The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair: A Novel

by Joël Dicker

  “That’s my only problem. I still don’t know how the book will end.”

  • • •

  On Monday afternoon, July 21, Gahalowood arrived at my suite as I was writing the chapter in which Nola and Harry decide to leave for Canada. He had news. He grabbed himself a bottle of beer from the minibar.

  “I was just at Elijah Stern’s house,” he said.

  “You went there without me?”

  “Let me remind you that Stern has filed an injunction against your book. Anyway, I came here to tell you about it . . .”

  Gahalowood explained that he had gone to see Stern unannounced in order to keep his visit unofficial, and that it was Stern’s lawyer, Bo Sylford of Boston, who opened the door, drenched in sweat and wearing only sweatpants. “Give me five minutes, Sergeant,” Sylford told him. “I’m going to take a quick shower, and then I’ll be all yours.”

  “A shower?”

  “As I said, writer, this Sylford guy was walking around half naked. I waited in a little room, then he came back, wearing a suit, accompanied by Stern, who said to me: ‘So, Sergeant, I see you have met my partner.’”

  “His partner?” I repeated. “Are you telling me Stern is—”

  “Gay. Which means it’s unlikely he ever felt remotely attracted to Nola Kellergan.”

  “So what was going on with him and Nola?”

  “That is the very question I asked him. He was fairly open to talking about it.”

  Stern was apparently very annoyed by my book; in his opinion, I had no idea what I was talking about. So Gahalowood had seized the opportunity and asked him to clarify a few things relating to the case.

  “Mr. Stern,” he said. “In light of what you have just told me about your . . . sexual orientation, could you please tell me what kind of relationship existed between yourself and Nola?”

  “I told you from the beginning,” Stern replied, without blinking. “A working relationship.”

  “A working relationship?”

  “It’s when someone does something for you and you pay her for it, Sergeant. In this case, she posed.”

  “So Nola Kellergan really did come here to pose for you?”

  “Yes, but not for me.”

  “For who, then?”

  “Luther Caleb. That’s how he got his kicks.”

  The scene that Stern went on to describe took place one evening in July 1975. Stern did not recall the exact date, but it was toward the end of the month. Through cross-checking, I was able to establish that it must have occurred just before Nola and Harry went to Martha’s Vineyard.

  Concord. Late July, 1975

  It was quite late already. Stern and Luther were alone in the house, playing chess on the terrace. The front doorbell rang, and the two men wondered who it could be at that hour. Luther went to open the door. He returned to the terrace accompanied by a beautiful young blond girl, her eyes reddened by tears. Nola.

  “Good evening, Mr. Stern,” she said shyly. “I’m sorry to come here unannounced. My name is Nola Kellergan, and I am the daughter of the pastor in Somerset.”

  “Somerset? You’ve come all the way from Somerset?” he asked. “How did you get here?”

  “I hitchhiked. I had to speak to you.”

  “Do we know each other?”

  “No, sir. But I have a very important request to make.”

  Stern contemplated this young lady, with her sparkling but sad eyes. He bade her sit down, and Caleb brought her a glass of lemonade and a plate of cookies.

  She drank her lemonade thirstily, and almost amused by the scene, Stern told her: “I’m listening. What is it you have to ask me that is so important?”

  “Once again, Mr. Stern, please accept my apologies for disturbing you at such a late hour. But I had no choice. I have come to see you confidentially so that . . . I could ask you to hire me.”

  “Hire you? As what?”

  “As whatever you like, sir. I would do anything for you.”

  “Hire you?” Stern repeated, not understanding. “But why? Do you need money?”

  “In exchange, I would like you to allow Harry Quebert to stay at Goose Cove.”

  “Harry Quebert is leaving Goose Cove?”

