“We thought it would be nice. I take it you’re still hanging with David Beckett?”
“Yes.”
“And, of course, you’re both obsessed with the death of that poor Stella Martin?”
“As you imagine,” Katie agreed.
“Well, no one can solve something like that, and if you two become too obsessed, you’ll be worthless because you won’t see straight. Come on out, we’ll have drinks and dinner.”
David had hung up. Katie looked over at him. “It’s Clarinda. She wants us to meet with her and Jonas and walk around Mallory Square, have drinks and dinner.”
She thought that he would turn down the idea, because he was-obsessed.
“That sounds fine. What time are we meeting them, where?”
“What time, where?” Katie repeated to Clarinda.
“Half an hour-sunset is coming soon. The bar behind the Westin, how’s that?”
David had turned and was starting for the stairs. “Hey, where are you going?”
“Just to freshen up.”
“Well, then, I have to freshen up, too!”
“Ten minutes!” he said. “We’ll run by your place, and you have twelve minutes.”
He was good to his word, but he came down having stepped into the shower, and with freshly shaven cheeks and damp hair. He was devastating, she thought. It wasn’t the simple fact of his good looks, it was more. There was something that seemed hard and chiseled about his features, strong about his stature and compelling when he smiled. She took one look at him and nearly ran for the door, eager to get out before she longed to do something rather than leave and make their appointment.
They walked to her house, and he seemed light, taking her hand, swinging it as they hurried along.
Once in the door, he was all business. “You have twelve to fourteen minutes,” he told her.
“I can be faster than a speeding bullet,” she promised.
And she was. She managed a sixty-second shower and chose a halter dress and sandals with one-inch heels, ran a brush through her hair, splashed water on her face and ran on back down.
“I’m impressed-you have two minutes to spare.”
She smiled, walked to him, leaned against him and kissed him. He smelled divine. He felt rock-hard, and yet warm and vital. His tongue moved in her mouth, and she forgot all about the sunset.
He moved back, smiling, smoothing her hair. She quickly opened the door and stepped into the night, locking the door behind her.
“Sunset on Mallory Square. I can’t remember the last time I was there,” he said.
“I haven’t been in a while myself,” she said.
The city seemed to be teeming with people, even though it was a weekday. The air was already a hint cooler, and the sun was low in the western sky. Shadows seemed to darken doorways, as lights came on in the streets and streamed from shops and bars.
They crossed Front Street and continued to the square. The bar was crowded. There were advertisements everywhere for Fantasy Fest.
Body painting here. Whatever body part you want-painted!
Costumes of the absurd!
Beer for a buck!
Live your Fantasy-clothes optional up in the Garden!
“Hmm. I guess we are pretty decadent here,” David said.
“Grown-ups still like to dress up, that’s all,” Katie said.
“Or dress down. I’ve seen lots of costumes that consisted of nothing but body paint,” he said, grinning.
They’d reached the bar. Clarinda, dressed casually in a white pinstripe dress-one that made Katie glad that she had changed-came running out to meet them. “Can you believe it? It’s crowded as hell in there, and we haven’t gotten to the first of the activities. But we’ve got a table up top, so we can see the sunset and some of the performers.” Clarinda smiled broadly, looping her arm through David’s. “Come on up and meet Jonas. He’s a conch, too, but younger than you-he was in our class in high school.”
“Sounds great,” David said pleasantly.
It might have been a normal night, Katie thought. Two couples out to enjoy time together.Jonas was tall, on the thin side, with a shy smile, but a pleasant manner. He seemed honestly pleased to meet David, and greeted him without any mention of the past-or the present.
“The city is insane!” he said, beckoning to their waiter. Katie and David ordered the draft-beer special for the night. David had his camera in his pocket, and though it looked like the usual slim digital camera that many people carried, Katie noticed that the lens was larger than most, and that it seemed to extend farther. Jonas asked him about the camera and David showed it to him, giving him the technical specifications. As he did so, Clarinda turned to Katie.
“You doing okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine. Why?”
“Well, that poor girl…it’s a similar murder.”
“Yes.”
“It means a killer is loose,” Clarinda said, and shivered. “I’m not making a move by myself, not a single move. I’ve moved right in with Jonas, and you know that I always liked keeping my independence. You-you’re hanging with David, right?” she asked.
