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  Vengeance

  ( Helsinki Homicide - 2 )

  Jarkko Sipila

  Jarkko Sipila

  Vengeance

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20

  CHAPTER 1

  TUESDAY, 2:53 P.M.

  HELSINKI AVENUE, HELSINKI

  Suhonen glanced in the passenger side rear-view mirror of his unmarked Peugeot before making a quick shoulder check. Sitting in the left-turn lane near the Helsinki Botanical Gardens, the undercover detective had been waiting to turn toward police headquarters in Pasila, but had abruptly decided to continue along Helsinki Avenue.

  The light for ongoing traffic was green and Suhonen scanned the tight line of cars behind him, waiting for a suitable slot. A red Volvo zoomed past and Suhonen judged the space behind it to be enough. He punched the gas and cut in front of a black Mercedes taxi. The gleaming sedan honked and Suhonen gave a friendly wave.

  He passed Töölö Bay on the right, its waters suffused with cool autumn sunlight. Behind the bay, about a mile off, the granite façade and copper apron of the Helsinki Central Railway Station stood out against downtown’s low-lying skyline. September had been unusually warm for Helsinki, and scores of people had been about with shorts and mini-skirts on. Only recently had the frosty nights finished off the vivid display of fiery leaves.

  The impetus for the sudden lane change was a baby-blue two-seater sports car, now heading under the railroad bridge a couple hundred yards up the road. Suhonen had noticed the Beamer back by the Opera House, but had initially ignored it. At the intersection, he had changed his mind.

  About half a dozen cars stood between Suhonen’s gray Peugeot 205 and the BMW Z3 Roadster. Now there was one more, as the ruffled cabbie pulled ahead on the right and cut him off to make a statement. Good-more cover, Suhonen thought, though the driver of the Beamer probably hadn’t even noticed him.

  A red and white commuter train rumbled across the bridge over the road.

  The BMW climbed the hill in the center lane. Suhonen guessed the car would hang left onto Sture Street at the Y-intersection up ahead. Only the right lane continued along Helsinki Avenue.

  Suhonen dug his phone out of his worn and abraded leather jacket. His jeans were faded. A holster containing a small Glock 26 was strapped to his left side. His black hair was gathered into a ponytail and his face was shadowed with stubble, making him look older than his forty-odd years.

  He called dispatch at Pasila and checked the registration for the BMW. The car had not been reported as stolen and a local leasing firm was listed as the owner.

  No surprise, he thought. Not that he had assumed the car was hot-the driver, on the other hand, was another issue.

  The Beamer continued along Sture Street past the Kulttuuritalo Concert Hall. The Peugeot’s radio was playing classic Finnish rock-Hassisen Kone’s ’80s hit “Walking Fever.” Suhonen’s mind wandered back to his teenage years when he had gone with his best friend Salmela to see them play at the Concert Hall. Was that 1980? Maybe. A long time ago, anyway. For a couple of small town guys, it had been a lot of fun. Maybe a little too much.

  He should call Salmela to see how he was getting along, Suhonen thought. Judging by the latest news, probably not so well.

  The Beamer stopped at the lights at the intersection of Sture Street and Aleksis Kivi. A streetcar clattered by. Only the Mercedes taxi separated the two cars now, but its rear window was tinted enough that the target couldn’t possibly make out Suhonen. He cozied right up to the back bumper of the taxi so he couldn’t be seen in the side mirrors either, though the cabby probably took it as an affront.

  Suhonen wondered where Mike Gonzales was headed in the Beamer. A few miles up, Sture Street led to the Lahti Highway.

  A hunch had spurred Suhonen to trail this Gonzales, who had changed his legal name from Mika Konttinen, but Suhonen didn’t plan to shadow him for long. All he wanted was to link Gonzales to some residence, office or other address.

  Suhonen neared the bridge over Teollisuus Street, and the aroma of coffee poured out of the vents. As the coffee mill receded into the distance, Sture Street rose steeply to a bridge. The bridge connected the stone buildings of Kallio to the Vallila district. Up until the 1970s, Vallila had been a mixture of industrial buildings and old wooden dwellings. Most of the factories were either converted into lofts or demolished and replaced by apartment and office buildings. Its wooden houses, though, had been spared, and formed an idyllic enclave surrounded by modern construction.

