Snow Angels

“He’s always so polite when I’m around.”

“You’re a foreigner. He’s afraid of what he doesn’t understand. You intimidate him, and when you’re around he stays on his best behavior to hide it.”

She takes this in. “Something about him scares me too. How drunk was he?”

“Pretty drunk.”

She looks pissed off on my behalf. Kate’s father is dead now, but he was a drunk, so I don’t need to say more. Kate had a tough childhood. She grew up in Aspen, Colorado. Her mother died of cancer when Kate was thirteen. Her brother and sister were seven and eight at the time.

The death broke her father’s spirit, and although he wasn’t mean like my dad, he wasn’t home much, spent his evenings in bars. Kate had to raise her brother and sister, cook, clean, beg her father for grocery money to keep them fed.

Her father managed to do one good thing for her. He was a mechanic, worked at a ski resort maintaining the lifts, and he got her free skiing lessons and lift passes. She became a fantastic downhill skier. She won several key events over the years and dreamed of competing in the Olympics.

When she was seventeen, she was in a race and going nearly a hundred miles an hour. She took a fall, broke her hip and spent weeks in traction. End of dream. She couldn’t compete anymore and lost the only thing she loved. Still, she toughed it out, got a scholarship and an education, made herself into a successful career woman in the ski resort management industry.

Thinking about Kate’s family makes me remember Suvi again. I’ve never told Kate about her. Maybe I’m afraid she’ll blame me for Suvi’s death too.

“Want me to make you something to eat?” Kate asks.

“Mom fed me.”

She wraps her arms around me, kisses my eyes. “Let’s go upstairs then.”

Kate takes my hand and guides me to the bed. She crawls naked on top of me. Long white limbs tangle around me, long red hair hangs in my face. Despite today, I can’t help but want her. I always want her. Maybe witnessing the aftermath of Sufia’s death makes me want to celebrate life.

Kate’s not showing yet, but kissing her belly reminds me of our child growing inside her. She presses her mouth to mine, runs her tongue along my lips. I feel myself stiffen and hear her breath go ragged.

We make love, and I fall asleep. The next thing I know Kate is shaking me awake. “You were having a bad dream.”

The image is still lingering behind my eyes. I was nine years old, in the bedroom I shared with my brother. Sufia Elmi sat in a chair by my bed. My sister Suvi stood beside her. My father pulled my pants down and beat me with a belt. Sufia and Suvi held hands and looked on. Sufia, naked and mangled, mouthed words I couldn’t understand.

“What were you dreaming?” Kate asks.

“I don’t remember.”

“I was having the most wonderful dream,” she says. “I was sixteen, before I broke my hip. I was in a ski competition. It felt like I was flying.”

I dread waking up in the morning and look at the clock. It’s two A.M. I pull Kate close and try to get whatever sleep I can.

5

THE ALARM CLOCK GOES off at five thirty. Kate doesn’t stir. I have a slice of rye bread with sausage and cheese and wait for the coffee. I haven’t slept enough, but the investigation has to get rolling.

I pull on wool socks and a robe, go out on the back porch and look at the stars while I have a cigarette and drink coffee. The smoke doesn’t bother me, but the freezing air takes my breath and makes me cough. The thermometer on the porch wall reads minus thirty-two. It’s warming up.

I go back inside and get dressed. I usually wear jeans and a sweater, but today I might need to look official, so I put on a suit and drive to work through deserted, ice-laden streets.

It’s a typical small-town police station. Six drunk tanks and two holding pens, my office and a room for the dispatcher, a common room with a couple desks and computers for whomever is on duty. I want the crime report done before the morning briefing.

I sit at my desk and write it, then set it aside until later. If I wait a few hours before entering it into the Fi

Cell phones are a difficulty in this regard. When people witness crime scenes, or learn of crimes and their details, they often call tabloids and sell information for a nominal reward. When canvassing Marjakylä, I didn’t mention the name of the murder victim. Only the investigating officers, Kate, Aslak, Esko and my parents know Sufia was killed. I’ve told them all to keep quiet about it and managed to stanch the problem.

I download the crime-scene photos from the digital camera into the computer system, so we can look at them during the briefing, then start setting the investigation in motion.

Technically, I should go through the chain of command and call the regional police commander, but I don’t like him and opt not to. The national chief of police and I have a history, so I call him instead. He’s not in yet, so I ask for his cell phone number and call him at home.

He answers. “Ivalo.”

“This is Kari Vaara, in Kittilä. Sorry to call so early.”

“I’m shaving.”

“It can’t wait, I’ve got a situation you need to be aware of.”

Silence.

“We have a murder investigation in progress. A young woman named Sufia Elmi was abducted and killed around two P.M. yesterday. She’s a Somali refugee and she’s also a minor movie star, the kind that’s in the tabloids all the time.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, but it gets worse. The murder has the characteristics of a sex crime, but also of a race crime. It could be both. The girl was butchered. The killer carved the words ‘nigger whore’ on her stomach.”

“Media frenzy.”

“That’s why I called.”

“Got a suspect?”

I hear rushing water. He’s taking a piss while we talk. “I have tire tracks and a lot of forensics.”

“I can send a homicide unit from Helsinki or Rovaniemi. You know how it is around Christmas. I have to check who’s available.”

I’m not getting it yet. “You don’t need to, I’ve got a good start.”

“No doubt you have, but still, maybe you could use some help.”

I’m surprised. No one has ever called my professional capability into question before. “Thanks, but I don’t need it.”

The rushing water stops, his toilet flushes. “Are you sure you want this case?”

“Why would you ask me that?”

“It’s something you should consider.”

“Of course I want it.”

“Think about it. Maybe you should step aside for this one.” Finland is a provincial little country, but people in Helsinki act like they’re sophisticates, while we here in Lapland are backwards-ass country shitheads. Sometimes they call us poron purija, reindeer biters.

“It’s my jurisdiction,” I say, “my case.” My voice is getting louder. I tell myself to calm down.

“There’s a lot riding on this,” he says, “a lot of potential embarrassment for both of us. You might be out of your league.”

“I’ve conducted other murder investigations.”

“Years ago.”

I call him by his first name and work the personal angle. “Jyri, you decorated and promoted me. Don’t tell me you don’t think I can do this.”

“I decorated you for bravery, not your crime-solving ability.”

I want to tell him to go fuck himself, but don’t.

“I promoted you because you deserved it,” he says, “but also because that bullet in your knee ruined you as a patrol officer. It was promote you or retire you. I did you a favor.”

He did me no fucking favor, I earned it. I was a beat cop in Helsinki and answered an armed robbery call at Tillander, the most expensive jewelry store in the city, on Aleksander Street in the heart of the downtown shopping district. It was the middle of a gorgeous summer afternoon.