Sohlberg and the White Death

by Jens Amundsen

  Although she ordered a light lunch Skrautvol felt her weight ballooning because she had lunch at each of the three hotel restaurants. She chatted with the waiters and waitresses and desperately wished that she could’ve shown them and the front desk personnel the picture sheet with the nine victims. But that line of questioning would have attracted suspicion and perhaps a visit from Finland’s Poliisi.

  If Skrautvol’s tourist cover was blown she knew that she would be in very serious trouble with Finnish authorities and in far worse trouble back home in Norway.

  Intuition and experience and innate cleverness led Skrautvol to pose a promising line of questions to the hotel workers at the front desks and at the restaurants:

  “This looks like a very nice place . . . I may come back and go hiking . . . but is it safe for a single woman like me?”

  Every employee gave Skrautvol the usual “It’s very safe!” answer until the waitress at the Kilpis Hotel restaurant. The woman came back at the end of the lunch with Skrautvol’s credit card and payment receipt which included a large tip.

  “I really like it out here . . . this looks like a very nice place . . . I may come back and go hiking. . . . But is it safe for a single woman like me?”

  “It is . . . but . . . last week . . . some hikers found two dead men up near the border with Norway.”

  “Really? . . . Where?”

  “Just south of the big lake on the Norwegian side. The bodies were dumped in a dirt road less than a quarter mile from the border.”

  Skrautvol remembered that immediately after she passed the border on the E-8 Highway a strange unpaved road had veered off to the left in the middle of nowhere. “Really?”

  “Oh yes. If you don’t believe me you can read about it . . . the newspaper from Tornio down south had an article about the murders.”

  “Murders?”

  “Both men shot in the head.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Excitement surged through Skrautvol’s body. She could barely keep from running to her car in the hotel parking lot. As soon as she got inside the Volvo she dialed Jon Kirkvaag on her cell phone and was grateful that Finland had one of the world’s best cell phone systems—even in the most remote wilderness.

  “Hello! I’m in a rush and heading back to the office. But I need you to do me a quick favor so we don’t lose valuable time.”

  “Of course.”

  “Please call the police in Finland and set up a meeting with me today.”

  “Oh. . . .”

  She could almost hear Jon Kirkvaag groaning to himself over the amount of extra work he was going to have to undertake in finding the right phone numbers and names. But Chief Inspector Skrautvol was—if anything—obsessively thorough and prepared. “Don’t worry. I already have the numbers.” She would have directly called the police herself but they would not have recognized her cell phone number as an official police phone number.

  “But how did—”

  “A little Internet research goes a long way.”

  Skrautvol gave him the numbers for the municipality of Enontekiö where the Peräpohjolan Police Department had jurisdiction over the little village of Kilpisjärvi and surrounding areas. The detective also gave Kirkvaag the phone number for the area’s Police Chief who worked out of the main office in Tornio.

  “Chief Inspector . . . what do I tell them you want to discuss?”

  “Recent suspicious deaths and homicides near the border. As soon as they agree to see me please tell them that I came out to Skibotn and can meet them in Kilpisjärvi . . . at the Hotel Kilpis. Please tell them I’m in an unmarked car and in plainclothes. I’ve got my badge with me.”

  Two hours later Sergeant Sofia Jannok pulled into the parking lot. The younger woman instantly got along with Chief Inspector Skrautvol. The detective snuck in a discrete glance at the sergeant and was sure that the exotic woman was Sami. They found a suitably private area with Adirondack chairs set on a grassy mound that faced the lake.

  “I understand you’re interested in suspicious deaths near the border.”

  “Yes,” said Skrautvol.

  “Can you tell me why?”

  “We have nine homicides. All killed together . . . at the same time . . . near the town of Hansnes on Ringvassøy Island . . . that’s north of Tromsø. All but one shot to death . . . all had their hands cut off. Two of the men were shot in the head at close range.”

  Jannok whistled. “Little Tromsø makes it into the big crime leagues.”

