The Nightingale Murder (The Maria Kallio Series Book 9) Read online

  “So you had a key to Lulu’s dressing room?”

  “I have a keycard that opens all six dressing rooms.”

  “Do you have the only one like that?”

  “No. Ilari and Nuppu have ones too. Guests receive cards for their own rooms, which they turn in when they leave. Of course, sometimes they forget, and it’s a pain for us because reprogramming the locks is complicated and expensive.” Saarnio seemed to calm down when she could talk about something other than Lulu’s death. Suddenly her expression changed again, first to one of confusion and then to horror.

  “Nuppu’s keycard . . . She left in a hurry and forgot her purse on the table. She called later and asked for me to put it out of sight for her. I did, but the keycard and the rest of the contents of the purse were out on her makeup table for at least half an hour, out where anyone could have taken it. I wonder if Nuppu ended up picking up her purse. We’ll have to check if the card is there. Shall I call her right now?”

  “No need. No one is being allowed into the studio yet. Our officer on guard can check the purse once we have Ms. Koskela’s permission.” I took a deep breath. This was a good discovery, maybe even a decisive discovery. A lost keycard could mean that someone unauthorized could have accessed Lulu’s dressing room. But at what point was the poison placed in the bottle? Lulu hadn’t left her room. And at what point would this unidentified person have entered the studio?

  Could he have been waiting since earlier in the day?

  “Did anyone visit the studio before the broadcast? For example, any delivery or maintenance workers?”

  “Thursday? No . . . Although I wasn’t there the whole day. Ilari and I didn’t come in until ten, because on production days it’s good to sleep in. We spent a couple of hours reviewing plans for the show, and then Ilari went home to rest. I handled the technical arrangements with the sound and camera crew and then went to Tapiola for a massage. I guess someone could have visited while I was out . . .”

  The sound of footsteps and then a cough came from the hallway, as if Arto Saarnio wanted to announce his presence before stepping into the room.

  “That’s all the time the doctor allowed. We can’t overtax my wife.”

  Mr. Saarnio had probably listened to our conversation. He walked over to his wife and placed his hands on her shoulders. The cat stood up to greet him, and Mr. Saarnio gave a little smile as he petted it. His wife had closed her eyes and looked calm again. A ping from Koivu’s computer indicated that the interview record had been saved. “I mean what I say, Detective Kallio. We’ve tried to be cooperative, so I expect you to do the same. Can you do anything to prevent all these reporters from calling us? I don’t want any more headlines like this.” He showed us a tabloid with the headline “Leading Businessman’s Wife Finds Dead Prostitute.” I’d only had time to read the morning paper, so these articles were new to me.

  “That is unfortunate, but we have free speech in this country, and that headline is technically true.” I stood up. I shook hands with Mrs. Saarnio and then her husband. The cat jumped down onto the floor and followed us, along with Arto Saarnio, to the front door. I bent down to pet it.

  “Beautiful animal.”

  “Miisi is smart too. She walks on a leash just like a dog, which is good, because otherwise we couldn’t let her out at all. That would be against the law after all.” Arto Saarnio smirked, and his face filled with laugh lines.

  “Don’t risk it. The fines can be steep,” I replied and smiled back, although what I probably should have done is confront him about the job losses at Copperwood. I wouldn’t dare tell my sister Eeva that I’d been friendly to “Hatchetman” Saarnio.

  “What now?” Koivu asked as I started the car and drove down the slippery hill to the main road.

  “Time to go to church. That’s all there is for now,” I answered and steered the car toward Tapiola. Pastor Terhi Pihlaja had agreed to meet with us between a wedding and funeral.

  7

  I’d gradually learned to like the square, modernist concrete edifice that was the Tapiola Church, despite my gloomy first impression. So many memories were connected to it now, though, both beloved and brutal. I’d been to funerals here for Antti’s father and my coworker Juhani Palo. Antti’s cousin’s wedding last summer belonged to the good memories. I hadn’t met Terhi Pihlaja during any of these services, however.

