Almost everyone in Finland knows a suicide. The normal way of dealing with it is to allow ourselves to grieve, to speculate about why and talk about our love for the departed. Then we bury the dead and seldom mention them afterward. I don’t know if it’s because of our pain at their loss, or because of guilt, the feeling that we didn’t give them the help they needed to stay alive. Suicides get only a tiny obituary in the newspaper, a minimalization of our loss, a form of denial. The minuscule death notices speak of our shame.

“There’s a lot of truth in what you say. I can’t defend life in the north against its flaws, and there are many, but this is my home and I love it. If you stay here long enough and learn the language so you can understand the culture, you may come to love Finland for some of the reasons you hate it now-the silence, the solitude, even the melancholy-like I do.”

She’s getting angry. “The language! I don’t speak Finnish, but I know enough about it to see that it’s a reflection of the culture. In colloquial speech, you refer to other people as ‘it.’ That tells me a lot.”

“Kate, I’m a cop in early middle age with a bad leg. I don’t know if I could get a job in the U.S. or not, but I’m pretty sure that even if I did, I wouldn’t be any good at it. I speak English, but I don’t understand your culture. I can’t catch crooks if I don’t know how they think. Those few months I spent in the States working on my master’s thesis, I felt like a fish out of water, just like you do now.”

“My income is six figures. It doesn’t matter if you work or not.”

“It matters to me. Besides, after the twins are born, you’ll be on maternity leave. We could figure it out then.”

“What difference does my maternity leave make?”

“It’s a hundred and five workdays, that’s a long time.”

“What are you talking about? I’m not going on maternity leave for months.”

“Why not? Everyone does.”

“Does that mean I’m required to?”

As much as I love Kate, sometimes the cultural differences between us mystify me. “I guess not, I just never heard of anyone not wanting to before. What do American mothers do?”

“We take a few weeks, get child care and go back to our careers, and that’s what I’m going to do. Are you saying no to moving? Won’t you even think about it?”

My automatic reaction, when someone tries to make me do something, is to do the opposite. I try to stay reasonable. “This feels like an ultimatum.”

“Kari, it’s not an ultimatum. I would never leave you, I just want to know if you’ll consider it or not.”

I don’t want to say it, but Kate’s happiness is more important to me than my own. “I’ll consider it.”

We drop the subject and get ready for bed. Kate always goes to sleep with her head on my shoulder, our arms wrapped around one another. We do the same now, but I can still feel the tension between us, like magnets forcing each other apart instead of pulling each other together. I’ve never felt that way with Kate before, and it worries me.

23

MY PHONE RINGS at nine A.M. “Where are you and Valtteri?” Jussi asks.

I tell him about Heikki’s suicide, the note and my suspicions.

“Fuck,” he says.

“He and Maria are torn to pieces.”

“Do you really think the suicide note was a confession?” he asks.

“Maybe. Probably.”

“Why would he do it?”

“It doesn’t pay to speculate. Let’s wait and see if DNA places him at the crime scene. What have you and Antti turned up?”

“Antti processed Eklund’s car and found blood and semen. He sent them to Helsinki for testing. Eklund’s alibi checks out, but I’m not convinced. If he slipped out of Hullu Poro for a little while, killed Sufia and then came back, I’m not sure anybody would have noticed.”

The case is entering day five and I haven’t had a decent night’s rest since it started. “Listen, I’ve only slept for two hours. We’re all tired. Let’s take the morning off and get together this evening, after the DNA reports come back.”

“Should I check on Valtteri and Maria? I don’t know what to say to them.”

He means it’s hard to console your boss about his son’s suicide, especially when the boy may have killed himself in the aftermath of a sick murder.

“No. I’ll stop by and check on them later.”

We hang up. Heikki’s suicide and my conversation with Kate take turns whirling through my head. It’s hard to get back to sleep, but the next time I look at the clock, it’s three P.M. Kate is propped up on the bed beside me, reading a book. “I made coffee,” she says.

I go to the kitchen, get a cup for myself and sit on the bed beside her. She puts a hand on my knee. “I’m sorry I made you feel bad,” she says.

“This is a hard time for both of us. The whole world seems turned upside down.”

“Yeah, it does.”

I put my coffee down on the floor and hug her. “I want you to be happy.”

“I’m happy with you,” she says.

“Just let me get this case finished, then we can figure out what we can do to make things better for you.”

She nods and kisses me.

In the far corner of the room, I’ve got a little table set up with my home computer. I connect my monitor to Heikki’s computer and power it up.

When I was a kid, there was a myth that Laestadians aren’t allowed to own washing machines with windows in the doors, because you can see underwear through it while it’s spinning. Strict Laestadianism forbids dancing and music, movies, television and video games, sports, most of the entertainment content average users clutter up their computers with. Plus, Heikki had no Internet connection at home, so I’m guessing going through his machine won’t take long.

It’s an old computer loaded with only a few basic programs and no encryption software. I sift through the folders and files, mostly school stuff. I open a folder titled BIBLE INTERPRETATION. There are four files in it-the first is labeled SONG.

Heikki has typed out the Song of Solomon, all one hundred and seventeen verses of it. I can tell by the spelling mistakes that he didn’t copy and paste it from somewhere. Another file is called MY SONG. He’s rearranged fragments of lines from the Song of Solomon to make a poem of his own:

upon the mountains of Bether

the young stag feeds among the lilies

the scent of your perfumes spreads its fragrance

your lips drip with honey

your breasts are like towers

lovesick, my hand is by the latch

set about with lilies

my head is covered with dew

I have drunk

of the honey and milk under your tongue

Do not stir nor awaken love until it pleases

The poem is a curious mixture of religious fervor and sexual desire. To have written it, Heikki must have been a very sensitive young man-and very much in love with someone. The next file is titled THE ACCURSED. It reads:

Must we hear now that you too are doing all this terrible wickedness and are being unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women? Nehemiah 13:26-27

For we have disregarded the commands you gave when you said: The land you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the corruption of these peoples. Their detestable practices have filled it with their impurity. Therefore do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. Ezra 9:10-12

And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan. Genesis 9:21-25

Ham=nigger

Jumala vihaa neekereitä, God hates niggers. Niggers should die.

My stomach churns, and I consider again if Valtteri knew how disturbed Heikki was. Valtteri will be destroyed when I tell him what Heikki thought, what he did. He’ll blame himself, maybe even blame God. Maybe he already does. Part of me wants to delete the folder, let the case go unsolved. I ask myself if exposing the truth will serve any purpose, if it will bring Sufia justice. The answer is yes, and it makes me sick. I open the last file, called BABYLON: