No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Text copyright © 1998 by Leena Lehtolainen

Translation copyright © 2016 Owen F. Witesman

All rights reserved.

Previously published as Tuulen puolella by Tammi Publishers, Finland, in 1998. Translated from Finnish by Owen F. Witesman and first published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2016.

Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

www.apub.com

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

ISBN-13: 9781503936485

ISBN-10: 1503936481

Cover design by Scott Barrie

CONTENTS

CAST OF CHARACTERS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

CAST OF CHARACTERS

THE COPS

Maria Kallio ………… Commander, Espoo Violent Crime Unit

Jyrki Taskinen ………… Director, Espoo Criminal Division

Pekka Koivu ………… VCU detective

Lähde ………… VCU detective

Juhani Palo ………… VCU detective (deceased)

Ville Puupponen ………… VCU detective

Petri Puutsjärvi ………… VCU detective

Pertti Ström ………… VCU detective

Akkila ………… Patrol officer

Haikala ………… Patrol officer

Hannula ………… Patrol sergeant

Raitio ………… Patrol officer (boat patrol)

Liisa Rasilainen ………… Patrol officer

Yliaho ………… Patrol officer

Hannu Hirvonen ………… Forensic technician

Hakkarainen ………… Forensic technician

Niinimaa ………… Forensic chemist

Laine ………… Commander, Organized Crime Unit

Kantelinen ………… White-Collar Crime detective

Jormanainen ………… Agent, Security Intelligence Service

THE MERIVAARA/SJÖBERG CLAN

Juha Merivaara ………… CEO, Merivaara Nautical

Anne Merivaara ………… Communications Director, Merivaara Nautical

Riikka Merivaara ………… Juha and Anne Merivaara’s daughter

Jiri Merivaara ………… Juha and Anne Merivaara’s son

Katrina Sjöberg ………… Mikke’s mother, Juha’s stepmother

Mikael (Mikke) Sjöberg ………… Katrina’s son, Juha’s half brother

Martti Merivaara ………… Juha and Mikke’s father, Katrina’s ex-husband

Mikael Sjöberg/Merivaara ………… Founder, Merivaara Nautical, Martti’s father

SUPPORTING CAST

Antti Sarkela ………… Maria’s husband

Iida ………… Maria’s daughter

Einstein ………… Maria and Antti’s cat

Marcus Enckell ………… Board member, Merivaara Nautical

Tuomo Haaranen ………… Attempted rapist

Heikki Halonen ………… CFO, Merivaara Nautical

Tapio Holma ………… Riikka’s boyfriend, opera singer

Harri Immonen ………… Ornithologist, Maria’s ex-boyfriend

Kaarela ………… Plant Manager, Malinen Meats

Imants Peders ………… Mare Nostrum shareholder

Vitalis Ramanauskas ………… Mare Nostrum shareholder

Seija Saarela ………… Merivaara family friend

Paula Saarnio ………… Administrative assistant, Merivaara Nautical

Ari Väätäinen ………… Wife beater

1

The island that rose out of the sea burned red, as if the ground were covered in blood. At first I could see only its silhouette, but gradually the smooth slopes of the ruddy granite cliffs along the shore began to take shape. A round lighthouse and fortress left over from the Crimean War emerged above them. Rödskär Island was the southernmost point in Espoo, the last major piece of land before the boundary of Finland’s territorial waters. It had been off limits to civilians for decades. From the sea, it appeared inhospitable and difficult to access.

It was the last weekend in August and my final free weekend before returning from maternity leave to the Espoo Police Department and my new position as commander of the Violent Crime Unit. The forecast had called for sun, so we had set off in my in-laws’ sailboat from Espoo and headed west toward their cabin in Inkoo. We needed to get Iida used to sailing. At nearly twelve months, my baby girl was still taking two naps a day and did fine in her car seat, though right now she was having a screeching competition with the seagulls circling over the boat. Antti was studying the map, and I was enjoying the responsiveness of the helm. I was an inland native, but I had always liked the sea, even though I knew how dangerous it could be.

“If I remember right, the harbor’s on the northeast side. Give it another turn, and then we’ll go the rest of the way with the motor. Docking on Rödskär isn’t easy,” Antti said.

“Can we really just go ashore unannounced?”

“Yeah, it’s been totally legal for a while now. Don’t you remember that Merivaara Nautical bought the island the summer before last and fixed up the lighthouse keeper’s house for public use?”

Yes, I did remember. A couple of years ago, the military had sold off some of its old island fortifications. They had offered to lease Rödskär to anyone who would agree to renovate the dilapidated buildings. Some art handicraft cooperative had been in the process of staking a claim when Merivaara Nautical, an eco-friendly boat paint manufacturer, slapped down an offer to buy the island outright. Of course the Ministry of Defense couldn’t refuse, but the sale had caused a brouhaha in the sailing community. That subsided almost immediately, though, when it came out that Merivaara Nautical had no intention of closing the island and would welcome any boaters who happened along.

I was eager to see Rödskär for myself. Antti had shown me pictures from his sailing trips, and the local paper in Espoo had praised the stark beauty of the island. Most importantly I wanted to see the place where Harri had died.

I had only dated Harri for a few months, and that had been more than a decade ago. Last October, just a couple of months after Iida’s birth, I noticed his obituary in the paper. It didn’t mention a cause of death—no talk of a sudden illness or a car accident. It only listed the place he died—Rödskär Island—and that a small family service had been held.

The lack of details had bothered me. Harri couldn’t have gone and killed himself, could he? After we had stopped dating, we didn’t have any reason to keep in touch, and, since we ran in such different circles, I hadn’t seen or heard about him in years.

Harri had been a passionate ornithologist and botanist, and I’d enjoyed learning to identify birds and flowers with him. Otherwise, we weren’t a good match. Harri was too kind and gentle and felt most at home in the woods with his birds, while I was at the peak of my partying phase in my second year of law school. I walked all over the poor boy. He would want to go hiking, but I would be too hungover. He would spend hours staring at birds through binoculars while I hitchhiked to the nearest bar. We were both relieved when we decided to bring the relationship to a close.

After seeing the obituary in the paper, that night I unearthed an old photo album. I found a few pictures of Harri, always gangly and wearing his round glasses—in one, he was setting up a tent; in another, he was watching a pair of eider ducks mating. I had a hard time believing that I had ever made love to this man-boy I barely even recognized. What circumstances had taken Harri to die on this distant island? I had wanted to call Harri’s sister and ask her what had happened, but I didn’t have the nerve. She hadn’t particularly liked me, and she had probably been justified in thinking that I treated her brother pretty poorly. Back when I read the obit, I had called my colleague Pekka Koivu, figuring he might know something about Harri’s death.

“Harri Immonen? Yeah, I remember. He drowned. Wait a sec and I’ll pull up the report,” Koivu said, once he had passed on the latest department gossip. “It happened three weeks ago, during that recent storm. Immonen was probably watching the fall crane migration. Based on the tracks in the moss, our best guess was that he went out at dawn and slipped and hit his head on a rock. Then he slid into the water unconscious. His BAC was still 0.06, so he must have been on a real bender the night before. He was alone on the island, and it was just by chance that someone from the company that owns the island happened to come by the next day and wonder about the sleeping bag and other gear in the hut.”

“So it was definitely an accident?”

“I went there myself. The west side of the island is really steep, and you know how slick that polished bedrock can get after a rainstorm. Forensics came up with a theory that Immonen’s spotting scope must have tipped over on its tripod and he slipped trying to grab it. Why do you ask? Did you know him?”

“I did, but we haven’t seen each other in years.”

I hadn’t had much time to think about Harri’s death since then, because the first few months of motherhood went by in a blur of interrupted sleep that only eased off as Christmas approached. Harri had receded into the distant world of memory.

But when Antti and I started scanning nautical maps for good places to camp, I suggested a trip to Rödskär. For some reason I had to see with my own eyes the place my former boyfriend had died.

The water was a grayish green, like spoiled pea soup. The previous night we had spent nearly an hour and a half looking for somewhere to land that wasn’t choked with algae blooms. We wanted to swim and our fresh water reserves weren’t large enough for both washing dishes and cleaning Iida’s bottom. Antti had reminisced with equal parts nostalgia and anger about the seawater of his youth—water so clear you could boil your potatoes in it without a care. But this summer had been unusually warm, so the cyanobacteria had invaded the inner islands and even the Espoo swimming beaches.

A quarter mile offshore we struck the sails. I had a hard time making out a safe place to dock between the steep cliffs and the rocks protruding from the water, but Antti said he knew where the harbor was. We made the final approach under motor power with a crosswind that threatened to smash us against the cliffs. Antti calmly steered toward the eastern shore of the island, and suddenly a small harbor appeared behind the rocks. Iida nibbled a piece of bread, and I was preparing to jump onto the dock with the rope when a shout came from the cliff.

“Throw the rope here!”

Looking up, I saw a muscular man with a pipe hanging from the corner of his mouth.

“With a southeaster you need to put your head line here and your stern line on the dock. You get banged around less that way.”

So I tossed the coil of rope to the man, who caught it easily and began yelling docking directions. Swallows swooped over us and the sun shone straight in my eyes. The smooth granite cliffs radiated the stored heat of the hot summer.

“You go first, Maria, and I’ll hand you Iida,” Antti said.

I felt our welcoming party watching me as he tied the stern line, as if assessing whether I could make the jump to the steep rock on my own. Apparently he decided I could, because he started walking uphill before I jumped. The ground underfoot was hard and smelled of lichen. Unloading didn’t take long, since we still didn’t know whether we would spend the night in the boat or in the hut on the island. Because the harbor was on the windward side of the island, a night aboard would mean a lot of rocking. In addition to our boat, two other vessels were moored in the harbor: a swanky speedboat that was tied up with some sort of complicated arrangement of ropes to the southwest end of the dock, and a thirty-foot wooden sailboat, a real beauty. I didn’t get any time to admire the wooden boat, though, because I was distracted by a clump of grass behind a rock that suddenly started to move. Rising up, it became a boy with green hair wearing a green army jacket and camouflage pants. He glared at us and then, without a word, took off running, giving us a glimpse of his red sneakers.

Antti loaded Iida into her baby backpack, and we headed up the steep hillside. The fortifications, which appeared impenetrable when seen from the sea, were sturdy indeed: ten-foot walls with firing ports surrounding a blocky, U-shaped, two-story building with the massive round lighthouse rising from the center. To the south and west of the building grew some small patches of grass and a few deformed junipers, and on the leeward side to the north, a few alders rustled in the wind. The meadowsweet was still blooming, and the willow herb was covered with seed tufts.

When we reached flat ground, a door in the wall opened and a short, blond woman painted brown by the sun walked out.

“Welcome to Rödskär! Are you staying the night?”

Antti said we were, and the woman approached and extended her slender hand.

“Anne Merivaara. There’s one room free in the hut. There are only five of us here right now. And the sauna is heating up.”

The woman spoke as if she owned the island, which, it turned out, she did. Anne Merivaara was a principal shareholder in Merivaara Nautical, chief communications officer, and wife of the CEO, Juha Merivaara. We introduced ourselves, and when Antti said he had visited Rödskär before, Merivaara’s demeanor turned even more genial. She led us into the fortress with the bearing of an experienced tour guide. The wooden floor of the hut was lacquered and new, and the wood-paneled interior walls looked like they had been put up as part of the renovation.

“Here’s the kitchen with a gas stove and refrigerator that we all share. You can have the southwest room, which is right here.”

The room had two bunk beds, which looked simple enough but were probably expensive designer pieces, a wooden table with blue stain, two chairs, and a sea chest. Small windows looked out on the horizon.

Antti took Iida off his back and returned to the boat to get the sleeping bags and our overnight kits. I looked out the window at the rocks glowing rosy red in the evening sun and at the light reflecting off the water. Iida tugged at my hair, her eyes still sleepy. I hoped Antti would have the good sense to bring the whiskey. A little Laphroaig would be just the thing for a night on an island with a lighthouse.

After a couple of nights cooking in our tiny galley on the boat, preparing food in a real kitchen felt like a luxury. I pulled off a veritable feast: potatoes, pickled herring, country-style liver pâté, our last smoked flounder, salad, island-style malt rye bread, and goat’s cheese. Iida demanded to taste the herring in mustard sauce, and though she initially grimaced, she later begged for another piece. After two potatoes, a piece of liver pâté, and a cup of milk, her head began to droop promisingly. Just then the green-haired boy padded into the room, and Iida perked up again.

“Mom told me to ask you if you want to go to the sauna. Riikka and Tapio promised to watch the baby,” the boy said in a surly tone.

“Thanks. We can wait until Iida falls asleep,” Antti said to the boy, who apparently belonged to the Merivaaras. His clothes hung off his lean body and his face was still boyish, but his voice was that of a man. I guessed he was about sixteen. He didn’t bother introducing himself; he just grabbed a bottle of green liquid that looked like homemade cabbage wine. “Mom is in the sauna, and Riikka and Tapio are going next. If the baby falls asleep, you should go before me and Mikke.”

Antti went to put Iida down, and I emptied my beer and started cleaning the kitchen. Just as I was finishing up the dishes, I heard a female voice behind me.

“Hi, I’m Riikka Merivaara. Do you need a babysitter?”

Turning around, I saw a tall, slender girl of about twenty with exactly the same smile as her mother. Riikka’s dark hair was cut in a short bob, and her face was pale, unlike her mother and the seadog who had greeted us. I introduced myself, and Riikka’s handshake was cool and quick.

“When Iida falls asleep, she doesn’t need a babysitter, but it’s good if someone is within earshot,” I said.

“I’m going to go to sauna with Tapio. I’ll come back and tell you when it’s free.”

I wondered whether the man who helped us dock was Tapio. If Tapio was going to sauna with Riikka, then he was probably the girl’s boyfriend, but the seadog had seemed a little old for that—midthirties, more like my age.

Antti was still singing to Iida. Pouring a couple of fingers of whiskey for myself, I walked outside. The wind brushed my hair lazily, but the waves still churned to the east of the island. As if by instinct, I walked downwind toward the steep rock wall of the west shore that was still pockmarked by shelling from the Crimean War. Harri had fallen somewhere here.

On a warm August evening, it was hard to imagine that rainy October dawn and the wedges of cranes trumpeting as they flew over the island. I couldn’t believe there had still been alcohol in Harri’s blood in the morning. When we were dating, he drank irritatingly little, no more than a couple of glasses of red wine over the course of an evening. Well, people’s habits could change. And even the most experienced person could slip on the nearly vertical rocks. The twenty-foot fall would be hard to survive. I had to sit down.

Huddling up right at the edge of the cliff, I sipped my whiskey and watched the sun dance over the golden water. I was so lost in thought that I jumped when I suddenly heard steps behind me. I turned, expecting it to be Antti, but instead saw the man who had helped us with the ropes.

“I don’t want to intrude, but be careful on these rocks,” the man said, glancing at my whiskey glass.

“This is only my first one,” I retorted. I didn’t like people babying me.

“Still. I’ve slipped here even when I was perfectly sober. I don’t think I introduced myself earlier. Mikael Sjöberg, but everyone calls me Mikke.”

“Maria Kallio.”

Sjöberg’s handshake was long and firm, and his face had the look of a man who spent a significant amount of time at sea. The sun had bleached his stubble beard almost white, along with his lashes and brows. To my own surprise I offered my whiskey glass. Sjöberg’s eyebrows went up a bit, but he didn’t hesitate and took a healthy slug.

“Good stuff. Single malt?”

I nodded. Sjöberg sat down next to me on the smooth rock.

Neither of us spoke as we watched the sunset and emptied the glass. When we were down to the last swig and our shadows stretched out across the rock, Antti arrived.

“Took a while for Iida to fall asleep. We should be able to get into the sauna soon,” he said and then introduced himself to Sjöberg. When the seadog gave his name, Antti’s expression brightened with recognition.

“Mikke Sjöberg! You’re the one who sailed around the world! Hello! I thought you looked familiar. We sailed together back in ’81 from Kotka to Hanko on the Astrid. Do you remember?”

Sjöberg claimed he did, and the men began swapping sailing experiences. I watched the sea as it calmed down, and I enjoyed the wind playing across my face. An hour later, Anne Merivaara came to say the sauna was free. The whiskey had spread a pleasant warmth through my body. Right now I didn’t feel any need to think about something as dark as Harri’s death. This might be the last warm night of summer and a rare opportunity to sauna with Antti in peace while a volunteer babysitter watched over Iida.

The windows of the sauna faced west, where all that was visible were a few rocky islets. The terns were having a flying competition, and tiny fish were jumping hurdles. Antti’s skin was covered in tiny droplets that tasted of wind and salt, and I couldn’t draw my lips away. Only after we were done making love did we remember that others were still due a turn in the sauna. Even so, I decided to take a dip in a protected cove on the north side of the island before dressing. A northeast wind had cooled the water, giving it a hint of the scent of fall. The kelp scratched my stomach. When we finally left the sauna, the first star had appeared in the darkening sky.

The kid with the green hair was sitting in the courtyard, waiting. When he saw me come out of the sauna, he yelled for Mikke, who promptly appeared, coming from the shore.

“It’s going to be a warm night,” Sjöberg said. “The others are sitting under the lighthouse grilling. You’re welcome to join in.”

“I’ll get the whiskey and check on Iida,” Antti said, apparently wanting to stay up for a while. I wasn’t going to turn down good company either.

The isolation of maternity leave was something I’d feared from the beginning. We lived in an out-of-the-way part of Espoo in a rental house far from all my friends or even a bus stop. Without a phone and good books, life with a new baby would have been grim. Still I had taken all the time off I was allowed, because I had only had one summer off since my first year of high school. Other than a brief period of unemployment, I basically had been working nonstop my entire adult life. Although the scrapbooking my sisters had advertised as their favorite maternity-leave activity never managed to hold my attention, I had spent the winter catching up on all the books I’d been meaning to read, going on lots of nature walks with Iida, and improving my piano playing. I’ll admit that sometimes the feeling of wasting away for lack of human contact got so bad that I even took pleasure in the occasional call—usually work-related—from my cantankerous colleague Pertti Ström.

Rödskär was such an amazing island that making friends with the owners seemed like a good idea. Mikke Sjöberg was certainly an interesting character. It was rare to just sit down and share a drink with a complete stranger without having to do the small-talk thing.

The Merivaara women were sitting around the grill. Although we hadn’t eaten that long ago, the vegetable skewers were tempting. I only nursed Iida in the morning these days, but my calorie consumption was still high because I was working out so much. I had started jogging and weight training a few weeks after the birth to drop my pregnancy weight, and exercise had turned into even more of an addiction than before. Jogging was a legitimate and guilt-free reason to leave the house without Iida in tow, and as soon as I went back to work, moments of uninterrupted solitude were going to become even rarer.

Anne Merivaara made space next to her on a bench. Swinging the whiskey bottle, Antti showed up with a blond man a full head shorter and broader of shoulder than himself who came over to shake my hand.

“Tapio Holma. Nice to meet you. You have a beautiful daughter.”

I laughed to myself, remembering that I had thought Mikke Sjöberg was too old to be Riikka’s boyfriend. Holma had to be at least five years older, likely in his early forties. Immediately I associated him with dark-blue velvet and lace collars, although I didn’t know why. It wasn’t until Antti had poured a stiff shot of whiskey into my mug that the memory came back to me. I had seen Tapio Holma a few years earlier playing Rodrigo, the Marquis de Posa, in Don Carlos at the Savonlinna Opera Festival. Despite his idiotic frilly collar, he had cut a heroic figure. The man placing sausages on the grill now seemed more like an average guy than an internationally acclaimed baritone. Instead of de Posa’s boots, Holma was wearing a pair of creepers, those suede shoes with thick crepe soles that could make any man unattractive. I’d told Antti once that I would divorce him if he ever bought a pair.

“I spent ten years living in Germany for work. People were always going on about the sausages there, but sometimes all I wanted was a good old H&K Blue Ribbon from home. You vegetarians just don’t appreciate a good sausage.”

Riikka pulled a face but didn’t manage quite the look of disapproval she intended, because Holma sat right down next to her and wrapped his arm around her. He looked smitten. I noticed that Anne Merivaara turned away, and I asked her about the island’s history.

The fortifications on Rödskär were built in 1813 soon after Finland fell under imperial Russian rule. It had been a Coast Guard and naval base, and during the Crimean War and the Finnish Civil War, a few desultory battles had been fought here. When the Soviet Union leased the Porkkala Peninsula, the Finns had to vacate the island. There were claims that Russian troops had been stationed on Rödskär in the early fifties. Since 1956 the island had been owned by the Finnish military and was basically empty, as all civilian access was forbidden.

“No one was watching, though,” Antti said. “The first time I landed here was twelve years ago. We were afraid we might get shot at, but the swallows were the only ones around. The place felt like a ghost island. Isn’t there supposed to be a story about some dead Russian officer haunting the lighthouse?”

No one answered, and Anne Merivaara changed the subject.

“The veggies are done. Someone should tell Jiri to come and eat. What did Mikke say he wanted?”

“Mikke can have sausage and potato salad,” Holma said, smiling. “Do you two want some, or are you plant eaters too?”

We said we were fine sticking to whiskey and offered the others a drink. Holma cast a hesitant glance at Riikka before saying yes, thank you. Their relationship was starting to interest me, especially since Tapio Holma was old enough to be Riikka’s father.

“Is the food ready?” Jiri’s green head appeared from behind the fortress wall. His hair, damp from the sauna, looked even grassier than before. Mikke followed him, carrying bottles and glasses. The Merivaara women drank wine, the men beer, with only Jiri sipping the repulsive green cabbage wine. Antti chatted with Mikke about sailing, and Riikka asked about Iida with what seemed more like politeness than genuine interest. Jiri responded in single syllables when anyone talked to him.

The sky was dark now, and the stars seemed so low that I imagined you could almost touch them from the top of the lighthouse. Tapio was teaching Riikka the names of the stars, and I listened in, trying to learn some myself. I felt completely at ease. The mainland was in another reality. None of it existed—no house, no chores, no Espoo police, no Monday return to work. In addition to the sea, the stars, and Iida sleeping safely in our room, there were only the seven of us gathered around the fire. Only the warmth of the whiskey and the distant call of a bird I couldn’t identify as a tern or a gull. When I asked, it turned out that Tapio was an avid bird-watcher, and the conversation turned to the birdlife of the island. I was already on my second glass, so I couldn’t help myself blurting out the obvious.

“Last fall an ornithologist I knew, Harri Immonen, died here. Do any of you know what happened?”

I hadn’t expected such a strong reaction. Jiri stood up with a clatter and walked toward the dock, and Anne Merivaara’s wine glass shattered on the stone bench. Tapio wrapped his arm tighter around Riikka, and the hand with which Mikke held his pipe trembled. He was the first to reply.

“So you knew Harri? Nasty business. Juha and Anne found him. They just happened to be visiting and noticed his things in the hut. No one knew I had brought Harri out here.”

“He was floating in the water on the windward side of the island,” Anne Merivaara said and stood up. “It’s late. I’m going to sleep. Good night, everyone.”

Although Anne’s tone was friendly, my questions clearly had spoiled the mood. Once Anne was out of earshot, Mikke felt the need to defend her.

“Finding Harri’s body was a very traumatic experience for Anne. Luckily Juha was with her, because Anne went into shock.”

“Mom has always been hysterical about death. I’ve been trying to teach her it’s just a normal part of life,” Riikka declared with the self-assurance of a twenty year old.

“Harri was a young man,” Tapio said softly. “I never knew him because I didn’t meet Riikka until this spring, but based on what Anne has said, his death was quite a blow.”

Mikke said Harri had spent most of that previous summer living on Rödskär, because Merivaara Nautical had hired him to catalog the island’s birdlife. In addition to the island, the company had purchased a wide swath of water that had a rocky outcropping frequented by migratory birds, and Juha Merivaara was planning to have the area protected if the birds were rare enough.

“Harri fell in love with the island because he could be alone here. He liked birds more than people. To him, their behavior was much more logical.” Mikke sucked on his pipe, and I felt a prick in my heart remembering how shitty I had been to Harri all those years ago. Hopefully I had learned something in the intervening years, at least that bossing other people around didn’t bring any lasting satisfaction.

“Did you know Harri well?” I asked Mikke.

“I used him as a deckhand a few times. We went to Gotland in Sweden and Hiiumaa in Estonia together. He wasn’t very good at it, though, since he was always dropping the ropes whenever he saw an interesting bird,” Mikke said, and laugh lines spread around his eyes.

Riikka and Tapio stood up. They were headed to bed too. I didn’t want to leave the stars and the bottle of whiskey, which was still a third full. Pouring myself and Antti more, I looked to Mikke, who held my gaze and extended his beer glass. I dumped in a generous shot.

“Where did you two know Harri from?” Mikke drained his glass quickly—he seemed to have the same taste for whiskey I did.

“I didn’t know him. Only Maria did. They had some kind of fling a long time ago,” Antti replied.

I had always appreciated that Antti wasn’t the jealous type. He didn’t pry when I went out for beers with male friends or gripe about past boyfriends. Now it irked, though. “Some kind of fling” sounded so horribly banal.

Mikke took another swig and looked right at me.

“Oh, so you’re that Maria . . . Yeah, Harri mentioned you. You’re a cop.”

I nodded. I wasn’t ashamed of my job, but I wasn’t in the habit of announcing it to random people I met. Plenty of interesting pub companions had clammed up after hearing about it, and one had even started mashing out the joint he had been smoking in a panic.

“The police investigated Harri’s death, but there wasn’t anything suspicious about it. It was just an accident,” Mikke said and extended his glass again. He had started to pour the Laphroaig down his throat like beer.

“To Harri,” I said and raised my glass, even though I knew how ridiculously sentimental it was. I felt a lump in my throat and washed it away with another swig. “So he slipped more or less where we were sitting today?” I asked as I poured Mikke another shot. He leaned in, and I smelled a mixture of pipe smoke and seawater.

“That was why I warned you about the rocks. I don’t trust that cliff. There’s a bad vibe there.”

A cargo ship passed far to the south; only the lights fore and aft revealed its movement. The night wind didn’t even touch Antti’s hair as he stood up.

“I’m going to take a piss and check on Iida. Don’t drink all the whiskey.”

The beam of the lighthouse swept across the sea—otherwise it was dark except for the dying fire in the grate and the glow of Mikke’s pipe. The fortress seemed to lurk behind us, and as I turned I was almost frightened seeing its massive silhouette with bats circling around. I wanted to know everything about this man sitting here, sharing this August night with me. Antti had said Mikke had sailed around the world. Who was he really? How old was he? What did he do besides sailing? These questions appeared in my mind the same way they did when I started an interrogation: name, social security number, profession. I wanted to ask Mikke all these questions, but there was one question I didn’t want to let into my mind: Why the hell was I so interested in this man?

But Mikke sat silently, and I didn’t fall into my normal chattering, even though that would have been an easy way to hide. When Antti returned, the men started trading sailing stories again. Antti had spent half of his summers on a boat as a kid, but compared to Mikke, he was a rank amateur. Mikke really had sailed around the world, twice—first on the crew of a racing boat and then solo, just for the adventure. He was leaving for another extended voyage in October.

“You must not have a family.” The statement—really a question—was easy to throw in after his explanation of his plans.

“Who would be interested in a drifter like me? And I still haven’t met anyone I’d be able to share a ten-meter boat with for months on end.” Mikke’s smile had an edge to it that made it easy to guess that this comment concealed more than one story.

After my fourth malt whiskey, I realized I was drunk enough that if I had even a drop more, I was sure to get seasick the next day. Part of me still wanted to stay up until the stars went out, though, to see their brilliance pale next to the light of the sun.

In the morning my head was fuzzy until my second cup of coffee. Nursing after drinking didn’t worry me: the family mathematician, Antti, had established that the amount of alcohol expressed in my milk was negligible.

“The wind has turned to the southeast. We’ll have a following sea to Inkoo, so there’s no hurry leaving. Let’s climb the lighthouse and check out the view,” Antti said.

After her long sleep, Iida was energetic and insisted on climbing up the stairs herself. She had taken her first steps on her own just a week ago. The sky was clear, and we could imagine that the dark area discernable to the south was Estonia. A few sails were visible in the channel to the north, and a lone barge glided toward Poland. A rumbling came from the northeast as a lightweight Buster motorboat approached the island.

“I’m going to go for a swim. Let’s have some sandwiches before we leave,” Antti suggested. The trip to his parents’ cottage in Inkoo would only take half the day with this wind, and it would be good to time Iida’s nap to coincide.

The Buster docked and a brawny man jumped out. Juha Merivaara had made it to the island to spend Sunday with his family. I packed our things and was making sandwiches in the kitchen with a suddenly attention-hungry Iida in one arm when Merivaara came to say hello.

“So who’s the little mother?” he asked so unctuously that I had to hide my expression in Iida’s hair. “Little mother” was just about the last description I thought fit me.

“Maria Kallio, lieutenant with the Espoo PD,” I said and extended my hand. “Great island you have here.”

“Thanks. Lieutenant, is it?” Juha Merivaara gave me an appraising look.

While Mikke Sjöberg’s intense gaze the previous night had felt like a friendly challenge, Juha Merivaara’s stare just irritated me. Of course I didn’t look like much of a police lieutenant in my jeans, oversized red cotton sweater, and windblown copper-wire hair. My freckled snub nose, green eyes, and small stature—I was actually almost three inches below the official police standard—often made people think I was younger than I was, which was a regular annoyance of mine.

I gawked back at Merivaara. About five foot eleven, sandy-brown hair, eyes the gray of the autumn sea, tight mouth that he had trained to sport a friendly smile. Expensive, practical sailing clothes. His whole bearing communicated that Juha Merivaara was a real man, a steady hand at the helm of a boat or the family company he had inherited.

“I heard from my wife that your husband was here before, back when all the military’s ‘no trespassing’ signs were still up. I like that. Islands like this should be open to everyone with the skill to sail to them.”

I wanted to ask why a wealthy person like him with so much admiration for sailing went around in a motorboat, but I didn’t bother. Juha Merivaara wasn’t the kind of person with whom I felt like sharing anything more than the obligatory pleasantries. Antti returned and exchanged some idle chitchat with Juha. Then we went to the dock to pack the boat.

Everyone from the previous night except Jiri came to see us off. Riikka and Tapio had their arms tight around each other, and Anne Merivaara thanked us for the company, while Mikke silently untied the lines and handed over our gear.

“About Harri,” Anne suddenly said once we had already boarded. “I’ve been so bothered . . . I heard you’re a police officer. They never told us what really happened. It wasn’t—I mean . . . he didn’t do it on purpose, did he?”

“You didn’t find anything to indicate that, like maybe a letter?”

Anne shook her head. “But what if there were something at Harri’s apartment?”

“I’ll be back at work tomorrow. I’ll take a look then,” I said reassuringly.

Anne pulled a business card out of her back pocket.

“If you wouldn’t mind . . . I’m still having nightmares about it.”

Mikke was getting anxious because the wind was pushing on our boat, moving it toward the rocks and making it difficult for him to use the aft line to prevent a collision. Antti started the motor, and as I waved to everyone, I felt relief as much as melancholy over the last day of my vacation. After clearing the harbor, we set course for Inkoo and normal life. In the stiff wind, Rödskär dwindled to a point on the horizon after only fifteen minutes of sailing.

2

“Do I look like a boss?” I asked Antti on Monday morning. I wore a cement-colored safari-style blazer and matching pants. This was accompanied by my best police-lieutenant ponytail and subdued makeup.

“Kind of a sexy boss,” Antti said with a laugh. “Get going already. It’s obvious how much you want to get back to work!”

The drive from our house to the station didn’t take long, and I was there ten minutes before the regular start of the workday. In practice I didn’t have set hours, because violent criminals didn’t either. The reforms that had been going on over the past few years in the Espoo Police Department were going to affect my work too. The department’s neighborhood policing program had been receiving a lot of praise, and the police trading cards that officers had been handing out at the schools were a hit. Our unit had made strides too, mostly in breaking down the old rigid hierarchies. So despite my position as the commanding lieutenant of the Violent Crime Unit, I would still be visiting crime scenes and interviewing suspects and witnesses.

The hallway smelled as it always had—like dust and coffee that had been sitting in the pot too long. I saw Puupponen in the break room.

“Howdy, ma’am, welcome back! Where do we start?”

“At our normal Monday meeting at nine thirty,” I managed to get out before Puupponen squeezed me in his arms. Next in line for a hug was Koivu.

“Let’s take the lieutenant to her office. Don’t you try to wriggle away now, Maria.”

The quiet in the hallway had just been a ruse. The whole unit was assembled in my new office. There were coffee cups and a raspberry cake on the table in front of the couch and a huge bouquet of white and dark-red roses on the desk. My predecessor, Jyrki Taskinen, who had moved up to direct the entire Criminal Division, was smiling in the front row.

“The department bought you a new office chair,” he said, indicating a handsome red swivel chair. “The old one was sized for me and Ström. Notice the adjustable footrest.”

“Ha, ha. Because my feet don’t reach the floor, right?” I said, laughing, even though what I wanted to do was cry. Apparently they really did want me back at work.

Except Ström. There was no sign of him that morning.

“Ström is sick. Stomach bug,” said Lähde, Ström’s only friend in the unit.

“Poor little Strömy has always had a weak stomach,” I replied, receiving a raucous chorus of laughter. Then they made me cut the cake so everyone could have a slice.

“Ström will pick up his boxes when he gets back. We tried to air out the room too,” Puupponen said apologetically. “He smoked like a chimney in here, even though it’s against policy.”

“The roses cover the smell nicely. Now go ahead and eat your cake so we can get to work,” I said, trying to make it sound like a command. Ström’s absence wasn’t a surprise. Our competition for this job had been bruising. According to Ström I was only chosen for my gender, so he appealed the decision. The appeal was denied, but when the position opened up in the middle of last October, only seven weeks after Iida’s birth, Ström was asked to fill in for me while I was on maternity leave. Everyone was sure he would refuse on principle, but he accepted, and now I was taking over a unit he had been leading for nearly a year.

I had heard rumors about the state of things. Koivu, Puupponen, and Taskinen had visited occasionally, and the others called sometimes. Ström hadn’t been an easy boss. Anu Wang, whose family originally came from Vietnam, had received the worst of it, with Ström actually saying out loud that she had been hired to fill a quota. “That slant-eyed bitch” had just been too much for him, but according to everyone else, Anu had been doing fine. She was the first ethnic-minority woman to graduate from the police academy, so she was used to standing out from the crowd.

Challenges aside, we could have used Ström in the morning meeting. He had been the lead investigator on all of the current cases and had the best grasp of the overall situation. So my first meeting back at work consisted of hearing disjointed bits of cases and making assignments according to notes Ström had left. Fortunately the open cases were all simple crimes: a drunken brawl between a group of friends in a pub and an assault outside a shopping center with a dozen witnesses watching. The previous week, Ström had completed the pretrial investigation of a stabbing at a beach over the Midsummer holiday, which had been the summer’s most complicated case.

My first few days at work were mostly taken up with paper pushing and meetings, which were an exasperatingly common part of my new position. Ström came back to work on Wednesday and settled back into his old office, which he shared with Lähde. He didn’t stop in to say hi, so when his file boxes were still darkening the corner of my office at one that afternoon, I marched over to talk to him.

Ström looked pale. His skin, usually ruddy with acne scars, hung pallid from his face, and his snuff-brown hair was mussed. His aviator sunglasses concealed his eyes, and a cigarette smoldered in his hand.

“Howdy, Ström, good to see you’re feeling better. We should have a sit-down. There’s a ton we need to review. What’s your schedule like tomorrow?”

“Who knows? Depends on whether someone gets killed tonight,” Ström said.

“How about a long lunch tomorrow? At a real restaurant instead of the cafeteria. My treat,” I said, trying to sound friendly.

Ström shook his head. “I have a meeting with the prosecutor on the beach-stabbing case at twelve. If you want a meeting, you’ll have to wait until Friday afternoon. Would three o’clock work?”

Frigging Ström. He was doing this on purpose! He wanted to test whether I would still be willing to work crazy hours after having a baby. Just handling our most important business would take at least three hours, and Ström knew it.

“Yeah, that works,” I said calmly. “You’re tied up with that fraud case over in White Collar, right?”

“Yeah. Goddamn mess. But I don’t really want anything bigger right now. I’m ready for a break after having to babysit the boys and that slant-eyed chick all year. I’ve had to explain everything to her and Puupponen in single syllable words.”

“Don’t you ever let me hear you call her ‘slant-eyed’ again!” I hissed before I realized that Ström had been trying to get me to lose my cool on purpose. That had been easy for him ever since we were in the academy together.

Ström just snorted, stubbing out his cigarette and lighting another.

“Did you have anything else or can I get back to work?” he said, indicating his computer screen, which had already gone dark. I could have sworn he’d been playing Tetris before I came into his office.

“Friday at three in my office,” I said pointedly, emphasizing my right to the boss’s office and position. I wasn’t going to let Ström smoke there anymore, even though I knew he would become increasingly difficult as the level of nicotine in his blood fell.

By Friday my stylish safari pants were dingy, so I decided to head to work in an old black sports coat and jeans. In the pocket of the pants, I felt something stiff. Anne Merivaara’s business card. I had completely forgotten my promise to call her about Harri.

After my routine morning tasks, I pulled up the report on the investigation into Harri’s death. It was short and to the point. As Koivu had said last October, it had been a simple slip-and-fall accident. Nothing had turned up in Harri’s things at the scene of the accident or in his apartment to indicate suicide.

I read the report through a couple of times, and when I ran into Koivu in the break room, I quizzed him about the case. It had been ten months since the investigation, so it took him a minute to snap to, but the name “Rödskär” kicked his memory into gear.

“Yeah, I got to take a ride in a real helicopter. There wasn’t anything suspicious, though. Just an accident. I even went to his apartment and didn’t find a suicide note or anything.”

“Did you look at his computer?” I asked, remembering a case in which a kid who only ever spent time with his computer had left a suicide note open on the screen and then hung himself right there. The leg of his swinging corpse pulled the plug out of the wall, and no one thought to look for a message on the machine until someone bought it and found the note on the hard drive.

“It was an Olivetti laptop, and he had it with him on the island. We didn’t go through every file, since it was obviously an accident, and it seemed all it had were lists of birds and marine biology mumbo jumbo. Why can’t they call a seagull a seagull instead of using some crazy Latin name?” Koivu asked.

I patted him on the shoulder. “And you think it’s less ridiculous calling someone ‘Eagle Two’ during a stakeout? People use code names all the time to make themselves feel more important or like they’re in control. Maybe we try to turn our job into a game of Cops and Robbers so we can forget how dangerous it is.”

Back in my office I called Anne Merivaara with the news.

“Anne Merivaara’s phone, Juha Merivaara speaking.”

“Hello, this is Lieutenant Maria Kallio from the Espoo Police. Is Ms. Merivaara available?”

“I believe she’s in a meeting. Can I help?”

“Actually, it’s a personal matter,” I said sternly.

“Anne Merivaara happens to be my wife. Didn’t we meet on Rödskär last weekend, Lieutenant?”

On the island, Merivaara hadn’t stood on ceremony, but apparently on land different norms applied.

“Yes. Could you leave your wife a message to call me back? She can get hold of me through the Espoo Police switchboard. Tell her that I found the information she was looking for. Thank you. Good-bye,” I said with as much honey in my tone as I could muster.

Only after hanging up did I realize that Juha Merivaara had been there when they found Harri’s body. Would he be able to tell me anything I hadn’t already heard? But Koivu had handled the case with his usual care, so he surely had gotten everything important out of Juha Merivaara.

Anne Merivaara called at three fifteen, just as Ström finally arrived, fifteen minutes late, for our meeting. Briefly I told her that there was no ambiguity about Harri’s cause of death. Anne sounded strangely thankful, as if before Harri’s death she had been concerned about his emotional equilibrium. Because Ström was waiting on the other side of the desk looking impatient, I didn’t start asking him questions about the investigation, which he had led. The case was closed after all. That definitely wouldn’t be a good way to start out our new working relationship.

The meeting turned out long and muggy, since Ström was in no rush to get home and there was no breeze outside. He and his wife had divorced four years earlier, and their kids, Jani and Jenna, stayed over at Ström’s studio apartment every other weekend, but they were with his ex-wife this weekend.

After the meeting I felt reasonably up to speed on all of the open cases and the approaches Ström had taken. The previous night there had been a run-in between a Finnish gang and a Somali gang in downtown Espoo. I had felt pretty important as I assigned Puupponen and Wang to investigate. This was the third clash between the gangs, and we needed to defuse the state of war before there were more confrontations and tensions amplified. From what Wang said, I got the idea that Ström had been firmly on the Finnish gang’s side. Ström held an obvious disgust for any and all immigrants, unless they were white and brought home gold medals.

Despite all his prejudices, Ström had a sharp eye for policing. And while his analysis of the details could be skewed at times, he usually had a good grasp of the overall picture. Ström seemed to want to show me that he had handled leadership of the unit better than I ever could, so he explained his investigative methods in extensive detail. In another mood he could just as easily have concealed information.

“Do you have your car?” he asked when we finally wrapped up after his third cup of coffee and about tenth smoke break.

I nodded.

“Could you drop me off at the train station? I’m headed into the city.”

“Of course.” I took his request for a ride as a sort of attempt at an olive branch, which seemed to come from Ström in the most surprising situations.

Once we had closed up our offices and got to my car, I tried to reciprocate. “What are you up to tonight?” I asked as I accelerated out of the parking garage.

“I thought I’d start getting shitfaced at Planet Hollywood. Hirvonen is probably already waiting there,” Ström said, referring to his drinking buddy. Hirvonen worked in the crime lab. “I can take it a little easier on the weekends now that I’m not in charge of anything. What about you? Is your old man watching the offspring?”

“As you know, her name is Iida. Iida Viktoria Sarkela. I took care of her for a year, and now it’s Antti’s turn.”

“Ah. The boys and I were sure a feminazi like you would never birth a boy.”

“Shut your face or you’re walking the rest of the way,” I said, though not angrily. Ström’s nastiness about my feminist tendencies gave me some latitude to toss back my own sexist comments when I felt like it. The fact that Ström was making fun of Antti taking paternity leave was no surprise. Even my own parents had been confused. Antti considered his leave, which would last at least until Christmas, as a much-needed breather from university politics.

We were both satisfied with how our family life was set up, so why the hell did I feel so restless?

The people I had met on Rödskär wouldn’t leave me in peace, even on the weekend. On Saturday my in-laws came by to celebrate Iida’s first birthday. Antti’s mother brought a copy of a magazine I didn’t usually read.

“When you were on Rödskär, you met Tapio Holma, the opera singer. There’s an article about him in here.”

The title was “How to Survive Life at a Turning Point.” There were three interviews: a businessman who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer; a female priest whose only child had died in an accident; and Tapio Holma, an opera singer who had lost his voice.

Tapio Holma, 42, won the Timo Mustakallio singing competition sixteen years ago. His career as a schoolteacher fell by the wayside when the opera stages of German called. For the past five years, Holma has been engaged with the Hamburg State Opera, but he has also made regular guest appearances with the Finnish National Opera and at the Savonlinna Opera Festival. His role three years ago as the Marquis de Posa in Verdi’s Don Carlos made him a darling of Finnish opera audiences. The heroic baritone seemed to be following in the footsteps of Tom Krause and Jorma Hynninen straight to the top of the international scene. He was courted to play the role of Count Almaviva in the Marriage of Figaro at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, one of the world’s leading opera houses. But it was not to be.

“Early last summer I started noticing that my voice was getting tired faster than normal and that it was starting to ‘leak,’ as we say. Late in the summer I played Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca at the Salzburg Music Festival, and the final performances were pure torture: my voice simply wasn’t working.”

A voice therapist diagnosed Holma with severely loosened vocal cords, apparently a result of overexertion. The initial treatment called for rest, so Holma took a leave of absence. After nearly a year’s sabbatical, his baritone still isn’t back to normal, so now the future may call for surgery.

“No one can promise me that surgery will bring my voice back,” Tapio Holma says calmly. “That’s why I’m still not sure yet whether I’m going to take the risk. But I have to make a decision soon, because in this world it only takes a couple of years to be forgotten. The competition is really fierce.”

At the same time his voice was giving out, Tapio Holma also experienced another crisis, but the worst pain of that is already behind him now. For ten years, Holma was married to the German soprano Suzanne Holtzinger. On the opera stage the baritone usually pursues the soprano in vain, like in Tosca, in which Suzanne Holtzinger played the lead role in Salzburg. In the opera, the depraved Scarpia attempts to make Tosca give herself to him in exchange for the life of Tosca’s beloved, the tenor Cavaradossi. Tosca pretends to agree but then kills Scarpia. In reality the baritone also lost the soprano to the tenor. Holma’s wife fell in love with the singer playing Cavaradossi.

“Our marriage had been on the rocks for a while, so my wife’s decision wasn’t really that much of a surprise. Of course two big life changes at the same time was an ordeal. There’s no denying that.”

A change of scenery helped ease the crisis. Tapio Holma returned to his hometown of Espoo. Bird-watching, a hobby since his childhood, has kept his spirits up.

“Even if I can’t sing myself, I can enjoy the songs of the birds. Especially early in the summer, nights in Finland are remarkable. The nightingales along the shore . . . Luckily the road construction hasn’t destroyed all the nesting trees.”

A new love interest is also at Holma’s side, Riikka Merivaara, a twenty-year-old university student. Holma is mysterious when he says that when he met Riikka, he literally had to step into the role of a hero, but he refuses to say anything more about the incident.

“Our age difference doesn’t bother me. Riikka is a very wise young woman. She’s taught me a lot and made me think more about my life, for example about the importance of proper nutrition in a person’s overall health and well-being. We’ve been trying to figure out if there might be some sort of alternative therapy for my voice problems. And even if I don’t get my voice back, life still feels worth living. Every day you can hear the song of a bird, even if it’s just a seagull or a crow,” Holma says.

In the photo accompanying the article, Holma looked out at the sea through binoculars. There was a slight smile on his lips: all his trials hadn’t robbed the valiant baritone of his faith in life.

“That’s quite a story,” I said to my mother-in-law as she spooned raspberry-blueberry porridge into Iida’s mouth. “They could practically write a whole libretto about Holma.”

Antti laughed irreverently as he skimmed the story and then asked whether I wanted to see his old Rödskär slides after Iida went down. Of course I did, and I noticed a strange tinge of something in my mind when Antti said he probably also had a few pictures from his voyage on the schooner Astrid with Mikke Sjöberg.

The September evening was dark before ten o’clock. Antti set up the screen and turned on the projector. Then he disappeared into the kitchen. “I need a little fortification. We still have some whiskey. Do you want some?”

Antti probably hadn’t looked at these pictures since the death of Tommi, his friend and sailing partner. We had met five years earlier when I was investigating Tommi’s death. As inconceivable as it now felt, Antti had been one of the suspects.

“Just pour me a little.”

Antti brought the whole bottle, and I found myself pouring more than a little. The pictures were what I expected: Antti ten years younger with short hair, standing beside a blond, tanned Tommi, the two of them grinning next to Rödskär’s “Military Area: NO TRESPASSING” sign, fooling around in the lighthouse, and drinking Captain Morgan on the cliffs. The buildings on the island looked more run-down than now, and there was trash littered about.

Deep in thought, I looked at the boys’ lighthearted adventures and thought of Tommi and Harri, who had died too young. What had Harri’s thirty-four years consisted of? Anything but birds? Who was I to judge the richness of anyone else’s life, though? Maybe spotting a black-crowned night heron was just as fulfilling for him as an Olympic victory or winning the jackpot in the lottery would be for someone else.

“There are only a few pictures here from the Astrid. I didn’t have my own camera with me. This is me climbing the mast.”

At seventeen Antti looked enthusiastic and innocent. In the next picture he was intently swabbing the deck. The entire crew of the schooner had gathered for the final picture.

“Mikke Sjöberg is on the left in the back row.” As a teenager, Mikke had had bad acne, but it didn’t prevent him from grinning at the camera.

Apparently someone had told a good joke, because the whole group was laughing.

“If someone had told me then I would end up married to a police lieutenant, I never would have believed it. We hated cops.”

“Don’t start with that again,” I said and hit Antti with a pillow.

On our return trip from Rödskär he had asked me what I would do if he and Iida joined the squatters protesting the construction of the new freeway. Would I let my cronies drag them off to the slammer or would I intervene?

“You can go and squat in ten houses if you want, but find Iida a babysitter,” I had said.

“But it’s for Iida’s sake that I’d protest. If development keeps up like this, all of Espoo will be covered in asphalt by the time Iida is our age. Even when we elect people who say they oppose building new roads, it never helps,” Antti had said and sighed.

“Don’t look at me! I don’t know the answer,” I had said and then ended the conversation with a kiss that contained a pinch of guilt.

That night I dreamed about Rödskär, but the man I had kissed in my dream wasn’t Antti, or even Harri. Instead it was someone with sunburned eyebrows and breath that smelled of pipe smoke.

On Sunday we went for a bike ride along the shore. The algae that had been choking the beaches in floating mats had dispersed with the August winds, and dogs and people were enjoying the refreshing water once again. On the ride back, as we passed a McDonald’s, I noticed two police vans surrounded by a crowd that looked like a demonstration. This immediately piqued my curiosity.

“What’s going on over there? I’m going to go have a look. You stay on this side of the road so Iida doesn’t wake up,” I said to Antti.

I left my bike and helmet in the parking lot of the Esso service station next door. It really did look like a demonstration. A group of about thirty young people had occupied the drive-through and surrounded the restaurant. Their placards said things like “You kill the rain forest. AR—Animal Revolution” and “Meat is Murder—Animal Revolution.” They weren’t chanting slogans, but one of the boys was beating an African drum that thumped out over the noise of the traffic.

Two teams from Patrol Division were on scene. One was locked in an intense negotiation with the protesters, so I marched over to the other team, Officers Akkila and Yliaho.

“Look who it is,” Yliaho said. “I heard you were back at work. OK, so now that you’re the big lieutenant, tell us what we’re supposed to do. These brats didn’t file for a permit for this little shindig of theirs.”

The McDonald’s shift manager had called the police when members of Animal Revolution surrounded the restaurant and covered the windows with their antihamburger signs. It was a Sunday afternoon: Mickey D’s was packed with families who wanted an easy lunch, and there was a birthday party for a five-year-old with twenty tiny guests scheduled for four o’clock.

“This isn’t my area,” I said evasively. The law said that an illegal protest should be broken up if it was bothering bystanders. I didn’t know how I felt, though. I certainly had the occasional hamburger. But dragging Antti into a McDonald’s was impossible. As bad as the food was, he found the ideology it represented even more repulsive.

“The staff is pretty hot under the collar,” said Akkila, the department kickboxing expert, who never minded mixing work with pleasure.

An energetic-looking young man in a uniform shirt and tie came out of the restaurant. The protesters’ reaction was immediate: no one made a sound, but they all turned as a united front to stare at the man, and the drumbeat intensified. The McDonald’s employee hesitated for at least ten seconds before he started walking toward us again.

“Can you please tell these idiots to get out of here? They’re bothering our customers,” huffed the young man. His badge said “Jimi, Shift Manager.”

“Our colleagues are negotiating with them. We’re going to try to handle this as civilly as possible,” Yliaho said calmly.

“Civilly? They aren’t acting civilly!”

“I doubt it would be in the restaurant’s best interests for the police to use force,” Yliaho continued.

“But there’s no talking sense to these people! I tried, but they just started swearing at me,” Jimi said, increasingly exasperated.

The negotiation seemed to end, and the other two officers walked toward us. I knew both of them. One was Liisa Rasilainen, one of the longest-serving women on the force.

“Well?” Yliaho asked.

Rasilainen shook her head.

“They won’t leave voluntarily. I think they want us to attack them. We’ll probably have to call for backup. Then take it carefully.”

“I say we just give them what they want!” Akkila said, patting his nightstick.

I looked at the protesters in their anoraks, blue jeans, batik dresses, and dyed hair. They looked more or less like me and my friends at the peace rallies we used to attend. We thought we could change the world too. We would have thought it was great if the pigs had arrested us, because it would have proven how dangerous our ideas were.

“Who’s in charge of this operation?” I asked Rasilainen.

“Sergeant Hannula. He’s inbound.”

Hannula was a calm type, so maybe he would be able to keep the situation from getting out of hand. I should probably be on my way. Looking across the street, I expected to see Antti, but he was gone. He had probably realized that I had shifted from citizen to police officer, so he took Iida home.

The situation felt unreal. The protesters didn’t shout or wave their signs. They simply stood surrounding the restaurant windows and let their signs do the talking as the drum continued its menacing beat. People arriving for a hamburger didn’t know what to do. No one was preventing them from entering, but the sight of the aggressive crowd was enough to turn most people away.

Backup arrived, and Sergeant Hannula climbed out of one of the patrol cars.

“Take down everybody’s names, but no arrests if they stay calm,” he said. Then he took out a megaphone and urged the protesters to disband. I headed off, relieved that things seemed peaceful and that I didn’t have to get involved. I was already at the service station when the sound of shattering glass made me turn back. Someone had thrown a rock through the window of the restaurant.

Until then most of the protesters had seemed like they might be eventually willing to leave. But when the police grabbed the girl who had thrown the rock, the crowd came alive. They started screaming objections and swinging their signs at the officers. A green-haired boy started dragging Yliaho and Rasilainen off the girl, which prompted Akkila to grab him by the neck. There were four times as many protesters as police. I had to go back. I cursed under my breath as I ran. As Akkila violently dragged the green-haired boy away, the kid bit him in the arm. Akkila kicked the boy straight in the stomach, and he collapsed to the asphalt. That was when I connected the green hair to Jiri Merivaara. To my relief he was still able to get up off the ground. He lunged at Akkila again, but the handcuffs were already out. Jiri tried to grab them, but there was no hope against a taller opponent trained in martial arts.

Two officers continued taking the names of the peaceful protesters. I hung my badge around my neck and joined the party, allowing one of the officers to join the fray. Rasilainen and Yliaho had managed to get the rock-thrower into a van, and now it was time to get the others loaded up. Jiri was dragged to the next van despite struggling with all his might and screaming that Akkila was a fascist thug. The rest of the crowd members gave their names and addresses and then slipped away, the drummer still defiantly drumming. The youngest protesters were maybe thirteen, and they looked tiny and harmless next to the brawny police officers.

“Effing kids,” Hannula said with a sigh as he climbed into the same van Jiri was in. “Four arrests, and we’re just lucky none of the restaurant patrons was hit by that glass. Do you need a ride?”

“No, thanks. I’ve got my bike.”

Halfway home I caught up to Antti and Iida and reported what had kept me.

“Ah, so it was a jackboots-and-billy-clubs day, was it?” said Antti, who was clearly on the protesters’ side.

“Throwing that rock was really stupid! Glass flew everywhere. Just think if someone Iida’s size had been sitting under it!”

“No, things like that don’t help the cause,” Antti admitted. We tried to imagine how the media was going to react, and by that evening all of the television channels had indeed interviewed the shift manager and one of the protesters. Neither said anything revolutionary. Their worldviews were so far removed from each other that it was pointless for the reporters to try to help them reconcile. Of course the restaurant demanded compensation for the broken window and loss of business.

And I wasn’t done with the McDonald’s incident either. On Monday a message was waiting on my desk, saying that Jiri Merivaara had filed a complaint against Officer Akkila for excessive use of force. Which meant it was now my unit’s problem.

3

“There aren’t going to be any charges filed against Officer Akkila,” I told Jiri Merivaara. Anne Merivaara was present at the interview to support her son. I almost didn’t recognize her when she walked in the room. The fragile, tanned woman I had met on Rödskär had disappeared, and instead there was a businesswoman in a stern gray suit with expensive gold-rimmed glasses and a no-nonsense gaze to match.

“And why not? He kicked me so hard it left a bruise. Look!” Jiri lifted his loose black T-shirt.

His ribs on one side were nasty shades of blue and green, but I made a point of appearing neutral.

“You are going to be charged with resisting arrest and assaulting an officer. The prosecutor will probably see Officer Akkila’s behavior as a result of your provocation,” I explained. I knew the prosecutor assigned to the case, and I was sure he wouldn’t charge Akkila. Whether he was right was a different matter. I knew from experience that Akkila’s use of force was frequently over the top. If he had been my subordinate, I would have sent him home without pay for a few days to think.

“So the police don’t decide whether to press charges?” Anne Merivaara asked.

“No, of course not.”

It would have been easier if the investigation into the McDonald’s incident had gone to the National Bureau of Investigation, but the complaint Jiri had filed was considered insignificant enough that the powers that be had decided to handle the matter in house. But yesterday, Anne Merivaara had called me directly, as if I were her personal police officer. I didn’t like that setup. Patrol Division had interviewed Jiri after his arrest and then released him that same night. Jiri’s father had objected to filing the complaint. Juha thought Jiri should be ashamed, that the son of an entrepreneur should understand that interfering with other people’s livelihoods and violently resisting the police weren’t acceptable.

“Juha thinks that if Jiri wants to change fast-food culture, he should start from the opposite side by getting a job at McDonald’s and trying to rise to a leadership position. That would be the best way to influence the company’s practices. Of course that would take decades, but Juha thinks that changing internal business structures is the only good way to change the world for the better. That’s what he did,” she had said on the phone.

Even though I had better things to do than listen to the Merivaara family’s ideological arguments, Anne worried that the charges against Jiri would hurt the reputation of the family business. A company that sold eco-friendly boat paint might not gain much favor with the Sunday boating set when it came out that one of the heirs to the business was a promising young environmental terrorist.

I had agreed I would meet Jiri and Anne. Although I had decided to handle the preliminary investigation myself, Anu Wang was serving as my witness in Interrogation Room 2.

“As far as I’m concerned, we can wrap up this conversation,” I said once we had spent a while belaboring the point of who made the first move, Jiri or Officer Akkila. Each blamed the other, and I was ready to believe them both. Jiri Merivaara seemed like just the kind of kid who would try to be a hero by attacking a cop. “I’ll send the record of these proceedings for your signature in a couple of days, and then they’ll go to the prosecutor.”

