The Bodyguard (10 page)

The images were now filling my brain, but later I couldn’t recall exactly how I had described them to David. The memories were too powerful. There was shouting, often. Mother and I were alone, Father was who knows where, and I suppose she got tired of waiting for him because our neighbor babysat for me a lot. I don’t know what the truth really was, whether she had another man or if Father had just imagined that. But I do remember what happened when she and I came home that day.

The foyer was pitch black. Something smelled sweet, and he was there, teetering toward us. More shouting, bad words. Whore whore whore. He tore me away from her, yelling. Don’t hurt the child; you whore will get what you deserve. I’m on the floor, there’s red everywhere. She is no longer screaming, she’s lying on the floor, reaching out to me, but I crawled away, I forgot how to walk. She was no longer wearing the ring with the precious stone, she didn’t have enough fingers on her hand, the finger had been severed. She stopped moving. Father rocked the red mass in his lap, crying and begging for forgiveness. I hid under my bed, pants wet although it had been years since I’d needed diapers, my arm covered in a large, sticky red stain. Then the neighbors knocked on the door, a big man in a dark-blue coat with shiny buttons appeared, then a white bed and Grandmother next to it in the morning, Grandmother alternately crying and screaming, until she was taken to another hospital.

“Mother was stabbed thirty-five times. Father was sentenced to life. The fact that I had witnessed the whole thing was considered sufficient grounds for the charge of aggravated murder.”

I hadn’t even noticed that at some point the dessert had been served. I thought I could still smell blood, although it was actually a mixture of strong coffee and the vanilla sauce for the tart. The waitress had returned to her post behind the bar, but I could tell she had been listening. She’d be old enough to remember the Kimpinen carnage. Only one tabloid existed back in 1980, but crime reporter Hannus Markkula, or “Murder-Markkula,” as his readers called him, was already practicing journalism then and he’d documented every detail. The case even made it into
A Finnish Murder,
his book about gruesome or unsolved murders, but I had never been able to read it.

My left hand was resting on the table. David took it into his.

“What a terrible story.”

“His blood is in me. I could do what he did.” I didn’t pull my hand away; instead, I squeezed hard enough to cause pain.

“To kill?”

“Anyone could, under the right circumstances.” I squeezed his hand even harder, and now he responded with a squeeze that could have broken the bones in my hand. I didn’t make a sound.

“You mean for money?”

“Sometimes. Or to protect someone. Some mothers have claimed that they could kill another human being to protect their kids.”

David let go of my hand and I pulled it away. He wore no rings. Given his mother’s Finnish Swedish heritage, he must have been Lutheran, so he would have worn an engagement or a wedding ring on his left hand. I thought about my mother’s severed finger and shivered. While under hypnosis I had screamed so loudly that the therapist had had to wake me up, telling me that I wasn’t quite ready for it, that it wasn’t yet time to banish the images that tormented me. It was recommended that I undergo psychotherapy, but I didn’t.

I twirled my spoon in the vanilla sauce and picked at the apple tart next to it. Its aroma pushed the smell of blood out of my nose. David looked like he’d lost his appetite. Surely I hadn’t scared a Paskevich minion with such a story? He must’ve heard of worse acts, maybe even committed them himself.

I took a sip of the calvados; its smooth apple flavor was comforting.

“Is your father still in prison?”

“I don’t even know, to be honest. Like I said, everyone is capable of killing as long as the circumstances are right. I appreciate my freedom enough to keep my distance. I probably wouldn’t even know him if I saw him on the street. Have you ever been in prison?”

David was visibly surprised by this question. He attempted to respond, but then just closed his mouth. The radio was now playing the main theme from Nino Rota’s
Romeo and Juliet
score, and I almost burst out laughing at the contrast between my grisly tale and the romance set in Verona long ago.

“Do you think I might know your dad?” he finally asked. That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, but once I started mulling it over it seemed like a possibility. Maybe two parties had paid David to track me down.

“I never think about my father. I told you: he’s dead to me.”

The color of the tart’s caramelized filling was only slightly different from the shade of the deadly web caps in my bag. The cooked apples were as soft as the mushroom slices I’d scalded in their own broth. They would have gone unnoticed in the fruit.

