Night Rounds

by Helene Tursten

  Back home she took a shower and prepared breakfast. Krister came down, and they drank their coffee and decided who’d read which part of the newspaper. Once they’d finished breakfast, Irene said, “I’m going to head down to the station. We didn’t finish everything last Friday, and there’s something important I want to get done before tomorrow morning.”

  Krister nodded. “Fine. I’m going to go swim in half an hour. Drop me off at the pool on your way in, and then I’ll take the bus home.”

  PILES OF PAPER were strewn over Irene’s desk, just as she’d left them. Carefully and thoughtfully, she began to repack Tekla’s things into the paper bags, trying to pin down what might be missing.

  First she replaced the poetry books, then the papers and letters. After that she started repacking the clothes. The brown shoes, the shawl, the underwear, the nightgown.… What had been taken? What ought to be here?

  Irene sat down in her chair and pondered, until suddenly it came to her.

  When Tekla was found in the attic, she was wearing her daily uniform, according to Siv Persson. Her daily uniform was a light blue dress, a hat, and an apron. Where was her dress uniform? It should be among her things. It wasn’t there because the murderer had taken it to wear on the night of the murders. The uniform cap and black shoes had probably been in the suitcase as well.

  So what would be missing from Hilding’s suitcase? Irene started to unpack all the folders, files, and books and flip through them, but it was hard to tell if any particular piece of paper was missing. She replaced them neatly.

  Then she drove home and took her dog and her husband on a walk.

  THE MORNING MEETING had a typical Monday atmosphere; most of the officers were blinking and trying to jump-start their brain cells with coffee. As usual, only Fredrik Stridh appeared energetic. The man is a living advertisement for vitamin-packed fruit juice, Irene thought sourly. She should feel rested, but she’d had a late night. Krister had extra energy from all his exercise, and to cap off his first day of his new life they’d spent the night burning it off with passionate lovemaking. It wouldn’t surprise Irene if Krister needed a few days to recover, but it had been a wonderful.…

  She was jerked back into the present by Fredrik’s engaging voice: “… if no one else has anything against it. I have fingerprints and hair from Doris Peterzén and Birgitta Löwander. I wasn’t able to get Carina Löwander’s prints until last Friday evening. She asked me why we needed anything from her. I told her that we’d found a number of clues at the scene of the crime. ‘Which crime scene?’ she asked. ‘You mean by the suitcases?’ I asked her if she knew anything about the old suitcases. ‘Sure I do,’ she said. ‘I didn’t have the keys, so I broke them open.’ Apparently she was looking for the architectural drawings of the building, because she was planning a renovation.”

  “For a fitness center,” Irene added. “So when did she break into them?”

  “Last Christmas.”

  “Did she find the drawings?”

  Fredrik looked a little sheepish. “I didn’t think to ask her.”

  Irene thought for a minute. Now they knew who’d broken into the suitcases and they also knew what had been taken from Hilding’s suitcase. No drawings in it now. Did Carina take Tekla’s clothes, too? Not necessarily, but there was certainly reason enough to go for another chat with Carina Löwander.

  As if he were reading her thoughts, Superintendent Andersson said, “We should keep a close eye on this Carina. Though I must admit I find it hard to believe that a woman would kill three others. Women don’t usually strangle people.”

  “What does a typical female murderer do?” Birgitta had to ask.

  “Well … poison or a small-caliber pistol.…” Andersson attempted.

  Irene could think of at least ten murders during the past few years where the killer had been female and both knives and heavy objects had been the murder weapons of choice. No point in saying anything, though, as this discussion would lead nowhere. On the other hand, she wanted to be the one to check up on Carina Löwander as soon as possible.

  “But why would Carina Löwander kill them?” Tommy said. “It doesn’t fit. One night nurse, one day nurse, and a homeless woman. Why? What did her plans for a fitness center have to do with the killing of these particular three women? None of them would have been able to stop her plans for the hospital.”

  Obviously, beautiful Carina had impressed Tommy, since he was so quick to defend her. Perhaps he’s also approaching his midlife crisis? Irene thought snidely. But he did have a point.

