Behind God's Back (7 page)

“I'm in no rush. The boys will be fine by themselves.”

Both of Stenman's sons were over ten years old, and she had a mother in good health who lived nearby and was willing to watch them.

I told her about the call I had just received from Auvinen. “It sounds like Jacobson was hiding from whoever it was. I'll ask Simolin to trace the call.”

Stenman was doubtful. “It's probably one of those prepaid numbers.”

Simolin walked in, carrying a notebook. “I've checked with all of the rental agencies in the Helsinki area. It's not a rental.”

“No cars have been reported stolen, it hasn't been rented, and chances are it's not the killer's own car. What alternatives do we have left?” I pondered.

“Borrowed,” Simolin suggested.

“Professionals don't borrow cars. Too big a risk,” Stenman said.

“Borrowed without permission, from some company or by blackmailing the owner.”

“Possible, but that's also risky, unless the killer has the owner of the car in a serious vice. What if the car was stolen from someone who couldn't report it, like long-term airport parking? The owner might be abroad.”

“The new Golfs are equipped with immobilizers, and there are surveillance cameras at the parking lots. I just had an idea. What if the car is foreign, say Estonian? You can buy cars there without ID; you can make up any name you want. There's no way to connect the buyer to the car.”

“It's possible,” I said. “The important thing now is to find that car. It was already on the news, but we've got to get it into the papers, too. Find a photo of a similar Golf somewhere and ask
the papers to print it. Not everyone knows what a Golf looks like – at least, not all women do.”

“Come and take a look at this,” Stenman said.

She rewound the recording and pressed Play. The footage showed a car, irritatingly at the far right of the screen, pulling up in front of Jacobson's company. A man who appeared drunk climbed out. He looked around nervously, hurried over to the mail box, and slipped in an object that looked like a letter. The time on the screen read 6:32 a.m.

Even in still mode the image was so grainy and blurry that there was no way of identifying the guy. Stenman wound it back and forth a few times, but it didn't do any good. The clothes were normal; they didn't have any logos. Then Stenman fast-forwarded.

“Oh, for Christ's sakes,” Stenman said. The car backed away and disappeared for good.

Simolin provided the play-by-play: “Turned around by backing up in the drive.”

“We're not going to get the car or the guy from that,” I said, exasperated. You could only see a foot of the car's nose, and even that was caught in an annoying shadow that fell across the front grille. You couldn't even tell what colour it was, just that it was dark.

“Shitty luck, nothing we can do,” Stenman said.

“What about Oksanen?” Simolin suggested.

“What about him?”

“He came in second in the
Tech World
car identification competition a couple of years back. I just saw him in his office, even though he's supposed to be on vacation.”

“Ask him to come in here,” I said.

As we waited on Oksanen's expertise, Stenman rewound and fast-forwarded through the footage a few more times and fine-tuned it. Then Simolin walked in with Oksanen.

“What's the trouble?” Oksanen asked confidently. Simolin must have given him the low-down.

“Do you recognize that car?” Stenman asked.

Oksanen bent towards the screen and, without a moment's hesitation, said: “Late '90s Ford Mondeo. The last year they made them was '97, if I remember right. Piece of cake.”

I was blown away. “Are you sure?”

“This is one of the easiest models to identify. The newer ones would be a lot tougher. See how the headlight curves in from the edges in that weird way?”

“Great,” I said, instinctively slapping Oksanen on the shoulder. He took it as praise, and exited with a smile on his face.

Simolin's phone rang. I continued talking to Stenman: “Let's ask Hulkko and the other employees about the car…”

The eagerness in Simolin's voice caught my attention. I looked over and saw him lift up a thumb.

“No, tell me… where is it…?” Simolin wrote something down. “Good, I'll go over right now and have a look. Call in forensics and a tow truck, too.”

I guessed what had happened. Simolin ended the call and confirmed my suspicions.

“We have our Golf.”

5

I was forced to admit that Jacobson's killer was not your average criminal. He had left the car only a hundred yards from the scene of the murder. It was discovered in the garage of the house that was across the street and up from the Jacobsons', the beautiful old run-down house that Jacobson's neighbour had mentioned. The trees and bushes had blocked him from seeing that the car had been driven there.

From up close, the house was in even worse shape than I had imagined. It was a two-storey villa, with a glassed-in porch and steep-pitched roofs. The paint was flaking and the roof tiles were green with moss, but even the ravages of time couldn't mask its beauty. That beauty wasn't likely to keep the heirs from tearing it down, however. Money steamrolled over sentiment, too. Still, at least three generations had lived in the house, and even those who remained had started life there.

The garden was overgrown, as if no one mowed or pruned it any more. Saplings and grass, almost waist high, thrust up through the gravel drive. The ground under the fruit trees was blanketed with rotting apples of all varieties that would never find their way into a jam jar or juice bottle in anyone's cellar. The air was laden with end-of-summer abundance.

The gravel crunched under our feet as we walked up the slope towards the house. Two patrol cars stood in the drive.

The yard had been searched and all the footprints pulled before our arrival. The car was waiting to be towed to the technical facility for a detailed forensic investigation.

“It's gorgeous here,” Stenman sighed.

“It sure is.”

The Golf had been driven into a weatherboard garage that stood between the house and the upper yard. Its double doors were open, and I could see the rear of the vehicle.