  “Awful ain’t it? . . . The times . . . the crimes . . . they are a-changing.”

  “That’s the case everywhere.”

  “We think that some or all of the nine victims might have come through Finland. We know for a fact that two of them ate pulla bread . . . a typical dish of your country. We also know that one of the ingredients of the bread could only have come from Finland. So that’s why we’re interested on what’s going on in the border. Now . . . what can you tell me?”

  “A group of hikers found two dead men dumped by a gravel road . . . shot dead . . . each with two bullets in the head at point-blank range. I was first to respond. Not a pretty sight.”

  “Motive?”

  “No apparent reason for their execution.”

  “Slugs . . . shells . . . were you able to get good ballistics?”

  “Oh yes. But not the guns.”

  “We also have slugs and shells. . . . Let’s compare ballistics. I’ll send you the information later today.”

  “Do you have a weapon?”

  “No,” said Skrautvol. “But your department and mine need to compare records and see if the slugs and shells from our crime scene match the ones in your crime scene.”

  “Good. This is a big break. . . .”

  “Do you know the identities of your victims?”

  “Yes. We had fingerprints for one of them in the system . . . Jouni Lukkari. He’s from eastern Finland. Lived near the border with Russia. We kept investigating and found out that his son Olav was the other victim.”

  “What’s the father’s history?”

  “Minor stuff. Assaults. Drunk driving. Theft. We spoke with family and friends . . . seems he specialized in smuggling people and stolen goods out of Russia. Diamonds from Siberia. They’re pilfered from mining companies. Weapons . . . stolen from military arsenals.”

  “Sounds lucrative.”

  “Crime pays. We even had a tip. We got it from one of my people . . . the Sami People. Lukkari is . . . was . . . Sami. . . . One of his clan members . . . a park ranger . . . tipped us off about Lukkari’s illegal activities before Lukkari left the town of Salla with his human cargo . . . it seems that Lukkari had to stop in Salla with his clients and human cargo to make repairs to his vehicles . . . the ranger gave us the license plate numbers for some of Lukkari’s transport vehicles. Seems he owns trucks for the larger stuff and an S.U.V. fleet for human cargo. But we never found the vehicles.”

  “Did Jouni Lukkari own a Range Rover or two?”

  “Yes. Two. They’re missing. How did you know?”

  “Video caught two old . . . white . . . Range Rovers at a store’s closed circuit camera. But we haven’t found the Rovers in Norway.”

  “Where were they filmed?”

  “At the Statoil gas station in Skibotn.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Where did Lukkari and his group stay when he was fixing his vehicles in Salla?”

  “At his brother-in-law’s garage . . . and at a small warehouse next door that’s unused.”

  “Did your forensics people process those buildings for fingerprints?”

  “No. We asked for that but the higher-ups in Helsinki nixed forensic processing of the buildings in Salla for budgetary reasons . . . their thinking was why spend extra money when the murders took place out here . . . three hundred miles from Salla. They wanted us to first find the vehicles and then process them for fingerprints and other evidence.”

  “What if the Range Rovers have be
en destroyed? . . . Burnt? . . . Junked and melted down for recycling? . . . Or sunk in some lake or fjord? . . . I say that both of us need any fingerprints and other evidence left behind in Salla.”

  “You won’t hear me objecting.”

  “Good. Would it help if I sent in a formal request? . . . After all we now have a total of eleven murder victims . . . nine in Norway . . . two in Finland.”

  “A formal request would be great. I wouldn’t send it to the regional police department here or in Salla . . . I’d send it off to the National Bureau of Investigation to speed things up . . . their headquarters are in Vantaa . . . a suburb of Helsinki. By the way . . . Lukkari has an uncle who lives in Tromsø.”

  “Really?”

  “Niko Magga. Norwegian citizen. Works in construction. I called him but he refused to come meet with me. He stopped taking my calls.”

  “Well. That’s changing today. I’ll pay him a visit tonight . . . or tomorrow at the latest.”

