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  Kulta nodded.

  “As long as she doesn’t demand a wine bottle on the witness stand,” Nyström joked.

  Kulta chuckled. “No worries. We can get her high-security status, so she can hide behind the black glass and sip her wine.”

  “Back to business,” Takamäki said firmly.

  “Yeah, sorry,” Kulta responded sincerely. Humor wouldn’t fly right now, especially with a mentally immature murder victim. But in this business you couldn’t let the details of the case get to you or let your feelings interfere with the investigation. It was just a job, nothing more.

  Joutsamo continued. “Forensics took DNA samples, but it’ll take a few days to get the results. They found plenty of fingerprints, of course, but none near the victim. The coffee table had been wiped clean recently.”

  “Wonder if the killer cleaned up the place,” Nyström said. “That would mean they had time, and that the murder was premeditated. But she wasn’t raped, so it’s hard to say. In any case, this is no contract hit for unpaid debts or the revenge killing of a snitch.”

  Takamäki liked the way Nyström thought. He was glad the guy was assigned to his unit.

  “Hard to say,” Joutsamo added. “Let’s first find the killer and then ask about the motive.”

  “Yeah, I was just trying to think of the motive so we could narrow down the potential perpetrators.”

  Takamäki nodded. “Good, let’s go on.”

  “No winners yet among the fingerprints,” Joutsamo said. “For example, the front door had prints from at least seven different people, and we’ve identified three so far: Laura Vatanen’s own and the two officers who responded to the call.”

  “One set of prints might be the custodian’s, who unlocked the door,” Kulta pointed out. “He fiddled with the lock.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. We’ll talk to him again and get his prints,” Joutsamo said. “Interestingly, one set of the prints matches the ones found on the coffeemaker and more specifically the on-switch. So it’s evident that someone who recently entered the apartment started the coffeemaker. Note that it was still on when the body was found.”

  “What about a phone and a computer?” Takamäki asked.

  Joutsamo looked at her notes. “No computer in the apartment. Maybe the killer removed it from the apartment, or she never had one. No internet cable or wireless network either. She had a hundred twenty euros in her purse, so the motive probably wasn’t money. We found one noteworthy call in her phone—an answered call at 8:50 A.M. from a number listed as ‘Mom.’”

  “A possible suspect, since the motive wasn’t sex, money, or gang-related,” Kulta said. “The mother had easy access to the apartment and could’ve even surprised her daughter, who wouldn’t have been expecting the slash.”

  “Sure,” Joutsamo said. “The previous phone call was the night before to a number on a prepaid SIM card. By the way, Laura’s was prepaid, too.”

  Joutsamo looked at Takamäki. “That’s what we know so far.”

  “Nice work, Anna, and quick. The coffeemaker is an interesting point. Seems likely at this stage that the killer was someone Laura Vatanen knew.”

  Takamäki was interrupted when Kannas from Forensics popped into the room, his large frame towering in the doorway. Takamäki knew Kannas from their patrol days.

  “Well, we’ve got something anyway,” Kannas said in his gruff voice.

  “What is it?” Takamäki asked.

  “The prints matched a guy with a criminal record; a guy named Jaakko Niskala was in the apartment at some point. He’s not a big-time gangster, but he does have a couple of thefts and assaults to his name.”

  “You mean the prints on the coffeemaker?” Takamäki asked hopefully.

  “Unfortunately, no; his were on the front door and the fridge.”

  Kannas handed Joutsamo the printout and said, “His address is only a few hundred feet from the victim’s apartment, so you might want to talk to him.”

  Kulta was the first to speak, though they all thought the same thing.

  “What was a small-time thief doing in a mentally disabled woman’s apartment?”

  No one had an answer.

  “We’ve got our work cut out. Mikko, Kirsi, and Leif, keep interviewing the tenants in the Nӓyttelijӓ Street apartment complex. Someone might’ve seen something. And ask the people if they know anything about her.”

  “Okay,” Kulta agreed. “We’ll get fingerprints off what’s-his-name, the custodian. Jorma Korpivaara, was it?”

