It was already well after ten, Koskinen thought, and correctly guessed his superior officer’s next question: “You’re coming from the shower?”
Instead of answering, Koskinen said, “We’ve identified the body from the Peltolammi case. He lived in an assisted living center called Wolf House. I’m just coming from there.”
“
Via
the shower?”
Koskinen did not reply. As soon as the elevator stopped at the third floor, he quietly walked out, and let Tanse continue his ride up one more floor by himself. If
the captain had any more wise and important questions like the one he had just ask
ed
, he could pick up the phone and call.
Koskinen set his biking clothes to dry on hangers in the closet and laid the towel out over the closet door. Then he started working. First he called Lepola from Patrol and asked him to send out a bulletin about the missing wheelchair. Every cop out on
the
beat needed to keep his eyes open. Next he looked up the handicap taxi
driver
, Ilmari Laine, and called his cell phone. Laine immediately picked up. Koskinen introduced himself and asked Laine to come by the police station on Sorin
Street
to be interviewed.
Laine didn’t respond, so Koskinen continued with intentional dryness: “Check in with the officer at the front desk
,
he’ll tell you where to go.”
It was only then that Laine started talking. “What on earth for? What have I done?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. Be here…
L
et’s say…at two o’clock on the dot. Remember to be on time!”
Koskinen hung up the phone and decided to dig himself out from under the obligatory paperwork that had been piling up. He had a feeling he’d have more than enough work over the coming days. Experienced detectives were in short supply, and despite his lieutenant position, he might even have to participate in the fieldwork.
But he didn’t have anything against that.
He started sorting through the piles of paper on his desk. Most of it was meaningless memos and directives. He collected all that in a pile that was headed for the
recycling bin and started going through the investigation reports. That took three hours. Koskinen had a hard time concentrating; every once in a while he lost his train of thought, and had to go back to the beginning of the page or paragraph. His thoughts kept straying to Milla—how bad
ly
were her feelings hurt? All he needed was for her to quit on her second day or, even worse, complain to the labor rep about unfair treatment. Who knew but that maybe she’d turn the whole thing into a sexual harassment case, like she had warned Koskinen with her very first words.
Koskinen got up and stood by the window. That didn’t settle his mind either. The scen
ery had been permanently ruined—t
he old Kesoil service station had been replaced by TeliaSonera’s new four-story office colossus, obscuring his former view of Lake Pyhäjärvi and Pyynikki Ridge. He used to gaze at the beautiful view while deep in thought or trying to solve some thorny case. Now all he could see was a narrow street and an ugly, uninspiring wall.
He sat back behind his desk and started writing a response to a statistical request from the National Legal Policy Research Institute. However, his work was cut off almost immediately when Milla waltzed through the door with the morning paper.
“Hey, are we investigating this?”
She waved the paper in her hand. She had folded it so the top page was the article about the unidentified body found in Peltolammi. Koskinen smiled involuntarily at Milla’s use of the word “we.”
“Yes. That’s exactly what
we
are investigating.”
“Sweet!”
Milla was radiating excitement, and Koskinen realized he had worried about nothing—
it
looked
l
ike she had completely forgotten the incident a few hours earlier.
“How was he killed? A knife or a gun?”
“Probably neither.”
“Has the murderer been found?”
“We don’t even know if it was a murder,” Koskinen said, trying to rein her in. “And we don’t know much else either.”
Apparently Milla noticed Koskinen’s reluctance to talk about the case at all. She rolled the paper up. “Should we go eat soon? It’s almost twelve thirty.”
“You go ahead,” Koskinen answered as nicely as he could. “I
still got work to do.
”
Milla disappeared into the hallway, and Koskinen continued writing. After an hour, the door opened again. Kaatio and Eskola marched in and sat down without saying a word.
Koskinen glanced at his watch.
“Was five hours long enough to
get anything
?”
“Nothing in particular,” Kaatio said, starting to flip through his notepad. “This
Timonen
, Raymond, as they called him there, seemed to be a pretty happening guy.”
Koskinen lifted his eyebrows questioningly, and Kaatio began to explain.
“Disability was no obstacle to him. He was running all over town even though his legs didn’t work and his arms weren’t that great either.”
“I heard that too,” Koskinen said. “He had an electric wheelchair.”
“Did they tell you where he went in it?”
“Not specifically, no.”
“Raymond spent most nights at the Cat’s Meow.”
“What’s that?”
“A pub in Kissanmaa, about half a mile from Wolf House.”
“Did he go there alone?”
“No, he went with a couple of his pals, both residents at the home.”
“Also invalids?”
“Yep. Although these
other
guys’ arms work a little better
,
and they
can
roll themselves to the bar.”
“Names?”
Kaatio flipped through his notebook for a moment, “Tapani Harjus and Hannu Ketterä. Both paraplegics. I interviewed them separately, and neither of them seemed
too
sorry to hear that their drinking buddy was dead. More like the opposite.”
“Really?”
“They didn’t mince words. Apparently Raymond was a ‘liar’ and a ‘backstabber.’ Just an all-around asshole.”
“Strong words for a fellow victim of fate.”
Eskola had been following the exchange from his chair. He cleared his throat as a signal and said, “There is one other noteworthy fact.”
