by Joël Dicker
“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 ten p.m. There’s a night watchman who works from ten p.m. until seven a.m., but he was watching TV and 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 didn’t 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 Chevrolet, 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 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 on the first page of the manuscript, “Good-bye, darling Nola.” 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,” Gahalwood 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 eleven 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—”
“By the handwriting analysis,” I cut in.
“Exactly.”
“One last question, Sergeant: Why would Stern be so determined to protect Caleb?”
“That’s something I would very much like to know too.”
• • •
The inquiry into Pratt’s death promised to be complex; the police did not have any solid evidence or even the smallest clue. A little over a week after Pratt’s murder, on Wednesday, July 30, Nola’s body was finally buried, having been returned to her father. The ceremony took place at the cemetery in Somerset in the early afternoon, under unexpected drizzle and before a sparse gathering of mourners. David Kellergan rode his motorcycle all the way to the grave, but nobody there dared say anything. He was listening to music on his earphones, and apparently his only words were: “Why did we dig her up if we’re just going to bury her again?” He did not cry.
I didn’t go to the funeral because just when it was starting, I was doing something that seemed important to me: I was keeping Harry company. He was sitting in the parking lot, shirtless under the warm rain.
“Come in and dry off, Harry,” I told him.
“They’re burying her, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“They’re burying her, and I’m not even there.”
“It’s better this way. It’s better that you’re not there . . . because of everything that’s happened.”
“To hell with what would people say! They’re burying Nola, and I’m not even there to say good-bye to her, to see her one last time. To be with her. I’ve spent thirty-three years waiting to see her again, even if only for one last time. Do you know where I would like to be?”
“At the funeral?”
“No. In writer’s heaven.”
He stretched out on the asphalt and didn’t move a muscle. I lay down next to him. The rain fell on both of us.
“Marcus, I wish I were dead.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Friends can sense that kind of thing.”
There was a long silence. Finally I said: “The other day you said we couldn’t be friends anymore.”
“It’s true. We’re slowly saying good-bye to each other, Marcus. It’s as if you knew I was going to die soon and you had a few weeks to make your farewells. It’s the cancer of friendship.”
He closed his eyes and held out his arms as if he were on a cross. I imitated him. And we stayed like that, stretched out on the asphalt, for a long time.
• • •
Later that day I went to Clark’s, hoping to talk to someone who had attended Nola’s funeral. The place was practically empty; there was only one employee there, halfheartedly polishing the counter. He managed to gather enough strength to pour me a draft beer. That was when I noticed Robert Quinn, sitting at the back of the room, eating peanuts and filling in crossword puzzles in the old newspapers that lay on the tables. He was hiding from his wife. I went over to him. I offered him a pint; he accepted and made room for me to sit next to him. It was a touching gesture: I could easily have sat opposite him, or on one of the fifty-odd empty chairs in the place. But he moved over so I could sit next to him.
“Were you at Nola’s funeral?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How was it?”
“Horrible. Like this whole story. There were more journalists than loved ones.”
We said nothing for a moment, and then, to make conversation, he said: “How’s your book going?”
“It’s progressing. But I reread it yesterday and realized I still have some gray areas I need to make clearer. Particularly regarding your wife. She told me she had a compromising note, written by Harry Quebert, which mysteriously disappeared. I don’t suppose you know what happened to it, do you?”
He took a long swallow of beer and even ate a few peanuts before replying.
“It burned,” he said. “That’s what happened to that cursed piece of paper.”
“What?” I said, stunned. “How do you know that?”
“Because I’m the one who burned it.”
“Are you serious? Why? And why did you never say anything?”
He shrugged. “No one ever asked me,” he replied pragmatically. “My wife has been talking about that note for thirty-three years. She screams, she yells, she says, ‘But it was there! In the safe! There!’ She never said: ‘Robert, darling, did you ever happen to see that note?’ She never asked me, so I never told her.”
I tried to hide my astonishment so he would continue talking. “So what happened?”
“It all began one Sunday afternoon. My wife organized a ridiculous garden party for Quebert, but Quebert didn’t come. She was so mad, she decided to go see him at his house. I remember that day clearly: it was July 13, 1975. The same day Nola tried to kill herself.”
