Lucifer's Tears (29 page)

“You’re investigating the death of a patron on my premises. Now you have something else to investigate.”

“What might that be?”

“After two days in jail cells, punishments they didn’t deserve, my bouncers were cleared of responsibility and released. They came back to work. A man wearing a hood attacked them this evening. In one hand, he had a set of keys, a couple sticking out between each of his fingers, and used it to punch them in the face. The beating left terrible puncture wounds. In his other hand he held a box cutter, which he used to stab them repeatedly. It was attempted murder. My bouncers are hospitalized.”

“So what are you calling me for?”

“The attacker was a giant in a hooded sweatshirt. I know goddamned good and well it was Sulo Polvinen, but when the investigating officers went to his house, his parents provided him with an alibi and said he was home all evening watching TV with them. I demand that you do something about this.”

“One,” I say, “I’m on the homicide squad, and the bouncers aren’t dead, so it’s not my concern.” Actually, it falls within my purview, but I doubt he knows that. “Two, I think the bouncers got what they deserved. Three, you can go fuck yourself.”

I hang up on him.

The bedroom is clean. I walk out to check with the other detectives. The apartment is a shambles-they’ve turned it inside out. They’ve found nothing.

I call Milo. “I’m disgusted to say,” he says, “that I’m holding in my hand four freezer bags, all of which appear to contain sperm. I assume one sample came from Jyri and the three other come-wads are from his buddies. They were in Filippov’s freezer, numbered one to four instead of labeled by name.”

It’s something, anyway. Beyond that, his report is also negative, and their search is near conclusion. Filippov sticks his head in the front door. I hang up on Milo.

“Hi, Ivan,” I say. “What can I do for you?”

He strides in, has recovered his self-possession and intimidating manner. “I trust you haven’t found what you had hoped for,” he says.

“No, I haven’t, but I remain confident that I will.”

He leans against the wall with his arms folded, cocky. “I came here to let you know that I intend to ensure that the investigation of my wife’s murder is speedily concluded, and that Rein Saar is prosecuted. And I intend to file a complaint against you for harassment. You’ve searched my home and business without cause. A grieving widower should be left in peace to mourn, not treated in such a fashion.”

“Your wife was a slut,” I say, “and so is your mistress. We turned up four semen samples in your freezer. I’m pretty sure I know where they came from.”

His voice takes on a sadness both out of context and character. “Poor Iisa was given toward promiscuity, but Linda has always been faithful. If she was unfaithful, it was for me, for our common good.”

I pretend confidence I don’t feel. I may well be unable to convict Filippov. The murder was well planned and executed, all the way down to the blackmail scam. I come on conciliatory and bluff, as if I’m prepared to negotiate on Jyri’s behalf, just to see what comes of it. “Listen,” I say, “it’s possible that we could set aside our differences. You want things, Jyri and I and others want things. Let’s get together and discuss it.”

Now he realizes Jyri put me in the loop and I know the truth, but he hedges to buy time and process what it might mean. “I have no idea what those things might be,” he says.

“Maybe we could both think about it overnight. What those things are-and how to get what we want-might come to us.”

He studies me, skeptical. “All right, Inspector. Let’s meet at Kamp tomorrow at five p.m. You can buy our dinner.”

“Deal,” I say. We don’t shake hands. He walks out.

I have no idea what I’m going to say to him tomorrow, but for his vengeance to be complete, Rein Saar has to go to prison. If I can’t come up with something, it might happen. That’s unacceptable to me. Unfortunately, Jyri won’t share my concerns. I have to figure this out by myself.

My phone rings again. It’s Kate, and she’s crying. “Kari, where are you, it’s one thirty in the morning.”

“I’m sorry, it’s this murder investigation.”

She sobs. “Can you please come home now? I need you.”

“I’ll leave this minute,” I say, put on my coat and head out the door.

I find Kate lying on the couch in the dark, in a bathrobe, her hands folded atop her big pregnant belly. I pick her legs up, slide under them, rest them in my lap and sit next to her. The dull glow of a streetlight shows me tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. She’s sniffling.

