Sohlberg and the Missing Schoolboy: an Inspector Sohlberg mystery (Inspector Sohlberg Mysteries) (39 page)

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WHITE DEATH IN TROMSØ: AN INSPECTOR HAROLD SOHLBERG MYSTERY

by

JENS AMUNDSEN

Published simultaneously in the USA and Norway.

Copyright (c) 2011 by Nynorsk Forlag.

Translation copyright (c) 2011 by Nynorsk Forlag.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Chief Inspector Sohlberg investigates a mass grave near Tromsø, the most northern city of Norway, just 1,242 miles from the North Pole. He uncovers more than nine murdered victims in a suspenseful investigation that involves the ultimate threat to Western civilization.

Ch. 1/Én

MORNING OF THE DAY, TUESDAY, JULY 6

Only 1242 miles separate Tromsø from the North Pole. The same amount of miles separate Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay from the North Pole. Tromsø however is much warmer and more hospitable to human life than Prudhoe Bay thanks to the Gulf Current which brings warm waters to Norway all the way from the sunny hot climes of Florida and the Caribbean. But geography like the stars is not at fault for human events.

“I’ve never seen so many bodies,” said Constable Lars Rasch of the Troms politidistrikt. He did not exaggerate. Rasch had never even seen one single homicide victim during his five years as a policeman in the northernmost city of Norway. He stared at the row of frozen bodies buried in the permafrost.

“Look like sardines in a can . . . don’t they Rasch?”

The constable said nothing. Instead he looked in disgust at Per Moen the owner of the fish shack that had become the tomb for nine corpses. Rasch turned his gaze upon the sea. The morning’s storm had washed the sky and the ocean and the islands in depressing shades of gray that seemed to merge into one mournful salute to the dead.

“Hey Rasch . . . how soon can you move the stiffs out? . . . I need to have a place to store my stock out here. It’ll cost me a fortune if I have to move my inventory elsewhere. . . . I imagine I’ll be compensated for my building getting torn apart to get these popsicles out of here . . . no?”

Rasch grunted. He had always heard and now knew for a fact that Moen was a man obsessed by one thing only—the bottom line.

“Look . . . we’ll discuss this later.”

“No. Now. Let’s talk now. I don’t want your people ripping up my land when they dig up the stiffs. I swear I’ll sue the police if you don’t put everything back to the way it used to be. This might just ruin my fishing operations if you keep blocking me from access to my land and fish shack and dock.

“Rasch . . . don’t you understand?

“I need this shack to keep my fish cold in the permafrost below . . . I can’t afford refrigeration. My great-grandfather found this spot . . . and now you’re going to ruin me! . . . I swear I’ll sue for millions and get you fired if I’m not allowed back in tomorrow.”

“Do whatever you need to do. But right now you need to leave this crime scene.”

“Hey Rasch you little jerk . . . ever since you joined the police you’ve been acting like you’re a real big man in town. I remember when you went to school with my little brother and he used to beat the daylights out of you.”

“Are you leaving or not?”

“Alright . . . alright. Save the tough guy looks for someone else.”

Rasch sighed as soon as he was alone. He knew that he too would soon have to leave the area that he had cordoned off in police tape. Forensics promised him they’d be over to start processing the shack within the hour. He wanted to but decided against ripping up the rest of the wood floor planks that he and Moen had pulled up.

One of the corpses caught Rasch’s attention. A large white towel covered a barefoot man. The blood-soaked frozen-stiff towel read:

WELCOME TO TROMSØ!

Constable Rasch could not help thinking that Tromsø had turned out not to have been all that hospitable or welcoming to the nine bodies that he had found shot point-blank in the back of the head and buried quite unceremoniously under Moen’s fish shack in a remote location on the island of Reinøya.

“Let’s see,” said Rasch to himself, “if I can get the old city slicker out here.”

The constable took out his cell phone and dialed his boss who was at headquarters just 30 miles south of him. While Rasch dialed he noticed what appeared to be a square booklet next to one of the bodies.

~ ~ ~

“What . . . nine bodies?” said Chief Inspector Fredrik Waldemar Hvoslef of the Troms politidistrikt. “Shot in the head? . . . Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Constable Rasch while he stared at the nine corpses. “All of the bodies have one hole in the back of the head . . . and big exit wounds in the front or the top of their heads.”

“Arrange for the autopsies . . . call in forensic services to help you.”

“I already did. Aren’t you coming?”

“I . . . I can’t,” said Chief Inspector Hvoslef. He did not like leaving his comfortable and warm offices at 122 Grønnegata in downtown Tromsø. Nor did he want to travel on a small boat to the crime scene because he easily got seasick. In fact Hvoslef a transplant from Oslo rarely left the small island of Tromsøya where most of the city was located.

“You can’t?”

Hvoslef could almost hear the contempt on the other side of the telephone call. The constable seemed to ignore the fact that Tromsø sits 186 miles
north
of the Arctic Circle. In Hvoslef’s mind this cruel geographical fact meant that he faced imminent death year-round if he left the city limits to venture into the Arctic wastelands. Even during the summer months Chief Inspector Hvoself felt threatened by the vast empty wilderness that surrounded him.

“Sir . . . I think you need to come out here. I found a passport and an Interpol badge next to one of the bodies.”

“What?”

“Yes . . . the pictures on the badge and passport match the dead man’s face perfectly.”

“Where’s the passport from?”

“Russia.”

Chief Inspector Hvoslef realized that he’d have to venture out of his warm safety zone. He absolutely hated the outdoors with a passion especially in the Arctic police district that he had been assigned to three years ago. He was obsessed with the idea of his freezing to death in the Land of White Death. But he had no choice.

“Sir? . . . Can you hear me?”

“Yes! . . . I’ll be over there.”

~ ~ ~

“I told you not to get involved.”

“It’s done. Besides . . . I had to. What do you think? . . . That I could just walk away?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not me.”

“Since when are you . . . a poaching thief . . . such a moral and upstanding citizen?”

“Enough.”

“You steal cod and halibut and salmon . . . other men’s catch for a living. I told you to stay away from Moen’s place. He’s always suspected you.”

“Stop.”

“This will bring us trouble. Big trouble.”

“Enough.”

“They will find out it was you.”

He looked out to the sea and scanned the horizon. His blue eyes burned with Viking vigor. “No one will find us.”

“They will find us.”

“Enough.”

“You’ll see . . . you can’t stop this. I can’t believe you got us into such a mess. This is not good. We’re in big big trouble.”

He shook his head and started planning how to ambush and kill anyone who landed on his island.

~ ~ ~

Seasickness tormented Chief Inspector Hvoslef. Nausea continued to plague him even two hours after he had landed on the northwest shores of the island of Reinøya.

Constable Rasch leaned over and said, “Are you okay?”

Without any conviction Hvoslef nodded and weakly said, “Yes.”

The austere cliff-scraped landscape and the odd-shaped mountains and the thin and sporadic green plants and brush served as grim reminders to Hvoslef that this was indeed the Land of White Death and that he must return to town as soon as possible. Nearby clumps of spindly Downy Birch seemed ominous if not cruel hoaxes in comparison to the lush Scandinavian forests that grew south of the Arctic Circle. Shrieking seagulls added a dirge that promised death or madness.

Hvoslef’s discomfort increased even more when he saw Leif Jørgensen the Third approach him.

“Chief Inspector,” said the 68-year-old doctor, “what have we here?”

“Nine dead men. Shot execution-style in the back of the head.”

Hvoslef went on to give the doctor a brief summary of the investigation thus far. He intensely disliked the medical examiner who had an imperial air of intellectual superiority.

Except for Hvoslef everyone in Tromsø felt that Jørgensen’s arrogance was well-earned because the doctor was the third generation of Leif Jørgensens MDs who had served as highly-respected medical examiners of Troms County.

Hvoslef eyed the balding doctor and his angular bird-like features and giant beak of a nose and loathed him even more. This third version of Leif Jørgensens had also worked for decades as a professor of forensic pathology at the University of Tromsø’s School of Medicine
and
at the University Hospital of North Norway and despite suicide being the leading cause of death in Troms County the good doctor like his father and grandfather always checked off the box marked ACCIDENT instead of the box marked SUICIDE for the sake of the surviving family and friends and the dead one’s memory and that’s why Troms natives adored the Leif Jørgensens especially for the Jørgensens never having left Tromsø for Oslo as did most other educated or wealthy people in the forlorn land peopled with melancholy.

“Well now,” declared Jørgensen, “I guess it’s time to find out what really happened to these folks.”

Hvoslef’s face reddened at the stinging slight implied in the comment—that Jørgensen the medical doctor and medico-legal expert and not Hvoslef the police detective would discover what had really transpired at the crime scene. Hvoslef decided it was time to cut the doctor down a little. “Herr doktor . . . it’s rather obvious that each of these nine men have been murdered with a gunshot wound to the head. Isn’t it now?”

“No it’s not obvious. . . . I won’t know the cause of death until I fully examine the bodies. They may have other wounds somewhere in their bodies. . . . Those wounds may or may not be fatal . . . and those wounds may or may not be pre-existing to the cranial wounds. I won’t know
that
until their clothes are removed and I determine the exact cause of death. Also . . . all or some of these individuals may have drowned or been poisoned first.”

“Why would anyone shoot these nine men in the head if they were already dead?”