Lucifer's Tears

33

I drive to Vantaa. Road conditions are bad. Helsinki is experiencing a near-record snowfall. Snowplows run twenty-four/seven but can’t keep up. Towers of snow line the streets. Usually, snow is carted away in trucks and dumped, but the city has run out of places to put it. Some roads are impassable.

I get to Filippov Construction at four forty-five p.m. and park about fifty yards from the front door. Because of the falling snow, my car is almost invisible from this distance. Filippov and Linda exit the building at five and leave in separate cars. She drives a 2003 Ford Mustang. He drives a new Dodge Journey. They go in different directions. I suspect he’s going home and she’s going to Helsinki.

Following Linda is easy. She doesn’t drive too fast, road traffic is light, and I’m difficult to spot because of weather conditions. I was right, she goes straight to downtown Helsinki and enters a parking garage. I park in the same garage. She walks toward Stockmann Department Store. I close the gap between us and catch her under the big clock at the main entrance. I touch her arm, and she turns.

“Ms. Pohjola,” I say, “I’d like a word, if I may.”

She bats her dark eyes at me and her red lips turn up into a charming smile. “Tell me, Inspector, what would you like to talk about?”

“Sex, lies and videotape.”

Her laugh is giddy. “Oh, dear, that boy that works with you has been in my computer. He also rooted around in my underwear drawer. If he’s going to be a successful voyeur, he has to learn to put things back in their proper places.”

I wait.

“Yes,” she says, “let’s have a chat. Do you have somewhere in mind?”

“How about Iguana? The tables in the back might offer us some privacy.”

She nods agreement and takes my arm. We walk like lovers across the street and into the faux Mexican restaurant. “A hot drink would be nice,” she says.

She moves toward a big table in the rear and takes off her coat. Underneath it, she has on a tight black sweater and a short black skirt. Black stockings descend into black leather boots. Her attire doesn’t surprise me. A lot of Helsinki women refuse to succumb to the weather, no matter how severe, at the expense of fashion.

I bring us two Irish coffees and sit across from her. She takes a sip. It leaves an ungodly sexy line of cream along her upper lip. She licks it away, provocative. Linda is drop-dead gorgeous. “Where shall we begin?” she asks.

I decide on the aggressive approach. “The murder of Iisa Filippov has strong fetish overtones, and the fetishes you and Ivan Filippov engage in suggest that I should suspect you of the crime.”

She taunts me. “Why, Inspector, what fetishes might you mean? Let me guess, you saw a video in which I perform fellatio on Ivan while I masturbate with a vibrator. He wears a mask and is quite rough with me. I orgasm, then use the vibrator on him, and he comes, too. Did the video you saw go something like that?”

She’s embarrassing me, as is her intention. “Yes, very much like that.”

She looks at me with impish glee, and although Linda is beautiful, I notice certain flaws. Her right eye is a little slow. Her lips are on the thin side. “It’s not as if I’m the only one who enjoys these kinds of sex games,” she says. “Your national chief of police does as well. At least, he seemed to.”

This comes out of left field, takes me off guard. “You enacted this particular sex game with Jyri?”

“Something like it. On the morning of Iisa’s murder. Jyri can serve as my alibi.”

“Why do you think both Filippov and Jyri failed to mention this to me?”

She sips Irish coffee and does the cream-lick tongue trick again. “Perhaps because you failed to ask them.”

She slides a foot out of a boot, raises it under the table and massages my crotch with her toes. I go stiff, zero to sixty, in about two seconds. She has an amazing knack for turning me on, seems to know what I want even before I do. It’s disconcerting in the extreme. My first inclination is to push her foot away, but I’m curious about what I might learn while she plays out her little charade. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

She says, “You like it that I look like her, don’t you, Inspector?”

“You mean like Bettie Page?”

She keeps massaging. Her toes do amazing things. “Yes,” I say, “I like it.”

“Me too,” she says. “It’s nice to be someone else. That’s the nature of my fetish, the negation of my personality. That’s why Ivan was so rough with me in the video. He treats me not as a person, but as a thing to be used. His fetish, naturally enough, is to be an aggressive but faceless user. Our sexual relationship isn’t uncommon. Perhaps you should try it. You’re manly. I like that. And I like to be watched. That’s why we make the videos. The other detective, Milo, likes to watch. Maybe I could suck your cock while Milo watches and jerks off. You can come in my mouth and Milo can blow on my face. I’ll videotape it and watch it with Ivan while we play our sex roles.”

My hard-on wilts. I remove her foot from my crotch. “Thanks,” I say, “but my wife wouldn’t approve.”

Her eyes sparkle. “What a stick-in-the-mud she must be. The point I’m trying to get across to you is that I like to be used, not to hurt others. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

Maybe I am, or maybe I’m being manipulated. Her skills in that regard are extraordinary.

“Can I ask you about your relationship with Iisa? I gather you two were very close. And about how you came to have a sexual relationship with her husband. Given your friendship, it seems an unusual state of affairs. No pun intended.”

She turns off her overt sexuality, puts her foot back in her boot. Her voice becomes matter-of-fact. “Years ago, I met Iisa at a party. We did a lot of coke-we always did a lot of drugs together-and one night we noticed that we look a great deal alike. We started doing our hair and makeup the same, for fun. We even had sex once, just to see what it would be like to fuck yourself, but we weren’t that into it. We were high one night, and Iisa decided we should trick Ivan and get him to fuck me, to see if he would notice the difference. Iisa liked to watch, so she hid and videotaped it. That night, Ivan and I found we have symbiotic fetishes, and history, as they say, was made. Fucking Ivan bored Iisa. She decided to do him a favor, and let me do it for her. Iisa even convinced Ivan to hire me to work at Filippov Construction. I became, in a manner of speaking, part of the family.”

“I understand that you worked for Iisa’s father as a Bettie Page look-alike escort. Could you tell me about that?”

She stands and dons her coat. “Inspector, I’m tired and have shopping to do. Let’s save that story for another day.”

Much as in my dealings with Filippov, I have the feeling that Linda is sending me a message, but I still don’t know what it is. I decide not to press it and thank her for her time and candor. She thanks me for the drink. We go our separate ways.