by Joël Dicker
I intervened. “I thought you’d be glad of the publicity, Mr Mayor.”
“I’m worried that just anybody can gain access to the Grand Theater, Captain!” he roared. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? We have dozens of police guarding the building. How did this guy get in?”
“It’s Montagne who’s in charge of security now,” Betsy said.
“We have a very strong presence,” Montagne said.
“Strong, my ass!” Brown cried.
“Someone obviously let that reporter in,” Montagne said, turning to Bird. “Maybe a colleague of yours?”
“It was nothing to do with me!” Bird said. “I don’t even understand what I’m doing here. Can you imagine me letting in someone from the New York Times? Why would I sabotage my own exclusive? I promised not to publish anything before opening night and I’m a man of my word! If anyone let that idiot in, it was a member of the cast!”
Major McKenna did his authoritative best to establish a truce. “Listen, there’s no point attacking each other. We just have to make sure it doesn’t happen again. From tonight, the Grand Theater needs to be sealed off. All routes in and out will be guarded. Tomorrow morning, we’ll search the auditorium with sniffer dogs. When the audience enter the building tomorrow night, they’ll be searched and have to pass through metal detectors. Even accredited people, and that includes members of the cast. Get the word out: apart from small handheld items, all will be strictly forbidden. Rest assured, Mayor Brown, nothing will happen in the Grand Theater tomorrow night.”
*
After the session at the town hall, we went back to our office at the Chronicle. We looked again at all the things we had collected and stuck on the walls. Derek took down the article on which Stephanie had written in red marker pen: What nobody saw.
He said out loud, “What was in front of our eyes that we didn’t see?” He looked at the photograph illustrating the article. Then he said, “Let’s go over there.”
Ten minutes later, we were at Penfield Crescent, where everything had started on the evening of July 30, 1994. We parked on the quiet street and for a while sat looking out at the house that had been the Gordons’. We compared it with the photograph in the article. Nothing seemed to have changed since then, except that the houses on the street looked to have been repainted.
The new owners of the Gordons’ house were a pleasant couple, now retired, who had bought it in 1997.
“Obviously, we knew what had happened here,” the husband told us. “I won’t deny we hesitated for quite a while, but the price was attractive. We’d never have been able to afford a house this size if we’d had to pay top dollar.”
“Is the layout of the house the same as it was then?” I asked.
“Yes, Captain. We refurbished the kitchen, but the layout of the rooms was exactly as you see it now.”
“Do you mind if we take a look around?”
“Go ahead.”
We began with the front door, following the reconstruction in the police file. Betsy read out the report.
“The killer kicks the door down,” she said. “He comes across Leslie Gordon in the hallway and shoots, then turns to his right and sees the Gordons’ son in the living room, and shoots him. Then he heads for the kitchen, where he kills the mayor before going back out through the front door.”
We walked the route from the living room to the kitchen, then from the kitchen to the front steps.
“As he comes out,” Betsy continues, “he sees Meghan Padalin, who’s trying to run away. He shoots her twice in the back, then finishes her off with a bullet in the head.”
We now knew that the killer had not come in Tennenbaum’s van as we had thought, but either in another vehicle or on foot. Betsy looked again at the garden and said suddenly:
“You know, there’s something that doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?” I said.
“The killer is trying to take advantage of the fact that everyone’s at the festival. He wants to be invisible, silent, furtive. Logically, he should prowl around the house, slip into the garden, look into the house through a window.”
“Maybe he did,” Derek said.
Betsy frowned. “You told me there was a leak in the sprinkler system that day. Everyone who set foot on the lawn had wet shoes. If the killer had come through the garden before kicking down the door, he would have brought water into the house. But the report doesn’t mention damp footprints. There should have been some, shouldn’t there?”
“That’s a good point,” Derek said.
“Another thing,” Betsy went on. “Why did the killer come in through the front door and not the kitchen door, at the back of the house? He’d only have had to break the glass. Why didn’t he get in that way? Probably because he didn’t know there was a glass door there. His M.O. is quick, brutal. He kicked down the door and shot everyone.”
“Agreed,” I said, “but what are you getting at, Betsy?”
“I don’t think the mayor was the target, Jesse. If the killer had wanted to kill the mayor, why rush in through the front door, when he had better options?”
“What are you thinking? A burglary? But nothing was stolen.”
“I know,” Betsy said, “but there’s a detail that doesn’t ring true.”
Derek thought about it in his turn and looked at the park near the house. He walked over to it, sat down on the grass, and said:
“Charlotte Brown stated that when she arrived Meghan Padalin was in this park doing exercises. We know from the timeline that the killer got here a minute after she left. So Meghan was still in the park. If the killer leaves his vehicle and goes to the house and kicks the Gordons’ door down and shoots them, why does Meghan run in the direction of the house? It makes no sense. She should have run in the other direction.”
“Oh, my God!” I cried.
It had just hit me. It wasn’t the Gordon family that was targeted in 1994. It was Meghan Padalin.
