leads. No one had noticed any change in either Marianne or Linda in the days leading up to the murders. Both had been acting normally. Only Nurse Ellen hadn’t been reinterviewed; she’d been sick and hadn’t been in. Andersson sighed and rubbed his bald head.
His investigators were starting to trickle in. Birgitta and Hannu were the first ones back. Birgitta said, “I’ve gone through three interrogations with that swine Scholenhielm. He’s out of his mind!”
Andersson tried to think. Who was Scholenhielm and how did he fit in at Lowander Hospital? Maybe he was the security guard? No, that guy was called Bengtsson.… He gave up. “Who is Scholenhielm?”
“The guy who beat his Polish girlfriend to death last Saturday. Maria Jacobinski.”
“What? What are you doing with that case? You’re supposed to be dealing with this Lowander problem.”
“Who else was available? Irene had to take over the shift for Hans Borg Saturday night because you forgot to have it covered.”
That last sentence came out a bit more spitefully than she intended, and, observing the shifting color of her boss’s face, she hurried to continue.
“I took over the case on Sunday. It’s clear-cut. The forensics team faxed the preliminary report yesterday. She was beaten all over, and her body had massive signs of earlier beatings as well. Two fingers had been broken, and from appearances they healed without treatment. The back of her skull was beaten in—that was the killing blow. During my first interrogation, the used-car salesman insisted that he’d lost his memory. I would rule it a massive hangover. But today he had a completely new story.”
In spite of himself, Andersson was curious. “Let’s hear it.” By now most of the group had arrived and was listening.
“He says that the Polish mafia forced their way into his apartment that evening and forced him to drink an entire quart of Grant’s. Then they beat his girlfriend to death. There was nothing he could do, since the alcohol had incapacitated him. He was helpless as he watched them kill his girlfriend.”
Jonny snorted. “Well, that’s a new spin on an old story. What was his name again?”
“Sten Scholenhielm. He took the name twenty years ago. He was born Sten Svensson. Probably thought that a name that sounds vaguely noble would be good for business.”
“All right, let’s ignore the salesman and his Polish whore for now. Birgitta, see if you can find someone to take over that investigation. Maybe Tomas Molander—What’s wrong now?”
Birgitta’s back was as straight as a board as she leaned over the table and stared into Andersson’s eyes. She said in an ice-cold voice, “How would you know?”
“How? What?”
“How do you know she was a whore?”
Andersson stared at Birgitta in surprise. “Everybody knows that’s what they’re all like.”
“All like what?”
“They hang around in bars picking up tourists. Find a rich foreigner and get off the street and away from their miserable lives.”
“And they’re all like that?”
“Well, maybe not all, but most of them.”
“And you know for a fact that Maria Jacobinski was a whore?”
“Yes … no … but she had to be.”
Birgitta and Andersson glared at each other like two roosters ready to fight. The air seemed to vibrate between them. Irene understood what was behind it. It had nothing to do with Andersson’s thoughtless comment regarding Maria Jacobinski. Birgitta still felt bad about Hans Borg, and Andersson had not backed her up. Birgitta wanted Hans Borg’s head on a platter. And Andersson couldn’t understand Birgitta’s reaction. He felt he’d made a smooth move as an administrator and solved the problem by exchanging Borg for Hannu Rauhala. No gossip and no leaks to the media about sexual harassment inside the police force.
Irene also knew that Birgitta would never win this fight. Perhaps she realized this herself, as she rounded off her harangue. “Most of those women are lured here by promises of marriage only to find they’re sex slaves in a foreign country. The cost of returning is just too high. And even if they manage to return, they end up having to take up the life anyway. Even if Maria Jacobinski had been a streetwalker back in Poland, that’s no reason for denying her justice here.”
“I never said she wouldn’t get justice.” Andersson bristled, outraged. His glare let Birgitta know she’d gone too far. “Forget about Tomas Molander. You’re still on this investigation.” He nodded toward the door.
Birgitta looked at him, not comprehending.
“Go and deal with your used-car salesman and Polish lady.”
Teeth clenched, Birgitta stood up and collected her papers. Without looking at anyone and with her back still straight, she walked right out the door.
An unpleasant silence filled the room until Jonny broke it by saying, “What a bitch!”
Jonny and Andersson exchanged a look of male camaraderie. Irene bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from speaking up. Like Birgitta, she knew that this was a fight she could not win.
“Back to Lowander Hospital,” said Andersson. “We haven’t gotten the final pathology reports on either the bird lady or Linda. Stridner promised we’d have both reports early tomorrow morning. We’ll go over them during morning prayer at seven-thirty.” A few members of the group nodded. “Stridner could tell me, however, that Linda was strangled and then hung up on the ceiling beam by the doubled flag line.”
“Why was she strung up?” asked Hannu.
“Maybe so it would seem like suicide?” Jonny suggested.
“No, he left the rope used for the strangulation embedded in her neck,” Hannu said.
The group pondered this for a minute until Irene said, “I believe Hannu has raised a good point. The intention was not to make it appear like a suicide. The murderer had something else to say. Otherwise it would have been enough just to strangle her and throw her behind the door of the locked attic.”
“As he had with Marianne,” Fredrik Stridh interjected. “Just throw her into the room.”
“Another strange detail. If it’s a detail. Why go down the elevator with Marianne’s body and drag her into the generator room when it would be easier to throw her into the attic, too? It took a lot of extra time.” Irene was thinking out loud.
“Time,” Hannu said.
Everyone in the group remembered Hannu’s succinct way of speaking from previous cases and knew it was best not to press him for more. When he was ready, he was ready. He wouldn’t say a word before then, which really got on the nerves of everyone else. However, every word he said was golden.
Andersson usually had great respect for the Finn’s acumen, but because he was still mentally off balance after his confrontation with Birgitta, he snapped. “What the hell do you mean?”
Unperturbed, Hannu continued. “The murderer needed time. That’s why he sabotaged the electricity. The respirator stops. The doctor and the nurse have to hurry to take care of the patient. The murderer can return to the attic and get on with stringing Linda up.”
The entire room fell silent. Most of them were surprised at such a long statement from Hannu, but what he said gave them much to think about.
“Continue,” Andersson said.
“The murderer has to go the electrical room anyway to sabotage the electricity. He takes Marianne’s body there because he knows that it will be found as soon as someone comes looking to see what’s wrong. That’s exactly what he wants. It might delay the discovery of Linda’s body.”
“That’s exactly the hell what happened—a whole week!” The superintendent stared gloomily at his underlings. No one said a word, because if Hannu’s theory was correct, it was a coldly planned trap and they’d all fallen into it.
“It’s pretty clear now that the murders of the two nurses are connected. But the murder of the crazy bird lady? Someone else?” Jonny asked.
Tommy shook his head. “No, Stridner believes it’s the same killer. ‘Brutal and strong,’ she said. And the probable murder weapon, the wire cutter, is the same one used to sabotage the electricity that night. Remember, it was found on the stream bank near Gunnela Hagg’s body.”
“Keep in mind, too, that everyone says that Linda and Marianne were acting totally normal right before they were murdered,” Andersson pointed out.
