“Are you going to hurt me?”
I sit down on a metal cot bolted to the wall and shake a cigarette out of the pack. “No.”
He reaches out to take it, his hands tremble. I try to light it for him, but he’s shaking so hard that I have to hold him by the manacles to steady him. He inhales and coughs. The cell is sixteen by twenty-four feet square. Former occupants have scrawled names and dates on the gray concrete walls.
“Drab surroundings compared to your winter dacha,” I say.
He sucks on the cigarette like he’ll never get another.
“Let’s talk about Sufia.”
He coughs again. “I don’t know any Sufia.”
“Sufia Elmi, murdered forty-nine hours ago in a snowfield. You were having an affair with her. If you’re going to murder someone, you shouldn’t leave documentation. You gave her money, paid her rent.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“I just spent a couple hours collecting evidence from your BMW. I found blood, hair and semen. Are you going to tell me they won’t connect you to Sufia?”
He purses his lips, like he’s trying to decide something. “Can I talk to you straight, without you hurting me?”
“If you want to get out of here, that’s the best thing you can do for yourself.”
“I didn’t kill anyone, and I think you know it.”
“I’m ninety-nine percent convinced that you did.”
“There’s been a murder, and you found a way to link me to it. After all this time, you’re getting even with me for my affair with Heli.”
“That’s not true.”
He starts to cry. “Can’t I just apologize? I’m truly sorry that Heli and I hurt you. I didn’t know you. All I knew was that I loved Heli.”
This note rings false. People have affairs all the time and I doubt he cares who he hurts. Seppo is a sack of shit. He’s begging, just spewing whatever he hopes will get him out of this mess. I don’t say anything.
He sniffles. “And I’m sorry for what I said about your wife. I was trying to be brave.”
“Ancient history has nothing to do with this murder investigation.”
“I know what Heli did to you was awful. I didn’t make her do it, I told her to decide for herself who she wanted to be with.”
“Let’s move forward in time thirteen years and talk about Sufia’s murder.”
He dries his tears. “I don’t know anything about it, and I don’t think I should discuss it without talking to a lawyer.”
“You want out of here? Come upstairs with me. I’ll show you something that might change your mind.”
We go up to the common room. It’s empty. I give him my pack of cigarettes and lighter. “Keep them. Have a seat.”
He sits and smokes. I douse the lights and start the PowerPoint slide show of the murder scene. He watches Sufia, I watch him. He shakes, then sobs a little. After a couple minutes, he’s weeping like a child. Finally, he holds himself, rocks back and forth, mutters “No, no,” over and over.
I think he’ll confess now. I freeze the projector on a close-up of Sufia’s ruined face.
“Please charge me,” he says, “so I can have a lawyer.”
“Not yet,” I say. “After the DNA samples come back from the lab.”
“I’d like to go back to my cell now.”
He wanted out of the cell. I guess he didn’t enjoy his taste of freedom. I take him back downstairs.
“Thank you for the cigarettes,” he says.
I slam the steel door shut and the clang echoes through the corridor. “You’re welcome,” I say.
12
I GO BACK TO my office, write a detailed summary of events and e-mail it to the national chief of police. A photocopy of Sufia’s address book is in a plastic sleeve on my desk. I have coffee and a cigarette and browse through it again. I recognize more names familiar from the tabloids. Sufia must have liked to surround herself with famous people.
I start dialing numbers. I introduce myself and say I have a few questions concerning Sufia Elmi. The media picked up on the murder through the national crime incident database and word has gotten around. People express shock. The interviews are all the same. No one knew Sufia well. The men say they went out a couple times, had some fun. The women say they hung out in nightclubs, went dancing, had some fun.
Valtteri comes in. “I called Heli,” he says. “She doesn’t want to see you and asked if I could bring her the keys.”
“Tell her no. Seppo’s car is a crime scene and she had access to it. I have to talk to her.”
“She won’t come.”
“Then arrest her and lock her up.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
He hands me a magazine. “I thought you should see this.” He walks out.
The front page of
Jaakko has written an article that refers to Sufia Elmi as Finland ’s Black Dahlia. He’s managed to paint Sufia’s murder as both a race and sex crime and called to mind a legendary Hollywood murder. I wonder if Sufia’s murder will also pass into legend, if she will forever be Finland ’s Black Dahlia. I find this disturbing. It’s as if the tragedy of her death has been forgotten before it was even recognized, trivialized in favor of tabloid glitz and the terrible romance of celebrity murder.
I didn’t want details of the crime released. The fucking diener must have sold Jaakko the photos. I’ll charge him with obstruction of justice.
My cell phone rings-it’s Sufia’s father. We must have been looking at the morgue photos of her at the same time. I answer. “Vaara.”
“Inspector, this is Abdi Barre. My wife is in tears. Can you imagine why?”
I can imagine. “The photos.”
“Her friend called and told my wife that revolting photos of her murdered daughter were published in a filthy magazine. She went to a newsstand and bought that filthy magazine. She is devastated and humiliated.”
“I’ll press charges against whoever sold the photos to the magazine.”
“You have failed to protect my daughter.”
He has my pity, but I’m tired of taking shit from him. “You can’t expect me to be responsible for security at a government facility over which I have no control.”
“I hold you responsible for all matters relating to my daughter.” Once again, he’s treating me like I’m on trial for Sufia’s murder. I don’t know why and it’s not fair. “You have my sympathy for the pain the photos caused you and your wife. I’ll deal with it today. I can’t do anything more.”
“The Koran tells us Inspector Vaara, that ‘when the sky is rent asunder, when the graves are hurled about, each soul shall know what it has done and what it has failed to do.’ For my wife and I, the sky has been rent asunder. Do not fail in your duty.”
He hangs up. I feel like he just punched me in the head.
Before I can recover from Abdi’s accusations, Valtteri knocks on my door and enters. “Antti and Jussi are back”-he hands me Seppo’s house keys-“and Heli’s here.”
He walks out, she walks in.
