The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair: A Novel

by Joël Dicker

  “Harry, and a crime of passion? That makes no sense. When will we ever get the results from that damn handwriting analysis?”

  “Soon. It’s only a matter of days now, I think. Marcus, I have to tell you something: The DA is going to offer Quebert a deal. They’ll drop the kidnap charge if he pleads guilty to a crime of passion. Twenty years in jail. He’d be out in fifteen if he behaved well. No death penalty.”

  “Why would Harry want a deal? He didn’t do anything wrong.”

  I sensed there was something we were failing to see, a detail that would explain everything. I went back over Nola’s final days, but nothing noteworthy seemed to have happened until that fateful evening of August 30. In fact, after my conversations with Jenny Dawn, Tamara Quinn, and a few others from Somerset, it seemed to me that Nola Kellergan’s last three weeks of life had been happy. On the other hand, Harry had depicted those torture scenes, Pratt had described how he had forced Nola to perform fellatio on him, and Nancy had told me about sordid meetings with Luther Caleb. Yet Jenny’s and Tamara’s testimonies were very different. According to them, there was nothing to suggest that Nola was unhappy or mistreated. Tamara even told me that Nola had asked to start waitressing again at Clark’s once school started, which she had agreed to. I was so surprised by this that I twice asked her to confirm it. Why would Nola have taken steps to ensure she still had a job if she was planning to run away? Robert Quinn told me that he had seen her occasionally carry a typewriter, but that she sang and looked cheerful as she carted it along with her. From the sounds of it, Somerset in August 1975 was a kind of heaven on earth. I began to wonder if Nola had indeed intended to leave town. Then I was seized by a horrifying thought: How could I be sure that Harry was telling me the truth? How could I know whether Nola had really asked him to elope with her? What if it was just a ploy to get himself off the hook for her murder? What if Gahalowood had been right all along?

  • • •

  I saw Harry again on the afternoon of July 5, in prison. His expression was dreadful, his skin gray hued. Lines I had never seen before had appeared on his forehead.

  “The DA wants to offer you a deal,” I said.

  “I know. Roth already talked to me about it. A crime of passion. I could be out in fifteen years.”

  I understood from his tone of voice that he was considering this option.

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to accept that!” I said angrily.

  “I don’t know. It’s a way of avoiding the death penalty.”

  “Avoiding the death penalty? What’s that supposed to mean? That you’re guilty?”

  “No! But everything seems to condemn me. And I have no desire to play a hand of poker with jurors who’ve already decided I’m guilty. Fifteen years in prison: It’s better than a life sentence, or death row.”

  “Harry, I’m going to ask you this one last time: Did you kill Nola?”

  “Of course not! For Christ’s sake, how many times do I have to tell you?”

  “Then let’s prove it.”

  I took out my minidisc recorder and placed it on the table.

  “No, please! Not that thing again.”

  “I have to understand what happened.”

  “I don’t want you to record me anymore. Please.”

  “All right. I’ll take notes instead.”

  I took out a notebook and a pen.

  “I would like us to go back to our previous discussion about your elopement on August 30. Correct me if I’m wrong, but at the time the two of you decided to leave, your book was practically finished.”