  Joutsamo nodded.

  “Yep, we’ll get his prints, and talk to him some more.”

  “Find out about this Jaakko Niskala,” Takamäki told Suhonen. “What kind of a guy he is and what circles he runs in.”

  “Check,” Suhonen replied.

  “Anna and I will go break the news to the mother and check on that end. It’s three thirty, so we’ll meet back here at nine,” Takamäki decided.

  CHAPTER 3

  WEDNESDAY, 5:30 P.M.

  OLARI, ESPOO

  Takamäki rang the doorbell with Joutsamo at his side. They were the only people in the dark yard of the unlit townhouse. The December sun had set a few hours ago. A high hedge cast a drab shadow onto the walkway from the dim street lamp. The temperature had dropped below freezing, and a thin layer of snow covered the ground. The roads would be slick after the slush froze.

  Takamäki wore a dark blue, waist-length zippered jacket, a white dress shirt, and a dark blue tie he had added just for this visit. Joutsamo’s small black shoulder bag was draped over her black trench coat. Takamäki shot her a grim glance.

  They could tell someone was at home by the faint noises from the house. The door had no mail slot; apparently mail here is delivered to the boxes by the road.

  The townhouse was in the Olari district of Espoo, about nine miles west from downtown Helsinki. The neighborhood’s crisscrossing walkways made the layout confusing. The units were crammed together and took up every square inch of land. Takamäki wondered if a 1930s-built single family house with a large yard and apple orchard had once stood here until a greedy developer had turned it all into a densely-built townhouse-and-apartment-building hell.

  They heard scratching behind the door.

  “It’s a dog,” Joutsamo said. The dog wasn’t barking.

  Takamäki let out a heavy sigh. This was one of the toughest parts of his job.

  A fifty-something plump woman answered the door. She looked more like a grandmother than her age should have allowed. The woman’s short, curly hair had turned gray, and she was wearing a brown cardigan. A quizzical look crossed her face. Behind her a small poodle cowered.

  “Evening, I’m Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamäki from the Helsinki PD Violent Crimes Unit… I’m afraid we have some bad news.” The woman’s hand flew to her mouth as she exclaimed, “What’s happened to Martin?”

  Takamäki was confused. Martin? Who was Martin? According to the records, Laura Vatanen had no siblings and her father had died ten years ago.

  “Are you Marjaana Vatanen?”

  The woman shook her head. “No, I’m Elisa Rauhala… Elli.”

  Takamäki closed his eyes and cursed silently.

  “Is this Planeetta Street?”

  “No, no, it’s Olari Street. The houses on Planeetta Street are back that way. But what’s happened?”

  With a meek look on his face, Takamäki said, “I apologize. We’ve come to the wrong address.”

  “The wrong address?” the woman asked.

  “I thought this was Planeetta Street.”

  “No, it’s Olari Street.”

  “Yes, unfortunately, sometimes even the police get it wrong.”

  “But,” the woman looked at the officers confused. “Is Martin alright?”

  “I’m sure he is.”

  “You think so?” Rauhala kept on, in shock.

  “I’m quite sure,” Takamäki reassured, and watched the woman pull a cell phone from her pocke
t. A horrid scenario of Martin’s car sliding on the icy road and hitting a semi head-on flashed in Takamäki’s mind. “I’m so sorry to have disturbed you.”

  Takamäki closed the door, and he and Joutsamo walked back to the intersection of Olari and Planeetta Streets. He stuck his hands in his pockets. They had to take short steps on the icy sidewalk.

  “Damn. The house numbers matched, but the street name didn’t.”

  The officers walked on. Takamäki found a street sign at the intersection and took a left. It was presumably a short walk, so they didn’t have to move their car.

  “This reminds me of the time in the Espoo drug unit when we followed a junkie to one of the apartment buildings in Matinkylӓ,” Joutsamo recounted. “We knew he had thirty grams of amphetamines on him, and more in the apartment, but we didn’t know exactly where the apartment was. He slipped into the stairwell and we followed close behind. The elevator went up to the fourth floor and there was a door with a name on it that fit.”

