Night Rounds

Chapter 22

“SHE REFUSES TO talk. Honestly, I don’t think she even hears what I’m saying.” The prosecutor, Inez Collin, looked concerned. She crossed her legs, one foot swinging impatiently. Irene admired her shoes, a deep burgundy made of kid leather, very expensive. They were the same color as her outfit, and Irene inwardly complimented her on her color sense. Inez wore a long jacket and a knee-length skirt. Her nails were impeccably manicured in deep wine red, and her blouse was a shimmering light gray silk. The same gray tinted the prosecutor’s nylons and, incredibly, matched her eyes. How did she do it? Did she wear colored contact lenses? Probably not. Inez had always had the same gray eyes and platinum-blond hair in a severe ponytail. Irene couldn’t help admiring her because she was good-looking and well-dressed, but Inez still didn’t hold a candle to Carina Löwander.

Carina remained as silent as a nun. Three times a day, she did her workout in her cell. She played her gym routine on a tiny cassette player, the only item she was allowed. Her arm, in a cast, and her broken ribs didn’t seem to trouble her in the least. When the investigators tried to question her, she sat with a faraway smile on her face, her eyes focused on the wall. A psychological evaluation had already been requested. It would take some time before her mental state could be assessed. Before then the investigative team wanted to clear up the last remaining questions.

“Our difficulty with finding proof is that only Carina herself can answer how the murders actually took place—and why. We really don’t have much. Our main evidence is the flashlight, of course, which was found in the trunk of her car. Can you believe she kept that?! Especially since it was engraved with the letters ICU and M.S. The hair and fingerprints in the suitcases were hers. Still, none of this proves that she was the killer. All we really have is the attack on Inspector Huss,” Inez Collin concluded.

“She’s been pretty damn good at eliminating any witnesses,” muttered Superintendent Andersson.

“She missed one,” Birgitta Moberg said, then pausing for dramatic effect. “Siv Persson. I called her in London last night. She’s returning home this afternoon with her son.”

Jonny snorted. “She’ll never admit that it wasn’t a ghost.”

“But she already has. I think it was her initial shock that made her believe she’d seen a ghost. On the phone she told me, ‘That image is turning around in my head. I’ll figure out who it was soon.’ Maybe she recognized Carina as the ghost nurse after all,” Birgitta concluded.

“That lady is completely nuts,” Jonny said.

Irene carefully shifted her leg, which was in a cast. It was itching terribly. The operation on her muscles and tendons had gone well, but she’d have to wear the cast for several weeks more. Thankfully, no bone had been broken. At least osteoporosis wasn’t showing up yet.

Inez Collin looked at Irene’s leg thoughtfully. She cocked her head and finally said, “A cast on a leg looks more dramatic than one on a wrist.”

The assembled group of investigators raised their eyebrows. The prosecutor said pensively, “I’m thinking about Carina’s personality. My impression is that she believes she is above other people. Smarter. Stronger. More beautiful. She seems to believe she’s entitled to use whatever methods she wants to reach her goals. Sociopathic. I believe she’s as vain as other sociopaths. Extremely vain, in fact. Perhaps we should use that.”

Inez quickly sketched her strategy. Irene protested at first, but then let herself be convinced. It was worth a try.

THEY BORROWED A wheelchair from Central. Irene sat down in the chair, and her colleagues helped unfold the foot-rest. With her leg sticking straight out, she definitely appeared pathetic, defenseless, and vulnerable.

Fredrik Stridh was playing her caretaker. The chair’s wheels burned rubber as he cleared the corner to catch the elevator. He punched the top button, and soon they started their journey up to the prison floors.

CARINA HAD JUST had a shower and was drying her hair with a towel. The cold cell smelled like expensive perfume with an undertone of coconut, the same aroma that had alerted Irene’s subconscious that day in the garage. So far Carina’s prison stay had not even made her tan fade. Hard to believe that this woman is a serial killer, Irene thought.

Fredrik went in first and said, “You have a visitor.” Without waiting for an answer, he went back to the hallway and returned pushing Irene in her wheelchair. Carina stopped in the middle of drying her hair and stared straight at Irene, still not saying a word.

Fredrik said, “It’s crazy what you did to poor old Irene Her leg practically fell off. She’s on months of sick leave.”

Irene fumed inwardly. Fredrik was taking his role a little too seriously; he was overstepping the script as well. Carina did not appear to react, but there was a touch of curiosity in her eyes as she regarded Irene’s cast.

Irene hurried to take over from Fredrik. “You’re really strong. This was the worst fight I’ve ever been in. I told everyone you were the strongest and smartest person I’ve ever come up against. You are in fantastic shape.”

She stopped talking, wondering if she’d spread it on too thick. Perhaps not, because Carina was starting to show the hint of a smile. At least she appeared to be listening. Encouraged, Irene continued. “The cleverest bit was when you decided to dress up in Nurse Tekla’s old uniform from the suitcase. If anyone saw you, they’d think they’d seen the hospital ghost. Very clever.”

