find out that Gunnar Haugen has been arrested in the kidnaping of his son. So please focus on putting together a minute-by-minute timeline showing the whereabouts of both women that day.”
“I’ll go and look at the binders. I think someone in the force interviewed Danica Knutsen because she repeatedly kept showing up at the Haugen home during the days after the kidnaping. Anything else?”
“No. . but the timeline is urgent. Haugen will be out of jail in two days or less. We have forty-eight hours or less to prepare for our interrogation of Agnes Haugen and her friend Danica Knutsen. Get as many people as you need to help you. If you have to- ”
“I know Chief. . if I have to I’ll work on it all night long.”
“Thank you. Please call me anytime as soon as you finish. . even if that’s at four in the morning.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ja. I doubt if I’ll be getting much sleep anyway. . the case is always on mind.”
Sohlberg spent the next two days at home. Fru Sohlberg knew better than to engage in any conversation with her husband. He spent most of his time reading binders on the case down at the guest cottage by the beach. Their conversations consisted mostly of him saying “Ja. . of course dear. . ” and “Oh?”
A few months later Sohlberg found out that Fru Sohlberg had wisely cancelled her parents’ visit because she knew that they’d probably feel ignored if not slightly insulted by her husband’s mental and physical absence during the investigation.
Chapter 14
INTERROGATION OF AGNES HAUGEN,
MORNING OF 1 YEAR AND 28 DAYS
AFTER THE DAY, FRIDAY, JUNE 4
A media firestorm broke out during the two days after the arrest of Gunnar Haugen. The headlines said it all: IS IT MURDER? ARRESTED FATHER WILL NOT SPEAK ON KARL HAUGEN CASE SAYS DEFENSE LAWYER.
Most of the tram’s passengers in the 7:15 AM commute on Line 18 into downtown Oslo were reading newspapers with the latest about the Karl Haugen case. Those who were not reading about the arrest managed to steal a glance at the man who got on the tram and walked straight into a pole near the compartment’s middle doors. He bounced off the pole and kept on walking as if in a trance.
“Drunk at this hour in the morning,” said an elderly woman loudly. “Imagine that at his age.”
But the man was not drunk. It was Sohlberg lost in thought and oblivious to his surroundings. He always got that way at the end of every investigation when all the loose ends had to be tied down and fully explained. Sohlberg was legendary for his absent-mindedness when thinking about how to wrap up an investigation.
One question after the other swirled in Sohlberg’s mind.
How much did Gunnar Haugen know about the facts leading to his son’s kidnaping?
How much did the man know about the kidnaping itself?
Why did Karl’s father refuse to make any statements against his wife Agnes Haugen with respect to the disappearance of his son?
Most other parents would have cooperated with the police when confronted with evidence that their spouse is likely to be involved in a crime against a stepchild. But not Gunnar Haugen.
Why didn’t Gunnar Haugen implicate Agnes Haugen
Did the father and stepmother act together in the boy’s disappearance?
Was one of them perhaps an after-the-fact accessory?
Why did Gunnar Haugen have an acid disposal barrel that was more the right size for a large adult body than for a small child’s body?
Sohlberg was jolted back into reality when the tram braked to a complete stop at the Oslo Sentralstasjon or Central S Station. He stepped out into downtown Oslo’s loveliest boulevard the Karl Johans gate and walked towards its northern end. Tree leaves shimmered in the gentle end-of-summer sunlight. Strollers cast wary looks at the man with a pinched face and narrow eyes and an enormous flopping raincoat. His mind churned over the case facts. He tried to connect all the facts together to make sense of the kidnaping of Karl Haugen.
How could someone as smart and educated as Gunnar Haugen have made so many obvious and dumb mistakes in marrying and staying married to Agnes Haugen?
Sohlberg was surprised at the immense pity he felt for Gunnar Haugen. The man reminded him of so many others who mistakenly think that their education and their income and their titles and their success outside the home would render them immune to failure inside the home.
What wise man had once said,
Was it David O. McKay from Utah?
Sohlberg wondered if the man had instead perhaps said,
Regardless of the exact words the underlying thought bothered Sohlberg.
Had he been too quick to seek success at the expense of his first wife Karoline?
Sohlberg remembered the many many evenings and nights and weekends and holidays that he had abandoned Karoline to stay working at the law firm. He then remembered how often he had also abandoned Emma and their now-dead son when he investigated crimes.
After bumping into a group of tourists Sohlberg looked up and was shocked to see Det kongelige slott or the Royal Palace up on the hill. Sohlberg muttered a curse when he realized that he had missed his turn and was now far off course. Even more embarrassing he got lost in thought again and took several wrong turns as he tried to find his way back to the police offices at 12 Hammersborggata.
The increasingly agitated Sohlberg walked up and down the narrow and odd-angled and confusing streets for almost 30 minutes before someone kindly pointed him to the corner of Hammersborggata and Torggata.
As soon as he got out of the elevator the receptionist pointed Sohlberg to Ivar Thorsen’s office.
Commissioner Thorsen sat behind his desk smug and preening. He said in the most patronizing way possible:
“Sohlberg you’ve done good. An arrest so soon! Excellent. Excellent. I knew you’d pull the proverbial rabbit out of the old hat. Good job. Good job.”
“Not so fast.”
“What?. . Oh you’re always so. . so. . how shall I say it?. . Nitpicky?. . Crossing your t’s and dotting your i’s. Alright. Go ahead. You deserve it in this case. Besides. . we’d like to get a rock solid conviction on the father.”
“Look Thorsen. . we may have found bottles of acid. . and a large barrel to store acid waste at the barn. . all plastered with Gunnar Haugen’s fingerprints. But that doesn’t prove by a long shot that Gunnar Haugen kidnaped or killed his own son. Why would he need such a large barrel for such a little boy?”
“Well. . ”
“We also found from Nokia’s records that several mysterious telephone calls were placed to and from Agnes Haugen’s cell phone on the day of the boy’s disappearance. The calls to and from her phone started at around twelve-thirty and ended at about one-thirty in the afternoon.
“Nokia traced the calls from pings on cell phone towers and their records show that all of the calls took place along Sorkedalsveien near Ring 3. . there’s a bunch of stores and businesses down there in Smestad.
“Several calls were placed in or near a furniture store. . Hus and Hage. . where Gunnar and Agnes Haugen did a lot of shopping.”
Thorsen scratched his head and then his groin and said, “Aha. . these calls would support the stepmother’s afternoon alibi. . that she was driving around in the afternoon trying to calm her baby down after she went to the gym.”
“Maybe. Seems that way.”
“Alright then. It’s obvious that the father did it.”
