Night Rounds

Chapter 15

THE FLAYED BODIES hung close together, making it difficult for Irene to move. She crept forward carefully and tried to avoid touching them. Thick slime on the floor engulfed her feet. From far off she heard Jenny’s cries for help. She knew that forcing her way through would not work, because the heavy bodies would fall off their hooks and cover her. The slime rose further, and she realized she’d soon be trapped among the cadavers. Jenny’s desperate voice was getting fainter. Soon she’d be beyond all help.

IRENE SAT UP straight in bed, covered in sweat. Darn it, she still hadn’t had a chance to ask Jenny about the posters rolled up under the bed. Sunday evening, after the girls had returned from their skiing trip, had been too busy. The girls had so much to tell, and all their suitcases needed to be unpacked. Last night she hadn’t had any time either.

Irene lay back down and tried to calm her thoughts. She turned her head cautiously to look at Krister. He was sleeping on his back, right arm stretched over his head, and he was snoring loudly. Irene nudged him. Without waking up he rolled onto his side and grunted. His snoring quieted.

Irene hadn’t told him about the posters. It was pure cowardice on her part, she knew. On the other hand, she didn’t know how he would react if she told him Jenny had a stash of protest placards for the Animal Liberation Front hidden under her bed. He’d been so unhappy about her veganism; this was one step further and obviously much more serious.

It was useless to stay in bed and stare into the darkness. There was only one thing to do—this evening she’d have to talk to Jenny.

Although she’d made up her mind, she still couldn’t fall back asleep. Of course, her alarm clock rang just as she dozed off.

TO IRENE’S SURPRISE, Svante Malm was at morning prayer.

“Morning, everyone,” Andersson began. “Svante has other places to go, but he has something important to say. Go ahead, Svante.”

“Yes, well, I forgot to inform you that we secured evidence in the dust on the floor of the attic. Just inside the doorway, we saw signs that a body had lain on the floor. We identified strands of Linda’s hair there and also signs of a body being dragged to where she was hung. There was a great quantity of dust from the floor on her clothes. We have concluded that her body lay on the floor right behind the door and only later was dragged to the place where it was found.”

“So yesterday’s summary of what might have happened appears correct. Linda was murdered first and then Marianne,” Irene said. She nodded at Hannu. He barely nodded in return and kept his calm gaze on the technician.

“There was a shoe print in the dust as well. There were a number of scuff marks, but only one clear print. A well-built female shoe with a heel. Probably size eight and a half or nine.”

Svante Malm raised his hand in good-bye and hurried out of the room.

There were a few moments of silence after he left. The superintendent stared gloomily at the door, then barked, “Ghosts don’t leave shoe prints.”

No one had anything to add after that, and they all quickly decided to get on with the investigation.

• • •

IRENE, TOMMY, AND Hannu discussed ways to proceed with their assignment.

“I want to talk to Carina Löwander,” Irene said. “Anyone want to come with me?”

“You go,” Hannu said, nodding toward Tommy. Hannu didn’t say what he planned to do, and something made his colleagues decide not to ask. Instead they agreed to meet again at three in the afternoon.

SOMETIMES YOU GET lucky, Irene told herself when Carina Löwander answered the home phone.

“Good morning. This is Criminal Inspector Irene Huss. I’m wondering if we could meet today and have a quick talk.”

“Yes, that’s fine,” Carina said, sounding very interested.

“Can we come now?” Irene asked.

“Sure.”

Carina sounded wide awake and energetic. She’d probably already concluded her first round of exercises and had eaten a biodynamic breakfast of granola and sun-ripened grapefruit. Then she’d taken an ice-cold shower before she applied her makeup and dressed in her best Armani jacket.

Irene scolded herself for having those thoughts. Simply a case of jealousy. Carina Löwander was beautiful, in great shape, and drove a BMW. And was married to Sverker to boot.

THE POLICE CAR was light blue, the color of the Swedish flag. A practically new Ford Fiesta. Irene parked it on the blacktop driveway in front of the garage. The Löwander residence was a large modern house, plastered in a warm apricot color with doors and window frames picked out in a reddish brown brick color.

Carina Löwander opened the door at the same time they rang the bell. She looked every bit as fresh as Irene had imagined.

“Hi. Come on in. I’ve just made coffee. Would you like some?”

“Yes, please,” Tommy and Irene said in unison.

