My ex-wife, Heli, opens the door. I haven’t seen her for thirteen years, since she left me for Seppo. I was in the hospital for a few days after getting shot. She never came to see me, wouldn’t answer the phone. When I got home, her things were gone. She refused to ever see me again, or even to speak to me. After a few weeks, I got the divorce papers in the mail.
She’s sweaty, in tight workout clothes, and techno music is playing. We caught her in the middle of exercising. She was a good-looking girl when we were together. Even then, she worked hard at it. It’s difficult to reconcile the image of the girl I was married to with the woman before me. A combination of dieting, exercise and bulimia have taken their toll. She’s tiny, looks old, tired and undernourished, a gym hag with bleached hair and a fake tan, like she was somebody’s idea of pretty once.
She shakes her head and squints her eyes, like I’m a ghost. “Hello Kari, what brings you… ” she looks around, “and your friends here?”
“I have an arrest warrant for Seppo Niemi and a search warrant for the premises. Please step aside.”
She doesn’t move. “Are you fucking kidding me? Arrest for what?”
“I’ll take that up with Seppo.”
She laughs at me. “If you wanted to see how I’m doing, it would have been easier to drop by for coffee.”
“Please step aside.”
“This is a joke, you’re a goddamned joke. Go home Kari.”
She tries to shut the door but I straight-arm it. It flies and smacks the inside wall. “I asked you to step aside ma’am.”
She looks frightened and takes a step backward. The four of us pour through the door. “Valtteri, keep her here,” I say.
He drops into Laestadian-speak.
“Jumalan terve Heli.”
God’s greetings to you Heli.
A pair of men’s shoes are on the floor of the foyer. I pick them up. Size tens. I look around: expensive furniture, expensive everything. A pack of Marlboro Lights sits on an end table. Antti, Jussi and I draw weapons and search the downstairs for Seppo, then we move upstairs together. I open a bedroom door. He’s sleeping naked in a fetal position with his mouth open, the covers kicked off and his hands around his dick. Antti and Jussi come in and we surround him. I snap cuffs on his wrists, he snaps awake.
“Seppo Niemi, you’re under arrest.”
His face radiates fear and sleepy confusion. Then he recognizes me and panic sets in. “Not you.”
I smile at him. “Me.”
“Under arrest for what?”
“You think this is an American cop show? Next you’ll want me to read you your rights. You’ll be given information as provided by law, within the time allotted by law.”
We look at each other for a moment. I think both of us are having a difficult time getting used to what’s going on here. “Can I get dressed?” he asks.
“I can’t allow you to touch anything right now, because I have a search warrant for the premises and I don’t want you disturbing evidence. We’ll get you a blanket out of the cruiser.”
“You’re going to haul me naked out of bed and put me in jail, and you won’t tell me why?”
“A good summation.”
I change my mind and decide not to be cruel. I go through his closets, pull out a suit and a white shirt. They’re still in dry cleaner’s plastic and the tags date the cleaning at before the day of the murder. “Let him put these on.”
I leave Seppo with the others and go back downstairs. Heli is giving Valtteri a hard time about the search warrant. She doesn’t want us touching her things.
Valtteri knew her when they were kids, from church. “I’m sorry Heli, this is the way it has to be. We’ll be respectful and get it over with as quick as we can. Try to be patient with us.”
She turns to me. “You goddamned loser. After all this time, this is the best you can do to get even? It won’t fucking work. You’ll pay for this Kari. I’m going to sue you. I’ll have your job for this.”
Heli and Seppo never married. After she divorced me, she went back to her maiden name. “Ms. Kivinen, we mean to cause you no unnecessary inconvenience, but for the moment this house is considered a crime scene. I’ll release it to you as soon as possible. Please cooperate with us.”
Her face turns crimson as she works herself up. She slaps me and spits in my face. “You stupid sorry fuck. I’m glad I ditched your sorry loser ass so I didn’t have to spend all these years watching you limp around this miserable hick town playing sheriff and making an ass out of yourself. Fuck you Kari.”
I’m surprised that I feel so little upon seeing her again. “Cuff her.”
