Night Rounds (2 page)

“No, but it’s left a deep mark. The murderer has strong arms. Now I must head off to the pathology lab. I’ll do an autopsy after lunch.”

Yvonne Stridner swept up the stairs, leaving behind her the scent of her perfume and the sound of her high heels clicking. Irene wondered what her boss would say if she informed him that Yvonne’s perfume was named Joy.

The police trio were lost in their thoughts until Andersson broke the silence.

“Marianne Svärd apparently was murdered during the night, and there were only two people on the night shift in the entire hospital: Dr. Löwander and that nurse … Siv Persson. Am I right, Fredrik?”

“Yes, but they were not alone. There were six patients who’d been admitted into the care ward, not to mention the old guy on the respirator.”

“Irene and I will have a little chat with the doctor and Nurse Siv. Fredrik, go back to the station and get two or three people to canvass the neighborhood. Have them interview the other patients, too. Then go home and go to bed.”

“But I’m not tired!”

“Don’t backtalk. The directive coming down from the powers-that-be stipulates no expensive overtime.”

The inspector waved his finger under Stridh’s nose. Stridh loped away without a reply.

• • •

DR. SVERKER LÖWANDER
looked worn to the bone. Lack of sleep carved deep lines around his eyes. He seemed to have no shirt on beneath his doctor’s coat, and the coat itself had been buttoned wrong. He had sunk deep into his armchair, his eyes closed, the small muscles on his face twitching sporadically. Superintendent Andersson and Inspector Huss stood quietly in the doorway watching until the superintendent cleared his throat loudly. The doctor startled and opened his eyes. He quickly ran his fingers through his thick hair, but it hardly made a difference in his appearance.

“Excuse me if I woke you up. Let me introduce myself. I am Superintendent Sven Andersson, and this is Detective Inspector Irene Huss.

“Yes, of course … What time is it?”

“Quarter past eight.”

“Thanks. I have my first patient in fifteen minutes.”

“Will you be up to performing surgery this morning?”

“I have to be. The patients come first. Thank God there’s nothing major today.”

“But after a night like this?”

Sverker Löwander gave him a tired look as he rubbed one of his eyes. “I have to. We don’t have many people on staff right now. And the patients can’t wait. They don’t seem to understand there could be anything else going on in their doctors’ lives.”

The two officers contemplated Löwander for a moment in silence. Finally the superintendent pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket and began to pat the other pockets fruitlessly. Sverker Löwander understood and handed him his own pen from his jacket pocket. In gold lettering the pen advertised,
LÖWANDER HOSPITAL YOU’RE IN SAFE HANDS
.

“Are you able to answer some questions for us?”

“Sure, as long as you’re quick about it. Or we could schedule an appointment for this afternoon, when I’m not so short on time. Why don’t you come back at four-thirty?”

“All right, but let me ask one short question right now: Why aren’t you wearing anything underneath your coat?”

Sverker Löwander started and stared down at his misbuttoned doctor’s coat. “Thanks for pointing that out. I’d forgotten. I’ll have to put something on before I leave.” He moved as if to get up from the armchair but then sank back down again. He continued, “Yesterday I took a shower and went to lie down in bed to read. It was a tough day, with several difficult operations. Not to mention the complications that set in with Nils Peterzén. Just as I was about to turn off the light, the power went out. My first thought was for the respirator. I wasn’t really worried, though, because Marianne Svärd is … was an extremely competent ICU nurse.”

He stopped speaking for a moment and sighed. The superintendent had the chance to slip in another question. “Were you lying down with your clothes on?”

“No. I was intending to sleep for a little bit. Peterzén’s condition was stable.… Where was I? Yes, the power went out. I stayed put, waiting for the backup generator to kick in, but it didn’t. When I heard the respirator alarm, I threw on my pants and coat as I rushed out. The rest of the night was just as hectic. I haven’t had the chance to think about how I look.”

Now Löwander did get up from the armchair and knelt to look under the furniture. He found a T-shirt beneath the bed. “Sorry. I’ve got to run. Come back at four-thirty and we can talk more.”

The doctor held the door open for the police officers.

IRENE DECIDED TO
plant herself on a wooden chair just inside the door to listen to the superintendent’s first round of questioning the night nurse Siv Persson.

