Sohlberg and the Gift

by Jens Amundsen

  How would he explain to Emma Sohlberg that the Oslo Police would never reimburse him or that he would never ask to be reimbursed on his private mission for justice?

  What am I getting into?

  A somewhat worried Sohlberg headed back to the Zoo. He surreptitiously slipped a handwritten note to Fru Sivertsen. His note asked her to confirm whether Astrid Isaksen and the aunt and boyfriend had indeed left for Hovden and the luxury lodge which had nightly room rates far exceeding what the boyfriend or Astrid’s aunt earned in a month. An hour later Sohlberg received the text message that he feared from Fru Sivertsen on his private cell phone:

  isaksens@ hovdestøylen hotel+lodge w/ jon næss.

  Sohlberg ran Jon Næss on the www.skattelister.no website from his personal cell phone. He was not surprised to find out that the boyfriend had as small a salary as the aunt. Cleaning NSB train compartments didn’t pay well although the boyfriend and aunt would eventually receive generous pensions.

  Questions and doubts stormed Sohlberg’s mind.

  Who is paying for the prolonged 4-week stay at the luxury hotel?

  Just who is really behind Astrid Isaksen?

  Is she safe?

  ~ ~ ~

  Ulvøya Island felt like another planet. His late evening commute on the tram might as well have been on an intergalactic space ship hurtling across time and space and other dimensions. The quiet and well-kept homes along Måkeveien stood in sharp contrast to the terrible murder of the teenaged Pakistani girl in seedy Grønland. Ulvøya’s cozy and elegant houses snuggled under the pure and white snow that glistened everywhere as a twinkling blanket. The homes’ warm inviting lights at the windows reminded Sohlberg that he had to leave work behind as soon as he arrived at his house.

  At the corner with Vargveien he stopped and looked up the gentle hill and stared at his house. Fru Sohlberg must have heard him driving because she came to the living room window and looked out.

  Fru Sohlberg waved and waited for him at the door as he trudged through the last of the snow drifts. They hugged and kissed and walked to the living room.

  “Let me heat up your dinner.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Was that girl your case? . . . I saw it on the t.v.”

  “Yes. Awful.”

  “They said the father is most probable suspect.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. There’s an uncle.”

  “Horrible!” shouted Fru Sohlberg. “A fourteen year old girl. Murdered in an honor killing in downtown Oslo. . . . Why did they kill her? . . . The reporter mentioned something about her father finding out that she had a cell phone that a Norwegian boy in school had given her . . . that the two kids were sexting each other . . . that they even traded nude pictures of themselves. That was no reason to kill her.”

  “I agree. But that’s their culture. Their religion.”

  “Are you defending her relatives?”

  “No. But you see . . . I have to understand whoever did the honor killing. Whether it’s the father or the uncle or another relative. I can’t judge my perps. I have to understand them. I have to understand their life . . . as much if not more than I have to understand my victim’s life. Understand them . . . know them . . . and if I can . . . see the world from their perspective. That’s how I get them to trust me . . . then to confess . . . or to trip up with major lies that point to their guilt.”

  “You think you’ll get a confession?”

  “Yes. It’ll take hours . . . who knows . . . it could take days.”

  “So I won’t be seeing you. . . .”

  “Actually you will. At least for a short time tomorrow.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m calling in sick.”

  “That’s unusual. You have never once called in sick at work. Not even when you had that hundred-four degree fever last year.”

  “Let’s call it a mental health day.”

  “Stressed out?” Fru Sohlberg’s eyes searched her husband’s face for signs of illness.

  “In a way.”

  “Don’t forget that I’m leaving for the conference at noon. . . . What should I tell them if they contact me here or at the conference?”

  “That I’m sick from breathing in a ton of bleach and ammonia fumes at the crime scene.”

  “Do you want me to stay? I don’t have to go to the conference.”

  “No. Emma. You go.”

  “I can always go to that nurse conference another time. I’ve got twenty-one credit hours that I’m rolling over to next year’s reporting period for my license.”

  “You go. I’ll just be here a couple of hours in the morning catching up on some reading.”

  “Reading? . . . Are you finally going to finish that last book by Nesbø? . . . I’ve been waiting ages to read it.”

  “No. I’m not reading him. No Nesbø. Sorry.”

  “Reading what then?”

  “A psychiatric report in an old court case.”

  “Interesting. Then what? . . . Rest? . . . Sleep? . . . You never sleep enough hours.”

  “To sleep . . . perchance to dream. No. That’s not in the cards for me. I have an afternoon appointment with a psychiatrist . . . then we’re off to visit a psychiatric facility.”

  “Sohlberg . . . did I hear you right? Are you telling me you’re going to a psychiatric facility?”

  “Yes.”

  “In other words . . . an insane asylum?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. . . . Is this your hush-hush case that’s complicated and a long story?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now you’re telling me . . . just a little about the case?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “In case someone tries to lock me inside the insane asylum.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “Yes . . . and no. This hush-hush case . . . as you call it . . . is an old case . . . you must tell absolutely no one about this case until it’s all over . . . okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s the Janne Eide murder that Thorsen got involved in. The whole thing is crooked. . . .”