“So you and the other pigs don’t have any say over whether that shit who kicked me gets charged? Ha, ha, ha! We know how it is. Cops protect their own. Including you, you fucking pâté-eating bitch . . .” Jiri grumbled.

I couldn’t help laughing at such an odd epithet. In the hall, Anne Merivaara and I had a moment alone while Jiri disappeared into the restroom.

“Someone needs to talk sense into that boy. Riikka and I have tried, but it’s no use. He doesn’t have any real contact with his father, and he just calls Tapio an opera clown. Mikke is the only one Jiri might listen too, but he’s in Estonia sailing.”

“Is Mikke Sjöberg related to you?”

“He’s Juha’s half brother, but he has his mother’s name.”

Just then Jiri marched past me without a word. Anne Merivaara ran after him, waving a rushed good-bye. As I quickly assembled the pretrial report, I hoped this would be the last time I was mixed up in the Merivaara family’s affairs.

No charges were filed against Officer Akkila. Jiri Merivaara received a fine of seven hundred marks for resisting arrest, and the girl who threw the rock through the McDonald’s window was sentenced to fines totaling ten thousand marks plus damages, which she refused to pay.

Autumn appeared in Espoo suddenly, and it was like a crisp-smelling blackout curtain had been drawn. I settled into my work routines and got to know my new colleagues in the unit, Anu Wang and Petri Puustjärvi. Puustjärvi had transferred from Kirkkonummi, the next police district west. He was a solidly built blond of about forty who played Go and tied flies. Gradually I got used to organizing investigations and making assignments, and I found that I could shorten management meetings by a third if I stepped in and interrupted the other unit commanders’ hunting stories and asked them to get to business.

I missing working with my old boss, Jyrki Taskinen. We made a habit of having lunch together on Mondays and Fridays, and by the end of September, there were already rumors floating around whose sources weren’t difficult to guess. Ström claimed that I had made it into this new job by way of our boss’s loins. And it was true there was a certain electricity between Taskinen and me, but it was almost entirely unexpressed: only the occasional straightening of a tie or the brushing of a dried leaf from the hair. Although there could be plenty of energy in that too.

Antti had also developed a regular daily routine. Iida was now taking only one three-hour nap, during which time Antti threw himself into his research or reading his favorite poetry. Apparently playing the piano was a favorite activity when Iida was awake, and once a week they went to the library for music hour. Antti seemed content.

“Iida never puts on an act, unlike everyone at the university. It’s refreshing to be with someone who is always so direct.”

October 4 was a Saturday. In the morning I wondered why the date sounded so familiar, and then I realized. A year had passed since Harri’s death.

The whole day I was on edge because I was the on-call lieutenant for the Criminal Division, which meant approving arrest warrants and going to the station if necessary to handle any problems. In the evening the telephone started ringing with the usual wino fights and barroom brawls, so I slept downstairs with my cell so I wouldn’t wake up Antti and Iida. I had stopped breast-feeding in the mornings a couple of weeks earlier, because I had known that on any of these on-call nights, I might have to leave without knowing when I’d be back. Ending nursing made me sad, but Iida wasn’t an infant anymore. She was walking and even speaking a few words now, the usual “mamas” and “dadas.”

The morning of October 5 was gray and drizzly, and the phone woke me up at seven thirty. I could hear from Puustjärvi’s voice that he had been up all night.

“A body just turned up on Rödskär Island.”

Was I still asleep and dreaming of Harri death a year ago? No, this was real. The sleep disappeared from my eyes like willow pollen in the wind.

“Do we know the identity of the victim yet?”

“Yes. Juha Merivaara, born 1951.”

It took a moment for this to register.

“Has anyone been out there yet?”

“I’m waiting with Koivu and a photographer for the helicopter pilot. The rest of the forensic team is going by boat.”

“Don’t let that helicopter leave without me! I’ll be there in fifteen.” I hung up and rushed to put the coffee on. Fourteen minutes and thirty seconds later I was at the station, and in that time I had managed to wash up, dress, drink two cups of coffee, speed three miles, park, and climb up to the helicopter pad.

I had only ever flown in a helicopter during drills at the academy. Even though I wasn’t afraid of flying, my stomach lurched when the chopper lifted off the roof and turned south toward the Baltic Sea. I couldn’t see the water properly through the rain, and my ear protection didn’t completely drown out the noise. I took a few deep breaths, then asked Puustjärvi to tell me what exactly had come in from Rödskär.

“Not much. Just that someone found a male body on the shore but it doesn’t look like a drowning!” Puustjärvi yelled into his headset microphone, causing a horrible burst of static in my headphones.

“Who called it in?”

“Guy by the name of Tapio Holma.”

Tapio Holma, eh? The whole Merivaara clan would probably be on the island, including Mikke Sjöberg. My stomach clenched when the helicopter banked and dropped in altitude.

I looked through the fog at the increasingly sparse archipelago and the gray-blue sea dotted with whitecaps. Five minutes later I spotted a light on the horizon. The Rödskär lighthouse called to us through the fog. Once we descended to about three hundred feet, I could see that the same two boats were in the harbor as in August: Juha Merivaara’s sleek motorboat and Mikke Sjöberg’s wooden sailboat.

The alder trees bowed in the west wind, and the helicopter was barely able to land on the small patch of grass. The noise had called a group of people to the base of the lighthouse.

Riikka Merivaara and Tapio Holma. Jiri. Mikke Sjöberg, who was trying to light his pipe in the helicopter’s rotor wash. A plump woman in her fifties with dark hair whom I hadn’t met before. The wind whipped her violet jacket like a witch’s cape.

We climbed out of the helicopter. Mikke was the first to greet us.

“Hello,” he said in a tense voice. “You certainly got here fast.” He didn’t offer his hand.

“Hello, everyone.” I surveyed the group in front of the lighthouse. “My name is Lieutenant Maria Kallio from the Espoo Police Department. These are my colleagues Officers Pekka Koivu and Petri Puutsjärvi, and our forensic photographer Erkki Myller.”

The woman in the violet jacket stepped forward to shake hands and introduced herself as Seija Saarela, after which Holma also came to say hello. But Riikka and Jiri just stared at us, huddled in their coats.

“Petri, could you find a place indoors where we can conduct preliminary interviews?” I asked Puustjärvi. “Take down everyone’s information. Could whoever found the deceased please show us the way to him?”

Tapio Holma had called in the report, so I assumed that he had found the body, but Mikke Sjöberg spoke up.

“I found Juha on the west shore.”

I didn’t have time to ask whether Juha had been found in the same place as Harri, because Mikke immediately strode off across the wet grass. Koivu, the photographer, and I followed. The lichen on the rocks was bushy now—back in August the dryness of the summer had laid it low on the surface of the rocks. Mikke continued past the place where we had sat drinking Laphroaig those weeks before. Then he pointed to the shore where the westerly was tossing up four-foot waves.

Juha Merivaara lay on his stomach on the rocks, barely out of reach of the breaking waves. His hands and feet floated in the water, but his back and thighs were in the wind. I walked as close to the edge of the cliff as I dared. A fifteen-foot fall didn’t sound like much, but when I looked at the boulders jutting out of the sea, I realized that surviving it would be impossible.

“Did you go down there?” I asked Mikke.

“Yes. I slipped and went straight into the water.” Mikke’s left hand was bandaged, and there was a scrape on his jaw.

“Be careful,” I said to Koivu and Myller as we started down. The rock was extremely slick. The wind the previous day must have sent up waves at least seven feet, and the drizzle kept everything wet.

Closer up, it was apparent that Juha Merivaara’s left temple was sunken in, but there were also contusions on the back of his head and his neck. Koivu cast me a questioning look, but I didn’t say anything because Mikke Sjöberg was there.

“What time did you find him?”

“A little before seven. I went to check the ropes on the Leanda, my boat, because the wind had been blowing all night. I noticed a break in the clouds to the south and thought I’d go up to the lighthouse to watch the sunrise. From the window I noticed something on the shore, and at first I thought it was a ghost.” Mikke grimaced. It was easy to understand how he felt, since I had thought the same thing. “I ran to the cliff and saw that it wasn’t Harri lying in the water, it was Juha . . .”

Juha Merivaara was fully dressed in cotton trousers, a peacoat, and deck shoes. His body looked strong, since the cold had kept the muscles hard.

“Have you touched the body?”

“Yes, of course!” Mikke snapped. “I pulled him out of the water! I looked for a pulse and tried mouth-to-mouth, even though I knew it wouldn’t help. That’s always the first thing you do—not worry about police investigations.”

“Has anyone else been here?”

“Tapio came back with me, and we called the police from his cell phone. We didn’t touch anything again, even though it felt like we should move Juha farther up and cover him.”

Mikke tried to conceal a gulp by sucking on his pipe. I hadn’t realized how upset he was.

“Thanks for the help. You can go get out of the rain now.” I would have wanted to say something more friendly or even pat him on the shoulder, but I didn’t know how.

“So he fell . . . probably slipped,” Koivu said once Mikke was out of earshot.

“It really is pretty damn slick here, but Merivaara should have known to be careful. That bang on his temple is in a strange place, though. You’d think if he fell he would have hit the back of his head, not the front. His face is probably scraped up too.”

Pulling on a pair of exam gloves, I carefully lifted Merivaara’s head. His face was bloody, his nose broken. Brain matter had spilled out on the rock where Mikke had moved his brother’s corpse. Would slipping on these rocks have caused damage like that? Usually people fell on their back, as Harri had. Or had the facial injuries happened after he was in the water? But dead bodies weren’t supposed to bleed. From how high had Merivaara fallen to end up in the water? Fortunately the wind had been coming from the west, so the waves had kept the body onshore.

It was too great a coincidence for two men to die on the same island in the same way, exactly a year apart.

I was starting to feel clammy; though it was only sprinkling, the humidity was probably near 100 percent. I suggested to Koivu that we go inside. The photographer stayed to document the grisly scene. Puustjärvi had assembled everyone in the kitchen. In the light of the storm lamps it looked homey, and Seija Saarela, the woman with the dark hair, was at the stove making tea.

“I’d like to express my condolences,” I said to everyone, but in return only received vague murmurs.

“My mom is in one of the bedrooms, and Mikke’s mom is in there trying to help her calm down,” Riikka burst out. “This is too much for her. First Harri and then Dad exactly a year later . . . Just like there’s some sort of . . .”

“Curse,” Seija Saarela said as she brought the teapot to the table. “The rocks of this island have so much negative energy trapped in them. So many restless spirits from so much fighting—”

“Seija, don’t!” Mikke groaned and placed a hand on her arm.

“We’d like to interview each of you briefly. Riikka, do you think we’d be able to talk to your mom?” I said.

“Ask her yourself!”

I left the others to sip their tea and knocked on the door Riikka had pointed to.

“Stig in,” said a female voice that wasn’t Anne Merivaara’s. I entered a pleasantly decorated room that seemed to be for the Merivaaras’ private use. Anne lay on her side in an unmade bed, and next to her sat a diminutive, wiry woman in her sixties with brown skin and a steel-gray hair cut in a rough bob.

“Hello. I’m Lieutenant Maria Kallio from the Espoo Police,” I said.

Sitting up abruptly, Anne Merivaara exclaimed, “Thank goodness it’s you! Now everything will be OK.” She swung her legs over the bed, but the woman with the steel-gray hair grabbed her shoulders.

“Anne, take it easy. You don’t have to go anywhere.”

Her Finnish had a clear Swedish lilt, but not the Espoo Swedish I was used to. She extended a strong, slender hand.

“Katrina Sjöberg, the deceased’s stepmother.”

Her handshake was cool and firm, bringing to mind that of her son Mikke. Her eyes were the same elusive sea-blue that changed colors according to the lighting.

“Would you both be up to answering a few questions—such as when the last time was you saw Juha alive?”

“I can, yes,” Katrina Sjöberg said. “But does Anne really need to be questioned now? The rest of us know just as much as she does. Anne was the first to go to sleep, at around eleven o’clock. She doesn’t know whether Juha ever joined her. She didn’t wake up until Mikke came to tell us that Juha was dead.”

I wondered why Katrina Sjöberg was fussing over her stepson’s wife when Anne had seemed like such a sensible and independent person.

“I’m fine if we can talk here,” Anne said. “Katrina probably has to leave, right?”

I nodded. We still didn’t know whether we were investigating a homicide or just recording the events surrounding a fatal accident.

From outside came the sound of a boat motor—Forensics had arrived. I hoped they would be able to take a quick look and determine that Juha Merivaara had slipped on the cliff and fell, that everyone would say Juha was fall-down drunk and that was the reason for the accident. But I knew full well that Forensics wouldn’t be able to do any analysis that quickly and that they might not be able to declare a cause of death for weeks, if ever.

The sound of the motor died, and I looked at Anne Merivaara again.

“Why did you come to Rödskär? The weather isn’t exactly inviting.”

To my surprise Anne nearly smiled.

“To celebrate my birthday. It was yesterday. That was why Juha and I came last time too, when we found Harri. That left me with nightmares. I started fearing my birthday, and Juha thought the best medicine would be to come right on back out here. But now this . . .”

Anne’s voice was hollow, as were her eyes as she stared out the window.

“Everything happened just like Katrina said. I was tired and anxious. I went to sleep at eleven and took two sleeping pills so I wouldn’t have any nightmares. When Mikke came to wake me up, for a while I thought I was still dreaming.”

Anne’s voice broke, and I didn’t have the heart to push her for more information.

“This is enough for now. Try to take care of yourself. You live in Espoo, right? I have a brochure with me about various crisis services if you need support.”

Pulling the paper out of my bag, I asked Anne whether she wanted to be alone or if I should send someone to her. It would probably be about an hour before any of them would be able to leave the island.

“I’m not afraid of being alone. There isn’t anything to be afraid of anymore. Nothing worse than this can happen,” Anne said in a lifeless voice.

“I’m sorry,” I said. There weren’t any other words. Closing the door quietly, I returned to the kitchen, where the mood was somber. Jiri had his hands wrapped around his teacup as if he were praying to it for strength. Mikke stood at the window looking out. Tapio Holma held his arm protectively around Riikka’s shoulders.

“How did Dad die?” Riikka asked. “Why isn’t anyone telling us anything?”

“I told you Juha fell off the cliff,” Tapio said quietly.

“Fell! Then why are there all these police here?”

“Riikka, you come first,” I said, hoping I sounded friendly, even though this was a pure calculation. Because Riikka was agitated, getting information out of her might be easier than the others. Of course I knew that the group of them had had plenty of time before the police arrived to agree what they would say.

We went into the same room where Iida and Antti and I had stayed six weeks earlier. Then the sea had been blue glinting in the sun, but now it hissed, angry and gray. The beds were carefully made, but in the corner there were a suitcase and a backpack, and on the table were a couple of books and bottles of organic cosmetics.

“Tell me why you came here this weekend.”

“Yesterday was Mom’s birthday. Dad wanted us to celebrate it here. Jiri didn’t want to come, but Dad talked him into it, probably by blackmailing him with those fines. Tapio is here because he’s part of the family these days. Mikke was going to sail by Föglö to take his mom home and then head south.”

I didn’t know where Föglö was, but I would find out. I remembered Mikke Sjöberg saying in August that he was planning to sail to Africa by way of Madeira this winter.

“And who is this Seija Saarela?”

“Seija is Mikke’s friend, and my mom’s too. I guess Seija is mostly here to say good-bye to Mikke before he leaves on his trip.”

That was interesting, but I moved on to ask about the previous day’s events. The motorboat party with the Merivaaras and Tapio Holma had arrived on Rödskär around noon. The Sjöbergs and Seija Saarela had come in around three on the Leanda. Once everyone arrived, they had afternoon tea; trips to the sauna and dinner preparations began soon after. By eight everyone had bathed and the group gathered for the party in the kitchen.

“Dad made a speech about Mom, even though forty-five isn’t any special age. We ate and drank. Mom, Jiri, Seija and I had vegetarian like always, and the others had grilled whitefish. Then came the carob cake with tofu cream, which even Jiri will eat. Sometime around eleven, Mom started getting tired and said she was going to sleep. Then I think Jiri disappeared too. He was in a bad mood like he always is at family parties.”

I asked what the sleeping arrangements had been. Anne and Juha Merivaara had slept in the room where I had just interviewed Anne. Seija and Katrina had been in the room where we were sitting now, and Mikke was sharing the next room with Jiri. Tapio and Riikka were sleeping in the east room. There weren’t any other rooms on Rödskär at the moment, since the northeast building was still being renovated.

“I don’t know anything more, because Tapio and I went to sleep next, a little after twelve.”

“How much did your father drink?”

“Aperitifs, wine, and some whiskey with the cake, but that’s what he always has. He’s a big guy, so he doesn’t get drunk easily.” Riikka’s brow furrowed as she realized she had used the present tense. I waited for the tears, but they didn’t come.

Finally I asked whether anything strange had happened during the evening. Riikka said no, but after she stood up she added, “Every now and then I got the feeling that something wasn’t right. Dad and Mom and Mikke were tense for some reason, even though they were trying hard to act like a normal family having a party.”

Apparently there had been no mention that it was the anniversary of Harri’s death. Still it was strange that Riikka didn’t bring that up, since it had happened on her mother’s previous birthday.

Next I called in Tapio Holma, who hugged Riikka at the door.

“Your mother wants you,” he said.

Holma said the same things as Riikka, except that he thought everyone had seemed happy and that the night had been perfectly pleasant.

“Just the usual grumbling from Jiri about eating our brother fish. That boy really has no idea how to enjoy life.”

After Tapio it was Seija Saarela’s turn. She was a forty-nine-year-old unemployed construction drafter who lived in Espoo. With her flowing batik clothing, gray hair tied in a topknot, big earrings, and lots of natural stone rings, I would have expected to meet Seija Saarela at an occult convention rather than on an island in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Her talk of the bad energy on the island had me prepared for a bunch of mystical mumbo jumbo, but Saarela seemed sensible and calm given the circumstances.

“Yes, Juha was a little drunk, but so were we all,” she said. “It was at least one when I went to sleep, and Katrina went to bed at the same time. Mikke said he was going to go grab a book from the boat. My impression was that Juha was going to bed too, but I wasn’t keeping track of him. To tell the truth, I never liked him much.”

“Why?”

“There was a lot of good in him. He was genuinely interested in protecting the sea, but at the same time he was always thinking about money. Of course you can understand that when you remember that he was raised his whole life to inherit the family business. Given that, the radical changes he made so the company could go green are something to admire. But he could never hide that deep down, he was always a bully.”

I nodded. I had more or less the same impression of Juha Merivaara. Then I asked Seija what her relationship was to the Merivaara family.

“I’m just here with Mikke.” Seija blushed a little. “I met him a few years ago, just after the construction company I worked for went bankrupt. Instead of complaining, I decided to learn new things. I took a coastal sailing class at the community college, even though I didn’t know anything about boats. Mikke was teaching it, and somehow we just hit it off . . .”

“Do you mean that you’re dating Mikke Sjöberg?”

Seija let out an embarrassed laugh. “No, no, of course not. We became good friends, and Mikke has let me come sailing with him a few times. The last time was in Estonia last month. I came here to spend one last weekend with him before he goes away for the winter.”

Something told me Seija Saarela wouldn’t have objected to a more intimate relationship with Mikke Sjöberg, but my intuition had been wrong before when it came to men I was attracted to.

Just then Hakkarainen from Forensics came in to say he needed me outside. I let Saarela go, grabbed a raincoat, and followed Hakkarainen back to the shore.

“We tried to find evidence of a fall from the cliff,” Hakkarainen said. “There was one set of the right kind of tracks, but they don’t quite line up.”

“They might be Mikke Sjöberg’s. The one who found the body. He said he slipped on his way down to see what had happened to Merivaara. We should maybe ask him exactly where he slipped,” I said.

Hakkarainen motioned to Juha Merivaara’s body.

“His head is in pretty bad shape, and the water has rinsed the wound so thoroughly that most of the bone fragments and brain matter are probably gone.” Turning his back to the wind, Hakkarainen started lighting a cigarette. The lighter wouldn’t cooperate, and he had to keep striking it for a while before a flame appeared. His first drags were long and luxurious, and then Hakkarainen pulled a plastic container out of his pocket to collect the ashes and filter. He never left any extra traces of his presence anywhere near a crime scene.

“No theories yet?”

Hakkarainen shook his head. He wasn’t in the habit of mincing words—he would give me the facts once he was 110 percent sure.

“But you can’t rule out the possibility of homicide?”

“No. I don’t like that there isn’t any obvious evidence of a fall. Let’s wait and see what the autopsy says. I have a strong suspicion that he was hit with something other than these rocks.”

I heard someone fumbling down the steep slope and looked up to see an agitated Puustjärvi.

“We need you, Maria. The Sjöbergs are trying to leave.”

“What? They can’t just take off whenever they want.” I started climbing back up toward the fortress.

Katrina Sjöberg stood in the kitchen with her hands on her hips.

“Can the police please do their job? We have to go. I need to be on Föglö by Thursday night.”

“Where is Föglö?” I asked. I didn’t remember ever hearing of it before today.

“In the eastern Åland Islands. That’s where I live, and I work at the library on Friday.”

“I’m sorry, but you can’t leave yet. The sequence of events is still unclear enough that we have to interview everyone who was present.”

“How long will that take? Will the police pay for a ferry ticket to Åland?”

I was just about to say that I would have to ask the lieutenant, but then I realized that was me.

“Yes, we will. And maybe it’ll be best for us to go to Espoo and handle the interviews at the police station.”

The Åland police could have handled Katrina Sjöberg’s interview too, but I wanted to at least start the process. I turned to Mikke Sjöberg.

“And you . . . I understand you were intending to leave the country for several months. You’re going to have to put that off for now.”

“For how long?”

“I can’t say yet. Best-case scenario is just a couple of days.”

Mikke shrugged in a way that was hard to interpret.

“Of course. There will have to be a funeral in any case,” he said in an indifferent tone.

I started arranging transportation back to the mainland. Anne Merivaara and Katrina Sjöberg went with me in the police helicopter. I wanted to get Anne home as quickly as possible. We would have to interview her officially later, just like Jiri, who had just sat in the kitchen looking apathetic. Puustjärvi would travel with Jiri, Riikka, and Holma on the Merivaaras’ motorboat, and Koivu would go with Seija Saarela and Mikke on the Leanda.

“Use the motor. It should be faster with this wind,” I said to Mikke before I climbed into the helicopter.

“And what if I don’t have enough gas?” he said.

“Hard to believe, since you were headed all the way to Africa,” I replied. Mikke snorted and then disappeared toward the shore while I boarded the chopper and tried to collect my thoughts. As the helicopter rose over the sea, I turned back to look at Rödskär Island. My last sight was Juha Merivaara’s body being carried on a stretcher toward the dock.

4

We made the flight in silence. Anne Merivaara sat with her eyes closed and beads of sweat on her face, while Katrina Sjöberg stared down into the foggy abyss below.

From the island I had called in to the department and asked Puupponen and Wang to be available so we could get started on the interviews as soon as we landed. In my mind I tried to list the questions, even though the turbulence made my brain feel like mush. As we reached the larger islands just offshore and the fog started to dissipate, Anne suddenly yelled into her microphone.

“Juha always knew what to do. Last year when we found Harri, Juha knew exactly who to call and that we shouldn’t touch anything. And now Juha is gone . . .”

Katrina Sjöberg and I glanced at each other, and that was when I realized it had been a mistake to separate Anne from her children. We would arrive significantly earlier than the motorboat, and Anne would go home alone. Someone would have to accompany her.

As we banked sharply to the northeast, we flew over my house. We were low enough now that I could make out the rowan trees heavy with berries in the yard and remembered that Antti and I were going to pick them today and start making wine. Picking them in this rain wouldn’t have been a good idea anyway, though. Apparently Antti and Iida were on an outing in defiance of the weather, because the baby stroller wasn’t on the porch.

Officer Anu Wang was waiting on the helicopter pad. I thought she would do a better job with Anne Merivaara than Lähde or Puupponen might. My opinion didn’t have anything to do with Anu’s gender but rather her sense for when to talk and when to stay silent. Koivu was another one with that skill. I asked Anu to take Anne Merivaara home and wait there until Jiri and Riikka arrived. Then I wondered why I assumed the Merivaara children would take care of their mother rather than the other way around. Maybe that was because Anne looked so small and fragile. She was even shorter than I was and at least twenty pounds lighter. Her wrists were slender, like those of a child. Riikka, tall and self-confident like her father, seemed like the responsible one, which was often the role of the eldest daughter.

Puupponen was already waiting in Interrogation Room 2. After the helicopter ride, I was in serious need of coffee and food, so I asked for something to be brought in. Katrina Sjöberg was probably hungry too.

Puupponen turned on the recorder, and I dictated the time and place and the names of the interviewers, and then asked Katrina Sjöberg to list her personal information.

“Katrina Wilhelmina Sjöberg, formerly Merivaara, maiden name Sjöberg. Born January 25, 1934, Föglö, Åland Islands. That is also my current residence. I am an artisan by trade. Now and then I fill in for the church organist, and once a week I volunteer at the local library.”

The routines of a police interrogation seemed to amuse her, despite obviously being upset by the death of her stepson. Perhaps the amusement came from experiencing the situation as unreal. Comprehending a sudden death could take a long time, and being interviewed by the police was hardly normal for most people.

“So you have some reason to suspect that Juha’s death wasn’t an accident or a heart attack or something?” Katrina Sjöberg asked before I had a chance to begin.

“Why do you suggest a heart attack? Did he have heart trouble?”

“Last winter he had two serious heart attacks. The doctors said they were caused by stress, and it’s probably also partially hereditary. The men in our family have always had heart trouble.”

Anne and Riikka hadn’t mentioned this. Had they known that this could have been a heart attack? Just then the coffee arrived. I greedily grabbed an egg-anchovy sandwich while Katrina chose a smoked-meat sandwich and started wolfing it down with equal gusto.

“About your family . . . so you were your former husband’s cousin?”

“Second cousin. Our grandfathers were brothers. The Sjöbergs are an old sailing family. Our great-great grandfather was a sea captain, as were my grandfather and uncle.”

“At what point was the family name Finnishized?”

“Juha’s father married the daughter of an ardent Finnish nationalist. Changing his name was a condition of the marriage and the inheritance that would follow.”

Katrina Sjöberg smiled dryly. She said that Juha Merivaara’s mother had died of leukemia when he was only eight years of age. Katrina was twenty-five then, having graduated a couple of years earlier from the Wetterhoff School of Arts and Crafts. She was working in one of the best dressmaker’s shops in Helsinki, but she dreamed of founding her own studio.

“We Sjöbergs have always been opportunists. I took up with my second cousin Martti because I knew he knew a lot of rich people. I thought I could get customers through him. After the death of his wife, Martti was lonely, and of course I was attracted to this older, self-confident man who had money for flowers and restaurants. Maybe in my stupid little head I thought of Martti as a tragic figure because he was a widower. Then what happened happened, the classic mistake. We got married quickly, in the summer of ’61. A week after the wedding I had a miscarriage.”

Katrina Sjöberg gave another crooked smile. “Martti probably never would have married me if I hadn’t been pregnant. I wasn’t much of a trophy wife. Too much ambition and too many of my own ideas. I tried to be the best mother I could for Juha, but I didn’t do a very good job. The fact that I got pregnant again delayed the divorce, but in the fall of ’64 I moved out with Mikke in my arms. He was only a year old at that point. We lived in Helsinki so Mikke could visit his father and brother. My relationship with Martti was not so good.”

Katrina lifted the coffee cup to her lips and took a couple of sips before continuing.

“Martti died in ’82, the same year Mikke graduated from high school. He inherited half of his father’s fortune, so one quarter of the company. At that point I thought that my responsibility to look after him was done and went back to my home island, which I had been missing for a while.”

During her account, I had been scratching names and dates on the notepad in front of me and now had most of a Sjöberg-Merivaara family tree. Still some of the family members and the ownership positions in the company were mixed up in my head. Hopefully the recording and Puupponen’s notes would clear them up.

“Let’s move forward to last night. So you came from Föglö to celebrate Anne’s birthday?”

“We weren’t that close. I came to see a couple of my friends on the mainland and my son, of course. Mikke suggested that we sail back to Åland together, and Rödskär was on the way. I never know about Mikke’s voyages. This one might end up lasting a year or more. That’s why I take whatever opportunities I have to see him.”

Katrina’s voice was melancholy, and suddenly she looked old and tired.

“Had you heard about how Anne Merivaara’s birthday celebration ended last year?”

“Mikke told me. I met Harri Immonen a couple of times myself. Pleasant man. No inane chitchat.”

“What was the mood like at the birthday dinner?” I asked, taking another sandwich.

“The usual. Juha saying the banal things you always say on someone’s birthday, Jiri sulking, Riikka and Tapio concentrating on each other. The rest of us tried to keep up the mood.”

I was trying to find a reason for Juha Merivaara’s drinking, even though I still didn’t have a blood-alcohol count from the autopsy. And if Juha turned out to have fallen because of a heart attack, that would close the case.

But his head injuries had been strange. Koivu had thought so too.

“What time did you go to sleep last night?”

“It was 1:12. I remember, because when I lay down, I wondered when the last time was I had stayed up so late. The life I lead is very regular. I fall asleep at ten thirty and wake up at exactly five o’clock.”

Katrina Sjöberg said she assumed that Juha had gone to sleep at the same time she had. She thought for a while before continuing.

“I slept very restlessly, both because I’d had alcohol and because I’m not used to sleeping in the same room with complete strangers. Around three someone was up and about, probably on the way to the outhouse. And a little after that I woke up to the sound of a motor.”

“A motor? Do you mean another boat came to the island?”

“I couldn’t say. That wasn’t very likely with the weather and how dark it was. But the sound did seem to be coming from somewhere close.”

The idea that someone else could have visited the island during the night opened up too many possibilities. For now I decided to concentrate on who I knew had been on the island. I asked Katrina Sjöberg what kind of relationship Juha had with his wife.

“Well . . . I don’t know if I’m the right person to answer that. I imagine things were good enough, since they did stay married for more than twenty years. Although Anne has changed in the past few years. When she was younger I thought of her as an ordinary girl who was happy simply to have married well. Definitely not the trophy-wife type, though, since she’s always worked in the company except for short maternity leaves. But recently she developed more of an edge, more depth, like she’d started looking at things from a new perspective. The eco-paint idea really came from Anne, and the children’s passion for other environmental issues also seemed to rub off on her. I think that Anne and Juha had some disagreements about their worldviews. Nature and the sea were certainly important for Juha too—that’s in the Sjöberg blood—but we aren’t idealists.”

Katrina Sjöberg sipped the rest of her coffee and then poured more from the thermos.

“I didn’t realize I was so tired,” she said when some of the coffee spilled on the saucer. “Are we close to being done?”

The expression on her face, lined by weather and time, changed quickly. Now it was exhausted again, the laugh lines turning to the deep furrows of age.

“Where are you going to stay tonight?”

“Good question. Usually I stay with Mikke, but that probably won’t work. I imagine the renters have already moved in. I don’t know. Anne could probably put me up, but I don’t think I want to go there. I should let them mourn in peace. Maybe I should just wait for Mikke. We can always sleep aboard the Leanda if there isn’t anywhere else. When will I be able to go home?”

Now the expression of amusement was back, which made Katrina Sjöberg’s eyes look decades younger.

“I’d say we can probably manage that within a couple of days. One last question, though. So your son, Mikke, inherited one quarter of the stock of Merivaara Nautical. Following his parents’ death, Juha controlled the remaining three quarters. Is that still the case?”

Katrina Sjöberg shook her head.

“No, Mikke sold his shares to Juha years ago. He graduated in nautical engineering, but boat manufacturing never interested him. Sailing has always been his love. I don’t know exactly what the company’s ownership arrangements are anymore. Juha is still the majority shareholder, but he isn’t the only one. Mikke sold high during the worst period of the last stock bubble. A few years later when the market crashed, Juha had to broaden the ownership base in order to keep the company afloat.”

I didn’t have anything else to ask Katrina Sjöberg just then. Because she didn’t have anywhere to go, I arranged for her to use one of the lounges at the police station. Mikke Sjöberg wouldn’t be showing up for about another hour, so I went back upstairs to our unit. I wanted to brush my teeth and send a message to the Trade Register office and confirm a list of Merivaara Nautical owners. I told Puupponen to go home. Koivu and I could handle Mikke Sjöberg once the Leanda finally made land.

Even for three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, the unit was quiet. The previous evening’s brawlers had been interviewed and most of them released, with the most dangerous offender sitting in a holding cell waiting to be remanded for trial.

The ambulance boat would be docking soon. If the on-call pathologist started work immediately, we would have some initial test results by tomorrow evening. The pathologist probably wouldn’t be able to tell us anything more precise about Juha Merivaara’s time of death than we already knew—sometime between one thirty and seven in the morning. The most important thing would be to figure out what had crushed his temple.

The telephone rang.

“Hey, it’s Puustjärvi. We just got to the marina. What do I do with these people?”

“Let them go. Wasn’t that what we decided? Tell them that I’ll call them in for official questioning later.”

“OK, sounds good. I’m feeling a little groggy. I fell asleep on the boat, since I was awake the whole night.”

I sighed. I had no doubt Puustjärvi was dead tired, but I had wanted to hear whether anything interesting was said during the trip back.

“Go ahead and go home if you don’t need to come back here for anything.”

“I need to grab my car.”

“OK, swing by my office then. I won’t keep you long.” Puustjärvi was what they called a good old-fashioned cop, even though he was barely forty years old. In his previous job working on a small-town police force, he got to know all the crooks, petty thieves, drunks, and moonshiners, and he learned to get along with them. I wondered why he had chosen to come to Espoo during the recent reorganization, since more than once I’d noticed how confused he could get working with hard-core professional criminals. He was used to the bad guys playing fair. Puustjärvi’s reaction to working for a female boss had included some hiccups during the first week too, but since then there hadn’t been any problems.

“Well?” I asked when Puustjärvi sat down on the other side of my wide desk.

“Well what?” he asked, and I wasn’t quite sure whether his lack of comprehension was a result of the exhaustion or whether he really just didn’t understand what I wanted to ask.

“How did the boat trip go?”

“Pretty quietly. The kid with the green hair just lay in the front cabin with headphones on. The girl cried sometimes and sometimes drove the boat. Holma spent most of the time at the wheel, though. The difference in their ages is pretty big. I got the impression the girl’s father didn’t much like their relationship.”

Puustjärvi had fallen asleep halfway through the trip and then didn’t wake up until they had reached the marina. When he did, he heard Tapio Holma kissing Riikka, who was sobbing again, and saying that now that her father was dead, nothing could stop her from moving in with him.

Juha couldn’t have prevented his adult daughter from moving wherever she wanted, but this was still interesting.

After Puustjärvi left, a reply came back with the information on who owned shares in the Merivaara family business. Juha Merivaara owned a clear majority of the shares, 72 percent. Anne Merivaara held 16 percent, and the remaining twelve belonged to a company named Mare Nostrum. Its owners weren’t listed in the message, so I had to send another request.

The rain had stopped, but there were no breaks in the cloud cover. The fall equinox had been the previous week, and the days were getting so short that sometimes I would have been willing to pay for a few hours of sun. Usually I liked the darkness, burning candles and sipping tea fortified with whiskey. This fall the lack of light had started feeling foreign, though, almost frightening. Within a few weeks it would be dark when I got out of bed, and by a month from now I usually wouldn’t be seeing the sun at all, other than through the narrow slit of my office window.

Shaking off these gloomy thoughts, I got on the computer and started searching for criminal records for any of the Rödskär party, but a knock at the door interrupted me. There was Koivu, looking green.

“Back from yachting, I see!” I said cheerfully.

“Come off it. You aren’t ever getting me on any damn boat smaller than a cruise ship ever again. I spent half the trip bent over the railing puking my guts out.”

“Next time take a pill. Where are Saarela and Sjöberg?”

Koivu’s expression turned to one of alarm.

“Wasn’t I supposed to send Saarela home?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

“Sjöberg is downstairs. He’s the one I thought we were going to question. Do I need to come along?”

“Yeah,” I said, and for at least the hundredth time in my police career I thanked my lucky stars I was able to work with Pekka Koivu. We had handled all sorts of cases together, first in the Helsinki Police Department Violent Crime Unit, then in my old hometown out in the country in Northern Karelia, where I had worked one summer. Koivu had gone up that way chasing a skirt, but after that romance wilted, I lured him back with me to Espoo. Koivu was a friend and a little brother to me, one of those few colleagues for whom I didn’t have to put on a tough-girl act.

“My insides are empty. Any chance I could get a bite to eat?”

“I’ll order more sandwiches. Has Sjöberg eaten?”

“He roasted steaks and potatoes on the boat while Saarela was steering. The smell just made it worse . . .”

“How were they otherwise? Did they say anything interesting?”

“I was feeling so bad I didn’t hear much,” Koivu admitted in embarrassment. “Saarela tried to ask about the investigation, but Sjöberg was mostly quiet. He was really wound up as we were leaving, but he seemed to calm down when we got out to sea.”

Mikke Sjöberg waited in the downstairs lobby leaning his head against the wall. When he heard our steps approaching, he lifted his face, which looked exhausted. The scrape on his jaw was dark red under his blond stubble.

“Hi again. I hear the ride was a little choppy.”

“Sailing under power with a headwind can definitely get bumpy. We could have avoided some of that by tacking upwind, but then we still wouldn’t be here yet.”

“Want some coffee? We’re headed to Interrogation Room 2,” I said.

Picking up his backpack and anorak, Mikke Sjöberg followed Koivu and me down the hall. The seascapes hanging on the walls of the interrogation room provoked a slight frown, but then he pulled off his thick gray sweater and sat down in the chair I indicated. I liked Room 2 because it was larger than the others and decorated in warmer colors. Room 4 was more like a cell, so that was where I took anyone who needed squeezing. There the interviewee and the lead interrogator sat face to face across a narrow table, and you could turn the light so it shined right in the person’s eyes. The couches and armchairs in Room 2 evoked a feeling of a relaxed chat between friends.

“Hopefully your plans aren’t completely ruined,” I said once I had repeated usual litany of date, time, and so forth into the recorder.

“In sailing you learn to be flexible. And this is nothing compared to someone losing his life,” Sjöberg said as if begging me to put an end to the repartee and get to the point. So I started asking questions about the discovery of the body. And he repeated what he had said on the island.

“Of course I’ve been excited to get on the water,” he admitted. “That’s why I was up so early. I thought I wouldn’t bother anyone else in the lighthouse. And besides, I wanted to see how the sky looked. Usually the sunrise will tell you something about the weather later in the day.”

“Did you notice anything in particular outside—before you saw the body, that is?”

“No.”

There wasn’t even the slightest hesitation in Sjöberg’s response. I spread some Polaroids the crime-scene photographer had taken on the table in front of Sjöberg.

“You said you pulled your brother out of the water. It would be important to know what position he was in when you found him. Look at these pictures—take your time—and then tell me how the position he’s in here differs from how he was when you found him.”

Sjöberg obviously didn’t want to look at the pictures of his dead half brother. His pronounced Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. A knock came at the door when the coffee and sandwiches arrived. Koivu attacked the vittles as if he hadn’t seen food in a week. Sjöberg didn’t even seem to notice the coffee cup placed in front of him; he looked through the pictures intently, seemingly at something the rest of us couldn’t see.

“Juha was floating on his stomach between that big rock and the shore. His arms were spread out, and his head was bloody. I slipped and almost fell in the water too. I waded in until I could grab his pants. The rocks were slick, and water ran in over the top of my boots. I pulled Juha up on the rocks so he wouldn’t float away and then checked for a pulse. I was frantic so I wasn’t being very smart. I woke up my mom and Tapio before I realized we had to call the police. My phone was on the boat, so Tapio went with me to the shore to call from his phone. We thought we should be able to see Juha when they started asking us questions.”

I nodded and wondered why so many people, especially men, had a hard time admitting they panicked around a body, even though it was a perfectly natural reaction. We think we can quarantine death in special buildings and desensitize ourselves by watching murder on TV, but we’re wrong.

“Juha’s clothes . . . were they the same ones he had been wearing the previous night?”

Sjöberg thought for a moment before answering. “Yeah, I think so. He wasn’t wearing a jacket when we were sitting in the kitchen, but could have put it on when he went outside.”

Anne Merivaara had tossed and turned in the couple’s bed. We would have to try to figure out if Juha had slept in it at all last night. Had the sheets been clean, taken out to the lighthouse just for this weekend? Where were Juha’s pajamas? Forensics would have to go through their things for any evidence that Merivaara had slept in his bed.

“According to your mother and Seija Saarela, you went to get a book from your boat around the time they went to bed. Did you see where Juha went?”

“He went out too, probably to take a leak. Wait . . . he put a jacket on. I remember it now. I put a sweater on because there was a cold wind.”

“How long were you at the boat?”

“Not long, maybe five minutes. The book was easy to find. For a six-month sailing trip you have to take enough stuff that it’s best to have it all organized. Otherwise I get nervous.”

“You’re planning to be away for six months?”

“More or less. I thought I’d go to Madeira because I’ve never been there before. It’s supposed to be nice and quiet there in January and February.”

Koivu had emptied the plate of sandwiches and was now coughing, trying to dislodge some cookie stuck in his throat. Standing up, I slapped him on the back until the coughing ended. I leaned against the wall near the window so my own face was in shadow, but I could see Sjöberg’s perfectly.

“Did you hear anything out of the ordinary during the night?”

“Jiri went outside at one point,” Sjöberg said and then seemed to realize after he did that it could be interpreted as an accusation. “Just quickly. I woke up when he left and hadn’t fallen asleep again before he came back again. He was gone maybe a minute or two.”

I thought of the motor sound Katrina Sjöberg had mentioned. It would be too leading to ask Sjöberg about that directly.

“Anything else? Other people moving around? Sounds from the sea? Anything . . . ?”

“The sea was full of sounds. Freighters are always sailing along those lanes. I didn’t pay any attention to them, although I did sleep lightly and not nearly enough.”

Mikke Sjöberg was pale, and blood was crusted around the bandage on his left hand. How close had the half brothers been? There were twelve years between them, and they hadn’t lived together as children, but that didn’t have to mean they were estranged.

“You sold your shares in Merivaara Nautical to your brother several years ago. Why?”

Sjöberg’s tired face quickly turned into a grin, which, just as with his mother, instantly transformed his face. Although Mikke hadn’t inherited his mother’s facial features, his expressions and wiry frame were the same.

“I’m not the sitting-at-a-desk type! Although as a boy I thought it was my duty to follow my father in the business. That’s why I went to study nautical engineering, but I wasn’t interested in the theory. By the time I graduated, I knew that running a business wasn’t for me. I spent a year in the navy thinking about it and then sold my shares to Juha when I got out.”

“So the decision to sell didn’t have anything to do with problems working with your brother?”

I had just been trying to avoid leading questions, but now I was wading right in.

“No, I mostly just wanted a lot of money so I could sail around the world. After all, I’m just a rich deadbeat who got his money for free and spends his winters at sea while the unemployed are getting frostbite in bread lines and proper working folk are rushing to their jobs in the snow and sleet.”

There was the same edge in Sjöberg’s voice as when he had said that no one was interested in a drifter like him.

“So you’re still living off of the money from that sale?”

“I invested it wisely. I do work occasionally, writing articles about my trips, teaching sailing classes, and things like that. Early this summer I worked sailing rich Japanese people from Helsinki to Tallinn. I don’t spend much when I’m traveling, so I don’t need much. At least the way I live doesn’t hurt anyone.”

Except by making them jealous, I thought. How many Finns had that dream to leave it all behind and sail south to warmer waters without any schedule or work pressure? But a life like that would be lonely—or did Sjöberg have a girl in every port like a good sailor should? That was definitely something I couldn’t ask about.

Instead I asked about Juha Merivaara’s heart trouble.

“Yes, he had some issues. His first heart attack was last September, not long before I left for the winter. I thought about putting off the trip, but he recovered quickly. I guess he had another one around New Year’s, but then his issues seemed to calm down. Juha started playing squash and tried to stick to a vegetarian diet. You’d have to ask Riikka and Anne about all that, though. I was gone until May Day.”

The interrogation room telephone rang. It was the pathologist.

“I’m opening up Merivaara and heard you wanted some prelims as soon as possible.”

“Yes. Wait. I’ll go to another phone.”

I told Mikke and Koivu that we’d take a short break and went to Interrogation Room 1 to answer the call.

“The cause of death is obvious. It was the skull fracture caused by the blow to his temple. He probably died five to eight hours after his last meal.”

I quickly calculated that that would be between one and four in the morning.

“His BAC was 0.11. So far I haven’t found any other intoxicants in his blood.”

“Can you say anything about what caused the skull fracture? Did someone hit him or did he take a fall?” I asked impatiently.

“The worst damage is to the front of his head. If he slipped, it would be more likely that he would have fallen on his back. There aren’t any rock fragments in the wound, which you would expect to find if he fell. I doubt the water would have washed all of them away. My best guess is that something struck him other than a rock, but I can’t say what it was yet. I did find a couple of glass fragments, but they could have been from his glasses. Have they been found?”

“No. We’ll have to look in the water. Could this have been a result of a heart attack followed by a fall? He had some heart trouble last winter.”

“I haven’t gotten to the organs yet,” the pathologist said irritably. From the phone came a grinding sound I could imagine was a drill going through a skull, but it probably wasn’t. “They said you wanted to know as soon as possible if we could rule out the possibility of a homicide. At least at this point, doing that would be out of the question, but I’ll know more tomorrow once I’ve had time to take a look at the internal organs and do some analysis. Pictures of the scene would help too.”

When I returned to the interrogation room, Koivu’s inquisitive gaze greeted me. He had probably guessed it was the pathologist calling. I shrugged. Mikke Sjöberg seemed to be dozing in his chair, with his head leaning against the wall and his eyes closed.

“Let’s call it day,” I said, but my voice didn’t wake him up. He couldn’t have fallen that deeply asleep in the middle of a police interview, could he? No, suddenly he opened his eyes, yawning and stretching like a napping cat.

“So that’s it?” he asked, seeming a little surprised.

“We’ll probably have to go over this again, but this was enough for today. Your mother is waiting for you in the lounge. We’ll show you the way.”

Sjöberg pulled on his sweater. His movements were strangely slow. Did Mikke need professional help too? Some of my colleagues—Ström, for example—outright laughed at the crisis-help brochures I always handed out, but my experience told me that talking to a professional did a lot of good.

“Mikke, you just found a dead body,” I said, touching his arm. “Don’t try to carry that alone. There is help.”

He stared at me with his sad sea-blue eyes for what seemed like a long time. Then a grin appeared on his lips, but it didn’t extend to his eyes.

“I’ve got my mom to take care of me!”

Sjöberg turned and walked out, with Koivu following behind. For a few seconds I stood there with my face in my hands, wishing I were someone else. Someone more rational.

5

In our Monday morning meeting, we reviewed the events of the weekend and all our unfinished cases. I was a good way into the Juha Merivaara case when I realized that Ström hadn’t made an appearance yet. That momentarily broke my concentration.

“So we still aren’t sure whether Merivaara’s death involves a crime,” Puupponen summed up after my pause had stretched to fifteen seconds.

“Forensics and the lab are promising more results by the afternoon. Let’s hope it turns out to be an accident. We have enough work already,” I said with a sigh and suggested that we move on to Friday night’s brawl. A heavy silence followed, and I realized that it was Ström’s case.

“Where is Ström? Has anyone heard from him?” I asked, hoping I wouldn’t sound like a schoolmarm asking about the class troublemaker. I scanned the room until my gaze rested on an uncomfortable-looking Lähde.

“Do you know where Ström is?”

Lähde shifted his short, pudgy legs.

“Well, I don’t know exactly, but . . . Ström’s ex-wife’s wedding was this weekend.”

I didn’t have a chance to ask whether Ström was watching the kids while his wife went on her honeymoon or whether there was some other connection between her nuptials and his absence before Puupponen jumped in.

“So Ström doesn’t just have a sensitive stomach, he has a sensitive heart too?” he said.

This time the guffaws weren’t very loud because the whole unit knew what a tender spot Ström’s divorce was even after four years. After a long period of stalling, Ström had let his wife go back to work as a lab technician at Jorvi Hospital once their youngest turned three. After six months at work, his wife had announced that she was moving out because she had fallen in love with a hospital orderly. A custody dispute ensued, but eventually Ström agreed to give the kids to their mother, because a cop’s work hours weren’t conducive to single parenting.

The worst thing for Ström had probably been that the children grew fond of their stepfather. Maybe Marja’s wedding and new pregnancy made him feel even more shut out of his children’s life. It was typical that Ström hadn’t told anyone but Lähde about his ex-wife’s wedding. For a moment I felt some sympathy for Ström, but it passed quickly. The rest of us were overworked as it was, and nothing gave him the right to keep drinking after a weekend off. At least he could have called and lied about having a sore throat.

Although I wasn’t going to put up with excuses and boozing for long. I would have to talk to him about this, no matter how hard it was.

Forensics had promised me their first report on Juha Merivaara around noon. Turning on my computer, I answered a couple of e-mail queries from the Helsinki Police Department. Internet communication saved time, but I preferred to talk to a real person over the phone. But since I was online anyway, it occurred to me to check the Merivaara Nautical website.

I found the address and then waited for it to load as I cursed the slow network connection. I was naturally impatient, and waiting for machines irritated me whether it was a computer, an ATM, or my old home answering machine.

When it finally loaded, the website showed two ships sailing off into a wide expanse of sea with blue skies overhead. The menu offered information about the company’s products, navigation, environmental issues, and the Rödskär lighthouse. I opened the page about the environment.

Everyone who travels the water wants to protect the irreplaceable beauty of Finland’s nature. The magnificent lakes and archipelagos of Finland are a national treasure we all have a duty to protect. At Merivaara Nautical our goal is to offer you the most environmentally friendly boating products available, including paints, primers, toilet chemicals, and lubricants. Our research and development team is the best in the business, backed up by the deep, personal relationship every one of our employees has with boating and sailing. Trips to Rödskär Island are a regular part of employee training.

Even though something like the composition of your boat’s bottom paint may seem like a small factor in polluting our waterways, small trickles form great rivers. Did you know that if you mainly operate in fresh water, your boat doesn’t need antifouling products? For sailboats on lakes, such as the waterways of Saimaa, Merivaara Nautical Sweet and Soft paint provides sufficient hull protection. Our bottom paints meant for boats operating in salt water also avoid the use of chemicals that might harm marine life.

The site felt a bit thrown together. As I continued browsing, I found various recycling tips and instructions on what kinds of eco-friendly products boaters should buy. “Eco-friendly” was an easy hook for selling nature lovers just about anything. Not many people ever bothered to check what the term concealed. I knew I was more than a little lost in the current jungle of environmental certifications: Who knew whether any of those little green stamps meant anything at all? According to their site, Merivaara Nautical had recently applied for EU Ecolabel status.

Traffic hummed outside my office window, and a patrol car took off from the garage with sirens wailing. Hopefully it wouldn’t be anything for us, I thought, when the phone rang. The forensic pathologist confirmed that based on the condition of Juha Merivaara’s lungs, he had been dead before he entered the water.

“Did a heart attack cause the fall?”

“Merivaara’s heart wasn’t healthy by any means, but his death had nothing to do with heart failure. As I said yesterday, the skull fracture was the cause of death. He was hit in the head with an object of indefinite shape. There was rust on his skin and we found shards of glass in the wound. The rest of the injuries to his body were caused by the fall. The height was about five meters, right?”

I took a breath and didn’t answer. Although the doctor wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t been prepared for, starting my first homicide investigation as head of the unit felt fraught, especially since it meant I would have to dig into Harri’s death too.

Why was this happening to me again? Why couldn’t I escape my past? Harri reminded me of a version of myself I didn’t particularly like: the thoughtless, irresponsible, selfish girl I hoped I had grown past.

“Are you still there?” the pathologist asked.

“Yes. I’m here.”

“Based on the lividity, the body was moved a few hours after death.”

“The person who found the body pulled him out of the water. What can the lividity tell you about the body’s position in the water?”

“He probably fell on his side, with his neck bent. It’ll be easier to explain if you come look.”

I sighed. “When I find the time,” I said and then asked whether he could give me any estimate of the size or strength of the attacker. He didn’t want to start guessing. The blow that caused the skull fracture hadn’t been terribly powerful, and he couldn’t estimate what position Juha Merivaara had been in when he was hit. Based on the shape of the wound, the weapon hadn’t been very heavy, and it was blunt but angular.

Forensics had scoured Rödskär Island until dark, but they hadn’t found any appropriate murder weapons or the victim’s glasses. Based on initial analysis, there were foreign fibers on Juha Merivaara’s clothes, and a fingerprint other than his own had shown up on the metallic insignia on the collar of his jacket. Although that could have been from sometime earlier, it was still a place to start. I asked Koivu to come into my office.

“You’re going to go take fingerprints from everyone who was on the island the night of the murder. I’m also going to want all the clothes they were wearing for fiber analysis. Puustjärvi can go with you to inspect the clothes. He might remember what everyone was wearing that morning,” I said, cursing the fact that I was already a day behind. We should have made all the suspects strip yesterday.

I glanced at my calendar. At one o’clock I had the Criminal Division commanders’ weekly meeting, which I couldn’t miss. Koivu and Wang would have to interview the Merivaara family without me. I found Koivu at the coffee machine, and Wang was with Lähde in Interrogation Room 2 working on some of the brawlers from the weekend. Koivu wasn’t surprised when I told him that the Rödskär case had turned out to be a homicide.

“It had to be someone on the island, so let’s focus on them. I doubt whoever it was will be able to hide it for long.”

“That Holma guy seemed familiar for some reason,” Koivu said, frowning.

“He’s a pretty famous opera singer,” I said, surprised because Koivu was more of a Bon Jovi type.

“I didn’t mean that. I was just looking at my files because I remembered he had something to do with a case I investigated back in April.”

I hadn’t made the time to look up Holma’s police record because I didn’t think I’d find anything worse than a parking ticket.

“Holma saved a girl from an attempted rape.”

Then I remembered the interview where Tapio Holma said he had been forced to play a hero in real life, not just on stage.

“And the girl’s name was Riikka Merivaara?”

Koivu nodded and told me where the folder was with the case files. He had followed the case because one of the attempted rapists had also been involved in an aggravated assault a few weeks earlier.

If I got lunch from the cafeteria, I would have just enough time to look at those case files before my meeting. After grabbing a cup of coffee, cheese sandwich, and a yogurt, I retreated to my office.

Over the years I’d developed a talent for building a coherent narrative out of the disconnected, often contradictory statements in a pretrial investigation file. Now the chain of events I was reading was like a soap opera.

On the last Saturday in April, Riikka Merivaara had been partying in downtown Helsinki. The closing bell at the bar came at three thirty in the morning, and an old school friend who happened to be at the bar offered Riikka a ride home.

Riikka hadn’t hesitated long. The night buses drove all over Espoo, so getting back to her house in the south part of the city would take at least an hour. A taxi from Helsinki would cost nearly two hundred marks. Her school friend, Aki, swore that the driver, who had also gone to the same school, was sober.

Riikka didn’t like the third man in the party. Tuomo Haaranen was big and hairy, and he had more than the average number of tattoos. She could tell from his eyes that he had messed up his head with more than alcohol. But Riikka had drunk five lemon grappas and was exhausted. The trip home on the empty freeway would only take twenty minutes. Riikka decided to take the ride.

Riikka and Tuomo Haaranen had sat in the back seat of the Mitsubishi. Riikka was disgusted when Tuomo lit up in the car, and she asked him to throw his cigarette out the window. Haaranen responded with an arrogant laugh, saying that he would be setting the rules in the car. That was when Riikka started to be afraid.

About halfway home, Haaranen had started complaining that he hadn’t had his Saturday screw. He asked if Riikka was willing and started touching her breasts. Riikka tried to struggle away, but Haaranen continued groping her, and the two in the front seat didn’t intervene. When they turned off at Riikka’s exit, she asked the driver to stop. But Haaranen told him to keep driving to the marina.

Riikka couldn’t understand why Aki and the driver weren’t trying to stop Haaranen. Later she learned that Haaranen was an Ecstasy dealer to whom both boys owed a couple of thousand marks. Haaranen had a bad reputation. That spring someone who couldn’t pay had ended up with a cigarette in the eye.

At an intersection, the car had to slow down, and Riikka had jumped out. In her fright she ran the wrong direction, though. At four o’clock on an April morning, the city was deserted and dark. It was drizzling and just one bird was singing.

Tapio Holma had decided to drive out to Porkkala Peninsula to spend Sunday watching the spring bird migration, which was expected to be swift and dense. He was driving along the West Highway carefully because earlier he had nearly run over a rabbit. At an overpass, the beam of his headlights illuminated Riikka running on the road below with a large man in pursuit. Holma realized instantly that something was amiss, and he took the off-ramp. Haaranen was just about to catch Riikka when Holma’s car screeched to a halt, stopping them both.

“What’s going on here?” Holma had asked as he got out of the car.

“Just a little disagreement with my girlfriend here,” Haaranen said calmly.

“I’ve never seen this guy before in my life! He’s trying to rape me!” Riikka screamed and literally threw herself into Tapio Holma’s arms.

Holma had looked at the girl, who was surely twenty years younger than he, and at Haaranen, who was several inches taller than he, and he told the latter to get lost.

“Get lost yourself, runt!” Haaranen replied.

Then Holma grabbed his spotting-scope tripod out of the car. He was used to life in big cities and had learned to decide quickly when to stand a fight and when to just give your money to the junkie waving the knife around. On the dark street, Haaranen couldn’t quite make out what Holma had in his hands, but he was a realist. He had missed his Saturday screw, and it was best to clear out. So he started trudging back to his friends, throwing a few last insults as he went. Holma attempted to calm the sobbing Riikka as best he could. He took her home and demanded that Riikka file a police report.

