Snow Angels

All of a sudden, Valtteri lowers the pistol to his side. His face sags and he goes calm. “It was me,” he says.

Gunshot trauma has caused endorphin release, and my body’s natural painkillers are protecting me for the moment, but the agony will start soon. I’ve got to get Valtteri under control before it begins. “What do you mean?”

“I killed Heli.”

This is more than I can take in. “What?”

“That night, after Heli and Heikki killed Sufia, he came to me and told me what they had done. It was just like you thought. Heli seduced him and made him fall in love with her. She told him the girl was a si

Valtteri starts to sob. “Heikki cried and cried and begged me to forgive him. He wanted to confess, for me to arrest him. I wouldn’t let him and told him I would protect him. He was a good boy who made a mistake. He promised to never do it again.”

“For God’s sake Valtteri.”

“It’s your fault. You’re the detective. You were supposed to fix everything and prove Seppo i

The words Heikki wrote in his computer. Now that I know most of the truth, I want all of it. “Where did you get the idea to use a burning tire?”

“I read about it years ago in a magazine. Aristide’s death squads did it in Haiti, and they used to do it in South Africa and Rwanda and Somalia. The article had pictures and they reminded me of hell. Then because Sufia was a Somali, I remembered the story. It seemed fitting and just, like God’s wrath. I didn’t do it to frame Sufia’s father. I never thought you’d make the co

“What about the lake? Why did you pick this place?”

“I knew about your sister and did it to hurt you, because you didn’t fix everything like you were supposed to. I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter. Where are Sufia’s clothes and the murder weapon?”

“Heikki gave her clothes to me. I burned them, and the clothes he had on too.”

He takes a knife out of his pocket and hands it to me. It’s a folding survival knife with a rounded serrated blade.

“I gave him this for his twelfth birthday,” he says. “He used it to do what you saw to that girl, unspeakable things. I thought my pocket would be the last place you would look for the murder weapon.”

He was right.

“I kept it so I would have a constant reminder of my failure as a father and my sin of pride. I couldn’t bear to see my son go to prison. His shame would have fallen on the whole family. If I had let Heikki confess, to go to prison and atone for his sin, he would still be alive. He couldn’t bear the guilt and killed himself because of me, because I wouldn’t let him. I killed him.”

“That’s not true, he killed himself.”

“We all killed him.” He looks at Seppo. “That worthless bastard there. Me. You. That bitch Heli. We’re all going to hell.” He points at Abdi’s still-flaming body. “I almost let him kill you. To save myself, because I’m weak. I’m going to be with my boy now.”

He puts the gun to his temple. “I’m sorry.”

“Please Valtteri, don’t do this.”

He says the prayer that every Laestadian child says before going to sleep. “Jeesuksen nimessä ja veressä kaikki sy

I try to stop him, to grab his hand, but my knee won’t work and I’m sick and too slow.

Valtteri pulls the trigger. His blood and brains spray across the ice. The shot echoes around the lake. He looks at me with dead eyes for a second, then he falls.

I slump down beside him on my hands and knees. I pull off his wool cap and run my fingers through his bloody gray hair. I hear myself moan and say, “Oh God, oh God Valtteri. Get up, get up.”

I realize I’m going into traumatic shock from my wound. I look around. Abdi is still burning. Even with cold dampening my sense of smell, the stench of gasoline and his scorched flesh is sickening. I threatened him and brought him here and he died for nothing. Valtteri is dead beside me. His blood stains the pearl-gray ice and looks black in the murky light. Seppo sits on his haunches, stares at me, hands still cuffed in front of him.

“Come here,” I say. He crawls over, looks like he’s about to go into shock himself. I give him the keys to the handcuffs and my car. “Unlock yourself and open my trunk. There’s an emergency first-aid kit. It has morphine in it and I need it.”

While he’s gone, I call Antti, tell him where I am and that I’m shot, that there are two dead bodies here. I tell him to get me help. He tries to ask questions, but I hang up and drop the phone on the ice.

Seppo brings me the kit and I inject myself. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I never meant for all this to happen.”

“Valtteri was right,” I say. “Your affair with Sufia started all this. You used her and brought all this misery on us with your selfishness, your childishness. If he’d killed you, it might not have been justice, but not far from it. If you weren’t the worthless piece of shit that you are, all these people would still be alive.”

Then I don’t see Seppo anymore. I see Suvi. The ice is three feet thick, but I look through it like a window and see her swimming beneath me. She’s been there all these years, alive under the surface, waiting for me to find her.

Then I feel Kate behind me, her arms around me. I feel her pregnant belly, big and round, pressed against my back. Suvi isn’t under the ice anymore, she’s here with me. I hold her hand and we skate through the darkness across the lake. We stop and Mom and Dad join us. They’re young again and happy. Dad’s not drunk and they’re having one of their good days.

Abdi gets up, pats out the flames and stops smoldering. He stands tall and proud in a dress police uniform, medals on his chest. He has his arm around his daughter. Sufia, gorgeous as always, in a cocktail dress, looks up at her dad and smiles. I notice Heli is here. She’s thirteen, laughing like she did when she was a kid, and I know she’s okay too. I feel warm and safe. Valtteri looks up at me and winks. I lie down on the ice, use his body for a pillow and go to sleep.