Helsinki homicide: Cold Trail Read online

  * * *

  “So your prisoner got away, huh?” the sergeant on duty said sarcastically. “Now how’d that happen?”

  “What difference does it make?” Eskola shouted into his cell phone. He was walking northward up Mechelin Street. Arkadia High School was on his right. Its stucco facade had suffered badly from graffiti tag removal. “We have to find him!”

  The sergeant, who had put in his time in the field, grunted. “Take it easy. Why don’t we start with who needs to be found and where?”

  Eskola took a deep breath. “Timo Repo. Fled from Restaurant Perho. From a funeral.”

  “A funeral at a restaurant? Sounds pretty strange to me. So when did this happen?”

  “Less than ten minutes ago.”

  “He can’t be far, then. Which direction did he go? And on what?”

  Eskola turned onto Arkadia Street. He thought that Repo must have come this way. The only thing on the other side of the cemetery was the Hietaniemi cul-de-sac, where the road dead-ended into the Gulf of Finland. “I don’t know which direction he went, and I’m pretty sure he’s on foot.”

  “And who is this...Repo? Shoplifter or something? The name doesn’t say anything.”

  “Timo Repo. He’s hard-core, at least going by his sentence. Life.”

  The sergeant’s voice grew sharper. “Life? Holy shit.”

  Eskola could hear the police officer tapping away at his computer. He assumed Repo’s name was being queried from the database. Soon the police would have a photograph.

  “What was he wearing?”

  “We were at a funeral. One of those black prison loaner suits,” Eskola reported, pleased that the sergeant was taking him more seriously now.

  “Right. The computer describes him as age 52, height 5’8”, average build, crew cut, and I’ll add wearing a dark suit. That about right?”

  “Everything except his hair is dark and medium length. Not a crew cut anymore.”

  “Thanks. I’ll put your phone number here. If you see something, call right away.”

  Eskola tried to imagine where Repo might be headed, and why he’d break for it after serving eight years with good behavior.

  * * *

  The sergeant gestured for Helmikoski, the lieutenant on duty, to come over. A dozen or so officers were milling around the new command center at Helsinki police headquarters in Pasila. The desk officers’ workspaces were filled by computer monitors, and images from downtown surveillance cameras were projected onto one of the walls of the large room.

  “Yeah?” asked the burly lieutenant.

  “Prisoner Timo Repo, serving life, skipped out on his escort about ten minutes ago on Mechelin Street,” said the desk sergeant, showing the photo of Repo he had pulled up on his screen. The image was almost ten years old; in it, the fortyish Repo still had a crew cut.

  “Who is he?”

  “Not in my bowling league, and none of those guys have heard of him either, even though they’re all cops.”

  “Serving life, though?”

  The sergeant nodded. “Missing somewhere downtown. No report of accomplices. Got the description of clothing and hair from the guard. Unlike most fifty-year-olds, his hair’s longer now. Dark, medium length.”

  Helmikoski found his colleague’s rambling style irritating.

  He glanced at the map of downtown Helsinki projected onto the wall. All active police vehicles were marked on it by ID number, with their location status updated in real time via GPS. About ten units were patrolling downtown Helsinki.

  “Let’s try to pin this guy down pronto. Put out an APB,” Helmikoski ordered the sergeant. “Give the description to all units and send the photo to those with the new computer system. Drop everything else; it’ll be easiest to find him now, before the trail goes cold.”

  The sergeant started tapping away at his computer. He wasn’t so sure about it being easiest now, because the streets were full of people and cars due to the afternoon rush hour. But of course it was worth trying. He took another glance at the surveillance cameras, which showed a central Helsinki that was exceptionally gloomy and gray. Raindrops had almost completely blurred out some of the images.

