Thorne Wilson's lighting design was also to be repeated, and Wilson, a big, hearty man with a penchant for using as many lighting instruments as his budget would allow (and often more), was delighted to recreate his former triumph, even if only for one performance. He scurried about the theatre, using the lighting board in the rear of the theatre as his home base, always on his walkie talkie to his minions above, those on the tall platform ladders called cherrypickers, and those in the ceiling, who were hanging and focusing the instruments.
Though Thorne Wilson was happy to be back with A Private Empire, Marvella Johnson did not share his enthusiasm. She had remained in New York, working in the costume shops and rental houses to recreate as closely as possible the show's costumes, many of them now sold, scattered, or rebuilt. Terri Deems had done most of the legwork, and Marvella rewarded her with the title of Costume Coordinator, and she would appear as such in the playbill directly under Marvella's name. That Sunday afternoon Terri worked in the fourth floor costume shop with three female seamstresses and one male, a flighty gay who got on her nerves, but who was a master of organization and could stitch a seam as quickly as the best of them.
Some of those who had never before been in the Venetian Theatre were wary at first of the place's reputation, and for the first hour or so were constantly glancing overhead or over their shoulders. But hardly any of them had never worked in a theatre that did not have some dark history of a violent death or a ghost or two, and when no one was strangled by a roll of adhesive tape, smashed by a falling counterweight, or skewered by a stage brace in the first hour of work, they began to relax, and brought to their jobs the attention and professionalism that had gotten them hired in the first place.
But neither Curt Wynn nor Terri Deems were quite so cavalier as their blissfully ignorant charges and co-workers. Although Curt had seen only the eerie and possibly hallucinatory revenant in the cellar, he firmly believed that a killer was stalking Dennis and Dennis's theatre, and had told everyone that if they saw any person in the theatre building they could not identify, to come to him immediately and tell him about it.
Now, as he walked about the stage, in the wings, in the dressing rooms, he could not banish the feeling that he was being watched. It was not, however, the sensation of being observed secretly, but rather of being watched quite openly and appraisingly. Every time he turned around, he expected to see the nemesis standing there unconcerned. But he saw nothing, not even from the corner of his eye.
Terri, on the other hand, had a more realistic knowledge of what stalked the Venetian Theatre. She had, after all, been with the imposter, spoken with him, touched him and more. If he had not actually raped her, the bastard had at least pushed her past the point of consensual sex. Still, when she thought of what he might have done, and what he had done to the others, she shuddered with the horror that such a man had had her. She felt unclean, and horribly used, and wished that she might see him again, captured and bound. She would spit on him then.
But now, surrounded by other women and one ineffectual male, she wanted nothing less than for the monster to come through the costume shop door. Still, she did not think he would come among so many, and she did not intend to be alone in the theatre, or be alone anywhere, for that matter.
She and Evan had adjoining rooms in the Kirkland Hotel. They had slept in each other's arms last night, and would, by mutual consent, continue to do so. Though she had grown to like him before, it was when they were together in New York that she thought she had begun to love him. He was the only boy she had ever known who made no demands on her, and although he had not gone to college, an omission that he was now planning to correct, he was one of the brightest people she had ever met. But more than that, they had fun together, and the last time Terri could remember having fun with a boy had been long before she had discovered sex and the power she was able to wield with it.
She missed him as she worked in the shop, and wished that he were nearby, down on the stage with Curt. But he would not come back to the theatre, and after he had told her what he had seen the day of his attack, she could not blame him. That it had been an hallucination she had no doubt, for such a vision as he had seen could only have come from the imagination of someone who, like Evan, seemed terrified at the mere thought of standing in front of an audience. "I might go in," he told her, "but not now, not yet. My gut cramps when I think about it."
"But if you weren't alone," she told him. "If you were with people …”
"I know. I will. I think I will. Maybe later this week. But not now. Not yet."
So he remained in the hotel, looking through the college catalogues he had obtained in New York. She hoped he would choose Columbia or N.Y.U. That way they could stay close to each other, even stay together.
Stay together. God, that was just too good to be believed. Something would have to go wrong, she thought with the fearful pessimism of the jaded young. She had no right to be that happy.
The following morning at nine-thirty, John Steinberg was once again in his office at the Venetian Theatre when Robert Leibowitz called and told him that Sid Harper's trial date had been set for the last week in May. There was no new evidence, and the lawyer was not at all certain that he could persuade a jury to free Sid.
If Leibowitz used the "mystery man" defense, claiming that one individual had been responsible for most if not all of the deaths that had taken place in the theatre building, the jury might rationally assume that if circumstantial evidence indicated that Sid was responsible for Donna Franklin's murder, he might just as well have been responsible for the others, except for Whitney's, of course.
"Doesn't the fact that Whitney was murdered," Steinberg said, "indicate that this `mystery man' exists?"
"Possibly," Leibowitz answered. "But the prosecuting attorney might be able to make those wounds on the girl's lips and the broken nose look self-inflicted -struggling to escape suffocation. I'd feel a lot better if it was a more obvious murder. But if we ignore the mystery man, the jury might just as rationally decide that it was Harper and no one else who had murdered Miss Franklin and Miss Franklin only. Our only hope is that something comes up before the trial begins."
"Like what?" Steinberg asked.
There was a long pause. "Like another murder," Leibowitz said. "A murder that couldn't be anything else."
Now it was Steinberg's turn to pause. "Well," he finally said to Leibowitz, "I'll see what I can turn up."
He hung up just as Ann came in. "Leibowitz needs another murder to free Sid," he told her. "Would you please canvass for volunteers among the cast and crew?"
Ann ignored the comment. "What shall I do, John? Do you have letters?”
“Of course. But before we get to business, how's Dennis?"
"Dennis is… very much the same."
"Your psychic did nothing to allay his concerns?"
"I don't know, John."
"No one seems to know much of anything. I assume the purpose of this… alleged psychic was to try and visualize our house terrorist?"
Ann paused just a moment too long. "Yes."
"And did he have any visions?"