Chet Williamson - Reign

He had feared she would hesitate, claiming ignorance or inability, but she did not, and love and admiration surged through him as he saw her nod, heard her say, "All right. I'll do it. If you and John think I can, then I can. I only have one request.”

“And that is?"

"I want to move in here. Into the building, in one of the vacant fourth floor suites."

Dennis felt ice in the pit of his stomach. "No, Ann. No."

"Dennis, I have to. I've seen what Donna's job was like. She had to be accessible to John at all times."

He sought for an excuse to keep her out of the building. "But what about Terri? You want her to live alone?"

"I never see her now as it is. I think we'd both be more comfortable if we were apart for a while. Maybe that's a coward's way out, but I just can't bear any more confrontations with her."

"No. It's too dangerous."

"Dangerous?"

" Yes. There have been four deaths in this building."

"And they all have explanations, Dennis. Tommy and Robin's deaths were both accidental, Harry, as impossible as it seems, had to be a suicide, and…" She trailed off.

"And Sid killed Donna? Is that what you think?"

"What else is there to think, Dennis? After what you told me about the two of them being the only ones there? I agree, it seems incredible that Sid could do such a thing, but what other explanation is there? I like Sid too, and if you could give me another possibility I'd grab onto it."

"He didn't do it, Ann."

"You say that as his best friend, but do you really believe it?"

Dennis thought about Sid and Donna and the Emperor's hand going through the wall, his own fingers feeling nothing but air where the Emperor stood, thought about Terri's accusation, thought about how real artists' creations could be. "I don't know," he said. "I really don't know."

"I'm moving in, Dennis. That's the only way I'll agree."

"Then you can't agree," he said, calling her bluff. "You cannot move in here. In fact, Whitney's moving out tomorrow – Marvella's daughter finally found a place that's suitable. But even if she hadn't, I'd have the two of them put in a hotel, whether Marvella kicked and screamed or not."

"All right, Dennis. I'll stay at home then. But I think you're being too cautious.”

“I don't," he said. "Trust me."

~* ~

Little work was done in the Venetian Theatre offices that day. Robert Leibowitz, Sid's attorney, spoke with Steinberg, Dennis, and Curt for hours, then spent nearly as much time in Sid's suite in the company of a policeman. By late afternoon, Dennis felt exhausted, and when Steinberg asked him to join him for dinner, at first he declined.

"Come on, Dennis," Steinberg said. "It'll be good for you to get away from the building for a while. Besides, your own cooking could be fatal, you know." So he agreed to meet John at six-thirty, when they would walk together to the Inn.

When he arrived in the lobby, he saw Whitney sitting on a chair, swinging her short legs back and forth. When she looked up, her expression was far removed from her usual childish glow of wonder. "Hello, Whitney," he said, smiling at her, but she did not smile back.

"Hello, Mr. Hamilton."

"Waiting for your grandmother?"

She nodded. "We're going to McDonald's. Then we're gonna work in the shop tonight. I'm gonna help."

"Ah. Are you excited about going home?"

"Yeah," she said. "It'll be okay." She looked down for a moment, then said with juvenile candor, "Mr. Hamilton, is it true about Sid? Did he really hurt – kill Donna?"

"I don't know, Whitney. I'd rather believe not."

"I don't think he did," the girl said. "He loved her too much to hurt her. He never hurt me, and he got mad at me sometimes."

Dennis smiled, blessing the trust of children, wishing that it remained in himself. "I think you may be right, Whitney. I hope so anyway."

"Then did someone else do it?"

"I… I don't know. It could be, I suppose."

"I'm not afraid. Grandma'll take care of me."

"I'm sure she will." As if on cue, the elevator doors opened, and Marvella stepped out. "Hello, Marvella."

"Dennis," she said, and nodded to him. She looked as though she had been crying. "Awful thing, awful thing."

He nodded back, and without another word she took her granddaughter's hand and they left the building.

Dinner was mercifully bereft of any discussion of the killing, but it was there all the same, a ghostly presence, impossible to ignore, that sat at the table with them over each course, that ingratiated itself in every bite of food, every word they spoke.

"You didn't eat very much," Steinberg observed as the waiter cleared away Dennis's half-eaten dessert.

"Not much of an appetite."

"You need exercise. When's the last time you had a swim?"

"Weeks ago. I feel too tired."

"That's precisely when you should exercise. Let's have a dip when we get back."

Though a swim was the last thing that Dennis wished for, he felt incapable of refusing. It was somehow easier to go into the locker room, change into trunks, and join Steinberg in the pool. Dennis marveled at the man's grace in the water, heavy as he was. Steinberg swam laps, dove from the high board, and went for great lengths underwater, breaching the surface and taking in great lungfuls of air that Dennis felt would have burst him in two. Dennis, on the other hand, paddled without much vigor back and forth across the pool, resting often, his arms on the cool tile of the pool's edge.

After twenty minutes of exertion, Steinberg pulled himself out of the water for the last time. "Well, I'm sufficiently exhausted for a good night's rest, even after the events of the past day. Join me for a nightcap?"

Dennis shook his head. "No thanks. This feels good. I think I'll just stay in the water a bit longer."

"You'll be all right alone?"

"Why, you think there's something here?" He said it before he even realized it was out of his mouth. It was the lassitude the water caused that made him careless. Steinberg's eyes narrowed. "Something? What do you mean, something?”

“I… don't know. I guess I'm spooked, that's all."

"There's nothing here," Steinberg said with more force than Dennis thought was necessary. The three words implied a multitude of sentiments, chief among them that Sid was safely in jail.

"You think he did it?" Dennis asked Steinberg. It was the first time either of them had spoken of it that night.

"Yes. I do. There is no one else." Without another word, Steinberg turned and walked into the locker room, leaving Dennis alone in the pool.

He closed his eyes and rested his head against his arms. "No," he whispered to himself, unable to believe his friend had done what everyone except he and a trusting child thought he had. Even the attorney had seemed dubious that anyone else could have conceivably murdered Donna.

As if to escape from his thoughts, he twisted backward into the pool, immersing his head beneath the water, diving down, down, until his fingers touched the smooth surface of the pool's bottom, then came up again, his eyes still closed against the chlorine, against what he himself was beginning to think was the truth.

But when he opened his eyes, he saw that he had been right after all, saw that Sid was innocent. When he opened his eyes, he saw the Emperor standing by the side of the pool.

He was holding out a towel.

(THE EMPEROR wears his full dress uniform. His skin shows no signs of perspiration from the humidity of the pool. Smiling, he holds the towel toward DENNIS, who, treading water, seems stunned, and afraid to swim any nearer.)

THE EMPEROR

Not ready to come out? It won't wash off, you know. No matter how long you stay in there.

DENNIS

What… won't wash off?

THE EMPEROR

The blood. Your friends' blood on your hands.