Death on Pilot Hill (An Inspector Harald Sohlberg Mystery)

by Jens Amundsen

  “No. By the way . . . I’d appreciate you not informing anyone of this visit or this conversation.”

  “Inspector . . . that’s unusual . . . you do understand don’t you?”

  “Understand what?”

  “That I won’t lie if the parents ask me about this visit. You need to understand that I also can’t reveal any confidential medical information about the boy unless I have a release from the parents.”

  Dr. Heldaas was not subtle about her dislike for the police. She looked down on Sohlberg from the tip of her long pointy nose as if he was some contagious infection to be avoided. Over the years Sohlberg had met too many highly-educated professionals who looked down on the police. She struck him as the kind who hated the police but would not hesitate on calling the police if anyone as much as scratched her brand-new CL 600 Mercedes coupe.

  “Doctor Heldaas . . . I’m not asking you to lie to anyone . . . or for anyone. What I want . . . and expect from you . . . is for you not to interfere with a police investigation. I don’t think you want to ruin your reputation or drag the university hospital into a major headache on charges that you obstructed an official government investigation.”

  “I’m cooperating am I not?”

  “Ja you are . . . and I thank you for that. Now . . . this little boy . . . Karl Haugen . . . has been missing for more than a year. Would you agree it’s important to find him?”

  “Ja.”

  “So we are on the same page.”

  “Ja we are.”

  “Alright,” said Sohlberg in a friendlier manner. “First . . . I need to know if you had an appointment to see Karl Haugen on June four of last year.”

  “No. It was for June eleven.”

  “Are you sure? . . . Do you want to check your calendar?”

  “No need. I’ve gone over that matter with Gunnar and Agnes Haugen several times.”

  “Please explain that.”

  “Explain what? . . . I don’t understand you.”

  “Explain when and how you went over that matter with Gunnar and Agnes Haugen several times.”

  “I don’t remember setting up the initial appointment . . . you’d have to talk with my appointment secretary . . . or the call nurse. But after Karl went missing the mother and the father called me several times to make sure that we had the appointment written down for June eleven.”

  “Didn’t you find that odd . . . them asking for confirmation of Karl’s appointment when Karl was already missing?”

  “I did find it odd . . . until they explained that Karl’s teacher was trying to evade responsibility for not informing the administration that Karl was missing at roll call on the morning of June fourth. . . . Apparently the teacher is telling people that she was misled by the parents into thinking that Karl had an excused medical absence that Friday June four.”

  “Did you have a conversation with Karl’s parents about him having seizures?”

  “Seizures? No. Never. He was perfectly normal from a medical perspective.”

  “Did anyone at the hospital or your practice . . . perhaps a call nurse on the telephone . . . speak to the parents about him having seizures?”

  No. Absolutely not.”

  “You’re that sure?”

  “Ja. Right after your constable called me I checked the charts to refresh my memory about Karl . . . there’s nothing in his charts about seizures . . . no one ever mentioned anything about seizures to any of his healthcare providers.”

  “Could someone have lost the note or not even written a note about him having seizures?”

  “No. We’re totally paperless . . . we enter every medical note or observation into his computerized chart . . . including telephone calls from the parents.”

  “Would you put your professional reputation on the line and declare under oath that without a doubt Karl Haugen did not suffer from seizures?”

  “Ja. Again . . . he was perfectly normal from a medical and physical point of view.”

  Sohlberg thanked the doctor and left the room with Constable Wangelin. They stood in the hallway. Sohlberg put his ear to the doctor’s door and heard nothing. He wondered if the door might be too thick for eavesdropping or padded for soundproofing.

  “Please run down to the corner of the building . . . and find any room with a window that’s opposite hers and see if she’s making a call.”

  Wangelin sprinted down the hallway. A few minutes later Wangelin met him by the elevators.

  “Ja. She was on the phone.”

  “Of course she might’ve been calling someone else on an unrelated matter . . . but I doubt it.”

  “Do you think Chief Inspector that she called one or both of the Haugens . . . even after you warned her?”

  “Ja. I think she called one of them at the very least if not both. Never trust doctors or lawyers. They think they’re gods . . . far above the laws and morality of mere mortals.”

  “You shouldn’t get so angry . . . you look like you could explode.”

  “I’m not angry over Dr. Heldaas!”

  “Then what are you angry about?”

  “The parents planted the topic of Karl having seizures into the investigation. . . . Don’t you see? . . . They manufactured an issue that was bound to confuse us . . . and they set up very fertile grounds for a criminal defense down the road that lets one or both of them claim that Karl fell . . . or got lost . . . or had amnesia . . . or drowned because of his so-called seizure.”

