Instruments of Night Part 7

RE: James Miles PrestonARVD: PH/BF/8/30/46-14:30PD: WM-Ht: 6'1" Wt: 145-(DOB: 2/3/28)Status: NOWCR: Neg.TI: 14:37PI: SO/PH/BFIO: DP/NYSPDOI: 1h/12mOP: 0ROI: A.T.

From these notes, Graves learned that James Preston was an eighteen-year-old white male. He was tall and rather thin. He had no criminal record, nor any outstanding warrants against him. That such a background check had been run on Preston at all indicated that he'd briefly been under suspicion, though probably for no more substantial reason than that he'd been the last person to see Faye Harrison alive.

On August 30, at 2:30 P.M P.M., Preston had arrived at police headquarters in Britanny Falls. Seven minutes later he'd been interviewed by New York State Police Detective Dennis Portman in Sheriff Gerard's office. That interview had lasted one hour and twelve minutes. It had been conducted by Portman alone, with no others present, and, in the absence of a stenographer, it had been recorded by means of audiotape.

The contents of that tape had later been transcribed, a copy of the transcription officially included in Portman's Murder Book. The transcript was nearly twenty pages long, a rambling, repet.i.tive conversation, with Portman applying the usual police method of revisiting the same area again and again, hoping to glean some additional fact the witness had either forgotten or chosen to conceal.

In the case of Jim Preston, the method had succeeded only in extending a brief sighting into an elaborate account of Preston's own activities on the day of Faye Harrison's disappearance: PORTMAN: I guess I'll start by asking you what you were doing on Mohonk Trail, Jim?

PRESTON: I had been hiking all that morning.

PORTMAN: Where had you started from?

PRESTON: Just outside Millerton.

PORTMAN: What time did you start out?

PRESTON: Around seven o'clock.

PORTMAN: Do you remember the route you took?

PRESTON: Up through Larchmont Gap. Then along Higgins Creek.

PORTMAN: Where had you planned to end up?

PRESTON: At the end of Mohonk Trail. I figured it would take me about three hours to get there from where I started, then I could get back home by lunch.

For the next four pages of transcript, Preston traced his route through the mountains, meticulously indicating particular trails. He'd walked for over an hour before finally penetrating the forest surrounding Riverwood, encountering no one else until he began to make his way up Mohonk Trail.

Up the trail, as Graves noted particularly, just as it had been reported in the local paper the day after Preston had first been questioned by Sheriff Gerard. the trail, as Graves noted particularly, just as it had been reported in the local paper the day after Preston had first been questioned by Sheriff Gerard.

PORTMAN: Now, about what time was it when you got onto Mohonk Trail?

PRESTON: Well, I don't carry a watch, but I think it was probably a little after eight o'clock.

PORTMAN: How long after that did you run into Faye Harrison?

PRESTON: About forty minutes or so. I'd made it to the top of the hill. That's when I saw her.

PORTMAN: What did you see?

PRESTON: Well, I was walking up the trail and when I made it to the top, I stopped. There's a big rock there. Right at the top of the hill. Indian Rock, they call it. That's where I was when I saw her. She'd already pa.s.sed Indian Rock. She was headed down the other side of the hill.

PORTMAN: So she was ahead of you?

PRESTON: Yes.

PORTMAN: How far ahead?

PRESTON: Oh, maybe thirty yards or so. Going down the slope to where the trail forks. One trail goes to the parking area and the other down to the river.

PORTMAN: Which one did she take?

PRESTON: I don't know. I didn't watch her that long. I just saw her heading down the trail.

PORTMAN: Did she see you?

PRESTON: I don't think so. Her back was to me.

PORTMAN: Was she alone?

PRESTON: Yes, sir. She was all by herself. Moving pretty fast down the trail.

The fact that Faye Harrison had been moving at such an accelerated pace had triggered a thought in Portman's mind.

PORTMAN: The way she was walking. So fast, I mean. Did you get the idea she might be trying to get away from somebody?

PRESTON: Could be.

PORTMAN: Now, when you first talked to Sheriff Gerard, you mentioned seeing another man in the woods. Was he on the same trail?

PRESTON: No, sir. He wasn't on the trail at all.

Graves saw Portman lean forward on the cluttered desk, his sunken eyes boring into Preston's open, youthful face.

