Behind God's Back (9 page)

*

The same old spot was the Compass Terrace at Kaivopuisto marina. When we were kids, Dad would take us down to the shore and regale us with all sorts of stories about the city. At one point, we had an old wooden fisherman's boat, and it had been moored down at the marina, too. An autumn gale had smashed the hull, and it sank a day before Dad was supposed to pull it out for the winter. We never went out in it, because Dad didn't trust the engine, but we'd often take day trips down to the dock. We'd sit in the boat and fish, and Dad would cook for us on a camp stove. We even spent the night a couple of times. I'll always remember the smell of diesel and damp wood that rose from the engine and the bilge.

Eli only lived a couple of hundred yards from our meeting place, but I wouldn't have been surprised if he had shown up in his car. He came on foot, though, and as if by tacit agreement, we headed down the shore towards Cafe Ursula.

Eli broke the silence. “You dated Jacobson's daughter for a while, didn't you? Wasn't her name Lea?”

“You have a good memory.”

“It's a small world.”

“Smaller than you'd think. Jacobson's wife told me that they took out a loan for their company through you and Max.”

Eli shrugged. “Could be. Max handles that side of the business. Besides, you're talking as if we're a bank. All we do is refer clients to the finance company and receive a certain compensation for that. It's not enough to get rich off.”

“Where does the money come from?”

“A lot of places. The company I represent has operations in numerous countries. Do you think we have something to do with Jacobson's death? Is that the reason for this clandestine rendezvous?”

“Well, do you?”

“Hey, don't joke around about serious stuff. What the hell is going on here, little brother?”

Even though Eli was trying to keep the tone light, I could sense the fear in him.

“Jacobson wasn't killed by some neo-Nazi or crazy racist. The killer was dressed like a police officer because Jacobson knew that something might happen to him. He had barricaded himself up at home. He was frightened. And he wouldn't tell anyone why, even his wife.”

“What reason would anyone have to murder a guy who sells office machines?”

“Depends on whether he was just a guy who sold office machines. Or something more.”

“A spy?” Eli chuckled. “It's hard to imagine anyone more strait-laced than Jacobson. People like that don't get mixed up in anything dangerous.”

“What were the terms of the loan like?”

“What you're asking is confidential information.”

“I doubt Jacobson's very concerned any more.”

“Who would take a loan from us if the terms weren't good?”

“What about collateral?”

“Totally normal. Corporate real estate and the house.”

“So why did Jacobson want to switch banks if everything was so good?”

Eli slowed down and looked at me. “I don't know anything about that. Where did you hear that?”

“His wife.”

“I seriously don't know anything about that, but I can ask Max… or you can ask him yourself.”

“You didn't tell me anything about the company you represent. What's it called?”

“Baltic Invest. It's an investment and finance company.”

“Estonian?”

“No, it's part of a larger international concern.”

“Come on, who owns the company?”

“It's part of an Israeli conglomerate. The principal shareholder is a businessman named Benjamin Hararin.”

“A Jew.”

“What could be finer than the success of one of our own?”

“How did it so happen that you and Max became the company's agents in Finland?”

“Through Max. A friend of his knows Hararin and suggested it to him. I wasn't thrilled about it, but Max felt like free money was being thrown into our laps. All we had to do was introduce potential borrowers and lenders to each other. We'd get a slice of every loan – a slim one, but it wasn't much work. Once Max filled out the papers for a million-euro loan in fifteen minutes. We got 20,000 euros for that. Pretty good hourly rate.”

“Does the name Amos Jakov say anything to you?”

“What you're trying to insinuate isn't true,” Eli said. He was starting to get angry.

“What is it I'm trying to insinuate?”

“I know what's been written about Jakov in Israel. That Hararin is his frontman and launders Russian mafia money for him. The police there have been investigating it for years, but they haven't found any proof.”

“If my brother says so, it must be true. How much have you guys brokered in loans?”

“We have several hundred clients, and they have a total of sixty million in loans. Jacobson was one of them.”

I did some quick mental calculations. If Max and Eli earned a similar slice for each loan, they had raked in 1.2 million euros from them. Not bad, considering that the business had only been in existence for a couple of years. Two men of modest needs would have no trouble living off that.

“How did he know to turn specifically to you and Max for a loan?”

Eli was genuinely irritated. “Max, again. Although you'd never guess it, he's pretty agile when he wants to be. It'd be nice to know by what logic you're trying to connect us to Jacobson's murder.”

“Money's always a good motive.”

“Was Jacobson's company in financial hardship?”

“The wife says no, but maybe she didn't know everything. Maybe you do. Did Jacobson make all his payments on time?”

Eli avoided my gaze. “Come on, spit it out.”

“The last few payments were late, because Jacobson's company lost a lot of big orders and clients over a short period of time. We tweaked the payment schedule and everyone was happy. We weren't worried, because Jacobson's corporate and personal assets added up to much more than the amount of the loan, and we have collateral for every single cent.”

“Then maybe Jacobson had vices his wife didn't know about.”

“Gambling and wild women?”

“The wife said he didn't gamble. I'm not sure about the women.”

“Believe me, you can drop that line of investigation. That much I knew about the guy.”

“So try and come up with a better one,” I said.

“I'd start from something more prosaic. Maybe he had fired someone who decided to take revenge. It happens. You know that motives can be pretty unbelievable sometimes. When I was sitting on the bench in municipal court, I had this one case where a guy had locked his buddy in the sauna and set fire to it – and all because his friend had a better hunting dog than he did. It had kept him awake at night, and eventually it sent him off the deep end.”

