Color Me Dead

by Mary Bowers

  “I just realized I haven’t eaten at all today,” she said, and naturally I couldn’t tell her I didn’t want her. “I was too nervous to have breakfast, and with the investigators in the house, I couldn’t even think about food.”

  We ended up in the same booth we’d been in the week before, but that day it was going to be just the two of us, which made for a much different conversation.

  Before she could say anything, I decided I needed to lay down the ground rules. “Maida, I can’t talk about what happened in your house this morning. Maybe some other time, but not now. We can talk about anything else, but not that.”

  “I understand,” she said. “Sensitive people like you must go through a lot that the rest of us never even know about. After all, I married an artist, remember? I’m used to sensitive people.”

  We ordered drinks and lunch together, since we knew what we wanted, and my iced tea and soup came at the same time. I was in luck that way, at least: Don had made the tomato soup I’d been hoping for. DeAnn, the waitress, seemed to understand the tension at our table, and she didn’t banter with me the way she usually did. She probably knew all about Ed’s investigation at Maida’s house already, and didn’t need to ask what was wrong. We both knew she’d find out the results later in the day, along with everybody else on the grapevine in Tropical Breeze.

  I decided to set Maida talking so I didn’t have to, and I brought up her brother-in-law. His sudden appearance hadn’t pleased her, and I was sure she had lots of complaining to do about him.

  “Did Hank end up staying with Carmen?” With that to get her started, I began to eat my nice, hot soup.

  “Of course not. Carmen lives in an old beach shack that I’m sure is infested with termites and roaches. How she can stand it . . . I think she’s making some sort of a statement by living like that. I’d take Hank in, of course, but you heard what he said. No, Carmen tells me that Hank’s taken a hotel room. The only other option would have been staying with a friend here in town, but he hasn’t completely moved into his house yet, either. He’s still sleeping on a couch, from what I understand.”

  “Adam? The man who’s opening the art gallery across the street?”

  “You know him?”

  “I dropped in to welcome him to the area and wish him luck with his business. He mentioned he knew you.”

  Her purple eyes narrowed. “Oh? What did Adam say about me?”

  “Well, mostly he talked about your husband. He said he had represented some of his artwork. He also mentioned that Carmen is going to finish your husband’s last projects, at least he hoped so. I think that would be very fitting. I bet it will increase their value even more, to be able to attribute them to both father and daughter. You must be pleased.”

  She snorted and then sat back as DeAnn slid a grouper sandwich and green beans onto the table in front of her. My sandwich and fries came at the same time, and I began to pick at them between spoonfuls of soup.

  It was a minute or so before she answered me, but I could tell something was coming. If I’d pricked a balloon I didn’t care. She could go off about her daughter all she wanted. I just wanted her to keep talking.

  “Of course I’d never entrust something so important to an amateur,” she said. “I’ve been making calls to several well-known sculptors in the Miami area, and they’re excited. I just have to decide who to use. And, of course, later on I’ll decide on a gallery.”

  “I thought Adam was going to be selling them. Wasn’t he mentioned in the will?”

  “Grant left a favorite piece for Adam to have in his personal collection. That’s all. I’ve been given full executive powers over Grant’s estate and all his unsold works. I don’t know why everybody thought they were going to get so much out of the will. Grant had a wife to provide for. Over the years, he had never stopped thinking of me as someone he needed to protect.”

  “And yet he left you with this huge responsibility?”

  “That was where there was an illogical split in his thinking, and I don’t think even Grant realized it. He recognized my abilities in the galleries, at events, in having an innate instinct for how his works should be handled. And at the same time, he liked to think of me as a little girl – the near-child I’d been when he’d first met me.”

  That was a little creepy, but there were men who infantilized women, and also women who liked it.

  “Hank was furious, too,” Maida went on, “because all he got was a sculpture, and then he had the nerve to complain about how big it was. He wants the estate to pay to have it shipped to New Jersey, which is ridiculous. You’d think they’d be grateful they were remembered at all.”

