The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair

by Joël Dicker

  “And what would Nola do?”

  “We were going to get her a fake I.D., so she could finish high school and then go to college. We would have waited until she was eighteen, and then she would have become Mrs Harry Quebert.”

  “Fake I.D.? But that’s crazy!”

  “I know.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “That day—August 27—we rehearsed the plan several times on the beach, then went back to the house. We sat on the old couch in the living room—which wasn’t old at the time but has become so because I could never bear to get rid of it—and we had our last conversation. These were her last words to me, Marcus. I’ll never forget them. She said, ‘We’ll be so happy, Harry. I’ll become your wife. You’ll be a great writer. And a university professor. I always dreamed of marrying a university professor. And we’ll have a big, sun-colored dog, a Labrador we’ll name Storm. You’ll wait for me, won’t you? Please wait for me!’ And I replied: ‘I’ll wait my whole life for you, Nola, if I have to.’ Those were her last words, Marcus. After that I nodded off, and when I woke up the sun was setting and Nola was gone. The ocean was aglow with that pink light, and the sky was full of screeching seagulls. Those damn seagulls she loved so much. There was now only one manuscript on the deck table: the handwritten original. And next to it was that note, the one you found in the box. I know those sentences by heart. It said: ‘Don’t worry, Harry. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll find a way to meet you. Wait for me in Room 8. I like that number, it’s my favorite. Wait for me there at 7 p.m. And then we’ll go away forever.’ I didn’t look for the manuscript; I realized she had taken it so she could read it one more time. Or maybe to make sure I would meet her at the motel on the thirtieth. She took that damn manuscript with her, Marcus, as she did sometimes. And the next day I left town, just as we had planned. I stopped by at Clark’s to have coffee, so that people would see me and I could tell them I was going away. Jenny was there, as she was every morning. I told her I had to go to Boston, that my book was almost finished and I had some important meetings there. And then I left. I left, never suspecting for a second that I had seen Nola for the last time.”

  I put down my pen. Harry was crying.

  July 7, 2008

  Roy Barnaski gave himself a half-hour to read through the fifty-odd pages I had given him before he called us back to see him.

  “So?” I asked, as I entered the room.

  “It’s just brilliant, Goldman! Brilliant! I knew you were the man of the hour.”

  “Just to warn you: Those pages are essentially my notes. There are things in there that can’t be published.”

  “Of course, of course. You’ll get the final say.”

  He ordered champagne, spread the contracts out on the table, and went over the main points again: “Delivery of the manuscript at the end of August. The jacket art will be ready by then. The book will be edited and typeset in two weeks, and printing will take place in September. Publication is set for the final week of September, at the latest. What perfect timing! Just before the presidential election, and more or less exactly during Quebert’s trial! It’s marketing genius!”

  “And what if the investigation is still ongoing?” I asked. “How am I supposed to finish the book?”

  Barnaski had his response all ready and rubber-stamped by his legal department. “If the investigation is finished, it’s a true story. If not, we leave it open, you suggest the ending, and it’s a novel. Legally they can’t touch us, and for readers it makes no difference. And in fact, it’s even better if the investigation isn’t over, because we could do a sequel. What a godsend!”

  He gave me a knowing look. An employee brought in the champagne, and Barnaski insisted on opening it himself. I signed the contract while he popped the cork, spilling champagne everywhere, and filled two glasses. He gave one to Douglas and the other to me.

  “Aren’t you having any?” I asked.

  Grimacing with distaste, he wiped his hands on a cushion. “I can’t stand the stuff. Champagne is just for show. But appearances matter, Goldman.”

  And he was called out to take a telephone call from Warner Brothers about the movie rights.

  *

  On the way back to Somerset later that afternoon, I got a call from Roth.

  “We’ve got the results, Goldman! The handwriting isn’t Harry’s! He didn’t write that note on the manuscript!”

  I whooped.

  “So what does that mean, in concrete terms?” I said.

  “I don’t know yet. But if it’s not his writing, that proves he did not have the manuscript when Nola was killed. And the manuscript is one of the main pieces of evidence against him. The judge has ordered a new hearing for this Thursday at 2 p.m. With it coming so fast, that has to be good news for Harry!”

  I was thrilled: Harry would soon be free. So he had been telling the truth all along; he was innocent. I couldn’t wait for Thursday. But the day before, on Wednesday, July 9, disaster struck. At about 5 p.m., I was in Harry’s office at Goose Cove, going through my notes about Nola, when I received a call on my cell from Barnaski. His voice was shaking.

  “Marcus, I have terrible news,” he told me straight out.

  “What’s happened?”

  “There’s been a robbery …”

  “What do you mean, a robbery?”

