Color Me Dead

by Mary Bowers

  “I’d hate for her to miss out on that,” I said. “Her work is so good. But even if she’s willing, it just wouldn’t look good for her to be promoting her work so soon after her mother’s death. It’d make her seem callous. Can’t you wait a few months and then come back for the segment on Tropical Breeze, and include her then?”

  At the range-top, Michael scraped a cutting board full of vegetables into the hot wok. Fragrant steam billowed up and he began stirring briskly while a burst of sizzling noise stopped the talking for a few seconds.

  Then Lily went on. “I wish I could wait, but we pretty much have the season mapped out already. The show is mainly to inform about the attractions of Orlando, after all. We try to keep road trips to a minimum, and only within a certain distance. Coming back here might have to wait until next season, or even longer. I knew I could count on you for material, and I planned to fill the show out with Ed’s new business. Maida was just a bonus. We can just go with Orphans and Paranormal SWAT, like I planned, but with Grant Rosewood being so much in the news lately . . . I really want that angle, however I can work it in. Within the bounds of good taste, of course.”

  “Taste?” Jesse said. I waited for more, but it seemed he had expressed himself as much as he dared.

  “Dropping eggs,” Michael announced from the kitchen.

  “Plating,” Myrtle added, right there on the team with him. She adores Michael, in her own, chaste way.

  Turning around and looking at the dinner table for the first time, I saw that it had already been set. There was even a vase of my Belinda’s Dream roses from the garden. They were as big as peonies that year.

  “Okay, gang, let’s eat,” Michael said, coming around the counter with three of the plates, a dishcloth still over his left shoulder. Myrtle was right behind him with the other two plates, and the three of us at the counter hopped down and followed them to the table.

  A bottle of red wine was decanting on the table, and after pouring out glasses for everybody but Myrtle, we started to eat.

  * * *

  “Why have you never made this before?” I asked Michael after a couple of bites.

  “I only had it for the first time myself a few weeks ago. This is the first time I’ve tried it. You like?”

  “I love.”

  There were murmurs of agreement around the table, and I told Michael he could rustle up some bimbo anytime he wanted.

  “Bibimbap,” he said.

  Jesse made a tasteless bimbo joke, suggesting I hadn’t been talking about the food, and it came to me that I wasn’t ever going to be Jesse’s biggest fan. I’d been curious about his reaction to having to interview Maida, and I decided I didn’t need to tiptoe around his delicate sensibilities. He didn’t have any. Whatever he was on camera, in person he was snippy and crass.

  “You must have been sorry to hear about Maida,” I said to him without a trace of irony. “Whatever happened between the two of you the last time you saw her, this must have been a shock. How did you hear about it?”

  “Yeah,” Lily said to him, “where were you when I tried to call and tell you about it? My calls to your cell kept going to message.”

  “You know I’m a late sleeper,” he said.

  She bore in on him. “And Carver Charteris – remember him? Our Executive Producer? The boss-man? – has told you that when Lily calls, Jesse has to answer, even if Jesse is up to here in . . . well, for example, bimbos. Carver doesn’t have to know what you were doing that night, but I do. Was that it? A bimbo bash?”

  This wasn’t the first time I’d noticed Lily’s exasperation with him, and I waited for his answer.

  He got a weaselly little smirk on his face for a second or two and said, “Got it in one.”

  Myrtle, who was sitting across the table from me, next to Lily, froze so solidly she nearly brought the temperature down in the whole room. I flashed a glance at Michael and he just looked disappointed.

  “Actually,” Lily went on, “when you didn’t answer your cell, I got the motel manager to go look in your room. I told him you were prone to having blackouts.”

  “Cute.”

  “I thought so. You weren’t in your room and your car wasn’t in the parking lot.”

  Jesse glared at her and said, “Nice to know you care. Don’t you think it would be better if we discussed this later, Lily, darling?”

  “The manager said you left early yesterday evening and didn’t come back. In fact, I’m not sure you’ve been back to your room yet.”

