Sohlberg and the Gift (32 page)

“Of course. It’s wireless.”

“I’m going to copy your hard drive. Do you give me permission?”

“Only if you’ll help me avoid prosecution over the boy.”

“I won’t help you . . . but I promise to not make matters worse for you. Which I can. Remember the tabloids? . . . That would just be an appetizer.”

“Alright! Alright! Go ahead. Copy my computer. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

Sohlberg grabbed the computer. “Is anything encrypted in the hard drive?”

“No.”

“What about child porn? . . . Got any in this computer?”

“No!”

“If you have any child porn I promise that I will make life far far worse for you.”

“No. None of that stuff.”

Sohlberg spoke into the cell phone. “Yep. You heard him right. Do I need to do anything here? . . . Okay . . . I’ll send you an e-mail from his account.”

Falkanger didn’t have to be prompted. He quickly gave Sohlberg his e-mail provider and e-mail address and password. Within two minutes Atle had established the IP address for Baldur Falkanger and easily hacked into Falkanger’s Windows-based computer. Sohlberg put his National Archive digital expert on hold while he dialed Constable Høiness from his police-issued cell phone.

“Hei. I need you and Nordø to come over right now to the street address I’m about to text you. I stumbled on an interesting crime scene by pure accident. I’ve got a Baldur Falkanger in handcuffs. This playboy from Gothenburg is in a mess of trouble.

“What trouble you say?

“Herr Falkanger has got a recreational pharmacy here in his apartment
and
a minor . . . a boy . . . with whom he’s been doing drugs.
And
he may or may not have touched the boy if you know what I mean.

“Bring Nordø and his crew over to process the apartment for drugs . . . bring another constable to take the boy to the emergency room and get him prepped for a rape kit.

“Yes. I’m afraid so.

“Also . . . the boy . . . Pierre . . . is from Haiti and he only speaks Creole French. We need a translator. Make sure the boy is then placed in foster care. That’s imperative. Make sure that
no one
and I mean
no one
else gets custody of the boy. I don’t want any lawyer for Baldur Falkanger getting custody of the boy. Don’t release the boy even if some stupid judge says so. Understood? . . . Good. See you here then. . . .What? . . . Yes. I was quite lucky following up on leads.”

Chapter 13/Tretten

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13,

SAINT LUCIA’S DAY, LUCIADAGEN;

AND, LUSSINATT, ST. LUCIA NIGHT;

OR ELEVEN DAYS AFTER THE DAY

Yeah. I finished the last falcon.

You planning on putting them out there where you buried the women you killed.

Yeah.

How.

That be for me to know and you to figure out on account of you asking too much. Since when have you cared.

I don’t see how you can remember where you put each woman.

A man knows what he got to know.

I seen you working on that map. You got little x marks on it.

You better mind your own business.

I want to see if it is true you killed fifty and three. I want to count fifty and three crosses on your map.

You better watch your mouth. And your eyes. It don’t take much effort to put a pencil or a fork into babbling tongues or snooping eyes. It is real easy. Like poking a soft ball of butter.

You would know.

I hear you got yourself a visitor.

Who told you.

Snooping eyes.

They don’t know jack.

Your letter worked. I was wrong. You were right. You got a visitor. Guess that puts me at a disadvantage. Don’t it.

Your snooping eyes are wrong. They’re lying.

They ain’t lying. They see all and know all.

You’ve been talking to the orderlies.

Yessir. Them white uniforms. Yessir. Them. They see. They talk. I see them. I hear them. They talk. They call outside. My Mama told me long ago that the more the eye sees the more the mouth talks. The more the ear hears the more the mouth talks.

See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil. Ever think of that.

It ain’t true in your case. Is it. You see it. You hear it and you are even hearing it right now. So it stands to reason you are going to speak it.

I ain’t talking to no one.

Liar. You talking to me.

I ain’t the one who bragged and said I killed fifty and three women.

True. But you wasn’t meeting no one from the outside back then. I thought you was my friend. I thought maybe you wanted to be like me some day. I thought maybe you and I could go out and do stuff. Maybe we could be a team and grab a nice college gal or a little girl.

I am way too tired. It is midnight. I need to sleep.

You will sleep plenty when you are dead.

Don’t you threaten me.

My sweet Mama always told me. You will sleep plenty when you are dead my sweet baby boy. I wish you could meet Mama. She had beautiful eyes. Beautiful but evil.

