Raid and the Blackest Sheep (25 page)

    
Hiltunen was dumbfounded.

    
“Deal?” Nygren asked again.

    
Hiltunen decided to risk it. He couldn’t think of anything in the proposal that could worsen his current predicament.

    
“Deal.”

    
“The money will be in your account tomorrow.”

    
Nygren gulped down the rest of his coffee and got up.

    
“Thanks for the coffee. We’ll be on our way.”

    
Hiltunen walked them out to the car. He took off his cap and offered his hand to Nygren.

    
“Thank you.”

    
Nygren shook his hand.

    
Hiltunen shook hands with Raid as well.

    
As they drove away, Hiltunen stood in the middle of the lot and beheld his future domain. He stood so straight he seemed four inches taller than when Raid and Nygren had arrived. Raindrops pattered onto his slick shoes, and with nothing to cling to, they slid onto the concrete.

* * *

Nygren sat in the back seat reading a tabloid. His mood was buoyant.

    
“Who is this Hiltunen?” asked Raid.

    
“Someone I met in prison.”

    
Raid drove for ten minutes without saying a word. Nygren folded the paper and set it aside on the seat.

    
“You’re wondering who he is?”

    
“Yeah.”

    
“Hiltunen’s the boy with the too-big shoes.”

18.

Jansson and Huusko arrived in Oulu at about six in the evening. On the way, Huusko had broken the speed limit about a hundred times. Actually just once—for the entire trip.

    
Jansson was bothered by the fact that they had abandoned the rehab center. He felt like a fugitive with a stiffer sentence in store once he was recaptured. Huusko didn’t seem a bit bothered.

    
“Don’t worry about anything today that you can worry about tomorrow,” Huusko said.

    
To Jansson’s surprise, Huusko disclosed a bit from his closely-guarded past.

    
“Once when I was about ten, I had to go to a summer camp with my brother, but all I ever wanted was to spend the summer in town with my buddies. After a week, I’d got my fill of homemade yogurt, barley flour, and dill beef stew, so a friend and I decided to run off. We only made it a few miles before getting caught. Ended up thumbing a ride from the camp director. The guy was so crafty he’d taken somebody else’s car so we wouldn’t recognize it. This has the same feel to it.”

    
The Oulu police station was on Railway Square, in the heart of the city. Huusko parked hastily next to a squad car. He tugged up the squeaky emergency brake and was out of the car in no time.

    
Jansson was tired and dazed, even though he’d been napping most of the trip. He climbed stiffly out of the car and bent over to get his jacket out of the back seat.

    
They rang the door buzzer and the door clicked open. Jaatinen, the lieutenant in charge of the Rusanen murder investigation, was waiting in an upstairs conference room. The table was set with coffee and sandwiches. A couple members of Jaatinen’s team were also there. Everybody shook hands.

    
“We’ll be getting a few more of you guys shortly,” said Jaatinen.

    
“What do you mean ‘more of us?’” said Jansson.

    
“Lieutenant Kempas and a couple other men from Helsinki. Kempas called and told us they’ve been trailing these guys for some time. They left Kuopio a couple hours ago so they should get here by eight or nine.”

    
“Super,” said Huusko.

    
Jaatinen detected the insincerity in his voice.

    
“Is there something I should know?”

    
“Nah, inside joke.”

    
“Not many insiders in your circle, then.”

    
Jaatinen gestured toward his two men.

    
“Here’s my own inner circle, Sundell and Heikkilä.”

    
Sundell poured everyone coffee and passed a sandwich tray around. Huusko took a ham sandwich and Jansson settled on a croissant.

    
“I’m glad you guys could make it. If it turns out our two suspects are the actual shooters, we’re in for quite the chase. I know about Nygren, but this other guy is apparently better known in Sweden. Of course we’ve heard of him, but it’s hard to tell if what you hear is fact or fiction. We’ve heard some pretty strange stuff.”

    
“Probably fact,” said Jansson.

    
“Quite the guy then. Sundell requested his file from Sweden, but it hasn’t arrived yet. I’m sure you can help us with the same questions, but let’s start from the beginning.”

    
Jaatinen flipped on a slide projector. He pressed a wired remote and a picture of the crime scene appeared on the wall.

    
“The body was found in the storage yard of Rusanen’s construction company. There was all kinds of junk piled on top of the body, but fortunately some workers picking up a disassembled crane wound up clearing it away. According to our initial investigation Rusanen was shot to death yesterday evening in the trailer located on the property. He was shot once in the head. Nobody heard the gunshot, so it’s possible there was a silencer on the weapon. Rusanen was armed, but he never got the chance to
use it.”

    
“Apparently, Rusanen had arrived there voluntarily, since his car was on the property and it was locked. He was last seen alive at about noon that day in downtown Oulu while leaving his home.”

    
Jaatinen pulled up a slide of the blood-stained trailer.

    
“Did he keep any money in the trailer?” asked Jansson.

    
“Apparently some, but only a few thousand euros. Still, we don’t think we’re dealing with a robbery. We suspect the shooting is connected to drug trafficking. Ten pounds of amphetamines were found under the floor of the trailer, and we’re fairly certain that Rusanen was the drug kingpin for all of northern Finland and even parts of Sweden. He was well connected to the Estonian and Russian mafias. Right now, we’re working with Customs on a case where at least fifty pounds of Estonian amphetamines were brought into the country. The dope’s been coming from Tallinn to Helsinki and paid for with stolen cars and snowmobiles. A month ago, one of Rusanen’s couriers was arrested for possession of five pounds of amphetamines.”

