Milo shook his head in disbelief. “For God’s sake, why them?”
“It was likely the most repulsive thing the murderers could think of,” Moreau said.
Saska said, “I don’t know what they used, but it was a really powerful accelerant.”
Moreau did an impression. “I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Smells like…victory.”
“Who’s that supposed to be?” Saska asked.
“Robert Duvall from Apocalypse Now. These women were soaked in homemade napalm. I know it by the smell. It’s basically just gasoline and soap. It causes the most terrible pain you can imagine. Even this homemade stuff burns at about fifteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit. And it’s obvious to me, by looking at the burn pattern on their mouths, chests, and in the lawn in front of them, that they were forced to drink napalm and it was lit while they vomited. They died spewing fire like dragons.”
Everyone went silent. Except for Moreau and myself, I believe they resisted the urges to both cry and poke.
“But why the words burnt into the yard?” Moreau asked. “‘Whore’ is singular. There are two bodies.”
“That’s directed at me, as a taunt,” I said. “I worked a case in which a black woman was murdered. Those words were carved in her torso.”
Moreau chuckled and faked a different voice. “So this time it’s personal.”
I didn’t ask which movie he quoted. “But what’s the point?”
“It’s obvious,” he said. “To up the ante. To keep you enchanted and your enthusiasm high. The horror of the violence keeps the pressure up and the case top-priority. For some reason, the killers desire this. Probably for maximum media exposure.”
Milo, Saska and I lit cigarettes.
“Why are you here?” Saska asked him.
Sweetness had been staring at the hanging girl, mesmerized. Finally, he reached out and touched her with his index finger. The rope snapped and she fell. An arm broke off. Only ash was left on the bone and it swirled away in the breeze. Sweetness watched as if in a dream state. Death fascinated him. A forensics tech started to yell at him. I poked the tech in the chest with my cane and told him to fuck off. He fucked off.
“I’m a French policeman,” Moreau said, “and I’m here at the behest of Veikko Saukko, who has some influence with the French government. It’s been almost a year since his daughter was shot and killed. His confidence in the Finnish police has waned. And so here I am.”
“It’s my case,” Saska said, “and a major reason I haven’t made any progress is that he refuses to cooperate with me in any way.”
“He’s an eccentric racist. You are half Gypsy. He calls you ‘that thieving Gypsy.’ He believes you steal when you come to his home. However, he likes me, because as a former soldier, I have killed many non-white people. He considers this the most admirable of attributes. I believe all these murders, beginning with the kidnap-murder of his family, are connected to this series of murders, and to the murder of Lisbet Soderlund.”
“Have at it,” Saska said. “I need help. I would appreciate it, though, if you share your findings with me.”
“Consider it done. If I solve the case, I will ensure that you receive the credit.” Moreau turned to me. “I think you should meet Veikko Saukko. It might lend perspective.”
“I was hoping to,” I said. “I’ve decided that the way to solve this case is through the interviews of a few key individuals. Some might call them interrogations, and the application of pressure may be somewhat more aggressive than is considered standard. Let’s say, with extreme prejudice. We’ll begin soon. You’re welcome to accompany us if you like.”
“You intend to go on a rampage?”
“Call it what you will.”
Saska frowned, disapproving.
“I have little choice,” I said, and pointed at the victims. “Look at these women. This can’t go on. People are being murdered almost daily. It must be stopped.”
To Milo and Sweetness, I said, “You have girlfriends, of a kind. You drink with them. That breeds loosened tongues. Don’t tell them our business.”
Milo smirked. “You mean like the way you don’t tell Kate our business.”
His point was valid. I ignored it. “Just keep your fucking mouths shut.”
I thanked Saska, told the others I would call them later, then went home to check on Kate.
I took a circuitous route, gave myself time to think.
As a young beat cop, I spent a lot of nights cruising these streets, watching Helsinki in the wee hours. The drunks drifting home after the bars closed. I watched a city awash in pain. I saw people run without direction, scream, beat their heads with their fists. Their pain and frustration shone and sparkled, beacons of anguish and insanity.
I played surrogate father to a young man so broken inside that he drank vodka upon waking and could drive a knife into a man’s heart without a thought. I spent my time examining women tortured and burned. I was lucky that I felt almost nothing. I remembered what it once was like to have emotions. Those poor tortured souls that felt were the ones who suffered.
Kate ordered a pizza and a bottle of orange Jaffa, her favorite Finnish soft drink. The salt and sugar in the pizza and pop did her a world of good. She was embarrassed and felt guilty, but for no tangible reason. She remembered little and wasn’t certain if she should be mortified at her behavior last night or not. She had discovered morkkis, an integral part of the Finnish hangover. A state of usually irrational moral guilt inherent to the Finnish consciousness. I told her it was OK, I was sure she did nothing embarrassing, just got loaded. This usually helps people recover from morkkis. I chilled out with her for a while, then went to meet Jyri.
26
I cross the street, go back the way I came, toward the clock over the entrance at Stockmann. “Gimme Shelter” is still stuck in my head. The pretty girls have finished their ice cream, but they continue to bop, bebop and rebop, and once again, the syncopation of their jam box techno and the Stones annoys me. The Gypsy beggar remains prostrate.
So, between January twenty-sixth, the day I asked Kate if I could become a more effective cop, a man empowered to truly help people by bending the rules of engagement in the war against crime, and today, May second, I’ve gone from, if not a paragon of virtue, a cop who mostly observed the rules governing my profession, to a man who has no qualms about breaking any law, committing almost any act, to achieve my own ends. I had become a changeling.
I don’t care. My transformation has brought me only success and wealth. Jyri’s invitation to hang out with his pals means it has also brought me acclaim. I’m sure he doesn’t brag about me as a thief. He doubtless describes me as his protege, but as a tough guy who bends the rules and who has single-handedly done what an entire metropolitan police department had failed to do, and turned Helsinki into the only narcotics-free big city in the world since Las Vegas during its golden years, when the punishment for dealing dope was a bullet in the head and a sandy burial in the desert.
And also, doubtless, he invented a fiction about the source of the monies accrued-he would have admitted only to a fraction of the fortune accumulated-and claimed it had all gone to campaign funds and worthy causes.
I make calls, check crime reports. Helsinki continues to go to hell. White and black youth gangs attack each other with knives, lead pipes, sticks, whatever crude weapons are at hand. Women, both black and white, are raped. Especially Finnish white women converted to Islam, referred to as nigger-fucking traitors. Helsinki suffers a barrage of race-related incidents. At public transportation stops, name calling and spitting is the norm. Little kids get no exemption. The emergency room at Meilahti Hospital is overrun with casualties requiring set bones and stitches.