I've Got You Under My Skin

by Mary Higgins Clark

  Her nineteen-year-old son, Zach, had had the brains to destroy the copy she made of the note and had tried to find the original, then begged her not to carry it with her.

  What would it do to his life if she were arrested and indicted for Betsy’s death?

  She thought of the little boy who would come to the real estate office after school when he didn’t have practice for one of his sports and want to help her by folding and mailing ads for the agency to the local communities. He was always thrilled when one of the ads resulted in a listing. They’d always been close. She knew how lucky she was on that count.

  When Regina’s breakfast arrived, she tried to drink the coffee and eat a bite of the croissant, but it stuck in her throat.

  You’ve got to get a grip on yourself, she thought. If you look too nervous when that lawyer, Alex Buckley, interviews you, you’ll only make things worse.

  Please, God, she thought, let me be able to pull it off. The phone rang. The car was here to take her to the Powell estate.

  “I’ll be right down,” she said, unable to conceal the quiver in her voice.

  41

  Alison did not go back to sleep after the sleepwalking incident. Rod felt her tossing and turning in bed and finally put his arm around her and drew her close to him.

  “Alie, you’ve got to keep reminding yourself that you were sleepwalking that night. Even if you believe you were in Betsy’s room, it doesn’t mean that memory is accurate.”

  “I was there. She kept a low night-light on. I even remember seeing the earring sparkling on the floor. Rod, if I had picked it up, my fingerprints would have been on it.”

  “But you didn’t pick it up,” Rod said soothingly. “Alie, you’ve got to stop thinking like that. When you’re in front of the camera, you’ve got to just tell what you know—which is nothing. You heard Jane scream and rushed to the bedroom with the others. Like the others, you were shocked. When you’re interviewed, just keep saying ‘the others’ and you’ll be all right. And remind yourself that the reason you’re doing this program is because you want to have the money to go to medical school. What is it I’ve been telling you since you got the chance to go back to school?”

  “That one day you’ll be calling me the new Madame Curie,” Alison whispered.

  “Correct. Now go back to sleep.”

  But even though she stopped twisting and turning, Alison did not go back to sleep. When the alarm went off at seven o’clock, she was already showered and dressed in the slacks and polo shirt that she would soon be exchanging for the T-shirt and jeans she had worn the morning after Betsy Powell’s murder.

  42

  Laurie, Jerry, and Grace arrived at the Powell estate a few minutes after the crew, which included a hairdresser, makeup artist, and wardrobe assistant this morning. Two new vans were on the set for their use—one to serve as a dressing room, the other for hair and makeup for those who would be on camera.

  Laurie had worked well with all three crew members before. “The first scene we’re shooting will be of the four graduates and the housekeeper in the clothes they put on after the body was discovered. The makeup should be light, because they wouldn’t have had the time or inclination to put any on. We have a picture taken that morning by the police. Study it, then try to make them look the way they looked twenty years ago. Obviously they don’t have the long hair, but they’ve all aged very well.”

  Meg Miller, the makeup artist, walked over to the window of the van to get a better look at the photograph. “I can tell you this, Laurie: they all look scared to death.”

  “I agree,” Laurie said. “My job is to find out why. Of course you’d expect that they would look shocked and grief-stricken, but why do they all look so fearful? If Betsy was killed by an intruder, then what are they afraid of?”

  The scene would be shot in the den, where the police had directed the girls to wait that morning. Incredibly, none of the furniture or draperies had been changed, so the room bore an eerie sameness to the way it had looked twenty years ago.

  On the other hand, Laurie reasoned, my guess is that only Robert Powell has ever used that room in all these years. According to Jane Novak, the living room and dining room are where he does his entertaining when he has guests. From what she says, when he’s alone after dinner he either goes to the den and watches television or reads, or else he goes up to his suite.

  With only him living here and the way Jane keeps this place up, it’s no wonder there was no need to change the interior decorating.

  Or, she wondered, did Powell want to keep his home frozen in time, just as his wife had left it? She had heard of people like that.

  She shivered as she walked quickly back to the den and entered by the patio door. The crew was setting up the cameras. There was no sign of Robert Powell. Jane had told them that he was in his office and would be there all morning.

  From the beginning Powell had told her there was no need for him to equally compensate Jane. “I think I speak for her when I say we would both like a conclusion to this terrible business. Jane has always regretted the fact that after she locked all the doors for the night, the girls opened the one from the den, then when they came back in from smoking on the patio, they left it unlocked. If that had not happened, an intruder might not have been able to get in.”

  Maybe Powell and Jane are right, Laurie thought. After checking the cameras and the lighting, she went back out onto the patio and saw Alex Buckley getting out of his car.

  Today he was wearing a sport shirt and khakis in place of the dark blue suit, shirt, and tie he had been wearing yesterday. The top of his convertible was down, and the breeze had ruffled his dark brown hair. She watched as with what was probably an instinctive gesture he smoothed his hair back and walked toward her.

  “You’re an early bird,” he said with an easy smile.

  “Not really. You should be around when we start shooting a program at daybreak.”