~ ~ ~

A few minutes after midnight Sohlberg put on his coat and boots. The kitchen microwave beeped. He snapped a lid on top of the tall disposable cup of hot chocolate that he had grabbed from the microwave and he carried the piping hot refreshment outside to Måkeveien where the driver of the white Volvo maintained his lonely and frigid surveillance of the Sohlbergs. The driver reached for his cell phone in a panic when Sohlberg knocked on the side window.

The window came down less than half an inch. Sohlberg recognized the driver as the man who had looked so familiar at the
JOKER
supermarket store that Sohlberg went to for Ricola lozenges after his meeting with Fru Sivertsen at the Cafekontoret.

“Hei. I’m Chief Inspector Harald Sohlberg . . . in case your boss Leif Noer hasn’t told you. You must be freezing. Here . . . have this hot chocolate. . . . Tell Noer he needs to call me right now at the number I wrote on the cup. If not I’ll start making arrests for stalking and harassment and I’ll start with you.”

The 30-something driver cracked a smile as he lowered the window to take the calefactory cup. “I’ll call my boss . . . thanks for the hot drink.”

“Good night.”

Less than five minutes later Sohlberg was warming himself in his kitchen when Leif Noer called Sohlberg’s police-issued cell phone.

“You have ten minutes to call off your people and tell me what this is all about.”

“Sohlberg . . . I knew you wouldn’t like this. But the client insisted.”

“My wife and I don’t like getting harassed. Just who do you think—”

“Wait a minute Sohlberg . . . hold your horses. You can yell and say whatever you want but you need to know that we’re not there for the usual reasons. We’re there to protect
you
.”

Caught off guard Sohlberg could only say:

“I don’t need anyone’s protection.”

“You never know.”

“Call this off or I’ll start by arresting the guy outside my door.”

“I’ll let the client know how you feel . . . and I’ll withdraw your guardians.”

Sohlberg hanged up.

Is Noer playing games . . . or telling me the truth?

Who would want to protect me?

Protect me from what . . . or who?

~ ~ ~

At breakfast Fru Sohlberg shrugged when her husband explained his late night conversation with Leif Noer. She merely said: “I’m glad that’s the end of it.”

“Not exactly. It’s the end of the surveillance. But it’s not the end of it as far as I’m concerned. I’m going to find out who was behind this. Sooner or later I’ll find out who’s the client that hired Noer.”

“Here we go again. I think you’ve done enough solo investigation with this crazy case you’re working on.”

Sohlberg said nothing more. He lapsed into a state of extreme distraction. Emma Sohlberg knew that his attention deficit meant that he was about to solve a case.

Shortly after 9:00 A.M. the Sohlbergs took their coffee and moved to the living room where Harald and Emma respectively read their travel and history books. She watched him and noted that he never turned a single page on his Colin Thubron book. His side of their conversation consisted almost exclusively of
hummm
and
sure
and
yeah
.

“Are you going to feed the birds in the backyard?”

“Sure.”

“Are you going to buy me a giant fifty-carat diamond ring for Christmas?”

“Yeah . . . I mean . . . no.”

“Don’t forget . . . we’re going tonight to the Otterstads for Saint Lucia night.”

“Hummm.”

She stood up and tapped his book three times. “Hello! . . . Anyone home?”

“Sorry. I was thinking about—”

“Your mystery visitor. I’m getting tired of sharing you with her.”

“I think the case is coming to an end.”

“I can only hope so. You’ve been
Missing-In-Action
here at home when you should’ve been winding down and relaxing and getting ready to spend Christmas with me . . . spending time on
us
and not on her and her problems.”

He was about to defend himself when his personal cell phone rang.

“Chief Inspector,” said Atle, “I looked and looked in the hard drive that we copied yesterday and I could not find the I.P. addresses for Cat’s Meow or KinkyNine.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“But I did find a tidbit of useful information . . . because the owner of the hard drive had an excellent back-up program that saved everything that was ever sent and received on an instant message service on the Dulanika website for swingers. So I was able to track down one I.P. address . . . for Cat’s Meow . . . and here’s the good news . . . the person must’ve gotten careless because Cat’s Meow sent an instant message to your guy Baldur Falkanger on the swinger website from a business computer.”

“And?”

“And . . . I have a business name and street address for you.”

Sohlberg’s hands and voice shook with excitement. “I knew it! They slipped up.”