Raid and the Blackest Sheep (9 page)

    
Raid pulled over at a bus stop.

    
“Think I… Got a little overexcited… Well worth it, though…”

    
Nygren began to shiver.

    
“Why’s it gotta act up now…”

    
Raid reclined the passenger seat to a nearly supine position and spread a felt blanket over Nygren.

    
“I feel better already,” he said, though he didn’t look it.

    
“You sure you can manage?”

    
“Can’t stop now… The fun has just begun. Let’s stick with the original plan.”

6.

On Thursday morning, Jansson decided to stay in bed.

    
They had stayed at the Millhouse Tavern until last call. After Anna’s departure, Huusko had turned to the bottle for comfort. The fact that the relationship wasn’t going to be revived was finally hitting home for him.

    
The conversation between Jansson and Huusko had centered around one topic: women. Huusko rattled off his heartaches one by one. He confessed to having changed his attitude toward women after his wife left him when he was recovering from the gunshot.

    
Jansson had championed the female cause and kept Huusko’s generalizations at bay.

    
As the evening wore on, Huusko had softened up, and when the band finally struck up at nine, he was ready for a new conquest. He focused his efforts on a woman at the neighboring table who turned out to be a Finnish language teacher at the local high school.

    
In the end, Jansson wound up heading back to the physical rehab center alone. Huusko headed for the woman’s nearby home.

    
The decision to stay in bed had nothing to do with a hangover. Having only drunk moderately, he felt reasonably alert. He simply had no desire to submit to the hazing of another physical therapist: “Doesn’t Jansson’s back bend? Jansson, tuck in your belly. Jansson, breathe deeply…”

    
He was an adult, and known as a deliberate man. He knew how to take care of himself and his body. And even if it wasn’t in tip-top shape, it got him where he needed to go.

    
His final reason for staying in bed rolled in with the weather. The first real fall storm was raging outside. Jansson had opened the window as far as the latch allowed, taken a blanket out of the cabinet, and wrapped it around his shoulders. He enjoyed the gusts of wind as they banked off the window and swept across his face. The light patter of rain on the window sill only increased his pleasure.

    
Jansson began to doze lightly. He was unruffled by the subconscious knowledge that breakfast was sailing past: an assortment of fish, hard-boiled eggs, low-fat cheese, whole-grain bread, high-fiber muesli, and herbal tea. Jansson disdained all of them.

    
He felt the same triumphant joy that he had as a child, after exaggerating his ailments to his parents and getting permission to stay home from school. His brother and sisters always stopped by to drop a few jealous comments, but he only burrowed deeper into the softness of his bed. Mom always came to give him a kiss and dad smoothed his hair with his coarse hand.

    
Then the two went to work at the factory.

    
His father had occasionally suspected that Jansson would become an everlasting sloth, but becoming a police officer had changed him completely. Jansson had become extremely conscientious. If he were ill with a fever under 102°, he still stumbled into work. For over thirty years, he had taken care of his job without once shirking responsibility. Now, it seemed he could allow himself to take things a little easier again. He didn’t have to lie to his mother and father, nor explain to the overzealous therapist. It was enough that he said what he did and didn’t want. He wanted to sleep and listen to the wind and rain.

    
A knock came at the door, and though Jansson heard it, he resolved to ignore it.

    
“Wake up, it’s Huusko!”

    
Jansson pulled the blanket over his head.

    
Huusko just thumped harder.

    
“Everything alright?”

    
Jansson peeked out from beneath the blanket.

    
“Yeah.”

    
“You have a hangover?”

    
“Let me sleep.”

    
“Open the door.”

    
“No.”

    
“You sure everything’s alright?”

    
“Yes. Go away.”

    
“Come on. Let’s get some breakfast.”

    
“No.”

    
“What’ll I tell ’em?”

    
“Whatever you want.”

    
“And you’ll take the rap for it?”

    
“Go away!”

    
Jansson banished Huusko’s visit from his mind and sank once again to the verge of sleep.

    
Over thirty years as a cop with ten more years till retirement, and he was already sick and tired of this line of work. There had been countless mornings when he would have rather stayed in the warmth and comfort of his bed, but had forced himself to get up and go in.

    
Jansson opened his eyes.

    
Why don’t you quit then?

    
It seemed to Jansson that the question was posed by a second self hiding within—one braver than the first.

    
But the first wasn’t about to cave.

    
Grown-ups have to take responsibility. Adults don’t give up when it’s not fun anymore. Life ain’t no joyride. Boredom and suffering are part of the deal.

    
You’ve already been dealt your share of that.

