The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer: A gripping new thriller with a killer twist

by Joël Dicker

  “I know the police tried to investigate him, but they never found anything. The only people who could have brought him down were his slaves, but they knew what they’d be letting themselves in for if they turned him in: at best, their social and professional lives would be wrecked. Not to mention that they also risked jail time for their involvement in his criminal activities. And besides, those who refused were punished to get them back on the right path. Again, without leaving a trail.”

  * * *

  Ridgesport, 1993

  Back room of the club

  Jeremiah had just filled a big bowl with water when the door of the office opened. He looked up as Costico pushed a frail-looking man in a suit and tie into the room.

  “Hello there, Everett!” Jeremiah said cheerfully. “Nice to see you.”

  “Hello, Jeremiah,” the man said, shaking like a leaf.

  Everett was a model family man who had been filmed by Costico with an underage prostitute.

  “So, Everett,” Jeremiah said in a soft voice, “I hear you don’t want to be part of my business anymore?”

  “Listen, Jeremiah, I can’t afford to take these kinds of risks. It’s madness. If I get caught, I’ll go to jail for several years.”

  “Not much more than you might get for banging a fifteen-year-old girl,” Jeremiah said.

  “I was sure she was older,” Everett said feebly.

  “Listen, Everett, you’re a little shit who bangs underage girls. As long as I decide, you’ll work for me, unless you prefer to end up in jail with guys who’ll cut your dick off with a razor.”

  Before Everett could reply, Costico grabbed him forcefully, bent him double and plunged his head in the bowl of ice-cold water. After keeping it there for about twenty seconds, he pulled it up again. Everett took a huge gulp of air.

  “You’re working for me, Everett,” Jeremiah said. “Got that?”

  Costico plunged the unfortunate man’s head back into the water. The torture continued until Everett promised to be loyal.

  * * *

  “Fold drowned people?” I said, immediately making the parallel with the way Stephanie had died.

  “Well, pretended to, Captain Rosenberg,” Virginia said. “He and Costico made it their specialty. They only tried it on ordinary guys who were easy to impress and easy to manipulate. But at the club, whenever I saw a poor guy come out of the office with wet hair and tears streaming down his face, I knew what had happened. Jeremiah destroyed people, without ever leaving any traces that anyone could see.”

  “Did Fold ever kill people that way?”

  “Probably. He was capable of it. I know people disappeared without trace. Were they drowned? Burned? Buried? Given to pigs to eat? I don’t know. Jeremiah wasn’t scared of anything, except going to prison. That’s why he was so cautious.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “I had my baby in January 1994. It didn’t change anything between Jeremiah and me. We never talked about marriage, or even living together. But he did give me money for the baby. No cash, though. He’d write me a check or put money in my bank account. All official. It lasted until July. Until he died.”

  “What happened the night he died?”

  “I think Jeremiah was scared of prison because he was claustrophobic. He said the idea of being locked up was something he couldn’t contemplate. As much as he could, he went around on a huge motorbike instead of in a car and never wore a helmet. Every night, he’d take the same ride. He’d leave the club around midnight, sometimes later, and go home along Route 34, which is pretty direct. He always rode like a madman. He thought he was free, invincible. Most of the time, he was drunk. I always thought he’d end up killing himself on that bike. I never would have imagined he’d just crash, and lie there like a dog by the side of the road, taking hours to die. In the hospital, the doctors said that if he’d been found earlier, he might have survived. I never felt so relieved in my life as when they told me he was dead.”

  “Does the name Joseph Gordon mean anything to you?” I said. “He was the mayor of Orphea until July 1994.”

  “Joseph Gordon? Never heard of him, Captain. Why?”

  “He was a corrupt mayor, and it may be that he was in league with Fold.”

  “I was never involved in Jeremiah’s business affairs. The less I knew, the better.”

  “And what did you do after Fold died?”

  “The only thing I could: I kept singing at Ridge’s Club. It was well paid. That idiot Costico is still there.”