The killer knew her habits, he had come to kill her. Maybe he had already attacked her in the park and she had tried to run away. He had then taken up position on the street and shot her. As far as he knew, the Gordons were away that day. The whole town was in the Grand Theater. But suddenly he had seen the Gordons’ son in the window—Charlotte had also seen him a few minutes earlier. He had then kicked in the door of the house and killed all the witnesses.
That was what had been in front of the investigators’ eyes from the beginning, but nobody had seen it: the body of Meghan Padalin in front of the house. She was the one who had been targeted. The Gordons had been collateral damage.
DEREK SCOTT
Mid-September 1994. A month and a half after the Gordon killings and a month before the tragedy that would strike Jesse and me.
We had Tennenbaum in a corner.
The very afternoon on which we had questioned Corporal Ziggy and he had admitted selling Tennenbaum a Beretta, we went to Orphea to proceed with the arrest. To make sure we didn’t miss him, we had two teams from the State Police with us: one, led by Jesse, to break into his house, and the other, led by myself, to go to Café Athena. But we drew a blank: Tennenbaum was not at home, and the manager of his restaurant had not seen him since the day before.
“He’s taken a break,” the manager told us.
“A break?” I said in surprise. “Where to?”
“I don’t know. Only a few days off. He should be back on Monday.”
A search of Tennenbaum’s house yielded nothing. Nor did a search of his office at Café Athena. We could not wait quietly until he deigned to return to Orphea. According to our information, he had not taken a plane, at least not under his own name. His immediate associates had not seen him. And his van wasn’t there. We launched a search. His description was sent to the airports and the borders, his license number sent to all the police forces in the country. His photograph was distributed to all businesses in the Orphea area and to a large number of gas stations in New York State.
&
nbsp; Jesse and I moved between our office at troop headquarters, which was the heart of the operation, and Orphea, where we mounted a stake-out in front of the Tennenbaum house, sleeping in our car. We were pretty sure that he was hiding in the area. He knew the place like the back of his hand, and had a lot of support. We even obtained permission to tap the phone of his sister, Sylvia Tennenbaum, who lived in Manhattan, as well as that of the restaurant. But to no avail. After three weeks, the taps were discontinued for reasons of cost. The officers the major had allocated to us were reassigned to cases that were higher priority.
“Higher priority than the arrest of a quadruple murderer?” I protested to Major McKenna.
“Derek,” the major said, “I gave you unlimited resources for three weeks. This thing could go on months. We just have to be patient. We’ll get him in the end.”
Tennenbaum had given us the slip and was getting away. Jesse and I were sleepless. We wanted to find him, to arrest him, to bring this investigation to a close.
While our search was treading water, work on Little Russia was going well. Darla and Natasha were sure they could open the restaurant by the end of the year.
But lately, tension had emerged between them. The origin of these was an article published in a newspaper in Queens. The locals were all intrigued by the restaurant sign, and those passers-by who had come to ask questions had been charmed by the two owners. Soon, everyone was talking about Little Russia. It had aroused the interest of a reporter, who had asked if he could write an article. He had come with a photographer, who had taken a series of photographs, including one of Natasha and Darla together under the sign. But when the article appeared, a few days later, they discovered, to their dismay, that the only photograph was one of Natasha, alone, in an apron with the restaurant’s logo, and with the following caption: “Natasha Darrinski, owner of Little Russia”.
It was hardly Natasha’s fault, but Darla was terribly hurt by this episode. It was also a good illustration of the fascination Natasha held for people.
Everything had gone so well until that point, but this was the beginning of some terrible disagreements. Every time their opinions diverged, Darla could not avoid saying:
“Well, Natasha, we’ll do what you want anyway. You’re the one who decides everything!”
“Darla, do I have to keep apologizing for that fucking article? It was nothing to do with me. I didn’t want to do it, I said it was best to wait till the restaurant opened. That then it would be good publicity.”
“Oh, so it’s my fault?”
“I didn’t say that, Darla.”
When we all met up in the evenings, they were demoralized and subdued. Jesse and I sensed that Little Russia was starting to take on water.
Darla did not want anything to do with a project in which she would be overshadowed by Natasha.
As for Natasha, she was suffering from being Natasha, the girl who, despite herself, attracted all the attention.
It was such a pity. They had everything going for them, there was every prospect of success with a project they’d been dreaming about for ten years and had worked so hard for. Those hours spent toiling away at the Blue Lagoon, putting aside every dollar they earned for the restaurant they planned together, those years spent conceiving a place that would reflect their personalities—all this was crumbling.
Jesse and I didn’t want to get involved. The last time all four of us had been together had been a disaster. Meeting in Natasha’s kitchen to taste the dishes finally chosen for Little Russia’s menu, I had made the worst possible blunder. After tasting that famous beef sandwich flavored with that very distinctive sauce, I had gone into ecstasies over it and made the error of referring to “Natasha’s Sauce”. Darla had made a scene.
“Natasha’s Sauce? Is that what it’s called? Why don’t we just call the place Natasha’s Restaurant?”
“It isn’t Natasha’s Sauce,” Natasha had said, trying to calm Darla down. “It’s our restaurant, both of ours, and you know that.”
“No, I don’t know that, Natasha! I feel I’m just an employee following orders, you decide everything.”
