With no further word Saunders headed up the stairs, Graves following along at his side. At the top he stopped and faced Graves once again. “You know, Faye wasn’t the only pretty girl here at Riverwood that summer,” he said. “Mona Flagg was just nineteen. Beautiful. Hair like sunlight.” A curious sadness settled over his face. “I always felt sorry for Mona. From the wrong side of the tracks, you know. Studying to be a nurse.” He glanced back to Graves. “Edward was crazy about her. Wanted to marry her.”
“Did he?”
“No,” Saunders said. “Something broke them up at the end of that summer.”
A dark possibility pierced Graves’ mind. “Could it have been Faye Harrison?”
Saunders looked surprised by the question. “I don’t know,” he said. “I sometimes saw Mona and Faye together.” He brought his attention back from the pond. “Such a pretty girl, Mona was. Smart too. Lively. You know the land. The type you’d die for.”
Graves nodded silently. Or kill for? his mind asked.
Graves turned to Detective Portman’s notes on the interviews he’d conducted with the people of Riverwood during the initial stage of his murder investigation. As he read, separate personalities began to emerge. Substance replaced shadow. The veneer of stateliness and harmony slowly peeled away from Riverwood as the characters, however grudgingly, began to reveal the edgy conflict that had no doubt marked their lives.
In Mrs. Davies, Graves detected the calculated reserve of one who, more than anything, feared embarrassment, a stern woman with a fierce temperament she held firmly in check, the sort who could grow irritated with an old detective’s questions, show that irritation in her voice alone:
PORTMAN: And where were you that day?
MRS. DAVIES: I presume you mean the day Faye Harrison disappeared.
PORTMAN: yes.
MRS. DAVIES: Well, I was in the library most of the time. Sitting for my portrait. Mr. Grossman was with me. He is the portraitist.
PORTMAN: You spent the whole day in the library with Mr. Grossman?
MRS. DAVIES: Yes, I did. My husband came in at one point. So did my daughter. But otherwise, we remained uninterrupted.
PORTMAN: Did you see Faye Harrison at all?
MRS. DAVIES: No, I didn’t. As I said, I was in the library most of the day. Sitting for my portrait. Faye may have passed by the window, but if she did, I didn’t see her. When one sits for a portrait, one faces the artist. It is not helpful to glance about.
PORTMAN: How well did you know Faye?
MRS. DAVIES: Not very well. My husband had more dealings with the girl.
PORTMAN: Dealings?
MRS. DAVIES: She worked for my husband. Of course, it was probably Allison who knew her best. They were the same age.
PORTMAN: Were they friends? Allison and Faye?
MRS. DAVIES: I don’t know how close they were.
Graves sat back, thinking. Was that really true, he wondered. Had Mrs. Davies never gathered that Allison and Faye had grown very close over the years? It was a tiny misstatement, the sort Slovak seized upon, then traced to its dark core. Graves tried to do the same, but found no route through the maze, and so began to read again, now effortlessly converting Portman’s solidly detailed notes into small dramatic scenes.
PORTMAN: Mrs. Davies, did you ever see Faye talking to Jake Mosley?
MRS. DAVIES: No.
PORTMAN: Did Allison ever mention Jake?
MRS. DAVIES: Why would my daughter ever mention such a person?
PORTMAN: Well, Faye and Jake were seen in the woods together at the same time, so I’m trying to determine if there might have been some relationship between them.
MRS. DAVIES: The whereabouts of Mr. Mosley would never have been any concern of mine.
The scene grew more detailed in Graves’ mind. Portman’s enormous frame slouched in a brocade chair, Mrs. Davies seated opposite him, staring coolly into the veteran detective’s hard, unblinking eyes. He could almost hear Portman’s voice, impassive, methodical, relentlessly burrowing toward a truth whose dark malignancy he scarcely wished to discover, a voice, Graves realized, like Slovak’s.
PORTMAN: Was Jake Mosley often hired to work here at Riverwood?
MRS. DAVIES: No, he was not.
PORTMAN: Had he ever worked here before?
