Mudasegaja armuke - Juhan Paju

It had been a long time since the town of Haapsalu had offered such perfect conditions for a murder. Now, don’t go thinking that such opportunities are constantly being sought here, or that a killing follows the moment one is found. Statistics show that, in any given year, Haapsalu sees perhaps one violent altercation or traffic accident with grave consequences—and sometimes, even that happens only every other year. More heinous crimes tended to occur outside the town limits. Since the watchful eye of the local constable could not reach every corner of the sparsely populated Lääne County, many a criminal developed a sense of impunity; their most frequent targets were elderly couples living alone on remote forest or coastal homesteads—people who had spent their entire lives there and, despite the pleas of their children, had no intention of moving to town. Such couples had a steady income, and anyone setting out to snatch their pension was—quite correctly—convinced that a stash of "funeral money" was hidden away somewhere in a cupboard, tucked between the bed linens. Once a year, or perhaps every other year, such a "visit" would end in tragedy; yet, as a rule, Criminal Investigation Commissioner Toivo Kivistik managed to apprehend the culprits and drag them into the dock.
On the evening of August 24th, no gut feeling or inner voice warned the Commissioner that something monstrous was about to happen. The traditional White Lady Days were opening in Haapsalus; naturally, there were a few more police patrols in town today, as people had gathered from all over Estonia—and the commissioner’s superior, the prefect, was fond of saying that "you never know what a gander might do..."