PORTMAN: Now, you've already identified that man as Jake Mosley, right?

PRESTON: Yes, sir. Sheriff Gerard showed me a picture of him-Mosley-and he was the man I saw.

PORTMAN: How far from Faye Harrison was Mosley when you saw him?

PRESTON: He was pretty far down the slope from her. Almost at the bottom of the hill. The other side of the hill from where the girl was.

PORTMAN: You mean back toward Riverwood?

PRESTON: That's right.

PORTMAN: What was he doing down there?

PRESTON: Just standing there, as far as I could tell. At the bottom of the slope. He was sort of leaning against a tree.

PORTMAN: Did you ever see him come up the trail?

PRESTON: No. I just rested there at Indian Rock a minute, then went on down to the parking lot.

PORTMAN: Was Mosley still at the bottom of the slope when you left Indian Rock?

PRESTON: I don't know. I didn't look back down that way.

PORTMAN: So you never saw Mosley again?

PRESTON: No, sir.

PORTMAN: Did you see Faye Harrison again?

PRESTON: No. She just disappeared. I glanced down the hill and saw this man, Mosley, the one you're talking about. Then I looked down the other side of the hill, where I'd seen the girl. But she was already down the trail and out of sight.

"Down the trail," Graves said aloud, glancing back over the transcript of Jim Preston's interrogation, noting that Preston had referred to Faye Harrison as going "down" Mohonk Trail on four separate occasions. He felt something s.h.i.+ft in his mind, a tiny, audible movement, the sound Slovak heard when something didn't fit. the trail," Graves said aloud, glancing back over the transcript of Jim Preston's interrogation, noting that Preston had referred to Faye Harrison as going "down" Mohonk Trail on four separate occasions. He felt something s.h.i.+ft in his mind, a tiny, audible movement, the sound Slovak heard when something didn't fit.

He walked to the map on the wall and peered at it closely. Mohonk Trail clearly ran "up" the ridge toward Indian Rock, then circled it and headed down the other side of the mountain at a steep angle until it reached the Hudson River. If Faye had been going down Mohonk Trail when Preston saw her, she had already gone past Indian Rock.

With his finger, Graves traced the path Faye had to have taken to have been seen going down down Mohonk Trail. If Faye had intended to meet Allison Davies at Indian Rock, why had she not stopped there? Why had she not waited? And if, after realizing that Allison was not going to meet her at their "secret place," why had Faye not returned to Riverwood? Why had she gone down the opposite slope instead? Mohonk Trail. If Faye had intended to meet Allison Davies at Indian Rock, why had she not stopped there? Why had she not waited? And if, after realizing that Allison was not going to meet her at their "secret place," why had Faye not returned to Riverwood? Why had she gone down the opposite slope instead?

One answer presented itself instantly. Graves saw a dark figure moving swiftly along Mohonk Trail, Faye, now alert to its presence, rus.h.i.+ng away, past Indian Rock and down the other side of the ridge, no longer precisely aware of where she was headed, only that she had to get out of the encircling woods. A man. Pursuing Faye from behind. Closing in swiftly. Reaching for her shoulder. Now Graves saw Faye twist round to face him, a figure his imagination had already draped in Kessler's black leather coat. As if he were a boy again, he felt Kessler's hand grasp his shoulder, heard the words that had sounded in the darkness behind him, Start walking. Start walking. He knew Faye must have obeyed instantly, instinctively, already half-paralyzed, fear searing through her sharp as an electric shock. He recalled the words he'd heard that night, Kessler's and his own. He knew Faye must have obeyed instantly, instinctively, already half-paralyzed, fear searing through her sharp as an electric shock. He recalled the words he'd heard that night, Kessler's and his own.

Where you live, boy?In that house there.Okay, walk on.

And he had had walked on, moving meekly through the covering darkness, with no thought of escape, no notion of resistance, frightened only for himself, for what might happen to him if he did not obey, and knowing all the time exactly what he was doing, a little voice mercilessly reminding him that he was leading Ammon Kessler to his sister. walked on, moving meekly through the covering darkness, with no thought of escape, no notion of resistance, frightened only for himself, for what might happen to him if he did not obey, and knowing all the time exactly what he was doing, a little voice mercilessly reminding him that he was leading Ammon Kessler to his sister.

