He runs his fingers over the scar on my face, tells me to open my mouth. He looks inside with a medical penlight. “The bullet took out two back teeth,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“Do you have chronic pain or any paralysis as a result of the wound?”
“Just some stiffness in my jaw and minimal paralysis. My smile is a little crooked.”
He grins. “That’s no big deal, you don’t smile much anyway.” He sits, ponders the situation. “There’s a bundle of facial nerves in the vicinity of the bullet wound. Damage to them could cause your headaches, but your lack of other symptoms makes me think that’s not the case here. There’s nothing readily visible wrong with you,” he says. “We need to run tests.”
“What do you think the problem is?” I ask.
“This is largely a process of elimination from the most to least likely causes. Let’s see if you have a brain tumor, then we’ll check for nervous system disorders.”
This alarms me. “Those are the most likely causes?”
“Little brother, you don’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation or how very fucking stupid you’ve been. You need an MRI. The waiting time for an MRI in the public health system in Helsinki is nine months. You could die while you wait. It happens all the time.”
“The police have private medical coverage,” I say.
“Screw the system, both public and private,” Jari says. “I’ll twist some arms and get you as far up the line as I can. You’ll get the MRI in at most a couple weeks, and a blood test as soon as you leave this office.”
“Okay,” I say. Something occurs to me. “I thought you were getting rich in private practice. What are you doing here in a hospital?”
“The pay for public doctors is so abysmal that most of the good doctors have fled to private practice. So what you have left is recent graduates from medical school, some bad doctors, some older doctors, and lately an influx of foreign medical workers. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but many of the foreigners speak poor Finnish and often depend on English.”
“But foreign doctors have to pass a language test in order to practice.”
“That doesn’t guarantee spoken fluency. Two parents brought a child with an ear infection in to see me last week for a second consultation. They’d seen a foreign doctor and his language skills were so poor that all he could tell them was, ‘It’s not cancer.’ And when, for instance, elderly people come in and don’t speak English, they sometimes feel that they can’t relate their problems. They feel neglected by the system. I come here two mornings a week to help out. I think of it as my civic duty.”
Jari always was a good guy.
“How’s your bum knee?” he asks.
“Worse every year. There’s not enough cartilage left to hold it together. I have to sleep with a pillow between my knees to keep the pressure off, or it starts to go out of joint in my sleep and the pain wakes me up. At least it used to, back in the days when I slept.”
“Getting kneecapped with a bullet has a tendency to do that. Have an orthopedist examine it again. Reconstructive surgery probably won’t fix it, but might improve it.”
“I’ve got a baby coming. Better to limp than not walk at all.”
We share an uncomfortable silence. I wait for him to ask the inevitable.
“Why have you been avoiding me?” Jari asks. “You don’t return my phone calls.”
I’ve been asking myself the same question. I discovered the answer but can’t share it with him. It’s about old hurt and anger. Dad used to beat the hell out of me. Jari is older than me, but never did anything to stop it. Maybe he couldn’t.
When Jari got out of high school, he told Dad he wanted to be a doctor. Dad asked him who the hell did he think he was, told him he thought he was better than his upbringing, to come down off his high horse and get a job. They argued. Dad punched him in the face. Jari left that night, and I didn’t hear from him for almost two years. He had moved to Helsinki and gotten into the university. He abandoned me.
“I don’t know why,” I say. “I didn’t realize I was doing it until Kate and I had been here for a few months and I hadn’t gotten in touch with you.”
He nods. “I get that, but I’m still your brother.”
“I know. For whatever reason, I’ve been distant, but it has nothing to do with you and I’ll make myself get over it. Kate’s brother and sister from the States are here visiting us. Why don’t you bring your wife and kids over on Thursday. I’ll cook us a big family dinner.”
“Sounds good,” he says. “You have to go now. Patients are backing up.” He hands me some papers. “These are the order for your blood test, which I expect you to take now, and prescriptions for some new meds.”
“What kinds of meds?”
“Opiated painkillers, tranquilizers and sleeping pills. I want you to use them freely. You need rest and relief from pain.”
I grab my coat and start to protest. He pushes me out the door. “See you Thursday,” he says.
21
I go to another waiting room, Stand and read until my turn comes up. I have a busy workday ahead and waiting frustrates me. A nurse draws some blood. I exit the hospital and look at the prescriptions in my hand. I dislike taking medication in general, but Jari was right. Passing out at Arvid’s house taught me that I need relief. I go to a pharmacy and get them filled.
It’s minus ten degrees, crisp and pleasant, a little after ten a.m. A darkened sky looms over a snow-white city. I lean against my Saab, smoke cigarettes and make phone calls. First in line is Milo. His voice is hushed, uncharacteristic of him. I ask him if he can run background checks on Iisa Filippov and Linda Pohjola. He says he’s working the case from a different angle at the moment and can’t talk right now. He asks if we can meet later, outside the police station. He has things to tell me. I suggest Hilpea Hauki at two thirty. He says perfect, he lives in the neighborhood. My interest is piqued.
Next I call Jaakko Pahkala. I’ve know him for years, since I was a uniform cop in Helsinki, before I moved back to my hometown of Kittila and took over the police department there. He’s a freelance writer for the Helsinki daily newspaper Ilta-Sanomat, for the gossip magazine Seitseman Paivaa, and the true-crime rag Alibi. Jaakko loves filth, specializes in scandal.
“Hello, Inspector,” he says. “This is a pleasant surprise. I thought you would never speak to me again after the Sufia Elmi case.”
Jaakko committed obstruction of justice by releasing details of the murder that I wanted suppressed, published morgue photos that demeaned the victim and did his best to discredit me and have me fired because I refused to grant him an interview.
“I didn’t, either,” I say, “but you have your uses.”
He laughs. His high-pitched voice grates on me. “Who do you want dirt on?”
“Iisa Filippov.”
“I’m interested in her murder myself. What do I get?”
Jyri wants Rein Saar hung out to dry. I’ll make it hard for him. “A good scoop, provided I stay anonymous.”
“Give.”
I light another cigarette, exhale smoke and frozen breath in a long plume. “Iisa Filippov and Rein Saar were both stunned with a taser. He would have had a hard time giving her a prolonged torture session after that. And the taser is missing, wasn’t at the crime scene.”
“Damn,” he says, “that’s good.”
“Your turn,” I say.
“Iisa Filippov was a party girl, fuck monster and trophy dick collector. Notches on her bedpost include Tomi Herlin, Jarmo Pvolakka, Pekka Kuutio, and Peter Manttari.”
Herlin: a heavyweight boxing champion and hero-of-the-people-turned-politician and then finally drug-addled
