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

by Amundsen, Jens

  “What could you do?”

  “Leave her. Kick her lazy lying cheating butt out of the house. Instead I stayed and she worked up a big production for me every day about the boy growing up all alone in the world without a father. Then at night she would love my brains out. She knows how to work a man. I stupidly caved in and adopted the boy. The loving stopped of course.

  “I adopted the boy despite the fact that my parents warned me a million times not to do it. They begged me. They showed me how much of my income would disappear into child support if she was to ever divorce me down the road.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “That she’d never divorce me. Yes. . . I knew that she loved me working and bringing her money while she did nothing at home other than sleeping with other men and partying with her girlfriends. Two months after I adopt the boy she divorces me and tells the court that I’m ‘controlling and abusive’. Ain’t that something?”

  “The pot calling the kettle black.”

  “Yes. Ain’t that something? She dumps the kid on me during the divorce . . . I think that’s when she started dating you. Then after she moves in with you she takes the kid back . . . which means that I had to start paying her child support again.”

  “I’m sorry. This is all so much to think about. I didn’t know about this situation with her. We should talk more from now on.”

  “Yes. By the way . . . it kills me that she always brings him back here to me with no change of clothes. I now have to buy him clothes for the weekend. Just what the heck do you guys do with all the money that I have to pay every month now that she has custody and I only have visitation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the big fat check I send your wife every month for my son’s support!”

  “That’s her department. I don’t see any of it,” he said. “How much do you pay her?”

  When he heard the enormous sum his rage almost exploded that day at the restaurant and the drive back home. But to his credit he did not say anything at all to her about how he had discovered that she was hiding and secretly pocketing all that child support money while she made him buy all of the boy’s clothes and toys and food and you name it.

  “So,” said the ex-husband, “do you see why I’m angry that she sent the boy here today with no extra clothes for the weekend? Not even pyjamas . . . now I have to buy him more clothes.”

  “I see your point.”

  “Do you? You know . . . I once went to see her . . . and begged her to please lower the child support payments because I had to help my widowed sister in New York City who had cancer. My sick sister had five children to care for . . . and I desperately needed to send her and the five children money.

  “What does your wife do?

  “She smiles and says yes . . .that she’ll gladly go to her lawyer and ask him to lower the monthly payment . . . then . . . an hour later the police are at my office asking about me ‘harassing and threatening’ her.”

  “Not good.”

  “There’s more. Much more. A year after we got married she went back to school to get her undergraduate degree. She had me pay her tuition. I never got to go to the university and get my degree because I paid for her schooling. She always told me she’d pay me back once she got to teach but the crazy broad could never get full-time work at teaching because all of the teachers and principals and staff soon got to hate the Bossy Queen Bee.”

  “She told me that getting a full-time teaching job at an elementary school is not easy . . . but rather difficult.”

  “Oh really? I don’t think it’s that difficult since I later found out that she finally got a full-time job offer to teach.”

  “She never told me.”

  “Why should she? That’s when you proposed to her. She turned down the job offer as soon as you slipped that big fat engagement ring on her finger. The meal-ticket of her newest Prince Charming had arrived to rescue her from working at McDonald’s and at a school . . . and so . . . she traded me the old beat-up model for the higher income model you offered and now provide her.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The seventh big lie. For that he slowly electrocutes and burns off her left thumb with a live electric wire wrapped like a ring around the base of her thumb.

  “I’m not big into material things. I don’t like showing off. Hate it. My family is my life. That’s all I care about.”

  Was that another well-placed hook into him who was so careful with his hard-earned money?

  She said she wasn’t big into material things and yet she made it abundantly clear that she wanted a big fat diamond from him for the engagement ring and the wedding ring. He remembered how she had spent a small fortune on clothes at H & M shortly after claiming that she had ‘lost’ the engagement ring. Of course he had to buy her a second engagement ring.

  She doesn’t like showing off but she forced him into an expensive wedding on a private island in Greece. She then pushed him into buying her the red Audi TT sports car as a wedding gift with the car title in her name only.

  She says she hates showing off and loves family above everything else and yet she abandoned him and everyone else so she could spend 8 to 10 hours a day every day of the week at the gym training for bodybuilding championships. During that time he had to cook and care for her son from another marriage and for his son from a previous marriage because she simply refused to do any other work other than working on the sculpting of her body.

  Is that when her anger started getting out of control?

  Did she take steroids?

  After all they are well-known for causing uncontrollable rage as a side-effect.

  So . . . did she take steroids?

  Probably.

