decision was that there had been a short in the electrical system. The house was really extremely old.”
The police officers drank the last of their coffee, stood up, and thanked Carina for her time.
Carina walked them to the doorway and waved good-bye.
Reflexively, Irene waved back.
“SHE WAS NICE. And boy, she’s a beauty,” Tommy said.
Irene was not able to stop herself, but to her dismay she heard herself say, “Not to mention thin.”
Tommy laughed out loud, and she was relieved that he thought she was joking.
He glanced sideways at her and said, “And her husband’s not that bad either. Kind of like Pierce Brosnan— you know, the guy who played James Bond.”
Irene did her best to appear indifferent. Tommy continued, “Speaking of Dr. Lowander, don’t you think it’s time to pay him another visit?”
OF COURSE ALL surgery was canceled at Lowander Hospital. They found Sverker Lowander in the office, flipping through sheets of paper. He’d had the chance to take a shower since they’d last seen him. He was no longer wearing a white coat, and his outfit, a royal blue polo shirt and jeans, should have given him a more relaxed look. The tired lines in his face told Irene he wasn’t relaxed at all.
“Excuse us, may we come in and talk to you for a moment?” Tommy asked.
“Sure. Come on in. One of you can take that chair and the other the armchair.”
Irene walked over to the armchair and let herself sink in. It was surprisingly comfortable. Tommy started his line of questioning at once.
“We’ve been following up a number of rumors regarding the house fire eleven years ago.”
Sverker Lowander said sharply, “Why?”
“Honestly speaking, there’s no clear answer to that. We’ve got to follow every rumor or idea that comes up in order to find this murderer. Sometimes there are red herrings, of course, but that’s the way it goes in an investigation.”
The doctor didn’t seem convinced. Finally he shrugged. “So what do you want to know?”
“Your first wife, Barbro, accused Carina of arson. Why would she do that?”
Lowander took his time answering the question. “She’s mentally unstable, and she took our divorce fairly hard.”
“Did she have psychological problems before?”
“No … well … when Julia was born, she suffered from preeclampsia. That’s a poisoning of the system due to pregnancy. Then after she had the baby, she suffered from postpartum depression for a few weeks. But it passed without further treatment.”
“No other signs of depression before the divorce?”
Lowander appeared both surprised and irritated as he answered, “No, and what does this have to do with the murders of Linda and Marianne?”
“Investigation technicalities.”
Tommy then went through the events at the time of the fire and the testimony that Barbro had given. Sverker agreed with everything Carina had said. Finally Tommy asked, “Could Barbro have set the fire to take revenge on you and Carina?”
The doctor rubbed his eyes tiredly before he answered, with great conviction, “That was brought up in the previous investigation. I am absolutely sure that the answer is no. Barbro loved that old mansion. More than I did, in fact. Even though it was my childhood home.”
“A few old suitcases were saved. They were stored in the hospital attic. Were you aware of that?”
Lowander’s surprise was absolutely genuine. “Suitcases? I had no idea that they’d been saved. It would be—” He stopped himself and looked straight into nothingness before slowly beginning to speak again. “That’s right. I remember. I was cleaning the basement the weekend before the fire broke out. I’d put some old suitcases I was going to throw away right next to the door. Were those the ones that were saved?”
“I don’t know. Probably. What did they contain?”
“Old stuff that belonged to Mama and Papa. Papers, old clothes … nothing important.”
“Who decided they should be stored in the hospital attic?”
“That could have been me.… Things were so crazy back then. I don’t remember. And I’ve never set foot in the attic. When I was young, the door was always locked, and once I was grown, I had no reason to go there.”
Irene decided it was time for her to chime in, even though it was not a pleasant question she had to ask. “Another rumor has cropped up. It also doesn’t seem relevant to our investigation. But since the murderer was dressed as Nurse Tekla, I have to ask.… What do you know about Nurse Tekla?”
Sverker lifted an eyebrow, and a hint of a smile played across his lips. “That came out of the blue. Of course, I’ve heard about the hospital ghost. She was fired or she chose to leave and went to Stockholm to work there. For some reason she returned and decided to commit suicide in the attic. I asked Papa once why she chose our attic and not Stockholm. He said she was mentally ill.”
“Was that the only time you asked about Nurse Tekla?”
“Yes. He didn’t like to talk about her. My father was a down-to-earth, practical man. He had no respect for ghost stories and that kind of thing.”
“An old rumor says that your father and Nurse Tekla had a relationship. Have you heard anything about that?”
“Not at all. That’s ridiculous. Papa and some old nurse!”
“She was only thirty-five, and your father was fifty,” Irene countered calmly.
“No, it doesn’t fit. She hanged herself in the spring of ’47. I was just a few months old then. Mama and Papa had given up hope of ever having children, so I was the miracle child. Mama was already fairly old, and she had to be under the supervision of specialists during her entire pregnancy. Would Papa do something while …? No! It’s just not possible.”
Irene decided to change the subject.
“Your mother passed away when you were fairly young?”
“That’s right. She had an aneurysm. What does this have to do with the murder investigation?”
“We don’t know yet. We’re trying to find out. As we said, many of our leads point backward in time.”
“Damned strange.”
“That’s what we think, too. So we’re not letting go of this line of investigation until we’re sure it won’t have relevance in the present. The only people who have seen the murderer are Siv Persson and Gunnela Hagg, the homeless woman in the garden shed, who was killed. You didn’t know of her existence, you said.”
“No. I’ve already told you that.”
Nodding toward the heap of paper, Tommy said, “Have you found a way to save the hospital?”
“No, it can’t be done. I’ve decided to close it at the end of the summer. I’ll be informing my employees next week.”
Irene felt some sympathy for him, but still, how much of this failure could be laid at his door? A good doctor, yes, but the administrator of a hospital? He couldn’t blame circumstances entirely. Perhaps he was too weak and indecisive.
AFTER TAKING IN a bowl of soup in the police cafeteria, Irene and Tommy headed up to their department. They’d begun to sort through their impressions of the Lowander couple when Hannu Rauhala appeared, holding a large, old-fashioned suitcase of brown leather.
“Hi. Here’s the arson investigation’s results.”
He set the suitcase down and pulled out a thick envelope from the waistband of his jeans. Irene decided that Hannu must be clairvoyant. Although neither she nor Tommy had mentioned it, Hannu had tracked down all the papers pertinent to the investigation of the mansion fire. Since they already knew the result of the investigation, they decided to take a look inside the leather suitcase.
“So this is from the attic?” Irene asked.
“Yes, the lab’s finished with it. We’ll get the other two tomorrow. Apparently they contained traces of something,” Hannu replied.
“What kind of traces?”