  Lieutenant Helmikoski considered his options. The most effective alternative would be to seal off the entire downtown peninsula. Set up roadblocks and restrict all vehicular traffic. But that would cause such chaos that he’d be demoted to sergeant before his shift was over. He had to think of other alternatives. The Gulf of Finland offered an effective boundary to the west, beyond the Hietaniemi Cemetery. He wouldn’t need any units there. He’d have to cut off the escape route north from the Helsinki peninsula. It had already been a good ten minutes; the fugitive would have made it past the city’s narrowest point, the isthmus marked by Hesperia Street. Or would he? Beyond it, the neighborhood of Outer Töölö was such a maze that it would be tough finding anyone there.

  “Send two units up to Hesperia Street. Let’s set up a roadblock there.”

  The sergeant looked at the electronic map and immediately radioed the order to the two closest patrols.

  “One unit over to Ruoholahti to sweep the southwest and two to Mannerheim Street. Tell them to patrol between Stockmann in the south and Hesperia Street in the north.”

  Helmikoski paused to consider the situation from Repo’s point of view. The fugitive had to know that the authorities would be after him by now. He’d have two options: try to get out of the center as quickly as possible or find a hideout somewhere. From the police’s perspective, it would obviously be best if Repo kept moving. What options did he have for getting out of downtown? Bus, metro, tram, or train. Of course foot and taxi were possible too, as was having an accomplice with a car somewhere. In the last scenario, they would have already lost the race.

  “Send one more patrol south to Tehdas Street and the other four to traverse the area. Inform security at the bus terminals and the train stations and give them the description.”

  “Taxis?”

  “Not yet. Let’s not go public with this yet. With our luck there’ll be some journalist in a cab somewhere and the news will be out before we know it,” Helmikoski said, looking at the map. “You okay handling this alone?”

  The sergeant nodded. Helmikoski briefed the other desk officers, too, and told them to keep an eye on the downtown surveillance cameras.

  * * *

  Young, blond officer Esa Nieminen was sitting at the wheel of his patrol car, a Ford Mondeo. The number 122 was painted on the trunk. Sitting at his side was his partner, veteran officer Tero Partio. The police car was waiting at the lights at the intersection of the Boulevard and Mannerheim Street, nose pointed toward the Southern Esplanade. A few cars were idling in front of them. Raindrops splattered against the windshield. Nieminen thought the wipers were making a funny clunk. Which was no surprise, because police vehicle maintenance had always been pretty slapdash.

  “Did he say Code 3?” Nieminen asked.

  “No sirens,” Partio replied. “The convict would hide as soon as he heard them.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Nieminen said. “But that would be cool, ten units tearing up and down the streets, sirens blaring.”

  “Yeah, really cool,” Partio grunted.

  The traffic lights at the Boulevard turned green, and the Mondeo turned left onto Mannerheim Street. Their progress came to a halt half a block later, at the crosswalk near the Swedish Theatre. Now three cars stood between them and the traffic light. A heavy stream of pedestrians was crossing the street in front of the Stockmann department store.

  Nieminen was suddenly alert. “You see that? At least three fifty-year-old guys in black suits just crossed the street!”

  Partio didn’t answer. He was almost forty and had ten-plus years of experience in Helsinki PD work under his belt. “Yeah, I saw ʼem.”

  “Should we pick ʼem up?” Nieminen asked eagerly.

  “Nah, they’re going the wrong way. Our guy is probably headed down the west side of the
street. Those suits came from the east.”

  The lights turned green, and the police car was the last vehicle to make through the light in front of Stockmann. The traffic coming from the North Esplanade had filled the lanes.

  It took four minutes to drive the hundred yards to the statue of the Three Smiths. By then, Nieminen and Partio had seen about 30 fifty-year-old men in dark suits.

  * * *

  Helmikoski was looking at the map where the police vehicles appeared as white dots. He turned toward the desk sergeant. “How come they’re not moving?”

  He had envisioned the units sawing back and forth at the edges of the sector, effectively cutting off the area. And had it been nighttime, the plan would have worked, too.

