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

“Nothing the local police can’t deal with. So don’t come here and create more chaos, O.K.? The town isn’t in great shape financially, and everyone’s counting on the summer season and the theater festival to put us back on our feet. If the tourists are scared, they won’t come.”

“I am sorry to insist, Mr Mayor, but I believe this may be something very serious.”

“You don’t have the first clue, Captain Rosenberg. Chief Gulliver told me yesterday that Stephanie’s car hasn’t been seen since Monday. What if she’s simply taken off for a few days? And I made a few calls about you. I hear you’re retiring on Monday.”

Betsy gave me a strange look. “Jesse, are you quitting the police?”

“I’m not going anywhere until I get to the bottom of all this.”

I understood the kind of reach Mayor Brown had when, after leaving Bendham Road, as Betsy and I were on our way back to the Orphea police station, I received a call from my commander, Major McKenna.

“Rosenberg,” he said, “the mayor of Orphea is on my back. He says you’re spreading panic in the town.”

“A woman has disappeared, sir,” I said, “and it may have something to do with the quadruple murder of 1994.”

“That case is closed, Rosenberg. You should know that—you solved it.”

“I know, sir. But I’m starting to wonder if we didn’t miss something at the time.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The woman who’s gone missing is a reporter who’s been looking into the case. Maybe it’s a sign we should dig deeper.”

“Rosenberg, according to the local police chief, you don’t have a single reason to be digging deeper,” McKenna said impatiently. “Right now, you’re spoiling my Saturday, and two days before you leave the force you’re making a fool of yourself. Is that really what you want?”

I said nothing, and McKenna resumed, in a friendlier tone:

“Listen to me. I’m leaving with my family for Lake Champlain for the weekend, and when I do I’ll make sure I leave my cell phone at home. I’ll be unreachable until tomorrow evening and back in the office on Monday morning. You have until first thing on Monday to find something solid to show me. Otherwise, you come back nicely to the office, as if nothing has happened. We’ll have a drink to celebrate your departure and I don’t want to hear any more about this story. Is that clear?”

“Got it, sir. Thanks.”

I didn’t have much time. In Betsy’s office, we started sticking the different elements of the case on a whiteboard.

“According to the other journalists,” I said, “the theft of the computer from the editorial offices can only have taken place on Monday night. The break-in at the apartment took place on Thursday night, and finally there was the fire last night.”

“What are you getting at?” Betsy said, handing me a cup of burning hot coffee.

“Well, this suggests that what this person was looking for wasn’t on the office computer, and this forced him or her to search Stephanie Mailer’s apartment. Obviously without success, since he took the risk of coming back the following night and setting fire to it. Why act this way unless he hoped to destroy the files if he couldn’t get his hands on them?”

“So what we’re looking for may still be out there.”

“Exactly,” I said. “But where?”

I had brought Stephanie’s telephone and bank records with me, having picked them up the previous day from headquarters.

“Let’s start by trying to find out who phoned Stephanie as she left the Kodiak Grill,” I said, searching through the documents until I found the list of the last calls made and received.

Stephanie had received a call at 10.03. Then she had phoned the same person twice in a row, at 10.05 and 10.10. The first call lasted barely a second, the second lasted twenty seconds.

Betsy sat down at her computer. I read out the number of the call received by Stephanie at 10.03 and she looked in the search engine for the corresponding subscriber.

“My God, Jesse!” she exclaimed.

“What?” I said, rushing to the screen.

“The number is that of the phone booth in the Kodiak Grill!”

“Someone called Stephanie from the Kodiak Grill just after she left the place?”

“Someone was watching her,” Betsy said. “All the time she was waiting, someone was watching her.”

Going back to the records, I underlined the last number dialed by Stephanie. I read that one out and Betsy entered it into the system.

She was astonished at the name that appeared on her computer. “No, it must be a mistake!” she said, suddenly white. She asked me to repeat the number and tapped the keys frenetically as she once more entered the number.

I approached the screen and read the name. “Sean O’Donnell. What’s the problem, Betsy? Do you know him?”

“I know him very well,” she said, dismayed. “Sean O’Donnell is one of my officers.”

*

Having been shown the phone records, Chief Gulliver could not refuse me permission to question Sean O’Donnell. He had him brought in from patrol and put in an interview room. When I walked in, accompanied by Betsy and Chief Gulliver, Sean half rose from his chair, as if his legs were giving way.

“Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” he demanded anxiously.

“Sit down,” Gulliver said. “Captain Rosenberg has some questions to ask you.”

Gulliver and I sat down at the table, facing him. Betsy kept back, standing by the wall.

“Sean,” I said, “I know Stephanie Mailer called you on Monday night. You’re the last person she tried to contact. What are you hiding from us?”

Sean took his head in his hands. “Captain,” he moaned, “I fucked up. I’m sorry. I should have told Chief Gulliver. I wanted to, I really did!”

“But you didn’t, Sean. So now you have to tell us everything.”

He spoke only after a long sigh. “Stephanie and I dated for a time. We met in a bar, a while back. I was the one who approached her and, to be honest with you, she didn’t seem too