Lucifer's Tears

40

I take my Saab, four detectives ride in a separate vehicle, and we drive through blizzard conditions back to Helsinki and Linda’s apartment. It’s a dumpy little one-bedroom, but neat and clean. Vintage Bettie Page posters line the walls.

The other detectives know their business. They run long needles through sofas and mattresses, looking for obstructions sewn into them. They tap the walls, looking for plastered-over safes or hidey-holes. They turn appliances over and look inside.

In her bedroom, I go through Linda’s things. I find a small trunk brimming with Bettie Page memorabilia, magazines and movies. I open another box and the rich smell of oiled leather hits me. It’s filled with fetish accoutrements: high-heeled shoes and boots, whips, leather costumes and restraints, ropes and gags.

I boot up her computer. It has a Bettie Page screensaver. It’s chock-full of videos, including what I take to be a complete collection of Bettie Page footage. I take a quick look and find scenarios of abduction, spanking, domination, restraints, slave training with bondage. Page sometimes played a stern dominatrix and sometimes a helpless victim, bound hand and foot.

Then I find Linda’s personal files. Videos she made of herself, reenactments of the Bettie Page movies. Videos of her and Filippov and their sexual role-playing. They have only a few variations on the themes I saw in the video Milo took from here. I see nothing from Rein Saar’s apartment, no images of Jyri or his political cronies, nothing to connect them to the murder. Just personal stuff. I’ll take the computer into evidence, but I’m sure they’ve covered their digital tracks.

I go through Linda’s clothes. She dresses well. I open her underwear drawer. She likes expensive, fetish-variety lingerie. Underneath it, I find her famous big, soft, green double-donged vibrating dildo. I picture her sticking it up Jyri’s ass and laugh, then bag it for DNA testing.

By Linda’s bed, in a desk drawer, I find a family album. It contains pictures of Linda and her mother from Linda’s infancy through the time of her mother’s death. Their correspondence, beginning at the time Marjut entered the mental rest home, is also here, all in original envelopes. The letters from her mother are touching, always assuring Linda that she’s getting better and will be out before long. Then she and Linda will build a new and better life. The final two letters are dated September 9, 1998, Linda’s eighteenth birthday and the last time she saw her mother alive. Both letters are short.

The one to Linda reads: “I love you dear, but what you’ve done is more than I can stand. Please stop. Love, Mom.”

The one to Kultti reads: “You may not remember me, but you told me you loved me once, when I was young. I bore you a daughter named Linda. You’re raping her, your own child. Please stop. Love, Marjut.”

I wonder if Linda saw this letter before her father blew his brains out, or after.

My phone rings. “Vaara.”

“This is Stefan Larsson, the owner of the Silver Dollar.”

“How did you get my number?”

His tone says I’m a moron. “I called information.”

Stupid of me to have it listed. I make a mental note to have it removed from the phone company’s public registry. “What do you want?”

“You’re investigating the death of a patron on my premises. Now you have something else to investigate.”

“What might that be?”

“After two days in jail cells, punishments they didn’t deserve, my bouncers were cleared of responsibility and released. They came back to work. A man wearing a hood attacked them this evening. In one hand, he had a set of keys, a couple sticking out between each of his fingers, and used it to punch them in the face. The beating left terrible puncture wounds. In his other hand he held a box cutter, which he used to stab them repeatedly. It was attempted murder. My bouncers are hospitalized.”

“So what are you calling me for?”

“The attacker was a giant in a hooded sweatshirt. I know goddamned good and well it was Sulo Polvinen, but when the investigating officers went to his house, his parents provided him with an alibi and said he was home all evening watching TV with them. I demand that you do something about this.”

“One,” I say, “I’m on the homicide squad, and the bouncers aren’t dead, so it’s not my concern.” Actually, it falls within my purview, but I doubt he knows that. “Two, I think the bouncers got what they deserved. Three, you can go fuck yourself.”

I hang up on him.

The bedroom is clean. I walk out to check with the other detectives. The apartment is a shambles-they’ve turned it inside out. They’ve found nothing.

I call Milo. “I’m disgusted to say,” he says, “that I’m holding in my hand four freezer bags, all of which appear to contain sperm. I assume one sample came from Jyri and the three other come-wads are from his buddies. They were in Filippov’s freezer, numbered one to four instead of labeled by name.”

It’s something, anyway. Beyond that, his report is also negative, and their search is near conclusion. Filippov sticks his head in the front door. I hang up on Milo.

“Hi, Ivan,” I say. “What can I do for you?”

He strides in, has recovered his self-possession and intimidating manner. “I trust you haven’t found what you had hoped for,” he says.

“No, I haven’t, but I remain confident that I will.”

He leans against the wall with his arms folded, cocky. “I came here to let you know that I intend to ensure that the investigation of my wife’s murder is speedily concluded, and that Rein Saar is prosecuted. And I intend to file a complaint against you for harassment. You’ve searched my home and business without cause. A grieving widower should be left in peace to mourn, not treated in such a fashion.”

“Your wife was a slut,” I say, “and so is your mistress. We turned up four semen samples in your freezer. I’m pretty sure I know where they came from.”

His voice takes on a sadness both out of context and character. “Poor Iisa was given toward promiscuity, but Linda has always been faithful. If she was unfaithful, it was for me, for our common good.”

I pretend confidence I don’t feel. I may well be unable to convict Filippov. The murder was well planned and executed, all the way down to the blackmail scam. I come on conciliatory and bluff, as if I’m prepared to negotiate on Jyri’s behalf, just to see what comes of it. “Listen,” I say, “it’s possible that we could set aside our differences. You want things, Jyri and I and others want things. Let’s get together and discuss it.”

Now he realizes Jyri put me in the loop and I know the truth, but he hedges to buy time and process what it might mean. “I have no idea what those things might be,” he says.

“Maybe we could both think about it overnight. What those things are-and how to get what we want-might come to us.”

He studies me, skeptical. “All right, Inspector. Let’s meet at Kamp tomorrow at five p.m. You can buy our dinner.”

“Deal,” I say. We don’t shake hands. He walks out.

I have no idea what I’m going to say to him tomorrow, but for his vengeance to be complete, Rein Saar has to go to prison. If I can’t come up with something, it might happen. That’s unacceptable to me. Unfortunately, Jyri won’t share my concerns. I have to figure this out by myself.

My phone rings again. It’s Kate, and she’s crying. “Kari, where are you, it’s one thirty in the morning.”

“I’m sorry, it’s this murder investigation.”

She sobs. “Can you please come home now? I need you.”

“I’ll leave this minute,” I say, put on my coat and head out the door.