  “I finished it a few days before we were supposed to leave. I wrote it very fast. I felt I was in a trance. Everything was so wonderful: Nola being there all the time, rereading my words, correcting them, typing them up. This may seem mawkish to you, but it was magical. The book was finished on August 27. I remember it well because that was the last time I saw Nola. We had agreed that I should leave town two or three days before her, so that people didn’t become suspicious. So August 27 was our last day together. I had finished the novel in a month. It was wild. I was so proud of myself. I remember those two manuscripts stacked up impressively on the deck table: the handwritten original and the version that Nola had worked so hard to type up. We went down to the beach, to where we had first met three months earlier. We walked for a long time. Nola held my hand and said, ‘Meeting you changed my life, Harry. See how happy we are together.’ We walked on. Our plan was in place: I was to leave the next morning, August 28, stopping by at Clark’s so people would see me and so I could tell them that I would be away for a week or two due to urgent business in Boston. I would take a hotel room in Boston, keeping my receipts so that it would all fit together if the police questioned me. And then, on August 30, I would come back and take a room at the Sea Side Motel. Nola told me to reserve room 8 because she liked that number. I asked her how she would manage to reach that motel, which was some miles from Somerset, and she told me not to worry, that she was a fast walker and knew a shortcut via the beach. She would meet me at the motel that night at seven p.m. Then we would have to leave right away, cross the border into Canada, and find a place to hole up—an apartment we could rent. I would go back to Somerset a few days later, as if nothing had happened. The police would be bound to search for Nola, and I had to stay calm. If they questioned me, I would say I had been in Boston and show them the hotel receipts. I would then spend the next week in Somerset in order to quell suspicions, while Nola stayed in our apartment and waited for me. After that I would give back the keys to Goose Cove and leave Somerset for good, explaining that my novel was finished and that I now had to take care of getting it published. Then I would return to Nola and send the manuscript to publishing houses in New York, and from then on I would travel between New York and our hideaway in Canada until the book was published.”

  “And what would Nola do?”

  “We were going to get her a fake ID, so she could finish high school and then go to college. We would have waited until she was eighteen, and then she would have become Mrs. Harry Quebert.”

  “Fake ID? But that’s crazy!”

  “I know.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “That day—August 27—we rehearsed the plan several times on the beach, then went back to the house. We sat on the old couch in the living room—which wasn’t old at the time but has become so because I could never bear to get rid of it—and we had our last conversation. These were her last words to me, Marcus. I’ll never forget them. She said, ‘We’ll be so happy, Harry. I’ll become your wife. You’ll be a great writer. And a university professor. I always dreamed of marrying a university professor. And we’ll have a big, sun-colored dog, a Labrador we’ll name Storm. You’ll wait for me, won’t you? Please wait for me!’ And I replied: ‘I’ll wait my whole life for you, Nola, if I have to.’ Those were her last words, Marcus. After that I nodded off, and when I woke up the sun was setting and Nola was gone. The ocean was aglow with that pink light, and the sky was full of screeching seagulls. Those damn seagulls she loved so much. There was now only one manuscript on the deck table: the handwritten original. And next to it was that note, the one you found in the box. I know those sentences by heart. It said: ‘Don’t worry, Harry. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll find a way to meet you there. Wait for me in room 8. I like that number, it’s my favorite. Wait for me there at 7 p.m. And then we’ll go away forever.’ I didn’t look for the manuscript; I realized she had taken it so she could read it one more time. Or maybe to make sure I would meet her at the motel on the thirtieth. She took that damn manuscript with her, Marcus, as she did sometimes. And the next day I left town, just as we had planned. I stopped by at Clark’s to have coffee, so that people would see me and I could tell them I was going away. Jenny was there, as she was every morning. I told her I had to go to Boston, that my book was almost finished and I had some
important meetings there. And then I left. I left, never suspecting for a second that I had seen Nola for the last time.”

  I put down my pen. Harry was crying.

  July 7, 2008

  Roy Barnaski gave himself a half hour to read through the fifty-odd pages I had given him before he called us back to see him.

  “So?” I asked, as I entered the room.

  “It’s just brilliant, Goldman! Brilliant! I knew you were the man of the hour.”

  “Just to warn you: those pages are essentially my notes. There are things in there that can’t be published.”

  “Of course, of course. You’ll get the final say.”

  He ordered champagne, spread the contracts out on the table, and went over the main points again: “Delivery of the manuscript at the end of August. The jacket art will be ready by then. The book will be edited and typeset in two weeks, and printing will take place in September. Publication is set for the final week of September, at the latest. What perfect timing! Just before the presidential election, and more or less exactly during Quebert’s trial! It’s marketing genius!”