  “Your pages … the ones you gave me in Boston.”

  “What? How is that possible?”

  “They were in a drawer of my desk. Yesterday morning I couldn’t find them … At first I thought Marisa must have put them in the safe; she does that sometimes. But when I asked her, she said she hadn’t touched them. I spent all day yesterday searching for them, but without success.”

  My heart was pounding. I sensed there was worse to come.

  “But what makes you think they were stolen?” I asked.

  There was a long silence, and then he replied: “I’ve been getting phone calls all afternoon. From the Globe, USA Today, the New York Times … Someone sent copies of your pages to all the major newspapers, and they’re about to print them. Tomorrow the whole country will be aware of what’s going to be in your book.”

  PART TWO

  Writers’ Cure

  (Writing the Book)

  14

  August 30, 1975

  “You see, Marcus, the way it works in our society, we are constantly having to choose between reason and passion. Reason never helps anyone and passion is often destructive. So, don’t ask me to help you choose.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Just because. Life is a rip-off.”

  “Are you going to finish your fries?”

  “No. Help yourself.”

  “Thank you, Harry.”

  “You’re really not interested in what I have to say, are you?”

  “Yes, I am. Very interested. I’m listening carefully to everything you say. Number Fourteen: Life is a rip-off.”

  “For God’s sake, Marcus, you haven’t understood anything. Sometimes I get the feeling I’m talking to a moron.”

  4 p.m.

  It had been a beautiful day: one of those late-summer, sun-soaked Saturdays when Somerset seemed so peaceful. In the center of town, people were strolling around, stopping in front of store windows, enjoying the last days of summer. The streets of the residential areas, free of cars, had been taken over by the children, who organized bicycle and roller-skate races while their parents sipped lemonade and read newspapers on shady porches.

  For the third time in less than an hour, Travis Dawn drove down Terrace Avenue in his patrol car, passing the Quinn family’s house. The afternoon had been totally calm; not a single call had been made to the station. He had stopped a few cars to keep himself busy, but his mind was elsewhere: He could not think of anything but Jenny. There she was, sitting on the porch with her father. They had spent the whole afternoon doing crosswords, while Tamara pruned the bushes in anticipation of fall. As he approached the house, Trav
is slowed down to a crawl; he was hoping she would notice him, that she would lift her head and see him, that she would wave, encouraging him to stop for a moment and to say hello to her through his open window. Maybe she would even offer him a glass of iced tea and they would chat for a while. But she did not lift her head; she did not see him. She was laughing with her father. She seemed happy. He kept driving, and stopped about a hundred feet farther on, out of sight. He looked at the bouquet of flowers on the passenger seat and picked up the piece of paper that lay next to it, on which he had scribbled what he wanted to say to her:

  Hello, Jenny. What a beautiful day. If you’re free this evening, I was thinking we could go for a walk on the beach. Maybe we could even go see a movie? They have some new movies opening in Montburry. (Give her the flowers.)

  It was easy enough, suggesting they go for a walk and catch a movie. But he did not dare get out of his car. He quickly started the car again and drove on, following the same patrol route that would bring him back in front of the Quinns’ house within twenty minutes. He put the flowers under the seat so that no-one would see them. They were wild roses, picked near Montburry, by the side of a little lake that Ernie Pinkas had told him about. At first sight they were not as pretty as cultivated roses, but their colors were much more vibrant. He had often wanted to take Jenny there; he had even come up with a special plan. He would blindfold her and lead her to the rose beds, and only when she was standing right in front of them would he untie the blindfold, so the colors would explode before her eyes like fireworks. Afterward they would have a picnic by the lake. But he had never been brave enough to ask her. He was driving down Terrace Avenue now, passing the Kellergans’ house. Not that he noticed—his attention was elsewhere.

  Despite the beautiful weather, the Reverend David Kellergan had spent the whole afternoon shut up in his garage, fiddling with an old Harley-Davidson he hoped one day to get working again. According to the Somerset police report, he left his workshop only to get himself a drink from the kitchen, and each time he did so, he found Nola peacefully reading in the living room.

  5.30 p.m.

  As the afternoon wound down, the streets in the center of town slowly emptied, while in the residential areas the children returned home for dinner, and there was nothing to be seen on the porches but empty chairs and abandoned newspapers.

  The police chief, Gareth Pratt, who was off duty, went home with his wife, Amy, after the two of them had spent part of the day out of town, visiting friends. Meanwhile the Hattaway family—Nancy, her two brothers, and their parents—were arriving back at their house on Terrace Avenue, after spending the afternoon at Grand Beach. It says in the police report that Mrs Hattaway, Nancy’s mother, noticed ear-splitting music coming from the Kellergan house.