  “He can’t afford to stay. He’s already contacted the rental agency. He can’t pay next month’s rent. But he has to stay! Because there is this book he has barely begun writing and that I feel certain is going to be wonderful. If he has to leave, he’ll never finish it. His career will be over. What a waste that would be! And then . . . there’s me and Harry. I love him, Mr. Stern. I love him as I have never loved anyone in my life. I know this will seem ridiculous to you, that you will say I’m only fifteen years old and know nothing about life. Well, maybe I do know nothing about life, Mr. Stern, but I know my heart. Without Harry, I would be nothing.”

  She put her hands together as if praying, and Stern asked:

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I have no money. Which means I can’t pay the rent on the house. But you could hire me! I would be your employee, and I would work for you as long as it took to pay you for a few extra months in the house.”

  “I have enough employees already.”

  “I can do anything you want. Anything! Or let me pay the rent in installments: I already have a hundred and twenty dollars.” She took some cash from her pocket. “This is all my savings. I work at Clark’s on Saturdays; I’ll keep working until I’ve paid you back.”

  “How much do you earn?”

  She replied proudly: “Two dollars an hour. Plus tips!”

  Stern smiled, touched by this request. He looked tenderly at Nola. He had no need for the income from Goose Cove; he could easily let Quebert stay there for a few months longer. But it was at this point that Luther asked to speak to him privately. They went to the room next door.

  “Eli,” said Caleb. “Pleave, I would like to paint her. Could I, pleave?”

  “No, Luther. Not that. Not again . . .”

  “Oh, pleave, let me paint her! It’f been fo long!”

  “But why her?”

  “Becaufe she lookf like Eleanore.”

  “Eleanore again? No, that’s enough. You have to stop this now!”

  But Caleb kept insisting, and in the end Stern gave in. He went back to see Nola, who was nibbling a cookie.

  “Nola, I’ve given this some thought,” he said. “I’m prepared to let Harry Quebert stay in the house for as long as he wishes.”

  She jumped up and hugged him around the neck.

  “Oh, thank you! Thank you, Mr. Stern!”

  “But there’s one condition . . .”

  “Of course! Anything you want!”

  “You will act as a model. For a painting. Luther is going to paint you. You will be nude, and he will paint you.”

  “Nude?” she choked. “You want me to take all my clothes off?”

  “Yes. But only to act as a model. Nobody will touch you.”

  “But, sir, it’s so embarrassing, being naked . . . I mean . . .” She started to sob. “I thought I could work in your garden, maybe, or shelve books in your library. I didn’t think I would have to . . . I wasn’t thinking of that.”

  She wiped the tears from her cheeks. Stern looked at this sweet little girl whom he was forcing to pose nude. He wished he could take her in his arms to comfort her, but he knew he must not let his feelings get the better of him.

  “That’s my price,” he said coldly. “You pose nude, and Quebert keeps the house.”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll do it, Mr. Stern. I’ll do anything you want. I’m yours now.”

  Thirty-three years after this scene, haunted by remorse and as if seeking atonement, Stern had led Gahalowood to the terrace of his house.

  “So that’s how Nola entered my lif
e,” he said. “The day after her arrival, I attempted to contact Quebert to tell him he could stay at Goose Cove, but it was impossible to get hold of him. For a week I couldn’t find him. I even sent Luther to wait around outside the house. He finally caught up with him as he was on his way out of town.”

  Gahalowood had then asked: “But didn’t Nola’s request seem strange to you? This was a fifteen-year-old girl having a relationship with a man in his thirties, and coming to you to ask a favor on his behalf.”

  “She spoke so well about love, Sergeant. I could never have phrased it like that. And I loved men; do you know how homosexuality was regarded back then? Even now, in fact . . . the proof being that I still hide my sexuality. Even when Marcus Goldman wrote that I was an old sadist and implied that I had abused Nola, I didn’t dare respond with the truth. Instead I sent my lawyers to deal with it: I filed a lawsuit, hoping to block publication of the book. All I had to do was tell America that I belonged to the other side. But our fellow citizens are still very prudish, and I have a reputation to protect.”

  Gahalowood brought the conversation back to his main concern.

  “Your arrangement with Nola—how did it work?”