MRS. DAVIES: Not to my knowledge. That is Mr. Garrett’s affair. He was in charge of the workmen.
PORTMAN: Well, Mr. Garrett has said that it was Mr. Davies who hired Jake.
Graves recognized that even at this early stage of his investigation, the old detective had already begun to look for the same small discrepancies that Slovak tirelessly sought, an insight that propelled Graves’ imagination to add the first vague hint of suspicion to the voice he’d now fully imagined for Dennis Portman.
MRS. DAVIES: The people who work for my husband are not my affair. I have nothing to do with it. Mr. Davies has his own … way of … handling them.
PORTMAN: You’re not involved in the daily running of Riverwood, then?
MRS. DAVIES: NO. Never. It has nothing to do with me.
Graves studied the last few lines of Portman’s notes. Mrs. Davies’ language struck him as odd, the way she talked simultaneously of “them” and “it,” merging the personal pronoun (people) with the process of administering Riverwood (it). It was a curious syntax, and although there was no mention of it in Portman’s notes, Graves saw the old detective’s eyes narrow as he peered into Mrs. Davies’ face. A moment of silence would have fallen between them, he thought, an interval during which these two would have faced each other in the gray light that filtered through the windows of the library on such a summer afternoon, and which lasted until Portman brought it to an end with another question.
PORTMAN: I believe you told Sheriff Gerard that you and Mr. Grossman were together the day Faye disappeared.
MRS. DAVIES: That’s right. I just told you the same thing. We were in the library the entire morning. Mr. Grossman left it only once, very briefly.
PORTMAN: Do you know where he went?
MRS. DAVIES: He needed materials of some sort. Cloths, I think. For his brushes. He went out to have one of the servants bring them to him. A few minutes later Greta brought them in.
PORTMAN: Greta?
MRS. DAVIES: Greta Klein. The upstairs maid. One of my husband’s … refugees.
PORTMAN: I don’t think Sheriff Gerard ever talked to her.
MRS. DAVIES: I have no idea with whom Sheriff Gerard talked. I know only that Mr. Grossman left the library to get certain supplies, linens, as I recall, for cleaning his brushes, and that a few minutes later Greta brought them in.
PORTMAN: Do you remember when that was?
MRS. DAVIES: Around eight-fifteen, I think. Perhaps a little later.
PORTMAN: And you and Mr. Grossman were together for the rest of the day?
MRS. DAVIES: Yes, we were.
According to Portman’s notes, no other questions had been asked, nor answers given. And yet, as Graves imagined it, the old detective rose and left the room profoundly unsatisfied, certain that all was not as it seemed at Riverwood, that there were secret gardens, hidden chambers, things that lurked behind locked doors.
CHAPTER 16
A few of those doors had opened for Portman during the next few interviews. Reading his notes, Graves could see the detective’s piercing green eyes as they peered questioningly into the faces before him, listening to each witness in turn, comparing one response to another, meticulously working to unearth the buried life of Riverwood.
He’d spoken to Warren Davies just after his interview with Mrs. Davies, no doubt nodding his large head from time to time as Mr. Davies described his activities that August morning. Davies had gone into considerably more detail with Portman than he had during his earlier discussion with Sheriff Gerard. Now, reading Portman’s notes, Graves learned that Mr. Davies had risen early—about six-thirty—and gone directly to his office on the second floor. At eight he’d
come back downstairs, where he’d met his son, Edward, in the foyer. The two had briefly discussed what Mr. Davies called “family business,” after which Mr. Davies had decided to take a walk by the river. He’d gone down the basement stairs, then out the rear of the house. It was then he’d seen Faye sitting alone in the gazebo. She’d given him a “strange look,” he told Portman, and in response he’d gone into the gazebo to “see what was on her mind.” They’d talked for a time, but had never gotten beyond “the normal subjects.” During the conversation, Faye had seemed “closed off,” Mr. Davies said, so that he’d gotten the impression that she was “troubled about something.” He estimated the length of his talk with Faye at “no more than five minutes.” By its conclusion, he’d decided not to take a stroll by the river after all, but had returned to the house instead. He’d gone through the dining room, where he’d seen his daughter, Allison, reading at the table, then headed back for his private office. He’d remained there on the second floor until nearly noon, he told Portman. Then he’d driven to Britanny Falls, where he’d met with Matt Brinker, the town’s new mayor. They’d gone to lunch at the Harvest Restaurant on Main Street, where, as Portman wrote, “Mr. Davies remained all afternoon.”