  “How so?”

  “All and I mean all of the important documents in the files are missing . . . someone spent a lot of time and effort to sanitize all of the files . . . at the Zoo . . . at the courthouse . . . everywhere.”

  “What does any of that have to do with you?”

  “I . . . I made a promise.”

  “To who . . . to whom?”

  “A young lady.”

  Emma Sohlberg sighed loudly. “I don’t think I want to hear more about this. It doesn’t sound good at all.”

  “The less you know the better.”

  “This is far worse than I thought.”

  ~ ~ ~

  A few minutes later Sohlberg had just finished changing into his pyjamas in their bedroom when Fru Sohlberg yelled from downstairs:

  “How about a Bette Davis movie tonight?”

  “Perfect,” said Sohlberg loudly. He wanted to start reading the psychiatric report on Ludvik Helland. But Dr. Nansen’s stinging but accurate words about his selfishness spurred him to be a little less selfish that night.

  The Sohlbergs cuddled on the sofa while they watched Bette Davis crush her ailing husband in The Little Foxes. They enjoyed two bags of popcorn and after the movie ended they went upstairs where Sohlberg kissed his wife goodnight and tucked her into bed.

  He walked down the hallway to a small library. He settled into his favorite chair—an Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman that he got as a gift from Fru Sohlberg. He began reading the psychiatric report. Two things stood out from the 243-page encyclopedia of Ludvik Helland’s life and mind: the Dr. Jekyll phase and the Mr. Hyde phase.

  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

  Sohlberg agreed with the two psychiatrists who examined Helland: the patient’s life and mind had a split personality look to it. The first half of Helland’s life—from childhood to his early 30s—was the nice a
nd normal Dr. Jekyll phase. The second half of Helland’s life morphed into the nasty and brutish and very violent Mr. Hyde phase.

  Plenty of evidence supported the Dr. Jekyll phase of Ludvik Helland. A massive volume of objective facts existed as to Ludvik Helland’s well-adjusted childhood. He was a well-behaved teenager and young adult. School records and interviews with childhood friends and family and teachers and neighbors revealed no unusual behavior patterns for Ludvik Helland as the only son of an Oslo postal worker and an unassuming suburban housewife.

  Unlike schizophrenics and other mentally ill patients who start exhibiting symptoms as teenagers or as young adults Ludvik Helland failed to exhibit any abnormal behavior in those critical years when mental illness traditionally makes its ugly appearance. At 26 years of age Ludvik Helland joined the Eide shipping empire after an uneventful eight year stint in the Norwegian merchant marine. He met and then married Janne Eide while serving as the second officer of her father’s 250-foot yacht The Eide Endeavor. Although Olan Eide strongly disapproved of their union he allowed the couple to live an opulent lifestyle in London and Paris and Monaco and New York and Hawaii.

  Then the murderous Mr. Hyde made his appearance. During a rare stay in Norway Ludvik Helland beat and stabbed and shot his wife before he disemboweled and decapitated her. He was found in their blood-soaked marital bed. Nude. Passed out. Wrapped in her entrails.

  Detectives found her head partly cooked in the kitchen microwave. No one ever found her heart or liver or fingers and toes but her flesh and DNA showed up in the blood-drenched kitchen. She was found in the sink and the garbage disposal and the floor and the food processor and the chopping block.

  Guttorm Nordø—always the perfectionist—ordered all plumbing ripped up from the kitchen all the way to the main sewer line in the street. He found one and a quarter pounds of her puréed flesh in the plumbing. Guttorm Nordø also found floating flecks of her flesh in the enormous aquarium between the living room and dining room. Nordø had all the large fish taken out of the tank. His crew found more pieces of Janne Eide in the intestines of the baby shark and larger exotic fish. The shark’s gullet held a Harry Winston wedding ring later identified as the one purchased by Olan Eide for his daughter in New York City.

  Sohlberg was not surprised when he read that both psychiatrists could not find any organic or physical basis for Helland’s psychosis. Both experts agreed that the psychosis was drug induced. The experts attached all of the necessary medical evidence to back up their finding of drug-induced psychosis. Accurate and repeated testing of Ludvik Helland’s blood after his arrest revealed massive amounts of cocaine and Ecstasy and marijuana and alcohol and methamphetamine. The laboratory also found substantial trace amounts of opiates and horse tranquilizers.

  A startled Sohlberg jumped out of his chair.

  “Who’s there?”

  No answer.

  Sohlberg realized that he had fallen asleep and been subjected to a wretched dream in which a deranged and muscular Mr. Edward Hyde was bounding up the stairs to butcher him and his wife. Sohlberg waited and listened carefully by the doorway. He heard nothing but his wife’s gentle breathing. He reached into his desk’s false drawer and took out his personal peacekeeper: a 7-shot Titanium .357 Magnum that a grateful client from Texas had given him from his days as a lawyer.

