Snow Angels (26 page)

I can’t understand why she’s doing this. “You’re not being fair. You’re trying to make me sound stupid.”

“And yet you’re close to solving this case and you’ll be here with me for Christmas dinner.”

She’s backed me into a corner, made me uncomfortable. “I know you’re angry, but you don’t need to insult me.”

“Who’s your next suspect? Your mother? Where was she at the time of the murder? Maybe she set this diabolical plan in motion, waited years for the opportunity to exact revenge on the people who hurt her son. It could have been me. Jealous of your ex-wife, I seduced Heikki and we murdered Sufia together as a cover for our final intent. I drove him to suicide to erase all traces of my crime, then destroyed Heli with fire. Maybe it was Pirkko Virtanen, and stabbing her husband to death was the final act in her murder spree.”

I’m not just insulted, I’m furious, but I don’t want to show it because this is my fault. I’ve let this case interfere with our relationship. She has cause for her anger and I can’t muster a worthy response. “You have no right to talk to me like this,” I say.

“Let’s look at what you’ve got here. A theory about a copycat murder. Why? Because your ex-wife can’t spell in English and two women killed sixty years apart both had genital deformities. I read about the Elizabeth Short murder on the Internet. Yes, there are a few similarities in the cases, but the differences far outweigh them. You’ve got Abdi Barre, a grieving father with a bad personality who said a few untoward things. Nothing suggests he’s a killer who’s been hiding in this country for the better part of twenty years. Your sister and your ex-wife being killed in the same approximate location was most likely coincidence. Stranger things have happened.”

I’m trying hard not to yell at her. I’ve never done it before and I don’t want to start now. “All right genius, since you’re the cop all of a sudden, you figure out the murders and explain them to me.”

“Before, you talked about finding the most elegant solution. Let me tell you what I think happened. Sufia had the semen of two men in her mouth. There was no sex cabal. She had two lovers. She was a slut and sucked them both off within a few hours. Heikki’s suicide note said he or she made me do it. He meant Seppo. They killed Sufia together, for love or money or whatever, and then, for some reason we don’t know, Seppo killed Heli. Maybe he’s just fucking crazy. You don’t seem to have thought of that.”

“That leaves too many things unexplained,” I say. “I’m looking for the truth.”

“Then I’ll give it to you. You’re an emotional mess. You look like shit. Last night, I watched the strongest man I’ve ever known fall apart because he never came to terms with the death of his sister, and probably never truly dealt with the fact that his ex-wife left him. Instead of grieving for her, you’re demonizing her rather than admit to yourself that you loved her and she hurt you. You’re tearing yourself apart.”

She takes my hand, puts my palm on her belly. “The truth is in here. You have two children growing inside me and you’re going to be a good and wise father to them.” She puts my other hand against her cheek. “And here you have a wife who loves you. You need to heal, to give these murders to another investigator and to be here with me so I can take care of you.”

I love Kate so much. Sometimes I wish I could crawl inside her, be a part of her, flow in her veins, drown in her blood. I wish I could say this to her.

My cell phone rings. It’s the national chief of police, so I answer. He tells me they searched Seppo’s Helsinki residence. A computer contained a number of true-crime files downloaded from the Internet. They also found a copy of The Black Dahlia, the novel by James Ellroy, based on the murder of Elizabeth Short, and also a video of the movie based on the book. I tell Kate what he said.

“You’re not going to stop, are you?” she asks.

I don’t respond.

“You can’t, can you?”

I shake my head no.

She sighs and holds my hand. We sit in the quiet for a few minutes.

“When it’s over,” she says, “I’ll be here, and I’ll help you put yourself back together.”

I realize that I know how to end this. I know it’s irresponsible and I shouldn’t do it, but I’m equally certain I’m going to do it anyway. I go to the sauna to be alone, to prevent myself from telling Kate what I intend to do.

THE NEXT MORNING, I put on a sweater and wool socks and step out to the back porch for a cigarette. The weather turned even more severe overnight and the cold hurts me, like somebody threw a handful of razors in my face. It almost drives me back inside. The thermometer reads minus forty, like it was a week ago today when Sufia was murdered, but now the bitter cold is accompanied by a driving wind that makes it almost impossible to bear. By the time I finish my smoke, my ears are numb and burning.

