They heard scratching behind the door.
“It’s a dog,” Joutsamo said. The dog wasn’t barking.
Takamäki let out a heavy sigh. This was one of the toughest parts of his job.
A fifty-something plump woman answered the door. She looked more like a grandmother than her age should have allowed. The woman’s short, curly hair had turned gray, and she was wearing a brown cardigan. A quizzical look crossed her face. Behind her a small poodle cowered.
“Evening, I’m Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamäki from the Helsinki PD Violent Crimes Unit… I’m afraid we have some bad news.” The woman’s hand flew to her mouth as she exclaimed, “What’s happened to Martin?”
Takamäki was confused. Martin? Who was Martin? According to the records, Laura Vatanen had no siblings and her father had died ten years ago.
“Are you Marjaana Vatanen?”
The woman shook her head. “No, I’m Elisa Rauhala… Elli.”
Takamäki closed his eyes and cursed silently.
“Is this Planeetta Street?”
“No, no, it’s Olari Street. The houses on Planeetta Street are back that way. But what’s happened?”
With a meek look on his face, Takamäki said, “I apologize. We’ve come to the wrong address.”
“The wrong address?” the woman asked.
“I thought this was Planeetta Street.”
“No, it’s Olari Street.”
“Yes, unfortunately, sometimes even the police get it wrong.”
“But,” the woman looked at the officers confused. “Is Martin alright?”
“I’m sure he is.”
“You think so?” Rauhala kept on, in shock.
“I’m quite sure,” Takamäki reassured, and watched the woman pull a cell phone from her pocket. A horrid scenario of Martin’s car sliding on the icy road and hitting a semi head-on flashed in Takamäki’s mind. “I’m so sorry to have disturbed you.”
Takamäki closed the door, and he and Joutsamo walked back to the intersection of Olari and Planeetta Streets. He stuck his hands in his pockets. They had to take short steps on the icy sidewalk.
“Damn. The house numbers matched, but the street name didn’t.”
The officers walked on. Takamäki found a street sign at the intersection and took a left. It was presumably a short walk, so they didn’t have to move their car.
“This reminds me of the time in the Espoo drug unit when we followed a junkie to one of the apartment buildings in Matinkylӓ,” Joutsamo recounted. “We knew he had thirty grams of amphetamines on him, and more in the apartment, but we didn’t know exactly where the apartment was. He slipped into the stairwell and we followed close behind. The elevator went up to the fourth floor and there was a door with a name on it that fit.”
Cars lined the other side of the street. Joutsamo thought the correct building was the one in front of them, but continued her story. “We had a master key made ahead of time, so we decided to go right in. Three big guys went in first and I followed. We had our weapons drawn. We didn’t ring the doorbell, but burst in, yelling, ‘Police! Don’t move!’ I remember the scene: a twelve-year-old girl at the table eating her tuna sandwich froze on the spot with the sandwich in her mouth. All we could do was apologize profusely. We found the dealer one floor up; he was smart to get off the elevator before his floor.”
“That shouldn’t happen, and neither should what we did just now.”
It might be funny later, but at the moment Takamäki was not amused.
“I agree, but mistakes happen. Sometimes ambulances get sent to the right address but in the wrong town.”
The building turned out to be the right place. Takamäki confirmed the address with a man who was out walking his dog. The officers walked to the door and saw the name Vatanen on the mail slot.
“This is it,” Takamäki said and rang the doorbell. “I hope…”
A woman opened the door. She was much skinnier than the last one and had a thin face with prominent cheekbones. She was wearing a white long-sleeved blouse and dark slacks and looked to be around fifty.
“Marjaana Vatanen?” Takamäki checked right off the bat.
The woman nodded.
“I’m Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamäki from Helsinki PD Violent Crimes…”
“Has something happened to Laura?” the woman asked, with her hands on her hips. Then her hands flew quickly to her face.
“I’m afraid so. Unfortunately we have very bad news. She’s dead.”
The woman’s posture crumpled, but her reaction was fairly subdued; she didn’t break down and weep or try to deny it. She let out a sigh and shook her head in disbelief.
“Come in.”
Takamäki glanced at Joutsamo, wondering if this was a rehearsed reaction, like a killer might have made, but Joutsamo just shrugged.
Joutsamo introduced herself as the officers took off their coats in the entry.
It was a typical one-bedroom apartment. The kitchen was at the end of the entrance hall, the bedroom on the right, and the living room on the left. The place was neat, but with bland décor: a couch, an armchair, a bookshelf, and a TV.
Marjaana Vatanen motioned for the officers to take a seat on the couch, and she took the armchair. Takamäki noticed a row of medical books on the bookshelf.
The woman took a minute to gain her composure, and asked, “When and how?”
“This morning. She was a victim of a homicide in her apartment,” Takamäki said. They wouldn’t reveal the method yet, as the mother was still considered a possible suspect. Only the police and the killer, and possible accomplices, knew how Laura was killed. As far as the police knew, the mother was the last one to talk with her daughter, on the phone at 8:50 A.M.
Marjaana Vatanen stared at the officers.
“Who did it?”
“We don’t know yet,” Takamäki replied calmly. “But we’ll find out.”
“Oh dear,” the mother said with tears in her eyes. “She didn’t have an easy life, and it sounds like her demise wasn’t easy, either. Did she suffer?”
“It was quick,” he replied truthfully.
“How?”
Takamäki remained calm. “We can’t reveal that at this stage of the investigation.”
The woman nodded and accepted the answer.
“I take it you know about her disability.”
“We have the documents from Social Services,” Takamäki said.
“Laura lived with me until two years ago, but then it became unbearable. We couldn’t get along and were always arguing. I suppose I should’ve put up with it. But I felt I deserved a life, too. I spent more than twenty years caring for her.”
“The killer is the only one to blame,” Takamäki pointed out. He watched the woman’s expressions. Her grief seemed genuine, but you never could be sure. She took the news of her daughter’s death quite matter-of-factly.
“But…maybe it should’ve been obvious that she couldn’t make it alone.”
Joutsamo joined in. “What do you mean?”
The woman let out a sigh. “Laura got involved with the wrong crowd. As long as she had the job at the grocery store, things seemed to go alright. She had a routine, and her life had meaning. But when that ended she had too many hours in the day to waste. I’m a nurse at the Jorvi Hospital, and I tried to get her a job there, but it didn’t happen because of all the red tape. Sixty percent of disabled people capable of working are unemployed. It’s an entirely impossible situation.”
Now that they knew she was a nurse, the plethora of medical books on the shelf made sense. They also understood the somewhat muted reaction she had to the news of her daughter’s death; sometimes nurses became numb to the feeling of loss because they had to constantly deal with suffering and death.
“So, who did your daughter hang out with?” Joutsamo asked.