‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ Chapters 21-30

Chapter 23

Alex Buckley rushed to Nina and knelt over her, checking her heartbeat, making sure she was breathing. After their initial shocked silence, the others pushed back their chairs. Muriel, genuinely pale, clutched Robert Powell’s arm, then leaned over her daughter.

Nina’s eyes fluttered.

“She’s all right,” Alex said. “But give her air.” “Betsy,” Nina moaned. “Betsy.”

Laurie’s eyes turned to look at Claire, who had not moved from the doorway. It seemed to her that there was something of a triumphant expression on her face. Laurie had seen enough pictures of Betsy to guess that Claire had deliberately done everything possible to enhance her startling resemblance to her mother.

Alex picked Nina up, carried her into the den, and laid her on the couch. The others followed him as Jane came running in with a cold towel, which, with expert fingers, she folded on Nina’s forehead.

“Someone call a doctor!” Muriel screamed. “Nina, Nina, talk to me.”

“Betsy,” Nina murmured. “She came back.” Then, as Nina looked around, Muriel swooped down and clasped her face with both hands. “Nina, baby, it’s all right.”

With a sudden, violent motion, Nina pushed her mother away. “Take your hands off me,” she snapped, in a voice that was trembling with emotion. “Take your miserable hands off me!” And then she began to sob, “Betsy came back from the dead. She came back from the dead.”

Chapter 24

Blue Eyes watched with avid interest as Laurie Moran, clearly in charge now, directed the sequence of the filming.

She’s very efficient, he decided, watching her check the cameras to see if the angle was what she wanted.

At one point she beckoned to him, and Bruno went scurrying over.

She smiled briefly and asked him to remove the extra plants he had put in early this morning.

“They’re lovely,” she said, “but they weren’t here when we photographed last week.”

Bruno apologized profusely, even while he felt the thrill of being so near his prey. She’s so pretty, he thought. It would be a shame to spoil that beautiful face. He wouldn’t do it.

But, as he was standing so close to her, a new and wonderful plan began to form in his mind.

Five months earlier he had hacked into Leo Farley’s computer and phone, and since then he had known everything there was to know about his, Laurie’s, and Timmy’s activities. The computer courses he’d taken online had really paid off, he thought now.

He knew that Timmy was now in Camp Mountainside in the Adirondacks. And that it was only a four-hour drive from here.

Timmy’s entire schedule of activities at the camp was on Farley’s computer. And what was most interesting was that the hour between 7 and 8 P.M. was free time, when the campers were allowed to make or receive one phone call.

That meant that after 8 P.M., Laurie would not expect to speak to Timmy for another twenty-three hours.

How could he get the director of the camp to let him take Timmy away without arousing suspicion?

Blue Eyes pondered that question as he kept himself in the background, always ready to repair the slightest hint of damage to the lawn or shrubbery.

He even chatted a bit with the man and woman who were always close to Laurie.

Jerry and Grace. Young, both of them. The world ahead of them. He hoped for their sakes that they weren’t too near Laurie when her time to die arrived.

Which it would. Oh, yes.

It was with regret that Blue Eyes watched the equipment be put away for the day. From the talk around him, he knew that they’d be back at eight o’clock tomorrow, and at that time they’d start filming the graduates.

Always anxious to stay under the radar, as instructed, he phoned the office of Perfect Estates and gave the secretary fifteen minutes’ notice to pick him up.

When the van arrived, Blue Eyes was not pleased to see that Dave Cappo was behind the wheel. Dave was too nosy. “So, Bruno, where’d ya come from? Wuz ya always in landscaping? The wife and I would like to have you over for dinner any night at all. Up to ya.” Big wink from Dave. “You and I know she’ll squeeze your brains to hear everything about those four grads. Which one do you think did it?”

“Why don’t we make it a day or so after they wrap up here?” Blue Eyes suggested.

By then, he thought, with any luck, I’ll be gone, and you and your wife will have plenty to chew on.