Sunday, July 13, 1975
“Robert! Roooobert!”
Tamara burst into the house like a Fury, frantically waving a sheet of paper. She went through every room on the first floor before finding her husband reading the newspaper in the living room.
“Robert, for goodness’ sake! Why don’t you answer me when I call you? Are you going deaf? Look! Look at this! See how awful it is!”
She handed him the piece of paper she had stolen from Harry’s house, and he read it.
My Nola, darling Nola, Nola my love. What have you done? Why did you want to die? Is it because of me? I love you. I love you more than anything. Don’t leave me. If you die, I die. You are all that matters in my life, Nola.
“Where did you find this?” Robert asked.
“At that son of a bitch Harry Quebert’s house!”
“You stole it from his house?”
“I didn’t steal anything; I took it. I knew it! He’s a disgusting pervert who’s fantasizing about a fifteen-year-old girl. This makes me sick. I want to throw up! I want to throw up, Bobbo—do you hear me? Harry Quebert is in love with a little girl! It’s illegal. He’s a pig! A pig! And he spends all his time at Clark’s just so he can ogle her. He comes to my restaurant just to leer at a girl’s ass!”
Robert read the note several times. There was little doubt about it: Harry had written a love letter. A love letter to a fifteen-year-old girl.
“What are you going to do with this?” he asked his wife.
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to call the police?”
“The police? No, Bobbo. Not just yet. I don’t want everyone to know that Quebert the pervert prefers a little girl to our beautiful Jenny. Where is she, by the way? In her room?”
“Actually, that young man Travis Dawn came here just after you left, to invite her to the summer gala. They went to have dinner in Montburry. So Jenny has already found another date for the gala—isn’t that great?”
“Oh, Bobbo, just shut up! And now get the hell out of here. I need to hide this note somewhere, and I don’t want anyone to know where.”
Bobbo obeyed, shuffling off to finish his newspaper on the porch. But he couldn’t read a thing; he was too preoccupied by what his wife had discovered. So Harry, the great writer, was writing love letters to a girl half his age. Sweet litt
le Nola. It was so disturbing. Should he warn Nola? Tell her that this Harry was driven by strange urges, and that he might even be dangerous? Shouldn’t he call the police, so Harry could get professional help?
• • •
The summer gala was the following weekend. Robert and Tamara Quinn were standing in a corner of the room, sipping virgin cocktails, when Tamara spotted Harry Quebert. “Look, Bobbo,” Tamara hissed. “There’s the pervert!” They watched him for a long time, while a flood of insults poured from Tamara’s mouth, loud enough to be heard only by Robert.
“What are you going to do with that note?” Robert finally asked.
“I don’t know. But I do know that the first thing I’m going to do is make him pay what he owes me. He has five hundred dollars on the restaurant’s tab!”
Harry seemed ill at ease. He got a beer from the bar for appearance’s sake, then headed toward the restroom.
“There he is, going to the bathroom,” Tamara said. “Look, look, Bobbo! You know what he’s going to do?”
“A number one?”
“No, he’s going to jerk off while thinking about that little girl!”
“What?”
“Oh, shut up, Bobbo. You talk too much. I don’t want to hear you anymore. Stay here, will you?”
“Where are you going?”
“Don’t move. Just watch and learn.”
Tamara placed her glass on a high table and walked surreptitiously toward the bathroom that Harry Quebert had just entered. She followed him in, then came back out a few moments later, hurrying over to her husband.
“What did you do?” Robert demanded.
“Shut up—I told you already!” his wife scolded him as she picked up her drink. “Shut your mouth or you’ll give us away.”
Amy Pratt told her guests that they could now proceed to dinner, and a crowd of people converged slowly on the tables. Harry came out of the bathroom. He was sweating, in a panic. He joined the crowd.
“Look at him, bolting like a rabbit,” Tamara whispered. “He’s scared.”
“Tell me what you did,” Robert insisted.
Tamara smiled. Under the table she played discreetly with the lipstick she had used to write on the bathroom mirror.