The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer: A gripping new thriller with a killer twist by Joël Dicker (ebook reader play store .txt) 📕

* * *

A.T.F. stakeout, Ridgesport

Morning of July 16, 1994

It was seven in the morning when Agent Riggs arrived at the A.T.F. stake-out to relieve Grace, who had spent the night there.

“I came by Route 16,” Riggs said. “There’s been a bad accident. A biker got killed. You’ll never guess who it was.”

“The biker? No idea,” Grace said. He was in no mood for riddles.

“Jeremiah Fold.”

Agent Grace was stunned. “Fold is dead?”

“Almost. According to the officers I spoke to, he’ll be checking out soon. He’s in a terrible state. Apparently, he was riding without a helmet.”

Grace was intrigued. Fold was a cautious, meticulous man. Not the kind to get himself killed stupidly. Something wasn’t quite right. Leaving the stakeout, Grace decided to go over to Route 16. Two highway patrol vehicles and a breakdown truck were still there.

“The guy lost control of his bike,” one of the officers told Grace. “He veered off the road and went straight into a tree. He lay there for hours. The ambulance guys say he was pretty smashed up.”

“And you think he lost control of his bike all alone?” Grace said.

“There’s no trace of brakes anywhere on the road. Why’s the A.T.F. interested?”

“The guy was a local mobster. A very careful man. I can’t see him killing himself.”

“But not careful enough to wear a helmet,” the officer said. “You think this was a gangland killing?”

“I have no idea,” Grace said. “But there’s something that bugs me, I don’t know what.”

“If they had wanted to kill this guy, they’d have done it. I mean, they’d have knocked him down and shot him. But this guy was left to die in a ditch. If he’d been found earlier, he might have been saved. Not the perfect murder.”

Grace agreed. He handed the officer a business card. “Please send me a copy of your report.”

“O.K., Special Agent Grace. You can count on me.”

Grace spent a while longer inspecting the side of the road. The officers of the Highway Patrol had left by the time his attention was drawn to a piece of matt plastic and a few transparent shards buried in the grass. He picked them up. It was a flake of a bumper and some fragments of headlights.

* * *

“There were just those very few pieces,” Grace said between two mouthfuls of pancake. “Nothing else. Which meant that either they had been there for a while, or that someone had cleaned up during the night.”

“Someone who rammed Fold’s bike?” Derek said.

“Yes. Which would explain why there were no traces of brakes. It must have been quite a crash. Whoever was at the wheel would have been able to collect most of the pieces so as not to leave any trace. His own hood must have been smashed in, but the car was still drivable. After that, this person must have told his garage mechanic that he’d hit a stag to explain the state of the car. He won’t have been asked any more questions.”

“Did you follow up on this?”

“No, Captain Rosenberg. I found out later that Fold never wore a helmet because, it was said, he was claustrophobic. So he wasn’t always as careful as his reputation suggested. And anyhow, it had nothing to do with the A.T.F. I already had enough work, I didn’t need to look into traffic accidents. But I always had that doubt in me.”

“But you went no further?” Derek said.

“No. Although some months later, toward the end of October 1994, I was contacted by the chief of police in Orphea, who’d been asking himself much the same questions as me.”

“Chief Hayward got in touch with you?” I said.

“Yes, that was his name, Hayward. We talked briefly about the case. He told me he’d contact me again, but he never did. I assumed he dropped it. Time passed, and I dropped it, too.”

“So you never had the pieces of headlight analyzed?” Derek said.

“No, but you can. I kept them.”

Grace had a wicked gleam in his eye. He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and handed us a plastic bag. Inside, there was a piece of a black bumper and fragments of glass. He smiled and said:

“It’s your turn now, gentlemen.”

The day it took us to drive to Massachusetts and back was going to be worth it. If Fold had been murdered, we might have our connection with the death of Mayor Gordon.

* * *

In the secrecy of the Grand Theater, surrounded by crowds and defended like a fortress, rehearsals continued. In the middle of the morning, when she was not involved, Carolina Eden slipped out of the auditorium, eager for a smoke. She got to the stage door, which looked out on a dead-end alley, access forbidden to press and onlookers. She would be undisturbed there.

She lit her cigarette, sitting on the top of the steps in the sun. It was then that she saw a man appear, a press card hanging around his neck.

“Frank Vannan, New York Times,” he said.

“How did you get this far?” Carolina said.

“The art of journalism is getting to where you’re not wanted. Are you in this play?”

“Yes, I’m one of the actresses. Carolina Eden.”

“What part are you playing?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to say. The director is very strict about leaks. None of us has even read the full script.”

Vannan took out a notepad and scribbled a few notes.

“Write what you want,” Carolina said, “but please don’t quote me.”

“No problem. So you don’t know yourself what this play is going to reveal?”

“You know, Frank, it’s a play about a secret. And a secret, when it comes down to it, is more important for what it hides than what it reveals.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take a look at the cast, Frank. Every one of the actors is hiding something. If you want my opinion, the question isn’t what this play is going to reveal but what it’s hiding.”

Carolina turned to go back in through the stage door, which she had