My First Murder (18 page)

Antti kicked a crushed beer can with the tip of his scuffed shoes and said, “I’m sorry. I just got worked up in the funeral...But I agree with Maisa: Someone in there is a first-class hypocrite. If only I...if only I knew which things were significant and which weren’t.” He looked embarrassed.

“It would be best for you just to tell me everything and then let me decide what matters. Don’t you go trying to play private
detective. And don’t go telling the person you suspect that you and only you know something incriminating. You’d find yourself hanging out with Tommi again—wherever he is now.”

I told him my image of heaven, in which Tommi was living it up with angels that looked like
Playboy
centerfolds. For the second time since Tommi’s death, I saw Antti laugh. The tension in his face relaxed for a moment, and the furrows in his cheeks melted into laugh lines.

“It’s a nice thought, but I can’t make myself believe in any kind of heaven. To me Tommi just doesn’t exist anymore. Period. But not completely, not yet. Despite everything, he was my best friend.”

“Despite what everything?”

“Well, we had slightly different values—and lifestyles—the last few years. I could never understand all of his exploits. He had to live every day like it was his last.” Antti snorted at the figure of speech he’d used. “Maybe he sensed that he wouldn’t be hanging around long. He always claimed he would die of AIDS or liver cancer. But like that hymn says, only the Lord knows how we’ll leave here.”

I wondered what Antti would say if he knew I had read his letter. My attempt to treat people with a professional distance was failing with Antti now too. We had come to the corner of the cross street that led to my apartment, and the rain had begun to come down in earnest. I wasn’t in the mood to get wet.

“Should we go to Elite to wait out the rain?” Antti asked.

“Actually, I live in that green building over there. If you aren’t in a hurry, I could make you a cup of coffee. I don’t have any sweet rolls though.”

“Too bad. I could go for some rolls now,” Antti said with a smirk. “I guess I could try to tell you more about Tommi. Maybe that will help somehow.”

We climbed up to the third floor. I apologized for the mess, though my flat was actually in a remarkably tidy state. It irked me that I immediately started playing the part of a woman for Antti instead of that of a police officer. I made the coffee and put some bread on the table. Thankfully, I had finally found time to visit the grocery store the day before. In the meantime, Antti inspected my bookshelves and plucked at the electric bass standing in the corner.

“On Sunday, you said you’ve known Tommi your whole life.”

“Since elementary school. Just like Tuulia. They were both pretty brave when they were kids. I was the one who was always a little dull and overly cautious, but I read all the adventure books and had good ideas for games. Tommi was a natural leader and organizer. And a showman. He was always a little cold, using people, doing anything to get what he wanted. But you could get along with him if you didn’t give in to him.”

Antti clearly hoped that talking about him would get Tommi out of his system. I let Antti talk without interruption as he reminisced about the choir, about sailing outings with Tommi’s brother and Peter Wahlroos, about incidents that had taken place when they lived together. As I listened, I mentally recorded the picture of Tommi that Antti was sketching: free with money, into conquest and control with women, greedy for power, adventurous, cheerful, selfish.

“Did you have any differences of opinion about his actions, for example with women? Did he ever try to get between you and Sarianna?”

“Yeah, he tried making a pass at Sarianna, but she made it clear there wasn’t any point. No,” Antti continued, as if heading off the question that was on my lips, “we didn’t stop dating
because of Tommi. We just didn’t have anything in common anymore. So much for my motive. That
is
what you thought, right?”

I tried to stop myself from blushing. Despite the relaxed atmosphere, our conversation felt a bit like an interrogation. For some reason, it made me sad that Antti regarded me only as an interrogator, that he didn’t consider confiding in me to be a sign of friendship.

“What about the other women who were already spoken for, like Tommi’s boss?”

Antti smirked and shoved a big piece of bread in his mouth.

“Oh, so you know about that. There was no way Tommi could keep his hands off a classy woman like that, and apparently she couldn’t keep her hands off him either. I got the impression that it was even-steven on both sides.”

“How straight was Tommi being with Pia?”

“I think Tommi was probably more in love with her than he knew himself. I imagine her unavailability played a part in it; it was rare for Tommi not to get what he wanted easily. Pia was a challenge.”

“Did something happen between them that Tommi could have used to blackmail Pia with later?”

“Blackmail?” Antti looked flabbergasted.

“There was a lot of extra money in Tommi’s bank account lately. What if some of it came from the Wahlrooses?”

“Oh, come on. He wasn’t an extortionist...or, what do I know?” Antti stared contemplatively into the bottom of his coffee cup. I poured him the last drops from the pot while he made himself a third open-faced cheese sandwich.

“I imagine he had his ways of making money—under the table?” I prompted tentatively.

“How should I know! This is starting to feel an awful lot like a grilling.”

“You’re free to leave if you don’t feel like answering,” I said coldly.

“Sorry. But this is hard. You are a police officer after all.”

“I am. And I want to ask you some questions. Were Timo and Tommi friends? Or Tommi and Sirkku?”

“Well, there was something between Sirkku and Tommi once, on a trip to Germany a long time ago. They weren’t friends, but they could get along. Timo’s a bit stiff; he wasn’t a fan of Tommi’s style.”

“Tommi and Mira?”

“Once.”

I tried to conceal the interest this bit of information piqued in me.

“Mira’s desperate attempt to make me jealous,” Antti continued. “I don’t loathe Mira the way Tuulia does, but her constant fawning over me has been a nuisance. I’m just not interested in her in that way.”

“There’s never been anything between you?” I hated my own curiosity, but I wanted to know, even though it didn’t have anything to do with Tommi’s murder.