Chapter 25

“So other than that, how did the day go?” Leo asked. He and Laurie were having a late dinner together at Neary’s, their longtime favorite restaurant on East Fifty-seventh Street. It was half past eight, and Laurie was visibly tired. She had just described the breakfast and Nina Craig’s fainting spell to him, then Nina’s reactions to her mother.

“It actually went all right,” Laurie said wearily.

“Just all right?” Leo tried to sound casual as he reached for his glass and took another sip of wine.

“No, I should say it went well,” Laurie said slowly. “We open with a view of the house as though we’re coming down the driveway. Alex Buckley was definitely the right choice for narrator. Then we show some tape of the Graduation Gala from twenty years back with the four graduates, none of them looking particularly happy.”

“How about Betsy Powell? Do you have much film of her interacting with the graduates?”

“Not that much,” Laurie admitted. “Most of the frames with her show her with her husband or talking to other adults—not that the graduates were kids,” she added hastily. “They were all twenty-one or twenty-two. But they were hardly ever with Betsy. We ran through the tapes with them today. I think they were all uncomfortable. Tomorrow we film them watching the excerpt we’ll use on camera, then Alex starts talking with them about the Gala.”

She sighed. “It sure has been a long day, and I’m starved. What about you?”

“I’m ready to eat,” Leo admitted.

“What did you do all day now that your buddy is in camp, Dad?”

Leo was prepared for the question. “Nothing much,” he said, biting his tongue over the lie. “The gym, picked up a couple of sport shirts at Bloomingdale’s, nothing fancy.” He hadn’t meant to say it but involuntarily he added, “I miss Timmy, and it’s only his first day away.”

“Me, too,” Laurie said fervently, “but I’m glad I let him go. He was looking forward to it so much. And as much as we miss him, he sounded great on the phone an hour ago.”

“I don’t know why they limit those kids to one phone call a day,” Leo grumbled. “Haven’t they heard about grandparents?”

Laurie realized that her father suddenly looked drawn and gray.

“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.

“I’m fine.”

“Dad, I should have thought to get home in time to share Timmy’s call with you. I promise I will tomorrow.”

They both sat thoughtfully, each with their own feelings about Timmy being so far away and without Leo’s careful supervision.

Laurie glanced around the room. As usual, virtually every table was filled. The conversations were lively, and everyone looked as if they were having a good time. Are they all as free from stress as they seem to be? she wondered.

Of course they’re not, she told herself. Scratch the surface and everyone has some sort of problem.

Then, determined not to voice her fear about Timmy, Laurie said, “I’m having liver and bacon tonight. Timmy doesn’t like it, and I love it.”

“I’ll join you,” Leo decided and waved away the menu when a smiling Mary, one of Neary’s longtime waitresses, approached them.

“We both know what we want, Mary,” he said.

Peace of mind, was Laurie’s immediate thought. And that’s not in the cards for us now, or maybe ever.

Chapter 26

They were finally all gone. By the end of the day Jane could tell that Mr. Powell was sick of his “guests.”

The minute the last car drove away he walked into the den, and Jane followed to ask if he wanted a cocktail.

“Jane, you read my mind,” he said. “A scotch. And make it a strong one.”

For dinner she had planned his favorite meal of salmon, asparagus, a green salad, and sherbet with fresh pineapple.

When he was home he liked to eat at eight o’clock in the small dining room. But tonight he did not finish his dinner, nor did he pay his usual compliment about how good it was. Instead he said, “I’m not very hungry, skip dessert.” Then he got up and retreated back into the den.

Jane had the table cleared and the kitchen in its usual shining order in just a few minutes.

Then she went upstairs, turned down his bed, adjusted the air conditioner to sixty-five degrees, and placed a carafe of water and a glass on the night table.

Finally she laid out his pajamas, robe, and slippers, her hands moving tenderly over the clothing as she hung it in his bathroom.

