My First Murder Read Online Free PDF

the
Marlboro of Finland
—do you remember all the noise about cigarette ads again this summer?—anyway, to check whether it’s in port right now somewhere and whether this Peter Wahlroos might have come to Finland for some reason in the middle of his race. I’d imagine that’s pretty well impossible. Who knows though. Maybe the guy has hot Viking blood in his veins: if Penelope isn’t up to fending them off, then Odysseus has to teach the suitors some manners.”
    I stopped mixing my myths as Timo Huttunen walked in. The thought of a vengeful husband hiding in muddy deck shoes in the bushes did not feel nearly as believable as Sirkku’s hopefulsuggestion that the murderer was probably some random passerby. I imagined they all hoped that.
    Timo mostly seemed bored. With his blue-gray eyes, straw-colored flattop, and sturdy frame, he brought to mind his namesake from Aleksis Kivi’s
Seven Brothers
. At first glance, I would never have guessed that he did anything art-related, at least not classical music. He was the kind of guy you saw hanging out at the pub next door to the gym, working on his third beer. His opening line took me by surprise:
    “I hope that neither of you was unkind to Sirkku. She is completely devastated by what happened.” The image of the jock with the tankard crumbled in the face of his refined, almost prim manner of speaking.
    Timo explained that he was working at an agricultural machinery dealership over the summer. He had been singing with EFSAS for three years. His account of the events of the previous night more or less matched Sirkku’s version: sitting around the table and on the deck, fooling around in the sauna (he blushed with pride, and the beer tankard image flashed across my mind again), sweet nothings whispered in front of the fireplace. Timo had slept like a log and not woken up when Sirkku went to the bathroom, so he was unable to say how long she had been away. Interestingly, Timo had his own theory about why Tommi might have been murdered.
    “I don’t personally have anything against Tommi, but I had a hard time watching his screwing around. I didn’t like the way he flirted with Pia. She’s married, for God’s sake. Antti didn’t like it either, and he said as much to Tommi.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, Peter—Pia’s husband—was Tommi and Antti’s old buddy. Pia probably met Peter through them in the first place.I went to take them a couple of beers in the sauna and couldn’t help overhearing Antti saying to Tommi something along the lines of, ‘Don’t mess up your friend’s life, he’s got enough problems as it is.’ Then Tommi said that she didn’t seem to have anything against it. At that point, I turned around and went back inside because I didn’t want to hear any more.”
    “So neither of them said explicitly that they were talking about Pia and Peter?”
    “No, but who else could it have been about?” Timo’s light blue eyes stared at me inquiringly. “Tommi was a pain when it came to women. He always had to hit on every girl he saw. I only got to know him better when he and Jaana broke up—you were Jaana’s old roommate, right?—and since then he’s constantly been on the prowl. Musically he can really, I mean
could
really, bring it; he was a good singer. Which he knew all too well himself. He was the leader of the group, after all.”
    There was clearly some bitterness in Timo’s tone. Had Tommi criticized Timo’s singing ability?
    “He had a good degree, and I think he had just been promoted at work. I suppose he got paid pretty well too—at least that’s the impression I got judging from his clothes and stuff...He had plenty to think about besides women, but somehow, I got the sense that they were what he mostly thought about.”
    I got the feeling that Timo was relieved to have Tommi out of the business of seducing other men’s women.
    Riku Lasinen, on the other hand, at first seemed genuinely grief-stricken. His eyes were