Carina ushered them toward the living room, which Irene immediately baptized “White Sea” in her head. The room was large and airy. Light streamed through colossal bay windows framed by thin white silk curtains. The walls were painted a bright white. The sofa group was also white, and the stripes on the black-and-white abstract rug were just as blinding. The rug must be at least thirty feet square. Irene pictured someone trying to carry it outside to beat it clean. Impossible. Supposedly an eleven-year-old girl lived in this house. Irene thought about how her house had looked when the twins were that age. Crumbs and chips all over her rugs. This rug might not require a beating, as it appeared neither children nor adults spent time in this room. Everything was clean and clinically white. Cold and perfect.

Three enormous paintings were hung on the wall. All three had different color schemes, but the motif was the same—large waves at sea. In one of the paintings, sunlight struck deep into the waves, giving them a turquoise glow.

Carina came through the doorway with a percolator in one hand and three ceramic mugs clustered together by their handles in the other. “Milk or sugar?”

Irene and Tommy declined, both preferring black. After she filled the mugs, Carina sat in one of the armchairs. She was wearing black stretch pants, a black silk top, and a clear blue jacket that matched her eyes. Her skin was faultlessly tanned, and her face could have belonged to a fashion model. Close up she appeared thirty; no one would have imagined she was really thirty-six. It pained Irene to admit to herself how beautiful Carina was.

“You’re in luck that today’s Thursday. I go in to work at noon on Wednesdays and Thursdays, but I work until ten at night. Tuesdays are the worst. I start working at Corporate Health Services in the morning and finish with aerobics at night.”

“Sounds like a tough schedule to me,” Tommy said. “We’ve gotten some information that we need to run past you—just routine. Hope that’s okay.”

“Sure, no problem.”

“Can you tell us more about your work?”

“I have two jobs. I have a half-time position leading a rehabilitation group at Corporate Health. My other part-time job is more fun. I lead aerobics and exercise groups at a gym. I like aerobics the best. But still, I do use my real training more with the rehabilitation group.”

“I’ve heard you’re a physical therapist,” Tommy said.

“That’s right, but after a while I realized I wanted to work with healthy people, too. That’s the real way to go. If people exercised regularly, they wouldn’t need rehabilitation.”

“Have you worked at Löwander Hospital as a physical therapist?” Irene asked, although she already knew the answer.

“Yes. My first job was at Löwander.”

“And that’s where you met your husband?” Irene asked innocently.

A gleam of mistrust appeared in Carina’s eyes. “I took it for granted that you’d already heard the old gossip. It goes around at the speed of light at Löwander.”

“Was that why you quit your job there?”

“In part. Many people there liked Barbro and thought that Sverker and I … betrayed her. The whole thing was awful. Barbro had had periods of depression long before Sverker and I became a couple. She was psychologically unstable, you could say. Sverker and I had a passionate relationship. When we realized it was serious, we hesitated to tell her because of her nervous temperament. We didn’t want to hurt her. But once I knew I was pregnant, the whole thing came to a head. But we still didn’t know what to do. And then one of the gossips at the hospital called Barbro and told her everything. It was … horrible. She totally fell apart.”

“Do you know who told on you?” Irene asked.

“No. I kept working at the hospital a few more years before I decided to change jobs. But I was never able to find out who told her.”

“Is there anyone you suspect?”

“Well, there are a few old nurses and secretaries who were openly hostile toward me. They could never accept that Sverker and Barbro divorced and blamed me. But I never knew which one was the snitch.”

“What happened to Barbro right after the divorce?”

“She was in and out of a mental hospital. Several times. Like I said, she fell apart as soon as she knew that Sverker and I had a relationship. I believe she still takes a bunch of pills. I really don’t know for sure. But at times she’s really … strange.”

“Do you run into each other often?”

Carina looked at Irene in surprise. “No. Never. She’s refused to meet me since they divorced. We just talk on the phone when it’s necessary. Nowadays John and Julia are all grown up, so there’s hardly any reason for us to contact each other.”

“Do you find it difficult to deal with her?”

“Not really. But she can’t stand me. I believe that we should get over our differences for the sake of the children and at least be polite. She refuses. The worst of it is that she’s turned the children against me and Sverker. Only God knows what nonsense she’s stuffed into their heads, but Sverker and his children have never gotten along.”

Irene thought it was time to get down to the real business at hand. “We’re here today mostly to listen to your version of what happened when the doctor’s mansion burned down. We know that Barbro accused you of setting the fire and that there was an investigation.”

