The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair

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

What's this?

It's for putting dry bread in

so you can feed the seagulls.

Oh.

You have to feed the seagulls, Harry,

it's very important.

All right, I promise you,

I will feed the seagulls every day.

Tell me something sweet.

Tell me I'm your... your darling Nola.

I can't.

I can't do this.

Well, I knew I had to get her out of my head.

So the following week, I forced myself

to get closer to Jenny.

He likes you.

Oh, my gosh, stop being a peeping tom, Mother,

he's just being nice.

I think he's basing a character on you.

I was hoping we could picnic on the beach,

and then find a secluded spot to talk?

I have to go to Bar Harbor.

My publisher is in Camden for the 4th.

Jenny! Mr. Quebert is here.

She was a nice girl, but she wasn't Nola.

I knew Harry Quebert was obsessed with that poor girl,

and I had proof.

Who else knew about you and Nola?

Did Tamara Quinn?

Shortly after Nola disappeared,

I started receiving these anonymous letters,

and then they stopped about four or five months after that.

I don't know why they stopped, but they stopped.

No! I-I got it!

Nola, are those bruises?

It's my mom.

She hit me when I got back from Bar Harbor.

Your mom?

She says I'm a wicked girl.

That's crazy.

No, she wanted to teach me a lesson,

and she's right.

I am a wicked girl.

Nola did tell me about an older man

she was involved with that summer.

Do you remember his name?

There's no way I'd ever forget it.

He's one of the richest men in Maine.

Just what I need first thing in the morning.

You are not gonna believe what I found out.

Look, writer,

I don't want you complicating this investigation

with any of your crazy unproven leads.

What if Nola Kellergan

wasn't the perfect little angel

everyone says she was?

Now, we know about her and Harry,

but it turns out,

she was having secret rendezvous

with another older man at the same time.

And how do you know this?

Nancy Hattaway,

Nola's best friend when they were 15.

That doesn't make it true.

When you're 15, you tell other people all kinds of shit.

Gimme.

Now... does this Bachelor #2 have a name?

Yeah.

Um, Elijah Stern.

Are you out of your mind, writer?

You're talking about one of the richest,

most respected men in the state.

The heir to a damn empire.

Now, unless you have solid evidence,

I'm not about to cross swords

with a guy who plays golf with the governor.

Okay.

I found those hidden in the house at Goose Cove.

We searched the house.

Yeah.

Oh, you searched the house?

Yeah, we searched the house.

Yeah, well, searching a house

isn't the same as living in it, okay?

Glad you didn't evict me now?

"I know what you've done with that 15-year-old girl,

and soon the whole town will know."

They're all the same, okay?

Harry started receiving those

shortly after Nola disappeared.

Someone knew about them, Sergeant,

someone who wanted to get back at him,

someone who might have killed Nola

the night she was on her way to the motel to meet him.

Excuse me, what?

Harry...

Harry was waiting for her at the By the Sea Motel

in Room 8, okay?

He said Nola had sent him a letter

saying that she'd meet him there,

but she never showed up.

And where's that letter?

I don't know, it disappeared.

Look, the point is, Sergeant,

Nola Kellergan never showed up, okay?

That means she was killed

on her way to the motel to meet Harry.

So some maniac kills her,

buries her in Quebert's backyard with a copy

of Quebert's manuscript, but it isn't Quebert?

Yeah.

I don't think so.

Yeah?

You're due in Portland at 10:00.

I guess time fucking flies

when you're having this much fun, huh?

Aren't... aren't you gonna follow this up?

Sergeant, if Elijah Stern wrote these letters...

You're grasping at straws.

Whoever wrote "Goodbye, darling Nola"

is most likely the killer.

See what the writing analysis tells us

before you go around

accusing innocent people of murder.

So you mean that Elijah Stern,

the pillar of the community,

turns out to be a dirty old man?

Yeah, sure looks like it.

Not good enough, Goldman.

Not good enough.

Guys like Stern fall in love

with their own reputations.

If he even gets the sense

that you think of him as a suspect,

he'll slap you with a defamatory per se

before he can sic one of his big Rottweilers on you,

who are trained to go for your nuts,

and you won't be able to claim shit

for turning into a boy soprano

because, technically, you're trespassing.

Could you put some of that

skin softener on there, the pink stuff?

Yeah... No, I wasn't talking to you.

And after he sics his dogs on you,

then he'll go for your throat.

He'll sue you for libel, for slander,

for defamation of character... Well, what am I

supposed to do, then?

Just sit back and do nothing?

Well, uh... play it safe for the time being.

Go after your other leads.

And don't go after Stern

unless you've got some real evidence,

unless you want a permanent position

with the Vienna Boys' Choir.

She was beaten, yes, I knew about it.

I saw the bruises.

It was horrendous.

You never reported it?

She begged me not to.

What else did Nancy say?

She said that, um,

that Nola seemed very depressed that summer.

Yeah, on the 4th,

I took Jenny to see the fireworks.

That changed her mood dramatically.

Her letters... are heartbreaking.

The, uh...

the 4th of July, the letters, the beatings...

That's all in The Origin of Evil, right?

It's all there, Marcus, yeah.

It's all there.

So many people have analyzed the novel,

and the symbolism, the allegories, all of it.

It was just a simple story about Nola and me.

Want more coffee?

What are you hiding from me, Nola?

I'm not hiding anything from you, Mother.

I promise.

Don't you lie to me!

You think I haven't noticed?

Of course not.

Out all the time,

covered in makeup like a damn whore!

No! No!

Take off your clothes!

No.

Take them off!

Okay.

Why are you wearing a brassiere?

I have breasts.

You're too young to have breasts!

Take it off!

No!

Do you understand?

I don't wanna!

- Take it off! - No!

Don't make me!

Nola?