The Golden Calf (35 page)

Fredrik was standing by the nurses’ office and appeared to be in deep discussion with Nurse Ann-Britt.
He’s the perfect picture of an engaged and hard-working attending doctor
, Irene thought, pleased.

A glance at the clock told her that it was time to pick up the breakfast trays. They were supposed to be collected into a large cart, which would be wheeled back to the main kitchen.

Four women were in the room at the very end of the hallway. One elderly woman had an IV and had not been given a breakfast tray, but the other three had eaten with good appetite. Irene exchanged a few words with everyone and explained that she was just an extra for the weekend. She said she was from hospice and not used to the routines of a surgical ward. The three women said they thought there must be a great difference in routine between hospice and surgical and that she was extremely brave to try something different.
If you only knew just how different
, Irene thought as she collected the trays.

Just as she was leaving the room, she felt her cell phone vibrate in her pants pocket. Adrenaline shot through her, and she hurried as much as she could without calling attention to herself.

Once in the hallway, she saw a doctor go into Sanna’s room. Otherwise, the hall was empty, except for Kajsa, who was running toward her. She gestured wildly toward the door where the doctor had just gone in.

Irene ran into the room. The police officer was lying on the floor just inside the room. She wasn’t moving. Irene saw the back of the doctor, who was lifting his arm. In his hand was a gun.

Her training kicked in. Irene instantly judged the distance, grabbed a sandwich plate, and hurled it like a Frisbee. With a dull thud, the plate hit the back of the doctor’s neck and broke in half. He fell forward without a word, but a dry bang indicated he’d still managed to fire the gun.

And, of course, Sanna was screaming. Irene was used to her by now, but Kajsa, who had followed Irene through the doorway, was thrown by the noise.

“Don’t worry. It just means she’s alive,” Irene said to Kajsa.

Irene felt the man’s pulse. He was alive, too, but unconscious. His gun had a silencer. Irene pulled it from his grasp and held it carefully between her thumb and forefinger.

Sanna was screaming like a banshee from the bed. There was a pool of red forming near her right shoulder.

“Calm down, Sanna,” said Irene. “It’s just a surface wound.”

Her words were in vain. Sanna’s screams filled the whole floor.

A
REAL DOCTOR
, a surgeon by the name of Westerlund, came hurrying in. He ordered the officer and the wounded man to intensive care. The policewoman was beginning to wake up as she was placed on the stretcher. A deep red mark on the side of her neck showed that she’d been brought down by a single blow.

Doctor Westerlund gave Sanna a tranquilizer and then put a pressure bandage on her shoulder. “I’m having her brought straight to surgery,” he explained. He smiled at Irene as he added, “That guy should be happy he’s alive. You really got in a good hit!”

“I’m a handball player and a Frisbee thrower from way back,” Irene explained. “I love to play Frisbee with my dog.”

“I’m not surprised,” the doctor said.

Sanna had calmed enough to stop screaming. She looked at Irene from underneath a wrinkled brow as she stammered, “That … police officer. The clothes … Mike also had white clothes on.”

“Mike? Was the man who shot you named Mike?” asked Irene.

“Yes, he was dressed … like a doctor, too,” she said. She
closed her eyes. At the same time, two men in green scrubs and paper caps came into the room.

It’s getting pretty crowded in here
, thought Irene.

“I’ll go with you,” the doctor said to the two assistants.

He nodded at Irene, and they all left the room, pushing Sanna in her wheeled bed.

The room felt empty at once. Only Kajsa and Irene were left.

“Mike.…” Kajsa said. “I thought I recognized him, but I don’t know from where.…”

“When did you realize he was our suspect?” asked Irene.

Kajsa sighed and took off her gray-tinted glasses.

“He was damned smart about it. The elevator stopped, and three doctors got out at the same time. Two of them went to the unit on the other side, and he—Mike—waved at them before he came in here. If he’d been alone all along, I would have been suspicious at once, but since there were three of them and they all seemed to know each other, I didn’t react right away. He came down the hallway and then suddenly I thought—he might be our man. The description matched, but not the clothes, of course. He opened the door to Sanna’s room without a pause and I called you on your cell phone immediately. Good thing you got there in time!”

