I've Got You Under My Skin

by Mary Higgins Clark

  Why not? It would be almost impossible to miss all the newspaper articles about the upcoming program. The gossip magazines were having a field day digging up everything they could find about Betsy Bonner Powell. USHERED TO A FATAL NEW LIFESTYLE was a particularly grating one that had appeared on the front page of the Shocker, a sensational weekly. The article detailed the first meeting of Betsy Bonner and Robert Powell. Betsy had taken her daughter, Claire, to lunch at a restaurant in Rye for her thirteenth birthday. Robert Powell, a widower, had been seated across the room with Claire’s friend Nina and her mother. As Betsy and Claire were leaving, Nina had called to them. They walked over to Powell’s table, where Nina introduced Betsy and Claire to the Wall Street hedge fund multimillionaire.

  “The rest is, as they say, history,” was the trite introduction to the final columns of that story. Robert Powell claimed it was love at first sight. He and Betsy Bonner were married three months later.

  “Actress Muriel Craig put up a brave front, but insiders say she was furious and blamed her daughter, Nina, for making it a point to call out to Claire in the restaurant.”

  I know that’s true, Claire thought as she followed the bellman to the elevator. Poor Nina.

  The suite consisted of a large bedroom and living room, a full bath, and a powder room furnished in pastel shades. It was both attractive and restful.

  Claire tipped the bellman, phoned room service, and unpacked her one suitcase. It contained the three outfits she had selected to bring with her, as well as her supply of new cosmetics.

  In one of her e-mails, Laurie Moran had requested Claire’s size and height, saying that she would have wardrobe changes available.

  Wardrobe changes! Claire had thought when she read the e-mail. Why on earth would I need changes?

  But then she had understood. Moran would provide gowns similar but not identical to the ones they had worn twenty years ago at the Gala.

  They would reenact a few of the scenes in the films, like the one of the four of them clinking glasses or with arms around one another, posing for the cameras. And individually being questioned by the police.

  I know I look good, Claire thought. Now I’m so like my dear mother.

  A light tap at the door told her that room service had arrived with the chicken salad and iced tea she had ordered.

  But as she nibbled at the salad and sipped the tea, Claire realized that she was not as brave as she had thought.

  Something was telling her not to go forward with her plan.

  Just nerves, she tried to reassure herself. Just nerves.

  But it was more than that.

  Like a drumbeat in her head, her inner voice was saying, Don’t do it. Don’t do it. It is not worth the risk!

  13

  It had been a long trip from Cleveland to Westchester Airport. A heavy rainstorm had caused their plane to sit on the tarmac for two hours, and even though they were flying on a small private jet, there was little space to move around. This made it very difficult for Rod’s back. At one point, she suggested they just forget the whole thing.

  “Alie, this is your chance to get the degree you always wanted. Between Powell and the production company, you’ll net three hundred thousand dollars. It will pay for medical school and all the other expenses, but every cent counts. You know how desperately you have always wanted to be a doctor and then go into medical research,” Rod had said in refusal.

  Even if I can commute to school, I will have to be studying all the time. Where does that leave Rod? Or if I have to go away to school, does he leave his job at the pharmacy and come with me but then have nothing to do? she wondered. But if that happens, then the pharmacy loses both him and me, and we have to hire two new people. I don’t know how that’s going to work.

  It was three o’clock by her wristwatch when they landed in Westchester. By then Rod’s expression was sufficient proof of the pain he was in. After he hobbled on crutches from the cabin to his waiting wheelchair, Alison bent over him and whispered, “Thank you for making this trip.”

  He managed a smile as he looked up at her.

  Mercifully the driver, a ruddy-faced man of about fifty with the build of an ex-boxer, was waiting for them in the terminal. He introduced himself to them. “I’m Josh Damiano, Mr. Powell’s chauffeur. He wanted to be sure you had a comfortable ride from the airport to your hotel.”