Eli stopped to eye a new, expensive-looking boat moored at one of the docks. “I was thinking I'd buy a boat. How do you like that one?”

“Knock yourself out, as long as you don't ask me to co-sign. You're old enough to make decisions like that yourself.”

“You remember Dad's old wooden boat that sank in that autumn storm?”

I nodded.

“I've always wondered why he never took us out in it,” Eli said.

“Because the engine was a piece of junk.”

“That's what Dad said. So why didn't he fix it?”

“Why do you think?”

“That he was afraid something would happen to us and to him – that the boat would capsize and we'd drown. The sea scared him and lured him at the same time. He solved the conundrum by buying the boat and keeping it at the marina. Pretty weird coincidence that he drowned.”

“Come on, we had a good time at the dock.”

“I'm not saying we didn't, but it could have been fun to take the boat out to some nice little island, drop anchor, fish and spend the night. We could have turned up the stereo and danced butt-naked around the bonfire, drunk off our asses.”

I had no problem imagining Eli at the helm in a captain's hat and a navy-blue Polo cardigan. Imagining him dancing naked around a bonfire was harder, but not impossible. Sometimes he would get seriously blitzed. One night that week at his cottage, he had sat at the shore singing “Jambalaya” for a good half-hour straight, sounding like a bear with bronchitis. At one point he had mixed up the words and bellowed about “Polish piroshki down the bayou.”

If Eli was feeling blue, he'd switch from “Jambalaya” to “The Death of the Farmer's Lass”: “Before them lay the bog, rough boards bridged the mire…”

I had listened to “Jambalaya” non-stop until he passed out on the granite boulder. The loyal little brother that I was, I kept sitting there at his side, even after it started to rain. He woke up soaking wet and chilled to the bone.

“Up for a beer at the Sea Horse?” Eli suggested.

“Not tonight. I just got off work an hour ago.”

“Have you guys got anything yet?”

“No.”

“Well, I won't twist your arm. Some other time.”

“We found the killer's car,” I said, watching Eli's expression.

“Good. Solve the case.”

“It was stolen in Tallinn.”

“Pretty clever.”

“It was owned by an Estonian investment company called Baltic Invest.”

Incredulity played across Eli's face until he realized I was serious. It was clear that this was news to him. “Are you shitting me?”

“They reported it stolen a couple of weeks ago.”

“Quite the coincidence. You don't think I have anything to do with it, do you?”

“Hard to imagine that you would. But I have to admit, I don't believe it's a coincidence.”

Eli stopped and looked at me, perplexed. “What could Baltic Invest have to do with Jacobson's murder?”

“You told me that he didn't make all of his payments. Maybe the company sent a killer to remind him that they weren't the ones to screw around with.”

“Baltic Invest is not Assassination Ltd. And like I said, we have collateral. Jacobson even put up his house. Believe me, it has to be a coincidence,” Eli insisted, but he looked like he didn't even believe it himself.

Eli glared at me and I glared at him. Then we parted in opposite directions. After a few yards, I glanced back. Eli was just disappearing behind some bushes, turning into the park. I had the distinct impression that we hadn't seen the last of Eli's business affairs.

I had brought Jacobson's computer home. Ethel had given me the password, so I was able to access both the saved documents and email. The laptop was pretty new and didn't contain many files. Jacobson had written some ordinary business letters, plus a few to his daughter in Israel. I felt like I was breaking the bounds of propriety when I read them, but they didn't contain anything of interest in terms of the investigation. The biggest surprise was that Jacobson was writing his memoirs.
The structure was a straightforward chronology, starting from his youth and approaching the present day. The final entries talked about the 1960s and how he met his future wife. They had been introduced to each other in the lobby of a movie theatre. The name of the film had been
Exodus
.

The style was ponderous and swelled from catalogue-style reportage to sentimental syrup. It was hard to imagine a publisher being interested in it. He was probably writing it for his children and grandchildren.

Jacobson's email correspondence had been brisk, but most of it had to do with the company. I read a few messages that had been sent to clients; they were almost imploring. They appealed to long-lasting business relationships and reminded the clients how conscientiously their wishes had always been taken into consideration. The company must have been doing poorly and Jacobson must have been desperate; there's no other way he ever would have written those emails. He must have been ashamed.

I kept browsing and found an email Jacobson had sent to Roni. It was from a month ago.

Mikkola's dismissal has been on my mind, and my feeling is you acted too hastily and high-handedly. Mikkola has always carried out his duties in an exemplary fashion, and as someone who had been with us for such a long time, he deserved better treatment. In the future, I want you to immediately report any problems to me so that nothing of this sort happens again. I must admit I'm disappointed in your actions.

I met with two of our key clients today and both of them have to postpone their hardware upgrades. All in all, it's starting to look like I'm going to have to put off my retirement. I believe that my connections and experience are too valuable to sacrifice in this financial situation. I hope you're not disappointed, even though I had promised to turn the reins over to you. I'll step down as soon as circumstances allow.

I also discussed the loan with Joel. He sounded almost angry, but I explained that switching the loan over to Finland was best, especially since the Israeli police are investigating the parent company. Joel assured me that it's a matter of internal politics and that everything would be fine. Frankly, I don't know what to believe. He's afraid that transferring the loan will spark a chain reaction in Finland, which I find odd. I tried to put him at ease, and told him I had no intention of announcing my affairs over a loudspeaker. I'm too old to be taking risks, especially since I want to leave you a thriving company, not a string of complications.