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

“Tell us what these withdrawals correspond to, Mr Tennenbaum.” Jesse said. “Half a million isn’t peanuts. And we know it wasn’t for work on your restaurant; that’s another account we’ve had access to.”

“You’ve had access to it thanks to my client’s goodwill,” Starr said. “What Mr Tennenbaum does with his money is nobody else’s business.”

“Why don’t you just tell us how you spent that money, Mr Tennenbaum, if you have nothing to hide?”

“I like going out,” Tennenbaum said, “I like eating in restaurants, I like living. I don’t have to justify myself.”

“Do you have receipts to back up what you’re telling us?”

“What if I spent the money on lots of girlfriends? The kind of girlfriends who don’t give receipts? But enough of this mockery, gentlemen, that money’s legal, I inherited it from my father. I can do what I like with it.”

We had no choice but to accept that we would get nothing more from him.

Major McKenna told Jesse and me that we had a whole bunch of things that pointed to Tennenbaum, but no single solid thing that would nail him. “So far, Tennenbaum doesn’t need to do anything to refute the weight of your evidence against him. You can’t prove that his van was on the street, you can’t prove the pressure from Mayor Gordon. Find something that’ll force Tennenbaum to show his hand.”

We went over our investigation from the beginning. There had to be something we had overlooked somewhere. In Natasha’s living room, which had been entirely refurnished in the course of our investigation, we again pored over our notes, and still everything pointed to Tennenbaum.

Our focus was divided between two restaurants, Café Athenaand Little Russia. Darla and Natasha’s project was making great progress. They were cooking all day long, testing recipes that they then recorded in a big red book for possible inclusion on their menu. Jesse and I were the first beneficiaries. Every time we walked in, at any hour of the day or night, something was happening in the kitchen. There was even a brief diplomatic incident when I mentioned Natasha’s sandwiches.

“Please tell me you’re planning to include those incredible braised meat sandwiches on the menu.”

“You tried them?” Darla said, aghast.

Natasha tried to limit the damage. “When they went to Montana last week, I gave Jesse some sandwiches for the flight.”

“We agreed we’d let them taste everything together, the two of us, to see their reactions,” Darla said.

“I felt bad about them taking a plane at dawn . . .”

I thought that was the end of it, but Darla mentioned it again a few days later, when we were alone.

“You know, Derek,” she said, “I can’t get over the fact that Natasha did something like that to me.”

“Are you still talking about those damn sandwiches?”

“It may be nothing to you, but when you have a partner and your trust is broken, that makes it hard to work together.”

“Don’t you think you’re exaggerating, Darla?”

“Whose side are you on, Derek? Mine or hers?”

I think Darla, wonderful as she was, was a little jealous of Natasha. But I imagine all the girls were jealous of Natasha at one time or another. She was smarter, prettier, and had more presence than anyone. When she entered a room, she was the only person anyone looked at.

As far as the investigation was concerned, Jesse and I concentrated on what we could prove. One thing in particular stood out: Tennenbaum’s absence from the Grand Theater for a period of at least twenty minutes. According to him, he had not gone anywhere. So it was up to us to prove that he was lying. And on that point, we still had a margin for maneuver. We had questioned all the volunteers, but had not been able to speak with anyone from the company that had performed the opening play, since our suspicions had not turned to Tennenbaum until some time after the festival was over.

Unfortunately, the company, which was from the University of Albany, had disbanded in the meantime. Most of the students who had taken part had finished their courses and were scattered around the country. In order not to waste time, Jesse and I decided to concentrate on those who still lived in New York State, and we divided up the work.

It was Jesse who hit the jackpot when he questioned Buzz Lambert, the company’s director, who was still teaching summer courses at the University of Albany.

When Jesse mentioned Ted Tennenbaum, Lambert immediately said: “Did I notice any strange behavior in the fire officer on duty on opening night? The thing that I mainly noticed is that he wasn’t doing his job. There was an incident in one of the dressing rooms, around seven. A hair dryer that caught fire. We couldn’t find the guy, so I had to deal with it myself. Luckily, there was a fire extinguisher.”

“The fire officer was nowhere to be found on the premises at seven o’clock?”

“That’s right. When I saw the fire, I called for help and the actors who were in the next dressing room came running. They’ll confirm that. As for that fire officer, I gave him a piece of my mind when he magically reappeared half an hour later.”

“So the fire officer was away until 7.30?”

“That’s correct.”

JESSE ROSENBERG

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Sixteen days to opening night

While I was on my way back from California to Orphea, Betsy and Derek paid a visit to Buzz Lambert. He was living in New Jersey, where he was a drama teacher in a high school.

On the way there, Derek summed up the situation for Betsy.

“In 1994, there were two things that pointed to Tennenbaum: the parallel financial transactions, and his absence when there was a fire backstage at the Grand Theater. The possibility that he might have been absent looked crucial. One of the witnesses at the time, Lena Bellamy, who lived a few doors down from the Gordons, said she had seen Tennenbaum’s van on the