Valtteri pulls her hands behind her back and pops handcuffs on her. She doesn’t resist. I wipe the spit off my face and rub it on her workout jacket. “I understand that being intruded upon in this manner is disturbing, and for that reason I’m going to overlook this, but if your behavior doesn’t improve, I’ll charge you with assaulting a police officer.”
“Fuck you.”
“When you calm down, I’ll let you get some things if you want them. I hope to turn this house back over to you before the day is out. Until then, I want you to shut the fuck up.”
She does.
Antti marches Seppo down the stairs, looking smart in a thousand-euro suit. Valtteri uncuffs Heli, and Jussi goes with her while she throws some things in a bag. When she’s done, I leave Antti and Jussi to start searching the house, and the rest of us step out into the dark. Snow is drifting down in big flakes almost half the size of my hand. Heli looks at Seppo. “I’ll call our lawyer. This bullshit won’t last long.” She starts toward the BMW.
“Nope,” I say, “that car is impounded. Give me the keys.” She gives me a deadpan look of hatred, drops them in my hand, gets into the Honda beside it and drives away.
I PUT A HAND on Seppo’s head and guide him into the back of the cruiser, then take the driver’s seat. Valtteri gets in beside me. I pull out onto the road between Levi and Kittilä. The headlights bore into the dark and illuminate an icy two-lane road that cuts through the middle of a vast snowfield. It’s like driving through a moonscape.
Seppo is silent. A confession would simplify matters. I watch him in the rearview mirror. “Seppo, why did you kill Sufia?”
He winces, goes stricken, the blood drains out of his face. He doesn’t answer right away. “Sufia who?” he asks.
He doesn’t seem to get it that I’ve already connected them.
“Your girlfriend Sufia.”
Another pause. “I want to speak to a lawyer.”
“You can, after you’re charged. I’ve got seventy-two hours before I have to do that. You’re caught Seppo, get used to it. You’re looking at life and will probably serve twelve years of it. If you confess, maybe show some remorse, you’ll get a lesser sentence. If you can demonstrate that you killed her because of emotional problems or other extenuating circumstances, you could get it down to seven. After the way you butchered her, it shouldn’t be hard to do. That’s five years of your life back.”
“You know I didn’t kill anybody,” he says.
“We can begin that way if you want, but we both know better.”
“After thirteen years,” he says, “now you want to get even with me. Why?”
Some time goes by. I see him in the rearview, working himself up. He shifts in his seat. “I fucked Heli. She loved me instead of you and I fucked your wife. I took her away from you. I won and you lost, and we both know that’s what this is about.”
He’s trying to press my buttons. I think about how Heli looks and acts now. “And what a lucky man you are.”
He goes silent again.
“That was all a long time ago,” I say. “I’m arresting you because the evidence suggests you killed Sufia Elmi, not because of personal animosity. As far as Heli goes, you’re welcome to her. Which did you cut first, Sufia’s face or her vagina?”
He recoils like I just slapped him and clamps his eyes shut. It takes him about thirty seconds to recover. He leans forward, presses his face into the grill that separates us. “I saw you at Hullu Poro with the redhead. They tell me she’s your new wife.”
I don’t say anything.
“She’s a good-looking girl.”
“My wife is off-limits to this conversation,” I say.
“Since you arrested me for no fucking reason except you hate me, I don’t think anything is off-limits to this conversation.”
He struck a nerve, and I’ve given him ammunition. He taunts me. “Is that what this is about? You afraid I’ll fuck her too? In a couple days, when I get free of this bullshit, maybe I’ll pay her a visit. I bet we’ll hook up, what do you think?”
I see Sufia in the cold and dark, naked in the bloodstained snow, staring at me with empty eye sockets. Sufia turns into Kate, her face and body tortured and desecrated. First, my vision goes hazy, then it’s like a swarm of tiny black flies are in my eyes and I hear a high-pitched whirring. My left arm starts to hurt like I’m going to have a heart attack. I manage to get the car over to the side of the road.
I feel like I’m outside my body looking down. The long flat stretch of road and the empty snowfields surrounding it reflect starlight, makes them shimmer a murky silver. Valtteri’s face registers concern. Seppo is sitting behind me, on the driver’s side of the patrol car. I turn around and look at him. He sneers at me.