  “How kind of Mr. Powell.” Alison hoped that the contempt she felt did not show. Now that they were back in New York, a kaleidoscope of memories was flooding her mind. Neither one of them had been in New York in fifteen years. That was when the doctors had told Rod there would be no more operations.

  By then their money was gone and Rod’s family was taking out loans to support them, but Alison had managed to take the necessary courses at night for a year and get her license as a pharmacist. They had gratefully seized the opportunity to go to Cleveland and work in his cousin’s pharmacy.

  I loved New York, she thought, but I was happy to get away from it. I always thought that the minute people saw me, they wondered whether I’d killed Betsy Bonner Powell. In Cleveland, for the most part, we have lived quietly.

  “There are benches near the doors,” Damiano said. “Let me get you settled comfortably and go for the car. I’ll try not to be too long.”

  They watched as he collected the luggage from the pilots. He was back for them within five minutes. “The car’s right outside,” he said as he helped Rod with his wheelchair.

  A shiny black Bentley was waiting at the curb.

  When Damiano helped Rod out of the wheelchair and into the backseat, Alison felt her heart wrench.

  He’s in so much pain, she thought, but he never complains, and he never talks about the football career he would have had . . .

  The big car began to move. “The traffic’s light,” Damiano told them. “We should be at the hotel in about twenty minutes.”

  They had chosen to stay at the Crowne Plaza in White Plains. The town was near enough to Salem Ridge, but far enough away from the hotels where the other three childhood friends who were on the program were staying. Laurie Moran made sure of that.

  “You two okay?” Damiano asked them solicitously.

  “I’m very comfortable,” Alison assured him as Rod murmured his assent.

  But then Rod leaned over and whispered, “Alie, I was thinking, when you’re on camera, not a word about sleepwalking and possibly being in Betsy’s room that night.”

  “Oh, Rod I never would,” Alison said, horrified.

  “And don’t volunteer that you’re hoping to go to med school unless they ask. It will remind everyone how disappointed you were when you didn’t get the scholarship to medical school, and how furious you were that Robert Powell got the dean to throw it to Vivian Fields.”

  The mention of her heartbreak the day of her graduation from college was enough to make Alison’s face contort with pain and rage. “Betsy Powell was trying to get into the Women’s Club with the top-of-the-line socialites, and Vivian Fields’s mother was the president of it. And of course Powell had leverage—he’d just donated a dormitory to the college! The Fieldses could have afforded to pay Vivian’s tuition one hundred times over. Even the dean looked embarrassed when he called out her name. And then he muttered something about Vivian’s academic brilliance. Right! She dropped out in her second year. I could have scratched Betsy’s eyes out!”

  “Which is why if they ask you what you’ll do with the money, just say that we’re planning to take a round-the-world ocean cruise,” Rod counseled.

  • • •

  Glancing into the rearview mirror, Josh Damiano observed Rod whispering something to his wife and watched her shocked reaction and how upset she instantly became. He could not hear what they were saying, but he smiled inwardly.

  It doesn’t matter whether I can hear them, he thought. The recorder
picks up everything that’s said in this car.

  14

  Regina Callari’s initial response upon learning that, between Fisher Blake Studios and Robert Powell, she would net three hundred thousand dollars for appearing in the program was one of relief and elation.

  The crushing burden of living paycheck to paycheck, which translated to house sale to house sale in a terrible real estate market, had been lifted from her shoulders.

  It almost gave her that warm, secure feeling she had felt in early childhood, until the day she found her father’s body hanging in the garage.

  Over the years she had had the same dream about her early life. In it, she woke up in her big bedroom, with the pretty white bed that had a spray of delicate pink flowers painted on the headboard, the night table, the dresser, the desk, and the bookcase. In the dream she could always vividly see the pink-and-white bedspread, the matching draperies, and the soft pink rug.

  After her father’s suicide, when her mother realized how little money they had, they had moved to a three-room apartment, where they shared a bedroom.

