Darling (30 page)

It was 8:
55 A.M., and Takamäki and Joutsamo were waiting in the lobby. A dozen passport applicants were in line, so the officers kept their voices down.

“Suhonen sent me a text message
yesterday,” Joutsamo said. “Salmela will be released from the hospital after the New Year.”

“Good,” Takamäki said. “Salmela is tough. I don’t think he’ll die of a heart attack; I think he’ll either go in his sleep or get shot.”

Joutsamo sipped her coffee from a paper cup she had gotten upstairs.

“Did you hear about Lind?”

“I heard she was recovering,” Takamäki said.

“Physically, anyway. We haven’t been able to question her yet. She’s okay but can’t talk about it. She’ll be spending her Christmas in the hospital, too.”

Kimmo Aarnio was arrested in his apartment in the act of raping Lind. The Forensics team had found Laura Vatanen’s DNA, from her hair and blood, in Aarnio’s washing machine filter. The man had washed his bloodied clothes, but enough DNA had remained.

Maiju Rahkola’s remains also had samples of
Aarnio’s DNA—he would get life in prison.

The mystery of the bloody fabric scrap
s found in the plastic bag from the woods was also solved. The rags had feline blood on them. Aarnio didn’t say anything about it during the questioning, but Joutsamo guessed he had urged his Rottweiler to kill a cat. He had buried the cat in the woods and was bringing the towels to the dumpster when Kulta and Kohonen happened to be there. He apparently used the towels to clean off his dog that had since been put down.

Takamäki and Joutsamo had scrutinized
the mistakes in their investigation. Laura Vatanen’s murder had seemed much too simple at first. They’d missed the new developments in the case and forgotten their motto, “Never Assume,” and replaced it with “Let’s get it done.”

They’d just wanted to solve the case

The police had questioned the tenants further. Sini Rentola-Lammi, whom they found in a drug cave in Tampere, told her story. Jorma Korpivaara was let go four days after Aarnio’s arrest. The whole thing had been in the headlines for a week. Among the most interviewed was Vatanen’s next-door neighbor, the old alcoholic woman, who spoke freely. Apparently her willingness to comment was kindly rewarded by the reporters.

Joutsamo finished her coffee and glanced at her watch. It was one minute to nine.

“What’s this about? Who is this woman? And why does she want us both here?”

“She didn’t tell me her name. She said she’d giv
e us more information if we showed up.”

It was snowing
again outside.

A woman in a beige coat walked through the doorway and into the lobby. Both Takamäki and Joutsamo recognized her immediately: Marjaana Vatanen.

She looked tense as she glared first at Joutsamo and then at Takamäki.

“You set free the men who raped my child.”

The officers were silent.

“Pieces of shit,” the woman spat. “You’ll probably want this on video, but I’ll tell you right off so you know
what we’re talking about. I confess to setting fire to the Alamo Bar.”

The woman paused but the officers didn’t say anything.

“You let the rapists go, so this is on you too,” the woman yelled.

The people in line for pass
ports turned to see the angry woman.

Takamäki grabbed the woman by the arm and said, “Why don’t we go upstairs to talk about this.”

Marjaana Vatanen didn’t resist when Takamäki walked her to the VCU’s glass doors.

“Hah,” the woman laughed. She spoke fast. “Five days. Five days I waited for my chance. Every night in my car, in front of that place. It wasn’t easy… It wasn’t easy. Then finally, last night, they were the last ones to leave.
All the fucking assholes. Korpivaara, Niskala, Rautalampi, and Lahtela. They were the last ones at the bar. It wasn’t even hard. A few drops in the bartender’s coffee and the men’s beer. Hah, not hard at all, not at all.”

Joutsamo opened the door.

“Calm down,” Takamäki said.

“Not hard at all, a few drops were enough. I got the bartender to get some teabags from the backroom. A few drops, I knew that was enough. So-o-o easy… I did feel sorry for the bartender, I really did. I felt sorry for him,” the woman said and laughed.

“Assholes,” she went on. “It’s a shame. What kind of a word is that, anyway? Those men didn’t know that word. The fucking assholes got just what they deserved. A gallon of gasoline and a match. Fucking assholes.”

The woman stopped in front of the elevator and turned to the detectives.

“I don’t understand why they didn’t get put away for what they did to my girl.”

The detectives were silent. The elevator
bell rang.