  “You’d think,” I agreed, not wanting to get into it with her.

  Her conscience must have been bothering her, though, because she softened her manner and said, “You have to understand that artists are not always practical-minded. Grant’s will did originally appoint Carmen as the one to finish any artworks left unfinished at his death, but that was pure sentimentality. Sometime after the signing of the will, my husband came to his senses, thank goodness. But not being practical, instead of making an appointment with our attorney and making an official change, he simply handwrote new instructions. It caused no end of a mess, but there was no question as to what his wishes were. The notes were genuine. Two different handwriting experts declared them to be in Grant’s writing. In the end the probate court came to the right decision and gave all executive powers to me.”

  “I see. He changed his mind . . . when?”

  “He dated the note sometime in October. Why?”

  “Did anything happen in October to make him change his mind?”

  “Nothing needed to happen for my husband to change his mind,” Maida said lightly. “He was always changing his mind. We’ll never know how many other little notes he wrote for the will that he simply destroyed. I’m sure he went back and forth about little details every time he thought about them. But he wasn’t a man who thought about practical things very much.”

  “Nobody wants to think about what’s going to happen to their things after they’re gone.”

  “Oh, he wasn’t squeamish about that. Grant talked about death all the time.”

  “He did?”

  “He was an artist.”

  Whatever that meant. I decided to try to push for Adam as gently as I could. After all, I’d liked him.

  “So it’s up to you whether or not Adam gets to handle those sales? He was a close friend to your husband, wasn’t he? You trust him?”

  “He was, and I do. But of course I’m not going to allow the final works of an artist of my husband’s caliber to be sold in some penny-ante gallery that’s little more than a souvenir shop, in a town that’s barely on the map. I’m commissioning a gallery in Miami for a special event, when the time comes. That won’t be for a while yet, possibly even a year. I’m not going to let them hurry me.”

  “Oh. Well, I’m sure you’ll make all the right decisions.”

  She gave me a lovely smile that brought her cute little chin to a point and formed tiny dimples beside her mouth. “Thank you, Taylor, dear. That means a lot to me.”

  Chapter 7 – Producers, Prima Donnas and Pizza

  Maida and her problems loom so large in my memory, it’s hard to remember that a lot of other things were going on at the same time.

  For one thing, Lily Parsons dropped in out of the blue with a proposition for Ed and Dobbs. She gave me a call ahead of time and invited me to her meeting with them. It was just going to be an informal get-together over coffee, the following Friday morning at Perks. Lily and I hadn’t seen one another in almost a year, so I was happy to accept.

  Lily had been the producer of Ed’s paranormal reality show, Haunt or Hoax? for most of its run, and she was still in that business, doing an around-the-town program for one of the local community channels in Orlando. She had the show’s host, a man named Jesse Mantrell, with her when she came into Perks. The name hadn’t meant
anything to me, but as soon as I saw him, I recognized him. He was a suave-looking blond with brown eyes and a caramel tan.

  I knew his face because he’d done pretty much the same kind of program out of Jacksonville in the hazy past, and I’d seen him on local TV. One day he’d simply disappeared from the show, and I’d hardly missed him. They replaced him with a cheerful man who had a more unique presence than Jesse, and I figured that was why he’d been cut: Jesse was a typical smooth-voiced male with a handsome but forgettable face, and he was a bit old for that kind of show.

  It was good to see Lily. I’d always liked her. And despite my constant efforts to control myself, the good fairy in me woke up and started hoping, the moment I saw Lily looking so young and fresh and alive. Dobbs had been around for the last production of Haunt or Hoax?, and something intimate had been bubbling up between them at the time. And why not? They were both attractive people in their late twenties – Dobbs the classic surfer-boy with cinnamon-golden skin and a toned body, and Lily a petite brunette urban gypsy with an interesting career. It had been one of those magnetic attractions so strong that everyone around them could feel it. But alas, the currents of their young lives had carried them away from one another since then, as far as I knew. I felt my hand just itching for the magic wand.

