Snow Angels Read Free

myself.
    Judging by the indentations in the snow, it looks like the killer parked, then either dragged Sufia or forced her to crawl away from the car. The snow is about three feet deep and she’s sunk about half that distance into it. She managed to thrash enough to make a snow angel. Her black body is ensconced in white snow stained with red blood. In places, blood has spattered and sprayed two yards away from her. Her corpse is starting to cool, and silver frost is forming on her dark skin, making it shimmer.
    A car pulls off the road and I figure it’s Esko the coroner. The responding officers, Antti and Jussi, are standing there shivering, even though, like me, they have on heavy winter field uniforms and thick hats and gloves. They’re looking useless and might pollute the crime scene tramping around, moving to keep warm. I tell Jussi to walk back up to where the driveway meets the road and look for discarded evidence. If there is any, it will be easy to find with the glare of his flashlight on unbroken snow.
    Antti is our best artist. I take graph paper and a pencil from a tackle box and tell him to make sketches of the crime scene, not an easy task in this bitter cold. He puts chemical hand warmers inside his gloves to keep his fingers from getting stiff and starts drawing.
    Esko comes over and nods hello, doesn’t speak. I tell him to take a look around.
    I get two cameras out of the tackle boxes, one film and one digital, a couple external flash units and a tape recorder. Winter here is an endless night, but the snow reflects what little light there is and casts everything a dim murky gray. I use a Leica M3 to shoot film photos of the surroundings. Old Leicas are well made and don’t use batteries, so they almost never fail because of cold-weather conditions.
    Snow photography isn’t easy. If you use lights or flashes at more than a forty-five-degree angle, everything disappears in the glare. It has to be done with polarizing filters and lights at the level of the snow. I give the cameras to Valtteri. “You know what to do, right?” I ask.
    Valtteri nods, starts setting up the external flash units. “I was going to take my boys deer hunting tomorrow,” he says. “Now I don’t think I have the stomach for it.”
    I wouldn’t either. “Take photos with both cameras,” I say. “I want the snow as intact as possible so evidence doesn’t get mashed up in it, so try to walk in your own footprints.”
    I rub my gloved hands together, try to warm them up. It’s seldom this cold, even here in the lower part of the Arctic Circle, and it creates an odd sensation. There’s a feeling of both heightened and deprived senses. Exposed parts of the body first burn, then ache, then go numb. The senses of touch and smell disappear. The cold makes my eyes run and the tears freeze on my cheeks. I have to squint and it’s difficult to see. Nothing moves, birds don’t sing.
    There would be silence, but cold has a sound of its own. The branches of trees freeze solid and crack under the weight of snow with sounds like muted gunshots. The snow freezes so hard that its surface contracts and takes on a pebbled texture. It crackles underfoot, even when I think I’m standing still.
    We’re in a field about thirty yards east of the main road. A barn with a pen outside it for sick and birthing reindeer stands twenty yards to the north. Aslak’s reindeer number in the thousands, and they’ve earned him a handsome living. His house, an expensive ranch-style brick, is another hundred yards northeast. Christmas lights in the distant windows wink on and off. To the south and west are only barren fields and icy forests.
    The atmosphere is one of isolation, of desolation. It seems an ideal spot for a murder. I picture the murderer turning off the main road, killing his engine and cutting his headlights, gliding to a stop a little way down the drive. The sky is cloudy, no moon or stars illuminate the dark afternoon. The nearest homes