  “Luther went to get her in Somerset. I told him I did not want to know anything about all of that. I insisted he take his own car, rather than mine. As soon as I saw him leave for Somerset, I sent the staff out. I didn’t want anyone to be there. I was too ashamed. So much so that I didn’t want it to happen on the veranda that Luther generally used as a studio; I was afraid someone would see them there. So he took Nola to a small room next to my office. I greeted her when she arrived and said good-bye when she left. That was a condition I had imposed on Luther: I wanted to make sure everything went well. Or not badly, at least. The first time, I remember, she was on a couch that was draped with a white sheet. She was already naked, trembling, uncomfortable, frightened. I shook her hand, and it was ice cold. I never stayed in the room, but I always remained close, so I could be certain he wasn’t hurting her in any way. In fact I even hid an intercom in the room. I would put it on before she arrived, that way I could hear what was happening.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. Luther didn’t say a word. He generally didn’t speak much, because of his injuries. He painted her—that’s all.”

  “So he didn’t touch her?”

  “Never! I’m telling you, I would not have allowed it.”

  “How many times did Nola come here?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe about ten.”

  “And how many pictures did he paint?”

  “Only one.”

  “The one we took?”

  “Yes.”

  So it was purely because of Nola that Harry had been able to stay in Somerset. But why exactly had Luther Caleb felt the need to paint her? And why had Stern—who, according to his own testimony, had been ready to let Harry stay in the house for free—given in to Caleb’s request and forced Nola to pose nude? Gahalowood had not received any responses to these questions.

  “I asked him,” he told me. “I said to him, ‘Mr. Stern, there’s one thing I still don’t understand: Why did Luther want to paint Nola? You said earlier that this was how he got his kicks. Do you mean that painting provided him with a form of sexual pleasure?’ But he said the subject was closed. It was a complicated story, he said, and I knew everything I needed to know; the rest belonged to the past. And he terminated the interview. I was there unofficially, so I couldn’t force him to respond.”

  “Jenny told us that Luther wanted to paint her too,” I reminded Gahalowood.

  “So what are we talking about? Some kind of psycho with a paintbrush?”

  “I have no idea. Do you think Stern might have agreed to Caleb’s request because he was attracted to him?”

  “That did cross my mind, and I asked Stern if there had been anything between him and Caleb. He replied very calmly that there had been nothing at all. ‘I have been the faithful partner of Mr. Sylford since the early seventies,’ he told me. ‘All I ever felt for Luther Caleb was pity, which is why I hired him in the first place. The poor guy had been seriously disfigured after a brutal beating. A life senselessly ruined. He was a skilled mechanic, and I needed someone to take care of my fleet of cars and be my chauffeur. We quickly built a bond of friendship. He was a nice guy, you know. I’m happy to say that we were friends.’ But what nags at me, writer, is that bond he mentioned. He said it was a bond of friendship, but I have a feeling there was more to it than that. And I don’t mean that it was sexual. I’m sure Stern was telling the truth when he said he felt no attraction for Caleb. No, I think the bond must have been more . . . unhealthy. That’s the impression I had when Stern described how he gave in to Caleb’s request and asked Nola to pose nude. That made him uncomfortable and ashamed, and yet he did it anyway, as if Caleb had some sort of power over him. Sylford must have sensed it too. Up to that point in the story, he had not said a word, he’d just listened, but when Stern told how he would greet Nola before the painting sessions, and how terrified she looked, lying there naked, he said: ‘But, Eli, how could you? What is this all about? Why did you never tell me?’”

  “What about Luther’s disappearance?” I asked. “Did you talk to Stern about that?”

  “Patience, writer. I saved the best part for last. Sylford, without meaning to, put Stern under pressure. He was upset, and he lost his lawyerly instincts. He started bellowing: ‘For God’s sake, Eli, explain yourself! Why did you never tell me? Why did you stay silent all these years?’ Stern, as you can imagine, was rather abashed, and he replied: ‘I stayed silent, yes, but I never forgot. I kept that painting for thirty-three years. Every day I would go into the studio, sit on the couch, and look at it. I had to withstand her gaze, her presence. And she would stare at me with those ghost eyes. That was my punishment!’”

