Snow Angels

8

I GET BACK TO the station at nine P.M. Antti and Jussi are still at their desks. They’ve put in long days too. Antti is calling realtors, asking for occupant lists. Jussi stares at his computer screen with bleary eyes. He looks up at me. “I got something for you.”

“I’m all ears.”

“The tires on the vehicle used in the murder were Dunlop SP Winter Sport M3 DSST snow tires mounted on seventeen-inch rims.”

I clap him on the back. “That’s great.”

“There’s more. That particular make is a factory option on the BMW 3 Series sedan. Maybe Eero didn’t imagine it after all.”

There can’t be many new 3 Series sedans in a small town like this. The car will break the case. “Good work. The next thing is to get online with vehicle registration. Check out every 3 Series owner, both private and rental agency, in Kittilä and Levi. Tomorrow, we’ll inspect each one and find out which of those BMWs have the same model Dunlops on them.”

“I’m already working on it,” Jussi says. “Oh yeah, and the footprints were size tens.”

The break with the tires is heartening, but this may still be a long haul and I don’t want them to burn out yet. “Listen guys,” I say, “I appreciate your hard work, but maybe it’s time to call it a day.”

Antti puts a hand over the mouthpiece of his phone. “In a little while.”

I go to my office. Before doing anything else, I figure I’d better pursue the possibility, unlikely though it may be, that Sufia’s murder is the work of a serial killer. I sit down at my computer and log on to the crime database, working from the nearest countries outward. Serial killers at large in Finland: none. In fact, we’ve only had one convicted serial killer in over a hundred years. Antti Olavi Taskinen killed three men by poisoning and was sentenced to life in prison in 2006.

Serial killers at large in Sweden: none. Again, only one convicted in recent history. Thomas Quick, a child molester, committed his first murder at age fourteen. Committed to closed psychiatric care in 1990, he confessed to thirty murders and by the year 2000 had been convicted of eight murders. At large in Norway: none. Denmark: none. Iceland: none. And also very few in the histories of those countries. Serial murders are a rarity in Nordic and Scandinavian cultures.

Russia has a few serial killers at large, but crime details don’t suggest co

I save the United States for last, because the list is so long. Around eighty-five percent of the world’s serial killers are Americans, and the rate in the U.S. has risen nine hundred and forty percent over the past thirty years. Of course, this may also reflect increased accuracy of crime statistics.

The most conservative estimates claim there are around thirty serial killers active in the U.S. at any given time. Some analysts claim as many as five hundred roam free. They base this on an average of ten to twelve murders per killer, five thousand unsolved murders per year, and they figure that a fair percentage of the hundreds or thousands of women and children that go missing every year are victims of serial killers.

I try to keyword-search and co

Sufia’s cell phone and banking records for the past year arrive by fax. Antti comes in and lays them on my desk. Same-day service. This is the way an investigation is supposed to go. I take my time and sift through them. Sufia was well-co

I keep looking through her records. Sufia received many calls from a particular cell phone while making few calls to the same number in return. She did, however, send a quantity of text messages to the number, and this suggests to me that she wasn’t supposed to call it directly.

She made only eighteen hundred euros from The Unexpected III, her last film, and she had no other source of earned income, no permanent residence. She’d been receiving injections of cash into her account for the past couple months from a private source, and hasn’t been paying the rent on her vacation cottage herself. Sufia Elmi was a kept woman.

I call Pine Woods Cottages and get the credit card number used for payment. I run checks on the credit card, bank account and cell phone. One name comes up. Seppo Niemi.

My ex-wife left me for Seppo thirteen years ago. Seppo is from Helsinki. He’s rich and owns an expensive winter cottage here, bought it before he intruded on my life. He doesn’t visit Levi often. We’ve seen each other in Hullu Poro a few times since then. We never speak, but when we make eye contact, he cowers. I suppose keeping the cottage is a way of trying to convince himself he’s not intimidated by me.

I check his vehicle registration myself. He owns a BMW 330i. I’m shaken. The irony is so great that I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry.

I call Jyri. “I have a suspect,” I say. “His name is Seppo Niemi. He fu

“You mean the rich guy from Helsinki?”

“Yeah.”

He considers it for a minute.

“Another thing,” I say. “She knew a lot of important people, including you.”

“So what? I have an active social life.”

“I just thought I should mention it.”

“I’ve heard a few things about Seppo Niemi,” Jyri says. “By all accounts, he’s an ignorant piece of shit. Bring him in, treat him as a dangerous suspect.”

“No interview first?”

“Nope. Fuck him. Arrest him first. And there’s no reason to mention Sufia’s more important friends to the press.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Let me know what happens.” He hangs up.

Given the nature of the crime, it’s within the boundaries of the law to drag Seppo’s ass to jail without checking his alibi first, but Jyri’s reaction makes me think maybe he has reasons of his own for handling the arrest like this. I apply for arrest and search warrants, and request subpoenas for Seppo’s phone records and financial information.

I go back out to the common room where Jussi and Antti are still hard at it. “Go home,” I say, “get some sleep and be back here at eight in the morning. We’re going to make an arrest.”

Antti brightens. “Who?”

My cell phone rings. “Vaara.”

“This is Dr. Jukka Tikkanen from Kittilä Health Center Emergency Services. Your wife has had an accident.”

My heart pounds and the phone trembles in my hand. “What kind of accident?”

“She took a fall while skiing and fractured her left femur.”

“Is she all right?”

“All things considered.”

“I’m on my way.”

Jussi and Antti are staring at me, wondering what bad news I’ve received. “Kate broke her leg, I’ve got to go.”

I run to get my coat and then remember Antti’s question as I button it. “Oh yeah, we’re going to arrest a guy named Seppo Niemi.”

I PULL UP TO the emergency room entrance and leave the Saab in a no-parking zone. An old man sits outside smoking a cigarette. I bump into his wheelchair and apologize. The automatic doors slide open too slow and pushing them doesn’t help. The admissions desk has a line. I’m supposed to take a number and wait my turn. I go to the window and flash my police card. “Kate Vaara. Where is she?”