Wolves and Angels (23 page)

“No, Taru.”

“Could the boys be jealous about that?”

Koskinen omitted that he was the worst of them in that department. Kaatio had also been interested in Taru, and at times they had strutted around like male wood grouse trying to outdo each other in her eyes. Pekki must have at least secretly looked at the department’s single and attractive secretary too, although he had concealed it with his endless
blubbering.

Emilia made a few other snap analyses of Koskinen’s workplace and then began dispensing advice: “You should get the group together and deal with the issue honestly and directly. You have to talk it out. There aren’t any easy tricks.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Koskinen said, knowing he’d never do it. “Thank you for the advice.”

“Don’t mention it,” Emilia replied and then thought for a moment. “How are you doing…I mean how are you
really
doing?”

“It’s just the same old circus. Nothing more than that. We have two cases open: a homicide and an assault.”

“You’re still the same workaholic,” Emilia said, sighing. “Doesn’t anyone else there know how to solve crimes… And
Tomi
said you’ve los
t
a lot of weight too. Be careful not to kill yourself working so much. A person has to have other things in his life besides work.”

Emilia’s sermon made Koskinen’s temper rise. He remembered what Pauliina had said about keeping his priorities straight and opened his mouth to say something spiteful. However, no words came out, and Emilia changed the subject.

“It must be over a year since we saw each other last. Was it at
Tomi
’s graduation?”

“I think so.”

“You should come visit sometime.”

“Visit?” Koskinen was taken off guard. Emilia was asking him to come visit. What did that mean? Another chance? He was already warming up to the idea when Emilia clarified.

“You used to be such a regular.”

“Oh, at the library?”

“Yes, what were you thinking? We have a few new Finnish mysteries, even one good one from a local author. I could hold them behind the counter for you and—”

Koskinen interrupted. “Thanks, but I doubt I’ll have much time for reading in the near future.”

“Of course not.” Emilia sighed again, more deeply than before. “Where does all your time go?”

“I’ve started running.”

“Yes,
Tomi
said that. You really couldn’t come up
with anything else?”

Koskinen didn’t answer. He knew that no matter what pastime he mentioned, from nuclear physics to stock market investing, Emilia’s answer would have been the same:
couldn’t
you come up with anything else?

They were quiet for a long time.

“Thank you for calling, Sakari,” Emilia finally said. “It was lovely. And I really mean that. You were the most important person in my life for over half of it after all.”

The call ended, and Koskinen was left staring at the beeping handset. He set it down and rested his head in his hands. It was no use trying with the paperwork anymore; he knew he wouldn’t be able to get into it.

He decided to end his work day there. The others could pick up where he had left off. Pekki had probably already given instructions to Riipinen, who was doing the night shift. He was one of their most experienced and best investigators. And besides, the team would need to be rested and sharp-minded for tomorrow; they would be much more productive rested rat
her than just grinding away non
stop.

Koskinen realized that he was
justifying
his actions to himself. He stood up and started pulling his clothes off with angry movements. He didn’t need to explain himself to anyone—he was the lieutenant—the one who got to leave work whenever he felt like it.

He hadn’t even started putting on his cycling clothes when Milla waltzed into the office without knocking, with a thin stack of papers in her hand. She stared at him standing there in his underwear for three astonished seconds. Then she let out a shrill shriek and ran back
into the hallway. The door slammed shut, though Koskinen could still hear the receding scream.

Koskinen dressed while wondering whether what had just happened could be classified as sexual harassment, and if so, in which direction. He pulled his windbreaker on, took his backpack out of the closet, and walked out.

He stopped at Milla’s door on the way out. “What did you want?”

Milla’s round face was still burning red. But Koskinen’s fear of being accused of harassment was groundless. Milla took the stack of paper from her desk and waved it in the air like a fan.

“These interview transcripts for the Nyyrikin
Street
case were done all wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“Wrong!” Milla proclaimed. “This Vaittinen guy is obviously guilty, since he’s beaten his wife before. And now we’re about to let him off scot-free.”

She threw the papers on the desk and pointed at the top one. “These came back from the prosecutor saying that they aren’t going to file charges.”

Koskinen put his backpack down on the floor and explained patiently: “Our job is just to investigate what happened. We write up a report and send it to the prosecutor’s office. They decide if they
will
press charges or not, as with this Vaittinen character. The decisive factor in it was the statement given by the neighbor. He saw the wife fall on the stairs while intoxicated and injure herself.”

But this didn’t seem to take the wind out of Milla’s sails. “He got the neighbor to tell that to the police. Mark
my words! If it were me, I’d give him at least five years!”

Koskinen glanced at his watch. “What are you still doing here? Your shift ended an hour ago.”

“There’s so much work that I haven’t had time to do it all. And I still have two of these case files left.”

Koskinen shook his head. “How about not wasting your time thinking about secondary things like what we were just talking about?”

Milla looked at Koskinen, abashed, and scooted her chair closer to the computer. “But no one should get to beat his wife.”

“You just do your work and don’t think too much. That’s not your job.”

Milla swiveled her chair around demonstratively, turning her back to Koskinen and putting her jaw in the air, obviously miffed. The antenna on her hat was aimed right between Koskinen’s eyes.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Koskinen said conciliatorily and picked up his backpack off the floor.