  Gahalowood, of course, asked Stern what punishment he was referring to.

  “My punishment for having killed her a little bit!” Stern cried. “I think that by letting Luther paint her naked, I awoke some terrifying demons in him . . . I . . . I had told that young girl she had to pose nude for Luther, and I created a sort of bond between the two of them. I think I may be indirectly responsible for the death of that sweet girl!”

  “What happened, Mr. Stern?”

  At first Stern remained silent. He paced around, visibly unsure whether he should tell what he knew. Then he made up his mind to talk.

  “I quickly realized that Luther was in love with Nola, and that he wanted to understand why Nola was in love with Harry. That sickened him. And he became completely obsessed by Quebert, to the point that he would hide in the woods around Goose Cove to spy on him. I noticed that he was going to Somerset much more often than before, and I knew he would sometimes spend whole days there. I felt I was losing control of the situation, so one day I followed him. I found his car parked in the woods near Goose Cove. I left mine farther away, where no one would see it, and I searched the woods. That was how I came to see him, without his seeing me. He was concealed in the undergrowth, spying on the house. I didn’t show myself to him, but I wanted to teach him a lesson, to make him feel as if he’d just dodged a bullet. So I decided to go to Goose Cove, as if I were paying an impromptu visit to Harry. I walked down the driveway as if nothing were up. I went straight to the deck, making plenty of noise. ‘Hello! Hello, Harry!’ I shouted, to make sure that Luther would hear me. Harry must have thought I was crazy. I remember he started shouting his head off too. I let him believe I had left my car in Somerset and asked him for a ride into town in return for my buying him lunch. He agreed, and off we went together. I thought that would give Luther time to get away, and that he would think he’d had a close call. Harry and I went to Clark’s. There Harry told me that a couple days before, at dawn, Luther had given him a ride from Somerset to Goose Cove after he had cramped up while running. Harry asked
me what Luther was doing in Somerset at that time of day. I changed the subject, but I was very worried: This had to stop. That evening I ordered Luther to stay away from Somerset, and told him he would be in trouble if he kept going. But he continued, in spite of everything. So a couple weeks later I told him I didn’t want him to paint Nola anymore. We had a terrible argument. This was Friday, August 29. He told me he could no longer work for me, and he left, slamming the door behind him. I thought he was just saying that in the heat of the moment, and that he would return. The next day, the fateful August 30, I left early for some private meetings. But when I got back, at the end of the day, and saw that Luther still hadn’t returned, I had a strange foreboding. I went to search for him. I took the road to Somerset; it must have been about eight p.m. I was passed on the way by a line of police cars. When I arrived in Somerset, I found the town in turmoil. People were saying that Nola had disappeared. I asked someone for the Kellergans’ address, although in fact all I had to do was follow the crowds of onlookers and the emergency vehicles that were headed there. I stayed in front of their house for a while, surrounded by gossiping neighbors, incredulously contemplating the place where that sweet girl lived, that peaceful little white wooden house, with a swing hanging from the branch of an old cherry tree in the yard. I went back to Concord at nightfall and checked Luther’s room to see if he was there. But of course he wasn’t. The painting of Nola was, though, and it was finished. I took it with me and hung it in the studio. I never moved it from there. I stayed up all night waiting for Luther, but he never came. The next day his father telephoned me. He was searching for him too. I told him his son had left two days before, but I gave no further details. In fact I didn’t tell anyone. I kept silent. Because to accept that Luther was guilty of kidnapping Nola Kellergan would mean accepting that I was a little guilty myself. I spent a month searching for Luther; I looked for him every day. Until his father called to tell me that he had died in a car accident.”

  “Are you telling me you think Luther Caleb killed Nola?” Gahalowood demanded.

  Stern nodded. “Yes. I have thought that for thirty-three years.”