Snow Angels (15 page)

“You didn’t tell me because you thought I would remove you from the investigation.”

It’s partly true. I don’t say anything.

“Are you?” he asks.

“Am I what?”

“Carrying out a vendetta?”

“Of course not. I think he did it.”

“I’m trying to be fair here. Assuming you didn’t manufacture the evidence, which I don’t think you did, he seems guilty, and I would have thought it was an open-and-shut case too. But now the Eklund boy is in the picture, and I’d say there’s enough evidence to hold him for the crime as well. And this thing about the third man and the teardrops, well, that’s just fucking weird.”

“Yeah,” I say, “it is.”

“So, we’ve got a public relations problem. There’s evidence against one man, and he’s in a jail cell. There’s evidence against another, and he’s not. The man in jail screwed your ex-wife, the one who’s not is the son of a wealthy financier. This could be construed as more than a little biased, wouldn’t you say?”

His sarcasm grates on me. “I did what you told me to do. I arrested Seppo, let Eklund go free for the moment.”

“But you didn’t tell me about your ex-wife and Seppo. I would characterize that as a major fuckup.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“When it comes out in the newspapers today that you arrested the man who broke up your marriage, you’re going to look like an asshole.”

“I know.”

“Your best bet is to cite conflict of interest and recuse yourself from the investigation.”

“Then it looks like I framed him and got caught. I still look like an asshole.”

“It’s called cutting your losses.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know you don’t. I also know you’ve done a good job and collected a mountain of evidence in a short time. The case is in its fourth day. To be honest, I’d replace you, but if I send somebody up there to take over, it’s going to take him a couple days to get up to speed. That’s a lot of lost time, and I want this case solved now.”

“I’m going to solve it. When I locate the third man, the one who cried on Sufia Elmi, he’s going to connect to either Seppo Niemi or Peter Eklund.”

“Here’s what you’re going to do. Issue a written statement to the press. Give enough detail to show that Niemi’s arrest was warranted. Talk about his affair with the victim and about the blood and semen in his car. Paint him black to make you seem justified.”

“That’s unethical.”

“It’s a tough world. Do it.”

I’m not going to. “Okay.”

“Then you say he has an alibi and release him. You come off looking fair and honest.”

“Are you out of your mind? I’m almost certain he killed her. If he did, he’s fucking psycho, and I’d be unleashing a danger on the community. It would be worse than irresponsible.”

“If you don’t, I’ll replace you, and he’ll be released anyway.” I’m backed into a corner. I don’t bother to respond.

“Call me and report tomorrow,” he says and hangs up.

Valtteri, Antti and Jussi look at me. “We have to release Seppo,” I say, and try to imagine how I can explain this to Sufia’s father.

I UNLOCK SEPPO’S CELL DOOR and lie to him. “Your alibi checks out, I’m considering setting you free. You should have told me about the phone call earlier-you could have been out yesterday.”

“Considering?” he asks.

“Your buddy says Sufia had just left when you called him. Besides her killer, that makes you the last person to see her alive. You’re a material witness in this investigation. I want you to cooperate with me. I can still hold you for another day.”

“I still think I should have a lawyer present.”

“For what? You’re no longer a suspect.”

“I don’t want certain things to get out,” he says.

“Heli knows about your affair.”

“She does? Fuck.”

“So you don’t have anything to lose,” I say.

We go to my office. I give him coffee and cigarettes. Seppo’s smiling, happy. “About what happened yesterday,” he says, “I understand that you were upset. You thought a murderer threatened your wife. I’m not going to tell anyone about it. What Heli and I did to you was terrible. Maybe we can just call it even.”

I scared him. He played a hand in destroying my marriage. He can’t be stupid enough to consider those things equitable. He probably just doesn’t want anyone to know he pissed on himself.

“That sounds fair,” I say. “Let’s forget the past and start over. Who knows, if we met under different circumstances, we might have been friends.”

This gratifies him. He offers his hand and we shake.

“Are you comfortable?” I ask. “Want anything?”

