Helsinki Blood

31

I wake early, about eight a.m. The first thing that comes into my mind is that when I was in the sixth grade, a boy in my class and his mother were abducted and driven into the forest. He was kicked in the head multiple times and left for dead. Her throat was slashed. Was this a dream, or did it happen? It seems real to me, but after brain surgery, I sometimes doubt my own perceptions. I send my brother Jari a text message and ask him if he remembers the Ruoho murder case from when we were kids, and if so, what was the outcome?

The way I remember it is that Tapani Ruoho came back to school after a couple weeks. He sat in front of me in homeroom. One morning not long after, he asked me to feel his head. I ran my fingers through his hair and felt a big scab from the kicking. He told me he played dead, the man tied his mother to a tree and cut her throat while he watched. He said nothing about rape, just pure murder.

I remember the newspapers following the murder. The prosecution had a solid case against a man, based on forensic evidence and Tapani’s testimony. But Tapani stuttered. The defense used this to discredit Tapani, portrayed him as a confused mental defective. Not true. He was a bright kid, he just stuttered. His family moved away not long after the trial.

Jari texts back. Yes, he remembers. The defendant was acquitted. I’ve blocked this from my memory for all these years, never once thought of it. Does this mean my brain is returning to working order, or that the emotional events of recent days have triggered something in me? It leaves me in a quandary, disturbs me.

And then I remember something else. When I was eleven, I wore hand-me-downs and wasn’t well-nourished. At the time, the tax returns of every citizen of working age were published in a book, allowing, through extrapolation, a determination of income. At school, a child from a well-to-do family stood on his desk and read from said book, pointing out certain children, saying, “Your family is poor.” “Your family is poor.” “Your family is poor.” I was among those singled out.

In the seventies, many people then considered middle class would be considered almost destitute by today’s standards. However, it was the first time that I realized I was entrenched as a second-class citizen. I haven’t thought of that day in thirty years.

Although the tax book is no longer printed, tax returns remain a matter of public record, and each year, due to my phobia about poverty, I check the record and compare myself to others, to reassure myself that I’m no longer poor. Until this moment, I had no idea why I feel this compulsion. Further, I realize that most likely it was these suddenly recalled memories that led me into police work, as it’s the second-most-respected occupation in Finland, after the medical profession. Why am I remembering these things now?

I think about Kate. When she ran away, Torsten said he could help her in a short time, if given the opportunity to treat her. I know enough about psychology to comprehend that his statement was simplistic and overly optimistic. I ask myself: What if she never recovers? Will I sleep in this chair and tend to her for the rest of my life? At present, a frequent topic of conversation and much written about in magazines is the importance of personal happiness. The trendy belief is that without personal happiness, we can’t make others happy. A euphemistic way of saying that selfishness is paramount, and a twisted argument that disavowal of responsibility is desirable, not only for oneself but for the good of others.

Whatever happened to the concept of duty, that sacrifice for the good of others is not only laudable, but expected, especially when it comes to family? I’m scared for Kate because of the psychological dangers that lie within her, and the physical dangers that loom from without. I will sleep in this chair. I will retire and devote myself to her care for the next forty years if need be. And I will protect her from the dangers of the world as best I’m able.

Milo went halfway around the world and saved her for me. He’s crazy as a shithouse rat, but I owe him a lifetime debt. He’s asleep on the couch, stirs and wakes. We have coffee and cigarettes and decide this should be moving day, to the home I inherited from Arvid in Porvoo. I consider the ramifications of taking Kate away from familiar surroundings to go on our “vacation.” It could be considered as such. A lovely home with the Porvoo River directly in front of it, close enough so that I could step off the porch, onto the wooden walkway and jump into the river if so inclined. In practical terms, it’s a safe move. The water, like a moat, adds a measure of protection.

Milo’s complicated plan to perpetrate the mass-murder frame-up of Roope Malinen requires a.50 caliber Barrett, as it’s a sniper rifle he’s familiar with, but he doesn’t want to use his own because of a possible ballistics match. He has cheap automatic pistols we stole from drug dealers and kept to use for frame-ups or as throw-down guns, but he needs a military automatic or semi-automatic rifle for a frame-up video he wants to make. Something that can at least be fired as fast as the trigger can be pulled.

This presents a problem for him because of the severely limited use of the fingers of his right hand. Physical therapy is improving it, but we don’t have six months or a year to wait while he regains sufficient mobility to rapid-fire a weapon. It is, however, he says, sufficient to pull a hair trigger on a sniper rifle. Via his home network connection with the police database, he’s found a person with the firearms he needs to do the job. A retired army major in Helsinki has a Barrett, a pair of Sako military-issue RK-62 assault rifles, and an Israeli Uzi submachine gun. He intends to B amp;E the major and steal his arsenal.

