Nansen smiled. “Oh sorry. We’ve been bad hosts. Of course.” She nodded at the attendant. “Wassel . . . can you get all of us a bottle of Farris mineral water that we keep in the top drawer next to you? . . . Get yourself one too.”
Without a word the attendant brought out five bottles which he silently handed to each person.
“Oh,” said Sohlberg, “could we have straws? . . . Are there any straws?”
The attendant might or might not have sighed. Sohlberg wasn’t sure if the man was irritated by his straw request. The orderly went back to the drawer and produced four straws. He pointedly did not take one for himself.
“Thank you,” said Sohlberg. He proceeded to pepper the patient with questions designed to elicit contradictions and inconsistencies. After a half-hour session Sohlberg found not one contradiction or inconsistency that would remotely indicate that Patient # 1022 had lied in the telling of his sybaritic life with Janne Eide and Ludvik Helland.
Nansen and Jorfald obtained the same results after their own half-hour sessions. Jorfald yawned and looked at his watch and said:
“I think we’ve done enough for the day.”
Sohlberg and Nansen and the patient nodded in unison. The attendant and his charge left first. Sohlberg got up with the two psychiatrists and while they turned their backs on him to leave the room Sohlberg lunged at the table and took the straw that Patient # 1022 had used for his refreshment.
The detective could barely keep himself from smiling as he left the Dove Center and the two psychiatrists behind. He now had two critical pieces of evidence and one lead. He had the name Hans Muller on a Netherlands passport which could be located in Dutch government files and used to track the international sex-and-drugs exploits of Patient # 1022. Second: he had the straw with the patient’s DNA which would prove once and for all that Patient # 1022 was not Ludvik Helland but rather Jakob Gansum—the father of Astrid Isaksen. Third but not least: Sohlberg had the lead of the Falkanger name for the supposed Gothenburg lawyer whose name if true would help verify the truth of the lurid life of Patient # 1022.
Falkanger . . . that lead will surely point me in the direction of the true killer or killers of Janne Eide.
Chapter 12/Tolv
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12,
OR TEN DAYS AFTER THE DAY
Undaunted at losing Sohlberg the day before the driver of the black BMW continued his night-time surveillance. Sohlberg saw the driver and the BMW after he had woken up at 12:05 A.M. to part the curtains and spy on his watcher. Sohlberg went back to sleep and three hours later he checked the street and found that a white Volvo had replaced the black BMW. Clenching his fists Sohlberg wished that Fru Sivertsen could magically hurry up and find out who was spying on him in such a brazen manner.
For breakfast the Sohlbergs had oatmeal topped with chopped California Medjool dates.
“So . . . are you ready to go back to work?”
“Yes. I missed the Zoo.”
“Won’t they be curious? . . . Asking plenty of questions?”
“Yes . . . but almost everyone is out for vacations. One sick detective in winter . . . during the flu season . . . won’t stand out even if he’s had a record for perfect attendance.”
“Well . . . you’ve showed up sick before. They’ll be very curious.”
“Times change. Besides. You and I have other curious people to worry about.”
“What? . . . Who?”
“Someone’s been tailing me and—”
“No!”
“Sorry I didn’t tell you before but it’s true. They even started watching us at night.”
“How?”
“Parked car. Two shifts.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. But I should be getting the name and address of the car owner or owners sometime later today.”
“This all started when your little visitor dropped by your office. Didn’t it?”
“Probably. Seems that way.”
“I knew it. So this is all about your visitor isn’t it? Your young galpal.”
“Seems that way.”
“I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. This doesn’t sound good.”
“We’ll be okay. Now . . . do you still have the American stun gun I gave you last year when I investigated the Ullern rapist?”
“The stun gun that looked like a cell phone?”
“That’s the one.”
“It’s in my purse.”
“Is it charged?”
“I think so. The electric arc was spectacular when I last tested the stun phase.”
“Do you—”
“Test it every week? . . . Yes . . . as you asked me to.”
“Good. Don’t hesitate to use it.” said Sohlberg who had bought his wife the Immobilizer which delivered the right amount of incapacitating muscular spasms and neurological storms at 3.5 million volts.
“Sohlberg . . . maybe I should test it on you.”
He laughed. “Go ahead. I deserve it for dragging us into this mess.”
“True. But I’m confident your brain will scheme a way out.”
“I’m glad you still believe I have some intelligence left in me.”
“Well . . . remember what I’ve told you. You’re not that intelligent. But you are clever. Incredibly clever. Crafty. Cunning. Scheming. You’re the ultimate trickster. That’s why you always outsmart and outmaneuver everyone around you . . . including the so-called super-intelligent geniuses.”
“Oh please.”
