Color Me Dead

by Mary Bowers

  The memorial displays had been removed from the front windows, and Adam had arranged artworks from different disciplines in their places: in the left-hand window was a rose-colored handblown vase, along with a stalking ceramic leopard and a driftwood sculpture. In the right-hand window, by itself, was a fairly wide panel done by Carmen, featuring sea turtles.

  Lily had produced Jesse, as promised, and he wasn’t happy about it. As soon as he saw Detective Frane, he said, “I already told you, I barely knew Maida Rosewood. Why would I bother to kill her? We were done, man.”

  Joy and Carmen, who were sitting side by side, gave Jesse a dirty look, glanced at one another, then showed surprise when they saw me coming in behind the detective.

  “You too?” Carmen asked. “Why are you a suspect?”

  Frane took charge. “We’re just here to talk today, and I want to thank all of you for coming.”

  “Like we had a choice,” Jesse grumbled, glaring at Lily. She simpered back.

  As I’d expected, the back room of Artwerks was about the same size as the one behind Girlfriend’s. It was also just as cluttered, but a small circle of prim, white folding chairs had been set up in a cleared space near the back door, where Adam probably kept an area ready for deliveries. A small refrigerator and sink were along one wall, and as we came in, Adam offered us coffee or water. Frane accepted coffee, but I said I didn’t want anything. I just wanted to get on with it.

  Adam was sitting with his back to the rear door, with Lily on his right and Carmen on his left. Beyond Lily were Jesse Mantrell, then me, and Frane was beside me. Frane and I had our backs to the doorway to the shop, and the slight D-shape to the circle made it seem as if we were facing off against the others. Beyond Frane, Joy was sitting next to Carmen.

  “Let’s talk about the night Maida Rosewood was killed,” Frane began. “She was nervous about something that night, even afraid. So she called somebody for help; she called Ms. Verone, here, and they had a long conversation.”

  He turned to me.

  “She thought I was psychic,” I said helplessly. “I think that’s the only reason she called me. She was considering doing something rash, and she hoped I could pick up vibes through the phone and sense if she was going to be putting herself in danger. I’m always telling people I’m not psychic, and I guess I proved it that night. All I wanted was to get off the phone and get back to bed. When we finally hung up, she called her daughter instead. What about it, Carmen? Was she still looking for advice? Did she seem to want you to talk her into or out of doing something?”

  While Carmen considered my question, Jesse said, “She was the last one with her mother. She even admits it. Are you really going to believe anything she says now? There’s a very good chance she’s the one who killed her, and I think we all know why.”

  “What are you talking about?” Adam demanded. He leaned forward slightly, as if putting himself between Jesse and Carmen.

  “Don’t be a fool. Everybody in town knew,” Jesse told him. “In case you’ve never lived in a small town before, let me be the first to warn you: you won’t be able to sneeze in the privacy of your own house without having everybody in town know fifteen minutes later. Of course everybody knew about Grant Rosewood’s will. You didn’t like the way Maida was going to handle the estate, so you worked it out so you could handle it yourself. You two are the only ones with any kind of a motive.”

  “We three,” Joy said unexpectedly. “I have the same motive they do.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Jesse said.

  “I’m one of them. Adam and Carmen are my friends, and we’re working together. If you want to throw accusations around, you may as well include me. It’s a stretch to think it would take all three of us to kill one old lady, but if you’re talking about the handling of Grant’s artwork, count me in. I was his student. And his mistress.”

  “Oh, I got you now,” Jesse said, leering. “I remember you. You were the one keeping Grant busy while I got busy with Maida, back when I did that show for Jacksonville.”

  “And then she got you fired from that show,” Carmen said. “Tell us, Jesse, how did that make you feel about Maida? And how are you doing with rehab? How many days clean is it?”

  Jesse made a move to get up, and Lily, of all people, who was half his size, roared at him to sit down and shut up. He obeyed.

  But instead of letting it drop, he told Carmen, “She still had the hots for me, you know. Wanted to kiss and make up.”

