“Aarnio, the 3 A.M. garbage bag guy?” Kulta pondered out loud.
“Yeah, but we’ll get back to him in a minute,” Joutsamo said. “The prints inside the apartment belong to Vatanen, Niskala, Korpivaara, and the mother.”
“Course it’s possible that the killer wore gloves and their prints are neither on the door nor in the apartment,” Takamäki pitched in.
“Of course,” Joutsamo agreed. “In any case, the prints on the coffeemaker are the strongest evidence we have. Korpivaara’s prints were also found on the coffee pot. Forensics will see if we can determine based on the consistency of coffee how long the machine had been on.”
“The smell of coffee in the apartment should tell us something, anyway,” Kulta said.
“We’ll find out later. We have numerous DNA samples from the apartment, but we won’t get the results for a couple of days. Otherwise the apartment was nearly spotless, since the mother had cleaned it that morning.”
“Can we rule out the mother?” Takamäki asked.
Joutsamo shook her head.
“Yes and no. She told us about the arguments she and her daughter had, and that presents a motive. According to the medical examiner the time of death falls between nine and eleven, and the mother was in the apartment during that time frame. So she had the opportunity. On the other hand, she was cleaning and would probably have switched off the coffeemaker had it been on from the night before. She did the dishes there, too,” Joutsamo recounted.
“Unless she’s the one who forgot to turn it off,” Kulta inserted.
“Marjaana Vatanen didn’t drink coffee,” Joutsamo said.
“How do you know that?”
“She said so. And I checked her kitchen-she doesn’t have a coffeemaker.”
“Maybe she drinks instant,” Kulta tried. “Oh well…”
Joutsamo went over other details. The blood on the rug in the entryway matched Laura Vatanen’s blood type. The victim had not been moved, which means that the killer had transported the blood onto the rug. Vatanen was not raped, and no drugs or alcohol were detected. The information from the phone company confirmed that Laura Vatanen had called Korpivaara the night before and the next call was from her mother. The call after that was from Iina Ridanpӓӓ, around 11 A.M. During all those calls Laura Vatanen’s phone had been connected to a cell tower near Nӓyttelijӓ Street, so Vatanen probably stayed at home the night before her murder.
They’d ask Korpivaara about Laura’s call and about his calls to the Alamo gang that morning. The stains found in Korpivaara’s bathroom sink turned out to be semen, and as soon as the DNA results were in they’d know whose it was.
Joutsamo went on. “The main suspect is definitely Jorma Korpivaara, the apartment complex custodian, who unlocked the door for the police yesterday morning. His fingerprints on the door and the coffeemaker prove that he was in the apartment. Right off the bat, the man lied about his whereabouts that morning, and he has no alibi. He has some sort of a sick infatuation for Laura. But the most incriminating factors are his partial confession during the interrogation and the fact that he knew how Laura was killed. Also, we found a bloody towel at his place-the same brand as the ones in Vatanen’s apartment.”
“Whose blood was on it?” Takamäki asked.
“We don’t know yet for sure. The man could’ve cut his finger during the killing. As you know, Korpivaara had a sexual relationship with Vatanen and we found photos of her in his apartment.”
“Along with a bunch of other porn,” Kulta added.
“The motive could have to do with sex-or more likely the lack of it-because the men said she was unpredictable.”
Takamäki nodded. “It definitely looks like we have the killer in custody.”
Ignoring Takamäki’s comment, Joutsamo said, “A plastic bag containing blood-stained scraps of fabric was found in the nearby woods last night. We also found another plastic bag with bloody paper towels in one of the trash containers. We’re still investigating those. They might not have anything to do with the case; we’re still waiting on the results.”
“Yup,” Kohonen said. “I went to the thicket this morning. Forensics is over there now. They found some footprints, but most of them are from Aarnio, the guy who found the bag. The snow is making a mess out there, and it’s supposed to snow more this afternoon.”
“Who’s this Aarnio?” Takamäki asked.
Joutsamo looked at her papers and said, “He lives in the building. His prints were on Vatanen’s door.”
“He said he was a construction worker,” Kohonen added. “He’s got an angry Rottweiler. We got his prints when we did the rounds in the apartments.”
“The man’s record only shows a couple of traffic violations,” Kulta said.
“Okay,” Takamäki said. “Tell us more about Korpivaara’s interrogation. What do you mean by a partial confession?”
“In the interview last night, Korpivaara denied everything. But now he claimed he suffered from memory lapses, and suddenly admitted that it was possible he could have been in the apartment. The most notable part is that he knew how Vatanen was killed.”
“Did Korpivaara go inside the apartment when he unlocked the door for the police?” Takamäki asked.
“No. I checked with Partio. They didn’t let him in.”
“Anyone talk about the slashing in the stairwell?”
Joutsamo shook her head.
“Not while we were there. The officers said they didn’t, either. Of course we have no tapes to go by.”
“Okay,” Takamäki said. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a killer.”
“Korpivaara had the opportunity and the motive to do it.”
“What about the means?” Kulta asked.
“I think he had that too,” Joutsamo said as her phone rang. She answered it and listened for a minute before saying she’d be in the lobby shortly. The others gave her a quizzical look.
“Korpivaara’s attorney is downstairs and she wants to meet her client.”
“Alright,” Takamäki said. “We’ll arrest Korpivaara and evaluate the other three later this afternoon.”
“Yeah, we’ll need to keep going… Still a lot to uncover,” Joutsamo said, handing a check list to Kulta and Kohonen.
“We’ll get help from other teams,” Takamäki said and ended the meeting.
CHAPTER 9
THURSDAY, 12:40 P.M.
MEILAHTI HOSPITAL, HELSINKI
Suhonen parked his car in the underground garage. The hospital parking lot had reserved spaces for police cars, but this visit wasn’t work related. Suhonen didn’t mind paying a euro or two.
He had visited the large hospital several times and was familiar with all the buildings and wards. This time he was going to the new triangle-shaped structure adjacent to the main hospital.
Suhonen passed the information desk in the large atrium, heading straight to the sunlit lobby. He walked by the lockers but decided to leave his leather jacket on. His Glock was tucked in the shoulder holster as usual; he could’ve left it in the car, but that wasn’t his style.
He climbed the steps from the lobby’s white tile onto dark granite flooring, and got into the elevator.
His mind was blank. He had called his old buddy, Eero Salmela, who had told him he’d suffered a severe heart attack and was hospitalized. It had been a close call.
At first Suhonen didn’t know what to say. But since Salmela seemed calm, Suhonen asked if he could visit. He asked Salmela why he hadn’t called; Salmela said he just hadn’t felt up to it.
The elevator took Suhonen to one of the top floors. He and Eero had been friends since their childhood in Lahti, a town about sixty miles north of Helsinki. Despite the fact that one of them became a criminal and the other a cop, they remained fast friends. Salmela had given the police good leads over the years, and Suhonen had gotten his friend off the hook now and then.