  “Very good. Please keep us posted. By the way . . . what made you think of looking out here for related crimes? . . . After all . . . you have a much longer border with Sweden . . . and the pulla bread could’ve come through there. They sell lots of our bread down there. What made you come out here?”

  “Let’s just say . . . a woman’s intuition.”

  Chapter 18/Atten

  TROMSØ, NORWAY: JULY 30, OR

  THREE MONTHS AND 18 DAYS

  AFTER THE DAY

  At 2:00 AM the midsummer sun was as bright as it had been that day at two in the afternoon.

  Skrautvol wondered how she was going to handle winter in Tromsø when the sun disappears for two months.

  Would the awesome spectacle of the aurora borealis in the northern sky make a good substitute for the missing sun?

  Probably.

  The detective also looked forward to seeing the sublime beauty of the Blue Light during the darkest phase of winter. Rasch had mentioned that this blue twilight tints the sky for a couple of hours during the middle of the day when atmospheric reflection bounces the sun’s rays over the horizon into the city.

  Chief Inspector Skrautvol tugged at her too-tight uniform while she sped out of downtown Tromsø—eerie and empty in the broad daylight of night.

  Time to go hunting.

  Although she hated getting up early Skrautvol happily embarked on her 2 AM mission. Experience had long ago taught her that a police officer would almost always catch someone in their residence at either 5 AM or 5 PM.

  ~ ~ ~

  Skrautvol planned on arriving at 3 AM to set up an observation post from which to spend the next two hours watching her target and his home. She wanted to get a fix on the layout of buildings on the five-acre rural property. Then at 5 AM she would knock on the door and undoubtedly surprise Niko Magga—the uncle of the two murdered Finnish citizens whose bodies were dumped unceremoniously on a dirt road near the border.

  The gas station clerk in Skibotn only saw seven people get in and out of the two Range Rovers. That’s perfectly clear in the videos. So where did the extra two dead bodies in Hansnes come from? . . . And . . . where are the two Rovers?

  Skrautvol left Tromsøya Island behind. She swung the unmarked police cruiser past the airport and over to the enormous Sandnessund Bridge that led to Kvaløya or Whale Island northwest of Tromsø. The bridge rose 300 feet over the water and the car angled upwards to the apex of the bridge. Skrautvol was sure that she could see the bright star of Polaris pierce the bright blue sky.

  The drive along Kvaløya’s southeast shores on Rv862 proved extremely enjoyable. The stunning views of distant mountains and sea and enchanting local bays motivated her to seriously consider buying a house on the island. Of course that would only happen if her interim appointment was made permanent.

  Skrautvol drove past six miles of suburban homes sprawled among grassy meadows and forests. Kvaløya’s 285 square miles had become a suburb of Tromsø thanks to the island’s growing population of 11,000. More suburban tracts would’ve been laid out on the island if it did not have so many mountains with heights in excess of 2,000 feet.

  The winding road led her to the narrow middle part of the island where small fjords almost cleaved Kvaløya into three separate islands. At a fork in the road she turned right and took Fjordvegen northbound. At Øska Bay she turned right on Ropnesvegen and right again into Innelwegen. Skrautvol eased the car to the end of the street where the views became even more spectacular. Towering mountains on other islands surfaced out of the sea like smoothly-angled porpoise fins.

  ~ ~ ~

  Skrautvol parked the car on the side of the road and took out her binoculars to survey Magga’s property. The three-floor house at 322 Innelwegen faced the sea from a clearing in the forest at the end of a long gravel driveway. An enormous red barn was embedded further up the mountain’s lower slope. Another building sat half-hidden behind the barn.

  Alright legs. Here we go.

  The detective received one hellish workout after she walked into the neighbor’s property and hiked up the mountain. Thick brush and muddy creeks slowed her down. Her leg muscles burned and ached. She cut across into Magga’s property to take a closer look at the barn and the outbuilding which turned out to be a metal shop. The barn was locked and without windows. She couldn’t see anything inside. The shop’s windows however revealed lathes and other metal-working tools. A half hour later a light went on in an upstairs bedroom of the Magga household.