  “It’s a dump. I don’t stay in dumps.”

  “So where did you stay?”

  After a thick, furious pause, Jesse said, “Excellent bimbo-bop,” to Michael. Then he stood up. “But I gotta get going now. We’re on the road, back to Orlando,” he told Lily very firmly. “Pack up. I’ll see you back at the station.”

  He left.

  The four of us left at the table sat motionless until we heard the front door closing behind Jesse and the sound of his car driving away.

  I felt awful. I turned to Lily meekly and said, “Was that my fault?”

  “Of course not,” she answered. “He’s been headed for a fall for a while now, and I think he just violated his contract, whether he realizes it or not. The Executive Producer was giving him one more chance, and he just blew it.” She turned to Michael, only sounding as if she were half-kidding. “Care to do some interviews around town for Orlando Sizzles!? We could use some fresh talent.”

  Caught off-guard, Michael didn’t know whether or not to take her seriously. “I’ll help you any way I can,” he said, in confusion.

  “You’re clean, presentable and just as pretty as that guy, and you know how to schmooze,” she told him. “I’m willing to bet you’ve got a better on-camera manner than that conceited ass.”

  “I’m not a member of SAG, or whatever union you use.” Michael still wasn’t sure whether or not to take her seriously.

  “I know,” Lily said, taking a swig of wine. “We’ve got another guy waiting in the wings. Gal, actually. Treena Hilliard. She’ll jump at it, but she’s kind of green, and I’m not sure I can keep her grounded. But now’s her big chance, and she’s not going to pass it up.” She looked around for her hobo bag, where her cellphone was, then said, “I’ll call her later. Come on, guys, let’s eat. I’m sorry about all this, and that bozo’s not worth letting Michael’s greatest dish get cold while I try to get my assignment back on track.”

  We ate, we talked, we laughed a little, but the evening had been ruined. Part of what kept me from putting a really good effort into getting the conversation back on track was that thing that was stuck in the back of my mind: where had Jesse Mantrell been last night while Maida was being strangled? Unless he named the lady (or – ick – ladies?) in question or came up with an Airbnb receipt to prove he was lodging somewhere else that night, he had no alibi, and he definitely had a history with the victim.

  I gave it some deep thought. Maida probably didn’t have Jesse’s cellphone number, or even know where he was staying, so she couldn’t have called him after Carmen left her. And why would she?

  “Did you let Maida know that she was going to be interviewed by Jesse Mantrell?” I asked Lily.

  “Yeah, I wondered about that, too. The answer is yes, and before you work that out to the next logical question, yes again: she knew where Jesse was staying. She asked, and I told her. She was acting like a nice, normal lady who would behave herself if she could get on a TV show. At one point, she actually suggested she might invite him to stay with her. I wouldn’t have wanted him to lose out on an opportunity like that,” she said acidly. “A busy Jesse is a happy Jesse, and he’s much easier to work with when he’s happy. What he gets busy with when he’s not on camera is something I’ve just had to put up with. Thank goodness, though, nothing about Jesse is my business anymore.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, it probably means nothing, but how did Maida react when you first mentioned Jesse’s name?”

&n
bsp; “Like she was looking forward to seeing him again. Like all was forgiven, and she was glad it was going to be him. I was so relieved she wasn’t going to set off any fireworks, I didn’t dwell on it much.”

  We looked at one another a minute longer, then Lily said, “He’s got no alibi. At least it seems that way. If he was somewhere he wasn’t ashamed of and his alibi was airtight, why wouldn’t he have said so?”

  There was a pause, and then I said, “Oh, we’re being ridiculous. Why would he kill her? And anyway, if she called him, the police will know. She can only have called him at the motel, and unless you gave her his room number, she could only have left a message.”

  “I don’t even know his room number. I always just call his cellphone. I wasn’t planning on going to his room, and the manager didn’t mention the room number when he went in to see if he was all right.”

  “He’s a wrong ‘un,” Myrtle said darkly. “Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he’s the one who struck her down.”

