shy.”
She looks like she just tasted something bad. “He’s not just shy, he’s creepy. The way he looked at me made my skin crawl.”
I laugh a little. “It’s the religious thing. I guess they’re something like American Pentecostals.”
She raises her eyebrows. “You mean they speak in tongues?”
“I don’t think they do anymore, at least not frequently, but it used to be common. They believe the same thing about being entered by the Holy Spirit, and they have the same kinds of strict codes of dress and behavior. Laestadian women go for the natural look, tend to be on the plain side. Makeup is against the rules. He’s probably never been in the same room with a beautiful woman like you.”
“I told him I didn’t need anything today. I’d rather he didn’t come back.”
I don’t know how I could explain this to Valtteri. “If he tries to speak English, will you give him another chance?”
She looks skeptical.
“If he gets used to being around you, he’ll stop staring at you.”
“All right, I’ll try one more time. But if he makes me feel icky again, he’s got to go.”
“Fair enough. You could try speaking Finnish with him. If you both practice languages, it might make him more comfortable.”
“I thought he was here to make me comfortable.”
“Of course you’re right, but you’ve got some downtime. Maybe you should use part of it to study Finnish. Getting better at speaking it would make your whole life more comfortable.”
“Kari, I’m trying. Finnish is just so hard. Even simple things are difficult, because we just don’t have those sound combinations in English. Every sentence is like a tongue twister. Like saying good night.
“You don’t sound stupid, just strange because your pronunciation is so soft. The more you practice, the more natural it will sound.”
I’m being kind. No matter how well foreigners speak Finnish, no matter how good their grammar, it just sounds wrong to me. Still, improving her Finnish would make her more functional and comfortable in everyday life.
“It’s like trying to learn Chinese,” she says, “except it has a Roman alphabet.”
“People learn Chinese too.”
She looks put out and changes the subject. “Tell me about the case.”
I don’t know how to begin, so I just blurt it out. “You remember I told you my ex-wife left me for another man. He’s the suspect.”
She sits upright and looks at me. “You must be kidding.”
“I wish. Things would be much simpler.”
“Are you sure he did it?”
“I was, until about an hour ago.”
She lies back against propped-up pillows. I tell her most of the story, about the BMW and the money trail connecting Seppo to Sufia.
“Wow,” she says. “What karma.”
“Valtteri tells me it’s the will of God.”
She smiles. “You never know.”
“I have to tell you some other things too. I think they’ll be public soon, and I’d rather you hear them from me.”
She raises her eyebrows.
I tell her how Seppo threatened her, how I pulled off the road and stuck a gun to his head, shouted in his ear and scared him, made him piss himself and faint.
She shakes her head in disbelief. “I just can’t picture you doing it.”
“You didn’t see the murdered girl. I got this mental picture of you being killed like her, and I lost it.”
She puts an arm around me. “Emotions make us do things. Maybe nothing will come of it.”
I relate my interview with Heli. “She says they’re going to sue me. If our past comes out in court, it could look like it’s not an honest murder investigation, and they might win.”
“Does she have any basis for suing you? Don’t you have to do anything like question people and check their alibis before you arrest them?”
“No. With such a violent crime, it’s pretty much left up to the arresting officer. Besides, I only followed instructions from a superior.”
“Unbelievable. After all this time, she’s going to try to hurt you again.”
“It’s because of the way she hurt me before that they could win. A lot of people would think it’s a good motive for revenge.”
She runs a hand through my hair. “Want to tell me about it?” “Not really, but I’m going to anyway. After I got shot, I was in the hospital for almost a week. She didn’t visit or answer the phone. When I got home, her stuff was gone. A note on the kitchen table said she wouldn’t be back.”
“You told me that much before.”
“I guess that’s all I was ready to tell you.”
“In the States, dating is like going to confession. If people don’t have any traumas, they’ll invent them just so you won’t think they’re shallow. I had a first date once, and this guy tells me that when he was a kid, his mother had an obsession that made her lick the floor clean. I’m sitting there thinking, if that’s what he’s willing to tell a near stranger, what’s he hiding? It’s like people think they have to give you a secret before you’ll trust them. I’ve always liked it that you believe in privacy, both yours and mine. I admire it.”
“Kate, I had just killed a man. I thought my shattered knee would cripple me. I couldn’t get in touch with my wife and I was worried sick about her. Then I go home and find out she left me.”
“What did you do?”
“She filed a change of address. That’s how I found out she was living with Seppo. Since she wouldn’t talk to me, I called him. I meant well-I was still worried about her. I told him that Heli had a lot of problems, that I was her husband and to send her home to me.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Eating disorders. Self-image problems. Depression. I’ve known Heli since kindergarten, she’s always been an emotional mess.”
“Were you her husband or her caretaker?”
This sounds harsh, but I see her point. “I started dating Heli when we were thirteen. We’d been together for fourteen years, married for seven. I was both.”
I lay my head on Kate’s breast and she wraps an arm around me. “Seppo told me she wasn’t my responsibility anymore, to forget about Heli. I told him I’d like to meet him to talk. He said he couldn’t see any point in that. I was so heartbroken and angry that I told him I’d find him, hunt him down and kill him, stab him in the fucking heart. He hung up the phone, and I never spoke to him again until two days ago, when I clapped handcuffs on him.”
She strokes my face. “But you didn’t hurt him. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I got so depressed I was nearly suicidal. I’d wake up and think, ‘Today is the day I kill him.’ But it was like that was all I had to live for. Once I’d killed him, I’d have nothing left. The days passed, I never did, and then one day I just didn’t want to anymore.”
She kisses the top of my head. “It’s a good thing. If you’d killed him, you’d have ended up in prison and we’d never have met.”
“I was lucky. If you kill someone in the line of duty, you have to see a therapist. I talked more about the divorce than the shooting. It helped a lot.”
“Why didn’t you want to kill
A fair question. I laugh a little at my ridiculous answer. “I couldn’t kill her because I loved her. I needed someone else to blame.”
“Why do you think she left you?” The tone of her voice says she’s afraid she’s prying, but I understand her curiosity.
“I blamed myself for a long time, asked myself what I’d done or hadn’t done. Maybe it was partly my fault.
