The second man was wearing a black sweater and army pants. His face was so lean that he could well be in the military. Suhonen didn’t recognize him, but somehow he got the feeling the guy wasn’t Finnish.
The third one he knew, however. All too well. Lying there on the floor was Salmela. The men’s gazes met, but neither said anything.
Turunen tapped Suhonen on the shoulder and gestured him over to the dining table. There were some maps and other papers on it. Jewelry shop addresses were written on one of them. Neither of the police officers touched the papers. Let Forensics studythem first.
“Take them all to Pasila,” Suhonen announced, and the SWAT team roughly hauled the detainees up from the floor. As Salmela was led out, their gazes met again.
Turunen was the only one who stayed behind in the room with Suhonen.
“What is this place?”
Suhonen shook his head.
“Were they planning some robbery?” Turunen asked, gesturing at the papers.
“That’s what it looks like. This is a job for the NBI,” Suhonen replied, bending down to look under the bed. There was an ice hockey bag there, and Suhonen carefully pulled it out. It held three pistols and two sawed-off shotguns. Suhonen would rather have found Repo crouching in fear.
The undercover detective thought about Saarnikangas, and whether he had known who really was in the apartment.
“Goddammit.” Suhonen exhaled heavily , whipping out his cell phone. He pulled up Nykänen’s number.
CHAPTER 17
WEDNESDAY, 10:10 P.M.
HELSINKI POLICE HEADQUARTERS, PASILA
“Well, well,” Nykänen grunted. He was in the Homicide conference room, along with Takamäki and Suhonen. Joutsamo entered and said that a call had been made to Emergency Response from Karppi’s landline that morning. The call had been logged as a wrong number, but Emergency Response had promised to pull up the recording. She didn’t have any information on Karppi’s cell phone yet.
Nykänen returned to the raid that Suhonen and the SWAT team had made. It was clear that the case would be transferred over to the NBI for investigation.
“I should’ve guessed this. We’ve been tapping their phones for a couple of months, but as soon as we tell you, it doesn’t take even 24 hours and our suspects are sitting in jail.”
His tone of voice was such that Suhonen couldn’t tell if it was a reprimand or praise.
“I had no idea they would be in there,” Suhonen explained. It was possible that they had moved too early on the potential perpetrators.
“Suhonen said something about some papers,” Joutsamo said.
“Forensics is going through the fingerprints, but the places where getaway cars would be swapped were marked on the map, and the other list was of the targets themselves.”
“So attempted grand larceny,” Joutsamo said.
“Actually several attempts,” Nykänen corrected.
Takamäki looked thoughtful. “The Supreme Court has decided that when planning of a crime has begun, it can be considered an attempt. Finding the plans indicates, of course, that something was in the works. Especially if we can connect it to the Manner recording.”
“There’s a felony weapons charge in there, in any case,” Joutsamo said. “Those shotguns were sawed off.”
“There’s just one problem here,” Nykänen reflected. “If those guys don’t talk or if we don’t find a connection from the call data or anywhere else to Manner, then he won’t get his toes wet.”
“I’m pretty sure these guys won’t talk,” Suhonen said. He made a mental note to swap out the SIM card of his off-the-record phone in the very near future, because if the number were found in Salmela’s mobile phone, the NBI might decide to tap it.
“Well, at least we achieved our number-one goal. We prevented the crime from taking place,” Nykänen grunted.
“For Manner we still have that hit-and-run, plus Espoo could also investigate the vehicular arson. We could also revoke his security company license,” Takamäki stated, and then held a brief pause. He shifted his gaze to Suhonen. “You or me?”
Suhonen shrugged.
Takamäki elected to continue. “There’s one more thing here that you need to know about, but it can’t be discussed outside of this room, or used in any way in the investigation. Do I have your word?”
“How can I give you my word, if I need to know about it?” Nykänen asked.
“Let’s just say it would be good for you to know,” Suhonen corrected. “And we’re only telling you this because you used to work in this unit.”
“Okay,” Nykänen rumbled, stroking his moustache. He wasn’t sure what was going on.
Takamäki took back the floor. “One of the men apprehended in the apartment is Eero Salmela, whose son was killed a year ago. It was a witness protection case, if you remember.”
“Hard to forget.”
“Okay, but the thing is that this Salmela is a close friend of Suhonen’s.”
“A close friend…” Nykänen repeated.
Suhonen eyed Nykänen. “I’m sure you get the drift.”
“Okay, I get it,” Nykänen nodded. “Would he be interested in talking to us?”
“I can ask, but if it doesn’t work out, then Salmela can’t receive any special treatment during the investigation that would tip outside parties to… anything.”
* * *
Salmela was sitting in his green overalls in the interrogation room, with its light-brown table and gray walls. The guard let Suhonen in and closed the door behind him. Suhonen stroked his beard.
“How’re you feeling?” he asked.
“How do you think?” Salmela answered.
Suhonen sat down on the wooden stool across from Salmela and tossed a pack of cigarettes onto the table. Salmela took one, and Suhonen scratched him a light.
Salmela sucked in a long drag and slowly blew the smoke out. “Fuckin’ a,” he said.
“Why?”
Salmela laughed.
“Is this some interrogation?”
“No.”
“Is there a recording device in this room?”
“No,” Suhonen repeated.
Salmela hung his head. The cigarette was in his right hand, and the smoke writhed up lazily toward the ventilation system.
“How did you guys know to hit the apartment?” Salmela asked. “Who gave us out?”
“Shitty luck. We were looking for Repo.”
“Repo?” Salmela wondered, raising his head. “The escaped murderer?”
Suhonen nodded. “We heard he might be there. We found that apartment in the customs office register. Some cigarette smuggler used it last winter.”
“Fuckin’ a!” Salmela blurted out. “We rented it with cold hard cash from this old lady to make sure it wouldn’t be in some police database. You can’t trust anyone, goddammit.”
“Got dealt a shitty hand.”
“And it had to be a nobody like Repo. Fuck, if you would have told me he was such a big deal to you guys, I would have scraped him out of some dumpster till my fingernails bled.”
“As I recall, I did tell you,” Suhonen retorted. “Let’s get back to the situation at hand. What do you want me to do for you?”
Salmela thought for a moment. “I don’t know. How much do you guys know?”
“We know about your plan to jack those jewelry shops and that Manner is running the whole show.”
“Fuckin’ a!” Salmela blurted out again. “How? How the hell?”
“I’m not even sure,” Suhonen said. “It’s NBI’s case. We’ve just been helping them out. But you do know where this will lead?”
“Time in the pen,” Salmela said. “That’s obvious…”
“So is there anything I can do for you?”
Salmela shook his head. “Yeah well, maybe a cup of decent coffee, because this is starting to look a hell of a lot like I’ll be drinking freeze-dried from here on out.”
Suhonen rose and returned a couple minutes later. He was carrying two cups of coffee.