  Time to go back down.

  Skrautvol went slightly off course and was unable to retrace her exact route up the mountain. Twenty minutes later she stumbled upon an old three-car garage hidden by heavy brush and a tangle of Downy Birch. Skrautvol circled the decrepit building and found a large crack in the wood plank walls. She pushed her cell phone up into the crack and snapped a picture.

  Her mouth almost dropped open when she looked at the image on her cell phone screen.

  Two old white Range Rovers . . . with license plates from Finland.

  Skrautvol dialed a special 24-hour forensics hotline. She identified herself and gave her security code and the street address where she needed a team.

  “What team do you need Chief Inspector?”

  “I need a vehicle team out here to process and tow away two Range Rovers. When? . . . Right now! . . . For what? Homicide . . . the Hansnes Murders. Make sure the team gets here without delay. I need the interiors and exteriors processed immediately for fingerprints and for possible D.N.A. from blood . . . skin . . . hair.”

  After the call the detective went to pound on the front door of the residence. “Niko Magga! . . . Police! . . . Open up.”

  A minute passed. The door swung open and an imposing Niko Magga stared stonily at Skrautvol in his work clothes. The six foot slab of muscle and grit held a gargantuan mug of steaming coffee. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  “Jouni and Olav Lukkari.”

  “Come in.”

  ~ ~ ~

  At the kitchen table Skrautvol faced a defeated man. He seemed to have magically shrunk by several inches.

  “My wife and kids are still sleeping upstairs. Can we keep this as quiet as possible?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Deep down I’ve been expecting you. In a way I’m glad you’re finally here.”

  “Why didn’t you cooperate with the police in Finland when they called on you?”

  “I didn’t want to get involved.”

  “And yet you have your nephew’s cars in your garage.”

  “We were supposed to meet in Furuflaten. He called me when he was in Salla . . . Finland.”

  “When?”

  “July sixteen.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He had important clients he was bringing in from Russia. But the old Rovers were breaking down all the time. He was furious about transmission problems with the newer Rover. The engine was pretty much shot in the older Rover. Jouni wanted to do some repairs on the Rovers her
e at my shop and then trade them in for new Toyota Land Cruisers in Tromsø. He said he was going to make a lot of money from the Russians and he wanted to buy the cars here before heading back home to Finland. He asked me to meet him in Furuflaten where he was going to drop off the clients.”

  “Did he say where his clients were going?”

  “No. I don’t know. I doubt if he knew. But he had overheard some things. He speaks . . . I mean he spoke some Russian . . . he overheard the clients who discussed a charter boat that was supposed to pick them up at the Furuflaten harbor.”

  “Keep talking. . . .”

  “I arrive at the agreed time and see the two Rovers by the marina . . . but not my nephew or his son. I waited and waited and called them dozens of times on their cell phones. No answer. Nothing. So I called my oldest son . . . he came to help me bring the cars back here.”

  “Did you or your son get inside the cars?”

  “No. They were locked.”

  “So . . . how did you bring the Rovers here?”

  “I have special trailers. I towed one of the Range Rovers with my pickup. My son pulled the other one with his pickup.”

  “Have you cleaned the inside or outside of the cars?”

  “No. I imagined that the homicide investigators would want to gather fingerprints and soil and mud samples from the car exteriors and interiors.”

  “Wait a minute. Did you know that your relatives were dead when you went to pick up the cars?”

  “Kind of. Yes. The confirmation to my suspicions was the fact that they were not there and weren’t answering their cell phones.”

  “But that was before you got called by the police in Finland telling you that they had been murdered.”

  “Yes.”

  “So . . . how did you know that your relatives had been murdered when you couldn’t find them at the marina?”

  “I’m Sami . . . I belong to the Bear Clan . . . our shaman told us that they would die with their clients. We warned my nephew before he left Salla. But he wouldn’t listen to the dreams and visions of the noaide.”