“A woman was beaten to death in Toolo. The responding officers say it’s bad.”
I ask Milo. He’s about to jump up and down from excitement. If I take it, it means I won’t get a chance to sleep tonight, but solving a murder might go a long way toward quelling the misgivings the other homicide unit members have about me. What the hell. I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.
“Yeah,” I say, “we’ll take it.”
Arto gives me the address and says, “A forensics team is already on the way. Get over there now.”
5
Milo and I take the car we signed out from the police garage earlier. The department is big on economy. We get a Ford Fiesta. Milo wants to drive, and given the icy road conditions, he does so faster than necessary. The murder scene is only a few minutes away. A time and temperature sign on the side of a building reads eight forty-four a.m. and minus twenty-four degrees. Snow cascades through the darkness.
Europe is experiencing its worst winter in thirty years. Even Helsinki, eminently well-prepared for cold-weather conditions, is in chaos. Hoarfrost coats everything. Constant plowing has created mountains of snow and buried cars. The central railway station is out of commission. Trains still running have to be frequently deiced, and it’s wreaking havoc on their timetables. Water mains have burst and flooded the streets. The water has turned into vast sheets of ice and brought the tram lines to a standstill. Traffic accidents abound.
This is the antithesis of the normal Helsinki winters I experienced living here years ago. Usually, in January, the temperature hovers around zero. Helsinki is like that most of the winter, although sometimes the temperature dips down to as much as minus twenty or thirty. We get some snow and it melts. Snow melt snow melt snow melt. Makes it like walking around in icy gray mud for most of the winter. Still, at a certain point some snow piles up. Then the spring thaw exposes a winter’s accumulation of dog shit, and the city is overwhelmed by the stench for a week or two. I missed Arctic winter during my seven years here, the meter or two of snow reflecting moon and starlight. The beauty of snow-laden forests. This year, we get to experience real winter in Helsinki, and it brings joy to my heart.
Toolo is a fashionable district. It’s not tremendously expensive, but has a reputation for a better class of residents. We pull up behind a police van, next to a snowbank in front of a pretty yellow apartment building at the address Arto gave me. My phone rings. The forensics team’s pathologist tells me their vehicle was involved in a minor collision with another car. One of the crime-scene technicians wasn’t wearing a seat belt and his head hit the windshield. He needs stitches. They have to take him to the hospital, and we have to wait until he’s patched up.
“Fuck that,” I say.
“Excuse me?”
“The investigation starts now, without you.”
“That’s against procedure.”
“Time is wasting. We’re setting a new procedural precedent.” Pause. “Do you have the right gear to wear?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, we’ll be there as soon as we can.”
Milo and I enter the building and take the elevator to the fourth floor. A uniformed officer stands in the hall. “You the detectives?” he asks.
“That’s us,” I say.
“Where are the crime-scene techs?”
“Late. They had a car wreck. Fill us in.”
“This apartment belongs to Rein Saar, an Estonian citizen. He called in the murder himself. He claims an unknown assailant struck him from behind and knocked him unconscious. When he woke up, he was in his bed beside his lover, Iisa Filippov. She was beaten to death, and he was covered in her blood.”
“Where is he?”
“In the back of our van.”
Something is amiss here. “Where’s your partner?” I ask.
“He went to get us coffee.”
So much for police procedure. “You left an injured suspect, alone and unsupervised, in the back of your vehicle?”
He reddens. I let it go.