“Thanks, I’m fine.”

“Are you ready to talk about the case?”

“Anything to help. I guess you know Sufia and I were close.”

“Tell me about you and Sufia.” I start a tape recorder.

“Do we need that?”

“Yeah, we do. Is it a problem?”

He processes the ramifications of being taped. It takes him a while. “I guess not.”

“Good. Tell me about you and Sufia.”

Seppo’s pause tells me he’s thinking about how to present himself in the best possible light. “Sufia was different.”

“How so?”

“I met her at a cocktail party about three months ago. She had the most gorgeous eyes I had ever seen. We talked for hours. She was interested in me, she listened to me.”

“Did she talk about herself?”

“Not much, she liked to talk about me. It seemed like she really cared if I was happy, like I was important to her.”

“Had you been unhappy?”

“Not exactly.”

“It sounds like she gave you something you felt you were missing.”

He thinks about this. “You know Heli. She can be charming when she wants to. She hasn’t wanted to for a while.”

I don’t know her anymore, so I don’t say anything.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t love her,” he says.

“Of course not.”

“It’s just that some other companionship was nice.”

“Sufia was young and beautiful. That must have been nice too.”

His voice intimates that we’re talking buddy to buddy. “You have no idea.”

I mimic his tone. “I bet the sex was pretty good.”

He looks proud of himself. “The best I’ve ever had. She loved doing it with me. The girl came like a rocket.”

“Let’s talk about Tuesday, the day she was killed,” I say.

“She came to the hotel at about twelve thirty. We didn’t talk much. You know.”

“I can only imagine.”

“She left around two, said she had things to do.”

Maybe to see Peter. “Why did you rent a room at Hullu Poro instead of going to her cabin? After all, you were paying for it.”

“She said it was a mess. She was too embarrassed to let the maid clean it and wanted to do it herself, but kept putting it off. Sufia wasn’t exactly domestically inclined.”

I give him a just-us-guys smile. “I guess she had other talents that made up for it.”

“Yeah.” He snickers. “Besides, I stay at Hullu Poro when I’ve had too much to drink in the bar there, so I don’t get behind the wheel.”

“You’re a good citizen. When was the last time you were in Sufia’s room?”

“About a week ago, I suppose.”

“Where was your car while she was in your room that day?”

“Outside in the parking lot.”

“Does anybody else have access to it? Do you ever loan it to your friends?”

“Just Heli. She has her own set of car keys.”

“Did you ever let Sufia borrow your car?”

“No.”

“I found your semen and her blood in the backseat. You had other places available to have sex. Why in the car, and why the blood?”

He smiles. “Did you ever see Sufia? I fucked her anywhere and everywhere I could, as often as I could. One look in those gorgeous eyes of hers made my dick hard. Maybe she’d started her period when we did it in the car.”

“It seems like your feelings for Sufia were genuine. Was there any future in the relationship?”

“She told me she loved me and would like to have something more permanent. I told her things could stay the way they were. Permanently.”

“Meaning she could be your mistress indefinitely. Do you think Heli knew about your affair?”

“I was careful to make sure she didn’t find out.”

It’s hard to picture Seppo being careful about anything. “But you talked to other people about Sufia.”

“Just a few close friends.”

“I’ll need their names and contact information.”

He nods.

“Because, the thing is, you called Sufia a ‘nigger whore’ during a phone conversation, just about a half an hour after somebody carved ‘nigger whore’ on her abdomen. That strikes me as more than coincidental.”

“He told you what I said?”

“Yeah.”

He looks down at the desk, starts to fidget. “What are you getting at?”

“You pretended like you cared about Sufia, but you called her a ‘nigger whore’ behind her back. You bragged about coming on her face and fucking her in the ass. Some people might take that to mean you were using her. If you talked about her, using that exact phrase, to various people, one of them could have used that information to set you up. Or somebody could have overheard a conversation and used it to frame you. That’s what I’m getting at.”

He looks relieved. “I see what you mean-I’ll make a list.”

