Darling (5 page)

“Marjaana Vatanen?”
Takamäki checked right off the bat.

The woman nodded.

“I’m Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamäki from Helsinki PD Violent Crimes…”

“Has something happened to Laura?” the woman asked, with her hands on her hips. Then her hands flew quickly to her face.

“I’m afraid so. Unfortunately we have very bad news. She’s dead.”

The woman’s posture crumpled, but her reaction was fairly subdued; she didn’t break down and weep or try to deny it. She let out a sigh and shook her head in disbelief.

“Come in.”

Takamäki
glanced at Joutsamo, wondering if this was a rehearsed reaction, like a killer might have made, but Joutsamo just shrugged.

Joutsamo introduced herself as the officers took off their coats in the entry.

It was a typical one-bedroom apartment. The kitchen was at the end of the entrance hall, the bedroom on the right, and the living room on the left. The place was neat, but with bland décor: a couch, an armchair, a bookshelf, and a TV.

Marjaana Vatanen motioned for the officers to take a seat on the couch, and she took the armchair.
Takamäki noticed a row of medical books on the bookshelf.

The woman took a minute to gain her composure, and asked, “When and how?”

“This morning. She was a victim of a homicide in her apartment,” Takamäki said. They wouldn’t reveal the method yet, as the mother was still considered a possible suspect. Only the police and the killer, and possible accomplices, knew how Laura was killed. As far as the police knew, the mother was the last one to talk with her daughter, on the phone at 8:50 A.M.

Marjaana Vatanen stared at the officers.

“Who did it?”

“We don’t know yet,”
Takamäki replied calmly. “But we’ll find out.”

“Oh dear,” the mother said with tears in her eyes. “She didn’t have an easy life, and it sounds like her
demise wasn’t easy, either. Did she suffer?”

“It was quick,” he replied truthfully.

“How?”

Takamäki
remained calm. “We can’t reveal that at this stage of the investigation.”

The woman nodded and accepted the answer.

“I take it you know about her disability.”

“We have the documents from
Social Services,” Takamäki said.

“Laura lived with me
until two years ago, but then it became unbearable. We couldn’t get along and were always arguing. I suppose I should’ve put up with it. But I felt I deserved a life, too. I spent more than twenty years caring for her.”

“
The killer is the only one to blame,” Takamäki pointed out. He watched the woman’s expressions. Her grief seemed genuine, but you never could be sure. She took the news of her daughter’s death quite matter-of-factly.

“But…maybe it
should’ve been obvious that she couldn’t make it alone.”

Joutsamo joined in. “What do you mean?”

The woman let out a sigh. “Laura got in
volved with the wrong crowd. As long as she had the job at the grocery store, things seemed to go alright. She had a routine, and her life had meaning. But when that ended she had too many hours in the day to waste. I’m a nurse at the Jorvi Hospital, and I tried to get her a job there, but it didn’t happen because of all the red tape. Sixty percent of disabled people capable of working are unemployed. It’s an entirely impossible situation.”

Now that they
knew she was a nurse, the plethora of medical books on the shelf made sense. They also understood the somewhat muted reaction she had to the news of her daughter’s death; sometimes nurses became numb to the feeling of loss because they had to constantly deal with suffering and death.

“So, wh
o did your daughter hang out with?” Joutsamo asked.

“There’s a pub a few hundred feet from her apartment, and Laura liked to go there. I think the bar is called
… Alamo, that’s it.”

“Did she have a boyfriend?”

“I suppose they were drinking buddies, nothing more. Laura always had trouble accepting people. The smallest things would turn into big problems. That’s what taxed me, too. Oh, poor Laura.”

“T
he guys from the bar?”

Marjaana Vatanen buried her face in her bony fingers and whimpered something that
Takamäki and Joutsamo interpreted as a yes.

“What were their names?” Joutsamo continued.

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” the mother sighed.

“A few more questions. When did you last see your daughter?”

The woman lowered her hands away from her face. Her eyes were wet.

“This morning when I went there to clean, like I do once a week. At first I did it almost daily, but for the past year only once a week. I got there around nine and it took me about half an hour.”

Suddenly the woman realized the time connection.

“Oh my heavens, what time was she killed?”

“We don’t know the exact time, but sometime in the late morning,” Takamäki said.

“You left the apartment at 9:30?” Joutsamo asked.

“Around that time.”

“According to phone records, you called Laura at 8:50. Did the call have to do with this visit?”

“Yes. I always called just before I got there.”

“How was Laura acting this morning? Was she expecting anyone or did she talk about anything?”

“No… Some beer cans and wine bottles were in her apartment, but I threw them out in the trash. I commented about her lifestyle, but she wasn’t listening. On the other hand, she didn’t get mad this time like she sometimes would,” the mother recounted, her voice cracking. “But she didn’t mention anything about a threat, nor did she seem nervous. At least I didn’t notice anything. It was the usual, cleaning and such. I checked on her, too. Of course she should’ve done the vacuuming herself, but I didn’t mind. This way I could see her regularly. It used to be every day, but I felt once a week was good. Oh god… This can’t be happening.”

“By the way, did you make coffee in the apartment?”

Marjaana Vatanen looked puzzled. “What? No, I don’t drink coffee.”

“One more thing. We’d like to get your fingerprints and a DNA sample,”
Takamäki said quietly.

“What for? Am I a suspect?” the woman asked, confused, and with anger in her voice.
Takamäki understood her reaction. This was always hard in the moment of grief.

