AFTERNOON OF 1 YEAR AND 24 DAYS
AFTER THE DAY, FRIDAY, JUNE 4
Traffic was relatively light before the lunch hour. Normally Sohlberg would have taken the super-fast NSB train down to Halden. The trip would have been a quick one hour forty-five minute ride in pure comfort and a local police constable would have picked them up at the station and taken them to the fengsel. But Sohlberg needed to be free from nosy eavesdropping passengers and more important he needed to spend as much time as possible discussing the investigation and the second page of the summary with Constable Wangelin. Sohlberg had to be fully prepared before he interviewed the family and friends of Karl Haugen.
“At least we got out before the rush hour traffic,” said Wangelin.
She put the large Volvo crossover SUV on cruise control at 90 mph as soon as they left the Oslo suburbs behind. They shot down the E-6 highway out of Oslo which runs 352 miles south all the way down south towards the lovely twin cities of Malmo Sweden and Copenhagen Denmark. Less than ten miles separate Halden Prison from the border with Sweden.
Sohlberg sipped his favorite Farris mineral water. He had an entire case in the backseat. “Ever hear about the Smiley Face Killer?”
“Vaguely. . No. Not really Chief Inspector.”
“He was active in the seventies and eighties. . he began killing when he was real young. . in the late sixties. . kept right up until captured in eighty-nine. He was Norway’s worst. Then came the Lommemannen. . the Pocket Man. Heard of him?”
“Oh him? Ja. I’ve heard about the Pocket Man. . molested an estimated four hundred boys. . raped dozens over a thirty year period before his capture in two thousand eight. But the Smiley Face Killer. . he doesn’t sound familiar at all. That was so long ago. I wasn’t even born in the seventies.”
“Well. . I wasn’t in the force until April of eighty-nine. . the Smiley Face Killer was captured in October of that year. But I still knew about the Smiley Face Killer.”
“Sorry Chief Inspector but that’s ancient history.”
Sohlberg grew depressed over Constable Wangelin’s blank look and comments. He suddenly felt old and tired. He was only 20 years older than Wangelin but she made him feel like an outdated relic of the past. Sohlberg had a hard time being told that his frame of reference belonged to ancient history.
“Are you alright Chief Inspector?”
“Ja. Just thinking. Interesting how time fades the public’s memory as well as that of the police force. . at one time the Smiley Face Killer was big news. . as big as Ted Bundy and the Green River Killer in America or the Butcher of Rostov in Russia.”
“Who?”
“Andrei Chikatilo. . the Smiley Face Killer’s counterpart in Russia from seventy-eight to ninety. . both killers would move their rape-and-kill frenzies to different and faraway locations whenever they sensed that they had stirred up a hornet’s nest of investigators with their spectacular murders. . They both got very good at switching back and forth from local murders to faraway atrocities. Even at the height of the repressive and all-controlling Soviet police state Chikatilo would find clever ways to travel to Moscow and distant Russian Republics on his state factory job to kill dozens of women and children whenever he got the police and public riled up in Rostov over his killing sprees.”
“He was able to move around so freely to kill in a dictatorship like the old communist Russia?”
“Ja. . ”
“Where there’s a will there’s a way,” said Constable Wangelin while shaking her head.
“Chikatilo raped. . killed. . and cannibalized at least fifty-eight women and children. . and not always in that order. He’d torture them and cut out the women’s uteruses and the boy’s parts and eat them. He always blamed his depraved conduct for what he and his family suffered as ethnic Ukrainians with Stalin and the genocidal communists in the nineteen thirties. I imagine you’ve heard about the famine that Stalin intentionally created in the Ukraine?”
“No. . I’m sorry. . not really.”
“Stalin made sure that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians died like fleas. . many people started taking children off the streets and eating them to survive. Chikatilo was traumatized by his mother’s obsession over the possibility that he’d get kidnaped and then killed and eaten.”
“Unbelievable what men do.”
“Ja. . Constable Wangelin. Men and governments.”
“True.”
“I mentioned Chikatilo because I’ve always thought that criminals reflect their families and country and society and the times. It’s too bad that they don’t teach more at the Academy about the criminal mind.”
“Ja. It’s all about forensic science nowadays.”
“The Academy doesn’t train officers properly. They just don’t want to invest the time and effort. You see Constable Wangelin. . to know the criminal mind you have to study real-life cases. Only by truly knowing the criminal mind can you be truly effective as an investigator.”
“I believe you.”
“Take the Smiley Face Killer. . Anton Ronning. We had no evidence other than some circumstantial evidence that Ronning was the killer. Of course this is before DNA analysis. Anyway. . it took one man. . Inspector Lars Eliassen. . nine days of interrogation to break the Smiley Face Killer.”
“Nine days?”
“Inspector Eliassen was able to do that because he knew how to get inside the criminal mind thanks to his superb interview and interrogation skills. That and he was a darn good profiler.”
