Color Me Dead

by Mary Bowers

  Ed had already gotten to his feet, and in the face of a greater power like Lily, he sat down again, but he didn’t look happy about it. Then he brightened infinitesimally. “Going forward, I believe I am going to make it my policy to deputize Dobbs, here, to be the face of Paranormal SWAT. He’s engaging, and no doubt very photogenic.”

  Deputy Dobbs was ready and willing, and thought it was a most excellent idea.

  “But we’ll still need you,” Lily said, poking Ed’s arm. “You can’t hang around in the background and look like a mad scientist. We need you talking to the camera. You still have fans out there from the reality show, and they’re going to want to hear from you.”

  Ed was nonplussed, but Lily had already turned back to Jesse. “Okay, what’s the problem with you and the Rosewood woman?”

  He didn’t want to talk about it, but Jesse was no better at facing down Lily than Ed was.

  He finally came out with it, and I realized that I could have told him what he didn’t like about Maida: he’d flirted around with her while they were doing the shoot, and then when he had the material he wanted, he simply walked away and ghosted her. To whatever extent, she must have objected when he stopped answering her calls and texts.

  He didn’t go into all the gory details, but it didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

  “She’s lonely,” he said, “or at least she was at that time. She mistook my friendly attitude for something deeper. It can be an occupational hazard. You give a lady a smile and they keel over, and then they think there’s something special between the two of you. I don’t know what she’s like now, but at that time, she was starved for attention. Her husband was always working, always wrapped up in his latest idea, and she never felt like she had 100% of him.”

  “Never?” Lily said. “Like, from the beginning? They had a daughter together, didn’t they?”

  Jesse got a knowing look on his face and said, “Yeah, that was part of the problem. He married her when she was still in her teens, because she was pregnant, and then there was this baby in the picture and Grant was too absorbed in his work to do anything but play peek-a-boo with the kid every now and then. Being the wife of a famous artist didn’t turn out the way Maida imagined. Right away she was changing diapers instead of drinking champagne at salons all over the world.” He shrugged. “She was just a kid herself at the time. She had some silly ideas. She’d pictured herself the center of an exciting milieu, the toast of London, Paris and Milan, and then all of a sudden she was stuck at home with something she couldn’t even have a conversation with and a husband who was always preoccupied.”

  “That’s an ugly picture,” Lily said. “She told you all that?”

  He simpered. “I read between the lines. Living in the shadow of a man like Grant Rosewood wasn’t always easy. When she had me to herself, she went ahead and let her hair down. I’m the kind of man the ladies feel they can talk to, know what I mean?”

  I was repulsed, and I could see that Ed was too.

  “What a dreadful woman,” Ed said. He just couldn’t help himself. “I suppose you’re going to tell us she began a sordid string of illicit amours.”

  Jesse popped his eyes at Ed and seemed to be trying not to laugh. Then, controlling himself, he said, “Hey, don’t get me wrong. Give the lady some credit. She also got busy promoting her husband’s work, and she was good at it. He’d been making a name for himself around here, but only in a countryboy way, with other countryboys. People who didn’t really matter, in the grand scheme of things. After Maida began to get them into the cocktail-and-private-showing circuit – which Grant hated, by the way – his work began to get noticed in important circles. She got off to a bumpy start, but she found her footing pretty fast and never looked back at those early days.”

  “Being a mother is never over,” I said. “I’ve seen Maida and Carmen together. Carmen is close to 30 now, and she’s still rebelling. Still angry.”

  “Well, we won’t be going into that on the show,” Lily said briskly. “Beautiful sculpture and happy memories, and a good dose of reverence for the loss to the world of art. No unhealthy family dynamics to upset the shut-ins or the people in doctors’ waiting rooms.”

  “Yeah, that’d be a show on another channel,” Jesse said. “One with a judge or a shrink. I’m about ready for another,” he added, lifting his empty coffee cup. “Anybody else?”

