by Joël Dicker
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. That’s why I remember it. I mean, over the years, there are cases you forget and others that remain engraved in your memory. That accident was one of the memorable cases.”
“Why?”
“When you’re a cop in a small town like this, car accidents are among the bigger cases you have to deal with. I mean, the only dead bodies I saw, in my whole career, were due to car accidents. But this one was different. For weeks before this, we’d all been alerted to the kidnapping in New Hampshire. The feds were actively searching for a black Chevrolet Monte Carlo and they’d told us to keep an eye out. I remember spending those weeks looking for Chevys similar to that model, in all different colors, and flagging them down so I could check them out. I figured it would be pretty easy to repaint a car. Anyway, I felt involved in that case, like every other cop in the area. We desperately wanted to find that girl. And then, one morning, while I was in the station, the Coast Guard told us they were recovering a crashed car from the dunes at Ellisville Harbor. And guess what model it was …”
“A black Monte Carlo.”
“Bull’s-eye. With a New Hampshire registration and a corpse inside. I still remember inspecting that car. It had been completely crushed in the fall, and there was a guy inside, smashed to a pulp. We found his papers on him: Luther Caleb. I remember that clearly. The car was registered in the name of a big company in Concord—Stern Limited. We made a really careful search of the interior. There wasn’t much; the water had caused a lot of damage. We did find the remains of some bottles of alcohol, smashed into a thousand pieces, but there was nothing in the trunk except a bag with a few clothes.
“You mean like a suitcase?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Like a small suitcase.”
“What did you do next?” Gahalowood asked.
“My job. I spent the rest of the day investigating. I wanted to know who this guy was, what he was doing there, and when the crash had occurred. I did some research on this Caleb, and guess what I found?”
“That a harassment complaint had been filed against him with the police in Somerset,” Gahalowood said, almost casually.
“Exactly! How did you know?”
“That’s my job.”
“At that point I figured it couldn’t be a coincidence. So the first thing I wanted to find out was if anyone had reported him missing. I mean, in my experience, when there’s a car accident, there are usually loved ones worried about the victims; that’s often what allows us to make an identification. But no-one had reported this guy missing. Strange, huh? So I called Stern Limited to find out more. I told them I had found one of their vehicles, and I was put on hold for a moment. Before I knew it I found myself talking to Mr Elijah Stern himself, the heir to the Stern family fortune. I explained the situation to him; I asked if one of his vehicles had disappeared, and he said no. I told him about the black Chevrolet, and he explained that it was the vehicle generally used by his chauffeur when he was off duty. I then asked him when he’d last seen his chauffeur, and he told me that he had gone on vacation. ‘How long has he been on vacation?’ I asked. ‘Several weeks,’ he replied. ‘And where did he go?’ He said he had no idea. I thought that was very strange.”
“So what did you do?” Gahalowood asked.
“As far as I was concerned, we had found the number one suspect in the abduction of the Kellergan girl. So I immediately called the chief of police in Somerset.”
“You called Chief Pratt?”
“Yes. I informed him of my discovery.”
“And?”
“He came that day. He thanked me and carefully studied the case file. He was very friendly. He inspected the car and said that unfortunately it did not match the model he had seen during the pursuit, and now he was wondering if it really had been a Monte Carlo he had seen, or maybe it was something similar like a Nova, and that he would check this out with the sheriff’s office. He added that he had already investigated this Caleb guy and that there had been enough exculpatory evidence to rule him out. He told me to send him the report anyway, though, which I did.”
“So you told Chief Pratt about this, and he decided not to investigate it any further?”
“Yes. He assured me I was wrong. He seemed convinced, and he was the one running the investigation. He knew what he was doing. He concluded it was just a normal car accident, and that is what I put in my report.”
“And that didn’t seem strange to you?”