He didn’t want to hang around anymore wrangling with anyone else. He had enough to think about as it was. The phone conversations he had had with Taru and Emilia wouldn’t leave him in
peace—t
hey nagged at him the whole bicycle ride back to Hervanta to his apartment.

Over the course of the evening he just kept feeling worse, and he didn’t know who was causing it, Emilia or Taru. Ulla and her incomprehensible sulking loomed large as well. It was strange how the women he liked the most were the hardest to understand.

It was already dark whe
n Koskinen headed out for a
ten-
mile jog. Running made him feel better immediately. He kept a fast pace, jogging the four miles along the walking path next to the highway
toward
Lake Sääksjärvi
,
and then turning back once he reached the bridge over the freeway and headed back along the same route. Toward the end he poured on more speed, surprised at how effortlessly he was running. He was sweating, his muscles had become supple as they warmed up, and he panted in time with his running: one long breath in
—
two quick out. His breathing sound
ed
like a well-tuned steam engine
—
huuh hu-huu, huuh hu-huu.

It was like repeating a mantra during meditation.

His thoughts galloped along, completely clear, making his mental work just as easy as the running. Taru’s telephone call was still foremost in his mind. He thought about Emilia’s suggestion to bring the bullying up with his whole team. He knew how Pekki and Kaatio would react:
c
an’t he take a joke, and so on.

Koskinen wasn’t going to solve this problem by talking. He simply wasn’t good enough at it. Emilia had always criticized him for his lack of conversation skills, saying that she might as well have married a mute.

But Koskinen still didn’t think it was a defect worthy of divorce.

He sped up, pushing himself to the limit. He felt pain in his thigh muscles and burning in his lungs—one long in
—
two quick out, exorcising his anguish once again through sweat and agony.

At the next intersection, he decided to continue straight along the highway and ran another half mile to Näyttelijä
Street
. He had been avoiding this area since the divorce, and hadn’t been by the old house in almost
two years. It ha
d
been too painful. He turned left at the intersection and came to a stop on the same corner where Sopanen and Saari had seen the wheelchair.

Young birch trees with wrinkled pine trees farther in covered the area. All sorts of junk and trash had been dumped in the trees: a car battery, a tattered armchair, and a broken mountain bike. Koskinen thought about why the wheelchair had been thrown here in particular.
The killer
could
’ve
driven through here from the Wolf House
to Peltolammi
where the body had been found
, but it
was
a pretty big detour. But what if the wheelchair had been abandoned
after
d
umping the body in Peltolammi? That could mean that the perpetrator lived somewhere in the Hervanta area.

Koskinen continued on. The brief break had stiffened his legs, and the last half mile was painful. There was also a new thought eating at his mind.

Koskinen had the feeling that this wheelchair murder was going to mean a lot more work.

14.

She knew her killer.

She had been expecting him, sensing the inevitability of her fate. Death smiled at her with crooked teeth, and she welcomed him. He brought her fear and one final indignity. Yet still she did not wish to resist him any
longer.

Nor would she have been able to.

Death covered her face and eyes, but even he could not take her sight. The woman saw all that she wished. She saw herself on the bridge over the fast-moving stream. A smal
l girl with bare feet. In a red-
check
er
ed dress and white bows in her braids. A flower basket hung from her arm with a freshly picked bouquet of oxeye daisies.

Then she had still known how to walk.

And soon she would walk again. She knew it. For years, decades, she had waited for this moment.

She had imagined everything differently, but death was still the same. Liberating, a return home. Soon she would be with her little brother, still wearing his breeches as she remembered him.

Pain tore at her lungs that had been atrophied by disease. But that was only the briefest twinge compared to all of the agony and aching that had cast their shadow over her life. Suddenly the pain was gone. A bright flash illuminated the base of her skull, making her as light as an angel.

In
that moment she took flight.

15.

Friday began with a nightmare. His sleep had been fragmented and his dreams painfully
recognizable
—his limbs wouldn’t work. He tried to run, but couldn’t even make a single step. He was stuck in mud up to his knees. He was trying to reach a woman walking in front of him. The woman would disappear into a dark mist, then reappear and turn to look back. Through a fine blanket of fog shone gleaming red lips in a calm, scornful smile, exactly the sort one wears after issuing a sharp refusal. The face was sometimes Emilia’s, sometimes Taru’s—the familiar features of two women, and yet still so foreign. Suddenly the woman disappeared, leaving only a nebulous haze. Somewhere a telephone rang, and he had to answer it. The woman was calling from the fog, and this would be the last opportunity to contact her.

Koskinen snapped completely awake. His mobile phone continued its stubborn ringing in the entryway. He had left it there the previous evening to charge. The circulation in his legs was poor, and he hobbled out of bed like an infirm old man. After his punishing run the night before, he should have had his ham
mies massaged
. Koskinen just didn’t have anyone to do it.

He tottered into the entryway, glancing at the clock on the VCR on the way. The display burned an ominous red—4:36. A phone call at this time of the morning never meant anything good.

His fears were confirmed when he heard a familiar, flat voice.