Fatal Headwind Read online

  “I don’t want to intrude, but be careful on these rocks,” the man said, glancing at my whiskey glass.

  “This is only my first one,” I retorted. I didn’t like people babying me.

  “Still. I’ve slipped here even when I was perfectly sober. I don’t think I introduced myself earlier. Mikael Sjöberg, but everyone calls me Mikke.”

  “Maria Kallio.”

  Sjöberg’s handshake was long and firm, and his face had the look of a man who spent a significant amount of time at sea. The sun had bleached his stubble beard almost white, along with his lashes and brows. To my own surprise I offered my whiskey glass. Sjöberg’s eyebrows went up a bit, but he didn’t hesitate and took a healthy slug.

  “Good stuff. Single malt?”

  I nodded. Sjöberg sat down next to me on the smooth rock.

  Neither of us spoke as we watched the sunset and emptied the glass. When we were down to the last swig and our shadows stretched out across the rock, Antti arrived.

  “Took a while for Iida to fall asleep. We should be able to get into the sauna soon,” he said and then introduced himself to Sjöberg. When the seadog gave his name, Antti’s expression brightened with recognition.

  “Mikke Sjöberg! You’re the one who sailed around the world! Hello! I thought you looked familiar. We sailed together back in ’81 from Kotka to Hanko on the Astrid. Do you remember?”

  Sjöberg claimed he did, and the men began swapping sailing experiences. I watched the sea as it calmed down, and I enjoyed the wind playing across my face. An hour later, Anne Merivaara came to say the sauna was free. The whiskey had spread a pleasant warmth through my body. Right now I didn’t feel any need to think about something as dark as Harri’s death. This might be the last warm night of summer and a rare opportunity to sauna with Antti in peace while a volunteer babysitter watched over Iida.

  The windows of the sauna faced west, where all that was visible were a few rocky islets. The terns were having a flying competition, and tiny fish were jumping hurdles. Antti’s skin was covered in tiny droplets that tasted of wind and salt, and I couldn’t draw my lips away. Only after we were done making love did we remember that others were still due a turn in the sauna. Even so, I decided to take a dip in a protected cove on the north side of the island before dressing. A northeast wind had cooled the water, giving it a hint of the scent of fall. The kelp scratched my stomach. When we finally left the sauna, the first star had appeared in the darkening sky.

  The kid with the green hair was sitting in the courtyard, waiting. When he saw me come out of the sauna, he yelled for Mikke, who promptly appeared, coming from the shore.

  “It’s going to be a warm night,” Sjöberg said. “The others are sitting under the lighthouse grilling. You’re welcome to join in.”

  “I’ll get the whiskey and check on Iida,” Antti said, apparently wanting to stay up for a while. I wasn’t going to turn down good company either.

  The isolation of maternity leave was something I’d feared from the beginning. We lived in an out-of-the-way part of Espoo in a rental house far from all my friends or even a bus stop. Without a phone and good books, life with a new baby would have been grim. Still I had taken all the time off I was allowed, because I had only had one summer off since my first year of high school. Other than a brief period of unemployment, I basically had been working nonstop my entire adult life. Although the scrapbooking my sisters had advertised as their favorite maternity-leave activity never managed to hold my attention, I had spent the winter catching up on all the books I’d been meaning to read, going on lots of nature walks with Iida, and improving my piano playing. I’ll admit that sometimes the feeling of wasting away for lack of human contact got so bad that I even took pleasure in the occasional call—usually work-related—from my cantankerous colleague Pertti Ström.

  Rödskär was such an amazing island that making friends with the owners seemed like a good idea. Mikke Sjöberg was certainly an interesting character. It was rare to just sit down and share a drink with a complete stranger without having to do the small-talk thing.

  The Merivaara women were sitting around the grill. Although we hadn’t eaten that long ago, the vegetable skewers were tempting. I only nursed Iida in the morning these days, but my calorie consumption was still high because I was working out so much. I had started jogging and weight training a few weeks after the birth to drop my pregnancy weight, and exercise had turned into even more of an addiction than before. Jogging was a legitimate and guilt-free reason to leave the house without Iida in tow, and as soon as I went back to work, moments of uninterrupted solitude were going to become even rarer.

  Anne Merivaara made space next to her on a bench. Swinging the whiskey bottle, Antti showed up with a blond man a full head shorter and broader of shoulder than himself who came over to shake my hand.

  “Tapio Holma. Nice to meet you. You have a beautiful daughter.”

  I laughed to myself, remembering that I had thought Mikke Sjöberg was too old to be Riikka’s boyfriend. Holma had to be at least five years older, likely in his early forties. Immediately I associated him with dark-blue velvet and lace collars, although I didn’t know why. It wasn’t until Antti had poured a stiff shot of whiskey into my mug that the memory came back to me. I had seen Tapio Holma a few years earlier playing Rodrigo, the Marquis de Posa, in Don Carlos at the Savonlinna Opera Festival. Despite his idiotic frilly collar, he had cut a heroic figure. The man placing sausages on the grill now seemed more like an average guy than an internationally acclaimed baritone. Instead of de Posa’s boots, Holma was wearing a pair of creepers, those suede shoes with thick crepe soles that could make any man unattractive. I’d told Antti once that I would divorce him if he ever bought a pair.

  “I spent ten years living in Germany for work. People were always going on about the sausages there, but sometimes all I wanted was a good old H&K Blue Ribbon from home. You vegetarians just don’t appreciate a good sausage.”

  Riikka pulled a face but didn’t manage quite the look of disapproval she intended, because Holma sat right down next to her and wrapped his arm around her. He looked smitten. I noticed that Anne Merivaara turned away, and I asked her about the island’s history.

  The fortifications on Rödskär were built in 1813 soon after Finland fell under imperial Russian rule. It had been a Coast Guard and naval base, and during the Crimean War and the Finnish Civil War, a few desultory battles had been fought here. When the Soviet Union leased the Porkkala Peninsula, the Finns had to vacate the island. There were claims that Russian troops had been stationed on Rödskär in the early fifties. Since 1956 the island had been owned by the Finnish military and was basically empty, as all civilian access was forbidden.

  “No one was watching, though,” Antti said. “The first time I landed here was twelve years ago. We were afraid we might get shot at, but the swallows were the only ones around. The place felt like a ghost island. Isn’t there supposed to be a story about some dead Russian officer haunting the lighthouse?”

  No one answered, and Anne Merivaara changed the subject.

  “The veggies are done. Someone should tell Jiri to come and eat. What did Mikke say he wanted?”

  “Mikke can have sausage and potato salad,” Holma said, smiling. “Do you two want some, or are you plant eaters too?”

  We said we were fine sticking to whiskey and offered the others a drink. Holma cast a hesitant glance at Riikka before saying yes, thank you. Their relationship was starting to interest me, especially since Tapio Holma was old enough to be Riikka’s father.

  “Is the food ready?” Jiri’s green head appeared from behind the fortress wall. His hair, damp from the sauna, looked even grassier than before. Mikke followed him, carrying bottles and glasses. The Merivaara women drank wine, the men beer, with only Jiri sipping the repulsive green cabbage wine. Antti chatted with Mikke about sailing, and Riikka asked about Iida with what seemed more like politeness than genuine interest. Jiri responded in single
syllables when anyone talked to him.

  The sky was dark now, and the stars seemed so low that I imagined you could almost touch them from the top of the lighthouse. Tapio was teaching Riikka the names of the stars, and I listened in, trying to learn some myself. I felt completely at ease. The mainland was in another reality. None of it existed—no house, no chores, no Espoo police, no Monday return to work. In addition to the sea, the stars, and Iida sleeping safely in our room, there were only the seven of us gathered around the fire. Only the warmth of the whiskey and the distant call of a bird I couldn’t identify as a tern or a gull. When I asked, it turned out that Tapio was an avid bird-watcher, and the conversation turned to the birdlife of the island. I was already on my second glass, so I couldn’t help myself blurting out the obvious.

  “Last fall an ornithologist I knew, Harri Immonen, died here. Do any of you know what happened?”