  After checking all of the upstairs rooms and closets and making sure that all the windows were locked Sohlberg tiptoed downstairs to repeat the same procedure. He verified that all doors had indeed been locked after his arrival and that the alarm system was armed and set to go off at the slightest break-in attempt of any intruder.

  A melatonin pill offered Sohlberg some respite that restless night. He regretted his choice of nocturnal reading. He should’ve instead gone to sleep early and then read the grim and disturbing report the following morning. Insanity never paints a pretty picture. Sohlberg’s own paranoia crept into his uneasy dream-state where he suddenly found himself jogging late at night under a full moon in an isolated dark park—Vigeland Park.

  The dream intensely bothered Sohlberg when he realized that he was jogging towards the Monolith Plateau. As he ran he kept asking himself: who sent Astrid Isaksen? Why? What’s her connection to the Janne Eide homicide?

  A now living Tom Velta appeared out of nowhere and started running beside Sohlberg.

  The dead. They visit us in our dreams. They visit whenever the veil is thin between This World and the Spirit World.

  They ran up the steps to the granite monolith. Tom Velta stopped and faced Sohlberg. The murdered young man’s beatific smile filled Sohlberg’s soul with peace. Before waving goodbye Tom Velta said in the most sublime of voices:

  “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be alright.”

  Two worlds: This and The Next. Unseen dimensions.

  Chapter 9/Ni

  WEDNESDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 10,

  OR EIGHT DAYS AFTER THE DAY

  Promise me.

  What.

  You’ll look at her skin.

  What for.

  Don’t you remember anything. About how the hair stands up on their skin just before you kill them.

  You may have mentioned it once or a billion times in the two years since we’ve been next door neighbors.

  I got me a college girl once. Blindfolded. Tied up real tight. Sweetest little thing. She couldn’t see a thing. But every time I brought the knife down near her skin the hairs would stand up.

  You ever thought about static electricity.

  You need dryness for that. Don’t you. She was wet. It had been raining when I grabbed her.

  You mind. I’d like to take my nap.

  See. You can’t fight The Hammer. Blue will never let you find her or kill her. Don’t you see fool. Blue always wins.

  No. I’ll beat Blue.

  The odds.

  What about them. What are the odds.

  None. You got none.

  ~ ~ ~

  The Sohlbergs enjoyed the rare occasion of having breakfast together on a weekday. A stealthy storm in the night left behind another foot of snow. They savored their oatmeal by the enormous window of the kitchen alcove and they took in the peaceful views of their snow-covered backyard. Sohlberg left for his 10:00 A.M. meeting soon after his wife departed for her nurse conference in downtown Oslo. For the first time ever during their marriage he left her a note with a detailed list of the people and locations he planned on visiting that day. The list had phone numbers and addresses and the note ended with a warning: CALL MY BOSS IF I’M NOT BACK BY MIDNIGHT. TELL HIM I’M MISSING AND GIVE HIM A COPY OF THIS LIST.

  Traffic was heavier than usual on the southbound E-18 Highway. The short 7-mile trip to the southern suburb of Holmlia felt more like 20 miles because Sohlberg’s counter-surveillance measures meant driving around in aimless circles and repeatedly making u-turns and stopping and going into stores. Sohlberg barely arrived in time for his appointment at the homely if not ugly five-floor Holmlia Senter building where the Søndre Oslo Distriktspsykiatriske Senter (DPS) maintained offices. The Southern Oslo District Psychiatric Center occupied the entire second floor.

  A mousy secretary escorted Sohlberg past a line of patients to a corner office. A giant color poster of the Lily Flower Vendor by Diego Rivera dominated the office and it offset the drabness of the furniture and the patients of the DPS.

  “Good morning Chief Inspector,” said Dr. Bergitta Nansen who looked as exotic as always. This time she was clad in an all-white Chanel contraption that culminated in a white pillbox hat. “Please meet Doktor Jorfald. He’s the director here.”

  A jovial red-faced giant of a man nimbly reached over a desk to vigorously pump Sohlberg’s hand. “Welcome to the Center. Welcome!”

  “This looks impressive. You have the entire floor?”

  “Yes. This floor is just for outpatient healthcare and the administration. We operate out of other facilities in the area . . . we have a total of eight different departments th
at cover three districts . . . Østensjø . . . Nordstrand . . . and Southern Nordstrand. . . . We are responsible under government mandate for the mental health of more than one hundred twenty-five thousand inhabitants in this area south of Oslo.”

  “That’s quite a bit to manage,” said Sohlberg who couldn’t help noticing that Jorfald loved speaking about ‘we’. He wondered if Jorfald’s ‘we’ referred to Jorfald and his staff or Jorfald and his ego. Either way Dr. Jorfald sounded arrogant whenever he uttered the word ‘we’ in his conversation. Jorfald further irked Sohlberg because the doktor always squinted in self-importance while he yielded the word ‘we’ like a club over everyone’s head.