Sohlberg and the Missing Schoolboy: an Inspector Sohlberg mystery (Inspector Sohlberg Mysteries) (16 page)

“It’s simple . . . we already know the kidnaper . . . he or she is right under our noses. Don’t you see? We know the person who took Karl Haugen . . . we just don’t know their exact name.”

Constable Wanglein frowned. “I . . . I guess that no one ever wanted the investigation to come to this point . . . where a parent or someone else at the school took Karl Haugen. . . .”

“But all the evidence points to a parent.”

“I . . . I hate saying this Chief Inspector . . . but I guess that we didn’t really want to admit that we had a predator among the teachers or the staff or the administrators or the parents at Grindbakken skole or any other elementary school in Norway.”

“Exactly Constable Wangelin. We also know that the kidnaper probably won’t be a teacher or a staffer or an administrator since all of their whereabouts have been accounted for that day . . . and evening . . . right?”

“Yep. None were missing in school and all of their times and activities during and after school were checked and re-checked.”

“So I doubt if any of them would have had the time and opportunity during a fifteen minute period to overpower Karl Haugen and stuff him in a suitcase or bag and keep him there all day long and then take him away from the school when school ended in the afternoon.”

“True.”

“Now as for the school building and grounds . . . I hope they were thoroughly searched. There’s a case from the nineteen-sixties where children disappeared from school . . . it turned out that a camp of homeless bums raped and killed the school children who went to play in the schools’ basement where the bums lived.”

“Uhhh.”

“I imagine the team carefully searched the school?”

“Yes.”

“Every nook and cranny from roof to foundation and wall to wall . . . right?”

“Yes,” said Constable Wangelin who nodded slowly as she came to understand the implications of what Sohlberg was saying. “This means Chief Inspector that . . . all of our suspects are the normal and lovely and well-dressed and well-educated and law-abiding citizens of the well-to-do suburb of Holmenkollen . . . home of the Holmenkollen Ski Festival and the Ski Museum.”

“Exactly Constable Wangelin. The banality of evil.”

“And . . . the person who took Karl Haugen is most likely found in his circle of family or friends . . . or less likely . . . it’s someone else . . . a parent . . . who went to the school that day and left with him.”

“Bingo.”

“But we all thought the culprit would be a known sex offender. We thought—”

“That’s the problem Constable Wangelin. All of you
thought
. A detective should never
ever
think at the beginning of an investigation. He or she should only investigate and collect all the facts . . . the good investigator must not
think
. . . but rather keep an open mind as the evidence starts coming in. Once the evidence collection phase of the investigation is over then the good investigator starts thinking and following hunches or intuition or logic.”

“I see that now. I’m glad I’m training with you.”

“Thinking in the initial phases derails an investigation . . . bias creeps in . . . groupthink takes over . . . I’ve seen huge and horribly botched investigations eventually collapse because investigators made a few small but very wrong assumptions from the start.”

“Rule Number One . . . work smart not hard.”

“Right.”

“Rule Number Two . . . don’t think at the start of an investigation. Collect all the facts. Keep an open mind.”

“That’s it.”

“Anything else?”

“Get ready for some difficult interviews because it’s going to be nasty and difficult finding this most depraved of criminal minds among the suburban parents who live in pretty homes and drive nice cars and dress in Ralph Lauren and . . . smell and look nice and are polite. . . .”

“A monster,” said Constable Wangelin.

“Which leads us to Rule Number Three. Never judge. That prevents you from understanding the criminal. Judging throws bias into the picture. No . . . it’s best to just sympathize with the criminal . . . understand what makes them tick.”

“Disgusting . . . but I can see how effective your strategy is—”

“Not mine! I learned it from my mentor . . . Lars Eliassen . . . an old police officer in the Romsdal valley. Now I’m passing it on to you . . . and one day you will pass it on to another generation.”

“Thank you.”

“Anyway . . . we’re dealing in this case with an upper middle class parent who has the audacity to boldly launch his or her criminal enterprise in Pilot Hill Elementary School between quarter to nine and nine in the morning on the Fourth of June.”

“This is stunning . . . hard to believe.”

“That . . . Constable Wangelin . . . is the audacity of evil.”

~ ~ ~

Karl Haugen woke up. He wasn’t sure if he had slept for hours or just dozed off for minutes. Nothing seemed real. Sadness rose in him as he realized that his father had not looked for him for a long long time. His father felt so far away. They had been so close.