Some nights when Mr. Powell was home he sat in the den for a couple of hours, watching television or reading. He enjoyed classic movies, and the next morning would comment to her about them. “Watched two of the Alfred Hitchcocks, Jane. No one could do suspense the way he did.”

If he had had a hard day at the office, he would go directly upstairs after dinner, get changed, and read or watch television in the sitting room of his suite.

Other nights he invited six or eight people for cocktails and dinner.

It was a predictable pattern, making Jane’s job quite easy.

The evenings that worried her were those when he went out and she saw in his appointment book that he was taking a woman to the club.

But that didn’t happen very often, and he seldom saw the same woman more than two or three times.

All this was going through Jane’s mind as she completed the nightly ritual.

Jane’s final task of the day, when Mr. Powell was home alone, was to look in on him and see if there was anything else he needed before she retired to her apartment.

Tonight he was sitting in the big chair in his den, his feet on the hassock, his elbows on the arms of the chair, his hands folded. The television was not on, and there was no sign of a book or magazine next to him.

“Are you all right, Mr. Powell?” she asked him anxiously.

“Just thinking, Jane,” he said as he turned to face her. “I assume all the bedrooms are fresh?”

Jane tried not to bristle with annoyance at the suggestion that any room in the house wasn’t in perfect order. “Of course they are, sir,” she said.

“Well, just recheck them. As you know, I have asked all of the participants to stay overnight tomorrow night. We will have a celebratory brunch before we send them on their way.”

He raised his eyebrows and smiled a secretive smile that he did not share with Jane.

“That should be very interesting, don’t you think, Jane?”

Chapter 27

Josh Damiano lived across town, just fifteen minutes from the Powell estate, but in an entirely different world.

Salem Ridge was a village on Long Island Sound adjacent to the wealthy town of Rye.

It had been settled in the late 1960s by people of medium income, moving into the Cape Cod and split-level houses developers had built.

But the unique location, only twenty-two miles from Manhattan and on Long Island Sound, attracted the interest of Realtors. Property values began to soar. The modest homes were bought and torn down, replaced by replicas of the kind of mansion Robert Powell had built.

A few owners held out. One of them was Margaret Gibney, who liked her house and didn’t want to move. After her husband’s death, when she was sixty, Margaret renovated the upstairs floor of her Cape Cod into an apartment.

Josh Damiano was her first and only tenant. Now eighty, Margaret thanked heaven every day for the quiet, pleasant man who took out the garbage unasked and even used the snowblower for her if he was home.

For his part, Josh, after a young marriage to his high school sweetheart that had lasted fourteen unpleasant years, was delighted with his living arrangement and his life.

He respected and admired Robert Powell. He loved his job of driving for him. Even more, he loved taping the conversations of executives when Mr. Powell sent him in the Bentley to pick up one or more of them for meetings or luncheons. Even if alone, a passenger’s cell phone conversation was often helpful to Powell. When there was a particularly interesting conversation, like talking about insider trading, Josh would play it back for that executive and offer to sell it to him. He didn’t do it much, but it proved to be very lucrative.

Over time, instead of listening to the tapes, Mr. Powell would merely ask Josh if there was anything interesting on the tapes. When Josh said “no,” as he did with the graduates, Mr. Powell trusted him. “They all just said ‘hello’ and ‘thank you,’ sir,” was what Josh had told him about his trips to pick up the graduates at the airport. A disappointed Robert Powell had just shaken his head.

At moments like that Josh remembered how he had almost lost his job. He had been working for Mr. Powell for only a few months when Betsy Powell died. His impression of her had been instantly unfavorable. Who does she think she is, the Queen of England? he would think as she waited imperiously for him to extend his hand and help her into the car.

A week before she died, he heard her say to Mr. Powell that she thought Josh was too familiar and lacked the dignity required of a servant. “Haven’t you noticed how he slouches when he opens the door for us? He should know enough to stand up straight.”

That rattled Josh, who had settled into his new job and liked it. It had been all he could do to act shocked and saddened by Betsy’s demise. In fact he had breathed a sigh of relief that she was no longer around to fill Mr. Powell’s ears about his supposed lack of dignity.