I ask him what kind of plan might require that many weapons. He doesn’t know, but all the bases will be covered. He also intends to visit an underground construction site and use his police card to weasel his way into an explosives cache, claiming a need to inspect them. He’ll take Sweetness, create a diversion, and they’ll steal a small quantity of high-grade explosives. A little, he says, goes a long way. But that’s a project for another day. Today, he’ll get his boat and dock it in Porvoo.

“And how do you intend to kill the minister of the interior and national chief of police?” I ask.

“Don’t know for sure yet, but probably while they’re golfing, which means we have to pick a Saturday for this.”

“We?”

“Aren’t you going to kill Jan Pitkanen?”

I don’t want to think about it. He tried to murder my wife and child and killed an innocent girl instead. I have no way of stopping him from attempting the same again. I have no legal recourse. I can’t see that I have much choice. Still, I’m so conflicted about it that part of me wants to let him live, just put all this behind us, and internally, I keep waffling about it. Not killing him, however, is a threat to us all, and this isn’t all about my wants or feelings. I sigh. “I guess so.”

He senses my reluctance. “Do you want us to do it for you?” Milo asks.

I can’t ask someone to commit a murder on my behalf because I don’t have the will. “No.”

“Then you have to time it with us. He’ll just be another dead guy in a crowd.”

I nod. This is at once all logical, pragmatic and insane. What’s more, I have no doubt that we’ll get away with it, for the simple reason that no one would ever believe it. I picture the headline: HERO COPS ON CRAZED SHOOTING SPREE. That’s never going to happen. As Arvid Lahtinen once told me, “It would be like trying to convince people that Jesus was a pedophile.”

Milo gets in the shower. Anu sleeps in her stroller beside my chair. I warm her formula, put cups of coffee on a tray and, precarious, carry it with one hand and rap on my bedroom door with my cane.

A sleepy voice says, “Come.”

I walk in, sit on the edge of the bed and lay the tray on it. “I thought you might like to have a little family time this morning,” I say.

Kate looks at me, her face blank. “What family?”

I don’t know if she’s being sardonic or genuinely doesn’t know. “Your husband and daughter.”

I see confusion in her eyes. She doesn’t know who I am. Then, maybe because daughter equals Anu, and our baby is a touchstone for her, even when she was in a dissociative stupor, she snaps back into reality and the present. She tries to cover her lapse with cynicism. “Oh, that family. Applied to us, doesn’t that make a mockery of the word?”

She radiates anger, but truly because of frustration caused by her lapse, not by me. “Anu doesn’t need a bottle. I can breast-feed her.”

“I’m sorry, Kate, but you can’t. You’re using medication that prevents it.”

This makes her choke back a sob, but she says nothing.

I don’t know if she remembers this has been discussed. “We’re leaving today,” I say, “to take a little vacation in Porvoo. It’s a charming town, mostly Swedish-speaking. The old town has the kinds of arts-and-crafts stores you enjoy. We’ll stay in the house Arvid left me. It’s a lovely home on the river. I think you’ll be happy there.”

Kate has always been so demonstrative. Now I find her inscrutable. “Who knows,” she says, “maybe I will.”

If I could jump up and down for joy, I would. Kate has uttered something positive to me for the first time in weeks.

I ask Milo if he minds to drive me to Kamp for my meeting with Yelena. He says, “Sure,” and gets dressed.

We take his Crown Victoria. My phone rings as we pull out. Phillip Moore.

“Vaara,” I answer.

“Hello, lad. I’ve called to give you a heads-up. Is your phone secure?”

“The securest.”

“My situation went slightly awry. I decided to decline your generous offer to let me and my family live unless I committed double murder. I intended to take my family and leave the country instead, and so I resigned my position, effective immediately. Saukko took exception to my resignation, never mind that I’ve worked for him for five years and said nothing against him, just said I’d like a change and to move on. He said, ‘Congratulations, you just made my Shit List,’ and had me escorted off the property without even letting me get my kit. I took great umbrage at such treatment.”

“And you’d like me to help you how?”

“It’s me trying to help you, despite the fact that I may kill you one day. I wanted my things and had no intention of being on a death sentence list, neither yours nor his, so I went back and cut the throats of those two Corsican bastards-they were sleeping like babes-took their passports, and appropriated the keys to the safe-deposit box, both Saukko’s and theirs. I did a little passport doctoring and replaced the elder Corsican assassin’s photo with my own, went to the bank, emptied the safe-deposit box and took my retirement fund.”

