Behind God's Back (4 page)

“Why didn't he take out a loan from a Finnish bank?”

“He said you could get a loan from Estonia at a lower interest rate. I didn't argue, because I knew the broker. You know him pretty well yourself.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Oxbaum. He represents the Estonian bank here in Finland.”

“Max Oxbaum?”

“Yes.”

Max Oxbaum was a well-known attorney, my second cousin and my brother Eli's business partner. Together they owned a law firm named Kafka & Oxbaum.

2

By now at the latest I could have excused myself from the case, and with good cause. But I didn't want to. No matter what was revealed during the investigation, my brother would answer for his deeds. If a collision with my brother's actions looked inevitable, I would step aside at the last minute and, if necessary, hand anything involving him over to another investigator.

Eli was a successful corporate lawyer and had married into money, too. There had been a time when I had been almost envious of my brother, who, along with a good wife, had two sharp kids, a swanky apartment in Eira, a German luxury vehicle, a summer villa the size of a manor and a position of respect in the Jewish congregation. I had none of the above. On the other hand, my brother was four years older and three inches shorter than me, and ran to fat. Plus there was a bald spot on his head where his hair had just begun to thin.

I knew from before that Eli and Max's law office brokered their clients' loans from an Estonian company, Baltic Invest. Baltic Invest was owned by an Israeli businessman named Benjamin Hararin. I had heard all of this from my childhood friend Dan just before his death. According to Dan, who had worked for the Mossad, Hararin's affairs were being investigated in Israel because he was suspected of laundering money for the Russian mafia. Dan had also hinted that Hararin was in possession of sensitive video material starring Eli and Max.

I had reported my intelligence to the financial crimes division of the National Bureau of Investigation. The NBI had
requested further information from the Israeli police, but received no response – not even confirmation of the investigation's existence.

I had looked into the matter myself using my own sources and the Internet. I discovered that Hararin, himself a millionaire, was considered a frontman for a businessman named Amos Jakov. Jakov was among those 140,000 Jews who had emigrated to Israel from the Soviet Union in the '70s. Upon his arrival in 1973, at the age of twenty-two, Jakov initially enlisted in the Israeli army and then the Mossad, where he gained a tough reputation and rose to the middle ranks. Through contacts he apparently acquired during his stint with the Mossad and money that came from Russia, he got into real estate and then expanded into energy. He had particularly good connections in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, both of which were rich in oil, gas and minerals. He was considered a good friend of the president of Kazakhstan, and when he acquired a Kazakh chromium mine in the 1990s, it was rumoured that the deal coincided with the transfer of 100 million dollars into the president's Swiss bank accounts. Plenty had been written about Jakov in the international financial press.

In contrast, information on Jakov's mafia contacts was scarce, but some anonymous sources indicated that he had belonged to a local criminal gang in his birth city of Minsk and had been sentenced to prison for assault and robbery. When the Soviet Union collapsed and Minsk became the capital of Belarus, Jakov was able to exploit his old contacts, some of whom later moved to Israel, others to the United States. I found a
New York Times
article that linked FBI investigations of money laundering to Jakov.

Time passed and nothing happened; I had already forgotten about both Eli and Max's business dealings as well as Jakov and Hararin. Now I was faced with the whole mess again. It felt like I had been slapped in the face with a wet rag, and for good reason.

When I stepped out of the Jacobsons' house, Simolin was talking with one of the CSIs in the yard. I joined them.

“Three shells were recovered, and so were two bullets, one in pretty good shape. Dug out of a porch pillar; .22 calibre,” Simolin reported.

“What else?” I asked the investigator.

“The shooter must have stayed on the paving, because there aren't any footprints. The shots were fired from within three feet, so there aren't even any traces of contact. We've combed over the entire property but haven't found a thing. There are no tyre marks, either. So basically what we have is a whole lot of nothing. The bullets and shells will tell us the manufacturer and make of the weapon, assuming we find it.”

Simolin was doubtful. “Not likely.”

“We'll have to talk to the people living along the vehicle's escape route. Someone might have seen something. I'll call in some more support,” I said.

“This is when we could use that famous dog-walker who saw the whole thing,” Simolin jibed, without the slightest trace of humour.

I stepped aside to phone in the request for more patrols. In the middle of the call, I saw my subordinate Arja Stenman arrive. She looked as classy as ever. To be honest, she looked too classy for rough-and-tumble police work. She would have fit right in as the trophy wife of a middle-ranking CEO. In a way, she had been pretty close. She was divorced, but her ex-husband owned, or had owned, a construction equipment rental company. He had sold it in the nick of time before the police and the tax authorities caught up with him. Stolen machinery had been found in the company's warehouses. In any case, Arja Stenman had been accustomed to a life where you didn't have to worry about whether the money would stretch till payday. She had clear skin, freckles and a straight nose. I couldn't deny it: she was easy on the eyes.

“I called about the car on my way over. Nothing similar has been reported stolen, but it's unlikely that the killer is driving his own vehicle,” Stenman said.

“Would you come inside with me?” I said. “Simolin, once more people show up, take the lead in canvassing the neighbours.”

The body was just now being transported to the ambulance. As a Jew, Jacobson would receive accelerated handling, because Jews expected to bury their dead within twenty-four hours. If the loved ones lived a long way away, the burial could be postponed for a couple of days. Every Jewish congregation had its own holy society, called a
chevra kadisha
, which took care of burial arrangements.

