Night Rounds

by Helene Tursten

  The day nurse, Ellen Karlsson, was a steady, friendly middle-aged woman. Her salt-and-pepper hair was cut into a pageboy, with bangs over her brown eyes. “How horrible. Poor little Marianne … unbelievable. Who in the world would ever want to kill her?” she exclaimed, holding back tears.

  Irene Huss was ready to cut in with a question. “That’s exactly what we’re trying to figure out. Do you have any idea who might have done it?”

  “None at all. She always seemed so pleasant, though I can’t say I knew her really well, since we’re on different shifts. I’m on days, and she worked nights. And of course we’re in different departments. Maybe you could ask Anna-Karin. She’s the ICU nurse on the day shift. They know … they knew each other a bit better.”

  The two women stood up and left the office together. Irene was struck by how quiet the hospital hallway was, unlike any hospital she’d ever been in. She asked, “Why are there so few patients here?”

  “Today most operations are done at the polyclinic. Mostly to save on expenses. This hospital is completely private, as you know. When I started working here twenty-three years ago, we had two care wards and four surgeons. In those days the wards and the ICU were always full, and we worked through the weekends as well. Nowadays the hospital is closed on the weekends, and there are just two nurses on the day shift and two at night to cover both the ward and the ICU. Even the staff in surgery and receiving is down to half the previous number.”

  “Why so many layoffs?” Irene asked, surprised.

  “To save money. We do the complicated surgeries at the beginning of the week. Wednesdays and Thursdays we just do polyclinic operations. On Fridays we run only the reception desk and follow-up visits.”

  “How many patients can you handle at a time?”

  “Twenty in the ward and two in the ICU, with ten of the beds dedicated to day patients. The ward closest to ICU is a recovery ward for the polyclinic patients.”

  “So the patients wake up there and rest a few hours before they’re sent home?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What do you do if something comes up and the patient can’t go home before the weekend?”

  “We have an agreement with one of the private hospitals downtown. Källberg Hospital. We send our patients there if we have to.”

  “So Löwander Hospital is never open during the weekends?”

  “That’s correct.”

  They’d reached the large double doors between the departments. Nurse Ellen pulled one door open, and they went into the next area.

  Two beds flanked the minimal reception desk. In one lay the body of Mr. Peterzén. On the nightstand next to it, a candle had been lit, and its flame smoothed a gentle light across his peaceful face. His hands were crossed over his chest, and his jaw had been closed with an elastic bandage. A middle-aged woman was looking down at him, and she jumped when Irene and Nurse Ellen came in.

  “Please excuse us for disturbing you,” Nurse Ellen apologized. “We were just looking for Nurse Anna-Karin.”

  “She’ll be back in a moment. She had some paperwork she needed to finish.” It was obvious the woman had been crying, but she appeared composed.

  “My sympathies. Let me introduce myself. I’m Inspector Irene Huss from the police.”

  “Inspector?” The woman started. “Criminal inspector? Why are you here?”

  “Are you aware of what happened last night here in the hospital?”

  The woman’s expression was filled with shock. “Something connected to Nils’s death?”

  It was clear she had not been told anything about the interruption of electric service or the ICU nurse’s murder. All the details would be splashed across the evening papers anyway, so Irene Huss continued. “I’m sorry, but the fact that Nils Peterzén died is a direct result of these events. May I ask you for your name?

  “Doris Peterzén. Nils is my husband.” Only a slight tremble in her voice betrayed her feelings.

  Irene observed this self-possessed woman. She and Doris were about the same height, slightly less than six feet, unusually tall. She was around fifty and was dressed very fashionably. She was definitely beautiful even with no makeup and after much crying. Her hair was a discreet platinum, probably the work of a skillful stylist, and it surrounded a perfectly formed face without a wrinkle or blemish. She had grayish blue eyes and dark lashes. Irene vaguely recognized her face but couldn’t place it. She wore a blue coat with a black fur collar and a matching fur hat.

  “Your husband was put on a respirator yesterday after his operation,” Irene began.

