The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair: A Novel Read online

  “Harry called me . . .”

  “When? Today?”

  “About one this afternoon. I must have been the one telephone call he was allowed. I have to go there and support him! It’s very important.”

  “Important? What’s important is your second book. I hope you haven’t been taking me for a ride and that you really will have a manuscript ready by the end of the month. Barnaski is shitting bricks. Do you realize what’s going to happen to Harry? Don’t get mixed up in this, Marc. Don’t screw up your career.”

  On TV the state attorney general was giving a press conference. He listed the charges against Harry: kidnapping and two counts of murder. Harry was formally accused of having murdered Deborah Cooper and Nola Kellergan. And the punishment for these crimes, taken together, was death.

  • • •

  Harry’s fall was only just beginning. Footage of the preliminary hearing, which was held the next day, was broadcast on TV. We saw Harry arrive in the courtroom, tracked by dozens of TV cameras and illuminated by photolighting, handcuffed, and surrounded by policemen. He looked as if he had been through hell: somber faced, unshaven, hair disheveled, shirt unbuttoned, eyes swollen. His lawyer, Benjamin Roth, stood next to him. Roth was a renowned attorney in Concord who had often advised Harry in the past. I knew him slightly, having met him a few times at Goose Cove.

  The whole country was able to watch the hearing live as Harry pleaded not guilty, and the judge ordered him remanded into custody in New Hampshire’s State Prison for Men. But this was only the start of the storm. At that moment I still had the naive hope that it would all be over soon, but one hour after the hearing, I received a call from Benjamin Roth.

  “Harry gave me your number,” he said. “He insisted I call. He wants you to know that he’s innocent, that he didn’t kill anybody.”

  “I know he’s innocent,” I said. “Tell me how he’s doing?”

  “Not too great, as you can imagine. The cops have been giving him a hard time. He admitted to having a fling with Nola the summer she disappeared.”

  “I knew about Nola. What about the rest?”

  Roth hesitated a second before answering. “He denies it. But . . .”

  “But what?” I demanded.

  “Marcus, I’m not going to hide it from you. This is going to be difficult. The evidence is . . .”

  “The evidence is what? Tell me, for God’s sake!”

  “This has to stay a secret. No one can know.”

  “I won’t say a word. You can trust me.”

  “Along with the girl’s remains the investigators found the manuscript of The Origin of Evil.”

  “What?”

  “I’m telling you, the manuscript of that damn book was buried with her. Harry is in deep shit.”

  “What does Harry say?”

  “He says he wrote that book for her. That she was always snooping around his home in Goose Cove, and that sometimes she would borrow his pages to read. He says that a few days before she disappeared, she took the manuscript home with her.”

  “What? He wrote that book for her?”

  “Yes. But that can’t get out, under any circumstances. You can imagine the scandal there’d be if the media found out that one of the bestselling books of the last fifty years is not a simple love story, like everyone thinks, but based on an illicit affair between a guy of thirty-four and a girl of fifteen . . .”

  “Can you get him released on bail?”

  “Bail? You don’t understand how serious this is. There’s no question of bail when it comes to capital crimes. The punishment he risks is lethal injection. Ten days from now his case will be presented to a grand jury, which will decide whether to pursue charges and hold a trial. It’s just a formality. There’s no doubt there will be a trial.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “He’ll stay in prison.”

  “But if he’s innocent?”

  “That’s the law. I’m telling you—this is a very serious situation. He’s accused of murdering two people.”

  I slumped back on the couch. I had to talk to Harry.

  “Ask him to call me!” I said to Roth.

  “I’ll pass on your message.”

  “Tell him I absolutely have to talk to him, and that I’m waiting for his call.”

  Right after hanging up, I went to my bookshelves and found my copy of The Origin of Evil. Harry’s inscription was on the first page:

  To Marcus, my most brilliant student

  Your friend,

  H. L. Quebert, May 1999

  I immersed myself once again in that book, which I hadn’t opened in years. It was a love story, mixing a straight narrative with epistolary passages, the story of a man and woman who loved each other without really being allowed to love each other. So he had written this book for that mysterious girl about whom I still knew nothing. I finished rereading it in the middle of the night, and contemplated the title. And for the first time I wondered what it meant: Why The Origin of Evil? What kind of evil was Harry talking about?

  Two days passed, during which the DNA analyses and dental impressions confirmed that the skeleton discovered at Goose Cove was indeed that of Nola Kellergan. The investigators were able to determine that the skeleton was that of a fifteen-year-old child, indicating that Nola had died more or less at the time of her disappearance. But, most important, a fracture at the back of the skull provided the certainty, even after more than thirty years, that Nola Kellergan had died from at least one blow to the head.

  I had no news of Harry. I tried to get in touch with him through the state police, through the prison, and through Roth, but without success. I paced my apartment, tormented by thousands of questions, plagued by the memory of his weird call. By the end of the weekend, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I decided that I had little choice but to go to see what was happening in New Hampshire.