It was easy to hear the relief in Kajsa’s voice.

“What did Andersson do?” asked Irene.

“He didn’t see him. He didn’t move until Sanna started screaming. Like me, he probably thought that the man was a real doctor. He looked absolutely believable. He had a stethoscope and everything. He moved as if he belonged here. He was totally self-confident,” Kajsa explained.

Irene nodded. “He’d checked out the scene a few times before. We know he—”

“I got it!” yelled Kajsa. “I know who he is!”

“Who?”

“Mike! He’s the head of security for Hotel Göteborg! Birgitta and I watched the security camera video of the parking lot when Ceder drove away the night he was shot. Mike showed us the video! Mike—Michael Fuller, the American!” Kajsa’s voice was filled with triumph.

Michael Fuller. The name rang a bell for Irene, too.

“Sanna said that the head of security helped them install the security system in the house just before her husband was murdered. I’ll bet that Fuller had a key to the house. I can picture him standing beneath the spiral staircase waiting to shoot Kjell B:son Ceder right between the eyes.”

“Absolutely, but why would he want to kill his boss? Why did he shoot Bergman and Rothstaahl? Why did he have to shoot Sanna? How does this fit with the murders of Thomas Bonetti and Edward Fenton?” Kajsa said.

“That’ll be your homework for tomorrow,” Irene said. Her voice revealed her exhaustion. She smiled to let Kajsa know she was kidding and put her arm around Kajsa’s shoulders.

A
GUARD WAS
assigned to Michael Fuller even though the doctors felt he wasn’t capable of fleeing. The blow from the edge of the plate on the base of the skull had left him in great pain, and he had trouble with his balance.

The female officer remembered only sitting on her chair when a doctor walked up, but before she even had a chance to raise her eyes, everything went black. She’d suffered a karate chop to the neck, dealt by an expert. If it had carried just slightly more force, she might have died.

Sanna underwent surgery to remove the .25-caliber unjacketed bullet lodged in the bone of her left shoulder blade. The technicians already had it at the lab. The gun and all the bullets collected from the murder sites were being shipped to the National Crime Laboratory for comparison. The detectives would have to cool their heels waiting for that result. It was really backlogged over there.

On Monday morning, a doctor reported that his locker had been broken into. He was still angry when he showed up at the technician’s lab and identified the stolen items. Fuller had taken his outfit. Other police officers had searched for Michael Fuller’s civilian clothes on the grounds of Östra Hospital, and by Sunday evening, they’d found a rental car left in the lot. The dark blue jacket and dark pants were inside. Nurse Ann-Britt identified them as those she had seen on the suspect the morning of the attack.

When questioned, the two doctors who had ridden in the elevator with Fuller told them that he’d fooled them completely. He had spoken to them in English with an American accent and told them that he was not sure where he was supposed to go. All he knew was the floor number and that it was a surgical unit. Both of the Swedish doctors offered help and gave him directions, explaining that the one across the hall was a pharmaceutical unit. Neither of them had suspected a thing. They had been glad to help a visiting colleague.

Andersson updated the team on all the drama that Sunday morning. Irene had already called Tommy on Sunday and filled him in, but she hadn’t informed anyone else. The rest of the team thought the plan had been sophisticated and smart.

“Just like a bad TV cop show,” muttered Jonny. Luckily, Andersson didn’t hear him. The superintendent was thrilled with their work, and was even happier with capturing the suspect. The plan had put an elegant feather in his cap.

“The American embassy sent us what they have on Michael Fuller,” Fredrik said. “According to them, he was born in New Jersey and moved to New York. He is thirty-five-years-old and an American citizen. He arrived in Sweden in May of 2000.”

“He came around the same time Sanna returned,” Irene interrupted. “Maybe it’s not connected, but it’s worth noting.”

“Bonetti was executed that same year,” Fredrik reminded them.

“When did Fuller start work as head of security at the Hotel Göteborg?” asked Andersson.

Fredrik looked down at his sheet of notes. “He started upon arrival. He lives with a girl who works at the hotel’s reception desk. They’ve just moved into a new apartment on Norra Älvstranden.”

