The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair: A Novel

by Joël Dicker

  Harry again. It always came back to Harry. We kept coming up with new criteria to uncover the murderer, and he kept being the common denominator.

  “What about Luther Caleb?” I asked. “What kind of car did he have?”

  “A blue Mustang.”

  I sighed. “What do you think we should do now, Sergeant?”

  “Well, there’s Caleb’s sister. We still haven’t questioned her. I think maybe it’s time to pay her a visit. It’s the only line of inquiry we haven’t really explored yet.”

  • • •

  That evening, after boxing, I decided to bite the bullet and go to the Sea Side Motel. It was about 9:30 p.m. Harry was sitting in a plastic chair in front of room 8, enjoying the warm evening and drinking a can of soda. He said nothing when he saw me; for the first time I felt uncomfortable in his presence.

  “I needed to see you, Harry. To tell you how sorry I am about all of this.”

  He nodded for me to sit down in the chair next to his.

  “Soda?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  “The machine is at the end of the corridor.”

  I smiled and went to buy a Diet Coke. When I came back I said: “That’s what you said to me the first time I went to Goose Cove. I was a junior. You’d made lemonade. You asked me if I wanted any, I said yes, and you told me to go to the fridge and help myself.”

  “Those were good times.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What changed, Marcus?”

  “Nothing. Everything changed, but nothing changed. We all changed, the world changed. The World Trade Center collapsed, we went to war. But the way I look at you has not changed. You’re still my master. You’re still Harry.”

  “What changed, Marcus, is this fight between the master and the pupil.”

  “We’re not fighting.”

  “And yet we are. I taught you how to write books, and look what your book has done to me. Look what harm it’s caused me.”

  “I never wanted to cause you harm, Harry. We’ll find whoever it was who burned Goose Cove, I promise.”

  “But will that give me back the thirty years of memories I’ve lost? My whole life went up in flames! Why did you write those things about Nola?”

  I didn’t reply. We sat in silence for a moment. In spite of the weak light from the wall lanterns, he noticed the cuts on my hands.

  “Your hands,” he said. “Have you started boxing again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your punches are badly placed. That was always your flaw. You hit well, but the first phalanx of your middle finger always stuck out too far, so it was grazed on impact.”

  “Let’s box,” I suggested.

  “If you like.”

  We went into the parking lot together. There was no one around. We took off our shirts. Harry was very thin. He looked at me.

  “You’re good-looking, Marcus. Go get married, for God’s sake! Go and live!”

  “I have to finish this investigation first.”

  “To hell with your investigation!”

  We squared up to each other and exchanged punches; one hit, and the other had to keep his guard position and protect himself. Harry hit hard.

  “Don’t you want to know who killed Nola?” I asked.

  He stopped dead. “Do you know?”

  “No. But we’re getting closer. Sergeant Gahalowood and I are going to see Luther Caleb’s sister tomorrow, in Portland. And we still have people to question in Somerset.”

  He sighed. “Somerset . . . I haven’t seen anyone since I got out of prison. The other day I stood outside my burned house for a while. A firefighter told me I could go inside. I retrieved a few things and walked over here. Since then I haven’t moved. Roth is taking care of the insurance and all that. I can’t go to Somerset anymore. I can’t look those people in the face and tell them I loved Nola and wrote a book for her. I can’t even look myself in the face anymore. Roth said your book is going to be called The Harry Quebert Affair.”

  “That’s true. It’s a book about how great your book is. I love The Origin of Evil. It’s the book that inspired me to become a writer.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s the truth. It’s probably the most beautiful book I’ve ever read. You’re my favorite writer.”

  “Oh, please shut up, for the love of God!”

  “I want to write a book that will defend yours, Harry. When I first found out that you wrote it for Nola, I was shocked—I admit it. But then I read it again. You say it all in that book. Especially the ending. You describe the grief that will always be with you. I can’t let people attack that book—it made me what I am. You know, the day I opened your fridge to get the lemonade, on my first visit to you, and saw how empty the fridge was, I understood your solitude. And that day I realized: The Origin of Evil is a novel about solitude. You wrote brilliantly about it.”

  “Please stop,” Harry said.

  “The ending is so beautiful. You give up Nola: She has disappeared forever, and you know it, and yet you wait for her in spite of everything. I have only one question, now that I have come to truly understand your book, and that concerns the title. Why did you give such a dark title to such a beautiful book?”

  “It’s complicated, Marcus.”

  “But I need to understand—”

  “It’s too complicated . . .”

  We looked at each other, face to face, both in the guard position, like two warriors. Finally he said, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to forgive you, Marcus.”

  “Forgive me? But I’ll rebuild Goose Cove. I’ll pay for everything. With the money I’m getting for this book, we’ll reconstruct the whole house. You can’t just end our friendship like that!”

  He began to cry.

  “You don’t understand. It’s not because of you. None of this is your fault, and yet I can’t forgive you.”

  “Forgive me for what?”

  “I can’t tell you. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Harry, please, no more riddles! What the hell is going on?”

