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  THE DISAPPEARANCE OF

  STEPHANIE MAILER

  Also by Joël Dicker in English translation

  The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair

  The Baltimore Boys

  THE DISAPPEARANCE OF

  STEPHANIE MAILER

  JOËL DICKER

  Translated from the French by

  Howard Curtis

  This ebook edition first published in 2020 by

  MacLehose Press

  An imprint of Quercus Publishing Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Editions de Fallois, 2018

  English translation copyright © 2020 by Howard Curtis

  The moral right of Joël Dicker to be identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Howard Curtis asserts his moral right to be identified as

  the translator of the work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

  in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,

  recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission

  in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB) 978 0 85705 920 8

  ISBN (TPB) 978 0 85705 925 3

  ISBN (Ebook) 978 0 85705 927 7

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places

  and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is

  entirely coincidental.

  Ebook by CC Book Production

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  For Constance

  Contents

  The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer

  Also By

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Concerning the events of July 30, 1994

  Part One: In the Depths

  -7

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  BETSY KANNER

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  BETSY KANNER

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  -6

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  BETSY KANNER

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  BETSY KANNER

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  -5

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  Part Two: Toward the Surface

  -4

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  -3

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  JERRY EDEN

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  -2

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  -1

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  CAROLINA EDEN

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  CAROLINA EDEN

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  0

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  BETSY KANNER

  DEREK SCOTT

  Part Three: Rising

  1

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  2

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  BETSY KANNER

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  MEGHAN PADALIN

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  3

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  DEREK SCOTT

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  4

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  2016

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Concerning the events of July 30, 1994

  Only those familiar with the Hamptons in New York State knew what happened on July 30, 1994, in a small, swanky oceanside resort called Orphea.

  That evening, the town’s very first theater festival was due to open, an event of more than local significance which had attracted large crowds. From late afternoon tourists and locals alike had gathered on Main Street for the many festivities organized by the town council. The residential neighborhoods had emptied of their inhabitants: no people strolling on the sidewalks, no couples on porches, no children on skateboards on the street, nobody in the gardens. Everybody was on Main Street.

  Around eight o’clock, in the deserted neighborhood of Penfield, the only sign of life was a car slowly crisscrossing the abandoned streets. At the wheel, a man searching everywhere with panic in his eyes.

  He had never felt so alone in the world. There was nobody around to help him. He was looking for his wife. She had left to go jogging and had not come home.

  Samuel and Meghan Padalin were among the few inhabitants of the town who had decided not to go to the opening night of the festival. There had been such a demand for tickets that they had been unsuccessful, and they had no wish to watch the open-air activities on Main Street or at the marina.

  At 6.30, as she did every day, Meghan had left home to go jogging. The only day she didn’t go jogging was Sunday. She took the same route every evening. From their house, she went up Penfield Street as far as Penfield Crescent, which formed a semicircle around a little park. She would stop in the park to do an exercise routine—always the same—then run home by the same route. It took forty-five minutes, fifty if she extended the exercises, but never more.

  At 7.30, Samuel Padalin was thinking it strange that his wife was not yet home.

  At 7.45 he started to worry.

  By 8.00 he was pacing up and down his living room.

  At 8.10, unable to stand it anymore, he got into his car and set off to look around the neighborhood. The logical way to proceed was to follow Meghan’s habitual route, which was what he did.

  He drove along Penfield Street as far as Penfield Crescent, and there he turned. It was 8.20. Not a soul in sight. He stopped to look into the park, but there was nobody there. As he was starting the car again he noticed a shape on the sidewalk. At first he thought that it was a heap of clothes. Then he realized it was a body. He jumped out of the car, heart pounding. It was his wife.

  Padalin would later tell the police that his first thought was that his wife had fainted from the heat. Then he was afraid that she had had a heart attack. But as he approached Meghan, he saw the blood and then the hole at the back of her skull.

  He started screaming for help, unsure if he should stay with his wife or run to the nearby houses, ring the doorbells, and beg someone to call Emergency. His vision was blurred, and he felt as if his legs could no longer carry him. His cries finally alerted someone from
a parallel street, and they called the emergency services.

  Only minutes later, the police cordoned off the neighborhood.