“There’s another option,” I say. “The phone call was later than you said and doesn’t entirely clear you. There was enough time after the murder for you to get back to your room and call a friend to give yourself an alibi.”

He scratches his head, thinks about it. “If I did that, why would I call her a ‘nigger whore’ and mess up my alibi?”

“That’s a good question. A better one is why you ever called her that at all.”

“If somebody tried to frame me,” he says, “like you think they are, it wouldn’t have been too hard. Somebody could have borrowed my car for a while and put it back. Everybody knows I don’t get out of bed till four when I’ve been drinking the night before.”

“What time do you get out of bed when you haven’t been drinking?”

He hesitates. “Four.”

So he’s drunk every night and sleeps through his hangovers. I change gears. “Did you realize that Sufia’s clitoris had been removed?”

“I knew there was something strange down there but didn’t ask her about it. Why would someone do that?”

I don’t bother to explain. “She didn’t enjoy sex with you as much as you think, maybe not at all.”

He looks unbelieving.

“Peter Eklund was having an affair with Sufia,” I say. “That’s why she wouldn’t let you go to her room. Peter’s liquor bottles were all over it.”

I gauge his reaction. He looks injured, as if the idea of Sufia betraying him is both hurtful and mystifying. I wonder how good an actor he is. “No shit?” he asks.

“No shit. I think she wasn’t satisfied being your mistress, I think she used you.”

“That ungrateful bitch,” he says.

“Some people don’t know how good they have it,” I say, then cut him off. “That’s enough for now.”

I thank Seppo for his cooperation and apologize for the inconvenience. I give him his car keys and walk him out to the garage. “Anything you need,” he says. “Anything. You just ask.”

I open the garage door and reporters start swarming toward us.

“I’ll see you soon,” I say, and wave as Seppo drives away.

I didn’t bring my coat. It’s fucking freezing outside. The reporters start questioning me, but my statement is brief. “That was Seppo Niemi you just saw leaving. He provided an alibi and I released him. We’re now pursuing other avenues of investigation.” They keep shouting. I shut the garage door in their faces and go back into the station.

BACK IN THE COMMON ROOM, I relate my interview with Seppo and lay out what we’ve got to do next. “We’ve made a lot of progress. We know where Sufia was when she was abducted. Since, by his own admission, Seppo’s vehicle was in the parking lot, it could have been used in the commission of the crime. The tears are the key. Because of them, it appears Seppo had an accomplice. Whoever shed them is linked to Seppo. It’s possible Seppo wasn’t even present when the crime was committed. Sufia’s affair with Peter gives him motive. Seppo could have had her killed.”

I’m pretending confidence I don’t feel. Yesterday, it looked like we’d broken the case in forty-eight hours. Now we’re at a standstill.

“We have to pursue the Peter Eklund lead with the same thoroughness as our investigation of Seppo. Peter’s car was in the parking lot too. Antti, you process it.”

He looks demoralized. I don’t have to tell him he can’t go on vacation.

“Jussi, you go to Hullu Poro. Check out if Peter was there at the time of the murder. Question the staff and everyone who’s been hanging around the bar over the past few days. If his car turns up evidence or we can’t confirm his alibi, we’ll treat his house as a crime scene. Valtteri, you go back to investigating locals. Known racists, sex offenders, men prone to violence. I’ll take photos of Seppo and Peter with me and re-canvass Marjakylä. And Valtteri, come into my office, I want to talk to you.”

When we’re alone, Valtteri says, “About Marjakylä, your father wasn’t at work in the bar when Sufia was murdered. You asked me to check.”

“Then I’ll ask him about it myself. I want to talk to you about Heli.”

“What about her?”

“When she left Kittilä, she shook the dust off her feet and never came back. As far as I know, she hasn’t been here since we divorced. She hated her family. When we were married, she only came here when I wanted to see mine. Seppo always came here alone. She tells me, as she put it, that she’s ‘rediscovering her religious roots.’ Have you seen her in church?”

He nods. “It’s true, she’s been attending regularly.”