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.