To Irene’s surprise, Carina answered. “It went just as I planned. Those superstitious old broads really believed I was the ghost.” There she stopped, but her expression was no longer vague. She looked downright smug.

“What I don’t understand is why Linda had to die, even though she tried to get her claws into your husband.…” Irene started.

Carina’s eyes were bottomless pits of hate as she replied, “I don’t give a damn what she and Sverker were up to in the on-call apartment! It was my hospital and my plan to make it into Göteborg’s best-ever fitness center. All that work I put into the drawings and plans. And then that little piece of shit tries to convince Sverker to get a divorce.”

“Did he say he wanted a divorce?” Irene said, pretending to be outraged.

“I heard them!” Carina stopped and gave Irene a suspicious look, but Irene was ready and made a sympathetic face. Carina was encouraged. She continued, “I was at the door to the on-call apartment and heard them. It was the first weekend after we returned from Thailand. Sverker suddenly had to go to the hospital. I knew what was going on, but I pretended not to. I’ve been through it before. And twelve years ago I was the one doing the same thing. Ha! So I followed them.… I opened the door—and I heard them.…”

Carina pressed her lips together. Her eyes thinned to slits. Softly, she hissed, “I couldn’t allow that. My plans … my hospital … It was her own fault she had to die. She could have kept on with the affair as long as she pleased, but she wanted to get married. That whore! No way could she marry him. I had no money to get the building on my own, so I could only keep it through Sverker. And we are married, after all.” Carina lifted her chin defiantly and looked right at Irene, who nodded her agreement.

Irene phrased her next question carefully. “How did you get into the building? You’d given Sverker the main key, hadn’t you?”

Carina nodded slyly and said in a confidential tone, “I didn’t just find the drawings in Hilding’s suitcase. There was a key chain as well, with the mansion key and the hospital key. They hadn’t ever bothered to change the locks. Of course Hilding had a master key. Sverker had missed that fact completely!”

Carina beamed in triumph, very pleased with herself.

“When Sverker called and said that he had to stay late that night, I knew right away that she was going to be there, and I knew what time, too. Sverker has no imagination. I had hidden the uniform at home already, so I just took it with me in the car and changed in the grove. You should have seen me slipping across the lawn. If anyone had seen me, they’d have had a heart attack.” She broke out in scornful laughter that made the hair on the back of Irene’s neck stand on end.

Suppressing a shudder, Irene said, “God, you were clever. Though someone did see you. The homeless woman who was staying in the garden shed. Did you know she was there?”

Carina looked cross. “I noticed her during Christmas break when I was searching for the drawings. What a disgusting woman! I knew she was living in the shed. I’d forgotten her that night, but I knew who it was when I read the newspaper the next day. Since she’d seen me … I thought it’d be better if she disappeared.”

“She’d seen you enter the hospital. Did you sneak in before or after Linda arrived?” Irene asked cautiously.

“Before. I was waiting for her. She sure looked surprised that last minute of her life.” Again that horrible laugh filled the cell.

Irene let her finish before she asked, “But what had Marianne done to you? How did she threaten your plans?”

A wrinkle appeared between Carina’s brows. “She heard me and Linda. That bitch Linda was carrying a little backpack, and she threw it down the stairs when I … grabbed her.”

“So you were at the top of the stairway right outside the surgical ward?”

“Yes, right against the elevator. I only had to take one step to get to her as soon as she got off.”

Irene shivered. “So unbelievably well thought out. But then Linda threw her backpack down the stairs, and Marianne heard it?”

“Yes, I went down to get that backpack, and I heard Marianne’s key in the ICU door. I’d just made it back up the stairs, but there was no way to get rid of Linda. So when that incredibly stupid night nurse began walking up the stairs and yelling ‘Hello? Linda, is that you?’ I knew that I had to shut her up, too. And so I did.”

“With the rope you used to hang Linda later?”

“It was the only thing I had.”

“And then you carried Linda up inside the door to the attic, then rode the elevator with Marianne’s body down to the basement. How did you get the idea to cut the electricity in the hospital?”

“I needed time. The business with that night nurse took more time than I’d planned. I didn’t want Sverker to go all through the hospital looking for her. Not before I’d … finished.”

“So everything went according to plan in the end.” Irene tried to sound admiring.

Without warning, Carina leaned forward and whacked Irene’s cast. Irene’s cry of pain was not an act.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Carina said contentedly.

Irene decided to whimper a bit before she asked another question. “Why did you go down the main staircase? There was the risk that Siv Persson would see you. And she did.”

A new wrinkle appeared on Carina’s brow when she heard the night nurse’s name. She sat quietly for a while before she said, “As I was about to come down from the attic, I heard Sverker opening the ICU door. I realized he was looking for Marianne, and probably Linda, too, so I walked quickly through the surgical ward and then down the main staircase. And that idiot night nurse did see me, but she looked about to faint from fright. I had counted on that.”

