Snow Angels

19

I write a press release, but not the way the chief wanted it. I don’t mention my previous marriage to Heli, or that she left me for Seppo, and I don’t write anything to tarnish his image. I keep it simple, say he provided an alibi and was released. I e-mail it to all the major Finnish newspapers, STT and Reuters.

The photocopy of Sufia’s address book is on the desk in front of me. I start making phone calls again. After an hour, I get a hit.

“That bitch fucked my boyfriend. She sucked his cock in my own goddamned house. I’m glad she’s dead.”

“Who’s your boyfriend?” I ask.

“You mean, who was my boyfriend. That bitch wrecked everything.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean.”

She gives me the name of a Finnish television star. I call him.

“Fuck,” he says. “What did you hear?”

I play him. “Never mind that. Just give me your version of events.”

“Maybe it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead, but the blackmailing bitch said she was gonna get me.”

“How did she say she was going to get you?”

“She was never anything to me. I had a girlfriend and Sufia was a side thing. Excuse me for being blunt, but Sufia was an incredible fuck. The girl could suck an egg through a straw. And gorgeous, Jesus, just looking at her could almost make me come. My girlfriend caught us. Sufia was happy about it because she said we could see each other out in the open, but I wanted to get rid of Sufia so I could patch things up. Sufia got angry. She said she’d claim I raped her and told me I had to give her money.”

“Did you?”

“I told her to go fuck herself.”

“Have you been to Levi lately?”

“Not for two years. Am I a suspect?”

“Not at present. Thank you for your cooperation. One last thing, what kind of car do you drive?”

“A BMW. Why?”

I ignore the question and hang up. I can understand Sufia’s attraction to rich and famous men, but I’m left wondering about her obsession with BMWs. I’ve talked to around thirty people about Sufia. No one knew her, not even the men she’d had affairs with. It seems no one cared enough to bother, but I want to. I decide to watch her movies.

I print out Seppo’s arrest photo and one of Peter from the sex offender database, then go to the BMW website, download and print pictures of star-spoked and double-spoked wheels and drive to Marjakyla. I decide to get the worst over with and go to my parents’ house first. I knock, and Dad yells for me to come in. He’s sitting in his armchair smoking an unfiltered North State. A glass of piima, buttermilk, sits on the end table beside him. I take this to mean he’s not drunk. I’m relieved.

“Hello son,” he says.

The television is turned off, the curtains are drawn. The only light spills out from the kitchen. He’s sitting in the dark and what would be silence, except for the incessant ticking of clocks.

Mom’s dentures are in a water glass beside Dad’s piima. She got them as a present when she was confirmed into the Lutheran church at the age of fifteen. Years ago, dentures were the traditional confirmation gift. There was little or no dental care then, and most people’s teeth rotted out of their heads not long after they reached puberty.

“Where’s Mom?” I ask.

“Upstairs taking a nap.”

Despite his drinking, Dad’s health is good. Among other ailments, Mom is overweight and has high blood pressure. She tires easily. I sit across from him, in her chair.

“I’m not trying to piss you off,” I say, “but I have to ask you where you were at two P.M. on Tuesday, when Sufia Elmi was killed.”

He takes a drag off his cigarette. “That girl was killed across the road,” he says. “You think I did it, then came back here and talked to you and your mother?”

I’ve never figured out why my father is such an argumentative, aggressive jerk. He has four sons, and we all left home as soon as we were old enough. He drove us away with his drunken rages and beatings. My three brothers did pretty well for themselves though.

When Finland’s economy collapsed in 1989, my oldest brother, Juha, went to Norway to look for work and got a job in a fish canning factory. Now he’s married and makes good money working in the Norwegian oil fields. After Timo’s short stint in jail for bootlegging, he settled in Pietarsaari, on the West Coast, and works in a paper factory. Jari got into medical school, and now he’s a neurologist in Helsinki.

Dad is always putting Jari down, says he thinks he’s better than everybody else. Dad is just jealous of him. Jari is one of the nicest people I know. My brothers are all nice guys, but we’re not close. Maybe because we shared so many bad experiences, it’s easier to limit contact so we don’t have to think about our childhoods.

Mom has put up with Dad going on fifty years. I don’t know how she’s managed it. Then again, she had no money, no education. I suppose after she got married and figured out what she’d gotten herself into, she didn’t have many options. Still, I wish she had tried to do more to defend us kids from him.

“I know you weren’t at work,” I say. “If I don’t know where you were and somebody asks later, it’ll look like I’m hiding something. I’m trying to protect you.”

“It’s not your business where I was.”

“If you were drunk somewhere, I don’t care.” It occurs to me that maybe he’s having an affair. “If it’s something you don’t want Mom to find out about, I won’t tell her.”

He finishes the piima in a long gulp. “I was fishing,” he says.

Now I get it. It was the anniversary of my sister Suvi’s death. He spent the afternoon sitting on the frozen lake, visiting the spot where she died. Dad and I look at each other. I feel embarrassed because I intruded on something so private to him, and the sadness I always feel when I think of Suvi wells up.

I stand and put a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks for telling me.”

I head toward the front door.

“You gonna come by on Christmas?” he asks.

“Yeah. Kate and I will come over.”

I realize I haven’t told him Kate broke her leg or that she’s pregnant. “Kate took a bad fall skiing,” I say. “She fractured her femur.”

“Her thigh bone?”

“Yeah.”

“She gonna be okay?”

“The cast is awkward for her, but she’s okay. And she’s pregnant. We’re going to have twins.”

He laughs to himself. “Twins huh?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re gonna have your hands full.”

He doesn’t seem to have anything more to add, so I leave.