  Harry arrived at the Sea Side Motel. He registered for Room 8 under an assumed name and paid cash in order to avoid having to show I.D. On his way there he had filled up his gas tank and bought flowers. Everything was ready. Only an hour and a half to wait, if that. When Nola arrived, they would celebrate being together again and then take off immediately. By 10 p.m. they would be in Canada. They would be together at last. She would never be unhappy again.

  6 p.m.

  Deborah Cooper, who had, since the death of her husband, been living alone in a house on the edge of the Side Creek forest, sat down at her kitchen table to make an apple pie. After peeling and slicing the fruit, she tossed a few pieces through the window for the raccoons and stayed by the window to watch them come. That was how she came to glimpse a figure running through the trees. Looking more carefully, she could see quite distinctly a young girl in a red dress pursued by a man, before the two of them disappeared into the trees. She rushed to the living room, where the telephone was, so she could call 911. The police report indicates that the call was made to the station at 6.21 p.m. It lasted twenty-seven seconds. This is the transcript:

  “Somerset Police. What’s your emergency?”

  “Hello? My name is Deborah Cooper. I live on Side Creek Lane. I think I’ve just seen a man running after a girl in the woods.”

  “Could you tell me exactly what happened, ma’am?”

  “I don’t know! I was standing by the window. I looked over toward the woods, and I saw this girl running through the trees. There was a man behind her. I think she was trying to get away from him.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “I can’t see them anymore. They’re in the forest.”

  “I’m sending a patrol over right now, ma’am.”

  “Thank you. Come quick!”

  After hanging up, Mrs Cooper returned immediately to her kitchen window. She could no longer see anything. She wondered if her eyes had been deceiving her, but it was better to be safe than sorry. She left the house to wait for the patrol car.

  The report indicates that the police station sent the information to the police in Somerset. The only officer on duty that day was Travis Dawn. He reached Side Creek Lane about four minutes after the call.

  After quickly appraising the situation, Officer Dawn began an initial search of the forest. He walked through the woods for about a hundred feet, then found a scrap of red fabric. Judging that the situation might be serious, he decided to inform Chief Pratt, even though he was off duty. Dawn called him at home, from Mrs Cooper’s house. It was 6.45 p.m.

  7 p.m.

  Chief Pratt decided that the situation was sufficiently serious that he should come in person to assess things: Only under the most exceptional circumstances would Travis Dawn have disturbed him at home.

  Upon his arrival at Side Creek Lane, Chief Pratt told Mrs Cooper to lock herself in the house while he and Travis undertook a more extensive search of the forest. They followed the path that runs parallel to the beach, in the direction the girl in the red dress seemed to have gone. According to the police report, after the two policemen had walked just over a mile, they discovered traces of blood and some blond hairs in a clearing in the forest close to the ocean. It was 7.30 p.m.

  It is likely that Mrs Cooper remained by her kitchen window to keep watch. The two policeman had already vanished from the path for quite some time when she saw a young woman appear from the forest, her dress torn and her face covered with blood, and heard her shout for help as she ran toward the house. In a panic, Mrs Cooper unlocked the kitchen door to let her in and rushed to the living room to call the police again.

  The police report indicates that the second call from Mrs Cooper came in at 7.33 and lasted a little more than forty seconds:

  “Police. What’s your emergency?”

  “Hello? This is Deborah Cooper. I … I called earlier to … to report a young girl who was being chased in the woods, and now she’s here! She’s in my kitchen!”

  “Calm down, ma’am. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I don’t know! She came from the forest. There are two policemen in the forest at the moment, but I don’t think they saw her. I let her into my kitchen. I … I think it’s the pastor’s daughter … The girl who works at Clark’s … I think it’s her …”

  “What is your address?”

  “Deborah Cooper, Side Creek Lane, Somerset. I called you before! The girl is here—do you understand? Her face is covered in blood! Come quick!”

  “Don’t move, ma’am. I’m sending backup immediately.”

  The two policemen were inspecting the traces of blood when they heard the gunshot from the direction of the house. Without a second’s thought, they ran back along the path, firearms at the ready.

  At the same moment, the police station operator, unable to get hold of either Officer Travis Dawn or Chief Pratt on their car radios, and deciding that the situation was serious, issued a general alert to the sheriff’s office and the state police, and sent all available units to Side Creek Lane.

  7.45 p.m.

  Officer Dawn and Chief Pratt arrived at the house, out of breath. They went through the back door, which opened into the kitchen, where they foun
d Deborah Cooper dead, lying on the tiles in a pool of her own blood, with a gunshot wound to the chest. Having quickly searched the first floor of the house and found nothing, Chief Pratt ran to his car to inform the station and ask for backup. This is the transcript of his conversation with the police operator: