JESSICA GLANCES AT the clock. It’s almost nine. She’s sitting alone at the table in her studio, staring at the poster in front of her: it’s formed of four sheets of typing paper held together with Scotch Tape. On it, she has collated all the information about the crimes that have taken place over the past twenty-four hours.
A moment earlier, Yusuf sent her a bunch of pictures of the Haltiala victim. It’s a thirty-year-old woman. Black hair, beautiful. Dressed in a black evening gown. Just like the other three victims, of whom Laura Helminen is the sole survivor.
In the photograph, the as-yet-unidentified woman is lying between two sheets of heavy-duty plywood. Large stones have been piled on the upper sheet; their weight has gradually killed the defenseless victim. Jessica compares the photographs from the scene to a historical drawing she found online, as well as to the killing in the final installment of Roger Koponen’s trilogy.
BOOK III
Woman, crushed to death (gradually, with heavy stones)
Both the Haltiala murder and the scene from Koponen’s book faithfully reproduce the image from the Wikipedia article “Crushing (execution)”: a drawing of the death by crushing of a farmer named Giles Corey during the Salem witch trials of the sixteen nineties.
Jessica studies the close-up the CSI took of the woman’s face. It doesn’t appear to be in pain, more like tranquil. She must have been anesthetized when the stones were heaped on her. The thought is simultaneously horrific and comforting. Anything is better than a slow, agonizing death—and the unfathomable fear that would precede it.
Jessica looks up at the ceiling and feels the stiff muscles in her sides stretch. She has exercised less over the last six months than she has in ages. The spinal damage she suffered in the car crash when she was six no longer torments her as frequently as it once did, but it’s clear that if she keeps neglecting the rehabilitation exercises tailored for her, the problems will return. Sometimes when she gets up from the couch or the bed, Jessica can’t feel the first step she takes; she can’t sense the contact her heel makes with the floor or the weight of her body on her calves. She doesn’t necessarily feel anything when she takes an elbow to her funny bone during the unit’s basketball games; the pain doesn’t come until later, when she’s particularly stressed. Jessica’s body won’t ever function normally; however, thanks to persistent training, she has achieved a level of physical conditioning that made the admissions test for the police academy child’s play.
But Jessica’s health records include no mention of spinal damage. There was no accident. Jessica has never been a von Hellens. She never had parents, a childhood in Bel Air, a little brother whose beautiful eyes begged for help.
Jessica feels her brother’s fingers wrap around her own.
It’s OK, Toffe. Everything’s going to be OK.