I desperately needed to go to the restroom, but how could I leave him alone? David was blocking the waitress’s view, so he could easily slip something into my food or drink to knock me out. I had no choice. I just had to hold it in until I’d finish consuming everything. The sparkling wine was gone but there was still some red wine, the remains of my calvados, and the coffee. I took a swig of the wine, then a gulp of coffee as a chaser, hoping it would lighten the effects of the alcohol a bit.

“About your question. I’ve never been to prison, unless you include a quick stay in a jail cell in Saint Petersburg. And that was a misunderstanding—they let me out after one miserable night. I appreciate my freedom, just like you. The Finnish army was almost too much for me; I don’t like being told what to do. But I suppose there would have been worse options than the marines in Dragsfjärd. At least I had a view of the ocean there.”

“I liked being in the army.”

“You’ve been in the army?”

“Yes, I have.” I drank more coffee, although my bladder was about to burst. “It was good training for becoming a bodyguard. And like I said, I enjoyed it. I’m a second lieutenant.”

David smiled and drained his glass of calvados. I handed mine over to him.

“You don’t like apple liquor?”

“I do, thanks, but I still need to bike home, and I’d rather not wake up in a ditch.”

David drank from the glass where my lipstick had stained it. “Do you really need to bike back home? There are two beds in my room. Why don’t you stay over?”

A smidgen of my lipstick was now on his lips. If I kissed him, he’d have some on his face, on his chin, on his nec
k . . .
I was getting lost in my role as a flirt.

“As a professional in the security industry, you must think about any potential risks involved. But I do believe you can take care of yourself,” he continued.

“I do have a black belt in judo, among other accomplishments. Even Putin wouldn’t be a match for me.”

“Even during a shoot-out?”

“Even then. I’ve learned how to use a gun.”

David stared right into my eyes. Uncle Jari used to call such intense eye contact “frying fish”; who knows why that memory popped into my head at this moment. I gazed back at David, let him hold my hand and stroke the back of my palm gently, let him wrap my hair in his fingers. Maybe I should accept his offer. It wouldn’t be the first time a tough guy would blab to me about his plans while in bed. The problem, though, was that I actually wanted to get under the sheets with this guy, and I’d be the one to spill the beans. I had to leave now. I pulled my hand away from him.

“No, I should be going. I have to work tomorrow.”

“Of course, I didn’t mean to pressure you. I understand why you don’t want to spend the night in a stranger’s room.” David’s smile was causing butterflies in my stomach; I could feel my cheeks glowing, and I had to turn my face away so he wouldn’t see the glimmer in my eye.

“I don’t feel comfortable driving you home, given everything I’ve had to drink tonight. The police probably aren’t patrolling around here, but it’d be irresponsible of me. Should I call you a cab?”

“No need. It might take hours to arrive. I’ll manage on my bike.”

“But you have a long way to go. Were you going to take Hanko Road or the shortcut through the woods?” David asked. “I’d better come and make sure that you get home safe.”

“It’s not that far, and I don’t need to travel through the forest. My cabin is in Stävö.”

“Stävö? I thought it wa
s . . .
” David almost gave himself away, but shut his mouth just in time. “When I saw you biking on Torbacka Road, I thought you lived somewhere close by. I guess I was wrong.” He swirled his glass and emptied it in one quick gulp. He’d consumed two-and-a-half shots of calvados and half a bottle of red wine. What use would he be in bed?

The waitress came by to ask if we needed anything else. I thanked her for the meal and David asked to charge it to his room. When he spoke in English he managed to sound even more curt and confident than when he spoke in his native tongue. Then again, I’d noticed how my persona changed depending on which language I used. When I spoke Swedish with David, I was witty and purred like a cat; it was much more feminine than when I spoke Finnish or my broken Russian.

I thanked David and stood up. The waitress must’ve been waiting for us to leave so that she could go to sleep. David walked me toward the door, held my jacket for me, and watched with amusement when I swapped my high heels for sneakers.

“Well, it seems like you’ll make it fine on your own. Will you give me your phone number? I might give you a call some time. Let me know if you’re coming back to your cabin for a weekend. Here’s my card.”

I found the inn’s business card in the foyer and scribbled down my number on the back. It didn’t matter; I’d get another number tomorrow. David opened the door to a windy yard. Once we stepped into the darkness he kissed me.

