Irene said calmly, “I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you to come down to the station.”
“Why would I have to do that?” Anna-Karin said with terror in her voice.
“For an official interrogation. Our theory is that Linda was lured to the hospital in the middle of the night. Probably by a phone call. Why else would she come there at that time? In the winter, no less? Linda did not call you about borrowing a waffle iron. You were the one who called her.”
The fear was palpable. Anna-Karin was almost screaming. “Linda and I had already talked about the waffle iron before. I didn’t know if mine worked, and I was just calling her back to tell her it was okay. That’s the truth!”
Maybe it was, but all of Irene’s instincts were crying, Lies! “A waffle iron. Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll be checking to see if Linda already owns a waffle iron, and whether you have one or not.”
Anna-Karin didn’t reply, but she looked up straight into Irene’s eyes. Irene stared back. Anna-Karin was the first to look away.
“MAYBE WE SHOULD have brought her to the station,” Tommy said as they sat in the police car on the way to lunch at a Chinese restaurant.
“No, her nerves are already on edge. We should give her some time to sweat. She probably won’t be able to sleep. She knows something that she doesn’t want to tell us. That’s obvious. Tomorrow she might be more ready to spill it.”
“You think? She seems like she’s holding fast to her story.”
“We’ll see. We’re not done with our little lady.”
Irene managed to parallel-park the police car into a tight spot in front of the Chinese restaurant. They ordered pork in sweet and sour sauce. A cup of coffee and a fortune cookie were included in the fifty-crown price.
Irene’s fortune cookie read, “Don’t stare blindly into the fog. Gather your strength until the fog clears and you can see.” Irene laughed but still thought it sounded pretty wise.
BIRGITTA MOBERG WAS in her office about to undertake the mission of locating Linda’s waffle iron. Before she vanished through the door, she said, “The lab called. Both the hair and the fingerprints on the suitcases belong to Carina Lowander. By the way, Jonny and Fredrik are going through Marianne’s apartment one more time. The last time we didn’t find any indication that there was a new man in her life.”
“The man in her life was Andreas,” Irene said.
“Obviously. Some people are monogamous by nature,” Birgitta said as she disappeared down the hallway.
Her words struck something in Irene, but she didn’t have time to puzzle about it further. Hannu took Birgitta’s place at the door. He must also have heard Birgitta’s last sentence; Irene noticed how he glanced back at her. For a fraction of a second, she thought she caught a glimmer of affection, but when his ice-blue eyes turned back to Irene and Tommy, they did not reveal any sign of sentiment. He was merely his usual unflappable self.
“Death certificate for Tekla Viola Olsson. One son. Father unknown.” Hannu held out the sheet of paper.
Tekla Olsson, born October 8, 1911, Katarina Parish. Death by suicide March 28, 1947. One son, born January 2, 1947, Bromma Parish.
Tommy flipped through his desk calendar. “January second. That’s the name day for Sverker.”
“Tekla is buried in Stockholm,” Hannu informed them.
Tommy sighed. “Let’s hope she can finally rest in peace.”
HURTLING AROUND THE corner, brakes screeching, Irene turned in to the asphalt driveway.
“Answering an alarm, are we?” Tommy said.
Irene didn’t reply. Maybe her driving was a bit careless.
They rang the doorbell, then had to wait a long time before the door was opened by a small, chubby girl. Irene was confused at first and wondered if they’d come to the wrong house. The girl stared sulkily at them from behind her thick blond bangs and didn’t say a word.
“Hi,” Tommy said in a friendly voice. “Is your mommy or daddy at home?”
“Mama’s home,” the girl said shortly.
The girl’s gaze went from Tommy to Irene. The girl, who had to be Sverker and Carina’s daughter, had inherited the same sea-green eyes as her father and grandmother had. Other than that she didn’t resemble either. Irene remembered that the girl’s name was Emma and that she was eleven. Emma turned her head and yelled toward the interior of the house. “Mama!”
They had to wait for a minute or so longer before Carina Lowander came to the door. Irene heard Tommy’s quick intake of breath. She had to admit that Carina was striking. Her blond hair was swept up in a ponytail high on her head. She was wearing a short, baby blue aerobics outfit with a deep decolletage. The knitted leg warmers matched her outfit, and to accentuate her small waistline she wore a black knitted belt. The decorative thong was also black. Carina’s tanned skin glistened. Maybe she’d oiled it; a slight scent of coconut wafted in the air. To her chagrin Irene noticed that Carina did not smell of sweat.
“Hi. Excuse my outfit. On days when I’m not working at the gym, I work out at home. Please come in.”
Carina gave them a friendly smile as Irene and Tommy hung their coats on a heavily lacquered black hat rack.
Tommy cleared his throat. “We’d like to talk to you about what you found in those suitcases.”
“I understand. How stupid of me not to tell you earlier. On the other hand, it was a while back, and I had no idea that they’d have anything to do with … what happened to Linda.”
She turned and led them into the house.
Irene noticed how Tommy was staring at the black thong sliding between Carina’s butt cheeks. She walked vigorously as well as beautifully.
Carina led them down the stairs to the basement. Once upon a time, it’d probably been a den, but Carina had fashioned it into a home gym. As far as Irene could tell, the room had everything piece of equipment needed. There were even mirrors on the walls.
Carina walked through the gym and opened a door on the other side. “This is my personal office. Here you’ll be able to see exactly what I took from Hilding’s suitcase.”
Irene and Tommy stepped inside the surprisingly spacious room. Underneath the large basement windows, there was a desk pushed against the wall. On it stood a computer, a fax machine, and a telephone. Three storage shelves from IKEA stood along the side wall. The rest of the wall space was covered by posters of male and female bodybuilders. On the kitchen table in the middle of the room were a number of carefully rolled papers. Carina turned on the ceiling lamp and bent over the table, going through the rolls until she found what she was looking for.
“Here they are. The original architectural drawings of Lowander Hospital.”
The paper was faded from age. The year 1884 was written in the bottom-right-hand corner. There was no doubt these were the original drawings.
Irene noted that the area where both Tekla and Linda had been found dead was designated “Attic Storage Space.” The modern-day operating rooms were over four rooms marked “Nurse Apartments.” At the end of the hallway, there was a shared kitchen and bathroom area. On the other side of the hallway, there was a room for a doctor on call, a house mother’s office, and the apartment now meant for the on-call doctor. This apartment had been named “House Mother’s Apartment.”
Inside her head Irene imagined Hilding Lowander carefully opening the door from the on-call room and glancing around to see if the coast was clear before he hastily crossed the hall to Tekla’s apartment.
The plans for the care wards were identical to the present layout, except for a room identified as the “Operation Room,” which had been transformed into the ICU room.
The stairway and the patient elevator were not on the drawings, of course, since they weren’t added until seventy-five years later.
The basement had a kitchen as well as the usual basement storage areas. Irene was reminded of something she’d barely considered. Where did the food for the patients come from now? Did they have a contract with a restaurant to send in food? Or did the patients diet so they’d look slim as well as younger after getting their faces