  When we entered the foyer of the church, organ music was playing in the chapel. Judging from the dress of the congregants, I concluded this was a funeral.

  “Hello!” Pastor Pihlaja, wearing her clerical garb, was already walking toward us. “One of my colleagues is handling the current service, but I’m up again in an hour. Let’s head over to the parish and we can speak in my office. This way, please.”

  Pastor Terhi Pihlaja’s office was cluttered, with papers and books heaped on the desk and floor. At least the chairs were empty, but there were only two of them. Pihlaja fetched a stool from another room and placed it across from us, then sat on it. Koivu shifted papers away from one corner of the desk to make space for his laptop. One of the papers, a confirmation class schedule, fell at my feet. A painting of the Madonna and Child graced the wall, looking ornate and Catholic in these ascetic Lutheran surroundings. Pastor Pihlaja was thirty-one and after her ordination had worked first in Lohja and then here in Tapiola. She happened to live just a few buildings down from Antti and me, and she said she’d seen me out running sometimes.

  “I stick to Nordic walking. My knees can’t handle jogging. Writing sermons is easier outside while exercising than sitting here at my desk. I imagine being a police detective is similar to being a pastor—you often meet people in their moments of greatest distress.”

  “Absolutely. You at least get to celebrate baptisms and weddings. And sometimes you get to go on TV talk shows. Why did Ilari Länsimies invite you on his program?”

  “Some time back we both presented at a seminar on the relationship between the church and the media. I wrote my thesis on it. At the seminar, I criticized news coverage that always paints the church as an institution built around prohibitions and used gay marriage as an example of an area in which attitudes are changing. That was probably where it started. I had to think about it for a long time, but somehow Länsimies talked me into it. He’s good at that. I almost felt hypnotized.”

  “Why did you hesitate?”

  “Some of my congregation disagree with me, but I prefer to foster cooperation rather than deepen divides between people who think differently, although of course I must have the courage to speak my mind. And it was quite a coincidence that Lilli and I were invited for the same program, even though we didn’t end up having a chance to meet.”

  “Did you know Lulu Mäkinen?”

  Pihlaja’s eyes went wide. “Don’t you know? Lilli and I grew up together. We were in the same class. We went to elementary school and middle school together in Inkoo, and high school in Virkkala. Lilli lived in town, and I lived out in the countryside, so we only saw each other at school and on the bus and didn’t really run in the same circles. I was a good churchy kind of girl, and Lilli was . . . well, different. Even when she was young she wanted to stand out from the crowd and be something.”

  “What was that something?”

  “Famous. A star. Nowadays every other teenager dreams of fame, but fifteen years ago it wasn’t like that yet. Lilli wanted to travel the world and meet important people. She went to Helsinki to watch bands play and tried to get backstage. I imagine I thought I was better than all those tough girls who came to school Monday morning with hickeys on their necks. I was a condescending hypocrite.” Pastor Pihlaja smiled, but the smile was strangely introspective, not meant for me and Koivu.

  “Did Ilari Länsimies know that you and Lulu were classmates?”

  “How would he have known? Of course it would have added to the drama of the show, but poor Lilli never got her chance to speak.”

  “Did you keep track of Lulu’s career?”
r />   “Not actively, but I knew about it. Once I even visited her website, out of curiosity. But I just thought there was something sad about it.”

  I continued to ask Pihlaja about more details of Lulu’s childhood. To hear her tell it, Lulu had despised her parents’ way of life and their little country village, which luckily for her was only an hour from Helsinki.

  “I guess the Mäkinens were genuinely poor. My brother went over there sometimes since he played on the same soccer team as Lilli’s brother. I remember my brother commenting on how old and worn out Lilli’s brother’s cleats were. Lilli started working summers picking strawberries when she was just in middle school, and in high school she was a cleaner in some building. It was the kind of hard work that messed up her fingernails. It’s funny how much you can remember when you try. And there’s no denying that Lilli was a memorable person.” Pihlaja fell silent for a moment, looking past me into the middle distance.

