“Good question. I’m not sure. It may be in the evidence room. I’m pretty sure we still have custody.”
“Good. Please find it as soon as you can. I’d like to take a look at it.”
“Or. . we may’ve returned it and left it at his home with his parents.”
“Not good.” He took the cap off his Waterman fountain pen and drew a rectangle around the words ‘backpack’ in the summary. “Alright. What else?”
“The stepmother took a picture of Karl Haugen and his science project. They had worked a lot of hours together on the project. When she got home later that day she posted the picture on her Facebook page.”
Somewhat amused Constable Wangelin studied Sohlberg and his routine with the Waterman pen as he drew another rectangle around the words ‘science project’ in the summary. She noticed that he had also drawn a small star on the left margin by each of his green ink rectangles.
“Keep on. What happened next?”
“After taking the photograph she and the boy looked at other projects in the auditorium. That day exactly three hundred-and-two students attended school and all of them contributed exhibits to the science fair. After checking carefully it appears that a total of two hundred thirty-five adults visited the science fair as parents or relatives or guardians of the children. No one observed any strangers inside the school building that day.
“Not even during the science fair?”
“No.”
“Any vendors or people delivering supplies or picking something up. . anything like that?’
“Not that day.”
“Did any teachers or staff or administrators or volunteers call in sick that day?”
“No.”
“Did any school employee have any periods of time that day when they should have been somewhere but were not?”
“No.”
“Do any of those people have criminal records?”
“No convictions other than. . three drunk driving guilty pleas. . and five convictions for marijuana possession. Karl Haugen’s mother was one of the drunk driving convictions.”
“I want everything on those convictions. And I mean everything.”
“Ja. But why-”
“Because I know how very sloppy and extremely careless Nilsen and Thorsen have always been when conducting investigations. Constable Wangelin. . did anyone in the team go through the files we have on the drunk driving and marijuana possession cases?”
“No.”
“Did the team call every witness and judge and lawyer in the convictions for drunk driving and marijuana possession?”
“No.”
“That’s your number one job this week.”
“I’ll do it as soon as possible. Definitely it should’ve been done. Also. . you should know that three years ago a man in his late twenties early thirties molested five girls at Grindbakken Skole.”
“What?”
“He just walked into the playground. . posing as a volunteer. . before anyone knew or had time to react he took three girls one by one into the bushes and forest around the school and fondled them. He did the same to twelve little girls at other Oslo elementary schools in Ulleval and Huseby.”
“Where is he now?”
“We don’t know.”
“What?. . No arrest?”
“No.”
“How can that be?”
“I don’t know. I was not here then. You’d have to check with Commissioner Thorsen.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“It’s. . well. . between you and me. . ”
“Ja?”
“The talk I heard among the older investigators was that Commissioner Thorsen got orders from the higher-ups to not investigate too thoroughly. . or make an arrest.”
“What?. . Why not?”
“The suspect was a dark-skinned man. That was the summer when anti-immigrant feelings started running high and boiling over.” Wangelin noticed a blank look on Sohlberg’s face so she filled him in on the details. “That was the summer when two Pakistani drug gangs had a shoot-out in Aker Brygge. . in the cross-fire they killed a tourist from Sweden and a grandmother from Trondheim.”
“Are you kidding me? A shoot-out in Aker Brygge?. . Where they have a Prada boutique and an Ermenegildo Zegna store?”
“Used to. . Chief Inspector. Prada closed the store and the men’s clothing store with Zegna products moved to Bogstadveien. . where it splits into Valkyriegata. . a very exclusive neighborhood as I remember.”
“Criminal gangs shooting away at Aker Brygge?. . That’s like a gang shooting in Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. . or Fifth Avenue in New York. Hard to believe. Norway certainly isn’t the cozy little isolated spot of paradise it once was. . eh?”
Sohlberg could not accept that a shootout was possible in Aker Brygge which is an elegant and pricey urban redevelopment zone in what used to be the derelict eyesore of the old and abandoned shipyards of downtown Oslo.
“Alright. What else do you have for me Constable Wangelin?”
“Agnes Haugen the stepmother. . she’s a volunteer at the school. . she went back with Karl Haugen to the boy’s classroom at about eight forty-five. The mother and the boy’s teacher agree on that fact. However the teacher says that a few minutes later something or someone in the hallway caught the boy’s attention and that he then walked out of the classroom as if someone was waiting for him or wanting to talk to him. Another teacher declared that she saw Karl Haugen leave his classroom and walk down the hallway more or less at the same time.”
“With his stepmother or alone?”
“Alone.”
Sohlberg took the cap off his Waterman fountain pen and drew a rectangle around the words ‘volunteer’ in the summary. “What is the relationship between the stepmother and the teacher?”
“Not good. The stepmother Agnes Haugen often volunteers at the school and works closely with the boy’s teacher Lisbeth Boe. . a little too closely according to the teacher.”
“Oh?. . What does that mean?”
“The stepmother is a frustrated teacher. She has a bachelor and master’s degree in education and a teaching license but no longer works as a teacher. The school has three more volunteers just like her. The teachers appreciate the help from the volunteers. . but the teachers don’t like the second-guessing that goes on from fellow professionals who make impossible demands because their own children attend the school.”
“I see.”
“There’s more. At the end of each week the school sends the children home with a colored paper slip that has their name on it. Green means that they behaved and learned well. Yellow means they have some issues with behavior or learning. And red means they had problems with behavior or learning.”
“I see,” said Sohlberg. After living abroad for a long time Sohlberg now found it bizarre as to how the Japanese and Norwegians teach school children to conform socially and always act and think as part of a closely cooperating team working for the common good. “I see the old Norwegian principal of dugnad is alive and well.”
“Ja. I think the Americans call it barn-rising?. . Like the Amish people?”
“Barn raising. . Ja. . the Mormons in Utah also practice that. . their state symbol is the beehive.”
“That’s where you investigated and solved the case of the missing nerve gas at the Dugway Proving Ground military base. . right?”
“No,” he said surprised at her knowledge of his career.
“No?”
“I only helped others investigate and solve the case of the missing nerve gas. How very dugnad of me. . aye?”
She nodded and continued reading the executive summary. “Anyway. . the stepmother demanded daily not weekly color slips. That meant much more work for the teacher because Agnes Haugen would then call her every Monday and have long conversations to find out exactly why the boy had been tagged with a yellow or red slip.”
“So there’s no love lost between teacher and stepmother.”
“Ja.”
“But Constable Wangelin. . it seems to me that at least the stepmother involved herself in the boy’s life and education. I see so many mothers and fathers nowadays. . they have zero interest on what goes on in the lives of their children.”