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

“You resent me because you were questioned as part of the investigation, is that it?”

“You could have warned me, Betsy, instead of hauling me in like a criminal.”

“If you had told us all you knew, you would never have been a suspect.”

Brown, in no mood to discuss matters further, said, “If this business costs me my job, Betsy, you can pack your bags anyway. So now prove to me what you’re capable of. Lay your hands on whoever is terrorizing this town.”

* * *

The Lake Palace had been transformed into a barracks. The cast of the play had been led into a reception room guarded by the police.

Media representatives and onlookers crowded the front forecourt, boiling in the midday sun, hoping to see Hayward and the cast. Excitement doubled when first a minibus and then some police cars arrived. The cast was about to move to the Grand Theater to begin rehearsals. After a long wait, the actors finally appeared, surrounded by police officers. Behind the security barriers, they were cheered, and their names were called out. The onlookers demanded photographs and autographs, the reporters wanted a statement.

Ostrovski was the first to respond to these requests and he was quickly followed by others. Carried away by the enthusiasm of the crowd, those still worried about the risk of performing in “The Darkest Night”were now relieved of their anxiety. They were on the verge of becoming famous. Live on T.V. screens, the whole of America was discovering the faces of this amateur cast caught in a sensation.

“I told you you’d be stars,” Hayward said.

*

A few miles away, in their house by the ocean, Gerald Scalini and his wife were astonished to see Carolina Eden’s face on their T.V. screen.

In New York, Bergdorf’s wife Tracy, alerted by her colleagues, discovered, to her amazement, her husband playing at being an actor.

In Los Angeles, at the Beluga Bar, Hayward’s drinking companions stared spellbound at their friend appearing on all the news channels. The whole country was talking about his play, “The Darkest Night”.

* * *

The only lead that Betsy, Derek and I could envisage at this stage was that Springfield had been connected to Jeremiah Fold and his small-time criminal activities. So we decided to go back to Ridge’s Club. But when we showed Costico a photograph of Springfield, he told us he had never set eyes on him.

“Who is this guy?”

“A man who was murdered last night,” I said.

“Oh, hell, I hope you guys aren’t planning to come see me every time you find a stiff?”

“You never saw this man at the club? Or hanging around with Jeremiah?”

“No, never. What makes you think there’s a connection?”

“Everything points to the fact that Mayor Gordon, who you don’t know, bought the script of a play called ‘The Darkest Night’from this man in his bookstore. In that script, Jeremiah Fold’s name appeared in code.”

“Do I look like a man involved with plays?” Costico said.

Costico was too stupid to be a good liar, so we could believe him when he said he had never heard of either Gordon or Springfield.

Was Gordon involved in Fold’s criminal activities? Could Springfield’s bookstore have served as a cover? What if this whole thing about local writers had been a decoy to cover a criminal enterprise? The hypotheses jostled each other in our minds. Once again, we had no evidence.

We decided to go to the motel where Costico had told us he trapped his “slaves”. When we got there, we realized that the establishment had hardly changed with the years. And when we got out of our car, Betsy’s uniform and the police badges on our belts unleashed a stirring of panic among the fauna in the parking lot.

We rounded up the prostitutes, who were all around fifty or older. Among them was one who looked like the madam—her name was Regina—who told us that she’d been in charge here since the mid-’80s.

She admitted us to the room that served as her office, so that we could be quiet, and, above all, so that we did not scare away the clients.

“What’s going on?” she said, motioning the three of us to an imita-tion leather coach. “You don’t look like Vice to me, I’ve never seen you before.”

“Homicide,” I said. “We’re not looking to get you in any trouble. We have some questions about Jeremiah Fold.”

“Jeremiah Fold?” Regina repeated the name as if we were talking about a ghost.

I nodded. “If I mention Fold’s slaves, does that mean anything to you?”

“Sure it does, sweetheart.”

“Do you know these two men?” I said, showing her the photographs of Gordon and Springfield.

“Never seen them before.”

“I need to know if they were connected with Jeremiah Fold.”

“Connected with Fold? Now, that I really don’t know.”

“Could they have been his slaves?”

“It’s possible. But, honestly, I have no idea. Jeremiah got his slaves from the occasional clients. The regulars generally frequented the same girls and knew they mustn’t touch Mylla.”

“Who’s Mylla?” Derek said. “The girl who was used as bait?”

“Yes. She wasn’t the only one, but she’s the one who lasted longest. Two years. Until Jeremiah died. The others didn’t last three months.”

“Why not?”

“They all did drugs. In the end they weren’t presentable anymore and Jeremiah would get rid of them.”

“Get rid of them how?”

“Overdose. The police didn’t suspect anything. He’d dump the body somewhere and the cops reckoned only that that was one junkie less.”

“But this Mylla didn’t do drugs?”

“No. Never touched any of the stuff. She was a smart girl, very well brought up, who somehow found herself in Jeremiah’s clutches. He kept her because he must have been a little bit in love with her. She was really beautiful. I mean, the girls outside, they’re hookers. She had something more. Like a princess.”

“And how did she trap the slaves?”

“She’d work the side of the road, bring them back to the room, and there they’d be caught by Costico. You know Costico?”

“Yes,” Betsy said, “we spoke with him. But I don’t understand why none of these