A self-satisfied smile played on the edges of Carina’s mouth. An unnatural gleam came into her eyes as she bent close to Irene, who steeled herself for another blow to her leg. Instead, to her surprise, Carina began to whisper. “I heard Sverker following me. He took care of that confused nurse and left his flashlight with her. Then he walked down the stairs. I was so close to jumping out just to scare him, but I stood in the shadows and watched him as he opened the front door for the police. Then I went down the stairs, through the basement, and then up the back stairs and out the back door.”

Carina’s triumph surrounded her like an aura.

Irene felt a creeping feeling of sheer horror down her back.

Without showing her feelings, she said ingratiatingly, “Just think how you managed to get rid of Linda’s bicycle. Because you did that, we were fooled into thinking she wasn’t still in the hospital.”

“It was easy to ride a bike on the frozen lawn. Still, it was so dark in the park and down by the stream that mostly I had to push it. I shoved the bike under the bridge and took off the nurse’s clothes.”

“Were you wearing different clothes underneath?” Irene made her eyes wide. She was laying it on thick.

“Of course. Tights and a black wool sweater. Though it was cold in the attic, I got pretty sweaty when I was … busy with Linda.”

A short moment of silence.

“So did you park the car behind the grove of spruce trees?” Irene asked.

“Yes. It was just a few meters from the grove to the bridge. No one saw me.”

“You could have frozen to death. It was fifteen below.”

“I had my coat in the trunk.”

Irene realized that that was the moment Carina had made her mistake. She must have thrown Marianne’s flashlight into the trunk without thinking. She was under a lot of stress, after all. Irene decided not to bring up the flashlight. Carina probably didn’t want to hear about any mistakes.

“You were unbelievably thorough at getting rid of all the evidence. I can understand how you saw Siv Persson as a threat. She could have recognized you, of course. But why Anna-Karin Andersson?”

Carina appeared reluctant to answer. Irene realized why. The arson attempt had gone wrong—Anna-Karin hadn’t died. And plans gone wrong were the last thing Carina would want to discuss. Nevertheless, to Irene’s surprise, Carina suddenly started to talk.

“I knew that Anna-Karin and Linda were best friends. Linda said to Sverker that she didn’t even tell her best friend about their relationship, and Sverker had asked who that was. Linda said, ‘Anna-Karin.’ ”

“So you heard all that by listening outside the door?”

“I couldn’t take it for granted that Linda told the truth. She still could have said something to Anna-Karin.”

It was uncanny how intuitive Carina was. Linda actually had told her best friend everything, just a week after that conversation.

“I don’t know how you found your way after you’d sabotaged the electricity,” Irene said.

Carina appeared surprised as she answered. “You got that, didn’t you? You found the flashlight. I’d only remembered it … when you went to our garage.”

“So that was Marianne’s?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“And we found a day planner in her pocket. Did you see it?”

“No, but I don’t care about that.”

Marianne had Linda’s day planner in her pocket when she was murdered. Only one thing could have happened—it had fallen from her backpack on its tumble down the stairs, and Carina hadn’t found it when she ran to grab the backpack. But Marianne had found it, opened it, seen that it was Linda’s, and therefore was calling Linda’s name when she walked up the stairs into the hands of her killer.

“You set fire to the garden shed to get rid of the uniform, but also to send us chasing after red herrings. And you wanted to eliminate all traces of Gunnela Hägg.”

Carina looked at Irene with empty eyes. “Her name was Gunnela Hägg?”

“That’s right.”

Carina didn’t answer. She stared at the wall with that cold, scornful smile on her lips. She had sunk back into her own thoughts and didn’t pay any more attention to Irene.

Irene nodded at Fredrik. He stood up from his place by the door and pushed the wheelchair out of the cell.

Once they’d reached the hallway, Fredrik snapped off the tape recorder hidden behind Irene’s back. They wouldn’t be able to use the tape in the courtroom, but it would certainly help the prosecutor prepare her case.

• • •

“ANYBODY WANT TO go to the pub and have a beer with me?”

Kurt Höök stuck his red-haired head through the doorway to Irene and Tommy’s office.

“How about an hour from now? We’re just about through wrapping up our reports on the Löwander Hospital murders,” Tommy said.

Kurt nodded and looked at Irene. “You know where you’ll find me.”

He disappeared down the hallway. Tommy grinned at Irene. “That Höök guy—what a charmer!”

“You got that right!”

Tommy became serious and regarded Irene thoughtfully. “Talking about charmers, have you told Sverker Löwander the truth about his background?”

“No. Have you?”

“No.”

Irene reached for her crutches and stood up. “Well, now I believe it’s time for us to go have that beer.”

“Yep.”