  A secretary knocked on the door and stuck her head in. “Telephone for Irene Huss. Superintendent Danielsson from Västra Frölunda.”

  Irene nodded and stood up to go to the phone. She had a suspicion she knew what the call was about, but she picked up the receiver calmly. “Irene Huss.”

  “Hi, Danielsson in Frölunda here. You reported your cell phone missing last Thursday night. Correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “We were investigating an arson near Högsbo Industrial Area that night. You probably heard about the refrigerator truck that was fire bombed.”

  “I read about it in the paper.”

  “We’d gotten a tip right before the arson broke out. We traced the call. It was made from your phone.”

  Irene did her best to sound surprised. “Why … what are you saying? That’s strange.… Can you tell if the phone’s been used for other calls?”

  “No. Nothing else.”

  “Have you found my phone?”

  “No. Do you have any idea who might have taken it?”

  “No. It disappeared from my bag when I was grocery shopping near Frölunda Square. I didn’t notice it was gone until later that evening. Then I called right away to report it missing.”

  “I see. Well, in any event it was put to good use.” In a pleasant tone, Danielsson added, “By the way, do you have any children who might be vegetarian?”

  “No. My husband is a chef, and he’d go crazy if anyone in the family turned vegetarian on him.” Irene also spoke pleasantly and added a light laugh to the end of her statement even as she felt her heart salsa up into her throat.

  “Never mind. It was just a thought. Thanks for your time.”

  “Bye and thanks.”

  Her hand was shaking as she replaced the receiver in the cradle.

  • • •

  THE FIRST THING she did when she returned to the conference room was ask, “Has anyone checked Linda Svensson’s phone calls yet?”

  “Yes. There was a call from her mother and one from a young nurse working in ICU. The one with spiky blond hair. Anna-Karin something … Anna-Karin Arvidsson.” Jonny’s face lit up as he remembered the nurse’s name.

  Anna-Karin again. Irene had not had time to follow up with her questioning of Anna-Karin, in spite of her intentions to do so earlier. The young nurse hadn’t mentioned that she’d called Linda that evening. Anna-Karin was priority number two after Carina.

  Jonny continued. “We also found a cell-phone number. That call came at six-thirty. We’ve traced it to Sverker Löwander. When we talked to him before, he said he didn’t remember calling her. But then he did remember he’d called Linda about some missing paperwork. She didn’t know where it was. Löwander said he found the papers later that evening.”

  That was interesting. Neither Anna-Karin nor Sverker had mentioned that they’d been in contact with Linda only hours before the murder. They’d remembered after being told that the calls had been traced. Linda’s day planner also contained Sverker’s cell-phone number. Priority number three.

  “We have to get to the bottom of this,” said the superintendent. “We have to assume that Linda was lured back to Löwander Hospital. But why would it be so important that she’d have to bike over there in the middle of the night?”

  “We never found Marianne’s flashlight either,” Irene commented. “The killer must have taken it.”

  “And why kill the bird
lady, Gunnela Hägg? Nobody should have cared that she was telling ghost stories,” Fredrik said.

  “Too many questions. Now get me some answers,” barked the superintendent.

  “Tommy and I can go to meet with Carina and Sverker Löwander,” Irene said. “We’ve talked to them quite a bit already.”

  • • •

  THE LÖWANDERS PROVED hard to reach. Sverker was in the middle of surgery at Källberg Hospital. “It was an absolutely necessary operation, which Dr. Löwander decided to perform at Källberg now that Löwander is closed on Wednesdays,” the nurse told Irene.

  Carina Löwander was busy giving a lecture on ergonomics for secretaries, Irene was told. The seminar would be going on all day.

  Irene and Tommy decided to catch the Löwanders at home that evening.

  Tommy leaned back in his chair. He stretched his arms behind his head and looked curiously at Irene. “So,” he said. “You’ve decided the killer took Tekla’s dress uniform from the suitcase. And we found a letter that seems to confirm the truth in the rumor of a love affair between Tekla Olsson and Hilding Löwander. But you didn’t mention in the meeting that Tekla was Sverker’s real mother.”

