“That so?”
“Yes, of course. I think I know what kind of info these agents want-you don’t need to rush.”
Salmela paused briefly. “I’d rather be working with you. That dry-ass suit with the NBI scares me. He doesn’t know a thing about this stuff.”
“Yes, he does,” said Suhonen, surprised at his own impulse to defend Aalto. But assuring Salmela was important for the success of the operation. “They’re professionals. Just do as they say.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“This is your chance to get out of your mess. Take care of your job and the NBI will take care of you. Everything will go just fine,” said Suhonen. “Catch a few hours of shuteye. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
“Promise?”
Suhonen didn’t really know what he was promising, but answered nevertheless, “Of course.”
MONDAY, OCTOBER 26
CHAPTER 19
MONDAY, 9:15 A.M.
SKULLS’ COMPOUND, HELSINKI
Salmela dumped the contents of an ashtray into a plastic wastebasket. He considered whether he should sneak the butts out, as the NBI agents had instructed, but recalled Suhonen’s advice and decided against it.
Salmela’s gait was calm, much like it had been in prison. There, it had been best to blend in with the masses so as not to attract attention. The zipper on his sweater was pulled all the way up and he wore a pair of jeans. Standing in the middle of the bar room, he glanced around, but nobody seemed to pay him any attention.
The janitor went from one table to another, gathering ashes. There were less butts than yesterday, and no doobies, at least not yet.
In five minutes, the job was done. Next, he decided to wipe the tables. He grabbed a rag from the bar, rinsed it under the tap and began wiping the nearest table.
His eyes returned occasionally to the headstone behind the bar. The granite slab gave him goose bumps.
The bull-like Roge and the goateed Osku stepped out of the office and closed the door behind them. They didn’t even look at Salmela.
“Where’d he say the car was?” asked Roge as they walked toward the stairs.
“Weren’t you listening? The Käpylä ball fields. In the gravel parking lot on the north end.”
“And what time we gotta pick it up?”
“Three!” You better pay attention or Larsson is gonna whack you.”
Roge’s expression was serious. “I remember the dope is in a beige Opel.”
“Betcha it’ll have some fuzzy dice,” said Osku.
“You drive it outta there, then,” said Roge as they reached the stairs.
Osku shook his head and Salmela heard them settle the matter with a game of “key, file, and bars”. The file wins over bars, but loses to the key. And the key doesn’t work on bars.
Salmela moved on to the next table and wondered what car the men were referring to. He repeated it in his head: a beige Opel with dope on the north end of the Käpylä ball fields at three.
He looked at the clock: 9:30. Cleaning would take another couple of hours. After that he could call.
* * *
Suhonen was sitting at his workstation studying a spreadsheet of Vesa Karjalainen’s phone records. He didn’t know whether the junkie had had any other phones-he had found out about this one from the man’s common-law widow.
The date, time, cell tower, and of course, the callers’ and recipients’ phone numbers were in columns on the spreadsheet. On suspicion of drug-trafficking, the District Court had allowed Takamäki’s team access to all of Karjalainen’s phone records from October 15 until October 25. The data began a week before Karjalainen had left for Tallinn. The cut-off date, as requested, had been yesterday, but the last recorded call was on the day of his death.
Suhonen was no fan of fiddling with computers, but he couldn’t really ask the other detectives to help. They had plenty of their own cases. Had it been a homicide, he would have just gotten someone else to do it. Joutsamo was good with computers, but even Suhonen knew the basics of spreadsheets. If he needed to create a graph, though, he’d have to ask for help.
Suhonen quickly scanned the data. Initially, there had been about ten calls a day, many of them to his common-law wife’s phone.
Apparently, Karjalainen hadn’t brought his phone to Estonia, since the data had a one-day hole on the date that Suhonen had seen him at the harbor. After that, the calls resumed, as before, at a rate of about ten per day.
Suhonen had checked a few of the numbers in the police database, but they were all pre-paid cards, which were inherently anonymous.
The last call on the list had been placed three days ago, on the day of Karjalainen’s death. The time was 9:20 A.M. and the call was fielded by a cell tower in northern Helsinki. The recipient had been downtown, which didn’t help him identify the owner of the phone.
Suhonen suspected that this just might be one of Juha Saarnikangas’ numbers, though it wasn’t one that he knew about. Maybe Karjalainen had called the ex-junkie to say he was running late for the meeting. Saarnikangas had called about the death a little after ten.
Suhonen found four more calls between the same two phones. Of those, one was dated before the trip to Estonia, and three after. All of them, with the exception of the last, were initiated by the phone that Suhonen suspected was Saarnikangas’.
This call data in itself didn’t connect Saarnikangas to the drug case. Had Karjalainen called him from Tallinn, or from the ship on the return trip, it would be a different matter.
On the other hand, now Suhonen had a number, which could very well belong to Saarnikangas, and which his informant had wanted to keep secret. Using that, he could reconstruct Saarnikangas’ web of connections.
Right, but connections to what, Suhonen thought. To other anonymous numbers, of course. Suhonen knew Takamäki had worked out an arrangement with Narcotics for Homicide to obtain all phone records in these types of drug-related deaths. They had also agreed that if any of these grew into larger drug investigations, Narcotics would take the lead.
So in order to obtain additional phone records, Suhonen would need permission from Narcotics. A mere cause-of-death investigation did not grant the right to obtain phone records, but drug cases did.
Suhonen scanned the numbers prior to Karjalainen’s trip across the gulf, and one captured his attention. It seemed familiar. He took out his phone, scrolled through the directory, and found what he was looking for: Vesa Karjalainen had called Narcotics Detective Toukola two days before his trip to Tallinn.
* * *
Toukola let out a tense laugh. “Uuh. Well, yes, he was my informant.”
Suhonen was sitting on the end of Toukola’s desk. “Tell me more.”
“Or maybe that’s too strong a word. He certainly wasn’t able to give me any real intel, but he kept us up to date with word on the street.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Suhonen demanded.
“I told you back at the harbor that I knew him and had busted him for a few pounds of weed. Didn’t you read between the lines?”
Suhonen shook his head. It hadn’t occurred to him. “What about the mule? Mägi?”
“Hasn’t said a word. We finally had to let her take a shower today. I’ve completed the interview transcripts so now we’re just waiting for the lab analysis on the drugs and we’ll send the files to the prosecutor. What about the other three pounds? You find them yet?”
“No. Probably never will.”
Toukola stared at Suhonen for a long time. “Have you told me everything? What’s this all about?”
Suhonen skipped the first question. “As I said earlier, the chance to bust the Skulls.”