Graves peered at the map intently, as if something lay hidden along the trails and ridges it portrayed, the unfound rope that had been used to murder Faye Harrison. He saw her once again on the trail, shoved brutally from behind, and wondered if she'd made it far enough down the slope to have seen the open area through the trees, cars parked there, people getting in and out. How near they must have seemed before she suddenly felt the hand grip her shoulder, heard the voice behind her. And after that, how far.

CHAPTER 13.

There were no pictures of the actual procedure in Faye Harrison's autopsy report, but Graves could easily imagine her corpse on a stainless steel table, faceup and callously exposed under a fluorescent light. From the many books he'd read about forensic pathology, he knew that it had been flayed open in a Y incision, flaps of skin folded back from the trunk, then sewn together again in a crisscross of thick black thread. By the time the examination had run its course, Faye's young body would have been fully explored, every cavity and orifice, the contents of her stomach emptied, her bowels uncoiled, a physical violation so extreme, Graves found it unspeakable in the living, barely endurable in the dead.

But as the report revealed, despite the dreadful thoroughness of his search, the coroner who'd conducted the autopsy on Faye Harrison had uncovered little of consequence. He'd found no sign of rape or torture. There were a few scratches on her arms and legs, probably the result of her body being dragged into the cave. Beyond such superficial wounds, the coroner noted only that the girl's fingers were red and raw, and that three of her fingernails had been broken. Some kind of rope had been wound around her throat. A few of its fibers were lodged beneath her fingernails. In the coroner's opinion, the rope had been "yanked hard," cutting into the flesh and leaving a collar of bruised tissue around her neck.

But for all the apparent force with which the rope had tightened around Faye's throat, it had not broken her neck, as the report stated flatly, thereby avoiding what that specific lack of trauma actually meant: that Faye Harrison had not died instantly, but had felt every moment of her protracted strangulation, the bite of the cord, the constriction of her airways, the sense of slowly exploding from the inside that is the physical sensation of suffocation, its particular agony, and which would have thrown her into a violent seizure, a hideous flailing of arms and legs, the kicking and bucking that Graves knew to be the awful dance of this kind of death.

He found photographs of her body in a separate envelope, wedged in between the testimony of Jim Preston, and that of Andre Grossman, who'd actually stumbled upon her body. The envelope was marked simply SOC-no doubt Detective Portman's police shorthand for "scene of the crime."

Graves felt the old dread grip him as he laid the envelope on his desk. It was like thousands of tiny wires suddenly pulled taut inside him. He knew what he'd do if they began to break. He'd rise, bolt from this room, and never come back. By the time he reached his cottage, he'd be s.h.i.+vering uncontrollably, just as he had the night before Gwen's burial, when Mrs. Flexner had escorted him to the funeral parlor where his sister had been taken, leading him gently down the dark corridor, his body shaking so violently by the time she'd opened the door and he'd glimpsed the black coffin in which Gwen lay that she'd abruptly turned him around and hastily rushed him back down the musty hallway, the two of them nearly sprinting by the time they'd bolted through the entrance door and into the warm night air. He could still hear her voice trying desperately to calm him, It's all right, Paul. You don't have to look at her if you don't want to. It's all right, Paul. You don't have to look at her if you don't want to.

He was poised once again at the entrance to that room he'd fled so many years before. As if thrown back in time, a boy again, he felt himself reach for the bra.s.s k.n.o.b, though in reality it was the flap of the SOC envelope he reached for; felt his hand push open that scarred wooden door, though it was really his fingers drawing out the three photographs that had been placed inside the plain brown envelope; felt his body move toward his sister's coffin, its lid thrown open, a pale light rising from what lay inside, though when he reached it and looked down, it was the corpse of Faye Harrison he saw.

She lay on her left side, her legs drawn beneath her, but with her right shoulder pitched backward, so that her body appeared violently twisted, as if, near death, she'd a.s.sumed the fetal position, then, at the last moment, tried to pull herself out of it. Her right arm hung limply across her chest, the hand dangling, palm out, fingers nearly touching the dirt of the cave floor. Her left arm was positioned directly under her, entirely concealed save for the hand, which lay flat but oddly twisted, palm up, fingers curled inward, as if closed around an invisible ball. Her legs rested one upon the other, feet and ankles together. Her long blond hair fell over her face, obscuring it, all but the one place the strands had parted to reveal a single half-open eye.