“It’s true! You always ran circles around the most intelligent people in law school and your law firm. I’ll always remember how you made that jerk lawyer from New York eat dirt by making him work real hard to win the lawsuit and then foreclose on a bunch of junk assets that you had your client leave behind in London while keeping the best ones in Switzerland . . . forever away from the jerk and J.P. Morgan.”
“That was fun . . . back in those days.”
“You’ll think of something. You’ll figure it out.”
“I hope so.”
~ ~ ~
While Fru Sohlberg dressed a hot shower relaxed Sohlberg’s tense neck muscles. Although he was fuming over the surveillance detail outside his home Sohlberg was grateful that he was not outside but rather inside—enjoying the warmth and conveniences of home. As a constable and during his first years as an inspector he had spent too many freezing nights in marked and unmarked cars.
The joys of winter surveillance in Norway!
He remembered his first winter’s night surveillance. He shivered for hours inside the icebox of his car while he spied on a murderous pimp during the long and lonely night. A few foolish officers ran their car engines to warm up. But that choice almost always blew their cover since most surveillance targets would sooner or later get suspicious about a car that had billowing exhaust spewing out of the tailpipe for hours at night. Sohlberg like most other officers reverted to wearing mountain climbing clothes and a balaclava and gloves and boots to survive the sub-freezing temperatures. He also came up with the trick of slipping into a large sleeping bag that was spacious enough to let him drive if necessary without his feet getting tangled with the accelerator and brake pedal. A black Marmot Minus 40 sleeping bag with a hood always did the job in keeping him warm and thoroughly concealed.
~ ~ ~
As soon as his wife left the house Sohlberg called the courier company to have a driver meet him at the Central Station to pick up two envelopes for immediate delivery to the DHL offices. He then cut the straw that Patient # 1022 had sipped on the day before by slicing it from top to bottom into equal halves. He placed the two samples in separate sandwich bags which he placed inside pre-addressed envelopes to Bio-Synthesis and Genelex.
Sohlberg hurried upstairs and sent an e-mail to the American companies asking them to compare the DNA on the straw with the DNA on the hair samples to determine if the straw’s DNA held the paternal genetic material of Astrid Isaksen’s father. Finally Sohlberg
would have proof that the man sent by the prosecution to an insane asylum for the murder of Janne Eide was not her husband Ludvik Helland but rather Jakob Gansum.
Where is Ludvik Helland?
Is he alive . . . laughing his head off somewhere at getting away with his wife’s murder?
Or . . . is Ludvik Helland dead . . . another casualty of the strange life and death of Janne Eide?
~ ~ ~
After two sick-days Sohlberg delved with pleasure into the hubbub of the Zoo. He didn’t mind the reduction in noise due to the shrunken workforce of vacation-bound detectives. The subdued clamor was just as relaxing to Sohlberg. He loved the mechanics of a homicide department. The endless ringing of telephones. The buzz of a hundred conversations. The defeated shuffle of doomed suspects and the intense concentration on the faces of detectives as they entered and left interrogation rooms. The mind-numbing click-click of typing on keyboards. The clink of shackles and chains. A smattering of laughter and weeping and occasional screaming.
“Hei,” said Fru Sivertsen when Sohlberg walked past her desk. “Hope you’re feeling better. Welcome back!”
Sohlberg nodded and smiled at her. He loved his job because it offered the excitement that few other jobs could compete with or exceed. Of course there were plenty of legitimate jobs or careers filled with excitement. Firefighting. Stock trading. Race car driving. Professional gambling. Building demolition. Soldiering. And these were just to name a few. But police work in Homicide and Serious Crimes contained one unique attribute that set it apart from all other jobs—it was literally the frontline in the war between good and evil. Only here could a man or woman literally confront evil and wrongdoing on a daily basis. Only here could a detective stop or prevent evil and wrongdoing by capturing the carnal forms of evil. Only here could a homicide inspector stare at pure evil in the eye and come to understand evil in all of its shapes and sizes and colors and ages and backgrounds and net worth.
“Look who’s back,” said Thorsen with as much enthusiasm as an Egyptian mummy. “We thought you had some fatal disease.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” replied Sohlberg as he smiled brightly. “Besides . . . work is an elixir. A cure-all. You should try it some time.”
Thorsen snorted and frowned before leaving Sohlberg alone and happy at his work. Unlike his lazy former friend Sohlberg reveled at his choice of careers. He loved how a homicide detective is part cop and part surgeon or priest. While Thorsen shambled away Sohlberg remembered his mentor Lars Eliassen’s brilliant observation:
“A homicide detective is the cancer surgeon who cuts out the rotting and malignant tumors of society . . . or you can think of the homicide detective as society’s exorcist . . . with a badge and a gun instead of a cross and an aspergillum to sprinkle holy water.”