I get out of the car, unholster my Glock and jerk his door open. Seppo is rigid, stares straight ahead, like he’s pretending I’m not there. I crawl past Seppo and sit down beside him, on his right. I chamber a round in my Glock, put my left arm around him and press the muzzle of the pistol to his temple. “You son of a fucking whore.”
Valtteri gets out of the car and comes around to the driver’s side, gawks at me through the open rear door.
I push the muzzle harder against Seppo’s head. He whimpers.
“The last time I killed a man they gave me a medal and promoted me. If I kill a sick fuck like you, they might do it again. I might even get a career in politics out of it. What do you think?”
Seppo looks out the door at Valtteri. “You’re seeing this, you’re seeing this.”
Valtteri doesn’t say anything. A car comes toward us and flashes its headlights. I left the high beams on and they’re blinding the driver. Valtteri reaches into the open driver’s door and cuts the lights, then stands beside the car and watches me.
“If you ever get near my wife,” I say, “you’re a dead man. You ever even say anything like that again, you’re dead. You say it while you’re in custody, you’ll hang yourself in a jail cell. If a lawyer weasels you out of this and you get near my wife, I’ll murder you on the spot and serve my sentence. Whatever happens, you leave Kittilä and never come back. Put that fucking winter dacha of yours up for sale, because if you use it again, you’re fucking dead. We clear?”
He looks at Valtteri, doesn’t answer.
“I count down from five. You don’t agree to my terms, I blow your brains out.”
He starts to cry.
“Five, four, three… ”
His voice is shrill like a child’s. “I agree, I agree.”
“Too late, you fucking cunt. BOOM!” I shout it in his ear.
Seppo faints and slumps over in a puddle of his own piss. Valtteri and I look at each other through the open door. “Let’s go,” he says, “it’s cold out here.”
I stumble past Seppo out of the cruiser. “You better drive,” I say.
We get back on the road. “If you feel like you have to report what I did, I won’t hold it against you.”
“You did what you felt you had to do to protect your wife. I understand that.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to lie for me.”
“You wouldn’t have to ask me.”
Valtteri is surprising me more and more every day.
10
WE ARRIVE AT THE police station. Valtteri turns off the squad car’s engine. I sit still for a minute and try to compose myself before dealing with Seppo again. Valtteri exits the car before me. “I’ll process him,” he says, and ushers Seppo from the car into the police station.
I get out of the car, light a cigarette and exhale. Smoke and frozen breath pour out into the dark in a great plume. The street is empty and silent. I’m tired. I want some peace and quiet. Hard-packed snow crackles under my feet. Every surface is sheathed in ice and snow. I feel like I live in a vast frozen hell.
I made a mistake threatening Seppo. He made a mistake bringing Kate into the equation. Questioning him will be harder now. I’ll wait, give us both some time. A few hours in a jail cell might make him consider what it would be like to live in one and encourage him to confess.
My cell phone rings and destroys my thoughts. “Vaara.”
“This is Sufia’s father. My wife and I are in Kittilä. We wish to see you, and we wish to see our Sufia.”
I’m still shaken by my confrontation with Seppo and unprepared for Abdi’s call. “Sir, perhaps we could meet at the police station. I could bring you up to date on the investigation and ask you a few questions about your daughter.”
“No, we will not. Where is Sufia?”
I give him the name of the funeral home.
“We will meet there, and in her presence, you will tell me all that you know, how you intend to find her killer, and how he will be punished.”
I don’t want Sufia’s parents to see her ravaged corpse, and I don’t want to see it again either. “Sir, I don’t think that’s for the best. Please consider that it might be better to remember Sufia as she was, not as she is now.”
His voice rises a notch. “Sufia is our daughter. We will decide what is best and how we shall remember her. When can you meet with us?”
I have no choice but to respect his wishes. “I’ll leave for the funeral home right now.”
Abdi and Hudow pull their car up to the front of the funeral home just as I arrive in my Saab. I watch their silhouettes through the window as they step out into the snow. Abdi stands more than six and a half feet tall. Even in his winter coat he looks gaunt, thin as a razor.
Hudow is short and fat. She observes hijab, traditional dress for Muslim women. A loose brown dress hangs below the hem of her coat to her ankles. A scarf is wrapped around her head so that only the outline of her face is visible. Atop this arrangement sits a thick fur hat.