The day of the breakfast, Mr. Powell had had him pick up Claire Bonner. Maybe I’ll be lucky and she’ll make a phone call.

That hadn’t worked. When he picked Claire up at the hotel, she got into the Bentley and promptly leaned back and closed her eyes—a definite signal that she was not going to be engaged in conversation.

Josh had been shocked to see how much Claire resembled her mother. He remembered her as a mousy-looking kid, young for her twenty-two years at the time.

That first day of filming, Josh had stayed at the mansion all day, helping Jane prepare sandwiches and dessert and serving them on the patio, where the breakfast group retreated between scenes.

When everyone left, Mr. Rob told him to go home and to pick up Claire again in the morning.

“Try to talk to her, Josh,” Mr. Rob instructed. “Say how much you liked her mother, even though I know you didn’t.” At six o’clock Josh drove his own car home.

It was one of the nights when Mrs. Gibney was in a talkative mood and invited him to share the roast chicken that she had prepared.

That happened about once a week, and usually Josh was happy to accept—Mrs. Gibney was a good cook. But tonight he had things on his mind and he thanked her, saying he had had an early dinner. It was a lie, but he wanted to think.

In his pocket he had copies of the tapes he had made in the car of Nina Craig and her mother, Alison Schaefer and her husband, and Regina Callari on the phone with her son.

It was obvious that none of those women would want the tapes to be heard by either Mr. Powell or the police. They had agreed to come here to try to finally clear themselves from being under suspicion in Betsy’s death, but each of the tapes revealed a motive for them to have killed Betsy.

They were all getting money for being on the program, a lot of money. Each would be horrified to know their motives were caught on tape, loud and clear. If they didn’t trust him to stick to his side of the agreement, he has an answer prepared.

“I’ll always have the master tape. You can destroy the copy I give you,” he would say. “You don’t want to go to Mr. Powell or the police with these tapes. Neither do I. Pay me and nobody will ever hear them.”

He had figured out his suggested price—fifty thousand dollars. Only one-sixth of the three hundred thousand they would all be collecting.

It should work. They were all scared. He could sense it while he was serving them on the patio.

Josh wanted to build up his nest egg. He’d taken Mr. Powell to the cancer doctor a number of times. He had a hunch that Mr. Powell was sicker than anyone suspected. If anything happened to him, Josh knew he was in the will for one hundred thousand dollars. But adding $150,000 to that wouldn’t hurt.

Now, if he could only get something on Claire!

Chapter 28

George Curtis drove the four blocks to his home, outwardly composed but inwardly in a state of emotional exhaustion.

Rob Powell was toying with him. Rob knew about him and Betsy, George was sure of it. He thought about Laurie Moran, the producer, discussing the sequence of filming the next day. She had thanked him in particular for participating in the program.

“I know how busy you must be, Mr. Curtis,” she said. “Thank you for giving up your day to be with us. I know there was a lot of waiting around while we set up for the shooting. Tomorrow we’ll film you standing in front of the backdrop of clips of the Gala, then being interviewed by Alex Buckley about your memories of that night.”

Memories, George thought as he turned into his driveway, memories. That was the night Betsy had given him an ultimatum. “Tell Isabelle you want a divorce like you promised, or pay me twenty-five million dollars to stay with Rob and keep my mouth shut. You’re a billionaire; you can afford it.”

And it was on the way to the Gala that Isabelle, her face radiant, had told him she was four months pregnant with twins.

“I waited to tell you, George,” she had said. “After four miscarriages I didn’t want to disappoint you again. But four months is a big milestone. After fifteen years of waiting and praying, this time we’ll have a family.”

“Oh my God,” was all he could say. “Oh my God.”

I was thrilled and terrified, George thought. I asked myself how I could ever let myself get involved with Betsy, my best friend’s wife.

