IT’S A FEW hundred meters to number 12, and Yusuf decides to make the journey on foot. When sitting in the warm car, a beanie and gloves had seemed unnecessary, but after he’s been at the mercy of the frigid wind for five minutes, he starts missing them badly. It was a mistake leaving them lying between the dash and the windshield.
A fat man in a red-and-black lumberjack coat approaches from the opposite direction; he wraps the leash restraining a small dog around his wrist. To the right of the road, there’s a large lot with a brick house toward the rear. Yusuf stops and raises his hand as the man walks past with his mutt.
“Excuse me.” Yusuf takes out his badge. “Police.”
The man pulls the dog toward him, frowns, and seizes the badge Yusuf is holding out. Looks at it long and hard. No, asshole. It’s not a forgery.
“Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have stopped to chat, but I’ll make an exception,” the man says, and Yusuf doesn’t understand what circumstances he’s referring to: the fact that Yusuf is a police officer or that two homicides just happened on the street. “It’s just terrible. Do you have any leads?”
Yusuf shoves his badge in his pocket. “Do you live around here?”
“Pretty close,” the man says, tossing his head in the direction he came from.
“You follow the news?”
“Kulosaari’s a small place. Not that there’s the same sense of community there used to be. You’re lucky to get a hello out of your neighbor these days. But everyone knew the Koponens. The house was empty until they bought it. When was that? Two years ago? Three?”
“How long was it empty?”
“Since it was built. A local architect designed it but got divorced right after it was finished. He put the house up for sale. Big waterfront lot in a location like that, big house . . . As I recall, the original asking price was appallingly high. Maybe four.”
“Million?”
“No, thousand.” The man chuckles and yanks the dog closer. “Of course million. Then they came down by half a million. And came down more later. I don’t think the Koponens even paid three for it. Then again, how would I know—”
“I see.” Yusuf considers whether to make a note of this detail. The man in the plaid coat strikes him as an awful person. The kind of guy who thinks he knows things, but really—to Yusuf’s chagrin—doesn’t appear to know anything interesting.
“Here’s the number for the tip line. Call it if you remember anything. Anything at all.” Yusuf hands the man a card. It’s the second to last one in his stack.
The man looks at the card and laughs out loud. Yusuf can only guess as to the reason. Then the man grows serious, pulls a poop bag from his pocket, and wishes Yusuf a good evening surprisingly politely.
Goddamn, these people are crazy. They should fence off the whole island.