He thought about Ulla’s life. What was it like to be the mother of three children and wife of a performing musician? Sometimes Koskinen got the feeling that Ulla was getting tired of it all. A couple of times she had called herself a “single parent by the grace of God.” Their youngest child had just started school. Her husband spent nights playing gigs and slept during the day. Sometimes, when a tour took him farther away, he was gone for up to a week at a time. How long would Ulla put up with that? Would she be ready for a change, and how big of one?
Suddenly Koskinen was angry at himself. He tried to shake these thoughts from his mind and quickly dispense instructions.
“We aren’t going to get anywhere this way. We have to issue a nationwide APB
for
Ketterä. At least we have a description—lanky build, red crew cut, tapered mustache and goatee. And under all those good looks, a wheelchair.”
“I’ll broadcast it,” Pekki said. “But at what priority?”
“One, of course. That way they’ll see it up on the Norwegian border in Utsjoki too,” Koskinen said. Then he thought of something else. “Does Ketterä have any family?”
“His parents live in Nokia.”
“Have we been in contact with them yet?”
“Not yet,” Pekki answered uncertainly. “No need scaring them at this point when we don’t know whether Ketterä has disappeared voluntarily.”
“Of course. But call them anyway and just ask casually if Ketterä might be over there for some reason.”
“It’s already pretty late.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Koskinen said. “If Ketterä hasn’t turned up by morning, I’ll go interview his parents.”
Next he turned to
Kaatio again. “You go to Sotkan Street
in the morning. Go around to all the apartments and businesses with a line of sight to where Laine left Ketterä.”
“Why?”
“You never know if someone might have seen if he was picked up,” Koskinen said.
“Why me?” Kaatio said, wrinkling his nose. “Isn’t that door-to-door polling more Eskola’s kind of thing?”
“Eskola has more important things to do,” Koskinen answered briskly. “He’s going to interview Laine again. After spending a night sitting up in a cell, we might be able to get something out of him.”
Kaatio was stupefied, and Pekki muttered discontentedly.
“That could be a key interrogation. Is
he really
up for it?”
“Of course. Who knows Laine’s movements yesterday better than him? Eskola was tailing him all day.”
Koskinen looked at his dismayed colleagues and asked, with as innocent an expression as possible, “Isn’t that the natural course of action?”
He didn’t glance at the doorway, but guessed that Eskola, standing at attention, had flushed again. This time it was presumably just from pure excitement.
Kaatio, however, didn’t conceal his exasperation. He was already opening his mouth to object, but Koskinen beat him to it.
“Let’s call it a day and hit the sack. Riipinen
will d
o whatever needs to be done overnight. If Ketterä doesn’t show up by morning,
let’s meet back here
at seven.”
“C
ould
we do
eight?” Pekki glanced at his watch. “
Then
I could interview the A
dolf Kantola burglars before the
meeting. They’re being shipped down on the night train from Oulu, and I was thinking of grilling them as soon as they get in.”
“
We
found them? So soon?”
“Yeah,” Pekki answered smugly, as if he had made the arrest himself. “The two of them were sitting penniless and hungry in the passenger hall at the train station in Oulu. I guess they intended to escape to Sweden. But some Oulu cop recognized the poor darlings. For a job well done his prize
i
s a trip down here to the big city; he’s the escort.”
“Good.” Koskinen sighed. “At least we got one piece of good news to end the day. Now I think it’s high time to head home.”
No one had any objections. Their workday had stretched to sixteen hours and drained them all. The room emptied quickly, and Koskinen was left alone. He tried to write a few more summaries in his notebook.
A persistent feeling that something vital had gone unnoticed was eating at him.
It was something he had heard.
During the day someone had said something significant, something that would move the case onward
if only he would have understood its meaning.
He stood up and started walking around the room, a circuit of a few steps between the window and the door. His brain was working in the same rhythm. It was trying to construct some sort of coherent picture out of the discussion they had just had.
The biggest mystery was still the motive, not to mention how different the victims had been. One had been as kind as an angel from heaven and the other had been an embittered jerk. From there Koskinen’s thoughts flowed to the cop shooting Pekki had mentioned.
He decided to follow through on an idea that had just come to him, before it went flat. He called downstairs to the desk, and after a quick search the officer on duty came up with Matias Honkanen’s number.
It was nearly eleven o’clock, which made Koskinen hesitate. But finally he grabbed the receiver with a quick motion of his hand.
Honkanen answered immediately, and Koskinen sighed with relief. At least he hadn’t been sleeping. Koskinen introduced himself and received a faltering answer: “From the Violent Crimes Unit? What’s happened?’
“Nothing,” Koskinen said. “I was just calling.”
“Just calling?” Honkanen repeated with a slight irritation in his voice.
Koskinen also realized how unusual his call was coming at this time of day, and for a moment he had to think about what he was really trying to achieve. An impatient cough came from the receiver, and he started explaining the reason for his call. He wanted to ask Honkanen’s opinion about the psychological changes
after becoming paralyzed. It was related to a case, and unfortunately he couldn’t give any details to an outsider—as a former police officer, Honkanen would surely understand that.
For a while, it was quiet, and Koskinen feared that Honkanen would hang up. And he wouldn’t have blamed him.
However, he received exactly the opposite attitude. “C
’
mon over! It’s better to talk face-to-face than over the phone.”
