I interrupt. “Please get to the point.”
“The tangential flight path of blood droplets is determined with the angle of impact and the offset angle of the blood spatter. They converge at the intersection of two blood-spatter paths, and the stains come from opposite sides of the impact pattern. The area of convergence is formed by the intersection of stains from opposite sides of the impact pattern.”
“Get to the point.”
“I’m trying to. The area of origin is the area in three-dimensional space where the blood source was located at the time of the attack…”
The dark circles around his eyes seem to have taken on a dull shine. I’ve noticed this happens when he gets excited. “Milo, please. The goddamned fucking point.”
He purses his lips, frustrated. I’ve ruined his fun. “The killer didn’t beat her at random. He chose small points on her body, hit the target areas repeatedly to cause maximum pain and damage, resulting in the great number of blood-spatter patterns, then chose a new area of flesh to whip.”
I sigh. “Thank you.”
He’s miffed. “And in case you didn’t know, most of the blood spatter isn’t the result of the riding crop striking her. When the whip recoils away from the body at the bottom of the striking arc but still at high velocity, that’s when the blood really flies.”
I did know, but I’m still not certain if I believe he can work it all out without a computer. I’ll talk to Saska Lindgren after we get photos and data from forensics, and see if he confirms Milo’s version of events.
“He hit her with the riding crop a hundred and twenty-six times,” Milo says.
I’m curious about the extent of his 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.