  “I’m sure no woman can resist you,” I said drippingly. “But you were just a little excitement on the side to Maida. She didn’t love you, and once she had her revenge against you for dropping her, she forgot you.”

  “You know, I think you’re right,” Lily said. “When I talked to her about doing a segment for Orlando Sizzles! and finally let her know Jesse was going to be the host, she didn’t seem impressed one way or the other. She just said something like, ‘It’ll be interesting to see him again,’ and got a cat-that-ate-the-canary look on her face.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “She was dead before we could even get started on the show.”

  “You didn’t speak to her recently?” Frane asked.

  Sitting back and crossing his arms confidently, Jesse said, “Nope. Not since I did the story on her husband.”

  Lily shot a look at me for my reaction. I suspected then that she’d been secretly hoping I was about to get Jesse arrested for murder, but I had to disappoint her.

  “Maida was in love, though,” I said. Letting my gaze drift over to Adam, I said, “She was in love with you, Adam, and she had been for a long, long time.”

  Adam was silent, but Carmen erupted. “There was never anything but friendship between Adam and Maida,” she said. “They would never have betrayed my father like that.”

  “And that explains everything,” I said.

  Chapter 28 – Into the Abyss

  “I’m sorry, Carmen,” I said. “I know how you feel. You and Adam . . . you’ve been thrown together whether you wanted it or not, and for a long time now, you’ve wanted it. You’ve wanted him. Very much. But it was never going to be that way between the two of you, was it, Adam? Maida had spoiled everything. Maida had always spoiled everything.”

  When Adam remained silent, Frane prodded. “Do you have anything to say about that, Mr. Cody?”

  “I want to talk to her alone,” Adam finally said, staring hard at me.

  “Impossible,” Frane told him.

  I was sure Adam wouldn’t hurt me, but I wanted the others to hear what he had to say. Holding his gaze, I gave my head a slight shake, left to right.

  “Do we really have to do this in front of everybody?” he asked me.

  “I think we have to,” I answered. “They deserve answers.”

  He reached down with his right hand and picked up his water bottle from the floor, giving himself a moment by taking a drink.

  “What explanation?” Joy asked. She was tense, and she kept shooting glances at Carmen as if she had all the answers.

  Adam began talking lightly, almost negligently. “You were right, you know, Carmen. It would have been a betrayal. Unforgivable. And for a long time, I held out. But I couldn’t hold out forever. Not against her. She wanted what she wanted, when she wanted it. And she wanted me.”

  Carmen was staring at him in disbelief.

  He looked back at her and smiled. “They were such an avant-garde couple. The rules didn’t apply to them. They had an open marriage. Is there really any such thing as an open marriage? If so, why bother to get married? Flaunt all the rules, while you’re at it.”

  “They had a code,” I said. “A code of honor. Meaningless physical encounters were accepted, since whether Maida liked it or not, Grant was going to have his own affairs. But within their code, there were certain limits, and a years-long love affair with a close friend to both of them violated the code. Your father was much older than your mother, Carmen, and they were coming to ages whe
re the gap was making more and more difference. A very young woman can be a shiny new toy for a middle-aged man, but a middle-aged woman is more likely to be a nurse when the man gets older. It wasn’t a role that Maida would have wanted to play, and Grant probably knew it.”

  “Maida took wonderful care of Grant,” Carmen said.

  “No, she didn’t,” Adam said. “Toward the end there, you didn’t see much of them. Not as much as I did, anyway. She was tired of him, and disgusted by the health problems he was developing.”

  “Maida had reached the point,” I said, “where she didn’t care if Grant knew about the two of you, right Adam? At some point, when she was especially fed-up, maybe in the heat of an argument, she finally came straight out and told him.”

  After a pause, Adam murmured, “He would never have believed it, otherwise. He would never have guessed, no matter how indiscreet we were. Maida was always touching me, kissing me, teasing me, but she did that to a lot of people, especially at cocktail parties. He never caught on. And so . . . she told him.”

