Free Her Enemy by Leena Lehtolainen Page B

Antti’s work, because he was sitting in the backyard reading.
    “Hi, Antti. I had a few minutes, so I thought I’d stop by home. Could we have a talk?”
    “Hmm…” came the answer from behind the book.
    “I know that Armi’s death is a real shock for you, but this situation isn’t my fault. I’m sorry to involve your relatives. Still, Kimmo asked me to help him, and he’s in a really tough spot. If I’m going to help him, I have to do my job, and that might mean asking some uncomfortable questions.”
    The words I was hearing were smoother than I expected to come out of my own mouth. Kind of like a self-help magazine. Still, I forged ahead.
    “I’d like to comfort you, but that would require you letting me get close to you. I’m sad too, even though I didn’t know Armi.”
    I stopped when I noticed how Antti was shaking, laughing and crying at the same time. Gradually, the mixture of the two emotions gave way to uncontrollable laughter.
    “Stop it!” When my shout had no effect, I poured the glass of water sitting next to Antti on his head. Fortunately, that worked, and I didn’t have to resort to slapping him across the face.
    “Oh man,” Antti said, still chuckling as he shook his head and pulled me down next to him. “I was so sure you were pissed at me that I had my own speech ready too, and it would have sounded just as fake. Luckily, you beat me to it. How is Kimmo holding up?”
    Relieved, I told him the latest news and mentioned that I was planning to do some private investigating.
    “Can we talk a little about the people involved in this mess? You know them all so much better than I do.”
    “So I get to be Watson?”
    “Watson is supposed to worship the ground Sherlock Holmes walks on, and that role doesn’t fit you, even if you are a big enough dope otherwise. And we aren’t Tommy and Tuppence either, just plain old Maria and Antti. Let’s just go make lunch, and you can tell me about Sanna’s death.”
    Antti had forgotten to go to the grocery store, but his parents’ pantry still contained a box of pasta and a can of tomato sauce, so I was able to whip up a marinara. Throwing together pasta sauces out of random ingredients hidden in the back corners of my apartment cupboards could actually be considered my culinary specialty. My all-time triumph was a green-pepper–processed-cheese-spread–peanut-butter sauce. Which, believe itor not, wasn’t disgusting. Now we settled for a more normal combination of crushed tomatoes, onions, cheese, black pepper, and dried basil.
    “Well, for starters, I think you’re right that you can’t understand the Hänninen family without knowing about Sanna’s suicide. What do you want me to tell you?” Antti asked as he grated three carrots for us to eat as a salad.
    “Just tell me the story again, like you would tell someone who had never heard it before.”
    And Antti did. He started with Sanna, for whom the best descriptive adjective was clearly “self-destructive.” Sanna, who theoretically had everything.
    She had a good family. Her father was a successful engineer, her mother worked as a teacher, her older stepbrother was happily married, and her younger brother was following in their father’s footsteps.
    She was beautiful. She had large eyes the color of dried oak leaves and long, nearly coal-black hair. Her skin was pale, maybe a little sallow from her destructive lifestyle, but flawless otherwise, except of course in the places she had slashed or burned herself. She had a small nose and a large, sensual mouth that would have made even Nicole Kidman jealous. With her slender frame and large breasts, she was an irresistible combination of girlish insecurity and womanly eroticism.
    She was gifted. Six perfect scores on her college entrance exams may not have meant all that much, even coming from a rural high school, but admission to the University of Helsinki in French and English did. She had planned to be a teacher; in the Hänninen