  “And what if the investigation is still ongoing?” I asked. “How am I supposed to finish the book?”

  Barnaski had his response all ready and rubber-stamped by his legal department. “If the investigation is finished, it’s a true story. If not, we leave it open, you suggest the ending, and it’s a novel. Legally they can’t touch us, and for readers it makes no difference. And in fact, it’s even better if the investigation isn’t over, because we could do a sequel. What a godsend!”

  He gave me a knowing look. An employee brought in the champagne, and Barnaski insisted on opening it himself. I signed the contract while he popped the cork, spilling champagne everywhere, and filled two glasses. He gave one to Douglas and the other to me.

  “Aren’t you having any?” I asked.

  Grimacing with distaste, he wiped his hands on a cushion. “I can’t stand the stuff. Champagne is just for show. But appearances matter, Goldman.”

  And he was called out to take a phone call from Warner Brothers about the movie rights.

  • • •

  On the way back to Somerset later that afternoon, I got a call from Roth.

  “We’ve got the results, Goldman! The handwriting isn’t Harry’s! He didn’t write that note on the manuscript!”

  I whooped.

  “So what does that mean, in concrete terms?” I said.

  “I don’t know yet. But if it’s not his writing, that proves he did not have the manuscript when Nola was killed. And the manuscript is one of the main pieces of evidence against him. The judge has ordered a new hearing for this Thursday at 2 p.m. With it coming so fast, that has to be good news for Harry!”

  I was thrilled: Harry would soon be free. So he had been telling the truth all along; he was innocent. I couldn’t wait for Thursday. But the day before, on Wednesday, July 9, disaster struck. At about 5 p.m., I was in Harry’s office at Goose Cove, going through my notes about Nola, when I received a call on my cell from Barnaski. His voice was shaking.

  “Marcus, I have terrible news,” he told me straight out.

  “What’s happened?”

  “There’s been a robbery . . .”

  “What do you mean, a robbery?”

  “Your pages . . . the ones you gave me in Boston.”

  “What? How is that possible?”

  “They were in a drawer of my desk. Yesterday morning I couldn’t find them . . . At first I thought Marisa must have put them in the safe; she does that sometimes. But when I asked her, she said she hadn’t touched them. I spent all day yesterday searching for them, but without success.”

  My heart was pounding. I sensed there was worse to come.

  “But what makes you think they were stolen?” I asked.

  There was a long silence, and then he replied: “I’ve been getting phone calls all afternoon. From the Globe, USA Today, the New York Times . . . Someone sent copies of your pages to all the major newspapers, and they’re about to print them. Tomorrow the whole country will be aware of what’s going to be in your book.”

  PART TWO

  WRITER’S CURE

  (Writing the Book)

  14

  AUGUST 30, 1975

  “YOU SEE, MARCUS, THE way it works in our society, we are constantly having to choose between reason and passion. Reason never helps anyone, and passion is often destructive. So don’t ask me to help you choose.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Just because. Life is a rip-off.”

  “Are you going to finish your fries?”

  “No. Help yourself.”

  “Thank you, Harry.”

  “You’re really not interested in what I have to say, are you?”

  “Yes, I am. Very interested. I’m listening carefully to everything you say. Number Fourteen: Life is a rip-off.”

  “For God’s sake, Marcus, you haven’t understood anything. Sometimes I get the feeling I’m talking to a moron.”

  4:00 p.m.

  It had been a beautiful day: one of those late-summer, sun-soaked Saturdays when Somerset seemed so peaceful. In the center of town, people were strolling around, stopping in front of store windows, enjoying the last days of summer. The streets of the residential areas, free of cars, had been taken over by the children, who organized bicycle and roller-skate races while their parents sipped lemonade and read newspapers on shady porches.

