Sohlberg and the Gift

by Jens Amundsen

  I am way too tired. It is midnight. I need to sleep.

  You will sleep plenty when you are dead.

  Don’t you threaten me.

  My sweet Mama always told me. You will sleep plenty when you are dead my sweet baby boy. I wish you could meet Mama. She had beautiful eyes. Beautiful but evil.

  ~ ~ ~

  A few minutes after midnight Sohlberg put on his coat and boots. The kitchen microwave beeped. He snapped a lid on top of the tall disposable cup of hot chocolate that he had grabbed from the microwave and he carried the piping hot refreshment outside to Måkeveien where the driver of the white Volvo maintained his lonely and frigid surveillance of the Sohlbergs. The driver reached for his cell phone in a panic when Sohlberg knocked on the side window.

  The window came down less than half an inch. Sohlberg recognized the driver as the man who had looked so familiar at the JOKER supermarket store that Sohlberg went to for Ricola lozenges after his meeting with Fru Sivertsen at the Cafekontoret.

  “Hei. I’m Chief Inspector Harald Sohlberg . . . in case your boss Leif Noer hasn’t told you. You must be freezing. Here . . . have this hot chocolate. . . . Tell Noer he needs to call me right now at the number I wrote on the cup. If not I’ll start making arrests for stalking and harassment and I’ll start with you.”

  The 30-something driver cracked a smile as he lowered the window to take the calefactory cup. “I’ll call my boss . . . thanks for the hot drink.”

  “Good night.”

  Less than five minutes later Sohlberg was warming himself in his kitchen when Leif Noer called Sohlberg’s police-issued cell phone.

  “You have ten minutes to call off your people and tell me what this is all about.”

  “Sohlberg . . . I knew you wouldn’t like this. But the client insisted.”

  “My wife and I don’t like getting harassed. Just who do you think—”

  “Wait a minute Sohlberg . . . hold your horses. You can yell and say whatever you want but you need to know that we’re not there for the usual reasons. We’re there to protect you.”

  Caught off guard Sohlberg could only say:

  “I don’t need anyone’s protection.”

  “You never know.”

  “Call this off or I’ll start by arresting the guy outside my door.”

  “I’ll let the client know how you feel . . . and I’ll withdraw your guardians.”

  Sohlberg hanged up.

  Is Noer playing games . . . or telling me the truth?

  Who would want to protect me?

  Protect me from what . . . or who?

  ~ ~ ~

  At breakfast Fru Sohlberg shrugged when her husband explained his late night conversation with Leif Noer. She merely said: “I’m glad that’s the end of it.”

  “Not exactly. It’s the end of the surveillance. But it’s not the end of it as far as I’m concerned. I’m going to find out who was behind this. Sooner or later I’ll find out who’s the client that hired Noer.”

  “Here we go again. I think you’ve done enough solo investigation with this crazy case you’re working on.”

  Sohlberg said nothing more. He lapsed into a state of extreme distraction. Emma Sohlberg knew that his attention deficit meant that he was about to solve a case.

  Shortly after 9:00 A.M. the Sohlbergs took their coffee and moved to the living room where Harald and Emma respectively read their travel and history books. She watched him and noted that he never turned a single page on his Colin Thubron book. His side of their conversation consisted almost exclusively of hummm and sure and yeah.

  “Are you going to feed the birds in the backyard?”

  “Sure.”

  “Are you going to buy me a giant fifty-carat diamond ring for Christmas?”

  “Yeah . . . I mean . . . no.”

  “Don’t forget . . . we’re going tonight to the Otterstads for Saint Lucia night.”

  “Hummm.”

  She stood up and tapped his book three times. “Hello! . . . Anyone home?”

  “Sorry. I was thinking about—”

  “Your mystery visitor. I’m getting tired of sharing you with her.”

  “I think the case is coming to an end.”

  “I can only hope so. You’ve been Missing-In-Action here at home when you should’ve been winding down and relaxing and getting ready to spend Christmas with me . . . spending time on us and not on her and her problems.”

  He was about to defend himself when his personal cell phone rang.

  “Chief Inspector,” said Atle, “I looked and looked in the hard drive that we copied yesterday and I could not find the I.P. addresses for Cat’s Meow or KinkyNine.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “But I did find a tidbit of useful information . . . because the owner of the hard drive had an excellent back-up program that saved everything that was ever sent and received on an instant message service on the Dulanika website for swingers. So I was able to track down one I.P. address . . . for Cat’s Meow . . . and here’s the good news . . . the person must’ve gotten careless because Cat’s Meow sent an instant message to your guy Baldur Falkanger on the swinger website from a business computer.”

  “And?”

  “And . . . I have a business name and street address for you.”

  Sohlberg’s hands and voice shook with excitement. “I knew it! They slipped up.”

  “I guess Chief Inspector that the old saying is true . . . criminals always make mistakes.”

