Transgressions Page 13

  There was no label he could pin on John Ransome yet. But the notion that Ransome had spent several weeks already carefully and unhurriedly manipulating Echo, first to seduce and finally to destroy her, detonated the fast-food meal that had been sitting undigested in his stomach like a bomb. He went into the bathroom to throw up, afterward sat on the floor exhausting himself in a helpless rage. Feeling Echo on his skin, allure of a supple body, her creases and small breast buds and tempting, half-awake eyes. Thinking of her desire to make love to him at the cottage in Bedford and his stiff-necked refusal of her. A defining instance of false pride that might have sent his life careering off in a direction he'd never intended it to go.

  He wanted Echo now, desperately. But while he was savagely getting himself off what he felt was a whore's welcome in silk, what he saw was the rancor in Eileen's dark eyes.

  John Ransome didn't show up at the house until a quarter of ten, still wearing his work clothes that retained the pungency of the studio. Oil paints. To Echo the most intoxicating of odors. She caught a whiff of the oils before she saw him reflected in the glass of one of the bookcases in the first-floor library where she had passed the time with a sketchbook and her Prismacolor pencils, copying an early Ransome seascape.

  Painting the sea gave her a lot of trouble; it changed with the swiftness of a dream.

  "I am so sorry, Mary Catherine." He had the look of a man wearied but satisfied after a fulfilling day.

  "Don't worry, John. But I don't know about dinner."

  "Ciera's used to my lateness. I need twenty minutes. You could select the wine. Chateau Petrus."

  'John?"

  "Yes?"

  "I was looking at your self-portrait again—"

  "Oh, that. An exercise in monomania. But I was sick of staring at myself before I finished. I don't know how Courbet could have done eight self-studies. Needless to say he was better looking than I am. I ought to take that blunder down and shove it in the closet under the stairs."

  "Don't you dare! John, really, it's magnificent."

  "Well, then. If you like it so much, Mary Catherine, it's yours."

  "What? No," she protested, laughing. "I only wanted to ask you about the girl—the one who's reflected in the mirror behind your chair? So mysterious. Who is she?"

  He came into the library and stood beside her, rubbed a cheekbone where his skin, sensitive to paint-thinner, was inflamed.

  "My cousin Brigid. She was the first Ransome girl."

  "No, really?"

  'Years before I began to dedicate myself to portraits, I did a nude study of Brigid. After we were both satisfied with the work, we burned it together. In fact, we toasted marshmallows over the fire."

  Echo smiled in patient disbelief.

  "If the painting was so good . . ."

  "Oh, I think it was. But Brigid wasn't of age when she posed."

  "And you were?"

  "Nineteen." He shrugged and made a palms-up gesture. "She was very mature for her years. But it would have been a scandal. Very hard on Brigid, although I didn't care what anyone would think."

  "Did you ever paint her again?"

  "No. She died not long after our little bonfire. Contracted septicemia at her boarding school in Davos."

  He took a step closer to the portrait as if to examine the mirror-cameo more closely. "She had been dead almost two years when I attempted this painting. I missed Brigid. I included her as a—I suppose your term would be guardian angel. I did feel her spirit around me at the time, her wonderful, free spirit. I was tor-tured. I suppose even angels can lose hope for those they try to protect."

  "Tortured? Why?"

  "I said that she died of septicemia. The result of a classmate's foolhardy try at aborting Brigid's four-month-old fetus. And, yes, the child was mine. Does that disgust you?"

  After a couple of blinks Echo said, "Nothing human disgusts me."

  "We made love after we ate our marshmallows, shedding little flakes of burnt canvas as we undressed each other. It was a warm summer night." His eyes had closed, not peacefully. "Warm night, star bright. I remember how sticky our lips were from the marshmallows. And how beautifully composed Brigid seemed to me, kneeling. On that first night of the one brief idyll of our lives." "Did you know about the baby?"

  "Brigid wrote to me. She sounded almost casual about her pregnancy. She said she would take care of it, I shouldn't worry." For an instant his eyes seemed to turn ashen from self-loathing. "Women have always given me the benefit of the doubt, it seems."