“Chief Inspector. . do you believe in profilers?”
“Yes and no. Sometimes they’re helpful in an investigation if the police are stumped or have little or no creative thinking. Otherwise profilers are best used to help detectives prepare for interrogations that break down the suspect.”
“I’ve not heard that before. . the Academy instructors promised we’d be taught the best and most modern techniques.”
“I guess I’m old-fashioned after all. . I mean. . if the police are not good profilers then they’re incompetent idiots no?. . If you have a violent rape. . do you stop and question the twenty-year old man who’s a violent ex-con?. . Or the ninety-year old woman who’s barely walking with a cane?”
“I see what you mean.”
“Suspect profiling and interrogation techniques are what Inspector Eliassen taught me. . He always said that every good police officer must be a good profiler and excellent at interrogation. . two sides of the same coin so to speak.”
“Who’s this Eliassen?”
“A small town police officer. He spent years and years on the trail of Anton Ronning. . who by the way had twice been caught early in his career of crime and named as a prime suspect but released by the incompetent local police in Oslo and Trondheim.”
“Where’s this Inspector Eliassen now?”
“He died a few years ago. I miss him. . he taught me a lot. Anyway he was a genius at interrogating.”
“How did he catch Ronning?”
“For quite some time Eliassen had Anton Ronning on his short list of suspects for sex crimes in Eliassen’s district. Then he got a lucky break. Ronning crashed into a light pole when he hurriedly left the scene of one of his molestation victims. Eliassen seized the opportunity and locked Anton Ronning up on a minor traffic charge for destruction of public property. . Eliassen then just kept interrogating Anton Ronning until he caught him in all these lies and inconsistencies.”
“That’s impressive!”
“Inspector Eliassen was known for solving impossible-to-solve cases just by interrogating and breaking the suspect down without torture or physical pressure. This Eliassen. . he was a master at interrogation. . out of one hundred interrogations he had only three suspects who refused to confess.”
“That’s pretty good. Too bad the Academy doesn’t teach his techniques.”
“Last time I looked at their curriculum I saw that the Academy. . and the force. . are playing around with this silly stuff about community policing. . detectives eating ethnic food at Asian restaurants or listening to rap hip hop music with African teenagers. Seems that policing in Norway is now all about touchy-feely political correctness and feel-good public relations.”
“Perhaps Chief Inspector. But maybe it’s because effective policing is now based on all the advances in DNA and forensic crime investigation. . Don’t forget those advances Chief Inspector.”
“Forensics are important and sometimes the only thing to go on. . but nothing beats good profiling and interrogation techniques. Too bad the Academy believes all that junk about hiring psychologists and psychiatrists as profilers when the cop on the beat or the detective on the case should be the profiler. Of course I can see the love affair with profilers. . they are very useful in making excellent American movies and television series.”
Wangelin chortled. “So what happened with Eliassen and the serial killer?”
“Anton Ronning would not break down and confess. . despite a lot of psychological pressure put on him during the nine days. But Eliassen broke him by the end of day nine. He does this by questioning and talking to Ronning every day at the little local jailhouse. . until Ronning breaks down. Eliassen makes the pedophile killer realize that by confessing he has a chance to avoid the death penalty overseas in death penalty countries where he raped and killed children. The killer also sees that he can stay in Norway and probably not get extradited if he’s deemed insane. That way he can spend the rest of his life explaining his story to psychiatrists who might eventually cure and release him to enjoy his life and wife and adult children and grandchildren.”
“Chief Inspector. It’s always a shock to me how even the most hardened criminals at one point or another in their life of crime always expect or demand or beg for mercy.”
“Nine-nine percent always ask for the mercy and compassion they refused their victims. One my colleagues in America. . Alec Mikesell the Chief Homicide Detective in Salt Lake City Utah. . once shared with me this bit of wisdom:
“‘Justice must always be satisfied and yet mercy is needed to balance the scales because sometimes justice blindly delivered is an injustice by itself.’
“That’s pretty good. . So what exactly made the Smiley Face Killer confess?”
“Eliassen knows that his suspect is a physical coward and terrified of winding up in any prison here or overseas with inmates who might not be as tolerant as many judges are about child molesters or child rapists or child killers. Ronning fears the rape and the torture and the death that he so freely imparted.”
“Typical.”
“Anton Ronning finally confesses when Inspector Eliassen offers him a chance to explain himself and therefore perhaps avoid prison here and the death penalty overseas if Ronning can show that he’s sick enough and in need of psychiatric treatment.
“Eliassen tells Ronning that a full confession with all the grisly details of all his crimes will help prove Ronning’s insanity. Ronning sees that he might even get out of the all-too-lenient sentence of a maximum twenty-one years in prison that he’d receive here in Norway for all the molestations and rapes and killings.”
“Ja. I can see his motivation in confessing.”