“Nurse Siv, you must understand our difficulties believing that a ghost was the murderer,” Andersson began carefully.

Siv Persson pursed her mouth but did not answer. The superintendent spent a moment considering the photograph that Siv Persson still held in her hand.

“Would you be so kind as to describe this ghost?” he continued.

“You and I are probably the same age, so don’t be so polite,” Nurse Siv snapped.

“Fine.” He looked down at the old picture again. “Did she look the same as she does in this photo?”

“Yes, she looked exactly like this.”

The photograph had been taken from overhead and from a distance. The superintendent remembered the window he’d checked not that long ago. Farthest to the right side, there was a black car. A tall, muscular man was opening the door to the passenger’s seat for a much shorter woman. She was holding her hat in the gusty wind so that her coat sleeve blocked her face. The man’s light-colored coat was fluttering, and the tiny birch sapling’s branches were bending to the left.

Between the tree and the people next to the car stood a nurse. She was in profile. In spite of the camera angle, it was easy to see that she was tall. The lens was sharply focused on her. She wore a nurse’s uniform: white hat with a curly brim and black ribbon, white collar, white cuffs, calf-length black dress, and black shoes with stout heels. It was apparent that she had blond hair, which had been pinned up under her hat. She carried a suitcase in each hand.

Slowly, the chief inspector turned over the photo and read the caption written in black ink. The handwriting was elegant but gave only the date: May 2, 1946.

“Where did you find this picture?” Andersson asked.

“It’s always been here in the ward. Nurse Gertrud showed it to me.”

“Is Nurse Gertrud still working here?”

“No, she died last year. She was exactly ninety years old.” Nurse Siv looked directly into the superintendent’s face, with eyes that seemed unnaturally large behind the thick lenses of her old-fashioned glasses. She hesitated before she continued. “Nurse Gertrud came here in 1946, in the fall. She took Nurse Tekla’s place as the head nurse of the ward and house mother. Gertrud never met Tekla in person. She only met her, so to speak, after she died.”

Siv Persson reached for the photograph, and Andersson let her take it. Nurse Siv contemplated the picture for a moment. “Of course, Gertrud had heard a great many rumors concerning her. Nurse Tekla was an extremely fashionable woman.” Nurse Siv fell silent. When she picked up her story again, she seemed even more troubled.

“Now, I’ve only heard this thirdhand, but … they say there’d been a love affair between Nurse Tekla and Dr. Löwander.”

Superintendent Andersson stirred suddenly. “Wait a minute! I’ve just met Löwander. He wasn’t even born when Nurse Tekla worked here!”

Nurse Siv snorted. “Of course not! I’m talking about the old Dr. Löwander, Hilding Löwander. Sverker Löwander’s father.”

Naturally. Irene knew that Superintendent Andersson was probably feeling just as sheepish as he looked. The hospital had been named Löwander Hospital after the deceased doctor.

“Apparently his wife found out about the affair and demanded that Tekla be fired. The hospital belonged to the family of Mrs. Löwander, after all. She’d inherited it from her father.”

“So Sverker Löwander’s mother was wealthy?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about his father … Hilding?”

“I remember Hilding Löwander very well. He was a doctor from the old school. No one dared talk back to him. He performed surgery until he was seventy-five years old.”

“What happened to Nurse Tekla?”

“Gertrud told me all about this love affair. Nurse Tekla had just turned thirty, and he was twenty years her senior. What’s remarkable is that, according to rumor, Mrs. Löwander didn’t mind at first. All three of them even went on vacation together. According to Gertrud, this photograph was taken secretly as they left for one such vacation.”

Andersson took the photo back and peered at it with renewed interest while Siv Persson continued.

“The Löwanders had been married for many years when Mrs. Löwander unexpectedly became pregnant. She’d already turned forty. It was then she decided that Nurse Tekla had to go. Somehow Nurse Tekla found a job in Stockholm and moved there early in the fall of 1946. No one heard anything from her until March 1947. It turned out she was found in the attic of this building at that time. She’d committed suicide. Hanged herself.”

