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

The gallery that had organized the event confirmed that Mr Bergdorf had been there, but pointed out that the private view had ended at 7.00 p.m.

“Leaving Manhattan at seven, he could have been in Orphea by ten,” Betsy said.

“Do you think he could have killed Stephanie?” I said.

“Bergdorf is familiar with the editorial offices of the Chronicle. He would have known how to get in there to steal the computer. He also knew that Bird was the editor, which is why he sent him the text message from Stephanie’s cell phone. Plus, he might have been afraid that someone in Orphea would recognize him. That’s why he finally gave up on the idea of meeting with Stephanie at the Kodiak Grilland arranged to meet her on the beach. Remind me why we didn’t book him earlier?”

“Because this is all speculation, Betsy,” Derek said. “We don’t have anything to go on. A lawyer would pull it apart in minutes. We don’t really have anything against him. Even if he had been alone in his own home, it’d be impossible to prove it. And besides, his lousy alibi is an indication that he doesn’t know what time Stephanie was murdered.”

Derek was not wrong about that. Nevertheless I stuck a photograph of Bergdorf on the whiteboard.

“I still think Bergdorf was the person who commissioned Stephanie’s book,” Betsy said.

She took extracts from the text found in the computer, which we had stuck on the board, and said:

“When Stephanie asks the sponsor why he doesn’t write the book himself, he replies: ‘Me? Impossible! What would people say?’So it must have been someone who would have no credibility as author of the book and entrusted it to someone else.”

I then read the following extract:

“Just before seven, I went out onto the street to get a breath of fresh air and saw a van drive by. Sometime afterward, reading the newspapers, I realized it was Tennenbaum’s vehicle. The problem is, it wasn’t him at the wheel. Well, Bergdorf did tell us he had doubts about Tennenbaum’s guilt. And he was in the Grand Theater that night.”

“We have to find out who was driving that van,” Betsy said.

“What I wonder,” Derek said, “is why Mayor Brown never told anyone that Mayor Gordon was corrupt. If we’d known at the time, it would have changed the course of the investigation. And if the money Gordon transferred to Montana came from the kickbacks he was getting from the contractors, then why the cash withdrawals made by Tennenbaum that he could never account for?”

There was a long silence. Seeing Derek and me at a loss, Betsy asked:

“How did Tennenbaum die?”

“He died while he was being arrested,” I said bleakly.

Derek changed the subject. “Let’s go get a bite to eat,” he said. “We never had lunch. I’m paying.”

* * *

Mayor Brown had come home unusually early. He needed peace and quiet to think through the various scenarios that would come into play if the festival were canceled. He paced up and down the living room, a concentrated look on his face. Charlotte, watching him from a distance, could sense how nervous he was. At last she went to him and tried to reason with him.

“Alan, darling,” she said, tenderly running her hand through his hair, “maybe this is a sign you should give up on the festival? It’s getting you in such a state . . .”

“How can you say that? You used to be an actress, you know what it means! I need your support.”

“But I think it may be fate. The festival’s been losing money for a long time.”

“The festival has to take place, Charlotte! The town depends on it.”

“But what are you going to do to replace the main play?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. I’m going to be a laughingstock.”

“It’ll work out, Alan, you’ll see.”

“How?”

She had no idea. She had only said it to cheer him up. She applied herself to finding a solution. “I . . . I’m going to reach out to my contacts in the theater!”

“Your contacts? Darling, that’s sweet of you, but you haven’t set foot on a stage in twenty years. You don’t have any contacts, not anymore.”

He put an arm around his wife and she leaned her head on his shoulder.

“It’s a disaster,” he said. “Nobody wants to come to the festival. Not the actors, not the media, not the critics. We sent out dozens of invitations and nobody replied. I even wrote to Meta Ostrovski.”

“Ostrovski of the New York Times?”

“Ex-New York Times. He works for the New York Literary Review now. It’s better than nothing. But I didn’t get an answer from him either. We’re less than three weeks from opening night and the festival’s on the verge of collapse. Maybe I should just set fire to the theater and—”

“Alan, don’t say such things!”

Just then, the doorbell rang.

“Maybe that’s him,” Charlotte joked.

“Are you expecting someone?” Alan said, in no mood for humor.

“No.”

He went to the door. It was Michael Bird.

“Hello, Michael.”

“Hello, Mr Mayor. Sorry to bother you at home, I’ve been trying desperately to call you on your cell phone, but it’s off.”

“I needed a little peace and quiet. What’s going on?”

“I wanted your comment on the rumor, Mr Mayor.”

“What rumor?”

“That you don’t have a main play for the theater festival.”

“Who told you that?”

“I’m a journalist.”

“Then you should know how worthless rumors are.”

“I quite agree with you, Mr Mayor. That’s why I took the trouble to call the company’s manager, who confirmed that the show has been canceled. He told me the cast don’t feel safe in Orphea anymore.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Brown said, keeping his composure. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t publish it.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Because . . . you’d be making a fool of yourself!”

“I’d be making a fool of myself?”

“That’s right. I’ve already got around the problem of that first company pulling out.”

“Really? Why haven’t you announced it yet?”

“Because . . . because what I’m putting in its place is something really major,”