  Irene sighed. “I really don’t know how we should handle this. It’s not directly connected to the murder. Sverker doesn’t know anything about Hilding’s betrayal of Lovisa. He believes that they are his parents. If a fifty-year-old man finds out that the real woman behind the ghost myth is his mother … how do you think he’d handle it?”

  “That’s a tough one. Poor, sensitive little Sverker has to be protected from all possible emotional crises, especially now when he has a bankrupt hospital to deal with, not to mention these horrible murders.”

  Sarcasm coming from Tommy was so unusual that Irene looked at him in surprise. Then she became angry.

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Isn’t it? Then what is it like?”

  Irene opened her mouth, but no answer came. She closed her mouth again and thought. What was it like? Really? She swallowed her irritation and said, “It’s just … like pulling a chair out from under someone. Losing an identity. He feels secure as Hilding and Lovisa’s son.”

  “But it’s a lie. A lie behind his whole life.”

  Irene didn’t have an answer to that. Tommy was right. She was still not going to be the person to tell Sverker the truth about his background.

  To change the subject, she said, “I need to have another chat with Anna-Karin Arvidsson. Since surgery is temporarily suspended, she can’t hide behind being too busy. She’ll have to speak to us. She never mentioned her phone call to Linda. I’d like to ask her about that. And much more besides.”

  ANNA-KARIN WAS SCRUBBING out the medicine cabinet when the police officers arrived at the tiny ICU, and at first she didn’t notice them watching her from the doorway. She just continued to scrub away with a rag soaked in smelly disinfectant. Irene was ready to put her money on Anna-Karin. The bacteria didn’t stand a chance. As her rag swished around each bottle, Anna-Karin checked the expiration dates and tossed the expired ones into a cardboard box marked pharmaceutical returns. This job shouldn’t be all that stressful, but Anna-Karin’s face was flushed with effort.

  Tommy cleared his throat to get the nurse’s attention. Anna-Karin jumped at the noise.

  “God, you scared me,” she exclaimed. She stopped the frenetic scrubbing. The rag dangled from her hand.

  “Excuse us, we didn’t mean to startle you,” Tommy said. “We just need to talk to you for a moment.”

  He smiled and gave Anna-Karin with his best cocker-spaniel-puppy face. Irene had tried this technique herself, but it never worked. People would get nervous or ask her if something was troubling her, so she’d quit attempting it.

  “Can’t now. I have a great deal of cleaning to catch up on,” Anna-Karin said.

  “The dust bunnies won’t run away,” Irene said.

  Tommy looked at Irene with irritation, but she couldn’t help it. This little nutcase wasn’t going to hide behind her jobs anymore. Time for her to spill the beans—right now!

  Anna-Karin ground her teeth together. They could see the muscles working in her jaw, but she remained silent. Finally she threw the rag onto the desk. “All right, but I’ve already told you everything.”

  “No, you have not,” Irene replied.

  The effect of these words on the nurse was electric. All the color fled from her face; her blue eyes widened. Her right hand fumbled for the desk chair, which she drew toward her and sat down in heavily. Her blanched face then turned red, but she still said nothing.

  Irene was surprised at such a strong reaction. Her police instincts went to high alert, and she turned her internal lie detector all the way up. Did Anna-Karin have a bad conscience about something? Or was she frightened?

  “Please tell us a bit more about Linda’s sudden breakup with her boyfriend,” Tommy began gently.

  Anna-Karin relaxed, and her answer was calm. “We never had the chance to talk about it. It happened so fast. One day she just told me that Pontus was moving out.”

  “That must have been around February first. Am I right?”

  “Yes, that sounds right to me.”

  “Before that moment you had no idea that things were not going well between them, if I understand you correctly,” Tommy continued.

  “Not a clue. But I’ve told you all that already.”

  “We know. We want to hear it again,” Irene said.

  “So the two of you had no chance to talk about the reasons behind her sudden breakup, if I understand you right,” Tommy said.