“Of course the ultimate motivation is that the Smiley Face Killer knows for sure that he will get the traditional Russian method of execution with a Makarov pistol shot behind the right ear if he’s ever extradited to any of the Russian Republics where he committed dozens of crimes. Anton Ronning confesses that he is the serial killer but still does not offer details.
“The weekend comes and when it’s time on Monday to provide the details Ronning instead gets a lawyer and tries to limit his confession to molesting children while he worked as a tax collector for a few years as a young man. Of course that’s long before he started killing.”
“Again. . that’s typical. . offering a partial confession to throw off the investigator.”
“Well a partial confession won’t do for Eliassen. . so he shows Ronning how he’s caught Ronning in all these lies during the interrogation. Eliassen tells Ronning that he now knows the exact details of Ronning’s work-and-travel schedules and how these match up perfectly with all of the times and places of the horrible crimes. Eliassen shows Ronning how all of these facts and circumstances will be enough to convict him in any country with the death penalty.
“Eliassen reminds Ronning about the knives and ropes that Eliassen found in Ronning’s briefcase. . and he also reminds Ronning about the numerous eyewitnesses who saw Ronning at the crime scenes trolling for victims.
“For example, one woman in the United States. . in Miami Florida even took a picture of Ronning at the beach where he was trolling for children. . of course two boys were later found dead near his hotel. Ronning’s stupid lawyer says they’ll go to trial and the idiot leaves the room. Eliassen decides to again toss Ronning a lifesaver by making the offhand comment, ‘It’s too bad you want to do it this way when you could’ve gotten off with insanity.’”
“Does it work?”
“Like a charm. It works perfectly well because Inspector Eliassen knows the killer’s mind. . and in Ronning’s mind Ronning knows that he’s doing totally insane and repulsive crimes and yet he’s using his sanity and logic to prevent capture by leading a so-called normal life with his wife and children and grandchildren. .
“You see. . Ronning used his sanity to avoid capture by never leaving evidence at the crime scenes. . and he used his sanity to evade the nationwide manhunt by not killing at all for long periods of time. . or by killing in distant locations when he has to do that to throw off investigators.
“So. . Inspector Eliassen gets Ronning to use the sane part of his mind to logically chose the insane part of himself to avoid going to prison and getting extradited. . basically Ronning’s again been offered the chance to get off scot-free by having psychiatrists treat him for a few years and later declare him sane.”
“That’s awful Chief Inspector.”
“Ja. . the ugly truth is that it’s a great deal for the killer. . no? After all. . if some shrink could ever come up with a treatment to cure Ronning from his insane compulsions then it’s all real good for the killer. He’s finally free of his insane half. And if they can’t treat him then he gets a second proverbial bite at the apple when he’s released after his maximum twenty-one-year sentence here in Norway.”
“Uuughh!”
“That’s the way of the world unfortunately.”
“So what happens to the Smiley Face Killer?”
“Anton Ronning breaks down completely and confesses. Inspector Eliassen even gets him talking about his childhood. . Ronning breaks down in tears. . literally trembling and shaking when he talks about the horrible childhood he had with a mother and grandmother who beat him mercilessly. The two women starved him for days while he was locked up in a small dark closet. He also talks about how he had been molested and raped as a child by his mother’s boyfriend. The confession lasts almost two weeks.”
“Wow! That’s something else.”
“Do you see Constable Wangelin?. . You must get inside their heads. You must find their passions and fears. . find out their true thoughts however irrational or illogical or disgusting. . You must see the world from their point-of-view.”
“How will this Smiley Face Killer help us?”
“A craftsman always recognizes similar handiwork. Ronning will tell us if a stranger took Karl Haugen. Ronning knows all about taking little boys.”
“What an animal.”
Sohlberg glanced at Constable Wangelin. She shook her head in disgust.
“Ja Constable Wangelin. You are right. Ronning was. . is an animal. . a predator. . By the early seventies Anton Ronning had already killed at least twelve children here in Norway and Sweden and many many more in Germany and Russia and the United States. And Hungary. Bulgaria. Spain. Portugal. Greece.
“During a two-week summer vacation he killed three boys in Iceland alone and four in Greenland. He was a master at luring and taking the children without anyone seeing him in broad daylight. . much like Chikatilo in Russia. I’ve always suspected that Anton Ronning killed many more innocents in Canada and the U.S.A.”
“What was his M.O.?”
“He’d lure them with a story about him or his pet being lost. He’d molest them and then kill them. . all under twenty minutes. . because he didn’t want them to live with the nightmare of the molestation. . the same nightmare that had haunted and tortured him since he was molested as a six-year-old. Or as he told me. . ‘I needed to break the chain’. . and he did. Whenever possible he used a heavy gold chain to strangle them. He then left a Smiley Face painted in lipstick or red crayon or red ink marker on their bodies.”
“Smiley Face. . what’s that?”
