“Whereabouts in Haaga are you now?” the detective asked.
“What’s it to the police?”
“Tell me,” the detective said in a tone that left Römpötti no choice.
“I’m taping in front of the Alamo Bar.”
“You’re not by the apartment building anymore?”
Römpötti thought for a moment. “If you know I’m in Haaga, how come you don’t know exactly where?”
“Don’t be a smartass. This is serious. When’s the last time you saw Lind?”
“I saw her by the Nӓyttelijӓ Street apartment building, from afar. I planned to wait outside for her, but thought maybe she’d already left a different way, and we headed over here.”
“Okay. Did you try to call her?”
“Yep, once. After that her phone’s been turned off… Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Takamäki said and thanked her for her cooperation. “This is important-don’t go over there. Please.”
“Serious?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Fine,” Römpötti said. “We won’t go there until we see flashing lights.”
“Okay,” Takamäki said.
Römpötti turned to the cameraman, who had a quizzical look on his face.
“Let’s get some coffee and see what happens here.”
She was glad she had the cameraman with her to capture any action, though she worried about Lind.
* * *
Takamäki turned to Nykänen and said, “Römpötti saw Lind by the apartment building.”
They stood behind the desk of the on-duty lieutenant at Helsinki police headquarters. The desks had screens, and on the back wall was a large screen showing all the patrol cars’ locations on the map, with a live feed from the police surveillance cameras.
Joutsamo came into the room. “I have location data from her phone. It was last spotted around the Nӓyttelijӓ Street apartment buildings.”
“That’s not good,” Nykänen said.
The Narcotics surveillance team was in the apartment building’s parking lot and the on-duty lieutenant, Helmikoski, had a police radio connection with them.
“Anything new?” Helmikoski asked.
“No. The lights in the apartment are still on and there’s no change in the situation. It’s too high up for us to see in. The man has been to the window a couple of times.”
“I’m sure you heard,” Helmikoski said. “Should we go in?”
Takamäki and Nykänen exchanged looks. Joutsamo stood next to them.
“Would we ruin anything by going in?” Takamäki wondered.
“The Rahkola case is still under investigation. If it was just about that, I’d say we wait. But it isn’t.”
“If we can prevent something, then let’s go in,” Joutsamo offered. “But what would we be preventing? We don’t know where Lind is. Maybe her phone battery died. On the other hand, she sent the text about Korpivaara’s innocence, so she must be up to something.”
“We don’t have many pieces to the puzzle, and they may give the wrong impression,” Takamäki said. “Look at them individually: Is Aarnio involved in Lind’s possible disappearance? No idea. Is he involved in Maiju Rahkola’s murder? No idea. Laura Vatanen’s murder? We don’t know. Is he connected to all of these somehow? It’s likely.”
“We don’t have the SWAT guys together yet, but the dogs are ready,” Helmikoski said. “They can be in there in two minutes.”
Kulta rang the doorbell carefully.
“Coming,” the woman screeched.
Twenty seconds later the drunken Mrs. Ridanpӓӓ opened the door.
“Well, we know each other.”
Mikko Kulta pushed the woman aside and walked in.
“Aren’t we feeling frisky today,” she said, breathing red wine into his face.
Closing the door, Kulta asked, “Do you remember who I am?”
“You’re one of the cops, and didn’t you go get me that wine?”
“Good,” Kulta said. “Listen, Mrs. Ridanpӓӓ, I need to ask you something, and I need you to answer me straight. Did a brunette lady in a jacket come see you today?”
“The lawyer? Yeah, that fancy lady was here.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That’s a secret!” the drunken old woman said, pressing her finger to her lips. “She’s a lawyer, so I told her. Cops will spill it to everyone.”
“If you don’t tell me,” Kulta said, looking at the woman angrily, “I’ll get you sent to a rehab place for old alcoholic women. They’ve got no red wine there, only tea and water.”
The woman looked horrified. “They don’t have places like that.”
* * *
Suhonen rang the doorbell of the apartment on the top floor. He had his ID ready. A twenty-year-old bearded guy in a T-shirt and shorts opened the door.
“Police,” Suhonen said, showing the guy his blue-and-white card.
The guy’s face was beet-red. “I’m not…”
“Oh, hell,” Suhonen said, as he noticed the sweet smell of pot coming from the apartment.
“I, um… for my own use,” the man whimpered.
“What’s your name?” Suhonen asked.
“Vesa Mӓkinen,” the guy blurted out.
Suhonen pushed the man in and down in the only chair in the living room. A mattress lay on the floor and a TV and an Xbox console by the wall. The guy had been playing “Call of Duty.”
“And I bet you haven’t paid your cable bills either,” Suhonen ventured.
“Well, no.”
“Sit there and don’t move.”
Suhonen peeked into the bedroom where several bright lights and pots of healthy-looking cannabis plants sat on the floor. The flowers would be made into hash and the pedals into marijuana.
“I…um…”
“Vesa Mӓkinen,” Suhonen said tensely. “Sit quietly. Don’t do anything. This has nothing to do with your plants.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Just sit there and don’t move,” Suhonen said.
The undercover detective almost wanted to laugh. He had picked the apartment because he wanted to see into the next building fifty yards away, specifically into Aarnio’s apartment. And of course it had to belong to a pothead.
He turned off the living room lights and glanced at Mӓkinen, who was sitting still.
Suhonen looked into the binoculars and found the right apartment. He saw a man by the window and recognized him from the bar in Kannelmӓki: Kimmo Aarnio.
Suhonen leaned against the wall to steady the binoculars. He could now see details in the apartment. He noticed a woman’s bare leg.
He grabbed his phone and called Takamäki.
“Aarnio is in his apartment and there is someone else there. I can see a leg.”
“Alive?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Okay,” Takamäki said.
* * *
Pave, a K-9 dog, walked silently by its master. The only sound was its nails scraping the stairs. That could’ve been prevented with dog socks, but today it wasn’t necessary.
Four uniformed officers waited behind the door, and Kulta was standing to the side. Kulta heard the same command in his earpiece as the K-9 patroclass="underline" “Go in now.”
The first officer broke the lock and dropped the ram. Between his knees he held cutters that he would use next to cut the safety chain. But the chain wasn’t latched, and the door opened. Two officers went in and the dog waited by the door. They heard a dog bark inside the apartment.
“Police!” yelled the officer, who looked like TV’s Jack Bauer, pointing a gun.
They reached the living room in two seconds and saw Kimmo Aarnio lying on top of a woman in a chair.
“Disengage! Move away from the woman!”
The man didn’t react.
The officers were only a few feet away, but the man kept on. The Jack Bauer-lookalike kept his weapon aimed at Aarnio. The other officer jumped over the chair and tackled Aarnio by the waist, dropping him to the floor.
The officer with the gun came to help, and within three seconds the naked Aarnio was sprawled on his stomach on the floor, his hands cuffed behind his back.