Antti Tuomainen: The Healer

I walked as upright as the pain in my back would allow me, shoved the bloody tissue in my pocket, and adjusted my face into as friendly and neutral an expression as I could without a mirror. In spite of all that my way was blocked as soon as I got to the gate in the fence that surrounded the police station.

No, I don’t have a pass.

No, no one is expecting me.

I explained that I’d come to see Harri Jaatinen, chief inspector of the violent crimes unit, and that I was there concerning the man known as the Healer. The young policeman, in a heavy armored vest and helmet, with an assault rifle in his hands and eyes that kept darting from side to side, listened to me for a moment, then walked to the guard’s booth without saying a word, waited, and opened the gate.

I was directed to the security checkpoint, where they took my phone and gave me an ID badge to pin to my chest. After security I walked into a building with a large foyer full of people and only one empty seat.

Across from me sat a wealthy-looking, well-dressed couple roughly the age of Johanna and me. The woman was half in the man’s lap, sniffling quietly. Her fist clasped a tissue, and her face was twisted and blotched with red. The man’s pale face was pointed straight ahead, and the empty, frozen look in his eyes was unchanging as he mechanically moved his hand over her back.

I closed my eyes and waited.

“Tapani Lehtinen?”

I opened my eyes.

“If you’re reporting a theft, robbery, or assault, take a number at the first window.”

Harri Jaatinen was amazingly similar in person to the way he seemed in the news clips—just as tall and chiseled as he was in those painful close-ups. I got up and shook his hand. He was quite a bit older than me—nearer to sixty than fifty, with dark gray at his temples, in his mustache, and in his eyes. He reminded me of Dr. Phil, the American psychologist on the old television show. But it took only a few words of conversation to easily distinguish where Dr. Phil ended and Inspector Jaatinen began. Where Dr. Phil would have coaxed and flattered with artificial empathy, Jaatinen’s tone was dry, gruff, and unapologetic. It was impossible to imagine that voice dithering, sentimental, or fawning—it was a voice made for pronouncements, statements of fact. His handshake was the same: straightforward and professional.

I instinctively touched the bandage on my ear. It hadn’t occurred to me that it might seem to be my reason for being here. I shook my head.

“I’m here about the Healer. I believe my wife, the journalist Johanna Lehtinen, has been in touch with you about the case.”

Jaatinen seemed to remember and understand immediately what I was talking about. He switched his weight from one leg to the other.

“That case and many others,” he said, and I couldn’t quite tell from his expression whether he was pleased and faintly smiling, or vexed by the memory. Then he said, “Do you want a cup of coffee?”

The coffee was acrid, but warm. The stark room contained a desk, two chairs, and Jaatinen’s computer.

I quickly told him everything that had happened over the past twenty-four hours: Johanna’s disappearance, how I had found out about her investigation, and, of course, my own investigations, which had resulted in the bandage on my ear, a back that was black and blue, and a crazy theory about waves on the seashore.

“Johanna’s a good reporter,” Jaatinen said. “She’s been a lot of help to us.” His voice didn’t rise or fall and had no shades of color or tone. He didn’t take sides or make commitments. But it was a surprisingly pleasant voice to listen to. “As you no doubt know, we’re short of staff at the moment. I’m sure you understand that I can’t spare any staff to search for your wife. Or for anyone else.”

“That’s not what I’m looking for,” I said. “I want to know more about the Healer, because that’s how I can find Johanna.”

Jaatinen shook his head sharply.

“That’s not at all certain.”

“It’s all I’ve got. And the police have nothing to lose, whether I find her or not. In any case, you’ll have one more man investigating the murders. Everybody wins.”

Jaatinen measured me with a glance and didn’t answer right away. Maybe he was calculating my trustworthiness, or comparing me in his mind to the thousand other people offering or asking for help that he must run across in his profession. I sat in my chair and tried to look as forthright as possible, tried to look like I’d be a lot of help to him. The bandage on my ear probably didn’t reinforce that impression.

“We have DNA tests from only some of the cases because the lab is overbooked and understaffed, and the equipment is starting to wear out. Anyway, there are DNA tests from the most recent case, the murder in Eira. What I’m about to tell you is absolutely confidential until you hear otherwise. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but Johanna was a great help to us, and to me particularly, in solving those kidnappings three years ago.”

He took a sip of coffee and glanced at his cup with a satisfied look. I was perplexed, and tasted mine again. It was almost undrinkable.

“We have one suspect, the same person who’s suspected in the first murder, the one in Tapiola. We got a DNA sample in that case, too, and we even got it to the lab for testing, which happens less and less nowadays.”

He took another mouthful of coffee. He was enjoying his so much that he was willingly lingering over it before swallowing.

“So. We compared the samples to the national DNA bank and got a name. There was only one problem.”

His gray-blue eyes shone in the poorly lit room. He looked all of a sudden like he was sitting much closer to me than I’d realized. Either that or the room around us had shrunk and the walls were pushing us closer together.

“The man in question died in the flu epidemic five years ago.”

“OK,” I said after a little pause, trying my best to make myself comfortable in the suddenly confined space.

He put his coffee down and pushed it away from him, dropped his gaze to his elbows leaning on the desk, and scooted them forward, too. If the desk had been a living thing it would have been crying in pain.

“The suspect was about to graduate from medical school. Pasi Tarkiainen. Died at home.”

“So?”

Jaatinen’s expression was unchanged, and the pitch of his voice remained the same. Apparently he was used to explaining things to people slower than himself.

“So we have a dead medical student who left traces of himself that were found on the victims,” he said. “And he may be using the name ‘the Healer.’”

“There must be some explanation.”

He seemed to be of the same opinion; an indentation appeared between his lower lip and the tip of his outstretched chin that seemed to say: Exactly. Quite. That is the point.

“Of course there is. But we don’t have enough investigators to find out what it is. We had three detectives officially resign yesterday, and one of them was assigned to this case. Last week two of my employees didn’t come to work, and it looks like they’re gone for good, since they took their weapons with them but left their security passes. And this bunch has a calling for the job—I can only imagine what the situation’s like in other departments.”

He drummed his fingers on the desk a few times and sharpened his gaze.

“All our time goes to recording new cases. There’s no time for investigation because new, and worse, cases are constantly arriving. We go as fast as we can and we’re still at square one. It’s no wonder people give up. Maybe I should leave, too, while I still can. But where would I go? That’s what I can’t figure out.”