  “Four o’clock rush hour. Nothing’s moving out there,” the sergeant noted in a tired voice, gesturing at the images from the surveillance cameras. Mannerheim Street was jammed with cars from end to end. The streets were teeming with so many pedestrians that you couldn’t make out their faces, and the umbrellas didn’t make things any easier. Sure, you could zoom in with the cameras to get a really close shot, but in reality that required a target that was standing still. And it was pretty unlikely Repo would stop, if he even were headed downtown in the first place.

  One of the junior officers walked up to Helmikoski. “You might find this interesting,” he said. Helmikoski wondered what a guy who looked so fit was doing in the Emergency Operations Center instead of the field. His badge read Lehtonen. “A call just came in from the Perho restaurant. A gray trench coat was stolen from the coat racks. The caller’s name is...”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Helmikoski said, glancing at the sergeant sitting at the computer monitors. He was already informing the patrols that Repo was probably wearing a long, gray coat. That information should aid the search, at least a little.

  “Lieutenant,” yelled a dark-haired female officer sitting further off. “Helsinki Transport ticket inspectors are having trouble with a freeloader who’s threatening them at the Kaisaniemi stop. Can we spare a unit?”

  “Is it a male with short hair and a trench coat?”

  “No, they said it was that old drunk Fuck-Jore. His hands are trembling worse than ever, but evidently his mouth moves just fine. He started going on about some knife in his pocket.”

  Helmikoski considered before responding. “Send one unit. Have the rest keep searching.”

  The officer checked the map, turned to her microphone, and sent over the closest patrol, unit 122.

  * * *

  A smile spread across Nieminen’s face when the orders arrived. The car was still on Mannerheim Street, but had now advanced down to the Sokos department store. “Yippe kay-ay,” he said, flipping on the lights and sirens. Traffic wasn’t moving, but Nieminen bumped the car up onto the sidewalk. The pedestrians started at the noise and moved out of the way.

  “Hey, take it easy!” Partio snapped. He would have much preferred to be at the wheel himself. He instinctively checked his pistol and mace. He always did when it was a Code 3. The third critical thing was his seat belt. That was on, too.

  Partio remembered Fuck-Jore well; he was a regular customer. The fifty-year-old had gotten his nickname from the fact that every third word out of his mouth was “fuck,” or some derivation of it. Not a total skid row bum yet, but well on his way. The gaunt drunk’s eyebrows were as bushy as Brezhnev’s, and he always wore the same flannel shirt. Fuck-Jore used to be a mid-level burglar, but booze had started to taste a little too good. Partio thought it was a minor miracle the guy was still alive.

  At the old main post office, Nieminen whipped the Mondeo onto Posti Street, heading toward the main railway station. He did it a little too quickly for Partio’s taste, missing a pedestrian by less than a yard. The streets were crowded, and everyone was staring at the police car with its lights and sirens blaring.

  Although there wasn’t anything remarkable about him, a man in a gray coat who was staring at one of the Sokos display windows caught Partio’s attention. Partio tried to remember: it was a trench coat, wasn’t it? Why didn’t the guy look at them? Maybe he was deaf, but still.

  Partio had learned to register everything out of the ordinary, but the man in the gray coat vanished from his thoughts when Nieminen hit the gas and swerved into the oncoming lane. A number 66 bus was headed toward them, and the Mondeo made it back into its own lane just in the nick of time.

  “Goddammit! Take it easy, will you?” Partio yelled. Luckily, Nieminen would be able to jump up onto the tram lane at Kaivo Street. Driving along them instead of in traffic was safer for all concerned. The man in the gray coat still nagged at him, and Partio grabbed the microphone from the dash.

  * * *

  Timo Repo was sure he’d just gotten caught. He had heard the wailing of the police car before it turned the corner, but it had zoomed past. He had instinctively turned his face toward the display window and hoped for the best. He was envisioning a scene with the officer aiming a gun at him and ordering him to put his hands up.

  And that’s how it had gone down eight years ago. He couldn’t imagine a worse way to wake up. The police officer slapping his face and shouting. Opening his eyes to find himself looking down the barrel of a pistol. And then the third thing he noticed was how sticky his hands were, and the sweet, sickening smell in the air. Repo remembered it all like it was yesterday. Coca-Cola? No, something red. Blood. He decided not to pursue those thoughts any further.

