On the easel was an eleven-by-fourteen panel. Hansen had said his current painting needed work, but it looked finished to me. At the center of the composition was an exquisitely bellied, blue-and-white Ming vase, rendered so meticulously that I longed to touch the gloss. A jagged crack ran down the belly of the vase, and brimming over its lip were masses of flowers and vines, their brilliance accentuated—animated—by a burnt umber background that deepened to black at the edges.

Orchids and peonies and tulips and irises and blooms I couldn’t identify. Hot colors, luminous striations, voluptuous petals, vaginal leaves, vermiform tendrils, all interspersed with ominous clots of sphagnum. The fissure implied incipient explosion. Flowers, what could be pret-tier? Hansen’s blooms, gorgeous and boastful and flame-vivid as they were, said something else.

Gleam and hue fraying and wilting at the edges. From the shadows, the black, inexorable progress of rot.

Conditioned air blew through a ceiling vent, flat, artificial, filtered clean, but a stink reached my nostrils: the painting gave off the moist, squalid seduction of decay.

Milo wiped his brow, and said, “You don’t use a model.”

Hansen said, “It’s all in my head.”

Milo stepped closer to the easel. “You alternate paint and glaze?”

Hansen stared at him. “Don’t tell me you paint.”

“Can’t draw a straight line.” Milo got even nearer to the board and squinted. “Kind of a Flemish thing going on—or maybe someone with an appreciation of Flemish, like Severin Roesen. But you’re better than Roesen.”

“Hardly,” said Hansen, unmoved by the compliment. “I’m a lot less than I was before you barged into my life. You have diminished me. I’ve diminished myself. Will you really protect me?”

“I’ll do my best if you cooperate.” Milo straightened. “Did Luke Chapman mention anyone else being present at the murder? Any of the other partygoers?”

Hansen’s fleshy face quivered. “Not here. Please.”

“Last question,” said Milo.

“No. He mentioned no one else.” Hansen sat down at the easel and rolled up his sleeves. “You’ll protect me,” he said in a dead voice. He selected a sable brush and smoothed its bristles. “I’m going back to work. There are some real problems to work out.”

CHAPTER

33

When we were back on Roxbury Drive, Milo said, “Believe his story?”

“I do.”

“So do I,” he said, as we walked to our cars. “I also believe I’m a hypocrite.”

“What do you mean?”

“Playing Grand Inquisitor with Hansen. Making him feel like shit because he repressed twenty-year-old memories. I did the same damn thing, with less of an excuse.”

“What’s his excuse?” I said.

“He’s weak. Cut him open you’ll find a Silly Putty spine.”

“You sensed the weakness right away,” I said.

“You noticed that, huh? Yup, moved right in on ol’ Nicky. Got a nose for weakness. Doesn’t that make me pleasant company?”