  “And she hitchhiked . . . Once we picked her up on our way to Helsinki. My mom and I were going to buy new winter coats, and Lilli was outside in a storm at the Degerby junction. She’d only been able to get a ride that far. Mom took pity on her and asked my father to pick her up so she wouldn’t end up with some truck driver. I think Lilli hated me even more after that—the daughter of a cantor would never dream of hitchhiking and had enough money to go all the way to Helsinki to buy a coat. Yes . . . I can remember her saying I looked like someone’s aunt in that coat. And I probably did. It was a navy-blue quilted overcoat. Oh heavens, you should have seen me after she made fun of me in front of this boy named Masa. ‘Terhi doesn’t dare to wear anything but old potato sacks so no one has any sinful thoughts.’ I remember that night I cried myself to sleep. I guess Lilli realized somehow that I had a crush on Masa. She always had a good eye for relationships between people.”

  “What was she like at school?”

  “Average. She didn’t try very hard at anything but languages. She probably thought that would be useful in the future. She always copied her math homework from these popular guys Jussi or Pave, and even back then people talked about what she did for the boys in return, but you know how teenagers talk. At that age, everyone is still confused by their sexuality and thinks that everyone else is more experienced.” Pihlaja glanced at her watch and then began to riffle through her papers. She finally found the one she was looking for on top of her computer.

  “My funeral sermon. Good thing I found it! I have pretty good diary entries from high school, and I can look at them if you need more information about Lilli when she was young. I do remember that Lilli didn’t like that there were different rules for boys than for girls. People called her a whore even back then, but she just laughed at them. She walked her own road. That’s how Lilli was.”

  “Did you ever see each other after graduation?”

  “No. Lilli went abroad somewhere right after, maybe to Switzerland or somewhere like that, and I went to Helsinki to study theology. We haven’t had any class reunions. It’s sad we never had a chance to meet again. I could hardly believe it when Riitta Saarnio rushed into the studio like that and started screaming that Lilli was dead. I’d thought a lot about her choice of profession after agreeing to go on the program.” I saw Pihlaja’s cheeks flush. “I wanted to see her with my own eyes, but that policeman wouldn’t let me. Did she suffer?”

  I didn’t answer and just scanned the papers and books stacked around the room. Some of the books were church manuals, some theology, but I also saw poetry and a P. D. James mystery set in a seminary. The top drawer of the desk was open, and I saw a packet of tissues and a lipstick. Although Pastor Pihlaja seemed open and cooperative, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was partly an act. Maybe that was just me, since I usually felt uncomfortable around clergy. I imagine I was afraid they would demand that I explain my religious views, which I avoided thinking about because I just didn’t know. Antti was a confirmed atheist, but I wasn’t able to think that simplistically. Sometimes I prayed, but I never had a clear idea what I was praying to. At least Antti had agreed to baptizing our children to please the grandparents. Some of our kids’ godparents were what people referred to as fairy godparents since they didn’t belong to the church and so couldn’t officially fill the role.

  “Those diaries might be helpful—I wouldn’t mind hearing more from them. Do you remember any particularly close friends Lulu had during school?”

  “There was a girl named Niina Räsänen, but I haven’t seen her since school either. I imagine Lilli’s parents would know better. Do you have any other questions? I want to spend a few minutes meditating before the funeral. This was a difficult situation. A thirteen-year-old girl who died of leukemia.”

  “What are you going to say? That it was God’s will?” I asked, perhaps more pointedly than intended. Koivu shot me a surprised look, but Pastor Pihlaja just shook her head.

  “God isn’t cruel. He can be stern but not cruel. Those are two different things. You police have to trust in facts to solve crimes. You can’t rely on mysteries. But in my work, you see that not everything can be explained. Anyway, I’ll have time to look at my diaries tomorrow night. I’ll call if I find anything interesting.” I gave Pastor Pihlaja my card, and then we left her in peace. Through the crack in the door I saw her taking a seat at her desk, bowing her head of shiny black hair, and clasping her hands. I hoped she would find words to comfort the family of the dead girl.