  “No thanks. I’ll wait until I can push a button and see it on TV.”

  As he had in his office, he suddenly became businesslike. “Is the agenda still that we begin with me speaking to the graduates after you film them sitting in the den?”

  “Yes. I’m doing this out of sequence because I have a strong hunch that they have all rehearsed what they’re going to say to you. By starting with them all together, it may put them off guard.

  “And don’t be surprised at the way they’re dressed. They’re wearing replicas of the clothes they wore after Betsy’s body was found, and then they were told to change into street wear.”

  Alex Buckley seldom allowed his face to register surprise, but this time he was so startled that he could not conceal it.

  “You’re having them wear replicas of what they wore twenty years ago?”

  “Yes, for two scenes. The one in the den where they were herded with Jane as soon as the police arrived. And then one wearing gowns that are identical to the ones they wore to the Gala.

  “We’ll photograph the graduates against the background of films of them individually and together at the Gala. For example, when Robert Powell is toasting them, we’ll have a picture of the four of them looking at him.”

  Alex Buckley’s reply was interrupted by the limousines with the graduates arriving almost simultaneously. It was Laurie’s turn to be astonished when Muriel Craig stepped out of the backseat of the second limo while her daughter, Nina, stepped out of the front passenger door. Muriel wasn’t supposed to come today, she thought. Powell either called her or she’s come on her own.

  Either way, she’s bound to make Nina edgy and angry.

  Which might be good when Nina is being questioned.

  43

  On Tuesday morning Josh drove the Bentley to be hand-washed and detailed. Mr. Rob was very particular that it be kept in pristine order, Or else, Josh thought as he waited in the chair in the service
center.

  With a sense of satisfaction, Josh congratulated himself on solving the problem of how the graduates would be able to play the tapes he had recorded. He would put his cassette player in the powder room in the hallway next to the kitchen. There was a vanity table and bench in it for any guest who might want to touch up her makeup or hair. He would present the cassettes to Nina, Regina, and Alison and tell them they might be interested in hearing their conversations in the car, then suggest it might be worth fifty thousand dollars to have each copy destroyed.

  They would be panicky, the three of them, he was sure of it. Claire hadn’t said a word in the car when he drove her, so there was no cassette for her. And yet, of all of them, Josh would bet that she had the most to reveal.

  He had the suicide note that Regina had hidden in her purse. Josh had debated whether to give it to Mr. Rob or try to find a better use for it. Then he found his answer: charge Regina one hundred thousand dollars, maybe even more, to get it back and tell her that other­wise he would go straight to the police. That note might take any suspicion of killing Betsy off Mr. Rob, Jane, and the other graduates.

  And Josh would be a hero and good citizen if he turned it over to the police chief. But the police might ask what he was doing going through ladies’ handbags. He did not have a good answer to that question, and he was hoping one would not be necessary.

  Mr. Rob hadn’t sent him to pick up any of the graduates this morning. Instead, sounding testy, he instructed him to come to the house after he left the service center, in case he decided to go into the office.

  It was obviously unsettling for Mr. Rob to have all these people around. Not only must it bring up a lot of memories, Josh thought, but Mr. Rob must know that he’s under suspicion, too, and want desperately to clear his name.

  Like Jane, Josh had managed to sneak a look at Mr. Rob’s will when it was on his desk. He had left $10 million to Harvard, to be used to fund scholarships for deserving students, and $5 million to Waverly College, where he had received an honorary doctorate and had already had the library named after Betsy and him.

  Alison Schaefer had gone to Waverly. Josh remembered how she was the best student of the four girls and had talked about going to medical school, but then married Rod Kimball instead four months after the Gala.

  Josh had always wondered why she hadn’t brought Rod to the Gala that night. You never know, he told himself, they might have had an argument.

  As the service manager approached Josh to tell him the car was ready, Josh concluded his line of thinking. Mr. Rob is a very sick man trying to ensure his legacy before he dies, he decided.

  But as Josh got into the Bentley and drove away, he could not help thinking that there might be more reasons for Mr. Rob going ahead with the program than met the eye.

  44

  Leo Farley’s impatience at his hospitalization grew with every passing moment. Disdainfully, he looked at the needle inserted in his left arm and the bottle of fluid connected to it dangling overhead. He had a heart monitor strapped to his chest, and when he had tried to get up a nurse came rushing in. “Mr. Farley, you cannot go to the bathroom alone. You have to be accompanied by a nurse. However, you can close the door.”

  Isn’t that wonderful, Leo thought mockingly, even as he realized it wasn’t right to kill the messenger. Instead, he thanked the nurse and grudgingly allowed her to follow him to the door of the bathroom. At 9 A.M. when his doctor came in, Leo was loaded for bear. “Look,” he said, “I can get away without calling my daughter. She saw me last night just before I came in here, so I know she won’t look to speak to me until tonight. She has two more days to finish this program, and there’s a lot of pressure on her to make sure it’s successful. If I have to tell her I’m in the hospital, she’ll be terribly upset and probably end up coming here instead of finishing the show.”