  For the third time in less than an hour, Travis Dawn drove down Terrace Avenue in his patrol car, passing the Quinn family’s house. The afternoon had been totally calm; not a single call had been made to the station. He had stopped a few cars to keep himself busy, but his mind was elsewhere: He could not think of anything but Jenny. There she was, sitting on the porch with her father. They had spent the whole afternoon doing crosswords, while Tamara pruned the bushes in anticipation of fall. As he approached the house, Travis slowed down to a crawl; he was hoping she would notice him, that she would lift her head and see him, that she would wave, encouraging him to stop for a moment and to say hello to her through his open window. Maybe she would even offer him a glass of iced tea and they would chat for a while. But she did not lift her head; she did not see him. She was laughing with her father. She seemed happy. He kept driving and stopped about a hundred feet farther on, out of sight. He looked at the bouquet of flowers on the passenger seat and picked up the piece of paper that lay next to it, on which he had scribbled what he wanted to say to her:

  Hello, Jenny. What a beautiful day. If you’re free this evening, I was thinking we could go for a walk on the beach. Maybe we could even go see a movie? They have some new movies opening in Montburry. (Give her the flowers.)

  It was easy enough, suggesting they go for a walk and catch a movie. But he did not dare get out of his car. He quickly started the car again and drove on, following the same patrol route that would bring him back in front of the Quinns’ house within twenty minutes. He put the flowers under the seat so that no one would see them. They were wild roses, picked near Montburry, by the side of a little lake that Ernie Pinkas had told him about. At first sight they were not as pretty as cultivated roses, but their colors were much more vibrant. He had often wanted to take Jenny there; he had even come up with a special plan. He would blindfold her and lead her to the rose beds, and only when she was standing right in front of them would he untie the blindfold, so the colors would explode before her eyes like fireworks. Afterward they would have a picnic by the lake. But he had never been brave enough to ask her. He was driving down Terrace Avenue now, passing the Kellergans’ house. Not that he noticed—his attention was elsewhere.

  Despite the beautiful weather, the Reverend David Kellergan had spent the whole afternoon shut up in his garage, fiddling with an old Harley-Davidson he hoped one day to get working again. A
ccording to the Somerset police report, he left his workshop only to get himself a drink from the kitchen, and each time he did so, he found Nola peacefully reading in the living room.

  5:30 p.m.

  As the afternoon wound down, the streets in the center of town slowly emptied, while in the residential areas the children returned home for dinner, and there was nothing to be seen on the porches but empty chairs and abandoned newspapers.

  The police chief, Gareth Pratt, who was off duty, went home with his wife, Amy, after the two of them had spent part of the day out of town, visiting friends. Meanwhile the Hattaway family—Nancy, her two brothers, and their parents—were arriving back at their house on Terrace Avenue after spending the afternoon at Grand Beach. It says in the police report that Mrs. Hattaway, Nancy’s mother, noticed ear-splitting music coming from the Kellergan house.

  • • •

  Harry arrived at the Sea Side Motel. He registered for room 8 under an assumed name and paid cash in order to avoid having to show ID. On his way there he had filled up his gas tank and bought flowers. Everything was ready. Only an hour and a half to wait, if that. When Nola arrived, they would celebrate being together again and then take off immediately. By 10 p.m. they would be in Canada. They would be together at last. She would never be unhappy again.

  6:00 p.m.

  Deborah Cooper, who had, since the death of her husband, been living alone in a house on the edge of the Side Creek forest, sat down at her kitchen table to make an apple pie. After peeling and slicing the apples, she tossed a few pieces through the window for the raccoons and stayed by the window to watch them come. That was how she came to glimpse a figure running through the trees. Looking more carefully, she could see quite distinctly a young girl in a red dress pursued by a man, before the two of them disappeared into the trees. She rushed to the living room, where the telephone was, so she could call 911. The police report indicates that the call was made to the station at 6:21 p.m. It lasted twenty-seven seconds. This is the transcript: