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

“Me? Impossible! What would people say? Can you imagine . . .? Anyway, I know your work on the Literary Review and how good you are, I’ll pay all your expenses while you’re writing. And when the book comes out you’ll be a rich and famous writer, and I’ll be a calmer man. I’ll finally have the satisfaction of knowing the answers to questions that have been haunting me for twenty years. And the pleasure of seeing this book actually out there. If you solve the mystery, it’ll make a wonderful detective story. The readers will love it.”

It has to be admitted, the story did make for a fascinating read. Stephanie told how she had gotten herself hired by the Orphea Chronicle as a cover to allow her to investigate the 1994 murders at her leisure.

It was difficult, though, to distinguish what was true from what was fiction. If she was only telling the truth of what had happened, then who was this mysterious sponsor who had asked her to write the book? And why? She did not give his name, but she did make clear that it was someone she knew, someone who had, apparently, been in the Grand Theater on the night of the murders.

“That may be why I’m so obsessed by what happened. I was in the theater, watching the play. A very ordinary production of ‘Uncle Vanya’. The real drama, a fascinating one, was taking place a few streets away, in the Penfield neighborhood. Every day since then, I have been wondering what exactly happened, and every day I have been telling myself that this story would make a wonderful mystery novel.”

“But from what I heard, the murderer was found. It was a man named Ted Tennenbaum, who owned a restaurant in Orphea.”

“I know, Stephanie. I also know that everything points to his guilt. But I’m not convinced. He was the fire officer on duty in the theater that night. Just before seven, I went out onto the street to get a breath of fresh air and saw a van drive by. It was easy to recognize because of the unusual sticker on the rear window. Sometime afterward, reading the newspapers, I realized it was Ted Tennenbaum’s vehicle. The problem is, it wasn’t him at the wheel.”

“What’s all this about a van?” Betsy said.

“Tennenbaum’s van was one of the principal things that led to his arrest,” Derek said. “A witness stated categorically that it was parked outside the mayor’s house just before the murders.”

“So it was his van, but he wasn’t at the wheel?” Betsy said.

“That’s what this guy seems to be saying,” I said. “And why Stephanie told me we had nailed the wrong man.”

“So someone doubted his guilt but never said anything in all this time?” Derek said.

It was clear to all three of us that if Stephanie had disappeared of her own free will, she would never have left without her computer.

Unhappily, this conviction of ours was to prove correct. The following morning, Wednesday, July 2, an amateur birder walking on the shore of Stag Lake noticed a mass floating in the distance, in among rushes and water lilies. Intrigued, she looked through her binoculars. It took her only a few moments to realize it was a human body.

DEREK SCOTT

August 1994. Our investigation was going nowhere. We had neither a suspect nor a motive. If Mayor Gordon and his family had indeed been meaning to flee Orphea, we had no idea of their intended desti-nation or of the reason. We did not have a single clue, a single lead. Nothing in the behavior of Leslie or Joseph Gordon had alarmed their nearest and dearest, and their bank accounts indicated nothing abnormal.

To retrace the killer’s steps, even if we did not yet understand his motive, we needed something specific to go on. Thanks to the ballistics experts, we knew that the weapon used for the murders was a Beretta pistol, and, to judge by the accuracy of the shooting, the murderer was well trained. We were drowning in weapons registrations and membership lists from shooting clubs.

We did have one thing, though, which might change the course of the investigation: the vehicle spotted on the street by Lena Bellamy just before the murders. She vaguely remembered a black van, with an impressive drawing on the rear window.

Jesse and I spent hours with her, showing her images of every possi-ble vehicle.

“How about this one?” we would ask her.

She would look closely at the photographs propped up in front of her and reply, “It’s really hard to say.”

“When you say a van, do you mean a van or a pickup?”

“What’s the difference? You know, the more vehicles you show me, the more confused I am.”

For all Lena Bellamy’s goodwill, we were going round in circles. And time was not on our side. Major McKenna was putting a lot of pressure on us.

“Well?” he would repeat. “Tell me you have something, guys.”

“Nothing yet, sir. It’s a real puzzle.”

“Dammit, you really have to make some progress. Don’t tell me I made a mistake about you. This is a big case and everyone in the squad is waiting to see you screw up. You know what they’re saying about you around the coffee machine? That you’re amateurs. You’re going to look like idiots, I’m going to look like an idiot, and all this is going to be very unpleasant for everyone. So I need you to think about nothing but this case. Four people dead in broad daylight—there has to be a lead somewhere.”

We were living and breathing the case. Twenty hours a day, seven days a week. I was practically living with Jesse and Natasha. There were three toothbrushes in their bathroom now.

It was thanks to Lena Bellamy that the investigation took a dramatic new turn.

Ten days after the murders, her husband took her out for dinner. Since that terrible night of July 30, Lena had been so worried and nervous that she had barely left