Sohlberg and the Gift (9 page)

In the eyes of most people he passed for one of life’s losers. Sohlberg also passed for one of those cowered employees who are soon to be fired in a round of layoffs. He looked like the typical target of corporate cost-cutting measures in the business world. His meek and bland appearance matched that of the many victims of corporate
measures
to trim off older and more experienced employees who must be sacrificed on the altar of Cash Flow and Free Trade.

All this was Sohlberg’s public and official
persona
—a purposeful put-on show. He had learned the act from his mentor: Chief Inspector Lars Eliassen—a man who could and did get
deep
inside a suspect’s mind long before the suspect could put up any mental defenses to a line of carefully-planned questions.

The biting December weather was as warm and appealing as a rabid pit bull. Sohlberg nevertheless took a long stroll down Apotekergata towards Kristian Augusts gate. Most of the buildings along Apotekergata had big windows on the ground floor. The windows allowed Sohlberg repeated opportunities to stop and pretend to look at stores or restaurants while he was in fact scanning the crowd in the window reflections to spot who in the crowd might be trailing him.

Sohlberg’s surveillance and counter-surveillance tricks came courtesy of Norwegian taxpayers who paid for
continuing education consultants
hired by the Norwegian Police Service. The
consultants
had Russian names (or Westernized or Americanized versions of such names) and they haled from the KGB of the old communist Soviet Union. The Russian consultants found new careers and wealth by sharing their expertise with police and spy agencies and large corporations throughout the world. When it comes to discrete street surveillance few countries can exceed the expertise of the KGB.

During Sohlberg’s stroll on Apotekergata he watched for watchers from the Zoo. None appeared in reflections on storefront windows. None showed themselves during Sohlberg’s well-timed turns here and there on the street. The area around the courthouse vaguely reminded Sohlberg of shabbier areas of Prague with the crisscrossing narrow streets and short colorful buildings from the late 1800s and early 1900s.

After taking all necessary counter-surveillance measures to throw off anyone who might be tailing him Sohlberg headed straight to the Oslo tinghus courthouse at C.J. Hambros plass 4. Before going inside Sohlberg frowned. The silver-coated building always struck Sohlberg as one of those architectural monstrosities that mediocre architects pass off as “post-modern”.

Once inside the building Sohlberg headed to a dingy back office of the Oslo Tingrett or District Court which hears civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions. A rotund man with thick black-frame glasses waited for Sohlberg by a metal door with a sign that read:

DO NOT ENTER << >> ONLY COURT EMPLOYEES.

Sohlberg entered and walked down what appeared to be the rear hallway of a warehouse for documents and files. The large man closed the door behind him.

“Thanks for helping me,” said Sohlberg. “I was here yesterday to look at a case file and was rather surprised that the judge had sealed it.”

“It happens. Rarely. But it happens.”

“Did you get it?”

“With difficulty. I put it over in that inspection room. You have forty minutes before anyone starts coming back from lunch.”

“Thanks,” said Sohlberg with sincerity.

“Also . . . don’t call me at home again . . . even if you did call my cell phone I don’t want anyone to be able to trace any calls back to you or me.”

“Don’t worry. That’s taken care of. I called you from a disposable cell phone that I bought some months ago. I only used it for that one call to you. I wiped clean all of the phone’s software and hardware and then busted the phone into smithereens . . . and I threw the parts away in three separate locations.”

“Fine. When you’re done leave the file box on the desk. No fingerprints anywhere please! Make sure you use the gloves I left for you. When you’re done . . . take the gloves with you and dispose of them as soon as you can. I’ll be back for the file in exactly . . . thirty-five minutes. If you’re caught—”

“You and I don’t know each other except for when I showed you a false I.D. to get in here. You thought I worked for your bosses at court administration headquarters.”

“Hope you find what you’re looking for . . . good luck.”

Sohlberg went inside the inspection room and received a shock. He expected at least four boxes packed with thick pre-trial and trial notebooks. Instead he stared in disbelief at just one blue box marked SEALED: NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE.

He opened the box and got a second and even more upsetting surprise: the blue box only held one slim if not flimsy blue manilla file with a couple of documents.

“What the—”

The court docket itself in the Eide case should have at least amounted to ten or twelve pages listing every activity in the proceedings and every document filed in the case. Instead the court docket consisted of less than half of a page. Sohlberg was amazed at the minuscule official list of every single hearing and every single motion or response filed by the prosecutor and the defense and every single court order along with all other papers filed in the case.

A half page!

Sohlberg was stunned at the scarcity of hearings (just two) and the small amount of motions and responses and court orders and other papers filed in the case.

Sohlberg again reviewed the court file to make sure it only held three documents in addition to the court docket. That was unusual—
very odd
—for a murder trial.

