Suhonen nodded and glanced at the lines. Guess the fish weren’t biting.
* * *
The sky was growing dark as Joutsamo strode down the street toward the mammoth concrete structures of Merihaka, the drab, gray pinnacle of early 1970s civil engineering. A cold wind swept briskly off the sea. The sergeant had parked near the Häme Street intersection in the first available spot. On the left were the glowing green signs of the employment office.
Joutsamo pushed on toward the north end of a tall red-brick building that had originally been a munitions factory. Off and on it had served as the offices of a construction company, and then as an immigration office. The building had suffered from severe mold problems. Now it housed various firms and tax administration offices, but Joutsamo was only interested in the Czech restaurant on the north end.
It was ten minutes till eight and the meeting was set for eight o’clock sharp. Joutsamo had initially had doubts about the location, before deciding it was fine.
She stepped into the vestibule of the Milenka Restaurant and paused as she came through the door. The bar was on the right and two adjacent dining rooms on the left. She unzipped her coat, walked up to the bar and ordered a cup of tea from the thickly-whiskered bartender, who brought over a cup of steaming water. After paying him, she chose a packet of orange tea from a large basket of assorted flavors. The atmosphere in the bar was nothing short of torpid.
Joutsamo scanned the restaurant for Lehtonen and spotted her wearing a pale sweater at a corner table on the left. She looked up and nodded at Joutsamo.
The interior of the restaurant was a shade nicer than your typical pub. Some art was hanging from the walls and a massive window formed the back wall. Maybe it lent a more artistic air.
Joutsamo steadied her cup as she walked to the table, then took off her jacket and sat. Lehtonen had her paper open to the sudoku page. Joutsamo had done a few of the puzzles herself, but complained that the easy ones were too easy and the difficult ones ridiculously hard.
The women greeted one another.
“You have kids?” asked Lehtonen once Joutsamo was seated.
“No. Why?”
“You’re single?” she asked, glancing at Joutsamo’s ring finger.
“You’re not wearing a ring either, but yes, I’m single.”
“Why?”
Joutsamo had no interest in being cross-examined about her private life, but neither did she want to rile their star witness. She bought herself some time with a sip of hot tea. “I don’t know. There have been some guys…but…I don’t know. Sounds kinda dumb, but I just don’t think I’ve met the right one.”
“Well, nothing wrong with that. You should be glad, actually. My ex-husband was a very good actor. Knew how to pretend like he really loved me. And I bought it. Toward the end he didn’t bother acting anymore. And when I stopped loving him, his genuine hatred came out. The change was sudden for both of us.”
Joutsamo knew the guy from police records. She had checked into Lehtonen’s background and found Anton Teittinen’s name. The man had a laundry list of petty crimes, which revealed a lot. Smart criminals didn’t commit petty offenses, so when there were a lot of them, it usually meant drugs or booze-probably both. A mug shot of a mean-looking, slightly bloated man with a pockmarked face seemed to support the assumption.
“You mentioned a restraining order earlier.”
“I did finally get one. Oddly enough he obeyed it, especially after the police picked him up around the corner a few times for getting too close. That’s when we moved.”
“Good to hear the system works every now and then. Not always the case.”
Joutsamo sipped her tea. In a way she was glad the conversation had shifted to Lehtonen, which was the point of the meeting anyway. Not to mention that she hated talking about her own life. As to why, well, that was a sore subject.
“The only good thing that came out of my marriage was Laura.”
“I hear that a lot…that kids are good.”
“The jerk threatened to beat me up a couple times. Naively, I thought, well, the girl needs her dad and, oh, it’s all right, after yet another of his perfectly-crafted apologies. Some women apparently tolerate it for years. Twice was enough for me. I’ve always believed that you can forgive anything once. The first time, okay, maybe he was just being stupid; could’ve been a misunderstanding, or he was high or something. But the second time is my limit. End of story. And when I make up my mind, it stays that way.”
“Sounds pretty smart to me. How’s his relationship with your daughter?”
“She never had any problems with him. Actually, he was really involved in her life when she was a pre-schooler, but after the divorce I cut off their relationship. No Christmas, no birthday presents, no Father’s Day cards. We just sort of melted out of
his life.”
Joutsamo got the impression this was a woman who never looked back, and such a mindset may have been the only way to escape such a situation. “How old was Laura then,” said Joutsamo, though she already knew the answer from the records. Laura was born in 1994 and the divorce happened in 2000.
“She was six. She didn’t understand, and I didn’t explain. I lied to her face, actually. I mean, she knows about the divorce, but I’ve kept the details under wraps. We don’t have a single picture of him anywhere.”
“That’s understandable, in a way.”
“Did I tell you why we had to meet here?”
Joutsamo shook her head.
“Laura has theater practice next door. Over there at the Theater Academy. She’s really excited about acting. One of the instructors at the academy actually started the group to research how twelve- to sixteen-year-old kids learn acting. She’s worked with school kids before and now she’s writing a dissertation about the play. Doing interviews and such. Getting kids to memorize the lines from some random play can be tough, but the idea here is for the kids to write the play themselves and kind of internalize their lines that way. Opening night is in December.”
“Sounds good,” said Joutsamo, though it didn’t much interest her.
“I know. But the problem is that the project started at the beginning of August, and before this police thing, Laura used to walk home from here every night. Now I feel like I have to come meet her.”
Before Joutsamo could respond, Lehtonen stood up, “Can I get you a beer?”
Joutsamo shook her head. “No. I’m driving.”
“I’ll just get one for myself.”
A minute later, Lehtonen returned with a beer and a glass. She sat back down and continued before Joutsamo could say anything. “Well, I was honest with you about my story. Now you can be honest with me…so do Laura and I have anything to be afraid of?”
Joutsamo looked her keenly in the eye. She was glad they had gotten back to official business. “To be honest, I don’t know.”
“Would you tell me if there was?”
“If I really wanted to lie, I’d just say there wasn’t. But you’re a key witness in the case and this Risto Korpi is a professional criminal. That’s not a good combination, but from experience I can tell you that these types go after informants first. Then of course the cops, the prosecutors and the judges. It’s extremely rare for someone to target an ordinary citizen.”
“Rare…” said Lehtonen. “How rare?”
“I’ll be honest with you. At this point, neither Korpi nor anybody else knows anything about you, but the defense will get the case files once they’re ready. That might take a couple months. At that point, they’ll have your name, but since your address and other personal information are confidential, finding you would be difficult. Not impossible, but difficult, and at that point, Korpi will still be in jail.”
“Okay. At least you’re being honest.”
“And once they finally get your name, the bitterness has usually lost its edge.”