“Well, no. I don’t make a habit of going to bed with girls out of pity. So no motive for me there either. I wasn’t jealous of who Mira was with. I was just angry at Tommi about his tactics.”

“What tactics?”

“You can ask Mira about that. I’ve already said too much about her business.”

Antti looked out the window and must have noticed that the rain had stopped. I could see all too clearly the dark shadows under his eyes and the movement of his mouth, as though he had
started to say something but then stopped short. It bothered me that all I could get out of him were evasive hints. Maybe I should arrest him for concealing evidence, but I didn’t want him to hate me. I obviously had a problem: I wanted to solve the murder, but I didn’t want any of my suspects to be the murderer.

“You were one of the EFSAS auditors. Did you ever see last year’s accounts?”

“Tommi handled them and said everything was in order. So I just signed my name on the report. Why?”

“Well, look at this.” I brought the account ledgers over from my desk and looked for the receipts I wanted. It took Antti, the mathematician, only a moment to find the irregularities.

“You mean that Riku...”

“Evidently.”

“Oh, that goddamn little idiot! Listen, I have to go. My parents are coming by my place tonight to get Einstein and take him out to the country. It’s a bit dull for him in my apartment, and my parents have a cabin in Inkoo where he gets to hunt mice.”

At the door, Antti turned and said quickly, “You ordered me not to play private detective. But don’t you turn this into a game either. We have a hard time treating you like a real police officer, and not all of us even expect you to solve anything. Whoever killed Tommi might be unpredictable. You ought to be careful too.”

Before I had a chance to reply, he was gone. A few moments later, I saw his dark figure striding up the street, hands in his pockets.

I felt miserable and restless. I had thrashed my muscles in the weight room the day before, so vigorous exercise wasn’t an option. Wine would only make me feel more blue. The only
alternative was work. I had plenty of questions, but I wanted to start by talking to Mira. She might already be home from the memorial service.

I traded my funeral clothes for jeans and sneakers, and grabbed a tape recorder and a few of Tommi’s papers. Though it was a bit of a trip out to her place, I didn’t want to call ahead to make sure Mira was home. Surprise was the best strategy. I started walking toward the bus stop, wondering along the way whether Antti had wanted to warn me that he was the one I should be afraid of.

How shall the soul be saved from woe?

Mira was home. Apparently she had just walked in, because she hadn’t yet had time to change out of her dress clothes into something more comfortable. She held a half-eaten apple in her hand.

“Do I have to let you in?” she asked inhospitably.

“No. We can go downtown to the station too.”

Without saying a word, Mira moved aside and let me into the narrow entry hall.

I took off my denim jacket and hung it on the crowded coatrack.

The apartment was quiet. It being Saturday night, Mira’s roommates had probably gone into the city to party. On the phone table was a list of cleaning chores. No doubt Mira watched it like a hawk.

“Let’s go up to my room.”

I climbed the stairs up to the second floor, where there was a comfortable-looking kitchen and two small bedrooms. Mira’s room was dominated by a piano. A white, crocheted lace coverlet was spread over the bed, and the shelves were full of history books. A bright red, half-finished sweater lay on the armchair, and I found myself wondering whether Mira was knitting it for herself. So far I had only ever seen her in dark clothing. Like
other heavyset women, she probably trusted them to have a slimming effect. Perhaps she was thinking of changing styles. Mira snatched the sweater off the chair and motioned me to sit there. Then she sat down on the bed with her knitting and started click-clacking away unnervingly with the needles.

“How official is this interrogation?”

“Unofficially official,” I said and turned on the recorder in my bag. If Mira told me something enlightening, I’d have to rethink my strategy when I got back to Pasila, but I would worry about that then.

“We’ve spoken twice now, but on neither occasion did you tell me the most important thing about your relationship with Tommi. He paid for your abortion last spring at the Women’s Clinic. I’m guessing because he was the child’s father. Am I wrong?”

I had been confused at first when I saw the Women’s Clinic bed charge bill mixed in with Tommi’s tax deduction receipts. There had been no patient name, but there was a date from the spring of the previous year. Tommi’s old calendar had contained an entry that read M WC 18-19 on the day before the payment date. Some notes on the page had included the abortion department’s phone number. The reference in Antti’s letter to Tommi’s “playing” with Mira fit my theory too.

Rage burned in Mira’s eyes. I had clearly hit the mark.

“Of course you had to dig that out! How many people have you told about it so far? I thought that hospitals were confidential.”

“There was a copy of the bill in Tommi’s papers.”

“The fact that Tommi paid for the abortion doesn’t necessarily mean he was the father.”

“So you were such good friends with him that you told him about your abortion and asked him to lend you the money even though you didn’t tell anyone else?”

Mira clutched the red sweater in her hands and then angrily hurled it into the corner. I saw that her hands were trembling. Next to her head, above the headboard, was a large photograph from some EFSAS concert of Mira, Tommi, Antti, Tuulia, and a few others singing in dreadful blue performance gowns. Maybe Mira wanted to see Antti’s picture every night before she fell asleep. Why the hell had I thought working would improve my mood?

“Do you want to hear my theory about how it all happened? You were sitting up one night with the choir like you always do. You were upset because you felt like Antti never paid any attention to you”—at this point my courage almost failed me, since this really and truly was none of my business—“and Tommi didn’t have anyone keeping him company that night. You decided to show Antti what he was missing, and, uncharacteristically, you started flirting with Tommi. But the game went further than you meant it to. Of course you understood that Tommi knew exactly why you were suddenly interested in him. Your infatuation with Antti was no secret. And maybe Tommi even wanted to taunt Antti, to show him how easy it was to have you. What I don’t understand is how you were both so stupid that you managed to get pregnant.”