Jarkko Sipila - Darling

“What if it wasn’t a cell mate, but just someone in the same unit?” Nykänen suggested.

“We’ll check that next.”

“We had an Aarnio in the Korpivaara case,” Kulta said, looking at the list. “But it may not be the same man.”

“No, ours was Mikael,” Joutsamo said, shaking her head. “The cell mate is Kimmo Aarnio. Mikael didn’t have a criminal record. Same last name, different guy.”

“Did you search the database by nickname?” Nykänen asked.

Joutsamo handed out another list.

“We got 213 hits. The records show about two hundred criminals by the nickname of Nortti.”

“Anybody from the Turku area?” asked Vuori from Mӓkelӓ’s team, speaking for the first time.

“Frankly, I haven’t had a chance to look.”

“I understand,” Vuori said with a nod and took the list.

* * *

Nea Lind sat in a Mercedes taxi that was going north from Hakamӓki Street onto the Hämeenlinna Freeway and speeding up.

Lind was confused. Korpivaara had told her straight out that he didn’t kill Laura Vatanen, but he was willing to serve the sentence. Why? Who was he trying to protect? She needed to know. Her first instinct was to go to the office and write up a report, but this wasn’t about taxes. It was a criminal case that she had to investigate and not just interpret.

Maybe Sini Rentola-Lammi could give her some answers. The girl probably knew more about Korpivaara than she had told Lind the night before. Lind tried calling her, but it went straight to voicemail. She didn’t leave a message.

The taxi took the Aseseppӓ Street exit and drove around Haaga for five minutes before stopping in front of a red-brick apartment building.

“Which door?” the young driver asked.

“Here’s fine,” Lind said and waited for the receipt.

The sun was shining on Lind’s back. The bright weather, albeit below freezing, felt good after the snowfall. She had replaced the shoes she bought in Rome with a pair of winter sneakers to keep her toes warm. Lind felt energetic, though she sensed a headache was lurking. It was probably because she hadn’t eaten or slept well. Walking to stairwell E, she decided she’d try to fit in a meal at some point.

A few cars were parked in the building’s lot, and behind it a young mother was raking a sandbox. A child was standing next to the sandbox, holding a shovel and a bucket. Lind guessed the mother was checking the sand for needles that might’ve been dropped there the night before.

Lind pressed the button by the door and walked in as the lock buzzed. She climbed the stairs and rang the doorbell to Rentola-Lammi’s apartment.

The door opened quickly. The safety chain was not on, and a forty-year-old, stern-faced woman stood at the door. She was somewhat overweight, and it showed in her worn face. Her brown hair reached her shoulders, and she was wearing black sweatpants and a gray T-shirt.

“You from Social Services?” the woman asked tersely.

“No, I’m attorney Nea Lind.”

“Whose attorney?

“Jorma Korpivaara, the building custodian, who is accused of killing the woman in the building next door last week.”

“Oh,” the woman said, sounding curious. “What do you want?”

“Is Sini at home?”

“I haven’t seen her. She went somewhere this morning. I tried to call her, but she didn’t answer. What does Sini…?”

Lind shook her head. “I just wanted to check a few things about Korpivaara’s whereabouts on Wednesday.”

“I see,” the woman said.

The mother must have known that the daughter had connections to the murder suspect; otherwise she would’ve been more concerned.

“What do you know about Korpivaara?”

“The custodian?”

“Yes,” Lind said, expectantly.

“I don’t know,” the woman began, shifting her weight. “He’s not really my type. He seemed okay. We’d chat sometimes, and he always did his job just fine. He always plowed a path to the bus stop so we haven’t had to trudge in the snow. So he’s an okay guy.”

“Good,” Lind said. She doubted the woman knew about the relationship her daughter had with Korpivaara.

“Any sign of him last Wednesday?”

“Is this some sort of a police interrogation?”

Lind guessed the woman had done a few of those.

“No, as I said, I’m Korpivaara’s attorney. I’m trying to find out what happened on Wednesday.”

“Isn’t that a job for the police?”

“It usually is, but sometimes defense attorneys need to do it too, especially if the police aren’t doing a good job.”

“I can’t remember exactly. The bus runs at 8:03. He might’ve been out there with his leaf blower on one of the mornings, but I couldn’t tell you what day.”

“Did you know the victim, Laura Vatanen?” Lind asked, deciding to go on with the questioning.

“Was she the retarded girl from stairwell C?”

Lind nodded, despite resenting the politically incorrect term. Although, politically incorrect was what you got in this neighborhood.

“I didn’t exactly know her. We don’t have a rumor mill around here. Sini would go over there sometimes, but I didn’t like it. I guess this Laura-that’s her name, right? I guess she hung out in the Alamo Bar, where the custodian and his buddies often went too.”

“Sini, too?”

“She wanted to,” the woman said, laughing. “But I went in there and told the bartender in no uncertain terms that they wouldn’t be serving anything to my underage daughter, and I gave him Sini’s picture. I said I’d report them if they did.”

“Did it work?”

“Whaddya think?” the woman said. “They didn’t sell her anything at the Alamo. But would I ask if you were from Social Services if things were okay?”

“How bad is it?”

Rentola-Lammi pursed her lips and said, “Bad enough that I wasn’t surprised to see a lady like you in a nice jacket show up at my door on a Sunday afternoon.”

“Yeah. Ask Sini to call me when she comes home,” Lind said and threw in a thank-you before the door closed.

Lind thought she’d make her rounds in the apartment buildings and ask some questions. Most people would be home on a Sunday.

SUNDAY, 2:30 P.M.

LIISA STREET, HELSINKI

Römpötti lounged on her sofa in sweatpants. She had recorded several weeks’ episodes of Desperate Housewives and planned to watch them all in one sitting on a Sunday. After two episodes, her thoughts went back to the Korpivaara case. She thought about going for a run, but laziness took over. Römpötti went into her kitchen and poured herself a glass of red wine. The ceilings were high in her art nouveau-style, one-bedroom apartment in Kruununhaka, a neighborhood on the Gulf of Finland.

She hoped the wine would clear her thoughts so she could grasp the string that would unravel the case into a TV news story. Römpötti had a hunch it would be fantastic. To be able to prove that a suspect whom the police deemed guilty was indeed innocent would make top headlines across the country. She could add the grim human interest story of the past that the suspect and his attorney shared. New angles would come up as it took off.

But Römpötti had a problem: Korpivaara was likely guilty and she needed the innocence factor to keep the case intriguing.

The red wine from Chile was a balanced blend of ripe fruit, full-bodied and mellow. Römpötti couldn’t have characterized it in that much detail; she read the description in the store pamphlet. The wine was just fine for a ten-euro bottle.

She rubbed her shins under the pants legs and thought she ought to shave.

Damn, she cursed to herself. Her thoughts kept escaping to the mundane. She needed to work and not just dream of all the answers falling into her lap. Something like that only happened on extremely rare occasions. She had to work like hell to get results: meet with people, make phone calls, and peruse documents. Only about one out of ten potential ideas turned into TV-newsworthy coverage.