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

“Yes, and I’m grateful for your cooperation. That means if I go down, you go down with me, Alan. This money is ours, the two of us. Don’t try taking the law into your own hands, don’t go to the police, don’t go rummaging about in this account. Everything is in both our names. So unless you want us to share a cell in a federal prison for corruption, it’s best you forget the whole story.”

“But this is bound to come out, Joseph! If only because every contractor in town knows you’re corrupt!”

“Stop moaning, Alan. The contractors are all in the same boat as you. They won’t say anything because they’re as guilty as I am. You can rest easy. And besides, this has been going on for a while now and everyone’s happy. The contractors are assured of work, so they’re not going to risk taking the moral high ground now.”

“Joseph, you don’t understand. Somebody knows about your schemes and is ready to talk. I received an anonymous call. That’s how I discovered everything.”

For the first time, Mayor Gordon showed signs of unease. “What? Who?”

“As I said, it was an anonymous call.”

* * *

In the interrogation room, Brown looked at Betsy in silence.

“I was in a corner,” he said. “I knew I’d never be able to prove I wasn’t involved in the general corruption. The account was in my name, too. Gordon was clever, he had planned it all. He may have seemed a little soft sometimes, a little indecisive, but he knew exactly what he was doing. I was at his mercy.”

“What happened next?”

“Gordon was still in a panic over the anonymous phone call. He was so sure that everyone would keep their mouth shut that he had never imagined anything like that happening. This made me think that the corruption involved even more people than I knew of, and that he was in real danger. The months that followed were very difficult. Our relations were strained, but we had to save face. Gordon wasn’t the kind of man to do nothing and I suspected he was looking for a way out. And, in fact, in April, he asked me to meet him one evening in the marina parking lot. ‘I’m going to leave town soon,’ he told me. ‘Where are you going, Joseph?’ ‘That doesn’t matter.’ ‘When?’ ‘As soon as I’ve finished cleaning up this mess.’ Another two months went by. To me, they were an eternity. At the end of June 1994 he summoned me again to the marina parking lot and told me he would be leaving at the end of the summer. ‘I’ll announce after the festival that I won’t be standing for re-election in September. Right after that, I’ll move out.’ ‘Why don’t you leave before? Why wait another two months?’ ‘I’ve been gradually emptying the bank account since March. I can only make transfers up to a certain level in order not to arouse suspicion. At this rate, it’ll be cleared by the end of the summer. The timing’s ideal. We’ll close the account. It’ll cease to exist, and you’ll never be implicated. The town will be yours. That’s what you always dreamed of, isn’t it?’ ‘And in the meantime, this business can blow up in our faces at any moment. And even if you do close the account, there must still be traces of the transactions somewhere. You can’t just wipe everything out, Joseph!’ ‘Don’t panic, Alan. I’ve thought of everything, as usual.’

“Mayor Gordon actually said: ‘I’ve thought of everything’?”

“Yes, those were his very words. I’ll never forget his face when he said them. It was ice-cold, terrifying. After all that time rubbing shoulders with him, I’d never realized that Joseph Gordon was the kind of man who let nothing stand in his way.”

Betsy nodded as she took notes. She looked up at Brown.

“But if Gordon had planned to leave after the festival, why did he change his mind and decide to leave on opening night?”

Alan made a face. “It was Charlotte who told you that, wasn’t it? It could only have been her, she was the only person who knew. As the festival approached, I found it hard to live with the fact that Gordon was getting all the credit even though he didn’t have anything to do with creating or organizing it. All he’d done was put more money in his pocket, giving accreditation to vendors setting up stands on Main Street. I couldn’t bear it any longer. He’d even published a little book in praise of his work. Everyone was congratulating him. What a sham! The day before the festival, I went to see him in his office and demanded that he leave the following morning. I didn’t want him to be taking all the credit, I didn’t want him to make the opening speech. He was planning to leave, sneaking out quietly after getting all the prestige, leaving the memory of an outstanding politician, even though I was the one who’d done everything. It was intolerable to me. I wanted Gordon to run away like a dog, with his tail between his legs. I demanded that he take off on the night of July 29. But he refused. On the morning of July 30, there he still was, provoking me, parading up and down Main Street, pretending to check that everything was going well. I told him I was going straight to his house to talk to his wife. I jumped in my car and drove to Penfield Crescent. Just as his wife, Leslie, was opening the door of the house and greeting me in a friendly fashion, I heard Gordon drive up behind me at high speed. Leslie Gordon already knew everything. In the kitchen, I said to them: ‘If you haven’t left Orphea by tonight, I’ll tell everyone, on the stage of the