  I didn’t have to be the bearer of bad news to families much anymore—that task fell to others—but I still encountered sorrow. In my bag, I carried pamphlets from various support and crisis services, which I distributed as necessary. Sometimes even the interviews we conducted seemed therapeutic since they gave people an opportunity to talk about their deceased loved one, but the deaths I encountered were usually violent and sudden. I hoped I could help by finding the truth, even though it was often brutal and increased some people’s agony. Still I believed it was better to know.

  “What did you think of that?” Koivu asked as we walked to the car. “Quite the coincidence. Could Pihlaja have guessed that Lulu would be on the program too? And taken the cyanide with her just in case? Getting it isn’t very hard. Butterfly collectors always have it. Apparently Autio’s brother collects butterflies, and Gideon was shocked when he found a hundred grams of calcium cyanide in his brother’s shed.”

  The sun shone brightly, but the car’s thermometer read negative six degrees Celsius. I could have been getting a nice tan out on the ski track right now. We went back to the station to write up a summary of our interviews, which didn’t seem to have cleared up anything. I still wasn’t able to get into Lulu’s computer or disks. That was frustrating.

  Ursula and Puupponen sat in the break room arguing about something, but they stopped when they saw me and Koivu. They had just come from questioning the cameramen and the memoirist Anna-Maija Mustajoki.

  “She didn’t have any contacts with Lulu, and she said she hadn’t even heard of a prostitute named Nightingale. She doesn’t read any of the gossip rags. She generally seemed kind of uptight. And the cameramen confirmed what we already knew: they never went into the dressing room hallway.”

  Puustjärvi and Autio were in Salo questioning Lulu Mäkinen’s sister. Ursula wanted to continue interrogating Tero Sulonen since she thought he was our strongest suspect.

  “Mark my words, somebody bribed that dude. Whores blackmail their clients all the time. I bet some disgruntled john chose for it to happen during the television show so there’d be other suspects besides Sulonen.”

  “So the poison was in the Fernet Branca bottle, but how the hell did it get in there?” I asked. “And whose bottle was it? Did Lulu bring it with her? I’ll ask Helsinki to see if they can find out if Sulonen or Lulu bought any Fernet Branca from one of the state liquor stores near their apartment recently.” Forensics had processed the two plastic bags from Alko found at the Blue Nightingale, but neither had contained a receipt.

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bsp; “Hey, Ursula, you feeling lonely?” Puupponen said with a grin. “I made a list of every woman I could find offering ‘companionship.’ We’ll interview them today.”

  Ursula nodded but seemed impatient. I’d heard she transferred to Violent Crime from White Collar because white-collar crime investigations were years-long desk jockey affairs that rarely entailed any action or drama. What had she thought she’d find here? Continuous gunfights and cat-and-mouse games with serial killers?

  Ursula took the arm Puupponen was offering, then turned as they were leaving.

  “Have the phone records arrived yet?”

  “Puustjärvi and Autio are handling them. Come see me at ten tomorrow, and we’ll see where we are. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that today is peaceful. We don’t need any more work.”

  I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and my stomach was growling. The drop in blood sugar made my hands tremble. My emergency salmiakki stash in my office seemed tragically unsatisfactory given the circumstances. I grabbed a glass of juice from the machine, which helped just enough for me to feel safe driving home.

  When I opened the front door, I heard talking and laughing coming from the living room, and a moment passed before I realized that Antti was on the phone. Something in his tone of voice made me pause there in the entryway, although of course I should have walked in and made my presence known.

  “Yeah, that would be great, but let’s see what Maria’s work situation is like . . . Yeah, that case has her all tied up, and of course she can’t think about anything else . . . Yes, you’re right, and you know how much I’d like to stay . . . Exactly, and it’s only two weeks until then. It’s going to be a blast . . .” A strange trepidation shot through my body. Who was Antti talking to in such a flirtatious tone?