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.
“Oh, good Lord! Go watch the cats,” Katie cried out.
Mike Sanderson hadn’t uttered a word. David was staring at him as if he could manifest daggers and press them into the man’s heart.
“Let’s get out of here!” she said.
She grabbed both men by the elbows, hating the fact that to get out of the crowd, she was going to have to get through the busy streets.
Walking arm in arm with Robert the Doll.
But Clarinda had reached them by then, and Jonas was right behind her. Neither of them had the least idea of what was going on, but Clarinda was always intuitive in any situation. “We can go right down Front Street, past the Old Customs House and the Westin, and then duck into Jonas’s place. Follow me.”
Katie felt absurdly like a college professor, struggling with fighting young adults. But after the first few seconds, there was no resistance from either man. When Mike Sanderson did stop suddenly, he explained himself quickly. “I have a boxful of money back there-I need it.” He blushed. “I’m supposed to be on a sales trip.”
“I’ll get it,” Jonas told them.
“You pretend to be on a sales trip-and you come here to pretend to be Robert the Doll?” David demanded.
“Fantasy Fest, every year,” Mike Sanderson admitted sheepishly.
“How long have you been doing this?” David asked.
“Since I left. Well, not exactly. I finished college, and then, since then…”
“Why?” Katie asked.
“I love it. I love Fantasy Fest. I always have. My wife hates it. So I pretend I’m on a sales trip.”
“How can you love this place-when Tanya died here?” David demanded.