  “Oh yes they do. You can count on it.”

  “Got something to write on?”

  “Yes. Go ahead.”

  Sohlberg reached for a nearby pencil on a side table and he dropped it when he heard the name of the business. “What? . . . Are you sure?”

  ~ ~ ~

  He parked on the rather narrow Peder Claussøns Gate in the St. Hanshaugen neighborhood and walked to the equally cramped St. Olavs gate. On the right the street led straight up to Akersgata where he saw the lovely St. Olav's Cathedral. The Catholic church’s slim brick tower and tapered metal spire dominated the end of its namesake street.

  Sohlberg turned left on St. Olavs gate and headed to Number 9—a massive three-floor villa on the north side of the street. He took out his personal cell phone and searched www.skattelister.no to find out the amount of yearly income that the homeowner had reported to the tax authority.

  Wow . . . that’s a lot. . . . Almost 2.2 million dollars.

  He rang a buzzer next to a set of enormous 12-foot double doors while he gazed at the fine neo-gothic building next door.

  Until recently most of the 80- and 100-year old villas on the street had been chopped up into rental apartments and offices. But wealthy professionals and business owners were now buying entire buildings and renovating them into the spectacular homes that had once housed the elites of Oslo.

  A voice-box squawked above a closed-circuit camera: “Yes?”

  “Chief Inspector Sohlberg. Oslo Police. . . . I want to see Christoffer Løvaas right now.”

  “Oh yes,” said the managing partner of the major law firm of Johansen Olsson & Mortvedt. “I’ve been waiting for you. My man will greet you at the door to let you in.”

  While Sohlberg waited he thought that a copper-colored face had peeked out from behind the curtains of one of the basement windows. A minute or so later an elderly and dignified Filipino opened the left door and waved Sohlberg inside.

  “Please wait here,” said the servant in excellent Norwegian.

  “Here’s my business card.”

  The servant took Sohlberg’s official card and walked down a well-lit corridor. The elegant mansion did not disappoint. Sohlberg waited in a vast hall on the right side of the building that stretched all the way up to the third floor. Blinding light came in through a giant skylight. Plant-laden balconies on the second and third floor opened into the hall which was strewn with strategically-placed metal and stone sculptures—small and large. The impeccable collection of s
culptures imbued the home with a stately air that Sohlberg knew had to have come from a professional art curator and not from an interior decorator.

  Colorful and modern abstract paintings lined all of the walls. So did paintings that went all the way back to the 1400s and 1500s. Sohlberg also recognized modern works by Marsden Hartley and Frida Kahlo from the Americas and a striking 14-foot portrait of some Swedish nobleman from the mid-1600s by Jacob Heinrich Elbfas. The stunning hall and its art were obviously designed to impress as did the mandatory wait for the homeowner to make his grand appearance. Sohlberg was inspecting a small altarpiece probably by Fra Angelico when the tall and patrician Christoffer Løvaas beckoned him from a corridor that led to the back of the house.

  At 46 Løvaas was the youngest managing partner of a major Norwegian law firm that was well known for its arrogant and obnoxious lawyers. It still rankled Sohlberg that he had been rejected by the firm after he had applied and graduated from law school. His interactions with the firm’s lawyers had never been pleasant while he had been a lawyer at a competing law firm. And his early morning Internet research confirmed that Johansen Olsson & Mortvedt had merged a year ago with a gargantuan American law firm based in New York City.

  Christoffer Løvaas swept his lush steel-gray hair back before shaking Sohlberg’s hand. “Come on in to the study.”

  Persian carpets and a glowing natural gas fireplace added warmth to the room which was surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookcases stuffed with books and artwork of all sizes and shapes and colors. An enormous snow-filled patio spread behind a row of French doors.

  Sohlberg sat on a low leather sofa and said:

  “Who told you I was coming?”

  “Our office manager. He told me you had dropped by to question our I.T. administrator at her home. That’s kind of drastic . . . isn’t it Inspector? . . . Couldn’t this wait until Monday?”

  Sohlberg noticed that Løvaas referred to him as Inspector and not Chief Inspector despite the fact that Løvaas held in his left hand the official Oslo Police business card that clearly identified Sohlberg as a Chief Inspector. “No. It can’t wait until Monday. I don’t conduct criminal investigations based on your convenience or your employee’s weekend schedules. And while some police officers may go gaga over the wealthy and powerful I myself don’t arrange my inquiries based on other people’s convenience . . . whether rich or poor.”

  “How admirable.” Løvaas spoke like a man who was accustomed to obsequiousness from household and public servants. His voice left no doubts as to the managing partner’s disdain for Sohlberg’s tactics. “Inspector . . . I understand that you want to find out the name of one of our employees who may or may not have sent text messages to someone a few years ago from our law firm’s computers. Correct?”

  “Yes. But your tech administrator wouldn’t answer my questions. That’s why I’m here. I imagine you’re going to claim that you’re her lawyer and do everything you can to protect your law firm . . . and hide the truth.”

