Cold Trail
the mall. Of course I’d be particularly interested in any shots of the car.”
    “O f course. It’ll take me a second, though. I can call you back.”
    T akamäki gave Aho his cell phone number, thanked him, and ended the call.
    “W hat footage are you looking for?” Suhonen asked from the doorway. Takamäki hadn’t noticed him. Suhonen stepped in.
    “I t doesn’t have anything to do with this Repo case.”
    “W ith what, then?” Suhonen continued. His curiosity was piqued, because it wasn’t every day that a lieutenant called and asked for surveillance camera footage himself. That was a job for subordinates.
    “ Jonas got hit by a car over at Sello yesterday. I’m just making sure they hold on to the shopping center’s surveillance cam images.”
    “H urt bad?”
    “N ah,” Takamäki answered. “Not too bad. Broke his arm. But the driver fled the scene.”
    Suhonen thought for a second. “Isn’t that an Espoo police case? Or I mean, at least not yours?”
    “Y eah, it’s Espoo’s,” Takamäki admitted, before deciding to change to a less-awkward subject. “Why isn’t Repo back behind bars yet?”
    Suhonen smiled at his lieutenant’s clumsy attempt to change the subject. “’Cause we haven’t found him.”
    “Y ou think you might want to do that?”
    “D o you remember when you ordered me to attend that class given by the Security Police last summer?” Suhonen asked, sitting down in his favorite spot on the windowsill across from Takamäki’s desk.
    “W hat does that have to do with this?”
    “T here was this one army intelligence officer lecturing about military intelligence, and he had a PowerPoint slide that he flashed up on the screen. It was this matrix that said that the most important task of military intelligence is to determine the other nation’s capability and intentions. That’s what helps you assess threats.”
    “A nd?”
    “W ell, I’ve been trying to apply that matrix to Repo. Does this Repo have the capacity for wrong-doing? Okay, he killed his wife years ago, so theoretically the potential exists. Still, I’d estimate his capability as being pretty minimal.”
    Takamäki tried interjecting, “I wouldn’t.”
    “L et me finish. What about his intentions? That’s a trickier thing, because we don’t know why he fled. It’s still pretty hard to see it as a particularly planned escape. It seems to have been more of a momentary impulse. Repo doesn’t belong to a criminal gang, so we can’t conclude, for example, that he’s off on some vendetta he was ordered to handle. That being the case, I would also assess his intent to commit wrong-doing as pretty minimal. And since both factors are low, the threat assessment is also pretty low. The guy’s a sheep . ”
    Takamäki looked at Suhonen. He tried to keep his face serious, but a smile crept into his eyes.
    “B ut guess what. You’re not some major from military intelligence, you’re a...”
    Takamäki held a brief pause, and Suhonen stepped into the trap.
    “I ’m a what?”
    “Y ou’re a shepherd. So get that lost sheep back into the fold, pronto.”
    Suhonen stood and saluted, raising a hand to his nonexistent cap.
    “Y es, sir!”
    At that moment, Joutsamo walked up to the door. “I’m headed up to Riihimäki now,” she said, before registering the scene. “All riiight. No need to explain.”
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 7
    TUESDAY, 11: 20 A.M.
    RIIHIMÄKI POLICE STATION
     
    Joutsamo was sitting in a small, windowless interrogation room. The preliminary investigation report for the Repo case lay open on the brown tabletop. Someone had etched the word “Fuck” into the table. The stack of papers was surprisingly slight, not even half an inch’s worth. She’d been reading the interrogation transcripts for an hour and was almost done.
    The ca se appeared relatively simple. Repo had been drinking at home with his wife. The next morning the police had found Repo sleeping in his bed and his wife

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