“What sort of company is Baltic Invest?”
Max vacillated a moment before answering: “Decent enough.”
“Even though it’s being investigated in Israel?”
Max was clearly unwilling to discuss the matter, but not responding would have seemed suspicious.
“That’s all just internal politics. The Labour Party is trying to get people to believe it’s the only honest party in the government. Amos Jakov and Benjamin Hararin have been turned into scapegoats.”
“According to the Jerusalem Post, Hararin is Jakov’s stooge, and Jakov’s companies are laundering Russian mafia money. Baltic Invest was also mentioned.”
“No evidence was found. I heard that the investigation had been closed.”
“The paper claimed that Jakov bribed and used his political contacts to pressure the police into ending the investigation.”
“There’s no evidence of anything of the sort.”
I told him that we had found the car the killer had used and figured out who the owner was: Baltic Invest.
The news didn’t fluster Max in the least.
I continued. “It’s been reported stolen. Strange coincidence, wouldn’t you say? I’d like to meet later to talk a little more about Jacobson’s loans and some other matters.”
“What other matters?”
“I’ll explain then.”
“I don’t have anything to hide.”
In my experience, men who said they had nothing to hide were the very ones who did.
“Ari!” I heard a familiar voice, and turned around. Lea walked up and, to my surprise, hugged me.
She looked weepy and twenty years older. I just looked twenty years older. She pulled back as soon as she felt how stiffly I reacted to her embrace.
“Do you remember Max?” I asked her.
“Of course.”
Max backed away. “I have to go — client meeting.”
“I’ll call you later.”
“When? I’m pretty busy today…”
“Early evening.”
Max nodded at Lea, and exited without another word.
Lea and I looked at each other. Her jawline had softened, and there were wrinkles under her eyes. Her brown eyes were still amazingly bright and girlish, just like I remembered. I could sense an awkwardness between us, at least on my part. I also felt like my balding crown was as conspicuous as a zit on the side of a teenager’s nose, and that my love handles were bulging out from under my shirt.
“Don’t look at me so closely. I’ve grown old and wrinkled,” Lea said shyly.
“You’ve matured.”
“In other words, put on weight.”
“Your first loves never grow old…”
A smile flickered across Lea’s face, then vanished. “Mom said that you’re investigating Dad’s case. Have you discovered anything? I heard about the threats Dad received.”
I told her what I had told Roni: that we didn’t believe that anti-Semitism was the motive for the murder. I didn’t even want to mention Mikkola to Lea.
“What’s the motive, then?” Lea wondered.
“We don’t know yet. I have to ask you a few questions about your father’s company,” I said. “You’ve been in regular contact, I understand.”
“I know you’ll have to talk to me, too. When?”
“As soon as possible.”
“How about this evening? Does that work?”
“That’s perfect. It was nice to see you. I want to hear more about your life when we talk later.”
“Same here.”
We agreed on a place and time. I paid my respects to Ethel, and made my exit. I had left work in the middle of the day to attend.
When I walked out onto the street, I saw Eli and Max standing next to Eli’s car, engaged in a heated conversation. It almost looked like they were arguing.
I would have loved to have heard what they were talking about.
10
“The telecommunications data came in,” Simolin said, waving a stack of paper. He was as eager and energetic as ever. Simolin was the sort who would still be that way when he was eighty years old and in the nursing home. It was in the genes.
“Have you had time to look it over?”
“It just got here half an hour ago.”
“So in other words, you have.”
“The mast data indicates pre-paid calls spread evenly across central Helsinki, which means that the locations of the calls were selected intentionally to prevent any clusters from forming. Jacobson received the final call the morning he was shot. It only lasted thirty seconds. There were a total of five calls over three days.”
“Which parts of central Helsinki?”
“One from Töölö, one probably from Punavuori, one from Hakaniemi. It’s impossible to say for sure about the other two; they could have come through different base stations.”
“None from Estonia?”
“Nope, at least not in the data we have so far. That same day, Jacobson made two calls to the office, one to his wife, three to the Jewish congregation, one to attorney-at-law Max Oxbaum and one to Tel Aviv, Israel. I haven’t had time to figure out all the calls yet. At least thirty were made over a two-to-three-day period, and I have a month’s worth of call data.”
“Has anything else caught your eye?”
“Roni Jacobson called his father from Lapland twice the day before he died, and his father called back twice…”
My cell phone rang. It was Jacobson’s grey-haired neighbour, the one who loitered at his window and had seen the killer. “I heard something. It might be a rumour, but I thought I’d call just in case… you never know…”
I imagined the guy talking into the phone from his perch at the window, hawk-eyeing passers-by.
“I’d love to hear it.”
“Those boys who found the car. I heard that they saw the killer. One of the boys lives nearby, and his sister walks our dog Titi. She said that her brother had seen the killer but their mother told him not to tell the police so the boy wouldn’t get mixed up in anything. I wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock in the boy, now, but Maija’s a good girl. She wouldn’t lie to me.”
“Which boy are we talking about?”
“The Wallius boy. Jari.”
I knew that the boys had been questioned and they had claimed that they hadn’t seen anyone.
I thanked the man, and asked him to keep his eyes open. The case wasn’t over yet.
I suspected my request would lead to him setting up a sentry station at the kitchen window and making a note of everyone who moved in the vicinity. Why not? It couldn’t hurt, that was for sure.
I grabbed Simolin and we headed out to eastern Helsinki.
The Wallius residence was on the same side of the street as the Jacobsons’, but a little closer to the heart of Tammisalo. It was only a few years old: white brick and lots of glass. Latter-day Aalto replica. The woman who answered eyed us suspiciously through the barely open door. I pulled out my badge and introduced us.
“Yes. What is it?”
“Your son found the car we were looking for. I’d like to talk to him about it.”
“He already told everything to the police.”
“But not to the investigators. I’m the lead investigator, and this is my colleague,” I said, nodding at Simolin.
“Do you have a warrant?” the woman asked, still barricaded behind the door.
“A warrant for what?”
“A warrant to interrogate a minor. My husband is a lawyer —”
“We’re not interrogating anyone. At this point, he’s just an eyewitness.”
A case about twenty years old crossed my mind, in which a thirteen-year-old boy had been found stabbed to death in a fort behind his house. I had gone around to all of the dead kid’s friends’, and the mother of one of the boys had done everything in her power to keep me from seeing her son. At first she told me he was sleeping, then she said he couldn’t talk because he was in such severe shock. Eventually, I had been forced to resort to extreme measures. Within fifteen minutes, I knew that the boy had killed his friend. I could tell that the mother knew it too; she had tried to protect her child to the last.