over his chest, and his jaw had been closed with an elastic bandage. A middle-aged woman was looking down at him, and she jumped when Irene and Nurse Ellen came in.
“Please excuse us for disturbing you,” Nurse Ellen apologized. “We were just looking for Nurse Anna- Karin.”
“She’ll be back in a moment. She had some paperwork she needed to finish.” It was obvious the woman had been crying, but she appeared composed.
“My sympathies. Let me introduce myself. I’m Inspector Irene Huss from the police.”
“Inspector?” The woman started. “Criminal inspector? Why are you here?”
“Are you aware of what happened last night here in the hospital?”
The woman’s expression was filled with shock. “Something connected to Nils’s death?”
It was clear she had not been told anything about the interruption of electric service or the ICU nurse’s murder. All the details would be splashed across the evening papers anyway, so Irene Huss continued. “I’m sorry, but the fact that Nils Peterzen died is a direct result of these events. May I ask you for your name?
“Doris Peterzen. Nils is my husband.” Only a slight tremble in her voice betrayed her feelings.
Irene observed this self-possessed woman. She and Doris were about the same height, slightly less than six feet, unusually tall. She was around fifty and was dressed very fashionably. She was definitely beautiful even with no makeup and after much crying. Her hair was a discreet platinum, probably the work of a skillful stylist, and it surrounded a perfectly formed face without a wrinkle or blemish. She had grayish blue eyes and dark lashes. Irene vaguely recognized her face but couldn’t place it. She wore a blue coat with a black fur collar and a matching fur hat.
“Your husband was put on a respirator yesterday after his operation,” Irene began.
“I know. Dr. Lowander called and told me himself. Nils was aware that might happen. He’d quit smoking ten years ago, but after the fifty years before.… His lungs.… We.… Dr. Lowander believed that he’d survive the operation. It was absolutely necessary, because the arterial hernia was large.”
“How old was your husband?”
“Eighty-three.”
Doris Peterzen returned to the foot of the bed where her husband lay. She bowed her head and began to weep softly again.
At that moment the door burst open and a young nurse, her face flushed red with hurry, rushed in. A shock of short blond hair stood up on her head.
“Have they come yet?” she asked Nurse Ellen in an agitated voice.
A frown appeared on the older nurse’s brow. “No,” she answered severely.
Irene wondered who “they” might be, but her unasked question was answered immediately as two men in matching black suits came through the doorway right behind the blond nurse. They pushed a gurney between them, a dark gray bag with a zipper draped over the top.
Nurse Ellen said softly to Doris Peterzen, “The men from the funeral home are here.”
When Doris caught sight of the men, her weeping intensified. Nurse Ellen put an arm around her and led her out through the double doors. She was probably taking the recent widow into her office, Irene thought, but she stayed put to talk further with the young ICU nurse.
Nils Peterzen’s body was lifted onto the bag spread over the rolling table and zipped into it, and the men disappeared again through the doors as quickly as they’d come.
Irene walked over to one of the two windows in the ICU unit overlooking the large park and parking lot. She rested her forehead on the cool windowpane and watched as the gurney was rolled out through the back entrance toward the funeral home’s dark gray station wagon. The entire process took less than a blink of the eye, a journey no one would have noticed.
Irene decided to look through the same door the undertakers had just used. The red exit box over it was brightly lit. The door itself was heavy and steel-coated, with automatic door openers on each side. Irene could see that this area was part of a later addition to the hospital. Here there were no fancy art nouveau embellishments. The stairs were wide and made from common stone. An ordinary iron handrail was fastened to one of the cream- colored walls. The stairway curved around an elevator shaft whose gray metal door was marked bed elevator in black letters.
Irene closed the door again. Nurse Anna-Karin, whose flushed cheeks had had no time to fade, was frenetically stripping the bed Nils Peterzen’s body had occupied only three minutes earlier. She started to stuff the bedclothes into a laundry bag.
Irene cleared her throat. “Anna-Karin, do you have a moment?” she asked. “I need to talk to you. My name is Irene Huss. I’m a criminal inspector, and this is about the murder of your colleague, Marianne Svard.”
The nurse stiffened and whirled around to face Irene. “I don’t have time. The first polys are coming soon.”
“Polys? What’s that?”
“Oh, the patients from the polyclinic who’ve just had their operations. Today two colons and one gastro. And later today a rhino. It’s crazy to do a rhino on a day like this.”
Irene puzzled through the jargon. The young nurse was stressed and scattered. Not so strange considering that her colleague had been murdered the night before. Probably a bit of shock as well. Irene went to the nurse and put a hand on her shoulder.
“I still have to talk to you for a moment. For Marianne’s sake,” she said calmly.
Nurse Anna-Karin stood still, and her shoulders dropped. She nodded in resignation. “All right. Let’s go sit down at the registration desk.”
At the desk Anna-Karin gestured for Irene to take the chair while she herself sat on the stainless-steel stool.
Irene began, “I know that your first name is Anna-Karin. Could you please tell me your last name and your age?”
“My whole name is Anna-Karin Arvidsson. I’m twenty-five.”
“How long have you worked at Lowander Hospital?”
“About a year and a half.”
“So you’re about as old as Marianne and you’ve been here about the same length of time. Did you hang out together after work?”
Anna-Karin looked surprised. “Not at all.”
“Never?”
“No. Well, once we went out dancing. Marianne, Linda, and me.”
“When was this?”
“About a year ago.”
“And you never were out together with her again?”
“No, except for the holiday party. The entire staff is invited to a Christmas smorgasbord right before we close for the holidays.”
“Did you know Marianne well?”
“No.”
“What did you think of her?”
“Nice. A little shy.”
“Do you know anything about her personal life?”
The nurse needed a moment to think. “Not much. I knew she was divorced. They separated right before she started working here.”
“Do you know anything about her ex-husband?”
“No. Except he’s a lawyer.”
“Did she have children?”
“No.”
“Where did she work before she came to Lowander Hospital?”
“Ostra Hospital. Also in their ICU.”
“Do you know why she changed jobs after her divorce?”
Anna-Karin thought about this. She dragged her fingers through her blond stubble a number of times. “She