“The sixties and seventies had two symbols. . the peace symbol with the three branches and the smiling face with two dots for eyes and a u-shaped smile. Anton Ronning picked the well-known Smiley Face because it symbolized the fake happy face that molestation victims are forced to put on for the world. . a generic smiley face that reinforces the anonymity and secrets of the victims of molestation. Eliassen even got Ronning to tell him about several children whose bodies have never been found.”
“Wait. Just who is this Inspector Eliassen? I’ve never heard of him.”
“A genius.”
“The name doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Shouldn’t be. Lars Eliassen spent his entire life as a small town policeman from the Romsdal valley. . never cared for promotions. . He put in fifteen years as a constable. . then ten as an inspector and five as chief inspector in the More og Romsdal district. He never sought the spotlight. . he avoided it. . let his bosses do all the talking and get all the credit especially when he got a full confession from the Smiley Face Killer. Afterwards Eliassen refused to be promoted above chief inspector.”
“How did you know him?”
“I. . I mean he. . he investigated. . ” Sohlberg decided to go for the half-truth instead of a lie. He could not tell her the whole truth. One Norwegian tradition that he decide to observe was that co-workers never made friendships at work or otherwise discussed in detail their personal lives at work.
“He investigated what Chief Inspector?”
“Eliassen investigated a fatal climbing accident that I witnessed. . you see I used to climb back then. Someone fell and Eliassen had to investigate and confirm it was an accident.”
“How sad!”
“Ja. . something like that makes you think about life and whether you’re doing what you really love and want to be doing. . less than a year after the accident I gave up my law practice and became a police officer just like Eliassen.
“We later became friends. . he had impressed me so much with his questions. . and how can I phrase it? His compassion. His understanding. I’ll never forget how he got inside my mind and immediately saw that the climber’s fall was an accident.”
“Did he think it was murder. . or suicide?”
“For a time. Inspector Eliassen had to investigate all the possibilities. That’s what a good cop does. . no?”
“Ja. I would’ve liked meeting him.”
“I saw him on and off for a long time. He died two years ago. I came to his funeral. Too bad he’s not here or we’d go get his advice.”
Sohlberg closed his eyes. He wanted to tell Wangelin that the dead are still with us long after the grief fades away and that even if you are an atheist who does not believe in the afterlife the fact remains that the dead are still with us even if just by leaving that empty place behind in our hearts or memories. Karoline gone. Harald Junior gone. Lars Eliassen gone. Soon others would be gone. His parents and then he himself and Emma Sohlberg would be gone. Death and grieving.
He had to find out who in Karl Haugen’s family mourned the empty spot left behind by Karl Haugen.
Who was in grief over Karl Haugen?
Who was not grieving over the missing boy?
The one who was not grieving over the missing boy is the kidnapper and maybe even the killer of Karl Haugen.
Was the Haugen home a house of mourning?
The car stopped. Sohlberg opened his eyes and he was surprised he had fallen deeply asleep.
For how long?
They had pulled into a Statoil gas station. His eyes popped wide open when he saw the $ 12 a gallon price on the digital display. That was 400 % more than what he paid in the USA. He wondered why Norwegians put up with outrageous prices at home when their government-owned Statoil exported billions of dollars of oil to other countries where gasoline was far cheaper than in Norway.
As soon as they got back on the road Sohlberg said:
“Sorry I fell asleep. You must think I’m getting old. . ”
“No. I stopped back there at the gas station because I too was getting sleepy with the afternoon heat and that big sandwich I ate a couple of miles ago. Do you want some coffee? My thermos holds almost a gallon.”
“No thanks. I no longer drink coffee. . haven’t in years.”
“I’m surprised you don’t drink coffee. All good Norwegians drink plenty of it. Why did you stop?”
“We were living in the United States. . in Utah where it was impossible to find good coffee.”
“Why? Don’t the Americans have good coffee?”
“They do but most of Utah is Mormon and they don’t drink coffee or black tea. . or alcohol for religious and health reasons. Anyway. . feel free to drink whatever you want from my case of Farris water.”
A few minutes later they both stretched to shake off their grogginess. Wangelin drove expertly at high speeds on the highway.
“Constable Wangelin. . tell me about the Haugen family. Tell me everything. I’m meeting the father and stepmother tomorrow.”
“I’m looking forward to that. We interviewed them five times each but they gave jumbled confusing explanations that only made sense when you heard them and no sense at all after you left the parents and had time to think about their statements. In hindsight. . they bamboozled us.”
“Let’s start with the biological mother.”
“I feel sorry for her and what she’s going through but she’s a bit of a flake.”
“ How so?”
“She’s not crazy but somewhat slightly unbalanced.”
“How so?”
“You’ll notice that her hair style and hair color change radically and constantly. One day it’s straight black-hair. . the next day frizzy blond-ish hair. . a week later she has dreadlocks and a month later she has bleached spiky hair. . ”
“Come now Constable Wangelin. Surely her hairstyle is not that important.”
