Wolves and Angels (5 page)

He didn’t manage to finish his sentence before the others started making light of his observation.

“That’s just guessing. He could
’
ve died a thousand other ways.”

“And how did he suffocate
all
by himself out there in the parking lot? You’d think there would be plenty of oxygen out there.”

“He was killed somewhere else and then transported there,” Koskinen tried. “His position
reveals
that
,
too.”

But that still didn’t break the doubters’ resistance. “If someone’s trying to suffocate you to death, aren’t you going to do what you can to stop it? Jalonen just said there weren’t any signs of violence on the body.”

“Why didn’t he just run away?”

Koskinen gathered the pictures into a pile. “That’s your job to find out. We’re not going to figure this out sitting here jawing about it. Get to work!”

Pekki and Kaatio looked at the lieutenant indifferently, not moving a muscle. Ulla wagged her finger at them.

“In the new catechism there’s a
commandment you need to learn: t
hou shalt honor thy superior officer.”

Pekki took his glasses off and started rubbing his eyes. “I guess we have to get to work then. Kaatio, you go out to the parking lot and see if Mäkitalo has found anything.”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

“There must have been some prints left in the wet ground, and any possible tire tracks need to be examined carefully in case the body really was driven there.”

Pekki was starting to pick up speed, and Koskinen steered him unobtrusively. “It would be a good idea to figure out his identity as soon as possible...
W
ithout that it’s hard to get anywhere.”

“Eskola can be our errand boy,” Pekki said, turning to Eskola. “First call the local radio stations, and then give a description to the reporters at
Aamulehti
. Remember to stress that the bulletin has to be canceled if we discover the victim’s identity before the paper goes to print.”

“Understood,” Eskola said from the doorway, but that wasn’t enough for Pekki.

“So what are you doing still standing there? Get a move on. Hup, hup!”

Eskola disappeared into the hallway and closed the door behind him. Kaatio crossed his hands behind his neck and bounced his elbows backwards.

“Are you sure Eskola can handle it? He might accidentally give his own description.”

“What else can we have him do?” Pekki said and then turned to Ulla. “You start wading around in the databases. Who knows? Maybe this guy’s description will match one of our old customers.”

“Why do I always have
to
stay
here
?” Ulla said, turning up her nose. “Don’t you have anything else?”

“Well, let’s trade places then,” Pekki said, interrupting her. “You go to the autopsy
;
the ME promised to open up the body immediately. In fact, you should
already be
over there.”

Ulla’s round face spread into a sweet smile, and Koskinen could already predict how she would cock her head. “Oh, you go ahead. And try to be back in time for lunch. As I remember, they’re serving kidneys in the canteen today. Or was it liver?” she said as affectionately as she knew how.

Pekki pushed the chair out from under himself and only a couple of words of his morose mumbling were intelligible: “blood sausage” and “Tammela Square,” the preferred source for said delicacy. He left the room with his shoulders hunched, and Kaatio followed.

Koskinen and Ulla were now alone. But Ulla still didn’t move to one of the free chairs, instead remaining seated on the
desk corner
. She was drawing invisible patterns on the surface of the desktop with her fingertip, and from this, Koskinen surmised that she had something on her mind.

“I have a little something to ask you.”

“Yeah?” Koskinen waited nervously.

Ulla laid her palms on the table and leaned closer. The front of her blouse rounded attractively, and her thick blond
hair
slipped to
her cheek from
behind
her
ear
.

Koskinen could feel her warm breath on his forehead as she whispered. “Can I have tomorrow off?”

“Off?” Koskinen repeated, disappointed
,
and wondering what he had really been expecting.

Apparently Ulla interpreted her superior’s expression incorrectly, because she leaned back and started explaining. “I have plenty of banked overtime.”

“I
didn’t
mean that—of
course you can
take a
day
off.”

“Thanks.” Ulla smiled but then grew serious again when Koskinen asked why.

“Why what?”

“Why are you taking a day off?”

Ulla craned in closer again.

“Do I have to tell?” she whispered.

“Of course not.”

But she told him anyway: “I’m going to the doctor.”

“Uh... Are you sick?”

“Not really. It’s just a test.”

“That shouldn’t take all day.”

“It might even take longer than that.”

Koskinen was
now
concerned. It couldn’t be a routine test if it was going to take the whole day. And the stronger his feelings of empathy became
toward
Ulla, the farther away his words escaped. All that came to mind was the same old it’ll-all-be-okay nonsense. But they knew each other—all of the years they had worked together had taught them to read each other’s thoughts.

“You don’t have to say anything, Sakari.”

They looked at each other for a long, silent moment. The wrinkles at the corners of Ulla’s eyes were more pronounced than they used to be, but they still didn’t age her a day. The smiling blue of her eyes had deepened, making them even easier to look at. He never felt the need to turn his gaze away.

Ulla suddenly lifted her arm and stroked Koskinen’s cheek with the back of her hand. “How are
you
doing?”

The question and her stress on the word “you” were disconcerting to Koskinen.

“Doing...? What can I say? Things are good. It feels like I’m in the best shape of my life. I run ten miles, and I don’t even feel it the next day.”

“It shows.”

“Really?” Koskinen said, delighted.

But Ulla’s face stayed serious, and her tone was like she was scolding a naughty child. “You need to stop losing weight. Your clothes are hanging off of you, and your cheeks are starting to sink in.”