  “These parents are unbelievable . . . Chief Inspector . . . as you said before . . . the abduction was brilliantly planned from the get go.”

  “Ja ja. We’re being outsmarted even now . . . a year later. We’re being played for idiots . . . morons. That’s why I’m about to explode.”

  Sohlberg noticed that Wangelin almost smiled when he punched and broke the elevator button. He was sure that Wangelin must have heard plenty of rumors about him and now he had proven one of the rumors to be true — he had a volcanic temper barely kept under control.

  Chapter 11/Elleve

  AFTERNOON OF 1 YEAR AND 25 DAYS

  AFTER THE DAY, FRIDAY, JUNE 4

  Police officers and staff hurried up and down the hallways of the seventh floor at 12 Hammersborggata. Hushed but rushed voices could be heard everywhere. Sohlberg and Wangelin could not but help notice that the atmosphere had radically changed at headquarters since they had left earlier that morning.

  “The unmistakable air of a breaking development in a major case,” said Sohlberg. “Wonder what’s going on?”

  Thorsen’s secretary waved at them to come into the commissioner’s office.

  “Sohlberg!” shouted Ivar Thorsen. “There you are. Well . . . well . . . well. While you’ve been off gallivanting who knows where today I am proud to report that the Karl Haugen case is almost solved.”

  “Ahh . . . you don’t say so? How wonderful,” said Sohlberg with unconcealed sarcasm that went over Thorsen’s head.

  “Ja. Isn’t it great?”

  “You found the boy?”

  “No.”

  “Someone saw the boy or heard from him?”

  “No. But—”

  “Someone confessed. Right?”

  “No! Stop interrupting me Sohlberg. We arrested Jo Haugen . . . the thirty-year-old biological brother of Gunnar Haugen . . . Jo Haugen is the uncle of the missing boy . . . we arrested him for child molestation.”

  “Molesting what child . . . Karl Haugen?”

  “No. The uncle’s girlfriend left town because her elderly grandmother is close to dying . . . the girlfriend left her fifteen-year-old daughter alone with Karl’s uncle. The girl woke up to find him fondling and kissing her while trying to undress her. She screamed . . . hit him with a lamp and ran out of the house to a neighbor.”

  “What does he say?”

  “Nothing. Said he was too drunk to remember. But he said he probably did it because his own grandfather raped and molested him and his brother . . . Gunnar Haugen . . . when
they were boys.”

  Sohlberg nodded and merely said, “I need to think about this. Let’s go Constable Wangelin . . . we have work to do.”

  Commissioner Thorsen abruptly shouted:

  “Wait . . . where are you two going? Don’t you want to interrogate the uncle?”

  “Is the grandfather still living?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t want to see the uncle for now. Just make sure that the uncle is not allowed to talk to or meet with Karl’s father or stepmother. If you let that happen then we could lose the case and never solve it.”

  “Alright but do you mind telling me. . . .”

  “No. Not yet,” said Sohlberg. He strolled nonchalantly out of Thorsen’s office.

  Once they got to Sohlberg’s office Constable Wangelin made sure that no one was around hearing her and she whispered:

  “What was that all about? I’m confused. Isn’t this a major break in the case? Shouldn’t we be meeting with the uncle? . . . I thought it’d mean a lot to you.”

  “It does . . . but not in the way that you expect.”

  “But Chief Inspector . . . there’s no denying it . . . the case dynamic has radically changed with the uncle’s arrest and . . . the allegation that the Haugen grandfather sexually imposed himself on Karl’s uncle and father.”

  “Ja. But at this point in our investigation Karl’s uncle is a distraction. You’re forgetting a basic principle of investigating a cold case . . . which is to focus focus focus. You see . . . to bring a cold case to full boil you need to apply the heat of investigation to one spot for as long as it takes. In other words we can’t afford to run around like headless chickens.”

  “Well . . . you know best.”

  “Thank you. You see Constable Wangelin . . . experience does have its rewards.”

  Sohlberg grabbed his suit jacket from the coat stand.

  “What’s next?” said Constable Wangelin.

  “We’re off to Nokia . . . their research lab.”

  “To interview the father?”

  “Ja . . . they returned our call . . . we first have a meeting with their I.T. department . . . which has some information for us on the father’s computer use. Then we’ll interrogate him . . . catch him by surprise . . . and hopefully throw him off his guard.”

  “Chief this is going to be interesting . . . and a long day.”

  “Did you get the information on the most frequent phone numbers that the father has made calls to or received calls from during the past two years?”

  “Ja. He only uses a company phone . . . from Nokia of course . . . they have a record of all of his incoming and outgoing calls and text messages.”

  “Does anything stand out?”

  “No. Nothing unusual except for the past two weeks . . . he called his parents a lot.”

