Snow Woman Read Online Free PDF Page A

living arrangement was that we could ski right from our yard. Breaking trail would be a pleasant change from jogging.
    As I was leaving my office, I ran into Ström in the hallway. Ström had worked straight through Christmas. His ex-wife and her new husband had taken the children to the Canary Islands. Ström looked even more sullen than usual. The skin on his face with its large pores was drawn tight in a frown and his thinning brown hair was plastered to his head. He looked like he’d been sweating. Broken more than once, his nose glowed red on his pale face. I wondered if he was coming down with a cold.
    “I spent the whole day with those goddamn shooters from Perkkaa, and supposedly nobody remembers anything,” Ström snapped in response to my greeting. “I bet they went and got stoned after they shot that guy just so they could claim they didn’t remember anything and no one could be charged.”
    He looked at me and changed gears: “So how did the blushing bride’s Christmas go? Plenty of binge eating and screwing?”
    I’d gotten used to Ström’s rough manner when we were in the same class at the police academy, so I just nodded and smiled. Besides, Ström was right—although I might have expressed our activities a little differently.
    “So do you have a bun in the oven yet?” Ström continued, looking me up and down.
    “That’s none of your business,” I hissed, “but since you’re so interested, it isn’t in the plans. I have an IUD.” I pushed open the door before Ström could whip out any more smart-ass remarks. I wasn’t in the mood for a verbal jousting match, and our conversations almost always turned into arguments. We just didn’t get along.
    Although I’d heard he was the one who recommended I be asked to join the unit, I had worried about coming to work in Espoo with him here. A few years before, when I was working for a law firm in Tapiola, Ström and I had had a serious confrontation over a murder investigation. I was legal counsel for an innocent man whom Ström had arrested. In the end, I solved the case by basically going over the heads of the police. Ström had had a hard time swallowing this. Later I heard that he’d been right in the middle of his divorce at the time and that this had affected his work. Of course, he never talked about his breakup, but Palo’s third wife knew Ström’s ex, and Palo had no qualms about gossiping about Ström’s personal life.
    When I finally left the station, I was met with falling snow. The snow and the Christmas lights burning on the houses along Lower Henttaa Road created a postcard scene. Even our own run-down red cottage looked homey. Antti had lit the candle lantern to welcome me home and was shoveling when I pulled up.
    He waited while I went in to throw on my ski gear and quickly eat a banana. The fresh air washed away my tiredness, and once we were on the trail, I began to enjoy the sound of the snow under my skis, simultaneously familiar yet new to me every winter.
    But my mind kept wandering back to Elina Rosberg. Where on earth could she be? Although I knew Elina Rosberg only from her media image, she didn’t seem the kind of person who did anything on a whim. She was a regular guest on talk shows where issues related to sexuality and gender roles were discussed, and while the other participants tended to lose their cool and shout at each other, Elina always remained maddeningly calm. Usually it was her voice that made the others eventually settle down and listen. No, Elina was not the kind of person to jump on a train for a last-minute visit to a girlfriend in another city. Not without telling anyone and especially not when she had Christmas guests.
    After a couple miles of skiing, my strange exhaustion returned. My legs felt lethargic and weak, as if they no longer wanted to propel the skis forward. Antti was moving along at a steady clip ahead of me, and I had to ask him to slow down.
    “What’s up, snow woman?” Antti