Sohlberg and the White Death (6 page)

After the autopsy no one had stepped forward to claim the remains of the woman who had posed as Azra Korbal. The provincial government of Rhône-Alpes paid for her cremation and a simple cardboard box. Sohlberg contacted Interpol’s Human Resources department which sent him to the Accounting Department which refused to pay anything or make any contribution. According to one of the more human and sympathetic of the bean counters:

“Mademoiselle was an hourly employee. Nothing more. She only had a health and dental plan. Her benefit plan didn’t include funeral expenses. She had no death benefits.”

“Obviously not,” replied Sohlberg. “Death rarely has benefits.”

Sohlberg appealed to General Secretary Ron Noble in an e-mail that went unanswered. Laprade, Sohlberg, and Ziedan therefore paid for the cherry wood box, the onyx urn, and the cinerary niche at a mausoleum out of their own funds.

And now it was time for the funeral of Azra Korbal on that lovely day.

Sohlberg hated funerals. But he had to arrange one for the Jane Doe who pretended to be Azra Korbal. If not for Sohlberg’s intervention her unclaimed ashes would have been buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave.

Harald Sohlberg’s personal code required that the Abandoned and the Murdered receive one last respectful goodbye even if the world and the Dead One’s own family and friends have deserted them. He started observing that tradition soon after he made the rank of inspector. With three other colleagues in the Oslo Police district he had personally paid for the burial of a murdered 14-year-old girl whose family of drunks and drug addicts refused to be bothered with her death or funeral.

“Laprade,” said Sohlberg, “thanks for pulling strings and calling favors.”

“No need to thank me.”

Commissaire Laprade lied. Funerals in France have never been an easy matter. Large cities like Lyon have few cemeteries and even fewer available resting places. Laprade fixed the problem. The French detective called an old friend at the Ministry of the Interior. He asked her to use her aristocratic family network to procure an almost impossible-to-obtain burial spot at a mausoleum in the Cimetière de la Guillotière Nouveau. Sohlberg, Ziedan, and Laprade then split the enormous bill for Jane Doe’s mausoleum internment at the regal cemetery.

“Well,” said Sohlberg, “here they are.”

~ ~ ~

A taxicab dropped off Fru Sohlberg and Madame Ziedan at the main gate on Avenue Berthelot. The women got inside Laprade’s enormous SUV and he drove the group off to the crypt. The cemetery was laid out in circular rings and the narrow roads were lined with elaborate tombs that ranged from neoclassical Greek temples to marble or granite slabs watched over by awesome sculptures of angels, children, dogs, and other guardians and companions of the dead.

Emma Sohlberg pointed at a dignified tall man who was dressed in a dark suit and standing in front of the mausoleum. “Good. I thought he wasn’t able to make it.”

“Who is he?” said Laprade.

“Jonathon Stone. He’s a retired American pastor that some friends suggested. I had no idea what else to do . . . I asked him to say a few spiritual words . . . even though none of us knew if Azra had any religious preferences.”

After introductions the group hovered around a simple table covered in white cloth. Three large floral arrangements stood on separate tripods behind the table. Sohlberg laid the cherry wood box with the urn on the table. A dark empty crypt high up in the white marble wall waited to receive her remains.

Rev. Stone clutched the edge of the table. “Thank you everyone for attending this special and sacred occasion. We are gathered here today to lay to rest this young woman. . . .”

The words faded away as Sohlberg began to plan the strategy to find out
who
killed the young woman and who
ordered
her death and
why
.

“In Corinthians we are told that ‘No eye has seen . . . no ear has heard . . . and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him. . . .’”

A visit to Frankfurt Germany was in order. Sohlberg just
had
to interview the parents of the real Azra Korbal. He would start off by showing them a picture of Interpol’s Azra Korbal and finding out if they knew her under another name.

“One Peter One . . . verse twenty-four . . . reminds us that ‘All men are like grass . . . and all their glory is like the flowers of the field . . . the grass withers and the flowers fall. . . .’”

Sohlberg also planned on interviewing the family and friends and acquaintances of the real Azra Korbal.

“James Four-fourteen tells us . . . ‘Your life is like the morning fog . . . a mist . . . it’s here a little while . . . then it's gone.’”

Sohlberg’s plans had been set in motion as soon as he had found out that the Empty Suits at the top floor of Interpol wanted no outside agencies working on the Azra Korbal case. According to a memo: “Interpol’s Internal Affairs Department is best suited to investigate the murder of Azra Korbal.”

“Weeping may endure for a night . . . but joy comes in the morning.”

Sohlberg studied the pretty floral arrangements. He had looked over the flowers and read the senders’ cards after shaking hands with the minister. The arrangement on the right came from the Sohlbergs and Laprade. The one of the left was paid for by the Ziedans and others in the translation department. The middle arrangement was enormous and the card said:

IN MEMORY OF AZRA KORBAL

        — INTERPOL.

A flicker of doubt raced across Sohlberg’s mind.

Why would Interpol have sent such a lavish arrangement after they refused to pay for anything?

“On that glorious resurrection morning promised to everyone regardless of their faith or belief—”

Sohlberg ran up to the arrangement. He grabbed it and threw it behind a large tombstone that was more than four feet in length and height and at least one foot in thickness.

“What are you doing?” said Rev. Stone. “What’s going on?”

Sohlberg shouted:

“We didn’t order those flowers. They can’t be from Interpol. Everyone . . . listen . . . we need to move away now. . . . Laprade . . . call the bomb squad.”

The little group of mourners scurried away quickly. They stood behind Laprade’s car for cover.

Rageh Ziedan gave a pitying look at Sohlberg. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little too paranoid?”