Koskinen and Kaatio turned their heads in surprise.
“Well, what?”
“Every resident of the building I interviewed felt strong antipathy
toward
Raimo
Timonen
.”
“Why?”
“He had a bad habit of making a ruckus and waking up the whole building in the middle of the night when he came home drunk from the pub.”
“Didn’t anyone intervene?”
“At night there weren’t any nurses around. Sometimes one of the residents would call the janitor from the neighboring building to calm
him
down.”
“The janitor,” Koskinen repeated. “Does he have his own key to the building?”
“Yes.”
“Kalenius forgot to mention that,” Koskinen said, remembering his morning visit to Wolf House. “She said that no one had keys except for the nurses and the residents.”
He made a note—someone would have to go interview the janitor. Then he returned to the previous subject, addressing his words to Eskola.
“That was an important observation you just made—Raimo
Timonen
wasn’t exactly popular at the center. That gives us somewhere to start.”
Eskola’s face was beaming with pleasure and he sat up even taller than before. Kaatio, on the other hand, was shaking his head sullenly.
“I wouldn’t put too much weight on everything they’re saying.”
“Why not?”
“Not one person living at Wolf House is firing on all cylinders. I mean other than physically. One old lady even thought I was asking her to dance.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep. I didn’t even have time to open my mouth before she starting repeating ‘no dance, no dance.’ Her speech was so garbled I just ended the interview right there.”
“I heard that a couple of the residents have problems speaking,” Koskinen said. “You should have asked one of the nurses to help out.”
“The big blond…” Kaatio glanced at his notebook, “…Anniina Salonen. She was there, but couldn’t make any sense of her gibberish either.”
Koskinen recalled his own visit at the center. Kaatio was obviously talking about the same elderly woman Kalenius had been feeding breakfast. She had tried to say something, but Koskinen hadn’t been able to understand a word, and now he started wondering whether he had been spurned as well.
Could long-term disability cause hallucinations? Neurotic escapism from the harshness of everyday life? Maybe that woman was living in the memories of her distant youth when young men fought each other to get to spin her across the dance floor.
The thought was cut off by a knock at the door. It cracked just enough to reveal Milla’s eyes and the antenna on her stocking cap.
“Somebody named Laine is here. He’s asking for Koskinen.”
Koskinen glanced at his watch. It was exactly two
o’clock. Laine appeared to be unusually punctual.
“Ask him to wait a moment,” Koskinen said, and the antenna disappeared. He told Kaatio and Eskola that he was about to interview the handicap taxi driver, and asked whether they had interviewed the resident who had reported seeing the taxi pick up
Timonen
that night.
“Yes,” Kaatio said. “I chatted with him.”
“Did he see the license plate?”
“No, but he still claimed he knew the vehicle.”
“How?” Koskinen wanted specifics. “How could he positively identify it in the dark, at night, just from the tail lights?”
“I asked him exactly the same thing,” Kaatio said. “One of the nurses happened to be there, and she explained that Laine’s rig is the only old
-
fashioned van-style taxi that comes to Wolf H
ouse. The others are newer mini
buses.”
Koskinen shook his head, dissatisfied. “Did anyone know anything about
Timonen
’s wheelchair?”
“No, they all wondered how it could’ve disappeared.”
“Yeah, of course,” Koskinen said with a snort. “It’s unlikely
Timonen
lost it all by himself.”
“Nope, not very likely.”
“Did either of you ask how
Timonen
was paralyzed in the first place?”
“No.” Kaatio shook his head. “Does that matter?”
Koskinen sat and thought. In a murder investigation not even the smallest detail was insignificant. At times something in the victim’s or perpetrator’s distant past could be the decisive connection to present
-
day events,
to their causes and consequences. On the other hand, when the heat was on and manpower was limited, everything irrelevant had to be shut out to save resources. Drawing that line was usually hard, and it was easy to make irreversible mistakes.
The door opened again. Pekki swept into the room and wagged his forefinger at Eskola like it was an earthworm. “Up, boy.”
Eskola obeyed and Pekki collapsed into the chair. He took his glasses off and started rubbing them on the hem of his sleeveless sweater vest.
“I just had a hell of a morning in the Ikuri clothes
-
line jungle,” he said, starting his report. “It’s just strange how little people know about their neighbors’ business… The victim’s name is Kantola. The old man has lived in the house for forty years, but even the people living right next to him weren’t able to say much about him. At least I found out that he has lived the last five years all by himself…since his wife died.”
He put his glasses back on and continued: “Adolf Kantola retired in
’
93 from teaching and has lived the life of a hermit ever since. His neighbors did tell me that he never had visitors.”
“So what happened to this Mr. Kantola?”
Pekki sighed at Koskinen’s question. “If I only knew. The paperboy found him lying bloody in the front yard. That was at 4:50 A.M.”
“Did you find any weapons?”
“No. Nor any motive. At least it doesn’t seem like a robbery.”
“How do you know that?”
“See, Kantola had left his front door open, and the house was full of valuables. Of course, it’s hard to say whether something specific is missing, but at least the paintings, clocks,
and
silver
weren’t of interest
.”
“Any footprints?”
“Nothing in the house, but there were a lot of prints in the yard. Especially between the currant bushes, like someone had been hiding there, spying.”