Katie opened her mouth to answer, but Clarinda kept going. “I mean, all you have to do is know him to know that he didn’t kill anyone, but it is so bizarre that he’s back here, and that girl…you know?”
“I have complete trust in David,” Katie assured her.
As she spoke, David, who had been showing the camera to Jonas with the lens extended, suddenly stood.
He stared through the camera for a long moment.
She tried to see what had so captured his attention.
Below them, one of the local entertainers-originally from France-was performing with his multitude of cats. Cats that walked on wires and hopped over one another, and cats who jumped through burning hoops. Katie had always liked the man-he adopted strays to train, or saved animals from the local pound. A group was around him, laughing and chatting, and he had just chosen two youngsters to come up and help with the act. Beyond him were a pair of comedians who worked with balloon animals, and they had the group around them laughing, as well.
Beyond the entertainers was the sea, darkening like the sky. It was a calm night. Sea and sky together were picture-perfect.
The lights in the square suddenly seemed to brighten.
The sun had taken another plunge downward into the night. Orange, mauve and crimson streaks were streaming across the sky, with a deep purple on top, promising that night was nearly here.
David suddenly moved. He dropped the camera on the table, and he was gone, streaking down the stairs to the ground level below.
“David!”
Katie strained again to see what had attracted his attention before grabbing the camera and bolting down to follow him.
Just past the balloon men, there was a lone figure gathering his own fair share of the audience. The actor was dressed up as Robert the Doll. His mask must have been off; as Katie watched him, frowning, she saw that he was adjusting it, retying the bow at the back of his head that held the mask in place.
Katie had always considered the doll to be an ugly thing-and she was stunned that any parents would have allowed anyone to give their child such a present. Maybe the parents had been afraid of the servant who had given their child the doll, and it was easy to believe that whoever had made the doll was well versed in voodoo. Though the real doll was about three feet tall, the man wearing the costume was at least six feet, his size seeming to make the “doll” even uglier. The man’s mask was well made, and he seemed to have a bizarre and creepy face, just like the doll. Most of the time, Robert sat at the East Martello Museum, but he had recently been at a paranormal convention where he had been reputed to show an aura with special photography. The doll was good for the museum and for tourism.
But it was creepy.
The actor was standing on a little plastic platform, holding a stuffed dog toy just like the real doll’s and looking around the crowd in straw-stuffed silence with threatening moves.
Katie saw that David was making his way through the crowds, watching the cat man and the balloon artists, and heading for the doll.
She raced down the stairs in his wake, doing her best to weave through the crowd without plowing anyone down.
But as she reached the area where Robert the Doll was working, David burst in on him.
The actor forgot that he was working in silence. He let out a startled scream, jumped off his pedestal and started running.
David took off after him, and Katie took off after David.
David caught up with Robert the Doll on the grass behind the aquarium. He tackled him, as if he were sacking a quarterback, and the two plowed to the earth together.
People around them jumped back. Some gasped. One lady screamed. Another laughed and said it was part of the entertainment.
Katie rushed up to David, grabbing him by the arm. “David! Stop it, stop! You’re going to be nabbed for assault. What the hell are you doing?”
The man beneath him wasn’t fighting. A crowd was gathering. David let her drag him up, but he stared down at the man below him, then extended his hand. The actor took it slowly. He rose. David reached out, ripping the straw mask from the actor’s face.
“Katie, I don’t think you ever met Mike Sanderson. Mike was the fellow Tanya fell in love with while I was gone. He was supposedly in Ohio when she was murdered. But he wasn’t. He was in St. Augustine, we know, the day after, which means he could have easily been down here when the deed was done. And how very, very odd. Here he is-back again. Playing with history, dressed up like Robert the Doll. Maybe he likes to play at being Carl Tanzler, Count von Cosel, too. Maybe he needs a new dead bride every decade.”
The man was big; as big as David, and even bulkier. The sailor suit had hidden some of his muscle.
But it didn’t look as if he wanted to fight anyone.
It looked as if he suddenly wanted to do anything but entertain the crowd.
There was a sudden spurt of applause. Katie turned around to see that they had garnered a loud crowd-and they seemed to think it was all being done for entertainment.