  • • •

  At first light on Monday, June 16, 2008, I packed my suitcases and got in my Range Rover. Only when I had gotten far enough from the city not to be tempted to give up my idea and go home like a good boy did I call my parents to tell them I was on my way to New Hampshire. My mother told me I was crazy:

  “What are you doing, Markie? Surely you’re not going to defend that sick criminal?”

  “He’s not a criminal, Mom. He’s my friend.”

  “Well, then, your friends are criminals! Your father’s right here—he says you’re running away from New York because of your book.”

  “I’m not running away.”

  “Are you running away because of a woman?”

  “I told you I’m not running away. I don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “When will you have a girlfriend? I’ve been thinking again about that Natalia you introduced us to last year. She was such a sweet shiksa. Why don’t you call her?”

  “You hated her.”

  “And why aren’t you writing books anymore? Everyone loved you when you were a great writer.”

  “I’m still a writer.”

  “Come home! I’ll make you hot dogs and apple pie à la mode.”

  “Mom, I’m twenty-eight years old. I can make hot dogs myself if I want them.”

  “Did you know your father’s not allowed to eat hot dogs anymore? The doctor told him.” (I heard my father grumbling that he was actually allowed to eat one occasionally, and my mother repeating, “No more hot dogs for you, or any other junk food. The doctor says it clogs up your system!”) “Markie, darling? Your father says you should write a book about that Quebert. That would get your career going again. Everyone’s talking about Quebert, so everyone would talk about your book. Why don’t you come and have dinner with us? We haven’t seen you in so long. And you love my apple pie . . .”

  I had crossed into Connecticut when, stupidly deciding to change the radio fr
om my opera CD to the news, I learned there had been a leak within the police department: The media now knew about the discovery of the manuscript of The Origin of Evil alongside Nola Kellergan’s remains, and of Harry’s confession that the book was inspired by his relationship with her. I pulled over at a rest stop to refuel and found the clerk inside, eyes glued to the TV, which was replaying the news about Harry in a loop. I went up to him and asked him to turn up the volume. Seeing the look of horror on my face, he said, “What? You didn’t know? It’s been all over the news for hours. Where have you been, on Mars?”

  “In my car.”

  “Heh. No radio?”

  “I was listening to opera. It takes my mind off things.”

  He stared at me. “Don’t I know you?”

  “I don’t think so,” I replied.

  “I’ve seen you before somewhere.”

  “I’ve got one of those faces.”

  “No, I’m sure I’ve seen you before. You one of them TV guys, is that it? Maybe an actor or something?”

  “No.”

  “So what do you do?”

  “I’m a writer.”

  “Yeah, that’s it! We sold your book here last year. I remember now—your face was on the back.”

  He wandered around the shelves, looking for the book, which of course was no longer on display. Eventually he unearthed one from the storeroom and brought it back to the counter in triumph.

  “There you go—it’s you! Look, it’s your book. Marcus Goldman—that’s your name. It’s right here on the cover.”

  “If you say so.”

  “So, what’s new, Mr. Goldman?”

  “Not much, to be honest.”

  “And where are you going today, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “New Hampshire.”

  “Nice area, especially in summer. Going fishing?”

  “You could say that.”

  “What kind of fishing? There are places up there just swarming with black bass.”

  “Fishing for trouble, I believe. I’m going to see a friend up there who’s got problems. Serious problems.”

  “Well, at least his problems can’t be as bad as Harry Quebert’s!”

  He burst out laughing and shook me warmly by the hand because “we don’t get many celebrities around here.” Then he offered me a cup of coffee for the road.

  Public opinion was overwhelmingly against Harry. He was incriminated definitively not only by the fact of the manuscript’s being found with Nola’s skeleton, but above all by the revelation that his most famous book had been inspired by an affair with a fifteen-year-old girl. This had caused a deep sense of unease. Had the country honored a homicidal pedophile by elevating Harry to the ranks of literary stardom? Journalists came up with various theories for why Harry might have murdered Nola. Was she threatening to unmask their relationship? Maybe she’d wanted to break up with him and he’d lost his head? All the way to New Hampshire I kept turning these questions over in my mind. I tried to think about something else by switching from the news back to opera, but every track made me think of Harry, and as soon as I thought of him I thought again about that girl who’d been lying in the ground for more than thirty years next to that house where I had spent some of the happiest times of my life.

  • • •

  After five hours I finally arrived at Goose Cove. I had driven there without really thinking: Why did I come here rather than Concord, where Harry and Roth were? Satellite transmission vans were parked on the side of Shore Road, and journalists hung around with the base of the narrow gravel path that led to the house, reporting for several TV stations. As I was about to turn onto the path, they all flocked to my car, blocking my way so they could see who it was. One of them recognized me and called out, “Look, it’s that writer! It’s Marcus Goldman!” The swarm buzzed excitedly, and camera lenses tapped my car’s windows. “Do you believe Harry Quebert killed that girl?” “Did you know he wrote The Origin of Evil for her?” “Should the book be withdrawn from sale?” I kept my windows raised and sunglasses on. Local police officers, there to control the flood of journalists and gawkers, recognized me and succeeded in clearing a passage. I was able to disappear down the driveway, under groves of mulberries and tall pine trees. I could still hear a few journalists shouting: “Mr. Goldman, why have you come to Somerset? What are you doing at Harry Quebert’s house?”

