Sohlberg and the Missing Schoolboy: an Inspector Sohlberg mystery (Inspector Sohlberg Mysteries) (20 page)

“So . . . Inspector Eliassen gets Rønning to use the sane part of his mind to logically chose to confess . . . and to convince or force the insane part of himself into accepting a confession that allows Rønning to eventually use an insanity defense that will let him avoid going to prison here and eventually getting extradited to some nasty foreign prison where he could get life or the death penalty. . . . Basically Rønning’s again been offered the chance to get off scot-free by having psychiatrists treat him for a few years and later declare him sane.”

“That’s awful Chief Inspector.”

“The ugly truth is that it’s a great deal for the killer . . . no? After all . . . if some shrink could ever come up with a treatment to cure Rønning from his insane compulsions then it’s all real good for the killer. He’s finally free of his insane half. And if they can’t treat him then he gets a second proverbial bite at the apple when he’s released after his maximum twenty-one-year sentence here in Norway.”

“Uuughh!”

“That’s the way of the world unfortunately.”

“So what happens to the Smiley Face Killer?”

“Anton Rønning breaks down completely and confesses. Inspector Eliassen even gets him talking about his childhood . . . Rønning breaks down in tears . . . literally trembling and shaking when he talks about the horrible childhood he had with a mother and grandmother who beat him mercilessly. The two women starved him for days while he was locked up in a small dark closet. He also talks about how he had been molested and raped as a child by his mother’s boyfriend. The confession lasts almost two weeks.”

“Wow! That’s something else.”

“Do you see Constable Wangelin? . . . You
must
get inside their heads. You must find their passions and fears . . . find out their true thoughts however irrational or illogical or disgusting. . . .You
must
see the world from their point-of-view.”

“How will this Smiley Face Killer help us?”

“A craftsman always recognizes similar handiwork. Rønning will tell us if a stranger took Karl Haugen. Rønning knows all about taking little boys.”

“What an animal.” Wangelin shook her head in disgust.

“Rønning is an animal . . . a predator. . . . By the early seventies Anton Rønning had already killed at least twelve children here in Norway and Sweden and many many more in Germany and Russia and the United States. And Hungary. Bulgaria. Spain. Portugal. Greece.

“During a two-week summer vacation he killed three boys in Iceland alone and four in Greenland. He was a master at luring and taking the children without anyone seeing him in broad daylight . . . much like Chikatilo in Russia. I’ve always suspected that Anton Rønning killed many more innocents in Canada and the U.S.A.”

“What was his M.O.?”

“He’d lure them with a story about him or his pet being lost. He’d molest them and then kill them . . . all under twenty minutes . . . because he didn’t want them to live with the nightmare of the molestation . . . the same nightmare that had haunted and tortured him since he was molested as a six-year-old. Or as he told me . . . ‘
I needed to break the chain
’ . . . and he did. Whenever possible he used a heavy gold chain to strangle them. He then left a Smiley Face painted in lipstick or red crayon or red ink marker on their bodies.”

“Smiley Face . . . what’s that?”

“The sixties and seventies had two symbols . . . the peace symbol with the three branches and the smiling face with two dots for eyes and a crescent-shaped smile. Anton Rønning picked the well-known Smiley Face because it symbolized the fake
happy
face that molestation victims are forced to put on for the world . . . a generic smiley face that reinforces the anonymity and secrets of the victims of molestation. Eliassen even got Rønning to tell him about several children whose bodies have never been found.”

“Wait. Just who is this Inspector Eliassen? I’ve never heard of him.”

“A genius.”

“The name doesn’t sound familiar.”

“Shouldn’t be. Lars Eliassen spent his entire life as a small town policeman from the Romsdal valley . . . never cared for promotions. . . . He put in fifteen years as a constable . . . then ten as an inspector and five as chief inspector in the Møre og Romsdal district. He never sought the spotlight . . . he avoided it . . . let his bosses do all the talking and get all the credit especially when he got a full confession from the Smiley Face Killer. Afterwards Eliassen refused to be promoted above chief inspector.”

“How did you know him?”

“I . . . I mean he . . . he investigated. . . .” Sohlberg decided to go for the half-truth instead of a lie. He could not tell her the whole truth. One Norwegian tradition that he decide to observe was that co-workers never made friendships at work or otherwise discussed in detail their personal lives at work.

“He investigated what Chief Inspector?”

“Eliassen investigated a fatal climbing accident that I witnessed . . . you see I used to climb back then. Someone fell and Eliassen had to investigate and confirm it was an accident.”

“How sad!”

“It was. . . . Something like that makes you think about life and whether you’re doing what you really love and want to be doing . . . less than a year after the accident I gave up my law practice and became a police officer just like Eliassen.