  One of the first officers on the scene noticed that the door of the mayor’s house, close to where Meghan’s body lay, was ajar. As he went closer he saw that the door had been kicked in. He took out his pistol, ran up the front steps and announced himself. There was no answer. He pushed the door open with his foot and saw a woman’s body lying in the corridor. He at once called for backup, then slowly advanced into the house, pistol in hand. In a small room to his right he was horrified to discover the body of a young boy. And then in the kitchen he found the mayor, also dead, lying in a pool of blood.

  All three had been shot dead.

  PART ONE

  In the Depths

  -7

  The Disappearance of a Reporter

  MONDAY, JUNE 23 – TUESDAY, JULY 1, 2014

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  Monday, June 23, 2014

  Thirty-three days to opening night of the 21st Orphea Theater Festival

  The first and only time I saw Stephanie Mailer was when she gatecrashed the small reception organized in honor of my retirement from the New York State Police.

  A host of police officers from all the squads had gathered in the noonday sun in front of the wooden platform erected for special occasions in the parking lot of troop headquarters. I was on that platform, next to my commander, Major McKenna. He had been my chief throughout my career and was now paying me a glowing tribute.

  “Jesse Rosenberg is only a young captain, but he’s clearly in a great hurry to leave,” the major said to laughter from those present. “I would never have imagined he’d leave before me. Life really is a bummer. You’d all like me to leave, but I’m still here. You’d all like to keep Jesse, and Jesse’s going.”

  I was forty-five years old and I felt good about leaving the force. After twenty-three years on the job, I had decided to take the pension to which I was by now entitled in order to realize a project that had been close to my heart for a long time. I still had a week to go before my leaving date of June 30. After that, a new chapter in my life would be starting.

  “I still remember Jesse’s first big case,” the major was saying. “A horrible case, a quadruple murder, which he solved brilliantly, even though nobody in the squad thought he could. He was still a very young officer. From that moment on, we all realized what kind of man Jesse was. Anyone who’s worked with him knows what an exceptional detective he is. I think I can safely say he was always the best among us. We call him Captain 100 Percent, because he’s solved all the cases he’s been involved in, and that makes him unique as a detective. An officer admired by his colleagues, an expert everyone consults, and an instructor at the Academy for many years. Let me say this to you, Jesse: for twenty years, we’ve all been jealous of you!”

  Another burst of laughter.

  “We haven’t quite figured out what this new project is that you’re getting into, but we wish you good luck anyway. We’re going to miss you, the police force is going to miss you, but it’s our wives who are going to miss you the most, because they spent every police dance ogling you.”

  Thunderous applause. The major gave me a friendly hug, and then I got down off the stage so that I could say something to all those who had done me the kindness of being present before they rushed to the buffet.

  Finding myself alone for a moment, I was approached by a very attractive woman, maybe in her thirties. I did not recall having seen her before.

  “So you are the famous Captain 100 Percent?” she said in a seductive tone.

  “Apparently,” I said with a smile. “Do we know each other?”

  “No. My name’s Stephanie Mailer. I’m a reporter for the Orphea Chronicle.”

  We shook hands.

  “Do you mind if I call you Captain 99 Percent?”

  I frowned. “Is there a case I didn’t solve?”

  By way of reply, she took from her bag a photocopy of a press clipping from the Orphea Chronicle of August 1, 1994, and handed it to me.

  QUADRUPLE MURDER IN ORPHEA

  MAYOR AND FAMILY SLAIN

  On Saturday evening, the mayor of Orphea, Joseph Gordon, his wife Leslie, and their ten-year-old son Arthur were shot dead in their house. The fourth victim is Meghan Padalin, 32. The young woman, who was jogging at the time, must have been unfortunate enough to witness the scene. She was shot on the sidewalk close to the mayor’s house.

  There was a photograph of me and my then partner, Derek Scott, at the crime scene.

  “What is this about?” I said.

  “You didn’t solve that case, Captain. You got the wrong man back in 1994. I thought you’d like to know that before leaving the force.”

  At first I thought that one of my colleagues was playing a practical joke on me, but soon I realized that the journalist was entirely serious.

  “Are you conducting your own investigation?” I said.

  “In a way, Captain.”

  “In a way? You’re going to have to say more than that if you want me to believe you.”

