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

Leyla girl is a bad influence on my daughter. Whenever they get together, they do something stupid. If you want my opinion, everything that happened isn’t the fault of the computer, it’s the fault of that Leyla!”

“No, Daddy, you’re the problem,” Carolina protested, “because you’re dumb and you just don’t get it!”

She got up from the couch and walked out of the room. The session had lasted only fifteen minutes.

* * *

At 5.15, Betsy, Derek and I got to Café Athena. We found a table at the far end. The establishment was filled by the volunteers and onlookers who had come to witness the strange meeting that was taking place. Springfield, taking his function as president of the volunteers very seriously, was standing on a chair, hammering out words that the crowd took up in unison.

“We’re in danger!” he cried.

“Yes, in danger!” the volunteers repeated.

“Mayor Brown is hiding the truth about Stephanie Mailer’s death. Do you know why she was killed?”

“Why?” the chorus responded.

“Because of the theater festival!”

“The theater festival!” the volunteers sang out.

“Did we give our time in order to be murdered?”

“Noooooooo!” the crowd chanted.

A waiter came with coffee and the menu. I had already seen him in the restaurant. He looked Native American, with shoulder-length grizzled hair, and I had been struck by his first name, Massachusetts.

The volunteers took turns to speak. Many of them were worried by what they had read in the Chronicle and were afraid they would be the killer’s next victims. Mayor Brown, who was also there, listened to all the grievances and tried to respond reassuringly, hoping to make the volunteers see reason.

“There is no serial killer in Orphea,” he said.

“But there is a killer,” a wiry, silver-haired man observed. “Stephanie Mailer is dead.”

“Listen, that was a very tragic thing that happened, I agree. But it has nothing to do with you or the festival. You don’t have the slightest reason to worry.”

Still standing on his chair, Springfield called out, “Mr Mayor, we’re not going to put ourselves in the way of being killed because of a theater festival!”

“I’ll say it again, for the hundredth time, if necessary,” Brown said, “this tragedy, terrible as it is, has absolutely no connection with the festival! Your argument is absurd! And the fact is, as you must realize, that without you the festival cannot take place.”

“So that’s all that worries you, is it, Mr Mayor?” Springfield said. “Your lousy festival rather than the safety of your citizens?”

“I’m just pointing out the consequences of making an irrational decision. If the festival does not take place, this town will not get back on its feet.”

“It’s the sign!” a woman suddenly cried out.

“What sign?” a young man asked.

“It’s ‘The Darkest Night’!” the woman screamed.

Derek, Betsy and I looked at each other in astonishment, while at the mention of those words Café Athenacame alive with a loud, anxious murmur. Springfield struggled to regain control of the gathering. When silence was finally restored he suggested they take a vote.

“Who among you is in favor of an all-out strike until Stephanie’s murderer is arrested?” he said.

A forest of hands went up. Almost all the volunteers.

“An all-out strike has been approved,” Springfield announced, “until Stephanie Mailer’s murderer is arrested and our safety is guaranteed.”

The session having been brought to an end, the crowd trooped noisily out of the establishment and into the hot late-afternoon sun. Derek hurried to catch up with the woman who had mentioned “The Darkest Night”.

“What is ‘The Darkest Night’?” he asked her.

She stared at him fearfully. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” he said, showing her his badge. “I’m with the State Police.”

“‘The Darkest Night’ is the worst thing that can happen. It’s already happened once and it’ll happen again.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Don’t you know anything? Summer 1994, the summer of ‘The Darkest Night’!”

“You mean the murders?”

She nodded nervously. “Those murders were‘The Darkest Night’! And it’s going to happen again this summer! Get away from here, leave before it comes back and hits the town. This festival is cursed!”

She hurried away from the restaurant and disappeared along with the last volunteers, leaving Café Athena all but empty. Derek came back to our table. The only other person left inside was Mayor Brown.

“That woman seemed really scared about ‘The Darkest Night’,” I said to the mayor.

He shrugged. “Don’t take any notice of her, Captain Rosenberg. ‘The Darkest Night’ is nothing but a silly legend. That woman has a screw loose.”

Mayor Brown now also left. Massachusetts hurried to our table to pour more coffee into our cups, even though we had barely touched them. I understood that it was just an excuse to talk to us.

“The mayor didn’t tell you the truth,” he said. “‘The Darkest Night’ is more than an urban legend. A lot of people here believe in it and see it as a prediction that came true already in 1994.”

“What kind of prediction?” Derek said.

“That on a certain day, because of a play, there’ll be chaos in this town for one whole night—the famous ‘Darkest Night’.”

“Is that what happened in 1994?” I said.

“I do remember that just after Mayor Gordon announced there was going to be a theater festival here, strange things started happening.”

“What kind of things?”

Massachusetts couldn’t tell us more because right then the owner of Café Athenawalked in. I immediately recognized her as Ted Tennenbaum’s sister Sylvia. She must have been sixty, but she had barely changed physically since 1994. She was still the sophisticated woman I had met in the course of the investigation. When she saw us, she was unable to hold back an expression of dismay.

“They told me you were back in town,” she said, her voice hard.

“Hello, Ms Tennenbaum,” I said. “I didn’t know you took over this place.”

“Somebody had to do it, after you killed my brother.”

“We didn’t kill your brother,” Derek said.

“You’re not welcome here. Pay and get out.”

“Alright,” I said. “We didn’t come here looking for trouble.”

We asked Massachusetts for the check, which he brought