“Nice address. Must have earned a good salary as head of security,” Jonny said.

“Maybe I should switch jobs,” joked Fredrik.

Andersson snorted in disgust but otherwise ignored Fredrik. Instead, he said, “As soon as Fuller is stable, he’s going to be moved from the hospital to jail, where we can question him.”

He touched his fingertips together and looked at his team thoughtfully.

“Since neither Sanna nor Fuller can be questioned today, I want you to interview every single employee of the Hotel Göteborg and find out what that Yank was really up to. Check when he had time off and see if it correlates to the murders. Fredrik, you question that unfaithful secretary, Malin What’s-Her-Name.…” Andersson wrinkled his brow trying to remember.

“Malin Eriksson,” said Fredrik.

“Right. Malin Eriksson, who had an affair with Kjell Ceder. That a woman like that could even be married to a police officer! She might know something shady about Fuller.” He turned to Irene. “Have you heard anything from London or Paris?”

“Yes, I have. Special Agent Lee Hazel from the FBI is on the way here. He’s supposed to have gone to Paris first, and then on to London this afternoon. Tomorrow or the day after, he should arrive here.”

“A special agent from the FBI?” Andersson said.

Now the shit had hit the fan. Having other foreign police departments involved in the investigation was fine as long as they stayed put. Having them come here and rummage around in Andersson’s department was another story. The news infuriated him.

“Glen Thompson says this case is much more complicated than it first appeared. Special Agent Hazel can provide us with his specific knowledge. It should help us,” Irene said, although her voice sounded doubtful.

She really had no idea what this “specific knowledge” was supposed to be. Glen had been somewhat vague about it, too.

Perhaps he was also unsure what the special agent actually specialized in.

I
RENE WAS AT
her desk writing up her report on Sunday’s events when the telephone rang. A carefully modulated voice, speaking Swedish with an American accent, introduced himself as Jack Curtis from the American embassy. He asked that Irene send Michael Fuller’s fingerprints to the embassy as soon as possible. His tone was polite and measured, but Irene understood that “as soon as possible” actually meant “right away,” with no time for delay.

She felt surprise as she hung up the phone. Fingerprints? Jack Curtis had rattled off his title quickly: “Director of Security Something-or-Another.”

So what was this about?

L
ATE
M
ONDAY AFTERNOON
, the detectives were called to the conference room for a quick run-through, but only Irene, Tommy, Fredrik, and Andersson were in the building. The others were still interviewing people at the Hotel Göteborg and at Östra Hospital.

Fredrik reported first.

“Malin Eriksson was willing to work with us. She found vacation lists, reports of employee absence, and similar records. It was odd that the normal rules did not apply to Mr. Fuller. He could come and go as he pleased. According to these records, he was given ten to sixteen weeks per year in addition to the normal five weeks off. He’d attended a number of ‘security conferences’ in the United States; all of it, bear in mind, paid by his employer. For some large hotel chain, it might be almost believable, but that’s certainly not the case here. Obviously way out of line.”

“Strange, indeed,” Andersson agreed.

“Another thing—he doesn’t actually manage other
employees. The company used a security firm, which did all the actual work, even setting up and recording things on the security cameras. For his ‘hard work,’ he was paid a salary of fifty thousand Swedish kroner a month.”

“Fifty thousand!” Irene and Andersson exclaimed at the same time.

Fredrik nodded. “That’s right. Fifty thousand.”

“No security guard, even the head of security, would earn anywhere near that amount. Did other employees receive such an exorbitant salary?”

Fredrik shook his head. “No, theirs looked normal. Only Kjell B:son Ceder had one similar. In other words, his so-called ‘Head of Security’ earned as much as he did.”

“Doubly strange. Still, it explains how the American was able to keep tabs on Ceder. He watched the camera when Ceder went into the garage and got in his car. All Fuller had to do was follow and park a little way away. Then he changed into jogging clothes and was unremarkable as he approached the house. By the way, the lab got back to me, and the half-fingerprint on the jogging reflector does come from Fuller,” Andersson added, happy about the positive identification.

“But how did he get into the house without Ceder knowing about it?” Fredrik wondered.