I didn’t resist—I had wanted to kiss him for most of the evening. The kiss lasted for what seemed like minutes, and I could feel it in my groin and nipples. I wanted his mouth all over my body. I wished I were more like a lynx acting solely on instinct, rather than a human worrying about consequences. It took all my effort to pull myself away from him. I hopped on my bike and didn’t look back into the darkness as I pedaled. The bike seat was a lousy substitute for what I wanted between my legs.

On my way back, the only creature I saw was a fox; it ran alongside my bike before jumping off the road toward the shore at the bridge. I stopped at the pier in Torbacka to go skinny-dipping in the cool September ocean water. Even that didn’t quell the heat inside me.

10

Friday morning I left my bike in the ditch near a bus stop. Before dawn I’d taken Anita’s safe back to its old hiding place and sprinkled corn starch all over the floors and steps of the cabin to catch an intruder’s footprints. The express bus to Kirkkonummi took only fifteen minutes. I got off and walked from Hanko Road to the center, where I bought a new cell phone and a couple of prepaid contracts. I also changed my number; this time I’d only share it with those I trusted. Unfortunately, I didn’t know whether my roommates fell in this category; it wouldn’t take much to get them to cough up the number. Maybe I needed to change apartments or at least give up the cabin in Talludden and sublease something else.

When I was done at the cell phone shop, I went to the library; I had booked my computer time slot in advance. The library was quiet: only a couple of retirees reading newspapers and a hippie kid flipping through CDs. I logged in to read my mail, which was mostly spam except for a group e-mail sent by my buddy from the New York days, a fellow student named Jim Parsley, who was letting us know that he’d been hired as head of security at a large bank for a monthly salary that would take me two years to earn. Then there was an e-mail from Chief Constable Laitio, demanding that I contact him immediately, either by phone, e-mail, or in person. I skimmed the message and deleted it. He was the least of my worries.

I went back to the Russian websites to find more details about Anita’s case, but there was nothing new. I wondered how many people Paskevich had had to pay off to get the media off his case and to convince everyone that the story of the homeless man as perpetrator seemed plausible. If people didn’t buy the theory of an alcoholic murderer, then they might try to frame me next, which is probably why someone left Anita’s scarf with me. Maybe that was the reason I’d been drugged, and not because I would have been able to stop Anita’s killer. Even if I hadn’t left Anita, I could still be held partly accountable for her murder, and even if the case was closed they could always open it again—as soon as someone with enough power demanded it. Laitio’s influence probably wouldn’t be enough, maybe not even the Finnish prime minister’s, but I had to assume I might still be a suspect.

I did my homework for my upcoming meeting with Helena Lehmusvuo. She’d had a seat in the cabinet representing the Green League for ages, since 1995. She was forty-two and had a twenty-year-old son from a short-lived marriage to a classmate during college. Lehmusvuo had joined the Green League while still in school, where she had majored in economics. She’d been the leader for her cabinet group and the vice chair of the Green Party, but so far, she hadn’t been a minister. She had moved from Espoo to Kirkkonummi earlier this year. Lehmusvuo’s remarks often irked various business executives, as well as the Finnish policy wonks who were focused on the country’s relationship with Russia. The newspaper articles didn’t indicate whether she was currently married, nor was this piece of information listed on her cabinet profile page. Instead, I found a wealth of columns, speeches, and essays she’d written. Her doctoral dissertation, which she’d defended a few years back while working as a representative, had been about the effects of the Soviet Union’s collapse on the Finnish economy, and her most recent essay focused on how property ownership in Finland was changing due to an increase in Russian buyers. She’d interviewed Anita for one of her essays before I had started working for her.

Next I ran a search on David Stahl and got about 26,500 hits—his was a common name, it seemed. I started browsing only to discover that the man I had kissed yesterday didn’t even exist according to the Internet, which I had expected. Stahl had said he was a consultant in the construction business, and that could mean anything. I hadn’t asked him to show me his ID card or his passport, as that would have been a bit odd, given the circumstances. Him being invisible on the Internet didn’t really prove anything, not even that he may have given me a false name.

I poked around some more and then tried using the Finnish, Swedish, and Estonian language search engines and checked for images, as well, but came up empty. Honestly, it would have been hard to find anything about me online, either. I didn’t have a website, and I had never created an account on Myspace, Facebook, or any of the other sites that people were using. Despite never having gained immortality among the bytes, I felt alive and important.