Sohlberg was about to answer when a powerful blast sent a shock wave and debris into the air. The marble tombstone was gone—shattered into tiny pieces that rained down on the mourners. Forensics later determined that the tombstone had shielded them from ten pounds of nails and screws embedded in Semtex plastic explosive.

Visitors to the cemetery ran towards the bomb site to offer help.

Sohlberg grabbed Rev. Stone’s arm. “You arrived before us . . . did you see who brought in the arrangement?”

“It was already here. All three arrangements were already here.”

A cemetery worker told Laprade that a black van had delivered two of the floral arrangements and that a red minivan had dropped off the large arrangement. No one remembered seeing any business names on the vehicles. The card on the bomb turned out to be as untraceable as the rest of the materials.

Police, forensics teams, and a bomb squad worked frantically in the cemetery. Four hours later a cemetery worker was allowed to climb up a ladder and place the urn with the ashes of Azra Korbal inside the crypt.

~ ~ ~

Laprade dropped off the Ziedans at the Saxe-Gambetta subway station. He then drove the Sohlbergs home. Traffic and pedestrians swirled about them. People went in and out of restaurants and bars. It was as if nothing had taken place at the cemetery.

Sohlberg wanted to get out of the car and scream:

“We just survived an assassination attempt! . . . Can you believe it? . . . We’re alive!”

No one would really have cared or listened. The banality of modern city life depressed Sohlberg.

The sun sank behind the hills of Lyon as placidly as if nothing had taken place at the cemetery. The incandescent orb ignored the funeral of Azra Korbal and the attempted murder of six. There was nothing new under the sun—someone lived; someone died. Tomorrow the sun would rise again on the miasma of human problems.

~ ~ ~

Laprade spent the rest of the evening with the Sohlbergs at their apartment. After a late dinner Fru Sohlberg served a local delicacy from Pâtisserie d'Ainay where the artisan bakers created a sublime version of
Coussin de Lyon
. They devoured the heavenly little cushions of foam-like chocolate ganache enveloped in pale green marzipan.

After the men cleared the table and washed the dishes Fru Sohlberg announced she would retire to read in bed and leave the men to talk shop.

~ ~ ~

“If we’re not careful too much time will pass in Azra’s case,” said Sohlberg. “Leads will dry up. It will become an unsolved case . . . then a cold case” His eyes narrowed. “I hate unsolved cases. They drive me borderline insane. An unsolved case is like a sore in your mouth that you keep painfully tonguing over and over until it heals.”

Laprade nodded. “I agree. We have a cold case in the making . . . right under our noses. By the way . . . I finally received the toxicology report. Azra had no drugs at all in her system. On the other hand her boyfriend was too intoxicated by the heroin to shoot a gun at anyone . . . including himself.”

“Is that why the prosecutor refused to bring murder charges against the boyfriend?”

“Of course. Otelo Carvalho was only charged with heroin possession. The prosecutor added the charge of intent to distribute after the gendarmes found four one-kilo bricks of high-grade heroin buried under a storage shed in the backyard.”

“And now he’s dead after pleading guilty to the drug charges. Ain’t that convenient?”

“Sohlberg . . . that’s why this whole thing with the boyfriend . . . specially his timely death in prison . . . convinces me that we’re dealing with someone . . . someone very clever . . . and patient . . . someone who took a long hard look at the boyfriend before they decided that he’d be the perfect fall guy for Azra’s murder.”

“Yes. This was a professional hit on the woman posing as Azra Korbal. Planned in advance. Expertly executed. Highly organized. Ditto for how they picked the boyfriend as a patsy.”

“Yeah,” said Laprade. “But who did it . . . who ordered it? . . . The usual suspect list is endless. . . . Intelligence services . . . organized crime. . . .” Laprade downed the last of the cognac that the Sohlbergs had bought just for him. “We might never find out the who and the why.”

“I disagree. I think we know the why.”

“Operation Locust?”

“What else?” said Sohlberg. “It has to be Locust. Ditto for today’s explosion with Semtex. . . . It’s the favorite explosive of the Camorra.”

“True. But don’t forget that anyone can get their hands on Semtex nowadays. It’s even sold on the Internet.”

Sohlberg took a sip from a bottle of mineral water and said:

“Look . . . it was a matter of time . . . sooner or later the Camorra were going to figure out that we were the ones responsible for the big-time seizures of their drug boats.”

Laprade rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve been thinking about a little mystery.”

“Which one?”

“How did Azra or her boyfriend get so much heroin? . . . We know from the coroner that she didn’t partake of the white dragon. She was very clean. Toxicology shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she did not do heroin or other drugs. And . . . her boyfriend had no criminal record . . . he didn’t need to distribute or sell heroin. He had plenty of money from a family trust. Azra had a good income and no debt. . . . Why would they need to sell or transport heroin?”

Sohlberg tilted his head to the side as was his habit whenever he encountered a challenging puzzle. “Yes indeed. They had almost five kilos of heroin in that cottage. That’s far more than her junkie boyfriend could ever use for himself. Like you I’ve also been asking myself . . . how did they get it? . . . Where? . . . I looked at their travel and financial records and they had not left Lyon in more than ten months. . . . They had no large money transfers in or out of their accounts. . . . How did they buy or sell the heroin?”

“Interesting . . . ain’t it?” Laprade dropped his voice a notch. “No one in their neighborhood ever saw people coming in and out of their house. Also . . . I forgot to tell you. I got video from all the public places where they had been during the three weeks before her death. And not once did I see them accost anyone . . . or drop off any package. No one approached them and they didn’t visit anyone . . . except for you and your wife.”

“I hope we’re not suspects.”

“Not yet.”

Sohlberg appreciated the humor but he did not smile or laugh. The detective had the nagging feeling that Operation Locust was not going to end well.

Why did I ever get into this mess?