  “He took over the business?”

  “He took over the club. Jeremiah’s other business stopped when he died. Costico is strictly small-time and not very bright. All the employees steal from the till, he’s the only one not to know. He even did time for a few small deals.”

  We left Virginia Parker and went to Ridge’s Club. The establishment did not open until the evening, but inside employees were cleaning the place in a desultory manner. It was an old-fashioned basement club. The decor of the place might have been considered cool in 1994. By 2014 standards, it was tired. Beside the counter, we saw a well-built man, the kind who’d been strong once but hadn’t aged well, receiving crates of alcohol.

  “Who let you in here?” he said when he saw us. “We don’t open until six.”

  “Special opening hours for police officers,” Derek said, showing him his badge. “Are you Costico?”

  We realized it was him from the way he immediately took off. He dashed across the room and into a passageway that led to an emergency exit. He was running fast. Betsy and I set off after him, while Derek opted for the main stairs. Costico, after climbing a narrow flight, went through a door that led outside and disappeared in the blinding daylight.

  By the time Betsy and I got outside, Derek had already pinned Costico down in the parking lot and was handcuffing him.

  “Well, Derek,” I said, “looks like you still have what it takes!”

  He smiled. He seemed suddenly radiant. “It’s good to be back in the field, Jesse.”

  Costico’s real name was Costa Suarez. He had done time for drug dealing, and the reason for his fleeing now was the big packet of cocaine he had in his jacket. Judging by the amount, he was clearly still selling it. But that wasn’t what interested us. We wanted to take advantage of the element of surprise to question him, and we did so in his club. There was a back room, the door of which bore a plate with the word OFFICE. The room was just as Virginia had described: cold and windowless. In a corner, a washbasin and, beneath it, an old copper bowl.

  It was Derek who led the interrogation.

  “We don’t give a damn what you get up to in your club, Costico. We have questions to ask you about Jeremiah Fold.”

  Costico looked surprised. “Nobody’s talked to me about him in a great many years.”

  “I’m sure you remember him, though,” Derek said. “And this is where you got up to your dirty business?”

  “It was Jeremiah who liked that kind of thing. If it had been up to me, I’d have just used my fists.”

  Costico showed us his thick knuckles laden with heavy, sharp-edged chrome-plated rings. As we had been told, he wasn’t someone who oozed intelligence. But he had enough common sense to tell us what we wanted to know rather than get himself arrested for possession of drugs. It emerged that Costico had never heard of Joseph Gordon.

  “Mayor Gordon? Can’t say the name rings a bell.”

  Costico went on to tell us that he didn’t have a good memory for names, so we showed him a photograph of Gordon. It didn’t change his mind. “I swear to you this guy never set foot in here. I never forget a face. Believe me, if I’d seen this guy, I’d have remembered him.”

  “So he had no connection with Jeremiah Fold?”

  “Definitely not. At the time, I knew everything. Jeremiah never did anything by himself. I know people laugh behind my back and say I’m dumb, but back then Jeremiah trusted me.”

  “If Joseph Gordon never did business wit
h you, could he have been one of your ‘slaves’?”

  “No, that’s impossible. I’d remember the face. I have the memory of an elephant, I tell you. That’s why Jeremiah liked me. He never wanted anything written down. Anything at all. But I remembered everything: the instructions, the faces, the figures. And anyhow, Orphea really wasn’t our territory.”

  “And yet you were squeezing money out of Ted Tennenbaum, the owner of Café Athena in Orphea.”

  Costico seemed surprised to hear the name. He nodded. “Ted Tennenbaum was tough. Not the kind of guy Jeremiah usually went up against. Jeremiah never took risks. He only targeted guys who’d piss their pants when they saw me show up. But Tennenbaum was something else. That was a personal matter. The guy had hit him in front of a girl, and Jeremiah wanted his revenge. We beat up Tennenbaum in his house, but that wasn’t enough for Jeremiah. He decided to put the squeeze on him, although that was an exception, Jeremiah generally stayed in his territory. He had control of Ridgesport, he knew everybody here.”