  He wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand.

  “Do you remember my advice?” he asked. “When you were my student, I told you one day never to write a book if you don’t know how it will end.”

  “Yes, I remember. I will always remember that.”

  “What’s the ending to your book like?”

  “It’s a beautiful ending.”

  “But she dies at the end!”

  “No, it doesn’t end with the death of the heroine. Some good things happen afterward.”

  “Like what?”

  “The man who spent more than thirty years waiting for her begins to live again.”

  EXTRACT FROM

  THE ORIGIN OF EVIL

  (FINAL PAGE)

  When he understood that nothing would ever be possible and that his hopes were merely lies, he wrote to her for the final time. After all the love letters, now it was time for a letter of sadness. He had to accept the truth. From now on he would do nothing but wait for her. He would spend his whole life waiting for her. But he knew perfectly well that she would never return. He knew he would never see her again, never hear her again, never find her again.

  My darling,

  This is my final letter. These are my last words. I am writing you to say good-bye.

  From today on, there will be no more “us.”

  Lovers separate and never find each other again, and that is how love stories end.

  I will miss you, my darling. I will miss you so much.

  I am crying. Inside, I am burning.

  We will never see each other again. I will miss you so much.

  I hope you will be happy.

  You and me: That was a dream, I think. And now we must wake
up.

  I will miss you all my life.

  Good-bye. I love you as I will never love anyone again.

  12

  THE MAN WHO PAINTED PICTURES

  “LEARN TO LOVE YOUR failures, Marcus, because it is your failures that will make you who you are. It is your failures that will give meaning to your victories.”

  THE WEATHER WAS GLORIOUS on Friday, July 18, the day we went to visit Sylla Caleb Mitchell, Luther’s sister, in Portland, Maine. The Mitchell family lived in an elegant house in a residential neighborhood close to the center of town. Sylla received us in the kitchen; she had already set out on the table two steaming cups of coffee and a stack of photo albums.

  Gahalowood had managed to get hold of her the day before. On the drive from Concord to Portland, he told me how, when he spoke to her on the phone, he had the feeling she’d been waiting for his call. “I introduced myself as a policeman, and I told her I was investigating the murders of Deborah Cooper and Nola Kellergan and that I wanted to meet to ask her a few questions. Usually people become nervous when they hear the words state police: they ask what it’s about. But Sylla Mitchell just said: ‘Come tomorrow whenever you like. I’ll be here. It’s important that we speak.’”

  She sat across from us. She was attractive: a sophisticated-looking mother of two, who wore her fifty-something years well. Her husband stood farther back from the table, as if he did not wish to intrude.

  “So is it all true?” she asked.

  “Is what all true?” Gahalowood said.

  “Everything I’ve read in the papers, all those dreadful things about that poor girl in Somerset.”

  “Yes. The press twisted things slightly, but the basic facts are true. Mrs. Mitchell, you didn’t seem very surprised when I called you.”

  She looked sad.

  “As I told you yesterday on the phone,” she said, “the newspaper did not name names, but I understood that ‘E.S.’ was Elijah Stern. And that his chauffeur was Luther.” She picked up a newspaper and read aloud from it, as if to help her understand: “‘E.S., one of the richest men in New Hampshire, sent his chauffeur to bring Nola from the center of town to his house in Concord. Thirty-three years later, one of Nola’s friends, who was only a child at the time, said she was once present at one of these meetings with the chauffeur, and that Nola left as if she were going off to her death. This young witness described the chauffeur as a frightening man, with a powerful body and a deformed face.’ With a description like that, it could only be my brother.”

  She stopped talking and looked at us. Gahalowood put our cards on the table: “We found a portrait of Nola Kellergan, more or less naked, in Elijah Stern’s house,” he said. “Apparently Nola agreed to pose for the painting in return for money. Luther went to get her in Somerset, and he took her to see Stern in Concord. We don’t really know what happened there, but we do know that Luther painted a picture of her.”

  “He painted a lot!” Sylla said. “He was very talented. He could have made a career out of it. Do you . . . do you suspect him of having killed that girl?”

  “Let’s just say he’s on our list of suspects,” Gahalowood replied.

  A tear rolled down Sylla’s cheek.

  “I remember the day he died. It was a Friday at the end of September. I had just turned twenty-one. We received a call from the police, who informed us that Luther had died in a car accident. I vividly remember the telephone ringing, and my mother picking it up. My father and I were standing close to her. Mom answered, and then whispered to us: ‘It’s the police.’ She listened intently and then said, ‘Okay.’ I will never forget that moment. After that she hung up, looked at us, and said, ‘He’s dead.’”

  “What happened?” Gahalowood said.

  “The car went over some seaside cliffs in Sagamore, Massachusetts, and fell a hundred feet. Apparently he was drunk.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Thirty . . . he was thirty. My brother was a good man, but . . . You know, I’m glad you’re here. There’s something I have to tell you. Something we should have said thirty-three years ago.”