The next day Holma called to check in on Riikka. In the end they went together to report the crime and both were interviewed, Riikka as the complainant and Holma as a witness. The charge of attempted rape was added to Tuomo Haaranen’s already long rap sheet.

I looked up the trial information next. Haaranen had appeared before a judge in July. Neither Holma nor Riikka had appeared to testify. Haaranen received a pathetically small fine for the incident, but he was doing a six-month stretch now for drug dealing and an earlier assault.

That was how Tapio Holma became the hero in the drama of Riikka’s life. Too bad the case file couldn’t tell me how their relationship had developed since then. I was starting to understand why Riikka had fallen in love with Holma. In everyday life he was a normal, relatively short, broad-shouldered Finnish man, but on stage he changed. His Marquis de Posa had made an impression on me too. Holma had the tragic dissonance of a fanatic hero, and despite the ridiculous lace collar, he had managed to look handsome. Maybe Riikka had seen the Savonlinna Opera Festival version of Don Carlos too.

It was a few minutes to one. I quickly powdered my face and headed to my meeting, painfully aware that we had a serious homicide investigation ahead of us.

The division of labor in our department had been in constant upheaval in recent years. The centralization of police services for the entire western half of the county in our department had meant more work and yet another organizational chart. Organized Crime and Recidivism had been under us before, but since January 1, it had its own unit. I was sitting in the meeting with the commanders of Violent Crime Unit 2, Organized Crime and Recidivism, Narcotics, Robbery, and Traffic. At the head of the table sat my old unit commander, Jyrki Taskinen, who had been promoted a year earlier. I was the only woman in the meeting, but that was nothing new. Luckily our department did have one other woman in a high-profile position, a sergeant who worked as the department spokesperson.

Although the various units met each other every morning upstairs for coffee, I didn’t make it up there very often. These weekly meetings were essential, since Narcotics, Robbery, Violent Crime, and Organized Crime cases so frequently intertwined. The head of the national Security Intelligence Service had been particularly worried over the previous summer about racial conflicts and the rise of extremist groups, and we often mulled over the same issues in our meetings.

So it wasn’t a surprise when the commander of the Organized Crime and Recidivism unit, an eager lieutenant named Laine who was a few years younger than me and had come over from the SIS, piped up when I described Juha Merivaara’s death.

“Have you thought about Merivaara’s son? These eco-radicals have started getting pretty violent. What if Junior killed his dad?”

“That isn’t logical,” I argued. “I just visited the Merivaara Nautical website, and the company is as greenwashed as can be.”

“Anarchists aren’t logical. The worst enemies of the Animal Revolution are environmental liberals. They think anyone not as radical as them is just watering down the whole environmental movement by making rational concessions,” Laine said.

“A seventeen-year-old boy killing his father over an ideological disagreement? Hard to believe,” I said, but I then remembered the pathologist’s suspicion that Juha Merivaara’s death could have been the result of a struggle. Maybe Jiri had been fighting with his father. But why on the top of the cliff in the middle of the night?

Although the meeting moved on to other topics, I continued thinking about the Merivaaras. Things were busy in Narcotics too. A week earlier they had caught a gang of Moroccan drug runners, and the interrogations had generated leads all over the metro area. The tabloids had been full of stories about foreign drug traffickers, and the Espoo skinheads had taken it as a good reason to beat a group of Iranian boys on their way home from high school. Ström was handling that incident too, I remembered with irritation.

“Do you have time for lunch tomorrow?” Taskinen asked when the meeting finally ended.

“I’m not sure. Hopefully. I’ll call you in the morning.” Just as I arrived at the door to my office, my cell phone rang.

“We’re here at the Merivaaras’ place. Puustjärvi just came with Forensics to pick up the clothes. It almost caused a fistfight,” Koivu said, sounding anxious.

Jiri Merivaara, who hadn’t been at school, had refused to turn over his only decent clothes, a green flea-market army jacket, camo cargo pants, and tennis shoes. Riikka and Tapio had to spend several minutes convincing him to cooperate. To my surprise, Anne Merivaara had been at the office instead of at home, but Riikka had given Forensics the clothes she thought her mother had been wearing the night of Juha’s death.

“Should we get Mrs. Merivaara in for questioning today?” Koivu asked.

“Tomorrow is fine. Then I can be there too.”

“Holma and the girl can come with us now. Should be bring them in?”

“Sure,” I said. I was actually curious to hear how the romance between Tapio Holma and Riikka Merivaara had begun. I reserved the interrogation room and then grabbed a Diet Coke from the machine to perk me up before dialing Pertti Ström’s home number.

I was almost sure Ström wouldn’t answer. But after five rings, he picked up.

“This is Ström.”

“Hi, it’s Maria. Are you sick?”

A grunt came from the phone. In my mind I could see Ström’s expression: acne-scarred face red with anger, nostrils of broken nose flaring, light-brown eyes beginning to wander.

“Goddamn back went out yesterday when I was checking the air in my tires.”

“Lumbago? Have you been to the doctor?”

“Of course not, since I can’t get out of the goddamn bed!”

“Then we should send someone to check you out.”

“Don’t you fuss over me, Kallio. All I need is a couple of days of rest, and I’ll be fine. But you probably called about work, not to ask about my health. What’s wrong?”

Attempting to speak as calmly as I could about his open cases, I simultaneously tried to sense whether anything in Ström’s voice indicated that he was hungover.

“Sic Wang on those Arab devils,” Ström said when we arrived at the fight between the Iranians and the skinheads. “She was hired to handle trouble with other darkies, so let her.”

“Wang is as close to being Iranian as you are to being Somali.”

“Why didn’t they put her in Narcotics, since that’s where her kind have been making a name for themselves lately?” Ström continued, referring to a case earlier in the spring in which three Vietnamese men were caught running a drug ring, 70 percent of which was actually Finnish. Still the headlines talked about them as a Vietnamese drug gang. Apparently ethnic criminals sold more papers than your average kid from Espoo who got mixed up in selling amphetamines.

I ordered Ström to go to the doctor if his back wasn’t better by the next day. I wasn’t interested in making threats. The last thing I wanted was a power struggle with Ström. What he wanted, I didn’t know. Maybe he hoped I would get so difficult that he could switch jobs, claiming that I had driven him out of the Espoo Police Department.

Just then Wang came to say that Tapio Holma was waiting downstairs, ready for his interview. Riikka Merivaara hadn’t felt up to coming yet.

“Koivu decided to let her be,” Wang said, rolling her eyes. Koivu’s otherwise excellent police work was hampered occasionally by a soft spot for young women in need of protection, although he didn’t generally fall for obvious eyelash batting.

Once again I dabbed a little more powder on my shiny nose. It still had a few freckles on it, but my tan was almost completely gone. Winter and long days at work would soon turn my skin pale and darken my hair. Maybe I would need to find time to add some more red to it, because a few new gray strands had appeared on top. My father had gone gray at forty, and apparently I was in for the same fate. Maybe gray hair would finally give me a little gravitas.

At our previous meetings, Tapio Holma had worn cotton trousers, a sweater, and a field jacket. Today’s nicely cut dark-gray suit and black tie wouldn’t have been out of place on a concert stage.

“Hello, Lieutenant Kallio.” Holma extended his hand in greeting. “So you’re the one leading the investigation into Juha’s death.”

“Yes.” I motioned Holma into Interrogation Room 2, where coffee was already waiting. I poured myself a cup, even though the fifth of the day was certain to make my stomach complain, since I’d only been having one in the mornings during maternity leave. My system would probably adjust to police habits soon though: too much coffee, too little sleep, irregular meals of fast food, and exercise at odd hours. I dictated the routine details for the recorder but didn’t manage to start the questioning before Holma asked his own between sips of tea.

“So what’s this all about? The police still haven’t told us the cause of death, but we’ve been fingerprinted and our clothes were taken. Is that the right way to treat a grieving family?”

“As I understand it, you aren’t a member of the Merivaara family yet. Or do you live with Riikka?”

“Not officially. But in practice, yes, Riikka spends a lot of her time at my place.”

“What did Juha Merivaara think of your relationship with his daughter?”

“Do we really need to talk about that?” Holma loosened his tie.

“Yes. Fathers can be jealous of their daughters’ male companions, especially if they happen to be twenty years older than said daughters.”

From his personal information sheet, I had seen that Tapio Holma was born in 1955, so he was only four years younger than Juha Merivaara.

“Can we please get to the point?” Holma ran his hand through his smoothly combed hair, which instantly stood up. “I saw Juha’s body. He obviously fell off the cliff. So why all these questions?”

“Did Merivaara like the idea of you as his son-in-law? Your relationship with Riikka started so dramatically when you saved her from that rape. How did things progress after that?”

“I don’t understand what that has to do with Juha’s death, but fine. Part of the story is already in the police record.” Sitting up straighter, Holma began to talk about his performance as real-life hero.

In mid-April he had learned that his voice probably wouldn’t recover without an operation. He tried to fill the emptiness in his life with birdsong, and he was especially enthusiastic about the spring migration. That was why he set out so early that morning on the last Saturday in April.

Meeting Riikka had thrown Holma’s plans into confusion. He considered it his duty to escort the girl safely home. When Riikka recognized Holma, he was genuinely flattered. Riikka didn’t hesitate to get in Holma’s car, but she refused to call the police, even though Holma offered her his phone.

On the way to her house, Riikka calmed down, and once there she delayed getting out of the car. Holma gave her his business card and urged her again to call the police. Riikka was afraid that both the police and her father would say she had practically asked for it by taking a ride from the boys.

Holma continued on his way to watch the birds, but instead all he could think about was the girl he had met. He had happened along just at the right moment and that seemed to mean something. Holma returned home shortly after noon and fell asleep, waking up around three to the doorbell ringing. There was a flower-delivery person and twelve white roses. Accompanying them was a card in which Riikka thanked her savior.

Holma called Riikka to thank her for the flowers and ask whether she had contacted the police. She hadn’t, and at that point Holma offered to handle it. Next he had gotten in touch with our unit, at which point he learned that other charges were pending against Tuomo Haaranen. Then he called Riikka again and said he would come with her to the police station.

Riikka only hesitated momentarily. All she had done since waking up was listen to Holma’s recordings. Filing a police report would be a good excuse to see him again. But first she wanted to talk to him, so they arranged to meet the next day at the coffee shop in the cultural center in downtown Tapiola.

Holma was surprised how nervous he was. He spent half an hour just choosing a shirt and then despaired of getting his hair under control. Riikka was ten minutes late, and Holma had already started thinking she wasn’t coming. When Riikka finally arrived, Holma didn’t know how to greet her. He chose a central European kiss to the cheek, which embarrassed Riikka.

“The whole thing was full of awkward fumbling like that. I was amazed and kept trying to talk sense to myself. Riikka could have been my daughter. Men my age aren’t supposed to fall for girls that young. But she was so sweet and seemed so mature.”

The trip to the police station hadn’t happened that day, since Riikka was still unsure, but the next morning Holma talked her into it. Koivu was matter-of-fact as he filled out the report—he had already questioned Tuomo Haaranen more than once and knew he was a real bastard.

After filing the police report, Holma took Riikka out for coffee again. They talked for a long time about Holma losing his voice and Riikka’s dream of studying singing. Holma felt as though he couldn’t let Riikka go, that he had to hold on to her, even though at the same time it felt so hopeless. Finally he asked Riikka if she would go to the opera with him some night. Riikka was delighted at the offer and Holma began to hope that the interest might not only be one-sided. As he said good-bye, he kissed her again on the cheek. This time Riikka reciprocated.

“At first it was a little hard. Riikka still lived with her parents. But in the beginning Anne and Juha were very friendly. Maybe they thought they were beholden to me somehow.”

“But later, did Juha Merivaara object to you dating?”

Tapio Holma frowned and ran his hand through his hair again. The gesture was boyish, completely lacking the straight-backed self-confidence of the Marquis de Posa. Was an embarrassed forty-year-old marching off to his first date with a teenager just one of Holma’s roles?

“Well, yes . . . Juha didn’t hide that he thought our age difference was too big, and he opposed Riikka moving in with me. We didn’t want to turn it into a drama, since I’ve had entirely too much of that in my life lately. But Riikka was basically living with me.”

The trill of a cell phone interrupted Holma’s narration. I almost burst out laughing because the phone played the Toreador Song from Carmen, and it sounded idiotic. Escamillo the bullfighter was a baritone, so was that one of Holma’s preferred roles too?

When Holma turned the phone off instead of answering, I asked him about the night of Juha Merivaara’s death.

“We already talked about this once. I didn’t notice anything strange about that night. Juha gave a very nice speech about Anne and we raised our glasses. Jiri was sulking, but that wasn’t anything new. He wanted to be in Turku protesting a fur fashion show, not on Rödskär eating cake.”

Holma hadn’t heard anything strange during the night, but he usually slept soundly. He had woken up at seven fifteen to Mikke pounding on their bedroom door.

“What did he say?” I asked curiously.

“Mikke? He was white as a sheet and said that Juha had fallen off the cliff and that he needed a phone so he could call for help.”

“Are you sure about the word ‘help’?”

“What do you mean? No, I’m not sure of anything. I’m not at my best in the morning, and of course Riikka and I were both in shock.”

If Mikke Sjöberg would have said something about calling the police, that would have meant he suspected Juha’s death wasn’t just an accident. If he was trying to protect himself, he would have wanted to give the impression that Juha had fallen accidentally. How had Sjöberg reacted to having his clothes confiscated? I would have to get a report from Puustjärvi before heading home.

“Why did you go with Sjöberg to where the body was to make the call?”

“He didn’t want to go alone. He was confused, as we all were. Katrina Sjöberg was the only one in control of herself. She told Seija to make tea and tried to calm down the Merivaaras. Anne wanted to rush to Juha, and the rest of us had our work cut out for us convincing her there wasn’t anything she could do anymore.”

After Holma left I pulled up the criminal records database again. Besides Jiri, everyone who had been on Rödskär was clean. Finally I pulled up Juha Merivaara’s record. His list of speeding tickets was as long as my arm, but that didn’t interest me. In December seven years ago, Juha’s sailboat had collided with a small outboard, killing the driver. Juha Merivaara’s blood-alcohol level had been 0.12.

6

On Tuesday morning Antti announced he was taking Iida to the city, which in Espoo-speak meant downtown Helsinki.

“I thought we’d go to the bicycle demonstration this afternoon,” he said. “On the first Tuesday of every month, nonmotorized vehicles and pedestrians block Mannerheim Street.”

I had heard of the event, which the Helsinki Traffic and Patrol Divisions monitored closely. There hadn’t been any serious blowups yet, but some drivers were more than a little frustrated. They grouped the protesters, who opposed unnecessary solo driving, with more violent environmental extremists, and so they felt justified in spitting and throwing rocks at the demonstrators.

“Wear your best smile and make sure Iida’s hair looks nice. The SIS is sure to be there with its cameras,” I said and kissed them both before I left. Our cat, Einstein, slipped out with me. Mice had been scratching around under the floorboards all night, trying to flee the autumn chill. They’d made Einstein restless, and he wanted to see whether he could get at his quarry from outside.

It wasn’t raining, so I biked to work. Antti had suggested that we sell our rattletrap Fiat because my new position earned me a brand-new Saab from the department. Ethically there wouldn’t be anything wrong with me stopping by the supermarket on the way home from work. Although I couldn’t have survived maternity leave without a car, Antti had no problem making small food purchases and shuttling Iida to activities at the library using the bus and his bike. I guessed it was a matter of principle for him.

The first person I saw when I reached our unit was Ström, walking stiffly down the hall. When he heard me coming, he turned slowly, but a little coffee spilled from the cup he was holding. His “hi” was even more spiritless than usual.

“Are you really ready for work?” I asked cautiously.

“Not really, but what damn choice do I have? My cases are moving slowly enough as it is. Is there any word about that junior-detective position?”

“It’ll be months before they fill it. Next they’re hiring someone for White-Collar Crime.”

Our unit had been down a junior detective for three years, even though Taskinen and Ström fought to fill it during their tenures. The latest budget had lacked funding for any supplemental appropriations, so the position would probably stay unfilled for the foreseeable future. The only good side of the staffing shortage was that I could get away from paperwork to help conduct interrogations.

“If those goddamn politicos would come out in the field, they’d see what this work is like! Why isn’t anyone in the media talking about how strapped for money the police are? They sure whine enough when a cop shoots some nutcase who’s randomly popping off shots.”

This was Ström’s favorite topic of conversation. Over the last year and a half, ever since an escaped convict abducted one of our colleagues and held him prisoner in a secluded cabin in the woods, everyone in our department had been forced to answer questions about when police had the right to use deadly force. Our fallen comrade, Palo, and his kidnapper, “Madman” Malmberg, were both killed in the standoff. The leaders of the operation and the SWAT team members who shot Malmberg were still facing charges as the investigation dragged on. I had been called in for questioning myself more than once during my maternity leave. Ström thought charging the officers involved was a travesty and that Malmberg had caused his own death.

“Be careful with your back so you don’t make it any worse. And go see a doctor,” I said.

“What’s a doctor going to do? Shove some pills down my throat and send me back to work. Last time they prescribed the same thing my old lady used to take for menstrual cramps,” Ström growled and then disappeared into his office.

The officers I was taking to interview the employees of Merivaara Nautical had gathered in the conference room. Along with Koivu, Puustjärvi, and Wang, who had been on the case from the beginning, were Puupponen and, from White Collar, Kantelinen, who would be able to evaluate the financial situation of the company.

“But doesn’t it look pretty likely that someone on the island did it?” Puustjärvi said doubtfully. “Is there any point going to the company’s offices?”

“I want to know what kind of person Juha Merivaara was, and this is going to help with that. Besides, one of our initial interviews indicated that someone might have come to the island during the night. Has the Coast Guard given any new information?” I asked Puupponen.

He shook his head. Rödskär wasn’t near enough to the territorial water boundary that they would have regularly patrolled the area. It was possible that another boat could have visited the island without being noticed. I still didn’t consider Katrina Sjöberg’s observation very reliable. The story about another boat could have been an attempt to protect someone.

The offices of Merivaara Nautical were located in a small industrial park near a major retail development. From the police station, the fastest route was a narrow, winding road that cut south from the Turku Highway. It was hard to believe the fields we passed were only a mile from the center of the second-largest city in the country. The fields were quickly being filled in by construction sites on which rows of nearly identical town houses would be erected. People would move there thinking they were going to live surrounded by nature, but that wouldn’t be the case. In the years we had been living in our house, new construction had been popping up like toadstools after a rain.

The Merivaara Nautical building represented typical 1960s boxy industrial architecture; later attempts to spruce it up involved three different shades of blue paint. But the result was strange rather than classy.

Evidently Anne had received word that a police car had arrived, because she was waiting for us in the lobby. Her black pantsuit made her look even more fragile, but her voice was firm and businesslike.

“Hello, Lieutenant Kallio. Welcome to Merivaara Nautical,” Anne said, as if we were here for a building tour. “Let’s go upstairs to our conference room, and you can tell me what it is you want.”

Anne Merivaara moved confidently, but she was fiddling with something in her left hand, and she kept clenching her hand into a fist around it. We followed her to the elevator. The building had three stories, and part of the upper story was a large, open space. From the corner windows there was a view north to the remaining fields and meadows.

“Of course you may interview all of our staff if you wish. Juha’s secretary, Paula Saarnio, will be happy to help,” Anne said, introducing a tall woman with dark hair and a look of efficiency.

“That sounds fine. Sergeant Kantelinen here would also like to see your latest financial report and have a look at your books.”

“Very well, but why?” Now there was confusion in Anne Merivaara’s voice.

“I’m sorry, but your husband’s death was most likely a homicide.”

I’d never learned to soften blows like this. Now I should have at least tried, though, since Anne immediately collapsed into the nearest chair. She quickly opened her left hand, revealing a blue stone about two inches long, and then clenched her hand around it again, as if drawing strength from it.

“Homicide? You mean that someone killed Juha? But there wasn’t anyone on Rödskär but . . . Who of us would have wanted to kill Juha?”

“Maybe we can think about that together,” I said and then issued assignments. While Kantelinen was looking into the business’s finances, Wang, Puupponen, and Koivu would interview the employees. Merivaara Nautical wasn’t a large company. Twenty people worked on the production side, and there were five in research and development. Seven people ran the office.

As I gave instructions, Anne Merivaara sat still. She looked thunderstruck and continued to fiddle with the blue rock. When the door closed behind my colleagues and the secretary, her eyes lifted and she offered the rock for me to inspect.

“Azurite. I got it from Seija. She says it’s supposed to give strength in making decisions.”

“Is that hard for you?” I sat down at the conference table across from Anne.

“Sometimes. I’m a Libra. I evaluate things from too many different perspectives without coming to a conclusion.”

“Do you believe in horoscopes and crystals?”

“I do. Just like I believe that Juha is continuing his life in some other form,” Anne said seriously. Luckily Puupponen wasn’t around, because he would have been sure to suggest that was true—as worm food.

“It gives me comfort. Maybe Juha will be reborn as a seabird. They were always important to him. I’m sure Harri turned into a sea eagle.”

A sea eagle—Harri would have liked that. I remembered how one morning he showed up on my doorstep glowing with enthusiasm. He had just heard confirmation of a sighting of a sea eagle nesting with two chicks on a wooded island south of Hanko Peninsula. Harri had been shocked by the losses in the sea-eagle population as a result of environmental contaminants and clear cutting, and had written a very pointed, un-Harri-like article about it for Finnish Nature.

“What bird would Juha turn into?” I asked, even though the conversation felt inane. I wanted to try and put her at ease because I had to ask her questions that would be hard to answer.

Anne looked at the azurite and shook her head. “Something big and loud,” she said. “The kind of bird that drove smaller birds away from the rock it was nesting on.” Anne said this neutrally; she knew that in business you had to have broad shoulders.

Although I had drunk a huge coffee that morning, I wanted more already. Could I ask for a cup, or was Merivaara Nautical going to be one of those places that only had herbal tea? Just then the door opened and Juha Merivaara’s secretary came in with a tray in her hands. There was coffee and tea. As Paula Saarnio filled my cup, I had the thought that I’d like to interview her myself. Secretaries knew different things about their bosses than wives did. Saarnio told me that the pastries were carrot-cake scones and then left.

The coffee recharged me. After quickly drinking the whole cup, I glanced at Anne, who was forcing herself to nibble on a scone.

“What was the mood like at your birthday party?”

Anne swallowed before answering.

“Nice. Relaxed. Juha did his best to make everyone feel good and to keep me from thinking about Harri. But that wasn’t easy. Sometimes I couldn’t even look at Mikke because I knew he remembered too. Of course the wine helped the mood a bit.”

“There was quite a bit of alcohol in Juha’s blood. Did he usually drink a lot?”

Anne thought Juha had drunk more than was good for him. He was rarely drunk, but he had loved three-course dinners, which in his mind demanded the accompanying aperitifs, wine, and cognac. He used beer to quench his thirst in the evenings after work and in the summer when he was boating.

“Alcohol wasn’t a problem for him, though,” Anne said defensively. “And I don’t think Juha drank particularly much last Saturday. I’m sure the memory of Harri’s death bothered him too, though.”

“What did Juha think about Riikka’s relationship with Tapio Holma?”

“Tapio is a pleasant man and a wonderful artist.” Anne took another bite of carrot scone and then washed it down with tea that smelled of peppermint.

“As a possible son-in-law?”

“Their romance isn’t going to last that long. As soon as Tapio gets his voice back, and Riikka recovers from her hero worship, it will be over.”

Had Anne Merivaara said the same thing to her husband to calm him down? When I asked again, Anne admitted that Juha didn’t particularly like that his daughter’s boyfriend was almost his age. But apparently they hadn’t fought about it. Riikka was an adult and could date whomever she chose. Juha had opposed them moving in together mostly because they had only known each other for six months and Riikka had never even lived alone.

“Juha thought a girl should learn to be independent, not rush straight from her mother to a man.”

That didn’t sound the least bit unreasonable.

Next I asked about Jiri. Anne Merivaara had indicated before that Juha didn’t approve of Jiri’s involvement with the Animal Revolution movement.

For a while Anne didn’t say anything.

Then she asked, “You said this was a homicide, but Mikke said Juha fell off the cliff. What really happened? How did Juha . . . how was Juha killed?”

“Unfortunately we can’t share any of the details.”

“Because my children and I are suspects too, is that right?”

“Exactly.”

Anne stood up and walked to the window. Putting the azurite stone in her pocket, she folded her arms across her chest. Wind rustled the willow trees beyond the fields, and crows chased each other. The leaves of the aspens were yellow and red, but the rest of the forest was still green. The next nighttime frost would turn the birches and willows too, and then the autumn storms would strip them bare.

“It’s bad enough that Juha is dead. But the idea that one of us killed him . . . Things like that don’t happen!” Anne turned back to me. Today she wasn’t wearing glasses. The skin around her eyes was still lighter than her forehead and cheeks, probably from sunglasses. Her thin lips were colorless, and small wrinkles ran around her mouth. Although Anne Merivaara had a slender, almost boyish figure, her facial features were not sharp. Her cheeks were high, her nose narrow and well shaped. She looked like the kind of person who would be a perfect fit for a health-food commercial if she wore just a little makeup and more cheerful colors.

“How can you think Jiri could have murdered his father? He wouldn’t even kill a horsefly if it bit him!”

I didn’t answer. Surely Anne knew that after seeing Jiri’s fight with Officer Akkila at the McDonald’s, I wouldn’t be so easily convinced.

“Let’s forget Jiri for a second. What was your marriage like? Were you happy?”

Anne sat down at the table again and poured herself another cup of tea.

“What do you mean by ‘happy’?”

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I just drank more coffee.

“I’ve wondered many times why people always have to be seeking happiness. Yes, I look for balance, but happiness? When I was younger I thought that happiness was the same as falling in love. Even though I constantly saw examples to the contrary, I still thought there was some sort of all-encompassing love that could last a lifetime. You know, ‘And they lived happily ever after to the end of their days.’ Maybe other people can make you unhappy, but only you can make yourself happy.”

Anne took a sip of tea before continuing.

“At first happiness for Juha meant having a cute little wife and a profitable company. Happiness was a new house and a bigger boat. Juha’s happiness was in things and accomplishments, like being able to sail nonstop without sleeping for fifty hours from Finland to Föglö. Happiness for him wasn’t about our children’s smiles or even my love for him . . .”

Tears filled Anne’s eyes, and one rolled slowly down her left cheek.

“And there’s nothing wrong with that. For me happiness was knowing that Juha and the children were happy. But I wanted something more than new accomplishments. Although when we came up with the idea together to produce green boat paints, I was very happy.”

Anne wiped her eyes and tried to smile. “Actually the whole idea started with Riikka. Since she was tiny she’s been crazy about animals, and it was a real tragedy when she was about ten and we realized that she was allergic to anything with hair: cats, dogs, horses, even hamsters. I started investigating where the allergies could come from, and part of that was learning about environmental toxins and that sort of thing. At the same time Juha was starting to think that the company needed to carve out a more specific niche to keep up with the competition in the paint business.”

Anne lifted her cup to her lips and drained it. Her wrist looked too delicate even to hold the oversized cup. How could those hands have beaten a person to death?

“But in the past few years we’ve been growing in different directions. Juha didn’t understand spiritual values, and he lacked the ability to stop and consider things or meditate. He always had to be charging forward in such a rush. And Juha didn’t feel like nature had intrinsic value—he believed in protecting it just so long as it benefited people. He and Jiri were always arguing about it because Jiri thought that every last bug was just as valuable as he was.”

The conference room phone rang, and Anne looked at me apologetically before answering. Apparently it was the secretary asking about some sort of business negotiation. Anne said it would have to be moved to the following week. When she spoke about work, her voice was almost commanding, and her facial features turned sharper. I wondered at her ability to continue handling the business, even though her spouse had died just a few days earlier. Maybe she thought the best way to honor Juha’s memory was to continue his work.

“How did your growing apart show in everyday life?” I asked once Anne returned the receiver to its cradle.

“We didn’t do much together anymore. Juha wasn’t interested in my meditation retreats, and I wasn’t interested in tennis vacations in Portugal. It didn’t matter, though, because between work and home, we’ve spent almost every hour together the whole time we’ve been married. Getting a little extra space was good for us.”

“Did this extra space also apply to your sexual relationship?”

Anne Merivaara didn’t answer, but I noticed she pulled the azurite out of her pocket and started rubbing it again.

“Did you have other relationships?”

“I didn’t,” Anne said slowly. “I don’t really know about Juha . . . I imagine on the business trips he took, women were part of the entertainment, but I don’t think he had anyone permanent.”

Could Anne Merivaara’s indifferent ignorance be genuine? Maybe she noticed the confusion in my eyes, because she continued talking.

“Yes, I loved Juha. It isn’t that. Our needs were just so different. For the first ten years of our marriage just the idea of Juha being with someone else felt like such a horrible insult. Gradually my attitude changed, though. You can’t own another person—not their body or their soul. Commitment has to be voluntary, no matter what the topic.”

As a cynic I figured Anne Merivaara knew it was in her best interest to give the police the impression that she didn’t care about her husband’s other women. That took care of at least one possible motive for killing a spouse.

Now I was the one to stand up and walk to the window. If only my own office window gave a view onto brown fields of freshly tilled earth instead of the endless stream of cars on the Turku Highway.

“Anne, when you’re dealing with a homicide, concealing information is unwise at best. Worst-case scenario, it can lead to charges of aiding and abetting,” I said, trying not to sound threatening. “I’d like to question Jiri as soon as possible. Is he going to be home today after school?”

“Jiri doesn’t know anything!” Anne’s voice broke for the first time during our conversation. “And besides, he’s going straight from school to some demonstration.”

Probably the same one Antti and Iida were attending, I thought with amusement. “How is Jiri doing in school?”

“Fine, although he argues with his teachers. They say he criticizes their teaching too much. But Jiri wants to get into college. His big dream is to use science to demonstrate that consumer culture is unsustainable.”

“Ah.” So maybe Jiri had adopted at least a little of his father’s attitude about how to influence the world.

Just then I realized that if I still intended to interview Paula Saarnio before I had to get back to the station for yet another pointless organizational-development meeting, I would have to wrap up my conversation with Anne Merivaara, even though I didn’t feel like I had gotten anything from her. I took one more carrot scone, since I was hungry and there was no time for lunch. Tonight I would have to get out for a run. Otherwise my head would explode.

“Six years ago your husband was in a boating accident in which one person died,” I said. “Did that bother him?”

At first I had been excited about the boating accident, but after a close look at the case file, I learned that Juha Merivaara hadn’t been charged with anything. Back then the standard for boating under the influence had still been a BAC of 0.15, and according to water traffic regulations the boater who died, one Aaro Koponen, should have given Merivaara’s sailboat the right of way. There had been a thick fog, and Koponen’s BAC had been above 0.2. Based on Juha Merivaara’s account, the investigators decided that Koponen simply hadn’t seen the other boat with Juha Merivaara and a couple of business associates aboard.

Anne looked at me as if she didn’t understand my question at first.

“Oh, that,” she finally said. “I had forgotten the whole thing. Juha couldn’t do anything about it. The man came straight at them out of the fog. Juha even jumped in the water and tried to save him. He almost drowned himself.”

Even so, I decided I should at least find out who Aaro Koponen was. The possibility of revenge from someone on his side couldn’t be completely ruled out.

Paula Saarnio’s office was between Juha Merivaara’s office and the front hall. Saarnio was talking on a cell phone and typing at her computer. I knocked, and without a pause she managed to nod to me to enter. I stepped into the room and walked through into Juha Merivaara’s office. Kantelinen was working on copying Merivaara’s hard drive. But I was more interested in personal belongings than the company finances.

I opened the door to one side of a large closet. A dark-brown wool suit, dress shirts that were perfectly pressed, and several ties hung from a row of hangers. There was a pair of brown brogue-pattern leather shoes and a tennis racket on the floor, and I found tennis attire and a pair of the latest Adidas tennis shoes on the shelf.

I reached into one pocket of the jacket and then the other, where I found a coin. I tried the breast pocket, which was empty. There was nothing in the pants pockets or in the tennis shorts.

The other side of the closet was full of binders. According to the labels, they contained correspondence and product-development memos.

“I’ll go through those soon,” Kantelinen said calmly.

“Have you found anything interesting?”

Kantelinen shook his head. “I’m just doing a general survey right now. I’ll get into more detail back at the station. What are you looking for?”

“A motive.” I walked over to the desk and opened the top drawer, which contained a thick daily planner that I would take with me. On the desk stood a picture of a smiling Juha Merivaara with his family. They were on the deck of a sailboat, and it must have been from a few years earlier. Riikka and Jiri had long hair, and Jiri still looked like a child.

The next drawer contained papers, company PR brochures, financial reports, and such. In the bottom drawer I found brochures from Tapiola Tennis and the Esport Center and a flyer from a boat show.

On the wall were two framed black-and-white photographs. One was of a man with a carefully trimmed mustache and glasses. On the frame was a small metal plate that read “Mikael Merivaara, 1874–1947.” The narrow face and prominent Adam’s apple of the man in the other picture was familiar, and I wasn’t surprised to read that this was Martti Merivaara, Juha and Mikke’s father, who had lived from 1919–1982.

I remembered the family tree Katrina Sjöberg had given during her interview. Mikael Merivaara’s father and brothers had been sea captains, but he had left Åland for Helsinki to study engineering. Mikael fell in love with the daughter of an ardent Finnish nationalist, changed his name from the Swedish Sjöberg to Finnish Merivaara, and used the money he inherited from his father-in-law to found a shipping-equipment company, Merivaara Nautical. Martti Merivaara was Mikael’s only child. Martti inherited the company, but he was not a particularly skilled businessman. Only a couple of years after his father’s death, he had been forced to sell half of his stock in the company.

The shares were purchased by Gustav Enckell, whose daughter, Fredrika, was ten years older than Martti. Enckell died soon after the purchase, and Martti came up with a plan to marry Fredrika in order to win back control of the company. Martti and Fredrika married in 1950, and Juha was born the next year. They didn’t have any more children because Fredrika was diagnosed with leukemia, which she died of in 1959.

Juha inherited his mother’s half of the company. Martti controlled Juha’s assets, but the trustees of the boy’s estate forced him to take better care of them. The company began to thrive in the 1960s as Finns began to have more money for things like recreational boating.

Both Mikael and Martti Merivaara looked uncompromising and stubborn, the sort of men who would brook no argument. How soon would Juha Merivaara’s picture be added to the wall?

There were more binders on the shelves, along with a few trophies and some model ships. I took down one of the trophies to inspect it. Hanko Six Meter Regatta Champion 1978. So Juha Merivaara had sailed competitively, unlike Mikke, who just liked sailing for itself.

Among the binders were bird books, English-language books on navigation, and one novel, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. I didn’t recognize the smiling woman in the decorative frame on one shelf, but based on the early 1950s hairdo, I deduced it was Fredrika Merivaara. I recognized something of Riikka in her grandmother’s features: dynamic jawline, long neck, determined eyebrows. Juha Merivaara hadn’t looked particularly like either of his parents.

“Is there anything personal on the computer?” I asked Kantelinen.

“No, but I haven’t looked at all the disks yet. What are you looking for, love notes from a mistress?”

“Maybe. Anything personal that might shed some light on what kind of person Juha Merivaara was.”

I remembered our brief meeting on Rödskär and how his use of “little mother” in regard to me had aroused my revulsion. Juha Merivaara had exuded masculinity and a sort of heedless forcefulness that was difficult to square with his environmentalism. But maybe he had seen nature as some sort of weak feminine character whose virginity had to be protected so people with pure intentions could enjoy its graces.

A knock came at the door and Paula Saarnio walked in. She was probably five foot eleven, and her height was exaggerated by the three-inch heels she wore. Her dark hair was fluffed in a round hair helmet, and the masculine cut of her pinstripe suit emphasized her wide shoulders and narrow hips. Saarnio was in her early to midthirties. On her left ring finger she wore two thin diamond rings, and she had small diamond studs in her ears. Her lips were painted a deep brown, but the rest of her makeup was more subtle.

“I have time to answer your questions now,” she said in a low-pitched voice that must have sounded extremely pleasant on the telephone.

Walking back into Saarnio’s office, I sat down in one of the chairs and pulled my notepad out of my shoulder bag.

“How long have you worked for Merivaara Nautical?”

“About five years. The old secretary, who had been with the company since Juha’s father’s time, retired then.”

“How have you gotten along?”

“Very well.” Paula Saarnio sat down in her office chair, crossed one leg over the other, and then interlocked her hands around her knee. Her nails were painted the same color as her lips.

“What kind of man was Juha Merivaara?”

“Demanding but fair. He expressed clearly how he wanted things done and didn’t waffle about his decisions.”

“So the two of you got along well? What was your relationship like?”

“Our relationship?” A smile flitted across Paula Saarnio’s lips, and she looked straight at me with her dark-brown eyes. “I assume you mean to ask whether we had any relationship other than employer-employee. The answer is no. Yes, Juha tried in the beginning. He’s one of those men who seems to think it’s his duty to test his charisma on every woman who comes along. But he also believed me the first time I declined.”

Nodding, I asked whether Merivaara had any other relationships.

“I don’t think he had a permanent mistress. Professional female companionship did seem to be part of his way of entertaining some business partners, though. Now and then he would ask me to make reservations at some less-than-savory dinner clubs.” One corner of her mouth went up disdainfully.

“Did Anne Merivaara know about that?”

Saarnio’s expression hardened.

“I don’t think it’s terribly appropriate to gossip about my employer’s marital affairs,” she said coldly.

“I understand that, but we’re investigating your employer’s murder. I’m sure you want the offender brought to justice too.”

After thinking for a moment, Saarnio said that she did think Anne knew about Juha’s occasional dalliances. In the past few years, the couple had seemed to be living in different worlds. Their professional teamwork was good, but they spent their free time and vacations mostly apart. Rödskär had been a place of great interest to Anne, but Harri’s death had cast a shadow over her love for the island.

“Anne emphasized the ethical and spiritual dimensions of entrepreneurship, but for Juha this was just a business. And that was as it should be. Ideals alone don’t make profits,” Saarnio said. “There’s no denying that Juha’s death came at a bad time. Exports to Germany and Denmark have been growing, and the economy here is finally improving after the recession. But the business can’t run without a strong leader, and that’s not Anne. They’ll probably have to sell the company, but that won’t be hard. Two big paint factories and one Swedish boat company have made offers in the past.”

I would have to ask Kantelinen about the possible sale price of the company. A corporate acquisition would make Riikka and Jiri rich. Would Jiri donate his money to the Animal Revolution?

That afternoon I could barely sit through the organizational-development meeting. Luckily Taskinen was there next to me, bored and nodding off just like me, so I started passing him inappropriate notes, which to my surprise he answered just as inappropriately.

On my way back to my office, I knocked on Ström’s door. An incomprehensible growl came from inside, which I guessed was an invitation to enter. Ström was fumbling with his bottom desk drawer.

“How is that armed robbery coming? Do you still need Puupponen?”

Ström straightened up uncertainly in his chair, his expression suggesting that he didn’t immediately know what I was talking about.

“I haven’t been able to catch the witness. I’ll probably have to send a patrol to pick him up at six in the morning, since he won’t answer his phone.”

“How’s your back?”

As I stepped closer, Ström turned his face away and started lighting a cigarette.

“Still hurts. Sitting in this chair isn’t very fun.”

Ström exhaled the first smoke. The stench of tobacco wafted to my nose, along with something else.

His breath smelled of fresh alcohol.

7

I made it home just after five, ate a banana, and changed into my running clothes. There was no sign of Antti and Iida, but Einstein rubbed up against my legs, seemingly in need of company. Stretching for a minute, I tried to get the knots in my shoulders to relax. Then I set off toward Espoo Central Park. After a few hundred yards, the running started to flow, and the damp autumn air was easy to breathe. I tried not to think about work, but two things kept running through my mind.

First, our visit to Merivaara Nautical hadn’t produced any results.

And second, Ström had been drinking at work.

I had asked him straight up, and he had denied drinking anything. When I requested that he open his bottom drawer, he replied by saying that its contents were none of my business. Because I needed to get to another meeting, I left the matter at that.

But I would have to bring it up again soon. I was the unit commander, and I couldn’t ignore the responsibility that the position brought with it.

One part of me thought that Ström was boozing at work to test whether I would have the nerve to intervene. Another part of me thought he really did have a problem not only with alcohol but with his whole life. Of course it would have been easy for him to believe that he had his act together if he had been chosen as unit commander instead of me, even though it still wouldn’t be true. As long as he was hostile toward me, I could understand him. But any random outbursts of friendliness completely threw me.

I turned onto a jogging trail. The rain had turned all the low spots into mud puddles, and my shoes got soaked. Then my left heel started rubbing. The pain was almost a relief, since I had to think about it instead of work. After a little while I had to stop to adjust my sock, so the welcome distraction came to an end.

When I had left work, Kantelinen had still been digging through the Merivaara files. Everyone on the staff had said that Juha Merivaara was a demanding but likeable boss, that the environment at the company was good, and that everyone was committed to their business philosophy. The chief financial officer, a man named Heikki Halonen, had told Puupponen that he had been with Merivaara a couple of times at drunken customer dinners where the coffee and cognac were accompanied by leggy girls from an escort service. According to the CFO, this was a normal part of doing business, and Puupponen, who was a regular at a local strip club, had been sympathetic.

It felt strange that a company that emphasized values like environmental protection and sustainable development used escorts in their business negotiations. Even stranger was that Anne Merivaara allowed it to happen.

That made me wonder what else wasn’t exactly the way it appeared in the way the business operated.

Jogging helped me relax, but it didn’t completely clear my head. I returned home dripping with sweat, and Antti and Iida still weren’t back. When I turned on the TV for background while I stretched and did some core exercises, the news had just started. Boris Yeltsin had visited Bosnia, a hurricane was approaching the coast of Florida, and there had been another demonstration in London against cross-border EU meat shipments. When all this hubbub about animal welfare began more than a year ago, I really blew a fuse over the way the news talked about it. The newscaster’s expression grew several degrees more serious than when he had been reporting events in Bosnia and Rwanda and warned us that the images related to the animal issues might not be appropriate for children or sensitive viewers. Half-lame pigs had been packed into a semitrailer, sometimes even on top of each other, blood mingling with their excrement. The sight really was appalling, and I had no doubt some people would never eat pork again.

But that wasn’t what upset me. What upset me was that yesterday the same news broadcast had shown an overcrowded refugee ship sailing from Albania to Italy with people falling overboard. The newscaster hadn’t bothered to warn anyone about that sight.

“A protest also occurred here at home in Finland today,” the anchor continued in his calm voice. “The Helsinki Police were forced to break up a gathering of bicyclists and pedestrians blocking Mannerheim Street to protest automobiles taking over downtown. The now-monthly demonstration occurred at rush hour and irritated many drivers who were delayed. A verbal argument led to a physical confrontation and cobblestones being thrown from both sides. Two demonstrators had minor injuries and five were taken in for questioning.”

Iida, I thought in horror. What the hell was Antti thinking taking a one-year-old to a demonstration where people were throwing rocks! The news showed a line of police officers, and off to the side I caught a familiar glimpse of green hair. His father’s death hadn’t prevented Jiri Merivaara from participating in the fracas. The camera focused on the bleeding cheek of a young woman with a nose ring and black hair, and a very young girl in a long dress and wool poncho who had taken a rock in the back from a furious motorist.

“Things are already hard enough for drivers in this country,” said a good-looking man about my age being interviewed. “Every time you turn around there’s some new tax. We pay a fortune for gas, you need a pack of bloodhounds to find a parking place in the city, and even if you do you’ll have to sell your right arm to pay for it. And then the cops just stand around watching while honest taxpayers can’t even get home from work!”

I stretched my quadriceps while the news moved on to the rally-racing results. Just as I switched the TV off, I heard the front door. Einstein bounded off the couch and headed to the entryway. He assumed that Antti was bringing him a treat. I could hear Iida babbling. Going to meet them, I picked my baby up as she repeated, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” Iida had inherited my snub nose and coarse, unruly hair, but her dark eyes and the shape of her eyebrows were Antti’s. She smelled like bananas, and I squeezed her tight, sniffing and kissing her. Antti joined in, and we sandwiched our daughter in a hug, which made her giggle happily.

“The news said there was quite the brawl.”

“Some damn idiot started throwing rocks! We were just walking and biking perfectly peacefully. No one was making any trouble.”

“Maybe next time you should leave Iida home. Did you see Jiri Merivaara?”

Antti nodded and said he’d expressed his condolences to Jiri. The boy hadn’t responded and just walked to the other side of the group of demonstrators. Since he had Iida with him, Antti didn’t bother to follow. Antti couldn’t understand why none of the motorists had been arrested, even though they had been throwing rocks too.

After a quick shower, I cooked dinner—spinach pasta with avocado-cashew sauce, which Iida liked. Nowadays feeding her meant using two spoons, one in the adult’s hand and one in hers. The result was a sloppy mess under the chair and a little girl who was covered in food but also very satisfied with her independence. Einstein waited expectantly next to the chair and looked irritated when all he got was vegetables instead of pieces of meat or fish.

My mood in the morning was surreal. Instead of dreaming about work, I had had visions of a glassy sea across which our sailboat glided faster than any motorboat. I didn’t want to remember who exactly I had been sailing with, or who it was making me laugh in my dream.

Dressing in my most stylish pantsuit, I pulled my hair back in a low bun and put on a trendy pair of high-heel ankle boots I had bought on a whim. Walking in them wasn’t particularly comfortable, but the extra couple of inches from the heels were welcome. In our morning meeting, I felt downright energetic. Ström sat off to the side wearing sunglasses, desperately chomping his nicotine gum. Even though I wanted to, I didn’t go smell his breath; I focused instead on making the day’s assignments.

“This domestic assault from last night . . . Sirpa and Ari Väätäinen. I see this Ari character has a prior record. Who wants to handle the interviews?”

“You can’t be serious,” Ström groaned. “He’s beating her again? Why can’t they get that bastard thrown in jail! I’ll take it, and Puupponen can be my backup.”

“Call the prosecutor before you go and have him meet you at the hospital to see the wife.” I had glanced at the Väätäinens’ file before the meeting, and it was a real horror show. Ari Väätäinen had already sent his wife to the hospital three times. The wife had never filed a criminal complaint herself, so the hospital staff always did. The couple had three children younger than ten. In the latest beating, the wife had received two broken ribs and a broken jaw. The children were in a shelter.

“Ström, have a chat with the prosecutor. I think we should be able to get an arrest warrant this time. Koivu, you come with me to question Jiri Merivaara and Mikke Sjöberg.”

No one answered at the Merivaara residence. Jiri’s high school was nearby, so we would pick him up there. First we tried Mikke Sjöberg’s apartment, though. His mother Katrina answered.

“Mikke is at the harbor working on his boat. I’ve been waiting for word from the police that I can go home to Åland. I have a ferry ticket for tomorrow night. Is that OK?”

“Do you have anything to add to the statement you gave on Sunday?”

“No. And I’ll be coming back for Juha’s funeral.”

“What time did you say Mikke would be coming home?”

“I imagine for lunch, around one o’clock.”

I left my cell number for Mikke. Then we started driving to Espoo Bay High School.

“Ugh,” Koivu said as we parked the car in front of the enormous red brick building. “Schools always depress me. I feel like gagging whenever I drive by my old middle school at home in Kajaani. Should we go talk to the principal?”

I laughed. The secretary in the main office was more likely to know what class Jiri Merivaara was in. As we entered the echoing corridors, I smelled chicken fricassee. I asked a boy in a toque and pants with legs wide enough to be a skirt where the main office was. He grunted and vaguely waved his hand in reply, but after a couple of wrong turns we did manage to find the office. The principal wasn’t in, and the rotund secretary who looked about retirement age stared at us in surprise. Her expression changed quickly when I said we were looking for Jiri Merivaara.

“Jiri . . . Just a moment. I’m not sure he’s in school. His father died last weekend.” The secretary fell silent for a second, and I could almost see the light of understanding turn on over her head. “Are you here because of Juha Merivaara’s death? Are the police investigating it?”

So far we had succeeded in making the media think the death had been an accident, even though our spokesperson had had to talk long and hard to get the more tenacious journalists to believe her. Someone from one of the tabloids had accosted me too. Their crime reporter had remembered Harri’s death and made the connection between the dates. I calmly asserted that the only similarity between the incidents was that the rocks were wet from the autumn rain.

“We’re just checking on a few details. Where would we find Jiri if he is at school?”

“Jiri is in track 2B. They have PE right now. Let’s go have a look in the gymnasium. I can show you the way.”

The gym was empty, but the permanent smell of sweat beckoned me. If only I could ditch work for a game of volleyball.

“Maybe they’re outside, or . . . wait . . . Let’s take a look in the library.”

The secretary motioned for us to follow, and we trailed her down the hall and passed one door that did nothing to muffle the noise of the teenagers inside. The secretary shook her head.

“Hartikainen can’t ever seem to keep his kids under control. Here!”

The secretary opened the library door. Inside was dark. A girl in a long skirt and hijab sat reading in the narrow shaft of light that shone through a window.

“Hi, Fatima. We’re looking for Jiri Merivaara. Are the others at the pool?”

The girl nodded, and I caught a glimpse of her dark skin and delicate features.

“Is Jiri at school today?”

“Yes. I don’t know if he went swimming or not. He says that swimming pools waste an immoral amount of electricity,” Fatima said in slightly accented Finnish, carefully avoiding glancing at Koivu. What did she do in class if she had to answer a question from a male teacher?

The secretary closed the door and explained. “Fatima’s religion makes it impossible for her to go swimming in public. The others are at the city aquatics center next door.”

We left the car in the school parking lot and walked to the swimming pool. The sun shone almost as weakly as if it were full winter. But it warmed me just enough and walking in my new boots was hard work, so I loosened the scarf around my neck.

“So Fatima doesn’t get to swim,” Koivu said contemplatively. “It must be hard not being able to do what all her classmates are doing.”

I nodded. I would have preferred to think about Jiri Merivaara and his father instead of the challenges ethnic minorities face, but Koivu continued.

“Now take Anu. I mean Officer Wang. Her parents weren’t exactly thrilled when she applied to the police academy. They didn’t think it was an appropriate job for a woman. They also didn’t like that Anu changed her name to fit in better. Before it was something like Din or Dan and you said it the other way around, Wang Din.”

I glanced at Koivu with interest. Anu Wang hadn’t told me much of anything about herself, but Koivu and Wang had worked together the whole previous winter.

I showed my badge to the aquatics-center manager, who let us into the humid swimming pool area. I like swimming, but I had never liked indoor swimming pools. It must have had something to do with the smell of chlorine and all the noise. Although there were only twenty or so teenagers and a few elderly folks, the screams penetrated my ears like arrows from a bow. In the 150-foot pool, some of the students were swimming laps and a group of boys was playing water polo. On the far side of the building, near the children’s pool, I caught a glimpse of Jiri’s green hair. Koivu stared at a nicely shaped teenage girl who walked out of the dressing room in a skimpy gold bikini. I turned my attention to the hairy-chested forty-year-old rampaging through the group of water-polo players. He must have been the boys’ PE teacher. Slipping and sliding my way along the edge of the pool toward the game, I ignored the mud my boots were leaving on the floor.

“Hi. I’m Lieutenant Maria Kallio from the Espoo Police. We’d like to speak with one of your students, Jiri Merivaara.”

“Jiri again? Why always during PE class?” the teacher asked irritably. “I guess it doesn’t matter. He’s just sitting over there. He refuses to swim indoors, and it isn’t like I can let him go outside in October.”

Sitting on the edge of the smaller pool, Jiri looked like a little kid, especially compared to his female classmates who nearly had the bodies of full-grown women. His spine and ribs were clearly visible above his swim trunks. His skin was shockingly pale, even though the previous summer had been the hottest and sunniest in the last hundred years.

“Hi, Jiri. It’s your lucky day. You get to leave the swimming pool,” I said, trying to sound chummy, but it didn’t work. The face that turned toward me was withdrawn and anything but childlike.

“Oh. Why?” he said.

“We have to talk to you about what happened the night of your father’s death. Get dressed and we’ll head over to the police station. We’ll bring you back to school when we’re done.”

Jiri’s classmates watched with poorly concealed curiosity as he trudged off to the dressing room with Koivu right behind him.

“Are you arresting Jiri?” asked a girl with thick white eyeliner, metallic-blue fingernails, and piercings in her belly button, tongue, and lower lip.

“No. We’re just going for a chat.”

“About his dad dying? Did someone kill him?”

I shook my head and walked toward the door, ignoring the wisecracks that followed me. I had to wait for Jiri and Koivu for about five minutes. Jiri marched out with his chin held high, trying to look cool and indifferent, but it just made him look silly, particularly so next to Koivu’s six-foot-three height and bearlike shoulders. We drove in silence as I tried to think of what to talk about with Jiri. At the police station we were going to have to belabor the same questions: How had Juha Merivaara been acting on Rödskär? Had Jiri heard anything strange during the night? Interrogating suspects and witnesses mostly involved repeating questions, then seeking weaknesses and incoherencies amid almost seamlessly constructed lies.

But if Jiri had killed his father, would he be able to conceal it?

Koivu switched the radio from channel to channel, looking for something tolerable to listen to. The classical station was playing something from a baritone that could have been Tapio Holma, and Koivu instantly switched to the next channel.

As we drove by the road where Merivaara Nautical was located, Jiri suddenly started to talk.

“I saw your husband yesterday at the protest. Why do you let him go to those when you’re a cop?”

“Why would I try to stop him? He’s an adult. I might have gone if I wasn’t working. Busy investigating your dad’s murder, among other things.”

Even though I was sitting in the front seat and Jiri was in the back, I heard him inhale sharply at the word “murder.” Hadn’t Anne Merivaara told her children that we suspected this was a homicide?

“Do you really mean somebody killed Dad? You haven’t . . . you haven’t arrested anybody, have you?”

I glanced back at Jiri. His face seemed to be reflecting the green of his hair.

“Who should we have arrested?”

Jiri didn’t reply; instead he turned away and clammed up completely. Even once we reached the station he remained silent. As we were heading to the interrogation room, I asked him if he wanted anything to eat or drink, and he just shook his head.

Koivu grabbed us coffee. It was even more bitter and tepid than normal, and I had to drink the whole cup down in one go and just hope that at least it contained some caffeine. Luckily I found a piece of gum in my pocket that I could chew to get rid of the horrible flavor.

There was yelling coming from Interrogation Room 4. Ström’s voice was easy to identify, even though I couldn’t make out the words. Apparently he was working over Ari Väätäinen, the wife beater. Jiri glanced at the door to Room 4 and his eyebrows went up.

“Sounds like the third degree,” he said, trying to sound tough.

“The guy in there’s the kind the other degrees don’t work on,” I said coldly and motioned Jiri into Room 2. “But we’ll start with the first degree on you.”

Without taking off his coat, Jiri collapsed onto the couch. Koivu was still sipping his coffee, and I started by asking Jiri about the previous weekend.

“We were supposed to have a protest in Turku against a new fur coat store. Everybody was going. Dad was happy I had to go to Rödskär, though. He said he was glad he wouldn’t have to pay any more fines.”

Jiri gave the impression that the only reason he went to the island was to please his mother. Although Jiri wanted to live on his own terms, his mother’s happiness seemed to be very important to him.

“Mom was really scared to be going back to Rödskär exactly a year after Harri died. She tried not to let it show to Riikka and me, as if we were little kids or something. And then that fucking Seija started talking about ghosts!”

According to Jiri, Seija Saarela believed that a person who died under tragic circumstances couldn’t rest and his spirit would wander the site of the accident. The presence would be particularly strong on the anniversary of his death.

“Mom believes Seija’s stories about crystals, but the ghost shit was a little much even for her. I think Mikke had a talk with Seija, and she stopped talking about it.”

The gluttony of the birthday party had disgusted Jiri, and he had waited for an opportunity to slip off to his room. At around eleven when Anne said she was going to sleep, Jiri considered his obligation complete and went outside. The night sky was moonless and cloudy, and Jiri walked for a little while on the rocks and then went to sleep around eleven forty-five.

“I slept like a log all night and didn’t have any idea what was going on until the morning when Riikka came in screaming that Dad was dead.”

In his interview, Mikke had said Jiri went outside once. I asked about this, although without mentioning Mikke’s name.

“Maybe I did go out for a piss. I was sleeping so deeply that I could have gone outside without remembering. There’s no point asking me what anyone else was doing or if I heard anything during the night. Once I’m asleep, three alarm clocks aren’t enough to wake me up. Sometimes Mom has to dump cold water on my face to get me up for school. Just ask her. And what’s this all about anyway? Dad slipped on the rocks like Harri did. It’s not like it’s any surprise. He was plastered!”

Just then Jiri’s stomach grumbled loudly. It must have been time for lunch at school. I wondered what a vegan like Jiri ate at public school. It wasn’t as if the city had money for much variety on the menu. Or did Jiri bring his own lunch to make sure the carrots were organic and the tomatoes hadn’t been flown in from Spain?

“Your father’s death was not an accident. It was a homicide. You want us to catch the killer, right?”

“Fuck no. I’d like to give him a medal!” Jiri shouted and then folded his arms, burying them deep in the sleeves of his green anorak. “Dad was a total shithead. All his eco-crap was a sham. All he ever thought about was money. Fucking hypocrite. I don’t know who killed him or why, but tell me when you figure it out and I’ll congratulate them.”

Jiri stared at me unflinchingly as if to gauge the effect of his words. I stared back. If the kid wanted to act tough, he would get tough questions.

“Why did you hate your father? Did he do something bad to you or your mother?”

Jiri glared at me and retreated deeper into his coat. It was as if he were cold, even though it was at least seventy-two degrees in the interrogation room.

“What kind of relationship did your parents have? Did they fight a lot?”

“None of your fucking business!” Jiri kicked the table. “You couldn’t turn my mom into a murderer if you tried. She wouldn’t hurt any living creature, not even a bastard like my dad! Ask Tapio what he was talking to Dad about in the sauna on Mom’s birthday. Ask him who threw the first punch!”