  'You're not convincing either of us that you deserve to suffer. You were immature, that's all. Pardon me, but shit happens. There's still hope for all of us, on either side of heaven."

  While she was looking for a bottle of the Chateau Petrus '82 that Ransome had suggested they have with their dinner, Echo heard Ciera talking to someone. She opened another door between the rock-walled wine storage pantry and the kitchen and saw Taja sitting at the counter with a mug of coffee in her hands. Echo smiled but Taja only stared before deliberately looking away.

  "Oh, she comes and goes," Ransome said of Taja after Ciera had served their bisque and returned to the kitchen.

  "Why doesn't she have dinner with us?" Echo said.

  "It's late. I assume she's already eaten."

  "Is she staying here tonight?"

  "She prefers being aboard the boat if we're not in for a blow."

  Echo sampled her soup. "She chose me for you—didn't she? But I don't think she likes me at all."

  "It isn't what you're thinking."

  "I don't know what I'm thinking. I get that way sometimes."

  "I'll have her stay away from the house while you're—"

  "No, please! Then I really am at fault somehow." Echo sat back in her chair, trailing a finger along the tablecloth crewelwork. 'You've known her longer than all of the Ransome women. Did you ever paint Taja? Or did you toast marshmallows over those ashes too?"

  "It would be like trying to paint a mask within a mask," Ransome said regretfully. "I can't paint such a depth of solitude. Sometimes . . . she's like a dark ghost to me, sealed in a world of night I'm at a loss to imagine. Taja has always known that I can't paint her." He had bowed his head, as if to conceal a play of emotion in his eyes. "She understands."

  ELEVEN

  The Knowles-Rembar Clinic, an upscale facility for the treatment of well-heeled patients with a variety of addictions or emotional traumas, was located in a Boston suburb not far from the campus of Wellesley College. Knowles-Rembar had its own campus of gracefully rolling lawns, brick-paved walks, great oaks and hollies and cedars and old rhododendrons that would be bountifully ablaze by late spring. In mid-December they were crusted with ice and snow. At one-twenty in the afternoon the sun was barely there, a mild buzz of light in layered gray clouds that promised more snow.

  The staff psychiatrist Peter had come to see was a height-disadvantaged man who greatly resembled Barney Rubble with thick glasses. His name was Mark Gosden. He liked to eat his lunch outdoors, weather peritting. Peter accommodated him. He drank vending machine coffee and shared one of the oatmeal cookies Gosden's mother had baked for him. Peter didn't ask if the psychiatrist still lived with her.

  "This is a voluntary facility," Gosden explained. "Valerie's most recent stay was for five months. Although I felt it was contrary to her best interests, she left us three weeks ago."

  "Who was paying her bills?"

  "I only know that they went to an address in New York, and checks were remitted promptly."

  "How many times has Valerie been here?"

  "The last was her fourth visit." Peter was aware of a young woman slipping up on them from behind.

  She gave Peter a glance, put a finger to her lips, then pointed at Gosden and smiled mischievously. Mittens attached to the cuffs of her parka dangled. She had a superb small face and jug-handle ears. In spite of the smile he saw in her eyes the blankness of a saintly disorder.

  "And you don't think much of her
chances of surviving on the outside," Peter said to the psychiatrist, who grimaced slightly.

  "I couldn't discuss that with you, Detective."

  "Do you know where I can find Valerie?"

  Gosden brushed bread crumbs from his lap and drank some consomme from his lunchbox thermos.

  "Well, again. That's highly confidential without, of course, a court order."

  When he put the thermos down the young woman, probably still a teenager Peter thought, put her chilly hands over Gosden's eyes. He flinched, then forced a smile.

  "I wonder who this could be? I know! Britney Spears."

  The girl took her hands away. "Ta-da!" She pirouetted for them, mittens flopping, and looked speculatively at Peter.

  "How about that?" Gosden said. "It's Sydney Nova!" He glanced at his watch and said with a show of dismay, "Sydney, wouldn't you know it, I'm running late. 'Fraid I don't have time for a song today." He closed his lunchbox and got up from the bench, glancing at Peter. "If you'll excuse me, I do have a seminar with our psych-tech trainees. I'm sorry I can't be of more help."