A shadow of rage passed swiftly over Carina’s face but disappeared just as fast. Her voice did not even hint at irritation, but rather at deep sorrow.

“Unfortunately, this was at the same time that Barbro was at her worst. Of course we all felt sorry for her. Jealousy made her paranoid, and it spilled over. She wanted me in jail for arson. She even suggested Sverker had a hand in it so that he could get the insurance money.”

“What were her reasons for suspecting you of arson?”

“Supposedly I set fire to the house because I didn’t want to live there. Sverker was supposed to have wanted the insurance money so that we could buy this house for ourselves.”

“Did she make it up out of thin air?”

“Completely! Sverker had just inherited a great deal of money from his father. Almost three million crowns. He didn’t need insurance money. He would have been better off if he’d just sold the mansion outright. The profit from its sale would have been more than insurance, let me tell you.”

“And the idea that you didn’t want to live there?”

Carina’s face had turned an indignant red. It intensified the blue of her eyes. “I was only twenty-four. I thought the mansion was too old and too big. Barbro and Sverker had begun renovations, but they hadn’t gotten very far. The expense weighed on them. The entire place was run-down, and nothing had been done to it since the end of the nineteenth century. For me it was mostly because Barbro had lived there and set her stamp on the house. She has no taste. But I would have accepted living there as long as I was with Sverker.”

“So you’re saying that Barbro’s accusations are without merit,” Irene summarized in her most neutral voice.

“That’s right. And if I didn’t want to move into the mansion, I just would have refused to do so.”

“But you were pregnant,” Tommy said.

“That wouldn’t have changed anything. I wanted to live with Sverker, even in the mansion if that’s what he wanted. But he didn’t want to either. Before we’d decided what to do, the place burned down.”

“Was anyone at home when it caught fire?” Tommy asked.

“No. The fire started around ten in the morning. Both Sverker and I were at work. Of course, it’s just a stone’s throw away, but neither one of us was at home.”

Irene pondered this for a minute. Then she asked, “Could Barbro have set the fire?”

Carina sighed again. “They investigated everything at the time. There was never any proof of arson. The final decision was that there had been a short in the electrical system. The house was really extremely old.”

The police officers drank the last of their coffee, stood up, and thanked Carina for her time.

Carina walked them to the doorway and waved good-bye.

Reflexively, Irene waved back.

“SHE WAS NICE. And boy, she’s a beauty,” Tommy said.

Irene was not able to stop herself, but to her dismay she heard herself say, “Not to mention thin.”

Tommy laughed out loud, and she was relieved that he thought she was joking.

He glanced sideways at her and said, “And her husband’s not that bad either. Kind of like Pierce Brosnan—you know, the guy who played James Bond.”

Irene did her best to appear indifferent. Tommy continued, “Speaking of Dr. Löwander, don’t you think it’s time to pay him another visit?”

OF COURSE ALL surgery was canceled at Löwander Hospital. They found Sverker Löwander in the office, flipping through sheets of paper. He’d had the chance to take a shower since they’d last seen him. He was no longer wearing a white coat, and his outfit, a royal blue polo shirt and jeans, should have given him a more relaxed look. The tired lines in his face told Irene he wasn’t relaxed at all.

“Excuse us, may we come in and talk to you for a moment?” Tommy asked.

“Sure. Come on in. One of you can take that chair and the other the armchair.”

Irene walked over to the armchair and let herself sink in. It was surprisingly comfortable. Tommy started his line of questioning at once.

“We’ve been following up a number of rumors regarding the house fire eleven years ago.”

Sverker Löwander said sharply, “Why?”

“Honestly speaking, there’s no clear answer to that. We’ve got to follow every rumor or idea that comes up in order to find this murderer. Sometimes there are red herrings, of course, but that’s the way it goes in an investigation.”

The doctor didn’t seem convinced. Finally he shrugged. “So what do you want to know?”

“Your first wife, Barbro, accused Carina of arson. Why would she do that?”

Löwander took his time answering the question. “She’s mentally unstable, and she took our divorce fairly hard.”

“Did she have psychological problems before?”

“No … well … when Julia was born, she suffered from preeclampsia. That’s a poisoning of the system due to pregnancy. Then after she had the baby, she suffered from postpartum depression for a few weeks. But it passed without further treatment.”

“No other signs of depression before the divorce?”

Löwander appeared both surprised and irritated as he answered, “No, and what does this have to do with the murders of Linda and Marianne?”

“Investigation technicalities.”