Koskinen didn’t know if he should take Ulla’s words as flattery or as a reprimand. However, as she continued, they distinctly became the latter.

“You shouldn’t punish yourself for the divorce—it wasn’t just your fault. This masochism is pointless. Before long you’ll look like a
prisoner in a
concentration camp.”

Koskinen looked at Ulla, thunderstruck. Although detective work required a deep knowledge of human nature, Ulla was still in the wrong line of work—she
w
ould earn
much
more as a professional clairvoyant.

Ulla tilted her head to the side, sizing him up. “You didn’t look at all bad a little more
chunky
.”

Even someone
colorblind would have seen Koskinen’s embarrassment, and Ulla stopped teasing and jabbed him in the arm.

“I didn’t really mean how you were doing physically when I asked you that.”

“What then?”

“I meant how are you doing otherwise.”

Koskinen didn’t know what to say anymore or how to say it. He was feeling more and more awkward, and it didn’t help one bit when Ulla placed her hand on his wrist, which was resting on the desk.

“I mean your relationships.” Now it was Ulla’s turn to have a hard time
choosing her words
. “I mean...
D
o you have anyone?”

“Anyone?”

“Yeah...
Y
ou know what I mean. It’s not good to be alone very long.”

Only now did Koskinen realize what Ulla was driving at. He laughed in bewilderment. “No, I don’t have anyone. Where would
’ve
I found
anyone
so fast?”

“So fast?” Ulla raised her eyebrows slightly. “It’s been almost two years since Emilia left.”

“Well, yeah, but I’m from Häme,” Koskinen said, trying to turn it into a joke. “Contemplation is half the meal.”

Ulla was not deterred. “You still have a long life ahead of you, lots of good years. It would be a waste to spend them alone.”

Koskinen didn’t know what to say to that. Ulla fell silent, and, from her focused, almost stern expression, it was apparent that she had something serious on her mind.

“I’ve had something in mind for a while now, but I didn’t know how to bring it up.”

Koskinen was startled, and the second of time Ulla was silent was long enough for him to start thinking
about how he would react to her next words. How would he respond? By all appearances, Ulla was happily married and...

“Do you know Ursula Katajisto from Employee Health Services?”

Koskinen jerked his wrist out from under Ulla’s hand. He was completely lost. “Ursula Katajisto? Of course I do. I mean, I don’t, but I know who she is. Isn’t she some sort of shrink?”

Ulla smiled. “Something like that. She’s an occupational health psychiatrist.”

Koskinen did not find this amusing. So Ulla wanted to bundle him off to a psychiatrist? Righteous indignation began climbing along his spine to his braincase.

But he was wrong once again.

“Ursula and I are good friends,” Ulla said. “Just last Friday we were sitting having coffee, chatting about this and that.”

Koskinen still didn’t understand what this was about. He did remember Ursula Katajisto. She had occasionally helped profile criminals and interview seriously dissociative witnesses.

The puzzle started to click into place after Ulla asked her next question.

“Did you know
that
Ursula is single?” she said with a flicker of a grin across her lips.

Koskinen shook his head in disbelief and let Ulla continue.

“For some reason while we were picking out our
Danishes, your
name
happened to come up. And Ursula was pretty direct about how much fun it might be to get to know ‘that big bear’ a little better.”

“You don’t mean...”

“I certainly do. I promised to ask if you’d like to go to lunch with her sometime.”

Koskinen stared at Ulla’s violet amethyst ring and tried to remember what Ursula Katajisto looked like. At least the dark, lustrous hair and thin, straight nose had stuck in his mind. And when he thought about it more carefully, he remembered her long legs having caught his attention more than once. In fact, in a couple of meetings it had been hard to keep his eyes off of them.

But even so! A shrink? No way anything would come of it.

Ulla cut off Koskinen’s train of thought. “Give it a try! You don’t need to go out more than once…then you’ll see. Go get some pizza and a few beers.”

“Well…”

Ulla seemed to take that as agreement, because she placed her hand on Koskinen’s wrist again. “You might have a good time.”

Koskinen didn’t even have time to think about what Ulla meant by a “good time” before someone pushed the door buzzer in the hall.

The buttons for the signal lights outside the door were lost somewhere under the piles of paper
,
so Koskinen just yelled.

“Come!”

The door opened and a spry young woman bounced
into the room. Ulla slowly pulled her hand away from Koskinen’s, and they both sat looking at the newcomer. She was a little below average in height, round-faced, and had large eyes. On her head was an odd stocking cap,
with a
thin, tightly knitted tip project
ing
toward the ceiling like an antenna.

Her voice was high-pitched in a girlish way. “Hi, I’m Milla.”

Koskinen and Ulla still just stared at the woman in astonishment, unable to do anything but nod in greeting. Milla swung her arms to the side and patted her hips.

“Tauno Niiranen told me to come see Lieutenant Koskinen. I’m starting an intern
ship today
as Taru Eskola’s maternity leave replacement. Niiranen said that Koskinen would teach me the ropes.”

She finally took a breath and then continued: “So, here I am.”

Ulla slid off the edge of the desk. She smiled at Koskinen

“I think I’ll go. Looks like you have more important things to do now,” she whispered before disappear
ing
into the hallway
before
Koskinen ha
d
any time to respond.