“How did the killer know about the garage?” Simolin wondered. “What if he's a local?”

“Maybe he just came and checked out the area beforehand.”

“The garage lock is smashed,” Stenman said, peering in through the car windows.

The car had been found by some neighbourhood boys who had been in the yard stealing plums. They had carried out these raids before, and had always been able to go about their business without anyone bothering them. This time, the car in the garage had scared them. Luckily for us, one of the boys heard at home that there had been a murder across the street and that the police were looking for a blue Volkswagen Golf. The boy's mother called it in, and a patrol drove out to make sure that the car was the one we were looking for.

I hung back to speak with one of the forensic specialists.

“The plates are from a demolished vehicle,” she said.

“Anything else?”

“There's a policeman's jacket and hat in the back seat. We'll conduct a more detailed investigation at the impound facility in Pasila.”

Stenman circled the car. “Can I take a look inside?”

“As long as you don't mess up the prints.”

“I won't,” she promised, pulling on a pair of rubber gloves. I watched as she bent into the car from the passenger door. She had a nice butt, and my eyes automatically honed in on it. But I was forced to break the spell and focus on the situation at hand.

“Did you find any footprints or anything else in the yard?” I asked the investigators.

“Nothing. The ground's hard and didn't take any prints.”

Stenman rose from the car and said: “It looks like the car was brought over from Estonia.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Come and have a look.”

Stenman opened the glove box. A sticker from a Tallinn car dealership was pasted to the inside of the hatch.

“That's no good. Might be hard to find out who the owner is.”

Simolin, who had circled the house, walked over carrying an apple.

“These are good,” he said, juice spurting as he bit.

“You were right – the car was probably brought from Estonia.”

“That might still turn to our advantage,” Simolin said, opening the hood. He wrote down the engine number and stepped off to the side. I saw him make a call.

I took a closer look at the car. There was a police officer's coat and hat in the back seat, along with a removable blue light for the roof.

“At least there's no doubt that we have the right car,” I said to Stenman. “I'm having a hard time deciding whether it was smart or stupid to leave the car this close to the scene.”

“Smart,” Stenman said. “A path leads from the top of the hill down to a bigger road. The killer probably had a second car waiting there. He must have assumed that it wouldn't take long before someone noticed the murder and an APB would be put out on the Golf. With the second car, he could drive around without having to worry, since everyone was looking for the wrong make.”

Simolin walked over, looking satisfied with himself. Normally he was modesty personified.

“I called a detective I know in Tallinn. He promised to try and see if there was anything he could find out about the vehicle.”

“How do you know him?” Stenman asked.

Simolin looked embarrassed. “We share some common interests.”

“Is he into Indians, too?”

“Something like that.”

“Maybe I should start getting into them, too,” Stenman said. She looked like she was serious. I had never heard her make fun at the expense of Simolin's pastime. On the contrary, she had praised him to me on numerous occasions.

“In any case, everything points to the theory that the killer is a professional,” I said. “It was all carefully planned, down to the acquisition of the vehicle. It looks like the threat letter that Jacobson received doesn't have anything to do with the murder. It's not likely that the killer would have used two cars on the same day. If he wanted us to connect the threat and the murder, he would have only used the Golf.”

Stenman was satisfied. “At least that's one less alternative.”

I climbed the path that started behind the house and rose to the top of the hill. I looked around. The trail dropped through a small stand of trees and plunged down to the narrow, spruce-lined road. I returned to the yard just as the tow truck was grinding its way up the drive. The forensic investigators were pushing the car out of the garage with the help of a couple of patrolmen. Once they got it out, they turned it around so it could be winched onto the bed of the truck.

“If we're lucky, we'll find something in the car that will help us with the investigation,” Simolin said.

I didn't believe in luck. It wasn't likely that the killer would have made such an elementary mistake.

“We need to talk to the people who live on the road that starts on the far side of that hill. They might have noticed the killer's other car. It was probably parked there overnight.”

“I'm on it,” Simolin said. Stenman nodded, too.

Simolin's phone rang. He glanced at it and said: “It's Estonia.” Stenman and I stopped to listen.

“Wait, let me write that down.”

I handed Simolin a pen and a notebook.

“All right, go for it,” he said, jotting down the information he was getting. “Thanks a lot; I owe you one.”

Simolin frowned at the notebook. “The car was sold by a legitimate importer a little over a year ago. It's owned by an Estonian finance company, which is also the registered user. It was stolen from the company's parking garage two weeks ago.”

I had a sinking feeling. “What's the name of the company?” I asked. Simolin took another glance at his notebook.

“Baltic Invest.”

6

Roni Jacobson's plane from Rovaniemi was landing at 7:15 p.m., and it would take about twenty minutes for the bags to come through. Stenman and I waited in the short-stay lot. I was tired, and I rolled down the window to get some fresh air.

“How well do you know Jacobson's son?” Stenman asked.

“Not well. We haven't seen each other in years. The last time was in passing, at some community event.”

“I always thought all the Jews in Finland fraternized with each other.”

“I'm an exception,” I said, sounding stuck-up even to myself.

Stenman smiled. “Why don't you go to the synagogue and find yourself a nice Jewish girl, get married under the canopy, and smash a wine glass under your heel. I've seen
Fiddler on the Roof.
”