“One dead, one still alive. Report it to dispatch and go have a look at the dressing rooms. See if anyone there is injured.”
“Roger,” said Nieminen, and got back in the car.
Partio circled to the trunk, took out a camera, and began to photograph the scene as another squad car and a fire truck pulled up.
Partio took photographs of the dead body and the victim that the medics were working on. The dome had flopped down entirely and he took a photo of that as well.
He circled to the other side and noticed a cell phone lying in the gravel. Though he didn’t touch it, he noticed that it was still on.
As he approached the phone to take a closer look, he spotted a familiar blue symbol in the background of the display. A sword with a lion’s head handle-the official emblem of the police.
His heart sank as he realized that the casualties were fellow officers. Goddamn, he muttered.
* * *
Salmela strode down Helsinki Avenue toward the Corner Pub. The zipper of the ex-con’s lambswool leather jacket was pulled to the very top. The street was very familiar to him. Salmela had come to the conclusion that the number of loitering bums here was pretty much constant. When one died, another replaced him. The same went for the bars. Over the years, Salmela had been to them all-both those that had failed and those that had risen as replacements.
He passed a clock store that had barricaded its display window with thick bars. For some reason, the shopkeeper wanted all the clocks to read the correct time: it was 3:45 P.M. Salmela wondered if Suhonen had found anything in the car at the ball fields, and if he had, whether it would affect his assignment at the Skulls’ compound.
He came to an old shop with TVs and radios displayed in the front window. Salmela stopped in front of the window and stared at the screen, on which flickered a wide-angle view of the Käpylä ball fields. In the upper corner, it read: Breaking News.
Salmela rushed inside and listened to the reporter’s newscast, “According to the latest reports, one man was killed in the explosion and another was critically wounded. The explosion appears to have occurred inside an automobile.”
The jumpy picture showed CSI techs in white coveralls scouring the gravel fields on all fours. White tarps attached to a scaffolding about fifteen feet high were already surrounding the car. The broadcast was being filmed from the top floor of the parking ramp at the Pasila exhibition hall, which was the nearest spot that hadn’t been roped off.
Salmela watched with his mouth agape.
“Crazy story,” remarked the graying shopkeeper, who had come up alongside him.
Channel 3 Reporter Sanna Römpötti, dressed in a black blazer, appeared on the screen and continued, “I should emphasize that this has not been verified, but according to our sources, both men caught in the explosion were police officers. Again, this account has not been verified. At this stage, we have no information about the cause of the explosion.”
Salmela’s eyes were glued to the screen. The female reporter continued with details on the time and the number of emergency vehicles, but Salmela wasn’t listening anymore. It all seemed surreal. The picture snapped back and forth from the newsroom anchor to a field reporter and any eyewitnesses, or at least earwitnesses that they had found.
“You alright?” the shopkeeper asked.
Salmela snapped out of it. “Uhh, yeah.” he said. When the broadcast cut back to the studio, Salmela walked out the door.
Outside, he pulled out his phone and dialed Suhonen’s number. It went straight to voicemail. He tried to call Aalto with the same result-straight to voicemail.
Salmela glanced around, but nobody seemed to notice him. He tried to think about his situation. No sense going home-that wouldn’t be safe. He didn’t have enough money for a hotel. He’d have to find one of his friends and crash at his house for the night. The guys would be at the Corner Pub, and a couple
beers would take the edge off.
Jesus, what had happened? What had he done?
* * *
Römpötti hopped into the satellite truck to warm up for a while. The wind was gusting on the roof of the exhibition hall parking ramp, but at least it wasn’t raining yet. The back of the van was packed with monitors and other electronics. One of the screens showed a live feed of the accident scene, still veiled by white tarps. The operator sat near the monitors in an office chair. Römpötti plopped down in the passenger seat and pumped some coffee from a thermos into a paper cup.
Her fingers soaked in the warmth of the coffee. Thin leather gloves didn’t suffice for these cold conditions, but they looked better than mittens on camera. She couldn’t wear a hat either, at least not unless the temperature dipped below zero degrees Fahrenheit.
Römpötti sipped her coffee as she scanned the screen on her laptop. With a wireless connection, she was able to access the production program. She was back on the air in eight minutes. Something new to report would be nice, but the cops had been tight-lipped. Their initial statement had been brief: An explosion had occurred, and of the two victims, one had died and one was injured. One of Römpötti’s friends at dispatch had tipped her off about the victims being cops. She had called again, but the friend hadn’t learned anything more.
Something about the incident seemed peculiar to Römpötti. Car-bombs per se were nothing new-Helsinki had been rocked by a few. She recalled the 1994 explosion in the parking lot of Pasila Police Headquarters. Though the police had a suspect, the case still remained unsolved, as nobody had dared to testify against organized crime. At that time, the cops had been the target, but the circumstances of today’s incident were still unclear. Another car bombing had occurred downtown in the summer of 2002-a contract killing.
At a loss for new info, she considered mentioning those stories in her next spot. But viewers wanted new information, not just recaps. Römpötti’s phone rang. The caller was unidentified.
“Yeah?” answered Römpötti briskly. Occasionally, these types of incidents stirred up some strange people who were best dumped at the outset. She had no time for them.
“Sanna Römpötti?” a man asked.
“Yes?” She said, unable to recognize the voice.
The man paused briefly. “It’s Sami Aronen, from the Skulls.”
For a moment, Römpötti was confused. Why was Aronen calling her now? “Oh, hey Sami.”
“I suppose you’re kinda busy.”
“If you’ve seen the news, you know why.”
“Yeah. Listen, I have some information for you about that.”
Römpötti nearly dropped the phone. One of the top men in the Skulls wanted to give her a lead on a breaking story. “What’s that?” she said in a voice that seemed to have fielded hundreds of similar offers.
“I know the police think we’re behind this, but that’s not the case.”
Römpötti wasn’t surprised. “No?”
“Nope. I don’t care if you make their suspicions public, but I don’t want our denial to be aired at this point.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“You look just as good in person as you do on TV,” Aronen said without the slightest hint of comedy. “The cops have been working on some kind of an undercover operation against us and they think we did it. But as I said, that’s not the case. If you wanna air what the cops think, be my guest.”
Römpötti was confused. Typically, people suspected of a crime would want to minimize or clarify their role. But here was Aronen, tipping her off that the gang was a suspect, yet not wanting to publicize a rebuttal. Suddenly, it occurred to her to record the conversation.
“I’m not sure I understand,” she said as she glanced at the operator. He was holding up four fingers-four minutes until she was back on camera. “Why would the police suspect you if you had nothing to do with it?”