Tommy then went through the events at the time of the fire and the testimony that Barbro had given. Sverker agreed with everything Carina had said. Finally Tommy asked, “Could Barbro have set the fire to take revenge on you and Carina?”

The doctor rubbed his eyes tiredly before he answered, with great conviction, “That was brought up in the previous investigation. I am absolutely sure that the answer is no. Barbro loved that old mansion. More than I did, in fact. Even though it was my childhood home.”

“A few old suitcases were saved. They were stored in the hospital attic. Were you aware of that?”

Löwander’s surprise was absolutely genuine. “Suitcases? I had no idea that they’d been saved. It would be—” He stopped himself and looked straight into nothingness before slowly beginning to speak again. “That’s right. I remember. I was cleaning the basement the weekend before the fire broke out. I’d put some old suitcases I was going to throw away right next to the door. Were those the ones that were saved?”

“I don’t know. Probably. What did they contain?”

“Old stuff that belonged to Mama and Papa. Papers, old clothes … nothing important.”

“Who decided they should be stored in the hospital attic?”

“That could have been me.… Things were so crazy back then. I don’t remember. And I’ve never set foot in the attic. When I was young, the door was always locked, and once I was grown, I had no reason to go there.”

Irene decided it was time for her to chime in, even though it was not a pleasant question she had to ask. “Another rumor has cropped up. It also doesn’t seem relevant to our investigation. But since the murderer was dressed as Nurse Tekla, I have to ask.… What do you know about Nurse Tekla?”

Sverker lifted an eyebrow, and a hint of a smile played across his lips. “That came out of the blue. Of course, I’ve heard about the hospital ghost. She was fired or she chose to leave and went to Stockholm to work there. For some reason she returned and decided to commit suicide in the attic. I asked Papa once why she chose our attic and not Stockholm. He said she was mentally ill.”

“Was that the only time you asked about Nurse Tekla?”

“Yes. He didn’t like to talk about her. My father was a down-to-earth, practical man. He had no respect for ghost stories and that kind of thing.”

“An old rumor says that your father and Nurse Tekla had a relationship. Have you heard anything about that?”

“Not at all. That’s ridiculous. Papa and some old nurse!”

“She was only thirty-five, and your father was fifty,” Irene countered calmly.

“No, it doesn’t fit. She hanged herself in the spring of ’47. I was just a few months old then. Mama and Papa had given up hope of ever having children, so I was the miracle child. Mama was already fairly old, and she had to be under the supervision of specialists during her entire pregnancy. Would Papa do something while …? No! It’s just not possible.”

Irene decided to change the subject.

“Your mother passed away when you were fairly young?”

“That’s right. She had an aneurysm. What does this have to do with the murder investigation?”

“We don’t know yet. We’re trying to find out. As we said, many of our leads point backward in time.”

“Damned strange.”

“That’s what we think, too. So we’re not letting go of this line of investigation until we’re sure it won’t have relevance in the present. The only people who have seen the murderer are Siv Persson and Gunnela Hägg, the homeless woman in the garden shed, who was killed. You didn’t know of her existence, you said.”

“No. I’ve already told you that.”

Nodding toward the heap of paper, Tommy said, “Have you found a way to save the hospital?”

“No, it can’t be done. I’ve decided to close it at the end of the summer. I’ll be informing my employees next week.”

Irene felt some sympathy for him, but still, how much of this failure could be laid at his door? A good doctor, yes, but the administrator of a hospital? He couldn’t blame circumstances entirely. Perhaps he was too weak and indecisive. Handsome but hopeless, she thought sarcastically as she contemplated the defeated figure in front of her.

AFTER TAKING IN a bowl of soup in the police cafeteria, Irene and Tommy headed up to their department. They’d begun to sort through their impressions of the Löwander couple when Hannu Rauhala appeared, holding a large, old-fashioned suitcase of brown leather.

“Hi. Here’s the arson investigation’s results.”

He set the suitcase down and pulled out a thick envelope from the waistband of his jeans. Irene decided that Hannu must be clairvoyant. Although neither she nor Tommy had mentioned it, Hannu had tracked down all the papers pertinent to the investigation of the mansion fire. Since they already knew the result of the investigation, they decided to take a look inside the leather suitcase.

“So this is from the attic?” Irene asked.

“Yes, the lab’s finished with it. We’ll get the other two tomorrow. Apparently they contained traces of something,” Hannu replied.

“What kind of traces?”

“No idea.”

