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

now and Jeremiah Fold. Coming back from dinner last night, I dropped by the station and spent part of the night looking through the database. Jeremiah Fold had a son who was born just before his father died. I managed to find the name of the mother. It’s Virginia Parker.”

“And . . . ?” Derek said. “Should that name mean anything to us?”

“No, but I spoke with her. And she told me how Jeremiah died.”

“A traffic accident,” Derek said, not sure where Betsy was going with this. “We already know that much.”

“A motorcycle accident, to be precise,” Betsy said. “He smashed his motorcycle into a tree.”

“Let’s try to do things by the book. And let’s start by figuring out why the police in Ridgesport—when we got in touch with them—didn’t even have a file on the accident.”

“Because it’s the New York State Highway Patrol that deals with fatal accidents,” Betsy said.

“Then let’s contact the Highway Patrol right away and get a copy of the report.”

Betsy handed us a bundle of papers. “Already done, gentlemen. Here it is.”

The accident occurred on the night of July 15, 1994. The police report was succinct. Mr Fold lost control of his motorcycle. He was not wearing a helmet. Witnesses saw him leave Ridge’s Club at about midnight. He was found by a motorist at about 0700, unconscious but still alive. He died in the hospital. The file contained photographs of the motorcycle. All that remained of it was a heap of metal and scattered debris in a shallow trough by the tree. It was recorded that a copy of the report had been sent to Special Agent Grace of the A.T.F. at his request.

“It was thanks to Special Agent Grace,” Derek told Betsy, “that we made the connection with Tennenbaum, because he arrested the man who provided Tennenbaum with the murder weapon.”

“We need to get in touch with him,” I said. “He must have retired by now, he was all of fifty back then.”

“In the meantime, we should talk to Fold’s former partner, this Virginia Parker,” Derek said. “She may be able to tell us more.”

“She’s waiting for us at her place,” Betsy announced, clearly one step ahead of us. “Let’s go.”

Virginia Parker lived in a run-down little house at the entrance to Ridgesport. She was a woman of fifty, who must have been beautiful once.

“Jeremiah was a scumbag,” she told us when we had sat down in her living room. “The only good thing he ever made was his kid. Our son is a good boy. He works for a gardening company, and he’s well liked.”

“How did you meet Jeremiah?” I said.

Before replying, she lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. She had long, thin fingers that ended in blood-red nails. It was only when she had blown out a cloud of white smoke that she said:

“I was a singer at Ridge’s Club. It was a fashionable place back then, it’s pretty tacky today. Miss Parker. That was my stage name. I still sing there from time to time. Back then I was kind of a local star. I had all the men at my feet. Jeremiah was one of the owners. What a handsome guy! I liked his whole tough-guy shtick at first. He had a dangerous side that attracted me. It wasn’t until he’d knocked me up that I realized what he was really like.”

* * *

Ridgesport, June 1993, 6 p.m.

Laid low with nauseous spells all day, Virginia was lying on the couch when there was a knocking at the door of her house. She thought it was Jeremiah, worried about her condition. She had left a message at the club twenty minutes earlier to tell him she wasn’t in a fit state to sing that evening.

“Come in,” she called out. “The door’s open.”

The visitor came in. It wasn’t Jeremiah but Costico, his henchman. The size of a wardrobe, with hands like battering rams. She hated him as much as she feared him.

“What the hell are you doing here, Costico?” she said. “Jeremiah isn’t here.”

“I know that, he sent me. You have to come to the club.”

“I can’t, I’ve been throwing up all day.”

“Hurry up, Virginia. I didn’t ask you for a medical report.”

“Costico, look at me, I’m in no state to sing.”

“Get a move on, Virginia. The customers come to the club to hear you sing. Just because Jeremiah fucks you up the ass doesn’t mean you get any special favors.”

“As you can see from my belly,” Virginia retorted, “that’s not how he likes it.”

“Shut your mouth and get moving,” Costico said. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”

* * *

“And did you go?” Betsy asked.

“Of course. I didn’t have any choice. My pregnancy was hell. I was forced to sing at the club until just before I went into labor.”

“Did Jeremiah beat you?”

“No, it was worse than that. He was weird that way. He didn’t think of himself as a criminal, but as a ‘businessman’. He referred to Costico as his ‘associate’. The back room where he did his wheeling and dealing was the ‘office’. Jeremiah thought he was cleverer than anyone else. He’d say that if you want to keep one step ahead of the law, you mustn’t leave a trail. He never used account books, the only gun he owned he had a license for, and he never gave written orders. The money he squeezed out of people, the arms dealing and drug dealing, he took care of that through his ‘after-sales service’. That was his name for a group of guys he had at his mercy. He called them his ‘slaves’. They were mainly family men he had compromising evidence on that could ruin their lives: photographs with prostitutes in embarrassing positions, that kind of thing. In return for his silence, the slaves had to do him favors. He’d send them out to collect money from people he was putting the squeeze on, deliver drugs to dealers, collect his share. All this was done by these respectable guys that