  “I know. Dr. Löwander called and told me himself. Nils was aware that might happen. He’d quit smoking ten years ago, but after the fifty years before.… His lungs.… We.… Dr. Löwander believed that he’d survive the operation. It was absolutely necessary, because the arterial hernia was large.”

  “How old was your husband?”

  “Eighty-three.”

  Doris Peterzén returned to the foot of the bed where her husband lay. She bowed her head and began to weep softly again.

  At that moment the door burst open and a young nurse, her face flushed red with hurry, rushed in. A shock of short blond hair stood up on her head.

  “Have they come yet?” she asked Nurse Ellen in an agitated voice.

  A frown appeared on the older nurse’s brow. “No,” she answered severely.

  Irene wondered who “they” might be, but her unasked question was answered immediately as two men in matching black suits came through the doorway right behind the blond nurse. They pushed a gurney between them, a dark gray bag with a zipper draped over the top.

  Nurse Ellen said softly to Doris Peterzén, “The men from the funeral home are here.”

  When Doris caught sight of the men, her weeping intensified. Nurse Ellen put an arm around her and led her out through the double doors. She was probably taking the recent widow into her office, Irene thought, but she stayed put to talk further with the young ICU nurse.

  Nils Peterzén’s body was lifted onto the bag spread over the rolling table and zipped into it, and the men disappeared again through the doors as quickly as they’d come.

  Irene walked over to one of the two windows in the ICU unit overlooking the large park and parking lot. She rested her forehead on the cool windowpane and watched as the gurney was rolled out through the back entrance toward the funeral home’s dark gray station wagon. The entire process took less than a blink of the eye, a journey no one would have noticed.

  Irene decided to look through the same door the undertakers had just used. The red exit box over it was brightly lit. The door itself was heavy and steel-coated, with automatic door openers on each side. Irene could see that this area was part of a later addition to the hospital. Here there were no fancy art nouveau embellishments. The stairs were wide and made from common stone. An ordinary iron handrail was fastened to one of the cream-colored walls. The stairway curved around an elevator shaft whose gray metal door was marked bed elevator in black letters.

  Irene closed the door again. Nurse Anna-Karin, whose flushed cheeks had had no time to fade, was frenetically stripping the bed Nils Peterzén’s body had occupied only three minutes earlier. She started to stuff the bedclothes into a laundry bag.

  Irene cleared her throat. “Anna-Karin, do you have a moment?” she asked. “I need to talk to you. My name is Irene Huss. I’m a criminal inspector, and this is about the murder of your colleague, Marianne Svärd.”

  The nurse stiffened and whirled around to face Irene. “I don’t have time. The first polys are coming soon.”

  “Polys? What’s that?”

  “Oh, the patients from the polyclinic who’ve just had their operations. Today two colons and one gastro. And later today a rhino. It’s crazy to do a rhino on a day like this.”

  Irene puzzled through the jargon. The young nurse was stressed and scattered. Not so strange considering that her colleague had been murdered the night before. Probably a bit of shock
as well. Irene went to the nurse and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “I still have to talk to you for a moment. For Marianne’s sake,” she said calmly.

  Nurse Anna-Karin stood still, and her shoulders dropped. She nodded in resignation. “All right. Let’s go sit down at the registration desk.”

  At the desk Anna-Karin gestured for Irene to take the chair while she herself sat on the stainless-steel stool.

  Irene began, “I know that your first name is Anna-Karin. Could you please tell me your last name and your age?”

  “My whole name is Anna-Karin Arvidsson. I’m twenty-five.”

  “How long have you worked at Löwander Hospital?”

  “About a year and a half.”

  “So you’re about as old as Marianne and you’ve been here about the same length of time. Did you hang out together after work?”

  Anna-Karin looked surprised. “Not at all.”

  “Never?”

  “No. Well, once we went out dancing. Marianne, Linda, and me.”

  “When was this?”

  “About a year ago.”

  “And you never were out together with her again?”