  “We’ll pay them a visit. What about the most frequent e-mail addresses he’s written to or been written from?”

  “We also have those from Nokia since Nokia owns the only computer that Gunnar Haugen uses.”

  “Even his personal e-mail address?”

  “Ja. Employers like Nokia can see and copy whatever is on a company computer . . . even if it’s a laptop that the employee has at home. . . . The only unusual activity is a recent spike in e-mails to his parents . . . something about using his grandfather’s old barn for a painting project.”

  “Really? . . . Call headquarters and have them find the barn’s location . . . have several officers check it out today . . . it’s urgent that this be done now . . . as soon as possible. Also have someone go out and interview his parents. Make sure that Gunnar Haugen’s father and mother are interviewed separately about the barn . . . and the grandfather’s molestation of their sons.”

  “Chief . . . could Karl be at the barn?”

  “Maybe.”

  “This might be our lucky break!”

  “I don’t know,” said Sohlberg in a glum tone while he thought about the most recent developments in the case. “If Gunnar Haugen is involved in his son’s kidnaping then he’s gotten rather careless by using a company phone and a company computer as his only means of communications.”

  “But Chief Inspector don’t you think the barn is important?”

  “Definitely. That’s why our men have to be there today. Have the officer-in-charge contact us immediately with whatever they find. Go ahead . . . call them now and have them be out looking in the barn while we’re at Nokia with Gunnar Haugen.”

  “Chief Inspector . . . could Karl Haugen be alive somewhere in the farm? . . . Or is he buried under the barn?”

  “We’ll find out soon . . . won’t we?”

  “What makes you so sure Chief Inspector?”

  “We’re about to let the father and the stepmother clear or incriminate themselves.”

  “How?”

  “Watch and learn Constable Wangelin. I’ll lead them to several doors that point to guilt or innocence . . . of course they won’t know whether guilt or innocence is behind each door.”

  “What if they refuse to answer?”

  “Silence itself is always an answer to a question.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Constable Wangelin took the eastbound lanes of Ring 3 or Highway 150 that circles Oslo. Heavy traffic slowed down their trip to Nokia’s headquarters at the suburban Nydalen office park in the Nordre Aker borough of northern Oslo. They got off the freeway on the exit for southbound Maridalsveien. While maneuvering through a maze of narrow streets Wangelin got lost looking for Nokia’s building on the east bank of the Akerselva River.

  “These streets are so confusing,” she said hoping that Sohlberg would not get angry or question her competence.

  “Ja. They always have been in this neighborhood. I just can’t believe how this area has changed . . . it used to be an ugly run-down industrial site . . . along with a few modest homes . . . now it’s all modern condos and office buildings . . . it looks just like some rich suburb in the U.S.A.”

  After several wrong turns Wangelin finally found Sandakerveien which she took northbound. They spotted Nokia’s building just before reaching Ring 3 or Highway 150. Nokia’s offices reminded Sohlberg of all of the corporate campuses and corporations he’d visited all over the world: bland and impersonal. Just like the top executives of major corporations.

  The head of Nokia’s Human Resources department in Oslo greeted them at the lobby. She escorted them to a conference room where a nervous young man sat in front of a large laptop computer and a large white binder filled with about eight inches of paper.

  “Please show the police what you found on Gunnar Haugen’s computers.”

  “Ja . . . we have remote access to all computers that Nokia owns. We monitor all computers that we own to prevent industrial espionage and other unauthorized uses . . . which includes pornography . . . computer games . . . and other recreational uses.”

  Sohlberg impatient said:

  “We get it. What did you find?”

  The computer technician worked the keyboard and got into screens that meant nothing to Sohlberg.

  “We found that Gunnar Haugen installed a key logging software on his computer . . . it lets him spy on other computers into which he has secretly loaded the key logging software . . . the software lets him see everything a person is typing on that computer.”

  “Is this software a Nokia product . . . does it belong to Nokia?”

  “No. Anyone can buy this type of software at a store or on the Internet.”

  “Who was he spying on?”

  “His wife. Agnes Haugen. Actually her laptop computer. You can see her using it right now.”

  “Was he spying on anyone else?”

  “No. But I also found that he installed in her cell phone a similar but much more advanced software that lets him spy on cell phones including all Nokia models.”

  “How?”

  “He secretly loads a special software into the phone’s SIM card . . . it’s a tiny piece of hardware .
. . the subscriber identification module . . that’s inside every cell phone. The software lets him hear every call and see every text message and image sent or received on the phone.”

  “Is this software a Nokia product . . . does it belong to Nokia?”

  “No. This is really advanced. He must’ve designed it himself or gotten it from one of his friends or contacts in the industry.”