"You told Portman that you"d seen Faye only once on the day she died."

"Which is what I also told you," Miss Davies said.

Her voice had suddenly grown tense, a change of tone Slovak often noticed in the sinister characters he interrogated. Graves wondered if Allison Davies had something in common with the denizens of that lost underworld, used physical alibis as they did, merely as a means of hiding crimes yet darker man the ones about which they were being questioned.

"Do you have some reason to doubt any of what I told Detective Portman?" she asked.

"No," Graves answered, though he knew that his answer was not entirely true, his doubts deepened by what Eleanor had said the night before. "Everyone seems to have loved Faye," he said now, hoping to glimpse something peculiar in Miss Davies" response.

"Do you know of any reason why they wouldn"t have?"

Again Miss Davies" response struck Graves as needlessly defensive, like someone dodging nonexistent blows.

"I just don"t know very much about her," Graves answered.

"Faye was an angel." Miss Davies" tone remained curiously combative, as if she were now defending Faye. Despite the fact that no one had attacked her. "As you know, Faye worked for my father from the time she was eight until she was sixteen. He gave her treats each time she came to his office. But he also gave her a weekly salary." She spoke rapidly, like someone rushing into the brink. "On one occasion Faye gave every dime of it away. To a boy in her school. Because he needed shoes."

Graves said nothing. A response Miss Davies seemed to take as a challenge, or an expression of doubt. She leaped into the breach again. "When Frank Saunders broke his leg, she brought him a flower every day until he was on his feet again. That"s what Faye was like, Mr. Graves. That"s why everybody loved her."

"Well, not everybody," Graves reminded her.

"Precisely," Miss Davies snapped. "Which brings me to the reason I came here this morning." Her voice took on a sense of command. She the general in charge of the a.s.sault, Graves but the foot soldier brought up to take the hill. "Do you have a suspect yet?"

Graves offered the only one he had. "Andre Grossman."

The name clearly struck an unpleasant chord in Miss Davies" mind. "He was a very ... unattractive person," she said. "Not the sort we generally invited to Riverwood. Of course, he was more of an employee. Someone recommended him as a portraitist. He arrived, as you might imagine, sight unseen."

"When did he arrive?"

"Around the middle of April, as I recall. And as you"ve probably learned, he left right after Faye"s murder."

"Do you remember much about him?"

Miss Davies appeared to realize that the tables had been turned slightly, Graves now asking questions, she compelled to answer them. "Well, not really, no," she said with some reluctance. "He claimed to be an artist, the curator of a museum. In Vienna, I believe. He spent most of his time with my mother. They were always in the library together." She looked at Graves with a strange cautiousness. Like someone testing water in a pot, trying to determine how near it was to boiling. "So much so that a rumor began to circulate," she added hesitantly. "About the two of them."

"What kind of rumor?"

"That they were lovers. Or, at least, that they had some sort of special relationship. Not a word of it was true, but rumors have a life of their own. It was even suggested that I was the source of the rumor. That I"d seen the proof myself."

Graves saw a young girl open the oak door of the library, expecting to find her mother seated by the window, Grossman behind an easel, but finding something else instead.

"Seen my mother and Mr. Grossman in what we used to call a "compromising position,"" Miss Davies continued. She scoffed at the absurdity of such a thought. "Well, I never came upon any such display. My mother would never have had anything of that nature to do with a person like Grossman. But the rumor persisted. They always do. No matter how baseless they might be. And so, in the end, my father was forced to confront the issue."

"When was this?"

"A few weeks before Grossman left Riverwood. I know it was then because I"d just come back from a sail with Edward and Mona. They"d lingered in the boathouse, but I"d gone down the corridor toward the bas.e.m.e.nt. That"s how I happened to hear my father and Grossman talking. They were in the storage room where my father kept his papers."

Graves saw the two men facing each other in a yellow light, Allison inching toward them from the shadowy depths of the corridor, hearing their voices, faint at first, then growing louder as she drew closer.

DAVIES: You are here because I allow you to be here.

GROSSMAN: But your wife- DAVIES: My wife does not run Riverwood. I do.

"I remember Grossman suddenly became quite defensive," Miss Davies went on. "He began to make excuses, apologies. He seemed to be quite ... frightened."

Graves heard the tone of Grossman"s voice grow fearful. It took on Sykes" childlike whimper.

GROSSMAN: Please ... I did not wish to ... cause you ... to bring trouble.

DAVIES: You are here to paint my wife"s portrait. Nothing else.

GROSSMAN: But I have not ... done- DAVIES: You are not here to become intimate with anyone at Riverwood.

GROSSMAN: It"s only that ... I am ... lonely- DAVIES: This conversation is over.

