Snow Angels

She shakes her head and squints her eyes, like I’m a ghost. “Hello Kari, what brings you… ” she looks around, “and your friends here?”

“I have an arrest warrant for Seppo Niemi and a search warrant for the premises. Please step aside.”

She doesn’t move. “Are you fucking kidding me? Arrest for what?”

“I’ll take that up with Seppo.”

She laughs at me. “If you wanted to see how I’m doing, it would have been easier to drop by for coffee.”

“Please step aside.”

“This is a joke, you’re a goddamned joke. Go home Kari.”

She tries to shut the door but I straight-arm it. It flies and smacks the inside wall. “I asked you to step aside ma’am.”

She looks frightened and takes a step backward. The four of us pour through the door. “Valtteri, keep her here,” I say.

He drops into Laestadian-speak. “Jumalan terve Heli.” God’s greetings to you Heli.

A pair of men’s shoes are on the floor of the foyer. I pick them up. Size tens. I look around: expensive furniture, expensive everything. A pack of Marlboro Lights sits on an end table. Antti, Jussi and I draw weapons and search the downstairs for Seppo, then we move upstairs together. I open a bedroom door. He’s sleeping naked in a fetal position with his mouth open, the covers kicked off and his hands around his dick. Antti and Jussi come in and we surround him. I snap cuffs on his wrists, he snaps awake.

“Seppo Niemi, you’re under arrest.”

His face radiates fear and sleepy confusion. Then he recognizes me and panic sets in. “Not you.”

I smile at him. “Me.”

“Under arrest for what?”

“You think this is an American cop show? Next you’ll want me to read you your rights. You’ll be given information as provided by law, within the time allotted by law.”

We look at each other for a moment. I think both of us are having a difficult time getting used to what’s going on here. “Can I get dressed?” he asks.

“I can’t allow you to touch anything right now, because I have a search warrant for the premises and I don’t want you disturbing evidence. We’ll get you a blanket out of the cruiser.”

“You’re going to haul me naked out of bed and put me in jail, and you won’t tell me why?”

“A good summation.”

I change my mind and decide not to be cruel. I go through his closets, pull out a suit and a white shirt. They’re still in dry cleaner’s plastic and the tags date the cleaning at before the day of the murder. “Let him put these on.”

I leave Seppo with the others and go back downstairs. Heli is giving Valtteri a hard time about the search warrant. She doesn’t want us touching her things.

Valtteri knew her when they were kids, from church. “I’m sorry Heli, this is the way it has to be. We’ll be respectful and get it over with as quick as we can. Try to be patient with us.”

She turns to me. “You goddamned loser. After all this time, this is the best you can do to get even? It won’t fucking work. You’ll pay for this Kari. I’m going to sue you. I’ll have your job for this.”

Heli and Seppo never married. After she divorced me, she went back to her maiden name. “Ms. Kivinen, we mean to cause you no u

Her face turns crimson as she works herself up. She slaps me and spits in my face. “You stupid sorry fuck. I’m glad I ditched your sorry loser ass so I didn’t have to spend all these years watching you limp around this miserable hick town playing sheriff and making an ass out of yourself. Fuck you Kari.”

I’m surprised that I feel so little upon seeing her again. “Cuff her.”

Valtteri pulls her hands behind her back and pops handcuffs on her. She doesn’t resist. I wipe the spit off my face and rub it on her workout jacket. “I understand that being intruded upon in this ma

“Fuck you.”

“When you calm down, I’ll let you get some things if you want them. I hope to turn this house back over to you before the day is out. Until then, I want you to shut the fuck up.”

She does.

Antti marches Seppo down the stairs, looking smart in a thousand-euro suit. Valtteri uncuffs Heli, and Jussi goes with her while she throws some things in a bag. When she’s done, I leave Antti and Jussi to start searching the house, and the rest of us step out into the dark. Snow is drifting down in big flakes almost half the size of my hand. Heli looks at Seppo. “I’ll call our lawyer. This bullshit won’t last long.” She starts toward the BMW.

“Nope,” I say, “that car is impounded. Give me the keys.” She gives me a deadpan look of hatred, drops them in my hand, gets into the Honda beside it and drives away.

I PUT A HAND on Seppo’s head and guide him into the back of the cruiser, then take the driver’s seat. Valtteri gets in beside me. I pull out onto the road between Levi and Kittilä. The headlights bore into the dark and illuminate an icy two-lane road that cuts through the middle of a vast snowfield. It’s like driving through a moonscape.

Seppo is silent. A confession would simplify matters. I watch him in the rearview mirror. “Seppo, why did you kill Sufia?”

He winces, goes stricken, the blood drains out of his face. He doesn’t answer right away. “Sufia who?” he asks.

He doesn’t seem to get it that I’ve already co

“Your girlfriend Sufia.”

Another pause. “I want to speak to a lawyer.”

“You can, after you’re charged. I’ve got seventy-two hours before I have to do that. You’re caught Seppo, get used to it. You’re looking at life and will probably serve twelve years of it. If you confess, maybe show some remorse, you’ll get a lesser sentence. If you can demonstrate that you killed her because of emotional problems or other extenuating circumstances, you could get it down to seven. After the way you butchered her, it shouldn’t be hard to do. That’s five years of your life back.”

“You know I didn’t kill anybody,” he says.

“We can begin that way if you want, but we both know better.”

“After thirteen years,” he says, “now you want to get even with me. Why?”

Some time goes by. I see him in the rearview, working himself up. He shifts in his seat. “I fucked Heli. She loved me instead of you and I fucked your wife. I took her away from you. I won and you lost, and we both know that’s what this is about.”

He’s trying to press my buttons. I think about how Heli looks and acts now. “And what a lucky man you are.”

He goes silent again.

“That was all a long time ago,” I say. “I’m arresting you because the evidence suggests you killed Sufia Elmi, not because of personal animosity. As far as Heli goes, you’re welcome to her. Which did you cut first, Sufia’s face or her vagina?”

He recoils like I just slapped him and clamps his eyes shut. It takes him about thirty seconds to recover. He leans forward, presses his face into the grill that separates us. “I saw you at Hullu Poro with the redhead. They tell me she’s your new wife.”

I don’t say anything.

“She’s a good-looking girl.”

“My wife is off-limits to this conversation,” I say.

“Since you arrested me for no fucking reason except you hate me, I don’t think anything is off-limits to this conversation.”

He struck a nerve, and I’ve given him ammunition. He taunts me. “Is that what this is about? You afraid I’ll fuck her too? In a couple days, when I get free of this bullshit, maybe I’ll pay her a visit. I bet we’ll hook up, what do you think?”

I see Sufia in the cold and dark, naked in the bloodstained snow, staring at me with empty eye sockets. Sufia turns into Kate, her face and body tortured and desecrated. First, my vision goes hazy, then it’s like a swarm of tiny black flies are in my eyes and I hear a high-pitched whirring. My left arm starts to hurt like I’m going to have a heart attack. I manage to get the car over to the side of the road.