“Ja.”
“Keep on.”
“According to the stepmother the bell rang at quarter to nine and she then walked with her stepson down a hallway toward his classroom and the boy told her 'I'm going back to the classroom Mom' and he took off in the direction of the classroom while she waved at him and she left the school through another hallway thinking that he was safe at school just like he is everyday.”
“But it wasn’t just any day. . was it?. . This science fair. . it was the perfect cover for the boy’s disappearance unless the boy left on his own. . and then something or someone happened to him. I know about this Hasidic boy who got lost in New York on his first day walking home alone from school without his mother and a predator found him and took him.”
“Horrible. What happened?”
“A lucky break in the case led to the suspect a day later. . but it was too late. They found the boy cut up in garbage bags and in the man’s refrigerator.”
“Awful!”
“Ja. Can you imagine?. . What are the chances of that. . one in a million? On the one day of the year when the little eight-year-old boy asks to be allowed to walk home alone from school without his mother he meets a murdering predator. What a disaster.”
“Ja.”
“Anything pointing to that happening here?”
“Not really. In this case Chief Inspector Sohlberg it’s not likely at all that Karl Haugen took off on his own. The father and everyone we’ve talked to insists that he was afraid of the woods and being alone. He was shy and afraid of strangers.”
“What does the stepmother say?”
“Only that he had been acting oddly a few weeks before he vanished. . he’d stare off into space like a zombie. . was very distracted at times.”
“True?”
“Apparently. The father attributes it to the baby crying at night and keeping them awake. I guess that babies cry a lot when they’re nineteen months old.”
“Hhhmm. Wouldn’t you think Karl Haugen had his own room in the house since his father’s a well-to-do Nokia engineer?”
“Ja.”
“And wouldn’t you think that Karl’s parents would close the door to his room if and when the baby cried?”
“That crossed my mind.”
“By the way. . have you ever come across a seven- or eight-year-old who was not able to sleep because of background noise?. . I’ve seen some children sleep in the noisiest of trains or airports with no problem at all. I saw some kids sleeping right in the middle of a loud party that my wife and I attended for St. John’s Eve.”
“Ja. I saw my own little nephews and nieces in that age group at Sankthans. . they slept soundly through all the loud music and talking.”
“Continue please.”
“At nine o’clock the children were supposed to report to their classes where they’d be divided into small groups. . of a couple of students each. A volunteer was to chaperone each group during a tour of the science fair in the auditorium. Of course all of the teachers made sure that all of their little groups stayed together from the minute they left the classrooms to the minute that they came back to the classrooms. A half hour later they all returned to their classes for roll call and Karl Haugen wasn't at his class with Froken Boe. She marks him absent.”
“So we have a half-hour window for him to walk out or be taken out of the school?”
“Actually less than a half-hour. No one remembers seeing him go on the tour of the science fair with the chaperones and teachers.”
“Really?”
“We’re highly confident that he never went to the auditorium with a chaperoned group of classmates because more than twenty of us spent two weeks interviewing and re-interviewing all the teachers and chaperones and students and administrators. . And no one remembers seeing him at the auditorium from nine to nine-thirty. . or anywhere else in the school after nine in the morning.”
“So Karl Haugen disappeared in that fifteen minute time frame. . from eight forty-five to nine o’clock. . when his mother let him walk to his classroom?”
“Ja.”
Sohlberg closed his eyes as he tried to comprehend the mind-boggling implications of the place and time of the little boy’s disappearance. He rubbed his eyes with his fists as if he could squeeze an image into his eyes that would explain the mystery.
“Fifteen minutes?”
“Ja Chief Inspector.”
“And no one remembers seeing any stranger or anyone who did not belong at the school that day?”
“That’s correct. No strangers. Everyone recognized everyone else. Also. . extensive fingerprinting of all bathrooms and door-handles and rooms and desks and playground equipment etcetera. . revealed no prints for anyone who should not have been there that day. We also questioned and verified the whereabouts of all known sex offenders in a ten mile radius and none were near the school that day.”
“Thank God the team at least did the fingerprint dusting. . and they rounded up and ruled out the usual suspects. Well. . the case is half-solved.”
“How so Chief Inspector?”
“First of all. . remember to always work smart and not hard.”
“That sounds good. . in theory. . does it work in practice?”
“Ja. You see we could waste time and resources and exhaust our mental energies by going the hard route and calling in half the Oslo police force to look for someone who hid inside the school or slipped into the school to take Karl Haugen. But at this point there’s only one logical path to follow based on the evidence. . and only two people. . you and me. . are needed to crack this case.”
“How can just the two of us solve a year-old case that more than forty investigators could not?”
“It’s simple. . we already know the kidnapper. . he or she is right under our noses. Don’t you see? We know the person who took Karl Haugen. . we just don’t know their exact name.”
Constable Wanglein frowned. “I. . I guess that no one ever wanted the investigation to come to this point. . where a parent or someone else at the school took Karl Haugen. . ”
“But all the evidence points to a parent.”
“I. . I hate saying this Chief Inspector. . but I guess that we didn’t really want to admit that we had a predator among the teachers or the staff or the administrators or the parents at Grindbakken skole or any other elementary school in Norway.”
“Exactly Constable Wangelin. We also know that the kidnapper probably won’t be a teacher or a staffer or an administrator since all of their whereabouts have been accounted for that day. . and evening. . right?”
“Ja. None were missing in school and all of their times and activities during and after school were checked and re-checked.”
“So I doubt if any of them would have had the time and opportunity during a fifteen minute period to overpower Karl Haugen and stuff him in a suitcase or bag and keep him there all day long and then take him away from the school when school ended in the afternoon.”
“True.”
“Now as for the school building and grounds. . I hope they were thoroughly searched. There’s a case from the nineteen-sixties where children disappeared from school. . it turned out that a camp of homeless bums raped and killed the school children who went to play in the schools’ basement where the bums lived.”
“Uhhh.”
“I imagine the team carefully searched the school?”
“Ja.”
“Every nook and cranny from roof to foundation and wall to wall. . right?”
“Ja ja,” said Constable Wangelin who nodded slowly as she came to understand the implications of what Sohlberg was saying. “This means Chief Inspector that. . all of our suspects are the normal and lovely and well-dressed and well-educated and law-abiding citizens of the well-to-do suburb of Holmenkollen. . home of the Holmenkollen Ski Festival and the Ski Museum.”
“Exactly Constable Wangelin. The banality of evil.”