"That was it," Allison Davies told Graves. "My father left it at that. A warning. When they"d finished talking, Grossman went upstairs. My father walked out to the flower garden." Something caught in her mind. "Faye was there. In the garden, I mean. I remember seeing her with him that afternoon. Faye was often with my father, she added thoughtfully. "She was interested in his experiments. My father was more than a businessman, you see. He had scientific interests. Botany, in particular. Cross-fertilizations mostly. Some of the flowers were quite beautiful. Some were rather ... grotesque." A light dimmed behind her eyes. "My father loved Faye."

Graves could not suppress a dark speculation. "More than he loved you?"

"Perhaps," Miss Davies answered. She could not wholly conceal the pain of her admission. "They shared things. They had a ... bond."

Graves saw Faye and Warren Davies walking slowly among the strange flowers they had created, Faye"s hand tucked in Warren Davies" arm, talking quietly, in a mood of deep confidentiality. An idea came to him the way they sometimes came to Slovak, out of nowhere, like a gift. "Is it possible Faye might have heard the rumor about your mother and Grossman?"

"I suppose so," Miss Davies answered.

"How would she have felt about it?"

"She would have felt sorry for my father," Miss Davies answered without hesitation.

"Would she have told him about it?"

"Yes, I think she would have," Miss Davies said. "Out of loyalty." A shadow pa.s.sed over her face. "Do you think Faye did that? And that Grossman found out about it? Is that what you"re imagining? That Grossman killed Faye because she told my father about the purported affair with my mother?"

Graves remained silent, merely watching as Miss Davies thought the story through, now moving from imagined motive to actual opportunity.

"My mother was Grossman"s alibi, wasn"t she?" Miss Davies asked. "And if the rumor were true, if they"d actually been lovers, then my mother would certainly have lied for him, wouldn"t she? She would have said that Grossman was with her at the time of Faye"s murder." The conclusion came to her effortlessly. "It fits together, doesn"t it? As a story, I mean. Both the motive and the opportunity. Faye is killed in an act of revenge by my mother"s lover for having revealed my mother"s affair to my father. After the murder, my mother provides her lover with the perfect alibi. A mutual alibi, actually." She considered the tale briefly, like someone who"d bought a small painting from a reputable but unfamiliar gallery and was now pondering its authenticity. "Very good, Mr. Graves. A trifle sordid, but very good. All the necessary elements are in place."

"Except that Grossman and your mother weren"t lovers," Graves reminded her.

"But they might have been," Miss Davies said evenly. "And if it works for the story, what difference does it make whether they were or not?"

She was right, of course. All Graves had to do was write it up. And yet he sensed that the "solution" to Faye Harrison"s death had come too quickly, too easily. And that Miss Davies had accepted it too eagerly, had no interest in pursuing other possibilities. Like an explorer who wished to go only so far into the jungle, to leave its deepest terrors uncharted and unknown.

Graves decided to push deeper into the shadows. "When did Grossman leave Riverwood?"

"A few days after Faye"s murder." She appeared surprised that further questions about Grossman were necessary. "None of us ever saw him again."

"He just vanished?"

"Well, no. Not exactly. He killed himself. We learned about it a week or so after he left here. It was in New York City. He jumped from the twentieth floor of the Edison Hotel."

In his mind Graves saw Andre Grossman tumbling from a great height, a tattered scarecrow plunging through s.p.a.ce.

"He didn"t leave a note or anything like that. So no one ever knew why he did it." Miss Davies appeared uninterested in any further inquiry. Grossman"s suicide had been dismissed as a petty tragedy, the inconsequential end of a bit player in a drama of more compelling interest. "My mother said he was depressed. That"s all I ever heard."

"How did she know that?" Graves asked.

"Because he wrote to her from New York. Just a few letters." She was clearly unconcerned with their contents. "My mother kept them in a little box. Perhaps they might be helpful to you. Especially as Grossman appears to be our prime suspect now. I"ll have Saunders bring them to you.

With that, she left him.

Portman"s Murder Book rested like a black slab on his desk. For a moment Graves imagined the fat detective moving ponderously through the carved oak doorway of the library to find Grossman at his easel. He saw the artist"s eyes fix on Portman"s silent, staring face, locked in dread of Portman"s questions, perhaps already hiding those very answers that would fall with him from the twentieth floor.

CHAPTER 21.

As Portman"s notes made clear, he"d confronted Andre Grossman not in the library, as Graves had imagined it, but in his room on the second floor. The artist had been packing his bags when Portman entered, his clothes strewn across the bed or hung over chairs, books and papers stacked w.i.l.l.y-nilly throughout the room. The chaos had heightened the detective"s suspicion, so that in his notes he"d described the scene as having the look of a "speedy getaway."

As Graves began to reconstruct Portman"s interrogation of Grossman, he found that his imagination had subtly changed things, particularly Grossman"s voice, so that now the painter sounded strained and frightened, a man on the run.