  "Thanks for your time, Doctor."

  Sydney Nova leaned on the back of the bench as Gosden walked away, giving her hair a couple of tosses like a frisky colt.

  'You don't have to run off, do you?" she said to Peter. "I heard what, I mean who, you and Goz were talking about."

  "Did you know Valerie Angelus?"

  Sydney held up two joined fingers, indicating the closeness of their relationship. "When she's around, I mean. Do you have a cigarette I can bum?"

  "Don't smoke."

  "Got a name?"

  "Peter."

  "Cop, huh? You're yummy for a cop, Pete."

  "Thanks. I guess."

  Sydney had a way of whistling softly as a space filler. She continued to look Peter over.

  'Yeah, Val and I talk a lot when she's here. She trusts me. We tell each other our dirty little secrets. Did you know she was a famous model before she threw a wheel the first time?"

  "Yeah. I knew that."

  "Say, dude. Do you like your father?"

  "Sure. I like him a lot."

  Sydney whistled again a little mournfully. She cocked her head this way and that, as if she were watching rats racing around her mental attic.

  "Magazine covers when she was sixteen. Totally demento at eighteen. I guess fame isn't all that it's cracked up to be." Sydney cocked her head again, making a wry mouth. "But nothing beats it for bringing in the money." Whistling. "I haven't had my fifteen minutes yet. But I will. Keep getting sidetracked." She looked around the Knowles-Rembar campus, tight-lipped.

  "Tell me more about Valerie."

  "More? Well, she got like resurrected by that artist guy, spent a whole year with him on some island.

  Talk about head cases."

  'You mean John Ransome?"

  'You got it, delicious dude."

  "What did he do to Valerie?"

  "Some secrets you don't tell! I'll eat rat poison first. Oh, I forgot. Been there, done that. Hey, do you like The Sound of Music? I know all the songs."

  As if she'd been asked to audition, Sydney stood on the bench with her little hands spread wide and sang some of "Climb Ev'ry Mountain." Peter smiled admiringly. Sydney did have a good voice. She basked in his attention, muffed a lyric, and stopped singing. She looked down at him.

  "I bet I know where Val is. Most of the time."

  'You do?"

  "Help me down, Pete?"

  He put his hands on her small waist. She contrived to collapse into his arms. In spite of the bulky parka and her boots she seemed to weigh next to nothing. Her parted lips were an inch from his.

  "Val has a thing for cemeteries," Sydney said. "She can spend the whole day—you know, like it's Disneyland for dead people."

  Peter set her down on the brick walk. "Cemeteries. For instance?"

  "Oh, like that big one in Watertown? Mount Auburn, I think it is. Okay, your turn."

  "For what, Sydney?"

  "Whatever Gosden said about voluntary, it's total bullshit. I'm in here like forever. But I could go with you. In the trunk of your car? Get me out of this place and I'll be real sweet to you."

  "Sorry, Sydney."

  She looked at him awhile longer, working on her lower lip with little fox teeth. Her gaze earthbound.

  She began to whistle plaintively.

  "Thanks, Sydney. You were a big help."

  She didn't look up as he walked away on the path.

  "I put my father's eyes out," Peter heard her say. "So he couldn't find me in the dark anymore."

  Peter spent a half hour in Mount Auburn cemetery, driving slowly in his rental car between groupings of very old mausoleums resembling grim little villages, before he came to a station wagon parked alongside the drive, its tailgate down. A woman in a dark veil was lifting an armload of flowers from the back of the wagon. He couldn't tell much about her by winter light, but the veil was an unfortunate clue. He parked twenty feet away and got out. She glanced his way. He didn't approach her.

  "Valerie? Valerie Angelus?"

  "What is it? I still have sites to visit, and I'm late today."

  There were more floral tributes in the station wagon. But even from where he was the flowers didn't appear to be fresh; some were obviously withered.

  "My name is Peter O'Neill. Okay if I talk to you, Valerie?"

  "Could we just skip that, I'm very busy."

  "I could help you while we talk."

