Thomas Cook - Instruments of Night

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.

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?