Inconsolable (Love Triumphs 2)

“I was careful. They were busy being important and for all the fuss about me, there’ve only been snatched, blurry photos on phone cameras. I believe the paper made a decision not to make things worse by printing my picture.”

“What happened?”

“I watched Walter give an interview. When I’d had enough of that I turned to leave the park. The woman in the photo was standing behind me. She spoke to me. I don’t recall answering her.”

“Why wouldn’t you answer her?” said Pagonis.

“Because I’m a scary guy who lives in a cave. I’m not out there to make friends. I’m not exactly sociable.”

“You referred to yourself as scary. Did you scare her, Drum?”

He couldn’t possibly have scared her and he knew how to do that. He’d scared Foley in a dozen different ways. “I walked past her. I barely glanced at her.”

Toshber consulted her file. “You didn’t ask her to buy you coffee?”

“No.”

“You didn’t ask her to meet you at the cave?”

“No.”

From out of the file came a book. It had a torn cover, it was scuffed but it was also still clean enough to be relatively new, as though it had been deliberately roughed up. “Is this your book?”

Of Mice and Men. “My copy was a hardcover. It had pencil notes written in the margins.”

“Where is your copy?”

“I burned it. It was torn apart and there was no point keeping it.”

“Convenient,” said Pagonis. “You said your cave got ransacked. When did this happen? Is that when your books got wrecked?”

He told them about finding the cave torn up, remembering how that was the night Foley stayed to watch the sunrise, to lean on his shoulder and fall asleep.

“Did you tell anyone about this?” Same question as yesterday.

“No.” Same lie on a technicality.

Toshber pulled a folded shirt from the folder. “Is this yours?” She shook it out and it brought a rank smell of sweat and sourness into the room.

It was a nondescript grey t-shirt, not far different from the one he was wearing but stained and filthy, as if it’d been dragged through mud, sprayed with liquid garbage and never washed. It was about four sizes too small. He didn’t need to tell them it wouldn’t fit.

Pagonis stood up and made a show of stretching. “Here’s what we think happened. You met Alison, the woman in the photo, at Marks Park several times. You struck up a conversation, you drank coffee together, had a laugh. On the day the sculptures were shipped out you invited her back to your cave. You’re two consenting adults. You make out, but when she says no to something more, you force yourself on her, you strike her. You threaten her with further violence and you tell her you’ll throw her over the cliff if she screams.”

It could’ve occurred like that, so easily, a plausible story. “That never happened.”

“We think you attacked and assaulted Alison.”

From tiny truths the construction of a huge lie, but it wasn’t his book, or his shirt, and Foley had been with him that night. It was the first night he’d fed her. “I barely acknowledged this woman. I never invited her to the cave. To my knowledge she never went there. That’s not my book or my shirt. She’s not telling the truth.”

Toshber snapped her fingers to make him look at her. “Why would she lie?”

“Why does anyone?”

That’s not what they expected him to say.

Toshber packed away the shirt, book and photo. Pagonis opened the door and they both left without a word.

He was in deep trouble. But they hadn’t charged him. So far it was just talk. He stood and walked around the interview room, circling the table. Had he brought this down on himself, was this part of what he deserved for his other crimes? Was it wrong to fight it?