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

a strange idea! You know, I’m impressed by how much people here read. They always have a book in their hands. The other day, I was having dinner in the restaurant, and, believe it or not, at the next table was a young couple sitting face to face, each of them deep in a book! I told myself, people have gone crazy. Talk to each other, dammit, instead of being engrossed in your book! On top of that, sunbathers go to the beach carrying piles of reading matter. It’s their drug.”

Springfield listened, amused, to the mayor’s story. He found him affable, sympathetic, good-natured. Maybe he’d been barking up the wrong tree. But there was an ulterior motive behind Gordon’s visit.

“I wanted to ask you a question, Cody,” the mayor said. “As you know, July 30 is the opening night of our very first theater festival.”

“Yes, of course I know,” Springfield said enthusiastically. “I’ve already ordered several different editions of ‘Uncle Vanya’for my customers.”

“What a good idea! Anyway, here’s what I wanted to ask you. Steven Bergdorf, the editor of the Chronicle, as you know, has written a little book about the festival. Do you think you could put it on sale here? Look, I brought you a copy.”

He handed Springfield the booklet. The cover had on it a photograph of the mayor posing outside the Grand Theater, with the title above it.

“History of the Festival,” Springfield read out loud. “But this is only the first festival, isn’t it? Don’t you think it’s a bit premature to have a book about it?”

“Well, there’s already so much to say about the subject. You may be in for quite a surprise.”

Springfield did not see what possible interest there might be in the book, but he wanted to show willing to the mayor, so he agreed for it to be sold in his store. Once Gordon had left, Meghan Padalin reappeared.

“What did he want?”

“To promote a booklet he’s publishing.”

She softened and leafed through the little book. “It doesn’t look too bad. You know, there are quite a lot of people in the area who self-publish. We should put a little corner aside for them so they can put their works on sale here.”

“A corner? We’re short of space as it is. And besides, nobody will be interested. People don’t want to read their neighbors’ books.”

“Let’s use the storeroom in back,” Meghan said. “A coat of paint and it’ll be like new. We’ll make it a room for local writers. You’ll see—writers buy books. They’ll come from all over the region to see their own books on the shelves and at the same time they’ll make purchases.”

Yes, Springfield thought, it might be a good idea. And besides, he wanted to please Mayor Gordon. He could sense that something was amiss and he did not like that.

“We can try it if you like, Meghan,” he said. “We have nothing to lose. If nothing more comes of it, we’ll have tidied the storeroom. Anyway, thanks to Mayor Gordon, I’ve discovered that Steven Bergdorf is a writer in his spare time.”

* * *

“So Steven Bergdorf used to be the editor of the Chronicle?” Betsy said. “Did you know that, Jesse?”

I had had no idea. Had I met him in 1994? I couldn’t remember.

“Do you know him?” Springfield asked, surprised by our reaction.

“He’s the editor of the magazine Stephanie Mailer used to work for in New York,” Betsy said.

How was it I didn’t remember Steven Bergdorf? Going further into it, we discovered that Bergdorf had resigned from his post as editor of the Chronicle just after the Gordon killings and had been replaced by Michael Bird. A strange coincidence. What if Bergdorf had left with questions that still nagged at him today? What if he was the person who had commissioned the book Stephanie had been writing? She had hinted at someone who couldn’t write it themselves. It was understandable if the one-time editor of the local paper was unwilling to come back twenty years later and declare an interest in the case. We absolutely had to go to New York and speak with Bergdorf. We decided to do so first thing the next day.

This was not our final surprise. The same day, late in the evening, Betsy received a call. “Deputy Kanner?” a man’s voice said. “This is Kirk Hayward speaking.”

DEREK SCOTT

Monday, August 22, 1994. Three weeks after the murders.

Jesse and I were on our way to Hicksville, a town on Long Island between New York and Orphea. The woman who had contacted us worked as a clerk in a branch of the Long Island Bank.

“She’s agreed to meet us in a coffee shop downtown,” I told Jesse in the car. “Her boss doesn’t know she got in touch with us.”

“But is this about Gordon?” Jesse said.

“It seems so.”

It was early in the morning, nevertheless Jesse was eating a hot meat sandwich, the meat covered in a brown sauce that smelled wonderful.

“Want to try it?” Jesse said between mouthfuls, holding out his sandwich to me. “It’s seriously good.”

I bit into the bread. I had seldom tasted anything as delicious.

“It’s the sauce that’s incredible. I don’t know how Natasha does it. I call it Natasha’s Sauce.”

“You mean Natasha made you this sandwich this morning before you left?”

“She got up at four to try out dishes for the restaurant. Darla will be dropping by later. I had an embarrassment of choice. Pancakes, waffles, Russian salad. There was enough for a regiment. I suggested she serve these sandwiches at Little Russia. People are going to fight over them.”

“And with lots of fries,” I said, already picturing myself there. “There can never be enough fries.”

*

The clerk from the Long Island Bank was called Macy Warwick. She was waiting for us in an otherwise empty coffee shop, nervously stirring her cappuccino.

“I was in the Hamptons last weekend and I saw a photograph in a newspaper of that family that was murdered. I thought I recognized the man, and then I realized