“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. That woman doesn’t have a single ounce of fat on her body, only muscles! Irene thought with envy. Irene kept in shape, but she never went that far, working every single muscle to make sure it appeared as beautiful as possible. She also didn’t understand the sick desire. Fitness center indeed! There was something indecent about the whole thing.
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 Löwander 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 Löwander 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 expensively lifted?
“Why did you need these old drawings anyway?” Irene asked.
Without speaking, Carina lifted another roll of paper and spread it over the older drawing. She had chalked the hospital’s outer contours and drawn in the additional stairway and elevator. She’d marked all the load-bearing walls correctly. There the resemblances to the old Löwander Hospital came to an end. Where the present operating rooms existed, “Massage and Relaxation Room” was marked. The on-call apartment and two offices were marked “Employees.” The third office and the attic were “Storage.”
The care wards had been changed to one large gymnasium, or “Aerobics Room” as Carina had written on her drawing. The ICU and one of the care wards had become “Weight Training.” The first floor had “Reception,” “Cafeteria,” “Mani-Pedi,” and “Hair Salon.”
The basement was similar to the present configuration. There was an employee changing room, a furnace room, a power room, and the usual basement storage, but where the security guard’s room had been was now marked “Changing Room—men” with showers, hot tub, and a sauna. A similar space was set up on the other side of the basement for women.
Tommy lifted his gaze from the drawing and looked at Irene. Then he asked, “When did you take these drawings from Hilding’s suitcase?”
Her brow wrinkled as she thought back. “It must have been sometime between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I had my vacation until St. Knut’s Day on January thirteenth.”
“How did you know where the drawings were?”
Carina shrugged impatiently. “I didn’t. It was a wild guess that turned out to be right.” She walked over to her desk chair and sat down. Before she started to talk, she fixed her gaze on one of the bodybuilder posters showing a woman glistening with oil. “Here’s what happened. All this fall Sverker complained that he couldn’t see a way to keep the hospital profitable. It needed too much money to maintain as a hospital. He would have had to fix the roof, the pipes, and who knows what else. He wanted to sell the building. Then I got the idea of converting it into a fitness center. A calm, rural atmosphere in the middle of the city. Perfect for stress-filled city folks who don’t have time to get away to a spa for a few days to relax. I believe in my concept. It’s modern. More and more people are realizing the importance of taking care of their bodies. If people took care of themselves, there wouldn’t be a need for so many hospitals.”
“What did Sverker think about it?”
Carina didn’t answer for a second. Then she replied, “He hasn’t made up his mind yet, but I believe he was coming around.”
“Tell us why you had to break into the suitcases,” Irene said.
“I’d been thinking about my concept all through December, and on Christmas Eve I told Sverker about my thoughts regarding the future of the Löwander Hospital building. I asked him if he had any of the original drawings, but he said he didn’t. He said that they’d probably burned up in the house fire. Then he thought that they might be somewhere in the hospital. He loaned me his key, and I was able to search the hospital in peace, since it was closed for Christmas and New Year’s.”
“So when were you at the hospital searching for the drawings and when did you find the suitcases?” Irene asked.
“I went over there for the first time the day after Christmas, and I found the suitcases on the following day. There weren’t any keys for them, so I had to break them open.”
“How did you break open the locks?”
“With a screwdriver.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I had it with me.”
“From home?”
“No, I have a tool chest in the car.”
“Did you see a nurse’s uniform in any of the suitcases?”
Carina thought for a long time before answering. “There were a great deal of old clothes in the largest suitcase. Maybe a nurse’s uniform was among them. I don’t know. That’s not what I was after.”
“You were after the drawings. And you found them.”
“That’s right.”
“What did you do with the suitcases once you’d found the drawings?”
Carina looked surprised. “Nothing. I left them right where I found them. The locks were broken, though, of course.”