  “Do you remember who set fire to Ted Tennenbaum’s future restaurant?”

  “Now you’re asking a lot. It must have been one of our slaves. They did everything, those guys. We never got our hands dirty. Unless we had a problem to solve. Otherwise, all the minor tasks, that was them. They received the drugs, took them to the dealers, brought the money back to Jeremiah. We just gave the orders.”

  “And where did you find these men?”

  “They all liked hookers. There was a sleazy motel on Route 16. Half the rooms were rented by hookers for their tricks. Everyone in the area knew about it. I knew the owner and the hookers, and we had an agreement. We’d leave them alone, and in return we could use a room on the quiet. Whenever Jeremiah needed slaves, he’d get an underage girl to go on the game. I found a very beautiful girl. She knew exactly which kind of customers to choose. Family men, impressionable. She’d take them to the room, tell the client, ‘I’m underage, I’m still at school, does that turn you on?’ The guy would answer yes, and the girl would ask him to do really filthy stuff. I’d be hidden somewhere, usually behind a curtain, with a movie camera. At the right moment, I’d come out, shout, ‘Surprise!’ and point my camera at the guy. The guy would make a face like you can’t imagine! I loved that. It’d crease me up. I’d tell the girl to go, then I’d look at the guy, all naked, all ugly, shaking. I’d start by threatening to beat him up, then I’d tell him that we could come to an arrangement. I’d pick up his pants and take out his wallet. I’d look through his credit cards, his driving license, the photographs of his wife . . .”

  “So you had a list of all these guys who were in your power?”

  “No. I’d make them think I was keeping everything, but I’d quickly get rid of their wallets. Just as there was never any film in the camera, in order not to risk incriminating ourselves. Jeremiah said there mustn’t be any evidence. I had my little network of guys, and I would call on them alternately in order not to arouse suspicion. One thing’s for sure, though: your guy Gordon never did business of any kind with Jeremiah.”

  * * *

  Bird brought us up to date on the progress of the rehearsals when Betsy, Derek and I got back from Ridgesport and joined him in the archive room of the Chronicle.

  He played us a recording of another scene he had covertly filmed, in which Charlotte Brown played a singer in a bar with whom all the customers are in love. A makeshift set had been erected: a few chairs, a red curtain at the back. Eden was playing a customer, sitting at the front of the stage sipping a cocktail. Padalin this time played the owner of the bar. He was looking at his singer, who stood some way farther back.

  Piano bar music was playing.

  “This can’t be a coincidence,” Derek cried, noticing a sign that was part of the set. “That’s Ridge’s Club!”

  “Ridge’s Club?” Bird said.

  “The club that Jeremiah Fold owned.”

  The traffic accident, then the club. This was neither invention, nor chance. In addition, from what we could see, the same actor was playing the dead body in Scene 1 and the bar owner in Scene 2.

  “Scene 2 is a flashback,” Derek said. “This character is Jeremiah Fold.”

  “So the solution to the mystery really is in this play?” Bird said.

  “Michael,” I said, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but whatever you do, don’t let Hayward out of your sight.”

  We wanted to speak to Springfield about the script of “The Darkest Night” that had been on sale in his bookstore in 1994. Betsy tried to reach him on his cell phone, but he wasn’t picking up, so we went to the store. The assistant told us she hadn’t seen her boss all day.

  It was very strange. Betsy suggested we drop by his house. When we got to there, she immediately noticed his car parked outside. Springfield must be at home. But despite our insistent ringing, he did not come to the door. Betsy pressed down on the handle: it was open. At that moment, I felt a sense of déjà vu.

  We went in. An icy silence reigned. The lights were all on, even though it was broad daylight.

  It was in the living room that we discovered him.

  Slumped against a low table in a pool of blood.

  Springfield had been murdered.

  DEREK SCOTT

  Late November 1994. Four months after the Gordon killings.

