“Is this some sort of a police interrogation?”
Lind guessed the woman had done a few of those.
“No, as I said, I’m Korpivaara’s attorney. I’m trying to find out what happened on Wednesday.”
“Isn’t that a job for the police?”
“It usually is, but sometimes defense attorneys need to do it too, especially if the police aren’t doing a good job.”
“I can’t remember exactly. The bus runs at 8:03. He might’ve been out there with his leaf blower on one of the mornings, but I couldn’t tell you what day.”
“Did you know the victim, Laura Vatanen?” Lind asked, deciding to go on with the questioning.
“Was she the retarded girl from stairwell C?”
Lind nodded, despite resenting the politically incorrect term. Although, politically incorrect was what you got in this neighborhood.
“I didn’t exactly know her. We don’t have a rumor mill around here. Sini would go over there sometimes, but I didn’t like it. I guess this Laura-that’s her name, right? I guess she hung out in the Alamo Bar, where the custodian and his buddies often went too.”
“Sini, too?”
“She wanted to,” the woman said, laughing. “But I went in there and told the bartender in no uncertain terms that they wouldn’t be serving anything to my underage daughter, and I gave him Sini’s picture. I said I’d report them if they did.”
“Did it work?”
“Whaddya think?” the woman said. “They didn’t sell her anything at the Alamo. But would I ask if you were from Social Services if things were okay?”
“How bad is it?”
Rentola-Lammi pursed her lips and said, “Bad enough that I wasn’t surprised to see a lady like you in a nice jacket show up at my door on a Sunday afternoon.”
“Yeah. Ask Sini to call me when she comes home,” Lind said and threw in a thank-you before the door closed.
Lind thought she’d make her rounds in the apartment buildings and ask some questions. Most people would be home on a Sunday.
CHAPTER 26
SUNDAY, 2:30 P.M.
LIISA STREET, HELSINKI
Römpötti lounged on her sofa in sweatpants. She had recorded several weeks’ episodes of Desperate Housewives and planned to watch them all in one sitting on a Sunday. After two episodes, her thoughts went back to the Korpivaara case. She thought about going for a run, but laziness took over. Römpötti went into her kitchen and poured herself a glass of red wine. The ceilings were high in her art nouveau-style, one-bedroom apartment in Kruununhaka, a neighborhood on the Gulf of Finland.
She hoped the wine would clear her thoughts so she could grasp the string that would unravel the case into a TV news story. Römpötti had a hunch it would be fantastic. To be able to prove that a suspect whom the police deemed guilty was indeed innocent would make top headlines across the country. She could add the grim human interest story of the past that the suspect and his attorney shared. New angles would come up as it took off.
But Römpötti had a problem: Korpivaara was likely guilty and she needed the innocence factor to keep the case intriguing.
The red wine from Chile was a balanced blend of ripe fruit, full-bodied and mellow. Römpötti couldn’t have characterized it in that much detail; she read the description in the store pamphlet. The wine was just fine for a ten-euro bottle.
She rubbed her shins under the pants legs and thought she ought to shave.
Damn, she cursed to herself. Her thoughts kept escaping to the mundane. She needed to work and not just dream of all the answers falling into her lap. Something like that only happened on extremely rare occasions. She had to work like hell to get results: meet with people, make phone calls, and peruse documents. Only about one out of ten potential ideas turned into TV-newsworthy coverage.
Römpötti emptied her glass and went for her cell phone. She found the number for Mustikkamӓki, the cameraman. If he was free to go on a shoot, she’d go. She should probably call Lind and apologize for her blow-up from yesterday.
* * *
Lind saw the padlock the police had installed on Laura Vatanen’s door, and to her disappointment the place still had police tape around it. There was no way to get in-unless she broke in, which wasn’t a good idea. The police had more investigating to do-on the coffeemaker plug, for example.
Lind rang the doorbell of the apartment across the hall. The name on the door was Ridanpӓӓ.
“Coming,” a woman screeched from the apartment.
The attorney waited for the door to open. She could instantly tell from the woman’s face and the smell of red wine that she was an alcoholic.
“Hello,” Lind said and stated her business.
“Oh,” the woman said. “The police were already here and asked questions.”
“Of course. But I’m doing my own investigation.”
“I’m sure you are, just like Perry Mason. Listen, girl, I’ll talk to you if you go get a bottle of wine for me from the liquor store.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not? It’s not far and a lady like you probably owns a car,” the woman said.
“I don’t have a car, but besides that today is Sunday and the store is closed.”
“Oh damn,” the woman said. “I’ve always been one for a liberal policy on alcohol sales. I’m glad they started selling beer in the convenience stores, but they should get wine in, too. That would be democratic. My stomach can’t stand beer; I’ve got a gluten allergy.”
Lind wasn’t convinced about the alcohol sales policy, but agreed with the woman in order to keep the conversation going.
“Wine would be okay,” she said, “but I wouldn’t want hard liquor in there.”
“Hard liquor is for troublemakers, the kind that Laura had for visitors.”
Lind was glad the old boozer had brought up Laura’s apartment.
“Who used to go in there?”
“Well, the custodian and his buddies were constantly over there. Hooligans, I say.”
This was no news.
“Did anyone else visit her?”
“Some girl, occasionally,” Ridanpӓӓ said.
“How do you know, by the way?” Lind asked.
“Sometimes I’d look through there,” the old woman said, pointing to the peephole on the door. “That was better than the reality shows on TV.”
Lind noticed a barstool by the door.
“What did you see?”
“Arguments, mostly. Those are the most interesting anyway. Laura had a pretty bad temper. Sometimes she was kind of weird, on account of her disability, but she was always nice to me. She’d go get me wine… Could you go get me some now?”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Oh yeah, you told me that already. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Lind said. “I can go tomorrow.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“You said something about arguments,” Lind said, to bring the conversation back on topic. “Did you see fights or anything like that?”
“No. The men were scared of her. She had a mouth like no other, and she didn’t think before she opened it.”
Lind noticed that the woman had to lean on the doorframe to steady her balance.
“Was anyone else there besides the custodian and his buddies?”
“Shh, be quiet,” the woman said, pursing her lips. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“About what?”
“I can’t say. I promised.”
“Promised whom?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore,” the intoxicated woman said.
“That’s not a problem, though. See, I’m a lawyer and I have to heed the attorney-client confidentiality privilege,” Lind said. “You can tell me.”
“Attorney-client privilege. What’s that?”
“As lawyers, we have to keep a lot of things to ourselves,” Lind said. “We can’t tell anyone.”
“Oh, that’s good. I didn’t tell the police this, but you should go talk to the guy upstairs,” the woman said.