  Ed had been a big hit with the Haunt or Hoax? fans, which was another reason Lily was probably back for another crack at him. A new show featuring Ed would have a ready-made audience. He was a natural, because whether on-camera or off, Ed was just Ed – quirky, irritable, and slightly off-the-wall, and that makes for a sidekick who winds up taking over the show.

  I was hoping Lily wasn’t going to try to entice Ed into a project that was just another version of Haunt or Hoax?, because if she was, she didn’t have a prayer. Ed was never going back there. But it turned out she only wanted to do a segment on him for Orlando Sizzles!, Jesse Mantrell’s morning variety show.

  “We’re doing an entire show on Tropical Breeze. I figured I could count on you,” she said to me demurely. “It’ll be free advertising for Orphans of the Storm and Girlfriend’s. And of course, Ed and Dobbs are old friends,” she added glibly. “So what are you two calling your new business?”

  “Paranormal SWAT,” Dobbs told her.

  She was open-mouthed for a second, then blurted, “Omigod, that’s brilliant. Don’t you love it, Jesse?” She turned to the show’s host, who was sitting beside her.

  “Oh, yeah, love it,” Jesse said.

  Ed was sitting beside me, across the table from Lily and Jesse. Dobbs had pulled up a chair for himself at the side of our table and was straddling it, leaning his forearms along the back of it.

  Jesse looked tired that morning. I had never seen him in person before. On TV, he’d always been wearing make-up, so I gave him a pass. He’d never been my type anyway. Too smooth, too blandly handsome, the first cousin of a lounge lizard. But he had to be good at his job if he’d caught on with another show, and Orlando was arguably a more important venue than Jacksonville, when you considered all the theme parks.

  “Yeah, I think we could do something with it for the show,” he said. “Let’s go with it.”

  Poor man, he took it for granted that if offered a spot on Orlando Sizzles!, Ed would jump at it. He didn’t know Ed.

  “Just what kind of a show is this Orlando Sizzles!,” Ed asked darkly. “Will this be in the nature of a public service announcement?”

  This caught everybody off-guard.

  “A PSA?” Jesse said incredulously. He then proceeded carefully. “No, Ed, we’re talking about a local-color, community-based show. We would probably want to follow you during a typical day on the job, explaining your modus operandi to people who wouldn’t be familiar with your type of service.”

  “Not familiar?” Ed said. It was beyond him that anybody didn’t know about ghost hunters.

  “Damn,” Dobbs said. “The investigation we just finished would have been perfect for your show. We even had to call in an expert from California. It was touch and go, but we managed to clean it all up in only three days, right Ed? Maybe we can do it as a reenactment, because seriously guys, it was perfect. Even the client was somebody your viewers would know: Maida Rosewood. She’s the widow of a famous artist, Grant Rosewood.”

  “I’ve heard of him,” Lily said.

  But Jesse was clearly caught off-guard, and he looked shocked. “Maida is here? I thought she lived in St. Augustine.”

  “She just moved into town,” I told him. “Only about a block away from here. She’s helping out in our resale shop right now. You can go on over there and say hi, if you like. It’s right next-door.”

  Clearly, he didn’t want to see Maida that morning, and it seemed as if he never wanted to see her at all. By that time, I needed a break from Maida and her little dramas, and I didn’t want to know what had gone on between the two of them.

  “That’s right,” Lily was saying, turning to Jesse. “You did a segment on Grant Rosewood for your show in Jacksonville a couple of years ago. You must have met her then.”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  Lily paused, then looking weary, she said, “You didn’t.”

  He gave her a sloe-eyed look and said, “Maybe this time it was what she did. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t be rude.”

  Exasperated, Lily said, “And were you polite when you dropped her and went back to Jacksonville?”

  His face growing dark, he growled something about vengeful bitches. He took a deliberate sip of his double-shot macchiato and said no more. From his tone of voice and attitude, we were all warned off the subject of Maida Rosewood.

  Lily regrouped, then went on to explain how it all worked for Ed’s benefit, and what they’d be doing for a segment on Paranormal SWAT.

