THE DROPLETS ON the car’s windows mean rising temperatures. Jessica pulls the door shut, and Yusuf starts up the engine. They’ve walked to the parking lot in utter silence. Jessica is scrolling through the unanswered calls on her phone.
“I just wanted to help,” Yusuf says.
“I know. I get it. I didn’t mean to . . .”
The windshield wipers whisk rhythmically across the windshield but leave some drops undisturbed. Apparently the blade on the right-hand wiper has seen better days.
“What did Helminen say?” Jessica finally asks, sweeping a strand of hair back from her forehead.
“Let’s listen to it,” Yusuf says. He pulls a recorder out of his pocket.
YUSUF PEPPLE: . . . first of all, I can assure you that Detective Niemi is in no way involved in the crime.
LAURA HELMINEN: It was that woman. . . . They said she’s the one who’s behind everything. (crying)
YP: (long pause) We’ll come back to that soon. I want you to understand that you’re completely safe now. There’s a really strong, sharp guy standing guard outside that door. No one is going to do anything bad to you. Do you understand?
LH: (sobbing)
YP: Can you tell me what happened? Why don’t you start from the very beginning?
LH: I don’t remember. . . .
YP: What’s the last thing you remember?
LH: I was at home. . . . The doorbell rang. . . .
YP: You were alone?
LH: I live alone.
YP: Who was at the door?
LH: I don’t remember. . . . That’s all I remember. And then I was in this gloomy place. It was sort of like a basement or—
YP: So there weren’t any windows?
LH: It was dark in there. And there was this musty, moldy smell.
YP: Good. You’re doing really well. What else did you see there?
LH: My clothes, they weren’t mine.
YP: A black evening gown?
LH: I don’t own . . . It wasn’t mine.
YP: (pause) What else do you remember?
LH: Down in the basement there was (sobbing) another woman. I didn’t know her, but she was also wearing a black evening dress and expensive shoes.
YP: So you two had been dressed the same way.
LH: And then that man came in. (bursts into tears)
YP: Can you describe him?
LH: Horns . . . He was like an animal or something. A goat or a sheep . . .
Jessica looks at Yusuf. The sounds of crying and consoling come from the recording. Then footsteps. Dr. Kuznetsov says something.
YP: What happened next?
LH: He was speaking Latin. . . . I know it was Latin because I took a semester once.
YP: Did you understand what he was saying?
LH: No . . . I was so fucking scared. But then . . . a moment later he started dancing . . . and waving this wand or something around. It was like some crazy, sick ritual. Both of us were scared out of our wits. And then another man came in. He was wearing a mask with horns too.
YP: Please go on.
LH: They took down this cloth that was hanging on the wall. And I saw the painting. It was of a witch. The witch that was here in this room a little while ago. (crying)
YP: (long pause) What did they say?
LH: (crying)
YP: Laura, you have to focus now. We need to get as much information as possible so we can catch them.
LH: They dragged us into the next room. There was this big wooden tub in there, like one of those wooden hot tubs but huge. I heard one of them splash the water with his hand. They said it was time to perform a test and that if we didn’t have anything to hide, we had nothing to be afraid of. And then . . . (long pause) That’s all I remember.
YP: Do you remember where they took you under the ice? This is important, Laura.
LH: Maybe I woke up underwater. . . . It’s almost as if someone was swimming with me through ice-cold water. (sobbing) But maybe I’m just imagining things. (soft crying)
ALEX KUZNETSOV: All right. This is a good place to take a break. It sounds like all the essential questions have been asked now.
YP: OK. Thank you, Laura. And if you think of anything else, anything at all, tell the doctor. He’ll call us . . . (pause) call me back in. Do we have a deal? Good.
Yusuf stops the recording. The wipers rub against the windshield. Heavy snow falls from the hospital roof; the thud when it hits the ground carries into the car.
“You did a good job, Yusuf. There’s nothing else you could have gotten out of her.”
“This job bites, Jessie.” Yusuf ’s eyes are glazed over. “When I was in there, I was just concentrating on getting all the essential information. It’s only now that I’m listening to the recording that I get how terrified she really was.” Yusuf closes his eyes.
Jessica glances over. Yusuf is sitting at her side, pinching his nose between his fingers. Sometimes she forgets how sensitive he is. Bodies, blood, and guts don’t get to him. But human tragedies, the agony of loved ones, the trauma of those who survive brutal attacks—they often shut him down. The year before, he took a few weeks of sick leave after working on the murder of an eight-year-old girl. She had been killed by her father. Yusuf had a hard time accepting it; he hasn’t liked talking about it to this day. And why should he?
“So Laura Helminen passed the test,” Jessica says a moment later.
“But that doesn’t make any sense. . . . Isn’t the whole point of the test that witches float and innocent people sink?”
“Yeah, I think that’s what Micke said.”
“I doubt either of those poor women actually floated.”
“Not likely.”
“So Helminen was spared for some other reason?”
“The Ice Princess wasn’t as lucky,” Jessica says as Yusuf pulls out into traffic.