I made the mistake of searching for one more name: Keijo Suurluoto. This time, a long list popped up—armchair detectives were always intrigued by true crime. The name Keijo Kurkimäki didn’t produce any hits, which meant that people weren’t interested in his current identity. It was a relief to read that Suurluoto-Kurkimäki had not been pardoned from his lifetime sentence, which had begun in the spring of 1981.

My mom’s maiden name had been Karttunen. She and Jari had no other siblings. Their father had died before I was born, and according to Uncle Jari, their mother had died of sorrow three months after my father killed my mother. My father’s parents had been alive when the murder was committed, but they didn’t want to raise me. After the murder my grandfather had wondered whether the child was even Keijo’s. The thought of being someone else’s child had felt good but, unfortunately, when I saw a picture of Keijo Suurluoto, it was as if my own face were staring back at me.

Uncle Jari had been more of a father to me than any number of Keijo Suurluotos could have been. I had never gone to see my father in prison, nor had he ever requested that I visit him. I guess he was as suspicious about my paternity as his own father was. But his mother had remembered me in her will, so I suppose she had wanted to make it up to me somehow.

My father had siblings, so there was a chance that a horde of unknown cousins was walking around, but I had no interest in meeting them. Someone might put two and two together upon seeing my name, an unusual one for my generation, but I’d let them figure it out. I didn’t need to stay in touch with anyone.

I dropped by a restaurant for a vegetarian pizza before walking the half mile from Kirkkonummi’s business district to Helena Lehmusvuo’s townhome. The sun made a rare appearance, and it illuminated the first yellowing birch leaves. A purple peony was blooming on her front lawn, but Lehmusvuo’s tiny garden looked neglected. The wilted peony blooms hadn’t been plucked away and a dried-up rosemary plant stood in a pot next to the door.

I rang the bell. The lady who came to open the door looked much smaller than she did in pictures. Lehmusvuo’s brown hair was cut short, highlighted with a few dark-purple streaks to bring out the shade of cocoa in her brown eyes. She wore a purple jacket and dark-gray pants, no jewelry or makeup. Her face was ashen, as if she hadn’t slept in days. She let me in.

The townhouse seemed oddly spacious, like Lehmusvuo hadn’t completely moved in yet. There were no curtains on the living room windows—only blinds—and stacks of books and papers were overflowing in every corner. This look of a temporary home was all too familiar: like my apartment on Untamo Road, it was just a place to park stuff for a while. Lehmusvuo asked whether I’d like some coffee or tea, and as I was thirsty after eating a pizza, I asked for the latter. I heard her rummaging around in the kitchen, so to kill time, I went to look at the piles of books that were starting to encroach on the living room floor. The floor was also home to a pile of lumber for a future bookshelf, accompanied by an Allen wrench and a hammer to put the shelves together. Some of the books were in Russian; I recognized the names Akhmatova and Dostoyevsky from the covers.

“Sorry, this place is still a huge mess!” Lehmusvuo called from the kitchen. “I moved here in the spring, which was a very busy time at the cabinet. Then I took a couple of months off in the summer to bike around Italy and France, so I kind of skipped out on working on the place. My ex-husband kept our previous residence and most of the furniture. I didn’t have the energy to start arguing, especially with him threatening to go to the media with crazy stories if I didn’t do what he said.”

“Sounds like a nice fellow,” I said, although I wasn’t sure if she even heard my comment. She came back to the living room carrying a pot of tea, organic honey, a couple of mugs, and some muffins on a tray.

“Spelt, tofu, and organic apple muffins—have one. My assistant Saara is into baking. I’m living a healthier lifestyle now with her around, otherwise I wouldn’t have the time for it.”

Lehmusvuo had delicate, small features, with eyes that looked too large for such a narrow face. In pictures she always had a healthy glow, but up close you could see the dark bags under her eyes. It was the face of a tormented woman. We sat down on the couch together because there were no other chairs around. Lehmusvuo stacked up a pile of books to act as her table and nudged a small coffee table toward me.

“So, you were Anita Nuutinen’s bodyguard. Did she hire you because she thought her life was in danger?”