Then Jiri shut his mouth as if realizing he had said too much.

“In the sauna? When? At night?”

I had to repeat my question three times before Jiri acquiesced and said that the argument had happened in the afternoon. The women had gone to the sauna first, and then they started making dinner. Jiri and Mikke were the first to leave the sauna when it was the men’s turn, and when Juha and Tapio didn’t show up to eat, Katrina sent Jiri to hurry them along. When he arrived at the sauna, the commotion was in full swing.

“Dad was screaming at Tapio that he should leave Riikka alone. Tapio just said that Riikka was an adult and could do whatever she wanted. I’m not exactly sure what Tapio said next, but based on the sounds, somebody threw a piece of wood. All I could think of to do was go in and say it was time to eat. And it was good I did, because Tapio had already given Dad a bloody nose. I thought that stopped it, but what do I know? Maybe they started up again during the night. Dad got angry really easily when he was drunk.”

I was going to have to talk to Tapio Holma again, but first I wanted to interview Mikke. The object used to strike Juha Merivaara might be critical to investigating the murder. Maybe Mikke had seen it without realizing or maybe even moved it.

“Can I go now? We have an English test today. I don’t want to have to schedule to retake it.”

“One more thing, Jiri. What do you think about fur animals being let loose from their farms, even though it means they end up dying?”

Jiri looked a little surprised, but he answered quickly.

“If a few animals dying means saving hundreds more, if the farmers go bankrupt and have to stop murdering animals, that’s fine by me. Why do you ask? I wasn’t even in Turku over the weekend, and I don’t know who’s being doing strikes lately. And even if I did, don’t think I’d ever tell you. The fucking farmers have threatened to kill anyone who goes on their land. What do the police think about that, huh?”

“Death threats are always serious business,” I said, almost smiling because Jiri’s defiance was so serious and convincing. Then to top it all off, he refused a ride back to school in a police car—no need to pollute the Earth because of him. He could get back by bus, even though it meant changing three times.

I didn’t bother arguing with the kid’s principles, especially since I was hungry. I told Koivu I wanted to go back out to Rödskär Island. It would be dark by six, so we would have to get moving as quickly as possible. I wanted him, a couple of guys from Forensics, and Mikke Sjöberg.

“Try to get the boat. Don’t make that face. Just take some motion-sickness pills now so they can start working. But first, food. Let’s go down to the cafeteria.”

As we went out in the hall, my stomach growled almost as loudly as Jiri’s had. The noise from Interrogation Room 4 stopped us in our tracks, though. Shouting, a clatter, and a slapping sound.

“Ström, don’t!” There was distress in Puupponen’s voice. Koivu and I exchanged a glance and then rushed to the door. Koivu ripped it open and yelled.

Ström was giving Ari Väätäinen a right jab to the face, and Puupponen was trying in vain to pull him off. Väätäinen had raised his arms to protect his bleeding nose. Ström grabbed him by the right shoulder and slammed him against the table. Koivu and I jumped in to help Puupponen just as Ström was about to throw another punch. The men pulled him by the arms, and I got him by the waist.

“Ström, calm down!”

Ström turned toward me in a rage. He was dripping sweat, and his breath smelled of something sweet and alcoholic.

“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled.

It was lucky I didn’t throw my own punch at Ström. Every cop knew what the consequences were of hitting a suspect during an interrogation. Ari Väätäinen’s face was a red mess. His nose was obviously broken, and blood ran onto the table and the old case files lying there.

“Koivu, get him to a doctor,” I said and handed Väätäinen a stack of tissues from the box on the table. Wiping his face, he whimpered in pain when Koivu took him by the shoulder and started leading him away. “Move the trip to Rödskär to tomorrow!” I yelled after him. Cleaning up this incident wasn’t going to be fast or easy.

“Interview interrupted at 12:04,” Puupponen said calmly into the recorder and then switched it off. Ström was still breathing hard, his chest and belly, which had expanded over his belt in the past few months, were heaving in a quick rhythm.

“What happened?” I asked Puupponen. He glanced at Ström a little hesitantly, which was surprising, because Puupponen detested Ström more than anyone else in our unit and was usually the first to gossip about his mistakes.

“I lost it with that fucking bastard’s disrespect,” Ström said himself. “Listen to the tape. I’m too tired to explain. I’m going for a smoke.”

“Come back when you’re done,” I said. Hopefully the nicotine would help him calm down.

I nodded to Puupponen, who started rewinding the tape. After a few seconds, Ari Väätäinen’s angry voice filled the room.

“The fucking whore said she just went to the store. She had two liters of milk in a bag, but it doesn’t take an hour to buy milk. She said she got stuck yakking with a neighbor lady, but I know she was lying. You can bet she was on her back somewhere.”

“So that’s why you hit your wife? Because she took too long at the grocery store?” Ström’s voice was angry in a different way than Väätäinen’s, carrying a threat that felt frightening even on a recording.

“Oh, I know all about your old lady too, Ström. Didn’t she leave you for some other guy a few years ago? All women are whores. Maybe they do it in the bedroom or maybe they’re like mine and they give it up in some back corner of the super—”

At that point a smack interrupted Väätäinen, followed by more sounds of the assault, exclamations of pain, and Puupponen’s frantic attempts to calm Ström down. “You bastard, I’m going to kill you,” were Ström’s final words on the tape before we rushed in.

Puupponen said that the interrogation had been very difficult. According to Väätäinen’s logic, beating his wife was completely justified because if he didn’t keep her under his fist, she would start lifting her skirt to every man that came along. Väätäinen even said outright that his wife didn’t dare divorce him because he had threatened to kill her and the children if she did. Those statements alone should have been enough for the prosecutor to finally put Väätäinen away for a few months, especially since he was already a repeat offender.

But even the obscenity of the things Väätäinen had said didn’t give Ström the right to hit a suspect.

“We all know this isn’t the first time Ström’s has lost his cool,” Puupponen said. Around the time of his divorce, Ström had been put on administrative leave for two weeks after hitting an offender in the eye with his handcuffs. Stories about minor incidents of violence were pretty much constant, but there had never been any consequences. Now there would be.

“There’s no way we can keep this quiet,” I said, more to myself than Puupponen. “Are you prepared to testify at the inquest?”

“Will it mean we finally get rid of Ström?” Puupponen asked, but there wasn’t the slightest hint of satisfaction in his voice.

“Lucky for me I don’t have to decide that. That’s a matter for the chief of police. First I’m going to talk to Taskinen, though.”

Ström returned, but didn’t look at either of us. He just stood by the door. The sweet stench of his breath was stronger, and to my horror I realized he had gone and drunk more booze.

“So the big boys haven’t showed up yet to gawk?” he said pretentiously, but I could see the fear in his eyes.

“Not yet, but you know this isn’t going to end here.”

“Of course not. Now the little unit commander has to scamper off to cry on Taskinen’s shoulder about what horrible subordinates she has.”

“I’m not scampering alone, Ström. You and Puupponen are coming with me.”

Pulling out my cell phone, I called Taskinen, who fortunately was in the building. I didn’t enjoy reporting what Ström had done. The rest of the day was taken up conferring with Taskinen and the chief of police. Along with his nose, Väätäinen had a broken rib, and, despite Koivu’s attempts to stop him, he had called one of the tabloids and the dirtiest yellow rag in the country from the hospital. Of course there was nothing the chief of police could do but remove Ström from active duty.

“Our unit already has one unfilled position, and if Ström is gone now, our work is going to come to a screeching halt!” I found myself exclaiming to the chief. “I want a replacement for Ström for as long as he’s out, and I want that replacement tomorrow. I know we aren’t going to find anyone at sergeant level on such short notice, but even a junior officer would do. We have a homicide in progress, maybe a double murder.”

Only once the words were out of my mouth did I realize what my subconscious had made me say.

Looking back, I don’t think I ever believed Harri’s death was an accident. An experienced ornithologist wasn’t going to slip and fall in that environment. My suspicions that the motive for Juha Merivaara’s murder didn’t have anything to do with family quarrels were growing. Whoever killed him probably killed Harri too.

8

The next morning, Koivu and I huddled in the cabin of a large police boat. A southeaster battered the boat nastily, so the motion-sickness pills were earning their keep.

The chief of police had decided to suspend Ström. The National Bureau of Investigation would handle the inquest, and Koivu, Puupponen, and I would have to testify. To celebrate the hours we were going to spend getting grilled, we went out for beers. At Koivu’s invitation Anu Wang had come too. I had told Antti I only drank a couple of porters, but actually I had also done a couple of shots of anise vodka. I had slept restlessly, dreaming of Ström beating Juha Merivaara with Harri’s bird-spotting scope. Now my head hurt.

Koivu’s head lolled against my shoulder. I had left the Pickwick Pub a little after ten to make the last bus, but the others had stayed until midnight. In the morning, Wang had seemed just as fresh and ready for work as ever. She had been drinking cautiously, but Koivu and Puupponen had gotten hammered. It felt hypocritical to condemn Ström for drinking at work when I wasn’t in the best shape after the previous night’s boozing either.

Hakkarainen from Forensics, who was sitting with us in the cabin, glanced at Koivu in amusement. A diver and a Forensics officer assisting Hakkarainen were playing cards with Tapio Holma in the rear cabin. Mikke Sjöberg was up on deck, keeping the captain company.

I had asked Holma to come along because he had also seen Juha’s body before the police. Of course it was possible he and Mikke had colluded to hide the murder weapon, especially if they thought that it might implicate one of the Merivaara children, for example. Even so, I hoped I would be able to get more out of Holma in an environment less formal than an interrogation room.

I had been in such a rush to get to work this morning that I barely saw Iida. My conscience nagged at me. I should have spent last night at home with my child instead of boozing with friends from work, but I had needed their company. I couldn’t expect Antti to understand what Ström’s outburst and relief from duty had felt like, but my colleagues did. That was why we stuck to each other, and although we had tried to talk about other things, like the new ice hockey season or the TV shows no one had time to watch, the conversation always turned back to Ström. Wang and Puupponen hoped that Ström would get a transfer. Anu’s bitterness was easy to understand because Ström had been an even bigger bastard to her than he had to everyone else. Puupponen had said he understood Ström, in a way. He had also interrogated Ari Väätäinen before, and the way he treated his wife and children disgusted Puupponen too.

But a police officer still didn’t have the right to hit anyone like that. Punishments for crimes were administered elsewhere than in interrogation rooms.

Ström had tried to get the prosecutor to attend the interrogation, but he hadn’t been available. Because of due-process requirements, they needed to start Väätäinen’s pretrial investigation fast: they couldn’t detain him for longer than forty-eight hours and they needed evidence to file formal charges. Puupponen almost sounded like Ström as he argued that the law protected crooks better than victims these days. But that wasn’t why Ström hit Väätäinen. It was because Väätäinen had succeeded in breaking through Ström’s carefully constructed defenses.

The stench of gasoline in the cabin was getting to me. My hair still reeked of cigarette smoke from the pub, even though Puupponen was the only one in our group who smoked while he drank. I decided to climb on deck. I started edging out from under Koivu. He groaned and collapsed on the bench in a position that reminded me of Iida sleeping in her car seat.

A frost had struck overnight, and the sea sucked away any remaining warmth. It had regained the transparent, dark-blue color the green algae had robbed it of over the summer. The sun climbed steadily toward its apex, and I turned my face toward it as if to draw in strength. The last of the large islands along the shore fell behind to the west, and the air was so clear that I could make out the silhouette of Tallinn to the south.

Mikke Sjöberg had called yesterday afternoon, just as I was beginning consultations with Taskinen and the chief of police. He had agreed without complaint to come with us to Rödskär. Katrina Sjöberg had a ticket for the night ferry to Åland, and I couldn’t come up with any more excuses to delay her departure. She hadn’t been nearby when Harri died, and she wasn’t my prime suspect in Juha’s death, even though she seemed like a temperamental woman.

“Nice day,” I said, half to Mikke and half to the boat’s captain. Even though the wind was only blowing at six knots, it cut through my leather jacket and wool sweater, making me wish I had thought to bring a hat. The freezing temperatures had painted the aspen trees on an islet we passed bright red; their reflection broke in our wake, momentarily making it appear like blood was dripping in the water.

I sat down next to Mikke on a storage bench. When we had met at the marina that morning, he said he had heard about my suspicions that this was a homicide. Mikke’s face looked stretched tight, and he was obviously tired. The fact that he was hiding something practically radiated from him. I was sure he knew what had been used to kill Juha, because when I introduced the diver to him, he seemed agitated. He didn’t relax again until we were out on the open sea. Tapio Holma, on the contrary, seemed to be approaching this as if we were on a pleasure cruise.

Rödskär appeared on the horizon. The tremulous clarity of the air separated the rocks and buildings from the sea, as if we were approaching a fairy-tale castle suspended above the water.

“In these conditions anchoring on the east side won’t be any problem!” Mikke yelled to the captain over the engine noise. Landing on the island in Antti’s parents’ sailboat had been tranquil, but the thunderous police-boat motor smothered every other sound, and the stench of gasoline made it impossible to smell the bitter, salty scent of the sea. I understood why Mikke avoided motorboats. The motor drowned out all the nuances of the sea and replaced the rocking of the waves with a steady churning.

“Let’s circle around the west side since it’s so calm. The site of the accident will be visible from the sea,” I said to the captain.

Seen from the west, Rödskär looked hostile.

High cliffs rose from the sea; they appeared utterly inaccessible, even though I knew climbing them was possible. Any ship approaching from this direction would have been easy to fire on from the island without exposing oneself. After getting a good look at the accident site, we continued motoring around the south side of the island to the harbor. I heard Hakkarainen waking Koivu. Mikke was the first to jump off onto the rocks, and I bounded after him to help fix the aft line.

Koivu scrambled out of the cabin squinting, quickly put on his sunglasses, and tumbled unceremoniously out of the boat. The captain simply deployed the ladder and climbed down.

“Koivu, you take Holma and Sjöberg up. I’ll be right there,” I said, handing Koivu the key to the hut. Forensics had been holding it since Sunday.

As soon as they were out of earshot, I turned to Hakkarainen, his assistant, and the diver. “What we’re looking for is a blunt weapon. According to the pathologist, it has an irregular shape and probably contains some glass parts, because there were shards in Merivaara’s skull.”

“Did he wear glasses?” Hakkarainen asked.

“Yes, and they’re missing too. Check for them in the water,” I told the diver. “I’m going to grill Sjöberg about that weapon.”

Koivu had taken Mikke and Tapio Holma to the kitchen. The sun didn’t shine through the north-facing windows, so the room was dim. Mikke lit a storm lamp, and Koivu opened a bottle of Coke, presumably to settle his stomach. I was irked that I hadn’t been able to wrangle an extra officer to keep the other suspect company while Koivu and I were conducting the interrogations. I would have to handle it alone, even though that meant any testimony couldn’t be used as evidence.

“Let’s take a trip to the sauna,” I said to Tapio Holma, who glanced at me in surprise but then stood up.

Mikke stood up too, but I motioned for him to sit. “Just the two of us.”

“How is Riikka holding up?” I asked Holma once we were outside.

He shook his head.

“Not very well. I think she feels guilty about fighting with her father so much during the last days before his death.”

The sauna was unlocked. The inside smelled of smoke and dried birch leaves, and a warmth washed through me when I remembered how Antti and I had made love on the middle bench. It felt like so long since that August night, even though only a month and a half had passed.

“Was she arguing about you with her father?” I sat down on the bench in the dressing room. Someone had left a linen towel in a heap on the corner. Picking up the towel, I noticed brown stains on it, probably blood. Tapio Holma quickly glanced at the towel and then turned his face away. I didn’t comment on the stains and simply folded the towel carefully so that the beautifully embroidered “J. M.” was on the top. Strange that no one had grabbed this on Sunday. Had Forensics inspected the sauna at all? I repeated my question about the argument, and I stared at Holma until he responded.

“Probably. Juha didn’t bother to hide that he didn’t like our relationship. He asked me whether my intentions toward his daughter were honorable.”

“Well, were they?”

“If by honorable intentions you mean planning to marry her, then yes.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Yes, I know Riikka is young, but I want to share my life with her and have children together. My ex-wife, Suzanne, and I agreed that we didn’t want children. It would have hurt Suzanne’s career the most, but mine too, and we thought that was more important than having kids. Now I don’t think that way anymore.”

Holma glanced out the window. “There was a colony of sparrows under the eaves this summer. We were here the week the chicks learned to fly. They were amazingly noisy. It feels so quiet now that they’ve flown away for the winter.”

“Let’s go back to Sunday morning and the discovery of Juha Merivaara’s body. Do you think anything indicated it was more than an accident?”

Holma shook his head.

“I can’t even imagine that someone really killed Juha. Things like that don’t happen, except in operas,” he said, trying to lighten the mood, but I didn’t return his smile. “I saw instantly from Mikke’s expression that something horrible had happened, but he didn’t say anything that would have made me think it was anything but an accident.”

Now I spread the towel out in front of Holma. He tried to avoid looking at it.

“Do you know where this blood is from?”

Holma didn’t answer. Continuing to look out the window, he ran his hand through his hair again.

“You had a fight with Juha Merivaara in here on Saturday afternoon.”

“Says who?” Holma’s voice was weak.

“That doesn’t matter. Tell me what happened.”

For a long time Tapio Holma didn’t say anything. I looked around the sauna and dressing room for signs of a struggle—Jiri had mentioned pieces of wood being thrown around. But a piece of firewood wouldn’t have caused the damage done to Juha Merivaara’s skull, and the only other possibility was the sauna ladle, which was too light. There was also a dark stain on the bottom sauna bench.

Holma groaned. “It was so stupid. Two grown men fighting like little boys.”

“Who started it?”

“Me.” Holma’s tone was one of embarrassment. “Or I threw the first punch, but Juha actually started the argument.”

Holma wouldn’t repeat what Juha had said. Apparently it was too personal. It must have had something to do with Riikka. Holma had punched Juha in the face, and Juha picked up a piece of firewood to protect himself. Holma’s second punch landed on Juha’s nose, which had started bleeding. When Jiri came to hurry them along for dinner, Juha cleaned his face with the towel.

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

Holma claimed the incident had seemed unimportant, and he didn’t want to sully Juha Merivaara’s memory. That explanation didn’t seem terribly credible.

“Of course Jiri will tell Riikka and Anne,” Holma said with a sigh as we were walking back to the fortress from the sauna. “How is that cute little daughter of yours? Who takes care of her while you’re at work? She must still be pretty little for day care.”

“Her father is on leave from his job,” I said quickly, expecting an exclamation of surprise.

But instead Holma said, “I could do that too, especially if my voice doesn’t recover. I could stay home and take care of the baby so Riikka could go to school. Having a child wouldn’t have to change her plans.”

Koivu and Mikke were still sitting in the kitchen, the former slurping Coke and the latter studying a sea chart.

“Let’s go to the lighthouse,” I said to Mikke, who thankfully didn’t ask why but just stood up and followed me. We climbed the circular stone stairs to the upper level. The wind had died down and only low, lazy waves rippled across the open water. No ships were visible on the horizon.

“There won’t be many more days like this in store, I wager. The fall storms will be starting soon,” Mikke said wistfully.

“You’d like to leave, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I would.” Mikke stared at the sea, his eyes motionless. His eyebrows shone a bright white under his black cap, and angular shadows fell beneath his protruding cheekbones. “I’ll have to wait for Juha’s funeral. He was my only brother after all.”

“The body will be released today. But your leaving depends on more than just his funeral. Right now our forensic team is investigating where you found Juha’s body, even though we can’t see them from here.”

I motioned to the west shore of the island. We looked at the red granite speckled with moss and lichen that concealed the cliffs beyond.

“You lied when you claimed you noticed Juha’s body when you climbed up here to admire the sunset, didn’t you?”

I gave a start when Mikke turned toward me abruptly. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. I stared him down as best I could, as if my gaze could penetrate through his eyes, into his mind, and find out what he was concealing. My stare must have worked, because Mikke turned away and I saw him blush.

“I didn’t mean to lie. I was just embarrassed . . .” Mikke leaned one elbow against the wall, and his face turned to shadow. “I didn’t sleep well, which is normal when I’ve been mixing wine and beer. The wind had changed, so I went to check the Leanda’s moorings. Something made me think about what Seija had said about spirits. I don’t believe in any of that, but . . .”

Mikke raised his eyes and tried to look at me, but he couldn’t quite do it. “I brought Harri here last year and then left immediately for my winter trip. I did stop on Föglö to visit my mom on the way, but no one bothered to send news of Harri’s death. I didn’t hear anything about it until January, when I got stuck in Portugal for several weeks with some keel damage. Seija sent me a letter telling me about the accident. I don’t know if I would have turned around for the funeral. Probably. Harri was one of my best friends. It was my fault he ended up dying here. I was the one who suggested he catalog the birds on Rödskär.”

I listened to Mikke’s monologue without interrupting. I couldn’t help the fact that I liked being close to him, even though fate had thrown us together as adversaries in a murder investigation. At the same time I feared that others would notice, so I was trying desperately to treat Mikke as if he were any other person I had to interview.

“All Saturday I wanted to go to the place where Harri fell—it had been a year, and it seemed a good way to honor him, but I couldn’t upset Anne by reminding her of the incident,” Mikke continued. “Sunday morning seemed like a good time for it, since I was alone. I walked to the shore and . . . at first I thought I was seeing things. Then when I realized there really was a flesh-and-blood person down on the rocks; I slipped too out of sheer terror. There wasn’t anything I could do for Juha. And then I had to go tell the family that I . . . that I had found Juha’s body. Oh God, it was horrible!”

Mikke leaned against the glass dome of the spotlight, and his right hand wiped his forehead. I would have wanted to say something completely different, but I continued my questioning.

“What else did you find besides Juha’s body?”

“What do you mean?”

“That wound on the side of his head didn’t make itself. I’d like to have what he was hit with. Did you see it?”

“There wasn’t anything.”

Mikke’s voice was flat, and I was sure he was lying. I also kept thinking about the fact that it was Mikke who had brought Harri to the island on the weekend of his death. Could Mikke have pushed Harri off the rocks before he left? But why? What reason could anyone have had for killing Harri?

“Did you like your brother?”

“Yeah, one summer at a time with him was fine.” Mikke pulled a pipe out of his pocket and started to carefully knock the half-burned tobacco into a fabric bag. “Juha didn’t particularly like my way of life. He said he could understand a younger man wanting to sail around the world, but at thirty-four it was high time that I settle down and start a family. I guess that heart attack last winter scared him, because he was trying to convince me to buy back into the company and come on as some kind of vice president.”

“But you wouldn’t do it?”

A cargo ship had appeared on the horizon, and I tried to shade my face with my hand to see better, but it didn’t help. I closed my eyes, and the sun sent bright spots through my eyelids. Koivu would be wondering why we were taking so long in the lighthouse, but I didn’t want to go down quite yet.

“Whenever fall rolls around I start itching to get away from the Finnish winter. But in the summer I don’t know any finer place than the Finnish archipelago, although this year it was quite a sight with all the cyanobacteria blooms. That makes me so mad sometimes.”

Mikke had his pipe clean now and started to fill it again. Just then my cell phone rang. Forensics reported that the diver had found a pair of glasses in the water.

“I’ll come look.” I motioned for Mikke to follow, and asked him to walk to where he found Juha’s body by the same route he used Sunday morning. He started striding with his long, slender legs across the grass browned by the frost, not giving me time to yell to Koivu to follow us.

“At what point did you see the body?” I asked when we reached the edge of the cliff.

“Somewhere about here, where you start to see the shore . . . I don’t remember exactly. I was so startled.”

Forensics was still combing the shore, even though Hakkarainen had been sure that anything there was to find had been found on Sunday. The diver was taking a break, and in his dry suit and breathing apparatus, he was like some kind of monster plucked out of an alternate reality. The two forensic technicians in their white suits only heightened the unreal feeling of the investigation.

“You said you tripped and almost slipped on top of your brother’s body. Let’s try to figure out what position Juha was in when you found him. Turunen!” I yelled to the diver. “Can you play a body for us? Hakkarainen, take some pictures!”

Turunen awkwardly waded into the water while I carefully inched my way down the rocks. Mikke Sjöberg’s face had turned the same color as the clamshells being washed around by the waves and he clenched his teeth so hard, his cheek muscles tensed like a trumpet player’s.

“OK, tell him what to do,” I told Mikke.

“A little to the left. Put your arms out, your left one between those rocks. The legs were different, more spread out . . .”

Even though I felt cruel doing it, I asked Mikke to show us how he had reached his brother and moved his body. Sliding dangerously down the steep-angled rock, he waded so deep that his boots almost filled with water; then he jerked Turunen into a half-sitting position as lightly as if he were a doll.

“I can’t pull him like I did with Juha,” he shouted. “I’d hurt him!”

“That’s enough!” I replied and Mikke released Turunen’s ankles. Then he covered his face for a moment. I told Turunen to get up and turned to Hakkarainen. He was looking at a pair of stylish blue-rimmed glasses in a plastic bag. They were clearly a men’s model. I couldn’t remember what kind of glasses Juha Merivaara wore. I had to ask Mikke for confirmation.

“Yes, those are Juha’s glasses,” he said, then he started walking back uphill. My phone rang again. Koivu was wondering what would happen next.

“Did we bring any food? I’m starving,” he complained.

“We have some sandwiches, but come down to the shore first. We need to do some brainstorming. The diver isn’t even close to done.”

Climbing up after Mikke, I said that he could go inside with Tapio Holma. Just so long as he didn’t leave, I added sternly. What kind of relationship did Sjöberg and Holma have? I couldn’t imagine either of them judging the other’s life choices as Juha Merivaara had done to both of them. Letting them be together didn’t matter anymore. If they had wanted to plot, they would have had plenty of time to do it already.

“I’m famished with this hangover,” Koivu said, still complaining as he arrived at the cliff. “I could go for a big steak and fries or maybe a pepperoni pizza.”

“We’re going to have to make do with cheese sandwiches. Let’s have another look at where Merivaara fell first. So after being hit in the head, apparently he fell about here and then slipped down the cliff. Good choice of a place for a murder. If the wind hadn’t been coming straight from the west, the body could have just floated out to sea and maybe never have been found.”

“Could that indicate that the killer wasn’t able to read the wind very well, so he thought the water would carry the body out anyway?” Koivu asked.

“Maybe,” I said, although Tapio Holma was the only member of the party who was so inexperienced that he could have made a mistake like that. Or could it really have been someone else who came to the island? But who, and why?

“Pretty nice artillery holes,” Koivu said, indicating the rock wall. “What are those from? The Continuation War?”

“I think they’re earlier. You remember the Battle of Bomarsund, right? The fighting stretched all the way out here. There’s more damage on the south shore. The grand English navy bombarded the fortress in the summer of 1854, but the Finnish troops defended valiantly and the landing was repelled,” I said, repeating Anne Merivaara’s history lecture.

For a moment I was lost in thoughts of how Rödskär must have looked 140 years earlier. I could almost see the three-masters approaching from the south with an officer in a bicorne hat on the deck yelling “Fire!” For some reason the idea made me shudder. What had Seija Saarela said about a curse and negative energy?

I didn’t believe in any of that. Rational inference, scientific analysis, and knowledge of human nature were more my thing. That was how you solved crimes. The truth wasn’t somewhere “out there” and it wasn’t going to appear to me like some sort of magical apparition. Doing the hard work of dredging up scraps of evidence was the only way we were going to bring Juha Merivaara’s murderer to justice.

“You mentioned something about sandwiches,” Koivu said, interrupting my musings.

“There’s a bag in the boat. Go grab it. If we’re lucky there might be coffee in the hut. Or at least some herbal tea. I’ll look. Bring the water too.”

Tapio Holma was lying in the hut with headphones on, and Mikke Sjöberg was still studying his map. Rummaging through the cupboards, I found some instant coffee and three different herbal teas. I asked the men if they wanted anything to drink.

“I could take some peppermint tea,” Holma said. “There should be some rye crisps somewhere too. Will we be here much longer?”

I said I didn’t know. Waiting made me antsy too. I had a million things to do back at the office. Koivu came in out of breath, carrying the water and sandwiches, and I lit the gas.

“I can do that,” Mikke said. “A police lieutenant shouldn’t have to make coffee.”

I heard the teasing in his voice and couldn’t help smiling. He smiled back, and I asked whether he wanted coffee or tea.

“Anne’s ethical coffee is pretty good.”

“I used to drink quarts of it at the university café,” I replied, then went outside to talk to Forensics again. Focusing on work seemed the only way to curb my flirtatious side.

Turunen complained about how murky the water was and how muddy the bottom was. Without several divers and heavy equipment, there wasn’t any point trying to cover a larger area. And that would be a huge waste of money, since we didn’t even know what we were looking for.

“A flashlight would be a logical weapon,” Turunen suggested. “It’s the right shape and it has glass that can break when you hit someone. And since the murder happened at night . . .”

I had thought the same thing. A flashlight was also small and a common-enough object that anyone could have taken it with them off the island, which would make our searching completely pointless.

We decided to leave Rödskär after lunch. Walking around to the southern tip of the island, I took a moment to admire the red granite lighthouse standing against the deep-blue sky and the light glinting off the calm water. Tonight would be cold. I pressed my hands against the granite, which the sun was too weak to warm anymore. A chill spread through my arms. I picked up a coin-size piece of red granite shot through with white quartz and put it in my pocket as I walked back for coffee and a sandwich.

Turunen and Hakkarainen’s assistant were talking about the upcoming weekend’s Formula 1 races while the others ate in silence. I found myself glancing at Mikke too often and mentally kicked myself in the shin.

On the boat the card-playing resumed, and, with the help of another Dramamine, Koivu joined in. Borrowing his scarf and wrapping it around my ears, I went up on deck with the captain and Mikke. Rödskär was still visible on the horizon behind us as the southern islands off Espoo appeared ahead. I sat down next to Mikke—if you wanted to talk over the noise of the engine, you had to be close.

“Seija Saarela is easiest to get hold of at home, right?”

“She doesn’t have a steady job. Are you going to go harass her next?”

Instead of answering, I turned my face toward the sun, which was already so low in the sky that it reflected as a shimmering pillar in the water. A pair of gulls screeched above us, and my nose started getting cold.

“You said Juha’s body was going to be released.”

I nodded, wrapping my jacket tighter around me. The smartest thing would have been to go into the cabin to get warm, but good sense had never been one of my best qualities.

“He’ll probably be cremated. I’m sure he would have wanted to have his ashes scattered at sea. You can still do that nowadays, right?”

“Yes, you can.”

“I would want to die at sea too, but not without any preparation like Harri and Juha. I’d prefer a storm, fighting against the sea. But based on the family’s male genetics, I’ll probably die of a heart attack.” Mikke grinned dryly and put his hand up on the backrest of the bench we were sitting on, almost touching my shoulder.

“Have you ever been in serious danger at sea?”

“A few times. The worst situation was on the Indian Ocean when I was doing my solo circumnavigation. East of the Chagos Islands I got hit with this terrible stomach bug. I had a fever for days and couldn’t keep anything down. On the fourth day a small cyclone came up from the south. I was so weak that I just couldn’t control the boat, and it took on a lot of water. Something made me hold on, though, and I managed to throw out the drag anchor, which is what saved me. And once off the shore of northern Spain I had a rudder break. Luckily the Coast Guard came to the rescue before I floated out into the Atlantic.” Mikke paused for thirty seconds, then looked straight into my eyes. “And what about you? Have you ever been in danger?”

My phone rang before I could answer. Puupponen was calling from the station, asking how to handle one of Ström’s open cases. I moved to the bow to talk, and by the time I had the issue handled, we were almost at the marina. I called Seija Saarela, who said she was available all afternoon. Koivu said he wasn’t going to interview Saarela or fill out a single line of paperwork until he got some food, so I promised him we’d hit Chico’s for steak fajitas before going to see Saarela. We needed to get moving. I remembered I had promised to get home early so Antti could make it to a vintage French film that was being screened at the State Film Archives.

It wasn’t until Koivu slapped me on the back that I realized I was staring at Mikke Sjöberg as he climbed into Holma’s car.

“Maria,” Koivu said cautiously. “Remember that you’re married and that guy is a suspect. You know he’s hiding something.”

“Did you escort Wang all the way home last night or just to the bus?”

After shooting off that comeback, I headed to our car. Damn it. Koivu was getting to know me a little bit too well.

9

“I didn’t particularly like Juha Merivaara,” Seija Saarela said, setting down a mottled violet amethyst the size of a baby’s fist. We had gone to her home, which happened to be next door to Jiri’s high school. The living room of the one-bedroom apartment was full of crystals and polishing implements. Saarela cleared off a chair covered with white chunks of quartz and brought two more chairs in from the kitchen. Through the open bedroom door, I could see a bed with a royal-purple covering.

“So you don’t find it surprising that someone killed Juha Merivaara?”

“Surprising? More like shocking and frightening.” Seija Saarela had a deep, singsong voice, more tenor than alto.

Saarela told us that lapidary and jewelry-making were just hobbies. She was trained as a drafter, but except for a couple of periods of obligatory employment to maintain her welfare benefits, she had been unemployed for the past six years. The crystal gig didn’t earn enough to be a real occupation, and someone on unemployment wasn’t allowed to earn much anyway. She appeared to be trapped. The chances of a female drafter in her fifties being offered a new job were slim. But Seija Saarela wasn’t letting that hurt her life. The energy that radiated from her and the crystals surrounding her was definitely positive.

Saarela reported divorcing her husband eight years prior. Her adult son lived with his girlfriend in Turku. Saarela was free to come and go as she pleased.

“I thought Juha was a sanctimonious snake. There’s no denying he was a good businessman, and it was easy to believe him when he talked about protecting the environment, but he could just as convincingly have preached the benefits of heavy truck traffic or fur farming if he had decided to do that as his life’s work. Juha didn’t like people like me.”

Saarela tucked a gray wisp of hair behind her ear. She wore dark-green tights with a black pattern and a purple-and-green rayon tunic that extended nearly to her knees. Her eyes were reminiscent of small chocolates, and the lines on her face told of frequent laughter.

“The unemployed were the lowest caste in Juha’s eyes. And I’m a fat old lady who isn’t even any use as a woman.” Despite her bitter words, Saarela’s tone was one of amusement.

“Old? He was only three years younger than you.”

“Juha applied slightly different age criteria to women than to men. In his mind he was still in his prime, while Anne, who’s a year younger than him, was on the verge of being geriatric. ‘You should at least drink milk so you don’t get osteoporosis like other women your age’ and things like that. Any woman over forty was basically a crone in his eyes, while men stayed boys until they went to their graves. In his mind it was practically a crime that I seemed to enjoy my life, even though I didn’t have a job or a man.”

Seija Saarela glanced at Koivu, who was listening to our conversation with some self-consciousness. “I probably wouldn’t describe Juha this way to two male police detectives, though. I would probably talk about how Juha tried to highlight his masculinity by forcing Jiri into physical competitions with him: swimming, tennis, skipping rocks. Luckily Jiri had learned to resist, and Juha wouldn’t have been able to control him very much longer, either physically or financially.”

Saarela must have realized the hidden meaning of what she had just said, because she suddenly stood up and asked whether we wanted tea. She usually had a cup around this time of day. We nodded. The spicy fajitas at lunch had left me thirsty.

“Peppermint or rose hip?”

“Peppermint, please,” I replied, since Koivu didn’t seem to have an opinion. This wasn’t the first time he left all the talking to me.

“You said you met the Merivaara family through Mikke Sjöberg. So would you say you’re a family friend?” I asked Saarela as she busied herself in the kitchenette.

“Mikke and Anne’s friend. Juha wasn’t the kind of man to have female friends. He showed me my place by offering me a job in his company—as a cleaner. I think cleaning is honorable and valuable work, but I wouldn’t mop Juha Merivaara’s floors for any price! When I told him my training was in a rather different field, he claimed that all women knew how to clean by nature.”

I snorted. Talk of women’s built-in sense for maintaining order had always made me shake my head. I certainly hadn’t been blessed with that skill—nowadays I cleaned mostly because otherwise Iida ate the dust bunnies and ripped the pages out of any books left on the floor.

“As Anne Merivaara’s friend, maybe you can say something about the couple’s relationship. Was it OK?”

Seija Saarela shifted a box of crystals off the table and set out three dark-green ceramic coffee cups. They were followed by a bottle of honey and a packet of extremely healthy-looking cookies that made Koivu grimace.

“Yes, they were fine actually. They both accepted that they had different values, but they still wanted to stay together. Anne disliked how Juha treated Jiri, but I doubt they fought about much else. Anne and I don’t talk much about these sorts of things, though.”

I didn’t ask what they did talk about because I was afraid I might get a lecture on spiritualism. Instead, I asked about Juha Merivaara’s relationship with his half brother.

“I think Juha had a lot of contempt for Mikke, but he was also jealous of him. Contempt because he thought Mikke had neglected his duty to continue on in the family business, jealousy because of Mikke’s freedom and his reputation as a sailor. In sailing circles Mikke is a rock star, or he would be if he wanted to.”

The warmth in Saarela’s voice was unmistakable.

“When is Mikke going to get to leave?” she asked. “He’s probably pretty anxious to get going before the autumn storms. You can’t suspect him of killing Juha. He wouldn’t have any reason—”

“How did Mikke get along with his brother?” I interrupted. Saarela fetched the teapot from the kitchen and poured the steaming, brisk-smelling tea before answering.

“Sometimes he would be amused, sometimes agitated. Mikke said that there were times when Juha reminded him of their father in scary ways. They didn’t seem terribly close, so I’m surprised Mikke is so out of his mind with grief. Please, have some tea.”

Koivu sipped greedily, burning his mouth, and I started asking about the events of the night of Juha’s death. Saarela said she had slept restlessly and also heard her room companion, Katrina Sjöberg, tossing and turning as well.

“I can sense if there are powerful energy fields nearby. And that night there were.”

“Who or where was the energy coming from?” I decided to use Saarela’s conceptual framework. We were both seeking the same thing—who had been angry enough with Juha Merivaara to kill him.

“From Juha,” Saarela said but refused to reveal any more than that. She said that during the night she had heard people moving around the fortress. When I finally asked whether anyone else had come to the island during the night, she responded hesitantly.

“I’m not quite sure . . . I was in and out of sleep so much. I could never swear to this, but I did get the impression that a boat had at least approached the island. People have showed up there in the middle of the night before, but it was pitch black. No moon or stars.”

When I asked Seija Saarela who she thought killed Juha Merivaara, she curtly said that she was going to leave that to the police. Her telephone rang, and based on her side of the conversation, the caller must have been Saarela’s son.

“I have guests right now. Well, not really guests. The police. No, no, I’m fine. An acquaintance was involved in an accident. Can I call you a little later?” Hanging up, Saarela said that she had an appointment in just under an hour. When I called her earlier, she hadn’t mentioned anything about an appointment, but I thought we had pressed her enough about events on Rödskär enough anyway.

So we left.

I was exhausted when I got home. When I opened the door, Einstein slipped out as if fleeing the commotion, because Antti was playing the piano and Iida was banging pot lids together. Emptying the cupboard with the pots and pans was one of her favorite games. Right now I didn’t have any tolerance for noise, and I felt like fleeing upstairs, but when Iida saw me, she flung down the pot lids, clambered to her feet, and toddled over to me.

“Momm-eeee!” she screamed, wearing a huge smile. From the front of her shirt I could see the day’s menu had included beef casserole and whipped porridge. I scooped up my little girl, turning her back toward me.

“Antti, this child is filthy!” I shouted over the Bach flooding from the piano.

“So? No one’s here to see. I didn’t feel like changing her clothes, since she’s about to eat again.” Antti didn’t interrupt his playing.

“But—” I started, but then I thought about it: But what? I ignored the ancient ur-mother in me who was saying that a child’s clothes always had to be clean and pressed, especially since I never had the energy to iron, not on maternity leave and not while I was working. If I didn’t, why would Antti? Even so, I dragged myself upstairs to change Iida’s shirt so she didn’t get everything else dirty. I pulled on my running clothes too before we jumped on the bed for a quick snuggle and some mommy-baby exercise.

“Baby animal,” I said and tickled Iida’s neck under her downy blond hair, and she responded with a giggle. It had taken a few months before we learned each other’s languages—for the first six weeks I had been almost helpless whenever she cried. I offered her my breast and changed her diapers, but the little person we had been calling the Creature while I was pregnant just kept screaming. My shoulders tense and my head fuzzy from lack of sleep, I had felt betrayed whenever Antti took her because she calmed down instantly. It was like there was something wrong with me, as if my maternal-tenderness aura was on the fritz. After I went back to work, the situation changed though: now Antti was the one Iida whined at, and I was the one she was always sweetest with.

Bench-pressing a twenty-two-pound child was surprisingly effective, and Iida giggled happily. During my maternity leave she and I had gone to a new mothers’ aerobics class, and that’s where I had learned most of the exercises we were doing. Iida was patient about it all. Back when Antti was still going to work, I used to take her out jogging in her stroller too because I was compelled to run and babysitters were rarely available.

Antti appeared at the door to watch our exercising. “I ran into Ström at the supermarket today,” he said.

“Oh. What did he say?” I croaked as I pressed Iida upward with my legs.

“He pretended not to notice us. He was buying a case of beer and four pouches of Marlboro loose.”

“Interesting diet,” I said, but I couldn’t help worrying.

When I went out to run, I alternated between thoughts of Ström and Juha Merivaara’s murder. Not until about the halfway mark of my loop did an extremely well-chiseled male specimen jog by and get my mind off of work. After that I was finally able to enjoy the autumn forest. The fine brush of the evening frost had traced each leaf and blade of grass individually, finding the perfect shades and color combinations for each one. A maple bled red, another tree shone like the sun, and the mugworts looked like they were carved out of chocolate. The colors streamed past me, filling my veins with an energy that conjured wings for my heels. Being happy was obligatory—the colors allowed nothing less.

When I got back, Antti left for the movie, and he planned to have beers with some friends afterward. Once I had put Iida down, I tried to call Ström, but there was no answer at his home number. I found myself simultaneously concerned and relieved, because he probably would just have told me to go to hell and stop coddling him.

Our morning meeting the next day seemed underpopulated. In addition to Ström’s absence, Wang and Puustjärvi were also missing, since they were in court. Just as we were ending the meeting, the duty officer showed up out of breath at the door.

“A call just came in from the fire department. The Malinen Meats building out by the city golf course is on fire and they want someone from Violent Crime.”

“Smoked ham sale next week,” Puupponen said. I shut him up by asking why they were telling the violent-crime unit about a fire.

“There are people inside. It looks like arson.”

I looked around. Besides Puupponen and me, everyone else was booked down to the minute all morning. I had intended to try to reach Riikka Merivaara and have a look at the family’s house, but that would have to wait now, as would the lunch date with Taskinen I had already moved twice.

Even though it didn’t really matter how quickly we arrived at the scene of the fire, Puupponen and I were in the car within a couple of minutes. Dispatch said that in addition to two neighboring fire departments, there were also teams from Patrol and White-Collar Crime on scene. The meatpacking plant’s insurance company had also already sent their own detective. How many people were inside the burning building was still unknown. The company employed a couple of dozen people. The day had begun normally at seven o’clock; the fire was discovered in the staff locker room at eight thirty.

“Wait . . . am I remembering right? Wasn’t it Malinen Meats that had the tires of its trucks slashed this spring? And didn’t a Dumpster get lit on fire too? And hadn’t somebody spray-painted an ‘AR’ at the crime scene? Like Animal Revolution?” I asked Puupponen, who was driving well over the speed limit with the lights flashing.

“I think you’re right, but that wasn’t our case because no one was hurt. Arson with injuries is another matter.” Puupponen shook his head. My colleague’s seemingly endless reserve of jokes seemed to have run dry for once.

The actual slaughterhouse wasn’t located in Espoo; this was the processing and packing plant. The cattle and pigs that ended up there were actually slaughtered at the company’s main factory about ten miles outside of town. Malinen liverwurst, hot dogs, and cold-smoked roasts were delicacies that went at 20 or 30 percent more per pound that the average assembly-line meats. The previous year the company had received a special award from the Espoo Chamber of Commerce. I remembered that because Merivaara Nautical had received the same award this spring, and the news story had listed the previous winners.

The west wind had blown the ruddy brown smoke far over the nearby fields, and the smell of scorched meat was unmistakable even inside the car. The meat plant was located in an industrial park south of the nearby train station. Traffic on the frontage road was blocked, but I sped past the line of cars. We were in my dark-blue department Saab. It wasn’t a marked police car, but the flashing light on top got the message across, and people yielded the right of way.

The fire trucks were the first thing I saw through the smoke. There were so many of them that they must have also called in the Helsinki and Vantaa departments. The building was blazing, and the neighboring structures were also in danger of catching fire. A couple of fire-department helicopters hovered over the building.

“There’s no point going in there and getting smoke-cured too unless we have to. Let’s try to figure out the chain of events first,” I suggested to Puupponen. Just then an ambulance that had been hanging back started toward the fire. Through the smoke I saw as a stretcher was prepared. Then two smoke divers carried a gray human figure out through the back door of the building. As Puupponen adjusted the radio to the right frequency, I looked around and noticed a group of people in a field to the south, behind the caution tape. They didn’t look like the usual gawkers. They had signs, but I couldn’t read them. I dug a pair of binoculars out of the glove box.

I wasn’t particularly surprised by what I saw. “Meat is Murder—Animal Revolution.” “Slaughter the Slaughterers” and so on. There were about twenty in the group, and I recognized a couple of girls who had been at the McDonald’s protest. I also thought I saw a familiar head of green hair. One of the protesters was playing an African drum, but I couldn’t hear it over the sound of the helicopters. Most of the Animal Revolution supporters were standing still—it almost seemed as if they were waiting for the police to come arrest them.

Siren blaring, the ambulance headed off toward the hospital just as Puupponen got the radio to work. The exact cause of the fire was still unknown. The fire had spread fast enough that an accelerant like gasoline must have been used. Two workers were still trapped in the refrigeration area where the beef and pig carcasses were stored before processing. For the time being they were protected by the thick steel walls, but because efforts to switch off the air conditioning had failed so far, they were in danger of asphyxiation. The storage worker who had just been brought out had received second-degree burns and was suffering from smoke inhalation, but neither injuries were life-threatening.

“Back in the day, I thought about going to fire school instead of the police academy,” Puupponen said suddenly. “But someone told me firefighting was mostly just waiting around playing cards. That didn’t sound like my thing, but now I have a better reason. This smoke makes me want to puke.”

Puupponen was paler than normal; his freckles seemed to glow.

“I don’t think I have any gas masks in the car. I’ll go get some from one of the Patrol teams. Wait here.”

As I got out of the car, the smell of smoke assaulted me. I set off toward a group that included the Espoo fire chief and a sergeant from our Patrol Division.

“Hi there. I’m Lieutenant Maria Kallio, Espoo Violent Crime. We were asked to come over because this looked like it might be an arson-homicide. Any indication of who the perp might be?”

A tall, athletic man who wasn’t wearing a respirator extended his hand and introduced himself as the head manager of meat-processing plant, last name of Kaarela.

“It was probably the same terrorist brats as last spring. The police couldn’t find any direct evidence against them that time either,” Kaarela said bitterly. “And society puts up with all of it. But they’re not just getting in the way of people making an honest living, now they’re endangering our lives! There they are right now, gloating. Can’t you lock them up?”

According to Patrol, there wasn’t any direct evidence yet that Animal Revolution was behind the fire. Still, the protesters showing up at the same time as the fire didn’t seem like an accident.

“There are people in there, goddamn it!” Kaarela shouted in frustration. “Those bastards could be murderers soon. Why don’t you arrest them?”

I drew the Patrol sergeant aside, and after we conferred for a moment, we decided that it would be a good idea to take the protesters in for questioning. Causing a commotion at a hamburger joint and slashing tires were relatively minor crimes. Intentionally endangering human lives was an entirely different matter. I didn’t like what was happening one bit. It also rubbed me the wrong way that Jiri Merivaara was always visibly involved in everything Animal Revolution did. Could other members of the group have put him up to killing his father? Who were the organizers behind Animal Revolution? There had been rumors about the English Animal Liberation Front having ties to terrorist groups, and some people claimed that the Finnish Animal Revolution was led from abroad.

The problem with this line of reasoning was that Juha Merivaara hadn’t exactly been environmental enemy number one. Quite the contrary. He had been more or less on the same side as Animal Revolution.

The downdraft caused by the fire-department helicopters blew smoke in my face. I tried not to breathe, but it didn’t work. The smoke blurred my vision and forced its way into my throat and lungs. Most of tonight would be spent washing my hair and clothes. I had to get a gas mask soon. The most sensible thing would be to head back to the police station to organize the questioning of the AR protesters. No one needed me here to witness the asphyxiation deaths of two people surrounded by animal carcasses.

I managed to get gas masks from the firefighters for myself and Puupponen, who was still sitting in the car. The firefighters struggled to contain the blaze. I saw three police officers move toward the protesters standing in the field, somehow expressing more power and anger through silence than they ever could have shouting slogans.

I opened the car door.

“We’re taking that lot down to the station for questioning,” I told Puupponen. “Come on.”

As we started walking along a muddy path across the field, the trio of officers was about a hundred yards ahead of us. Over the radio I gave instructions, reminding them to avoid any violence. My gas mask hung from my neck, but Puupponen had pulled his on, making him look like a cartoon bug with red hair. The action started as soon as the officers reached the protesters.

Instantly they threw down their signs and started running. Some headed east, and I waved for Puupponen to follow as I sprinted after them as fast as I could on the wet grass.

“Stop, police!” I yelled at the four girls, who were dressed in sweaters and anoraks. They looked back frantically as if they expected me to be pointing a gun at them. We weren’t even carrying any, and luckily the patrol officers hadn’t pulled theirs out. A couple of the officers who had been directing traffic ran to help, and someone started driving a police van across the field too. A few bystanders even started playing cop, and although their interference didn’t thrill me, they did help us get the protesters rounded up like a herd of escaped foxes. As had happened in the McDonald’s incident, most of them stopped trying to get away and came along quietly. Only one older-looking boy and a tall girl with a completely shaved head tried to resist, but they had to surrender in the face of superior force. Yliaho from Patrol had to drag the girl to the van because she wouldn’t walk.

It had started to rain, which hopefully would help the fire crews. The smoke formed a ceiling over the valley we were in. Some of the protesters were coughing, and Puupponen still had his gas mask on. I tried not to think about the two plant workers who were still trapped in the refrigerator. Over the radio I heard that the fire had been contained in that area and the smoke divers were going to try to rescue them within moments. No one knew whether the men were still alive.

“Take everyone’s information and call the parents of anyone under fifteen. Then put them all in the same room. Maybe the seminar room on the third floor. I’ll be there soon,” I said to the guys from Patrol and then went with Puupponen to round up help for the interrogations. Some of the young people looked like they might be under fifteen, but I didn’t trust my sense of ages anymore. The older I got, the harder it was for me to determine the age of anyone more than ten years younger than me.

I walked around to the workshop on the north side of the meat-processing plant, where a temporary command center had been set up. The fire department’s arson expert was currently conferring with the fire specialist from the insurance company. Both agreed that the fire had been started inside the building.

“As if one of our workers would do something like that!” Kaarela, the plant manager, said angrily. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Next you’re going to accuse me of setting my own building on fire!”

“Have you taken on any temporary workers lately?” I asked calmly.

“No. We handle everything with our own people.” Then Kaarela frowned. “Or, actually, in September we had an intern for a week from one of the local schools . . .”

“Which school?”

“I think it was Espoo Bay. Really smart girl. She mostly helped around the office.”

Espoo Bay High School, the same one Jiri Merivaara went to. There might be some connection there. I asked Kaarela to send me information on the intern and the other plant workers, and then started to head back to the station.

“The smoke divers are heading in,” the fire chief told Kaarela.

“What’s the possibility of success?” the insurance investigator asked.

“About sixty percent. Hard to know what shape they’ll be in. If they’ve been breathing smoke this whole time . . .” The fire chief spread his arms in a way that said it all, and Kaarela swallowed. I noticed my abdominal muscles clenching. Fortunately I had a good reason to leave. I couldn’t help the trapped workers, but at least I could try to figure out what had happened.

We drove nearly a mile before the smoke had completely cleared. After getting on the freeway, I opened the windows and turned the fan on high. Normally around this time of day I started getting hungry, but now the thought of any food but raw vegetables nauseated me.

The Animal Revolution kids sat in the police station seminar room surrounded by five officers.

Yliaho said that they had been quiet and were obviously scared. Jiri Merivaara sat on a chair in the corner with his legs crossed, playing with the drawstrings of his army coat. Now and then the drummer beat his muddy instrument.

“Shouldn’t they be in school?” Yliaho asked.

“Yeah, probably. Do you have a list of their names and information?”

Two of the girls were under fifteen, so attempts were being made to contact their parents. The other interviews could begin immediately. I walked to the front of the room.

“Hello. My name is Lieutenant Maria Kallio, and I’m leading the investigation into the Malinen Meats fire. We have good reason to believe this was a case of arson. You have been brought here on suspicion of participating in that arson, which may end up claiming multiple lives. Can any of you tell us how you happened to be protesting at the meatpacking plant at the same time it caught on fire?”

No answer. My eyes scanned the room of young, withdrawn faces. Most of the protesters stared at the floor. Only one of the girls met my gaze.

“All of you are going to be interviewed. You may be kept in custody for up to two days. Aggravated arson and arson-homicide, which are the two possibilities here, are serious enough crimes that anyone suspected of them may be jailed indefinitely. If you don’t want to spend the next few weeks of your life hanging around the Espoo Police Station, I recommend that you cooperate.”

“Don’t count on it, pig,” said one of the boys, and the drummer hit a mocking tremolo. The cell phone in my pocket rang, and at first I thought to turn it off, but something told me I should answer it. It was the desk officer at the fire department, who told me that the two workers caught in the refrigerator had been saved and that the fire was generally under control. I listened silently. It was only once the call ended that I realized how incredibly angry I was. Looking back up at the Animal Revolution activists, I kicked the table before I could speak again.

“Whoever set that fire came very close to being a murderer. You should be thankful the smoke divers got the last two workers out of the storage room at the last minute. They’re unconscious, but they aren’t in any immediate mortal danger. Maybe you should think of some better way to change the world than fucking killing people!”

I kicked the table again, and a lump of mud came loose from my shoe and flew in an arc, hitting the front protester in the cheek. This caused a stir in the group.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that,” I said to the girl as she wiped her cheek. I forced myself to calm down.

“Malinen Meats murders innocent animals whose lives are just as valuable as humans’ lives are,” the bald girl said.

“This isn’t debate class. According to Finnish law, slaughtering animals is not a crime, but killing people is, so . . .”

“That law is wrong!” shouted a girl sitting next to Jiri Merivaara.

“Which law do you mean, the one that forbids killing people or the one that allows slaughtering animals? I sincerely hope you mean the first,” I said sharply.

“Why are you always after us? Why don’t you chase the people selling drugs at our school?” asked a small girl with angel curls whose red sweater extended all the way down to the tops of her black rubber boots.

“Our narcotics officers will be more than glad to take that information. You can give any tips during your interviews. If you’re under fifteen, we’ve already contacted your parents. You older ones can tell the officers who interview you who you’d like us to notify of your detention. You have the right to legal counsel during your interview if you wish. Does anyone have anything to say about how the fire started now?” I asked, although I didn’t expect an answer. The group’s discipline was strict, so we were only going to get any information in the individual interviews, if even there.

To my surprise, the door to the seminar room opened and Taskinen walked in.

“Excuse the interruption. Lieutenant Kallio, could you join me in the hall for a moment,” Taskinen said in a formal tone. Once I got outside, I saw that the chief of police was there too.

“You haven’t started the interrogations yet, have you?” the chief asked.

“No. I was just giving them a little sermon on morality,” I said with slight embarrassment.

“We’re interrupting the investigation. Security Intelligence and the Bureau are taking over,” Taskinen said. From his expression I could tell he had been afraid of what my reaction would be.

“What the hell?”

“They’ve had a special team investigating environmental groups for the past six months. This arson is going to them. SIS is sure that Animal Revolution is being led from overseas,” said the new chief of police. He was the old head of the Criminal Division, and getting along with him had always been a bit of a challenge. Of course it was understandable that a chief of police had to be a bootlicker, and maintaining relationships with the people who determined police appropriations was important. In our meetings over the fall I had noticed the chief becoming increasingly cautious.

In theory I should have been relieved that our unit wasn’t going to be burdened with yet another investigation, but I wasn’t. My interest in Animal Revolution’s antics had started to move beyond Jiri Merivaara’s involvement.

“What happens now? Do I let them go?”

“The opposite,” the chief said with satisfaction. “They’re being taken into the city for questioning by the SIS. This is not their day. The vehicles are waiting downstairs.”

“There are two kids under fifteen, but their parents aren’t here yet.”

The chief snorted. “I guess they’ll have to drive into the city too. That’s what they get for raising terrorists!” I wondered what Juha Merivaara would have said to something like that.

“Who at SIS is in charge of the investigation?” I asked. The chief didn’t want to answer at first, but after I pressed him, he named Agent Jormanainen.

I was embarrassed by my old-lady sermon, so I didn’t go back into the seminar room. Instead I climbed the stairs to my office and called the Security Intelligence Service. Agent Jormanainen answered quickly—he was probably waiting for his victims to arrive.

“Hi. This is Lieutenant Maria Kallio from the Espoo Police. I’m investigating a homicide that might have links to Animal Revolution. I want all your information on the group. I’m not interested in what certain individuals have been doing, just the organization’s principles and who belongs to it. And I want the information now, preferably by e-mail.”

I refused to listen to his protests, and eventually Agent Jormanainen promised to send me a memo, although not via e-mail because that wasn’t secure enough for a spook like him. He would send it by courier later in the day.

All this wrangling had brought back my appetite. First a good lunch, then it would be time to interview Riikka Merivaara. We already had a search warrant for the house, and there was no way I was going to be able to keep my grubby fingers off of Jiri’s room.

