Lasse Maasalo. Chemistry lecturer, consultant, teacher.
Students say he's strict and picky but intelligent. People like him.
Maasalo works as a consultant to our crime lab.
Many of us know him personally. The guys consider him one of us.
And he's been through so much, people feel for him.
That's exactly why he interests us.
-Hi, is Kari Sorjonen here? -Yes, just a minute.
Lasse quit teaching a year ago when his wife
died of a sudden illness.
-Kari, someone's asking for you. -We're busy!
It's Lasse Maasalo.
Sorry I haven't answered my phone. Our house burned down.
-You are under arrest. -Why?
On probable cause.
Probable cause?
Suspected involvement in criminal activity.
You don't have anything on me, do you?
Hey, take it easy.
I'm not resisting.
How long have you been smoking?
An old habit. Helps me keep my head together.
Twelve years.
I'll be out just before I turn thirty.
-And it won't end there. -Stop.
Wherever I go, if I try to find a job, study place, mortgage.
-This will follow me for the rest of... -Stop that!
All the dead people are connected to a court case Maasalo lost.
We have three days.
I want Maasalo on remand, but with waterproof evidence.
Susi and Jänis. Go through everything that links Maasalo to the victims.
Kari. You interview Maasalo.
I thought they'd keep Kari Sorjonen far away from this case.
Beautiful house.
-It was. -Why did you burn down your house?
I know what you're capable of. You can't help hearing about it.
Sorjonen's skills.
But you're missing the mark now.
Was it to destroy evidence?
Funny you should mention that.
Because no matter what you're able to see with that method of yours.
The one you showed every policeman when you moved here.
You still need evidence.
That house must have felt good.
-The house seems to be in good condition. -It's like winning the lottery.
We need to discuss this.
Sure. Take your time.
The only problem for you
was that your family never got to enjoy the house.
No, we didn't.
According to the evidence
Minna died of a respiratory disease.
And Minna's disease was caused by... What?
Mold in the house, according to you.
But the home inspection report was very clear.
There was no mold in the house.
It's natural to start looking for someone to blame.
I know...
...who to blame for all this.
And human judgment says
that the guilty ones should be punished, right?
Lots of people have died lately of unnatural causes.
Allergic reactions. Erroneous prescriptions.
Head injuries.
One thing connects all the deaths.
That thing is sitting right in front of me.
What do you say?
Kari, please step outside for a minute.
Why is Sorjonen interviewing him?
-He's the best. -Not in this case.
-Sure he is. -Taina, don't.
Sorjonen might just want to prove his daughter's innocence.
-He's just trying to prove who's guilty. -You can't argue that!
Detectives Susi and Jänis are in charge of this case.
They asked Kari to do the interview. I okayed it.
Maasalo and the victims might be connected.
I'll make sure that everything is done professionally.
Lasse Maasalo has been a reliable collaborator with the police.
If the press finds out that the police are able to make a mess like this...
Human trafficking, drug-related deaths, and now - serial murder.
Serial murder?
Kari is able to see through Maasalo.
We have to use that to our advantage.
I was sure they'd change the interviewer.
Why?
Judgment. Yours can't be too good at the moment.
Your daughter is in prison. A murder charge hanging over her.
Anybody out there?
I need to get out!
Hello!
-What's the matter? -Can I get out for a moment?
Are you ill?
I can't take it anymore. Could I just stretch my legs a little?
Let's see.
I've met that realtor, Tuuli Paltemaa, three times.
-At the house-viewing, signing papers... -And in court.
The realtor lied about the house. She took your wife from you.
So you wanted to take Tuuli's husband from her.
Is that so?
Kari?
What is it now?
We found a van near the Paltemaas' cabin. It's Kaartinen's.
And you found Lasse's fingerprints or blood there?
-No. But the car had a stench. -A stench?
Of animals, maybe.
-Pigs? -Possibly.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
I'm close.
In a way he wants to confess, let others know what he's capable of.
I have to go back in there.
You're good at talking.
You could tell me everything, end it all right now.
Let me know how you managed to pull that off.
Even if you got away with it somehow,
it wouldn't bring your wife back.
What's done is done.
How is Pauliina?
That brain cancer of hers...
Nasty business.
So, we're continuing this game.
How did you get Seppo Paltemaa?
Tuuli isn't retired but her husband Seppo was,
so he was often alone at the cabin.
