“By the way. . have you ever come across a seven- or eight-year-old who was not able to sleep because of background noise?. . I’ve seen some children sleep in the noisiest of trains or airports with no problem at all. I saw some kids sleeping right in the middle of a loud party that my wife and I attended for St. John’s Eve.”
“Ja. I saw my own little nephews and nieces in that age group at Sankthans. . they slept soundly through all the loud music and talking.”
“Continue please.”
“At nine o’clock the children were supposed to report to their classes where they’d be divided into small groups. . of a couple of students each. A volunteer was to chaperone each group during a tour of the science fair in the auditorium. Of course all of the teachers made sure that all of their little groups stayed together from the minute they left the classrooms to the minute that they came back to the classrooms. A half hour later they all returned to their classes for roll call and Karl Haugen wasn't at his class with Froken Boe. She marks him absent.”
“So we have a half-hour window for him to walk out or be taken out of the school?”
“Actually less than a half-hour. No one remembers seeing him go on the tour of the science fair with the chaperones and teachers.”
“Really?”
“We’re highly confident that he never went to the auditorium with a chaperoned group of classmates because more than twenty of us spent two weeks interviewing and re-interviewing all the teachers and chaperones and students and administrators. . And no one remembers seeing him at the auditorium from nine to nine-thirty. . or anywhere else in the school after nine in the morning.”
“So Karl Haugen disappeared in that fifteen minute time frame. . from eight forty-five to nine o’clock. . when his mother let him walk to his classroom?”
“Ja.”
Sohlberg closed his eyes as he tried to comprehend the mind-boggling implications of the place and time of the little boy’s disappearance. He rubbed his eyes with his fists as if he could squeeze an image into his eyes that would explain the mystery.
“Fifteen minutes?”
“Ja Chief Inspector.”
“And no one remembers seeing any stranger or anyone who did not belong at the school that day?”
“That’s correct. No strangers. Everyone recognized everyone else. Also. . extensive fingerprinting of all bathrooms and door-handles and rooms and desks and playground equipment etcetera. . revealed no prints for anyone who should not have been there that day. We also questioned and verified the whereabouts of all known sex offenders in a ten mile radius and none were near the school that day.”
“Thank God the team at least did the fingerprint dusting. . and they rounded up and ruled out the usual suspects. Well. . the case is half-solved.”
“How so Chief Inspector?”
“First of all. . remember to always work smart and not hard.”
“That sounds good. . in theory. . does it work in practice?”
“Ja. You see we could waste time and resources and exhaust our mental energies by going the hard route and calling in half the Oslo police force to look for someone who hid inside the school or slipped into the school to take Karl Haugen. But at this point there’s only one logical path to follow based on the evidence. . and only two people. . you and me. . are needed to crack this case.”
“How can just the two of us solve a year-old case that more than forty investigators could not?”
“It’s simple. . we already know the kidnapper. . 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 kidnapper 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?”
“Ja. 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?”
“Ja.”
“Every nook and cranny from roof to foundation and wall to wall. . right?”
“Ja ja,” 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.
“Ja. .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 en
terprise 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?”
“Ja!. . 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?”
“Ja. 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?”
“Ja. Read on.”
“Agnes Haugen left the school no later than nine and went about her regular day doing errands and household chores.”
“What errands? What chores?”
“She went back home to pick up the baby and post pictures that she took of Karl Haugen at the science fair. . she uploaded the pictures into Facebook and other social network websites on the Internet.”
“Wait a minute. . did she leave the baby alone at home?”
“No. Her husband stayed in that day.”
“What? Wasn’t he at work?”
“No. He called in sick. We confirmed this from Nokia. We also found out that he was logged into his company’s computers from eight in the morning to three in the afternoon. There’s no doubt it was him because the work involved is highly specialized design engineering on computer chips. According to his boss at Nokia only someone with his expertise and experience could have made the entries found that day in Nokia’s design systems.”
“But why was he working on his work computer if he called in sick that day?”
“Nokia told us that he called in sick for himself and not because his kids or wife were sick. He was very vague when we pressed him for details on his sickness and whether he had gone to a doctor or told anyone else that he was sick.”
“What did the team finally find out?” said Sohlberg who grew increasingly curious as to the little boy’s father.
“Gunnar Haugen admitted that he should not have called in sick but rather. . should’ve taken family leave because his daughter was sick and crying all night long and keeping him awake.”
“And yet he was wide-awake enough to work for hours on complicated engineering and computer chip design.”
“Now that you mention it. . his statement is nonsense if he worked all day on his computer and yet claimed to be kept up the previous night.”
“Did Nokia ever give you a minute-by-minute record on what he was doing on the computer? Is there a chance he could’ve just logged on and then walked away?”
“Oh boy. . we sure didn’t get any information like that from Nokia.”
“Get it. Also. . did he or his wife take the baby to the doctor or call a doctor?”
“No. They did not take the baby to a doctor. . or call a doctor for the baby.”
/> Sohlberg rubbed his chin. “Strange.”
“You’ll see just how strange Chief Inspector. The boy’s father is an odd duck. Very intelligent and yet seems oddly detached. . almost absent-minded. . even dumb and naive on some things.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Ja. I always remember how strange it was to hear him repeat things that his wife had previously mentioned to us. . his eyes always got a glassy look whenever she was around. . it was like he was a zombie robot repeating verbatim whatever his wife wanted him to say to us.”
“Like what?”
“I just can’t put my finger on it. He was. . an echo chamber of his wife.”
“And he’s a scientist type?”
“Ja Chief Inspector. . he’s definitely Mister Cold Logic. . a science and math guy.”
“People like that think the world is just about plugging numbers into some magical formula here or there. . Or is he a business type?. . They think everything in life is profit or loss or that life is all about good or bad management or advertising.”
“Ja! He’s an egghead. . and a businessman’s. . a pointdexter.”
“A what?”
“You know. . book smart but not street smart.”
“Ja! This is a man whose naive or stupid enough to lie to his employer about being sick. Then he lies to us about being kept up all night by a sick baby and yet he puts in a day’s work the following day at his home computer and does not call or visit a doctor for his sick baby.”
“Like I said Chief Inspector. . he’s an odd duck.”
“Did the baby’s mother Agnes call or visit a doctor for her sick baby daughter?”
“No. She took the baby and left her husband alone for a couple of hours. . from eleven in the morning to two o’clock in the afternoon. . she drove around with the baby to get the baby’s medicine at a pharmacy. She then went to her workout at the gym. . with the baby.”
“She took the baby and left him all alone?”
“Ja.”
“Why would you take a sick baby in your car to go buy the baby’s medicines when one parent is already staying at home and not going to work?. .Why would anyone take a sick baby to a gym. . and drop off the sick baby at the gym’s daycare?”
“I. . well at the time no one thought it strange. They both made it sound so natural. Now that you mention it. . it does sound strange indeed.”
Death on Pilot Hill (an inspector harold sohlberg mystery) Page 9