  The taxi changed lanes, leaving Suhonen directly behind the Beamer. He lagged back a little.

  This Konttinen-Gonzales was an interesting character. The man owned a small temp agency. On a few occasions, the Financial Crimes Division had suspected him of money laundering and supplying illegal aliens for construction jobs. Though the firm’s books were turned inside out, Gonzales hadn’t been indicted.

  The baby-blue Beamer stopped at the lights on Mäkelä Avenue and its left-hand blinker went on. Suhonen thought for a second before deciding to stay on his tail. So far, they had stuck to major thoroughfares, where the traffic was heavy in the afternoon rush. On smaller roads, he would have never dared stay this close, but perhaps Gonzales wouldn’t suspect the cops of following him in such an archaic way.

  As an undercover officer in the Helsinki Violent Crimes Unit, Suhonen wasn’t interested in petty financial crimes. A couple months prior, this Gonzales had attended the Skulls’ annual party. The Skulls were an outlaw biker gang, which had held its sixth annual bash in the summer, and this time the police had put it under photo surveillance. All fifty-plus attendees had been secretly photographed.

  The big league hockey players and the B-list actors had been easy to pick out, but identifying the others had taken a lot of work. In the end, the cops had a comprehensive picture of the Skulls’ inner circle.

  Gonzales was somewhat of a familiar character on the Helsinki party circuit, but that wouldn’t have earned him an invite from the Skulls.

  The lights changed and the Beamer turned left onto Mäkelä Avenue. It shot ahead, but Suhonen was in no hurry. The next light would be red anyway.

  He figured he’d follow the car a few more miles at most, then swing back toward Pasila headquarters. Maybe Gonzales wasn’t up to anything-actually that was the most likely possibility.

  The BMW continued northward along Mäkelä Avenue past an indoor swimming pool and the renowned Mäkelänrinne Sports High School, which had graduated many top Finnish athletes.

  Suhonen had fallen back a hundred yards or so, and three cars had filled in the space. The street curved gently to the right and the Beamer’s brake lights came on. Gonzales was set to turn left into the parking lot of the Velodrome cycling stadium, unless he was whipping a U-turn.

  During his years in Narcotics, Suhonen had seen dealers try all kinds of surprise loops to shake off a tail. A proper surveillance operation had demanded at least ten officers, all of whom patrolled the area in zigzag patterns. Nowadays, technology made the job considerably easier. The police had only to fix a GPS tracking device to the target vehicle, or know the cell number of one of the car’s occupants to know its exact location.

  The BMW roadster waited at the tree-lined median for a break in the oncoming traffic. Suhonen continued onward and shifted into the right-turn lane at the intersection about a hundred yards up. There was no sign, but Suhonen knew the street led to the rear parking lot of the Katilöopisto Hospital. He swung right, passed a line of parked cars for about fifty yards, and squeezed the Peugeot into the first available spot. Over his shoulder, he saw the Beamer continuing into the parking lot of the cycling stadium.

  The white Velodrome had been built in the late thirties for Helsinki’s 1940 Olympics, which were cancelled due to
World War II. The stadium eventually fulfilled its purpose when Helsinki hosted the games in ’52. The Velodrome had fallen into considerable disrepair, but a million-dollar remodel at the end of the ’90s had returned the modernist design to a relatively functional condition.

  Suhonen got out of his Peugeot, grabbed a backpack out of the trunk and hurried back to the intersection. The traffic was dense enough that he didn’t dare jaywalk, so he waited for the light. The Velodrome parking lot was visible from the intersection, but the Beamer was no longer in sight. The parking lot had no other outlets.

  A woman dressed in a red coat and a black knit hat was pushing a baby carriage toward the intersection. She shot a wary glance at the stubbly, street-worn Suhonen in his biker jacket. He smiled, but the woman quickly looked away.

