“But you keep extra keys for everything in that drawer?”
“Yes, but I’m the only one who has a key to this room, and I lock it when I go home for the day. This desk drawer is always locked, and I’m the only one with a key.” Bengtsson appeared satisfied with his mastery of the key situation.
“But this room wasn’t locked when we got here.”
“No, it’s open during the day.”
“But the top drawer is always locked.”
“Always.”
“Where do you keep the master key?”
“Here.” The security guard pulled the key ring out of his pocket and showed how it was attached to his belt. “And here’s the key to the top drawer.”
Irene saw that she wasn’t going to get any more information about keys, so she decided to change the subject and ask about Mama Bird.
“Are you aware that there’s a lady living in the toolshed?”
Bengtsson stiffened. He looked down into his steaming coffee mug and mumbled, “Hmm, there is?”
He was truly a terrible liar.
“Didn’t you see yesterday’s GT? Didn’t you read about the woman who had seen old Tekla haunt the place on the night of the murder?”
“Well … yes … I saw it. Where did they find out about that?”
“The journalist who wrote the article had interviewed Mama Bird.”
Bengtsson looked up from his mug, surprised. “An interview? In her state?”
“So you know her?”
The security guard sighed, defeated. “Yes, I know her. Or at least I’m aware of her. I found her right before Christmas.”
“Found?”
“Yes, she was wrapped up in a garbage bag and had huddled against the basement heating exhaust, on the other side of the electrical room’s wall. At first I thought that someone had dumped garbage on the property, and I was furious. I walked over to get it and drag it to the garbage room when I realized that there was a human being inside.”
“Did you bring her into the building?”
“No. She stank to high heaven. It made you want to throw up. And she was totally off her rocker. I couldn’t get a word of sense out of her.”
“So you decided to let her sleep in the toolshed.”
Bengtsson nodded, resigned. “What else was I supposed to do? The hospital was closing for Christmas. She obviously had no home of her own. I unlocked the garden shed for her. She seemed to be very happy. Sometimes I hang a plastic bag with sandwiches on the door handle, and they’re gone the next morning. Though I have to say that I once saw her crumbling them into bits so she could feed the birds.”
“Where did you see her do that?”
“Here in the park.”
“Does anyone else know about Mama Bird?”
Folke Bengtsson shrugged his massive shoulders. “Don’t know. Maybe.”
“Do you know her real name?”
“No idea. She only babbled about being Mama Bird. But really, I haven’t talked to her much since that first morning.”
“Does she stay in the shed during the day?”
“No, she’s always gone in the morning. I arrive at six-thirty A.M. I never catch a glimpse of her then.”
“Have you looked inside the toolshed?”
The guard swallowed and nodded. “Yes, it’s pretty damned awful.… But she can stay through the winter. After that I’ll throw her out and lock the door again. I’ll deep-clean the shed and then repaint it thoroughly. No one will ever have to know that she lived there.”
It was obvious he was pleading with them not to tell. He seemed to feel sympathy for the homeless woman.
“Do you know where we can find Mama Bird during the day?”
“No idea. But.…” He hesitated, thought awhile, then said doubtfully, “One Saturday morning a few weeks ago, I saw her in Drottning Square. She came out of the shopping center with a big plastic bag in each hand, singing to herself as she walked by.”
“Did you hear what she was singing?”
Bengtsson looked surprised. “No. I kept my distance.”
“Did she see you?”
“No. She went to Hotel Eggers and sat down right by the entrance. Then she opened the bags and began to crumble up loaves of bread and scatter oats until she was covered with pigeons. Disgusting.”
The woman’s curious stink had an explanation, Irene thought. “When did you last see her?”
“Well … she’s not easy to spot. I only saw her that one time in Drottning Square. She comes to the shed late at night and leaves in the early morning. Last Monday night I hung a bag of sandwiches for her, and they were gone Tuesday morning.”
So Mama Bird was definitely nearby on the night of the murder. It was urgent that they find her.
“What does Mama Bird look like? How is she dressed?”
Bengtsson took some time to think before he answered. “Well, it’s hard to tell how old she is. Perhaps a bit younger than me. Short and thin. Though it’s hard to see what she really looks like. She wears a large man’s coat. She wears a knitted cap—I believe it’s pink. She keeps it pulled over her ears and nearly over her eyes. You don’t see much of her face.” “What color is her coat?”
“Don’t know. Brown. Gray. She wears it with a rope tied around her waist. She has big gym shoes on her feet, and she stuffs them with newspaper.”
“Anything else?”
“No. Yes. She has hardly any teeth.”
Tommy and Irene thanked him for the coffee and got up to leave. As they walked through the hallway, Irene stopped by the door marked central electricity.
“Have the techs searched the entire basement?” she asked.
“Yes, but they didn’t find anything outside of this room,” Tommy answered. “They also made a sweep of the elevator. Malm believes that she was killed in the ICU. She must have opened the door for the killer, since the lock can only be turned from the inside. Looks like she knew the murderer.”
“Unless the murderer had a key.”
“It’s possible. But the techs couldn’t figure out where in the room she was killed. During the outage Dr. Lowander and the old nurse were fumbling around and knocking stuff over. By the next morning the young ICU nurse had already cleaned it all up. Anna-Karin. She knew Marianne and was Linda’s friend.”
Again Irene had the feeling that Anna-Karin knew more than she was letting on. Still, it was only a feeling, and she couldn’t press the nurse further just on a hunch. She turned to Tommy and said, “I’m going up to the care ward. Nurse Ellen promised to take a look at my cat scratches.”
“All right. I’ll ask around and see if I can get anything more on Mama Bird.”
• • •
IRENE CLIMBED THE stairs up to the ward. At the nurses’ station, she found her boss in happy conversation with Nurse Ellen Karlsson. They were laughing heartily together at a good joke. Irene tried to remember when she had last heard him laugh like that. When he saw her, he stopped abruptly, and his face turned red.
Nurse Ellen followed Andersson’s glance and spun around in her chair. “Well, hello. How are you feeling? Your scratches giving you any trouble?”
“Thanks, I’m fine. As long as I don’t laugh.”
“Let me take a look. Let’s go to the exam room.”