10

The sea was deep blue and the wind whipped up whitecaps on the bay. The view from the Merivaaras’ living room was amazing. Originally Martti Merivaara’s mother’s ancestral home had stood on the lot. Martti had had it demolished in the midsixties, building in its place a boxy two-story house that hugged the shoreline. The structural solutions harkened back to a time before the energy crisis of the early seventies: the entire seaside wall was one enormous window. The blond wood surfaces and Alvar Aalto furniture made the living room look more like an exhibition space than a private home.

Only Riikka was home. She was very pale, her dark-brown hair combed to one side of her head, falling almost like a veil over her face. Her long, black knit skirt and cement-colored knit jacket made her look like a little girl wearing her mother’s clothes. Had Riikka Merivaara always dressed more conservatively than other women her age, or had a change in style come along with her romance with Tapio Holma?

“The police were here once before and took our clothes and shoes. When do we get them back?”

“When our forensic team doesn’t need them anymore. Are the others home?”

“Mom is at work, and Jiri is at school. He should be back soon. I think he gets out at two.”

Koivu cast me a significant glance, but I didn’t mention anything about Jiri Merivaara’s real whereabouts.

“Riikka, we need to set up a time for a formal interview. Could you come to the police station next Monday around noon?”

“I have a music-theory test next Monday at twelve. Can’t we talk now?”

“We can talk, but it won’t be official.” I sat down in a bright-red lattice armchair. I felt like putting my legs up on the matching stool but decided against it, since my shoes were still covered in mud from the chase in the field. Of course it would have been polite to remove them, but a police officer sneaking around in her socks seemed too much like the punch line of a joke.

“Did you know Harri Immonen?”

My question surprised Riikka, making her turn suddenly. Her hair swung, concealing her eyes even more.

“Harri? I didn’t really know him, but I saw him a few times. He was Mikke’s friend. Sometimes I’ve thought that Tapio and Harri would have had a lot to talk about. Too bad they never met.”

“Did you hear about Tapio’s dustup with your father on your mother’s birthday?”

Riikka turned back toward the window, then brushed her hair off her forehead with an irritated swipe of her hand.

“Yes, they all told me about it—Dad, Jiri, and Tapio—each with their own versions.”

“How did the versions differ?”

“Jiri was the only one who told me what they said.” Riikka’s voice was emotionless, but she clenched the fabric of her skirt. “It was so stupid . . . but I had to ask Tapio if he really said something so gross to Dad.” Riikka glanced at Koivu, who then looked at me.

“I’ll go have a look in the garage,” he said.

After Koivu had left, Riikka came over to sit next to me in another armchair. The skin on her face was thin in the same way as her mother’s, and in ten years she would have the same network of expression lines around her eyes and mouth. Her dark eyebrows were carefully plucked and didn’t need any emphasis.

“You aren’t going to write this down, are you?” she asked in embarrassment. I shook my head, and it wasn’t actually a lie, since I didn’t intend to make any notes. If what Riikka Merivaara told me had some significance to her father’s murder investigation, we would have to return to it during an official interview.

“In the sauna Dad said something like, ‘Is that all you’ve got to screw my daughter with?’”

Two irregular red splotches appeared on Riikka’s cheeks.

“Then Tapio said, ‘I know you’d prefer to be screwing your daughter yourself, but unfortunately that’s illegal.’ Then they started hitting each other, and Jiri intervened.”

“Did your father ever make any advances on you?”

“No!” Riikka’s face was suddenly young and bewildered. “Dad wasn’t a pervert. I don’t know where Tapio came up with that.”

“Did your father treat your previous boyfriends as negatively as he has Tapio Holma?”

“There hasn’t been anyone else. I haven’t dated anyone before,” Riikka said quickly. I remembered Holma’s talk of marriage and having a child and wondered whether Riikka would want to settle down that quickly.

I started asking Riikka about the other events of Saturday evening, but she wasn’t able to tell me anything new. The only interesting piece I got out of her was that she had thought of Seija Saarela as a gatecrasher.

“Seija is Mom’s friend in a way, or at least she wants to be, but I don’t understand her crystal thing. Crystals are beautiful, of course, but it seems so stupid to think that they have some kind of energy. She gave Tapio some quartz cuff links and an amulet that’s supposed to help him get his voice back. As if some rock was going to help with that!”

“Tapio must be pretty depressed about losing his voice.”

“Just imagine losing your legs so you couldn’t be a police detective anymore,” Riikka said.

“Has he decided about having the operation yet?”

“Actually he’s with the laryngologist right now for a consultation. Apparently there’s this surgeon in the United States who specializes in cases like Tapio’s, but it would cost a ton of money . . .”

Riikka Merivaara would inherit half of her father’s shares in the family company. If she sold those, the profit would be in the millions. But Riikka and Tapio couldn’t have killed Juha Merivaara for that, could they? Although I had been thinking there must be at least two members of the Rödskär party involved in the murder, the idea of Tapio Holma and Riikka Merivaara sneaking around in the dark and pushing people off of cliffs wasn’t very convincing. Neither of them would have had the nerve for that.

I stood up before the temptation to stretch my legs could get too strong.

“Would you take me to your parents’ bedroom?”

Riikka led me down a wide hallway to the east end of the house. The Merivaaras’ bedroom was spacious, at least three hundred square feet. A full-wall window provided a view into the small grove of trees that separated the Merivaaras’ lot from the neighbor’s. The furnishings were blond birch and linen, and above the bed hung a stylized portrait of Anne Merivaara. The only exception to the room’s look was the other painting: a romantic-style seascape depicting a sailboat passing a lighthouse. I could feel my clothing tainting the room with the stench of burned meat.

“And your father didn’t have an office at home?”

“No. And those other police officers already went through all the drawers.”

On the south wall of the bedroom was a walk-in closet. Juha Merivaara’s clothing was expensive and conservative. The leisurewear mixed in among the suits was easy to imagine being worn at sea or playing tennis. I hadn’t expected to find a collection of men’s-size evening gowns or something, but I was still disappointed that I didn’t find anything in Juha Merivaara’s bedroom that could have shed any light on his death.

“And Jiri’s room?” I asked, remembering that the SIS might be showing up at any minute.

“What about it?” There was irritation in Riikka’s voice, which poorly concealed the fact that she feared for her brother. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who considered Jiri suspect number one.

“The search warrant covers the whole house. I’ll just have a glance.”

“It’s right by the kitchen. Jiri doesn’t like people going in his room without permission.”

Just then Koivu yelled from the entryway, where there was a door into the garage. “Maria! Come here for a minute!”

I left Riikka in the bedroom and walked through the entryway into the garage. There was space for two cars, but according to Anne, the family had given up using one of them and started taking the bus. So the second spot was taken up with brand-new mountain bikes, boat ropes, tarps, and paint cans.

“You can tell this is a paint-manufacturer’s garage. You could paint a whole cruise ship with this stuff,” Koivu said.

“No, this isn’t Merivaara boat paint. Most of it’s house paint,” I pointed out and then started lifting the tarps, but all I found were the normal tools anybody might have.

“There are foreign cans here too. What language is this? Saugoti nuo saules sviesos,” Koivu said, trying to sound out the words with difficulty. “Sudetis . . . well, it isn’t Estonian or Polish.”

“Maybe Latvian or Lithuanian, but I can’t tell them apart. Strange that Merivaara would be storing competitors’ products in his garage. Did you want to show me something in particular?”

“This flashlight,” Koivu said, trying to sound nonchalant, even though his eyes were beaming. Wearing protective gloves, he picked up a foot-long black flashlight from one of the metal shelves that covered the back wall of the garage. The glass was broken. “I came in here Monday too, but this flashlight wasn’t here then.”

I nodded. I had worked with Koivu long enough to know that he was thinking the same thing I was: whoever returned the flashlight thought the police wouldn’t come back to the Merivaaras’ garage.

“Send it to the lab. It might’ve been washed already, but they can tell us if there are any prints and whether the glass matches what they found in Merivaara’s head wound. If we’re lucky, there might still be some blood.”

There wasn’t anything else interesting in the garage. According to Koivu, everything was in the same place as on their previous search. So we went back inside. I couldn’t help peeking in the kitchen as I passed. It was brightly lit and had the clean simplicity of a laboratory. The food processor, blender, juicer, and the potted herbs decorating the windowsills suggested that plenty of healthy cooking happened here.

A thick black curtain was drawn over Jiri’s window. The dark-purple walls completed the cave-like impression. I turned on the light. I couldn’t help giving a start when I saw the poster on the wall above the bed depicting a cat connected to electrodes. The animal’s eyes and nose were running, its mouth was open as if the cat were struggling to breathe, and its body looked convulsive. It was hard to imagine anyone voluntarily keeping a picture like that on their wall.

Otherwise the room was normal, although rather sparsely decorated. The bed was narrow, and the gray quilt thrown over it had been mended many times. On the shelves were more CDs and videos than books, and although Jiri opposed wasting energy, an expensive AV system stood on a rack. Jiri didn’t have a computer, though, just an old typewriter. On the desk were stacks of paper, with one biology textbook looking out of place among them.

I picked up the topmost flyer. It talked about why people should boycott Shell. The pictures of environmental devastation in Nigeria and Ken Saro-Wiwa’s murder were at once dispassionate and effective, making me think maybe I should pay attention to where I tanked up too. The next leaflet was in a different style, painting EU meat processors as a group of murderous gene-manipulators. A third made an appeal for Turkish political prisoners and demanded a tourist boycott of the country. How many movements did Jiri belong to?

“Interesting videos,” Koivu said behind me. On a seventeen-year-old boy’s shelf I would have expected to find horror movies and rock music videos. Maybe some porn. But Jiri’s titles were different: TV2 Current Affairs: Report on EU Cattle Transport, Meet the Meat Murderers, BBC: The Animal Liberation Front, Why Do We Do This?: Legitimate Violence Against Animals. More than half of the videos seemed to deal with animal rights. I did notice a few movies too, like Trainspotting and Jurassic Park.

“Should we take these too or leave them for SIS?” Koivu asked, indicating the leaflets.

“Someone should definitely go through them. And I’m sure SIS will be interested in them,” I said with a sigh. All the recent raids on the homes of animal-rights activists and the offices of perfectly innocent-sounding organizations had seemed like overkill to me, and now I was doing the same thing. In with Jiri’s papers was a list of cosmetics that hadn’t been tested on animals. I made sure the brands I used were on the list before putting it back on the pile.

Koivu turned on the TV and flipped through the channels. Finnish MTV and its international namesake were showing the same rap video, and Eurosport had a tractor pull. Koivu pressed play on the video remote and switched the TV to the right channel.

The scream that came from the speakers startled us both. The image was grainy and dark, clearly a handheld shot.

A herd of pigs so large they could barely walk jostled each other in panic. The person who had screamed was masked, but based on her build she was female, climbing desperately up the steel fence to avoid being trampled by the swine. The person with the camera retreated as well when the herd changed direction. Another figure dressed in black opened the door at the rear of the barn, apparently trying to drive the pigs out. Their grunting and squealing intensified. Clearly they didn’t know what they were supposed to do. I could almost smell the hog house through the screen. Then someone, apparently the person holding the camera, screamed, and the picture broke for a few seconds.

“What the hell?” Koivu said, but then the video continued. Now a person in a sack-like black hooded jacket stood outside with the lights of a large industrial building far in the background.

“Operation Free the Pigs was completed ten minutes ago. We succeeded . . .”

“Oh, so this isn’t from Finland,” Koivu said, and we continued listening while members of the Animal Liberation Front strike team reported freeing hundreds of pigs from a farm near Bristol. They promised to continue their strikes until Britain and the EU outlawed the genetic manipulation of pigs. I turned the player off.

“Yuck. I think I may have to skip the sausage after sauna tomorrow,” Koivu said.

“Oh, you were going to have to do that anyway. Don’t you remember we’re going to the soccer match? Where is this video from?”

I put my gloves back on and pressed the eject button. There was no label on the cassette, only the manufacturer’s logo. Pushing it back in, I rewound a bit. It seemed to be an instructional video from some English animal-rights activists about how to attack different targets: hog houses, fur farms, and laboratories that did animal testing.

“The SIS is definitely going to be interested in this, and probably the Brits too.” I pulled out my phone and called my SIS contact immediately. I said that we were executing a search warrant for a homicide investigation on one of the suspects in the meatpacking plant arson.

“He’s on our list,” the agent said, and then assured me that the memo I had requested on Animal Revolution was already on its way.

“Bag the fliers and videos. Check inside all the cases. Trainspotting might actually be Pigspotting,” I told Koivu. We would take the Animal Revolution material with us to the Espoo Police Station so SIS could pick it up there. Jiri was still in custody, and apparently his interrogation hadn’t even begun.

“Who checked this room?” I asked Koivu.

“Probably Puustjärvi. I focused on the garage, and Anu did the women’s rooms.”

I realized I hadn’t received the report on Monday’s search of the Merivaaras’ house. Or maybe I just hadn’t noticed it in the pile of paper on my desk that had grown to depressing proportions ever since I took command of the unit. Recently in a leadership meeting I had suggested establishing an antibureaucracy commission, but some of my colleagues missed my sarcasm. They didn’t realize what was really going on until I started outlining the commission’s first intra-office memo.

Jiri’s CD collection demonstrated our very real generation gap, which was also depressing: I didn’t recognize any of his favorite bands. I glanced in the closet. There were hardly any clothes, mostly just more stacks of paper. Koivu went to get a plastic bag from the car. The desk drawers were full of random stuff like earrings and dirty socks. The top drawer was locked. A search warrant allowed us to break locks, but I decided first to ask Riikka where Jiri kept the key.

Jiri’s bedroom window was on the side of the house, facing the road, and I heard a car pull up. Glancing through the blinds, I expected to see Anne Merivaara, but the car in the driveway was Tapio Holma’s dark-blue Volkswagen. I saw Holma climb out of the car and nearly run into Koivu, who was shaking out a bag. Apparently Holma asked something, because Koivu shook his head. Then Holma opened the door, which Koivu must have left cracked. I heard Riikka’s quiet footfalls.

“What did they say?” Riikka’s tone was enthusiastic.

“I’ll tell you soon. Are the police here because of Jiri?”

“Jiri? Did something happen to him?”

“Haven’t you heard the news? Someone burned down a meatpacking plant. Three people went to the hospital for smoke inhalation and two almost died. The police arrested a bunch of AR members. Jiri had to be there.”

“They didn’t say anything about that!” Riikka’s steps approached Jiri’s room and she flung to door open.

“Did Jiri get arrested?”

When she was angry, Riikka resembled her father: her clenched jaw was the same, and her eyebrows had the same decisive arc.

“Yes. The Security Intelligence Service has him,” I said and continued moving papers from the closet to the bed. I accidentally bumped a hanger, which dropped a hooded linen shirt, one of the two garments Jiri had bothered to hang. Two pairs of pants, T-shirts, and sweaters, as well as his socks and underwear, were carefully folded on the shelves.

Tapio Holma appeared behind Riikka, taking her by the shoulder and turning her to him.

“Hello. How did the visit to the doctor go?” I asked as if no one had mentioned Jiri at all.

“Very well. Looks like I have a surgery ahead of me. Was Jiri really involved in that fire? The radio was saying it was arson.”

“Jiri was definitely there with the other protesters.”

Riikka started to sob. Had the SIS already notified Anne Merivaara? Jiri could be detained until Sunday morning without filing charges. I hoped the SIS wouldn’t let him go until I had a chance to talk to him too. I had been looking forward to a free weekend and the Finland-Hungary soccer game on Saturday night that would determine whether Finland made it into the World Cup. What was going to happen with that now?

“So Jiri helped light the fire?” Holma asked me.

“Seems that way. The investigation is ongoing, though. You should be prepared for the SIS to come interview you too. Riikka, we really need to get your official statement. What did you say about Monday?”

“I have a test, and I don’t know anything!” Riikka turned her weepy face toward me, and Holma shot me an accusatory glance. Koivu, who slipped by the couple and started loading Jiri’s things into the bag, didn’t improve the situation.

“Riikka, do you know where Jiri keeps the key to his top drawer?” I asked. The answer was an angry no. I thought for a second and then decided to wait on breaking the lock. SIS could do that if they thought it was necessary.

“So you might be able to get your voice back?” I asked Holma, trying to sound friendly. For a moment he looked at me as if he didn’t understand what I was saying.

“Maybe, maybe not. The laryngologist thinks I should try if I can get an appointment quickly. He promised to contact a colleague in Los Angeles with experience in this kind of procedure.”

“That’s great. But you can’t leave the country for now.”

“What the hell? What kind of clown show are you running? You mean because of Juha . . . ? I didn’t kill him! Why can’t you solve this murder and stop tormenting innocent people?”

This was the first time I had seen the normally relaxed Holma really lose his cool. He turned away, pulling Riikka with him. Koivu looked at me and pursed his lips, and I did the same in return.

“I’m going to take a look downstairs at the sauna area and then at Riikka’s room,” I told Koivu, who started dragging the large plastic bag out to the car.

The sauna area was spacious and inviting. A den, sunroom, and bathing room formed a space in which I would have gladly spent the afternoon lounging. In one corner of the bathing room was a large whirlpool tub that was full of fermentation equipment, apparently for home winemaking. Maybe the family didn’t use the tub anymore because it was so wasteful. The sauna was wood fired, with enough space for at least two people to stretch out fully on the benches. There was also a utility room on the lower level, the only room in the house with no windows. The washer and dryer were expensive, high-efficiency models, both with environmental-certification stickers shining on the front.

What did these rooms say about Juha Merivaara? Really only that he had tried to live life in a way that was comfortable but environmentally responsible. He only brought durable, expensive, high-quality goods into his home. His ideological principles—or maybe his wife’s—were on display everywhere, but that still said very little about the man himself.

Uncommonly little.

I walked back upstairs. Koivu had come inside and was talking with Holma about the fire. Riikka was banging around in the kitchen. I heard a kettle whistle and suddenly a desperate need for coffee hit me. It was almost four o’clock, and we easily could have called it a day. But I still had to take a peek in Riikka’s room.

Marching down the hall to the north end of the house, I opened the door. A piano dominated the large bedroom, which had greenish wallpaper with a fir-tree motif. Riikka slept on a two-person futon that was folded up into a couch right now. Under the piano was a soundproofing platform, and the door and two interior walls also seemed to have some sort of soundproofing.

On the music stand was a collection of Sibelius songs opened to “The First Kiss.” I clumsily plunked out the melody. I may have been a rock-n-roll chick, but I had heard plenty of classical music growing up, so the song was vaguely familiar. There was more sheet music on the piano: Kuula, Mozart, a compilation of soprano arias. Then my eyes landed on a picture of a smiling Tapio Holma in a silver frame on the desk. On the wall there were newspaper clippings of him, as if Holma were Riikka Merivaara’s teen idol rather than her boyfriend.

There weren’t many books in Riikka’s room either. Apparently the Merivaaras weren’t big readers. In the living room there had also only been the obligatory national classics, Seven Brothers, The Unknown Soldier, and the like. On Riikka’s shelves I found books on natural cosmetics, some music literature, and romance novels.

I was just opening the closet door when Riikka burst in.

“Do you really have to? I’m just surprised you didn’t have that guy with you go through my lingerie!”

When I didn’t respond, Riikka demanded to know why we were searching the house again.

“Mom and I don’t know a lot about what Jiri does. I mean, we think that fur farming and the way pigs and other animals are treated should be banned, but we don’t agree with Jiri on how to get there. I think the most important thing is to take care of yourself and your family, not throw rocks through windows.”

“Have you gotten Tapio to give up eating sausages yet?” I asked as I glanced at Riikka’s wardrobe. Just like the outfit she was wearing today, the style of her clothes seemed suited to a more mature woman: lots of long, slim-fitting skirts and silk blouses, although there were a couple of pairs of designer jeans and a World Wildlife Federation hoodie.

“I can’t force anyone to do anything. But Tapio has already come around on a lot of things.”

I walked to Riikka’s desk and started pulling open drawers.

“That Wang lady already looked at everything. Did she find something that made me a suspect?”

I shook my head and emotionlessly went through the drawers. Riikka had the right to be present when her room was being searched. The condom in the top drawer wasn’t a surprise, nor was the handsome collection of jewelry in the next. Then I reached the bottom drawer.

“Oh, don’t look in there. It’s so stupid!” Riikka exclaimed.

I opened the drawer anyway. It was empty except for one object.

The photograph had probably been taken during an opera performance, as suggested by the performer’s stage makeup, wide skirts, and enormous hairdo. The mouth was smiling, but the eyes had been cut out, and there was also only a hole around where the heart would have been.

I didn’t recognize the woman, but based on the context and Riikka’s reaction, it had to be Suzanne Holtzinger, Tapio Holma’s ex-wife.

“It was Suzanne’s fault that Tapio lost his voice,” Riikka said, suddenly impassioned. “The voice is a delicate instrument. It reflects our state of mind. The shock of being left by a loved one can take it away.”

“Is that what Tapio told you?”

“No, I worked it out myself. I’ve been studying the physiology of singing. Suzanne didn’t want to have children with Tapio because both of their careers would suffer, but now she’s pregnant from that Italian tenor. Tapio heard about it from an old colleague from Hamburg.”

“You don’t believe in crystals, but you believe in that?” I said dryly and closed the picture back in the drawer. “Tuesday at ten thirty at the Espoo Police Station. Ask for me at the desk. Oh, and by the way, have Seija Saarela or Mikke visited the house since Monday?”

“They were here on Wednesday, and Mikke stayed the night. The renters have taken over his apartment. Mom said he could stay in the den downstairs until Dad’s funeral, but Mikke said he would rather sleep in his boat.”

After leaving Riikka, I walked to the entryway and went to the door that led to the garage. The door didn’t have a lock. It would have been easy to slip the flashlight into the garage.

Koivu was in the kitchen drinking coffee with Holma. It smelled amazing, but we needed to go. A slew of reports were waiting for me on my desk, and I was probably going to have to take them home if I wanted to get there in time to put Iida down.

“Damn, I need a weekend,” I said to Koivu as we drove back to the station. “If that flashlight is the murder weapon, at least we’ll be one step closer. That would narrow our list of suspects down to six: the three Merivaaras, Holma, Saarela, and Mikke Sjöberg. Katrina Sjöberg went back to Åland before the killer returned the flashlight.”

“Why would Seija Saarela have killed Merivaara?” Koivu asked dubiously.

“Maybe this was just a good old-fashioned Finnish fight over a bottle of booze. Juha Merivaara and Seija Saarela fighting over the cognac. And in the end Saarela hit him with the bottle.”

“But they didn’t find cognac in the wound . . .”

“Koivu!” Usually my dear colleague kept up with my wisecracks, but I think the long day was getting to him.

I sat staring at my stack of paperwork for a little while. The envelope from the Security Intelligence Service weighed at least four pounds. A report from Puustjärvi, another from Lähde, a memo from the county police commissioner with a title that meant nothing to me, and a message about the National Bureau of Investigation commission of inquiry. I glanced through that one. Ström’s list of transgressions had already been so long that the recommendation was to keep him on administrative leave as long as the court proceedings about the beating continued. Väätäinen was certainly going to press charges. There was also a message from Personnel. Due to a lack of appropriations, a temporary replacement for Ström was unlikely. I kicked a chair; the rest of the unit was going to have to work themselves to death for weeks.

Cramming all the papers into my backpack, I decided to walk home, since I had come by bus in the morning. Using my work car still felt weird. I crossed the highway and started winding my way through the residential streets toward the nearby fields. When I passed the last of the houses, I reached an area that had been green fields but was now torn apart and transformed into piles of dirt and mud ten feet tall. In order to get to my usual shortcut, I had to cross the construction zone. I knew I wasn’t supposed to trespass, but I didn’t care. A couple of digging machines growled a little ways off, and one of the workers waved at me, but I just continued on my way.

We had lived in our house on the other side of the fields for about three years, and in that time the surroundings had changed quickly. On many undeveloped lots, large homes had sprung up that made our little one-and-a-half-story rented slice of paradise look like a hovel. In the spring, the city had dredged nearly half a mile of the nearby canal, felling trees all along the banks. Antti had been one of the most vocal advocates for halting the work. Although the reclamation had succeeded in saving a swamp in a nearby nature reserve from drying out, the barren canal banks were a pathetic sight. Where cuckooflowers once grew along the water, now there was only gravel.

Einstein lurked outside the door, the remains of a mole proudly displayed on the front steps. I didn’t have the heart to hurt his feelings, so I just expressed my thanks for his contribution to the welfare of the family. I would dispose of the tiny corpse later. The day we returned from the hospital with Iida, Einstein ratcheted up his hunting. For a week he brought home at least two rodents a day. When he moved on to birds, we had to put a bell on his collar, which he hated.

My sisters had encouraged us to get rid of our cat before Iida was born because he would scratch her eyes out or jump in her crib and smother her. Of course we were horribly offended on Einstein’s behalf, because, especially since Iida had started crawling, Einstein kept a safe distance from her. A couple of times we had let Iida feed him cat treats, and only then he had risked coming within touching distance.

The normal early evening rumpus was in full swing. Iida was playing with the pots, and Antti was lying on the floor drinking red wine and listening to Eppu Normaali’s “Hippie Girl.” Not exactly a cheery song—the tune was catchy, but if you listened to the lyrics, it was basically a dirge for any belief in a better world.

“Is that really how you feel?” I asked, turning down the stereo.

“Did you hear about the fire? Of course you did.”

“I was there. Can’t you smell it?”

“Was it those Animal Revolution characters who started it?”

“There’s an investigation, but the SIS is handling it.”

“Bloody idiots! Don’t they know all they’re doing is hurting the environmental movement? Even things that make sense get labeled as whacko because of them!” Antti took another drink from his glass. I sat down next to him, and Iida crawled into my lap.

“I think maybe you’ve been spending too much time thinking by yourself. How about you come with me to the soccer game tomorrow? The department still has a few tickets. We’ll take Iida to your sister’s house if your mom can’t come watch her.”

Antti shook his head. He wasn’t into soccer. I was the one in our family who followed sports, mostly figure skating and track-and-field, but sometimes hockey and Premier League soccer.

“Is there any of that wine left?”

I went to pour myself a glass and make a sandwich before turning to the list from the SIS of suspected Animal Revolution members. The first version was from a year and a half ago when the organization had started gaining attention by spray-painting the windows of butcher shops and fur boutiques. I looked for Jiri Merivaara, but he wasn’t on that list yet. I did find another familiar name, though.

Harri Immonen.

11

The dark Kozel lager I was drinking tasted heavenly, although I could have done without the cigarette smoke curling into my nostrils. It felt as if half of Helsinki was jammed into the Mr. Pickwick downtown warming up for the Finland-Hungary playoff match. Our group of supporters from the department numbered about forty. Almost everyone from our unit was there, all except Puustjärvi, who was off playing Go. Taskinen was practicing waving the Finnish flag he had brought, and Puupponen had painted blue crosses on his sallow, freckled cheeks.

“Go home, Goulash! Go home, Goulash!” Puupponen chanted. Apparently in his mind that was a sufficiently derogatory appellation for the opposition.

“Finish your drinks and let’s go,” Taskinen said in his best boss voice. The match was starting in twenty minutes, and the Olympic Stadium entrances would be packed. I pulled my wool socks back up and put on my rubber boots. The rain that had been falling all day only seemed to be getting heavier, and a sweater was necessary even inside.

Having a good yell at the stadium with friends from work would be just the ticket. I looked around, trying to find Kantelinen from White-Collar Crime. The report I had been waiting for about the Merivaara Nautical corporate finances hadn’t shown up on my desk yet. Apparently Kantelinen was overworked too, because I didn’t see him.

Buoyed by a beer or two, our boisterous group didn’t much look like off-duty cops. There were leather jackets, jeans, and tracksuits, ball caps, a couple of winter hats, some disposable ponchos—no one would have worn their official blue police rain gear even by accident. Even Taskinen had left his suit and overcoat home. More than anything he looked like a marathoner, which we was. At the stadium steps someone couldn’t help hassling the guards about their careless security check, after which everyone had to open their bags despite the pouring rain. Fortunately no one bothered with Lähde’s binoculars, which were actually a flask.

We climbed halfway up section D near the midfield line. A sea of umbrellas obscured the view of the field. I placed myself between Koivu and Taskinen in hopes that their bodies would keep me warm in the rain and wind. Wang sat on Koivu’s other side. They talked about a movie, which it sounded as if they had seen together the night before. When Koivu’s hand brushed a stray hair off of Wang’s forehead, I found myself swallowing. Koivu wasn’t just a coworker; he was a good friend. Why hadn’t he told me he was going to the movies with Wang? Was he afraid I would get on his case for a workplace romance?

Despite the rain and the darkness, the stands were lively. Yliaho collected the final bets for the outcome, and I optimistically said 1–0 for Finland. I hoped the cold would slow down the Hungarians.

“Didn’t Ström have a ticket too? Does anyone know anything about him?” I asked, suddenly looking at the empty seat next to Lähde.

“He isn’t coming,” Lähde responded evasively and then started opening his binoculars.

“Is he afraid of catching a cold?” Puupponen said. His suggestion was rewarded with raucous laughs.

“Have you seen him in the past few days?” I asked Lähde.

“We had a beer yesterday at the Thirsty Camel around the corner from his place. He drank five in the time it took me to finish two,” Lähde said, grimacing as he took a shot from one side of his flask.

The previous night I had tried to call Ström, but I had been relieved again when he didn’t answer. Listening to his bitching and moaning would have been too much, especially if he had been drunk. Apparently Väätäinen had tried to cut a deal: he would drop his charge against Ström if the prosecutor dropped the charges against him for beating his wife. Of course Ström couldn’t agree to that—really no one could cut that sort of deal.

Just then the teams marched onto the field. Boos showered down on the Hungarians, and Finland’s soccer god Jari Litmanen received the biggest cheers from the home crowd. I was right there with everyone else, screaming at the top of my lungs. I was almost nervous. The World Cup was the biggest sporting event in the world after all. It would have been amazing if Finland could make it for once.

There were plenty of attempts, but no success. The Hungarians seemed sluggish enough in the cold, but we weren’t doing so well either. The rain just kept coming down. Drops streamed off the hood of my poncho onto my nose. Twenty minutes in, my suede gloves were soaked through. I was happy we had the contents of Lähde’s flask to keep us warm.

“Litti! Litti!” Puupponen yelled, trying to get everyone to join in the chant for our team’s star player.

“Litmanen is cute,” Wang said, shooting me a smile.

“He’s a hell of a player but not really my type,” I replied, and Liisa Rasilainen joined in the conversation as we pointed out the best-looking players on the field. The men were not amused.

“We all know what guys Maria is into. Where did they go, though? I haven’t seen them on the wall of your new office.” Koivu asked, referring to the poster of male pinups some girlfriends had given me at my bachelorette party.

“A lieutenant can’t get away with everything a sergeant can . . . Hell no! Stop them! Come on!” I screamed as our goalie dove, making an amazing save.

At halftime I realized I was shivering, but thankfully my legs were dry. Maybe Ström had made a good choice staying home. The whole unit could end up with pneumonia and not be able to solve any crimes for weeks. Taskinen brought me a coffee, and that kept we warm until the second half started. Finland’s game picked up, and when Antti Sumiala launched a textbook shot at the back post in the sixty-second minute to take the lead, the rain didn’t matter anymore. Screaming, we all exchanged hugs, and Taskinen’s arm remained around me as if by accident.

“I said it would be 1–0,” I said with a grin once the playing time wound down to one minute. “Stay strong, boys! Come on, ref, blow that whistle!” I yelled when the clock hit zero, but the painful Hungarian offensive just continued into stoppage time.

“Are feminists allowed to like soccer?” Koivu asked just before the catastrophe occurred.

The Finns knocked the ball into their own goal. A tie meant good-bye to the World Cup.

We slunk out of the stadium, silent and shivering. I tried to tell myself it was childish to be sad about a soccer game, but it still bothered me. I was so cold my teeth actually chattered.

“Shit. I feel like crying,” Puupponen said. The rain had smeared the Finnish flags painted on his cheeks, and his disposable poncho had failed to protect the knees of his jeans, so his wet pants clung to his skin. “Let’s go get plastered.”

“Hot rum,” I said. As a pack of boys skulked by, grumbling about what they wanted to do to the referees, I couldn’t help thinking about Ström. He should have been here.

We ended up at the Fire Dragon to warm our throats. Despite the poor final score, the postgame carousing lasted for several rounds.

Iida climbed out of her crib to come snuggle with me at eight in the morning, and I felt like the worst mother in the world for not having the energy to get out of bed and make her breakfast. When the hair pulling started, I heroically I dragged myself to the kitchen to make the porridge, because Antti had left for a long hike in the woods before dawn. It rained all day, and I read to Iida until she napped, and when she did, I tried to sleep off my hangover, but my fragmentary dreams were haunted by images of squealing pigs and Harri’s corpse. Harri had been a member of the Animal Revolution. Harri and Jiri . . . could someone have killed Harri over that? And what about Juha Merivaara? Or could it have been that Juha Merivaara was financing the AR’s activities?

I was greeted at work Monday morning by the usual weekend list of assaults, plus three missing persons: a forty-year-old economist and mother of two hadn’t returned from hunting mushrooms on Sunday afternoon, and an unemployed father from a different part of the city had failed to turn up after a Saturday night at a bar. We had already known about Arttu Altonen, a high school senior who had last been seen Friday at midnight leaving a house party. He had been threatening to commit suicide for a month. The party had been at a beach in the Westend, and the boy’s friends were afraid he had jumped off a nearby bridge. We would have to get a recovery team to drag the bay. I delegated that to Koivu.

“Three disappearances. It’s probably a serial killer,” Puupponen said between sniffles. Clearly he’d caught a cold at the game.

“Reasons?” I wasn’t in a joking mood. “We’re going to have to triage now. These assault cases will have to wait. Missing persons and homicides first. Puustjärvi, you continue interviewing the high school students about the missing boy. Lehtovuori, you and Wang take the mushroomer. And Puupponen, you get on the dad at the bar.”

I had to make some quick decisions because we simply had too many cases. I actually found myself missing Ström. Strangely enough, he was at his best with disappearances. Puupponen thought it was because during his marriage, Ström had pulled plenty of disappearing acts himself, which was one reason his wife left him.

Our staffing issues were a good excuse for me to stay on the Juha Merivaara case. After the meeting ended, I went to my office to call SIS. Jiri Merivaara had been released after the allowable forty-eight hour holding period, but his interrogations were going to continue. The SIS had discovered that the girl who had interned at the meatpacking plant a few weeks earlier was the sister of an Animal Revolution member. The fifteen-year-old had been jailed on suspicion of stealing a key to the plant and as an accessory to arson.

Not revealing too many details about my own investigation required some contortions. I didn’t want to lose the Merivaara murder case to the SIS, since any connection to Animal Revolution was just guessing at this point. I wondered if Mikke Sjöberg knew something about Harri’s Animal Revolution membership.

No one answered Mikke’s boat phone. I tried a couple of more times through the morning. Puupponen came in to say that the missing father had turned up at a friend’s house in good health, excepting a significant hangover. Apparently his wife had been so fed up with his benders that she intentionally sicced the police on him.

“OK, go ahead and move on to the first assault on the list,” I told Puupponen, whose cold had now swelled his nose to two times its normal size. “You seem pretty sick.”

“I don’t have a fever, though,” Puupponen replied. “My nose is just running like a faucet.”

Puupponen going out sick was the last thing we needed, I thought as I tried to reach Kantelinen from White Collar.

“Hi, this is Kallio from Violent Crime. So that report about the Merivaara Nautical financial situation . . .”

I heard Kantelinen groan on the other side of the line.

“I’m sorry. I just haven’t had time. We had this embezzlement case come in.”

“I need it now. Preferably this morning,” I said, trying in vain to mask the irritation in my voice. “How done is it?”

“I’m most of the way there. The only real problem is that it’s been so damn hard to get any information on this Mare Nostrum shareholding company. The financial connection between the two companies is kind of odd.”

“How so?”

“I’ve got a meeting starting right now. I’ll call you this afternoon.”

After slamming down the phone in frustration, I tried once again to reach Mikke Sjöberg. He hadn’t pulled a runner, had he? I asked Dispatch to send a car over to check whether the Leanda was still at the marina. Then I had to leave for the next meeting of the day, the Criminal Division unit commanders’ weekly meeting. In the hall, my cell phone rang. It was the patrol car reporting that the Leanda was indeed still at anchor.

“Should we go arrest someone?” Haikala asked enthusiastically over the phone.

“No. I’ll take care of it myself.”

I tried Mikke’s number one more time, again with no success.

The whole meeting was taken up by the meat-plant fire. Even though the SIS was handling the case, we had to be ready for more attacks. Orion, a pharmaceutical company, had been receiving anonymous messages threatening their animal-testing facilities. Following the arson, Orion had requested stepped-up police patrols.

“I asked them to talk to their security company,” Taskinen said calmly. “Unfortunately the police can’t be everywhere at once. I’ve told Patrol, and Organized Crime is looking into other possible targets.”

“Hey, Kallio, how strong are your husband’s connections to these eco-terrorists?” Laine from Organized Crime suddenly asked.

“Antti doesn’t have anything to do with Animal Revolution,” I said, taken aback.

Laine’s eyebrows went up, and his thick, dark, slicked-back hair shone.

“Maybe not with them, but didn’t he participate in that anticar rally last week with your baby?”

“So what?” I had to fight to stay calm.

“The spouse of a police lieutenant shouldn’t be running around with criminals. It makes people ask questions about police neutrality.”

“But those protesters aren’t criminals! Doesn’t the freedom to assemble apply to police officers’ families too? I’m not going to start telling my husband what he can and can’t do. And he isn’t in charge of my opinions either!”

I could barely keep myself from shouting, and Taskinen quickly turned the conversation to other matters. Because the Merivaara case was stuck, the rest of the meeting was taken up by a drug ring Narcotics had busted.

Then, as Taskinen was just wrapping up the meeting, Makinen from White-Collar Crime asked, “What about Lieutenant Ström? Is he going to be on administrative leave for long?”

Taskinen shook his head. “I’m hoping the case will move quickly. The investigation is still ongoing. I think Officer Puupponen is giving a statement to the NBI today.” Taskinen shot me a questioning look, and I nodded.

“Koivu and I are going over tomorrow for our interviews,” I said. “We’re all probably going to have to testify too. He’s going to get at least assault-and-battery and aggravated abuse of authority.”

Just then my phone rang. It was Puustjärvi, asking for an arrest warrant. I had to leave the meeting early, and when Taskinen shouted after me about the lunch we kept not having together, I just shrugged.

I managed to dig into the SIS report on Animal Revolution at two o’clock while I ate the yogurt and sandwich I had picked up in the cafeteria.

In addition to Harri, there were a couple of other names on the previous spring’s membership list that didn’t show on the newer list. Harri didn’t have his own file, but Jiri Merivaara did. The kid definitely would have been flattered if he could have seen how much trouble Security Intelligence had gone to tracking his movements. The youngest AR member with a file was fourteen years old.

Koivu could contact Harri’s family and friends, although reopening that investigation would be painful for them. I called Mikke Sjöberg again, and again I got no answer. Looking outside, I saw that the day was clear and cloudless. A trip to the marina might be a nice pick-me-up. I didn’t need to take anyone with me. This wasn’t going to be an interrogation. The good part of being unit commander was that I didn’t usually need to account for my movements or investigative methods.

Most of the people who kept boats at the marina had already taken their crafts out of the water because the weather was getting too cold for boating. A few motorboats still floated at the dock, but there were only two sailboats. The all-wood Leanda was easy to pick out among all the white fiberglass. The sun was shining pleasantly, so it wasn’t any surprise Mikke Sjöberg was sitting on deck reading.

“Hi, Mikke!” I yelled and found myself smiling much more broadly than I intended.

Mikke got up and came to open the gate in the chain-link fence that controlled access to the docks.

“Hey.” He didn’t sound very enthusiastic.

“I’ve been trying to call, but you haven’t been answering your phone,” I said as I hopped onto the deck of the Leanda.

“Nope, I haven’t been. Is it something important for you to come all this way?”

“Yes and no.” I climbed along the boat and we sat next to the helm. Had Mikke been out sailing in the morning? The mainsail was on the mast, although lowered.

“Want some coffee? There’s probably some left in the thermos.”

When I said yes, thank you, Mikke got up and opened the hatch to the cabin.

“Welcome to my floating palace,” he said with a crooked smirk and motioned for me to enter. I climbed down the ladder into the main cabin. It appeared surprisingly roomy, with a collapsible navigation table big enough for full-size charts. Right now an Olivetti laptop and a couple of books were out on it. It was an older laptop model that didn’t have much battery life, so I wondered what Mikke was doing with it on the boat.

“The sleeping berth is in the fore cabin,” Mikke said calmly, as if I were any old visitor. “Do you take milk or sugar?”

“Milk, please.” I glanced into the fore cabin, which had one wide bed. A toilet and an open closet were between the cabins. On the right-hand side of the main cabin, in the aft corner, was a compact kitchen with a range and water filter. The shelves lining the main cabin were full of books, including fiction, travel books, and guides to birds and plants.

“Leanda. Doesn’t that come from an old thriller?” I asked, grabbing the coffee mug Mikke offered. His fingers brushed against mine.

“Have you read it?”

“I have, although that was years ago,” I said, thinking that Mikke must really be a romantic at heart if he had named his boat after the idealistic heroine of Andrew Garve’s novel.

“A Hero for Leanda is still one of my favorite books.” Mikke grabbed an old book off the shelf. The green binding of the books from the long-running detective series was easily recognizable.

“I prefer to read in Finnish when I’m traveling. Otherwise I get rusty. Sometimes I get mixed up about what language I’m supposed to be using in different countries. Would you like some chocolate cookies?”

I was never one to turn down chocolate. Mikke sat down on a couch in the main cabin, and I lounged on the other side of the navigation table. I wolfed down half a cookie, which was more chocolate than anything else. So much for my healthy lunch.

“Did you come to talk about Jiri?” Mikke asked, licking chocolate off his upper lip.

“Not really. Have you seen him since they let him go?”

“I visited the house yesterday because Anne asked me to. Jiri was a very quiet young man after sitting in jail for two days. He wouldn’t say anything about his part in the fire. What happened out there anyway?”

I gave a brief account, and Mikke’s expression hardened. He looked pensively out the window. Then his face suddenly relaxed into a smile.

“I probably shouldn’t, but I was thinking about going for a little spin after coffee. Maybe out to Hirsala and back. Come with me.”

“Bad idea,” I said, looking at my coffee mug and not Mikke.

“Why? You know how to sail. You can make sure I don’t run away.” Mikke’s smile contained a challenge, and I found myself blushing.

“Actually I wanted to talk about Harri Immonen. He was also in Animal Revolution.”

“Harri? That’s hard to believe. He was so—well, you know. Gentle.”

“I doubt he participated in any riots or arsons. Maybe he just went to their protests. That would be enough for the SIS to put him on their list. So Jiri and Harri didn’t seem to know each other from anywhere else?”

Mikke said no. Harri had been nothing to Jiri, although Jiri once had said to Mikke that at least Harri was interested in birds as a part of nature, unlike Tapio Holma, who thought bird-watching was some kind of competitive sport.

“It is kind of crazy that guys go driving hundreds of miles to stare at some little skylark. Not very environmentally friendly, burning all that gas chasing them,” I said with a nervous laugh, and Mikke laughed back. Then he suggested the sailing outing again.

And stupid me agreed.

“Just let me rig the spinnaker. At first we’ll just use the mainsail, but once we get moving east we’ll have a fair wind. Are you wearing enough? I have some sweaters and long underwear.”

I was wearing jeans and a leather jacket because I had biked to work. I pulled my earmuffs out of my pocket.

We started the motor, and Mikke criticized his own laziness. “And if I mess up the sails, I’ll never live it down in your eyes,” he joked. After we left the harbor we raised the mainsail and went into a close haul.

“Tapio was furious with Jiri yesterday. Jiri gave it back to him, though. He even accused Tapio of killing Juha!”

“What?” The wind threw my hair in my eyes, and for a moment I couldn’t see Mikke’s expression.

“No, it’s ridiculous. I know Juha and Tapio fought that afternoon in the sauna, but that probably blew off most of the steam.” Mikke pulled his pipe out of his jacket pocket and asked me to hold the helm while he lit it.

“If someone killed Juha, which is hard to believe, I wouldn’t suspect Riikka or Tapio.” Mikke took back the helm, and again his hand brushed mine. The touch slid through my whole body. Flecks of light danced in the sea, and the east wind had stripped the birch trees onshore of their leaves. My eyes began to water.

“Did you say you heard Jiri go outside that night? Are you sure he was only gone a minute? I know you don’t think you fell asleep between when he went out and came back, but what if you did?”

“I didn’t.” Mikke’s voice was sure. “I was as excited as a kid on Christmas Eve about leaving, and I was too restless for any kind of real sleep. It’s always that way when I’m setting sail, which makes it hard and wonderful all at the same time. And then the first night on the boat I always sleep like a log. Here I’m home.”

Mikke turned his eyes to mine. “Jiri is pretty fanatical, but he isn’t a murderer. He’s like his dad, despite it all. I’m worried about the kid, though. He’s probably going to do something really stupid one of these days.”

“I think he might have already done it.” I tried to put my hair under the band of my earmuffs so it wouldn’t keep flying in my face. My hands were stiff. The rain at the soccer game had ruined my gloves. I should have borrowed some from Mikke.

“Sometimes I think I should stay for the winter, no matter what happens. But I can’t. I have to leave. I can’t go for that many months without sailing.”

The sun brought out the blue in Mikke’s eyes, making them look deep and sad. Then he sucked on his pipe and veiled himself in a cloud of smoke, giving me a good reason to cough and look away.

I had to focus to collect myself so I wouldn’t be the next one to do something really stupid. During my ten years as a cop, I had interviewed a lot of different types of people. Powerful executives, moronic petty criminals, mothers who had killed their children, psychopathic bastards.

Never before had I felt such a draw to someone I was interviewing, though, not to Antti and not even to my teenage crush, Johnny, who had been a suspect in a murder case a few years earlier back in my hometown. There was something about Mikke Sjöberg that put me off balance. Few would have called him handsome. His muscular body was trim to the point of being bony, his face hard, and his gaze furtive. Still I seemed ready to forget that I was happily married and that I suspected Mikke of murdering his half brother.

But I couldn’t forget my work for anything more than a few fleeting seconds of daydreaming.

“Animal Revolution demands direct action from its members. Over the weekend I read their platform documents. Could Jiri have killed his father in their name?”

Mikke’s face quivered, though he tried not to let it show. He didn’t reply, but shook his head. I couldn’t stand the silence that drew me toward Mikke.

“Not Riikka, not Tapio, not Jiri. So what about you? What did you think of your brother?”

Again another cloud of smoke in which Mikke’s eyes disappeared. Then he stood up and spoke quickly.

“Time to change course. Take the wheel. I’ll raise the spinnaker. Turn west when I tell you to.”

I grabbed the helm, cursing myself for coming out on this stupid sailing trip. My work was already complicated enough without being infatuated with one of my suspects. Mikke cranked the spinnaker up and loosened the sheet on the mainsail.

“Jibe-ho!”

The boat turned to catch the wind with the spinnaker billowing, and the mainsail swung around. The wind wasn’t making very big waves, so the Leanda sped forward steadily. We were headed toward the Porkkala Peninsula, and Rödskär was also visible as a ruddy spot off to the south. When Mikke sat down again, I continued my questions.

“Could your brother have killed Harri?”

Mikke’s eyes went wide.

“No one killed Harri!”

“What if they did?”

“Hell no. Why?”

“You tell me.”

Mikke stared toward the horizon. “I thought we agreed Harri was a gentle man. Who would want to kill someone like that?”

“Did Seija Saarela know Harri?”

“They both sailed with me a couple of times. But this is insane. You can’t think that Seija . . .” Mikke sighed, his face twisting into a white mask as his hand squeezed the helm. It looked like his knuckles might break the skin.

We continued tacking between Pentala Island and Stora Herrö Island. Mikke turned the helm over to me again and went to get the jib from the cabin for the return trip. We sailed in silence for about ten minutes, drinking in the colors the fall weather had splattered across the shore. The deep red and wild yellow of the trees stood in sharp relief with dark clouds towering in the western sky behind, making the whole scene somehow unreal. Finally Mikke scrambled to the bow to untie the spinnaker. I adjusted the helm and trimmed the mainsail according to his instructions. He gave his commands in a calm, firm voice anyone in police-command school could take a lesson from. The Leanda’s rhythm was sharper now but she still moved softly, taking the occasional taller waves so easily that I no longer doubted her ocean worthiness. Mikke stuffed the spinnaker into a bow hatch and started rigging the jib.

“Turn a little more into the wind! Good! You’ve spent a lot of time on the water, haven’t you?”

I wasn’t really much of a sailor, so the compliment meant a lot. Mikke raised the jib and let it flap, then we turned one hundred and eighty degrees.

“And now it’s just back to the marina,” he said in a resigned tone as he flopped back down on a bench. “Too bad we can’t take more trips like this. You’re a good deckhand.”

“Madeira sounds awfully fun,” I said with a laugh, happy that the wind had already turned my cheeks red.

“Yes, it does. Maybe I would have run away if you hadn’t come on this outing with me. What would have happened then?”

“I would have sent the Coast Guard after you. And if you keep saying things like that, I’ll confiscate your passport.”

“And what if you can’t solve Juha’s murder? Do you intend to keep me here all winter?”

“Oh, we’ll solve it,” I said with as much self-assurance as I ever dared. I needed to pee, so I headed into the cabin. Inside the rocking was unpleasant, but nothing on the shelves had budged. Before our departure Mikke had stowed his laptop and put the books back away. The thought of living for six months in a ten-meter boat was at once fascinating and horrifying. You definitely wouldn’t drag anything unnecessary along with you. The boat began swaying more angrily, so I went back on deck.

“Let’s go around Mies Island and in past Iso Vasikka Island. That’ll be easier with this wind. Will you trim the jib a bit?”

When I yanked the rope, I felt the jerk all the way in my back muscles.

“After Mies Island we can really tack. Are you up to it, or should we use the motor?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” I replied, even though it was already late and nothing had come of this ridiculous sailing outing other than my increasingly confused heart and the growing feeling that Mikke Sjöberg was hiding something. But how was I going to wring it out of him? The only person I couldn’t imagine Mikke protecting was Tapio Holma, and Holma wasn’t even in the picture when Harri died.

Despite the gusting wind, hauling the ropes made me break out in a sweat. I looked at the villas on the islands and at the Temple of Neptune Antti and I had cross-country skied to the previous winter. Then my policewoman’s eye noticed something strange.

“Do you have binoculars onboard?”

“In the cabin.”

“Grab them, quick!”

Without a question Mikke shoved the rudder into my hands and jumped down the stairs. Precious seconds passed before I could get the binoculars adjusted to my eyes, but looking through them confirmed my observation.

A body was floating in the water off the southeast corner of Iso Vasikka Island.

“Strike the sails! Look!” I pushed the binoculars at Mikke, who looked and then went pale. He thrust the rudder at me again and moved forward to lower the jib while I used my other hand to dial the station to request a boat patrol.

Mikke took the mainsail down too and started the motor. Even though his movements were practiced, I noticed his lips trembling.

“Check the sonar. Our draft is one-point-six. Damn it. I wish we had the dinghy!”

We found an appropriate landing spot about fifty feet from the body. I jumped ashore before realizing that I wouldn’t be able to get to the body floating on its stomach in the reeds without getting my feet wet.

“Do you have rubber boots?”

“Yes, size forty-four.”

“Good. They’ll go higher on me. Throw them here!” I said, tying the boat to a pine tree.

“They’re way too big for you. What if I go . . .”

“No! Stay in the boat.”

Mikke looked sick enough that I hoped the patrol boat would get here in record time. Civilians were the last thing you wanted around when you found a body.

I pulled the boots over my walking shoes so they would be more stable. Then I started wading through the rocks and got a grip on the body’s jacket. I hauled the corpse far enough up the shore that the waves wouldn’t carry it away. There was nothing more I could do for now.

“Can I help somehow?” Mikke yelled.

“Just stay there. Do you have any rubber gloves?” Mikke shook his head. I climbed back up the shore and called our unit, where I reached Koivu.

“What was the description of that missing high school kid?”

“One hundred and seventy-nine centimeters, slender build. Straight dark hair, shoulder length, brown eyes. Tattoos . . .”

“What was he wearing when he disappeared?”

“Brown corduroy jacket and green cotton pants, Adidas running shoes and—”

“That’s enough. He’s floating right here. Off Iso Vasikka Island.”

The patrol boat arrived, along with the forensic photographer. Once he had taken his pictures, we donned our protective gear, lifted the body out of the water, and turned it over. I had spent some time trying to remember the picture I had seen of Arttu Aaltonen, and when I saw his drowned young face, I was sure I recognized it. Patting down the body, I found a wallet in his jacket pocket. The pimpled face of a boy stared back from his laminated driver’s license. Arttu Henrikki Aaltonen, born October 21, 1979.

“He disappeared Friday night. Suspected suicide,” I explained to the patrol officers. I couldn’t detect anything that indicated foul play, but the autopsy would be more definitive.

Mikke had disappeared from the deck. When I climbed back aboard to return the rubber boots, I found him lying down in the fore cabin staring through a hatch at the sky. There was still no color in his face.

“You can head back to the marina. I’m going in the police boat. Thanks for the outing,” I said.

Mikke sat up and took the rubber boots.

“How do you get used to that?” he asked hopelessly. “Don’t the dead haunt your dreams?”

“Sometimes. But if you want to do this job, you have to get used to it, or at least cope with it. You aren’t a professional, and this was your second body in less than two weeks. Remember that you don’t have to shoulder this experience alone.”

“He was so young. Was it murder?”

“Probably suicide,” I said, even though I shouldn’t have said anything about the case.

Mikke groaned. I put my hand on his shoulder, and he rested his cheek on my arm. I stroked his hair, and suddenly he squeezed me so tight it hurt. We held each other until I heard the photographer shouting for me. He wanted more instructions.

“I have to go. Do you want me to untie the rope?” I asked. Mikke nodded and followed me up on deck.

We looked at each other for a moment, and then I saw the ambulance boat coming around the island and went to meet it. From the rocks I watched as Mikke started the motor and began chugging slowly along the channel toward the marina. As he rounded the island, he turned to glance back, but when I waved, he didn’t respond.

12

Delivering the bad news to Arttu Aaltonen’s parents fell to Puustjärvi and me. Even though I forced myself to approach it just as work, the parents’ grief was infectious. Their son had threatened to kill himself before, and the mother had tried in vain to get him to see a psychologist. In the next morning’s paper, there was a brief report that a missing young man had been found dead, and its simple matter-of-fact tone left me feeling utterly empty.

While I’d been worried Puupponen was going be out sick, on Tuesday morning it was Lehtovuori who called in to say that he had pneumonia and a fever of 102. The doctor had ordered three days of sick leave. I would have to assign another officer to investigate the mystery of the missing mushroomer with Wang.

“Take care of yourself,” I said, trying to conceal my irritation. Koivu and I were both going to be tied up all afternoon at the National Bureau of Investigation dealing with Ström’s mess. I had planned for someone else to handle Riikka Merivaara’s interview, but there wasn’t anyone other than me.

Kantelinen’s report on the Merivaara Nautical financial situation had finally appeared on my desk. I quickly flipped through it before the morning meeting. The company’s finances were stable, and they hadn’t needed to make any large investments in recent years. The balance sheet looked good. The company board consisted only of Juha and Anne Merivaara, the CFO Heikki Halonen, and Marcus Enckell, who, based on his name, I suspected must be related to Juha Merivaara’s late mother. The only thing Kantelinen had noted with a question mark was the 12 percent of Merivaara Nautical stock owned by Mare Nostrum. No information about that organization’s ownership appeared in the Merivaara Nautical reports or in the Trade Register. The trail ended at a post-office box on Guernsey Island.

Tax evasion was the first thing that came to mind, so I dialed Kantelinen’s number to ask his opinion, but he wasn’t available. I set off to the morning meeting in a bad mood, which wasn’t helped at all by Koivu and Wang whispering like two infatuated eighth graders. I assigned Lähde to partner with Wang on the missing person case mostly because Koivu had to come with me to the NBI in the afternoon, and I needed someone to interview Riikka Merivaara with me.

“How did you happen to be out there to find Aaltonen’s body? Were you out at the lighthouse again?” Lähde asked suddenly.

“No. It was a complete coincidence,” I said abruptly and tried to move on to the next topic.

“So you weren’t out with a patrol just to look for the kid?” Lähde continued stubbornly.

“No. I was working the Merivaara case.” The fact that Lähde’s questions embarrassed me was irritating. “One of our main lines of investigation on that case is going to be financial. Everything looks aboveboard on the surface, but there is something fishy about one of the shareholders. Koivu and Puustjärvi are going to continue interviewing witnesses with me. Lähde, you can track down all of the company board members. We’ll meet up again as soon as Kantelinen sees fit to grace us with his presence. Koivu, ten thirty in Interrogation Room 2.”

I almost fled the room. I wanted to be alone for a few seconds, behind closed doors. I had turned my phone off during the meeting, and now the voice mail told me I had six new messages, four of which were from home. Antti must have some emergency.

“Hi,” he answered, out of breath. In the background I could hear Iida screaming. “I just called because I couldn’t find the car keys. Iida banged her eye on the edge of the piano and we need to go to the clinic.”

“Oh God! Are you going to be OK?” I asked in a panic, even though of course Antti would be fine. Still the bad-mother complex reared its head: I should have dropped my work and rushed to the clinic to comfort my poor wounded child. But I couldn’t do that.

“Call me when you know more. I’ll leave my phone on,” I said. Antti wanted to end the call so he could get moving.

