‘Excuse me?’
‘The investigation starts now, without you.’
‘That’s against procedure.’
‘Time is wasting. We’re setting a new procedural precedent.’
Pause. ‘Do you have the right gear to wear?’
‘Yep.’
‘Okay, we’ll be there as soon as we can.’
Milo and I enter the building and take the elevator to the fourth floor. A uniformed officer stands in the hall. ‘You the detectives?’ he asks.
‘That’s us,’ I say.
‘Where are the crime-scene techs?’
‘Late. They had a car wreck. Fill us in.’
‘This apartment belongs to Rein Saar, an Estonian citizen. He called in the murder himself. He claims an unknown assailant struck him from behind and knocked him unconscious. When he woke up, he was in his bed beside his lover, Iisa Filippov. She was beaten to death, and he was covered in her blood.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In the back of our van.’
Something is amiss here. ‘Where’s your partner?’ I ask.
‘He went to get us coffee.’
So much for police procedure. ‘You left an injured suspect, alone and unsupervised, in the back of your vehicle?’
He reddens. I let it go.
‘What’s your impression of the situation?’ I ask.
‘Rein Saar has a bad cut on his head from a blunt instrument. It looks to me like a lovers’ quarrel ended badly. She hit him with something, he killed her and hasn’t been able to think of a better lie.
‘Does he need stitches?’
‘At least not immediately. The bleeding stopped. He might be concussed.’
Milo and I don surgical gloves and paper suits, complete with head and foot coverings, to prevent our fingerprints, hair and clothing fibers from contaminating the crime scene, walk into the apartment and take a look around. The home is neat and clean, in large part decorated with inexpensive furniture from Ikea. The kitchen is off the living room.
I go back out into the hall and hand the patrol officer the keys to the Ford Fiesta. ‘There are more gloves and paper suits in the trunk of our car. Get some for yourself and the suspect, put them on and sit in the kitchen. Just don’t touch anything.’
‘That’s not going by the book,’ he says.
I use Milo’s line. ‘Show me where it says that in the police handbook.’
The uniform doesn’t know how to respond.
‘It’s fucking freezing outside,’ I say, ‘our suspect is injured, and I’ll want to talk to him before he’s processed and treated for his injuries. I would prefer he not be angry, miserable and traumatized while I do it.’
The uniform shrugs. ‘It’s your case.’ He goes downstairs to fetch Rein Saar from the van.
Milo and I examine the kitchen, to make sure the victim can sit in it without contaminating evidence when he comes back inside. I see Rein Saar in the hall while he and the uniform put on paper suits. He looks like he took a shower in blood.
Milo and I walk over to him. ‘I’m Inspector Vaara. This is Detective Sergeant Nieminen. Do you feel that you require immediate medical attention, or can you stay here for a while so I can talk to you?’
He nods. He can wait. I instruct him and the uniform to sit at the kitchen table.
I turn to Milo. ‘Let’s go look at Iisa Filippov.’
‘The bedroom is a fucking mess,’ the uniform says. ‘Have fun.’
We go to the bedroom. The uniform wasn’t exaggerating. Blood soaks the bed around the corpse. Fine mists of blood feather the walls and ceiling. Her murder speaks of both method and rage. The smell of fresh blood and scorched flesh, menthol cigarettes, as well as urine and feces, is strong.
We need duplicate documentation so there’s no chance of evidence from our initial investigation being lost. I take a digital audio recorder and notepad out of my coat pocket. ‘Which one do you want?’ I ask Milo.
‘I’ll write,’ he says.
I start recording. ‘The victim, identified as Iisa Filippov, is located in the bedroom of a man identified as Rein Saar. The bedroom itself is about a hundred and thirty square feet and unexceptional. It contains a standard queen-size bed in a corner, headboard and left side of the bed against walls. The victim’s body lies on the right side of the bed. Other furnishings include a dresser, a single wooden chair, and a nightstand with a reading lamp and a woman’s purse on it. There’s one closet, not yet inspected. About halfway up, the closet door has an approx two-inch hole bored through it. The room shows no damage to indicate struggle.’
I open her purse and rifle through it. ‘The purse contains a Finnish passport issued to Iisa Filippov. From the photo, I believe the victim is indeed Filippov. It also contains a wallet, makeup and related cosmetic accessories, a pack of Belmont cigarettes and orange Bic lighter, a cell phone and a compact Samsung camcorder.’ I unfold a sheet of paper. ‘And a copy of Rein Saar’s work schedule.’
I give Milo a moment to write and catch up, then continue.
‘Filippov appears to be a woman approx age thirty, five foot five inches tall, athletic build, about a hundred and twenty-five pounds.’
I’m careful about what I say, because the recording may be entered into evidence, but before being beaten to a pulp, she must have been damned good-looking. Tanned. Long black hair cut in bangs. One eye is burned through, I guess by a cigarette, but the other is open and also nearly black in color. Great figure, something like 36-23-36.
‘She’s nude and lying face-up on the bed. Her feet are bound tight with several wraps of duct tape. Her hands are behind her back, underneath her.’ I kneel down and look. ‘They’re bound in the same manner. The remainder of the roll of tape is on the nightstand. Her mouth is stuffed with women’s socks. Her clothes – jeans, sweater, panties and bra – are wadded up in a pile on the chair, but I don’t see her socks there, so I think the ones in her mouth belong to her.’
‘Care to add anything?’ I ask Milo.
He shakes his head. ‘Not yet.’
Although this murder scene is gruesome, Milo doesn’t seem fazed by it, shows no sign of coming unglued, like he did last night when we investigated Rauha Anttila’s death.
‘Filippov has been struck multiple times with a blunt instrument. Her forehead is split open. Her left arm is broken just above the elbow. Bone protrudes through the skin. Her chest, on the right side, is flattened, suggesting that multiple ribs are caved in. Nothing in the room seems heavy or hard enough to have inflicted this kind of damage.’
Milo takes a look around. The place hasn’t been dusted for fingerprints yet, so with one gloved finger, he opens the closet door. We look in. I see only men’s clothing and shoes on the floor. A stool is inside; a closet seems a strange place for it. ‘Nothing here either,’ he says.
Then I notice equestrian clothing on the shelf on top of the clothes rack: shirts, breeches, a jacket and helmet. Interesting.
We go back to Iisa’s body. ‘Filippov has in the neighborhood of fifty burn marks on her body. Most are located on her abdomen, her genital area, her nipples, her face, and one through her left eye. The diameter and circular shape of the burns indicate she was burned with lit cigarettes. The wounds could have been inflicted after death, but I think they were probably used as a method of meting out pain. She voided her bowels