  “I don’t think we have time for that,” Lily said. “It’s almost lunchtime, and we need to get over to see Maida.”

  “Is it that late already?” I said, checking my watch. “You’re right. She might have already left for home by now, depending on how busy it is over at Girlfriend’s.”

  “Well, if she’s already off-shift when we get there, we can always walk over to her house and knock on the door. You know where she lives, right? From what Jesse’s been saying about her, I’m sure she’ll jump at the chance to be on the show. It won’t take long to get things settled.”

  Jesse pointed his empty coffee cup at Lily. “You can go get things settled. You’re the field producer; that’s your job. I’ll see Maida when I’m getting paid to see Maida, and not before. Believe me, I’ll be earning my nickels and dimes when that happens. Don’t mention my name, if you can help it. Maybe she’ll act like a lady if she’s got a camera crew watching when she sees me.” He walked off to the counter.

  Ed stood up again and told Lily, “Since you’ll be staying with Taylor, Dobbs and I can come over sometime and talk things over there. If you think it’s really necessary.”

  Lily nailed him with her soft brown doe’s eyes. “Tonight.”

  Dobbs grinned. “More green burgers? I tell ya what, we’ll bring pizzas.”

  “I thought you liked my green burgers,” I said, just joking.

  “Man cannot live on hot green stuff and bear claws alone,” he declared, and he made it his exit line.

  Ed nodded, said, “Ladies,” and trailed after him, looking mournful.

  Left together at the table, Lily looked at me. “Well, I’m not going to sit here watching that prima donna drink himself under the table, even if it is only coffee. Let’s go. I want to meet this woman. If we’re going to have something ready to cut and paste, somebody’s got to get to work around here.”

  * * *

  We were having one of our February cold snaps, after just having unseasonably warm weather that had caused all the fog. Coming out of Perks, we were hit by the wind out of the northeast and hunkered into our jackets.

  Before we could walk next-door to Girlfriend’s, Maida was beside us on the sidewalk, saying, “Going my way? Hi, Taylor.”

  Startled, I said, “Hi, Maida. Where did you come from?”

  “I was just visiting with Adam Cody, seeing how his new gallery is coming along. You knew that Adam and I were old friends, didn’t you? I think I told you that.”

  “Yes, you did. I’m glad you’re still . . . getting along with him.”

  She widened her pretty eyes and giggled. “Of course we’re getting along. Why on earth wouldn’t we be?”

  “I mean, after you decided not to have him involved in selling your husband’s final works.”

  “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. Nothing has really been decided yet. It’s just that I’m very conscious of the responsibility I’ve been given and I intend to consider my options very carefully. I suppose, considering the size of Tropical Breeze and the look of Locust Street, I had pictured Adam selling things like tee shirts and coffee mugs to keep his business going between more important sales. Adam assures me now that that isn’t so.”

  “Oh, I see.” I shook my head and got back on track. “Maida, I want you to meet a friend of mine. This is Lily Parsons. And I have to warn you, she has ulterior motives for wanting an introduction to you. I’ll let her explain.”

  Lily took over, and since what she was proposing was exactly the kind of thing Maida lived for, they took to one another right away and pretty much forgot I was ther
e.

  I began to see the real Maida coming out again. The day I’d first met her, she’d been on her best behavior, as we all are when we meet new people. Now she was being herself, and I realized what a good promoter she was, and how much she craved the limelight. Lily was proposing a big dose of that for her, and she was brilliantly happy about it.

  In the end, it was decided that the two of them would go over to Maida’s house and have their discussion, and Lily would come out to Cadbury House later in the day and get settled. It can be tricky getting to the riverside estate, but Lily had been there before and she knew exactly how to get there.

  When I left them, Lily was making it sound as if the entire show was going to center on Maida herself, and that was going over extremely well. It seemed to me that her artist husband was being cast as a bit player, and Paranormal SWAT hadn’t even been mentioned yet.

  They were standing together on the sidewalk in front of Girlfriend’s, deep in conversation, and just before I closed the door behind me, I looked back at Maida’s glowing face. Something cold thumped in my chest. I tried to ignore it, but the coldness stayed there the rest of the afternoon, all through the time I spent with Florence rearranging the display in the front window, all through my drive back to Cadbury House, and even while I set the table for dinner.

  * * *

  Our housekeeper, Myrtle, was over the flu by then, but she doesn’t eat pizza and she can’t stand Ed, so she stayed out of the way. Fortunately, she liked Lily, and she happily set about freshening up the best guest room for her. After that, she said she was going to have dinner in her own room and spend the evening watching TV or reading.

  Lily arrived only an hour before Ed and Dobbs, and she had unpacked, washed up and come back down asking what she could do to help in less than half an hour. I told her she could make a big salad for us, and by the time that was ready and on the table, the ghost hunters were there with the pizzas.

  We all – Michael, Lily, Ed, Dobbs and me – had a good time that evening, and even Ed started to come around to the idea of having cameras following him around again. After all, he’d been able to ignore them while they shot his reality show. How bad could it be?

  And to add a frisson of weirdness that everybody seemed to enjoy, Bastet decided to attend the party. In fact, she jumped into Michael’s lap and stayed there throughout the meal, gazing blandly at one person after another.

  At some point in the evening, Dobbs asked me, “What does that usually mean?” inclining his head at Bastet.

  “Search me,” I said. “Maybe she’s keeping an eye on us in case she needs to give us an alibi.”

  I meant it as a joke, but it struck an odd note. Everybody looked at me. “For what?” Lily said.

  Still trying to make the joke work, I assumed an English accent and said, “Murder most foul.”

  “Oh, God, don’t do that,” Lily said. “You’re giving me chills.”

  Becoming Boris Karloff, I said, “Bash-tet knows what I mean, don’t you, my dear?”

  How much Bastet understood of what we were saying I couldn’t tell, but she decided to be offended. She stood up in Michael’s lap, arched her back, glared at me and jumped down. Then she took off like lightning and ran into my office. If she’d had hands, she would have slammed the door behind her.

  Only Ed took that seriously, and he began to look worried. To distract him, I started encouraging Lily to plan her segment on Paranormal SWAT.

  Ed took it better than I expected. He looked weary, but he went along with it.

  “I suppose it’s all to the good. Any new enterprise needs a certain amount of promotion,” he said finally, as if he were talking about penance. “The easy things, like designing and linking the new website, are falling into place rather well. But I suppose it couldn’t hurt to reach out to those who aren’t internet-savvy – those who just sit at home watching TV.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Dobbs said.

  “The easy things?” I quoted. Designing a new website didn’t sound easy to me. And linking it? To what? Orphans of the Storm had a website, of course, but when it came to web design, I had a guy for that. I never even saw him. He just worked his magic somewhere out there in the web-verse, did everything I asked him to do, and never even sent us a bill.

  The evening ran long, but nobody minded. We managed to dispose of the better part of three large pizzas and four bottles of wine, and the business discussion was relatively painless. Then Ed, unaccustomed to even one glass of wine, waxed poetic about his vision for Paranormal SWAT. I think he forgot that Lily was there on a mission, and I hoped he wouldn’t regret revealing some of his innermost thoughts.

  Ed and Dobbs finally left some time after eleven, and I made Lily go up to her room and go to bed while Michael and I cleared the table and washed up the stemware by hand.

  I didn’t see Bastet again until the following afternoon, and by then I needed her. She only gets close to me during times of crisis, and when bad things happen, all my resistance to her goddess-like attitude dissolves and I begin to actually hope she’s got a little magic.

  * * *

  Maida called my cellphone less than two hours after I went to bed that night. I looked at the clock on the nightstand and saw that it was a few minutes after two a.m.

  I always leave my cell on the nightstand beside me while we sleep, and I managed to catch the call before it woke Michael up. I got out of bed and tiptoed off to the gallery outside our bedroom to talk, closing the door behind me. Then, leaning against the railing, I blinked, tried to clear my head and did what I could to calm Maida down. She was on the verge of hysteria.

  “I thought I could handle it alone, but I can’t,” was the first lucid thing she said. “And I’m not really sure. That’s the maddening part. You were the only person I could think of who could really help me, because you know things, and you can tell me if I need to . . . to take measures. To protect myself. I need you to tell me what to do. Are you having any, you know, visions or impressions about the danger around me? Am I in danger?”

  Through the French doors that looked out over the river, moonlight was flooding in over the whole downstairs, making weird shapes in every shade of indigo. Solid furniture seemed to flicker and disappear, then reappear suddenly as mist passed over the moon.

  “I’m sure everything is going to be fine, Maida. You’re just having the middle-of-the-night jim-jams. You’ve had a lot of big changes in your life lately, and the stress is bound to get to you, no matter how you try to handle it.” I closed my eyes tightly and tried to dredge up something useful from my sleepy head. “Have you got any chamomile tea?”

  She quavered off into a line of coloratura notes and I couldn’t understand what she was saying, other than to get it that she didn’t appreciate me trying to downplay whatever was upsetting her. “Maybe if you tried going into a trance,” she finally suggested. “Like you did at my house.”

  I put my hand up to my forehead and rubbed it. Trance. Right. That’ll fix everything. “Okay, okay,” I told her, “I promise I’ll try. But not now. We’ll talk about it in the morning. Let me see, what day is it? Saturday. Are you helping Florence at Girlfriend’s today?”

  “I told her I would, but I don’t think I can.”

  “You don’t have to if you’re not feeling up to it. Just call her in the morning and tell her you’re not feeling well, and I’ll get somebody else to fill in. So that means you’re going to be at home later this morning? How about I come over and see how you’re doing then?”

  “This morning?” she said forlornly.

  “I’m sorry, but we sat up late with friends last night and I had quite a bit of wine. I’m more likely to go off into a stupor than a trance right now. Later on, we’ll talk it all over and I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

  Lily, I thought grimly, was going with me. She was probably the cause of all this, with her talk about a retrospective on Grant Rosewood, starring his lovely widow, Maida. That had to be it.
It was too much of a coincidence that she was going off like this only a few hours after Lily had gotten her worked up about doing a show. Must be guilt or something. Suicides always leave people wondering, even if they know there was nothing they could have done.

  “I’m not imagining it,” she managed to say coherently. “I’m sure now that the danger is real. I’ve always known in my heart it would come to this. I can’t seem to help it. I always stir up strong emotions in those around me; too strong to be kept in check, sometimes.”

  Oh, brother, I thought, she was sitting up all night going over her list of sins and maybe thinking that the ghost of her husband was back for a reckoning. If she actually had had an affair with Jesse Mantrell, talking to Lily must have brought it all back to her and she was feeling guilty.

  “I’m sure your husband is at peace now, and you have nothing to worry about,” I said. My only excuse is that it was the middle of the night, and standing at the railing overlooking a spooky house, I was more aware of my wobbly head than I was of Maida’s problems, real or imagined. But she’d chosen me to be her comforting friend, and I was perfectly willing to fill the role. Tomorrow. Or at least, later on that day.

  “I’ll be there at nine or ten, Maida, I promise. Can you wait that long? It’s only a few hours from now, actually. Then we’ll sit down with a nice cup of tea and talk it all out.”

  “You promise?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She sighed heavily. “Well, I suppose it’s too much to ask you to come out and keep me company in the middle of the night.” She said it softly, hopefully, in case I might relent. I thought about the three miles of dirt road I’d have to try to negotiate in the dark just to get from Cadbury House to a paved road so I could make my way into town, and I just couldn’t do it.