by Joël Dicker
11
WAITING FOR NOLA
“HIT THIS BAG, MARCUS. Hit it as if your life depended on it. You should box like you write and write like you box: You should give everything you have because each match, like each book, might be your last.”
THE SUMMER OF 2008 WAS unusually calm. The battle for the presidential nominations was over by June, when Barack Obama was able to secure enough votes to lock up the Democratic nomination, while John McCain had become the presumptive Republican nominee in March. It was now time for the two parties to gather their forces; the conventions would not take place until the end of the summer.
This relative calm, prior to the media storm that would culminate on Election Day on November 4, left the Harry Quebert case as the country’s number one news item. There were now pro-Queberts and anti-Queberts: those who believed in the conspiracy theory and those who thought his release on bail was due only to a financial deal with David Kellergan. Ever since the publication of my notes in the press, my book had been on everyone’s lips; the talk was all of the “new Goldman that will come out this fall.” Elijah Stern, despite the fact that his name was not directly mentioned in the notes, had sued for defamation, hoping to prevent the book’s publication. David Kellergan had also made clear his intention to go to court in order to defend himself from allegations that he had mistreated his daughter. And amid all this hype, two people were particularly happy: Roy Barnaski and Benjamin Roth.
Barnaski, who had sent his army of New York lawyers to New Hampshire to prepare for any legal imbroglio likely to delay the book’s publication, was ecstatic. The leaks to the press—and there was now no doubt whatsoever that he was responsible for them—had guaranteed him extraordinary early orders from bookstores and enabled him to dominate the airwaves.
As far as the legal battle was concerned, there was now little doubt that the criminal case was about to collapse. Benjamin Roth was well on his way to making himself the most famous lawyer in the country. He accepted all requests for interviews and spent most of his time in local television and radio studios. The only condition he set was that they had to talk about him. “Think about it, Goldman,” he told me. “I can charge a thousand dollars an hour now. And each time my name appears in a newspaper, I add another ten dollars to my hourly rate for future clients. It doesn’t matter what the newspapers say about you; what matters is that you’re in them. People remember having seen your photograph in the New York Times; they never remember the story.” Roth had waited his whole career for the case of the century to fall into his lap, and now it had. He hogged the spotlight, telling the press everything it wanted to hear: He told them about Chief Pratt and Elijah Stern, he constantly repeated his opinion that Nola was a manipulative seductress and that Harry was, in fact, the real victim. In order to titillate his audience, he even began hinting—with made-up details to support his point—that half the men in Somerset had been intimately involved with Nola. This eventually became so unbearable that I was forced to call him.
“You need to give your pornographic fantasies a rest, Benjamin. You’re dragging everyone’s name through the mud.”
“But that’s exactly the point, Marcus. Ultimately my job is not to clear Harry’s name but to show how filthy and disgusting everyone else is. And if there has to be a trial, I’ll summon Pratt, I’ll summon Stern, I’ll call every man in Somerset to the stand so they can publicly atone for their carnal sins with the Kellergan girl. And when it comes down to it I will prove that the only thing Harry did wrong was to allow himself to be seduced by that perverted young woman, like so many others before him.”
“What are you talking about?” I said angrily. “That’s not true at all!”
“Oh, come on—let’s call a spade a spade. That girl was a slut.”
“You’re despicable,” I said.
“Despicable? All I’m doing is summarizing what you yourself wrote in your book.”
“No you’re not, and you know that perfectly well. There was nothing flashy or provocative about Nola. She loved Harry, and he loved her.”
“Love, love, always love! But what is love? It doesn’t mean anything! Love is just a trick invented by men so they don’t have to do their own laundry!”
• • •
The DA had been crucified by the press, and this affected the mood in the headquarters of the Investigative Services Bureau of the state police. The rumor was that the governor himself had ordered the police to solve the case as quickly as possible. Since the interview with Sylla Mitchell, Gahalowood had a clearer vision of the case; all the evidence pointed to Luther, and the sergeant was nervously awaiting the results of the handwriting analysis to confirm this. In the meantime he needed to find out more, particularly regarding Luther’s presence in Somerset. And so on July 20 we met with Travis Dawn so he could tell us what he knew.
Because I still did not feel ready to return to Somerset, Travis agreed to meet us in a roadside diner near Montburry. I expected a hostile reception, due to what I had written about Jenny, but he was very polite.
“I’m sorry about those leaks,” I told him. “They were personal notes. They should never have been published.”
“I can’t blame you, Marc—”
“You could—”
“All you did was tell the truth. I’m well aware that Jenny had a crush on Quebert. I could see the way she looked at him back then. In fact I think your theories are pretty solid, at least as far as I’ve seen. Anyway, what’s the latest on the investigation?”
It was Gahalowood who replied. “The latest is that we have very strong suspicions regarding Luther Caleb.”
“Luther Caleb—that nutcase? So the painting thing is true, then?”
“Yes. Apparently the girl went to see Stern quite often. Did you know about Chief Pratt and Nola?”