  Jesse didn’t want to see anybody.

  I dropped by his house every day, rang his bell for a long time, begged him to open the door, in vain. Sometimes I waited for hours. But there was nothing I could do.

  He let me in at last when I threatened to break the lock and started kicking at the door. What I saw in front of me was a ghost: unwashed, hair disheveled, cheeks overgrown with beard, a grim look in his eyes. His apartment was a mess.

  “What do you want?” he said in a gruff tone.

  “To make sure you’re O.K., Jesse.”

  He gave a cynical laugh. “I’m fine, Derek, really fine! I’ve never felt so well.”

  In the end he threw me out.

  Two days later, Major McKenna came to see me in my office.

  “Derek, I need you to go to the 54th precinct in Queens. Your pal Jesse has been acting up, he was arrested by the N.Y.P.D. last night.”

  “Arrested? Where? He hasn’t been out of his apartment in weeks.”

  “Well, he must have wanted to let off steam because he trashed a restaurant under construction. A place called Little Russia. Mean anything to you? Anyway, find the owner and sort this shit out for me. And reason with him, Derek. Or he’ll never be allowed back in the force.”

  “I’ll handle it,” I said.

  Major McKenna looked me up and down. “You’re not looking too good yourself, Derek.”

  “Things haven’t been going so well.”

  “Did you see the shrink?”

  I shrugged. “I come here every morning, sir, but it’s like I’m on automatic pilot. I don’t think my place is here anymore. Not after what happened.”

  “But Derek, goddammit, you’re a hero. You saved his life. Never forget that. Without you, Jesse would be dead today. You saved his life!”

  JESSE ROSENBERG

  Wednesday, July 23, 2014

  Three days to opening night

  Orphea was in a state of shock. Cody Springfield, the town’s mild, good-natured bookseller, had been murdered.

  It had been a short night, both for the police and the inhabitants of the town. The news of a second murder had attracted reporters and onlookers to Springfield’s house. People were fascinated and frightened at the same time. First Stephanie Mailer, now Cody Springfield. They were starting to talk about a serial killer. Citizens’ patrols were being organized. In this atmosphere of general anxiety, the most important thing was to avoid panic. The State Police and all the local police forces had put themselves at Mayor Brown’s disposal to ensure the safety of the town.

  Betsy, Derek and I had been up half the night, trying to figure out what might have happened
. We had been there when Dr Ranjit Singh delivered his initial observations. Springfield had died from blows to the back of the skull from a big metal lamp, which had been found beside the body, covered in blood. In addition, the body was in a strange position, as if Springfield had been on his knees, his hands over his face, either rubbing his eyes or trying to hide them.

  “Was he begging his murderer?” Betsy wondered.

  “I don’t think so,” Dr Singh replied. “If he had, he’d have been struck from the front, not from the back. And besides, from what I see, for the skull to be cracked in that way, the murderer was much taller than him.”

  “Much taller?” Derek said. “What do you mean?”

  Dr Singh improvised a little reconstruction. “Springfield opens the door to his killer. He may know him. In any case, he trusts him, because there’s no trace of a struggle. I believe he says hello and leads him into the living room. It seems like a visit. But Springfield turns and is blinded. He lifts his hands to his eyes and falls to his knees. The killer grabs this lamp from the table and brings it down with all his strength on his victim’s head. Springfield is killed immediately, but is still struck several times, as if the murderer wanted to be certain that he was dead.”

  “Hold on a minute, doc,” Derek cut in. “What did you mean when you said he was blinded?”

  “I think the victim was neutralized with tear gas. Which would explain the traces of tears and mucus on his face.”

  “Tear gas?” Betsy said. “Like the attack on Jesse in Stephanie Mailer’s apartment?”

  “Yes,” Dr Singh said.

  I said to him: “You’re saying the killer wants to be certain he kills his victim, but at the same time he comes here unarmed and uses a lamp? What kind of murderer works like that?”