Andre Grossman told Portman that he’d spent the morning in the library with Mrs. Davies, both of them arriving there at “just before” eight o’clock. They’d later had lunch together in the dining room, then returned to the library, where Mrs. Davies had once again taken her place in the dark red chair by the window. He’d worked on the portrait for the rest of the afternoon, then joined the family for dinner at around eight that evening. As to the one time he’d left the library, Grossman told Portman that he’d done so in order to get wiping cloths for his brushes. He had ordered a household servant to get them, thus returning to the library “within seconds” of having left it. He had not left it again until he and Mrs. Davies had taken lunch together. He volunteered the information that he’d taken photographs of Faye at the very spot where her body had been found. It was the only time he’d ever taken pictures of her, he said, and he’d done it at that particular spot because he was working on a painting that rendered Eve as a “child-wife” in the Garden of Eden.
Allison Davies was the next of the Davies family to be interviewed by Portman. According to his notes, the detective had found her sitting near the boathouse, at the end of its pier, her feet dangling in the water of the canal, her short brown hair giving her what he called “a boyish look.” Other than that brief remark, the trooper added only that during the course of the interview she’d “seemed gloomy.”
Graves now saw Portman; old and weary, baking in the afternoon sun, mopping his neck with a handkerchief, Allison sitting on the wooden pier, her feet dangling in the cool water, glancing up occasionally to see Portman’s fleshy face as it hung like an ash-gray moon above her.
PORTMAN: I understand that you and Faye were close friends.
ALLISON: Yes, we were.
PORTMAN: It’s hard to lose someone close to you. I know that.
Portman’s voice had become entirely Slovak’s by then, marked by the same distant sorrow and nearly unbearable weariness. But to this Graves now added Slovak’s physical characteristics, the two men blending into one imagined figure, Portman’s huge, rounded shoulders slumped beneath Slovak’s worn greatcoat, his drooping belly held in place by Slovak’s broad black belt, his eyes blinking slowly behind the lenses of the silver reading glasses Slovak had come to depend on in recent years. He could almost see Slovak’s rumpled hat clutched in Portman’s beefy hands.
PORTMAN: I have to ask you some questions, Allison. I know it’s not a good time, but then, no time is ever good for these kinds of questions.
ALLISON: What kind of questions?
PORTMAN: Personal questions. About Faye. When a girl dies like this, they have to be answered.
ALLISON: Yes, I know.
From there, Portman had begun to intensify the interrogation.
PORTMAN: According to a witness, Faye had gone quite a ways past Indian Rock. Down Mohonk Trail. Maybe headed toward that parking area on the other side of the ridge. Either that, or the river.
In response to this rather curious news, according to Portman’s notes, Allison had simply nodded without comment, so that he’d found it necessary to point out the oddity of Faye’s having been seen at such a location.
PORTMAN: It’s strange that she would go on past Indian Rock, you see. Because you said she might have expected you to meet her there. That’s what you told Sheriff Gerard when he talked to you a few days ago.
ALLISON: Yes, I know.
PORTMAN: Well, why didn’t she stop at Indian Rock? That’s what I’m wondering about. Why did she go on down the trail instead of waiting for you like you thought she would?
ALLISON: I can’t answer that. I’m not sure she thought I was coming after her. I just know she waved to me, and I thought she might have expected me to meet her at Indian Rock.
PORTMAN: Well, if she wasn’t going to meet you there, I have to ask myself what other reason she might have had for going into the woods. Especially going into them as far as she did. Past Indian Rock, I mean.
ALLISON: I don’t know of any other reason.
PORTMAN: Well, for example, could there have been someone else she might have been planning to meet farther down the trail?