  “No, except for the holiday party. The entire staff is invited to a Christmas smorgasbord right before we close for the holidays.”

  “Did you know Marianne well?”

  “No.”

  “What did you think of her?”

  “Nice. A little shy.”

  “Do you know anything about her personal life?”

  The nurse needed a moment to think. “Not much. I knew she was divorced. They separated right before she started working here.”

  “Do you know anything about her ex-husband?”

  “No. Except he’s a lawyer.”

  “Did she have children?”

  “No.”

  “Where did she work before she came to Löwander Hospital?”

  “Östra Hospital. Also in their ICU.”

  “Do you know why she changed jobs after her divorce?”

  Anna-Karin thought about this. She dragged her fingers through her blond stubble a number of times. “She never said, but I got the feeling she was trying to stay away from some guy.”

  “Who?”

  “No idea. But that one time when we all went out dancing, we met at my place first for a bite to eat and a little wine. I asked Marianne why she’d quit her job at Östra, and she said, ‘I couldn’t stand meeting him every day and pretending there was nothing wrong.’ But she didn’t want to talk about it any longer.”

  “Did Marianne spend more time with Linda?”

  “No. Linda and I hang out together all the time.”

  “Does Linda also work ICU?”

  “No, she’s in the care ward.”

  “But not right now.”

  “No, Ellen works here for the morning shift.”

  “Do you know when Linda will be coming in to work?”

  “She starts the evening shift, at two o’clock.”

  They were interrupted when the steel-plated door opened and a rolling bed with a still-slightly-groggy patient was wheeled in. An operating-room nurse wearing a green uniform, a paper cap, and a mask said mechanically, “First colon. The gastro will be here soon.”

  Nurse Anna-Karin flew from the stool. Both nurses flipped busily through the paperwork, mumbling to each other over the drowsy patient.

  Irene decided it was time to find Nurse Ellen and Doris Peterzén.

  IRENE FOUND THE recent widow in the empty nurses’ office. Doris Peterzén sat ramrod straight, her fingers laced in her lap. She’d taken off her hat and placed it on the desk but kept on her elegant coat. Irene paused in the doorway for a moment, considering whether she should question Doris Peterzén now or wait awhile. Perhaps it was too soon. On the other hand, Irene felt that Doris had the right to know about the events of the night before.

  The widow turned her beautiful face toward Irene and said tiredly, “Nurse Ellen had to release a patient or something like that. She’ll be right back.”

  “That’s good. I have to speak with her, but you need to know what happened here at the hospital last night.”

  Irene tried to be tactful, but when Doris Peterzén heard about the murder, she lost her composure and began to cry. Irene did not know how to comfort her. She got up to close the door in order not to disturb the other patients and then sat down next to the weeping woman. Tentatively, she rested her hand on Doris’s shoulder. It didn’t seem to help.

  When Nurse Ellen returned to the office, she took only one glance at Doris and said, “She needs a taxi home. I’ll call for one.”

  Irene nodded. She bent closer to Doris and asked, “Should I contact your family? Anyone in particular? Your children?”

  Doris could hardly speak but managed to say, “Gör—Göran. He’s … not home. London … He’s in London.”

  Chapter 4

  FOR THE REST of the morning, the police interviewed the day-shift staff, one by one. Then there was a break for the officers to grab a quick lunch. It wouldn’t be until two o’clock in the afternoon when the evening shift arrived.

  Superintendent Andersson and Irene found a pizza place on Virginsgatan. They sat at a tiny table at the back, grateful that they didn’t have to eat their pizza and near beer in the car. In low voices they went over what they’d gotten from that morning’s work. Obviously Nurse Siv’s tale of a ghost nurse was more than odd. Irene had no idea whom or what the nurse had actually seen, but she hypothesized that the “ghost” had really been the murderer. Perhaps, in the old nurse’s frightened state and overactive imagination, the figure she’d seen had been coupled with the ghost story. That seemed the most likely.

