only hours before the murder. They’d remembered after being told that the calls had been traced. Linda’s day planner also contained Sverker’s cell-phone number. Priority number three.
“We have to get to the bottom of this,” said the superintendent. “We have to assume that Linda was lured back to Lowander Hospital. But why would it be so important that she’d have to bike over there in the middle of the night?”
“We never found Marianne’s flashlight either,” Irene commented. “The killer must have taken it.”
“And why kill the bird lady, Gunnela Hagg? Nobody should have cared that she was telling ghost stories,” Fredrik said.
“Too many questions. Now get me some answers,” barked the superintendent.
“Tommy and I can go to meet with Carina and Sverker Lowander,” Irene said. “We’ve talked to them quite a bit already.”
• • •
THE LOWANDERS PROVED hard to reach. Sverker was in the middle of surgery at Kallberg Hospital. “It was an absolutely necessary operation, which Dr. Lowander decided to perform at Kallberg now that Lowander is closed on Wednesdays,” the nurse told Irene.
Carina Lowander was busy giving a lecture on ergonomics for secretaries, Irene was told. The seminar would be going on all day.
Irene and Tommy decided to catch the Lowanders at home that evening.
Tommy leaned back in his chair. He stretched his arms behind his head and looked curiously at Irene. “So,” he said. “You’ve decided the killer took Tekla’s dress uniform from the suitcase. And we found a letter that seems to confirm the truth in the rumor of a love affair between Tekla Olsson and Hilding Lowander. But you didn’t mention in the meeting that Tekla was Sverker’s real mother.”
Irene sighed. “I really don’t know how we should handle this. It’s not directly connected to the murder. Sverker doesn’t know anything about Hilding’s betrayal of Lovisa. He believes that they are his parents. If a fifty- year-old man finds out that the real woman behind the ghost myth is his mother … how do you think he’d handle it?”
“That’s a tough one. Poor, sensitive little Sverker has to be protected from all possible emotional crises, especially now when he has a bankrupt hospital to deal with, not to mention these horrible murders.”
Sarcasm coming from Tommy was so unusual that Irene looked at him in surprise. Then she became angry.
“It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it? Then what is it like?”
Irene opened her mouth, but no answer came. She closed her mouth again and thought. What was it like? Really? She swallowed her irritation and said, “It’s just … like pulling a chair out from under someone. Losing an identity. He feels secure as Hilding and Lovisa’s son.”
“But it’s a lie. A lie behind his whole life.”
Irene didn’t have an answer to that. Tommy was right. She was still not going to be the person to tell Sverker the truth about his background.
To change the subject, she said, “I need to have another chat with Anna-Karin Arvidsson. Since surgery is temporarily suspended, she can’t hide behind being too busy. She’ll have to speak to us. She never mentioned her phone call to Linda. I’d like to ask her about that. And much more besides.”
ANNA-KARIN WAS SCRUBBING out the medicine cabinet when the police officers arrived at the tiny ICU, and at first she didn’t notice them watching her from the doorway. She just continued to scrub away with a rag soaked in smelly disinfectant. Irene was ready to put her money on Anna-Karin. The bacteria didn’t stand a chance. As her rag swished around each bottle, Anna-Karin checked the expiration dates and tossed the expired ones into a cardboard box marked pharmaceutical returns. This job shouldn’t be all that stressful, but Anna-Karin’s face was flushed with effort.
Tommy cleared his throat to get the nurse’s attention. Anna-Karin jumped at the noise.
“God, you scared me,” she exclaimed. She stopped the frenetic scrubbing. The rag dangled from her hand.
“Excuse us, we didn’t mean to startle you,” Tommy said. “We just need to talk to you for a moment.”
He smiled and gave Anna-Karin with his best cocker-spaniel-puppy face. Irene had tried this technique herself, but it never worked. People would get nervous or ask her if something was troubling her, so she’d quit attempting it.
“Can’t now. I have a great deal of cleaning to catch up on,” Anna-Karin said.
“The dust bunnies won’t run away,” Irene said.
Tommy looked at Irene with irritation, but she couldn’t help it. This little nutcase wasn’t going to hide behind her jobs anymore. Time for her to spill the beans—right now!
Anna-Karin ground her teeth together. They could see the muscles working in her jaw, but she remained silent. Finally she threw the rag onto the desk. “All right, but I’ve already told you everything.”
“No, you have not,” Irene replied.
The effect of these words on the nurse was electric. All the color fled from her face; her blue eyes widened. Her right hand fumbled for the desk chair, which she drew toward her and sat down in heavily. Her blanched face then turned red, but she still said nothing.
Irene was surprised at such a strong reaction. Her police instincts went to high alert, and she turned her internal lie detector all the way up. Did Anna-Karin have a bad conscience about something? Or was she frightened?
“Please tell us a bit more about Linda’s sudden breakup with her boyfriend,” Tommy began gently.
Anna-Karin relaxed, and her answer was calm. “We never had the chance to talk about it. It happened so fast. One day she just told me that Pontus was moving out.”
“That must have been around February first. Am I right?”
“Yes, that sounds right to me.”
“Before that moment you had no idea that things were not going well between them, if I understand you correctly,” Tommy continued.
“Not a clue. But I’ve told you all that already.”
“We know. We want to hear it again,” Irene said.
“So the two of you had no chance to talk about the reasons behind her sudden breakup, if I understand you right,” Tommy said.
“No. Things were too stressful here at work,” Anna-Karin whispered.
“And therefore you never got together alone after the separation?”
“No. She helped Pontus pack and … we never had time.”
“But you talked on the phone.”
“No.”
The trapdoor closed, and Anna-Karin was caught. She still didn’t realize it, but she was about to.
“We know that you’re lying now. It would be much easier for you to tell the truth at this point. We know that you called Linda the last evening she was alive. You called her from the hospital. The call was traced.”
Yet again Anna-Karin’s face blanched and then reddened. It did not look good on her either.
“Yes … I forgot … that call. Was it Monday night? I thought … it was on the weekend.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Linda was planning a party the following weekend. She wanted to borrow my waffle iron. We were going to have waffles and cloudberry ja … ja … jam,” Anna-Karin’s voice broke, and she started to cry.
Tommy and Irene exchanged looks but said nothing. They waited patiently until Anna-Karin finished her crying fit.
She rubbed at her runny nose with her cleaning rag. Her nose flamed red at once. Irene realized that the chemicals must be truly powerful.
“This has all been so awful. Everything about Linda and Marianne. And I’ve had to work overtime. And Siv Persson is gone, too. It’s all too much, and my brain is mixing everything up. I really thought it was Sunday afternoon when Linda and I last talked. It was just a few words. About the waffle iron.”
Again Anna-Karin clammed up. It was clear she would stick to the waffle-iron story.