“At the time, no. I figured I must have gotten carried away. But even so, I didn’t leave it there. I sent the corpse to forensics because I wanted to understand what could have happened, and to find out if the accident might have been caused by alcohol consumption—because of the bottles we found. Unfortunately the body had been so damaged by the violence of the fall and then by seawater that we weren’t able to confirm anything. As I said, the guy was really smashed up. The only thing forensics could tell me was that the body had probably been there for several weeks before we found it. And God knows how much longer it might have stayed there if it weren’t for that lobsterman. After that, the body was returned to the family, and that was the end of the story. As I said, everything led me to believe it was just a regular car accident. Obviously, now, with everything we’ve learned, especially about Pratt and the girl, I’m no longer sure about anything.”
The scene as described by Darren Wanslow was indeed intriguing. When our interview was over, Gahalowood and I went to the marina in Sagamore to get a bite to eat. There was a tiny dock, with a general store and a postcard seller. It was a beautiful day: The colors were bright and the ocean seemed to go on forever. Around us, we could make out a few pretty-colored houses, some of them right on the beach, bordered by small, well-kept gardens. We had hamburgers and beer in a little restaurant that had a deck perched on stilts over the ocean. Gahalowood looked thoughtful as he chewed.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“That everything seems to point to Luther. He had a suitcase with him. He had prepared to run away, maybe taking Nola with him. But his plans went awry: Nola got away from him; he had to kill Deborah Cooper; and afterward he beat Nola so badly that she died.”
“You think it’s him?”
“I think so. But there are still unanswered questions. I don’t understand why Stern didn’t mention the black Chevy when he talked to us. That’s a pretty important detail. Luther disappeared with a company car, and he didn’t worry? And why the hell didn’t Pratt pursue this lead?”
“You think Chief Pratt was involved in Nola’s disappearance?”
“Let’s just say I’d like to ask him why he gave up investigating Caleb in spite of Wanslow’s report. I mean, he’s given a prime suspect on a plate, in a black Monte Carlo, and he decides there’s no connection. Don’t you think that’s strange? And if there really had been any doubt about the model of the car, if it was a Nova rather than a Monte Carlo, he should have made that known. Whereas in the report, the only car mentioned is a Monte Carlo.”
*
We went to Montburry that afternoon, to the small motel where Chief Pratt was staying. It was a single-story building, with about a dozen rooms and a parking space in front of each door. The place was not exactly packed: There were only two vehicles parked out front, one of them presumably his. Gahalowood knocked on the door. No response. He knocked again. Still nothing. A maid went past and Gahalowood asked her to open the door for us.
“I can’t,” she replied.
“Yes, you can,” Gahalowood said irritably, showing his badge.
“I’ve already tried several times today so I could clean the room,” she explained. “I thought the guest must have gone out without my seeing him, but he left his key in the lock on the inside. It’s impossible to get it open. That means he’s in there. Unless he left and closed the door with the key still in the lock. That happens sometimes, with guests in a rush. But his car is here.”
Gahalowood frowned. He banged
hard on the door and ordered Pratt to open up. He tried looking through the window, but the curtain was drawn and he couldn’t see anything. So he decided to force the door open. The lock gave way after his third try.
Chief Pratt lay stretched out on the floor, blood all around him.
8
The Identity of Anonymous
“Who dares, wins. Think about that motto, Marcus, whenever you are faced with a difficult choice. Who dares, wins.”
EXTRACT FROM THE HARRY QUEBERT AFFAIR
On Tuesday, July 22, 2008, it was the small town of Montburry’s turn to undergo the same kind of turmoil that just weeks earlier had seized Somerset, upon the discovery of Nola’s body. Police cars came from all over the region, converging on a motel near the town’s industrial zone. The rumor was that there had been a murder, and that the victim was the former police chief of Somerset.
Sergeant Gahalowood stood calmly in front of the door to the room. Several forensics officers were busy at the crime scene, but the sergeant was content to watch. I wondered what he was thinking. Finally he turned around and noticed me watching him, sitting on the hood of a police car. He gave me his enraged-bull look and came toward me.
“What are you doing with that recorder, writer?”
