Yelena said she was still “Daddy’s little girl,” that her father was a rich and powerful man, and her husband was charged with her care. When her husband discovers what’s happened here, he’ll try to cover it up, to save his own life. I take copious photos to ensure that doesn’t happen. She’ll have her dying revenge for being reduced to “chattel,” in a way no different from the poor girls bought, sold and traded by men like her lover and, I feel certain, under the direction of her husband. I also feel certain that within a day or two, her father will have her husband recalled to Russia and murdered. This, I believe, was the purpose of Yelena’s suicide.
I have the ambassador’s number in my phone. I send him a couple of poignant images. He calls me immediately. As much as I would like to honor Yelena’s final wishes, I won’t torture her husband. I do, however, offer to suppress the images in trade for the return to me of Loviise Tamm. He says he would if he could, but he doesn’t know where she is. He offers me a quarter of a million dollars to suppress the pictures. His voice trembles with fear. I tell him money won’t cut it and hang up on him.
I call Milo, tell him to come up, and to bring protective gear to prevent us from contaminating the crime scene. I then call Helsinki Homicide to report the death. Milo arrives and we suit up. He sees nothing I’ve overlooked. The ambassador text messages me, asks me again to please not release the images. He writes that the last time Loviise was seen, she was in the company of Yelena as they left the embassy on foot.
Inka and Ilari from Helsinki Homicide come in. I assume they’re competent detectives, but they’re annoying. They’ve had an affair going on behind the backs of their families for years, I’m told, but bicker and treat each other like dogs when they’re around other people. I suppose they think it maintains their charade. They sometimes forget themselves and talk to their colleagues in a similar way, and it makes them unlikable.
“Vaara,” Ilari says. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Milo and I were out in our patrol car and caught the squeal. We were nearby and first on the scene.” It was a joke intended as a little display of my disrespect for his attitude. We use cell phones, not police radios, and we never use a patrol car.
“Well, get the hell out. This is a potential international incident. It isn’t-and it’s not going to be-your goddamned case.”
“Fuckin’ A right,” Inka says. “You’re on leave and have no right to be here. Out.”
I have what I came for, and it’s only going to be their case for about two and a half seconds. “No problem, and good luck.”
Milo and I walk out of the room and find the Russian ambassador, surrounded by an entourage of five men. The forensics team has also just arrived. The ambassador is raising hell, demanding to see his wife, demanding Finnish police leave the scene, invoking various articles about diplomatic privilege. No one is interested. Until Moscow intervenes, it’s a potential crime scene that belongs to the Finnish police.
Milo and I strip out of our protective suits. The ambassador realizes it’s me. “Hi, Sergey,” I say. “Sorry for your loss.”
He points a trembling finger at me. Surging adrenaline turns him to raging jelly. “You.”
“Me,” I say, and we take the elevator to the lobby.
Aino is Kate’s assistant restaurant manager and replacement while Kate is on maternity leave. She’s a pleasant young woman. I want to reassure her. We find her in her office. She’s been crying. “Everything is fine,” I say. “Finnish authorities are in control. There’s nothing for you to do. If something is needed from you, you’ll be asked. So don’t worry. Call me if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” she says. “I’ve never been through anything like this, and I lost my nerves.”
If I cited statistics about deaths in hotels, she would likely leave right now, never return, and find a job in another line of work. “Hopefully, this is your first and last time,” I say.
33
Back in my apartment, I hand Milo my phone. Like so many things right now, I don’t want to do this, because it’s disrespectful of the dead. It’s a necessity. “Can you plaster the photos of Yelena Merkulova all over the Internet without them being traced back here?” I ask him.
He doesn’t bother to speak, boots up my computer, connects the cable from my phone into it and logs in to his own computer through our network. He bumps the photos from the phone over to my computer and says, “Going viral in thirty seconds.”
The Russian embassy, out of fear, will delay informing Yelena’s father of her death until the ambassador can find a way to weasel out of the culpability she ingeniously hung on him by writing on the wall in blood. In the interest of survival, the ambassador will try to have it scrubbed off the walls and have the fact that it existed suppressed. He’ll then claim it was an attempt to frame him. I’ll preempt that. Her father will learn of her death through these photos rather than through an e-mail. It’s mean. It’s ugly. It serves a purpose that justifies it. Her father will kill Merkulov because it will make him appear weak in front of the world if he doesn’t. The ambassador is neutralized, one less enemy to deal with.
I sentenced him to death. I feel remorse. Guilt is the overarching emotion that has defined my life. After having the tumor removed from my brain, I felt no remorse about anything. I knew it was a symptom of post-surgery illness, but I was glad of it. Of the many negative changes the surgery wrought in me, freedom from guilt was one I was glad of. I’m not sure if I should feel relieved that I’m healing, that the hole the tumor removal left in my brain is filling in with tissue and returning me to who I was before, or anger that unwanted emotions are rearing their ugly heads. I suppose I feel both.
“Going, going, gone,” Milo says. “Where’s my present?”
I look around. I hear Sweetness and Jenna in the kitchen and smell frying bacon. Part of their carb-free health diet. Kate must be in the bedroom.
In the foyer, over the coat rack, is a shelf for scarves, gloves and hats. Over the rack is a small storage compartment filled with junk. I point at it. “In there, on the left, in the very back corner, in a Stockmann gift bag.”
He takes a dining room chair, stands on it, finds the bag and gets down. He looks inside and pulls out something square, wrapped in brown paper. He starts to tear the wrapping off.
“Don’t,” I say. “I don’t want anyone else to see it.”
He grins, giddy with anticipation. “Then it must be extra-special good. What did you get me?”
“I didn’t get you anything. I hid it from you. I found it when we B amp;Eed a dope dealer and stashed it in the bag of cash that was in the same closet. It’s two bricks of Semtex.”
He cradles it like a baby and mimics Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. “Oh my precious. My sweet sweet precious. You’ve come home to me.”
His impression is so good that it’s eerie, and since his “precious” is plastic explosives, sounds psycho and a little scary.
“Semtex plastic explosive,” he says. “A Russian classic. And enough to take down a building. You really do love me, don’t you?”
I snap open the lion’s mouth on the handle of my cane and wonder what in the name of God I’ve just done. “With all my heart.”
“Can I kiss you?” He steps toward me. “Give me some tongue.”
I raise a hand to keep him at bay. “Down, boy. Down,” I say, as I would to a dog.
He grins and calms himself. The permanent pools of black around his eyes from self-imposed sleep deprivation glisten like oil. “Why did you keep it and hide it?”
“I couldn’t think of a way to dispose of it, stuck it there and forgot about it. I hid it because I was afraid you’d blow up a building with it.”