Graves gazed at the photograph for a long time. Then he closed his eyes, breathing deeply before he opened them again.

The next picture had been taken from a few feet beyond the mouth of the cave and showed its entrance, a rugged black recess surrounded by a thick, nearly impenetrable cloak of underbrush. Faye's body rose like a mound of soiled clothes near the back of the cave. It was obvious that little effort had been made to hide it. Instead, it had merely been dragged to the rear of the cave and hastily covered with a litter of sticks and bramble, a kind of imitation burial that left the dead girl more or less exposed, a mound even the most casual forest rambler could easily have spotted.

The first two photographs had been the sort routinely taken by crime scene photographers. The last picture, however, was nothing of the kind. In fact, it was not a picture of the crime scene at all, but of Faye fully alive, standing on a riverbank, the Hudson flowing to her right, dense forest to her left. In every way it seemed like an ordinary picture, one of many that had no doubt been taken of Faye Harrison before her murder. It was not until Graves turned the photograph over and read the brief note scribbled on its back that he understood why Portman had included it.

Subject: Faye HarrisonDate taken: June 1, 1946Location: Base of Mohonk Ridge-eastern quadrant-approx. 30 yds. from Manitou CavePhotographer: Andre Grossman Graves sat back in his chair and let his mind put it all together.

The resident artist at Riverwood that summer had taken a photograph of Faye Harrison almost three months before her death, and at a location only thirty yards from where he'd later come upon her body.

In his mind Graves saw Faye and Grossman at their first encounter, Grossman standing on the bank of the pond as Faye strolled out of the water in a black bathing suit, shaking her head as she walked, flinging sparkling drops in all directions. From beneath the shadow of his floppy brown hat, Grossman stared at her emptily, feeling his weight, his ugliness, loathing the cruel joke nature had played by putting such a pa.s.sionately yearning heart in so unattractive a body, laboring to overcome the agonizing debilitation his looks had inflicted upon him, and his accent heightened, combined afflictions so severe and paralyzing that he barely managed to speak.

h.e.l.lo.

Hi.

You are Faye, yes? Allison's friend. I have been seeing you with her. Playing tennis, I think. And on the lake. In the boat. How you say? Rowing?

Yes.

Allison told me about you. I am Grossman. Andre Grossman. Painter. I am painting portrait of Mrs. Davies. You are-I hope you don't mind me to say it-but you are most pretty girl.

Thank you.

Most pretty, yes. I hope you don't mind if I ask you perhaps something?

What?

You are so ... when I saw you come out of water just now it was ... I thought you might-how you say it?-sit for me?

Sit?

For painting. There are no models, you see. It is hard. With no models. But I hope you're not ... that you don't think. My English. I am sorry for my asking. I do not want you to think that ... I only. Please, if I gave the wrong ... I am sorry.

It's okay. You don't have to apologize.

Graves saw Andre Grossman's eyes soften, heard his voice grow less strained.

So. Do you think perhaps ... perhaps that I could ... that you would sit for me?

As Graves now imagined it, Faye's answer could not have been sweeter ... or more naive.

I've never done anything like that before. But I guess I could. I guess it would be okay.

She posed for him the very next day, as Graves conjured it, Faye lying in the gra.s.s beside the water, Grossman a few feet away, peeping out from behind the canvas, studying her long, bare legs, gleaming white in the summer sun, her s.h.i.+mmering blond hair, his body tensing each time he felt her eyes drift toward him.

At first they talked little, but as the days pa.s.sed they began to exchange bits of information. Grossman spoke of his boyhood in Europe, Faye of the life she'd lived at Riverwood, growing fond of the painter as the days pa.s.sed, coming to think of him almost as a father. So much so, that it seemed strange when he said: Please. Call me Andre. Do not think me so old that I can't ... that I ...

He had said nothing more, but had gone on to some other subject.

And so the days had pa.s.sed, one falling upon another, Faye and Grossman increasingly drawn to each other. Faye toward the father who had died and abandoned her. Grossman toward a girl whose beauty made him want to do more than paint her, made him want to touch her.

Graves felt the story rush ahead, leaping over weeks and months, until the season neared its end. The artist's time at Riverwood was almost over, the prospect of leaving it, of leaving Faye, became increasingly painful to him, his situation unbearable, his unexpressed desire desperate.

What do you think of it, the portrait?