“What happened?” I ask.

She whispers. “It’s true, what I said before. I failed my brother and sister.”

“Tell me.”

“Mary might hear. Help me up and let’s go to the bedroom.”

I stand and hoist her onto her feet. As she comes close to term, she’s having a harder and harder time getting around.

We go to our room and lie on top of the covers. Kate takes her usual position, her head in the crook of my shoulder, her face nuzzled into my neck. “Mary is only twenty-five,” she says, “but she acts like an old woman.”

“I noticed.”

“I wanted to find out what’s wrong with her. Why she’s so stern. Why she’s so obsessed with fundamentalist religion. I talked to her for a long time today, and asked without asking what happened to her after I left for college when she was eighteen.”

Kate chokes back a sob, takes a second and composes herself. “Mary told me that after I left for college, Dad started bringing his friends home to drink with him. I pushed her to tell me about it, because I could tell Mary was hiding something. I kept pressing her about what happened and asked her point-blank if she was raped. She denied being raped, but said one of Dad’s friends used to make her drink hard liquor and then do something to her that ‘tasted bad.’”

Kate’s composure dissolves. She grabs my head in her hands and pushes her face against mine to stifle the sound of her sobs. She spits out broken words. “Mary was abused and forced to do awful, disgusting things. I don’t think she even remembers what happened.”

I pull her closer. “If she doesn’t remember, maybe it’s for the best.”

She wipes snot and tears off my neck and onto her bathrobe. “Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“And I thought she’s happily married, and maybe she is, but I got the impression that her husband isn’t good to her, that they live some sort of severe religious lifestyle, and when she doesn’t conform to it, he beats her. I think that’s why she acts so old.”

I wish I had some comforting words, but Kate’s explanation of Mary’s personality makes sense to me. “I’m sorry,” I say.

“All I wanted was for all three of us to be happy,” she says.

“I know.”

“How is your head?” she asks.

“Fine.”

With difficulty, Kate rolls over and flips on the bedside lamp. She rolls back to me. “Look in my eyes,” she says.

I do.

“When your headaches are bad,” she says, “your pupils get so small that I can hardly see them. When your migraines are very very bad, I can’t see much more than the whites of your eyes. Right now, your pupils are almost invisible. Your head is killing you, isn’t it?”

She’s got me. “Yes.”

Anger and frustration creep into her voice. “You lie to me. Why?”

I take a second before answering. “Because I’m afraid for you and our baby. Because I don’t want to cause you needless stress and worry.”

“When you lie to protect me, you treat me like a child. It’s not fair and it’s not right. I also had a talk with John today.”

I suppress a sigh. I guess she’s got all the goods on me. “And?”

“And I knew there was something going on between you two, and I made him tell me what it was.”

She put John on the spot, but I told him to keep things between us between us. It pisses me off. “He wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“He said that, too, but he said you told him to be my friend, and he thought the best way to do that was by telling me what a good husband I have. He told me the truth about himself, about getting fired from New York University and why. Then he told me about his screwups since he arrived in Finland and how you fixed them all. About how you got his boots back.”

I say nothing, prepare for her well-deserved anger.

Kate wraps her arms around my neck and hugs me tight. “Thank you so much,” she says. “John is right, you’re a wonderful husband.”

I think I know Kate so well, but she continues to amaze me.

“But still,” she says, “you should have told me the truth.”

“I was afraid to. John’s life is his own, and I didn’t see how upsetting you with his problems could help.”

“He’s my brother, and you don’t have the right to make those decisions for me. And this discussion goes deeper than that.”

I was afraid of that. “How?”

“You keep all sorts of things from me. We’ve been together for almost two and a half years, been through a lot together, but still you hold things back. I know things hurt you. I want you to tell me about them.”

“I don’t see how it would help.”

“Maybe you should try and find out.”

Back against the wall. I let out a sigh. “Tell me what you want to know.”

“Everything. But this thing with Mary has taught me that I need to know about your childhood.”

“Like what?”