  For sure she took those fat-burning pills that acted like amphetamines and left her paranoid and wide awake night after night. That’s also when she started hanging around all these female muscle-building freaks at the gym. They were such disgusting repulsive freaks. The sight of women ogling each other was sickening to him especially when the women lathered themselves in oil and then slowly flexed different muscle groups such as their stomach muscles or butts. Their rippling muscles looked like oiled snakes moving under their skin.

  She hates showing off but she made him pay for her giant breast implants after she quit bodybuilding.

  Her family is her life but she dumped their children at the gym’s daycare so she could spend most of the day doing whatever she wanted with whomever she wanted.

  ~ ~ ~

  The eighth big lie. For that he chews off her left index finger.

  Or should he buy a pet rat to chew her finger off by putting the rat into a tube and then lighting a blowtorch behind the rat and letting the rat chew through her bone and flesh?

  Or should he use the rat to chew through her nose and cheeks or through her ribs or stomach?

  The eighth lie was one of her worst and most damaging lies. She trapped him forever with that lie. She would have her hand inside his pockets for the next twenty years paying child support if they divorced.

  The eighth lie had been so so clever.

  “I can’t have more children. The doctor said my tubes and uterus are scarred beyond repair from a bad infection I got from my IUD . . . my intrauterine device almost killed me. Anyway I take the pill just to make sure.”

  Her pregnancy almost two years ago left him stunned and in a daze for weeks. He was beyond surprised because she made him think that there was absolutely no way that they were going to have children. She often left the circular birth control pill dispenser on the bathroom counter so that he was sure to see it.

  When he no longer saw the pill dispenser on the bathroom she told him:

  “Oh honey . . . I forgot to tell you . . . I switched to Implanon . . . it’s even more effective than the pill . . . the nurse put the little plastic rod in my arm a week ago . . . just under my skin . . . kind of hurt a little . . . the slow and steady drug release lasts three years. We won’t have t
o worry anymore about my forgetting to take the pill. Now you take your clothes off and come into bed right now so we can celebrate my little rod with your big rod!”

  The baby.

  She changed even more after the baby than she did with the bodybuilding. After the baby she had no patience and lots of explosive temper with my son and her son. The baby turned her world upside down. She was no longer in control. The baby controlled her and everyone else.

  Why was she so angry about the baby?

  Aren’t babies supposed to change you from selfish to altruistic?

  Aren’t babies supposed to make you grow into a better adult?

  No. Not with her. Her moods only got worse and worse.

  Was it postpartum depression as she claimed or was that just another lie to avoid responsibility?

  Right after having the baby is when she started getting on the Internet for hours and hooking up with all of her old boyfriends. The worst was finding out with his key logging software that she put herself out on many websites for singles and for people looking for relationships. Trolling for men hour after hour. Sending them lewd disgusting messages and nude pictures.

  Why have a baby if you start acting like you hate the baby?

  Her moods. They left no room for error. She got nasty even with her son and of course with my son.

  Should I have let her be so strict with the two boys especially with my son?

  Who wouldn’t have let her have her way if they had heard her arguing all the time about disciplining the boys especially my son?

  He decided then and there that the torture sessions will include him forcing caustic lye down her throat to let her feel what it was like hearing her rant on and on every day about how she was an educator—a trained professional who knew how to handle children.

  ~ ~ ~

  He finished mowing the yard and planning her torture and he walked into the kitchen exhausted and dripping in sweat.

  “Are you going to feed the baby?” she said in her surly bad-mood voice.

  “Sure . . . but I was going to clean the deck and then prune the driveway bushes. Why can’t you—”

  She walked out of the room in a huff. “I’m going to the gym. I need a break!”

  She’s too far away to hear him say:

  “Yeah bitch . . . I’ll give you a break . . . break your neck!”

  He realizes that there’s no way he’s going to wait a full year before exterminating her. He’s got to do it sooner. If not he’ll go absolutely stark raving mad. He called his parents.

  “Hiya . . . good . . . I wanted to see if I can use Grandpa’s old barn for a painting project. Yes . . . I’ve got several things I need to spray-paint.”

  He hung up and closed his eyes.

  The old barn.

  The pervert.

  The molestations.

  The violations.

  Bad bad memories.

  Can a building attract bad people doing bad things?

  He’s gonna do bad bad things. Just like in the old days.

  PART TWO: THE INVESTIGATION

  It is better to go to a house of mourning

  Than to go to a house of feasting,

  Because that is the end of every man,

  And the living takes it to heart.

  . . .