  I hadn’t expected such a strong reaction. Jiri stood up with a clatter and walked toward the dock, and Anne Merivaara’s wine glass shattered on the stone bench. Tapio wrapped his arm tighter around Riikka, and the hand with which Mikke held his pipe trembled. He was the first to reply.

  “So you knew Harri? Nasty business. Juha and Anne found him. They just happened to be visiting and noticed his things in the hut. No one knew I had brought Harri out here.”

  “He was floating in the water on the windward side of the island,” Anne Merivaara said and stood up. “It’s late. I’m going to sleep. Good night, everyone.”

  Although Anne’s tone was friendly, my questions clearly had spoiled the mood. Once Anne was out of earshot, Mikke felt the need to defend her.

  “Finding Harri’s body was a very traumatic experience for Anne. Luckily Juha was with her, because Anne went into shock.”

  “Mom has always been hysterical about death. I’ve been trying to teach her it’s just a normal part of life,” Riikka declared with the self-assurance of a twenty year old.

  “Harri was a young man,” Tapio said softly. “I never knew him because I didn’t meet Riikka until this spring, but based on what Anne has said, his death was quite a blow.”

  Mikke said Harri had spent most of that previous summer living on Rödskär, because Merivaara Nautical had hired him to catalog the island’s birdlife. In addition to the island, the company had purchased a wide swath of water that had a rocky outcropping frequented by migratory birds, and Juha Merivaara was planning to have the area protected if the birds were rare enough.

  “Harri fell in love with the island because he could be alone here. He liked birds more than people. To him, their behavior was much more logical.” Mikke sucked on his pipe, and I felt a prick in my heart remembering how shitty I had been to Harri all those years ago. Hopefully I had learned something in the intervening years, at least that bossing other people around didn’t bring any lasting satisfaction.

  “Did you know Harri well?” I asked Mikke.

  “I used him as a deckhand a few times. We went to Gotland in Sweden and Hiiumaa in Estonia together. He wasn’t very good at it, though, since he was always dropping the ropes whenever he saw an interesting bird,” Mikke said, and laugh lines spread around his eyes.

  Riikka and Tapio stood up. They were headed to bed too. I didn’t want to leave the stars and the bottle of whiskey, which was still a third full. Pouring myself and Antti more, I looked to Mikke, who held my gaze and extended his beer glass. I dumped in a generous shot.

  “Where did you two know Harri from?” Mikke drained his glass quickly—he seemed to have the same taste for whiskey I did.

  “I didn’t know him. Only Maria did. They had some kind of fling a long time ago,” Antti replied.

  I had always appreciated that Antti wasn’t the jealous type. He didn’t pry when I went out for beers with male friends or gripe about past boyfriends. Now it irked, though. “Some kind of fling” sounded so horribly banal.

  Mikke took another swig and looked right at me.

  “Oh, so you’re that Maria . . . Yeah, Harri mentioned you. You’re a cop.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t ashamed of my job, but I wasn’t in the habit of announcing it to random people I met. Plenty of interesting pub companions had clammed up after hearing about it, and one had even started mashing out the joint he had been smoking in a panic.

  “The police investigated Harri’s death, but there wasn’t anything suspicious about it. It was just an accident,” Mikke said and extended his glass again. He had started to pour the Laphroaig down his throat like beer.

  “To Harri,” I said and raised my glass, even though I knew how ridiculously sentimental it was. I felt a lump in my throat and washed it away with another swig. “So he slipped more or less where we were sitting today?” I asked as I poured Mikke another shot. He leaned in, and I smelled a mixture of pipe smoke and seawater.

  “That was why I warned you about the rocks. I don’t trust that cliff. There’s a bad vibe there.”

  A cargo ship passed far to the south; only the lights fore and aft revealed its movement. The night wind didn’t even touch Antti’s hair as he stood up.

  “I’m going to take a piss and check on Iida. Don’t drink all the whiskey.”

