She sips champagne. “Iisa.”
“Why did you kill Linda?”
Her Bettie Page facade has disappeared. She’s all business now. “First things first.” She points at Filippov. “Like the old man said, you’ve got your killer. After this brief discussion, I’m going to get up, walk out of this hotel, embezzle the assets from Filippov Construction-which rightfully belong to me anyway-and never be heard from again. If not, I’ll expose everyone involved.”
It may be the most reasonable way out of this mess for all of us. “If your story satisfies me, it’s a deal. Tell it fast.”
She kills half a glass of champagne to steady herself. Her voice changes, I presume from a facsimile of Linda’s to her own. “I had agreed to meet Rein at his apartment on Sunday morning. I decided the easiest thing would be to just sleep in Rein’s bed and wait for him.”
“You were going to watch him fuck another girl?” I ask.
She nods. “About five a.m., I hear the door unlock. I think they’ve arrived early and hide in the bathroom. I hear two voices, Linda’s and a man’s. I’m wondering what the hell Linda is doing in my lover’s apartment with some guy, so I wait and listen. She sucks his cock and shoves him out the door.”
“No one saw you?”
“No, I’m good at this game. After the guy left, Linda called Ivan so she could gloat about their plan to murder me. She got off the phone and started getting ready, laid out her toys. I came out of the bathroom, took the taser, snuck up behind her and zapped her with it.”
It’s all clear to me now. “You decided to punish them both. You tortured Linda with cigarettes to disfigure her beyond easy recognition, tasing her occasionally to keep her under control, and made her tell you their plan in detail.”
“And after she did, I put on the protective clothing, so Ivan couldn’t tell the difference between us, and waited on him.”
“Torturing with cigarettes wasn’t part of the plan. Didn’t it piss him off?”
“I told him I got excited and overzealous. He accepted it.”
“And your lover, Rein Saar. You were willing to let him be framed and go to prison?”
She shrugs. “I was in a bit of a predicament. At the time, it seemed like it was him or me.”
“So you just acted out the murder, as explained by Linda.”
“And afterward, I put on Linda’s clothes, did my look-alike thing with makeup and hair, mimicked her voice and pretended to be her until we got to Filippov Construction. Then I switched from Linda’s voice to my own and said, ‘Surprise.’”
I can picture it clearly enough. She only had to fool him long enough for them to drive to work. He was in such a heightened state of excitement after the murder and completion of a dreamlike sex act, it wouldn’t have been hard to deceive him. How could he suspect he killed Linda, not Iisa, after just sharing such an act of demented intimacy?
“I’m surprised he didn’t murder you on the spot,” I say.
“He knew he wouldn’t be able to cover up a second murder. We struck a bargain to sell Filippov Construction, take my life insurance payment, split it all and never see each other again.”
“And pretending to be lovers when I saw you and Ivan here at Kamp on the evening of the murder?”
“As when we spent the night together in Linda’s apartment, we were maintaining a facade.”
“Didn’t you want him punished for planning your torture and murder?”
“I tricked him into torturing and murdering the woman he loved. I felt he was sufficiently punished.”
“And recording the murder, even setting it to music?”
“Part of Ivan’s aforementioned punishment. They had intended to do so when they murdered me, for their further listening enjoyment while they fucked. I simply completed the plan, so that Ivan could listen to the sounds of his lover dying again and again, guiltridden, as he mourns her.”
Even after all my years as a cop, the darkness inherent in human nature still shocks me. Sometimes I feel I’d like to take Kate and our child to live deep in the forest, away from the beasts we call humans. Somewhere peaceful and safe.
“Did you know Linda was your half sister?” I ask.
She cocks her head, uncomprehending. “Half sister? Impossible. She used to have sex with my father.”
“I think that’s why she wanted to murder you. During our last chat, you told me that her fetish was self- negation, that she wanted to be other people. I’m guessing that was because of the self-loathing incest caused her. Your father had an affair with her mother, but didn’t know it resulted in a child. Linda’s mother wrote to him and told him, and he committed suicide out of grief.”
Her breath catches, but she doesn’t interrupt and so must want all of this bitter truth. I also want her to have it, and I give it to her. “You received unconditional love from your father. Linda had to suck her daddy’s dick to get it. She must have hated you for it. You were cruel to your husband, but she loved him. You had everything she wanted. With you dead, she could become you, a new and improved version, and Linda, the unwanted and abused child, could cease to exist, once and for all.”
She stands, expressionless. I have no inkling of how she feels. “I believe our business is concluded,” she says.
“Not quite. I need the videos.”
“I’m keeping them.”
“Nope. That’s the deal-breaker. I’ll let you embezzle the money and disappear, but if you don’t give me the videos, or if I find out you made copies of them, I’ll find you and prosecute you for your sister’s murder.”
She eyes the door, anxious to leave, considers the ramifications. “They’re buried in snow, triple-wrapped in freezer bags. Walk four paces off my back porch, turn left and take four more paces, and dig. Are we done now?”
“Disappearing isn’t as easy as you might think. If you’re lying to me, I’ll track you down and see you punished. I doubt it would take me more than a couple days.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Then yes, we’re done.”
I watch her walk away and wonder how she can live with herself. I suspect she won’t be able to, and I may find myself investigating her suicide. She may not pay for murder, but she stands punished.
Arvid is busy scarfing Filippov’s meal. I say to him, “The crime is solved and the case closed, but you’re going up for murder.”
He washes down steak with champagne. “Au contraire, quite the opposite. I faced extradition to Germany and a lengthy trial for accessory to murder. Now that I’ve committed murder in Finland, I’m not liable for extradition until my trial here is concluded. While I await trial in this country, as an old and frail man, and a war hero to boot, I’ll be released on my own recognizance until I’m convicted and sentenced. You’ll be the investigating officer in this case, a number of important officials want the truth buried, and I’m sure that between us all, we can delay my trial for some years. Years I don’t have. I’ll be in a grave before it goes to court.”
This smacks of pure and crystalline genius. I can only shake my head in wonder and amazement.
“Besides,” Arvid says, “with Ritva gone, I don’t have anything left to live for, and I wanted to kill one more goddamned Russian before I die.”
He pulls Linda’s plate over. I don’t wait for him to ask. “Sauteed hare, globe artichoke, fava beans and roasted pine nuts over pasta. How are you going to explain why you shot a suspect in my case?”
“Over the past couple days, I’ve been busy making phone calls. To the president and various ministers and generals. Out of respect for my service to my country, they’re willing to take my calls and listen to an old man ramble for a few minutes. I intend to claim that Filippov was a Russian spy and saboteur involved in the Arctic Sea affair, and I killed because it was my patriotic duty. As phone records will show, I learned of his involvement through chats with highly placed government officials, who regularly take me into their confidence in the hopes of gaining insight into weighty matters through the sage wisdom of a revered elder. Because the killing of Filippov involves issues of national security, my trial must be conducted in a closed courtroom, the details never released to the public. In addition to my achievements as a war veteran, I’ll pass into the annals of Finnish history as one of its greatest heroes.”
“You seem to have thought of everything,” I say.