Esko Kaartinen.
Seppo.
Of course.
It didn't happen like that, after all. Delicate skin, it would have left a mark.
How did you sedate him, catch a big fellow off guard?
I used to tell Kia a bedtime story every night.
I didn't read from a book and I didn't know it by heart.
I would make it up as I went along.
Like you're doing now.
You planned everything carefully.
You sailed Seppo's boat from Kotka to Lappeenranta.
Two masts. Quite a big vessel for these waters.
-You can sail further through the canal. -By yourself?
It's manageable.
Do you have ID?
The guy was wearing a cap and...
I get a dozen like him in a day, so I can't say for sure.
This is a copy of a court document.
South Karelia District Court. The plaintiff, Lasse Maasalo.
Case presided over by Judge Kaarle Volkoff.
As the medical experts have stated,
due to the vast number of various microbes,
a causal relationship cannot be shown
rendering it impossible to verify the cause of the symptoms.
Exposure to trilongins in this particular property cannot be proved.
There is nothing to indicate a breach of contract
and it remains valid.
God damn it! My wife is dead!
Therefore, it is the opinion of this court
that there are grounds for a counterclaim.
God damn it!
Anne liked routines.
Read the papers at the library every day.
Waited for her friend at the pottery store in the afternoon.
Then to the cafe. Same coffee, same Danish every day.
A sitting duck. You followed her.
You started to enjoy it...
played with your victim before showing her your cards.
Thanks for stopping. This is embarrassing.
-Ran out of gas? It happens to men, too? -To me, at least.
Was it a surprise that you enjoyed it?
My wife died.
A few years ago.
-I'm sorry. -It was a long illness.
It was very painful.
Like suffocating...
for months on end.
Can you imagine that?
How it must have felt?
This is fine. You can pull over.
-We're in the middle of nowhere. -Will you please just pull over?
Anne died of an allergic reaction,
but she hadn't eaten any nuts.
Did you have the substance in a cloth?
No, it wasn't. An aerosol?
Not that either.
Anne had to get enough allergens.
How did you do it without leaving traces?
Look at the picture.
An allergic reaction killed her.
But you removed the allergens with a plasma fixer.
The newspapers say it was a car accident.
Shouldn't prosecutors do their work independently?
Without orders from anybody.
Make no mistake, charging Janina was my choice.
And the opposition against our unit played no role?
We uphold the law. We don't do politics.
It's hard to believe this about a colleague's daughter,
but Janina had a motive and the opportunity to commit the crime.
-Do you really believe she did it? -What do you believe?
If you just look at the evidence? As a police officer?
This is pretty hard.
Are you having nightmares?
You mustn't do anything stupid. Everything will be fine.
That's not necessarily true. You should know.
It was Elias, actually, who said that.
You just have to have faith that everything will end well.
What?
I didn't know you two were such good friends.
We've just been talking about you.
We just want everything to turn out all right.
We need evidence.
We didn't find Maasalo's fingerprints in the boat.
Nor in Volkoff's car. Just a few hairs and fibers.
Have they been analyzed?
The lab is understaffed, for obvious reasons.
It's hard to handle all the details.
But Maasalo must have made a mistake.
-We've underestimated his meticulousness. -He's a psychopath.
-Thank you, Doctor Jaakkola. -Doctor Jaakkola might be right.
The prosecutor is moving forward. We have forty-eight hours.
Just go home, we'll continue tomorrow.
You're just not a typical mother.
It's almost eleven.
But I'm not calling home, I'm buying us another round.
Two whiskeys.
-Why won't you call? -If we fail, Janina will be convicted.
If that happens, Kari will quit. And if he quits, so will I.
I don't want to worry about all that,
drinking whiskey with my daughter. Like a typical mother would.
Just to let you know, typical mothers don't drink whiskey with their children.
Moisture damage spreading microbes
through indoor air.
Mold incubation period
CASINO CONTRACTS
Can you hear me?
I made coffee. Do you hear me?
Where are you going?
We've been through this. I want to be close to Janina.
That's a good idea.
The drive there and back is insanely long.
Are you alright?
Lost in thought.
-Robert is giving me a ride. -A ride?
I have to go.
Did you sleep well?
Or not at all?
-Looks like you did. -Why shouldn't I?
You're right.
A person who is innocent can sleep well in police custody.
How well do you know Ilkka Miettinen, the home inspector?