The first document: an indictment or charging document alleging the date and time and place and manner of the death of Janne Eide in her bedroom at 3:00 A.M. by homicidal violence resulting from her husband Ludvik Helland intentionally shooting her in the head (right temple) after he unexpectedly came back from a business trip.

Sohlberg wondered why the court file had been sealed when everyone who had a newspaper or radio or television or Internet access knew all of the facts set forth in the charging document.

The second document: the husband’s Not Guilty plea later changed to an Insanity plea (with the prosecutor’s agreement).

Now that was strange in the extreme.

Since when do prosecutors throw in the towel so quickly and go along with an insanity plea?

Perhaps this controversial decision by the prosecutor was why the court file had been sealed. And yet nothing in the court file indicated
who
had asked for the court file to be sealed or
why
.

The third document: a court order finding the victim’s husband to be insane and “suffering from psychosis at the time of the murder as more fully set forth in the 243-page Medical Psychiatric Report by two recognized psychiatric experts”. The order went on to commit the defendant to a high-security psychiatric ward for treatment during a three-year term that was renewable until the defendant died or was permanently cured of his insanity. The judge also ordered that the defendant would not stand trial in light of the experts’ report and the defendant’s insanity plea agreed to by the prosecutor.

The court’s order caught Sohlberg’s attention.

If there’s a judicial finding of insanity . . . or psychosis then where’s the psychiatric report mentioned by the judge?

Sohlberg looked at the court docket and quickly found an entry for a 243-page report from two psychiatrists. One thing was certain: the flimsy file did not contain the psychiatrists’ report.

Where’s the psychiatric report?

It should be here . . . inside this blue box . . . next to the blue folder .

Why is the psychiatric report missing?

Who took the report? Why?

Twenty minutes later he finished re-reading the file and making notes in green ink on his leather-bound Rhodia pocket journal notebook with his favorite Waterman
Phileas
fountain pen. He dressed modestly but he prized and indulged in small luxury totems. His scribbles filled five pages of 90-gram Clairfontaine paper that captured the fountain pen’s green ink smoothly and with the cleanest of edges. The elegant and expensive pen and notebook were remnants of Sohlberg’s days as a well-to-do lawyer before he joined the police. He kept these and other little luxuries hidden from plain view.

As instructed Sohlberg left the folder in the box on the table. He exited the courthouse without any problem. He threw the gloves into a garbage can inside the men’s bathroom at Hansen & Dysvik.

The lovely young woman at the H&D customer service desk again ignored Sohlberg after he again waited for her at the customer service counter for a long time. Sohlberg coughed gently. She finally took notice.

“Yes?”

“I’m back for the set of candle holders I bought an hour ago.”

“Here you are,” she said without looking at him while she handed him the shopping bag.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah. . . .” she said giving him a dead-eye blank look that lasted less than a second. Her eyes reanimated when they darted back to her fingernails which merited closer attention. She was about to say the required “Thank you for coming to—” when she realized that Sohlberg had already fled the store with his shopping bag.

In a daze Sohlberg rode the tram back to the Zoo. He almost missed getting off at the Munkegata station. His mind reeled from the implication of what was and was
not
in the court’s case file. He could not even begin to comprehend the enormity of what was missing from the court’s file.

Where’s the psychiatric report?

Indeed. Where was the one solitary piece of evidence used to condemn the defendant Ludvik Helland to what was probably a lifetime sentence at an insane asylum?

More questions hit Sohlberg.

Where’s Ludvik Helland?

What mental institution is holding him?

Is Helland being treated or just warehoused?

Is he alive?

Oddly enough these questions were exactly the same questions that his mystery visitor had asked him with slightly different words that morning not so long ago.

The back of his head tingled. Sohlberg turned around quickly to catch whoever was watching him. He shot quick glances at all the passengers but none stood out as the culprit. He nevertheless could not dismiss the tingling on his head or the constant paranoid sensations that had crept into his soul ever since Astrid Isaksen’s visit.

Chapter 5/Fem

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, OR

FOUR DAYS AFTER THE DAY

December in Oslo means cold and snow and six measly hours of daylight coaxed from the stingy sky. The sun struggles to briefly hover low over the southern horizon from nine in the morning to three in the afternoon. It was therefore imperative for Sohlberg to embark early enough in the day to perform his “to do list” because he hated driving in the dark through snow and ice. Ever since he had finished breakfast at 8:15 A.M. Sohlberg had been peeking at his wristwatch. To his everlasting relief he heard the crunch of a car’s tires and snow chains.

Nora Otterstad’s Jaguar pulled into the Sohlberg driveway at exactly nine o’clock.

“Alright,” said Fru Sohlberg. “I should be back by seven at the latest. We should be done with our dinner by six.”