“Dictating the scene for my book.”
“You realize you’re sitting on the hood of a police car?”
“What are you doing with that recorder, writer?”
“Dictating the scene for my book.”
“You realize you’re sitting on the hood of a police car?”
“Oh, sorry, Sergeant. So what do we have?”
“Turn off the recorder, please.”
I did what he told me.
“The initial evidence suggests that Chief Pratt was hit on the back of the head. Once, or more than once, with a heavy object.”
“Like Nola?”
“Same kind of thing, yeah. He’s been dead for more than twelve hours. Which takes us back to last night. I think he knew his murderer. Especially if he left the key in the door. He probably opened the door to him; maybe he was expecting him. The blows were to the back of the head, which means he had probably turned around. In all likelihood he did not suspect anything, and his visitor took advantage of that to deliver the fatal blow. We haven’t found the murder weapon. The murderer almost certainly took it with him. It could have been an iron bar or something like that, which suggests it was probably not a disagreement that degenerated into a fight but a premeditated act. Someone came here to kill Pratt.”
“Any witnesses?”
“None at all. The motel is practically deserted. Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything. The front desk closes at 10 p.m. Then there’s a night watchman who works right through till morning, but he was watching T.V. and he couldn’t tell us anything. No security cameras, of course.”
“Who could have done this, do you think?” I asked. “The same person who set fire to Goose Cove?”
“Maybe. In any case it was probably someone who’d been protected by Pratt and who was afraid that now he would talk. Maybe Pratt knew the identity of Nola’s murderer all along.”
“So you already have a theory, Sergeant?”
“Well, who is connected to Goose Cove and the black Chevrolet apart from Harry Quebert?”
“Elijah Stern?”
“Elijah Stern. I’ve been thinking about him for a while, and I thought about him again when I saw Pratt’s corpse. I don’t know if Elijah Stern murdered Nola, but I do think it’s possible he’s been covering for Caleb for the past thirty-three years. There’s the mysterious vacation Caleb took, and the company car that Stern failed to report missing …”
“What are you thinking, Sergeant?”
“That Caleb is guilty, and Stern is somehow mixed up in this case. I think that after Caleb was spotted at Side Creek Lane in the black Monte Carlo, and after he had managed to lose Pratt in the car chase, he must have taken refuge at Goose Cove. The whole region is swarming with police, so he knows he has no chance of getting away, but on the other hand he also knows that nobody will come to Goose Cove to look for him. Nobody except Stern. It’s likely that on August 30, 1975, Stern really did spend his day in private meetings, as he told me. But that evening, when he gets home and sees that Luther still hasn’t returned—and, worse, that he has left with one of the company’s cars, more discreet than his blue Mustang—I find it hard to imagine that Stern just stays home twiddling his thumbs. Logic suggests he would have gone looking for Luther to try to prevent him from doing something terrible. And I think that’s what he did. But when he gets to Somerset, he is too late. There are police cars everywhere, and the tragedy he feared has already occurred. He has to find Caleb at any cost, and where is the first place he would look for him, writer?”
“Goose Cove.”
“Exactly. It’s his house and he knows that Luther feels safe there. It’s possible Luther even had a spare key. Anyway, Stern goes to see what’s happening at Goose Cove, and he finds Luther there.”
August 30, 1975, according to Gahalowood’s Theory
Stern found the Chevrolet in front of the garage. Luther was bending over the open trunk.
“Luther!” Stern yelled as he got out of his car. “What have you done?”
Luther was in a state of panic.
“We … we had an argument, Mifter Ftern … I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
Stern approached the car and discovered Nola lying in the trunk next to a leather shoulder bag; her body was twisted and she was not moving.
“But … you’ve killed her …”
Stern vomited.
“She would have called ve polife if I hadn’t …”
“Luther! What have you done? Oh, God, what have you done?”
“Help me, Eli. Pleave help me.”
“You have to get away, Luther. If the police catch you, you’ll get the death penalty.”
“No! Pleave!”
