His eyes filled with tears. Jack concentrated for a moment on his notebook, and then in an even tone he said, “Do you know the doctor’s name, the one your wife came to see? Anything about him?”
“I only know that she was confident about his qualifications, and that his office is here in the city in a safe neighborhood.”
“To be clear, we believe that what happened to your wife might have been done with malice aforethought. Any information you have could be helpful in bringing the responsible party to account,” Jack said.
Color flooded the man’s face, rising from his neck like mercury in a thermometer. “You mean to say this wasn’t a simple error by the surgeon?”
“We have reason to believe that it may well have been premeditated. It’s still under investigation. And so perhaps you’ll understand why any information at all is important.”
“I would tell you if I knew. All I can say with certainty is that he charged two hundred fifty dollars, and was supposed to provide nursing care for up to three days, or until she was ready to come home.” He let out a harsh laugh, then pressed his handkerchief to his eyes. “He put her in a cab and sent her to a hospital. I know that I’d kill him with my own two hands, if he were standing here with me, and if it meant going to the gallows.”
“Would your sister-in-law know more about your wife’s arrangements?”
Liljestr?m’s head came up quickly. “No. She had no idea that Abigail was here. She wouldn’t have approved.”
“So it wasn’t Mrs. Liljestr?m’s sister who gave her the name of the doctor. Did she have other close friends in the city?”
“No. I really don’t know how she found him. Believe me, if I knew who was responsible, I wouldn’t keep it to myself. Are we almost done? I have arrangements to make. I want to take her home. The children and her parents—” He closed his eyes briefly, and then let out a long sigh.
“Just one more question,” Jack said. “They gave you her things at the morgue, and you’ve been through her room here. Is anything missing? Jewelry, anything of value?”
“She didn’t bring jewelry with her when we traveled,” Liljestr?m said. “It’s still at home in the safe. Her wedding ring was on the bedside table in her room.”
He stood abruptly. “You have my address if you have more questions.”
Jack shook Liljestr?m’s hand. “I’m very sorry for your loss. Would you like to be notified when we find the responsible party?”
“I want to know when he’s dead,” said Harry Liljestr?m. “I want to know that he’s burning in hell.”
? ? ?
ANNA SOMETIMES WOKE suddenly in the middle of the night, her heart hammering, sure that something crucial had been forgotten and left undone. Most usually Jack went right on sleeping. She wondered if it should irritate her that he was so impervious to her sleeplessness, and decided that it did not. It would be unfair, and beyond that, these short episodes provided her with the rare opportunity to study his face without embarrassing either of them. He teased her about her inability to accept compliments, but he disliked being studied and would go to lengths to distract her when she did it. Extreme lengths, on occasion.
In the dimmest light she saw that his eyes were moving behind closed lids. Scanning for trouble, even in his dreams.
Almost a week had passed and they had made no progress with Mrs. Liljestr?m’s case. There was still no indication of where she had gone the morning she died, or how she had found the person who operated on her. Apparently a case like this one became more difficult to solve with every passing day.
Oscar and Jack were still convinced that there was a connection between Janine Campbell and Abigail Liljestr?m, something they had missed. Anna wished—as she did every day—that Sophie were here to talk through this with her. Sophie had always been the better diagnostician, able to jump with dexterity from fact to fact, weaving them together until she had spun an answer.
Now Jack turned on his side and gave her his back, broad and high and hard as a wall. As if he had heard her thinking and was irritated with her inability to see something so obvious. She moved so her face almost touched the back of his head, better to draw in his smell, soap and shaving cream and something peppery, the very essence of Jack Mezzanotte himself. She drifted back to sleep, just exactly in that position.