The room was quiet. Irene realized that the superintendent had no idea how to interpret Nurse Siv’s story. She looked as if she truly believed she’d seen the long-dead Nurse Tekla during the night. In order to break the silence, Irene asked, “How did you find this photograph?”

“Gertrud found it. The old medicine cabinets were going to be discarded, and she and a colleague were supposed to clean out all the expired medicine. She found the picture stuffed behind an extra shelf at the bottom of one cabinet. They had no idea what to do with it, so they put it back when the renovation was over. It became one of the nurses’ secrets. The picture has been there all these years, and every new nurse gets to see it when she starts working here. Naturally, everybody has heard of the hospital ghost. And whenever it’s discussed, we take out this old photo.”

“Why? To prove that the stories are true?”

“The stories are absolutely true! Nurse Gertrud was the person who cut Tekla down. She’d been hanging in the attic for a few days before someone noticed the smell.”

“And you really believe she haunts this place?”

“Lots of folks have seen her over the years,” Siv protested. “I’ve heard her before, but I’ve never seen her. Until last night.”

She glanced at the superintendent, and Irene hurried to ask, “What do you mean when you said you heard her?”

Nurse Siv answered slowly. “Sometimes there are rustling noises by the sinks in the disinfection room, even though nobody is there. Sometimes you hear her skirts swish in the hallway. Once I felt an ice-cold breeze pass right next to me. Most people here avoid this hallway between midnight and one in the morning.”

“What about you? What do you do at that hour?”

“We usually go to my office and have a cup of coffee and something to eat.”

“You and the ICU nurse?”

“That’s right.”

“Are you the only two people working here at that time?”

“Yes, we are.”

“But after twelve
A.M
. you could be joined by Nurse Tekla, you say?”

“Between twelve and one. She never appears after one.”

Andersson said, “So she’s a classic ghost who observes the witching hour. In that case what happens during the summer when it’s still light? Does she come between one and two then?”

Nurse Siv realized he was making fun of her and clamped her mouth shut.

To steer the interview in another direction, Irene asked, “How long had Marianne Svärd worked at this hospital?”

At first it seemed that Nurse Siv would not answer, but after a moment she blew her nose with a tissue she’d been holding in her hand and said, “Just about two years.”

“What did you think of her?”

Nurse Siv took her time answering. “She was extremely good at her job. She was able to deal with all these new machines. I’m not, but I’m going to retire soon.”

“How was she as a person?”

“She was sweet and pleasant. Helpful.”

“Did you two get to know each other well?”

The nurse shook her head. “No, but she was easy to talk to. Just when we got on something personal, like family and such, she didn’t share anything.”

“Was she married?”

“No, divorced.”

“Did she have children?”

“No.”

Irene couldn’t think of any more questions. The tiny gray nurse appeared to sink deeper into her poncho, her face tired and stressed. Even the chief inspector noticed this and started to feel sympathy.

“Shall I ask someone to drive you home?” he asked in his friendliest voice.

“No, thanks. I live just around the corner.”

Chapter 3

I
T BECAME CLEAR
to Irene Huss rather quickly that none of the hospital patients could have committed any crime. All four of the female patients had been awakened by the respirator alarm. Woozy from pain and sleep medications, they’d fallen asleep again right away. Two of the women had bandaged chests. The other two had large bandages wrapped around their heads; small, see-through corrugated plastic tubes full of blood threaded through their dressings.

The two male patients had not awakened at all that night.

The day nurse, Ellen Karlsson, was a steady, friendly middle-aged woman. Her salt-and-pepper hair was cut into a pageboy, with bangs over her brown eyes. “How horrible. Poor little Marianne … unbelievable. Who in the world would ever want to kill her?” she exclaimed, holding back tears.

Irene Huss was ready to cut in with a question. “That’s exactly what we’re trying to figure out. Do you have any idea who might have done it?”

“None at all. She always seemed so pleasant, though I can’t say I knew her really well, since we’re on different shifts. I’m on days, and she worked nights. And of course we’re in different departments. Maybe you could ask Anna-Karin. She’s the ICU nurse on the day shift. They know … they knew each other a bit better.”

The two women stood up and left the office together. Irene was struck by how quiet the hospital hallway was, unlike any hospital she’d ever been in. She asked, “Why are there so few patients here?”