-There's probably mold here. -What if you turned a blind eye to it?
-I can't do that. -If we fix everything before the sale.
I can't go along with that.
It would only be fair to pay a small reward for that kind of trust.
-Ten per cent. -Of my fee?
-Of the whole price. -Come on. Two.
Five.
Five will get my mother in a private care home.
Two is more than nothing.
Three and a half.
You altered his mother's prescription.
Overdose, prescription error. Seems like an accident.
Could somebody have forged the prescription?
Who would do that?
Shall I help?
Well?
-Paper prescriptions are tricky to forge. -Why?
But there are other kinds of prescriptions nowadays.
Electronic prescriptions. Civil servants have access to the records.
As do the staff at the crime lab.
My wife's illness. You've checked my family's background.
You keep wanting to correct me.
To finish my sentences. Why not confess? You have nothing to lose.
I do.
Your daughter? You lost her already.
So did you.
You made a big mistake.
You got my family mixed up in this.
Everyone else are involved in your loss,
but I don't have anything to do with it.
And if I plead self-defense?
Imperfect self-defense. It will save you two long years.
Meaning?
A case like this can drag on for quite long.
And cost a lot of money. You should consider that.
Confess to involuntary manslaughter now.
Then prove you had to defend yourself and lost control.
Can I have a word with my daughter?
-We can't even consider this. -I can't remember anything that night.
-What if I did it? -You didn't.
I'm warning you.
Keep your personal emotions out of the case.
Emotions are good.
They drive me forward. I can't work without them.
This is what we have.
Feet and legs. A few fingers.
And the torso.
We'll have to pull the truth out of those.
HP is trying to identify the burnt body from dental records.
-But you have a hunch already? -Seppo Paltemaa.
You've told me not make assumptions? Aren't you making one?
I'm trying to follow Lasse's pattern.
OK, Miettinen forged the home inspection report
so Lasse forged his mother's prescription. Assumingly.
Volkoff's verdict took away Lasse's wife, so Lasse took away his.
Anne caused pain to Lasse's wife,
so Lasse burned her husband alive.
The question is: What did Janina do to Lasse and his family?
Not Janina. Me.
-What have you done? -No idea. But I'm going to find that out.
-I'm getting tired of this. -We have twenty hours.
-Unless you want to confess. -Confess what?
-You framed my daughter. -Why would I do that?
Esko Kaartinen's report to his superiors.
Kia Maasalo's foster care case.
-She's seen a doctor quite often lately. -It's this house.
It makes Kia's asthma worse.
-Would she be better off somewhere else? -She would!
But the court has made that impossible.
Are there any relatives Kia could stay with...
...temporarily.
They're blaming me for what happened to Minna.
I have to ask you something.
There was an...
...altercation at the hospital.
I remember. I was there, at the hospital.
I heard you. You went ballistic.
It seems like you can't cope as a single parent.
I have to recommend placing Kia into foster care.
Esko Kaartinen was gay, by the way.
He wasn't into girls, regardless of age.
And so what if somebody had seen you?
Just a couple of drunken sailors returning to the boat.
At the marina on a summer evening. A risk, nonetheless.
But at that point, you started to get off on that, didn't you?
Are there any oncologists present?
It's Marika from the ER. A police officer wants to see you.
Your outburst was the last straw.
Kia was placed into foster care.
But you know what?
You were right. It wasn't police business. I misused my position.
You lost your daughter, now I have to lose mine.
This guy is fucking stupid, left his name in the video files. Esko Kaartinen.
Are you Esko Kaartinen?
I suppose I am.
Are you a nutcase or just a regular pervert, if I may ask?
I reckoned you would come here alone.
-Your father's daughter. -Do you know him?
Not well.
But that will change, I'm sure. How is your mother?
Leave my family alone! Leave me alone!
Let me go! Let me go!
Let me go or I'll kill you!
-Men's locker room. -Tomorrow is our last chance.
We can keep him in the interview room.
Kari. Who's more tired, you or him?
He's lying. All the time.
I want something concrete.
Drag the lake. Find the hammer.
Drag Lake Saimaa?
-Go home, Kari. -But...
That's an order.
Hi. Any news?
Janina didn't do it.
OK, you sound pretty sure.
Lasse Maasalo killed Kaartinen and quite many others.
Can you prove it?
Not yet. But I still have about twenty hours.