  Her mother, who loved fashion, had gotten a job as a personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman, where she had once been a valued customer. Somehow they’d gotten by, and Regina had proudly graduated from college on a financial-aid scholarship.

  After Alison’s wedding and all the gossip about Betsy’s death, I moved to Florida to escape, Regina thought as she boarded the plane in St. Augustine. Some escape. Put it aside, she told herself. Don’t keep dwelling or you’ll drive yourself crazy.

  A few hours earlier she had seen Zach off on his backpacking trip to Europe. He was meeting his group in Boston, and they were flying to Paris tonight.

  Regina settled comfortably in the small private plane and helped herself to a predeparture glass of wine.

  She smiled briefly at the memory of the visit she and Zach had just shared.

  When he had arrived home from college two weeks earlier, she had put a CLOSED FOR VACATION sign up on the front door of the office and announced to Zach that they were going on a vacation together—a cruise through the Caribbean.

  The closeness between them that she was so afraid was lost had been regained—even magnified—on that trip.

  Zach purposely said little about his father and stepmother, but once she asked, he told her everything.

  “Mom, I knew when Dad made money, lots of money, he should have given you more. I think he would have, except he was afraid of Sonya’s reaction. She has a really bad temper.”

  Zach’s father was writing the songs that made him rich when we were married, but the first one didn’t sell until a year after we were divorced. I couldn’t afford a lawyer to prove that he wrote it when he was married to me, Regina had thought bitterly.

  “I think he regrets marrying Sonya,” Zach had told her. “When they have an argument, the decibel level goes through the roof.”

  “I love it,” Regina remembered telling Zach.

  She warmed at the memory of Zach’s compliments about her twenty-pound weight loss. “Mom, you look so cool,” he’d said, more than once.

  “I worked out at the gym a lot these past two months,” she told him. “I realized that I’d gotten out of the habit of going there regularly.”

  On the cruise he asked her about her parents. “All you ever really told me was that Grandpa committed suicide because he had made some bad investments and was broke, and that Grandma was planning to live in Florida when she retired, but died in her sleep only a year after you moved here,” he said.

  “She never got over losing my father.”

  Zach looks so much like my father, Regina thought now as the plane took off. Tall, blond, and blue-eyed.

  The last night they were at dinner on the cruise Zach asked her about the night Betsy died. He had overheard his father telling Sonya all about it and had googled it.

  Regina had then told him about the note.

  Was I wrong to tell him about it? she wondered now. I needed to talk to someone about it. I was always worried I had made a mistake by not showing it to my mother.

  Don’t dwell on it, Regina thought as she helped herself to a second glass of wine.

  It was eight o’clock when she landed at Westchester. The driver who met her introduced himself as Mr. Powell’s chauffeur, Josh Damiano. He told her that Mr. Powell wanted to ensure her comfort.

  It was hard not to laugh out loud. When he opened the door of the Bentley for her, she could not resist commenting to him, “I guess Mr. Powell has outgrown the Mercedes?”

  “Oh no,” Damiano answered with a smile. “He has a Mercedes wagon.”

  “I’m so glad.” Shut your mouth, Regina warned herself as she stepped into the car.

  They were barely leaving the airport when her cell phone rang.

  It was Zach. “We’re about to board, Mom. Wanted to be sure you landed safely.”

  “Oh, Zach, how sweet of you. I miss you already.”

  Zach’s tone changed. “Mom, the note. You told me you were tempted to shove it in Powell’s face. Have you got it with you?”

  “Yes. I have it, but don’t worry. I won’t be that crazy. It’s in my suitcase. I promise you, no one can find it.”

  “Mom, tear it up! If anyone found it, you could be in big trouble.”

  “Zach, if it makes you feel better, I promise I’ll tear it up.”

  No I won’t, she thought, but I can’t let him get on that plane upset about me.

