Color Me Dead by Bowers, Mary

of events sequential, unfolding like a diary. He hadn’t hidden it away. It was found in the middle drawer of his desk – the one, with the pens and erasers. One of the first drawers that would be pulled out in a search. He hadn’t been sure of his rights to his property, being a confessed murderer of two people, (he blamed himself for Grant Rosewood’s death, too), but to whatever extent he could, he left everything to Carmen. And he made it abundantly clear that part of his intention in writing a confession was to affirm that Carmen had nothing whatsoever to do with her mother’s death, and in fact, never knew about his affair with Maida. Adam’s confession didn’t, in fact, affect his estate, since he hadn’t been convicted of anything at the time of his death. So Carmen inherited his gallery and whatever equity remained after his loans were paid. She promptly closed it. “I’m an artist,” she told me later, “not an art dealer.” The shock of all the revelations seemed to bring Joy and Carmen closer together. Initially, I’d had my doubts about their working as a team, but when I saw them at their studio about a week after Adam’s death, there was a calm between them. I knew then that they would work well together. The Armor Plating of Our Peace was gone by that time. I didn’t ask about it. Maybe Joy had declared it finished and had it transported to the mall; maybe she had sent it off to the scrapheap. Who can say when a work of art is completed? Only the artist, and I think Joy wante