“This is a needle in a haystack.”
“For the moment.”
“You’re going to ruin my vacation over a dead nigger refugee?”
I can’t believe he said it. I try to check my anger and don’t react. Valtteri solves the problem for me. He stands up, strides across the room and slaps Antti’s face.
Antti is speechless. His face turns red from embarrassment and redder from the slap.
“Take your vacation,” Valtteri says. “It might be longer than you think.”
Antti looks at me. I shrug and back up Valtteri. “He’s your sergeant.”
I’ve never seen Valtteri lose his temper before, let alone hit anybody. I don’t know if he did it because Antti was disrespectful to me or to Sufia. Either way, it’s a bad way to start the investigation.
A few tense seconds tick by. “Inspector,” Antti says. He always calls me Kari. He must be trying to say he’s sincere. “I was disappointed about my vacation and said something I didn’t mean.” He looks at Valtteri like he’s afraid he’ll hit him again. “I understand how important this case is, and I’m happy to cancel my vacation to work on it.”
I might dismiss him if I could do without him, but I can’t, and I don’t want him to file a complaint against Valtteri. “And in return for my ignoring a racist comment, in which you suggested that the victim in this investigation doesn’t deserve justice because of the color of her skin, you’ll forget about Valtteri slapping you for being a jackass?”
He nods.
“Okay with you Valtteri?”
He sits down, looks distressed. “Yeah.”
I try to get us past a bad moment by acting like it never happened. “Jussi, work on the wax casts from the tire treads. They’re our best lead. Use the database, find out what makes and models are possibilities. Shouldn’t take too long. Do the best you can with the shoe prints too. When you get done, help Antti. In a day or two, we’ll know who in Kittila and Levi had vehicles that make them possible suspects.”
Jussi nods.
“Get it now Antti?” I ask. “It’s not that fucking hard.”
He nods. “I got it.”
“Valtteri,” I say, “you work the local angle. Make a list of known racists and sex offenders. Find out where they all were. That shouldn’t take too long either. I’ll get the lot number off the beer bottle, and you can try to figure out where it was sold.”
“Okay.”
“Sufia’s place of lodging is a potential secondary crime scene. I’ll find out where she was staying, collect evidence and lift prints, then go to the autopsy. After that, I’ll try to figure out where she was when she was abducted. Any questions?”
No one has any. Sufia’s image hovers on the wall. She stares at us with empty eye sockets. I flip on the lights.
6
I go to my office. Valtteri trails in behind me and sits on the edge of my desk.
“Did you kiss and make up with Antti?” I ask.
“No.”
“Going to?”
“No.”
I don’t blame him. “Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
They can’t even laugh it off over a beer. Valtteri doesn’t drink. His religion precludes it. It precludes a lot of things which for most of us are basic entertainment, like watching TV and dancing. Laestadians tend to live passive, rather ascetic lives. They keep to their own and don’t associate much with people outside their church.
We have a large Laestadian community here in Kittila. Valtteri is thirty-eight years old, two years younger than me, and has eight children. His wife is his age and looks fifty. They had their youngest child four years ago. Their religion also forbids contraception, so either one of them is sterile or Valtteri’s sex life has come to a close.
As far as I know, Valtteri doesn’t want to be anything besides a small-town police sergeant. Laestadians don’t take part in any form of competition. He seems content to be part of his religious community and raise his family. We’ve been working together for a few years now, and he’s the most tranquil person I know. Aside from hitting Antti today.
“Why do you want me to investigate your father?” he asks.
“Dad didn’t kill anybody, it’s just something we have to do. We look at everyone.”
“Like you said, he didn’t kill anybody. I don’t see any need to look into your family.”
I don’t get why he’s making a big deal about it. Maybe it’s a Laestadian thing. Laestadians do a lot of things I don’t get. My ex-wife was raised Laestadian, but it didn’t take with her and she hated it. I’m starting to think Valtteri knows something about Dad. “Everyone.”
Valtteri still looks bothered.
“He was probably at work.”
Dad is a bartender in a dive near downtown. He has a bad drinking problem, but to my knowledge, he’s never touched a drop while behind the bar. I’ve often wondered if all that alcohol surrounding him doesn’t make him drool with craving while he’s selling it to customers.
“The truth is,” I say, “Dad was drunk and foul-tempered last night, and I didn’t ask him where he was because I didn’t want to fight with him. It’s easier for me if you just check. Do you mind?”
“No problem. Did you know Antti is such a racist?”
“Antti was upset, he’s no worse than most. He didn’t kill the girl, he was on duty with Jussi.”
“Still.”
“Sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
Valtteri never talks much, that’s one of the reasons I like him. My phone rings, he leaves to give me privacy.
“Vaara,” I answer.
“This is Jukka Selin from the Helsinki police department. You asked that the parents of Sufia Elmi be notified of her death.”
“Yeah.”
“A pastor and I visited them. It didn’t go well. They want to talk to you.” He gives me their names, Abdi and Hudow, and their phone number.
I call them right away. A woman answers the phone. I’m nervous and don’t know what to say, so I just start talking. “Ma’am, this is Inspector Kari Vaara from the Kittila police department.”
“Anteeksi?” Excuse me?
Even that one word of Finnish is barely understandable. I repeat who I am.
“Sorry, I get man.”
I’m worried they might not speak Finnish well enough for me to be able to make myself understood. Her husband comes to the phone. “Abdi.”
“Sir, this is Inspector Kari Vaara. I’m a police officer in Kittila. I’m told you want to talk to me about Sufia.”
“What has happened to her?”
Still at a loss for words, I restate what he already knows. “Sufia is dead sir. She’s been murdered.”
Seconds tick by in silence. “Who killed her?” he asks.
“I don’t know yet. I’m doing everything in my power to find out.”
“You are responsible for finding out?”
“Yes.”
“Then you do it. Give me your phone number.”
I give him my work and cell phone numbers.
“My wife and I will drive from Helsinki and be there tomorrow, to see our daughter. And you.”
I call Jaakko Pahkala. I’ve known him since I was a cop in Helsinki. He’s a freelance writer for the Helsinki daily newspaper, Ilta-sanomat, and also for the gossip magazine Seitseman Paivaa and the true-crime rag Alibi. There’s little about the goings-on of our celebrities that Jaakko doesn’t know.
“This is Kari Vaara. Sufia Elmi is vacationing in Kittila. Do you know where she’s staying?”
“Yes, and I’ll tell you if you tell me why you’re asking.”
“Because she’s dead.” I didn’t mean to be so gruff. This day isn’t going the way I had hoped.
“Jesus,” he says, “I’m sorry. How?”
He doesn’t sound sorry, he sounds itchy for details. Jaakko loves his work. “She was murdered yesterday. I’ll give you the scoop and fax you the police report before I enter it into the crime database if you help me out.”