“Daddy! Where are you?”

He wondered why no one heard him. It had been a long time since anyone had looked for him.

“Daddy! Where are you?”

He missed sitting with his father on the sofa after his father came home from work and telling him everything that had happened to him at school. He had so much he wanted to tell his father.

“Mom! Mom . . . can you hear me?”

He missed his mother as badly as he missed his father. She had kept looking for him unlike his father. He wished that she was not living so far away. Namsos was too far away.

Why didn’t she ask Daddy to let him live with her throughout the year?

If she had asked then he would not be where he was.

~ ~ ~

Wangelin and Sohlberg took a short break. She went to re-fill her enormous coffee mug following the Norwegian tradition of consuming huge amounts of coffee at work. Meanwhile Sohlberg called his wife.

“Are your parents able to come?”

“Yes! . . . My Dad said they’d need a day or so to pack up.”

“I won’t be home for dinner.”

“Case speeding up?”

“Drastically. . . .”

“I’ll leave your dinner in the frig . . . top shelf . . . if you’re coming in after midnight.”

“I doubt it,” said Sohlberg. “I should be in by eleven. I have to go see someone at Halden Fengsel.”

“Wake me up when you get home.”

“But—”

“No
buts
. You wake me up so I know you’re home safe and sound.”

“Alright.”

“Love you.”

“For time and for
all
eternity.”

The Sohlbergs always said goodnight to each other with a little routine of one saying ‘
Love you
’ and the other one replying ‘
For time and for all eternity
’ or ‘
Forever and ever always
’. They had kept that routine during their more than 25 years of marriage because Sohlberg was permanently traumatized over the fact that he had never had the opportunity to say ‘Goodbye’ or ‘I love you’ to his first wife Karoline before and while she fell to her death. The sudden unexpected death of Sohlberg’s first wife had left him terrified of not being able to saying ‘I love you’ to those dear ones whom death steals without a warning.

Commissioner Thorsen walked into the cubicle just as Sholberg ended the call with Fru Sohlberg. Thorsen plopped down on the chair in front of Sohlberg. “So . . . did you solve it?”

Sohlberg stared at Thorsen with undisguised contempt. “No. Not yet . . . but we’re getting there. At least a few things were done right.”

“Imagine that. The great detective from Interpol approves of what us bumpkins do in Norway. Well now! . . . How marvelous that you approve. . . . So tell me . . . what did we do right?”

“Dusting everywhere possible for fingerprints in the school . . . checking out the whereabouts of known sex offenders.”

“I pushed hard for a deep look into the S.O. population . . . I’m sure you know by now that a young pervert had previously trespassed in that same school and molested some girls.”

“Wangelin told me. But that’s not who did it.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not telling you more.”

“Oh?”

“I know you’re here fishing for information that you can pass on to the higher-ups . . . who will then interfere with the investigation . . . or screw it up. But that won’t happen on my watch.”

“Oh?”

“I already instructed Wangelin not to leak or disclose any information on the investigation to anyone . . . including you . . . unless I tell her to do so.”

 “Breaking the chain of command so early in the investigation?”

“Quite the opposite Thorsen. I’m following it. She reports to me and I report to you.”

“Make sure you do a lot of that. I need to hear from you twice a day. In the morning just before noon and in the afternoon no later than three-thirty.”

“Of course. Heaven forbid that you . . . like everyone else in Norway . . . be one minute late getting out of the office after four o’clock.”

“Sohlberg you’ve forgotten your own country . . . haven’t you? We’re efficient here in Norway. There’s no need for overtime.”

“I’m sure you need to get out at four so you can hit the links during the summer.”

“Who told you I play golf?”

“Word gets around.”

“Well . . . it’s outdated gossip. I no longer play golf.”

“Oh?” said Sohlberg who enjoyed his turn to act coy.

“I bowl.”

“Bowling?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard of it Mister International Traveler.”

“Oh?”

“I’m taking lessons and getting quite good at it.”

“I’m sure you are. I wonder . . . who else bowls in the department . . . or in the Ministry of Justice?”

“None of your bee’s wax!” Ivar Thorsen jumped up and left. He almost slammed into Constable Wangelin and her giant coffee mug which offered third degree burns in any spill.

“What’s bothering him Chief Inspector?”

“His new hobby.”

“Hhhmm. Weird. Shall we continue with the summary?”

“Read on.”

“Agnes Haugen left the school no later than nine and went about her regular day doing errands and household chores.”