It was then that Stern noticed the butt of a pistol protruding from Luther’s belt.
“What is that?”
“Ve old lady … She faw everyfing.”
“What old lady?”
“In ve houfe, over vere …”
“Oh, my God, someone saw you?”
“Nola and I had an argument, Eli … She didn’t want to let me … I wav forfed to hurt her—I had no choife. But she got away. She ran. She went into vat houfe. I went in vere too. I fought ve houfe wav empty. But vere wav an old lady, watching uv … I had to kill her, I had no choife. Eli, pleave help me—I’m begging you!”
They had to get rid of the body. Stern grabbed a shovel from the garage and began digging a hole. He chose to dig by the edge of the forest, where the soil was loose and where no-one—particularly Quebert—would notice the disturbed earth. He quickly dug a deep hole. He called Caleb to help him move the body, but he did not see him. He finally found him kneeling in front of the car, looking at a pile of papers.
“Luther? What the hell are you doing?”
He was crying.
“It’f Quebert’f book. Nola told me about it. He wrote a book for her. It’f fo beautiful.”
“Bring that over here. I dug a hole.”
“Wait!”
“Why?”
“I want to tell her vat I love her.”
“What?”
“Let me write fomefing for her. Juft a few wordv. Pleave, may I borrow your pen? Afterward we’ll bury her, and I will difappear forever.”
Stern cursed at this, but he took a pen from the pocket of his jacket and handed it to Caleb, who wrote Goodbye, darling Nola on the first page. Then he ceremoniously placed the manuscript inside the bag, and he carried Nola’s body over to the hole. He laid her inside, and the two men filled up the hole with earth and then scattered pine needles, broken branches and bits of moss over the fresh soil so that the illusion would be perfect.
*
“And after that?” I asked.
“After that,�
�� Gahalowood replied, “Stern needs to find a way to protect Luther. And that way is Pratt.”
“Pratt?”
“Yes. I think Stern knew what Pratt had done to Nola. We know that Caleb hung around Goose Cove all the time, that he spied on Harry and Nola. He might have seen Pratt pick up Nola—obviously against her will—by the side of the road. And Luther would have told Stern. So, that evening, Stern leaves Luther at Goose Cove and goes to see Pratt at the police station. He waits until late at night, maybe until after 11 p.m., when the search ends. He wants to be alone with Pratt, and he bargains with him: He tells him to let Luther leave, making sure he gets through all the roadblocks, in return for his silence about Nola. And Pratt agrees. Otherwise, how likely is it that Caleb would have been able to drive as far as Massachusetts? But Caleb feels cornered. He has nowhere to go; he is lost. He buys some alcohol and drinks it. He wants to end it all. He drives off the parking area at Ellisville Harbor. A few weeks later, when the car is found, Pratt goes to Sagamore to hush things up. He ensures that Caleb does not become a suspect.”
“But why would he want to deflect suspicions from Caleb once he’s dead?”
“Because of Stern. Stern knew about him. By exonerating Caleb, Pratt was protecting himself.”
“So Pratt and Stern knew the truth all along?”
“Yes. They buried this case deep in their memories. They never saw each other again. Stern got rid of the house at Goose Cove by selling it to Harry, and he never set foot in Somerset again. And for thirty-three years, it seemed like this case would never be solved.”
“Until Nola’s remains were discovered.”
“And until a certain stubborn writer starts stirring things up. A writer who must be threatened so that he’ll give up his search for the truth.”
“So Pratt and Stern wanted to hush things up,” I said. “But who killed Pratt, then? Stern, having seen that Pratt is about to crack and reveal the truth?”
“That’s something we still have to find out. But not a word about any of this,” Gahalowood warned me. “Don’t write anything yet. I don’t want another leak to the newspapers. I’m going to look into Stern’s past. This will be a difficult theory to prove. In any case, there’s one common denominator in all these scenarios: Luther Caleb. And if he really did kill Nola Kellergan, that will be confirmed—”