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capabilities. “What’s your IQ?” I ask.
    He’s embarrassed, flushes again. “A hundred seventy-two.”
    “Let’s go talk to Rein Saar,” I say.
    We turn the crime scene over to the forensics team. We didn’t inspect the other side of Iisa Filippov’s body, because the front of it hasn’t been photographed yet. I ask them to let us have a look when they flip her over.
    Rein Saar’s elbows rest on the kitchen table, his chin on his hands. I sit across from him, start the audio recorder and lay it between us. Milo remains standing. “Mr. Saar, how are you holding up?” I ask.
    “My head hurts,” he says. “You can call me Rein.”
    “All right, Rein. You can call me Inspector Vaara.” He blinks, nonplussed by my cold manner, which was my intention. “Tell me what happened,” I say.
    I see a handsome man beneath his bloody face. Athletic medium build. Swarthy and dark-headed. On the tall side.
    “Iisa agreed to meet me at seven thirty this morning. When I walked in, I was attacked from behind. I blacked out and don’t know anything else. Somebody hit me on the head. When I woke up beside her, she was already dead.”
    “Where were you this morning, prior to coming home?”
    “I spent the weekend in Estonia, in Tallinn, at my sister’s wedding. I came home on a ferry with some friends and family. We partied the whole way, and kept the party going all night in Helsinki.”
    “So you haven’t slept and you came home drunk.”
    He nods. “I’m still drunk. Thank God.” He points at a cabinet. “There’s a whiskey bottle in there. Can I have it?”
    His hangover will kick in soon and it might make it harder to interview him. Besides, some truth serum might not hurt. I nod to Milo. He gives Saar the bottle and a glass. Saar pours a healthy drink and slurps. A pack of Marlboro Menthol Lights is on the table in front of him. He lights one. I note that there’s a carton of them in the cabinet where Saar keeps his whiskey. The killer had to go through at least a few cigarettes to inflict that many burns. I get up and check the kitchen and bathroom trash cans. No cigarette butts. The killer took them with him.
    I sit down again. “And the purpose of meeting Iisa Filippov was what?” I ask.
    He lifts his face from his hands. He folds them in front of him on the table, looks into my eyes and sighs.
    “You may think it’s a stupid question,” I say, “but all information pertinent to this case must be directly stated.”
    “We were meeting for the purpose of engaging in sex,” he says.
    The Finnish and Estonian languages are closely related. So much so that even if he spoke Estonian, I could understand some of what he said. His Finnish is good, but his Estonian accent makes him sound silly, like a child in the process of learning how to speak.
    “Tell me about your relationship.”
    “I met Iisa about two years ago at the Equestrian Academy. I was her teacher. She is-was-married. We started an affair almost right away. You should be questioning her husband, not me. He’s the only one who would want to do something like this.”
    “Trust me, I’ll speak with him, but that’s not your concern. Right now, I want to give you my undivided attention. You should know that it looks bad. She’s dead, in your bed, and she was beaten with a riding crop I found in your closet.”
    According to the nonexistent police handbook, I shouldn’t have related this nugget of information, but I wanted to see the look on his face when I said it.
    He’s on the verge of panic, starts to twitch. “With my riding crop?”
    “Yep.”
    “Somebody broke in and attacked us both. I can’t help it if the person used something that belonged to me.”
    “Who has keys to your apartment?” I ask.
    “Just me and Iisa.”
    I tell Milo to check the front door for signs of forced entry. He leaves the room. We still haven’t found the blunt instrument used in the murder. I stand up and look around the kitchen. It’s