  “No. Things were too stressful here at work,” Anna-Karin whispered.

  “And therefore you never got together alone after the separation?”

  “No. She helped Pontus pack and … we never had time.”

  “But you talked on the phone.”

  “No.”

  The trapdoor closed, and Anna-Karin was caught. She still didn’t realize it, but she was about to.

  “We know that you’re lying now. It would be much easier for you to tell the truth at this point. We know that you called Linda the last evening she was alive. You called her from the hospital. The call was traced.”

  Yet again Anna-Karin’s face blanched and then reddened. It did not look good on her either.

  “Yes … I forgot … that call. Was it Monday night? I thought … it was on the weekend.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Linda was planning a party the following weekend. She wanted to borrow my waffle iron. We were going to have waffles and cloudberry ja … ja … jam,” Anna-Karin’s voice broke, and she started to cry.

  Tommy and Irene exchanged looks but said nothing. They waited patiently until Anna-Karin finished her crying fit.

  She rubbed at her runny nose with her cleaning rag. Her nose flamed red at once. Irene realized that the chemicals must be truly powerful.

  “This has all been so awful. Everything about Linda and Marianne. And I’ve had to work overtime. And Siv Persson is gone, too. It’s all too much, and my brain is mixing everything up. I really thought it was Sunday afternoon when Linda and I last talked. It was just a few words. About the waffle iron.”

  Again Anna-Karin clammed up. It was clear she would stick to the waffle-iron story.

  Irene said calmly, “I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you to come down to the station.”

  “Why would I have to do that?” Anna-Karin said with terror in her voice.

  “For an official interrogation. Our theory is that Linda was lured to the hospital in the middle of the night. Probably by a phone call. Why else would she come there at that time? In the winter, no less? Linda did not call you about borrowing a waffle iron. You were the one who called her.”

  The fear was palpable. Anna-Karin was almost screaming. “Linda and I had already talked about the waffle iron before. I didn’t know if mine worked, and I was just calling her back to tell her it was okay. Th
at’s the truth!”

  Maybe it was, but all of Irene’s instincts were crying, Lies! “A waffle iron. Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll be checking to see if Linda already owns a waffle iron, and whether you have one or not.”

  Anna-Karin didn’t reply, but she looked up straight into Irene’s eyes. Irene stared back. Anna-Karin was the first to look away.

  “MAYBE WE SHOULD have brought her to the station,” Tommy said as they sat in the police car on the way to lunch at a Chinese restaurant.

  “No, her nerves are already on edge. We should give her some time to sweat. She probably won’t be able to sleep. She knows something that she doesn’t want to tell us. That’s obvious. Tomorrow she might be more ready to spill it.”

  “You think? She seems like she’s holding fast to her story.”

  “We’ll see. We’re not done with our little lady.”

  Irene managed to parallel-park the police car into a tight spot in front of the Chinese restaurant. They ordered pork in sweet and sour sauce. A cup of coffee and a fortune cookie were included in the fifty-crown price.

  Irene’s fortune cookie read, “Don’t stare blindly into the fog. Gather your strength until the fog clears and you can see.” Irene laughed but still thought it sounded pretty wise.

  BIRGITTA MOBERG WAS in her office about to undertake the mission of locating Linda’s waffle iron. Before she vanished through the door, she said, “The lab called. Both the hair and the fingerprints on the suitcases belong to Carina Löwander. By the way, Jonny and Fredrik are going through Marianne’s apartment one more time. The last time we didn’t find any indication that there was a new man in her life.”

  “The man in her life was Andreas,” Irene said.

  “Obviously. Some people are monogamous by nature,” Birgitta said as she disappeared down the hallway.

  Her words struck something in Irene, but she didn’t have time to puzzle about it further. Hannu took Birgitta’s place at the door. He must also have heard Birgitta’s last sentence; Irene noticed how he glanced back at her. For a fraction of a second, she thought she caught a glimmer of affection, but when his ice-blue eyes turned back to Irene and Tommy, they did not reveal any sign of sentiment. He was merely his usual unflappable self.