“Maybe yes. Maybe no. Why does she do it? I can’t even imagine the amount of time she puts into fixing her hair.”
“You should’ve asked her. Why do you change your hair style and hair color so frequently? How much time does it take? Her answers truthful or not would’ve been revealing.”
“Ja! I should’ve asked.”
“You’ll see as you get more experienced how those little open-ended questions add up. . the innocent little questions about so-called meaningless or trivial or irrelevant matters almost always bring you tremendous insights into the person’s mind. . that’s what you have to do. . ask ask ask. . dig the truth out.”
“Ja.”
“Ask questions even when it feels very uncomfortable. Sometimes the stress in awkward personal interactions will break down the walls and let you take a peak inside.”
“But it feels so awkward to ask personal questions of a stranger.”
“I know it goes against our famous Norwegian reserve. But you have to do it to be an effective police officer. You have to put aside our Viking tradition of living in extreme isolation because of the steep mountains between each fjord. . you have to get past the ingrained mind-set where everyone from the next isolated fjord is a total stranger who speaks a totally different dialect.”
“I never saw it that way but it’s so true.”
“Tell me about Maya Engen. Start with her reaction to Karl’s disappearance.”
“In a nutshell. . she’s a woman with a guilty conscience. . for abandoning Karl Haugen when he needed her the most.”
“How so?”
“In her mind she brought Karl into the broken home of a failed marriage. . she separated from Karl’s father less than two years after marrying him. The marriage went bad shortly after the first year anniversary. . if not beforehand.”
“What caused the breakup?”
“The father is vague on the reasons but he insists that he and his wife led separate lives while living together as husband and wife.”
“Interesting. . a man who insists that things are one way under his roof when things are in fact another before the eyes of the law. In other words he was married in the eyes of the law to Maya Engen but in his eyes he’s not married to her under his own roof. The man seems to live in his own universe. . his own version of reality no? He is married but insists he is not. Interesting. A man who denies reality. . or creates his own reality.”
“He says that their separate lives were the reason for why he started dating Agnes Haugen then known as Agnes Sorensen. . her maiden name.”
“What’s his first wife’s version of the breakup?”
“According to Maya Engen their marriage ended because of his adultery with Agnes. Of course he continues insisting that by the time he met Agnes the marriage was on the rocks and that they were already separated. I checked and found out that really was not true. . he was still living with his wife in the same house when he began a relationship with Agnes.”
“That was gutsy of him.”
“Or cowardly. Anyway. . they got a divorce when Maya Engen was eight months pregnant with Karl. And by the time Karl was born the father had his new woman Agnes living in the house with him.”
“How convenient.”
“It gets more convenient for him as you’ll see in a few minutes. Gunnar and Maya have Karl on April. . they file for divorce in May. . and the divorce is final five months later in October. . just two years after they got married.”
“He’s a fickle man,” said Sohlberg who detested uncertain men. “The wishy-washy sort who change wives like they change shirts or shoes. A fickle man would explain why Karl’s mother is always changing her hairstyle and colors.”
“How so Chief Inspector?”
“She does that to keep a fickle man happy. . the constant hairstyle and hair color changes mean that he has a new wife to look at every day.”
“Very good Chief Inspector. That fits perfectly with her behavior. Also she was briefly married before she met and married Karl’s father.”
“So the Haugen marriage was her second marriage by age thirty?”
“Ja Chief Inspector. She had a son with her first husband and that boy has always lived full-time with the father.”
“Huh! So she too changes husbands as frequently as her hair style and color. Think of it. She’s now on husband number three by the age of thirty-eight. Or an average of one husband and one child per decade. . ”
“Ja. That’s how it is nowadays. . not unusual,” said Constable Wangelin. She again gave Sohlberg a look that made him feel like some old-fashioned prude.
“What else?”
“After the divorce Maya Engen the mother has primary custody of Karl and the father Gunnar has visitation rights. He always pays the child support on time and in full. Gunnar and his live-in woman Agnes pressure Maya Engen to let Karl spend more time with them.
“Maya Engen doesn’t want Karl to have an absentee father and she has to work and needs someone to watch the baby in the afternoons after daycare. So Maya and Gunnar reach an agreement. Karl stays nights with his mother Maya after he spends two to three hours every afternoon with Gunnar and Agnes. . and Thor who is Agnes’s nine-year-old son by another marriage.”
“What a cozy family. The father. . the mistress. . and the son of the mistress. I don’t see Karl fitting easily into that cozy family.”
“Karl had to fit in because a year later his mother Maya gets very sick with liver disease. . hepatitis B. . she is forced to go to Sweden for life-saving treatment.”
“What? I’ve seen her on television and the newspapers and she looks like a picture of perfect health!”
“The fact is that she had to go to Sweden for treatment.”