“Welcome back,” said Constable Høiness who followed Sohlberg to his cubicle. “We’ve progressed quite a bit on the Grønland stabbing.”
“Excellent. Did you find out our victim’s name?”
“Benazir Mahar. Daughter of Zulema Mahar and Ali Mohammed Mahar.”
Sohlberg sighed with relief. Two years ago the Oslo Police had—despite massive efforts—never been able to discover the name of a young woman butchered in another Pakistani honor killing. “What else?”
“A cousin . . . Asifa Mahar called me yesterday morning and then came by the station in the afternoon. She’s very western and modern and married to a Norwegian engineer and she was extremely angry and upset over her cousin’s murder and she’s pretty sure that the vic’s oldest brother killed her because he found out from his father that his sister had a cell phone that a Norwegian boy in school had given her. The father didn’t tell him anything else since he and his wife are afraid of their son.”
“Who’s the son and why are the parents afraid of him?”
“Naveed Mahar. Age twenty. Unemployed and on the dole. They’re afraid of him because he’s become a religious fanatic . . . joined an extremist Islamic group that hates Norwegians and the West at the King Abdullah mosque.”
“The usual . . . no?”
“What do you mean Chief Inspector?”
“The immigrant parents are grateful to leave their hellhole of a country . . . they come here and now Junior is an angry alienated religious nut who’s unemployed and unemployable and on the warpath against the adopted country of his parents.”
“You sound like that racist Guttorm Nordø.”
“Racist? . . . I doubt it. His son is married to a Japanese lady that Nordø holds in the highest regard. So . . . regardless of who or what I sound like . . . you can’t deny the truth of what I just said.”
The constable shrugged. “While the father was at work Naveed Mahar got the vic’s cell phone out of his parents’ bedroom . . . that’s when he saw that his sister was sexting the Norwegian boy . . . trading nude pictures of themselves. The cousin says he went berserk and killed his sister in front of their mother.”
“Has he been brought in for questioning?”
Constable Hanna Høiness winced and said, “No.”
“Why?”
“He took off for Hamburg just minutes after he dumped his sister’s body on the top floor. He was going to hide her in the rooftop but some noise scared him. So he left her in the hallway where we found her.”
“Have you contacted the Germans? And Interpol?”
“Yes.”
“Keep me posted. And keep checking the father.”
“The father?”
“He may have killed her. The son may just be a red herring. Did you find the knife or weapon?”
“No. But Nordø is in the building . . . taking it apart. He’s looking at all the drain pipes.”
“Good! . . . That’s my Nordø.”
“So you don’t think the girl’s brother did it?”
“I think nothing. I just find the facts at the start of an investigation. That’s the problem Constable Hanna Høiness with detectives who are thinking instead of finding facts at the beginning stages of an investigation. First get the all the facts. Or as many as you can. Then do the thinking.”
Constable Høiness blushed. “I understand.”
“Very good. Look . . . this cousin Asifa may after all just be spinning us a lie to throw suspicion away from the father or another family member. Or she may have an axe to grind.”
“But isn’t it obvious that the brother killed the girl?”
“Nothing is ever obvious in a homicide. Get all the facts. Then we’ll narrow down our list of suspects. I also want you to check out Benazir’s Norwegian boyfriend or any spurned or jealous friends or suitors. Who knows? . . . Maybe some acquaintance or school friend killed her for other reasons. By the way . . . what turned up in the autopsy?”
“No signs of rape. Just the stabbing and slashing. She bled to death.”
“I see. Let’s not eliminate the neighbors or any other suspects. Interview everyone in the building as well as all of her schoolmates and teachers to get a feel for what kind of a life she had. . . . Get all police reports in the area for any similar crimes the past two years. And . . . get every police report . . . even parking or speeding tickets . . . covering a ten block area for any crimes or suspicious activity for the day of the murder and two weeks before.”
“Everything? Even parking tickets?”
“Yes. You never know what or who will turn up. Also . . . check up on alibis for all convicted felons who live or work within a mile of her building. Then e-mail me a list of all sex offenders and men convicted of violent assaults on women who live or work within a two-mile radius of the Mahar residence . . . make a note on whether they have an alibi or not. Make sure you verify that each alibi is true.”
“That’s a lot of work.”
“That’s just the start of a good homicide investigation . . . hard work then smart thinking.”
“I don’t know if I can do all of this today.”
“You won’t do all today but you can get the ball rolling on al
l fronts. I’ll help you as much as I can since we’re short of people.”
~ ~ ~
The endless minutiae of the Mahar investigation threw Sohlberg into The Zone—that timeless and effortless zone which athletes report when they are performing at the top of their sport. He literally lost track of time. The work day flashed by at lightning speed. His only break came during lunch time at noon when he walked over to Fru Sivertsen’s desk.
Sohlberg and the Gift Page 19