Though he had no means of knowing what Allison’s response might have been, Graves saw her suddenly turn away from Portman, stare out over the pond, the easy back-and-forth movement of her feet in the water coming to an abrupt halt.
ALLISON: Maybe she just wanted to be alone.
PORTMAN: In the woods? Way off the trail? All the way to Manitou Cave? That’s a long way to go, just to be alone.
ALLISON: Maybe she just needed to think.
PORTMAN: About what?
ALLISON: Things.
Graves saw Portman ease his enormous frame closer to Allison, resting now on his fat haunches, his eyes seeking hers, trying to find some subtle hint within them.
PORTMAN: What things would she need to think about, Allison?
ALLISON: I don’t know. Just things.
PORTMAN: Well, when I spoke to your father, he said that Faye looked troubled that morning. Do you have any idea what might have been on her mind?
ALLISON: No, I don’t.
PORTMAN: She hadn’t mentioned any particular problems to you?
ALLISON: No. But then, we hadn’t seen each other lately.
PORTMAN: Why not?
ALLISON: Faye didn’t like coming to the house.
In his re-creation of the scene, Graves saw Portman’s massive frame tilt forward heavily, heard his voice grow taut.
PORTMAN: Why not?
ALLISON: Well, maybe she … maybe it was because of the way he looked at her when she came across the yard.
PORTMAN: The way who looked at her?
ALLISON: Jake Mosley.
PORTMAN: What about Jake Mosley?
ALLISON: Just that Faye didn’t like the way he looked at her.
PORTMAN: What kind of look?
ALLISON: A bad look.
PORTMAN: You mean a threatening look? Like she was afraid of him? Physically afraid?
Graves caught it in the note and placed it in Portman’s voice, the experienced detective’s sense that the case against Jake Mosley might be built on something other than actual evidence, the workman’s lowliness and vulgarity, perhaps, the crudeness of his language, the smell of his clothes, the “bad way” he looked at people.
PORTMAN: I mean, Faye may not have liked Jake. She may have wanted to stay away from him. But was she afraid of him, Allison? A physical fear?
ALLISON: I don’t know.
PORTMAN: A physical fear strong enough to keep her from walking from her house to yours?
ALLISON: Maybe it was that strong.
PORTMAN: Well, if that’s true, then why did she walk right past him that morning, then go into the woods alone?
Graves saw Portman drag the rumpled handkerchief from his pocket and mop the sweat from his brow. There was doubt in his face, more questions in his eyes. Did he have the sense that Slovak had known all his life, that he was flailing helplessly in a web of lies?
PORTMAN: I know that Jake Mosley’s no good, but being generally no good is a long way from being a murderer.
It was a line Portman had included verbatim in his notes, and according to those same notes, it had been the last thing he’d said to Allison Davies before leaving her alone to ponder it. Because of that, Graves imagined the old detective returning the handkerchief to his pocket after saying it, closing his notebook, and turning back toward the house, lumbering like a great beast down the wooden pier, a vision of that moment that came to him so full and real and richly detailed, for an instant he felt not the slightest doubt that it had happened just that way.
CHAPTER 17
But that had not been the end of Detective Portman’s first day at Riverwood. For after leaving Allison on the pier, he’d returned to the main house, where he’d talked to Pearl O’Brian, the downstairs maid, Flossie Tighe, the cook, and Jesse Walters, the estate’s general handyman.
Their testimony confirmed what others present on the Davies estate on August 27 had already stated to Sheriff Gerard two days before. Flossie Tighe had seen Frank Saunders in the flower garden and Allison Davies in the dining room. Pearl O’Brian confirmed that Edward Davies and Mona Flagg had lounged on the side porch until 8:20, when Mona had returned to her room upstairs. She’d come back downstairs approximately ten minutes later, now wearing a red polka-dot dress, as Pearl described it, and carrying a “frilly” white umbrella. Jesse Walters told Portman that Mrs. Davies and Andre Grossman had spent the day in the library, that Allison Davies had “popped up” here and there all through the day, and that Mr. Davies had spent most of the morning in his upstairs office. He’d called for his car at 11:30, Walters said, then driven to Britanny Falls.
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