Read Online The Lavender Ladies Detective Agency: Death in Sunset Grove by Minna Lindgren - Free Book Online

police will believe him?’
    ‘Of course they’ll believe him!’ Anna-Liisa shouted, rapping on the table as if the whole episode invigorated her. ‘It would be a strange state of affairs if they
didn’t listen to the word of a war veteran!’
    They knew Anna-Liisa was right again. They were all reassured by the fact that Olavi’s son had taken care of the matter in such an upright manner. Luckily there were still some people with
decent relatives. The fact that Sinikka Sundström didn’t want to believe what she’d been told about what had happened to Olavi didn’t surprise any of them. Sinikka was so
well-intentioned and so stressed. Lately she had been even more nervous and absent-minded than usual. A lot of staff had left. There were always a lot of staff changes among the nurses, but this
autumn the turnover rate had sped up so much that Director Sundström herself didn’t seem able to keep up.
    ‘Oh my, I don’t know. Ask Virpi. Or somebody else,’ Director Sundström would answer desperately whenever anyone made the mistake of asking her why there was no nurse
available, why the physical therapist had cancelled all her appointments, or why the activity director hadn’t shown up for the joke group. The young girls who made up things for the residents
to do were called activity directors. They believed that old people could be cheered up with songs from the war years, black-and-white movies and crafts.
    Sunset Grove also offered rehabilitation and memory exercises. There were pictures and activities glued to the walls for the Memory Game. They looked almost like they might have been donated
from a preschool centre – hand-drawn flowers, boats, houses and animals. Siiri was particularly bothered by the one that someone had glued right next to her door, a picture of a family of
bunnies on a summer outing. But Irma was a curious person and had played the Memory Game more times than she could remember. Anna-Liisa came at regular intervals for a ‘memory check’ at
the afternoon activity session, because she knew that the more you use your brain, the slower your memory breaks down. She started every day with a crossword puzzle and every night in bed she went
through all the case endings for the Finnish interrogative articles, to keep her mind in working order.
    ‘Self-care. It saves the state money,’ she always said proudly.
    Rehabilitation was a very broad concept at Sunset Grove; it might include anything from massage to toe wiggling. It was compulsory and free for the men because they were veterans, but the women
had to pay for their own rehabilitation, even though many of them had been in the Lotta women’s auxiliary, and some of them, like Siiri, were even stationed at the front. Of course all
she’d done was wash bodies and put them in their coffins. It hadn’t really felt like front-line work, but still, it was a tough job for a young girl. During the Winter War the bodies
were frozen so you had to thaw them out. In the Continuation War they were full of maggots and had a sickening smell.
    Siiri and Irma occasionally went to exercise class or to the pedicurist out of sheer pity for the nurses. They didn’t really know what they were being rehabilitated for.
    ‘For death,’ Irma said. ‘
Döden, döden, döden
.’
    ‘Why in heaven’s name do you keep repeating that?’ Anna-Liisa said, almost angrily.
    The Swedish author Astrid Lindgren had said in a TV interview, when she was quite old, that she often talked on the phone with her sister about who would be the last to die, and when they
realized that all they talked about was death and dying, they got into the habit of starting their phone conversations by saying, ‘
Döden, döden, döden
.’
That’s where Irma had got it. She still liked to read Astrid Lindgren’s books, and often had a copy of
Pippi Longstocking
on her bedside table.
    ‘
Emil of Lönneberga
is my favourite, though. He’s just like my third son – the