  The beam of the lighthouse swept across the sea—otherwise it was dark except for the dying fire in the grate and the glow of Mikke’s pipe. The fortress seemed to lurk behind us, and as I turned I was almost frightened seeing its massive silhouette with bats circling around. I wanted to know everything about this man sitting here, sharing this August night with me. Antti had said Mikke had sailed around the world. Who was he really? How old was he? What did he do besides sailing? These questions appeared in my mind the same way they did when I started an interrogation: name, social security number, profession. I wanted to ask Mikke all these questions, but there was one question I didn’t want to let into my mind: Why the hell was I so interested in this man?

  But Mikke sat silently, and I didn’t fall into my normal chattering, even though that would have been an easy way to hide. When Antti returned, the men started trading sailing stories again. Antti had spent half of his summers on a boat as a kid, but compared to Mikke, he was a rank amateur. Mikke really had sailed around the world, twice—first on the crew of a racing boat and then solo, just for the adventure. He was leaving for another extended voyage in October.

  “You must not have a family.” The statement—really a question—was easy to throw in after his explanation of his plans.

  “Who would be interested in a drifter like me? And I still haven’t met anyone I’d be able to share a ten-meter boat with for months on end.” Mikke’s smile had an edge to it that made it easy to guess that this comment concealed more than one story.

  After my fourth malt whiskey, I realized I was drunk enough that if I had even a drop more, I was sure to get seasick the next day. Part of me still wanted to stay up until the stars went out, though, to see their brilliance pale next to the light of the sun.

  In the morning my head was fuzzy until my second cup of coffee. Nursing after drinking didn’t worry me: the family mathematician, Antti, had established that the amount of alcohol expressed in my milk was negligible.

  “The wind has turned to the southeast. We’ll have a following sea to Inkoo, so there’s no hurry leaving. Let’s climb the lighthouse and check out the view,” Antti said.

  After her long sleep, Iida was energetic and insisted on climbing up the stairs herself. She had taken her first steps on her own just a week ago. The sky was clear, and we could imagine that the dark area discernable to the south was Estonia. A few sails were visible in the channel to the north, and a lone barge glided toward Poland. A rumbling came from the northeast as a lightweight Buster motorboat approached the island.

  “I’m going to go for a swim. Let’s have some sandwiches before we leave,” Antti suggested. The trip to his parents’ cottage in Inkoo would only take half the day with this wind, and it would be good to time Iida’s nap to coincide.

  T
he Buster docked and a brawny man jumped out. Juha Merivaara had made it to the island to spend Sunday with his family. I packed our things and was making sandwiches in the kitchen with a suddenly attention-hungry Iida in one arm when Merivaara came to say hello.

  “So who’s the little mother?” he asked so unctuously that I had to hide my expression in Iida’s hair. “Little mother” was just about the last description I thought fit me.

  “Maria Kallio, lieutenant with the Espoo PD,” I said and extended my hand. “Great island you have here.”

  “Thanks. Lieutenant, is it?” Juha Merivaara gave me an appraising look.

  While Mikke Sjöberg’s intense gaze the previous night had felt like a friendly challenge, Juha Merivaara’s stare just irritated me. Of course I didn’t look like much of a police lieutenant in my jeans, oversized red cotton sweater, and windblown copper-wire hair. My freckled snub nose, green eyes, and small stature—I was actually almost three inches below the official police standard—often made people think I was younger than I was, which was a regular annoyance of mine.

  I gawked back at Merivaara. About five foot eleven, sandy-brown hair, eyes the gray of the autumn sea, tight mouth that he had trained to sport a friendly smile. Expensive, practical sailing clothes. His whole bearing communicated that Juha Merivaara was a real man, a steady hand at the helm of a boat or the family company he had inherited.

  “I heard from my wife that your husband was here before, back when all the military’s ‘no trespassing’ signs were still up. I like that. Islands like this should be open to everyone with the skill to sail to them.”

  I wanted to ask why a wealthy person like him with so much admiration for sailing went around in a motorboat, but I didn’t bother. Juha Merivaara wasn’t the kind of person with whom I felt like sharing anything more than the obligatory pleasantries. Antti returned and exchanged some idle chitchat with Juha. Then we went to the dock to pack the boat.