I have two funerals to attend today. I put on a black suit and a thick, full-length wool coat over it. My dress hat is made of heavy fox fur. I pull down the inner ear flaps and steel myself for a miserable frozen day.

At the police station, I bring Seppo up from his cell to my office and call Valtteri in to join us. Seppo looks bad, but he doesn’t cry or beg, and his lack of emotion surprises me. I suspect he’s gone through so much that he’s numb inside. I pour us all coffee and we sit around my desk. Seppo and I light cigarettes.

“Seppo,” I say, “unless something changes, you’re going to be convicted of double homicide.”

His expression stays flat. “I know.”

“Both your girlfriend and your wife are going to be buried today, Sufia at eleven this morning, Heli at four this afternoon.”

He nods.

“I don’t know if you killed them or not. Do you want to confess and make things easier for yourself? If you do, you’ll shave time off your prison sentence, still have some good years left when you get out.”

He sips coffee. His voice doesn’t change as he replies. We could be talking about what we’re going to have for lunch. “I didn’t kill them.”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know.”

“If what you tell me is true, I want to help you, not because I care what happens to you, but because I want to see justice done. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I have an idea. It’s risky, but if you agree, we’ll try it.”

He takes a drag off his cigarette. “What is it?”

I explain what I learned about Abdi Barre. “Sufia’s father thinks you killed her,” I say. “I believe he killed Heli as an act of revenge, to pay you back. I think if he has the chance, he’ll try to kill you too.”

He raises his eyebrows, his first show of emotion. “You want to let him try to kill me?”

“I’m going to tell him that even though I know you murdered Sufia, I can’t prove it, and if he doesn’t kill you-the man who first defiled and then brutally murdered his daughter-you’re going to walk free, that you’ll never be punished for what you did. I’ll tell him I know he’s not who he claims to be and that he killed Heli. I’m going to say I’m glad he did it because what the newspapers say is true: I hated her, and I hate you for what you did to me. That I want you dead and I want him to kill you. And I’m going to give him the chance to do it. I’ll tell him we’ll make it look like you committed suicide.”

I turn to Valtteri. “The point of this is to elicit a confession, and I need your help. I’ll take Seppo out to the lake where Heli was killed, and tell Abdi to meet us there. I want you hidden in your army winter camouflage, a little way into the forest. I’ll wear a wire. You bring recording equipment and a video camera. And a rifle, in case things go wrong. I get the confession, you document it, and we arrest Abdi.”

He looks confused, uncertain.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “but I think you and I both know Heikki and Heli killed Sufia. We just don’t know if Seppo killed Heli. If Abdi confesses to the second murder, and further investigation of forensic evidence clears Seppo of the first one, as I think it will, he can go free. Justice will be served.”

I sit back and look at them. “What do you think?”

“Do you really hate me?” Seppo asks.

“I don’t give a shit about you.”

“What would prevent you from taking me out there and letting him kill me?”

I shrug. “Nothing could be easier. I could just say you escaped from my custody while I escorted you to your wife’s funeral, and I don’t know what happened to you afterward. You can take your chances in court or with me. It’s easier for me if you just stand trial for double murder. Either way, I’m done with this today.”

“What happens if Sufia’s father doesn’t take the bait?”

“You go to prison.”

Seppo stares at me for a long moment. Maybe he still thinks I killed Sufia and Heli, and now I’m going to kill him too. “Okay,” he says.

“If it works,” Valtteri says, “when it comes out how we did it, we’ll be reprimanded for an irresponsible act. We could even lose our jobs.”

“That’s right.”

“But we could solve all this today,” he says, “put all this behind us forever.”

“Exactly,” I say.

For the first time since the death of his son, I see Valtteri smile. “I like it,” he says.

AT ELEVEN, I go to the cemetery. I find Sufia’s mother, Hudow, in a far corner by herself. She’s shivering in the cold and dark, next to an open grave with a modest tombstone at its head. I grew up here and even for me this weather is punishing. I can’t imagine how painful it must be for her. I express my sympathy for the loss of her daughter.

