mean that the person dressed as the ghost nurse biked off wearing the old-fashioned nurse uniform?” Irene wondered.
“Not all that improbable. The bike was shoved under the bridge. Then our murderer could have gotten out of costume.”
“But then why burn it up in the garden shed as late as Saturday?” Irene asked stubbornly.
“Maybe just to get rid of the evidence,” Tommy said. “No garden shed, no proof that Gunnela was staying there. No nurse’s uniform, no proof that someone was wearing it to spook the nurses at Lowander Hospital.”
Jonny looked at the tape player thoughtfully. “Gunnela said that the ghost nurse stole the bicycle. It was Linda’s, of course. Maybe it was Linda who had dressed up as a ghost to haunt the hospital? She left her apartment early enough to play the spook. So perhaps she was the one who murdered Marianne?”
Irene nodded slowly. “Not so crazy. But some things still don’t work. First, the night nurse who saw her was sure it was Nurse Tekla. I’ve seen a photo of Tekla. She was a large, strong woman, almost as tall as me, but bustier, with such thick hair it couldn’t be hidden by a nurse’s cap. Linda would never have been able to play Nurse Tekla. But I’ve met a woman who could.”
“Who?” everyone asked in chorus.
“Doris Peterzen.”
“Doris …? Why the hell would she want to kill Marianne Svard?” the superintendent sputtered.
“Money. The most common motive in history. She’s inheriting millions. You should have seen her mansion in Hovas.”
“She doesn’t get anything from killing Marianne Svard.”
“Sure she does, if the idea was to create an accidental outage so that the respirator goes out and Nils Peterzen dies a natural death due to unfortunate circumstances. Marianne would be able to do CPR until the power came back on. Marianne had to be taken out of the game.”
“But was killing her really necessary?” asked Tommy.
“Maybe it went wrong. Maybe Marianne was stronger than she appeared,” Irene suggested.
Birgitta shook her head. “No. She was strangled with a noose. Was it brought along? I think the purpose was to kill her right from the start.”
“You’re right. Honestly, though, it doesn’t seem to be Doris Peterzen’s style,” Irene admitted. “Cutting off the power to the respirator, committing a bloodless murder—that would not be out of the question. But killing an innocent nurse by strangling her … no. It’s hard to reconcile that with Doris Peterzen’s personality.” She thought glumly for a moment, then brightened up. “Then again, we have Goran.”
This statement was met with a polite, questioning silence from her colleagues. They knew that Irene’s brain worked so quickly she ran through ten sentences before speaking the eleventh.
Andersson sighed. “Goran who?”
“Peterzen. Goran Peterzen. Nils Peterzen’s son from his first marriage. He’s almost sixty years old. Seems to have been under his father’s boot his entire life. He said it would be hard to take care of business after his father’s death, and I find that suspicious. A man who is almost old enough to retire himself can’t run the bank without Daddy’s help? And of course he stands to inherit a great deal of money, too.”
Irene’s cheeks had gotten slightly pink from the ideas that came pouring in. Jonny brought her right back to earth. “And this Goran would look like the perfect Valkyrie in an antique nurse uniform?”
Irene thought back to Goran’s appearance and sighed. “No, he’s almost six feet tall and weighs well over two hundred fifty pounds,” she admitted. Her mood fell.
Jonny scoffed. “So Doris Peterzen, wearing a nurse’s uniform, drives over to Lowander Hospital to cut the power so the respirator stops working. At the same time, she strangles Marianne Svard. After that she pedals away on Linda Svensson’s bicycle, wearing the uniform, and then shoves the bike down the culvert. She’s shocked the next day when she reads that there’s a witness and in some supernatural manner knows that this must be Gunnela Hagg. Maybe she’s psychic? Then she kills Gunnela. On Saturday she returns to set fire to the garden shed and the nurse’s uniform. And where does Linda fit into all this? Irene, I believe this is one of your worst theories ever.”
Irene sourly thought that some people seem to recover more quickly than others from stomach flu. The worst thing was that Jonny was right. Linda’s disappearance did not fit into her theory, and, of course, Linda was involved. Her day planner was in Marianne’s pocket, her bicycle was in the culvert, and she’d been gone ever since Marianne’s murder.
The pager buzzed to let them know the pizza had arrived. Irene and Tommy volunteered to go pick it up.
In the elevator Tommy said seriously, “We have to find Linda. Dead or alive. We won’t understand how the murders of Marianne Svard and Gunnela Hagg are connected until we do.”
“So you believe it’s the same killer?”
“Oh, yes.”
THE SUPERINTENDENT STILL looked tired, Irene thought. This case was wearing him down. No one knew better than Andersson that they hadn’t gotten much further than they’d been a week ago, when the only thing they worried about was Marianne Svard’s murder. So far the media hadn’t found out that Gunnela Hagg was dead. As soon as they did, they’d bite. Andersson didn’t realize that he’d sighed heavily, but everyone else heard it. Tactfully, they pretended that they didn’t notice. At his age he was allowed a few small eccentricities. Not to mention he was the boss.
“I want to hear that tape again,” Tommy said.
For lack of other alternatives, Irene started the tape from the beginning. Tommy leaned forward and listened closely until the end. “She took the bike. God punishes theft!”
“Yep! That’s exactly what she says.” Tommy looked at his colleagues in triumph. They all tried their best to appear as if they understood what he was getting at. “Don’t you hear what she says? ‘She took the bike. God punishes theft!’ So the bike did not belong to ‘Nurse Tekla,’ but she was the one who pedaled away on it.” Tommy used air quotes around the ghost nurse’s name.
“So you mean that Gunnela Hagg saw Linda arrive and park her bike at the hospital but it was not Linda who biked away again,” said Irene.
“Yep.”
“And the person didn’t resemble Linda,” Jonny pointed out.
“Why would Linda park her bicycle and then disappear completely?” Irene countered.
Jonny glared, but he was forced to agree.
They listened to the tape one more time, but there was nothing to add.
“If Tommy is right, Gunnela Hagg saw Linda leave her bike in the hospital park. You could wonder why she went in the back way during the middle of the night. It’s a little creepy, and she had a key for the much better-lit front door.” Irene fell silent for a moment. “Did Gunnela see her actually enter the building? We don’t know. But let’s say she did.”
“Okay. Let’s say she did,” Jonny snapped. “And then what?”
Irene pretended he’d said nothing. “Gunnela says that Nurse Tekla came out, took Linda’s bike, and rode off.” She paused to see if her colleagues were following her. Everyone kept silent, so she continued. “Gunnela said nothing about seeing Linda come out again.”
Andersson glowered at her mistrustfully. “Still in the hospital? Ridiculous!” He thought it through. “But then again there’s nothing to indicate that she ever did come out.”
THEY STARTED AT exactly 7:00 A.M. Everyone from Criminal Investigation as well as a Canine Unit convened to search the building from top to bottom. Another Canine Unit was assigned to the ravine.
The superintendent had collected the entire group in the basement, right outside the elevator door. “I talked