  He crossed Mäkelä Avenue and approached the rear of the stadium. From this vantage point, the trees and the curvature of the cycling track obscured the parking lot. That was both good and bad. Maybe more good, since he’d be able to use it for cover to get closer.

  Suhonen skirted the edge of the stadium past three tall lindens toward the parking lot. The rear wall of the cycling track formed a massive lean-to shelter. He considered circling around to the hill on the opposite side of the parking lot for a better view, but decided that this spot would suffice. After all, this was no official surveillance operation, just a hunch. He didn’t have the slightest clue what might be amiss.

  Still, he unzipped his backpack, flipped on his Nikon SLR and checked that the settings were correct. A 300mm zoom lens was attached to the camera body. He had performed rapid photography numerous times before. It produced better shots and attracted less attention than scrunching down behind a tree.

  His gait had to be ordinary and carefree. A leather jacket wasn’t the best garb-a parka and knit cap would have given a more relaxed impression. Suhonen was about twenty yards from the asphalt parking lot when he spotted Gonzales standing next to the Beamer on the other side of the parking lot.

  The man’s clothes recalled the 1980s TV series Miami Vice. Despite the cool weather, Gonzales wore a blue blazer and a white T-shirt. His black hair was combed to the side and it reached over the tops of his ears. Gonzales’ features were nonetheless softer than those of the taller man standing next to him, whose brown leather jacket, buzzed haircut and gaunt cheeks signaled the toughness of the streets.

  Gonzales had been alone in his car, so “buzz cut” must have come in his own ride. With dozens of cars in the parking lot, Suhonen couldn’t determine which one belonged to him.

  The men stood side by side, in full view, a good fifty yards away, speaking fervently to one another.

  This was the moment. With his backpack hanging over his left shoulder, Suhonen held the camera in his right hand and raised it into position. He didn’t stop walking, since his targets might have noticed the sudden change in movement. The camera’s motor whined and the picture came into focus. Suhonen pressed the shutter button and the camera took a series of four photographs.

  Within four seconds, the Nikon was stashed back in the bag. The targets hadn’t noticed him and continued talking. Suhonen reached the edge of the parking lot and headed back toward Mäkelä Avenue, about thirty yards away. The lot was used by people working in the nearby office buildings of East-Pasila, so Suhonen’s presence didn’t attract attention.

  Once Gonzales and his mysterious friend were well in the distance, Suhonen casually swung the backpack to his front and peeked into the bag to check the quality of the pictures. They were sharp-both men were recognizable. No need to clamber on the hill for more shots.

  He smiled and decided to circle the high school and swimming pool before returning to the car. For a moment, he considered staying longer to observe the pair, but then decided against it. A more extensive surveillance operation would have demanded more units anyway, and there was no need.

  Suhonen didn’t know if the photos would be useful, but they couldn’t hurt either. Gonzales was a player of some stature, and a meeting in the parking lot of the Velodrome was probably not connected to legitimate staffing negotiations. Suhonen had a vague notion that this “buzz cut” was Estonian, Russian or a mixture of the two. The man’s tough presence gave that impression. His stern facial expression, too, hinted at more eastern origins.

  That vague notion might come into focus if someone could identify the man from the photo.

  * * *

  It took a few seconds for the computer to upload the photos from the camera. Suhonen was sitting at his own workstation in the back corner of the VCU’s shared office at Pasila Police Headquarters. Time had left this building behind as well. A massive remodel was in store.

  He had taken off his leather jacket and draped it over the back of his chair, leaving only a black T-shirt. His pistol and holster were in the bottom drawer. Unlike in American TV shows, exposed weapons were not carried in the hallways of the Violent Crimes Unit. That would have called for a referral to a police psychologist for an excessive show of force.

  Suhonen’s computer sat on a small, otherwise empty desk. The other officers in the room had more space, but they had more paper to fill it, too.

  Mikko Kulta, a tall man with a shock of blond hair, sat nearest the door with headphones in his ears, poring over an interrogation transcript. Sergeant Anna Joutsamo was talking on the phone, and Kirsi Kohonen’s spot was empty. Suhonen seemed to recall that she was on vacation.