“She didn’t feel safe traveling alone in Russia.”

“So someone had been threatening her before the murder?”

I didn’t understand what right Lehmusvuo had to interrogate me, and I tried to remember whether Anita had ever mentioned her. Anita’s and Lehmusvuo’s politics were completely different, and I imagined that the only thing they had in common was their interest in Russia and Russians.

“She had enemies.”

“Being a representative comes with death threats and personal attacks; you get used to them. I always notify the cabinet’s head of security and the police about any threat that seems credible. We usually keep quiet about them, lest some crazies decide to become copycats and follow suit. Especially that speech I gave last spring at the Finnish-Russian Chamber of Commerce meeting. Some people were annoyed when I didn’t condemn the way the Russians had invaded the Finnish vacation home market, and some in my own party were pissed off that I didn’t criticize the entire vacation-home phenomenon enough. Then again, I was also accused of hate speech toward Russians. The strangest thing was that all those accusations came from Finns.”

Lehmusvuo broke off a piece of her muffin and ate it. I poured myself some more tea. Politicians were fair game in the public eye; if you didn’t like it, then you shouldn’t run for office. Nobody was forced to join the cabinet. That’s what Uncle Jari had told me, and he wasn’t alone in his thinking.

“Most of the people who accused me online of hating Russians wrote messages from the same server. That doesn’t really prove anything, but after Anita Nuutinen was murdered, I began to receive these messages again. That’s what I find strange. If a drunken homeless man had killed Anita, why would I now be getting threats from people who were interested in her real estate business in Kotka?”

“Kotka? What do you mean?” Laitio had talked about the bidding war Anita and Paskevich had engaged in, and I had gone to Kotka once with Anita. And—the tea suddenly got caught in my throat—David Stahl had told me he’d been there with his boss a few weeks ago. Most likely with our mutual friend, Valentin P.

“I wish I had an answer to that. All I know is that Julinin’s estate is selling her seventy-four acre oceanfront property there. The agent claims they have multiple offers.”

“As far as I know, Anita’s was one of them. It won’t be valid anymore, of course, and I have no idea what will happen to her real estate business. Her daughter won’t be back in Finland until next week. We haven’t agreed on a date to meet yet.”

“I’m not entirely sure it’s just about nabbing the oceanfront property. There must be something else to it. I haven’t notified the police about these new threats yet because I honestly don’t know whom I can trust.”

“Well, I didn’t tell the police about a threat I received after Anita died. The message was in English. This was after I came back to Finland and the murder had supposedly been solved.”

Lehmusvuo stared at me with her huge eyes, like a deer in the headlights.

“But why are you telling me this now? So I should trust you? If so, then my next question is, were you paid to leave Anita Nuutinen alone? Why weren’t you there when she died?”

I looked her over before I stood up. “So that’s the reason why you invited me here, huh? You’re bypassing the police to run your own little investigation. And once the tabloids get ahold of the story, you’ll come out looking like a hero. I’m not getting involved in that game.”

“Come on, don’t give up just because things are getting a bit complicated!” Lehmusvuo’s doe eyes were gone and her voice was harsh enough to convince an opponent to change a vote. “I just wanted to know where you stood. I don’t think Anita Nuutinen’s murder had anything to do with a robbery committed by a random drunkard, and I’m very eager to find out what you know. I’m willing to pay you for any information. And to be honest, I could use someone right now who can make inquiries that I can’t.”

“Have you talked to Chief Constable Laitio at all?”

“Yes. He doesn’t believe the Moscow militia’s conclusions, either.”

“And he told you that someone bought my loyalty?”

Lehmusvuo smiled. “Unlike Laitio, I actually believe that lynx coat story.”

“Laitio told you about it?”

“The police’s interrogation notes become public information once the investigation is closed. Come now, sit down and have another muffin.”

I stared out the window. Through the blinds I could see a small yard with badly overgrown grass. There was a lonely apple tree; some of the ripening fruit had already fallen to the ground. The paint was peeling off the picket fence. A flock of small birds was resting there; they were in the middle of their choir practice. Helena Lehmusvuo’s residence wouldn’t be featured in a design magazine anytime soon. What did she want from me, anyway? I flopped onto the couch and continued drinking tea. I might as well stick around to hear what else she had to say.