  Irene’s boss nodded and grunted, his mouth full. He attacked his pizza vigorously, snapping the flimsy plastic fork in half. He turned around to ask the pizza baker behind the counter for another and realized that the man had been leaning over the counter and listening, enthralled, to their conversation. The superintendent swallowed his rage and his opinions of eavesdroppers. It had been his own fault; the pizza parlor was much too small for this type of discussion. “Let’s go!” Andersson barked, his face flaming red as he stared into the pizza baker’s friendly smile. But he stopped halfway in his march out to turn back and snatch up the rest of his pizza.

  • • •

  THEY DROVE TO Härlanda Lake. Irene hoped that a dose of fresh air would clear their thoughts and a nice walk would settle the pizza in their stomachs.

  They parked the car and walked into a nature scene covered with ice crystals. Irene stomped on the rock-hard ground. “This cold snap gives us a big problem. It was thirty below last night. The ground around the hospital is frozen solid and won’t leave any footprints or traces. And there’s no snow either.”

  “True. I wonder if Malm has found anything inside the building. He’s due in tomorrow morning at roll call.”

  “Perhaps Stridner will find something in the autopsy this afternoon.”

  Andersson’s face darkened reflexively. He was unaware, as always, that this happened whenever Yvonne Stridner’s name was mentioned.

  “I’ll call her. No rest for the wicked.” He sighed.

  They walked in silence along the perimeter of the iced-over lake. A weak sun managed to get a few meager rays through the thin clouds, sending a cascade of glitter across the icy surface. The chill bit at their noses and cheeks. Irene took a deep breath. For a moment she imagined that the crisp, sharp air she drew into her lungs was totally pure and clean, like the air near her parents-in-laws’ summer cabin deep in the forests of Värmland. But she was jolted away from her daydream by the superintendent’s voice.

  “Time to go back. The evening shift will be in soon.”

  THE EVENING SHIFT worked the care ward and the ICU only until nine-thirty, when the night shift took over.

  “Will Siv Persson be working tonight?” the superintendent asked.

  “No,” Nurse Ellen said. “Before she went
home today, she asked for time off. We’ve found a substitute. But it looks like there’s no one to take over from me.” Her voice was tired and worried.

  “What about Linda?” asked Irene.

  “Yes, she was supposed to come in at two. Now it’s almost two-thirty. I’ve just called her place, but no one’s picking up.”

  “What’s Linda’s last name?”

  “Svensson.”

  “Does she have a family?”

  “She lives with a guy, but he doesn’t seem to be home. I just hope there hasn’t been some kind of accident. Linda always bikes to work.”

  “Even at thirty below?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I see. I guess we will just have to wait until she comes in. We can probably talk to the nurse on duty at the ICU for now,” Irene suggested to her boss.

  “You go do that,” was the chief inspector’s immediate reply. “I’ll wait for Linda here. And I also want another chat with Nurse Ellen. If that’s all right with you, Nurse Ellen?”

  “Well … sure. It’ll be no trouble at all if Linda shows up. But right now I’m the only one on the care ward and there’s a lot to do.”

  “Are there any other doctors at this hospital, or is Löwander the only one?”

  Nurse Ellen had stood up to unlock the medicine cabinet. She drew some fluid into a syringe and tapped it with her fingernail to clear the air bubbles. “We have an internist at the polyclinic who serves also as a consultant on more complicated surgery,” she answered. Then there’s a consulting X-ray specialist as well as a full-time anesthesiologist. You know, the doctor who puts you under before an operation. His name is Konrad Henriksson. And of course we have Dr. Bünzler, who is our plastic surgeon. He’s very good.”

  “Isn’t Dr. Löwander a plastic surgeon?”

  Nurse Ellen looked at the superintendent with her bright brown eyes. Irene noticed that her boss began to blush.

  “No, he’s a general surgeon. But since there is less call for general surgery, he’s started to do some minor plastic procedures as well.” Nurse Ellen held the needle up to the light to inspect for any remaining air bubbles.

  Masking a grin, Irene followed up, “So he doesn’t do rhinoplasty?”