Wolves and Angels (22 page)

Ulla was alone in the room. She glanced at the door and then quickly turned her eyes back to the computer screen. Koskinen saw immediately that she was still sulking. Usually Ulla would wink happily, tossing some funny phrase after it. Koskinen wondered about the reason for the pouting. He didn’t remember saying anything out of line, no matter how many times he replayed events from that morning.

Koskinen didn’t think t
he situation was
all that
favorable for discussing Taru’s call.

“What are you doing?” he just blurted out.

“What do you think?” Ulla opened Solitaire. “Just slaving away like a good little scullery wench.”

Koskinen let her unload her stress. He watched the game over her shoulder, and within a minute she had gone through the deck three times. Ulla closed the window and then turned her chair
toward
Koskinen.

“I came back an hour ago from seeing
Timonen
’s sister and decided to type up the report.”

Koskinen sat down in Kaatio’s chair on the other side of the desk. “What did the sister say?”

“Her name is Rauni
Timonen
.” Ulla looked at her open notebook on the desk. “She was a bundle of contradictions. She was clearly mourning the death of her only brother, but on the other hand she couldn’t have been in a worse mood had she just burned off all the skin from her ass.”

“Maybe the temper runs in the family. Everyone says the same thing about Raimo.”

“A hot-blooded tribe.”

“Did you find out where
Timonen
’s money came from?”

“That was exactly what made her so mad. Their parents died about five years ago and left a sizeable inheritance. Most of it went to Raimo, and the
ir
parents had justified their will by the fact that he had suffered so much in his life. The sister thought the money should have belonged to the one who would be able to enjoy it. That is, to her. What would a cripple do with money?”

Ulla was drawing doodles of daisies on a piece of notebook paper as she talked. “Occasionally the sister
would burst into tears, but in the end I wasn’t sure if she was sad about her brother or the lost money.”

Koskinen thought he sensed the beginnings of a motive. “So now the assets shift to her.”

“There
’s
no
thing left,” Ulla said, shaking her head. “Apparently Raimo had blown the whole inheritance. Last time they met, a couple of weeks ago, Raimo had ask
ed
his sister for a short-term loan.”

Koskinen scratched his nose in deep thought. Was there something going on here? When the money ran out, maybe the brother became expendable as well. But that didn’t sound very plausible. He looked at Ulla, searching for ideas.

“Could the sister be behind it?”

“Maybe. But it would’ve been smarter to do it five years ago. What would she gain now?”

“People have killed out of sheer bitterness before.”

“Yes, and out of love.”

“It would still be a good idea to check her alibi.”

“I already did. She said she was on a hiking trip in Lapland to see the fall colors. Her bus got back at midnight on Monday. I just called the tour operator and he confirmed that Rauni
Timonen
was with them.”

Koskinen looked at his wristwatch. “Car 341 had already seen the abandoned wheelchair before then.”

“Exactly,” Ulla said, nodding. “So much for that then.”

Koskinen considered whether it would be an appropriate moment to talk about Taru’s phone call and the bullying. Ulla still wasn’t her old self, but the worst
acerbity seemed to have passed.

“I have something else I need to talk to you about.”

But that was as far as Koskinen got. Kaatio stepped into the room. He didn’t immediately start shooing Koskinen out of his chair, instead leaning two hands on the desk. He extended his left leg far behind him and started stretching.

“What a shitty day!”

“Well, what now?” Ulla looked at her officemate in astonishment. “Did the Lynxes lose again?”

“What do you mean AGAIN?” Kaatio switched his left leg for his right. “I just interviewed our two Fallen Angels. I’ve never heard so much bitching and moaning in all my life.”

“But you got something out of them?” Koskinen asked.

“Not much more than you did at the bar. Both of them hated Raimo like the bubonic plague.”

“Do they suspect anyone of the murder?”

“Both of them were convinced that the owner of the Cat’s Meow killed Raimo. His name is Urpiainen. But he has an alibi and no shortage of witnesses. He was in his bar from that morning until midnight. And
Timonen
’s body had already been found by then.”

“Of course.”

“I told Harjus and Ketterä that. Both of them encouraged us next to investigate the bar’s regulars. Apparently every other one had threatened to kill
Timonen
. Strange thing.”

“How so?”

“Well, I also got the impression that they were
Timonen
’s wingmen. Lapping up the beer he was buying night after night.”

“Did you interview Harjus and Ketterä separately?”

“Of course.”

“I was just wondering whether they had agreed in advance about what they were going to say.”

“They very well could have. They were both cocky, like they owned half of Europe.”

“Did you ask them where they were on Monday night?”

“The whole Bandidos threesome, Harjus, Ketterä, and
Timonen
, were drinking at Cat’s Meow from four onwards
, and
headed back to Wolf House at about 8:30.”

“By taxi?”

“No, in their wheelchairs. Harjus and Ketterä rolled themselves ahead while
Timonen
buzzed along in his electric wheelchair incoherently bellowing every imaginable blasphemy after them. The whole street heard it.”

“And later?”

“After that they each locked themselves in their rooms to sleep off the alcohol.”

“Any witnesses?”

“Harjus and Ketterä said that the whole building must’ve heard them come in. But it’s harder to prove that they were actually sleeping.”