She had left, slamming the door.
So, when a few days later the two of them suggested we join them at the printer’s to decide on the design of the menus, Jesse and I declined. I don’t know if they really wanted our opinions, or just wanted us to act as peacemakers, but neither Jesse nor I had any wish to get involved.
That day was Thursday, October 13, 1994. The day everything changed.
It was early afternoon. Jesse and I were in the office, eating sandwiches, when Jesse’s phone rang. It was Natasha. She was in tears. She was calling from a hunting and fishing supplies store on Long Island.
“Darla and I quarreled in the car on the way to the printer’s,” she said. “She suddenly stopped and threw me out of the car. I left my purse inside. I’m lost, without money.”
Jesse told her not to move, he would fetch her. I decided to go with him. We found poor Natasha still in tears. We tried to comfort her, promised her that everything would work out in the end, but she kept saying that as far as she was concerned the restaurant was over, she didn’t want to hear about it anymore.
We only just missed Darla, who had done a U-turn and come back for her friend. She hated herself for what she had done, and was ready to do anything to be forgiven. Not finding Natasha, she stopped outside the hunting and fishing supplies store, there at the side of this deserted road. The owner told her that he had indeed seen a young woman in tears, that she had used his telephone, and that two men had come to pick her up. “They only just left,” he said. “Not a minute ago.”
I think that if she had only gotten there a few moments earlier, Darla would have seen us in front of the store. And everything would have been different.
We were driving Natasha home when our radio suddenly started crackling. Tennenbaum had been seen in a gas station. I took the microphone and announced myself to the switchboard. Jesse put the emergency light on the roof, then started the siren.
0
Opening Night
SATURDAY, JULY 26, 2014
JESSE ROSENBERG
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Opening night
It was the night everything changed.
It was 5.30. The doors of the Grand Theater would soon be thrown open. Main Street, cordoned off by the police, was packed with people. The excitement was wild. Amid the reporters, the onlookers and the itinerant souvenir sellers, the ticket holders were crowded up against security barriers that still blocked access to the theater. People who had been unable to obtain tickets for opening night were walking up and down the crowd with homemade banners offering absurd sums.
A little earlier, the T.V. news channels had broadcast live the arrival of the cast, under stringent protection. Before being allowed through the stage door, each cast member had been searched and then had passed through a metal detector to ensure they weren’t carrying a weapon.
At the main entrance to the theater, security people were finishing putting in metal detector gates. The public could not keep still. In just over two hours the performance of “The Darkest Night” would begin. The identity of the 1994 killer was at last to be revealed.
In the archive room of the Chronicle, Derek, Betsy and I were getting ready to set off for the theater. We were condemned to witness Kirk Hayward’s ludicrous triumph. The previous day, Major McKenna had said to us, “Instead of doubting Hayward, just take whatever may come from the performance. We can all hope and pray that it helps you complete your investigation and discover the truth.” That was provocative. Our obsession now, however, was: why had Meghan Padalin been killed? Who could have had a reason to eliminate this unremarkable, much-liked woman?
Bird had been of great help, spending most of one sleepless night working beside us. He had gathered everything he could on Meghan, allowing us to reconstruct her life story. She was born in Pittsburgh, and had studied literature at a smal
l college in New York State. She had briefly lived in New York City before settling in Orphea in 1990 with her husband Samuel, who worked as an engineer in a local factory. Not long afterward, she had been hired by Cody Springfield.
And what was there to say about her husband, Samuel, who had suddenly reappeared in Orphea to take part in the play? After his wife’s murder, he had moved to Southampton and had remarried.
Padalin, too, seemed to be unremarkable. He had joined a number of organizations as a volunteer. His new wife, Kelly, was a doctor. They had two children, aged ten and twelve.
Could there be a connection between Meghan Padalin and Fold? Or between Samuel Padalin and Fold?
We had telephoned former Special Agent Grace of the A.T.F., but the name Padalin meant nothing to him. For the time being, there was no questioning Costico, who was still nowhere to be found. We did talk again to Virginia Parker, the singer from the club, but she assured us she had never heard of either Samuel or Meghan Padalin.
Nobody had a connection with anybody. It was incredible. Now, as the doors of the theater were about to open, we had even started wondering if these were two distinct investigations.
“Meghan’s murder on one side, and Gordon’s involvement with Fold on the other,” Derek said.
“Except that Gordon seems to have had no connection with Fold either,” I said.
“But Hayward’s play does appear to refer to Fold,” Betsy pointed out, “and one of the characters is called Meghan. I do think everything’s connected.”
“If I understand correctly,” Bird said, summing up, “everything’s connected, but nothing’s connected. It’s a bit of a Chinese puzzle, this case of yours.”
“You’re telling us,” Betsy said with a sigh. “Plus, there’s Stephanie’s killer. Could it be the same person?”
Derek made an effort to get us out of this confusion. “Let’s try to put ourselves in the killer’s shoes. If I were him, what would I be doing today?”
“I would either be a long way away by now,” I said, “in Venezuela or some other country that doesn’t extradite. Or else I would try to stop the show.”