Reign (20 page)

"You're not."

"I know," he said, and surveyed the doughnuts. "Nor am I fat, but perhaps I can remedy that shortcoming. Are there any cream filled ones here?"

She pointed. "Those."

"My weakness," he said, taking one and extending his neck so that no powdered sugar would fall on his costume. "Delicious," he said after swallowing a bite. "Now. Come with me."

He led her across the backstage area toward his dressing room, and she went reluctantly, unsure of what to expect. If he had taken a fancy to her, and expected a squeeze and a tickle in private, or even more, he would get an unpleasant surprise, even if he
was
Dennis Hamilton. Nevertheless, she followed him inside, where they found Sid Harper sitting in a corner reading a copy of
Downbeat
. "Sid, give Robin here fifty dollars, please."

"What?" she said, surprised.

"For
doughnuts
," Dennis said. "Every night I want you to buy several dozen for the cast and crew, and when you're out of money see Sid and he'll give you more. That was a nice deed, and nice deeds are not often enough rewarded in this world. Besides," he grinned, and for the first time Robin saw the man behind the mask, "I
like
doughnuts. And if you buy them, then I don't have to feel guilty about eating them."

She bought the doughnuts as directed, and, since Dennis was generally at the doughnut table a half hour before curtain (he always ate one and one only), she made it a point to dress early and be there as well. Their conversations lengthened, got more serious, and in a short time Dennis suggested that they finish over dinner after the show. One dinner led to another, and by the time the show arrived in Portland for a week's run, they were spending most of their time together. They did not sleep together until San Francisco, although by that time it seemed a foregone conclusion. She could tell that it was more than lust that had brought Dennis into her arms, and, several months later, one night in his suite when she grew bold enough to broach the subject of marriage, she was pleased to find him receptive. Although she felt in retrospect that she could have used a more subtle approach than, "Do you ever think of getting married again," such a bold sally had the desired effect.

"Yes, I've thought of it," he told her. "A lot lately. And I've thought about it because of you, Robin. Because you're one of the few giving people I've ever met. And I'm damn sure you're the prettiest." He smiled. "And the best in bed, for what that's worth. You're the best thing that's happened to me for a long, long time."

"It sounds like you'd be crazy to let me get away."

"It does indeed." They had been lying on the carpet of his living room watching a football game on television, and he turned off the set, reached over, and took her hand. "Do you love me?" he asked.

"I do," she said. "Yes."

"Marry me then. Take care of me, and I'll take care of you. I need someone like you very much. I have for a long time."

She didn't ask him then whether he loved her as well as needed her. After they were married, he told her that he did, and she had never had any reason not to believe him. Their marriage had been a good one, although the second year of the tour she regrettably stopped performing at his request, after he told her that he felt she would be far more of a help to him as a liaison between him and John Steinberg. There were so many things, he said wearily, that John expected of him, a hundred little decisions a week that sapped his strength, all of which he needed lately for his performance.

At first she was reluctant to stop performing, especially to fill the role of majordomo, a position already held, she felt, by Sid. Dennis's response to that was curt. "But you're my
wife
, Robin. You know how I think, you know what I'll say before I say it." She wasn't so sure of that, but she didn't disagree. "Besides, Sid, as much as I love him, is really a glorified cook and valet. He makes no decisions other than what to serve for dinner and what tie to lay out for me. As for major business decisions . . . darling, you could be of
great
help to me."

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if part of it was that he didn't want her to perform any more, but she bit it back. Dennis, although he was always kind to her, was possessive as well, and she could not help but feel that he resented her performing because it meant that her affections were divided, that the energies she brought to her stage work were somehow energies that were taken away from him, and, like a selfish child, he resented it.

Still, she did as he asked, deferred to him as did so many others, because to refuse would have been unthinkable, an act of treason to the throne. People obeyed Dennis, from his son Evan to John Steinberg. Robin simply fell into line and obeyed as well. She had promised to take care of him, and take care of him she would. She saw all too easily the insecurity behind the imperial mask, and she loved the man there. Too, she loved the life that he had given her — the luxurious suites, the fine dinners, the parties with famous people, the clothes, the jewelry — Dennis never scrimped. All she had to do was to mention that she thought something was nice, and he would buy it for her, sometimes on the spot, more often later as a surprise. This generosity was one way he knew to show affection, and she appreciated it. It showed her that her efforts to make his private life as easy as possible were not taken lightly.

Nor should they have been. It could be hard work to live with Dennis Hamilton. Despite the change that had recently come over him, he had often been demanding and imperious and selfish. But the rewards, both financial and emotional, had been great. There was no denying that she loved the man and the life she led with him.

But now, with the reappearance of Ann Deems, Robin saw the possibility —indeed, in her imagination, the likelihood — of that life being taken away, of a quick and savage divorce and settlement and remarriage to Ann. And although she knew that whatever settlement she would receive would be a greater sum than she could imagine, it was not money she wanted. It was Dennis. Dennis when they were alone together and the masks came down, when the
regalness
turned to tenderness.

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.

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.