  He needed to get out of downtown, and fast. The police car bothered him. Why had it passed him by? Why didn’t it stop? Why didn’t some gorilla in blue coveralls jump out, waving a gun?

  Repo jogged a couple of steps and accidentally bumped a skinny punk in a hoodie.

  “Fucking faggot. You wanna get your ass kicked?”

  “Sorry. Late for my train,” Repo apologized without stopping. In his younger days he might have mashed the guy’s face into a pizza, but not now.

  At the corner, Repo crossed over to the post office side of the street and set course for the central train station.

  Just then a police car pulled up to the railway station taxi stand and two officers stepped out. Both scanned the crowd.

  Repo turned in the direction of the all-glass offices of the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, which stood behind the restaurant Vltava. Further ahead, toward Finlandia Hall, he saw another police car. He rapidly ticked off his alternatives: the old post office? No, he’d be trapped if he went in there. A small doorway nearby had a sign indicating it would lead him to the underground parking lot below Eliel Square.

  Eliel Square was a busy transportation hub, with buses pulling into and backing out of loading zones.

  At that instant a woman in a red coat ran past, and Repo noticed a bus on the verge of pulling out. He sprang after her. The bus was his best chance. It was already sliding back out of its parking spot, but the woman smacked its side. The driver stopped and opened the door. She stepped in, and Repo followed.

  “Sorry,” she said to the grouchy driver, flashing a card in front of some sort of reader that Repo didn’t recognize. “Have to pick up my kid from daycare.”

  The driver didn’t respond, just looked at Repo, who was clueless. “You wanna pay so we can get out of here?”

  Pay! He didn’t have any money. His hand reached into the pocket of the trench coat, where at least there was a comb. He fished deeper and felt coins. Repo pulled them out, but they looked strange. He had heard of euros, of course, but he had never held one before. The prison store worked on credit.

  “Sorry,” he said, trying to act the yokel. It didn’t take much effort. “How much is it?”

  “Where are you headed?” the driver asked.

  Repo didn’t even know what bus he was on. “Umm... End of the line.”

  “Three sixty,” the driver snapped.

  Someone yelled from the back, “Hey, asshole! Why don’t you pay so we can get out of here!”

  Repo fumbled with the coins, tryin
g to see how much they were worth, but they all looked the same to him. He slapped them down on the driver’s little tray. “You mind? Eyesight’s bad,” he said.

  “So get some glasses,” the driver retorted, picking through the coins for the fare. Repo took his ticket, swept up the remaining coins, and moved farther back into the bus. He kept his eyes on the floor and found a seat up front, on the left. The woman in the red coat was sitting next to him, but she didn’t so much as glance in his direction.

  The bus backed up and Repo stole a glimpse outside. The police car that had approached from the Helsingin Sanomat headquarters had stopped fifty yards away.

  Repo examined the coins in his hand. One was bigger than the rest and had a big 2 on it. The second-biggest one was yellow and it was worth 50. Repo counted his funds and came to the conclusion that he had 4 euros and 70 cents. He noticed the woman in the red coat eyeing him, and he slipped the change into his coat pocket.

  The bus drove past the police car. It passed the newspaper’s offices on the left and some new hotel on the right as it continued down the street, following the railroad. Up at the front of the bus, red lights formed what appeared to be the numbers 194. Repo didn’t have the faintest idea where he was headed.

  CHAPTER 2

  MONDAY, 4:50 P.M.

  HELSINKI POLICE HEADQUARTERS, PASILA

  Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamäki was in his office browsing through his copy of Finland’s statutes, which was marked with colored Post-it notes cut into narrow strips. Written on the Post-its in tidy, tiny stick letters were words such as MURDER, ARSON, TELESURVEILLANCE, POLICE LAW.

  The detective lieutenant had a problem. A thirty-two-year-old redhead, Jana Puttonen, was being held in a cell at police headquarters.