Koskinen was surprised by Honkanen’s friendly invitation.
“It’s already late though.”
“All the better,” Honkanen said, laughing. “My family’s already asleep.”
“Aren’t you on your way to bed already?”
“No. Late
at
night is the most effective time of the day for me. I get to work without any distractions. And besides, five hours of sleep is enough for me.”
“Well, I guess I’ll stop by then.”
Honkanen told him the address. Koskinen scribbled it in his notebook. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
He called a taxi to pick him up in front of the station, and was kicking himself the whole way there for not having his bike with him. Hallila was a residential neighborhood built in the middle of the woods, just big enough to keep one beer pub alive, and it was located nicely along the bike route between downtown and Hervanta.
The taxi left him in front of a white single-family
house. Right from the front gate it was obvious that the house had been built with its resident in mind. The grass in the yard was as level as a pool table and a seamlessly laid flagstone path rose almost unnoticeably gently to the front door.
The door opened before Koskinen was able to touch the doorbell. Honkanen sat in the entryway waiting.
“I guessed it was you. This is such a quiet area that we don’t get many diesel Benzes at this time of night.”
He backed up his wheelchair out of Koskinen’s way and looked at him searchingly.
“Yeah, I remember you now. Your beard has grayed a bit, and maybe your hair is a little thinner. You haven’t put on any weight though.”
“Thanks,” Koskinen said, smiling with satisfaction and looking around. The first thing that hit him was how open the house was. The doorways were wide, there was a generous amount of space between the furniture, and there were no thresholds anywhere. Even the light switches were positioned lower than usual.
“Sit down and make yourself at home,” Honkanen said, grinning widely
,
“I’m already sitting.”
Koskinen chose a plush armchair. Honkanen rolled opposite him, leaving a low, pine coffee table between them. On the table was a portable CD player, headphones, and about a dozen albums in two stacks, with Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan on top.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“Thank you, no,” Koskinen said, raising his hand. “I’m just passing through.”
Honkanen still looked strong; his shoulders were
broad and his arms muscular. His blond crew cut fit his facial features well. They were narrow but still solid. He wore
a
sweat suit and looked relaxed in his wheelchair.
“You had something you wanted to talk about?”
“Yeah,” Koskinen twiddled his thumbs. “I just wanted to ask about a couple of
things.
”
Honkanen noticed Koskinen’s uneasiness. “I know that you can’t talk about your investigation. I graduated from the police academy too, you know.”
“Well, in this case I might be able to reveal a little more of the confidential stuff.”
“No need.” Honkanen flashed his wide smile again. “I read the papers. I doubt I’m too far off in guessing that what you have to ask is about the two homicides this week.”
“You’re not far off.”
Honkanen’s smile faded.
“The news shocked the whole disabled community. If you were sitting in a contraption like this, you’d understand how it feels when you can’t properly defend yourself or run away from an attacker.”
He looked at Koskinen pointedly.
“Your
question
is
something
along
those
lines,
isn’t it?”
Koskinen nodded.
“More or less.” He tried to construct his next words delicately. “Can a disabled person be so dif
ficult and offensive to another so the…
second person
…
just
gets utterly fed up
?”
“Yes,” Honkanen replied vigorously. “You don’t have to be shy about your questions.”
He rubbed his thighs thoughtfully and then started to talk again in a relaxed manner.
“To tell the truth, I’m a little amazed now in hindsight that no one ever punched me in the face. I was a real shithead.”
Over the next few minutes, Honkanen told his own story. He didn’t remember anything of the shooting. His first memory after it happened was waking up in the hospital. He had sensed immediately what was wrong. But still he wanted to hear the truth from the mouth of an expert, directly and without embellishment. The sympathetic and friendly doctor had told him that he was paralyzed from the ribs down with no hope of recovery—the bullet had damaged his spine too severely. The doctor had been hit in the face by the first thing that Honkanen was able to reach on the nightstand. Luckily it had only been a water
cup
.
His bitterness hadn’t ease
d up after leaving the hospital
. Honkanen had spent months in rehab and been a complete nightmare for his therapists and nurses. He grumbled about everything, and even the smallest errors had him calling his nurses whores and bitches. The most peculiar thing about his reaction had been that his bitterness wasn’t directed at the shooter, but at everyone close to him, his friends and relatives, who lacked any culpability for his situation. There had been times when he had despised everything around him that could move.
Honkanen ended his story with a sigh.
“There’s the answer to your question.”
But then he continued again before Koskinen could say anything. “Of course, I was an extreme exception. The majority of handicapped people treat the people close to them with even greater friendship and love than so-called healthy people. But there are ones like me. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if
someone
lost it with
a
s
hithead
like that.”
“But still.” Koskinen shook his head. “These nurses are trained for their
line of
work. Aren’t they taught to treat their clients with long-suffering and understanding?”
“Of course,” Honkanen answered quickly. “Ninety-nine and a half percent probably get along even with the most difficult cases. But as you know, that one
-
half of one percent left over can be found in any profession. Even priests or policemen.”
Koskinen nodded and then looked at the paintings hanging on the walls as he thought. They were all tastefully chosen and all followed the same color scheme. Even with just a minimal knowledge of art he was able to pick out one watercolor from Raimo Kanerva and two winterscapes by Juhani Palmu.