“Such severe burns cause trauma that sometimes the body can’t cope with and it just shuts down. The burns on the lower portion of her body were very bad indeed. Nothing went wrong, her treatment was excellent. She just died anyway. Again, I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“This is now a murder investigation. I want an autopsy performed.” I’m angry with the doctor, want to shoot the messenger, and ring off.
“Milo, it’s bad news. Mirjami died.”
Jenna and Sweetness hear me. We all just sit and stare at one another for a while. There are no words. After a while, Sweetness motions to me with a tilt of his head to come to the dining room table. He pours us all Koskenkorva, and we drink to Mirjami. I’m glad that the last time I saw her, I lied about my feelings for her. At least in that small way, she could die believing what she wanted to be the truth.
None of us speak for the better part of half an hour, then Milo says, “You still think my plan is too harsh?”
“Do what you want,” I say. “Jan Pitkanen belongs to me.” He and I don’t have a vendetta, we have a reckoning. His blowing up the car, burning Mirjami to a crisp and hurting Jenna in a murder attempt created a situation in which one of us must die. I wonder if he recognizes this as well. I wonder if he created this situation out of jealousy, because he was the golden boy of illegal activity, Osmo Ahtiainen’s chief axman, and then all the dope money and power that goes with it, illegal surveillance, strong-arm work, as well as the nation’s most prestigious crime cases, all fell to me. I would have been happy to hand it all over to him. Spilt milk. Now he has to play for blood.
Even as I plot revenge, I realize that my thoughts about them are false and I want to push them all out of my mind. I’m sickened by corruption, death and murder. I want to live in harmony with my family. Nothing more.
Kate comes out of the bedroom in her bathrobe, a smile on her face. She says hello to everyone and disappears into the bathroom. She comes out, goes back to the bedroom and returns in a summer frock and her hair done up in a chignon. The ten years that fell upon her when she came unglued have disappeared. She looks like my Kate again.
“Anybody have a beer for me?” she asks.
Torsten didn’t mention anything about her staying away from alcohol altogether, and I don’t want to deny her and ruin this good moment.
“There’s plenty in the fridge,” I say.
She cracks one and sits down with us. We’re all a bit mystified by the mood swing, but what the hell, it’s great to see her happy.
“What’s with all the glum faces?” she asks.
I answer. “Do you remember Mirjami? You and her and Jenna spent a lot of time together this spring.”
“Don’t be silly. Of course I remember her.”
“She died today.”
Kate’s brows furrow as she ponders this. She doesn’t think to ask how Mirjami died. “Mirjami would want us to celebrate her, even if we’re mourning her at the same time.”
Words of wisdom. She would indeed.
“I’ll put on some music,” Kate says. “What should we listen to?”
Sweetness doesn’t hesitate. “Some tango, please.”
Kate can’t picture Sweetness being a tango fan. I suppose I’ve never told her about the tango palaces all over Finland. Our tango is usually sad music in minor keys, appropriate for this moment. I choose a CD by Unto Mononen. The song “Satumaa” comes on.
Sweetness asks Kate if she would like to dance. She giggles. “My feet are bare. Are you going to stomp on me and break them?”
With pride, Jenna says, “Sweetness is one of the best dancers I’ve ever met.”
“I’ve won tango contests,” he says. “My mom made me take lessons, and I studied gymnastics, too. I know Kari thinks my dad is a piece of shit, and he’s probably right, but about once a month he made up for making Mom miserable by taking her out to tango. I’ve been doing it since I was a little kid. Watch this,” he says.
He has another kossu to fortify himself, moves to the middle of the living room floor for space, and does a standing backflip. A six-foot-three-inch, two-hundred-sixty-five-pound man. I never would have believed it possible of him. “Will you dance with me now?” he asks.
Kate giggles with delight. “I don’t know how to tango.”
He takes her hand and urges her from her chair. “I’ll teach you.”
Kate limps from a broken-hip injury, but has learned to move so it’s hard to notice. Sweetness guides her, moves her about, and before long she does a basic tango. She’s in heaven. They dance for near an hour while Jenna and I look on, and then I see Kate start to fade. She takes a break and sits down, breathless. She still smiles, but soon announces she should go to bed.
I make sure she takes her medicine, tuck her in and tell her I’m going to stay up for a while. In truth, I’m afraid she’ll wake up next to me and panic for one reason or another, perhaps not recognize me. I have one more beer with the others, medicate, and go to sleep in my chair.
31
I wake early, about eight a.m. The first thing that comes into my mind is that when I was in the sixth grade, a boy in my class and his mother were abducted and driven into the forest. He was kicked in the head multiple times and left for dead. Her throat was slashed. Was this a dream, or did it happen? It seems real to me, but after brain surgery, I sometimes doubt my own perceptions. I send my brother Jari a text message and ask him if he remembers the Ruoho murder case from when we were kids, and if so, what was the outcome?
The way I remember it is that Tapani Ruoho came back to school after a couple weeks. He sat in front of me in homeroom. One morning not long after, he asked me to feel his head. I ran my fingers through his hair and felt a big scab from the kicking. He told me he played dead, the man tied his mother to a tree and cut her throat while he watched. He said nothing about rape, just pure murder.
I remember the newspapers following the murder. The prosecution had a solid case against a man, based on forensic evidence and Tapani’s testimony. But Tapani stuttered. The defense used this to discredit Tapani, portrayed him as a confused mental defective. Not true. He was a bright kid, he just stuttered. His family moved away not long after the trial.
Jari texts back. Yes, he remembers. The defendant was acquitted. I’ve blocked this from my memory for all these years, never once thought of it. Does this mean my brain is returning to working order, or that the emotional events of recent days have triggered something in me? It leaves me in a quandary, disturbs me.
And then I remember something else. When I was eleven, I wore hand-me-downs and wasn’t well-nourished. At the time, the tax returns of every citizen of working age were published in a book, allowing, through extrapolation, a determination of income. At school, a child from a well-to-do family stood on his desk and read from said book, pointing out certain children, saying, “Your family is poor.” “Your family is poor.” “Your family is poor.” I was among those singled out.
In the seventies, many people then considered middle class would be considered almost destitute by today’s standards. However, it was the first time that I realized I was entrenched as a second-class citizen. I haven’t thought of that day in thirty years.
Although the tax book is no longer printed, tax returns remain a matter of public record, and each year, due to my phobia about poverty, I check the record and compare myself to others, to reassure myself that I’m no longer poor. Until this moment, I had no idea why I feel this compulsion. Further, I realize that most likely it was these suddenly recalled memories that led me into police work, as it’s the second-most-respected occupation in Finland, after the medical profession. Why am I remembering these things now?
I think about Kate. When she ran away, Torsten said he could help her in a short time, if given the opportunity to treat her. I know enough about psychology to comprehend that his statement was simplistic and overly optimistic. I ask myself: What if she never recovers? Will I sleep in this chair and tend to her for the rest of my life? At present, a frequent topic of conversation and much written about in magazines is the importance of personal happiness. The trendy belief is that without personal happiness, we can’t make others happy. A euphemistic way of saying that selfishness is paramount, and a twisted argument that disavowal of responsibility is desirable, not only for oneself but for the good of others.