And he had been more tender of late, more sensitive to the needs of those around him, even weak at times, so that he needed her all the more to be his strength, and she would be, no one else. No, she would let no one come between them. She would not lose him. She would not lose Dennis.
Dennis.
She saw him, far below, way upstage in the shadows. She could make out no details, but she knew it was Dennis from the long, magisterial stride he used on the stage.
'Dennis?' she called, not loud enough to be heard below, even with the excellent acoustics of the Venetian Theatre. She would have called louder, but something stopped her. She would not admit that it was fear, for she had never feared her husband. What was it then? she wondered. What caused this hesitance on her part to call down to him?
She opened her mouth to call louder, but she stopped as the figure paused. She saw its leonine head turn in her direction, caught the spark of red in the hair, a quick flash of blue eyes, and the lights shining dimly on…
Gold braid.
He was wearing his costume, the imperial uniform of the Emperor Frederick.
She tried to call again, but her tongue felt thick and disobedient in her mouth. Now the lights seemed to dim even more, the figure backed slowly upstage, and in a few seconds was lost in the darkness.
Robin sat there, staring into the blackness at the rear of the stage, but seeing nothing. 'Dennis,' she whispered, then stood up. The shortest route back to the suite was down the steps, but the dread in her would not let her go any closer to the stage. Instead she turned and walked up the stairs to the back balcony stairway, frequently glancing over her shoulder. At the top she turned and looked down, but saw nothing.
When she arrived back at the suite, Dennis was sleeping in precisely the position she had left him a half hour before. He was still naked, the sheet and blanket pulled over his hips. There was no sign of a costume, no traces on his unmarked skin to indicate that he had on any clothing since she had left him.
She lay down beside him, put an arm around his shoulders without waking him, and began to worry, not only about Dennis and Ann Deems, but about herself.
Scene 12
During the next few weeks, the Venetian Theatre was filled with caution. Ann Deems felt her way into her job, neither seeking out Dennis's company nor seeking to avoid it. When she did run into him, he was generally accompanied by Robin, who hovered over him protectively, an attitude to which he made no protest. Their conversations, as a result, were merely friendly and perfunctory.
And, like her mother, Terri Deems felt her way into her new job. She made the shell around herself even harder in the presence of Marvella Johnson, refusing to be baited, accepting Marvella's reproofs with a sullen silence, swearing to herself that she would do nothing to raise Marvella's ire again. The best way to accept chastisement, she decided, was not to do anything to be chastised for in the first place.
Robin's fear of losing Dennis hung about her palpably, as did her concern over what exactly she had seen from the balcony, and Dennis's own uncertain emotions gnawed at him slowly. Marvella and Whitney remained shaken from the little girl's narrow escape in the costume loft, and Donna and Sid were puzzled over what they took to be Dennis's recent deviant behavior toward Donna.
With the strange death of Tommy Werton casting an additional pall over the denizens of the Venetian Theatre, it would be no exaggeration to say that everyone walked on eggs in those weeks before Thanksgiving.
Two days before that bountiful holiday, Dan Munro, Kirkland's chief of police, sat in the six-year-old department Buick in the huge parking lot of the Venetian Theatre. From time to time he thought about the turkey dinner that his wife and sister and mother would make together on Thursday. He wondered if his sister would cook the oyster stuffing that she always said never turned out right, although he could not remember a Thanksgiving when he hadn't loved it. He thought too about the cranberry relish that was his mom's specialty, the mashed potatoes (gloriously lumpy and real, not instant) at which his wife Patty excelled, and the pies – always three kinds, at least – and he had to fight his kids for every bite.
Shit. He thought he should just forget about this damn theatre and go get himself some lunch. Maybe that would get all the visions of sugarplums out of his head.
But it wouldn't get out the other visions that had been there for nearly a month now, ever since the official ruling of Tommy Werton's death had called it an accident. Oh, there was no reason that it couldn't have happened the way they determined it did. The rope could have been loose on the pin and then slipped the rest of the way, sure. At first Munro had been willing to accept it.
But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that it didn't happen that way. Too many people heard Dennis Hamilton talking when Dennis Hamilton said he was quiet, heard him say things that he insisted he hadn't said. The only thing that that proved – to Dan Munro at least – was that Hamilton was lying about talking. Munro himself admitted that Hamilton couldn't have pulled the pin himself. It would have been physically impossible.
A confederate? Maybe. Hamilton calls the kid out, and the confederate yanks the pin and kills the kid, then runs out one of the stage doors, locking it behind him. The only thing was that the drivers and reporters who were hanging around outside didn't see anyone leave the theatre. And what would the motive have been? Maybe something nobody knew about. Maybe the Werton kid was screwing Hamilton's young wife. Munro grunted. Hell, with these theatre types, maybe the Werton kid was screwing Hamilton. Whatever it was all about, the damn thing just didn't wash.
So for the twentieth time this month, Munro sat in the parking lot watching people come and go, seeing the same faces over and over – the bunch who lived there, the two women, one young, one older, who worked there, the janitors, the delivery people. He sat there for hours at a time every few days at random. He didn't know what he expected to see, but he'd know it when he saw it. It was just a feeling that he had. Bill Davis, his good right hand, had teased him about those feelings over the years, calling them his sixth sense. But it had solved at least one murder, one of the few that had occurred in the fifteen years that Dan Munro was a member of the Kirkland police force. It had wasted a lot of time too, but it was his own time, not the town's, and if he wanted to waste his own time, well, dammit, that was his own business, wasn't it?
Just as Munro was getting ready to start the car and grab some lunch down at the Burger King, a cab pulled up in front of the Venetian Theatre's main entrance. Munro watched as the door opened and a young man climbed out. His red hair, though short, was not at all stylish, and a scraggly beard circled his face. He wore what looked like an Army-Navy store jacket, and pulled a khaki duffel from the back seat. The young man paid the driver, turned, and looked at the exterior of the building for over a minute after the cab pulled away. Then he hoisted the duffel to his shoulder and walked under the great marquee and through the heavy brass doors into the box-office area.
Now who in hell, Munro wondered, is that?
~* ~
Evan Hamilton paused again inside before trying the inner doors, only to find them locked. On either side were ticket booths, both closed, but next to the left-hand booth was a button with a small sign, Visitors. He rang it and waited.
In three minutes the curtains behind the glass of one of the inner doors parted, and a woman he did not recognize peered through. He thought she looked mildly frightened of him, and realized that he must be a pretty scary looking figure. So he smiled and gave a little wave, and she opened the door. 'Yes?' she said.
'I'm Evan Hamilton. Here to see my father.'
An expression of interest lit the woman's face. She was attractive, he thought, if a bit old for him. 'Evan,' she said, and opened the door wide enough for him to pass through. 'It's nice to meet you. I'm Ann Deems. I work for your father.'
He followed her the length of the lobby to a door that discreetly hid an elevator, which they entered. Ann pushed a button, and the doors closed. 'Does your father know you're coming?'
'No. It's sort of a… surprise.'
'Ah. Well, fine. That'll be nice.' The elevator was slow and cumbersome in its ascent, and he noticed that she was looking at him with what he took to be more than slight interest. As if self-conscious at being caught, she said, stammering a bit, 'I think Dennis and Robin are just finishing lunch now.'
He smiled. 'Think they'll invite me?'
Ann Deems laughed uncomfortably. 'I'm sure they will.'
