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

street when she heard the shots, whereas Tennenbaum claimed he had not left the theater where he was the duty fire officer. It was Ms Bellamy’s word against his. But now Lambert, the director, had stated that just before the start of the performance, a hair dryer caught fire in one of the dressing rooms and they hadn’t been able to find Tennenbaum.”

“So if Tennenbaum wasn’t in the Grand Theater,” Betsy said, “it could have been because he had taken his van to drive to Mayor Gordon’s house and kill the mayor and his family.”

“Precisely.”

In the living room where he received us, Lambert, now a balding man in his sixties, kept a framed poster of the 1994 show.

“A lot of people still remember ‘Uncle Vanya’ at the Orphea Festival. Don’t forget, we were only a university drama group. The festival was in its infancy and the town council couldn’t hope to attract a professional company. Nevertheless, our show was exceptional. For ten nights running, the Grand Theater was sold out, the critics were unanimous. It was a triumph. It was so successful that everyone thought the actors would go on to have professional careers.”

It could be seen from the lively way the director talked about that period that for him it was a pleasant memory. As far as he was concerned, the Gordon killings had been nothing but a news item.

“And what happened?” Derek asked, curious. “Did the other members of the group make careers in the theater, like you?”

“No, nobody continued on that path. I can’t blame them, it’s such a difficult world. I know what I’m talking about—I wanted to be on Broadway and I ended up in a private high school in the suburbs. Just one person among them could have become a real star: Charlotte Carrell. She played Yelena, the wife of Professor Serebryakov. She was remarkable. When she was on stage she was magnetic. She had a kind of innocence and detachment that gave her a real presence. To be honest with you, we owed the success of the show to her. None of us could hold a candle to her.”

“Why didn’t she go on in the theater?”

“She didn’t want to. She was in her final year in Albany, where she’d been studying to be a vet. The last I heard, she had opened a clinic for animals in Orphea.”

“Wait,” Betsy said, struck by a sudden realization. “The Charlotte you’re talking about—could she be Charlotte Brown, now the wife of the mayor of Orphea?”

“Oh, yes. It was thanks to the play that they met. It was love at first sight. They were a wonderful couple. I was at their wedding, but over the years we’ve lost touch. Which is a pity.”

“So Kirk Hayward’s beautiful girlfriend in 1994,” Derek said, “was Charlotte, the future wife of the mayor?”

“That’s right. Didn’t you know that, Sergeant?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“That Kirk Hayward was a cop with pretentions, an artist manqué. He had always wanted to be a playwright and a director.”

“I was told his first play was quite a success.”

“The real reason it was a success was because Charlotte was in it. Charlotte enhanced everything she was in. The play itself was not a masterpiece. But when Charlotte was onstage, she could read the telephone book and you’d be knocked out, it was so beautiful. I never could figure out what she was doing with a policeman like Hayward. It’s one of the unexplained mysteries of life. We’ve all met stunning girls infatuated with guys as ugly as they were stupid. And this guy was so stupid, he couldn’t even keep her.”

“Were they together for long?”

Lambert took his time before replying. “A year, I think. Hayward was doing the rounds of the New York theaters and so was Charlotte. That’s how they met. She acted in that famous first play of his, and its success went to his head. That was in the spring of 1993. I remember that because it was when we were starting to work on ‘Uncle Vanya’. He got a big head, wrote another play. When the project of a theater festival in Orphea came up, he was convinced his play would be chosen as the main attraction. At the same time, I suggested ‘Uncle Vanya’ to the festival’s artistic committee, and after several auditions our group was chosen.”

“Hayward must have been mad at you.”

“He said I’d betrayed him, that without him I wouldn’t have thought to suggest our production to the festival. Which was true. But his play would never have been performed anyway. Even the mayor was against the idea.”

“Mayor Gordon?”

“Yes. One day when he’d asked to see me in his office, I overheard a conversation between the two of them. It must have been mid-June. I’d arrived early and was waiting outside the door. Suddenly, Gordon threw the door open and said, ‘Your play is not good enough, Kirk. You’ll never put it on it in my town while I’m alive!’ And right in front of everyone, he tore up the script of the play that Hayward had entrusted to him.”

“The mayor said, ‘While I’m alive’?”

“His exact words. In fact, when he was murdered, the whole company wondered if Hayward had been involved.”

“Why did you never tell the police about that conversation between Mayor Gordon and Hayward?”

Lambert made a face. “What would have been the point? It would have been his word against mine. And besides, to be honest, I couldn’t really see the guy murdering the whole family. On the phone, you said you wanted to talk about a particular incident.”

“That’s right, Mr Lambert,” Derek said. “We’re interested in a hair dryer that caught fire in one of the dressing rooms before the opening night of ‘Uncle Vanya’.”

“Yes, that’s right, I remember now. A detective asked me if the fire officer had behaved in any unusual way.”

“That was my colleague at the time, Jesse Rosenberg.”

“That’s right, his name was Rosenberg. I told him the fire officer had seemed nervous. The main thing,