“We later became friends . . . he had impressed me so much with his questions . . . and how can I phrase it? His compassion. His understanding. I’ll never forget how he got inside my mind and immediately saw that the climber’s fall was an accident.”

“Did he think it was murder . . . or suicide?”

“For a time. Inspector Eliassen had to investigate all the possibilities. That’s what a good cop does.”

“I would’ve liked meeting him.”

“I saw him on and off for a long time. He died two years ago. I came to his funeral. Too bad he’s not here or we’d go get his advice.”

Sohlberg closed his eyes. He wanted to tell Wangelin that the dead are still with us long after the grief fades away and that even if you are an atheist who does not believe in the afterlife the fact remains that the dead are still with us even if just by leaving that empty place behind in our hearts or memories. Karoline gone. Harald Junior gone. Lars Eliassen gone. Soon others would be gone. His parents and then he himself and Emma Sohlberg would be gone. Death and grieving.

He had to find out who in Karl Haugen’s family mourned the empty spot left behind by Karl Haugen.

Who was in grief over Karl Haugen?

Who was
not
grieving over the missing boy?

The one who was
not
grieving over the missing boy is the kidnaper and maybe even the killer of Karl Haugen.

Was the Haugen home a house of mourning?

~ ~ ~

The car’s rocking motion lulled Sohlberg into a deep sleep.

He dreamed that he was locked inside a dank underground prison. Spiders skittered over him while he read a letter in a cell that he shared with Anton Rønning. The Smiley Face Killer began chasing him with a butcher knife. Sohlberg ran down the frigid and pitch-black corridors where other prisoners tried to pull him into their cells.

The depraved inmates reached out to him with their clawing hands and their angry recriminations:

“Hey cop . . . you put me in here. Now you die in here.”

Sohlberg moaned loudly and woke up.

“You okay Chief Inspector?”

“Just a nightmare.”

“I have those too.”

“Sorry to hear that Constable Wangelin.”

“I was warned before I joined the force. Some of us will sleep perfectly and peacefully. Some of us will have nasty dreams about all the toxic people and crimes that we come across.”

Sohlberg nodded. “And for some of us . . . our dreams will get worse as we see more and more awful people and crimes as time goes by.”

“A career hazard,” said Wangelin with a grim smile.

“Yes. Few people understand what it’s like to have a first-hand look at evil.”

“How true Chief Inspector. That’s why . . . in the short time that I’ve been in the force . . . I’ve come to one conclusion . . . there’s no God. None.”

“I’m sorry that you feel that way Constable Wangelin.”

“It’s not just that I
feel
that way . . . it’s a logical and very rational conclusion when you see the suffering and the evil that’s in the world.”

“Like why do innocent children die . . . from accidents or from disease or from crime?”

“Exactly.”

“Why do bad things happen to good people?”

“You got it . . . . And if there
is
a God then I’m very angry at Him for letting horrible things happen to us down here.”

“I don’t blame you for the anger . . . I also used to think that way until one of my Utah friends . . . Alec Mikesell . . . asked me a question that changed my thinking.”

“What was the question?”

“Have you ever considered the fact that human beings are not robots who are forced to do good and be good all the time? . . . We have free choice . . . free will . . . isn’t
that
God’s great gift to mankind?”

“Well . . . but that means we have to suffer the evil and mean and dumb decisions of other people.”

“Yes. Even our own bad decisions. We have to suffer wars and crimes and earthquakes and all the other good and bad things that mortal existence throws our way. . . . Otherwise how would we learn? . . . How would we progress beyond an innocent carefree childhood? . . .

“We’re here to experience good and evil.

“Happiness and grief.

“Life and death.

“Health and disease.

“Without those polar opposites we’d know nothing. We’d appreciate nothing.

“We would live and die as undeveloped or underdeveloped human beings. It would be like being stuck in kindergarten or the first grade the rest of your life. You’d never progress.”

“I . . . I . . . well . . . I have to say there’s a strong logic in what you’re saying
if
there’s a God.”

“Even if God does not exist you have to admit that life has a much greater meaning once you understand that human beings
need
to experience good and evil . . . joy and grief . . . health and illness . . . life and death.”

Wangelin shrugged and fell into a moody silence. An overpowering slumber soon caught up with Sohlberg.

~ ~ ~

The car stopped. Sohlberg opened his eyes and he was surprised that he had fallen deeply asleep.

For how long?

They had pulled into a Statoil gas station. His eyes popped wide open when he saw the $ 12 a gallon price on the digital display. That was 400% more than what he paid in the USA. He wondered why Norwegians put up with outrageous prices at home when their government-owned Statoil exported billions of dollars of oil to other countries where gasoline was far cheaper than in Norway.