  Dr. James Morris, an old friend, was equally forceful. “Leo, your daughter will be a lot more upset if something happens to you. I’ll call Laurie—she knows you get these fibrillations—make it very clear to her that you’re stable now and I should be able to release you tomorrow morning. I can do it before you call this evening or after. You will do her and your grandson a lot more good by staying alive and healthy than by risking a major heart attack.”

  Dr. Morris’s beeper sounded. “I’m sorry, Leo, I have to go.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll finish this later.”

  After Dr. Morris left him, he reached for his cell phone and called Camp Mountainside. He was connected to the camp administrator’s office, then the head counselor, whom he had met before. “This is the pain-in-the-neck grandfather,” he said. “I just wanted to know how Timmy was doing. Any nightmares?”

  “No,” the counselor said firmly. “I inquired about him at breakfast, and the senior camper in his bunk said he slept for nine hours straight without stirring.”

  Relieved, Leo said, “Well, that is really good news.”

  “Stop worrying, Mr. Farley. We’re taking good care of him. And how are you doing?”

  “I could be better,” Leo said ruefully. “I’m in Mount Sinai Hospital with heart fibrillations. I never like feeling that I’m not available for Timmy every minute of the day.”

  Leo could not know that the counselor was thinking that with the strain he had been under for the last five years, it was no wonder he was having fibrillations. Instead he heard and appreciated the counselor’s assurances. “You take care of yourself, Mr. Farley. We’ll take care of your grandson. I promise.”

  Two hours later, when Blue Eyes heard the recorded conversation, he thought excitedly, He has played into my hands. Now they’ll never doubt me.

  45

  Jane Novak had worn the same-style plain black dress and white apron for the twenty-nine years she had been in the Powell household.

  Her hair was also in the same style: combed back into a neat bun. The only difference was that it was now streaked with gray. Jane had never worn makeup and was scornful of Meg Miller’s attempt to put even the lightest powder and eyebrow pencil on her. “Mrs. Novak, it’s simply because the lights from the camera will wash you out,” Meg said. But Jane would have none of it. “I know I have good skin,” she said, “and that’s because I never used any of that silly junk on it.”

  She did not know that even while Meg was saying, “Of course, as you wish,” she was thinking that Jane indeed had a beautiful complexion and good features. Except for the droop at the end of her lips and the almost-scowling expression in her eyes, Jane Novak would be a very attractive woman, Meg thought.

  Claire was the next one who would accept only a minimum amount of makeup. “I never wore any,” she said. Then she added bitterly: “No one would look at me anyhow. They had my mother to rave over.”

  Regina was obviously so nervous that Meg did her best to pat the light beads of perspiration from her forehead with a concealer, in case she continued to sweat.

  Alison, very quiet, simply shrugged when Meg said, “We’re only doing a little because of the lights.”

  Nina Craig said, “I’m an actress. I know what lighting does. Do the best you can.”

  There was little that Courtney, the hairdresser, could do except to style the graduates’ hair as close to how it had looked in the twenty-year-old photograph.

  While Laurie waited for her stars in the den, Jerry and Grace were ready to make any adjustments Laurie thought necessary.

  An enlarged picture of the four graduates and Jane, taken twenty years ago by the police photographer, rested on an easel out of the range of the camera, a template for arranging the women for their interviews. The cameraman, his assistant, and the lighting technician had already placed the cameras accordingly. Three of the girls had been sitting on the long couch, giving the appearance of being huddled together. There were two armchairs on either side of the cocktail table in front of the couch. Jane Novak was in o
ne of them, her face grief-stricken, her eyes shining with unshed tears. Claire Bonner was sitting opposite her, her expression contemplative, but without any visible sign of grief.

  Busily observing the present activity, Alex Buckley sat near the door in the leather chair in which Mr. Rob often sat at the end of the day. “It’s a recliner,” Jane told Laurie. “He likes to adjust it so his feet are up. His doctor said it was good for circulation.”

  It’s a beautiful room, Alex thought as he looked around appraisingly. The mahogany paneling on the walls was the background for the vivid Persian carpet. The wall-mounted television was in the center of the bookshelves and over the fireplace. The furniture had been broken into two seating groups; the couch and chairs where the graduates and Jane Novak were now seated, and the couch and armchair with the leather recliner. The sliding glass door to the patio was on the right side of the couch where the girls were sitting and was, according to Jane, the door they had gone in and out to have cigarettes the night of the Gala, leaving it unlocked.

  According to the police report, the ashtrays on the patio table had been filled to overflowing that morning. Jane indicated that at least three empty bottles of wine were in the glass disposal unit, left after she and the caterers had cleaned up after the party.

  Alex listened as Laurie explained the photo shoot to the girls. “As you know, we simply want this shot of you to set the scene, with you in virtually the same outfits and in the same places as you were that morning. Then, separately, Alex Buckley will interview you in the spots where you are sitting now, to get your reflections on what you were thinking and feeling that morning. Were you talking to each other? From the old picture it doesn’t look as if you were.”

  Nina answered for them. “We almost didn’t say a word. I guess we were all in shock.”