We'll talk later. I have to get some rest.
Okay, bye.
You want to make a criminal case of the casino project?
Kari has all the files. You should be held accountable for any illegalities.
Why tell me this now?
The proof against you is in those three documents.
Kari can't find them now. He can't accuse you of anything.
If you try to get Janina out of prison, I won't tell him anything.
She can't take it. You're the only one who can get her out.
I won't be able to do that.
I can call the prosecutor, Eronen.
But I have practically no say in the matter.
I want to see all your evidence against me.
-You might be keeping me here illegally. -Maasalo may be right.
Circumstantial evidence isn't enough,
and as far as I know, he hasn't been told about anything else.
-We still have a few hours. -I have no intention to obstruct justice.
And you have no reason to assume that I'm a flight risk.
Nothing you say is true. You forget I can see that.
-Why did Paltemaa burn your house down? -To save face.
No mold, no proof, no shame.
You're lying to me. I can see that.
-Henttunen? -You're fucking lying.
-Kari. -You're lying!
-Get out, Kari. -You're lying to me.
Get out!
As evidence shows, I had nothing to do with these events.
What about Volkoff's wife? And Miettinen's mother?
Seppo Paltemaa clearly had mental problems.
Don't the police have specialists who can find out those things?
And I'm not a policeman, but...
but I believe Sorjonen's daughter attacked the wrong man.
How are you coping, honey?
I can't take another night here.
Hang in there a little while longer, honey.
Don't give up. We can't give up.
We're going to catch the real perpetrator, we're close.
-How is it going? -Not too well.
We need you here. Janina worries me.
Keep an eye on her.
Visiting hours end soon. Then we're all alone over here.
They let Maasalo go.
EVIDENCE SEND
Hello.
Accident?
An explosion in a room containing nothing explosive.
Any victims?
The explosion in the hotel room was so severe
it hurled most of Maasalo's remains all the way to a nearby graveyard.
-Can we get a positive ID? -We'll probably get a sample out of these.
In addition to this ring.
Kari!
If that's Maasalo, there goes my last chance to save Janina.
Hello?
I got an email five minutes before the explosion. From Maasalo.
An email?
"I have nothing to live for. And I won't go to prison."
So, it was a suicide.
And this: "All Kari's theories were right."
-A confession. Will it stand up? -The email contained attachments.
The first one is the chemical formula for the plasma fixer.
And the rest?
Evidence that Lasse was behind everything.
-Oh hell. -Should we call the prosecutor?
-It's four in the morning. -I can do it.
Subpoena. Suspected of causing grievous bodily harm
What's that?
Some people think we're not welcome here.
Maybe we aren't.
We can leave whenever we want. Just say the word.
I'm not going. I'm not going anywhere.
I don't care whether people want us here.
We can do whatever we like.
What do you think?
Do I like you
because you're the kind of guy my dad doesn't me to go out with?
You think too much.
I've had time to think.
Janina.
-They wouldn't let us visit you. -Us?
-No one. -That's not true.
-Family members only. -Stop it.
Katia came to see me.
What are we?
What are you to me?
A boyfriend?
Perhaps you should ask your father.
Even if you got away with it somehow, it wouldn't bring your wife back.
What's done is done.
-Confess. You have nothing to lose. -I do.
Your daughter? You lost her already.
So did you.
ORPHANAGE
-Is dad home? -He's still at work.
-Janina. -What is it?
Back to normal. No matter what happens to us, he's always at work.
Go and have a look why he shouldn't change.
-Dad didn't want me to go there. -Go and see what he's done for you.
WHO SENT THE VIDEO TO JANINA?
-Kia Maasalo has disappeared. -Disappeared?
No one knows where she is.
Alone?
Lasse Maasalo gave my daughter back to me
to buy himself some time. To get his own daughter back.
Is Lasse Maasalo alive?
-He had this all planned out. -Niko Uusitalo, SECRI.
Put out an APB for Lasse Maasalo, 40.
-His daughter, Kia, is with him. -I should have predicted this.
Maasalo, Kia. K-i-a. Five years old.
I didn't ask the right questions. I just had to nail him for Janina's sake.
I never stopped to ask why Lasse did all this.
Revenge was never the reason. Kia was, his own daughter.
Thank you.
-He fooled me. -You were right.
-The burned body was Seppo Paltemaa's. -He fooled me.