  Ed turned her down flat.

  I watched Jesse to see if he’d be surprised, but he didn’t even seem to be listening.

  Lily was, though, and she didn’t get where she was by allowing herself to be turned down flat. She said she’d be staying in Tropical Breeze for a few days anyway.

  “Why don’t you come stay with me,” Dobbs said immediately. “I’ve got a house now. Plenty of room.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Dobbs,” Ed said. “As an unmarried woman, she can’t possibly stay in a house alone with an unsupervised bachelor.”

  Dobbs grinned. “You can supervise me.”

  “The lady’s reputation would be ruined. You’d better stay with me, Lily. I have Frieda’s old mansion, right on the oceanfront, just down the block from Dobbs. You’ll be very comfortable there.”

  “Wait a minute,” Dobbs said, trying to be serious but still grinning. “You’re an unsupervised bachelor.”

  “I’m old enough to be her father.”

  Nobody tried to explain to him how little difference that made. After we’d all had our fun out of it, I told Lily to come and stay at Cadbury House with me. “Michael is there, of course, but Myrtle and I will be careful to supervise.”

  “You still have your cat, too, right?” Lily asked.

  “Bastet? Yes, we still have her. Or she has us.”

  Lily turned to Jesse. “That’s the cat I was telling you about.”

  “The magic one?” he said with a sarcastic twist to his lips. Lily stiffened and a silent message went between them. He muttered, “Oh, right,” and took another sip of his high-octane designer coffee.

  So she’d told him all about it. Lily had given him the whole history of the way a good friend of mine had died under suspicious circumstances – at least they had been suspicious to me. I believed it was murder, and I managed to prove it, and everybody promptly gave all the credit to the cat, who had shown up very soon after my friend died. Lily had also, apparently, told Jesse not talk about it in front of me or I’d go off, which I would have. I was pretty darn sick of hearing about my magic cat by then.

  I invited Jesse to stay at Cadbury House, too, if he liked, but he said something about the company making
cuts to his expense account at the end of the year if he didn’t use it up. That wasn’t the only reason, though, because he declined right after asking, “Is that where you’re running the animal shelter?” Only then did he say he already had a room at a hotel that had promised him a water view. What hotel? He dug around in his back pocket and came up with some paperwork. “The Breakers,” he said.

  I knew the place, and it was no hotel. It was a good old-fashioned motor-inn motel, built some time back in the 1960s. The water view must have been in the pictures on the walls, because it was a good four blocks due west of the beach, facing a gas station and convenience store. Maybe the room had a view of the swimming pool. He would have been way more comfortable at Cadbury House. I said nothing.

  “Suit yourself,” I thought, and I really wasn’t all that bothered that he wasn’t coming home with me. Having Lily around was something I was looking forward to, though. She’s a lot of fun.

  But Lily lives on the fly, and before even going to Cadbury House and dropping off her bags, she wanted an introduction to Maida Rosewood, and she wanted it now.

  When Jesse had turned sour at hearing that Maida was living in Tropical Breeze, I had wondered about it but I didn’t really want to know. Lily, on the other hand, briskly turned to him and said, “Have you got an issue with Mrs. Rosewood? If so, you’d better tell me about it now, because we’re doing a whole show on this town. She’s what’s new around here. There’s even a segue into the Paranormal SWAT segment. Everybody knows who she is. We have to include her.”

  Ed and Dobbs were still sitting there, and Dobbs suddenly wired himself up and prepared to listen to something juicy. Ed and I shared a look, and Ed said, “Perhaps it’s time we were going, Dobbs.”

  “Oh, no, Ed,” Lily said, every inch the woman in charge. “We need to talk, too. However you want it done we’ll do it, but I want Paranormal SWAT to be a big chunk of the show. After all, we have a whole hour to fill. That’s 46 minutes in real time, working around the commercials, but it’s still a lot of time. If need be, we’ll do two shows on Tropical Breeze, and devote the whole 46 minutes to you guys. I want you two in the show.”