Free Darling by Jarkko Sipila Page A

home.
    Lind was from Lieto, a town about ten miles northeast of Turku. Her Turku dialect faded while she was getting her Helsinki University law degree in the early ’90s. She specialized in tax law and was successful at a mid-sized law firm. In 2000 she was recruited to one of the top firms in the country, but her career hit a wall there—not right away, but during the early 2000s recession when the firm went through a restructuring and downsized.
    She ended up on the team led by sixty-something-year-old Oscar Francke, one of the senior partners. Lind became a pawn in all the discord about who would be let go. Francke wanted to keep someone else, but he was forced to take Lind as a compromise. She hoped to prove herself through hard work, but things only got worse. Her every report, plan, and brief was nitpicked, scrutinized, and modified. Her intelligence and acumen irritated Francke. It didn’t help that she always said exactly what she thought—a trait that should’ve been considered a plus in a law firm, but wasn’t.
    Lind finally got fed up with the constant aggravation when Francke blamed her for an oversight that ended up costing a client hundreds of thousands of euros. In reality, it had been Francke who forgot to file an appeal on time. Lind suspected that he did it on purpose. Fortunately, Francke didn’t demand that Lind repay the client from her own account, but the firm took care of it.
    Lind’s patience had reached its limit, and she quit. But it was difficult for her to find a new position in the small, incestuous world of Helsinki corporate lawyers. Despite a confidentiality agreement, Francke spread rumors that made it impossible for Lind to get hired. She considered starting a small accounting firm, but thought it was too boring. So she started a firm specializing in criminal law. She was on her own but planned to get a partner at some point, and hire an intern, maybe even a secretary.
    The captain announced that the plane would be landing at Helsinki-Vantaa airport in about twenty minutes. The pilot said that a couple of inches of snow had fallen overnight and more would come during the day. The temperature was twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit.
    So far Lind had only handled small cases like drug-related charges and domestic abuse cases. She had also defended a man charged of bankruptcy fraud. While she was fully qualified, she realized she didn’t like numbers anymore. She wanted to do something different.
    Instead of being focused on numbers and money, a criminal justice lawyer had to care about people and their bad luck, sob stories, and unfortunate fates; about stupid mistakes, hatred, and utter evil.
    This was her first murder case. She wondered what it would feel like to defend a person who had killed another. For the justice system to work, the suspect had to have a capable attorney. With the police and prosecutor working against the defendant, a solid defense had to be provided, since everyone was presumed innocent until the court decided otherwise. Up until now, all of Lind’s clients had been found guilty, but there was one case she believed she had won. A woman accused of grand larceny could have been sentenced to prison, but Lind was able to get her probation.
    The murder case made her nervous. As soon as she hung up the phone in Rome, she regretted not getting more details from the police.
     
    * * *
     
    Korpivaara lay on the cot. He felt like he hadn’t slept a wink, but drifted in and out of some sort of stupor. He had expected death, but it hadn’t come. The cell door clanged. His head pounding and eyes watering, Korpivaara clambered up to sit. He felt grungy.
    The guard came in, and behind him a familiar-looking woman. Korpivaara remembered that the brunette had talked to him the night before. That seemed like a lifetime ago and his memory was muddled. During the night he had time to think.
    “How are you feeling?” the detective asked. Korpivaara thought he detected a hint of