  “And when she did . . . ?” I waited for Adam to describe it, but he didn’t. He let his head sink into his hands. So I went on. “When she did, there was probably an unbearable period of conflict and regret. Grant began to make hand-written amendments to his will. He went to see his daughter, to see if he had some kind of legacy in her work, and decided he didn’t. He began, in fact, to simply give up.”

  “We tried to go on,” Adam said. “We tried to act as if it didn’t make any difference. After all, it didn’t matter to people like us, did it? But it did. I couldn’t go near her after he knew, and she just wouldn’t stop.” Pounding his fist against his knee, he pounded out the words, “She . . . just . . . wouldn’t . . . stop.”

  “You’d never wanted to hurt Grant,” I said, “and now Maida was pushing you for the ultimate betrayal. She wanted to leave Grant, but only if she was sure she could then come to you. She wanted to marry you.”

  “I would have never married her,” Adam said. “After what Grant did, I couldn’t bear to even be near her.”

  “You believe that Grant killed himself because of the affair, don’t you?” I said.

  Before Adam could answer, Carmen spoke up.

  “No, that wasn’t it at all.” She looked around at each person in turn, almost pleading to be believed. “I’ve thought about this at lot. That last time I saw him, he broke down a little and began to tell me. He was having health problems. Everything was happening at once. I didn’t know he knew about an affair – I didn’t know about it myself – but his death wasn’t a complete surprise to me after that. In a way, I thought he’d been trying to prepare me. The last time I saw him, he was suddenly old. He began to rant about losing his dignity, all the humiliating things that come with age. Incontinence. Impotence. Seeing a worn-out stranger in the mirror. He’d been ruggedly handsome in middle-age, but his hair was thinning and he had never really taken good care of himself, drinking and smoking and indulging in everything he wanted. Nothing had mattered to him but his art. He didn’t realize that he was using himself up until all of a sudden his health was gone.”

  “We were the final defeat,” Adam said. “We were the reason he was suddenly old.”

  “I thought you said you were his mistress,” Jesse said to Joy. “How did that work, if he couldn’t get it on?”

  “It wasn’t about sex,” she spat back. “We were intimate sometimes, and when he was feeling weak, we shared in other ways. We were together. It had been over with Maida for a long time. Don’t feel so guilty, Adam. Maida needed a conquest, and if it hadn’t been you, it would have just been somebody else.”

  “Thanks,” he said faintly.

  “Oh, you know what I mean.”

  “Unfortunately,” he said, “I do.”

  “But,” Carmen protested, turning to appeal to Frane, “Adam couldn’t have killed her. He never even saw her that night. I’m the last one who was with her. It’s a lot more likely that I killed her.”

  “Don’t,” I said quickly. This was what I had been afraid of. “I know you love him, but don’t do this, Carmen. He cares about you, too. He’s not going to let you do this, are you, Adam?” I stared at him, and he sagged and covered Carmen’s hand.

  “Nobody’s ever going to believe that you killed Maida,” he told her gently. “But thank you. It doesn’t matter now.”

  But Carmen wasn’t ready to give up. “No, he couldn’t have seen her that night. I was there; I know. I didn’t understand why, but Maida and Adam weren’t even speaking to one another anymore. I thought it was about the artwork. I was furious at her myself, but I knew in my heart that it was all going to blow over after a while and she’d change her mind about the Miami dealer. In fact,” she said, growing excited, as if she realized she had proof, “I was there when she asked for Adam’s new cellphone number and he wouldn’t even give it to her, he was so mad. So she couldn’t have called him to come over to her house that night.”

  “That’s why she had to go to him,” I said. “She didn’t have his cellphone number, but his house was so close. Less than a block away. She could be standing in front of his doorway in less than two minutes. The fact that his house was so close was the only reason she wanted the one she bought in the first place. She didn’t even like her house; I could tell, when I saw her in it. But she insisted to Grant that it was the one she wanted, without saying it was because it was so close to Adam’s house. Not knowing about the affair yet, Grant went along with her, never suspecting the real reason until she threw the affair in his face.

