.”
“On what grounds?”
“Wasn’t clear to me. When do you think you can be here?”
“I’ll shoot for nine.”
“I’ll set up a meeting for quarter-past. Try and make it, we might be hosting some VIPs. High society, you know.”
I had to hand it to Huovinen. He stood like a breakwater between me and the higher-ups and took the blows. You never would have guessed it based on his impeccably dapper appearance. Toivola walked over.
“Looks like we found him right off. Kimi Rontu, born 17 June 1979. Originally from Hyvinkää, but evidently sublets from relatives in Kerava. A narcotics violation and three car thefts under his belt. I also found out that the car wasn’t here in the early evening. A couple of cars had been stolen downtown, and since we know from experience that stolen cars get abandoned here at the pit, a patrol dropped by to check it out. Time was six-fifteen p.m. That Citro didn’t show up until afterwards.”
I offered Toivola my praises and he accepted them, pleased.
“Could you still check one more thing? If there was a woman with Rontu, then maybe she was injured and went to the hospital for treatment.”
“I should have thought of that myself,” Toivola said, annoyed. “I’ll have someone get on it first thing. What if we drop by the kid’s place right now? We might find something there that’ll shed light on all this. Maybe he brought the girl around to meet the landlords.”
“I’m in a bit of a rush, but if we head out right this minute…”
“Right this minute. I know the place, just follow me.”
I followed Toivola’s dull grey Toyota. A car like that was meant to be driven by a modest man, so modest that it smacked of excess.
I followed him out of the woods, onto a side road, and across the main road into a neighbourhood of sparsely spaced single-family homes. The houses were the flat-roofed 1970s variety. Toivola’s brake lights flashed and he made a sudden turn into the yard of a brick house. There was room for three cars in front of the garage. One of the spots was taken by a burgundy Volvo.
“Looks like there’s someone home,” Toivola said. He pressed the doorbell, and a tinkling that sounded like a loose-stringed harp came from inside. A small copper-trimmed overhang sheltered the doorstep.
The door opened, revealing a man of about fifty. Inexorably advancing baldness was attacking his grey, neck-length hair from the crown. Toivola introduced himself first and then me.
“According to our information, a person by the name of Kimi Rontu is subletting from you.”
The man thought for a second and then asked: “What’s he done?”
“Nothing. We’d like to check a few things.”
“He hasn’t been around since yesterday.”
“You mind if we take a look around his room?”
Without saying a word, the man snatched a key from the key rack in the entryway, thrust his feet into wide-mouthed rubber boots, and stepped out. We followed him out behind the garage.
“This room has its own entrance. We’ve been renting it out since our son moved.”
“Is Rontu a relative?” I asked.
“My wife’s nephew. Kid’s enough of a juvie I wouldn’t have taken him in if my wife hadn’t put the screws on me.”
“Does he have a job?”
“Nah, lives off welfare. I don’t think that boy is ever going to be much of a credit to his country.”
Behind the garage there was a dented-up motorbike with a flat front tyre.
“Never fixed that either. It’s been lying there all summer,” he tsked.
“Was he dating?” I asked.
“Oh, I guess he had someone, this little brunette who came by the place sometimes, but I told him straight off that the apartment’s only for one.”
“When did you see her last?”
“A couple of weeks ago, around… It’s high time I knew what you’re after.”
“Last night a car was burnt not too far from here,” Toivola said. “A man’s body was found in the car. We suspect it was your subletter.”
“Kimi? What makes you think that?”
I looked at Toivola. He dug out the deceased’s effects and showed them to the man.
His expression grew grave.
“Those are Kimi’s… Those were on the body?”
“Yes.”
The man distractedly opened the door and we stepped inside. He stood in the doorway, watching us.
The room was sparsely furnished. There was a bookcase on the end wall, and across from it a sofa bed, an armoire made of MDF and a small coffee table. A cheap stereo, a portable TV and a VCR were on the bookcase. A
Playboy
centrefold hung on the wall.
Playboy
centrefold hung on the wall.
“Kimi didn’t have a car… Was it an accident or a crime?” the man asked.
“We don’t know,” I said. “Do you know where he kept his photographs?”
Without hesitating, the man went over to the bookcase, opened the bottom compartment, and handed over a photo album with blue plastic covers. When I opened it, he pointed at a photo. It was of a young man with a buzz cut and bad skin. He was wearing jeans, a black flight jacket and combat boots. The familiar key chain hung from a belt loop. The shirt was open at the collar, revealing the gold horoscope medallion that had been found on the body.
“Flight jacket and combat boots. Was he a skinhead?”