One of the other calls was from the Security Intelligence Service, which I returned solely to get the images of Iida screaming from her car seat with a swollen eye out of my mind. That the SIS wanted to talk about Jiri Merivaara was no surprise. They had started thinking about the same thing I had: Could the son have killed his father as some sort of strange initiation ritual to ensure him a prominent place in Animal Revolution? The SIS didn’t consider the theory very likely either, but it was possible, and they also thought it was quite a coincidence that Harri Immonen, another AR member, had died exactly one year earlier in exactly the same place as Jiri Merivaara’s father. We argued about how to interrogate Jiri about Harri. Fortunately I was able to cut the argument short, because I had to go interview Riikka Merivaara.

Koivu waited in the conference room, looking sullen.

“The lab called. The glass in the flashlight isn’t the same as the glass they found in Juha Merivaara’s head, and the injury doesn’t match up either. The flashlight isn’t the murder weapon.”

I sighed. “Of course it isn’t. Anything else?”

“The fingerprint from the collar of Juha Merivaara’s coat is Anne Merivaara’s. They also found fibers from Mikke Sjöberg’s wool sweater, but those could have come from when he was pulling the body ashore.”

“Crap,” I said in frustration. Nothing seemed to be going anywhere.

“Bad mood today?” Koivu said, more as a statement than a question as we reached the stairs.

“I don’t imagine you’re thrilled about going to the NBI later today either.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? We’re getting rid of Ström. The guys and I spent all last winter praying that you wouldn’t take your full maternity leave or have another kid. Anu was probably praying the hardest, even though she’d never worked with you.”

“Is she a Christian?”

“Who?” Koivu’s face was confused, then he caught on. “Oh, Anu. Actually, I don’t know. We haven’t talked about that.”

“A Buddhist wedding could be really interesting, or is her family Taoist, since they’re originally from China?”

“Maria!” Koivu tried to look resentful. “Anu is pretty interesting, though. You have this culture that tells women to keep quiet, but then she’s a cop . . .” He stopped talking when we saw Tapio Holma and Riikka Merivaara waiting in the hall.

Holma had escorted Riikka here. Maybe he thought a police station was too oppressive a place for Riikka. Or had he come to keep an eye on Riikka for some other reason?

“Wait in the hall or go have a coffee,” I told Holma. “This is going to take at least an hour.”

“Can’t Tapio come with me?” Riikka asked, wringing her hands like a soprano singing a difficult aria might.

“Riikka has the right to have someone with her to support her during her interview,” Holma argued.

“Not someone suspected of the same crime,” I said firmly, and Holma didn’t object. He sat down in the hall to wait while we went into Interrogation Room 2.

As she answered the initial routine questions, Riikka was stiff and kept swallowing, as if being interrogated by the police was just the most awful thing. I imagine it would be difficult for a girl used to such a mellow life, but this wasn’t even the first time. We retraced the events on Rödskär Island, confirming my belief that Riikka couldn’t have killed her father. Her tall, slender frame seemed strong enough to produce the physical power, but she definitely lacked the mental strength to conceal an act like this.

“Mom is working like a crazy person. She says Dad would have wanted it that way. They have to get the fall orders out.”

“How well do you know the company’s business? Who owns the shareholding company Mare Nostrum?”

Riikka shrugged. She didn’t know and barely even recognized the name. Business had never interested her. She only wanted to sing.

“Now you’re going to inherit half of your father’s shares, though. I think you’re going to have to care. Weren’t you the one who got your father excited about environmentalism and changing the company’s business concept?”

For some reason Riikka blushed.

“No, it wasn’t like that. There was never any way to get Dad excited about anything unless he decided to be excited. Mom says my vegetarianism and stuff opened her eyes and made her see things in a different way, but Dad . . . his motto was always, ‘Just do well in school and leave saving the world to us adults,’” Riikka said, imitating her father.

“How did your father react to the attempted rape this spring?”

“Do I have to talk about that? I wish I could forget the whole thing,” Riikka said, but I couldn’t leave it alone. “Of course Dad was furious. He wanted to go find the guys and beat them up. And he yelled at me for getting in their car instead of taking a taxi. It was typical Dad. That wasn’t the first time he said women were to blame when things like that happened to them.” Riikka’s lips trembled. “I feel so empty now that he’s gone. He was so big and loud and always knew everything . . .” Riikka fished a handkerchief out of her bag.

“Even though, Dad was never interested in me. Sometimes he made fun of me because I didn’t have a boyfriend. He said no guy was going to want a girl who dressed like his aunt and knew what a coloratura was. Guys were only going to go for a classical artist if she posed in Playboy and played rock violin like Linda Brava. As if it were still a father’s responsibility to marry off his daughter!”

My phone rang, and I answered because Antti’s number came up. Apologizing to Riikka, I stepped outside where Holma was sitting, still looking as if he was supposed to be protecting Riikka from the big bad policemen.

“She needed three stitches in her eyebrow, and they had to sedate her. Her eye is fine, though.”

“Thank goodness! How did Iida manage to hit her head like that?” It wasn’t until I said it that I realized how accusatory my tone sounded.

“I was playing the piano and she was playing with a ball. She just slipped somehow and hit the corner of the piano.”

“We’ll have to put some padding on that. Is she sleeping now?”

“She’s in recovery. We’re at the hospital. The clinic sent us over here. I should go so Iida doesn’t get scared if she wakes up. Can you come home at all early today?”

“I’ll try, but I have to go to NBI headquarters this afternoon. I’m in the middle of an interview right now too.”

It took me a while before I could calm down, even though I wasn’t the hysterical type. Sometimes I felt like a monster, leaving Iida screaming in her crib instead of sitting with her until she fell asleep. I wasn’t worried about her choking on cat hair, and I hadn’t taught her to be afraid of wasps. The helmet my sister Helena had given us for protecting her head while she learned to sit and walk had gone unused too.

“Did your father ever have any visitors you didn’t know while you were on Rödskär this summer?” I heard Koivu asking Riikka as I came back into the interrogation room.

“Yes, there were plenty of people in sailboats over the summer, but they weren’t Dad’s friends usually,” Riikka answered after a moment’s thought. “Most people ended up there by accident. I guess there were some old business acquaintances. I wasn’t on the island the whole time either, since I was studying for exams in the city, and I took a couple of singing classes. Ask my mom.”

Riikka threw back her hair, which shone like ebony. Her black polo shirt, black skirt, and thick black tights made her look even more angular and long-limbed, and suddenly I realized how much she reminded me of Mikke.

“How did your mother react to Jiri’s arrest?”

Turning to me, Riikka almost laughed.

“What do you think? I don’t understand how Mom is coping with all of this. Thank God Mikke promised to handle the funeral arrangements, and Seija keeps trying to help even when we don’t want her to. But those people in that meatpacking plant could have died! Jiri claims he didn’t know the fire would be dangerous, but I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“Have you had any involvement with Animal Revolution?”

“I went to a couple of antifur rallies last year, and that big algae bloom protest that a lot of the environmental groups participated in. I don’t approve of everything AR does, though.”

Koivu asked another question about the night of Juha Merivaara’s death, presumably hoping to find some sort of contradiction in Riikka’s replies. But it was to no avail. She assured us that she and Holma had slept straight through the night.

Continuing the interview was pointless. When I let Riikka leave, I heard her conversation with Holma through the open door.

“Let’s go to my place. We haven’t been able to be alone for a long time,” Holma complained.

“I can’t right now. I have to be by myself for a little while,” Riikka replied evasively.

“I need you, Riikka. I have to decide by tomorrow morning if I’m going to take the risk and go for that operation. I need you to help me decide.”

“I don’t want to! I can’t take responsibility for your voice and your future!” Riikka exclaimed. “Take me home. Or I can take the bus.”

Based on the clicking of her heels, Riikka started walking away, and a moment later Holma followed.

“Let’s get going. We can grab some food on the way to the NBI,” I said to Koivu, who had rewound the tape and was beginning to transcribe the important notes.

“How about McDonald’s?” Koivu said.

“No hamburgers, thank you very much!” Koivu looked confused at my response. “I want to eat something that isn’t going to make me feel guilty. Let’s go hit the cafeteria for some mashed potatoes.”

Taskinen was there too, sitting with Laine from Organized Crime next to some large potted ferns. I joined them, but Koivu said he preferred eating with his equals and went to a table with some officers from Robbery.

“Orion received another threat,” Taskinen said. “If the company doesn’t release its test animals, it’ll be hit soon. The message was signed by Animal Revolution.”

“Those kids are quick. I thought some of them were still in custody over at SIS.”

“Come on, Kallio, this isn’t a laughing matter,” Laine said, wiping a smear of mashed potatoes off his dark-blue silk tie.

“Why would we start guarding a rich corporation’s lab when we don’t even have the resources to protect victims of domestic violence?” I said pointedly, thinking both of Ari Väätäinen’s wife and another case from the previous weekend in which a woman almost died. The violence had been going on for some time in that family too.

This comment gave Taskinen an opportunity to turn the conversation to Ström.

“Ström’s situation looks pretty bad, since he already has so many marks on his record. He’s going to have to stay on administrative leave at least until the trial. It might be permanent too.”

“What kind of statement do you intend to give?”

I looked into Taskinen’s serious blue-green eyes. I knew he didn’t like Ström any more than I did.

“Ström has his good aspects, but he could never be a leader here. He solves his cases but never for free. Last winter half of your unit was on the edge of burnout, and it was mostly caused by interpersonal tensions.” Taskinen looked back into my eyes, and if Laine hadn’t been sitting at the table, he probably would have taken my hand.

“I could have punched Väätäinen in the mouth too,” I said in exasperation.

“Me too. But we wouldn’t have.”

There wasn’t much to say to that. I stood up, motioned to Koivu, and we headed to our interviews at the National Bureau of Investigation several miles north in the city of Vantaa. As we were passing Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport, I called home. Antti and Iida were back. Iida had woken up normally from the sedation and was now eating leftover carrots au gratin as if she hadn’t seen food in a week. I promised that I’d try to be home by four at the latest.

I had been interviewed by the NBI before, most recently when an escaped prisoner kidnapped one of my partners and both of them died in the ensuing standoff. Even so, changing from interrogator to interrogatee felt strange. There were only two interviewers, Supervisory Agent Suurpää and Senior Special Agent Peltonen, who stayed quiet throughout. Agent Suurpää was at least six foot two, with a heavy build and thick hair. Gray strands had appeared among the black, and Suurpää seemed like the type whose hair would be completely white long before his sixtieth birthday.

“Cases like these are unfortunate,” Suurpää began as if wanting to give the impression we were on the same side.

“The county prosecutor is obligated to press charges, especially since the case has received so much bad press. Let’s talk first about Lieutenant Ström’s background. You’ve worked together for three years, I believe, which is plenty of time to get to know someone.”

“Actually we were in the same class at the police academy too, and we’ve bumped into each other now and then otherwise as well.” I smirked to myself at my choice of words, since Ström and I spent most of our time on a collision course.

“Ström has received complaints before about violent behavior toward individuals in custody. Do you have any experience with that?”

I had to tell them about Kimmo, a murder suspect I had helped about four years earlier when I was working for a short time in a local law office. Ström had arrested Kimmo in the middle of a sex game and dragged him down to the police station in nothing but a rubber suit. And then there was Joona Kirstilä, whom Ström had goaded into a fight. Ström had demanded Kirstilä be charged with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest, even though Kirstilä had received by far the worst of the exchange.

But Ström’s list of sins wasn’t that much worse than plenty of other cops. And there had also been other kinds of situations. Ström had jumped in an icy lake to save a woman who was trying to drown herself and saved her life. I told Agent Suurpää about that too, although he said it didn’t have any bearing on this situation.

“Now let’s move on to the particular incident in question. You and Officer Koivu were not in the room when the fight started, but you heard it from the hall?”

I related how we had run in to drag Ström off of Väätäinen.

“It’s my belief that Väätäinen provoked Lieutenant Ström into attacking him. Ström has been investigating Väätäinen’s crimes for years, but we’ve never been able to put him away,” I said. “First the wife didn’t want to press charges, and then Väätäinen was sent to mediation. It wasn’t any wonder Ström got frustrated.”

“It’s admirable that you’re trying to protect Lieutenant Ström, since you’re his boss, but you both know the law. There is no defense for using violence during interrogations. Väätäinen also referenced Lieutenant Ström’s own divorce, but that happened years ago. Why did that make Ström so furious?” Agent Suurpää asked.

“I haven’t spoken with Lieutenant Ström about that because he doesn’t like to talk about his private life, so I can only offer guesses. Ström’s ex-wife got remarried two weekends ago. Ström never wanted to get divorced and didn’t want to lose his children. Maybe that’s why it felt so incomprehensible for him that someone would repeatedly abuse his own family,” I said.

“You seem to understand your subordinate’s inner world very well. And it’s also clear you don’t want Lieutenant Ström to lose his job.”

“I didn’t think that was the topic of this conversation,” I snapped, since I wasn’t sure myself what I thought about that. On the one hand, getting rid of Ström would be a relief, but to my own astonishment I almost found myself missing his sullen face around the halls.

“At the time of this incident, Lieutenant Ström’s blood-alcohol level was 0.06,” Agent Suurpää said. “Lieutenant Kallio, did you notice that he had a problem with alcohol?”

This was a trap for Ström and for me. If I said I hadn’t noticed, I would look like a gullible idiot. If I said I had noticed, I could be considered irresponsible as his supervisor.

“I did. My intention was to bring the issue up with him at the earliest opportunity and direct Lieutenant Ström to treatment. I just didn’t have time. That will be my first order of business when Ström returns to work.”

“That would be good. Can you comment on how long his alcohol abuse has been going on?”

I shook my head, pointing to the fact that I’d been away from the department for the past year. Of course I remembered the empty vodka bottle I had found in Ström’s desk drawer just before I went on maternity leave, but he hadn’t necessarily emptied it during work.

“Lieutenant Ström filled in for you as unit commander while you were on maternity leave. Did it cause problems for him becoming your subordinate after that?”

I stared at Suurpää in confusion.

“I thought this investigation was just about whether to charge Ström for assault and battery.”

Suurpää interlocked his fingers and twiddled his thumbs.

“Ström doesn’t seem to have been very well liked in your unit. What if someone paid Väätäinen to provoke Ström into hitting him?”

Damn it, Ström, was that how you were trying to save your skin? Of course I asked whether Ström had suggested this theory himself and whether Väätäinen had confirmed it, and of course Suurpää declined to answer. In this situation, I wasn’t the one with the right to ask questions.

“I think that sounds more ridiculous than anything. I could imagine Väätäinen cooking up something like that in order to get his own sentence reduced, but I can’t imagine anyone in my unit teaming up with a scumbag like him,” I said firmly, although I couldn’t help but think of Puupponen. He really did hate Ström. But even Puupponen wouldn’t have plotted against Ström with someone like Väätäinen.

And I knew who everyone would think wanted most to get rid of Ström. Me. If Ström was trying to blame me for his own mistakes now, he could go to hell for all I cared. Once the interview was finished, I was so angry I marched out to the parking lot and kicked the tires of our car. Then I called Ström. I let the phone ring seven times and then hung up. Then I called again, letting it ring eight times. On the third attempt, Ström answered.

“Hi, it’s Maria. How’s it going?” I asked, controlling my anger.

“I was fucking sleeping,” replied Ström, sounding hungover. “What’s so goddamn important you had to call me?”

“I’m here at the NBI talking about what you’ve been up to. Who did you blame for paying off Väätäinen?”

I was happy Ström was miles away and couldn’t see the way my hand was shaking with rage, barely able to hold on to the phone.

“What the hell are you talking about? You mean someone paid him to do it?”

“You’re saying you didn’t know anything about it?”

“About what?” Ström’s voice was already sounding much clearer. “What do you mean?”

“Never mind. Forget about it. Apparently it’s just these G-Men screwing with me.”

I didn’t know who to believe anymore.

“So did you squeal on me? Tell them I’m a shithead always looking for a fight? Glad to get rid of me, right?” Ström’s voice had that familiar testiness to it, and in the background I heard the sound of a refrigerator opening and then a bottle cap coming off.

“I just told them what happened. I have enough work here without having to explain what was going on in your head to all these idiots! Hopefully they get this cleared up fast so you can get back to work.”

“Come off it, Maria. You know as well as I do I’m never coming back,” Ström said and hung up.

I tried to call again, but the line was busy. He had probably pulled the cord out of the wall. I walked to the nearby river and sat down on the grass. While I waited for Koivu, I had a chance to handle a few other phone calls.

This time I reached Kantelinen on the first try. He suggested meeting after five—apparently his schedule was booked solid for the rest of the week. I considered it momentarily but then said no. I wanted to see my family, and I was worried about Iida.

“What about tomorrow morning? I can come in early. How about seven thirty?” I suggested. Kantelinen complained, but then gave in after a little wheedling. Puustjärvi wasn’t particularly thrilled about meeting early, since it would mean he had to leave home before seven to make it in from the suburbs. I felt like a bitchy boss, and for some reason that was gratifying.

Was Suurpää asking Koivu his opinion about whether I could have bribed Väätäinen to push Ström’s buttons? That thought made me so mad I decided not to wait and just left a note on the car saying I had left and telling him about the early-morning meeting. Then I started walking to the nearby train station. The science museum south of the station shone in the sun like a space monster. Once I reached the platform, my phone rang again. The caller was Seija Saarela.

“You asked Mikke about Harri Immonen. Was his death not an accident after all?”

“That’s hard to say at the moment. Did you have something new to tell me about him?”

“Yes, but it’s a little hard to talk right now. I have to get these crystals polished by tomorrow morning.”

“Come down to the police station tomorrow, then.”

“That won’t work either. I promised to spend the whole day covering for a friend who runs a health-food shop, and it’s going to give me an opportunity to sell my own jewelry too.”

“Let’s see if one of my officers can make time to meet with you,” I said bitterly. Today felt like everything was merrily going to hell.

“But you’re the one I want to talk to. It’s about more than Harri. There’s Mikke too. Finding that boy who committed suicide was another terrible blow for him. Why did he kill himself?”

“That’s none of your business. I need to go now.”

The train was coming, so I hung up. To my misfortune I ended up in the same car as a pack of noisy, foul-mouthed teenage boys. At the point one of them started spitting on the floor, I almost intervened, but didn’t dare let myself. There was so much rage pent up inside me that I could easily lose it just like Ström. I didn’t want my career ending because I hit some punk kid over nothing.

Eventually I made it to the Helsinki train station. I felt like going for a beer, but my bad-mother complex hit me again. Of course I would take the first bus home to my injured child. There was enough time until the bus left, though, that I stopped by the state liquor store. I bought a fifth of anise vodka and mini bottle of whiskey, which I opened as soon as I hit the street and poured down my throat. The burning coursed through me, and by the time I climbed on the bus, I started to calm down. I changed buses once, a couple of blocks from Ström’s apartment. I wouldn’t have gone to visit even if I had the time. Not until I was walking down the dirt lane toward our house did I begin to fully relax. The fields were alternating brown and golden yellow, and a flock of sparrows was stripping a rowan tree of its berries. But the constant noise of drilling and blasting from the Ring II freeway construction site shattered the idyllic scene. Then there was an explosion and a cloud of dust spread over the field like a Mars storm in a science-fiction movie.

Iida toddled up to me in the front hall. Her injury didn’t seem to be slowing her down; though, with her eye patch, she looked like a pirate baby. Picking my daughter up, I kissed her little cheeks, which smelled of porridge.

“Let’s go rest for a little while. Mommy’s tired.”

“Iia owie,” was her response, pointing at her eyelid.

“What? Say that again,” I begged, because until now Iida had never said more than one word at a time, and even those were rare. But Iida never repeated her first sentence. She just snuggled deeper into my arms. I grabbed a banana from the kitchen, and Iida demanded half. Antti was perusing the latest issue of Finnish Nature in the living room and sat up to kiss me.

“You smell like whiskey,” he said in surprise.

“You caught me. No one can deal with the NBI sober. Let’s go snuggle with Iida.”

“I’m going out for a walk. And you remember that I’m going to that symphony concert tomorrow night, right?” Antti asked. I gave a vague grunt because of course I had forgotten the whole thing. I carried Iida upstairs and listened to her cooing and looked at her little fingers, which alternated between building Duplo towers and playing with my hair. Then she snuggled in next to me with her head against my breast as if she still wanted to nurse.

Nursing had been one of those few aspects of being a mother in which I had felt adequate. My milk had been plentiful, and my baby learned to eat within a couple of days. For me it was fascinating that my body was a source of nourishment and safety for my baby, a big, warm nest where she could doze off after filling her belly with the greatest food she knew. Iida had smiled for the first time at three months old one day after her lunch milk, and I could tell it wasn’t just an involuntary expression. The most enchanting thing about Iida was the sparkling joy in her eyes just after she woke up from a nap, when I picked her up still swaddled and sucking her pacifier. Thank God the corner of the piano hadn’t hit her an inch more to the center . . . I kissed Iida’s eyebrow, snuffling and growling until all both of us could do was laugh and kiss each other’s faces. I didn’t feel the need to open that bottle of anise vodka anymore.

13

When the alarm went off at six thirty, I joined everyone else in cursing my enthusiasm for an early meeting. The light of the moon, one day short of full, cast shadows across the dark, frosted fields. The mercury said twenty-eight degrees. Hopefully our elderly Fiat would cooperate. I hadn’t plugged in the block heater the night before.

After putting on the coffee and Iida’s morning porridge, I padded out to the mailbox to get the paper. The cold stung my face, opening my swollen eyes. The forest smelled of decomposition, as if its potent aroma it was trying to protest the fall and death. The alder leaves collected around the mailbox were dark gray, and the frost had decked them in strings of pearls.

My Fiat started after a little coaxing, but the steering wheel was so cold I couldn’t hold it without gloves. Almost immediately I got stuck in traffic and attempted irritably to find a radio station that wasn’t playing artificially perky music. Fortunately someone else was feeling cantankerous too and one of the stations was playing Apocalyptica. The hysterical cellos on their rendition of Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” almost put me in a good mood.

Puustjärvi and Koivu sat in the conference room, talking about the previous night’s hockey matches and drinking coffee.

“Why’d you disappear yesterday?” Koivu asked when he saw me.

“I was in such a bad mood I didn’t feel like waiting around. Did they keep you long?”

“Forty-five minutes. Some of their questions were really strange, though. Like they asked me if you had any reason to get rid of Ström. They were trying to make it sound like you bribed Väätäinen to get Ström to hit him. I told them you were such a raging feminist there was no way you would ever work with a wife beater like that.”

I gave a feeble smirk. I didn’t quite understand what was going on. If Ström hadn’t suggested the bribery theory to Agent Suurpää, then who did? And who were they trying to get rid of, Ström or me?

Kantelinen came three minutes late. First he gave us a brief overview of the Merivaara Nautical finances, which were unremarkable. The company had survived the last recession without damage, and exports had been picking up, especially over the last fiscal year. Apparently the combination of a tradition-rich family company and a modern eco-friendly approach was appealing to customers. Their accounting was impeccable and their investments sound. In addition to improving the company’s image, purchasing Rödskär Island had been a clever tax trick. The only odd thing about the otherwise flawless financial picture was the shareholding company Mare Nostrum. The company’s papers didn’t have any information about it, other than that odd post-office box on Guernsey Island.

“Does that point to tax evasion?” Puustjärvi asked.

“It could be that or something else,” Kantelinen replied. “The company hasn’t paid much in dividends for the past several years, so this twelve percent stake wouldn’t have meant much. Maybe a million marks total. Is that really enough to make it worth getting into some risky scam? If this were tax evasion, then we’d expect to see that the same people are behind Mare Nostrum and Merivaara Nautical. I don’t understand why that would be the case, though.”

“So what is it, then?” I asked impatiently.

“Mare Nostrum bought its stock in Merivaara Nautical at the bottom of the recession, right when the company started rebranding. What it looks like is that they mostly used the money from this stock sale as startup funds for the eco-paint operation. That’s why both companies having the same ownership doesn’t make sense from the tax-evasion standpoint. Real money changed hands.”

“The members of the board have to know who owns stock in the company, don’t they?” Puustjärvi asked. “Why are we sitting here guessing when we can just ask them? Why not ask Anne Merivaara?”

“I can take a trip to Guernsey to check on that mysterious PO box,” Koivu suggested hopefully.

“Yeah, because that would be much more efficient than sending an e-mail! We’ll contact our colleagues there, but first let’s do like Puustjärvi said and ask Anne Merivaara and Halonen. That was the CFO’s name, right? Puustjärvi, you track down Marcus Enckell. Koivu and I will head over to the corporate offices after the morning meeting.”

“Do you really think this Mare whatever-it-was stock thing is going to mean something?” Puustjärvi asked.

“It could. Juha Merivaara was a little too slick for my tastes, and so far we haven’t found any motive for his killing other than some petty family feuds. Mare Nostrum—isn’t that what the ancient Romans called the Mediterranean? What could that mean?”

Koivu snorted. “Latin wasn’t in the curriculum at my school.”

Kantelinen started collecting his papers, and we arranged that he would contact Scotland Yard’s white-collar crime unit, where he already had contacts. The chances of getting anything on the Guernsey post-office box through them weren’t great, but we had to try everything.

“That Enckell guy is pretty old, by the way,” Kantelinen said with his hand on the doorknob. “He was born in 1918. And I won’t be available the rest of the week. I’m in court today, then I’m taking comp days the rest of the week. Should I have Scotland Yard contact you directly?”

I nodded and left for my office. For once I would have time to prepare properly for the morning meeting. Everyone else’s cases were progressing nicely. Wang had interviewed the missing mushroomer’s coworkers and learned that over the past few weeks, a handsome young Estonian man named Toomas had been dropping by the office regularly.

“So what you’re saying is that this lady really went out looking for Estonian puffballs,” Puupponen said between sniffles.

Wang blushed but maintained her composure. “We haven’t found her passport. According to her husband she always carried it in her purse, which is also missing. Should I pull the Tallinn ferry passenger manifests?”

“Absolutely. What about her clothing? A woman isn’t going to leave for a weekend with her lover in her mushrooming gear,” I said.

“What if it’s one of those weekends where you don’t need any clothes . . .”

“Shut up, Puupponen,” I said like a mother to a three-year-old who won’t be quiet. “Wang, look into this Toomas character too. Check with the Estonians to see if they’ve found any unidentified female bodies.”

Taskinen burst in just as we were wrapping up.

“Good news, Maria. Väätäinen is being charged with aggravated assault. We’re finally going to nail him.”

“Yippee,” I said unenthusiastically. “Was it Väätäinen who started this bribery rumor?”

When Taskinen looked confused, I told him what the NBI agents had asked me and Koivu. He listened silently, but I could see his lips narrowing.

“Let’s go to your office,” he said.

“Koivu, be ready in fifteen minutes! We’ll take my car,” I said and then marched after Taskinen to my office, which strangely transformed from my domain to his as soon as he walked in. I almost sat down on the sofa instead of in my chair behind the desk, but Taskinen chose his place first.

“If Ström cooked up this bribery thing, he could also be charged with perjury!” he said.

“I got the impression they were just vague rumors, not anything directed at a specific individual. Ström denies knowing anything about it.”

“You asked him? Of course he would deny it. Don’t be so gullible, Maria. Ström is never going to get over you stealing this job from him. He knows his career in this department is over, and he wants to try to pull you down with him.”

“Are you suggesting he bribed Väätäinen to accuse me of bribery? I don’t see it. Ström really hates that guy. He’d never do a deal with him.”

Whereas a lot of career cops became friendly with criminals to learn to think the way they did, Ström had always worked hard to separate us from them, cops from crooks. It troubled him that criminals these days weren’t playing on the same chessboard as the police and seemed to be able to turn the rules to their own advantage.

“Maybe Agent Suurpää just wanted to see how we would react. Apparently someone they interviewed made it clear Ström’s exit would only be a good thing for the department,” I said in a tone that made Taskinen glance at me in confusion.

“Are you saying you don’t want him to go?”

“I don’t know!” I said in disgust. “Excuse me, but I have to check a few things before we leave for Merivaara Nautical.”

Taskinen stood up, looking hurt. When the door closed behind him, I thought that the world was turning awfully strange. I had just had an argument about Pertti Ström with a boss I loved and respected and who had always supported me. Ström had claimed that I was promoted because Taskinen and I had a romantic relationship, which wasn’t true. Sometimes I wondered whether Taskinen would have had anything against it, though, and I had to admit there had been times when I had considered it.

Koivu had confirmed that Halonen and Anne Merivaara were at work. Koivu could interview Halonen, and I would try to get Anne to open up with some girl talk. Once again I wondered at her ability to work, even though her husband had been killed and her son was being charged with arson.

At the Merivaara offices, the receptionist downstairs asked Koivu to wait. The chief financial officer would be with him in a moment. Juha Merivaara’s assistant, Paula Saarnio, came to escort me upstairs. A fax machine was humming away in the corner of her office, but she didn’t even glance at what it was printing. Anne Merivaara had moved into the CEO’s office and was currently speaking German on the phone.

“Ja. Sehr gut. Vielen Dank, Herr Doktor Schubert. Auf Wiederhören!” Anne smiled faintly as she hung up and then stood to shake my hand. Her thin, pale skin shone, pulled tight over cheeks and temple bones. Makeup couldn’t conceal the dark circles and bags under her eyes.

“Paula, please book a room for two people under Dr. Schubert’s name for the nights before and after Juha’s funeral. Preferably at the Tapiola Garden. Please hold my calls and bring us some tea. Would you like anything to eat, Lieutenant?”

“No, thanks.”

“How is the investigation proceeding?”

“We’re making constant progress,” I lied without hesitation. Anne nodded and said that was a relief. She spoke in measured tones, but it felt as if she were a glass balanced on the edge of a table, poised to fall at any instant and shatter on the tile floor. Still, I didn’t bother with small talk. I just sat down and got to the point.

“I want more information about your company shareholders, especially Mare Nostrum. Who owns it?”

Anne’s eyes wandered the room for a few seconds. Since my last visit they had indeed hung a picture of Juha Merivaara next to his father and grandfather. There wasn’t a plaque with his name and dates under the black-and-white portrait yet, though. In the picture Juha wore a skipper’s cap and stared into the distance with his chin thrust forward. His stance made me think of Jiri.

“Isn’t that in the financial documents? That sergeant took all of them.”

“No, strangely enough. The company’s address is just a post-office box on a known tax-haven island. But as a shareholder and member of the company board, you should be able to tell me who owns Mare Nostrum.”

“It’s a Lithuanian company . . . I imagine they moved their registry abroad because conditions have been so unstable at home.”

“Mare Nostrum purchased its holdings in Merivaara Nautical in the spring of 1991. That was before Lithuania gained its independence,” I said coldly. “I doubt corporate acquisitions like this were very common with the Soviets. What’s going on here?”

Anne’s face looked even more harried, with wrinkles lining her forehead and circling her eyes.

“I guess it was a Finnish company originally but then got sold to some Lithuanians. Things were hard back then. Juha didn’t have the money to buy Mikke’s shares, but he also didn’t want to share the company with anyone outside the family. We couldn’t convince the Enckells to invest. Juha met the Mare Nostrum people on his sailing trips to Gotland. I wasn’t with him.”

“How is it possible that the stock contract isn’t with the other company papers?”

“I imagine they’re at the bank in a safe-deposit box. Ask Halonen. He’ll know!” Anne’s serenity began to crumble, and she was visibly relieved when Paula Saarnio came in with the tea tray. This time the tea smelled like chamomile.

“As a major shareholder and member of the board, you should know who is behind Mare Nostrum too. Or didn’t Juha tell you?”

Anne cradled her teacup in both hands as if to warm them.

“Our board meetings were never very momentous. Heikki, I mean our CFO Heikki Halonen, did exactly what Juha told him, and Marcus Enckell only participates out of some sort of loyalty to Juha because he didn’t have the money to buy those shares and help his cousin’s son when he needed it. For the past few years I’ve been handing our public image, not the finances.”

“Are you trying to say that you really don’t know who owns Mare Nostrum? That you weren’t even interested?”

A shadow fell over Anne’s eyes, but she still lifted her gaze to meet mine when she said yes.

“The recession was hard for us. Maybe I was having some sort of midlife crisis. I started thinking about what I really wanted to do with the rest of my life. Whether I really wanted to spend it smelling paint fumes and smoothing over Juha’s collisions with the world, or whether I might have other options. I tried a lot of things to find myself. I read self-help books. I started meditating. Around the same time Riikka started getting interested in environmentalism and vegetarianism. I also thought a lot about whether I wanted to keep living with Juha or whether I needed to leave. I decided to stay, and that included the decision to ignore certain things, like parties at brothels for business associates.”

Anne’s voice was quiet and cold, but I had a hard time believing her. Had she really been able not to care at all who owned stock in her family’s company? Or maybe she was just in the same kind of denial you saw with the parents of teenagers mixed up with drugs: if you don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.

Why not? Maybe I was guilty of the same thing with Ström’s alcoholism.

“So Marcus Enckell is just as in the dark as you are?” I asked, realizing that Puustjärvi was probably wasting his time interviewing the old man.

“Marcus has been suffering from Alzheimer’s for the past two years. I doubt he’ll even be able to come to Juha’s funeral.”

Enckell wasn’t even necessarily legally competent. Anne claimed that the CFO would know exactly what was going on, though. He had been Juha Merivaara’s right-hand man.

“I’ve been planning to ask Halonen to step in as acting CEO after Juha’s funeral. I don’t have the energy to run this company myself. We’ll have to negotiate with the children. I would prefer to keep Rödskär but sell all the rest.”

“Rödskär Island is the property of Merivaara Nautical, so Mare Nostrum owns twelve percent of it too. Isn’t it about time to dig up these other shareholders?” I stood up to leave and join Koivu in his conversation with Halonen, but Anne grabbed my wrist.

“I don’t want you to think I’m a complete idiot. But Juha was . . .” Anne squeezed my wrist as if to ask me to sit back down. I was surprised how much strength there was in her grip. She didn’t let go until I was sitting again.

“Living with Juha was easiest when I just overlooked some things. He was terribly stubborn. There was always only one right way to do things. His way. And Jiri is the same as all the other Merivaara men,” Anne said, motioning to the portraits hanging on the wall. “He’s just like his father and his grandfather, even though he doesn’t want to admit it. Katrina couldn’t stand Martti’s high-handedness, which was why she left him. Sometimes we’ve wondered if Juha’s mother Fredrika fell ill because she lost so much of her own free will in her marriage. Juha grew up to be just like his father and expected me to be a substitute for his mother and someone he could control. When the children were small, he called me ‘mom’ a lot and didn’t understand why I didn’t like it. He didn’t stop until Jiri was six and one day he said, ‘She’s our mom, not yours.’”

“So you trusted Juha so much that you let him run the company however he wanted.”

“In business matters, yes, I trusted him. What are you getting at? Is there something wrong with Mare Nostrum?”

“Concealing the names of the owners definitely points that way. Anne, if you know something, you have to tell me now.”

“I don’t know anything but what I’ve told you!” Anne’s voice went up at least half an octave. “Juha is dead and I’m trying to keep this company running so we can fill our existing orders! Jiri has turned into some kind of terrorist, and Riikka has suddenly decided she doesn’t want to see Tapio anymore.”

“What?” I remembered Riikka saying yesterday that she wanted to be alone. “Are they having a fight?”

“I don’t know what happened. Riikka is so extreme. Maybe she’s mad at Tapio because he hit Juha. Riikka is still a child in many ways, though, so it’s probably good if she and Tapio part ways. But I can’t handle her troubles in addition to everything else.”

Anne poured herself more chamomile tea and threw back a shot as I had with my whiskey the day before. The effects were the same too, since Anne seemed to relax and her voice returned to normal.

“I’ve had a hard time accepting that Juha was murdered, but I’m slowly starting to wrap my head around it. There was something destructive about him, and Jiri has the same disease. I don’t intend to defend Jiri anymore. I can’t approve of endangering people’s lives. Better that he learn his lesson now before . . .”

Anne sipped some more tea as if to prevent words from escaping her mouth. Before he really kills someone. But Anne feared Jiri had already done that.

“What about Mikke Sjöberg? Is he just as stubborn as his father and brother?” I asked, as if in passing.

“Mikke is a Sjöberg, more Katrina’s son than Martti’s. Maybe he’s found the negative Merivaara traits in himself, the selfishness and stubbornness, and that’s why he spends half the year living as a hermit on his boat. I don’t know Mikke. He doesn’t let anyone get close to him.”

This time when I stood up, Anne didn’t try to stop me. As I left, Paula Saarnio entered.

“This message just came from the funeral home with prices on the casket and flowers. Do you have time to look it over?”

Anne nodded, and I left to look for the CFO’s office. Once in the hall, I realized I should call Puustjärvi, who was currently sitting with Markus Enckell at his private nursing home. His report confirmed what I already knew: the old man didn’t remember anything from the past few years. Apparently he had given an enthusiastic account of Martti Merivaara’s wedding to his cousin Fredrika, though.

“Come over here with us. We’re going to put this Halonen guy through the wringer.”

Heikki Halonen was a few years shy of thirty, one of those up-and-coming yuppies who had crammed into the business schools before the recession in hopes of a glamorous career and easy money. While they were in school, the world collapsed just as precipitously as the value of the stocks they bought with their high school graduation-present money. The tailoring and the wool of Heikki Halonen’s suit weren’t quite as good as they should have been to match the image of a hotshot young businessman, but his dark-blond hair was cut skillfully to cover his incipient baldness and his physique was trimmer than the company’s late CEO’s had been.

Halonen had a hard time admitting that he didn’t know anything more about Mare Nostrum than that it was a foreign company with an address in the Channel Islands. The stock sale had taken place a couple of years before he joined the company, and Juha Merivaara had never accepted any questions about it, even from his chief financial officer. This hadn’t bothered Halonen much, since the shareholders never showed up to disturb their general meetings and never demanded anything.

“According to Juha, the records of the sale are in our safe-deposit box. They should tell you whoever signed on behalf of Mare Nostrum,” Halonen said as he loosened his tie. He knew he was in hot water. “Anne probably has the keys.”

“OK, enough,” I said. “Koivu, take Mr. Halonen and Puustjärvi and get those keys. Then round up someone from White Collar who has contacts with Scotland Yard. We can’t wait around for Kantelinen to decide to grace us with his presence again. Go find that safe-deposit box and then let me know when you find something.”

With that I headed back to work, but I was increasingly uneasy. I felt like I was trying to catch a fish barehanded in moving water. Back at my office, I absentmindedly looked up the report on Juha Merivaara’s boating accident six years earlier. The name Aaro Koponen didn’t mean anything to me, and he didn’t have a criminal record. I moved over to the population register and searched for his personal information. Koponen, Aaro Juhani, born June 15, 1947. Divorced 1989, son Ari Juhani, born April 23, 1972.

Could Ari Juhani Koponen have held a grudge against Juha Merivaara? According to these records, he lived in Turku.

Then my eyes noticed the name of Koponen’s ex-wife: Saarela, Elvi Seija Johanna.

The name Elvi threw me off for a second, but when I looked at the woman’s social-security number, I knew I was on to something. Seija Saarela had been married to the man who died in the accident, Aaro Koponen.

Seija Saarela had said she would be working at the health-food shop at the Flagship Center mall. Driving down the corkscrew ramp into the mall parking structure, I felt as if I were on an amusement-park ride. The Flagship Center was actually a bit like a giant amusement park with its restaurants, gambling machines, and children’s play areas, although here the fun was emptying your wallet, not getting sick on rides. The rain showers pelting southern Espoo meant the mall was filled with teenagers hanging out and elderly people trading gossip. The health-food store was located on the second floor next to a sporting-goods shop. I actually needed some new running shoes. I glanced at the new fall models, but I didn’t stop to try any on, even though the specialized top-of-the-line air-shock runners did look tempting. Would Antti buy them for me to celebrate our three-year anniversary?

The Age of Aquarius health-food store sold everything from nutritional supplements to organic vegetables, baking goods, and cosmetics. On one wall was a case with books on various esoteric subjects including astrology, tarot reading, and meditation. A woman of about forty was flipping through a thick volume about finding the meaning of life through numerology. Seija Saarela’s jewelry was on display next to a table with a bowl of large, nicely arranged semiprecious stones. I recognized rose quartz, amethyst, and normal quartz.

“Hello, Lieutenant,” Seija said, looking up from a silver earring she was decorating with tiny pieces of turquoise.

“Can you talk?” I asked, nodding at the customer.

“I don’t have any secrets,” Seija said brightly. Did she really think the police wouldn’t discover her connection to Juha Merivaara? I walked closer to the table. The gemstones glittered in the light like a storybook pirate treasure. On one corner of the table was a chest two feet long full of little rocks. They cost ten marks a piece. I couldn’t resist the temptation, so I plunged my hand into them.

“Just pick one at random and let’s see what your hand chooses for you,” Seija said.

I pulled my hand out. I didn’t want to play games.

“You had something to tell me about Harri Immonen.”

Seija’s short stubby fingers attached a wire to the earring and then bent it into a hook with a tiny pair of pliers.

“From the very beginning I thought it was strange that Harri died. I didn’t believe he killed himself like Juha always implied, and the police decided it was an accident. I was sure that the island had a negative energy from all the bloody battles there, and of course the restless spirits of the dead would wander.”

“Does this have something to do with Harri?” I asked. People who believed in supernatural phenomena put me on edge. If things like that did exist, I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

“Yes, or really more with all the dead ducks and clams.”

“What dead clams?”

“Harri died in early October. It was probably the middle of September when Mikke dropped me off on Rödskär. He wanted to test out the Leanda’s new rudder alone. The weather was supposed to be fantastic, and I knew that the Merivaaras wouldn’t be going to the island in the middle of the week. It didn’t occur to me that Harri would be there, but we didn’t bother each other. We just went about our own business. On the second evening we were sitting having tea. Suddenly I jumped when I saw a dead duck in the corner of the kitchen. I scolded Harri for bringing it inside. It could have been diseased, for all we knew.”

The woman who had been browsing the numerology book came over to Seija and said it seemed terribly interesting.

“That comes to two hundred and thirty-two marks,” Seija said, and the woman counted out two hundred and fifty without batting an eyelash.

“Pretty expensive,” I said after the woman left the store.

“Definitely. People are willing to pay almost anything to find inner peace, or a savior, or whatever. I don’t believe in numerology, but I imagine it works for some people. Crystals work better on me, so that’s what I use to heal myself. What would work on you? What’s your sign?”

“Why did Harri bring that dead duck inside?” I asked, interrupting.

“Because he thought there were too many of them around Rödskär, both ducks and clams, which was the ducks’ local nutrition source. He was going to take the body to the mainland for testing.”

“Why? Did he suspect the animals were dying from poisoning?”

“He didn’t tell me, as if he didn’t trust me. I forgot about the whole thing, since I never heard about it again. I only remembered when Mikke said you suspected Harri’s death might have been a murder too.”

Just then a gaggle of teenage girls flooded into the shop, coming to admire the crystals and test the natural cosmetics. This felt like a good opportunity to change the subject.

“Have you always used the name Seija, or did you used to go by Elvi? Elvi Koponen?”

Seija set down the pliers as if they had suddenly grown hot.

“What do you mean? I’ve never used the name Elvi. I’ve hated it ever since I was a little girl.”

“Why didn’t you tell us your ex-husband died in a boating accident Juha Merivaara was also involved in?”

“There wasn’t any reason to tell you.” Seija picked up the pliers again and started wrapping wire around an amethyst. “Aaro and I had already been living apart for five years before the accident. My ex-husband had serious problems with alcohol. The accident wasn’t Juha’s fault.”

“Juha was drunk at the time of the accident too.”

“His blood-alcohol level didn’t exceed the limit at the time for boating. Maybe he would have been able to move in time if he had been sober, maybe not. Maybe Aaro steered in front of Juha on purpose. None of that ever mattered to me. Aaro was my son’s father, but otherwise he was a complete stranger.”

Angrily Seija grabbed another amethyst and continued her work. One of the girls came to buy some arnica lip balm. I considered whether I should take Seija down to the station immediately, but I didn’t have any real evidence against her.

“Are you claiming that your friendship with the Merivaara family was just a coincidence?” I asked once the lip-balm purchase was complete.

“Is there such a thing as coincidence? Maybe it was meant to be.”

“So you’re saying you didn’t know Mikke was Juha Merivaara’s brother when you met him?”

“Half brother. No, I didn’t. And by the time I found out, we were such good friends it didn’t matter.”

“Do Mikke and Anne know about your ex-husband’s accident?”

“Mikke does, but I’ve never told Anne. She was miserable enough about all the things Juha had done.”

The girls now made their way over to the chest of rocks, so for a moment I moved behind the shelf.

“This amazonite is totally fab. I’ve gotta have it,” one of the girls said, and the others started picking out rocks too. There was no way to talk to Seija because more customers kept coming into the store. I told Seija that I wanted an official statement, and that someone from our unit would set up a time for an interview early the next week.

On a whim I asked Seija to find me an amazonite too. I remarked on the name, but Seija said it didn’t actually have anything to do with Amazons. Apparently a long time ago someone had confused this mineral with nephrite, which was found near the Amazon River. Even if the rock didn’t have anything to do with warrior women, I still liked the feel of it in my hand as I walked down the stairs. Somehow it was cool and warm at the same time. When I put it in my jacket pocket, I noticed that there was another rock already there: the piece of red granite with stripes of quartz I had picked up one day on Rödskär. Next to the smoothness of the amazonite, the granite was rough and dull. The quartz parts felt warmer.

For lunch I bought a double-scoop cone of Mövenpick Swiss chocolate ice cream, which probably had at least as many calories as the dietary recommendations for a full meal. After finishing it, I headed back to the station, where my brain kept getting stuck on Seija Saarela and dead ducks.

I could only think of one solution: time crunch or not, I was going to take the hour in the gym our labor contract allowed. That was sure to clear my head. I put on the yoga pants and tank top I had stashed in the closet. I also had an old pair of running shoes for just such emergencies. Once I pulled my hair back in a ponytail, I headed to the basement for some self-flagellation. The one concession I made was that I left my cell phone on. Koivu and Puustjärvi might be calling any minute with the word on the owners of Mare Nostrum. Could the company have connections to Animal Revolution? And what if Juha Merivaara had been funding the movement’s activities through a shell company? Or what if Juha Merivaara hadn’t known that the people behind Mare Nostrum were the same ones funding Animal Revolution?

I spent fifteen minutes on a stationary bike and then moved on to boxing. Smack, smack, smack—I imagined the punching bag was Ari Väätäinen. Ström was usually the target of my pummeling, but my husband had also taken a few hits. Boxing made me want music; some early Eppu Normaali or Dead Kennedys would have fit the bill nicely. But I had to satisfy myself with bloodthirsty growls as I threw punch after punch. The group of patrol officers practicing throws on the tatami mats cast odd glances my way. Next I spent some time working on my legs and abs, which still hadn’t recovered fully since my pregnancy.

After sweating for an hour, I was ready to return to the grind. I grabbed Harri’s file first thing. I didn’t have time to open it, though, before my desk phone rang. It was Wang, who told me that our mushroomer had been seen with her presumed lover, Toomas, in downtown Pärnu, a vacation town in Estonia, on Monday afternoon. The Estonian police would continue their search.

“Should I go tell the husband?”

“I’m sure he’ll be overjoyed to hear than instead of being eaten by wolves in the woods, his wife is just on a little spa vacation. Do we know anything about this Toomas character? Is she in any danger?”

“He doesn’t have a criminal record with us, but he spent six months in jail for aggravated fraud at home.”

“Light a fire under the Estonians. Our mushrooming economist may have made some mistakes in her calculations about Toomas’s intentions.”

“Why are smart women always falling for players?” Wang asked, and I couldn’t help myself.

“Well, Koivu isn’t a player. If anything he’s usually the one who gets played. Hopefully that won’t happen again, though.”

When Wang slammed the phone down in my ear, I realized how idiotic it had been to say that. Koivu’s lady troubles weren’t any of my business unless he asked for my advice. Until then I needed to keep my big-sister instincts in check. And what reason did I have to poke at Anu Wang?

I opened Harri’s file. Spreading out the pictures of his body, I read the pathologist’s report again. Nothing indicated that Harri’s death had been anything but an accident. But it still could have been murder: pushing someone off a cliff didn’t always leave any evidence. But how could I ever prove that a year after the fact?

I read through the list of Harri’s belongings found on the island. Telescope, binoculars, camera, laptop computer. Sleeping bag, two sweaters, long underwear, wool socks . . . wait.

A computer. An Olivetti laptop. Where had I seen one of those? Italian computers weren’t exactly common.

On Mikke Sjöberg’s boat.

Of course that could just be a coincidence, but I had wondered what Mikke was doing with a computer at all on a boat with almost no electricity. I would have to find out what happened to Harri’s computer. Koivu said he hadn’t searched all the files because Harri’s death had been determined an accident. But what if there had been something else on the hard drive that might reveal Harri’s murderer?

I turned to the personal-data form in the file for Harri’s parents’ phone number. If I introduced myself as Lieutenant Kallio, maybe they wouldn’t connect me with the Maria their son had dated for a few months during that first year I was in law school. That was ten years ago, and we had only met once. Harri’s parents were unlikely to remember.

My anxiety was pointless, though, because no one answered. Koivu could go visit them when he had time, since they already knew him. But what if we did find the computer? In all likelihood the hard drive had been reformatted, and why would they have kept any of Harri’s backups?

I was just heading down to the cafeteria for some lunch when my cell phone rang.

“Hey, it’s Koivu.” From his eager greeting I could tell he had discovered something. “We found the info on Mare Nostrum in the safe-deposit box. The company is registered in St. Peter Port on Guernsey, and in Vilnius, Lithuania. There are three shareholders, but two of them only hold five percent each. The minority shareholders are Lithuanian citizens, Vitalis Ramanauskas and Imants Peders. The principal shareholder’s name might ring a bell though: Juha Merivaara.”

14

When I got home from work I was in a better mood than I had been in a long time. I had asked the Lithuanian police to track down Ramanauskas and Peders. At the coffee machine, Puupponen and I had a good laugh about how cosmopolitan our unit was, doing business with Estonia, Lithuania, and Scotland Yard all in the same day.

I was looking forward to a quiet night at home with Iida while Antti went to the symphony. Koivu had promised to contact Harri’s parents about the computer. Seija Saarela was coming in on Friday to talk to Koivu, and I had asked him to mention Mikke Sjöberg’s Olivetti to her too.

When I got home, Antti and Iida were having a snack. Iida insisted on eating her blueberry porridge by herself. At least half of it was on her bib or the floor. The bandage on her eyebrow was stained, and her mouth was all blue, like a clown who had accidentally used the wrong color of makeup. I kissed my daughter on the forehead and my husband on the mouth, and Einstein head-butted my shins in hopes I would feed him. Instead I made myself a sandwich.

“The math department called and asked whether I intended to apply for another assistantship.”

Antti’s five-year appointment was ending in January.

“When does the application period end?” I asked, my mouth full of cucumber.

“Today. The department secretary called thinking my application must have got lost in the mail.”

“So you aren’t going to ask for an extension?”

I had always left Antti’s career plans up to him. They weren’t for me to decide. Antti had defended his dissertation three years ago, but his career at the university had stalled with this assistantship, and Antti lacked the sharp elbows and knack for stepping on other people that he needed to get ahead. He was completely disgusted with the university scene, where publishing had become more important than the pure pursuit of knowledge.

“I still have a couple of grants, as you know. And I’m happy to keep watching Iida through the spring. But after that . . . maybe I’ll find some other math gig.”

“You’re going to become an insurance actuary? Or put on a suit and work in a bank? I have to say I’m having a hard time picturing it.”

Antti was just like me, most comfortable in jeans and a sweater. His straight black hair reached just to his shoulders, the perfect length for a ponytail. His narrow face, aquiline nose, and large mouth gave the impression the Sarkela family might have picked up some Indian blood somehow.

“I was thinking of something a little different. What if the Nature League or Greenpeace had some use for my math skills, or maybe the Marine Research Institute? I met a guy named Samuel Juntunen who was talking about an EU-funded Baltic Sea research project starting next summer than would need some mathematicians.”

“Category theorists?” Antti’s subfield was the least practical possible.

“I’d have time over the winter to brush up on my basics again.”

“So you’re going to become a professional do-gooder,” I said with a smirk, although I had always liked my husband’s serious approach to the world and life in general. Sometimes it could get a little extreme, and occasionally Antti would slip into a melancholy funk. I could usually drag him back out, though.

“I can’t just stand on the sidelines for my whole life watching the world go to hell. If I can find some way to combine my unique skill set with what you call ‘do-gooding,’ then why not? You aren’t one for just letting things slide either.” Antti walked over and wrapped his arms around me. Immediately Iida demanded to be part of the hug, and we ended up in a hot-dog hug with Antii and me as the two sides of the bun. Instead of mustard, we were all covered in blueberries and porridge.

“Do you think of policing as do-gooder work?” I asked when we finally let go of each other.

“I don’t mean that, just that you take your work seriously too.”

“For some strange reason I think of it as a pretty shitty job, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” I said. “So if you go back to work, we’ll have to find a day care for Iida. Or are we bad parents if we don’t want to take care of her ourselves?”

My conscience stabbed me like a knife every time I read letters to the editor condemning working mothers, even though I knew it wouldn’t help anyone for me to dote over Iida at home until she started school, completely ignoring my own needs. When I brought this up with my sister Eeva, she always asked me why I wanted a baby anyway. Eeva was an English teacher but had decided to be home with her children until her third started school next year.

Iida’s face turned red and she started grunting. I recognized the signs and headed off to change her diaper. She got away from me, though, and started tottering around the living room giggling. Chasing Little Stinky around the room turned into a game, with her hiding first behind the couch and then the armchair, tittering happily as I pretended not to be able to find her. As a result of the game, she had poop down both legs by the time I finally dragged her upstairs to the bathroom. Her happy kicking just spread it around more. The phone rang, and Antti appeared at the bathroom door looking irritated.

“Phone’s for you. Something about work. It’s Lähde.”

“I’m off tonight and my hands are covered in poop!”

“He says it’s important. He seemed pretty upset.”

“Oh shit,” I said, from the bottom of my heart. “You take over here so Iida doesn’t fall off the changing table.”

After washing my hands, I ran to the phone. Lähde, who was the on-call officer that night, sounded apologetic and frightened.

“Maria, we have an emergency. Ström just called me here. He was drunk and asked me to tape his call. When I said I had the recorder on, he said he was going to shoot himself after he hung up, and that he was only calling so he wouldn’t cause us any extra work.”

An emptiness washed over me, and part of my brain refused to understand.

“Was he serious?”

“I think so. He wouldn’t listen to anything I said and just slammed the phone down. When I tried to call back, he wouldn’t answer.”

“Was he calling from his apartment?”

“Yes, that’s what the caller ID said. I already sent two patrol cars that way.”

“Good. I’m on my way. Stay by the phone. I’ll call as soon as I know the situation.”

I didn’t bother running back upstairs. I just yelled to Antti that I had to go. Pulling on my shoes and leather jacket, I grabbed my wallet and phone. Not until I tried to turn the car key in the ignition did I realize how badly my hands were shaking. What the hell was Ström doing? When I pulled out onto the street, I floored it, even though I was being a danger to myself and to others. Why didn’t I have my goddamn police car so I could turn on the lights and siren! At an intersection, I almost ran into a garbage truck. The driver honked and shook his fist at me, but I didn’t have time to hang around to explain my reckless driving. I tried to comfort myself by telling myself that Ström had been forced to turn in his gun while he was on leave, but that didn’t help for long. I remembered that he also had a permit for a .38-caliber Beretta.

Ström lived on a quiet side street in a studio apartment in a red brick high-rise, where he had moved after his divorce. I had been to the door a couple of times, but he had never asked me in. In the courtyard there were two police cars, and Senior Officer Liisa Rasilainen first rushed to wave me off, but when she realized it was me, her expression changed.

“Maria! I’m glad you’re here. We just got here a minute ago. According to the neighbors they heard a shot from Ström’s apartment three minutes ago, and one of them had already called it in.”

I nodded. There wasn’t much to say. Neighbors had started gathering in the yard and peering out from their windows. Liisa stayed to keep order, but the other officers were already on the third floor. I ran up the stairs. Even though my legs felt light, they were crumbling beneath me.

The door to the next apartment was open, and an officer in field overalls was trying to calm a gray-haired man who was understandably agitated after hearing a gunshot. The other patrol officers greeted me with relief because I had come to take charge.

“We’ve tried the doorbell and the megaphone. No one answered, but the super is on his way,” Junior Officer Haikala said.

“Are you sure the shot came from here?”

“That’s what the neighbors said.”

“Give me the megaphone.” Almost ripping it out of Haikala’s hands, I lifted it to my mouth with anxious hands.

“Pertti! It’s me, Maria. Don’t do anything stupid. Your children need you! And we need you at the station . . .”

My words echoed into nothing, and there was no reply. I opened the mail slot, but all I could see was a pile of junk mail and a corner of shabby gray rug. I tried hopelessly to get my arm through and open the door. The smell of gunpowder from inside was all too familiar.

“Have you tried the balcony?” I asked one of the officers, surprised that my voice wasn’t trembling more. An ambulance siren approached.

“That’s hard. Ström’s apartment is on the corner. And shooting the lock is no good. Too risky.”

“What’s the apartment layout?”

“The super will know, but the downstairs neighbor let us in and he said they’re all the same. Bathroom off the hall, kitchen on the left, and main room on the right.”

“Do you have a screwdriver? We can try to pry the lock off. And what’s the risk of shooting it if you aim right? If you don’t dare, give me your gun.”

I wanted into that apartment soon. Maybe Ström was only injured. Maybe we could still save him. Every second might be important.

“The super will be here in a few seconds. The management company is almost next door. And we can’t start shooting. You know Ström. If he’s drunk and starts taking pot shots for fun, he might hit us too.”

“I don’t think he’s doing this for fun. At least get me a screwdriver!”

The sound of feet trudging came from the stairway and the super arrived with his master key to unlock the door. He didn’t say a word. Ström had always mocked people’s stupidity for not protecting their belongings, but he didn’t even have a chain on his door and the deadbolt was open. The door opened quickly, and I rushed inside, even though I really didn’t want to see what I was going to find.