“Did Harjus tell you why he attempted suicide nine years ago?”

“No,” Kaatio said, shaking his head. “And the database only mentions marital problems.”

“And that’s no reason to jump off a building.” Ulla snorted and looked at Koskinen. “Otherwise every other one of us would be sitting in a wheelchair.”

Koskinen paused to think about what Ulla had meant.

“Did
the
database
have anything else
?”

“I
t
most certainly did. Tapani Harjus has a criminal record.”

“Aha!”
Koskinen
and
Ulla
both
said
a
t
the
same time.

“For what?”

“Growth hormone smuggling from Estonia a few years ago. He had hidden it in the frame of his wheelchair, but one of the tubes separated from its joint right when he was rolling through Customs, and left a nice trail of pills behind him like a string of pearls…”

“Bad luck,” Ulla said, sighing. “He must have been born under a bad sign.
”

“Were they for his own use or for distribution?” Koskinen asked.

“For himself,” Kaatio replied. “He was trying to get into the Sydney Paralympics in weightlifting.
”

Koskinen remembered his visit to the Cat’s Meow the night before. Steroid use would at least partially explain Harjus’ aggressive behavior. Could that have led to homicide? But how would Harjus have transported
Timonen
to Peltolammi and the wheelchair to Hervanta? That would have required an accomplice.

“What are you thinking?”

Koskinen lifted his head and saw Ulla staring at him
from the other side of the desk. However, her eyes still lacked the gentle glimmer he was used to.

“Just thinking…” Koskinen had trouble collecting his thoughts. “…about all sorts of things.”

“Did you check the alibis of the two Angels who moved?” he managed to ask Kaatio.

“I was just about to. As soon as I can sit down in my chair.”

Koskinen looked around. “By the way, where is Eskola?”

Kaatio looked at Koskinen in surprise. “At the Cat’s Meow. You sent him there yourself.”

“Right.”

“Just so long as they don’t laugh him out of the bar,” Kaatio said, guffawing self-righteously. “Poor Eskola might say anything on his Shirley Temple buzz.”

Koskinen remembered Taru’s phone call. He jumped out of the chair and walked to the door. Without turning around, he said, “Antti knows how to do his job!”

He walked with quick steps to his office and thought about whether this was the first time ever he had defended Eskola. That was precisely his job as the boss, but he had never even bothered to think about it before. And now it might already be too late. He should have noticed ages ago how Eskola’s self-confidence had deteriorated. But now he saw it clearly—all he had to do was think back to any of their recent
team
meetings. Eskola was constantly being needled by the others. And Koskinen had never intervened; on the contrary, he had almost jeered right along with them.

He sat down behind his desk, feeling like completely
the wrong man in completely the wrong place. A new stack of papers, reports, and memoranda had accumulated again. He couldn’t even get started. Half an hour passed and he was still on the abstract of the first paper, a summary of a legal policy seminar.

At ten past four, he dropped the report. Koskinen didn’t think another second. He just pulled the
receiver and dialed. He was
surprised that he still remembered the library’s number by heart
after two years
.

“Hello, Emilia Koskinen speaking.”

It sounded strange. Of course he knew that Emilia hadn’t changed her last name, but it still clashed strangely in his ear. For a moment he couldn’t get a word out.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

“It’s me.”

Now silence fell on the other side of the line. It lasted a few seconds, until Emilia finally said, “Sakari?”

“Yeah.”

“This is a surprise...”

“I’m just calling to say hi. Nothing special.”

“I’m glad you called. How are you doing?”

“Just fine. What about you?”

“Thank you for asking. I’m also doing well.”

There was no way the exchange could have been
m
ore awkward. Insincere nonsense—who would be doing well when twenty years of marriage had fallen apart because of a few trivial mistakes and
misunderstandings? Koskinen decided to drop the two-faced chattering and tell why he had called. In a few sentences he described Taru’s phone call and his own inability to address the problem.

Emilia listened without interrupting and then said, “First of all, Sakari, it’s lovely that you still trust me so much. I know you. You wouldn’t have called otherwise.”

Koskinen didn’t know what to say, and, after a moment, Emilia continued. “You called the right place.”

“You don’t mean
that at the library
...
”

“No, no, not that,” Emilia said quickly. “We don’t even tease the janitor here. What I meant by that was that last winter I took a course at the continuing ed center on relationship dynamics in the contemporary workplace.”

“Oh.” Koskinen couldn’t help but smile. Their entire marriage Emilia had been a sucker for all sorts of seminars and classes. Apparently she hadn’t given up her hobby after the divorce.

“Have you had any changes at the office? Or is there something you all perceive as a threat?”

Koskinen told her about the outsourcing plan the Interior Ministry had floated. Although they knew that the Violent Crimes Unit wouldn’t be affected, still they were antsy from all the rumors that were circulating.

Emilia became animated. “That’s very typical of how problems like that start. When you feel that your own job is under threat, you often project those negative feelings onto the weakest link in the group. As if that will strengthen your own position in the group.”

“That could well be,” Koskinen said spiritlessly. “But Eskola has always been getting bullied, long before anyone said anything about outsourcing.”

“But the bullying has been getting worse recently, right?”

“Definitely.”

“As I remember, you once said that
Eskola got married to that red
headed secretary of yours. What was her name, Satu?”