PORTMAN: When you left Riverwood that morning-the day you found Faye"s body, I mean-had you planned to go to Manitou Cave?

GROSSMAN: No. It is just that I was walking. Thinking. I am leaving Riverwood, you see. For this reason, I must make many plans.

PORTMAN: Why are you leaving?

GROSSMAN: Because my work is done. The portrait. Of Mrs. Davies. Finished. There is nothing more for me here. So I go. This is what I was thinking that day. While I walked. The day I found the-Faye.

PORTMAN: And you walked all the way from Riverwood to Manitou Cave?

GROSSMAN: I did, yes.

PORTMAN: You didn"t come by way of the river?

GROSSMAN: No. Not by the river. The trail. It is a long walk.

He had been in the woods for several hours, he told Portman, and as Graves read the detective"s notes, he could sense Grossman"s extreme edginess as he labored to detail his exact movements on the day he"d come upon the corpse of Faye Harrison.

GROSSMAN: I went into the woods just where Faye did. I took the same path. There were many people around. Everywhere people looking for her. Because of this, I went in the other direction. Away from the crowds.

He had not joined the search Warren Davies had organized, Grossman told Portman, because he believed that Faye had run away. That she did not want to be found by anyone.

PORTMAN: Why did you think she"d run away?

GROSSMAN: Because she was ... young. The young do strange things, no?

PORTMAN: Do you know of any reason why Faye would have wanted to run away?

GROSSMAN: No. No reason. Perhaps just to-Nothing. I do not know a reason.

PORTMAN: Do you know of any personal problems she might have had?

GROSSMAN: No. We talked sometimes. When I took photographs of her. But we did not speak of-what is the word?-of close things. Close to the heart. I did not know Faye. Only that she was ... nice.

Now, having reached a dead end, Portman shifted the conversation in a different direction: PORTMAN: Had you ever taken Faye to Manitou Cave before you took the photograph of her there?

GROSSMAN: No.

PORTMAN: Did you ever take her there again?

GROSSMAN: No. Never again. But perhaps she went there herself. She thought it was a beautiful place. That was her comment.

PORTMAN: Had she been there before?

GROSSMAN: I think so, yes. She seemed to ... know it.

PORTMAN: Had she ever gone there alone?

Why had Portman asked if Faye had gone to Manitou Cave alone, Graves wondered. Had he suspected that on the day of her death she"d planned to meet someone at Manitou Cave?

But Portman did not pursue the matter further. Instead, he directed the interview away from Faye and back to Grossman"s life at Riverwood, how long he"d been there, when he planned to leave, but always circling back to his presence at Manitou Cave, his discovery there.

PORTMAN: You said you were planning to leave Riverwood soon?GROSSMAN: Yes. I have no more work here. I must make other plans. It is not easy. That is why I was walking. To think about my plans.PORTMAN: Well, exactly how did you happen to come across the body?GROSSMAN: I stopped to rest. This is how I saw. I sat down on the ground. That is when I saw her. At first I saw only a girl in the leaves. I thought she was maybe sleeping. I started to leave. I did not wish to disturb her. But when I rose from the ground, I saw that she was ... put there. It did not look like a person sleeping. It looked ... twisted.PORTMAN: Where exactly were you sitting when you saw Faye?

To this question Grossman had given a highly detailed answer. He"d sat by a tree, he said, a large old tree with many exposed roots, perhaps a hundred yards from the river. There"d been a stump nearby. The stump had rested under a panoply of low-slung limbs, and he"d first thought of sitting on it. Then he"d noticed that it was old and decayed, one of its sides caved in slightly, bits of rotting wood scattered around it. And so, fearing it might not support him, he"d settled down next to it instead.

As to his whereabouts on the day of the murder, Grossman was emphatic: GROSSMAN: I was here at Riverwood, as I have said many times. I was completing my portrait of Mrs. Davies. We were in the library.

PORTMAN: All day?

GROSSMAN: All day. Except for lunch. For lunch we went to the dining room, of course. After that we returned to the library. You may speak to Mrs. Davies. She will tell you the same.

Portman had already spoken to Mrs. Davies, of course. Knew well that she"d confirmed Grossman"s story. Graves felt it probable that Portman might also have suspected that the two were in league somehow, providing mutual alibis. But if that were true, the old detective"s notes did not suggest it. Instead, he seemed now to question the alibis of other people who"d been at Riverwood on the day of Faye"s death, abruptly shifting his inquiry toward them and away from Grossman, probing not whether Grossman himself had murdered Faye but whether he knew of someone else who had.

PORTMAN: Do you know if Faye had any close relationships with anybody at Riverwood? Anybody in the family or on the staff?

GROSSMAN: Faye was often with Allison.

PORTMAN: Anybody else?

GROSSMAN: On most occasions, no.

It was not an answer Portman accepted: PORTMAN: How long have you lived here at Riverwood?