Behind God's Back

17

It’s hard to imagine a job that would give you such an intense feeling of success as being a police officer when the case you’re working on starts to open up, especially if it’s a violent crime.

The silent movies from the service station’s surveillance cameras gave us just about everything we could have hoped for: the first role was played by Max, who drove up in his Mercedes-Benz SUV. He pumped the gas, moved the car and went inside. The interior surveillance camera showed Max pay with his credit card and walk over to the cafe, where he took a seat.

A moment later, a familiar blue Golf pulled up under the canopy. It passed the pumps slowly as if looking for the best deal, then turned into a parking space. The driver sat in his car for at least a couple of minutes before getting out.

Simolin, Stenman, Oksanen and I were glued to the monitor and the man approaching the camera. He was about six or seven yards away before he noticed it on the wall. He turned his head and passed the camera with his head tilted at a strange angle.

“Dammit, he noticed the camera,” Stenman said.

“Didn’t want to show his face,” Oksanen continued. “Clear sign of guilt.”

“Go back a little,” I said, and Simolin rewound the recording. The image paused at the moment where the man noticed the camera.

He was about fifty years old, average height, slim. He had a light, relaxed stride. His hair was cut short, his face thin, his nose slightly hooked. The hook had been exaggerated in the sketch, so it was no wonder no one had recognized him. Otherwise, he looked surprisingly similar to the drawing, down to the sunglasses.

Simolin read my thoughts. “It’s the guy from the picture.”

“If he’s still in the country, we’ll get him with that shot, that’s for sure,” Oksanen said.

“Fast-forward so we can see them when they come out,” I said.

The meeting between Max and the man in the sunglasses lasted about twenty minutes. This time he was prepared. He exited looking off to the side, so his face wouldn’t be visible. But the evasion came too late.

I called Huovinen, and he promised to come right over. Once he showed up, he looked at the still in satisfaction.

“Nice work. How did you find the place?”

I told him about the dated receipt we had found in Max’s car.

“Does this mean that Oxbaum knew to anticipate his fate and left you a clue?”

“I think so. I’m pretty sure he left the receipts in the car so we’d find Jacobson’s killer. Just to be sure, he told Eli to warn me against buying a Benz. He knew that by then at the latest I’d start wondering what he was talking about.”

“Why didn’t he just tell you?”

“For the same reason Jacobson didn’t dare to reveal the person who was threatening him. Both were afraid that their loved ones would be targeted for vengeance. This way it looks like we got on the trail on our own — and we did, in a way.”

I guess Max was smarter than I thought he was.

“What did the killer want from Jacobson and Max? What did they have that could have interested someone so much?”

“I’m not sure. It just occurred to me that if Jacobson didn’t give the killer what he wanted, and neither did Max, will he move on to victim number three? It can’t be about money, because Max definitely would have paid up if doing so would get him out of whatever mess he was in.”

“Could the motive have something to do with Jewishness after all?” Simolin asked.

Huovinen looked at me. “What do you think, Ari?”

“It’s possible, I guess.”

“Any other suggestions?” Huovinen asked.

“Maybe the killer’s real target was some third party, say from the Jewish congregation, and the killer had been blackmailing Jacobson and Oxbaum for their help,” Stenman suggested.

“Jewishness isn’t the only thing Jacobson and Oxbaum had in common. Baltic Invest is another,” Simolin noted.

I reconsidered the entire case, and for the first time I found a new take on it.

“We’ve assumed that the killer has something to do with Baltic Invest, because the Golf was owned by it and Jacobson’s company’s loan was from there. But we can also flip the idea around: Baltic Invest — or someone from there — is the killer’s real target, and Jacobson and Max are only vehicles for getting at whoever that is. Max knew the owner of the company, Amos Jakov, and his frontman Benjamin Hararin. Jakov is originally from Russia; he has old criminal contacts there. He’s also ex-high-level Mossad, and probably has plenty of enemies from those days. And then Jacobson’s son-in-law Joel Kazan is a director at Baltic Invest.”