“People were mean to you, especially your father. I want to know about it.”

I try to make myself tell her, but I can’t. I don’t want her to know. “Maybe one day,” I say, “but I’m not ready for that.”

“Don’t you trust me?” she asks.

“Yes, but it’s not about you. I’m just not ready.”

We hold each other in silence for a while. “I shouldn’t have pressed so hard,” she says, “but please don’t lie to me anymore.”

I consider if this is possible for me. It is. “I won’t,” I say, “but sometimes I need time to work up to telling you things. You have to let me do it in my own time and in my own way.”

“Okay,” she says.

Kate falls asleep. I lie awake thinking. We hold each other tight, in a state of detente.

I get up early Saturday morning, thinking about Sulo Polvinen. He seems like a good kid who took a hard knock. No doubt he assaulted the bouncers at the Silver Dollar, and alibis from his parents or no, he’s going to get caught. If he turns himself in, he’ll get a reduced sentence. I decide to have a friendly talk with him. I check my case notes and find his address.

He lives in East Pasila, not far from the police station. It’s a crappy neighborhood, built in the 1970s. It’s frequently called the DDR, because its concrete and bunkerlike buildings call to mind the architecture of East Germany during the Soviet era. I drive over without calling first, because I think if I asked, he would refuse to see me.

The temperature remains around minus twenty, the snow still flies. Driving is difficult.

Mama Polvinen opens the door of their dreary apartment. I introduce myself. With a look of distaste, she lets me in. The furnishings are all old and worn. Papa Polvinen sits on a dilapidated couch, reading a newspaper, sipping his morning hangover beer. Sulo sits cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV, playing video games. They should be called the Family Big. Mama Polvinen is two ax handles broad. Papa Polvinen is even bigger, his body built out of thousands of gallons of beer. Monster-sized Sulo takes after them.

“Sulo,” I ask, “is there somewhere we could talk in private?”

Papa doesn’t approve. “Anything you got to say to him, you say in front of me.”

Sulo shrugs, that’s the way it has to be.

No one invites me to sit down, so I stand in the doorway and keep my boots on. “I just came to offer some friendly advice,” I say. “You stabbed those bouncers yesterday evening. They probably got what they deserved, but you’re going to get nailed for it. It’ll cost you years of your life. I’d like you to consider turning yourself in. You’ll still have to sit for the crime, but maybe for three years instead of five.”

Sulo starts to speak, but Papa speaks for him. “Sulo was here with us, as I told you bastards yesterday. Fuck off and leave him alone. He lost his brother. This family has gone through enough.”

“You’ve gone through a lot,” I say, “but losing Sulo to a long stretch in prison won’t make it better.”

Papa chugs his beer dry and throws the can down beside the couch. “If Sulo had stabbed those cocksuckers, which he didn’t,” he shoots Sulo a dirty look, “he did a shit job of it. They’re alive, and our Taisto is dead.”

So, Papa put Sulo up to the attack.

Sulo finally speaks for himself. “Inspector, it’s nice of you to come here. I know you did it out of concern, but I didn’t do anything wrong. And besides, I’m thinking about leaving the country soon. I don’t have a job. I may go to Sweden and look for work.”

As if we can’t extradite him from Sweden. That doesn’t leave much to be said. At least I tried. “Okay, Sulo, I wish you luck.” I take a business card out of my wallet and flip it over to him. “Call me if you need anything,” I say, and leave for work.

I drive the few minutes to the Pasila police station and sneak to my office, bypass the common room. I sit for a while and contemplate December Day, my print of the Albert Edelfelt painting. It portrays a village on a frozen river in sepia and monochromatic colors. I hung it here because it soothes me.

I think about my meeting with Filippov later and what I could possibly say to him. I come up with nothing. I call Jyri and fill him in. I don’t want to, because his input will be Machiavellian, but I have little choice. He takes a while, turns it over in his mind. I turn on the recorder in my cell phone and document the conversation, to protect myself in case all this goes wrong.

“Why do you think he left the semen in his freezer, in clear view?” Jyri asks.