Transgressions

'Why?' Peter said.

'Peter,' Echo said grimly.

'Well, it's a fair question,' Peter said, looking at Cy Mellichamp, who wore little gold tennis racket cuff links. A fair question, but not a lob. Straight down the alley, no time for footwork, spin on the return.-

Cy blinked and his smile got bigger. 'Of course it is. Would you mind coming with me? Just in the other room there, my study-Something we would like for you to see.'

'You and Mr. Ransome,' Peter said.

'Why, yes.'

He offered Echo his arm. She gave Peter a swift dreadful look as she turned her back on him. Peter simmered for a couple of moments, took a breath and followed them.

The study was nearly dark. Peter was immediately interested in the array of security monitors, including three affording different angles on the small gallery where the newest Ransome paintings were on display Where he had been with Echo a few minutes ago. The idea that they'd been watched from this room, maybe by Ransome himself, caused Peter to chew his lower lip. No reason Cy Mellichamp shouldn't have the best possible surveillance equipment to protect millions of dollars' worth of property. But so far none of this—Taja following Echo around town, the special invitations to Ransome's showing—added up, and Peter was more than ready to cut to the chase.

There was a draped, spotlighted easel to one side of Mellichamp's desk. The dealer walked Echo to it, smiling, and invited her to remove the drape.

'It's a work in progress, of course. John would be the first to say it doesn't do his subject justice.'

Echo hesitated, then carefully uncovered the canvas, which revealed an incomplete study of—Echo Halloran.

Jesus, Peter thought, growing tense for no good reason. Even though what there was of her on the canvas looked great.

'Peter! Look at this!'

'I'm looking,' Pete said, then turned, aware that someone had come into the room behind them.

'No, it doesn't do you justice,' John Ransome said. 'It's a beginning, that's all.' He put out a hand to Peter. 'Congratulations on your promotion to detective.'

'Thanks,' Pete said, testing Ransome's grip with no change of expression.

Ransome smiled slightly. 'I understand your paternal grandfather was the third most-decorated officer in the history of the New York City police force.'

'That's right.'

Cy Mellichamp had blue-ribbon charm and social graces and the inward chilliness of a shark cruising behind the glass of an aquarium. John Ransome looked at Peter as if every detail of his face were important to recall at some later time. He held his grip longer than most men, but not too long. He was an inch taller than Peter, with a thick head of razor-cut hair silver over the ears, a square jawline softening with age, deep folds at the corners of a sensual mouth. He talked through his nose, yet the effect was sonorous, softly pleasing, as if his nose were lined with velvet. His dark eyes didn't veer from Peter's mildly contentious gaze. They were the eyes of a man who had fought battles, won only some of them. They wanted to tell you more than his heart could let go of. And that, Peter divined in a few moments of hand-to-hand contact with the man, was the major source of his appeal.

Having made Peter feel a little more at home Ransome turned his attention again to Echo.

'I had only some photographs,' he said of the impressionistic portrait. 'So much was missing. Until now. And now that I'm finally meeting you—I see how very much I've missed.'

By candlelight and starlight they had cheeseburgers and fries on the terrace. And they were damn good cheeseburgers. So was the beer. Peter concentrated on the beer because he didn't like eating when something was eating him. Probably Echo's star-struck expression. As for John Leland Ransome—there was just something about aging yuppies (never mind the aura of the famous and reclusive artist) who didn't wear socks with their loafers that went against Peter's Irish grain.

Otherwise maybe it wasn't so hard to like the guy. Until it became obvious that Ransome or someone else had done a thorough job of prying into Echo's life and family relations. Now hold on, just a damn minute.

'Your name is given as Mary Catherine on your birth and baptismal certificates. Where did 'Echo'

come from?'

'Oh—well—I was talking a blue streak at eighteen months. Repeated everything I heard. My father would look at me and say, 'Is there a little echo in here?' '

'Your father was a Jesuit, I understand.'

'Yes. That was his—vocation, until he met my mother.'

'Who was teaching medieval history at Fordham?'

'Yes, she was.'

'Now retired because of her illness. Is she still working on her biography of Bernard of Clairvaux? I'd like to read it sometime. I'm a student of history myself.'

Peter allowed his beer glass to be filled for a fourth time. Echo gave him a vexed look as if to say, Are you here or are you not here?

Ransome said, 'I see the beer is to your liking. It's from an exceptional little brewery in Dortmund that's not widely known outside of Germany.'

Peter said with an edge of hostility, 'So you have it flown in by the keg, something like that?'