  “You’re right about your first two assumptions but wrong about the third . . . hiding the truth. Without a doubt . . . my loyalty is first to the law firm and second to our clients. Our employees and partners and associates come third. So why don’t you tell me the truth as to why you’re here and I’ll tell you the truth about the person you want to know about as long as the information does not harm the firm or our clients. I will never give up any information that could damage the firm or our clients. That’s non-negotiable Inspector.”

  “Non-negotiable loyalty to your firm and your clients? . . . Isn’t that just fancy talk to explain away the fact that you worship the Almighty Dollar?”

  “What?”

  “It’s a matter of record that each partner in your firm will now earn more than two million U.S. dollars every year thanks to the merger with Skadden Arps in New York.”

  “Let me help you Inspector. I had to make choices to insure that our firm would be able to survive and thrive against our biggest local competitors . . . like B.A.H.R. and Wiersholm. We also had smaller but innovative growing firms like Schjødt and Selmer eating our lunch. Did you know that even big old Thommessen . . . one-hundred-fifty years old . . . now has offices in London?”

  A long and growing pause told Sohlberg that Løvaas actually wanted an answer. Sohlberg complied:

  “No.”

  “Inspector . . . did you know that Wikborg Rein has offices in London and Shanghai and Singapore and even Kobe in Japan?”

  “No. I stopped keeping track of that when I joined the force.”

  “I think Inspector that you have a disdain for money and the wealthy. I’ve read about you . . . when you resigned from your law firm you left behind a lot of money that was rolling in from your friend Matthias Otterstad’s businesses. Money management wasn’t it? Quite a pot of gold that you left for others to enjoy.”

  Sohlberg shrugged. “Whatever. But when I was at the law firm I never saw any need for any Norwegian firm to merge with any foreign law firm.”

  “Inspector . . . you have a fantasy that you share with a lot of Norwegians. You suffer from the delusion that small is beautiful . . . that the little big town of Oslo is a great world-class capital . . . which it is not . . . and that Norway is an important country which it never has been or will be . . . not even with all that oil sitting out there under the North Sea.

  “Inspector! . . . Don’t you understand? . . . Economic and military power come from one thing. Bigness.”

  “Bigness?”

  “Big government. Big business. Big everything. Our little law firm in little Oslo in little Norway was going to get run over by the giant companies and giant law firms that run the world. Exxon. Wal-Mart. Chase. Pfizer. Skadden Arps. Baker and McKenzie.

  “The power of bigness means that to survive and prosper we have to choose between the Americans and the Chinese. These are the world’s two powers for now. And . . . last I saw . . . the Chinese aren’t exactly booming with law firms. So we had to marry a big fat American law firm or we would’ve had one of our competitors beat us to the altar.”

  “Let’s suppose that what you say is true. Now . . . let’s see how your theory of bigness affects a criminal investigation. I propose to you that a Norwegian criminal investigation will trump your law firm’s bigness . . . and do a lot of damage to your law firm’s reputation.”

  “Inspector . . . your threats . . . how quaint. But let’s stop arguing. Maybe our interests will coincide. Why are you here and who are you interested in?”

  “I’m here because I have questions related to the murder of Janne Eide.”

  Christoffer Løvaas’s blue eyes frosted over. His face froze into a finely-chiseled ice cube. “That’s ancient history . . . a closed case . . . isn’t it Inspector?”

  “The old or recent history of a case is not your concern. Nor is it your concern whether the case is open or closed. Your concern should be that I’m here at your home on a Saturday at one o’clock in the afternoon to ask you questions related to the Janne Eide homicide.”

  “I notice Inspector that you use the word related. Does this mean you’re investigating something that’s tangential or indirect to the case? Or is it directly tied to the case? . . . Why do I have the feeling that you are playing lawyer word games with me? Really Inspector . . . why waste my time playing cat and mouse games with me? After all . . . I looked you up when I heard about your early morning visit to my administrator. I know who you are.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. You’re just another lawyer who couldn’t hack it in private practice . . . and so you went into the police force . . . as so many of your kind do.”

  Sohlberg smiled. “That helps even things out . . . don’t you think? Having one lawyer question the other balances things out nicely. Besides . . . it’s not your concern at all whether my inquiries are directly or indirectly related to the Janne Eide case. Now . . . if you are trying to hide information from me . . . well that’s a whole othe
r matter.

  “You forget Mister Løvaas that since I couldn’t hack it in private practice I have something to compensate for my failure. I have a badge and you don’t. I have handcuffs that I can slap on anyone and you don’t. I have a loaded gun and you don’t. I can make a phone call right now and arrange to have you escorted . . . or arrested if necessary . . . and taken down to the station for questioning.

  “Of course I will contact all the newspaper and radio and television reporters in my fat address book and let them know about your confinement and questioning in a murder case.