“No! I was shocked when I found out. You know, while I admit he got out of control, I have to say he was always a good cop. I don’t think we should be calling into question his whole investigation, as the papers seem to be doing.”
“What do you think of the suspicions back then about Stern and Quebert?”
“I think you’re making too big a deal of them. Tamara Quinn says she told the chief about Quebert. But I think we need to put that in perspective. She claimed she knew everything, but she didn’t really know anything at all. She had no proof of what she was saying. All she could say was that she’d had concrete proof, but that it had mysteriously disappeared. Nothing credible. You know yourself, Sergeant, how unsubstantiated accusations must be treated. The only evidence we had against Quebert was the black Monte Carlo. And that wasn’t enough—far from it.”
“One of Nola’s friends told us she informed Pratt about what was going on with Stern.”
“Pratt never told me about that.”
“It’s hard not to think that he botched the investigation, then, isn’t it?” Gahalowood said.
“Don’t put words in my mouth, Sergeant.”
“What about Luther Caleb? What can you tell us about him?”
“He was a strange guy. He used to harass women. I even encouraged Jenny to file a complaint against him because he was aggressive toward her.”
“Was he never a suspect?”
“Not really. His name was mentioned, and we checked what vehicle he was driving: a blue Mustang, I seem to remember. Anyway, it seemed unlikely that he would be our man.”
“Why?”
“Just before Nola disappeared, I made sure he would never come back to Somerset.”
“What do you mean?”
Travis suddenly looked uncomfortable.
“Well, . . . I saw him at Clark’s . . . This was mid-August, just after I had persuaded Jenny to file a complaint against him. He’d grabbed her, and she’d been left with a huge bruise on her arm. I mean, it was pretty serious. He drove away when he saw me arrive. I chased him in my c
ar, and I caught him on Shore Road. And . . . you know, Somerset is a peaceful town. I didn’t want him coming here and roaming around—”
“What did you do?”
“I gave him a beating. I’m not proud of it. And—”
“And what, Chief Dawn?”
“I stuck my gun in his privates. I beat the shit out of him, and when he was bent double on the ground, I held him down, took out my Colt, loaded it, and pressed the barrel to his balls. I told him I never wanted to see him again in my life. He was moaning. He said he would never come back, and he begged me to let him go. I know it wasn’t right, but I wanted to make sure we never saw him again in Somerset.”
“And you think he obeyed?”
“Without a doubt.”
“So you were the last person to see him in Somerset?”
“Yes. I passed on the order to my colleagues, with a description of his car. He never showed himself again. We found out that he had died in Massachusetts a month or so later.”
“How did he die?”
“He went straight at a bend, I think. I don’t know much more about it. To be honest, I wasn’t really interested. At that time we had more important things to deal with.”
When we came out of the diner, Gahalowood said, “I think that car is the key to the mystery. We have to find out who could have been driving a black Monte Carlo. Or, rather, we should ask ourselves: Could Luther Caleb have been at the wheel of a black Chevrolet Monte Carlo on August 30, 1975?”
• • •
The next day I went back to Goose Cove for the first time since the fire. I went inside, ignoring the police tape marking off the porch. The house was in ruins. In the kitchen I found the box with the words SOUVENIR OF ROCKLAND, MAINE still intact. I emptied out the stale bread inside and filled it with a few objects I found in other rooms. In the living room I discovered a small photo album that had miraculously escaped the flames. I took it outside and sat under a tall birch tree, opposite the house, to look at the photos. It was at that moment that Ernie Pinkas turned up. He said to me simply: “I saw your car in the driveway.”
He sat next to me.
“Are those photos of Harry?” he asked, nodding at the album.
“Yeah. I found it in the house.”
There was a long silence. I turned the pages. The pictures dated from the early 1980s, I guessed. There was a yellow Labrador in several of them.
“Whose dog is that?” I asked.
“Harry’s.”
“I didn’t know he used to have a dog.”
“His name was Storm. He must have lived twelve or thirteen years.”
Storm. The name was not unknown to me, but I couldn’t remember why.
“Marcus,” said Pinkas, “I didn’t mean to be cruel the other day. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I didn’t realize you’d received threats. Was that because of your book?”
“Probably.”
“But who did that?” he said angrily, pointing to what was left of the house.
“No one knows. The police say an accelerant was used, like gasoline. An empty can was found on the beach, but they couldn’t match the fingerprints they took from it.”
“So you received threats, but you stayed anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why should I have left? Out of fear? You can’t give in to fear.”
Pinkas told me I was an exceptional person, and that he, too, would have liked to become an exceptional person, to be somebody in life. His wife had always believed in him. She had died a few years before, of cancer. On her deathbed she had told him, as if he were a young man with his whole life ahead of him: “Ernie, you will do something great with your life. I believe in you.”
“I’m too old . . . My life is behind me,” he’d replied.
“It’s never too late, Ernie. Where there’s life, there’s hope.”