Gunpowder smoke still hung in the entryway. Ström lolled in the living room, half on the couch and half on the floor. His bloody mouth was open, and the back of his head was splattered across the back of the couch.

“Give me some gloves,” I whispered to Haikala. Pulling them on, I moved behind the couch and tried the pulse of the slackly hanging left wrist. Of course there was nothing there or in his neck.

He knew right where to shoot, I said to myself. Ström had ensured his fate by using a hollow-pointed bullet that had nearly exploded his head. Apparently he had aimed through the roof of his mouth at the back of his skull, trying to leave his face reasonably intact. His beer-colored eyes were open, pores gaping wide on a face that would soon lose all color. It wasn’t the time yet to close his eyes or wipe the blood from his chin.

“Call Forensics and the photographers,” I said. Carefully I stepped away from the body.

I was completely calm. Soon the routine would kick in, and there wouldn’t be any investigation necessary, since this was an obvious suicide. Ström still clutched his Beretta in his right hand, so the powder marks would line up perfectly. He had almost emptied a half liter of Koskenkorva vodka before pulling the trigger. The bottle lay at his feet on the rug, apparently kicked over as he slumped after the shot.

My eyes registered the details just as they always did at a crime scene. The room was sparsely decorated and, other than the overflowing ashtray, was very tidy. The television was at the perfect angle to watch from the couch. The table and two chairs were rattan models that didn’t seem like Ström’s style. He had probably bought the first dining set he could get for cheap. The latest issue of Police and Justice and a half-scratched lottery ticket were on the coffee table. The double bed that filled the sleeping alcove was made so carefully it would have passed the strictest barracks inspection.

When Forensics arrived I pulled on the shoe protectors and plastic jacket they gave me and put my hair in the shower-cap thing. The photograph-taking began, and the ambulance crew pronounced Ström officially dead.

I peeked in the kitchen, which, aside from the two beer bottles on the counter, looked like it might have been licked clean. Ström’s desk had always been the same way, every paper perfectly arranged. Next I went in the bathroom. The letters were there, sitting on a rusting green washing machine. One was addressed to Jani and Jenna, and another to the Espoo Police Violent Crime Unit. I picked up the latter. Ström hadn’t been able to decide whether to write print or write in cursive, and his handwriting was difficult to decipher.

To the Espoo Police Violent Crime Unit,

A few times we’ve complained about suicides not having the decency to leave notes. Then we have to waste a bunch of time investigating before we can be sure the dead guy really killed himself. I’m going to save you that trouble. I am leaving today of sound mind, knowing exactly what I’m doing. I’m shooting myself because life isn’t worth living anymore. There isn’t anything left for me now that I’m losing my job. I have always tried to be the best police officer I could be and to work so that upstanding taxpayers can walk the streets in safety. It feels like a waste that criminals have more rights than honest people these days. You can be sure Väätäinen is going to kill his wife eventually, and the police can’t stop him.

A lot of you are probably glad to get rid of me, but don’t take revenge by organizing a big funeral. That kind of garbage makes me sick too. No one is going to cry for me, and they shouldn’t. I’m not afraid of death, and I’ve always wanted to go with my boots on. For a while I thought about going and shooting Väätäinen and a few other shits first, but I’m going to let it be. You have enough work to do.

Stay good cops.

Lieutenant P. Ström

Toward the end, the lines skewed increasingly downward, and the writing became even more unclear. Maybe Ström had been drinking as he wrote. I shouted to Forensics that I had found the suicide notes and asked them to bring some plastic bags. Because the letter to Ström’s children had been left open, I read it too.

Dear Jenna and Jani,

I have always loved you, even though I haven’t been able to live with you for a few years. I know that you will be happy with your mother and Kai, even though I am leaving your life now.

Jani, you can have all of my police gear, and Jenna, you can have Grandma’s wedding ring. It’s under the bed in the locked gun case. Sell everything else and use the money for school. I’m sorry I don’t have more to leave you.

What’s going to happen isn’t anyone’s fault but my own, at least not yours or your mother’s. Always remember that. Work hard in school and grow up to be good people. Don’t be too sad about me. This is best for everyone.

With love, Dad

Hakkarainen from Forensics had come to the bathroom door. Someone would have to take the letter to Jenna and Jani. I decided that I wasn’t going to let it get buried in the evidence room. Putting the letters in the bags, I laid them back on top of the washing machine. I looked at myself in the perfectly polished mirror. There was a blueberry stain on my collar, which I rubbed absentmindedly. Ström had hung a pair of dark-brown-and-green-striped long underwear on the shower curtain rod to dry. I tried to imagine Ström doing laundry, but I couldn’t. He had always proclaimed that he wouldn’t stoop to doing women’s work.

To my surprise I heard Puupponen’s voice from the entryway. Maybe Lähde had called him too. I walked back into the main room where the forensic team and photographers were going about their work. It was strangely quiet. The usual theorizing and bantering you heard at a crime scene were completely absent. Everyone present had worked a body dozens of times with Ström bossing them around.

“Jesus Christ,” Puupponen said when he saw Ström’s body. “Maria . . .” he said, almost shyly.

“Hi. What are you doing here?”

“I was dropping a witness off at home, since he didn’t even have money for the bus, and I heard on the radio. I had to come . . .”

“I’m glad you did. Someone has to go notify Ström’s ex-wife and children. I’ll go, of course, because I was his boss, but it will be easier if someone else is with me. Can you come?”

Puupponen nodded and dug a handkerchief out of his pocket. He was paler than normal, his nose bright red and swollen, but that was probably just because of his cold.

“This isn’t going to need much of an investigation. It’s clear enough what happened,” Hakkarainen said uncertainly.

“Yes, but do it by the book. We don’t want any complications. As soon as you’re ready, you can take Pertti to the morgue. Has someone called Lähde at the station to tell him?” I asked Haikala. When he said no, I dialed the number myself.

“Hi, it’s Maria. Unfortunately we were too late. Ström shot himself right after he called you.”

“So he’s dead?” Lähde’s voice was full of dread. “Oh my God . . .”

“No kidding. Will you ask Taskinen to come to our morning meeting tomorrow? We’ll start the day off a little differently than normal.”

The paramedics brought a stretcher in and lifted Ström onto it. His bloody silhouette remained on the couch. I wondered who would have to clean the apartment and realized that I didn’t know whether Ström had any family—siblings or parents—even though I had worked with him for years. The paramedics covered the body, which looked too heavy for the narrow stretcher. Haikala removed his hat as Ström was carried past.

“You goddamn idiot . . .” Puupponen said with a shaky voice.

I handed him the plastic bag with the letter addressed to us.

“Were they going to fire him?” Puupponen asked after reading it. I didn’t know how to answer. And even if I had, killing yourself over losing your job still seemed insane, even though I knew the world could look awfully twisted after a long bender. I gave the letter to Hakkarainen and asked him to send me a copy by morning. I nodded to Puupponen to indicate we were leaving, but then the phone rang. It was Antti, and he was furious.

“Where the hell did you go?” he yelled. “I’m supposed to be at the Cultural Center in an hour and a half!”

“I’m at Ström’s apartment. Pertti shot himself.”

That silenced Antti. I said I would probably be home within an hour, so Antti could still make it to the concert if he took the car. He said he had already called his sister for emergency babysitting.

Although the ambulance had already left, people still loitered around the police cars outside. I had to practice my slalom skills to get my car out from behind the Forensics van. It was a relief to be alone if only for five minutes to try to collect my thoughts a little.

Ström’s ex-wife lived with her children and new husband in the same town house where Ström had lived with them before the divorce. Now the door said “Hirvi/Ström,” and I remembered Ström once making fun of his ex-wife’s new husband’s name. When combined with his first name, Kai, it basically meant, “It was probably a moose.” Of course the children still had their father’s last name. I met Puupponen in the yard, and we stood for a moment looking at the warm light that shone through the lace curtains of the kitchen window. I felt a deep compassion for the cozy, idyllic scene I was about to shatter.

Marja Hirvi, formerly Ström, came to the door. I had met her a couple of times in passing in the halls of the police station when she had been dropping off the kids on her way somewhere. Marja was a couple of years shy of forty, short and tanned. Something about her gave the impression she needed protecting. Her dark-green leggings and long yellow shirt emphasized the girlish look.

“Good evening. I think we’ve met before. I’m Lieutenant Maria Kallio, and this is Officer Puupponen from the Espoo Police.”

Immediately Marja frowned. She was a cop’s ex-wife, so she could see from our expressions that we weren’t there selling raffle tickets.

“Pertti?” she asked. “What happened?” From inside I heard the California accents of the actors in The Bold and the Beautiful.

“Are Jani and Jenna home?”

Marja nodded.

“I’m very sorry, but Pertti shot himself about an hour ago. When the police arrived, there was nothing they could do.”

For a moment Marja was frozen still. She had to moisten her lips to get the words out.

“So he shot himself. I can’t say I’m surprised. He threatened to do it back when I left him. Why did he do it now?”

“He had been put on administrative leave because he assaulted a suspect.”

“I hadn’t heard. We just got back from our honeymoon in the Canary Islands the night before last. The children were with us too.” Marja turned toward the door, which was when I noticed that she was pregnant, probably about six months along, judging from her belly. “They were supposed to go to his house this weekend. How am I going to tell them?”

“Would you like us—”

Marja shook her head. She could take care of her children. I asked about Ström’s other family. His brother lived in Vantaa and his father in a small town called Vammala, but his mother had died three years earlier of cancer. I hadn’t known anything about that either, since it had happened a little before I joined the Espoo police force. I told her about the wish Ström expressed in his suicide note that we not arrange a big funeral and gave Marja the letter addressed to Jani and Jenna. Reading that was hard for her, and she burst into tears, wrapping her arms around herself as if to ward off the cold coming through the open door. She didn’t ask us in.

“What’s going on here?” The man who appeared at the door had to be Kai Hirvi. I did a double take because Hirvi looked so much like Pertti Ström: tall and brawny with bad skin. He wrapped his arms around his wife’s shoulders and stared at us as if we were missionaries going door to door, making people cry. But when Marja told him what had happened, even his face fell.

“Let’s go tell the children,” he sputtered.

“Marja, we’ll talk later about the funeral, about who’s going to organize it,” I said. “Tell the children that if they want to talk about their dad or anything that happened, we are always here for them.”

I gave her my business card and then we left the family to grieve in peace.

“Are you going to be OK?” I asked Puupponen as we were walking to our cars.

“Why would you even ask that? I hated him.” Puupponen’s nose was running again, and he wiped it with the back of his hand. “But, you know, not even Ström deserved to have this happen. I’ll see you in the morning,” Puupponen said, opening his car door.

“Meeting starts at eight.”

I took a deep breath and then got behind the wheel. I drove home very slowly, as if trying to make up for my earlier speeding. Marita’s car was in the driveway. I hoped Antti hadn’t told his sister why I had to leave so suddenly. I didn’t have the energy to talk about Ström. Maybe with friends from work, but not with an outsider.

The darkness felt comforting, as did the smell of decomposing leaves. I took a deep breath. One, two, three. The moon was full and the air was still. Leaves fell from the aspen trees one at a time, as if performing an ancient ritual. I watched them for a few minutes until I felt calm enough to go inside.

I spent a while chatting with Antti’s sister, mostly comparing Iida’s development with that of her twin boys, Matti and Mikko, who were eleven now. I tried not to let it show that I wanted her to leave. Just after eight I started putting Iida down and lied when I said it would be easier for her to fall asleep if there weren’t any guests in the house. After Marita left, I read Iida three bedtime stories instead of one. I was surprised I wasn’t crying. I drank two fingers of anise vodka and took a sleeping pill. I was asleep before Antti ever got home.

In the morning I dressed in a sober black skirt suit, which I had purchased for Antti’s uncle’s funeral that spring. I ate, even though I wasn’t hungry, and as I drove to work, I thought about how we would have to reorganize the unit now that we knew Ström wasn’t coming back. When I entered the conference room, the others were already gathered, including Taskinen.

“Morning. Thanks for getting word to everyone, Lähde. As all of you already know, our colleague Pertti Ström took his own life last night. Pertti wasn’t the easiest person to work with, and we all had our differences with him. But he knew the job, even if he handled it a little differently than the rest of us sometimes. This is difficult for all of us precisely because we had conflicting feelings about Pertti. We’re all probably feeling some guilt about him committing suicide. The department psychologist will be coming at two this afternoon. Please cancel any meetings you have from two through the end of the day. We’re going to work through this together.”

I looked at my colleagues. Almost all of us were wearing mourning garb: some had on dark suits, and Koivu was wearing black pants and a black sweater. Wang was the only exception, dressed in a dark-red pantsuit.

“Pertti left two letters, one of which was addressed to us, his closest colleagues. I’ll get a copy to everyone this morning. In his letter he asks us not to take revenge on him by organizing a big funeral. That’s something the family will decide, though. Now I’d like to observe a minute of silence in memory of Lieutenant Pertti Ström.”

Everyone lowered their heads. Puupponen tried not to sneeze, and Lähde swallowed. I still wasn’t crying. I handled the rest of the morning meeting normally. The biggest news was that the mushroomer, Mrs. Haataja, had been seen with Toomas on Saaremaa Island off the coast of Estonia. After the meeting, I spent half the day fighting with a bureaucrat in the personnel department. He tried to whitewash their lack of funds by saying that it would be disrespectful to open up Ström’s position before he was even buried. Regardless I said I wanted a temporary replacement by Monday.

Then I scheduled the cleaners to empty Ström’s belongings from the office he had shared with Lähde. I talked to Ström’s brother about the funeral arrangements and tried to convince him that Pertti wouldn’t have wanted an honor guard of uniformed officers at the church. During the grief seminar, I sat with the department psychologist. He took the lead, and I mostly just listened to the others. When he asked about my own feelings, I said I was confused and sad.

At home I played with Iida as if nothing had happened. Antti tried to bring up Ström, but I said I wasn’t ready to talk about him. In the evening darkness we went out for a walk, and I picked a large bunch of fallen multicolored maple leaves, using them to decorate Iida’s bedroom walls when we got home.

After she fell asleep, I turned on the television and started surfing channels. I came upon Jorma Hynninen singing Schubert’s Winterreise. Antti sat down next to me to listen, and he put an arm around me as if testing the waters. The warm, melancholy baritone sang the cotton-ball soft yet anguished intervals as Ralf Gothóni’s piano conveyed what the words could not express. The music coursed through me like medicine. In the twentieth song of the cycle, named “The Signpost,” a man whose hopes of love have been dashed realizes that he must soon travel a road from which no one has ever returned. That was when I started to cry, and it seemed the tears would never end.

15

On Friday morning the Lithuanian police sent word that Vitalis Ramanauskas and Imants Peders had moved out of the country a couple of years earlier. Both had given a forwarding address in Nice, France, but the address was no longer current. Ramanauskas and Peders were former officers in the Soviet navy who had been in charge of maintenance for battleships, aircraft carriers, and missile frigates. After Lithuanian independence, the men had been forced to choose between the Unbreakable Union’s army and their own country, and apparently they hadn’t wanted to belong to either.

I numbly stared at the fax from Lithuania. Had Juha Merivaara been selling eco-friendly boat paint to the Soviet navy? Not likely. What was Mare Nostrum really up to? Though I was sure I wouldn’t get much by way of reply, I faxed a request to the Lithuanian police for more information on Peders’s and Ramanauskas’s duties in the Soviet navy. I also sent information requests to the Nice police and Interpol. I was becoming increasingly certain that something shady had been going on behind the benign façade of Merivaara Nautical. What if Harri had discovered it and that was what got him killed? What had Seija Saarela said about the dead duck Harri had been taking in for tests? And to where, the Helsinki University Biology Department?

If Harri’s and Juha’s deaths were connected somehow, then someone knew what Juha had been up to. Jiri or Anne? And was it even true that the same person had killed Harri and Juha Merivaara? What if Juha killed Harri?

Turning on my computer, I navigated to the Merivaara Nautical homepage. The company had applied for an EU Ecolabel, and to get that distinction, products had to go through a multiyear series of stringent tests. If there really was something illegal going on with the shareholding company Mare Nostrum, there was no way Juha Merivaara would have risked letting it come out. Or had he trusted that because the Mare Nostrum trail ended on Guernsey, no one would bother digging any deeper? That was hard to believe.

I rested my face in my hands. My eyes were heavy. Even though I was trained as a lawyer, white-collar crime had never been one of my specialties. I felt more comfortable dealing with human relationships and seemed to have a knack for unraveling complicated familial entanglements, wino hierarchies, and youth-gang power structures. Money was cold and expressionless. It had no past and no feelings like humans did, even though it did arouse human emotions. Money only had one goal: to grow.

So I started thinking about Juha Merivaara as a person, not as one of the pieces in the tax-evasion game Merivaara Nautical or Mare Nostrum was playing. If that was the game. What kind of a person had Juha Merivaara been? A boy who at age eight lost his mother to a slow-wasting disease. A young man who had been condemned early on to skipper the family company. A man who cheated on his wife, hit on his secretary, and wanted to raise his son to be just like him. What had been most important to Juha Merivaara? Family? Nature? Business reputation? Money?

But I couldn’t even trace the outlines of Juha Merivaara because the whole time another man kept encroaching on the picture. Just as tall and strong but gruffer and less polished. He had troubled my dreams the previous night, keeping me awake for hours. My colleagues had wondered at my rush to get Ström’s office emptied out. Even Koivu hadn’t thought how much it might hurt seeing the familiar name on the door and the excessively neat desk inside.

Most of the time I had detested Ström. His racism and misogyny. His distrust of anything new and his way of treating people. I remembered too many clashes and obscene outbursts.

But I also remembered the sporadic displays of friendship, the clumsy attempts at asking me about my pregnancy and Iida’s development, the random calls under odd pretenses while I was on maternity leave, the temper tantrums whenever I put myself in danger through my own recklessness. At least then Ström had been right.

In a way it was a relief that I didn’t need to work with him anymore. The environment around the unit would probably improve. But beneath that relief was a stabbing guilt. Of course it had been the right choice to name me unit commander instead of Ström. I did better work. But luring Ström into standing in while I was on maternity leave had been stupid. That should have been handled differently.

And the alcohol problem—why hadn’t I intervened more aggressively? Why had I imagined that it would handle itself after he got used to me being back? Why didn’t I go visit him when he wouldn’t answer his phone?

But who did I think I was, playing God now? Would I have been able to prevent Ström from killing himself?

I forced myself to turn back to Juha Merivaara. Ström’s personality had been ragged around the edges, and Merivaara wasn’t flawless either. Why couldn’t he be greedy and love nature at the same time? Why couldn’t he value his marriage and take business partners to sex bars too? Mare Nostrum could just have been a mistake, an investor taken on out of desperation during a time of distress. Maybe Merivaara had put it in dry dock when he realized it didn’t fit with the main company’s profile.

A buzzing interrupted my thoughts. Even though the office door had fancy lights to indicate when I was unavailable, I rarely used them. Colleagues who had worked with me back when I was a sergeant just knocked, although Ström had usually just barged in without warning. I pressed the button for the green light, and Anu Wang entered.

“Hi, Maria. Do you have a moment?” When I said I did, she continued. “I didn’t bring this up in the morning meeting, but . . .”

Wang trailed off. Her dark round face wrinkled in worry, and her raven-black braid swung from her shoulder to her back. Wang was tall for a woman of Asian descent, almost five foot six, and her hands were so graceful that they made mine look like shovels.

“Yes?” I asked, wanting to seem like the kind of boss you could talk to about anything. Hopefully this wasn’t about the stupid things I had said about Koivu’s past troubles with women.

“I’d like to be transferred off the El Haj Assad case,” Wang said reluctantly. “I’ve thought and thought about it, and I don’t want to give up, but I don’t think I can do anything more.”

Saudi Arabian–born businessman Ismael El Haj Assad had tried to strangle his teenage daughter Amal in early August. The girl had snuck away to a beach party wearing a sleeveless shirt and jeans instead of a long skirt and veil, which the father considered unforgivable. Amal bit her father’s hand and ran to call the police. Now she was living in foster care with one of her schoolmates. Ström had assigned Wang to the case because he thought the cop with the nonstandard ethnic background should investigate all crimes involving minorities, whether they were perpetrators or victims.

“Why?” I had to ask. “The case is a simple assault and battery, and you’ve handled it wonderfully.”

“But I . . . I don’t feel like I’m getting anything out of the suspect. He belittles me, I guess because in his country police officers are so far below oil company bosses. And he considers having a female interrogator to be a huge insult. Pekka came with me once, and that time El Haj Assad only talked to him. I interviewed him again yesterday, and all I could get out of him were slurs.”

She stared at me, half ashamed, half challenging. I didn’t have time to reply before she launched back into it.

“‘When in Rome’ was what Ström said when he assigned me to the case and I said I had doubts that I was the right person for the job. As if he had to explain something like that to me! That’s what my whole family and I have been doing for decades, first in North Vietnam where my dad’s family fled the Chinese revolution and the Maoists and then here in Finland. I even changed my first name, and you heard who I was cheering for at the soccer game last Saturday. But what if other people don’t use the same rules I do?”

Wang had graduated from the police academy a year and a half earlier, and she was only twenty-three. In her I could almost see myself ten years ago, the young, eager police officer who believed she could bring justice to the world. Part of me still probably held on to that belief, even though over the years I had seen too many times how courts freed the guilty. Sometimes I still thought about going back to practicing law so I could have some influence over the sentences criminals received, but lawyering increasingly seemed to be more a game of manipulating the law than seeking justice.

“I understand your situation. What do you propose?”

“That Pekka and I switch cases. I could finish up the rape case he has, and he could take El Haj Assad. I’ve already talked to him about it.”

I nodded. My only familiarity with the case was from the reports I’d reviewed, and it seemed to have several difficult aspects. Ismael El Haj Assad was a liaison for Shell Finland and the Saudi Arabian Musoil Corporation, a prominent international business leader for whom Finnish police involvement in his family life was a terrible affront. He followed a fundamentalist version of Islam that considered a woman’s place to be at home behind a veil. Espoo school officials had been forced to apply mild pressure just so Amal could attend the legally mandated ninth grade.

I wondered whether I should be irritated that Koivu and Wang had arranged to swap cases behind my back, but that would have been stupid. El Haj Assad deserved to be charged with child abuse, although that was unlikely to improve Amal’s life. But contemplating consequences was not the job of the police.

“Do you think I’m a loser if I drop this case?” Wang asked.

I shook my head and briefly told her about a case from my early years as a cop, back when no one took me seriously.

“Stupid question, but what made you apply to the police academy?” I asked.

Anu grinned. “The same thing that made other kids go out tagging and do drugs. I wanted to rebel. I wanted to be different from my parents’ culture, and what would be more Finnish than a female cop? My best friend and I both applied. It also didn’t hurt that the academy is in Tampere, so it meant getting away from home. I got in, but Nina didn’t.”

It was amusing that Anu’s choice of profession had been motivated by defiance toward her parents, just like my own.

“What would your parents have preferred?”

“A doctor or an architect. I aced four of my college entrance exams. I did try to explain that, as a police officer, I could have an impact on how people like us are treated. Most of the time people think I’m a Thai masseuse or a Filipino mail-order bride. Sometimes I almost regret leaving Patrol—at least there the uniform validated my position of authority.”

Wang glanced at her watch and then thanked me for letting her and Koivu switch cases. The door had almost closed behind her when she turned around.

“And about Pekka. Don’t worry. I really do like him.”

“I like Pekka too,” I said awkwardly, since I never thought of Koivu by his first name these days. “He’s like a brother to me. And you know, I wouldn’t mind having you as a sister-in-law.”

“We’ll have to see about that.” Anu’s smile revealed a line of glittering white teeth, and then she pulled the door closed, leaving me alone with my thoughts once more.

If, if, if. If I had tried to talk to Ström . . .

In order to get some relief from the vicious cycle of those thoughts, I called BirdLife Finland, the central organization for all the local bird-watching organizations, to ask where Harri might have taken the dead duck he found on Rödskär.

The man who answered was friendly. He had also known Harri. His best guess was the National Veterinary and Food Research Institute. I assigned Puustjärvi to look into this, although he grumbled a little, saying he never thought he would have to search for duck corpses when he signed up to be a detective. I looked through the file of random information Koivu had collected on Harri, which included the membership list of Harri’s birding association.

Tapio Holma was a member of the same club.

What if Holma had lied about not knowing Harri? And what if they had known each other and Holma had insinuated himself into the Merivaara family not out of love for Riikka but to investigate Harri’s death? That seemed a bit far-fetched but not completely impossible.

I looked through Harri’s file again. I probably wasn’t ever going to be able to prove that Harri was murdered, especially since his body had been cremated, making it impossible to examine it again. People just died without any reason or anyone to blame. A feeling of helplessness washed over me. And to top it all off, in half an hour I had to go to one more of the department’s endless planning meetings.

This time we were talking about efforts to combat graffiti. I had tried to avoid it by saying that it didn’t have anything to do with violent crime, but apparently the city government had demanded representatives from each police unit attend the lunch meeting. I wondered whether the City of Espoo really didn’t have any more serious environmental problems than kids doodling on walls. And besides, the antivandalism workgroup the city had organized a while back, which included youth representatives, was sure to handle the problem better than a bunch of suits having official meetings.

Before I went I called Antti. Iida was outside on the porch napping in her stroller, and I interrupted Antti playing the piano.

“Tell me some poisons that kill birds.”

“How should I know? I’m a mathematician. Ask a biologist. But why are you asking?”

“Harri found a dead duck on Rödskär. Could there be poisonous compounds in some paints that would kill birds? The kinds that would build up in the food chain so that by the time they reached birds, they would be deadly?”

“Old paints had all kinds of things in them. Lead for one, but Merivaara Nautical doesn’t make that kind of thing. What are you thinking?”

I sighed. “I don’t really know yet.” Until I had better information about Peders and Ramanauskas, all I could do was guess.

Antti suggested going to his parents’ cabin in Inkoo for the weekend. They were traveling, so the house was empty. The boat was still in the water, and we could even go out sailing if the weather allowed. I knew that Antti wanted to get my mind off of work and Ström, and I guess I wanted that too. Some mushroom hunting with Iida in the baby backpack. Gliding over frigid waters in the boat.

“Good idea. Let’s go tonight. I promise to leave my phone at home.”

I had to hurry to make the meeting. I fixed my hair and refreshed my lipstick. New lines had appeared under my eyes, and my gray hairs seemed to be multiplying. When I walked past the office Lähde now occupied alone, I couldn’t help glancing at the door. Seeing the empty nameplate slot tore at my heart. I realized it was pointless trying to erase every reference to him.

The biggest enticement of the lunch meeting had been the free meal. But it was a disappointment. I picked at the rubbery rainbow trout. Over the summer we had stopped buying farmed fish after reading that rainbow-trout farming was one of the culprits in the spread of algae blooms. Maybe Antti’s environmentalism was rubbing off on me, because I found myself wondering what kind of fertilizer had been used to grow the potatoes in front of me too. Thinking about that irritated me less than this meeting.

“Catching these vandals is a high priority for maintaining the city’s image. Just think what kind of impression foreign visitors get when they come in from the airport and see the freeway noise barriers covered in graffiti. It doesn’t create an impression of a modern technology hub. It makes this look like some kind of slum,” said one of the urban-planning engineers.

“Well, speaking for the police, I can tell you we’re doing our best. The city could try to influence the national budget to increase our appropriations for more staffing,” our new chief of police replied.

My trout tasted so bad I pushed the plate aside. An officer from Patrol who was in charge of community policing talked about an education campaign they were conducting in the schools and the importance of young people having places to gather, but anything that would have required financial investments from the city seemed to be going nowhere. I found myself requesting a turn to speak.

“I’m not the slightest bit surprised to see our teenagers competing with the city government to see who can destroy the environment faster. Those sound barriers practically scream to be painted. As long as we keep chipping away at green space, with even Central Park at risk now, the city doesn’t have any room to complain about people screwing up the place we live in,” I said.

“So the police are going to start rewriting the criminal code now?” one of the city council members said coldly. “The city follows the law in all its construction work, unlike these vandals.”

I could feel the irritated glances of the police chief and my other colleagues. Which just made me even angrier.

“You politicians are the ones who make the laws. If the point of this meeting is to come up with a wish list of how to spend taxpayers’ money, then maybe you could lower the curbs on the bike paths so they aren’t a problem for bikes. One of these days someone’s going to break their neck in a fall, which will actually cause our Violent Crime Unit some work. Graffiti artists haven’t been causing any deaths lately, so I think I’m going to leave now. One of my officers killed himself the day before yesterday, so we’re a little swamped.”

I stood up and my chair clattered to the floor. I knew I was acting stupidly, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. As the door closed behind me, I could feel Taskinen’s disappointed gaze. Maybe he was starting to think it had been a mistake to appoint me unit commander. Taskinen had had to fight to get his proposal through. Some in the hierarchy had thought I was suspect because I belonged to organizations like the Finnish Feminist Association and LGBTI Rights Finland. What I had just said would probably start rumors that I not only supported animal-rights activists but also graffiti vandals.

I flew up the stairs to my office at record speed. Just as I thought, there was a bag of salmiakki licorice in my top drawer, which would help my irritation.

“Someone’s waiting for you,” Lähde said as he passed me in the hall.

“Yeah?” I didn’t have any meetings scheduled, but I could see Jiri Merivaara with his green hair leaning against my door. Had he come to the police station voluntarily?

“Hi, Jiri. How’s it going?”

The boy shrugged and then followed me into my office and slumped on the sofa. The green of his hair had faded since I saw him last, and a bare knee protruded from his ripped jeans. His jam-packed backpack hung open.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” I asked.

“I’m never going back there! I turn eighteen in February. When I get Dad’s money, then I can do like Mikke and go traveling around the world.”

I remembered Anne Merivaara talking about Jiri’s desire to go to college. Had that just been a mother’s wishful thinking?

“And I missed three tests, since the SIS kept us in jail for days, even though we didn’t do anything.”

“Didn’t you? Didn’t a few of you finally confess to lighting the fire? Did you know about that?”

“No,” Jiri said, and I was sure he was lying. The girl who had interned at the meatpacking plant, her big sister, and another girl in the same high school as Jiri were going to be charged with arson. Jiri was probably looking at aiding and abetting. The fines were going to be huge, and Jiri was almost certainly going to need his inheritance to pay them.

Jiri sat on the couch, silent and sullen as if he had been dragged into the police station instead of coming on his own volition. My phone rang and Puupponen asked about something routine, so I answered as if Jiri hadn’t been in the room. He stared at his backpack and the toes of his canvas shoes, biting off the nails of his right hand and then pulling them out of his mouth as if they tasted bad.

After I ended my call, Jiri remained silent. I opened the Juha Merivaara case file on my computer and read through it backward and forward. Pulling the salmiakki out of my drawer, I put two in my mouth and offered the bag to Jiri. He glared at it suspiciously—the product label included three artificial additives—but then took some anyway. After chewing a couple of times, Jiri started to talk.

“I lied about the night Dad died. I wasn’t sleeping the whole time. I went out for a piss and had a hard time getting back to sleep. That fight between Dad and Tapio was bugging me. How was it any of his business who Riikka sleeps with? Dad was always bossing everybody around!”

Jiri’s eyes glowed almost as hot as his cheeks. “In that little room where I was, you can hear what everyone else is doing. Mikke went outside, or at least out in the hall. I heard him talking to his mom.”

“Katrina Sjöberg?” I asked. I was a bit surprised, since neither mother nor son had mentioned anything about a nighttime encounter.

“They were talking Swedish, so it had to be Katrina.”

“What time did that happen?”

“I didn’t look at the clock. It was totally dark, though. But I don’t know . . . I don’t think they went outside. I mean I don’t think they . . . you know . . . killed Dad . . .”

Jiri blushed and tripped over his words. He clearly didn’t want to blame Mikke or Katrina directly, and I wondered if he had made the whole thing up to turn our attention away from someone else. Was he that afraid his mother was a murderer?

“There’s another thing. Riikka and Tapio were sleeping in the room next to me. Mom always put them as far away from herself as possible, like she was afraid she would hear something horrible from their room. Anyway, one of them was awake, and based on the footsteps the one who went outside was Tapio. The only ones I absolutely didn’t hear going outside were Mom and Riikka.”

I had expected something like this. Changing the topic, I asked about Harri Immonen’s connections to Animal Revolution.

“Harri an AR member? No way. He was so old. I’ve never seen anyone over thirty at our events.”

I nodded. Animal Revolution’s direct-action approach didn’t fit the image I had of Harri the lonely pacifist. But he had had some contact with the organization, because he ended up on that Security Intelligence Service list. I asked Jiri to think about it again, but he seemed more interested in the contents of his backpack than in Harri. He started digging around for something, first removing a sweater and some carrots in a mesh bag. He seemed to find what he was looking for but didn’t pull it out.

“Harri was a nice guy. He left people alone. He didn’t approve of everything AR stands for, but he at least tried to be part of the conversation. A lot of times I’ve wondered why Dad couldn’t be more like Harri or Mikke, why he didn’t ever listen and just ran right over people.”

Jiri’s flood of words and apparent desire to cooperate mystified me. Had the SIS managed to scare him? Or was it that the fire at the meat plant almost turned them into murderers? Perhaps compared to the SIS agents, I seemed gentle and understanding.

“Oh, Harri came to a demonstration against animal testing once,” Jiri suddenly recalled. “He was passing out fliers with me and some clowns in business suits started yelling at him about a grown man playing with little girls and their fluffy animals,” Jiri said with a grimace. “As if defending animals was some kind of female privilege. Dad was a little surprised when I told him I knew Harri. He tried to quiz him about his politics, but Harri wouldn’t argue with him. Maybe he was afraid Dad would fire him.”

Jiri shoved his hand in his backpack again. I wondered what had changed about him. The intensity of his speech was still there, as was the aggressive reserve, but in the aftermath of his father’s death, the boy seemed less distressed than before.

Then I realized that even though the eyes beneath his green shock of hair still flashed, they weren’t alive with the same anger. That had disappeared completely. I didn’t have time to think about whether he had just stopped hating me or had made peace with some larger slice of humanity, because just then he opened his backpack wide and pulled out a gallon of paint.

“I don’t know if this has anything to do with Dad’s death, but . . .” Jiri hesitated for a second and then handed me the can. It was covered in rust. The label colors were the same as on the Lithuanian paint cans I had seen in the Merivaaras’ garage, but the words on this one were in Russian, which I only knew enough of to identify the letters. The skull painted on the side with a red circle around it didn’t leave much to the imagination. I took the can carefully as if it might explode in my hands.

“What is this? Where did you find it?”

“Last fall on Rödskär. Harri was there watching the bird migration.”

Harri had caught a bad cold and came down with an ear infection, so Mikke had gone to get him so he could see a doctor. Juha encouraged Harri to take some sick leave over the weekend, but Harri didn’t want to take a break because his research was already behind schedule.

“Dad said directly that he had some visitors coming to the island that weekend and that he wanted to be alone with them. I don’t know who they were. On Sunday morning Mikke called and asked if I wanted to go with him to take Harri back to the island. It was a great day, as warm as June.”

Jiri explained that he had decided to go because Mikke would be leaving soon for his winter sailing trip. From a distance they had made out what looked like a military vessel in the harbor at Rödskär, and they started to have doubts about whether they should go to the island before Juha’s guests had left. So instead they took a spin around the end of Porkkala Peninsula, and on their return to Rödskär they passed the same boat. It was flying a Lithuanian flag. Juha Merivaara hadn’t been the slightest bit pleased that Harri had returned to the island earlier than arranged.

“Dad had a massive hangover. He had had a real throw-down with his guests. The kitchen was full of Russian vodka bottles. I got ready to go heat the sauna, but Dad got all upset when I said I was going out there. Mikke asked if he was hiding a girl, and Dad almost hit him. Then he said one of the dudes had puked in the sauna and that he was going to clean it up himself. I was pissed, so I went out for a walk and noticed that someone had been digging at one of those grass patches on the south shore. My imagination started running away with me.”

Jiri chewed his nails, looking sheepish. “I think I watched too much TV when I was a little kid. I thought they must have had an accident with some chick and that she died and the sauna was covered with blood and they had buried her body under that grass. I read a book like that once. I was so stupid I didn’t think to wonder why they would bury a body when it would be so much easier to sink it. I went to the sauna to check, but Dad hadn’t been lying. The dressing room was covered in puke. It was disgusting. The hole in the ground still bothered me, but I didn’t find a body in it. There were just rusted paint barrels and a couple of smaller cans. I don’t know why, but I took one of them and hid it again in the rocks near the west shore. Probably just to irritate Dad. I was a little embarrassed about imagining there being a dead body, though, so I kind of forgot the whole thing.”

Jiri had been the next to get sick and hadn’t gone back to Rödskär until January. By then the rocks had been covered in ice and snow. He didn’t have a vague memory of the paint barrels until the summer and didn’t have a chance to poke around until August, the same weekend we had visited Rödskär on my in-laws’ boat. The barrels had disappeared, but he found the can he had hid. One weekend he stashed it in his sleeping bag and brought it home. The police had failed to find it either time they searched the Merivaara property because Jiri had buried it in the yard under some rocks.

“I tried to ask Mom about Dad’s Lithuanian business partners, but she claimed they were just investors who didn’t have anything to do with the paint the company sold. I don’t know what to believe anymore. There’s gotta be some kind of fucked-up poison in this paint. What if Harri found Dad’s stash? He knew a little Russian. And what if Harri realized that Dad was selling poison paint under the table and Dad killed him because of that?”

Jiri’s face was young and naked. Believing that his dad was another shill destroying the environment just like everyone else was probably easier than thinking that he killed people.

“Did you suspect your father when Harri died?” This direct question almost made Jiri let out a squeak, and he wouldn’t look at me when he responded.

“I thought about it. Dad wasn’t home the night Harri died. According to him he was on a business trip in Tallinn and came back on the early ferry with his bags full of champagne and caviar for Mom’s birthday party. But Mom doesn’t even eat fucking caviar! No one kept track of where Dad was, though, and he went to Tallinn at least once a month because the company had a lot of clients in Estonia. Maybe he was on Rödskär that night, though.”

“But your boat . . . your mother would have noticed if it was gone.”

“Last fall it was still at the marina. Dad didn’t have our beach dredged until this spring.”

A headache seized the back of my head as if someone had been trying to bore through my skull with a corkscrew. I had to get the paint can to the crime lab. I had to interview Anne Merivaara about Harri’s death. That incident had clearly bothered her. Was that because she suspected it was murder rather than suicide? What if she knew Juha had been on Rödskär the night of Harri’s death?

Could Anne have killed her husband in revenge for him killing Harri? Maybe Jiri’s greatest fear was that both of his parents were murderers.

“This can of paint could be very significant. Interpol is tracking down those mysterious Lithuanian investors. There’s something suspicious about them. But that doesn’t necessarily connect your father or especially your mother to any criminal activity,” I said to calm him down.

“Our whole family is a bunch of degenerates. And I thought I was the only one.” Jiri tried to look tough again, but the act resulted in another frenzied bout of nail biting.

“How is your mother?”

“All she does is work. She isn’t sleeping. I can hear her walking around the house at night drinking chamomile tea, but it doesn’t help. Tapio brought her some of his own sleeping pills, but she doesn’t want to take them. And Riikka doesn’t want to see Tapio anymore. I guess she . . .” Jiri hesitated again, then looked at me and almost shouted. “I guess she thinks Tapio killed Dad! She told me that Tapio had a cut on his arm that he said came from the fight in the sauna. Riikka remembers that he didn’t have it when they were screwing that night, but it was there in the morning.”

My head buzzed. Paint, dead birds, and unexplained injuries. I had to have some time to myself. I lied and told Jiri I had a meeting in five minutes and thanked him for his cooperation. He even smiled faintly when I shook his hand.

I turned off the light. The day was overcast and dark. Flopping down on the couch, I closed my eyes and tried to relax, starting with the tips of my toes. But emptying my head was impossible with the details of the Merivaara case and Ström’s bloodied face whirling around in my head like a jerky carousel with a bad motor. This was going nowhere. It was 3:15, and I had been logging enough overtime recently that I thought it was fine to go home. Just a few more seconds on the couch and then I would get up . . .

Apparently I nodded off, because I startled awake to a knock at the door and then Koivu stuck his head in.

“Sorry. Were you napping?”

“Come on in,” I said. My mouth tasted like yesterday’s chewing gum.

Koivu sat down next to me on the couch, and for the first time I noticed wrinkles around his eyes. Even bear cubs couldn’t stay young forever.

“I just interviewed Seija Saarela with Anu.”

“And?”

“She spent an hour telling us the sad story of her marriage. Shotgun wedding at twenty, guy just wanted to fish and drink booze. They got divorced after a few years and never saw each other again except at their son’s graduation. There’s no way she cared enough about her ex-husband to kill Juha Merivaara over him.”

I closed my eyes again. That was probably true, although it seemed like quite a coincidence that Seija became friends with the Merivaara family after her ex-husband’s death. I wasn’t completely ready to cross her off the list of suspects. She at least had several good reasons for protecting Juha Merivaara’s murderer.

“I also got hold of the Immonens. Guess how happy they were when I reminded them of their son’s death.”

“No, thanks.” With some effort I got myself into a sitting position.

“They sold their son’s computer to Mikke Sjöberg in the spring.” Koivu glanced at me as if wanting to say more, but thankfully he didn’t.

So the Olivetti laptop in the cabin of the Leanda was Harri’s old computer. Why hadn’t Mikke mentioned that? Probably just because he didn’t see any significance in it. He was sure to have wiped the hard drive clean.

I asked Koivu about the files he had found on Harri’s computer during the initial investigation of his death. He didn’t remember much.

“There were some bird charts. I wasn’t very interested. For me it’s enough that I can tell a magpie from a crow. There was something about environmental toxins, fertilizers causing sea-eagle deaths, and stuff like that. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with Rödskär. But ask Sjöberg about it. Mrs. Immonen said he bought all of Harri’s old disks too.”

16

Resting in the forty-five-degree water, the rain on my face felt warm. Only the lone light of the sauna pierced the darkness of the world. The water was deadly. Half an hour in it would lead to hypothermia. I looked down at my breasts floating, white and warm. I didn’t have to be so careful about them anymore. The food for Iida, who slept peacefully in her bassinette in the cool entry of the sauna building, no longer flowed from them.

The parents of Arttu Aaltonen, the teenager who had drowned, had asked whether we could tell from where we found his body whether he had regretted his decision to commit suicide. They feared that after their son jumped in the water he had changed his mind and tried to swim ashore but couldn’t anymore. I couldn’t offer them any comfort other than to say that based on where we found him, Arttu had swum quite far out to sea before drowning.

The wood of the dock was wet and smooth, unlike my own gooseflesh skin. The cold made my teeth chatter and my nose run. I couldn’t help contemplating what Ström had thought just before he pulled the trigger. Shooting himself was at once easier and more cruel than drowning. With the latter there was always the risk of being saved, but Ström, who had been the best marksman in our class at the police academy, had chosen a sure death.

I grabbed the ladder. My arms were strong, pulling me toward the warmth, and my legs, also strong, pushed me out of the water. Rain pelted my face. I felt the bite of every drop and the lash of the wind on my back. Turning my face to the sea, I laughed in its black face and then rushed back into the warmth of the sauna.

“Was the water still warm enough for swimming?” Antti asked. I snuggled against him and let my skin tell the story as I soaked up the steam coming off his body. The salts of sweat and seawater intermingled, and the chill left me, inside and out, replaced by a desire for our bodies to be one.

On Friday, I had asked Koivu to retrieve Harri’s old computer from Mikke Sjöberg’s ship and Puustjärvi to arrange a meeting with Anne Merivaara for Monday. Then I had turned off my cell phone, left it on my desk, and gone home. The department didn’t have my in-laws’ phone number. Koivu was the only one who knew it, and he also had the weekend off.

It had stormed all Saturday, but that hadn’t stopped us from pulling on our rain gear and putting the cover on Iida’s stroller. We took a walk in the surrounding forest, and although the moss looked empty at first, we eventually found some chanterelles. When I went deeper into the forest to grab a plastic bag some idiot had left, I happened upon a veritable treasure trove. And now a mushroom quiche was in the oven.

I had managed to avoid thinking about work almost all day. That was mostly thanks to Iida, who had an amazing case of verbal diarrhea. After only saying one word at a time up until now, except for that once, all of a sudden she was saying three-word sentences. “Iida want ood.” “Mommy give milk.” Antti and I listened more enraptured than by any master poet’s lines. Iida had delighted us with her first smile, first crawl, first standing, and first steps so much that we just stared at her for hours with stupid expressions of joy on our faces. We didn’t have videos or even very many pictures of these moments, but I still believed we would remember them always.

After our sauna, we turned on the television, but all four channels were showing murder mysteries and they reminded me too much of work, so I shut it off. Antti fell asleep quickly, and I listened to his steady breathing and Iida’s quiet snuffling. The sandman seemed to have forgotten me, because I tossed and turned in bed, listening to the sea storming outside. The digital display of the alarm clock showed 12:30 when I decided to get up and go for a short walk. With the thermometer reading thirty-three degrees, I pulled on three layers of clothing and a poncho.

The wind beat me awake instantly as I climbed the trail along the shore. A few hundred yards past Antti’s parents’ property line, a steep cliff rose out of the sea, providing a view far out on the open water. The twin towers of the Inkoo power plant were lit up to the west, and to the east wound the occasional lights of the Porkkala Peninsula. The sea didn’t care about anything but itself, quarreling with the wind and slamming waves against the rocks. It had conquered the algae blooms, but now it faced its yearly struggle with winter. Last December we had been in Inkoo on the night the water froze. The sea had howled in pain as it was tamed beneath that shell, but the ice had crackled and popped with joy as if the winter had been opening champagne bottles to celebrate its victory.

I thought of Juha Merivaara, who two weeks earlier had died on the cliffs of Rödskär Island. That night had been wet and stormy just like now. Had Juha gone out looking for the sandman too and met his murderer instead? I thought of Mikke Sjöberg, sleeping on the Leanda in the Espoo marina when he should have already been on the west coast of Denmark. The south wind whipped the whitecaps higher and tried to sweep me along too. Raising my arms I let the poncho flap like wings around me. The storm blew through me like electricity, and as I had earlier that evening in the water, I felt alive again: hard muscles, soft curves, and warm, thick blood. I walked back to the cabin and fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.

In the morning paper, I found Juha Merivaara’s obituary. The scrap of hymn Anne had chosen as a remembrance was impersonal, as if she hadn’t had the time or desire to pay the task much mind. The funeral would be on the following Saturday. Would Ström’s funeral be on the same weekend? Although I understood his abhorrence of funerals, sharing grief helped alleviate it. We had all learned this two years earlier at our colleague Juhani Palo’s funeral. Ström and I had traded smirks in the corner at our bosses’ stiff speeches and then later tried to resurrect the real Palo. The memory brought tears to my eyes. Then I remembered more. I remembered how Ström had sat next to me in the church and tried not to let anyone see his swallowing during the eulogy. I cried for Ström, even though in his letter he had doubted anyone in the department would mourn for him. I had seen Lähde’s face when Ström’s belongings were moved out of their office, and thinking of that hurt too.

Even though they had despised him, Ström’s death stung for Puupponen and Koivu as well. The hardest thing for all of us was that we could understand why he killed himself but not accept it. Still, the worst burden fell on Lähde. For the rest of his life he would be wondering whether he could have said something on the phone that would have made Ström change his mind. I was thankful Ström hadn’t called me. Even though I knew that it was hard to stop someone who had decided to kill himself, it was everyone’s duty to try. I didn’t trust my ability to talk anyone out of anything anymore. A little before I went on maternity leave, I had tried to talk down a woman with a shotgun from shooting her former lover, whom she suspected of murdering her daughter. I had failed, and the woman executed the man in cold blood. He wasn’t even guilty. The memory of that case still haunted me, even though one of the skills a cop had to have was forgetting past failures. I was afraid that in a similar situation I would screw up again.

Antti noticed my wet cheeks and pulled me close. Thankfully he didn’t say anything. The storm had moved on, and the sun once again ruled the earth, making the trees glow. We spent the day raking leaves and playing in them. It was impossible to be sad watching Iida’s eyes flashing beneath the red maple leaves.

On Monday morning reality hit again. A mountain of faxes had piled up on my desk, and over the weekend there had been a nearly fatal beating, a stabbing, and a shooting. The topmost fax was from the Haapsalu police in Estonia. Thankfully it was good news.

Our missing mushroomer economist and her Toomas had been found in the most expensive nightclub in Pärnu during an unrelated police raid. She had been irritated at the interruption of her amorous adventure, but otherwise she was fine.

This information caused whistles and foot-stomping in our morning meeting, but the boisterousness felt forced. I guess we were trying hopelessly to act as if Ström had never existed. This weekend’s shooting would have automatically gone to him, since he was the best gun-crime investigator in the unit. I wondered if the staff at Merivaara Nautical was operating this mechanically, trying to forget that their CEO had been murdered and that the communications director, his wife, was one of the suspects.

“Koivu, did you get Harri Immonen’s old computer?” I asked when we finally got to the Merivaara murder.

“I did, although Sjöberg claimed all we would find on it were his travel plans. Apparently he deleted all of Immonen’s files from the hard drive and the disks. I checked the floppies, even though it took half the night.”

“Where is the computer now?”

“I took it and the disks to the computer experts in White Collar like you asked. Sjöberg claimed he formatted the hard drive, but we’ll see what the IT guys turn up.” Koivu shrugged.

“How did Sjöberg react when you asked for the computer?”

“He seemed confused. He said it hadn’t even crossed his mind that there might be anything worth saving other than Immonen’s reports about the birds on Rödskär. He asked if confiscating the computer meant that Immonen was murdered after all. I told him to ask you.”

“Thanks. Puustjärvi, is the meeting with Anne Merivaara lined up?”

“Two o’clock at their office.”

At the end of our morning meeting, Puupponen asked whether there was any hope of getting a replacement for Ström.

“I promise I’ll keep riding the brass about it.” The depressing crop of crimes from this weekend would at least be a good argument for rushing a new appointment. I’d been told there wasn’t anyone appropriate in the department and a search was underway for qualified sergeant-level candidates elsewhere.

Out of curiosity I checked the situation on my computer once I got back to my office. A few people had submitted online applications, including one of my friends from law school, Marcus Huttunen, who had also specialized in criminal justice and had been working for the past few years as an assistant prosecutor in Vantaa. Why did he want to move over to the police? A couple of the other applicants seemed good too. I’d need to have Personnel arrange interviews with them.

In the stack of faxes, there was also an update from the Lithuanian police. Peders and Ramanauskas had worked for a product-development department in the Soviet navy, and their specialties had included paints. A natural connection to Merivaara Nautical. I faxed back a request for more information about exactly what kinds of paints they had developed. The men’s location was still unclear. Nice reported that they had set sail toward Corsica and Sardinia a couple of weeks earlier. Where were two former Soviet navy officers getting money to live it up on the Riviera?

I called Tapio Holma. No one picked up at his house, but he answered his cell. The connection was fuzzy, and in the background I could hear the screeches of gulls.

“Can we talk?”

“Not right now. I’m on the bay, and I’ve never seen this many smews.”

“Smews?” While I’d heard the name before, it had always conjured up a strange combination of disturbing images with no association to ducks or the sea. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real live smew. I don’t want to ruin it for you, but could we chat while we watch the birds? Where can I find you?”

“Do we have to?” Holma sounded irked. “OK, fine. I’m in the marsh in front of the Villa Elfvik Nature House. You should bring some rubber boots.”

The only pair of boots I had found in the equipment room was a couple of sizes too big, but they were better than nothing. When I arrived, I pulled them on and went tromping across the lawn of the beautiful Art Nouveau house. Just hearing the name “Villa Elfvik” provoked romantic memories, since Antti and I had held our wedding there. That had been in December and the trees had carried a glaze of frost. Now they were still cloaked in leaves, even though some had started to fall. The nature paths appeared as if they had been painted with a mixture of turmeric and tomato sauce.

Tapio Holma wasn’t anywhere close to being the only bird-watcher standing in the marsh. I counted about ten. Holma had an expensive-looking spotting scope. I waded toward him carefully, even though the flock of ducks was about a hundred yards away and didn’t seem to care about the humans watching them. Holma had a handy backpack that could be transformed into a stool. A thermos poked out of one pocket.

“Hi,” I said quietly, but Holma still gave a start.

“Hi. Aren’t they wonderful? It’s even better through the scope.” Holma adjusted the height of the tripod for me. Some of the birds were pure white with a little black on their backs and others were a more modest brown. The handsome white ones were probably the drakes—that’s how it always was in the avian world. Once I’d argued with Harri that men were attracted to ornithology because it satisfied their natural instinct to prance around dressed in feathers.

“What I wanted to talk to you about actually relates to birds,” I said once I’d admired the sea ducks. “You said you didn’t know Harri Immonen, but you were members of the same bird-watching club, Espoo Birding.”

Holma, who had been looking out at the bay, turned to me with surprise in his eyes.

“Were we? But I really didn’t know him. I am a member of Espoo Birding, but I don’t go to events very often. I’ve spent most of my time in Germany the past few years.”

“Yes, but you were both members of the club for more than ten years, and Harri was well-known in ornithology circles. Think harder.”

One of the white drakes suddenly took wing and flew toward the shore. Tapio moved behind the scope, turned it to the bird, and stared.

“The patterning of his bill is fantastic. Do you want to look?”

“Thanks, but no. I met with Jiri Merivaara on Friday. He said your relationship with Riikka is over. Apparently Riikka suspects you of murdering her father.”

Turning, Holma bumped the scope, but he managed to right the tripod at the last second. When he looked at me, his face wasn’t boyish anymore.

“Jiri is talking garbage. No one has left anyone. Our relationship may be on hold, but Juha’s death doesn’t have anything to do with it. Of course Jiri wants me to be guilty of Juha’s murder instead of his mother or Mikke.”

Tapio Holma bent down to adjust the scope and then looked through it again. A male smew was racing with a dark-gray crow in the bright-blue autumn sky. When the white and dark gray met the brilliant yellow trees onshore, the hue of their feathers was even more pure than against the blue.

“In the fall, bird sightings become even more important. In the summer their calls almost get lost in each other. But in October even the cawing of a crow can sound like a serenade,” Holma said quietly. “The spring migration is a wonderful time too, of course, when the world bursts into song, but for some reason I’ve always been more interested in the fall migration.”

“So Riikka ended your relationship. Why?”

Holma turned the scope on me, the gesture seeming at once childish and threatening. I pushed the scope aside because I wanted to see Tapio Holma’s face when he answered.

“Isn’t it easy to guess? Riikka said I’m too old for her. And she said I’d leave her anyway after I get my voice back. The doctors are sure the surgery is going to work and that by next spring my vocal chords will be back to normal. I’m just not sure I want to go back to the hell of competing over every job and the stress of squeezing myself into each role. Seija Saarela claims my voice gave out because the rest of me was tired of singing. Maybe she’s right.”

Holma ran his hand through his hair, seeming frustrated.

“Although I’ve always known this wouldn’t last forever. A twenty-one-year age difference is a lot, even though I think we could’ve overcome it. But Riikka is so unexperienced. She hasn’t even really dated before. I don’t mean I took Riikka’s virginity, but almost . . .” Holma blushed. “Maybe after Suzanne Riikka felt fresh and different, and I was acting like a schoolboy too . . .”

“I guess we all become young again when we fall in love. So you’re going for the operation?”

“Yes. I’m leaving for California as soon as you say I can.”

I couldn’t picture Holma as the Machiavellian avenger infiltrating the Merivaara family because of Harri, but I also couldn’t clear him of suspicion. Maybe he had continued the fight about Riikka during the night.

“Apparently you suffered an injury to your arm on the night of the murder. Can I see it?”

Holma glanced at me in irritation and then pulled up his sleeve. The bruise on his ulna was barely visible now.

“So you talked to Riikka. Don’t believe her. I got this bruise when Juha whacked me with a ladle in the sauna.”

“Riikka claims you didn’t have it when you had sex later that night.”

“Riikka didn’t notice. I don’t feel like going into details, but it was dark then.”

“So it’s your word against hers.”

“Is that where we are now?” Holma asked sadly and then looked through the scope again. I didn’t answer; instead I walked deeper out into the reeds and stared at the bay. It would have been nice to stay and spend the rest of that sunny October day in the Elfvik marsh, but my cell phone reminded me of reality. Koivu needed an arrest warrant. I had to get back to the station.

I bumped into Taskinen in the parking garage.

“Did you have a good weekend?” he asked solicitously, presumably remembering my outburst at the graffiti meeting on Friday.

“I was able to get my mind off of work, if that’s what you mean.”

We walked through the doorway into the stairwell at the same time, knocking against each other. I smelled the restrained scent of Taskinen’s aftershave and felt the toned muscles of his arms through our coats. I had always enjoyed his touch, and at first this had made me feel guilty, especially when I realized that the attraction went both ways. Gradually I had learned to treat the feeling as a gift: it was nice that there was someone at work I could count on for a proper hug if I needed some extra strength.

“Ström’s brother called yesterday. He tried to get hold of you too but couldn’t.”

“I didn’t have my cell.”

“They decided to have a quiet funeral like Pertti wanted, but they still hoped his closest colleagues could attend. The brother has a bad heart and their father is very sick, so they asked if we could supply the pallbearers. Pertti didn’t really have friends. The written invitations will be coming later this week.”

“We’ll have to look at our shifts. I’ll ask the guys who can make it. Lähde for sure, and Hirvonen from Forensics, since Ström used to drink with them. Will the funeral be this weekend?”

“No, next week. I can be one of the pallbearers. How are things going with a replacement?”

The elevator stopped at my floor, and Taskinen lingered, holding the door open. We chatted for a minute about how best to handle the vacant position.