  Why was I here? Because it was Harry. Because, surprising as this might seem—and I didn’t realize it myself until that very moment—Harry was the most treasured friend I had. In high school and college I had been unable to forge strong friendships with people my age, the kind of friendships that last forever. Harry was all I had in life and, curiously, I didn’t need to know if he was guilty or not; that fact would not in any way alter our deep bond of friendship. It was a strange feeling: I think I would have liked to hate him, to spit in his face while the nation watched; that would have been simpler. But these events did not affect the feelings I had for him in the slightest. At worst, I thought, he is a man, and men have demons. Everyone has demons. The question is simply to know up to what point those demons can be tolerated.

  I parked on the gravel driveway. Harry’s red Corvette was there, where he always left it, in the detached garage. As if the master were at home and all were well in the world. I wanted to go inside, but the front door was locked. This was the first time I could remember that door being locked. I walked around the house; there were no police here anymore, but the rear access to the property had been cordoned off with police tape. I settled for looking from afar at the wide area that had been marked off, reaching as far as the edge of the woods. You could just make out the gaping crater, evidence of the intensity of the police excavation, and next to it the forgotten hydrangea bushes, which were drying out.

  I must have lingered there for a good hour, because the next thing I knew I heard a car behind me. It was Roth, who had come from Concord. He had seen me on television and driven here immediately. His first words were: “So, you came?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Harry told me you’d come. He told me you were a stubborn son of a bitch and you’d come here to stick your nose in this business.”

  “Harry knows me well.”

  Roth put his hand in his jacket pocket and brought out a piece of paper.

  “It’s from him,” he told me.

  It was a handwritten note.

  My dear Marcus,

  If you are reading this, it’s because you have come to New Hampshire to find out what’s happened to your old friend.

  You are a brave guy. I never doubted that. I swear to you that I am innocent of the crimes of which I am accused. Nevertheless it seems likely I will be in prison for some time, and you have better things to do than to look after me. Concentrate on your career and on finishing the novel you’re supposed to hand in at the end of the month. Your career is more important. Don’t waste your time on me.

  Kind regards,

  Harry

  P.S. If by chance you wish to stay awhile in New Hampshire in spite of this, or to come here from time to time, you know Goose Cove is your home. Stay as long as you like. All I ask of you is one favor: feed the seagulls. Leave some bread for them on the deck. It’s important to feed the seagulls.

  “Don’t give up on him,” Roth said. “He needs you.”

  I nodded. “How’s it looking for him?”

  “Bad. You saw the news? Everyone knows about the book. It’s a disaster. The more I learn about this, the more I wonder how I’m going to defend him.”

  “Where did the leak come from?”

  “Straight from the prosecutor’s office, in my opinion. They want to turn up the pressure on Harry by condemning him in the court of public opinion. They want a full confession. They know that in a case that’s more than thirty years old, nothing is worth as mu
ch as a confession.”

  “When can I see him?”

  “Tomorrow morning. The state prison is in Concord. Where are you going to stay?”

  “Here, if I can.”

  He made a face.

  “I doubt it,” he said. “The police searched the house. It’s a crime scene.”

  “Isn’t the crime scene over there, where there’s a hole?” I asked.

  Roth went to inspect the front door, then quickly walked around the house. He was smiling when he came back.

  “You’d make a good lawyer, Goldman. There’s nothing sealing off the house.”

  “Does that mean I’m allowed to stay?”

  “It means there is nothing prohibiting you from staying here.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “That’s the beauty of U.S. law, Goldman: When there is no law, you invent one. And if you then get into trouble, you take it to the Supreme Court, which rules in your favor and publishes a judgment in your name—Goldman v. the State of New Hampshire. So go ahead and take possession of this place—there’s nothing stopping you, and if the police have the nerve to come and hassle you about it, tell them there’s a loophole in the law, mention the Supreme Court, and then threaten to sue them. That sometimes scares ’em off. On the other hand, I don’t have the keys to the house.”

  I dug into my pocket and showed Roth what I had.

  “Harry gave them to me a long time ago.”

  “You’re a magician! But, please, don’t cross any police lines—we’d get into trouble.”

  “I won’t. So what did the search of the house turn up?”

  “Nothing. That’s why they haven’t sealed it off.”

  Roth left, and I entered the vast, empty house. I locked the door behind me and went straight to the office, in search of the box I’d found. But it wasn’t there anymore. What could Harry have done with it? I desperately wanted to get hold of it, and I began searching the bookshelves in the office and the living room. Then I decided to inspect each room in the house, in the hope of finding even the smallest clue that might help me understand what had happened here in 1975. Was it in one of these rooms that Nola had been murdered?