“I understand, and I agree with you. But after all, he also has resources. He could have made a home winter-worthy in secret.”
“Very well,” I say and ring off.
I ask Saukko if I can use his yacht again tomorrow to continue the search, say that it will likely be an overnight trip, and he’s happy to oblige. He wants to come. I suggest that it might be best for all if this was kept strictly police business. If we were to find Antti, his emotions would run high and might lead to something that could impede prosecution. He grudgingly agrees. Finding Antti there truly is only a shot in the dark. He’s abandoned his wife and children, so he wanted out bad. His father has pretty much every resource in the world at his disposal to find Antti. If he really wants to disappear, as I said to the minister, it has to be somewhere at the ends of the earth. It’s a thousand-to-one shot, but northern Aland pretty much qualifies.
37
Moreau rides with me back to Helsinki. I tell him he can’t come with us tomorrow. “It’s a snipe hunt, but if we should find Antti and the money, I won’t be able to explain your presence. Maybe you could be at Saukko’s side in his moment of triumph. He’d like that.”
Moreau agrees. I ask where I can drop him off.
“I’m staying at that little hostel your wife runs, Hotel Kamp.” I drop him off, pick up more baby formula and go home. Kate looks ghastly. She’s drinking a glass of water with two hands. Her hangover is so bad that she trembles.
I pick up Anu, bounce her on my knee, and tell Kate all I’ve learned. She couldn’t give a fuck less.
“Is something the matter, besides your hangover?” I ask.
“Where should I begin? Maybe we should talk about how I’ve ignored my child for days while I stayed drunk.”
I’ve learned that in marriage there are times to console with hugs, and times when they aren’t wanted. Right now, it’s the latter.
“Kate, you tried to run with the big dogs. The people you’ve hung around with the past few days drink a lot. You don’t and couldn’t keep up. Maybe you should have learned from your mistake the first time. But last night, drinking pontikka, it happens to everybody. Anni told me you didn’t even drink very much of it. You’re not a bad mother, you just had a very Finnish learning experience.”
By the look on her face, I think Kate would be yelling at me now if she wasn’t too sick to manage it. “Have you considered the possibility that I’ve been drunk because I’m so fucked-up that I’m not in control of my actions, even at the expense of our child, and that maybe the reason I’m so fucked-up is you?”
I thought my work might be affecting her, but not to this extent.
“You met us at that bar yesterday and Sweetness had blood coming out of puncture wounds in his knuckles. Now, why do I think he got those by knocking out someone’s front teeth?”
“I’m investigating a murder of historic proportion and dealing with evil people-the kind of people who cut an innocent woman’s head off-trying to solve it. I’m doing whatever I deem necessary.”
“Is it necessary for you to commit crimes that could put you in jail, and do you see that you’re working with buffoons that don’t have a fucking clue what they’re doing? You came to me with this song and dance about a black-ops thing that was supposed to help people, and I couldn’t bring myself to say no because I thought you might die. But these black-ops actions aren’t to help people, they’re to generate graft for corrupt politicians. I put up with all this because you gave me a choice and I agreed to it in the beginning and I kept my word. I was wrong. We should have left and gone back to the States. You and your team are dupes and pawns, and you’re going to pay a high price for your stupidity.”
I’ve never seen her like this, so bitter.
She says I’ve become like the people I swore to combat and have broken my oath to uphold the law. “You’ve gone astray,” she says. “You’ll end up dead or in jail. I’m disappointed, disillusioned, I’ve lost respect for you. You have to change, to be the good man I married.”
“I’m trying to make things right,” I say.
“Arvid is dead,” she says. “Your surgery changed you. And everything that came after has changed all of us.”
“Kate, this hasn’t gone the way I planned, either. Yes, I’ve been duped and used as a pawn. I’m also disappointed and disillusioned. Had I known where this road would lead, I never would have taken us down it. I made a mistake. And yes, I know brain surgery has affected me. I can’t help that. I’m doing the best I can. I’m going on a wild-goose chase tomorrow. We’re going to spend a couple days cruising around Aland. Come with us. It will do you good. And if we should by some miracle happen to find Antti Saukko, the man we’re looking for, you’ll see that we’re still policemen, not just murderous thugs. The sun and sea air will do us all good.”
She smirks, skeptical. She considers it, her face almost a sneer. “OK,” she says.
38
It’s a warm today. The sky blue. A perfect day for sailing, and we have hours until we reach the islands of northern Aland. Saukko had his cook stock the boat with enough food for an army. Saukko thought of everything, from fresh fish bait to a box of the figurado cigars we had smoked. I guess I did a good job of convincing him I liked them. The sea is calm, and I hope the trip will smooth the waters between Kate and me as well.
After I solve this murder, and I’m near to it, I’m going to solve my work-related problems as well. I didn’t become a cop to be a thug. Time will fix this. I’ll accumulate dirt on powerful people so they can’t hurt me without destroying themselves. I’ve collected much skank, I’m close to it now. Then I’ll do my job on my own terms or just walk away. Resign. Do as Kate said. Take her back to the States with the money I’ve stolen and collect stamps.
Kate and I slather on suntan lotion, make sure Baby Anu is sun-protected head to toe, and sit side by side in deck chairs that fold out so you can lie down in them. Her hangover fades and her mood improves, and after a while she hooks her little finger around mine. We snack, sun, drink soft drinks, let Milo do all the work. I notice Sweetness isn’t boozing. I wonder if the change in his relationship with Jenna has sobered him up. The sea was crowded with all manner of craft when we left Helsinki, but the farther north we go, other vessels are fewer and farther between.
Life on a small island in Aland must be interesting. Waterworld. An alternate way of living. Inhabitants take boats to the grocery store, to bars in the evening if they want to socialize. Everywhere.
Milo has the map, and after several hours he tells us we’re now in waters that contain the islands donated by Saukko’s foundation, and it’s time to start watching. Some are only specks of rock, some are large. Kate softens, her bitterness dissipates. At a certain point, we go downstairs to a cabin and make love. When we come back up, the yacht is moored near a largish island. A dock juts out into the ocean, but beside and behind the dock is a cave. Its roof is several yards high and it goes about twenty yards back under the island. We’re on the south side of the island, and this end of it is lightly forested and around a hundred yards across.
Inside the cave are a twin-engine fishing boat and a Jet Ski. Whodda thunk? We’ve really found Antti.
“We saw no hurry and waited on you,” Milo says. He edges the yacht up to the dock. Sweetness hops over to it and ties us off.
I doubt we’ll need them, but we don bulletproof vests and the rest of our gear. After all, if my theory is correct, Antti did kill a man. We follow a narrow path and the smell of cooking meat. We walk about fifty meters and find a big ramshackle hut in a clearing with two people outside it in folding chairs, making dinner on a grill. One is Antti. He’s wearing a tie-dyed shirt, shorts and flip-flops. The other is a pretty woman in her mid-twenties, about eight months pregnant.