  “Oh, Myrtle,” Michael said, “what possible reason could somebody like Jesse have for harming Maida?”

  “Don’t you know?” she said. “About the scandal that cost him his job in Jacksonville?”

  We all stared at her, or at least Michael and I did. Lily seemed to know what she was talking about.

  I stared at Lily for an answer, since she was going to have good information and Myrtle was just going to have gossip.

  “He was doing drugs,” Lily said tersely. “It didn’t seem to interfere with his performance, but it violated his contract. There was an anonymous call – a woman – the station never tracked her down, and they didn’t really try hard. They made Jesse take a drug test and he failed, so they terminated his contract for cause. It was right there in black and white, and he was an idiot for even fooling around with drugs, knowing his job was at stake. Orlando hired him out of rehab, and as far as I know, he’s been clean ever since, but that’s part of the reason he’s still on probation. I’ve put up with a lot from him because I didn’t want to be the one to get him fired, but after walking out on me on location like this, my conscience is clear. He’s done.”

  “You see?” Myrtle said to me. “A wrong ‘un. Drugs and married women and who knows what else. And,” she added damningly, “he talks dirty at the dinner table. A wrong ‘un, through and through.”

  “Married women?” I said. “You mean Maida? Oh, right, the Tropical Breeze grapevine. Of course it’s been working overtime.” I decided not to mention that Jesse had hinted at the same thing himself, when we met at Perks.

  “I don’t suppose,” Michael said with a daddy-disapproves look around the table, “that anyone would care for dessert? We have key lime pie, vanilla ice cream and brownies.”

  I gave him a steady look. “Let’s throw them all together in a bowl and pour fudge sauce over it. We’ll call it Sugar Bomb Bibimbap. I’ll make the coffee.”

  “And I’ll clear the table,” Lily said, standing up.

  “I’ll help you,” Myrtle said. “You look like you’re ready to throw dishes, and this is our best Portmeirion.”

  Chapter 13 - Bereft

  Lily was on the phone most of the next day, so I didn’t get to spend much time with her. The day after that was Monday, and her videographer, Greg, was due to arrive sometime mid-morning with the new host of the show. Lily had already talked to the Executive Producer, and Jesse had, in fact, been fired for walking out.

  I told her I needed to go downtown for my regular bookkeeping and banking at Girlfriend’s. I would have postponed it, but I also needed to check in on Florence and see how she was doing. After all, it had only been two days since she’d found a dead body.

  “That’s fine, you go ahead downtown,” Lily told me. “We won’t be ready until later this morning, or even this afternoon. When Greg and Treena show up, I need to spend some extra time going over things with them. Treena’s got a good attitude, but she’s an aggressive newbie. I’m afraid she’s going to be a handful.”

  I told Lily I’d skip lunch downtown and be back in plenty of time for the planned shoot featuring Orphans of the Storm.

  Florence was doing well, and for once, Wicked was behaving himself. He looked up at me moodily as I came in from the back room, then dodged behind an entertainment center and stayed there. I felt like he was saying it was all my fault.

  I’d called in some emotional-support reinforcements for the day, and one of my favorite new volunteers, Nigella “Jelly” Nixon, was there. Jelly was a striking young woman, a plus-size model with a big personality and a lot of sparkle. I knew she’d keep things positive. And dear old Vivian Dear was coming in for the afternoon shift.

  Drawing close to Florence, I said, “You know you don’t have to be here today.”

  “I want to,” she told me. “You understand.” I gazed at her gently and told her that I did, and we left it at that.

  Satisfied that everything in Girlfriend’s was going to be all right, I thought about Adam Cody, busy setting up his gallery. Whatever he had envisioned when he’d looked forward to starting his own business, nothing had gone as planned. As I understood it, when Adam decided to go independent, he had assumed that his gallery would mainly be known for representing Grant Rosewood’s work, and now Grant was dead.