  • • •

  In the front seat, Josh Damiano had not expected to record Regina because she was traveling alone. When he heard her phone ring, he quickly turned on the recorder. Maybe I’ll get lucky, he thought.

  You couldn’t be too careful when you worked for a man like Mr. Powell.

  15

  It had been a long day. Sitting in her office with Jerry and Grace, Laurie had gone over a myriad of details to ensure everything was in order for the first day of shooting.

  She finally leaned back and said, “That’s it, the die is cast, we can’t do anything more now. The graduates are all here, and tomorrow we meet them. We start the day at nine A.M. Mr. Powell said that the housekeeper will have coffee and fruit and rolls prepared.”

  “It’s amazing. They claim that not one of them has been in touch with the others all these years,” Jerry observed, “but I bet they google each other once in a while. I would if I were one of them. My aunt always googles to see what her ex is up to.”

  “I would guess this meeting will be awkward for at least the first few minutes,” Laurie said, a worried note in her voice. “But they were close friends for years, and they all went through hell being interrogated by the police.”

  “Nina Craig once told a reporter every one of them was accused of having been part of a plan to murder Betsy, and that the detective told her she’d better turn state’s witness to get a lighter sentence,” Jerry recalled. “That must have been pretty scary.”

  “I still don’t get why any one of the graduates would have wanted to kill Betsy Powell,” Grace said, shaking her head. “They’re celebrating their graduation at a lavish party. They have their whole lives in front of them. They all look happy in the films of the party.”

  “Maybe one of them wasn’t as happy as she looked,” Laurie suggested.

  “This is the way I look at it,” Grace declared. “Betsy’s daughter, Claire, certainly didn’t seem to have any reason to kill her mother. They were always very close. Regina Callari’s father lost his money in one of Powell’s hedge funds, but even her mother admitted that Powell had repeatedly warned him that while he might make a lot of money, he should not invest more than he could afford to lose. Nina Craig’s mother was dating Powell when he met Betsy, but unless you’re really crazy you don’t suffocate someone for a reason like that. And Alison Schaefer married her boyfriend four mo
nths after graduation. He was already a football star with a multimillion-dollar contract. What reason would she have had for putting a pillow over Betsy Powell’s face?”

  As she was speaking, Grace held up her fingers one by one to illustrate the point she was making. “And that sour-looking housekeeper had been hired by Betsy,” she continued. “My guess is it was as simple as a burglary gone wrong. The house is big. There are sliding glass doors all over the place. The alarm wasn’t on. One door was unlocked. Anyone could have gotten in. I think it was someone who was after the emerald necklace and earrings. They were worth a fortune. Don’t forget, one of the earrings was on the floor of her bedroom.”

  “Someone in the crowd may have been a party crasher,” Laurie agreed. “Some of the guests asked to bring friends, and there are a couple of people in the films that no one could identify positively.” She paused. “Well, maybe this program will bring that out. If so, Powell, the housekeeper, and the graduates will certainly be glad they participated.”

  “I think they’re already glad,” Jerry observed. “Three hundred thousand dollars net is a pretty nice number to put in your wallet. I wish I had it.”

  “If I did, I’d treat myself to a new apartment that’s only a four-story walk-up,” Grace said with a sigh.

  “But if it turns out that one of them did it, she could always hire Alex Buckley to defend her,” Jerry suggested. “With his fees, that three hundred thousand dollars would go up in smoke.”

  Alex Buckley was the renowned criminal lawyer who would be the host of the program and would conduct separate interviews with Powell, the housekeeper, and the graduates. Thirty-eight years old, he was a frequent guest on television programs discussing major crimes.

  He had become famous by defending a mogul accused of murdering his business partner. Against tremendous odds Buckley had secured a not-guilty verdict, which the press had deplored as a miserable miscarriage of justice. Then, ten months later, the business partner’s wife committed suicide, leaving a note saying that she had murdered her husband.