  The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning;

  but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

  — Ecclesiastes 7:1, 4 [1-New American Standard Bible, 4-King James Bible]

  Chapter 7/Syv

  MORNING OF 1 YEAR AND 24 DAYS

  AFTER THE DAY, FRIDAY, JUNE 4

  Sohlberg and Wangelin met at 9:00 AM in his cubicle on the seventh floor. To Sohlberg’s surprise the cubicle had window views of the city and it was large enough to accommodate a small sofa and a round table for six. The cubicle’s wall panels did not have the cheap and depressing gray fabric that Sohlberg hated as a rookie cop. Instead this new form of cubicle offered pleasing and tasteful walls of wood and glass. Sohlberg wondered how much the new cubicles cost the taxpayer.

  “Good morning Chief Inspector.”

  “Good morning Constable Wangelin. Let’s sit at the table and go over your executive summary. Were you able to talk with all members of the team?”

  “I’m still waiting for a few call-backs . . . lots of people are on summer vacation.”

  “Find them . . . call them at home if necessary. Get everyone’s feedback two days from now at the latest. Who hasn’t called you back?”

  “A couple of constables who interviewed witnesses . . . and two KRIPOS experts . . . one on cellphones and computers and the other one on D.N.A.”

  “Did you ask everyone to tell you about anything unusual . . . or anything that they wish that they or someone else had done differently?”

  “Yes. I did as you told me.”

  “Good . . . proceed.”

  She gave copies of the two pages to Sohlberg.

  “Friday June the Fourth was not a regular school day but a special day for Karl Haugen and all the children at Grindbakken Skole. He and his classmates had a science fair in the morning before class began. The regular first period class was moved back by one hour to nine o’clock so that the principal could look at the exhibits and rank them. He was to award prizes later that day.”

  “So . . . it was an unusual day.”

  “Right. And there’s more on how unusual the day actually turned out to be. The media is wrong when they paint Karl Haugen as simply having vanished from school during a regular school day when the children are carefully looked after and accounted for.”

  “Excellent. Proceed.”

  “The science fair meant that the children and their parents or guardians had to arrive early at school to set up each child’s science project or exhibit. Therefore instead of taking the school bus as usual Karl Haugen came to school with his stepmother Agnes Haugen in the family car . . . a Toyota Hilux.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s a monstrous four-door pickup . . . I looked it up . . . in America it’s the Toyota Tundra.”

  “I see . . . I just can’t believe that Norwegians now drive those types of cars.”

  “Everyone likes the big cars that Americans drive . . . even if they’re made by the Japanese.”

  “They cost a small fortune to fill up at the gas station. Go on . . . what else?”

  “This white pickup is also unusual.”

  “How so?”

  “It’s not the stepmother’s regular car. Her car is an Audi sports car . . . a red T.T. coupe.”

  “Why did she drive the pickup?”

  “She said that she drove the pickup because Karl Haugen’s science project would not fit in her sports car. Those Audi sports cars are very small . . . they really have no space in the back.”

  “Hhhmm . . . interesting,” said Sohlberg. He took out his favorite pen—a Waterman Phileas fountain pen filled with green ink. He pulled the cap off and drew a rectangle around the words ‘science project’ and ‘Audi sports car’ in the summary. He drew the same rectangle around the words ‘white pickup’ before putting the cap back on the fat pen from France.

  “Who’s the owner of the pickup?”

  “Her husband. The boy’s father.”

  “How did he get to work? What does he use the pickup for . . . does he own a business that requires a van or a pickup?”

  “No. He’s a highly-paid engineer at Nokia . . . the cell phone company from Finland. He’s in charge of a team that designs some of their computer chips.”

  “Nokia? . . . I’ve heard of them. They’re in the U.S.A. too. Does she work?”

  “No. She’s a stay-at-home mother. She and Karl Haugen’s father have a nineteen-month-old baby daughter.”

  “And this business with the school bus. In my day we all walked to school . . . are children in Norway now taking school buses?”

  “In the suburbs . . . yes . . . because of the distances.”

  “Huh! W
hen he was a kid my father walked almost two miles to school. Alright. Keep reading. . . .”

  “On a normal day the school opens at eight thirty-five in the morning and the final bell to start classes rings ten minutes later. That Friday however because of the science fair the school opened early at eight o’clock. Karl Haugen and his stepmother and most of the students and their parents or family members showed up a little before eight to set up the children’s exhibits and walk around looking at everyone else’s exhibits at the fair. Dozens of children and parents and teachers saw the boy and the stepmother arrive at the fair at eight o’clock and stay there until quarter to nine.”