“Not a bad idea,” Huovinen said. “But that means the killer probably isn’t Finnish.”

“This guy looks Finnish,” Oksanen said.

I continued explaining my scenario to Huovinen. “Hararin’s companies have been investigated in Israel under suspicion of money laundering, but no conclusive evidence has been found.”

“Could you put some more pressure on the police there for further information on the investigation? We could also send them that still to take a look at; the guy might be from Israel. In any case, we have something to work with now. Let’s not release that photo yet, though, so we don’t spook him. We’ll use our own people to look for him first. Send that photo out to the patrols and warn them that they’re not to attempt arrest. Nice work,” Huovinen said again, before leaving.

As soon as the door shut behind Huovinen’s back, Oksanen asked: “What about us?”

“Simolin, send the photo to the Tallinn police for identification. While you’re at it, go ahead and send it to the Israeli police. Use Interpol. Arja, you email it to all investigators and patrols, and Oksanen, you and I will go show it to the neighbour who saw the gunman and the kids who found the car.”

Stenman’s eyes asked why I had elected to take Oksanen with me and not her. I had my reasons for everything.

It was my first ride in Oksanen’s latest acquisition. Legally it was an automobile, but judging by the sound it was an earthmover.

“I changed out the engine chip, got fifty more HP just like that.”

Out of politeness, I asked: “How much does this tractor get off the field?”

“About thirteen litres per hundred kilometres in the city; you can get down to about eight or nine on the highway. You have to be prepared to pay for your hobbies. Simolin has his redskins; I’ve got anything that rumbles and roars.”

Oksanen was divorced and had a teenage son who was having discipline problems. Oksanen’s interpretation was that the kid had been spoilt by his mother. The boy had already had a couple of run-ins with the police: once for theft, once for possession of a narcotic substance. “How’s your son?” I asked.

“I sat him down for a serious talk, and I’m hoping he’s finally learnt his lesson. Just to be sure, I made a deal with the warden at the juvenile prison out in Kerava that I can bring him in for a scared-straight visit whenever I want. He’s a smart kid, but sometimes I think he’s solid bone above the shoulders. Nothing sinks in.”

*

Jari Wallius was standing in the road in front of his house when we arrived. He had heard us coming for blocks and was waiting to find out what kind of roadster was headed his way.

“Put on your tough-guy face,” I told Oksanen as we stepped out of the car. In all likelihood, it would be our last chance to squeeze the kid for anything he hadn’t told us yet.

“How many HPs does this have?” Jari asked, peering into the car.

“350.”

“Wow… Dad’s Volvo doesn’t even have 200.”

I handed the boy a copy of the print from the surveillance camera.

“This is the guy we saw,” Jari said as soon as he saw the photo. “Is he the one who killed Mr Jacobson?”

I didn’t answer. There were some things little boys didn’t need to know.

“Have you remembered anything else? Anything you forgot to tell us last time we saw you?”

“No…”

Oksanen put on an intimidating expression, and bent down.

“You sure about that? You seem like a bright kid who notices all kinds of things other people don’t.”

“About the murderer?”

“About anything that might have to do with this murder mystery.”

The boy thought for a minute and then tentatively said: “Could the other man have something to do with it?”

“What other man?”

“The one who came from the Jacobsons’ back yard. He looked kind of suspicious and emign… enigmatic.”

“When did that happen?” I asked.

“A little before we saw the guy with the car. When I took the shortcut to Sami’s house, he was just sneaking out of the Jacobsons’ back yard. Sami was still eating, so I had to wait for him for a second. After that we went straight to the Seppäläs’ yard to eat plums.”

“So about twenty minutes before you saw the guy with the car?” I suggested.

“Yeah, about.”

“Go tell your Mom that you’re going over to the Jacobsons’ with us.”

“My Mom’s not home.”

The boy climbed into the back seat of Oksanen’s car, his face beaming. A moment later we were at the Jacobsons’ neighbours’. I asked the boy to wait in the car. The old man wasn’t as certain, but said it was possible that the photo was of the impostor he had seen.

“Did you see anyone besides the policeman?” I asked the couple.

