The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer: A gripping new thriller with a killer twist Joël Dicker (booksvooks TXT) 📖

or at her parents’ house, we decided to go back to Orphea and check Stephanie’s computer in the Chronicle offices.

It was five o’clock when we got there. The editor led us between his employees’ desks. He pointed to Stephanie’s tidy desk, on which stood a computer screen, a keyboard, a box of Kleenex, a mug with a prodigious number of identical pens, a notepad, and a few scattered papers. I looked through them quickly without finding anything very interesting.

“Could someone have had access to her computer since she’s been away?”

As I spoke, I pressed the computer’s ON button.

“No,” the editor said. “The computers are protected by individual passwords.”

The computer did not come on, so I pressed the button again.

“So there’s no possibility that anyone could have had a look at Stephanie’s computer without her knowing?”

“None at all,” Bird assured us. “Only Stephanie has the password. Nobody else, not even the I.T. guy. In fact, I don’t know how you’ll be able to look at her computer if you don’t have the password.”

“We have specialists who can manage that. But I’d at least like to switch it on.” I leaned down under the desk to make sure that the computer tower was properly connected, but there was no tower. There was nothing.

I looked up again and asked, “Where is Stephanie’s computer?”

“It’s under there, isn’t it?”

“No, there’s nothing there!”

Bird and Betsy immediately bent down to check. There was nothing there but cables hanging down.

“Someone stole Stephanie’s computer!” Bird exclaimed, stunned.

By 6.30, the street outside the Chronicle building was a mass of vehicles from the Orphea police department and the State Police.

Inside, an officer from the forensics squad confirmed to us that someone had indeed broken in to the offices. Bird, Betsy and I followed him in procession to an electrical room in the basement that also served as a storeroom and as the emergency exit. At the end of the room, a door led out to a steep staircase that went back up to street level. Someone had smashed the window and had only needed to put his hand through it to turn the handle from the inside and open the door.

“Do you ever come to this room?” I asked the editor.

“Never. Nobody comes to the basement. There’s nothing but the archives down here, and we very rarely look at them.”

“No alarm, no cameras?” Betsy said.

“No, who’d pay for that? Believe me, if we had the money, it’d go on the plumbing first.”

“We tried to find prints on the handles,” the forensics officer explained, “but there are so many prints, mixed up with all kinds of filth, that they’re unusable. We haven’t found anything around Stephanie’s desk either. In my opinion, the intruder came through that door, went upstairs, took the computer, and got out the same way.”

We went back to the editorial office. “Mr Bird,” I said, “could it be a member of your team who did this?”

“No way!” he said, offended. “I have complete confidence in my colleagues.”

“So how do you explain how someone unfamiliar with this office could have known which one was Stephanie’s computer?”

“I have no idea,” he sighed.

“Who’s first here in the morning?” Betsy said.

“Shirley. She opens the offices every morning.”

We sent for Shirley.

“Over the last few mornings, have you noticed anything unusual when you got here?” I asked her.

Puzzled at first, Shirley searched in her memory. Suddenly, her eyes lit up.

“I didn’t see anything myself. But on Tuesday morning, one of the reporters, Newton, told me his computer was on. He knew he’d switched it off the day before because he’d been the last to leave. He made a scene, saying that someone had switched on his computer without his permission, but I reckoned he’d simply forgotten to switch it off.”

“Which is Newton’s desk?”

“It’s the one next to Stephanie’s.”

I pressed the button to switch on the computer, knowing there wouldn’t be any usable prints on it because it had been used in the meantime. The screen lit up.

NEWTON’S COMPUTER

PASSWORD:

“He switched on the first computer,” I said, “saw the name, and realized it wasn’t the right one. Then he switched on the second one and Stephanie’s name appeared. He didn’t need to look any farther.”

“Which tells us it was someone from outside who did this,” Bird said, reassured.

“What it means more than anything is that the burglary took place on Monday night. In other words, the night Stephanie disappeared.”

“Disappeared? What do you mean, disappeared?”

My only response was to ask him, “Mr Bird, could you print me all the articles Stephanie has written since she started here at the paper?”

“Of course. But aren’t you going to tell me what’s going on, Captain? Do you think something’s happened to Stephanie?”

“Yes, I do. And I think it’s serious.”

I left Betsy in the offices and ran into Chief Gulliver and the mayor of Orphea, Alan Brown, discussing the situation on the sidewalk. The mayor recognized me immediately. It was as if he had seen a ghost.

“You are here?”

“I wish we were meeting again under different circumstances.”

“What circumstances? What’s going on? Since when do the State Police get involved in a simple burglary?”

“You have no authority to do anything here!” Chief Gulliver said.

“There’s been a disappearance in this town, Chief Gulliver, and dis-appearances are the remit of the State Police.”

“A disappearance?” Mayor Brown said in a choked voice.

“There’s no disappearance!” Chief Gulliver cried in exasperation. “You don’t have the slightest evidence, Captain Rosenberg! Have you called the D.A.’s office? That’s what you should have done if you’re so sure of yourself! Maybe I should give them a call.”

I did not reply and left.

That night, at three in the morning, the Orphea fire department was called out to a blaze at 77 Bendham Road, Stephanie Mailer’s address.

DEREK SCOTT

July 30, 1994, the evening of the quadruple murder.

It was 8.55 when we arrived in Orphea. We had driven across Long Island in record time.

Siren screaming, we got to the corner of Main Street, which was closed off due to the opening of the