“Sweden?. . Don’t we have good doctors in Norway?”
“I-”
“What’s wrong with Norwegian medical care?” shouted Sohlberg. He was extremely sensitive about Norway’s humiliating subjugation until 1905 to Denmark and Sweden which had respectively ruled over Norway since 1536 and 1814.
“Chief Inspector. . we checked and her doctors confirm that only Sweden offered her an innovative drug treatment that attacked the virus.”
“I don’t see why she couldn’t have gotten just as good care in Norway.”
“Maybe it’s because Norway sometimes doesn’t have everything we need.”
“Norway has everything Norwegians need.”
From her pitying looks Sohlberg could tell that Wanglein found his patriotism touching if not quaint and old-fashioned.
In high school Sohlberg had joined Ny Norge. The nationalist group advocated eliminating Norway’s monarchy because the king came from a line of Danish royalty that had served as puppets for Denmark. Sohlberg like most other Norwegians felt that Denmark had ruthlessly ruled Norway as a colony to be exploited. Ny Norge also advocated moving the capital out of Oslo and back north to Trondheim the old Viking capital. And Sohlberg like most other Norwegians was perfectly aware of the fact that Denmark and then Sweden had kept Oslo as the capital in southern Norway in order to control and keep tabs on Norwegians. The Ny Norge group also pushed hard for nynorsk or “New Norwegian” to be the only official Norwegian language to the exclusion of bokmal or "book language" which is a Danish bastardization of the Norwegian language.
“Chief Inspector. . regardless of how you feel about Sweden. . the fact remains that Karl’s mother went to Sweden. . where she got the medical treatment that successfully controlled her hepatitis. She was forced to let Karl live with his father and Agnes the stepmother when her Swedish doctors informed her that she would not be able to care for the child while she got the debilitating treatments.”
“So just like that she left Karl with the father and stepmother?”
“Ja. . Maya Engen came back a year later and she was still too weak to care for Karl. The father made it clear that Maya should spend her time and energies on recovering and not on Karl since he and Agnes were already raising him. Because of her illness Maya reluctantly agreed.”
“I can see why Maya Engen has a guilty conscience. First she brings her son into a broken marriage. Then she dropped the boy off with those two odd ducks because she was sick. . and then she was maybe too lazy to care for the boy during her recovery.”
“Could be. . but who knows what she was really going through during her recovery period. Regardless. . time passes and the father and stepmother kept finding excuses to keep Karl away from Maya. Three years later they flat out refused to return Karl to her because. . according to them. . Karl had already bonded with Agnes the stepmother. . apparently Karl was already calling her ‘Mommy’ or ‘Mama’.
“The father and stepmother insisted that the proposed change in living arrangements would be too disruptive for little Karl and that any judge or social worker or psychologist would see it their way.”
“Did they actually state that or is the birth mother making that up?”
“I’ve look at e-mails and they actually did say that.”
“How convenient for the father. He has no more child support to pay now that the boy lives with him. . and his live-in sex partner serves as a free nanny for the boy. How very convenient eh?”
“Ja.”
“Constable Wangelin. . we need to look more closely at the father. . he’s a piece of work. Interesting how he arranges people like pieces on a chessboard. . to be moved around for his pleasure and convenience.”
“He’s big into ‘people management’ as he calls it. . he gave me a long boring lecture on that topic when I asked him what he does at work. Nokia is apparently thinking of sending him to finish his business school education at Harvard or Yale in America. His library is filled with tons of books on that topic.”
“How can Gunnar Haugen work as a people manager at a big corporation when he can’t even manage the location or safety of his own son?”
“I guess. . Chief Inspector. . that big corporations have their own version of reality that is the opposite of reality.”
“Ja! That’s why absolute idiots thrive in big corporations. Anything else on the biological mother?”
“She eventually gave up on getting custody of Karl. She worked for a time as a secretary here in Oslo. . then two years after she returned from Sweden she went to Trondheim to visit relatives. That’s where she met Police Inspector Arvid Engen of the Sor-Trondelag district. They married and live in Namsos. Karl visited them every two weeks for the weekend during the school year. . and he spent most of his summer vacations with them.”
“Do the birth mother and her husband Arvid Engen have alibis for June fourth?”
“Airtight. She was at work at the courthouse in Trondheim. Arvid was also at work. . chasing down and arresting a gang of burglars all during that Friday with four other officers.”
“Has the Engen house been checked and searched in Namsos?”
“Ja. Nothing.”
“Could Karl have been taken by a friend or relative of Maya or Arvid?”
“I doubt it. . not after the commotion in the media over the boy. Anyone would have to be pretty stupid to keep little Karl Haugen after all that publicity. . and the massive five-hundred-thousand kroner reward that Karl’s father posted for Karl’s return or clues leading to his whereabouts.”