“I glad you come,” she says. “Thank you.”

“Where is everyone else?” I ask.

She stifles a sob. “Abdi come. He explain.”

It’s too cold for life, human or otherwise. Besides the sounds of wind and snow crunching under our feet, the graveyard is silent. No birds sing, no animals stir. My eyes run and the tears freeze before they can roll down my cheeks. I brush the ice off with gloved fingers. The wind cuts into us, hurts us. My face aches, then goes numb. Wind in this part of the country is seldom this fierce. It feels like a bad omen. A frozen tree branch breaks. The noise makes me start.

The hearse pulls up. Abdi steps out, motions me over. He doesn’t offer his hand but gives me a slight bow. “Thank you for coming,” he says. “Whoever attends a janazah, a Muslim funeral, until it is finished will earn a
qirat
, and whoever stays until the burial will earn two
qirat
s.” He offers a weary smile. “A qirat means a reward as big as a mountain.”

“Thank you for allowing me to attend,” I say. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“No one dies unless Allah permits,” Abdi says. “We must pray for God’s mercy on the departed in the hope that they may find peace and happiness in the afterlife. We must strive to be patient, and remember that Allah gives life and takes it away, at a time appointed by Him. It is not for us to question His wisdom.”

Jorma gets out of the driver’s side, opens the rear of the hearse. I’m taken aback, because there isn’t a coffin. Sufia’s body is wrapped, with obvious precision, in cloth as white as the snow that blankets the graveyard.

“There were many difficulties in preparing for Sufia’s parting,” Abdi says. “As a Muslim, she may not share a burial ground with infidels. I purchased a plot in the corner of the cemetery, and those plots surrounding it, so that her resting place may remain separate and undefiled. The grave must be aligned on a northeast-to-southwest axis, facing Mecca. It was most difficult to communicate the importance of this to the grave diggers.”

“Jorma told me there were complications,” I say.

He sighs. “More than I would have imagined. Proper burial garments and bindings were difficult to obtain. Her body should not be embalmed or placed in a coffin, but this is not in accordance with Finnish law. I had to obtain special permission to forgo the casket and instead place her in a grave with a concrete liner. Women may not accompany the departed to the site of burial. As such, my poor wife has had to wait here and suffer in this frozen graveyard.”

I’m surprised and touched by his candor. I would never have expected it of him. “Are there no other mourners or clergy?” I ask.

“There is no mosque in this town, no Muslim community. We have no friends here. As her father, it is permitted that I serve as imam and offer the spoken prayers. It will not be difficult for you. They are similar to the five daily prayers, but most are silent. No bowing or prostration is required. Would you assist me in taking her to rest?”

He means will I help him carry her body. With care, we take her from the hearse.

“We must place her in the ground on her right side,” he says. “It should be so that I remove the veil from her face, but because of her condition, I choose to leave it covered. I do not believe this will be displeasing to Allah.”

We carry Sufia through the snow on our shoulders. It’s not easy and we move with slow care. Hudow looks on as we place Sufia in the concrete liner. Abdi adjusts the arrangement of Sufia’s body in minute ways and looks up at Hudow. She nods, saying without speaking that Sufia’s final resting place is to her satisfaction.

The grave was dug with a backhoe, the earth piled up in a neat mound. Abdi takes three clods of earth, which he must have broken up beforehand, because the dirt is frozen rock-hard and there’s no way he could have done it otherwise, and drops them in the grave. Hudow does likewise. He offers three clods to me and I toss them onto Sufia’s shrouded body. He says a short prayer in Arabic. He translates for me and asks me to recite it. “We created you from the earth, and return you into it, and from it we will raise you a second time.”

I say the prayer and he offers some others. It doesn’t take long. “Now we must pray for the forgiveness of the dead,” he says.

We do it in silence. I’m so moved by the service that I’m tempted to abandon my plan to lure him into a confession. I remind myself that no matter the cause, Heli’s murder was a monstrous act that must be punished.