  After Maida’s death, Adam had quickly sent around a notice cancelling his grand opening, which had originally been set for Friday of that week. I hadn’t been surprised, but it made me feel very sad. His gallery, his baby, and it was getting off to such a rocky start, at a time when he must have been going through all kinds of emotions.

  I decided to walk down the street and see how he was doing. At the curb just in front of the gallery’s front door, I was surprised to see Carmen’s truck parked. But then, maybe it wasn’t so surprising. Her relationship with her mother had been problematic, and Adam was the one other person in town who had been a friend of the family for a long time.

  The showroom windows had been set up with In Memoriam displays. In the window on the left was a sculpture by Grant Rosewood with a discreet plaque that said, “Collection of Adam Cody. Not For Sale.” In the other window was an enlarged shot of Grant Rosewood at work in his studio, tools in hand, looking vigorous and almost too much alive. It was displayed on a black satin drape, along with a small floral arrangement. I was caught off-guard. The window displays made the gallery look more like a funeral home. People handle tragedy in different ways, and there is no wrong way. It was a lovely tribute.

  The door wasn’t standing open, as before, but it was unlocked. I pulled it open cautiously and peeked in, calling, “Adam? It’s Taylor.” Finally I stepped inside, but I still didn’t see either Adam or Carmen.

  He’d made a lot of progress since the last time I’d been in Artwerks. In fact, the gallery looked ready for the grand opening that had been postponed. Little, white-painted antique tables were spaced apart around the showroom floor so things didn’t look crowded but also didn’t look sparse. Fabulous figures and abstract sculptures stood upon plain, box-shaped cabinet supports, some bearing cases for art glass. Everything was subtly illuminated, so that all the sculptures glowed but nothing blazed. And of course, across the gallery walls were paintings. In a prominent place I noticed one of Carmen’s mixed-media works, cheerfully prismatic in juicy blues, greens and purples.

  The only hint that the shop wasn’t open yet was the fact that the track lighting hadn’t been turned on over the paintings. And, of course, nobody was there.

  I called out again, and this time I heard Adam call back. In a few moments, he appeared from the back room, and Carmen came in behind him.

  “I’m sorry, am I interrupting?” I said. “I only wanted to check in and see how you were doing.”

  “Not at all, not at all,” he said, trying to regain his normal presence, but something was off. “Come in and see what I’ve done with the place.”

  “Hi, Carmen.”

  “Hi, Taylor.”

  It had bee
n two days since her mother’s death, and it seemed to have finally sunk in. The last time I’d seen her at her studio, she seemed to be analyzing things from an emotional distance, but now the cold reality of it all had penetrated. Both her parents were gone. She was an orphan. Even for an adult, the thought was a terrible one. I knew that from my own experience, and Carmen wasn’t much older than I had been when I’d lost both my parents.

  “You doing all right?” I asked her. She looked disheveled in a way that was hard to define. The other times I’d seen her, she’d never been brushed up and shiny, but on that day, there was something drawn about her eyes and mouth.

  “I’m okay. I just came into town to bring some things to Adam. He’s going to be showing my work in the gallery.”

  “I see that,” I said, looking over to her underwater dreamscape.

  Adam flipped a switch, and the paintings began to glow. But Carmen’s was the star, in my opinion.

  I told him I was sorry he’d had to cancel his grand opening.

  “Oh, we’ll have a party sometime. Maybe in a few months, just for my new friends. A grand opening is never the actual moment you open your doors for business anyway. It’s in the nature of a housewarming, that’s all. I thought it was best to wait for that, but I’m actually open for business now.”

  “Your window displays are very touching,” I told him.

  He nodded wordlessly and began to walk toward the front of the store, where he could overlook the Rosewood sculpture. Carmen watched him with a sad expression. It seemed she wanted to rush over and throw her arms around him, but she had to hold herself back. They had both suffered, I realized, and from the way Carmen was watching Adam, I could see there had been a depth of affection between himself and her family that had gone far beyond a business relationship. It startled me a bit to realize that if Adam had been representing her father for years, Carmen must have known Adam since she was a little girl, or at the most, a teenager.