When I reached my office, I noticed a fax from Corsica on my desk. Peders and Ramanauskas had been found at the Calvi guest marina, and the local police wanted to know what to ask them once they found an interpreter who knew German. For a moment I indulged a daydream of flying to Corsica. It was probably still summer there. Then I typed up a list of questions in English, all the while wondering how their content would change when they were translated into French and then German. I simply wanted to find out why Mare Nostrum had been set up and what its line of business was. I also sent a copy of the label from the paint can Jiri had found and requested that they ask what Peders and Ramanauskas knew about it.

I didn’t have time to eat lunch before I left to meet with Anne Merivaara. I fervently hoped that she would offer me tea and more of those carrot scones. My blood sugar was so low that I felt dangerous in traffic, so I stopped at a convenience store for a candy bar even at the risk of being late. I arrived at four minutes past two, and Paula Saarnio was waiting in the lobby to bring me upstairs.

“Mrs. Merivaara is still in conference with her lawyer. She asked that you wait for fifteen minutes. Would you like some tea?”

Of course I said yes, thank you. Apparently Paula Saarnio had been ordered to keep me company, because two cups and a platter of feta-spinach quiche were waiting on her table. I wolfed down half of a large piece before I realized I should take advantage of the situation and ask what she knew about Peders and Ramanauskas.

“Oh, the Lithuanians we never paid dividends to.” Saarnio’s expression was amused. “Heikki and I, I mean Mr. Halonen, our CFO, and I wondered about that more than once, especially in recent years when the company could actually pay dividends. Mare Nostrum’s account always remained untouched.”

“But you knew who the secret shareholders were, unlike Mr. Halonen and Anne Merivaara.” Evidently my tone was sharp, because Paula Saarnio glanced at me in surprise.

“Yes, I knew, even though the deal was made before I was hired. Juha let it slip one night after drinking with clients. Anne and Juha gave a presentation on the company’s environmental goals, and then the customers were fed and liquored into a stupor. Anne came down with a fever and went home, but Juha asked me to stay and empty the last bottle of champagne with him. He raised a glass to the big show and laughed about what the customers would say if they knew that the whole eco-line was funded with money from a very different kind of paint. Then I think he was scared about what he’d said and explained that he’d just meant paint from his father’s time.”

Paula Saarnio leaned back in her chair and crossed her long legs. The creases of her pinstripe pants were immaculate.

“What did he mean by that?”

“Well, the paints the company made back in Martti Merivaara’s time were full of lead. They used it to keep the bottoms of the boats clean. I probably would have believed Juha if the fax machine hadn’t started printing right then. I went to get it, and it was from Ramanauskas. The next load was due ashore on Saturday. When Juha realized that I had read the fax, which was for his eyes only, he had a hard time coming up with an explanation. Finally he said that it was just about a deal with his shareholding company and that after a few more arrangements he would be able to buy all the Merivaara Nautical stock back from Mare Nostrum. That was when I started suspecting that the shares had been sold to Mare Nostrum as part of some sort of scam.”

Frowning, I wished that Kantelinen had been with me.

“Some sort of scam? What do you mean?”

“Several years ago the company needed more capital, but Juha didn’t want to sell shares to outsiders. Maybe Mare Nostrum was a front company, and Peders and Ramanauskas were paying Juha for a share in something else entirely.”

Just then the door to the CEO’s office opened. Anne Merivaara led out a gray-haired gentleman with an expensive-looking three-piece suit and a pocket-watch chain that had to be twenty-four-karat gold. Anne looked as if she’d been crying.

“Just one more moment,” she said to me and then asked Saarnio to escort out the man she called Mr. Heikkilä. I hoped Saarnio would return before Anne, but Anne only took a minute powdering her nose. When she came back, the signs of her tears had disappeared.

“I’m sorry you had to wait. Is there any news?”

“Yes, actually, quite a lot. For example, we have the names of the Mare Nostrum shareholders. Your husband, Juha, was the primary shareholder. Do you still want to claim you had no knowledge of these arrangements?”

“None.” Anne tried to sound confident, but the muscles in her face twitched. “Apparently there were a lot of things I didn’t know about, for instance that the boat was completely paid for, even though Juha told me we still owed half of it and that last fall, after that first heart attack, he took out the most expensive life-insurance policy he could, given his health history. As if he sensed he was leaving soon.”

“Is that speedboat in Juha’s name rather than the company’s?” I asked quickly, because tears were filling Anne’s eyes.

“It’s in my name, and I don’t know where the money came from to pay for it. We should have had . . .”

“There are probably a lot of things about the company that are different than you imagined. What do you intend to do with the company? Sell it?”

“I don’t know if I want to sell, but what if Riikka and Jiri intend to keep their shares? Juha wouldn’t have wanted us to sell, which is why he took out that life insurance. I asked Mikke to consider taking over as CEO, even though I knew it was hopeless. Heikki Halonen would be interested, but I don’t trust him.”

“So what do you want to do?”

Anne smiled faintly.

“I haven’t had much time to think. I’m lucky to get through one day at a time. Seija and I have talked about starting an educational center on Rödskär. Seija could teach crystal classes, one of my other friends could teach raw veganism, and so forth. Rödskär is an inspiring place. We could hold retreats there too. I don’t believe in the bad energy Seija complains about. All I feel is peace when I think of the island, even after Juha’s death.”

I took another piece of quiche and focused on eating it. A crow sped past the window, and the motion of its wings gave Anne a start. I felt in my pocket for the red granite from Rödskär and the amazonite Seija Saarela had given me, but handling them didn’t make asking the following question any easier.

“You were afraid that Juha killed Harri Immonen—or were you certain of it?”

“No!” Anne jumped so violently that the knee she had crossed over the other banged against the underside of the table and made the teacups jingle. “I was just afraid that if Harri could fall and die on those cliffs, then any of us could.”

I didn’t believe her, so I asked Anne to tell me how they had found Harri’s body. Anne said that I had read the case files and knew the chain of events as well as anyone. Reminiscing about them would be too hard for her. I didn’t want to lean on her too much and say outright that we could just as well talk about it at the police station with a witness and a voice recorder. Fortunately the slightest hint in that direction worked, and Anne started talking.

Juha had come in on the morning ferry from Tallinn. He said he was tired after difficult negotiations. Anne believed his red eyes and shaking hands were a result of drinking and suggested they not go to Rödskär and instead spend her birthday at home. But Juha wanted to go to the island because they hadn’t been spending enough time alone, just the two of them. Anne agreed on the condition that she steer the boat. Juha refused, and Anne was terrified as he sped toward Rödskär as if sea monsters had been on their heels.

At the dock they hadn’t noticed anything strange. It wasn’t until they found Harri’s things in the hut that they grew worried. Juha was angry: Harri should have known that they would want to be alone that weekend. First they called for Harri indoors and then went outside to search the rocks. Juha noticed the body and ordered Anne to keep away. Anne had no problem complying—the very thought of seeing a dead body filled her with dread. Juha tried in vain to revive Harri.

“I must have gone into some sort of shock. All I could do was sit on a rock and stare. Juha called the police and covered the body.”

“How did Juha react to finding the body?”

“I can’t really say, since I was so upset myself. At least he was able to act rationally. Once while we were engaged he told me he wasn’t afraid of the dead because he spent his whole childhood watching his mother die. When the end came, it was a relief to everyone. I’m not completely convinced that the experience was as easy for him as it appeared, though. He had his first heart attack just before Harri’s funeral.”

It would have been a clever trick to arrange to find the body himself with a witness present. And attempting CPR would be an easy way to explain the fibers, hairs, and so forth found on the body. Now no one even questioned that.

“Was Juha alone on his trip to Tallinn? Who was he meeting with?”

Anne didn’t know and told me to ask Paula Saarnio. I cursed to myself that more than a year had passed since the trip. Getting a passenger manifest from the ferry would be impossible now. Hopefully Saarnio had kept a record of travel reservations and business meetings. Anne called her in and asked her to look through their records from the previous year.

“Any meetings will be listed on the calendar, and Accounting will have the travel receipts. Just a moment and I’ll check. I’ll do it in Juha’s office so I don’t bother you,” Saarnio said.

“Do you really think Juha could have been mixed up in Harri’s death?” Anne hissed after Saarnio closed the door. When I didn’t respond, she continued. “Do you know why I was worried Harri killed himself? Because of what Katrina told me. I think you know Mikke dropped Harri off on the island and then continued on to Åland to visit his mother. Before Mikke arrived, Harri called Katrina and left a message for Mikke. Katrina didn’t remember it until Mikke was already in Denmark and Harri had been found dead. Katrina said that Harri had sounded anxious. Even though Katrina doesn’t talk much about her thoughts, this had clearly been bothering her. I guess she worries that Harri killed himself and wonders whether maybe he wouldn’t have if she had remembered to tell Mikke to call Harri back.”

Anne sounded increasingly confused, as if she were desperately trying to transfer guilt for Harri’s death to anyone but Juha. Still, I would have to talk to Katrina Sjöberg. What time did the morning flight for Åland leave? If I couldn’t go to Corsica, at least I could visit a slightly closer island. Who would I take with me on my last-minute getaway? My thoughts bolted headlong like a pack of foxes released from their fur-farm cages. After a few moments Paula Saarnio appeared at the door, looking confused.

“I can’t find any record of a meeting in Tallinn last year on the third of October, and there aren’t any ferry tickets either. Anne, are you sure Juha had a meeting there?”

“Yes, of course! Juha took the overnight ferry and brought home champagne and caviar!” Anne said, but her voice was unsure. I looked at Anne’s hands, remembered their strong grip. Maybe Anne had known that Juha killed Harri, and maybe she had discovered why. Although Anne had endured Juha’s other women, she couldn’t endure that her spouse had been concealing something unsavory about the family business. Had Anne killed Juha when she learned that they were selling lead paint to Lithuania?

I still didn’t know enough about the paint can Jiri found, so I decided to quit grilling Anne and go book my flight for Åland. I cursed like a sailor when I learned that the morning flight left at seven twenty. That would mean waking up before six. I made sure Katrina Sjöberg would be home before confirming the reservation and then arranged for a rental car to be waiting at the airport. Just as I finished making the travel arrangements, a call came in from the crime lab.

“About this paint you sent us. Where is this from?”

I said I didn’t know but that I suspected the Soviet navy.

“We’re just on our first assay, but based on our results so far I can tell you it contains tributyltin,” the chemist, whose name was Niinimaa, said happily.

“Tributyltin? What’s that?”

“An organotin compound used in bottom paint for boats. It stops things from growing on the hull.”

“Holy shit!” I said with such gusto that Niinimaa seemed taken aback.

“Does that not fit your theory?” he asked.

“A little too well. Is it a prohibited substance?”

“The 1988 Helsinki Commission banned its use in paint, but there have been reports of continued use in former Soviet countries.”

“Effects, briefly?”

“It hasn’t been researched much, but there have been observations of male features developing in female snails. Rainbow trout have shown changes in blood and liver metabolism as well as eye deformations. Salmon spawn die if the concentrations are high enough. There have also been reports of blue-mussel deaths and breakdowns in the immune systems of birds that feed on the mussels. The half-life of the chemical in water is about three months.”

What were we facing? Jiri had talked about barrels of paint. Would a few barrels of tributyltin in the water system cause permanent damage?

I asked Niinimaa to fast-track his investigation as I thought of the dead eider duck and the files on Harri’s laptop. Approving the expense of sending divers to Rödskär would be premature before I knew where in the sea the toxins might be.

Mikke Sjöberg didn’t answer when I called him again. The IT specialist working on Harri’s computer did answer, though, and he sounded irritated.

“This is going to take a while. The current owner said he formatted the hard drive. I can’t promise I can save the files from before the format, but I’ll do my best. We’re just a little swamped right now, what with this big bank-hacking case.”

“I know,” I said without sympathy. Everyone in the department was working at their limit, and I had realized it was hopeless trying to take anyone to Åland with me because every single one of our detectives was up to his eyeballs in cases. If I needed a witness for an official interview, I could turn to the local police.

I delegated the morning meeting to Lähde and asked him to request volunteers to carry Ström’s casket. Our relationship had always been formal, since Lähde had been Ström’s confidant, and he had never made it a secret that he thought the wrong person had been appointed as unit commander. That was why I was surprised at what he said next.

“Oh, pallbearers. I know what Ström would have said.”

“Yeah?”

“‘Make that goddamn feminist carry me. She always wanted to take a man’s job anyway,’” Lähde said, and there was nothing in his voice but the pain we all shared.

“Sure, I’ll help carry, just so long as there’s someone on the other side who’s willing to walk with his knees bent,” I said and then fled toward my office. From the hall I heard the phone ringing and made it in just before the answering machine picked up.

“Hey, it’s Puustjärvi. I found that bird carcass.”

“Good! Where?”

“At the Veterinary and Food Research Institute. But it wasn’t murdered. It died a natural death.”

It was silly to be disappointed. If Juha Merivaara didn’t cause an environmental catastrophe, it was a good thing.

“But I did find another carcass Immonen brought in,” Puustjärvi continued. “A real nice-looking salmon. It had deformations in its liver, circulatory system, and eyes. Which can all be caused by a chemical named—”

“I know. Tributyltin.”

17

The world was dark when the plane from Helsinki to Turku lifted off. I had left Antti and Iida sleeping when the taxi arrived. The mercury had been at twenty degrees: winter was coming early.

I had spent the whole night on the phone handling work. Iida whined and tugged at me for attention as I tried to understand a Corsican colleague’s limited English. Peders and Ramanauskas had been extremely put out when they were taken to the Calvi police station for questioning. Yes, they owned shares in a company called Mare Nostrum, which in turn held shares in Merivaara Nautical, but that wasn’t any crime. They had been shocked to hear of Juha Merivaara’s death. According to them, the purpose of Mare Nostrum had been to import paint from Finland to the Baltics, but sales had never taken off as planned. For the past few years, the company had only really existed on paper, and Juha Merivaara had offered to buy back their shares. They had intended to complete the deal the next time the men happened to be in Finland.

The Corsican police had released Peders and Ramanauskas. On Saturday, the fourth of October, they had been dining with French and Monacan friends in a restaurant on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. There were numerous witnesses.

Iida had started to scream so loudly that the Corsican detective couldn’t understand me either. I shouted for Antti to come get Iida and then asked the detective for the registration number of the Lithuanians’ boat.

Antti had tromped in, and Iida wailed like a banshee when he dragged her away to help with the baking. After I got off the phone I joined them in the kitchen. Iida’s face was wet with tears, but she was happily patting cakes of dough.

“You should have known she’d be glued to you as soon as you came home from work,” Antti said irritably. There was flour on his face and in his stubble.

“I know, I know, but I had to handle this before tomorrow morning. Just one more quick call and then I can take her.”

I had tried Mikke Sjöberg again, and then asked a uniformed patrol to go by the marina to make sure the Leanda was still there. It was at the dock, and light shone from the cabin windows. The thought of Mikke sitting out there by himself shivering in the dark was sad, but I didn’t let myself dwell on him.

The lights of Turku appeared through the clouds. Aggravated by the early-morning flight, my stomach lurched as the plane descended. A cold sweat spread over my body, and the coffee-like substance the flight attendant had served nearly came back up.

Behind us, the sun began glowing in the eastern sky, but after a brief layover the plane took off again toward the darkness and Åland beyond. The sea was gray and frigidly still, with islands shining gold or lingonberry red, rising from the water as if the world were trying to adorn itself one last time with the gems of summer and fall before sinking through shades of brown and gray to purest white. Antti and Iida were probably cooking their morning porridge right now. I realized I enjoyed sitting in an airplane where no family members, colleagues, or clients could demand anything of me.

Had I gone to Åland to be alone? Was that what I needed, a chance to not speak to anyone at some time other than the commute to work and back home, a space in which I wasn’t always available for others? Had I overestimated my strength when I accepted this position, imagining I could command an entire police unit and raise Iida?

Occasionally we had considered whether Iida needed siblings. Right now leaving work again to have another child was impossible to think about. My sisters kept saying that only children grow up selfish, but they had been wrong before.

The plane banked to the south and the sunrise filled the sky like an enormous variegated dark-yellow and deep-violet fireworks display. The color leapt from the sky to the sea, turning the deathly gray to golden blue, deepening the ruddy granite of the islets to ruby. I could have gazed at it forever: the smooth transition of colors from one shade to another, the shadows chased by the sun on the restless surface of the water. But the main island of Åland was already glimmering before us, and the pilot announced that we would be descending to Mariehamn in five minutes.

The car I had reserved was waiting at the airport. The drive to Svinö Harbor was twelve miles, and the ferry left at ten. I had time to swing through downtown Mariehamn, but I decided to take the scenic route instead. The road meandered through autumn-brown fields and yellow forests with the sea, now a blue-green, making occasional appearances. The fields were neatly plowed, though in the shadows they were still covered in frost.

The cafe near the ferry was deserted; perhaps it was only open during summer. An abandoned barge floated at the dock, and a clump of defiant groundsel still bloomed. The wind was picking up, and I pulled my jacket tighter around myself. I got my fill of the bleak shoreline view because the Knipan was twenty minutes late. I drove the car on and then climbed to the upper-deck cabin. There were a few other people aboard, and based on their accents, they were local residents returning from shopping in Mariehamn.

The ferry began chugging east past the little red-rock islands. Seeing a lighthouse island to the north, I could imagine the fall storms sweeping over its rocks and short alder trees. The south wind rocked the ferry unpleasantly, but the ferry wasn’t bothered and continued weaving through the wall of islands. Suddenly beyond them the village of Degerby appeared, and the ferry turned between the spar buoys toward the northeast. The lane was well marked. The water off the village seemed full of shoals. On one islet I picked out a pair of swans hugging the rocks, their wings gleaming in the sun.

The village wound along the shore. Red ocher and pale-yellow houses, a light-gray shoreside restaurant. A few sailboats floated in the harbor, but otherwise the village seemed to have gone into hibernation. The ferry crew had to struggle before the south wind allowed the ferry to dock.

Driving through Degerby took about a minute. The village had a local museum, a store, a post office, a library, and a minigolf course emptied by the fall weather. I also saw a sign for a restaurant. The church was farther on. Katrina Sjöberg had given precise driving directions, so I continued straight along the road leading east.

“My house is difficult to find, but on Tuesday morning I’ll be at the Föglö church practicing the hymns for Sunday. The signs will take you there,” Katrina Sjöberg had said. A mile past the village I turned right, then went over a narrow bridge, past some terns floating on the sea.

The church tower stood high above the sea, and it was a good landmark visible from miles around. I left the car in the parking lot and climbed the hill to the church. The fresh paint of the doors seemed strange against the ancient grayish-red stone of the building. I entered the churchyard through the gate. The first gravestone I saw said “Sjöberg.” Were Johan Erik Emanuel and Hilda Erika relatives of Katrina and Mikke?

The graveyard was a small open area full of mossy stones and rusted crosses. Some of the stones were decorated with a picture of an anchor or a ship, each with a pilot or sea captain lying beneath. I walked to the yellow main door, but it was locked. I circled around to the wing on the same side as the parking lot, past a ten-foot-tall monument. Till minne av på havet omkomna—In memory of those who lost their lives at sea. The red granite was the same as the cliffs of Rödskär, and the sun cast streaks of blood on part of the rock.

I opened the side door. The Church of Saint Mary Magdalene—it was almost like my namesake church. There was something peaceful and inviting about old stone churches. I was always happy to visit them, even though I didn’t even know what my own religious convictions were. I opened the inner door and entered the clean, arched whiteness.

The first thing I saw was the votive ship hanging from the church ceiling. The organ thundered a tune I didn’t recognize. I didn’t want to interrupt Katrina’s playing, so I just kept looking. Above the altar a board had been hung with the text: Hjälp mig Gud och Maria att allt jag börjar får ett gott slut—Help me God and Mary that all I undertake will meet a good end. The oldest parts of the church were from the fourteenth century, the time before the Reformation, which was maybe why the prayer called so fervently upon the Virgin Mary. As a child I had disliked my name because it had seemed that only grandmothers and religious kids were named Maria. In middle school Virgin Maria became a taunt, even though my rough, tomboyish behavior was anything but maidenly. Often I had wondered why my agnostic parents had chosen such a staunchly Christian name. They said it was because both of their grandmothers had been named Maria.

The interior of the church was dim. Near the altar was a candelabrum with a few thin, unlit candles. On the bench that ran along the wall sat a carton of candles and a box for donations. I pulled a coin from my pocket, took a candle, and struck a match. I wondered what Ström would think if he knew I was lighting a candle in his memory. He probably wouldn’t have liked it, but according to his own belief he was past knowing now. That thought came as a nearly physical pain, and for a moment I felt like putting my hand over the flame of the candle just to replace the first anguish with a different one.

Then the organ stopped. I heard a bang in the loft and then Katrina Sjöberg’s voice.

“Hi. So you made it.”

After a few seconds she walked into the chapel and came to shake my hand. The grip of her veined hand was strong, and her skin still had some of the tan of summer. She was wearing a thick wool sweater, faded black corduroys, gray wool socks, and heavy boots. Over her arm she was carrying an oilcloth jacket.

“Welcome to Föglö. Have you ever visited Åland before?”

“On the main island, yes, but never out here. So are you the parish cantor in addition to your other jobs?”

“The usual cantor is on sick leave, so I’m filling in. Shall we go? Unfortunately you’ll have to put out the candle. Fire safety regulations, you know.”

Carefully I blew out the candle, leaving only a persistent curl of smoke. The church door banged shut behind us. I wondered what kind of god Katrina believed in. Did he give forgiveness for mortal sins like taking another person’s life?

When I couldn’t think of anything else to say, I asked about the gravestones I had seen.

“Yes, they’re some distant cousins, but our branch of the family is over on the other side of the cemetery. Would you like to see?”

“Why not. Will Juha be buried here too?”

“No, he’s being cremated. But Mikke and I have plots ready here.”

Katrina led me to a shaded part of the graveyard near the stone wall. The largest Sjöberg marker was four by six feet, with a few smaller ones clustered around. One of these bore the names of the founder of Merivaara Nautical, Mikael Johan, and Martti Merivaara. The large stone was engraved with a sailboat and anchor, and beneath it were buried the sea captain Johan Sjöberg and the pilot Daniel Sjöberg.

“Daniel was my grandfather, and Johan was Martti’s. Erland and Ida are my parents, and I’ll be laid to rest next to them. There’s still space on the stone,” Katrina said calmly. Fall roses bloomed in front of the largest gravestone, but soon the frost would blacken their leaves.

“This is generations of stubborn men who never followed laws made by other people. I think we Sjöbergs stayed too long here in our own little island kingdom. Johan, the sea captain, smuggled weapons to Finland during the Russian oppression, and Daniel looked the other way when alcohol shipments came in during Prohibition. Where are your graves?”

It had never even crossed my mind to think where I would be buried. The Kallios didn’t have a family plot, and the Sarkelas had fallen to the Soviets during World War II.

“I don’t imagine young people like you get that question much,” Katrina said. “For me it feels comforting to know where my bones will end up, especially since I’m not sure of the destination of my soul.” Katrina bent down and picked up a couple of maple leaves from the grass. “My home is a kilometer and a half from here. Will a bicycle fit in your car?”

We managed to jam Katrina’s mountain bike into the trunk of my rented Volkswagen. First the road veered toward the center of the island, and then after two hundred yards, a narrow, rocky lane led off to the northwest. At the end of it stood a red, two-story wooden house built in the shelter of exposed bedrock and forest about a hundred yards from the shore. Winds from the sea wouldn’t be able to trouble it, even though the water glittered between the trees.

“Mattsboda, my mother’s home. She was a Sjöberg too. Our family intermarried too much.” Katrina pulled her bike out of the car. The angularity of her movements was the same as Mikke’s.

We went inside to the living room, which was dominated by a hand loom, a baking oven, and a table that could have seated nearly twenty people. Nets and other fishing implements decorated the walls, as well as an anchor, five feet tall. A grandfather clock ticked as if its seconds were slower than normal. Although the room was large, Katrina seemed to fill it, even though her slender frame only stood at five foot two.

“So what would you like to ask me?” she said once we had removed our coats and she had given me a thick pair of wool socks to replace my shoes. “This must be important for you to come all the way from Espoo.”

“Do you mind if I record our conversation?”

When Katrina did not object, I pulled my recorder and a couple of tapes out of my bag. Dictating the date and time of the interview felt unreal sitting in such a peaceful room in a house hundreds of years old.

“I have several questions. First let’s go back to a year ago. Harri Immonen called here a little before his death, trying to reach Mikke. What did Harri say?”

Katrina Sjöberg ran a hand through her gray hair, and I noticed her eyes were gray now too, like the morning sea in the autumn light.

“So much has happened since then. I don’t remember exactly. He asked for Mikke to contact him as soon as possible.”

“How did he sound?”

“Very different from the calm, pleasant young man I had met before. Anxious. He kept repeating how important it was. And then stupid me forgot the whole thing!”

Katrina sighed, and the wrinkles around her eyes tightened. “I blamed myself for forgetting to mention Harri’s call. That was why I waited so long to tell Mikke about his death. I was afraid of how he would react. Sometimes I’m a coward too. Mikke is the only person I really care about. If Harri killed himself, and if that could have been prevented if I’d given Mikke his message . . . it’s hard to bear.”

“If it helps, I don’t believe Harri killed himself,” I said consolingly, without adding that passing on the message probably still could have prevented Harri’s death. “Did he tell you anything about what was going on? Try to remember. This is important.”

The pot started boiling on the stove, giving off a delicious aroma of fish soup. Katrina stood up to move it off the heat. She stirred the soup a couple of times before answering.

“It was about Juha. I can’t remember the exact words, but Harri wanted to talk to Mikke about Juha.”

“You had known Juha Merivaara since he was ten years old. What kind of a person was he?”

Katrina tasted the broth with a wooden spoon and burned her mouth. It took a little while before she could answer.

“Self-indulgent and stubborn like his father. Martti was lazy, and that was why the business went the way it did. Juha was different in that regard. He loved money. When he was twelve years old, he told me how he intended to invest his inheritance from his mother once he became an adult. There’s enough entrepreneur in me too that I could see the sense in his plans. For a child he also understood brutally well why his inheritance was being managed by a caretaker rather than by his father. Juha was so much like Martti, but he lacked Martti’s uninhibited physicality, which was what I had fallen in love with.”

Katrina sat back down at the table, and the light coming through the window wove a net of furrows across her face that moved like something alive. I moved the recorder closer, knowing that I should be focusing on events on Rödskär Island rather than listening to a family history, but for some reason I had the feeling that this was going to give me answers to questions I didn’t even know how to ask.

“Mikke is the son who inherited Martti’s . . . I imagine your generation would say ‘sex appeal.’ They aren’t handsome but there’s something irresistible about them. Don’t ask me to explain what it is. But sex isn’t enough when what’s on the other side of the scale is completely abandoning your own dreams to play the good little wife. I’ve never been able to compromise, and I guess I raised Mikke to be a person who sails his own course too stubbornly too. I pay for that with how infrequently I see him, and with the knowledge that every time could be the last.”

Katrina fell silent for a moment, and then straightened her back. “The fish soup is ready, and I’m hungry. Will it be a breach of protocol if we eat while we talk?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. The soup was made with fish caught nearby early that morning, Katrina said proudly. It was hot and thick, and the svartbröd served with it tasted strangely sweet but still delicious to my eastern Finnish palate. The conversation naturally turned to bread baking, because I couldn’t help asking how the sweet black bread was made. I couldn’t imagine spending three days on the baking process, but maybe Antti would have the patience to try it.

“Maybe when I married Martti I thought it was an easy way to a complete life—he already had one child, and I was carrying another. I saw myself in Riikka this summer. She was trying to get herself an older man and an established life so she didn’t have any need to create something for herself. First Juha took Riikka, and then Tapio Holma did. I felt like giving some grandmotherly advice, even though that hasn’t been my way.”

“What advice would you give her?”

“Before Juha’s death I would have told her to stop holding on to her father’s pant legs and go live on her own. You have to learn to live in the same room with yourself before you complicate your life with other people, with men and children. Of course I’m an old hermit now. No one could stand more than a week with me or I with them, not even Mikke anymore. Would you like some coffee?”

Once we had finished one cup and were pouring our second, I said we needed to resume the questioning for the case.

“In your first interview, you said that a boat visited Rödskär the night of Juha’s death. Can you tell me more about that, like the time and possible the direction it came from?”

“That’s hard to say, since I slept so restlessly,” Katrina replied evasively.

“But you’re sure there was a boat? No one else heard it.”

“Didn’t they?” Katrina’s face was tired. “Maybe I was hearing things, then. Or dreaming. Maybe I just hoped I’d heard a boat, that there could be someone from outside we could blame for killing Juha.”

“You were also heard going outside during the night, and talking with Mikke. You didn’t mention anything about that.”

“Didn’t I? I said I slept restlessly.”

From my bag I brought out a transcript of the previous interview.

“Yes, you did, but you didn’t mention going outside, and Mikke didn’t either.”

“I talked to you the day after Juha’s death. I was tired and in shock. Maybe I didn’t remember everything. Yes, I went outside, and yes, I bumped into Mikke. He was coming from the Leanda, probably checking the mooring lines. We talked about leaving early in the morning but we didn’t want to go without seeing Anne again. Mikke also wanted to say good-bye to Jiri and Seija.”

Katrina Sjöberg had had time to think carefully about her answers to any question I could ask. It was unlikely I was going to get her to say anything she didn’t want to say. So I shifted the conversation back to Juha.

“What would you say if I claimed that Juha killed Harri Immonen?”

Katrina’s eyes narrowed.

“I would ask what your basis was for that claim, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Harri had discovered that Juha was using the waters around Rödskär to dump damaged barrels of toxic paint. If it ever came out, Juha would have been charged with environmental crimes and Merivaara Nautical’s business would have been finished. It’s also seeming like Juha had been selling toxic Soviet paints as Finnish eco-paints, at least in Lithuania.”

Katrina looked outside. The sun was starting to descend from its peak, and the light was the slightest bit slanted.

“If you’re done with your coffee, let’s go out to the shore for a walk. Otherwise I start nodding off after I eat.”

For a moment I hesitated. I didn’t feel like dragging the recorder with me, so whatever we said while we were walking wouldn’t have anyone or anything to back it up. Still I decided to go. Pulling on my coat, I wrapped my scarf around my ears. That was unnecessary, though, since the south wind didn’t reach the shore of Mattsboda, where a rock outcropping that projected toward the east protected it quite well.

“The Sjöberg-Merivaara family has made its living from the sea for as long as the parish records go,” Katrina said as we walked along the rocky shoreline. “The sea is the same for us as the forest is for you inlanders. We protect it so it can provide for us, not because it is important in and of itself. The sea gives us nourishment, but it is also an enemy, and if you aren’t careful, it will swallow you. I never really believed in Juha’s environmentalism. Anne and the children are all too serious about it, but for Juha protecting the environment was just a marketing gimmick. When dangerous speedboats were all the rage, he sold products for those too.”

Katrina picked up a fist-size piece of red granite and threw it in the water. The water was so clear that after the ripples faded, I could see the rock on the sandy bottom.

“I still have a hard time believing that even Juha could have murdered Harri intentionally. Do you know how it happened?”

I shook my head. The only people who had been there were dead. Most likely Juha had staged his trip to Tallinn and then gone to Rödskär instead to find out how much Harri really knew. I doubted that good-natured Harri, who literally wouldn’t kill a bug—we had argued heatedly about that on a camping trip—had known he was in mortal danger. Maybe Harri had just slipped trying to get away from Juha, who had seen a golden opportunity. Instead of calling for help, he left Harri on Rödskär to die.

I told Katrina about my suspicions, and she silently stared out to sea. Squatting down, I took off a glove and plunged my hand into the water. It was colder than over the weekend in Inkoo, at most forty degrees. The granite bedrock along the shore was strangely warm in comparison.

“It’s ironic that Jiri is single-minded just like his father but in a different direction.” Katrina’s words came slowly, thoughtfully. “Anne called and told me about that fire. She hoped it would scare the boy enough that he would stop rushing off to make trouble in the name of protecting animals. I do believe in Jiri’s sincerity, though. No one would be able to live such a meager life simply out of rebellion. In a way I understand these Animal Revolution kids. The world is shaped the wrong way and it’s too big, so of course people will try to remake it in the image they want.”

I didn’t respond, just pressed my palm to the stone. The dock was a few dozen feet away, and in the bay a couple of buoys floated as if waiting for fishermen’s boats. No matter what the cost, we would have to get some divers out to Rödskär tomorrow, and Interpol would have to drag out of Peders and Ramanauskas everything they knew about the tributyltin barrels. According to Jiri, the Lithuanians had been to Rödskär the previous summer, so maybe they had been with Juha Merivaara when he dumped the barrels in the water.

“This rock was where the women of my family waited for their men to return from the sea. Most of them returned, but not all. My Uncle Daniel’s boat disappeared in the winter of 1950, and only one of the men was found once summer came. The winter was harsh enough that even these waters froze, and the currents underneath carried away the other bodies.”

Katrina was just a few inches behind me. I sensed the trembling of her muscles, and an intense desire to move came over me. Katrina knew the sea and polished granite even better than Juha had. The shore of Mattsboda was invisible from the other houses, and the only sound was the murmuring of the wind. I whirled around so violently that Katrina jumped and her foot slipped. The only thing that saved her from falling headlong into the water was that I grabbed her forearm. Suddenly I realized that she feared me much more than I did her.

“You didn’t twist your ankle, did you? Should we go inside?” I asked.

“I’m perfectly fine. What came over you?” Katrina tried to smile, but the result was more of a grimace. She walked higher up on the shoreline, and her gaze scanned the ground. Finally she picked up a rock almost the size of her head and tossed it in the sea. There was a splash, and the smooth surface broke into concentric rings.

“The stones don’t yet whirl on the water,” she said and turned to look at me. There were tears in her eyes. And then I knew.

18

I called in the arrest warrant from Mattsboda. I told Katrina it was pointless trying to warn Mikke after I left. We would catch him anyway. Katrina claimed she had no intention of trying, no matter how sad she was. She hadn’t wanted to betray her own son. How could she help that I recognized that verse from “The Brother Slayer,” one of thousands of traditional Finnish folk poems, in which the murderer promises his mother to return only once “ravens glitter white and stones on water whirl”? It was pure coincidence that Antti’s choir had sung Pentti Saarikoski’s lyrical adaptation of the poem a few years before.

But it wasn’t just because of that quote. Who else could it have been but Mikke? Everything had pointed to him the whole time. I just hadn’t wanted to see it.

As I drove back toward Mariehamn and the airport, I received word that Mikke Sjöberg had been taken into custody. He had not resisted arrest.

“My plane will be in at 6:45. Can you send someone to pick me up? We’ll start the interrogation tonight,” I said to Puupponen over the phone.

Everything was starting to fall into place. Word had come from the Russian police that tributyltin had been used widely in bottom paint for the Soviet navy. The technician working on Harri’s old computer hard drive had found a piece of a file with a report about the effects of tributyltin on sea creatures, including fish and mollusks. The Veterinary and Food Research Institute reported that Mikke Sjöberg had come in earlier in the fall, asking about the marine samples Harri had brought in.

It wasn’t clear why Juha Merivaara had hidden barrels of toxic paint on Rödskär. Had it been an intermediate point, where the Lithuanians brought the paint for repackaging? Had they unceremoniously dumped the broken barrels in the water around the island? Juha had taken an insane risk exporting toxic paint as environmentally friendly eco-paint for sale abroad. Had he thought no one in Lithuania would ever notice? Maybe Mikke would know the answers to these questions.

At the airport I bought a stuffed airplane for Iida and a bottle of Laphroaig for Antti and me. This late in the day, the flight didn’t upset my stomach. I watched as the rays of the setting sun shone almost horizontally, casting shadow bridges from one islet to the next. Gradually twilight won the battle for mastery of the sea, and by the time we made our stopover at the Turku Airport it was fully dark. Now even airplane coffee tasted good, and I drank three cups because I didn’t know how long a night was ahead. Mikke might deny everything—and so far all we had was circumstantial evidence.

A uniformed officer from Patrol, Mira Saastamoinen, was waiting at the airport, and as I climbed into the front seat of her van, I asked her to use the lights and siren. There wasn’t really any rush other than my own desire to get the case to the prosecutor and off my desk as quickly as possible.

“Did you hear that there was an Animal Revolution protest in front of the Orion building today? They were demanding the release of all the test animals,” Mira said as we pulled off the freeway.

“I hadn’t heard. How did it go?”

“We ended up using tear gas. Thirty or so arrested, and a lot of those had to be dragged away in cuffs. Akkila got into it so badly with this one girl that both of them needed stitches.”

“Stupid.”

“The brass are saying that we’re going to have to get tough with the protesters, who they’re calling dangerous anarchists,” Mira said coolly, without revealing what she actually thought.

Technically I was actually part of “the brass” now, but I was sure Mira knew that I wasn’t always in lockstep with the administration. I didn’t want to take sides, since that always meant turning against someone. I was upwind and free, although right now that wind seemed to be howling a little too hard and at the wrong angle.

Mira had been at the Orion building for most of her shift, so she wasn’t on the team that arrested Mikke Sjöberg. Once at the police station, I headed through the quiet halls to my office to drop off my coat and gather the Merivaara case files. Puustjärvi came by and said he would be my witness. I asked him to bring Mikke Sjöberg from his holding cell to Interrogation Room 2. I visited the restroom, powdered my face, and tried to put on a harsh expression. I promised myself half a bottle of the Laphroaig as soon as I got home.

“Is the case solved now?” Puustjärvi asked as we set off for the interrogation room.

“Probably. We’ll see what we get out of Sjöberg.”

Mikke was waiting. He stood up to greet us like a schoolboy. His face looked like a pale, immobile mask; even his eyes were still. Although he shook my hand, he wouldn’t meet my gaze. Instead of sitting on the couch, he took the chair across from me at the table. Puustjärvi plopped down on the couch looking pleased.

“Would you like something to drink? Coffee?” I asked Mikke before I sat down. He declined. He was wearing the same faded gray sweater as on our sailing trip, but he seemed cold.

“You were probably told when you were arrested that you have the right to an attorney during your interrogation. Would you like to contact anyone? We can wait until your lawyer arrives.”

“Thank you, but I don’t want anyone.”

“You’ve been brought in for interrogation on suspicion of killing your half brother Juha Merivaara on the night between the fourth and fifth of October. You have previously denied your guilt, claiming you were asleep until you found your brother’s body. Would you like to change your testimony?”

Mikke’s cheek muscles twitched. He nodded. I didn’t urge him to speak, and it took a couple of minutes before he said anything.

“I knew you would be coming eventually. Actually this is a relief. When we went to Rödskär and you made me show you how I slipped on Juha’s body, I almost ran away the next night. I guess I should have left right away or just confessed that I killed Juha.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to hide forever.”

“I would have, though. I didn’t intend to hide somewhere in South America. I would have piloted Leanda into a good storm and gone down with her. I can’t stand living knowing that I killed my brother.”

Mikke leaned forward and rested his head in his hands, his knuckles white. He was so close that I easily could have touched him across the narrow table.

“Of course I would have confessed if you would have arrested someone else. But I stupidly thought that maybe you wouldn’t be able to prove that Juha’s death wasn’t an accident.”

“So how did it happen? Maybe telling will make it easier.”

Mikke raised his head, and his eyes focused behind me. I knew all he was looking at was an empty white wall.

“You know that Juha killed Harri.”

“I had concluded as much. How did you find out?”

Mikke explained that over the summer he had found the tributyltin files on Harri’s computer, which aroused his suspicion. He had begun looking into the events surrounding Harri’s death. Seija had told him about the dead duck, and Katrina told him about Harri’s call. Getting access to the Merivaara Nautical files through Marcus Enckell had been effortless, since as a result of his dementia, the elderly man didn’t remember that Mikke wasn’t a shareholder anymore.

Mare Nostrum’s role was almost ironic. Juha hadn’t been able to get rid of the company as easily as he would have liked because his nosy CFO had started asking questions about why Merivaara Nautical wasn’t paying Mare Nostrum dividends. Mare Nostrum had been importing raw materials for the eco-paints while smuggling hazardous waste from the Soviet navy. Mikke didn’t know why Juha had decided to hide the damaged barrels on his own property.

“We were too drunk the night of Anne’s birthday party. I had been trying to ask Juha about Harri and the tributyltin paint, but he wouldn’t admit anything, and I didn’t have enough evidence to go to the police. I had actually been thinking about staging my departure for the winter. I’d take my mother to Åland, then sail back to Espoo and try to get a couple of my diver friends to check out the seafloor around Rödskär. But it bothered me not to know where the tributyltin had been dumped and how much poison there was.”

After the party broke up, Mikke visited his boat. Then he chatted with his mother. When he saw Juha go out, he went after him.

“Juha looked at me with such a pompous drunken grin on his face and said, ‘You’re leaving tomorrow, little brother. So you’ve come to your senses and decided to forget Harri and this poison-paint nonsense?’ After a moment he said, ‘We have to celebrate the anniversary of his death somehow, though. I thought I’d go piss where we found the body.’”

That had made Mikke lose control. He took a swing at Juha, but Juha pushed him away and continued toward the shore. As Juha urinated off the cliff into the water, Mikke announced that he wasn’t going to leave and that he was going to start an investigation into the tributyltin.

“This enraged Juha. He shouted, ‘Little brother, I wouldn’t make threats if I were you. Or do you want the same thing to happen to you as Harri?’ Juha’s face was red and his eyes bulged out of his head. Still I asked him what happened to Harri.”

Mikke gave a vivid imitation of Juha’s voice, and I could almost see him standing before me, radiating that entitled self-confidence of his. “‘I might as well tell you, since there isn’t any evidence! I handled that little snoop. First I tried to talk sense into the kid, but when he wouldn’t agree to forget it, even though I offered to quadruple his salary, he didn’t leave me any choice. He didn’t even know how to fight back. And don’t you worry about those paint barrels. What are they, next to all the shit the farmers here in Finland dump in the water every day? Not to mention all the manufacturing pollution in Poland and the Baltic States. Fuck, I probably killed Harri for no reason. The police would have just laughed in his face if he would have gone in there babbling about mysterious paint barrels and showing them his dead clams.’

“Then I attacked him,” Mikke continued. “The craziest thing is that I killed Juha the same way he killed Harri, in anger, on the spur of the moment. Juha was forty pounds heavier than me but more out of shape and drunker. And he definitely would have killed me if I hadn’t beaten him to it. I had an old bronze storm lamp in my hand. When I hit Juha with it, he fell and started rolling down the cliff into the water.”

Mikke had stood and watched for a moment before fleeing the scene. He had taken the broken lamp with him, and he filled it with rocks and threw it into the water on the other side of the island. He didn’t sleep at all because he expected to hear Juha returning to the building.

“But he never came. I didn’t dare go back to the shore to see what I had done until dawn. Juha was lying dead in the water. All I could think of to do was pull him out and claim that I had just found him.”

“Did Katrina guess what had happened?”

“She didn’t say anything, but I suspected she knew.”

Katrina had refused to answer when I asked her how she knew that Mikke had killed Juha. That was wise, because she could be charged with aiding and abetting if she had real knowledge of the crime. Katrina had asked what Mikke’s sentence would be. I hadn’t been able to answer, since I didn’t know whether we were dealing with murder or manslaughter, or whether it had even been voluntary.

Puustjärvi sighed heavily from the couch.

“Can we take a quick break? My heartburn is killing me. I just need to grab a pill from my office.”

“OK. Bring us a couple of cups of tea while you’re at it. This is still going to take a while.”

When the door closed behind Puustjärvi, Mikke looked at me for the first time. I had to work not to avert my eyes.

“You should let me go. I can’t bear the thought of prison and losing the sea. I’d do just like I said. I’d take the Leanda into a storm and send us both to the bottom. You can give me that, can’t you?”

“Of course I can’t,” I said firmly. After an act like that, I would never be able to work as a cop again.

If Ström hadn’t killed himself, I might have considered it. Now I knew how senseless suicide was. And Mikke wasn’t going to have to serve very much time.

“You aren’t losing the sea forever. Based on what you’ve said so far, you’ll get off with involuntary manslaughter and a short sentence.”

“I’ve already sentenced myself. The only way I’ll ever escape this guilt is death.”

“You’re wrong.”

“How will I tell Anne and the kids?”

“I think that’s my job, and we can leave it for tomorrow.”

“No, I should do it myself,” Mikke said, burying his face in his hands again. Standing up, I was just about to wrap my arms around Mikke when Puustjärvi returned.

Mikke’s desire to cooperate made the rest of the interrogation easy. We were finished by eight thirty.

“What now? Back to the cell?” he asked as I wrapped up the recording.

“Yes. I’ll speak to the prosecutor tomorrow, and he’ll make the decision about remand on Thursday.”

I would have to tell the prosecutor that Mikke had threatened to flee and commit suicide. I didn’t know if doing that would make me a traitor or a guardian angel. If Mikke was released on bail, he might harm himself before the trial.

“They took me from the boat awfully quickly. Could I stop by and grab a few of my things?”

I couldn’t deny him that. Puustjärvi went with Mikke to fetch his coat and the boat keys from the holding area while I got the car. I decided to drive, since I didn’t want to be next to Mikke in the back.

When we arrived at the marina, I just couldn’t go with Mikke to the Leanda. Puustjärvi could handle it while I waited in the car. I wasn’t watching the dock, which is why I didn’t see what happened. I just heard the splash as Puustjärvi fell in the water. I charged out of the car, but Mikke had already managed to close the gate behind him. The fence was six feet tall and the chain-link mesh was tighter than normal. Climbing it with the blunt toes of my boots was a challenge. I saw Mikke cut the mooring line and heard Puustjärvi struggling to shore as I pulled myself up and thought for a second about whether I dared to jump down onto the dock.

“Mikke, don’t be stupid! We’re going to catch you anyway!” I yelled over the noise of the motor starting up. I fumbled in my pocket for my cell phone. I alerted the Coast Guard and the police department’s water patrol, and I asked for one of our boats to pick me up at the marina.

“Do we really have to call out the whole cavalry for one suicidal maniac?” the duty officer asked grumpily.

“You fucking do as I say right now!” I shouted, still balancing on top of the fence, strangely satisfied that I had the power to set the wheels I wanted in motion. We had to capture Mikke alive. “Tell the Coast Guard to send a helicopter too!”

Puustjärvi pulled himself onto land. As I clumsily descended the chain-link fence to the shore, he started stripping off his soaked clothing.

“I didn’t think he was dangerous,” Puustjärvi said angrily. “He said he was looking for the gate key and then he pushed me in.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll get him,” I said.

Once we got back to the car, I pulled a blanket and an extra pair of overalls out of the trunk. “Based on how quickly that happened, I’d say he was planning it.”

Puustjärvi went home to warm up while I stood shivering on the dark shoreline, trying to call the Leanda. Soon I heard a crackling sound—the water was freezing for the first time this fall. The stars shone just as icily above the black water. A police boat arrived within fifteen minutes, and I jumped aboard and grabbed a life jacket. We sped off and once the lights on the mainland were behind us, it was as wickedly dark as a late-October night can be. What little was visible of the moon barely illuminated the boat.

Coast Guard vessels had been called in from the east and the west to join the search, as well as a rescue helicopter and three of our own department boats. The Leanda’s motor was weak enough that Mikke didn’t have any chance of escaping, even though he had a bit of a head start and the darkness was on his side. I spoke with the Coast Guard, reviewing the Leanda’s description and trying to predict Mikke’s plan.

“I think he’ll head out to sea. He knows the archipelago extremely well, but in a sailboat it isn’t as easy to weave between the islands as it is in a motorboat.”

“Sjöberg was arrested on suspicion of murder. Is he a danger to others?”

“Doubtful. He’s most dangerous to himself, and that’s why this is so urgent,” I said.

“Ah. What kind of stove does Sjöberg have onboard?”

I groaned. “Gas,” I said just as I heard the sound of the helicopter over us. Spotlights combed the water but found nothing. A Coast Guard speedboat pulled up to us and reported that a ship matching the Leanda’s description had been spotted east of the last large island before the water opened up. Mikke was headed straight south.

We changed course to go more eastward, and the thumping helicopter sound increased—now there were two of them. The spotlights seized us for a second before the second helicopter continued southeast. The Rödskär lighthouse glimmered dimly on the horizon. After a few miles, I saw the helicopter pause in the air, and a moment later we received word that they had found the Leanda and Mikke Sjöberg. We sped up as another police boat approached from the north, and in ten minutes the Leanda was surrounded. In the glare of the searchlights I could make out a figure on deck.

“Another patrol is asking whether he has a gun,” the radio operator said.

“Not to my knowledge. Are they going to board? Tell them to take it easy.”

The boats approached the Leanda, slowly tightening the noose, and the helicopters were called off. Someone on the boat next to us, Espoo PD 3, raised a megaphone.

“Sjöberg, we’re coming to pick you up. Put your hands in the air while we anchor next to you.”

Mikke only raised one hand, and in it was a gas can. Slowly he poured the gasoline across the deck while he yelled over the idling boat motors.

“If you come any closer, I’ll blow up the boat! The propane stove bottle is open.”

“Give me the binoculars,” I said to the radio operator, even though I was shivering so badly that it was hard to focus the lenses. Mikke stood on the deck with a watch cap pulled down to his eyebrows. I saw thick streaks of fuel on the dark, glossy wood of the deck, and I saw Mikke’s face twisted in pain. In his other hand he had a lighter, and he flinched as Espoo PD 3 started moving. I almost screamed “No!” before I realized that the boat was coming over to us.

“Is Lieutenant Kallio here?” asked Senior Officer Raitio, the bearded boat patrol officer who was leading the operation. “Change boats and let’s talk,” he said and extended his hand. Jumping over to the deck of Espoo PD 3, I managed to make it look as if I’d never been on a boat before. I was stiff with cold, and my hands were barely functional. The cabin was wonderfully warm.

“Do you think Sjöberg is serious?” Raitio asked. He motioned for me to sit, but I was too anxious. I wanted to keep the Leanda in view through the cabin window.

“I think so. During his interrogation he said he had been contemplating suicide. Let me try to talk to him.”

Raitio handed me the megaphone, and I went back on deck. Espoo PD 2 had moved up next to us, and to my surprise I saw Koivu’s face. I waved, and he waved back.

I held the binoculars to my eyes as I raised the megaphone to my mouth. “Mikke!” My voice sounded strange traveling over the water. “This is Maria. Come off the Leanda!”

Mikke slowly shook his head.

“You have a phone with you, don’t you?”

This time his answer was a nod.

“Get it from the cabin and we can talk.”

Mikke stood perfectly still for a second and then he set the gas can down and moved to the cabin. I put down the megaphone and pulled out my own phone. When I saw Mikke come back out on deck, I dialed his number. Moving to the bow, I cupped my hand to cover my lips. I carefully sat down on the deck, and it felt like ice under my ass. After four calls, Mikke finally answered.

“I asked you to let me go.”

“That’s no good, and you know it. Listen to me. You’re probably only going to be charged with involuntary manslaughter because you were defending yourself. Your sentence will be light, and you won’t even serve the whole thing because this is your first offense. You have the money to hire a good defense attorney. You aren’t going to spend your whole life in jail.”

“But I will carry the knowledge that I killed my brother for the rest of my life.”

“It was self-defense. Juha could just as easily have killed you.”

For a moment Mikke was silent, and I watched him slump down on a bench near the helm.

“Have you ever killed someone? Because of your work, I mean?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“No, but I almost did once. I shot someone, but I was only aiming at his gun hand.”

“What happened?”

“He fell and ended up losing an eye, but he lived.”

“Was it self-defense?”

“Him or me. If I had to, I’d do it again.”

“And what if he had died? Would you be able to live without guilt?”

“No, but I would have been able to go on living. And you will too. You have to forgive yourself. The sea will be waiting for you.”

I spoke in the same soothing tone I used with Iida when she woke up in the middle of the night with a nightmare. Maybe it wouldn’t work without the caresses, though. Maybe I should go over to the Leanda. Telling Mikke to stay on the line, I pressed the Mute button on my own phone and walked into the cabin, where Koivu had appeared.

“Should we send someone over to the Leanda?” I asked Raitio.

“Too dangerous.”

“You are not going!” Koivu and Raitio both yelled at the same time, and when Koivu grabbed my arm, I knew I wouldn’t have gone even if I had been ordered to. My days of recklessly endangering my life were done. And it wasn’t just because of how much I loved Iida and Antti. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live.

“I’ll keep him talking on the phone. We shouldn’t try storming the boat, though.” I turned to Koivu and said, “Try to reach his mother. She might be able to talk sense into him. I’ll see if I can get him to agree to let us come closer.”

When I went back outside, I saw Mikke was still hunched over on the same bench. Unmuting the phone, I told him we were planning to move closer. He responded by standing up and igniting his lighter.

“Let me go!” he shouted, sounding hopeless.

“We aren’t going to do that. Throw the lighter into the water,” I said as Espoo PD 3 inched closer. I could see my breath around the telephone, but I didn’t feel the cold anymore.

“I can’t reach Mrs. Sjöberg,” Koivu hissed from the door. I realized it was only me between Mikke and death. And half an inch of flame could make all my attempts meaningless at any instant.

Espoo PD 3 moved about fifteen feet closer to the Leanda. In the harsh beams of the searchlights I could see the lines on Mikke’s face, and I could look him in the eye.

“We can send you a rubber raft. Throw the lighter in the water. You can still fix the damage to the deck. You’re going to be sailing on the Leanda for years to come.”

My voice was only a whisper now. Mikke could hear it through the phone, but his eyes were on mine.

“You want to make atonement. So suffer the punishment society imposes on you. Juha could have killed you, but you were the one who got to live. Don’t waste what you were given.”

Mikke’s eyes bored into me, and then he threw the phone in the water. He grabbed the gas can and tipped it. Then all I saw was an enormous flame.

I screamed as the flame shot into the sea and Mikke jumped after it. I moved, but I didn’t jump. The diver who had been standing at the ready threw off his blankets and was just about to enter the water when Mikke appeared on the surface.

“Mikke!” I shouted, and he started to swim toward our boat. I lowered the bow ladder into the water and climbed down far enough to help him, shivering, onto the deck. As I held him close, he trembled with cold and sobs, getting me wet too. Mikke’s body began shaking more violently, and it took a little while before I realized his crying had turned to laughter.

The searchlights went dark and the world around us turned black as the cold crept over us to freeze the land and the sea. Thankfully someone threw a blanket over us. I held Mikke until his hysterical laughter subsided, and then I let go and told him to go in the cabin and take off his wet clothes.

An officer from Espoo PD 2 went over to the Leanda to get Mikke something to wear. I managed to convince Raitio to tow the Leanda back to the marina. Espoo PD 1 took Koivu, me, and Mikke straight to the nearest dock, where a patrol car was waiting. When we all climbed in the back, Mikke was quiet and seemed calm. When I asked him if he wanted to see a doctor or a psychologist, he said no. But after a pause, he said almost shyly that he would like to call his mother.

“We can arrange that,” I said. In the police-station parking garage, I suggested that we call her from my office. Koivu glowered a little and asked if I needed him. When I said no, he announced he was staying anyway to finish up his report on the El Haj Assad case.

When we reached my office, I dialed Katrina’s number and handed the phone to Mikke. He calmly told her what had happened, and she promised to come on the morning flight.

After I hung up the phone, I didn’t know what to do. Sending Mikke to a jail cell didn’t feel right, but there wasn’t any other option. I asked again if he wanted to speak with anyone.

“I can’t talk now,” he said. “But could you just hold me for a while? Then I’ll go.”

I walked over to the couch where Mikke was, sat down next to him, and squeezed him tight. I could smell the stench of gasoline and the familiar scent of pipe tobacco underneath. His stubble tickled my cheek, and beneath my arms his back muscles were hard. After a few minutes, Mikke let go and looked me in the eye.

“This couldn’t have turned out any more messed up. How did you end up being the cop . . . ?”

I just snorted. It was best not to say anything. Mikke snorted back and said he was ready to go. I called the guard to get him.

“Will you come see me sometime?” he asked while we were waiting at the door.

“Yes, we’ll see each other. Probably tomorrow. If you want, you can come with me to tell Anne and the kids.”

When the guard arrived, I hugged Mikke one last time. Then I went back to my office. Fishing the bottle of Laphroaig out of my bag, I drank a coffee-mug full in one swig. I pulled out my compact and when I looked at myself in the mirror, I was surprised that my face was the same as before. I wasn’t completely broken—just a few small parts of me. The one that had liked Pertti Ström despite it all. And the part that had fallen for Mikke. In order to wrap up the investigation, I would have to see him several more times. I needed some way to get through that.

I took one more swig before leaving.

I knocked on Koivu’s door and opened it.

“Koivu!” My voice was already a little thick. “Hey, Koivu, take me home.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo © 2011 Tomas Whitehouse

Finland’s bestselling female crime author, Leena Lehtolainen first rose to fame with her series starring feisty detective Maria Kallio. She won the Finnish Whodunnit Society’s annual prize for the best Finnish crime novel twice and was nominated for the prestigious Glass Key Award for the best Nordic crime novel. Her books have been translated into twenty-nine languages and have sold over two million copies. Lehtolainen currently lives in Finland with her husband and two sons.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Photo © 2015 Owen Witesman

Owen F. Witesman is a professional literary translator with a master’s in Finnish and Estonian area studies from Indiana University. He has translated more than thirty Finnish books into English, including novels, children’s books, poetry, plays, graphic novels, and nonfiction. His recent translations include the novels My First Murder, Her Enemy, Copper Heart, Snow Woman, and Death Spiral from the Maria Kallio series by Leena Lehtolainen; the novels in the Snow White trilogy by Salla Simukka; the satire The Human Part by Kari Hotakainen; the thrillers Cold Courage and Black Noise by Pekka Hiltunen; Risto Isomäki’s eco-thriller Lithium-6; and the nonfiction opus The Mapmakers’ World by Marjo Nurminen. He currently resides in Springville, Utah, with his wife and three daughters, two dogs, a cat, and twenty-nine fruit trees.