    
Sundell poured more coffee for Jansson and Huusko. Huusko used it to wash down another sandwich.

    
“Fantastic subs,” he murmured.

    
“We’ve received intel that Rusanen’s business was starting to get too big north of the Arctic Circle and he was planning to expand further south. The southerners weren’t too fond of the idea, however.”

    
Jaatinen’s next slide was of the body itself. The victim lay on his stomach beneath a pile of cement-splattered concrete forms. A lone hand thrust out of the heap.

    
“Nygren doesn’t take marching orders from the drug bosses. He wouldn’t be thinning competition on their behalf,” Jansson pointed out.

    
Jaatinen nodded.

    
“I agree that Nygren doesn’t seem to fit the picture, but this other guy fits the profile for the killer. What do you think?”

    
“Maybe. But Raid doesn’t carry out hits for fun. If he kills someone, he’s getting paid. On the other hand, Raid has his own moral code. He doesn’t approve of drugs. Maybe a disagreement just broke out over something and Nygren and Raid were forced to defend themselves.”

    
“Whatever the motive might have been, one of them was there. We have an extremely reliable witness for the Mercedes, which was seen in the vicinity of the storage yard just before the estimated time of death. It’s an almost perfect match. According to the witness, there were two people in the car, but we couldn’t get any detailed descriptions.”

    
Heikkilä jumped into the conversation for the first time.

    
“Rusanen is certainly unpleasant enough that he’d have plenty of enemies. If the car hadn’t been seen, we’d have about a dozen other suspects.”

    
“Unpleasant in what way?” asked Huusko.

    
“Extremely violent. According to our sources, some of his couriers have been forced to do jobs under threat of violence and many have been beaten pretty brutally. He’s also threatened their family members.”

    
“Then I guess the killer did us all a favor.”

    
“You could say that, but only as a private citizen,” Jaatinen conceded.

    
“Have there been any sightings of Nygren’s Mercedes since then?” asked Jansson.

    
“Amazingly, no,” said Jaatinen. “We figured the car would be easy to find, but that hasn’t been the case. It’s apparently been ditched somewhere.”

    
“Who’s the witness?”

    
“There’s a junk yard on the neighboring property. One of the workers was cutting up a car in the yard and noticed the Mercedes. The guy happened to be a buff on old Benzes and recognized the model and even the sound of the engine: a three-and-a-half liter V8, just like Nygren’s. The color matches too.”

    
The next slide was taken at the morgue. Rusanen’s body lay naked on the examination table. Both arms were tattooed from the wrists to the biceps. The bullet’s entry point was clearly visible.

    
Jaatinen continued.

    
“According to Kempas’ theory, Nygren and Raid are plotting some big job. Seems to me they’re on some kind of tour of Finland, but as for why, we still don’t know. In Turku, they stormed into some cult’s church and threatened its leader with a gun. Then they beat up two ex-cons at a service station who were apparently demanding money from Nygren. Next they shot and wounded one of these men on Nygren’s farm, and now Rusanen’s murder. My fear is that things will really run amok if we don’t catch them. Our goal is to gather every possible bit of information so we can anticipate their next move. They’re not moving randomly; they seem to have a clear plan with a fixed route.”

    
Jansson was starting to tire of the same old refrain.

    
“Kempas already knows my opinion, but apparently it doesn’t jibe with his. Nygren’s dying and wants to do some kind of farewell tour. Apparently, Sariola and Lehto found out about it and wanted an advance on their share of the inheritance. Raid and Nygren gave them as much of a whipping as they had to and then continued on their way. How Rusanen’s murder fits into the picture, I have no idea. Maybe Rusanen owed Nygren some money and when he came to collect, Rusanen resisted.”

    
Jaatinen seemed disappointed. He had been expecting something from Jansson that would advance the case.

    
“Kempas thinks it’s possible Nygren made up the story about his illness so he’d have room to go about his business.”

    
“Really? I understand we have confirmation from the hospital about the cancer, so unless Nygren’s bribed the doctor and falsified the lab samples…”

    
“Still, Kempas apparently knows Nygren better than any of us. He mentioned he’s been after the guy for more than twenty years.”

    
“That’s true,” Jansson conceded.

    
A knock came at the door. A younger uniformed officer came into the room with a sheaf of paper in his hand.

    
“We got a fax from Stockholm.”

    
Jaatinen took the papers and started leafing through them.

    
“It’s the file on Nygren.”

    
He dove back into the papers, found something interesting and began reading closely.

    
“According to this, Nygren and Raid met in Sweden. They were suspects in the robbery of a horse-betting track almost fifteen years ago.”

    
“That’s nice to know, but it’s not much help,” said Huusko.

    
“Nygren has an apartment in Stockholm and another in Spain. According to the Swedish authorities, he left for Finland a month ago… He was being treated for stomach cancer in the Karoliina Hospital.”

    
“Can’t these Swedes tell us anything we don’t already know?”

    
Huusko picked out a third sandwich from the tray and poured himself another cup of coffee.