  And, her voice trembling, Sylla told us about an incident that occurred about a month before the accident. It was Saturday, August 30, 1975.

  August 30, 1975, Portland, Maine

  The Caleb family had planned to have dinner that evening at Sylla’s favorite restaurant, the Horseshoe, to celebrate her twenty-first birthday, which was two days later. Her father, Jay Caleb, had reserved the private room on the second floor for a surprise party. He had invited all her friends and a few relatives: thirty-odd people in all, including Luther.

  The Calebs—Sylla; her father, Jay; and her mother, Nadia—arrived at the restaurant at 6 p.m. The other guests were already waiting for Sylla, and everyone cheered when she entered the room. There was music and champagne. Luther had not yet arrived. His father thought at first that he must have been held up in traffic. But by 7:30 p.m., when dinner was served, his son was still not there. Luther was not the type of person to be late, and his father began to worry. He tried calling Luther at his room on Elijah Stern’s property, but there was no answer.

  Luther missed dinner, dessert, and the dancing. At 10:30 p.m. the Calebs went home, worrying silently. They knew Luther wouldn’t have missed his sister’s birthday celebration for anything in the world. Back at home, Jay unthinkingly turned on the radio in the living room. One of the news items was about a major police operation in Somerset, following the disappearance of a fifteen-year-old girl. Somerset was a name they recognized. Luther had told them that he went there regularly to take care of the rosebushes on the grounds of a beautiful house near the ocean that Elijah Stern owned. Jay Caleb thought this was a coincidence. He listened attentively to the rest of the news, then to several other stations, to find out if maybe there had been a car accident in the area, but nothing was mentioned. He stayed up half the night, worrying, unsure whether to call the police or the hospitals, or just to wait at home, or to get in his car and search the road that led to Concord. He eventually fell asleep on the couch in the living room.

  Early the next morning, still not having heard anything, he called Elijah Stern to ask if he had seen his son. “Luther?” Stern replied. “He’s not here. He went on vacation. Didn’t he tell you?” This whole thing was very strange. Why would Luther have gone away without telling them, especially when it meant missing his sister’s birthday? And so, no longer content just to wait, Jay Caleb went out to look for his son.

  Sylla Mitchell began to tremble. She got up abruptly from her chair and made some more coffee.

  “That day,” she said, “while my father went to Concord and my mother stayed at home in case Luther showed up, I was with friends. It was late when I got home. My parents were in the living room, and I heard my father say to my mother: ‘I’m afraid Luther has done something terrible.’ I asked him what was going on, and he told me not to tell anyone about Luther’s disappearance, particularly not the police. He said he was going to try to find Luther himself. He searched in vain for nearly a month. Until the accident.”

  A sob escaped her.

  “What happened, Mrs. Mitchell?” Gahalowood asked in a soothing voice. “Why did your father think Luther had done something wrong? Why didn’t he want to call the police?”

  “It’s complicated, Sergeant. Everything is so complicated . . .”

  She opened the photo albums and began telling us about the Caleb family: about Jay, their kind father; about Nadia, their mother, a former Miss Maine who had passed on her love of art to her children. Luther was the firstborn; he was nine years older than she was. They were both born in Portland.

  She showed us photographs from her childhood. The family home; vacations in Colorado, where she and Luther had spent their summers; the huge warehouse belonging to her father’s company. There was a series of photographs of the family taken in Yosemite
in 1963. Luther was eighteen years old, a handsome young man, slim and elegant. Then we came to a picture from the fall of 1974: Sylla’s twentieth birthday party. The people in the photograph had all aged. Jay, the proud father, was now a pot-bellied sixtysomething. The mother’s face was wrinkled. Luther was nearly thirty, and his face was deformed.

  Sylla looked at this picture for a long time.

  “We were a great family, before,” she said. “We were so happy, before.”

  “Before what?” Gahalowood asked.

  She replied as if the answer were obvious: “Before the attack.”

  “What attack?” Gahalowood said. “I don’t know anything about this.”

  Sylla placed the two photographs of her brother side by side.

  “It happened in the fall after our vacation in Yosemite. Look at this photo. See how handsome he was? Luther was a very special young man. He loved art. He had graduated from high school and been accepted to the Maine College of Art, here in Portland. Everyone said he could become a great painter, that he had a gift. He was happy too. But the Vietnam war had begun, and he had just been called up by the army. He said that when he got back, he would go to art school and would marry his fiancée, Eleanore Smith. She was his high school sweetheart. As I said, he was happy. Until that evening in September 1964.”

  “What happened?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Field Goals Gang, Sergeant?”

  “No, never.”

  “That’s the name the police gave to a group of thugs who were running wild in the area back then.”

  September 1964

  It was about 10 p.m. Luther had spent the evening with Eleanore, and he was walking back to his parents’ house. He had to leave the next morning for boot camp. He and Eleanore had just decided that they would marry when he returned; they had sworn to stay faithful to each other, and they had made love for the first time, in Eleanore’s childhood bed, while downstairs in the kitchen her unsuspecting mother made cookies for them.