Sohlberg and the White Death (27 page)

“No. We asked for that but the higher-ups in Helsinki nixed forensic processing of the buildings in Salla for budgetary reasons . . . their thinking was why spend extra money when the murders took place out here . . . three hundred miles from Salla. They wanted us to first find the vehicles and then process them for fingerprints and other evidence.”

“What if the Range Rovers have been destroyed? . . . Burnt? . . . Junked and melted down for recycling? . . . Or sunk in some lake or fjord? . . . I say that both of us need any fingerprints and other evidence left behind in Salla.”

“You won’t hear me objecting.”

“Good. Would it help if I sent in a formal request? . . . After all we now have a total of eleven murder victims . . . nine in Norway . . . two in Finland.”

“A formal request would be great. I wouldn’t send it to the regional police department here or in Salla . . . I’d send it off to the National Bureau of Investigation to speed things up . . . their headquarters are in Vantaa . . . a suburb of Helsinki. By the way . . . Lukkari has an uncle who lives in Tromsø.”

“Really?”

“Niko Magga. Norwegian citizen. Works in construction. I called him but he refused to come meet with me. He stopped taking my calls.”

“Well. That’s changing today. I’ll pay him a visit tonight . . . or tomorrow at the latest.”

“Very good. Please keep us posted. By the way . . . what made you think of looking out here for related crimes? . . . After all . . . you have a much longer border with Sweden . . . and the
pulla
bread could’ve come through there. They sell lots of our bread down there. What made you come out here?”

“Let’s just say . . . a woman’s intuition.”

Chapter 18/Atten

TROMSØ, NORWAY: JULY 30, OR

THREE MONTHS AND 18 DAYS

AFTER THE DAY

At 2:00 AM the midsummer sun was as bright as it had been that day at two in the afternoon.

Skrautvol wondered how she was going to handle winter in Tromsø when the sun disappears for two months.

Would the awesome spectacle of the aurora borealis in the northern sky make a good substitute for the missing sun?

Probably.

The detective also looked forward to seeing the sublime beauty of the
Blue Light
during the darkest phase of winter. Rasch had mentioned that this blue twilight tints the sky for a couple of hours during the middle of the day when atmospheric reflection bounces the sun’s rays over the horizon into the city.

Chief Inspector Skrautvol tugged at her too-tight uniform while she sped out of downtown Tromsø—eerie and empty in the broad daylight of night.

Time to go hunting.

Although she hated getting up early Skrautvol happily embarked on her 2 AM mission. Experience had long ago taught her that a police officer would almost always catch someone in their residence at either 5 AM or 5 PM.

~ ~ ~

Skrautvol planned on arriving at 3 AM to set up an observation post from which to spend the next two hours watching her target and his home. She wanted to get a fix on the layout of buildings on the five-acre rural property. Then at 5 AM she would knock on the door and undoubtedly surprise Niko Magga—the uncle of the two murdered Finnish citizens whose bodies were dumped unceremoniously on a dirt road near the border.

The gas station clerk in Skibotn only saw seven people get in and out of the two Range Rovers. That’s perfectly clear in the videos. So where did the extra two dead bodies in Hansnes come from? . . . And . . . where are the two Rovers?

Skrautvol left Tromsøya Island behind. She swung the unmarked police cruiser past the airport and over to the enormous Sandnessund Bridge that led to Kvaløya or Whale Island northwest of Tromsø. The bridge rose 300 feet over the water and the car angled upwards to the apex of the bridge. Skrautvol was sure that she could see the bright star of Polaris pierce the bright blue sky.

The drive along Kvaløya’s southeast shores on Rv862 proved extremely enjoyable. The stunning views of distant mountains and sea and enchanting local bays motivated her to seriously consider buying a house on the island. Of course that would only happen if her
interim
appointment was made permanent.

Skrautvol drove past six miles of suburban homes sprawled among grassy meadows and forests. Kvaløya’s 285 square miles had become a suburb of Tromsø thanks to the island’s growing population of 11,000. More suburban tracts would’ve been laid out on the island if it did not have so many mountains with heights in excess of 2,000 feet.

The winding road led her to the narrow middle part of the island where small fjords almost cleaved Kvaløya into three separate islands. At a fork in the road she turned right and took Fjordvegen northbound. At Øska Bay she turned right on Ropnesvegen and right again into Innelwegen. Skrautvol eased the car to the end of the street where the views became even more spectacular. Towering mountains on other islands surfaced out of the sea like smoothly-angled porpoise fins.

~ ~ ~

Skrautvol parked the car on the side of the road and took out her binoculars to survey Magga’s property. The three-floor house at 322 Innelwegen faced the sea from a clearing in the forest at the end of a long gravel driveway. An enormous red barn was embedded further up the mountain’s lower slope. Another building sat half-hidden behind the barn.

Alright legs. Here we go.

The detective received one hellish workout after she walked into the neighbor’s property and hiked up the mountain. Thick brush and muddy creeks slowed her down. Her leg muscles burned and ached. She cut across into Magga’s property to take a closer look at the barn and the outbuilding which turned out to be a metal shop. The barn was locked and without windows. She couldn’t see anything inside. The shop’s windows however revealed lathes and other metal-working tools. A half hour later a light went on in an upstairs bedroom of the Magga household.

Time to go back down.

Skrautvol went slightly off course and was unable to retrace her exact route up the mountain. Twenty minutes later she stumbled upon an old three-car garage hidden by heavy brush and a tangle of Downy Birch. Skrautvol circled the decrepit building and found a large crack in the wood plank walls. She pushed her cell phone up into the crack and snapped a picture.

Her mouth almost dropped open when she looked at the image on her cell phone screen.

Two old white Range Rovers . . . with license plates from Finland.

Skrautvol dialed a special 24-hour forensics hotline. She identified herself and gave her security code and the street address where she needed a team.

“What team do you need Chief Inspector?”

“I need a vehicle team out here to process and tow away two Range Rovers. When? . . . Right now! . . . For what? Homicide . . . the Hansnes Murders. Make sure the team gets here without delay. I need the interiors and exteriors processed immediately for fingerprints and for possible D.N.A. from blood . . . skin . . . hair.”

After the call the detective went to pound on the front door of the residence. “Niko Magga! . . . Police! . . . Open up.”

A minute passed. The door swung open and an imposing Niko Magga stared stonily at Skrautvol in his work clothes. The six foot slab of muscle and grit held a gargantuan mug of steaming coffee. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“Jouni and Olav Lukkari.”

“Come in.”

~ ~ ~

At the kitchen table Skrautvol faced a defeated man. He seemed to have magically shrunk by several inches.

“My wife and kids are still sleeping upstairs. Can we keep this as quiet as possible?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Deep down I’ve been expecting you. In a way I’m glad you’re finally here.”

“Why didn’t you cooperate with the police in Finland when they called on you?”

“I didn’t want to get involved.”

“And yet you have your nephew’s cars in your garage.”

“We were supposed to meet in Furuflaten. He called me when he was in Salla . . . Finland.”

“When?”

“July sixteen.”

“What did he say?”

“He had important clients he was bringing in from Russia. But the old Rovers were breaking down all the time. He was furious about transmission problems with the newer Rover. The engine was pretty much shot in the older Rover. Jouni wanted to do some repairs on the Rovers here at my shop and then trade them in for new Toyota Land Cruisers in Tromsø. He said he was going to make a lot of money from the Russians and he wanted to buy the cars here before heading back home to Finland. He asked me to meet him in Furuflaten where he was going to drop off the clients.”

“Did he say where his clients were going?”

“No. I don’t know. I doubt if he knew. But he had overheard some things. He speaks . . . I mean he
spoke
some Russian . . . he overheard the clients who discussed a charter boat that was supposed to pick them up at the Furuflaten harbor.”

“Keep talking. . . .”

“I arrive at the agreed time and see the two Rovers by the marina . . . but not my nephew or his son. I waited and waited and called them dozens of times on their cell phones. No answer. Nothing. So I called my oldest son . . . he came to help me bring the cars back here.”

“Did you or your son get inside the cars?”

“No. They were locked.”

“So . . . how did you bring the Rovers here?”

“I have special trailers. I towed one of the Range Rovers with my pickup. My son pulled the other one with his pickup.”

“Have you cleaned the inside or outside of the cars?”

“No. I imagined that the homicide investigators would want to gather fingerprints and soil and mud samples from the car exteriors and interiors.”

“Wait a minute. Did you
know
that your relatives were dead when you went to pick up the cars?”

“Kind of. Yes. The confirmation to my suspicions was the fact that they were not there and weren’t answering their cell phones.”

“But that was
before
you got called by the police in Finland telling you that they had been murdered.”

“Yes.”

“So . . . how did you know that your relatives had been murdered when you couldn’t find them at the marina?”

“I’m Sami . . . I belong to the Bear Clan . . . our shaman told us that they would die with their clients. We warned my nephew before he left Salla. But he wouldn’t listen to the dreams and visions of the noaide.”

Skrautvol said, “I see.” But she did not.

~ ~ ~

At 8:00 AM Chief Inspector Skrautvol waited in her office for the Medical Examiner. She was upset. Forensics had just informed her that the interior of the two Range Rovers had been thoroughly wiped clean of fingerprints.

The sign of true professionals.

The vehicle exteriors had also been wiped clean except for the fingerprints of Niko Magga and his son on the windows and doors. The forensics team also informed Skrautvol that the two vehicles were now inside the lab facilities where the same team would process the interiors and exteriors for minute samples of DNA from any blood, hair, or skin cells that had been left behind. Mud and soil caked the undercarriage and the wheel wells. Samples from those locations would probably reveal further details on the route taken by the doomed expedition.

And yet we’re so far from the truth.

~ ~ ~

The weak summer sun glazed the land with a jaundiced light. Doktor Leif Jørgensen strode in at exactly 8:30 AM. He held a pale yellow manila folder in his left hand. He firmly shook Skrautvol’s hand. The doctor laid down the folder on the conference table and he stood and waited—like a true gentleman—for Skrautvol to sit down first. She tremendously enjoyed the fact that not once did his eyes wander down to her substantial bust or cast disapproving looks at her overweight body or her disheveled hair.

“I,” said Dr. Jørgensen, “ordered isotope geo-referencing on all nine victims so we could get a better idea of their identity.”

“Sorry . . . but you ordered isotope geo-what?”

“Geo-referencing. It’s based on the scientific fact that . . . like fingerprints . . . every single region of the planet is chemically different from the other. For example . . . the chemicals of the rocks and soil here in Tromsø are totally different from the chemicals of the rocks and soil down in Narvik which is just eighty miles south of here. . . .

“The same goes for the difference between rocks and soil in Tromsø and rocks and soil in Oslo and Bergen. Our city has very different rocks and soil from those found in Stockholm or Copenhagen or New York.”