  A teammate on vacation had no effect on Suhonen’s workload. Of the four officers on Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamäki’s team, Suhonen was the only one who didn’t deal with the daily grind: domestic abuse, missing persons, cause-of-death investigations and other routine cases. He carried out his work on the streets of the city, collecting intelligence at the behest of others or on his own hunches. Captain Karila, the head of the VCU, had often suggested that Suhonen should be transferred to the surveillance group, which fell under Narcotics, but Takamäki, Suhonen’s direct supervisor, was strongly opposed.

  “They found him,” said Sergeant Anna Joutsamo, somewhat in disbelief. Joutsamo was in her thirties and wore blue jeans and a black wool cardigan. Her dark hair was swept into a loose ponytail.

  “Who?” Suhonen asked. He didn’t know what case she was on, but finding someone or something was usually a positive development in police investigations.

  “Mauri Laukka.”

  “Should I know who that is?” Suhonen asked.

  Kulta had interrupted his work and taken the headphones off. “Suhonen, I thought you knew it all.”

  Suhonen ignored the ribbing. “Who is he?”

  “You haven’t heard about this case yet, but last week we received an inquiry from Norway about an unidentified corpse. A month ago, the Oslo police found a dead man at a local beach. No papers, nothing. Supposedly about twenty years old and fairly clean. Nothing seemed to indicate homicide. Well, the fingerprints didn’t match anyone in their database, so they were at a loss. Sharp as they are, a week later they realized that a rented Mitsubishi with Finnish plates was still sitting in the parking lot.”

  “Promising,” Suhonen noted.

  “Yes, it was,” Joutsamo went on. “The case was being handled by Magnus, someone I know in Oslo, who called to ask if I could find out who rented the Mitsubishi. That’s when this Mauri Laukka stepped into the picture.”

  “The guy who rented the car?”

  “Correct. His age matched the body, and on top of that, he had been reported missing about a month ago. His father couldn’t get a hold of him and contacted the police. So I chatted with the investigator at the Vantaa PD, who told me that Laukka was a troubled kid suffering from depression. Booze and pills, et cetera, but nothing criminal, which is why he wasn’t in our database.”

  “And…”

  “And with the depression and all, I was absolutely convinced that the body was this Laukka. Anyway, I was only a middle-man between Oslo and Vantaa-between the two, they were taking care of the DNA an
d the other formalities. So I was chatting with a friend at the National Bureau of Investigation records department last Friday and I asked about him. Well, she just called me back to say that they’ve received a communiqué through the Foreign Ministry about this guy. Sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning, Mr. Laukka got into a drug-induced brawl in Nice, punched a cop in the face, and is sitting in a jail in Southern France.”

  “So the corpse in Oslo…”

  “Is not him.”

  Suhonen snickered. “No way. Who is it, then?”

  Joutsamo shrugged. “No clue, but yet another example of why you should never assume.” The foursome had made a hobby of repeating their Lieutenant’s favorite phrase.

  “Laukka sounds like a good candidate for the police academy,” Suhonen chuckled. “Hey, come take a look at this photo.”

  She walked over to Suhonen’s desk and he stepped aside.

  “You know these guys?”

  Joutsamo sat down in his chair. He stood behind her and detected the sweet scent of her perfume, which conjured visions of spring.

  “That one’s been running with the Skulls. Thinks his dad is some Argentinean. Was it Gomez?”

  “Gonzales. He’s the darker one. What about buzz cut here?”

  Joutsamo turned and looked up from the chair. “Should I know who he is?”

  Kulta came up from behind to look over their shoulders.

  “No. I don’t know either,” said Suhonen.

  Kulta smirked. “That’s twice already today.”

  Joutsamo ignored the comment. “Doesn’t look like a local. Based on his features and clothing, I’d bet he’s Estonian or Russian. Toomas might know.”

  “Not familiar to me either,” Kulta said, though nobody had asked. “I’d also suggest you get in touch with Toomas.”

  “Alright, I’ll do that.”

  Toomas Indres was an Estonian policeman who had been with the Helsinki VCU on an exchange program. He had returned to Tallinn six months ago.