“I’m sorry Chief Inspector. . I meant no disrespect,” said Constable Wangelin who gathered her composure and looked Sohlberg again straight in the eye.
“I understand. Go ahead. . tell me about Nilsen.”
“He liked her. . Nilsen liked the stepmother. He stared at her chest all the time.”
“Why?”
Steeling herself Wangelin said, “The stepmother has enormous breasts. Nilsen ogled her every time he saw her. You could see his eyes undressing her.”
“He’s fifty-two. . a little old to get distracted by such teenage boy nonsense.”
“Ah. . it was repulsive. . her breasts are obvious fakes. Even Nilsen knew it. . he took down bets as to whether she had silicone or saline implants.”
“Ridiculous. I can see why this investigation went nowhere. Anyway. . keep reading me your summary.”
“After buying the baby’s medicine the stepmother said the baby was irritable and crying and so she drove around for ‘a few minutes’ to get the baby to sleep with the rocking motion of the car.”
“Wait a minute. . what car?. . The white pickup or the red sports car?”
“She took her husband’s white pickup. She says that driving around always calmed the baby into sleeping. The father says that was news to him. I think that’s the first and only time that the father contradicted the stepmother.”
“Interesting,” said Sohlberg. “Proceed.”
“The stepmother then drove to the gym where she arrived at eleven-twenty. That’s when the main desk has her signing in. She leaves the gym an hour later at twelve-twenty. She then-”
“Stop. So her baby is sick and she goes to the gym with the baby.”
“Ja. She dropped the baby off in the gym’s daycare room.”
“Unbelievable.” Sohlberg shook his head in amazement at the selfishness of Norway’s newest generation of parents. “Then what does she do after the gym?”
“She says that she drove around with the baby. . to calm her down. . and finally arrived home at about one forty-five. . almost two o’clock. Says her husband was not there and that he left her a note saying he went to pick up some takeout food for lunch. He arrives back in her red Audi sports car at around two in the afternoon. But she’s not sure exactly when he arrived because she took a shower and a nap.”
“So basically he’s all alone on the day that his son disappears. . six hours. . from nine to three.”
“Ja. It’s almost as if he used the need to buy the baby’s medicine as an excuse to get rid off his wife and the baby.”
“Call the pharmacy and see if it’s true that they were out of the baby’s medicine when Agnes Haugen went to buy the medicines.”
“Actually we did that a few months ago.”
“And?”
“They had the medicine in stock.”
“What did she say to that?”
“That the pharmacy must’ve been confused and thought she asked for another medicine.”
“How convenient for the father and stepmother. . to have her driving around looking for the baby’s medicines while he’s all alone. Keep on. . ”
“Karl Haugen was to have taken the school bus home. But he was not on the bus at three-thirty when the stepmother walked to the bus stop near their driveway. The bus arrived and another child from next door got off but not Karl. That’s when the driver told her that Karl had never gotten on the bus.
“She ran back home and called the school to tell them that the driver had just told her that the boy had never gotten on the bus. The school informed her that her stepson had been marked absent for the day by his teacher as soon as roll call was completed at about nine-fifteen. The stepmother dialed one-one-two and we immediately got involved. Nilsen ordered an inch-by-inch search of the school and the school grounds and the parent’s home and their one-acre property.”
“Who else was called in to help?”
“Of course Nilsen got KRIPOS involved. . they sent a crime scene investigator squad that arrived at eight-thirty in the evening.”
“But that was almost twelve hours after the boy disappeared.”
“True but Nilsen thought the boy had just wandered off or left with another family and that we’d find him before nine at night. Commissioner Thorsen got extra help for us from nearby districts that sent officers and two dog-sniffing teams. . we carefully searched the school and the hilly wooded area immediately around the school. We even searched the school’s roof.”
“Any videos. . close circuit cameras at the school?”
“Not in this school. Only in the newer schools”
“Explain something to me.”
“Ja Chief Inspector.”
“What’s the school’s procedure for visitors?. . What did the school do that day to accommodate all the visitors for the science fair?”
“The standard procedure is for all adult visitors to check in at the main office and receive a badge. But not everyone got a badge the day of the science fair.”
“Why?”
“Because of the huge crowds. . the science fair had to start before the official school hour of eight in the morning since a lot of parents came to help their children set up the exhibits before the parents rushed off to work. The school’s principal called the science fair a ‘semi-public’ event. She said the building was packed with more than two hundred adult visitors who went from classroom to classroom with their children and to and from the auditorium."
“Fascinating,” said Sohlberg as he massaged his increasingly tense neck muscles. Joint pain and muscular spasms plagued his neck whenever he was confronted with a complex case.
“What’s fascinating Chief Inspector?”
“The father and stepmother. They have six hours that are. . for the most part. . unaccounted for. . And the father seems to have a lot more unaccounted for time than the stepmother. He literally has a lot of explaining to do. At least the stepmother has some proof to establish some of her whereabouts when she went out on that medicine-buying trip. He on the other hand has little or nothing to show as to exactly where he was that day and exactly what he was doing those six hours.”
“Keep in mind Chief Inspector that her medicine-buying trip itself is a mystery. Why would she go to a second store when the first store had the medicine?”
“Ja. By the way. . what type of baby medicine are we talking about here?”
“I. . well. . here’s another strange thing that this couple made sound so natural when we first interviewed them.”
“Together or separate?”
“Both. . together and separate.”
“Not good. Interviews must always be separate.”
“Ja. . but in the rush to get basic information Nilsen and the first responding constables took statements from them in each other’s presence.”
“A huge mistake in this investigation.”
“Sorry. But as I was saying. . the Haugens took their sweet time to finally reveal. . four months after Karl disappeared. . that the baby’s prescription medicine was for colic and that any over-the-counter remedy would’ve been easy to find and a far cheaper substitute.”
“What did they say when confronted with this information?”
“That they do not buy cheap things. . least of all generic drugs. That they buy only the very best for their children. She even made the very arrogant statement that they don’t eat left-overs.”
“Interesting. Unfortunately I know people like that.”
“Wait till you hear this. . we calculated her total mileage that Friday for her shopping expedition for the baby’s medicine. . almost forty-five miles for a medicine that she could’ve bought for less than five dollars had she gone for the less expensive over-the-counter substitute.”
“Whose idea was it for her to go on that crazy shopping trip?”
“They both take responsibility for it.”
“Not his idea?”
“No Chief Inspector. She’s adamant about going though all the motions to establish to the world that they have money to spend. Of course the weird thing is that the father and stepmother dress like high school kids. . they mostly wear t-shirts and blue jeans and tennis shoes. . every time I saw him he was in long baggy shorts and sandals.”