“You’re no
t a suspect, but this will help us eliminate some of the fingerprints in the apartment. We’ll know which are yours and which belong to someone else who’s been there—perhaps the killer.”

The woman relented and Joutsamo took prints of both of her hands. Then she swabbed the inside of the woman’s mouth for a DNA sample.
It took about five minutes. Takamäki handed the woman a piece of paper with instructions on how to get help in coping with her loss, and told her she would be asked to come to the police station for official questioning in the next few days.

“Did Laura have a computer?” he asked.

“No. She had trouble controlling her fingers and couldn’t type. I thought maybe she could try one of those iPads—it might have been easier.”

“What about money or anything else valuable?”

“No, Laura didn’t have anything like that.”

The officers put on their coats and said goodbye. Once they were outside,
Takamäki asked, “You think she did it?”

Joutsamo looke
d at her boss. “Doubt it. The frequent arguments might be a motive, but sounds like she regrets making her daughter move out. I didn’t detect any straight-out lies. I glanced in the kitchen, too. There was a teapot, but no coffeemaker, so I guess she was telling the truth about the coffee. Alamo Bar could be a significant lead; the neighbor lady also mentioned hooligans and creeps.”

The officers
treaded the slick sidewalk carefully back to their car at the corner.

“So far Marjaana Vatanen is the last person we know to have seen Laura alive,”
Takamäki said and pulled his phone out. He had something to tell Suhonen.

CHAPTER 4

WEDNESDAY, 7:00 P.M.

N
ӒYTTELIJӒ STREET, HELSINKI

Mikko Kulta rang another doorbell. After no response, he pushed the black button on the door again. Still nothing. Kulta drew a small line next to the door number in his notebook to remind himself that people in that apartment hadn’t been questioned and he would need to come back later. He stepped to the next door and rang the bell.

Even though chances were slim they’d find
out anything valuable, the footwork had to be done. Kohonen and Nyström were doing the same in the buildings on the other side of the street. You never knew what might come up. They had no tips from the public, since the case hadn’t hit the media yet.

It was seven o’clock and most people
should be home. Those with daytime jobs would be no help, as the crime was committed in the late morning hours. But retirees, mothers with young children, and the unemployed were likely at home in the morning.

So far,
Kulta hadn’t found out much. A young mother out with her baby had seen an elderly, skinny lady go into the apartment building and come out half an hour later. The young woman said the lady drove a small blue car, but she couldn’t remember the license plate. Kulta didn’t know if it had anything to do with Laura Vatanen’s murder, but he made a note of it. When he wrote down the young woman’s contact information, she worried about what she was getting mixed up in.

The do
or opened a crack until the safety chain stopped it, and Kulta saw a teenage girl with messy hair and sleepy eyes.

“What is it?” the teenager hissed.

“Sorry to disturb you. I’m Mikko Kulta from the Violent Crimes Unit.”

“Fuck, I’m not talkin’
to the cops,” the girl said and yanked the door shut.

And a good day to you, too, Kulta thought, as he made a plus mark by the
door number in his notebook and stepped to the next door.

Kulta had
first stopped by the custodian’s apartment to get his fingerprints, but the guy wasn’t there. When he tried to call the maintenance office, the call automatically transferred to someone else, and they didn’t know Jorma Korpivaara’s cell phone number. His number wasn’t in the phonebook, either. Kulta would have to check back at Korpivaara’s apartment later.

He went on with his rounds
—information was scarce. Some knew what Laura Vatanen looked like but they didn’t have other details. Finally Kulta went back to one of the doors where no one had answered before.

A man around fifty opened the door. His hairline had migrated to the back of his head.

“Yes?”

“Mikko Kulta from
the Violent Crimes Unit. I have a few questions.”

“What in the world for?”

Kulta smelled chicken curry wafting from the apartment and suddenly realized he was famished.

“Were you at home this morning?”

“No, at work. I left at eight,” the man replied, confused.

“Was anyone else home at that time?”

“No, I live alone. What’s this about?”

“We’re investigating a crime tha
t took place nearby and asking for any observations,” Kulta said and thanked the man. The door closed, and Kulta marked a small plus by the apartment number in his notebook.

* * *

Suhonen got a ride to North Haaga from Toukola, a colleague in the Narcotics Unit. Suhonen’s Harley had been in the garage in Vantaa for a couple of months, and a motorcycle wouldn’t have been appropriate for this gig anyway.

Suhonen and T
oukola had worked together many times. Toukola was a slight-framed, weasel-like man who played bass in the Narcotics Unit’s band. For the entire ride he talked about his new instrument, bragging about its fine sound. Suhonen had nothing to say. He had owned an acoustic guitar once and learned a few chords, but that was the extent of his music hobby.

The forty-year-old undercover detective had long hair and a messy black beard
, and he wore a leather jacket. Showing up at the North Haaga strip mall on an American motorcycle, or any American-made car, would’ve made people think he was a biker gang member. Today Suhonen didn’t want that. The gang image scared people and Suhonen wanted them to talk. He softened his appearance with a baseball cap that made him look like a geek. Juha Saarnikangas had brought him the cap from a trip to Minnesota the year before. On the front of the navy blue cap were the red letters for the Minnesota pro baseball team, Twins. Nobody knows how Juha Saarnikangas, who had a number of drug-related convictions, had gotten to the States and what he had done there. Nonetheless, he had disappeared from the crime scene in Finland. Rumor had it that he’d come into some money and was living in Thailand. The same rumors kept making the rounds about him hitting pay dirt in some con job relating to fine art in the U.S.