  “I’m telling the truth, Captain. I have an appointment shortly that should allow me to obtain irrefutable evidence.”

  “An appointment with whom?”

  “Captain,” she said in an amused tone, “I’m not a beginner. This is the kind of scoop a reporter can’t afford to pass up, but I promise you that whatever I find out I’ll share with you when the time is right. Meanwhile, I have a favor to ask you. I’d like access to the State Police file on the case.”

  “You call it a favor, I call it blackmail,” I said. “Start by showing me what you have. These are very serious allegations.”

  “I’m aware of that, Captain Rosenberg. That’s why I don’t want the State Police to get in ahead of me.”

  “Let me remind you that you have a duty to share with the police any information in your possession that has a bearing on this case. That’s the law. I could also come to your newspaper office and search it.”

  The woman seemed disappointed. “Too bad, Captain 99 Percent,” she said. “I assumed it would interest you, but I guess you’re already thinking about your retirement and this new project the major mentioned in his speech. What is it? Repairing an old boat?”

  “That’s none of your business,” I said curtly.

  She shrugged and made to leave. I felt certain she was bluffing. But she stopped after a few steps and turned back. “The answer was right in front of your eyes, Captain Rosenberg. You just didn’t see it.”

  I was both intrigued and irritated. “I’m not sure I follow you, Ms Mailer.”

  She raised her hand and placed it at the level of my eyes. “What do you see, Captain?”

  “Your hand.”

  “I was showing you my fingers.”

  “But I see your hand,” I said, not understanding.

  “That’s the problem right there,” she said. “You saw what you wanted to see, not what you were being shown. That’s what you missed twenty years ago.”

  She walked away, leaving me with her mystery, her business card, and the photocopy of the press clipping.

  Spotting my former partner Derek Scott at the buffet—these days he was vegetating in a desk job—I hurried over to join him and showed him the clipping.

  “You haven’t changed a bit, Jesse,” he said with a smile, amused to see a reference to that old case. “What did that girl want?”

  “She’s a reporter. According to her, we blew it back in ’94. She claims we missed something in our investigation and ended up with the wrong man.”

  Derek choked. “That’s crazy. What exactly did she say?”

  “That the answer was right in front of our eyes and we didn’t see it.”

  Derek was bewildered. He seemed troubled, too, but he was clearly going to dismiss the idea. “I don’t believe it for a moment,” he grunted. “It’s just a two-bit reporter trying to make some cheap publicity for herself.”


  “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not.”

  Across the parking lot I saw Stephanie Mailer getting into her car. She waved to me and called out, “See you later, Captain Rosenberg.”

  But there was to be no “later”. That was the day she disappeared.

  DEREK SCOTT

  I remember the day the whole thing started. It was Saturday, July 30, 1994.

  Jesse and I were on duty that evening. We had stopped to have a meal at the Blue Lagoon, the fashionable restaurant where Darla and Natasha worked as waitresses.

  Jesse and Natasha had been a couple for some years by that time. Darla was one of Natasha’s best friends. They were planning to open a restaurant together and spent most of their time on the project. They had found a place and were in the process of obtaining the authorizations to start work. Evenings and weekends, they worked at the Blue Lagoon, putting aside half of what they earned to invest in their future establishment.

  They could have managed the Blue Lagoon, or worked in the kitchen, but the owner said to them, “With your pretty faces and pretty asses, your place is out front. And don’t complain, you make much more in tips than you’d earn in the kitchen.” On that last point he wasn’t wrong. Many customers came to the Blue Lagoon in the hopes of being served by them. They were beautiful, sweet, and friendly. They had everything going for them. Their own restaurant was going to be a resounding success and everyone was already talking about it.

  Ever since I had met Darla she was all I could think about. I pestered Jesse to come to the Blue Lagoon whenever Natasha and Darla were there so we could have coffee with them. And when they met at Jesse’s to work on their project, I was there as often as I could be, trying to charm Darla, who only half responded.

  On that famous July evening, Jesse and I were having dinner at the restaurant and chatting happily with the two of them as they went about their business. My pager and Jesse’s went off simultaneously.

  “For both of your pagers to go off at the same time,” Natasha said, “it must be serious.”

  She pointed toward the phone booth as well as a phone on the counter. Jesse headed for the booth, I opted for the counter. The calls were brief.