  Cars lined the other side of the street. Joutsamo thought the correct building was the one in front of them, but continued her story. “We had a master key made ahead of time, so we decided to go right in. Three big guys went in first and I followed. We had our weapons drawn. We didn’t ring the doorbell, but burst in, yelling, ‘Police! Don’t move!’ I remember the scene: a twelve-year-old girl at the table eating her tuna sandwich froze on the spot with the sandwich in her mouth. All we could do was apologize profusely. We found the dealer one floor up; he was smart to get off the elevator before his floor.”

  “That shouldn’t happen, and neither should what we did just now.”

  It might be funny later, but at the moment Takamäki was not amused.

  “I agree, but mistakes happen. Sometimes ambulances get sent to the right address but in the wrong town.”

  The building turned out to be the right place. Takamäki confirmed the address with a man who was out walking his dog. The officers walked to the door and saw the name Vatanen on the mail slot.

  “This is it,” Takamäki said and rang the doorbell. “I hope…”

  A woman opened the door. She was much skinnier than the last one and had a thin face with prominent cheekbones. She was wearing a white long-sleeved blouse and dark slacks and looked to be around fifty.

  “Marjaana Vatanen?” Takamäki checked right off the bat.

  The woman nodded.

  “I’m Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamäki from Helsinki PD Violent Crimes…”

  “Has something happened to Laura?” the woman asked, with her hands on her hips. Then her hands flew quickly to her face.

  “I’m afraid so. Unfortunately we have very bad news. She’s dead.”

  The woman’s posture crumpled, but her reaction was fairly subdued; she didn’t break down and weep or try to deny it. She let out a sigh and shook her head in disbelief.

  “Come in.”

  Takamäki glanced at Joutsamo, wondering if this was a rehearsed reaction, like a killer might have made, but Joutsamo just shrugged.

  Joutsamo introduced herself as the officers took off their coats in the entry.

  It was a typical one-bedroom apartment. The kitchen was at the end of the entrance hall, the bedroom on the right, and the living room on the left. The place was neat, but with bland décor: a couch, an armchair, a bookshelf, and a TV.

  Marjaana Vatanen motioned for the officers to take a seat on the couch, and she took the armchair. Takamäki noticed a row of medical books on the bookshelf.

  The woman took a minute to gain her composure, and asked, “When and how?”

  “This morning. She was a victim of a homicide in her apartment,” Takamäki said. They wouldn’t reveal the method yet, as the mother was still considered a possible suspect. Only the police and the killer, and possible accomplices, knew how Laura was killed. As far as the police knew, the mother was the last one to talk with her daughter, on the phone at 8:50 A.M.

  Marjaana Vatanen stared at the officers.

  “Who did it?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Takamäki replied calmly. “But we’ll find out.”

  “Oh dear,” the mother said with tears in her eyes. “She didn’t have an easy life, and it sounds like her demise wasn’t easy, either. Did she suffer?”

  “It was quick,” he replied truthfully.

  “How?”

  Takamäki remained calm. “We can’t reveal that at this stage of the investigation.”

  The woman nodded and accepted the answer.

  “I take it you know about her disability.”

  “We have the documents from Social Services,” Takamäki said.

  “Laura lived with me until two years ago, but then it became unbearable. We couldn’t get along and were always arguing. I suppose I should’ve put up with it. But I felt I deserved a life, too. I spent more than twenty years caring for her.”

  “The killer is the only one to blame,” Takamäki pointed out. He watched the woman’s expressions. Her grief seemed genuine, but you never could be sure. She took the news of her daughter’s death quite matter-of-factly.

  “But…maybe it should’ve been obvious that she couldn’t make it alone.”

  Joutsamo joined in. “What do you mean?”

  The woman let out a sigh. “Laura got involved with the wrong crowd. As long as she had the job at the grocery store, things seemed to go alright. She had a routine, and her life had meaning. But when that ended she had too many hours in the day to waste. I’m a nurse at the Jorvi Hospital, and I tried to get her a job there, but it didn’t happen because of all the red tape. Sixty percent of disabled people capable of working are unemployed. It’s an entirely impossible situation.”