  She had started uphill in a swirl of large snowflakes toward a mausoleum of rust-red marble with a Greek porch. She paused and shifted the brass container of wilted sprays of flowers that she held in both arms and looked around.

  "Oh. That would be very nice of you. What is the nature of your business?"

  "I'm a New York City detective." He walked past the station wagon. She was waiting for him. "Are you in the floral business, Valerie?"

  "No." She turned again to the mausoleum on the knoll. Peter caught up to her as she was laying the memorial flowers at the vault's entrance.

  "Is this your family—"

  "No," she said, kneeling to position the brass pot just so in front of barred doors, fussing with the floral arrangement. She stepped back for a critical look at her work, then glanced at the inscription tablet above the doors. The letters and numerals were worn, nearly unreadable. "I don't know who they were," she said.

  "It's a very old mausoleum, as you can see. I suppose there aren't many descendants who remember, or care." She exhaled, the mourning veil fluttering. The veil did a decent job of disguising the fact that her facial features were distorted. If the veil had been any darker or more closely woven, probably she wouldn't be able to see where she was going. "But we'll all want to be remembered, won't we?"

  "That's why you're doing this?"

  'Yes." She turned and walked past him down the knoll, boots crunching through snow crust. 'You're a detective? I thought you might be another insurance investigator." The cold wind teased her veil. "Well, come on. We're doing that one next." She pointed to another vault across the drive from where she'd left her station wagon.

  Peter helped her pull a white fan-shaped latticework filled with hothouse flowers onto the tailgate. The weather was too brutal for her not to be wearing gloves, but with her arm extended an inch or so of wrist was exposed. The multiple scars there were reminders of more than one suicide attempt.

  They carried the lattice to the next mausoleum, large enough to enclose a family tree of Biblical proportions. A squirrel nickered at them from a pediment.

  "They wouldn't pay, you know," Valerie said. "They claimed that because of my... history, I disabled my own car. Now that's just silly. I don't know anything about cars. How the brakes are supposed to work."

  'Your brakes failed?"

  "We'll put it here," Valerie said, sweeping away leaves collected in a niche. When she was satisfied that the tribute was properly displayed she looked uneasily around. "Next we're go
ing to that sort of ugly one with the little fountain. But we need to hurry. They make me leave, you know, they're very strict about that. I can't come back until seven-thirty in the morning. So I. . . must spend the night by myself. That's always the hard part, isn't it? Getting through the night."

  She didn't talk much while they finished unloading the flowers and dressing up the neglected mausoleums. Once she appeared to be pleased with her afternoon's work and at peace with herself, Peter asked, as if all along they'd been having a conversation about Ransome, "Did John come to see you after your accident?"

  Valerie paused to run a gloved hand over a damaged marble plinth.

  "Seventeen sixty-two. Wasn't thai a long time ago."

  "Valerie—"

  "I don't know why you're asking me questions," she said crossly. "I'm cold. I want to go to my car." She began walking away, then hesitated. "John is . . . all right, isn't he?"

  "Was the last time I saw him. By the way, he sends his warmest regards."

  "Ohhh. Well, there's good news. I mean that he's all right. And still painting?" Peter nodded. "He's a genius, you know."

  "I'm not one to judge."

  Her tone changed as they walked on. "Let's just skip it. Talking about John. I can't get Silkie to shut up about him. He was always so generous to me. I don't know why Silkie is afraid of him. John wouldn't hurt her."

  "Who's Silkie?"

  "My friend. I mean she comes around. Says she's my friend."

  "What does she say about John?"

  Valerie closed the tailgate of her wagon. She crossed her arms, shuddering in spite of the fur-lined greatcoat she wore.

  "That John wanted to—destroy all of us. So that only his paintings live. How ridiculous. The one thing I was always sure of was John's love for me. And I loved him. I'm able to say it now. Loved him. I was going to have his baby."

  Peter took a few unhappy moments to absorb that. "Did he know?"

  "Uh-uh. I found out after I left the island. I tried and tried to get in touch with John, but— they wouldn't let me. So I—"

  Valerie faced Peter. In the twilight he could see her staring at him through the mesh over her face. She drew a horizontal line with a finger where her abdomen would be beneath the greatcoat.