  “Even after that, even after Grant committed suicide, Adam was forced to move here whether he wanted to or not. He had signed a lease for retail space, he was opening a business. He had loans to repay, he’d made commitments. If he was to have any chance at putting his life back together, he had to go through with the move, and Maida followed him down because she was sure she could get him back.”

  “I refused to see her,” Adam said. “I told her not to come to the gallery. My last hope had been that we could put what we’d done to Grant behind us and unite as a team to do our best to keep his memory alive through his works. But after the reading of the will, when she found she had the whip hand, she told me that unless I gave in to her, she was going to work with another gallery.”

  “She tried to blackmail you,” I said. “She wanted you back, she wanted marriage, and unless you gave in to her, she was going to take away the last connection you had to Grant Rosewood, a man you practically worshipped. Even worse, she was going to punish Carmen, too, if she couldn’t get her way. She’d hire strangers to finish off the artwork.”

  “Carmen knew nothing about it,” Adam said, suddenly animated.

  Bewildered, Carmen stared at him. “Is it true?” she asked.

  He looked broken. “She would have never let me go. And, God help me, I would have never been able to resist her. Sooner or later, I would have given in. She believed I still loved her, and maybe she was right, because when I saw her there, it was like I was hypnotized.” His voice drifted off and his eyes strayed to the floor.

  “When you saw her where?” Frane asked.

  Adam didn’t answer. Looking down, he just shook his head.

  “On his own doorstep,” I said. “That night. After Carmen left Maida, she walked down to Adam’s house. She was keyed up by then, after talking to me and then Carmen and not getting whatever it was she wanted from us. She was full of doubt, full of desire, wondering if she really could get Adam back again. Maybe she was losing her beauty as she aged. Maybe as she lost her youth, she was losing her power. After Grant’s death, Adam had consistently rejected her. Now, he wouldn’t even speak to her.

  “But she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She wanted to reassure herself that she was still irresistible. So that night, after Carmen left, Maida took out her lingerie and looked at it, played with it. Her excitement reached a fever pitch as she undressed herself and pulled the silky fabri
c against her bare skin. And then she couldn’t stop herself. She wrapped a coat around herself and went to him. When he saw her standing on his doorstep, all the strength drained out of him. He wanted her, and he couldn’t stop wanting her, and he finally gave in.”

  “But she was killed at her own house,” Lily said.

  I nodded. “Adam has spent the whole time he’s been in Tropical Breeze setting up his gallery. He’s neglected his house. Everything is still in boxes. When they decided to talk it all out, and maybe with something more than talking in Maida’s mind, she convinced him to come to her house. And then, she was hoping, to her bed. Beneath whatever covering she had on, she was ready to seduce him. Back at her house, whatever Adam had been planning, Maida took control. And then, she took him to bed.”

  “It was the paintbrushes,” Adam said.

  “Something changed when you saw the paintbrushes,” I suggested, when he didn’t continue.

  He looked up at me. “It was like having him there – right there – his beloved tools, things that he had touched and used, sitting there beside us while we betrayed him again. I couldn’t stand it. I snapped out of it then, and I finally understood that I would never be free of her. It would never end. She had left pieces of lingerie lying around the room, things I recognized from the past, lace and satin spilling out of open drawers. On the dresser, there was a gauzy scarf. As she lay on the bed, I reached for the scarf. Then I picked up a paintbrush. She asked me what I was doing, and when I looked back at her, I think she knew. She knew she’d pushed me past the breaking point. But by then, it was too late.

  “I threw her down on her face. That face. I couldn’t look at those eyes and do what I had to do. And he helped me. The paintbrush . . . he was right in blaming me, and not her. She’d always been a child to him. That’s why, when he began to plan his own death and get his affairs in order, he cut me out of the will, but left her in. He didn’t blame her. She wasn’t responsible. I was. He had trusted me.”