“Constable Wangelin. . another thing I’ve been thinking about. . was Karl supposed to be seeing his mother Maya Engen on the weekend after the Friday when he disappeared?”
“No. . the next weekend. . Now that I think of it. . the Engens and Haugens had some rather strange arrangements for those weekend visits.”
“Strange how?”
“Every other weekend Inspector Arvid Engen or Maya Engen drove down from Trondheim on the E-Six and they picked Karl up at a gas station in the small town of Otta. . which is about the halfway point between Oslo and Trondheim and Volda.”
“Why Volda?. . Isn’t Volda a little town on the coast. . about two hundred miles south of Trondheim?”
“Ja. Volda is where Maya Engen’s first husband lives with her first son. The man owns a goat farm that sells goat milk for a cheese factory. So. . every two weeks. . on the same day that Maya and Inspector Arvid Engen drove south to Otta. . the goat farmer drove east from Volda with his son on Highway Fifteen to Otta. . They all met at the same gas station. . at the same time. . with Karl and his father Gunnar Haugen and his stepmother Agnes.”
“So every two weeks this woman. . Maya Engen. . reunites for the weekend with the two sons that she abandoned to their fathers? How cozy.”
“It gets better. Karl doesn’t come alone on the hand-off trips with his father and stepmother Agnes. Oh no. He comes along with Thor Jenssen. . who is the first son of Agnes from her third marriage. . actually her second marriage. . but she got the dumb and wealthier third husband to adopt Thor as his own child.”
“Agnes Haugen. . has been married four times before she’s forty?. .”
“Ja. We found out quite a lot about her from her ex-husbands. Her first husband she married right after graduating from high school. . she married him so she could get out of her parents’ house and away from their control. Her own friends and family agree that she pursued him hard in high school and did her best to bed him down.”
“I know the type,” said Sohlberg as he thought of Margerete Frederisksen his old high school vixen on Ulvoya Island.
“You do?”
“Ja. . Constable Wangelin. . believe it or not I was young once upon a time.”
“Well. . anyway. . Agnes Haugen’s friends and family all agree that the young man wouldn’t spend much time with her because his parents were wealthy real estate developers who were adamant about Agnes not hanging around their son or their house. They hated her. . still do with a passion.”
“So how did she get around the young man’s parents?”
“Agnes’s own friends told us that she lied to him about being pregnant. . and how she might even press rape charges against him. So he was forced to marry her. Then. . when no baby bump showed up on her belly she claimed that she had a miscarriage. That’s when his parents swooped in and paid her off handsomely to get a divorce.”
“This belongs in some Hollywood tabloid.”
“Happens all the time Chief Inspector.”
“Not when I was growing up. That would’ve been extremely unusual. A young woman sleeping around like that to get a monied husband. Huh!” Sohlberg immediately noticed that Wangelin gave him a pity look as if saying, “Boy did you lead a sheltered life. You need to get on with modern times and not be an old-fashioned prude.”
“Now Chief we have Agnes’s husband Number Two. . a good-looking hunk but not too smart. She used the divorce pay-off and her parents’ money to try to get him set up in several businesses. . but they all failed. He’s broke. . a ne’er-do-well who’s failed in too many business ventures. . but he does succeed in impregnating her.”
“Don’t they always.”
“They have a son Thor. . but by then the marriage is an unhappy disaster. . each spouse accusing the other of infidelity. . seems they each had lots of casual sexual liaisons. Then she marries husband Number Three. He seems to know the most about her. . he has quite a lot of dirt on her. . on account of him being in contact with all of the husbands. . including the current Number Four. . who is of course. . Karl’s father.”
Sohlberg nodded in glum silence as Constable Wangelin proceeded to tell him about the many lies that Agnes had used to ensnare Gunnar Haugen into an unhappy marriage. Sohlberg wondered if someone — an ex-husband or her current husband — was trying to frame Agnes Haugen the stepmother with a salacious if not controversial past. Solhlberg sighed and said:
“I’m not surprised about her lies to get this man Gunnar Haugen since. . as you can imagine. . I’ve come across far worse marriages in my more than twenty years of investigations. . but my head is still spinning from all these crazy family relationships.”
“They are complicated.”
“What bothers me the most Constable Wangelin. . is that these adults meet twice a month to trade kids as if they were collectors who meet to trade Pokemon or baseball cards or some other collectible. So. . who picks up Agnes Haugen’s son Thor?”
“Her third husband’s parents. . the paternal grandfather is retired Navy. . they live near Trondheim.”
“Alright. Do this today. . since I doubt Nilsen ordered this. I want to find out what happened at the gas station where the parents met to trade the children. Call whoever’s in charge of policing Otta. . get whatever constables are necessary out there today or tomorrow at the latest. . have them find any witness who may’ve come into contact with this sad bunch of parents. Also. . have them check out all of the closed circuit cameras at or near the gasoline station. . maybe a camera filmed something interesting on the Friday of Karl Haugen’s disappearance. . or the Saturday after.”