  Now that they knew she was a nurse, the plethora of medical books on the shelf made sense. They also understood the somewhat muted reaction she had to the news of her daughter’s death; sometimes nurses became numb to the feeling of loss because they had to constantly deal with suffering and death.

  “So, who did your daughter hang out with?” Joutsamo asked.

  “There’s a pub a few hundred feet from her apartment, and Laura liked to go there. I think the bar is called… Alamo, that’s it.”

  “Did she have a boyfriend?”

  “I suppose they were drinking buddies, nothing more. Laura always had trouble accepting people. The smallest things would turn into big problems. That’s what taxed me, too. Oh, poor Laura.”

  “The guys from the bar?”

  Marjaana Vatanen buried her face in her bony fingers and whimpered something that Takamäki and Joutsamo interpreted as a yes.

  “What were their names?” Joutsamo continued.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know,” the mother sighed.

  “A few more questions. When did you last see your daughter?”

  The woman lowered her hands away from her face. Her eyes were wet.

  “This morning when I went there to clean, like I do once a week. At first I did it almost daily, but for the past year only once a week. I got there around nine and it took me about half an hour.”

  Suddenly the woman realized the time connection.

  “Oh my heavens, what time was she killed?”

  “We don’t know the exact time, but sometime in the late morning,” Takamäki said.

  “You left the apartment at 9:30?” Joutsamo asked.

  “Around that time.”

  “According to phone records, you called Laura at 8:50. Did the call have to do with this visit?”

  “Yes. I always called just before I got there.”

  “How was Laura acting this morning? Was she expecting anyone or did she talk about anything?”

  “No… Some beer cans and wine bottles were in her apartment, but I threw them out in the trash. I commented about her lifestyle, but she wasn’t listening. On the other hand, she didn’t get mad this time like she sometimes would,” the mother recounted, her voice cracking. “But she didn’t mention anything about a threat, nor
did she seem nervous. At least I didn’t notice anything. It was the usual, cleaning and such. I checked on her, too. Of course she should’ve done the vacuuming herself, but I didn’t mind. This way I could see her regularly. It used to be every day, but I felt once a week was good. Oh god… This can’t be happening.”

  “By the way, did you make coffee in the apartment?”

  Marjaana Vatanen looked puzzled. “What? No, I don’t drink coffee.”

  “One more thing. We’d like to get your fingerprints and a DNA sample,” Takamäki said quietly.

  “What for? Am I a suspect?” the woman asked, confused, and with anger in her voice. Takamäki understood her reaction. This was always hard in the moment of grief.

  “You’re not a suspect, but this will help us eliminate some of the fingerprints in the apartment. We’ll know which are yours and which belong to someone else who’s been there—perhaps the killer.”

  The woman relented and Joutsamo took prints of both of her hands. Then she swabbed the inside of the woman’s mouth for a DNA sample. It took about five minutes. Takamäki handed the woman a piece of paper with instructions on how to get help in coping with her loss, and told her she would be asked to come to the police station for official questioning in the next few days.

  “Did Laura have a computer?” he asked.

  “No. She had trouble controlling her fingers and couldn’t type. I thought maybe she could try one of those iPads—it might have been easier.”

  “What about money or anything else valuable?”

  “No, Laura didn’t have anything like that.”

  The officers put on their coats and said goodbye. Once they were outside, Takamäki asked, “You think she did it?”

  Joutsamo looked at her boss. “Doubt it. The frequent arguments might be a motive, but sounds like she regrets making her daughter move out. I didn’t detect any straight-out lies. I glanced in the kitchen, too. There was a teapot, but no coffeemaker, so I guess she was telling the truth about the coffee. Alamo Bar could be a significant lead; the neighbor lady also mentioned hooligans and creeps.”

  The officers treaded the slick sidewalk carefully back to their car at the corner.

  “So far Marjaana Vatanen is the last person we know to have seen Laura alive,” Takamäki said and pulled his phone out. He had something to tell Suhonen.