“Today most operations are done at the polyclinic. Mostly to save on expenses. This hospital is completely private, as you know. When I started working here twenty-three years ago, we had two care wards and four surgeons. In those days the wards and the ICU were always full, and we worked through the weekends as well. Nowadays the hospital is closed on the weekends, and there are just two nurses on the day shift and two at night to cover both the ward and the ICU. Even the staff in surgery and receiving is down to half the previous number.”

“Why so many layoffs?” Irene asked, surprised.

“To save money. We do the complicated surgeries at the beginning of the week. Wednesdays and Thursdays we just do polyclinic operations. On Fridays we run only the reception desk and follow-up visits.”

“How many patients can you handle at a time?”

“Twenty in the ward and two in the ICU, with ten of the beds dedicated to day patients. The ward closest to ICU is a recovery ward for the polyclinic patients.”

“So the patients wake up there and rest a few hours before they’re sent home?”

“Exactly.”

“What do you do if something comes up and the patient can’t go home before the weekend?”

“We have an agreement with one of the private hospitals downtown. Källberg Hospital. We send our patients there if we have to.”

“So Löwander Hospital is never open during the weekends?”

“That’s correct.”

They’d reached the large double doors between the departments. Nurse Ellen pulled one door open, and they went into the next area.

Two beds flanked the minimal reception desk. In one lay the body of Mr. Peterzén. On the nightstand next to it, a candle had been lit, and its flame smoothed a gentle light across his peaceful face. His hands were crossed 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 Peterzén died is a direct result of these events. May I ask you for your name?

“Doris Peterzén. 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. Löwander 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. Löwander 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 Peterzén 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 Peterzén, “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 Peterzén’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 Peterzén’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 Svärd.”

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 Löwander 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 Löwander Hospital?”

“Östra 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 never said, but I got the feeling she was trying to stay away from some guy.”

“Who?”

“No idea. But that one time when we all went out dancing, we met at my place first for a bite to eat and a little wine. I asked Marianne why she’d quit her job at Östra, and she said, ‘I couldn’t stand meeting him every day and pretending there was nothing wrong.’ But she didn’t want to talk about it any longer.”

“Did Marianne spend more time with Linda?”

“No. Linda and I hang out together all the time.”

“Does Linda also work ICU?”

“No, she’s in the care ward.”

“But not right now.”

“No, Ellen works here for the morning shift.”

“Do you know when Linda will be coming in to work?”

“She starts the evening shift, at two o’clock.”

They were interrupted when the steel-plated door opened and a rolling bed with a still-slightly-groggy patient was wheeled in. An operating-room nurse wearing a green uniform, a paper cap, and a mask said mechanically, “First colon. The gastro will be here soon.”

Nurse Anna-Karin flew from the stool. Both nurses flipped busily through the paperwork, mumbling to each other over the drowsy patient.

Irene decided it was time to find Nurse Ellen and Doris Peterzén.

IRENE FOUND THE
recent widow in the empty nurses’ office. Doris Peterzén sat ramrod straight, her fingers laced in her lap. She’d taken off her hat and placed it on the desk but kept on her elegant coat. Irene paused in the doorway for a moment, considering whether she should question Doris Peterzén now or wait awhile. Perhaps it was too soon. On the other hand, Irene felt that Doris had the right to know about the events of the night before.

The widow turned her beautiful face toward Irene and said tiredly, “Nurse Ellen had to release a patient or something like that. She’ll be right back.”

“That’s good. I have to speak with her, but you need to know what happened here at the hospital last night.”

Irene tried to be tactful, but when Doris Peterzén heard about the murder, she lost her composure and began to cry. Irene did not know how to comfort her. She got up to close the door in order not to disturb the other patients and then sat down next to the weeping woman. Tentatively, she rested her hand on Doris’s shoulder. It didn’t seem to help.

When Nurse Ellen returned to the office, she took only one glance at Doris and said, “She needs a taxi home. I’ll call for one.”

Irene nodded. She bent closer to Doris and asked, “Should I contact your family? Anyone in particular? Your children?”

Doris could hardly speak but managed to say, “Gör—Göran. He’s … not home. London … He’s in London.”