“But it’s more than a year later.”
“I know. . I doubt if they’ll find anything. . but it’s worth the long shot that someone saw something suspicious. . or that some camera captured a picture of someone else with Karl Haugen. At least see if they can get any video. Look for bank ATMs nearby. They usually keep their video much longer. We need to focus on the parents before we look at anyone else.”
“Ja Chief Inspector. . it’s not good that we turned a blind eye on these parents. . and grandparents. You should have heard Nilsen praising Maya and Arvid Engen as solid members of the courts and the police. He heaped even more praise on Maya’s first husband the goat farmer for raising their son alone while making great cheese.
“I almost puked when Nilsen about got on his knees to worship the two retired university professors in Stavanger who are the parents of Agnes Haugen. As you can imagine. . Nilsen couldn’t say enough nice things about Thor’s paternal grandparents as honorable citizens and a Navy captain.”
“We’ll see how honorable all these citizens are in reality. Also. . did the team bother checking out the activities and whereabouts of Maya Engen’s first husband the goat farmer on June four?”
“No.”
“What about the paternal grandparents of the stepmother’s first son Thor. . who live up in Trondheim?”
“No.”
“What about the stepmother’s parents. . the retired university professors in Stavanger?”
“No.”
“I want their homes searched top to bottom and their whereabouts for Friday June fourth and Saturday June fifth thoroughly examined. Call headquarters right now and let them know that we need this done immediately.”
“Ja. Chief Inspector.”
While Constable Wangelin placed the call to Oslo on her cell phone Sohlberg thought about the infinite possibilities that existed for mischief — and murder — as a result of the messy relationships of the adults around little Karl Haugen.
The minutes passed by slowly as Wangelin made several more phone calls to launch the re-invigorated investigation. When the calls finally ended Sohlberg let out another exasperated sigh. He shook his head and said:
“Did the team check the phone and computer records of Maya and Inspector Arvid Engen?”
“I don’t think so. . let me think. . Actually no.”
“What? That’s outrageous.”
“Nilsen said it was ridiculous to even think that a police officer or a goat farmer or a retired Navy captain or retired university professors would kidnap Karl or help someone do that.”
“Get the records for all of them. . six months before June fourth and six months after. . ”
“Ja.”
“Did Nilsen get the phone and computer records for Karl’s father and the stepmother?”
“No. Again Nilsen said it was a waste of time to think that the mother or father or stepmother would take or harm the child. According to Nilsen, ‘These are good people. Not the criminal element.’”
“Get me the phone and computer records for the father and the stepmother. . six months before and after June fourth.”
“Not that I mind Chief Inspector but. . that’s a lot of stuff for me to look into. . ”
“Just look for frequently called phone numbers. . or e-mail addresses that show up a lot. I’m sure that KRIPOS has some software to do that in minutes. If they don’t then just go on the Internet. I’m sure you’ll find some company somewhere selling that software.”
“Of course. I’ll call or go to a company called Alta Soft. . I think they’re still up on Adolph Tidemandsgt in Lillestrom. . about twenty minutes northeast of downtown Oslo. They have very good stuff.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Steen and Strom sells software next to linens and housewares. Everything is available nowadays on the Internet. . especially software.”
“Ja Chief Inspector. I’ll look at altasoft dot no and see what they carry. Then I’ll call them to find out if their software can help us.”
“Good,” said Sohlberg. He started to frown. “There’s something else.”
“What?”
“I’m really bothered by Karl’s mother. . so this Maya Engen woman gave birth to two sons and then she abandons the two boys to her two husbands?. . Maybe she wanted back what she had so carelessly given away.”
“That’s a thought. . we never considered that angle Chief Inspector. Everyone saw her more as a pitiful victim.”
“Could be she’s a pitiful victim. . as you call her. It could also be that she arranged for Karl’s kidnaping.”
“Ja. . could be.”
“Alright then. . after you get the phone and computer records I want you to give me a list of every single one of the friends and family of Karl’s mother. . of Karl’s father. . and of Karl’s stepmother. . who had frequent phone or computer contact with these three people.”
“The three people closest to Karl Haugen.”
“Exactly Constable Wangelin.”
“Chief Inspector. . I think we’re getting closer to solving this.”
“Actually we’ll be much closer after the Smiley Face Killer tells us who is his Number One suspect.”
“Why did they take me?. . Where’s my Daddy?”
No answer. He looked but could not see his father at all.
“Mom!”
He was hurt and bewildered beyond measure as to why his mother and father had not come for him. Maybe just maybe he was going to have to live without his parents. He remembered the woman who had recently come to visit him. She said:
“Sometimes we have to do things on our own. Like when we go to school alone without Mommy and Daddy. That’s kind of what you’re doing here right now. . ”
No. He would keep waiting for his mother and father. Surely they would come for him.