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

“Did you keep in contact with Stephanie?”

“At first, yes. She came regularly to the city. We’d meet in the coffee shop near the Review. She’d keep me up to date with her progress and sometimes read me passages. But when she was busy with her research, she would not get in touch for a while. That’s why I wasn’t worried last week when I couldn’t reach her. I had given her free rein, and $30,000 in cash for her expenses. I was glad to let her have the money and the fame, I only wanted to know how the story worked out.”

“Because you had reason to think Tennenbaum did not commit the murders?”

“I followed the developments in the case closely. I knew a witness had stated that Tennenbaum’s van had been outside the mayor’s house. From the description I was given of it, I knew I had seen that same van pass the Grand Theater just before seven on the evening of the murders. I had arrived at the theater much too early, and it was boiling hot inside. I went outside for a smoke. To avoid the crowd, I went into the street at the side of the theater, which is a dead-end street leading to the stage door. That was when I saw that black vehicle drive by. It attracted my attention because there was a strange drawing on the rear window. It was Tennenbaum’s van, the one everybody talked about afterward.”

“But that night you saw who the driver was, and it wasn’t Tennenbaum?”

“Yes,” Ostrovski said.

“Who was it, Mr Ostrovski?” Derek said.

“It was Charlotte Brown, the mayor’s wife. She was the one driving Tennenbaum’s van.”

-2

Rehearsals

THURSDAY, JULY 17 – SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2014

JESSE ROSENBERG

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Nine days to opening night

Charlotte Brown’s veterinary clinic was located in the industrial quarter of Orphea, close to two large shopping malls. As she did every morning, she got to the almost deserted parking lot at 7.30 and parked in the place reserved for her in front of the clinic. She got out of the car, a coffee in her hand. She seemed to be in a good mood. She was so lost in thought that, even though I was only a few paces from her, she did not notice me until I said:

“Good morning, Mrs Brown. I’m Captain Rosenberg, State Police.”

She gave a start and rolled her eyes. “You scared me,” she said with a smile. “But yes, I know who you are.”

Then she saw Betsy, who was standing behind me, leaning against her patrol car.

“Betsy?” Charlotte said in surprise, and suddenly panicked. “Oh, my God, has Alan . . .”

“Don’t worry, Mrs Brown,” I said, “your husband’s fine. But we need to ask you a few questions.”

Betsy opened the rear door of her car.

“I don’t understand,” Charlotte Brown said.

“You will soon,” I said.

We drove her to the police station, where we allowed her to telephone her clinic to cancel her appointments for the morning, then a lawyer as she was allowed by right. Rather than a lawyer, she preferred to call her husband, who came in a great hurry. But even though he was mayor of the town, Alan Brown could not sit in on his wife’s interrogation. He caused a scene until Chief Gulliver said, “Alan, they’re doing you a favor by questioning Charlotte here, quickly and discreetly, rather than dragging her to the troop headquarters of the State Police.”

Sitting in the interrogation room, her cup of coffee in front of her, she seemed in a feverish state.

“Mrs Brown,” I said, “a witness has formally identified you as leaving the Grand Theater just before seven o’clock on the evening of Saturday, July 30, 1994, on board a vehicle belonging to Ted Tennenbaum. That same vehicle was seen a few minutes later outside Mayor Gordon’s house, around the time he and his family were murdered.”

Charlotte Brown lowered her eyes. “I didn’t kill the Gordons,” she said.

“Tell us what did happen that evening.”

There was a moment’s silence. She sat there impassively, then said, “I knew this day would come. I knew I couldn’t keep the secret to the end of my life.”

“What secret is that, Mrs Brown?” I said. “What have you been hiding for twenty years?”

After a hesitation, she said in a low voice:

“Yes, I did take Ted Tennenbaum’s van on opening night. I’d seen it parked outside the stage door. You couldn’t miss it, with that owl on the rear window. I knew it was his because some of the other actors and I had spent the previous few evenings at Café Athenaand Ted had driven us back to the hotel. So that day, when I needed to be absent for a while, just before seven, I immediately thought to borrow it from him. To save time. Nobody in the company had a car in Orphea. Obviously, I’d planned to ask his permission. I went to look for him in the little room he had as fire officer, next to our dressing rooms. But he wasn’t there. I had a quick look around the backstage area, but I couldn’t find him. There’d been a problem with the fuses, so I assumed he was busy with that. I saw the keys in his room, lying there on the table in full view. I didn’t have much time. The official part of the evening was going to begin in half an hour and Buzz, the director, obviously didn’t want us to leave the theater. So I took the keys. I didn’t think anyone would notice. And besides, Tennenbaum was on duty for the show, so he wouldn’t be going anywhere. I snuck out of the theater by the stage door and got in his van.”

“But what did you have to do that was so urgent you needed to be away just half an hour before the opening?”

“I absolutely had to speak to Mayor Gordon. A few minutes, as it turned out, before he and his