But all Ernie had managed to do since his wife’s death was land a job at the supermarket in Montburry so he could pay off her chemotherapy bills and maintain her headstone.
“I collect carts, Marcus. I walk around the parking lot, I hunt down the lonely, abandoned carts, I take them with me, I comfort them, and I put them away with all their cart friends in the cart station, for the next customers. The carts are never alone. Or, at least, not for long. Because in every supermarket in the world, there is an Ernie who comes to collect them and return them to their family. But who comes to collect Ernie and return him to his family? Why do we take better care of supermarket carts than we do of people?”
“You’re right, Ernie. What can I do for you?”
“I would like to be listed in the Acknowledgments of your book. I would like you to mention my name on the last page, the way writers often do. I would like my name to be the first one. In big letters. Because I did help you get information, didn’t I? Do you think that would be possible? My wife would be proud of me. Her husband would have contributed to the huge success of Marcus Goldman, the famous writer.”
“You can count on me, Ernie,” I told him.
“I’ll read your book to her, Marc. Every day I’ll sit next to her grave, and I’ll read her your book.”
“Our book, Ernie. Our book.”
Suddenly we heard footsteps behind us. It was Jenny.
“I saw your car in the driveway, Marcus,” she said.
Hearing those words, Ernie and I exchanged a smile. I stood up, and Jenny embraced me like a mother. Then she looked at the house and began to cry.
• • •
On my way back to Concord that day, I stopped by the Sea Side Motel to see Harry. He was standing in front of the door to his room, stripped to the waist, practicing boxing moves. When he saw me he called out, “Come and box, Marcus.”
“I’ve come to talk.”
“We can talk while we box.”
I handed him the SOUVENIR OF ROCKLAND, MAINE box that I had found in the house.
“I brought you this,” I said. “A lot of your belongings are still in the house. Why don’t you go see what you can salvage?”
“What is there to salvage?”
“Memories?”
He frowned. “Memories only make you sad. Just looking at this box, I feel like crying.”
He held the box in his hands and pressed it to him.
“When she disappeared, I didn’t take part in the search,” he told me. “You know what I did?”
“No . . .”
“I waited for her. Searching for her would have meant she wasn’t there anymore. So I waited for her, convinced she would come back to me one day. And when that day came, I wanted her to be proud of me. I spent thirty-three years preparing for her return. For thirty-three years I bought chocolate and flowers for her. I knew she was the only person I would ever love. And love, Marcus, comes only once in a lifetime. And if you don’t believe me, that means you have never loved. In the evenings I lay on my couch and watched out for her, thinking she would appear the way she always used to. When I started traveling all over the country to give speeches, I would leave a note on my door: Giving a speech in Seattle. Back next Tuesday. In case she returned while I was away. And I always left my door unlocked. Always! I never once locked it, in thirty-three years. People said I was crazy, that I would come back one day and find the house had been robbed, but nobody robs anybody in Somerset, New Hampshire. Do you know why I spent so many years on the road, accepting every invitation I was offered? Because I thought I might find her that way. I roamed all over this country, from east to west and north to south, in big cities and little towns, and each time I made sure that the local papers announced my arrival. Sometimes I even bought an ad myself. And why did I do all that? For her. So that we could find each other again. And during each speech I scanned the audi
ence, looking for young blond women of her age, searching for anyone who resembled her. Each time I thought maybe she’ll be here. And after my speech, I would answer every question, agree to every request, hoping she might come to me. I spent years searching for her, looking first for fifteen-year-old girls, then sixteen-year-olds, then twenty-year-olds, then twenty-five-year-olds. The reason I stayed in Somerset is that I was waiting for Nola. And then, a month and a half ago, they found her, dead. Buried in my yard! I had been waiting for her all that time, and she was right there, next to me. In the place where I had always wanted to plant hydrangeas—for her! My heart’s been breaking ever since they found her, Marcus. Because I lost the love of my life, and because if I hadn’t arranged to meet her in this goddamn motel, maybe she would still be alive. So don’t come here with your memories, because those memories are tearing out my heart. Stop, I’m begging you, please stop.”
He walked toward the stairs.
“Where are you going, Harry?”
“To box. That’s all I have left—boxing.”
He went down to the parking lot and began making warlike movements under the worried gaze of customers in the neighboring restaurant. I followed him and stood opposite him in the guard position. He tried a flurry of punches, but even when boxing he was no longer the same.
“Why did you come here, really?” he asked between two right-hand attacks.
“To see you.”
“And why do you want to see me so badly?”
“Because we’re friends!”
“But that’s the point. You don’t seem to understand this, but we can’t be friends anymore.”
“Why?”
“I love you like a son. And I will always love you. But we can no longer be friends.”
“Because of the house? I’ll pay for it, I told you. I’ll pay for it all!”
“You still don’t understand. It’s not because of the house.”
I lowered my guard for an instant, and he hit me with a series of punches to my right shoulder.
“Don’t let your guard down, Marcus! If that had been your head, you’d have been knocked out.”