Of course the burial would be postponed if a criminal investigation demanded storage of the body, but I knew from experience that the
chevra kadisha
knew how to pull the right strings to inter the body within their preferred time frame. Autopsies weren't even conducted unless specifically demanded by the investigation. Jacobson was a pillar of the congregation, and getting him into the ground in the prescribed time would be a matter of honour.

Ethel was sitting on the sofa, talking on the phone. It only took a few words for me to gather she was speaking with her daughter in Israel. She intermittently wiped her eyes as she spoke.

Ari's here… Ariel Kafka… He's investigating your father's… I have to go. Tell Rachel and Dan that Grandma sends them her love… Of course I will.”

Ethel rose. “Lea said to say hello. She'll be arriving on the evening flight tomorrow.”

“Could I have a look around your husband's office?” I asked.

“Why on earth?”

“Maybe he jotted something down… something that will help us. On his calendar or planner or whatnot. We'll go over to the company later, as well.”

“I suppose you know what needs to be done.”

Ethel led Stenman and me into the office, although I knew the way. I had a distinct memory of the time Samuel Jacobson asked me to step back there with him, shut the door and lectured me on what was expected of a man who dated his daughter. The list had been a long one: ambition, initiative, responsibility, courage, fidelity, loyalty, respect for traditions, respect for parents…

All of this despite the fact that Lea and I had only been out a few times, and all of my ambition and initiative went into breaking down her moral resistance.

The office was small, and the walls were lined with books, paintings, mementoes and photographs. In one shot, a youngish Jacobson was shaking hands with Ariel Sharon; in another, with General Moshe Dayan. The photos had been taken during a trip Makkabi made to Israel in the 1970s; Makkabi was the Helsinki Jewish congregation's sports club. There was also a photo of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir at the Helsinki Synagogue during her visit to Finland in 1971, and one of defence minister Yitzhak Rabin at the same synagogue in 1986.

In one of the snapshots, Jacobson was sitting on a rattan couch next to a young man I couldn't identify, despite the fact that he looked familiar. I could identify the setting, though. The photo was taken in the Jacobsons' back yard.

I pointed at the man. “Who's he?” I asked Ethel.

“Haim Levi. He was an exchange student in Finland twenty years ago and lived with us for six months. He was appointed Minister of Justice in Israel not long ago. A very nice young man. He loved Finland, especially our cottage in Emäsalo… Has it really been that long?”

Stenman also came over to have a look. “I've heard of Levi. He's a controversial man in Israel.”

“Haim and Roni became very close friends.”

I examined the picture. Although in general my feeling was that photos of a host posing with famous guests didn't reveal much aside from the host's self-infatuation, in Samuel's case
they also said something about his status in the Helsinki Jewish congregation. He was respected among his own.

There were two more photos on the desk, and Jacobson didn't appear in either of them. One was taken in the back yard some summer long ago. In it, Lea and Roni were in an inflatable yellow pool; they were four or five years old. Roni was a year younger than Lea. In the other shot, they were sitting in a garden swing under some apple trees. This time, they were close to adolescence.

Ethel noticed my gaze and picked up the garden shot. “How time flies… What year was it when you two dated?”

“I was eighteen then, so it was…”

“It was such a lovely time when the children were little,” Ethel said, referring to the time before me. “Lea and Roni were never any trouble, bundles of pure joy. Israel is the Holy Land and our God-given homeland, but I still wish Lea hadn't moved so far away. We don't see each other often enough.”

Ethel touched my sleeve. I was some link to past bliss, and she didn't want to come back yet. The same kind of link as a crackly old film strip where children run eternally into their father's or mother's arms, take their first steps, learn to ride a bike, ski, swim, where the sun shines through the leaves of the apple trees…

“Lea has two wonderful children, Dan and Rachel. They love visiting their Grandma…”

Stenman's phone rang, breaking the spell. She went into the other room to talk. Ethel looked at me mournfully.

“Samuel was very fond of you…”

I had a completely contrary view of this matter as well. My impression had been that I hadn't met Jacobson's criteria for a son-in-law. I had no trouble remembering his exact expression when he eyed me in this very room twenty-four years earlier. It said that he doubted I was good enough for his daughter. He frowned like a diamond merchant who was being sold a chunk of glass. I probably wouldn't have got along with him very well
if he had become my father-in-law. Ethel, on the other hand, I had liked from the start.

“If there's anything here, this is where it would be,” Ethel said, opening the desk drawer. “Samuel has a safe at the office. That's where he kept the loan papers and other important company documents.”

I rifled through the drawer and found three planners and a notebook. Jacobson was the old-fashioned type. He probably wrote everything important down on paper and left the laptop, which sat closed on the desk, unused. On the other hand, it had to be more than a prop.

The notebook contained mostly names and addresses. I put it down and concentrated on the planner. Jacobson had an average of three meetings a day. The previous week he'd had three lunchtime meetings and a slew of others.

Stenman walked over and pulled me aside. “That was Simolin. A racist threat was found at Jacobson's company. It was in the mail box this morning, but they didn't report it until now, after they heard what had happened.”

“Let's head over,” I said, and then turned to Ethel. “We'll take these with us, and the laptop, too, if you don't mind. Do you know what your husband used the computer for?”

“He didn't use it much. He'd use the Internet a little, but he wasn't interested in these new fads, even though we sold computers, too. When he started out, we were the largest typewriter retailer in Helsinki. He knew them so well that he would even help out with repairs if there was a rush. That was one of the reasons he wanted to turn over responsibility to Roni.”

Ethel went and got two shopping bags for us, and we piled them full of anything of interest from the office.

I was already stepping out of the front door when Ethel said: “Lea will be here tomorrow… I told her you were the investigator… She said she'd like to see you.”