    
This was not Jansson’s first such internal battle. Every time he was called to investigate a death at somebody’s home, he had fought a similar one. In a city the size of Helsinki, hundreds of deaths with no criminal involvement occurred in homes every year: a middle-aged man goes to bed after reading the newspaper, kisses his wife and rolls over, never to wake again. At least not in this place or time. As he drifts off to sleep, he’s oblivious to the fact that he’ll never again taste the fresh coffee his wife makes in the mornings, never smell the fresh ink on the daily edition of the
Helsingin Sanomat
. To Jansson, it didn’t seem fair. A person should get some kind of final warning, he thought, a chance to settle up with themselves and others.

    
Just two weeks before coming to physical rehab, Jansson had been the on-duty lieutenant on a particularly quiet evening. To burn some time, he had gone to investigate a body found in an apartment in Töölö. The man had been dead for a couple of days. His son, a college student coming home to visit, had found the body.

    
Jansson had noticed the name on the door. When he saw the deceased, he recognized him as a friend from high school.

    
Suddenly he had realized that the ranks of his peers were thinning out. The following morning, he noticed that the first thing he read in the
Helsingin Sanomat
were the obituaries. Huusko claimed that reading the obituaries was a sign of surrender. Once it came to that, he had said, it was time to start shopping for cemetery plots.

    
Another knock came at the door. Jansson plugged his ears, but this time it was relentless.

    
“It’s Anna. Huusko’s worried about you and I promised I’d come have a look…”

    
Jansson got up and wrapped the blanket around himself. He opened the door a crack. Anna was wearing a white pant suit. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, lending a somewhat more girlish look than the previous evening.

    
“Nothing to worry about. Just tired…”

    
“Can I come in anyway?”

    
Jansson stepped aside and opened the door. A large mirror hung in the entry and he realized how laughable he looked swaddled in his blanket. A single feather for his head and he might have passed for a balding Indian chief.

    
Jansson took a seat on the bed and gathered the blanket into his lap. He had a nagging suspicion that he looked no less laughable sitting on the bed with a blanket in his lap.

    
Anna glanced at the window. The wind was tossing the drapes nearly sideways.

    
“Can I shut the window?”

    
“No.”

    
“You wanna freeze to death?”

    
“Sounds good.”

    
She sat quite naturally on the edge of the bed.

    
“Feeling a little down, I guess?”

    
“Just thinking… And I like the wind and rain.”

    
“You should join us… Did I offend you somehow?”

    
“No.”

    
“Some people don’t like to be bossed around, but it’s part of my job.”

    
“I suppose so.”

    
“Will you come later?”

    
“A little later.”

    
“Glad to hear you’re not contemplating suicide…”

    
“Nah. Just in a contemplative mood.”

    
Anna realized she was toying with her ring, and she set her hands firmly in her lap.

    
“Has Huusko said anything about us?”

    
“A little.”

    
“We got involved in a relationship while he was recovering from a gunshot wound…”

    
“You’re both adults.”

    
“It wasn’t real… I felt pity for him… Close to dying and his wife leaves him… I don’t understand women like that…”

    
“But you… Your relationship helped him.”

    
“It still wasn’t smart… My own life was messed up too… Now everything’s finally back in order, at least sort of. I wouldn’t want to mess it up again…”

    
“With Huusko?”

    
“Yeah…and I doubt he’s ready for a relationship anyway.”

    
“Best if you’re frank with him… Or would you like me to say something?”

    
“I’m a grown-up. I have to handle my own problems.”

    
“Same goes for all of us.”

    
“But thanks anyway.”

    
As she gazed at Jansson, her serious expression melted into a smile. Jansson could see why Huusko was obsessed, even if his type was usually younger. Anna had a rare blend of warmth and sexiness.

    
She was just the type that every young man would love to lose his boyhood to. Without fear, and without guilt.

    
“Mind telling me what you’ve been thinking about here all by yourself?” She smiled wryly. “In the blowing wind and pouring rain.”

    
“A boring man’s boring personal matters.”

    
“You’re not boring, much to the contrary.”

    
“Boring personal matters, then.”

    
“I’d still be interested.”

    
Jansson considered lying, but decided to tell the truth.

    
“Just wondering how I’ll ever make it to retirement when I’m already tired of being a cop.”

    
“I understood from Huusko that police work was your calling.”

    
“It was…and still is sometimes.”

    
“You do important work, you’re valued, and you’re in a leadership position. For most that would be enough.”

    
“I’m fifty-four. If I ever wanted to do something else, now would be the time.”

    
“Like what?”

    
“Move to the country and raise chickens. Or to an

island in the Gulf of Finland and fish for a living… Fix up old cars…”

    
Anna laughed.

    
“Good choices. But you’ve got thirty years of work that you enjoy under your belt. That’s nothing to sneeze at.”

    
“What about you?”

    
“I’d have been a pediatrician or an architect… I guess I wasted a lot of time when I should have been soul-searching.”