“He didn’t like Somalis or other refugees, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was a skinhead or whatever. I’m not even really sure what that is. Someone who hates Jews?”
“Something like that. Do you know, was he involved in any violence against foreigners?”
“Never heard anything like that, I think it stayed more at the level of talk. He had a good friend who was a Gypsy, so I figure he couldn’t have really hated them too much.”
I browsed through the photographs. It looked like they had all been taken within the past couple of years. In one of them, a dark-haired girl was sitting in Kimi Rontu’s lap. It had been taken at a party at someone’s house; the table behind them was heaped with wine and beer bottles. I showed the photo to the man.
“Is this the girlfriend?
He glanced at the photo and nodded.
“You remember her name?”
“Säde. Don’t know the last name. But she lived somewhere around here, because one night she walked home.”
I poked around for an address book but couldn’t find one. There were two almost-new car stereos in the armoire. Judging by the clipped wires, they had been removed from their cars in a hurry and without permission.
“I bet they’re stolen,” the landlord said. “You probably know that Kimi has some car-theft convictions, and I guess he fooled around with drugs too. There were these real pungent fumes in here sometimes… But in the end, he wasn’t such a bad person, considering his background… I guess it’ll always come out somehow…”
The man’s voice trembled, and he turned to look out of the window.
“There’s something seriously wrong with my wife’s sister. When Kimi was small, she’d leave him alone for a whole day sometimes. It was thanks to my wife that nothing worse happened…”
I tried the bottom of the armoire. It was loose, and I lifted it out. In the hollow, there was a 22-calibre Bernardelli target pistol in a nylon case and a stiletto with a fake elk-horn handle.
“I don’t know anything about those,” stated the man.
I took the pistol and put it in my jacket pocket, along with its case. The NBI lab would have the honour of testing whether or not the gun had been fired at Linnunlaulu.
“I regret having spoken ill of him, the dead,” said Kimi’s uncle from the doorway.
Toivola’s empathy was roused.
“That’s the way we humans work, we say unkind things and then we regret it. Not too many angels among us.”
We didn’t find anything else of interest in the apartment. We left after Toivola asked for the key. If we needed DNA to identify the body, it would be found in Kimi Rontu’s apartment in one form or another.
Outside, I thanked Toivola and shook his hand. Then I started heading towards Helsinki.
I was at HQ at five past nine. I had called Simolin on the way to brief him on the morning’s events. He also had some things to report.
“The white Nissan minivan spotted in Vartiokylä was found in Herttoniemi, at the Siilitie metro station car park. The Itäkeskus patrol found it in the middle of the night. It was towed back to the police lot for examination.”
I was pleased. The case was lurching forward on multiple fronts at once.
“And another thing. The bullets found at Hamid’s body shop and Linnunlaulu don’t match, just like we thought, but the blood on the unidentified man’s hand is the same rare type as Hamid’s cousin’s. No traces of gunpowder gas were found on his body, and the weapon that was recovered from the roof of the train had not been fired.”
Just before the meeting I had time to call my former schoolmate, and he confirmed my suspicions.
“Even though
manjak
is Arabic, it’s in common use among Jews too. A lot of other Jewish obscenities are also of Arabic origin.”
manjak
is Arabic, it’s in common use among Jews too. A lot of other Jewish obscenities are also of Arabic origin.”
“What did you mean when you asked if
manjak
was the only word?”
manjak
was the only word?”
“If a Jew really wants to offend an Arab, he says ‘
Muhammad manjak
’, whereas an Arab says ‘
Moshe manjak
’.”
Muhammad manjak
’, whereas an Arab says ‘
Moshe manjak
’.”
I had been certain that the Arab who fell from the bridge had addressed the obscenity
manjak
at another Arab. The situation would be totally different if the target of the slur had been a Jew.
manjak
at another Arab. The situation would be totally different if the target of the slur had been a Jew.
There was indeed high-level participation at our morning meeting, just as Huovinen had anticipated. Police Commander Tuulia was sitting at the head of the table, and Deputy Police Chief Leivo sat on his right. The last time I had seen Tuulia in an investigation meeting had been in connection with the police killing in Punavuori, and that had been several years ago. Inspector Sillanpää was sitting next to the wall, rocking back in his chair – without falling, no matter how hard I wished he would.
After Huovinen’s briefing, I reported on the latest developments in the investigation. They must have been more favourable than Tuulia had expected, because his stony expression softened. He had probably included a wish in his bedtime prayers that the perpetrator would turn out to be a normal criminal, your basic Finnish murderer. He wasn’t any more interested in exoticism than Leivo, although he was a lot thicker skinned. The dead Rontu took the case in a normal direction.
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