“No?”
“No.”
“Whatever you say.” Nieminen shook his head.
“Try to see it from Suhonen’s perspective. What does he need?”
“I dunno, lots of meds?”
Partio laughed again. “Anyone who enrolls in the academy could use some meds. We gotta play along with him, so we’ll need some units out here quick. If someone actually hit me, all of Kallio would be blue and white.”
“So we’re gonna report it?” Nieminen asked.
The pair had made it back to the car, and Partio climbed into the driver’s seat. He flicked on the cherries, but left the siren alone. “Not exactly. We’ll call for half a dozen units to look for a ‘drunk driver.’ The night’s young enough that there should be plenty of idle units about.”
“You mean call in a fraudulent report?”
“It’s not fraud, we’re just giving Suhonen a little extra breathing room. Life isn’t always so black and white.”
Nieminen turned on the passenger’s side interior light, flipped down the sun visor and opened the mirror. He craned his neck, looking for the thin red stripe left by the knife.
Partio threw the car into gear and turned towards Brahe Field. He glanced at his partner. “Ugly looking scratch. Where’d you get that?”
“Hard to say,” he said, pausing, “Must have nicked myself shaving.”
Partio smiled.
CHAPTER 22
NYHOLM’S TOWNHOUSE,
NORTH HELSINKI
THURSDAY, 11:33 P.M.
Jouko Nyholm was sitting on his sofa with a cognac in his hand. The flat screen TV was showing late night news. The customs inspector didn’t care about NATO relations; he just stared blankly at the screen.
His wife was out and about somewhere. Nyholm couldn’t decide whether to go to a bar or to sleep.
The living room was on the lower level. Though fifteen years ago the interior was stylish, it had deteriorated along with the owners’ marriage.
The door opened-was she home already? he wondered. It wasn’t like her. When the wife went out, it was usually for the evening, or even all night.
He glanced at the door, it was Kristiina. Laundry day, he thought before noticing her pained expression.
“What’s wrong?” Nyholm asked.
The girl’s blond hair was tangled, and her eyes puffy. She was still crying, but managed the words, “He’s dead.”
Nyholm rose and hesitated, wondering if he should hug her. He hadn’t done that for at least five years.
“Who’s dead?”
She sobbed, “Jerry… My boyfriend…”
She was still wearing her long, pale overcoat. Her hands rested limply against her hips. She began to sob again.
“There, there,” said Nyholm, but instead of hugging her, he laid his hand on her shoulder. He tried to remember how he used to comfort her when she was younger-he had taken her into his lap and combed his fingers through her soft, blond hair.
He helped her out of her jacket and hung it. “Slip off your shoes, let’s go into the kitchen.”
She did as she was told and shuffled over to the table.
Nyholm pulled up a brown wooden chair for her, and Kristiina sat stiffly. He took the chair on the end, and they sat side by side.
“I must look terrible,” she said, covering her face in her hands. The sobbing started again.
“Don’t… Please, don’t cry, Kristiina,” Nyholm said, not knowing what else to say. He got up and plodded over to the coffee table, downed the rest of his cognac, then refilled his glass from the bottle on the table. On a whim, he brought the bottle back into the kitchen, took a glass from the cupboard and poured a generous shot for his daughter.
He returned to the table and set the glass in front of her. “Have some of this. It’ll help.”
Nyholm didn’t think it would actually help, but when the burn of the alcohol hit her mouth, she’d think of something else for a moment.
“What is it?” she asked, then downed it without waiting, spluttering a little.
“What happened?” Nyholm asked.
Either the cognac or the sympathy worked: she calmed down, though her breathing was still intense.
“That lady cop came by today and told me Jerry was murdered… He was my boyfriend.”
“What was…or how did…uh, do you know why?”
Kristiina blew her nose. “They didn’t say…”
“Was Jerry’s last name Eriksson?” Nyholm asked.
Kristiina looked startled. “Yeah. Do you know him?”
“No, not really. But I knew who he was.”
“How? From work?”
Nyholm shook his head. “You should stay here tonight.” He paused before saying, “I know how hard this is for you… But, can I ask you a question?”
“What?”
“How’d the police know to notify you when the two of you weren’t married?”
“W-well, I went to file a missing persons report this morning.”
Damn, Nyholm thought.
“Have another cognac,” he said, and the daughter held out her glass. This time he poured her a double. Nyholm readily emptied his own and poured himself another stiff one.
He reflected on his predicament: only a miracle would keep the cops from figuring out their father-daughter relationship.
There would be questions, that much was certain. He’d have to frame his answers so the truth wouldn’t be revealed.
* * *
Suhonen was sitting on the edge of his hotel bed; Markkanen leaned back in the armchair.
“At least it’s bigger than a prison cell.” Markkanen admired the creamy interior of the Katajanokka Best Western. The traces of a cell could still be seen in the arch of the roof and the shape of the windows. The old pen was shut down in ’02, when new lodging for the inmates opened up twenty miles north. The new maximum security prison was supposed to be escape-proof, but that had already been proven wrong.
It was a fine testament to government bureaucracy that the new prison had been commissioned in 1977, but the construction wasn’t completed for another twenty-five years.
“I’ve spent some time here,” Suhonen explained. “Grim place…filthy…rundown, and you had to shit in a bucket…” Despite its reputation for modern technology, Finland still had prisons where each cell sported a plastic pail for nightly needs.
“C’mon, Suikkanen, when was the last time you felt comfortable in the slammer?” Markkanen smirked.
“…But at least now the peephole looks outward,” Suhonen went on. Though peepholes in the former cells had looked inward, the prisoners had often smeared the lenses with toothpaste.
Earlier that day, Suhonen had reserved a room at the hotel for just this type of situation. He had picked up the key card in the evening and tossed a gym bag of clothes into the room.
The pair had navigated a maze of courtyards and emerged at the Central Fire Station. From there, they had headed toward the Kallio Church. They had seen a half-dozen squad cars with flashing cherries, and had managed to board a downtown bus without incident.
From downtown, they had walked the half mile to the hotel. Although Suhonen had wanted to call Partio to talk about what happened, that wasn’t possible. He was particularly worried about Nieminen’s reaction to the knife at his throat. Suhonen wondered if he should have intervened earlier. The situation had escalated too far, but he couldn’t have anticipated all the potential risks. He wondered whether shit would hit the fan over the incident.
“Well, enough shitting around,” said Suhonen, wondering if there was another test in store. “You said there was an easy three grand for me to earn.”
Markkanen’s manner became serious.
“Right, a real simple job.”
“Shoot.”
“There’s a garage on Tehdas Street with a Mercedes inside. It belongs to someone who needs to learn to pay his debts.”
“Who?”
“I figured you’d know better than to ask a question like that.”