The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair

Previously on The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair...

We found fingerprints on the gas can,

but no match...

which means it was someone with no police record.

No record?

What happened to your face?

I had an accident.

Why would Stern go through all this mess,

maybe even kill someone,

just to protect Luther?

I'm still trying to figure that part out.

Fuckin' redneck!

These are all his paintings?

Your brother, he, uh, he had a thing for blondes?

Oh, my God!

Luther, you scared me! Jeez...

The results are in.

The handwriting on the manuscript

is Luther Caleb's.

Check your email.

What the hell is this?

Nola's mother died in 1966,

nine years before Nola disappeared.

She was beaten by a dead woman.

Your book is a pile of crap.

The night of the fire

did not go quite the way

David Kellergan told the police.

I gotta tell you something.

Mommy was in our bedroom when the fire happened.

I know.

She was wicked.

She needed to be dead,

so I put the curtains on fire.

That little girl

started to believe that she herself was her mother.

She was punishing herself,

whipping herself,

plunging her head into a bath of icy water...

Her father couldn't take any more,

so he decided to move them both far away.

Get a warrant,

or get off my property.

I think you should let us in, Reverend.

It's better if we can all come inside

and talk calmly.

Yeah, We know about what happened in Alabama

in 1966.

We know about the fire.

You know nothing.

We talked to Pastor Lewis.

Why didn't you try to get her help?

See a doctor?

I was afraid.

I was afraid they'd take her away

and lock her up.

And so you had him...

you had him exorcise her?

I had no choice.

Pastor Lewis said I had to,

or he'd tell the police what she'd done.

It only made my poor sweet girl sicker.

She started punishing herself...

as her mother.

And so you left Alabama,

hoping the move would wipe the slate clean.

Mm-hm.

And it did at first.

The outbursts were less frequent.

Her memory of the whole thing seemed to be fading...

Till the summer Harry Quebert appeared.

That's when she started having violent fits again.

At the time, I didn't know why.

It was a horrible sight

to see her do that to herself.

You know why I'm doing this...

So that I can go to heaven.

You wanna be an angel, don't you?

I'm sorry I'm a wicked girl.

You're not wicked.

Penance is a blessing.

No, Mother!

No, Mother, please!

Please, Mother, no!

No!

She started reliving her exorcism.

What happened on that day she disappeared?

On August 30th?

The anniversary of the fire.

Of Louisa's death.

She had a terrible fit.

One of the worst ever.

I tried to calm her,

but nothing worked,

so I...

I hid out in the garage, and I...

worked on the damn motorcycle.

I turned up the music as loud as it would go.

Later,

when I went into her room,

she wasn't there.

Do you have any idea

what triggered such a violent fit?

I found a letter on her bed.

A break-up letter.

You never told us about any letter.

What should I have done?

Nola! Nola?

She was carrying on an illicit romance

with I didn't know who.

But the writing...

it wasn't any teenage boy.

I couldn't let the whole town think

my little girl was some kind of slut!

I found these after she disappeared...

under a loose floorboard.

They're not stamped.

He must've hand-delivered them.

They're all from Harry Quebert.

They're all the letters in his book,

"The Origin of Evil."

This was the last one.

The one she received the day that broke her heart.

May I?

"My darling...

this is my final letter,

a painful last embrace before parting.

Lovers separate

and never find each other again,

and that is how love stories end.

But we who have loved not with our eyes

but with our souls

can never truly be separated.

I loved you against all hope,

against all reason, against all promise.

You will be with me always,

the last dream of my soul.

H."

It's the end of "The Origin of Evil."

It's the final page.

How long have you known

that Nola and Harry were corresponding?

Only the past few weeks.

I just recently bought a copy of the book.

I needed to read it...

to try and understand.

When those letters appeared,

I...

I knew I'd seen them before,

and that's when I made the discovery.

For the past 33 years,

I've wondered who wrote those letters to my daughter...

and all that time,

the answer was just sitting in every bookstore in America.

I can't believe it.

He wasn't waiting for her at the motel,

like he said.

He'd written her a breakup letter.

Son of a bitch.

He never intended to elope with her.

So where'd he go, then?

Why would he lie?

Harry's cellphone is cut off.

No activity on his credit card.

Okay.

Okay, let me just...

Just walk through this with me.

So, he leaves a letter for her in her mailbox, right?

The day before their... their supposed elopement,

right before he skips town. Right?

Mm-hm.

She finds it in the morning,

and she reads it, and she breaks down.

Right? She has a fit.

She starts punishing herself.

Okay, Dad...

Dad locks himself in the garage...

And then what? Where is...

Where is she going when she climbs out the window?

To confront Harry.

But on the way, she runs into Luther,

and everything goes wrong.

Okay, but then why does Harry come back to Sommerdale

the day after she disappears?

When he hears about it on the news, he panics.

Mm-hm.

That letter would be incriminating.

Plus he has real feelings for her,

which makes it all the more complicated.

Yeah. We, uh...

we gotta go find him.

I don't think that's possible.

Border patrol records have him crossing into Canada

at Derby Line, Vermont.

Huh...

In the unpublished manuscript

that we found in his locker,

"The Seagulls of Sommerdale,"

he ends up in Canada with Nola, remember?

I mean, I still don't get it.