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

in the stern of the dinghy and leaned over the side to get a better view of the body as it was freed by the frogmen. When finally they managed to turn it over, I recoiled. The face I saw, distorted by the water, was Stephanie Mailer’s.

The announcement that Stephanie Mailer’s drowned body had been found in Stag Lake caused a great stir in the area. Onlookers massed beyond the police barriers. The local media were there in numbers. The whole side of Route 17 was one huge, noisy carnival.

On the shore, where the body now lay, the medical examiner, Dr Ranjit Singh, proceeded with an initial examination, then joined us—Betsy, Derek, Mayor Brown, Chief Gulliver, and me—to let us know his observations.

“I think Stephanie Mailer was strangled,” he said.

Mayor Brown hid his face in his hands.

“We’ll have to wait for the results of the postmortem to know beyond doubt what happened,” Dr Singh went on, “but I’ve already noticed big bruises on the neck as well as signs of major cyanosis. There are also scratches on the arms and face, and grazes on the elbows and knees.”

“Why didn’t anyone see her before?” Gulliver said.

“It takes time for drowned bodies to come back to the surface. Judging by the condition of the body, death occurred eight or nine days ago. More than a week anyway.”

“Which would take us back to the night she went missing,” Jesse said. “Stephanie was kidnapped and then murdered.”

“Oh, my God!” Brown said, passing a hand through his hair. “How is it possible? Who could have done this to that poor girl?”

“That’s what we’re going to have to find out,” Derek said. “You’re facing a very serious situation, Mr Mayor. There’s a killer in the area, maybe in your town. We don’t know anything about his or her motives and we can’t rule out the possibility that they may strike again. Until we catch whoever is responsible, we have to be even more careful. We may need to put security measures in place, with the State Police supporting the local force.”

“Security measures?” Brown said anxiously. “Don’t even think about it, you’re going to scare everyone! You don’t seem to realize, Orphea is a resort town. All we need is a rumor that there’s a murderer on the loose and the summer season is screwed! Do you know what that means for us?” He turned to Chief Gulliver and Betsy. “How long can you stop this from getting out?”

“It’s already out, Alan,” Gulliver said. “It’s spreading like wildfire. Look for yourself, up there on the side of the road.”

We were suddenly interrupted by a commotion: the Mailers had just arrived. They appeared at the top of the slope leading down to the shore. “Stephanie!”Mrs Mailer cried as she approached, followed by her husband. Derek and I, seeing them hurrying down the slope, rushed to stop them coming any farther and spare them the sight of their daughter lying on the shore, ready to be loaded into a body bag.

“You really shouldn’t look,” I said to Mrs Mailer, who huddled against me, screaming and weeping. We led the Mailers to a police van, where a counsellor would soon join them.

A statement had to be made to the media. I preferred to let the mayor deal with that. Gulliver, who seemed not to want to miss an opportunity to appear on T.V., insisted on going with him.

They climbed back up to the security cordon, behind which reporters were kicking their heels. There were regional T.V. channels, photog-raphers, and the printed press, too. When Mayor Brown and Gulliver appeared, a little forest of microphones and lenses turned in their direction. In a voice that stood out from those of his colleagues, Michael Bird asked the first question:

“Was Stephanie Mailer murdered?”

There was a brief, icy silence.

“We have to wait for the results of the investigation,” Mayor Brown said. “Please let’s not jump to conclusions. A press release will be issued in due course.”

“But it was Stephanie Mailer who was found in the lake?” Bird persisted.

“I can’t tell you anything more.”

“We all saw her parents arrive, Mr Mayor.”

“Yes, it does seem to be Stephanie Mailer,” Brown was forced to confirm. “But her parents have not yet formally identified her.”

He was at once bombarded by questions from the other reporters present. Bird’s voice again rose above the mass:

“So Stephanie was murdered,” he said. “Which means there’s no way the fire in her apartment was a coincidence. What’s going on in Orphea? What are you hiding from the townspeople, Mr Mayor?”

Keeping his composure, Brown replied in a calm voice, “I understand your questions, but it’s important that you let the detectives do their job. I won’t be making any comment for the moment, I don’t want to risk hampering the work of the police.”

Bird, visibly upset, now cried:

“Mr Mayor, are you planning to continue with the Fourth of July celebrations when your town is in mourning?”

Mayor Brown, caught unawares, had only a fraction of a second in which to consider his reply.

“For the moment, I’m announcing that the firework display on the Fourth of July is canceled.”

A murmur ran through the reporters and the onlookers.

*

For our part, Betsy, Derek and I were examining the shores of the lake, trying to figure out how Stephanie could have ended up here. In Derek’s opinion, it had to have been an unpremeditated murder.

“Any murderer with the slightest sense would have weighed down the body to stop it coming back to the surface so soon. The person who did this had not planned to kill her here or in this way.”

Covered as it was with a vast, dense reed bed, which rose like a wall, most of the shoreline of Stag Lake was inaccessible on foot, making it a paradise for birds. It was like virgin forest, within which dozens of species of birds nested and lived in peace. Another part was edged with a real forest, of thick pines, which ran alongside Route 17 all the