“I would have told you if we had,” the man said.

We went back out and let the boy guide us to the spot where he had seen the other man.

“That’s where he came from,” Jari said, pointing at a spot where the hedge was thin. “And he went that way.” Now he was pointing in the direction of the canal.

“And where were you when you saw him?”

“Over there.”

It was about a hundred feet to where the boy was indicating.

“And you didn’t see what he looked like?”

“He hurried by really fast, and he didn’t look at me… Oh yeah, he had a hood on.”

“What kind of clothes was he wearing?” Oksanen asked.

“Black — black sweatshirt and running shoes. He looked like he was out running.”

I thanked the kid. It was time to pay a visit to Ethel and Lea.

“Can I get a ride with you guys?” the boy begged.

“If you wait in the car for a second,” Oksanen promised. We walked around the yard and rang the doorbell. Lea opened the door.

I introduced Oksanen, and we stepped in. Ethel called down: “Who is it?”

“Ari… Ari Kafka.”

Ethel hurried downstairs, and noticed Oksanen.

“Detective Oksanen.”

“Did you catch him yet?” she asked, ignoring the introduction.

“Unfortunately not, but we’ve made progress. I’d like to ask you something. Is there a spare key to the house hidden outside somewhere?”

“Yes… or at least there used to be,” Lea said.

“It’s still there,” Ethel said.

“Where is it?”

“In the back.”

I asked them to show me.

The back door opened directly onto a patio furnished with a weathered porch swing and a set of silvery teak patio furniture. Lea took the key from a small terracotta pot under the stairs.

“I thought the murderer came in through the front door,” Lea said.

“Probably.”

We went back inside.

“Could you please take a look at this photograph?”

Ethel snatched the picture out of my hands and stared at it.

“Is he the one who killed Samuel?”

“Almost certainly.”

It’s rare to see such a primitive reaction. Ethel lifted the photo up to her face and spat on it.

“May he burn in hell.”

That was a lot, coming from a Jew.

I took the picture and showed it to Lea. I saw her face grow rigid. Her eyes were nailed to the image.

“Have you seen him before?”

It took Lea a long time to respond. “Yes.”

*

“Pull over somewhere,” I said, once Oksanen was approaching Roihuvuori. “Let’s think for a minute about what we’ve got.”

Jari Wallius’ revelation had shattered the picture that had been growing more and more complete: that the man whose face we had got from the surveillance camera and whose name we had got from Lea was the murderer.

Oksanen pulled into a parking spot next to the library. “Are you talking about how this second guy changes things?” he asked.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

“It might be something totally simple. There were two killers, and they were working together. One went ahead, the other one followed behind. Why didn’t we think of that in the first place?”

“They were in the house at different times,” I reminded him. “According to the boy, about twenty minutes passed between the visits.”

“Kids that age don’t have any sense of that kind of stuff.”

“The boy said that after he saw the man in the hoodie, he went to his friend’s a quarter of a mile away, and waited for him to finish eating and put on his clothes. From there, they went back to the house, which is another quarter of a mile. When the boys arrived, the man in the car was just leaving. It’s only a minute’s drive from the Jacobsons’ to the other yard; it would only take a second to get the car into the garage, another couple of minutes to change clothes. Why would the killer have hung around for so long while the risk of getting caught was growing all the time?”

“Maybe he was waiting for his friend?” Oksanen suggested.

“According to the boys, the guy with the Golf was alone. The next question is, why didn’t they leave together in the car?”

“That is weird,” Oksanen said.

“And was the guy in the hoodie inside the Jacobsons’ home? It would have been easy for him to enter with the spare key, but based on the patterns of the bloodstains, Jacobson was shot from the front, in the doorway to his home… And all the bullets were from the same gun.”

“Where would he have found out about the key? According to the wife, only the family knew about it. Maybe the guy in the hoodie was some local prowler who happened to be on the property then,” Oksanen said.

I stared ahead thoughtfully. “It’s just that a man in dark clothes and a hood sounds a little too much like the guy who shot at me at Oxbaum’s boat.”