“A mocked-up passport altered by hand in a hurry got you into that box?”

“It’s July, I took a gamble that the regular admin was on vacation, and it was more than sufficient to get by the zit-faced zombie summer intern from the university.”

“You’ve been a busy man,” I say. “Why are you calling me?”

“To let you know the Corsicans are dead and end our relationship. For now. You know, I never truly feared you. Your torture-session stage props were a bit over-the-top, like a movie cliche, and it wasn’t sodium pentothal and LSD in those syringes, was it?”

“No, it was vodka.”

“The poor man’s truth serum. Injected alcohol works to a certain extent. Good thinking. The reason I’m calling is that I’m no longer in the country, and both keys to the box are at the bottom of the Baltic. Saukko has to find himself more killers, and there aren’t so many proficient ones around. Then he has to have the box drilled, which he will find empty. So he has to fill it back up. Even billionaires don’t generally have a million in cash just lying around the house. It will take him at least a couple weeks to sort it all out, which gives you a window of opportunity.”

“To do what?”

He laughs. “Anything you like, lad. Anything you like.”

“A couple questions,” I say, “just so I can believe you.”

“Fire away.”

“In your iPad calendar, you list ‘driving’ almost daily. What does it mean?”

“Working on his golf drive. He has some buoys out in the sea at different distances. He aims at them and drives a bucket or two of balls. He has his own green and sand trap as well, to practice putting and chipping.”

“What about the dead Corsicans and body disposal?”

“Saukko has had too many bodies about. Daughter. Son. Now this. A background check on the dead men would turn up suspicious things. Too much trouble, too much publicity. They’ll also be at the bottom of the Baltic by now. Maybe they’ll find their key down there.”

“How did you defeat security and get in the house?”

“I designed that system, left myself default security codes. And the easiest way in is by sea. It was a fine night for a swim.”

“Thank you, Moore,” I say. “Just one last thing. You said Saukko has a morbid fear of death. I put a sword to his heart and pushed it hard enough against his chest to draw blood. He never flinched.”

“A sword?”

“Long story.”

“Saukko is a master of facade. He has terrible psychological problems but is very good at masking them.”

“Enjoy retirement,” I say.

“I promise you I will. Take my advice, lad. Help yourself while you can. There are other men with the same set of skills as myself, and when Saukko gets himself a roguish one, it’ll be time to say good-bye to your family.”

I start to say that the last time a man with his skill sets tangled with us, he was so careless that my wife killed him, but too late. He rang off.

“What did Moore want?” Milo asks.

I consider the subtext of his call. He didn’t call me for his stated reasons. He called to get a job done. “Because he wants us to kill Saukko.”

Saying it out loud sparks other truths. Saukko talked about waiting years to take his vengeance on me, yet tried to kill my family within days. He fears death. He reads people. He knows I’ll stop at nothing to protect my family. He fears me. He called the tune. Play for blood.

Moore killed the Corsicans but let Saukko live. Especially after the kidnap and following murder of his daughter, then the drama of the death of his son, the murder of Saukko will generate the biggest manhunt in Finnish history. Moore foresaw this. If Saukko were murdered and Moore disappeared, the investigation would focus on him from day one and he would be apprehended. So he spared Saukko and left us to clean up the mess.

But we have more than just Saukko to deal with. Through some twisted logic, Jan Pitkanen hates both Milo and me for the cards life has dealt him. Jan Pitkanen arranged the car bomb, ultimately murdering Mirjami, proof of said hatred. Jan Pitkanen works for the minister of the interior. Thus, Pitkanen had Ahtiainen’s implicit or explicit blessing before acting. Ahtiainen almost certainly discussed it with his best friend, Jyri Ivalo, before giving the green light. Thus, they are all complicit in the murder of a sweet and innocent young woman. I have too much dirt on both of them. Ivalo fears me. Ivalo will find a way to either kill me or put me behind bars. I have no doubt the pair of them have put as much time and energy into collecting dirt on me as I have on them.

The value of all these lives is reduced to a kind of balance sheet. Either me, my family, Milo, Sweetness or maybe even Jenna must die. Or Saukko, the minister, the chief, the murderer and the patsy hate-monger must die. There are no smaller, neater options. There’s no room for negotiation. There’s no way everyone can live. It’s a terrible decision to have to make, but only one choice is possible.

I pat Milo on the knee. He looks at me, quizzical.

“When we get back to my house,” I say, “I have a present for you.”