Irene walked resolutely over to the suitcase, grabbed it by the handle, and heaved it onto the desk.

“Whose is it?”

“Lovisa Löwander’s. Says so on the inside.”

The suitcase was unlocked, but the metalwork of the hinges was rusted shut. Finally it creaked open, and Irene lifted the lid.

On top lay a dark blue dress uniform belonging to a Sophia nursing graduate. Between the yellowing halves of the collar, the flower-shaped, four-edged silver brooch was proudly pinned.

Irene could hardly believe her eyes. Once over her initial surprise, she cautiously lifted the dress. It was exactly like the uniform Siv Persson had modeled for them, but in a much smaller, even a child’s, size.

“Yet another nurse’s uniform. But didn’t Siv Persson mention that Lovisa had been a graduate of the Sophia nursing school?”

“It’s rather small,” said Hannu.

“She must have been under five feet. Unbelievably short and thin.”

Underneath the uniform they found a nurse’s cap and apron so small that they had to belong to the same person who wore the dress. They began to take the other contents carefully from the suitcase and array them on the desk. In addition to the pieces of the uniform, there was a pair of black dress pumps. Irene estimated that they couldn’t be larger than size four.

Beneath the clothes were some framed photographs wrapped in yellowed silk paper. The first one must have been Hilding and Lovisa Löwander’s wedding photo. The stamp of the studio could be seen at the bottom-right-hand corner. The year 1936 was written in black ink. The handwriting was elegant.

In many ways the bridal couple was a remarkable sight. Hilding stood ramrod straight, his right hand tucked into his tuxedo lapel, his left hand resting on the bride’s right shoulder. This man knew how to wear a tuxedo. He was tall and stylish and had a self-confident smile on his face. He looked straight into the camera. His bearing, his features, and his thick hair shared a family resemblance with those of his son. Irene peered closer to see if Sverker’s sea-green eyes had also been inherited from his father. It didn’t appear so. It was hard to say, since photograph had been tinted, but Hilding’s eyes seemed to be a kind of grayish blue.

Irene turned her attention to Lovisa. The tiny bride barely reached her husband’s chest. She also stared directly into the camera, but her hands were grasping her bridal bouquet tightly. The bouquet was oversize and bursting with roses and cornflowers. Or more likely the bride was so undersize that the bouquet was in fact normal. She was wearing a lace veil, and her dress had a high collar and long sleeves. It was heavy white silk.

For a long time, the three police officers studied the photograph without saying a word. Finally Tommy said, “She’s hardly more than four and a half feet tall.”

“She looks like a little girl,” Hannu said.

Irene did the math quickly in her head. “Lovisa was actually thirty-three years old when she married Hilding. They were married for eleven years before Sverker was born.”

“It must have been difficult for her to bear children,” Tommy commented. He knew what he was talking about, since he’d attended the births of his three children.

Irene was surprised that Sverker had not inherited the brown eyes of his mother. Her face was cute, but fairly average. Her dark hair was curly under her veil. Sverker seemed to completely take after his father.

The other two photographs showed Sverker as a child. Both were framed in silver. In the first one, Sverker was a newborn, and in the other he was about three years old. The latter was a studio photograph. Sverker held a teddy bear and was laughing at the photographer. Happiness glittered in those large, sea-green eyes.

The last silk paper bundle revealed itself to be Lovisa’s record from the Sophia nursing school. Her highest grades were in bedside manner and pharmacology. All the other grades were nearly as high. Lovisa had been a good student. Irene couldn’t help giggling at one of the teacher’s comments: “Although she is small, Lovisa wears her uniform beautifully.” Irene hoped Lovisa had taken it as a compliment.

There were some books at the bottom of the suitcase. They were all textbooks from Lovisa’s training. After that the suitcase was empty.

“Why did they let you take this suitcase?” Irene asked Hannu.

“The locks had been broken, but the contents weren’t disturbed,” Hannu replied.

“So the technicians think that someone was digging around in the others?”

Hannu shrugged. “Apparently.”

They carefully put all the articles back into the suitcase. Irene looked at her male co-workers and said, “We should wait for the technician’s reports on the other suitcases before we return this one to Sverker Löwander.”

Hannu nodded his agreement.

IRENE SPENT THE rest of the afternoon writing her reports and studying the results of the investigation into the fire at the doctor’s mansion.

The fire had burned rapidly, taking the old wooden building down to its foundation. If the fire had been set, the arsonist had luck on his side to have it destroyed so completely.