It had all started in London. George was there for a business meeting with the European director of the Curtis fast-food restaurant chain that his father had founded in 1940. Rob and Betsy Powell were in London at the same time, and they, too, were staying at the Stanhope Hotel, in an adjoining suite. Rob flew to Berlin overnight.

I took Betsy to dinner, then back at the hotel she suggested having a nightcap in my suite, George remembered. She never left that night. It was the beginning of a two-year affair.

Isabelle and I were growing apart, George thought as he parked the car in front of the house. She was taken up with volunteering for a number of charities, and I was all over the world opening up new markets.

When I was home, I didn’t want to go to the charity dinners with her.

Because anytime Rob was away, I met Betsy somewhere.

But after a year it began to wear off. I finally saw her for what she was: a manipulator. And then I couldn’t get rid of her. She kept hounding me to get a divorce.

At the Gala, Isabelle was telling her friends that she was pregnant.

When Betsy heard that, she told me she knew I wouldn’t get a divorce. Instead she wanted that twenty-five million dollars to keep her mouth shut. “You can afford it, George,” she had said, smiling, always aware of the audience around her. “You’re a billionaire. You won’t even miss it. Otherwise I tell Isabelle about us. Maybe the shock will cause her to miscarry again.”

George was sickened. “If you tell Isabelle or anyone else, Rob will divorce you.” George could hardly even manage to form the words. “And I know your prenup leaves you with almost nothing.”

Betsy had actually smiled. “I know that won’t happen, George, because you’re going to pay me. And I’ll keep living happily with Rob, and you and Isabelle will be in a state of bliss with your twins.”

She continued to smile as George heard himself say, “I’ll pay you, Betsy, but if you ever say anything to Isabelle or anyone else, I will kill you. I swear it.”

“Here’s to that agreement,” Betsy said as she clinked her glass against his.

Twenty years later, George thought as he unlocked the door of the car. His mind switched to what Laurie Moran had told him about the rest of his part in the filming.

“And then we’ll have you and Alex Buckley sitting together, and he’ll ask you your overall impressions of the party and of Betsy Powell,” Laurie had said. “Maybe you have some stories you could tell about Betsy. From what I understand, you were close friends of the Powells and frequently saw them socially.”

I told Moran that I saw Rob more on the golf course at the club than socially, as couples, George thought as he walked up the three steps to the charming brick house that he and Isabelle had built twenty years ago. He remembered how the architect had come in with pretentious renderings of houses in which the entrance hall was big enough for a skating rink and twin staircases led to a balcony “where you could put a full orchestra.”

Isabelle’s comment was, “We want a home, not a concert hall.”

And it was homey. Spacious but not overwhelming. Inviting and warm.

He opened the door and headed to the family room. As he had expected, Isabelle and the twins, Leila and Justin, who were home from college for the summer, were there.

George’s heart swelled with love as he looked at the three of them.

And to think I almost lost them, he thought as he remembered his threat to Betsy.

Chapter 29

When Claire got back to the hotel, the first thing she did was to put a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, then rush to wash her face.

All the carefully applied makeup vanished into the soapy washcloth as she checked and rechecked to be sure that every vestige of it was gone. Well, it served its purpose, she thought. I saw the look on all their faces, especially Rob Powell’s, when they saw me. I’m not sure whether Nina pulled that faint or if it was genuine. She was a pretty good actress, even if she never did make it big.

But I think she upstaged Daddy Rob. He was just about to faint himself before she beat him to it. Well, didn’t he used to brag that in high school he was voted best actor in the senior play? And he’s perfected his act since then.

Chapter 30

Nina could see the look of disappointment on her mother’s face when Rob didn’t extend an invitation to dinner. But in the car Muriel pointed out that he had referred more than once to the good times they had had together. That much is true, Nina acknowledged to herself.

As they got off the elevator in the hotel, Muriel asked, “Did you see the chandelier? It must be worth forty thousand dollars.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw one like it when we were in Venice for background scenes.”

Fitting, Nina thought. Now, as an actress, you’re in the background again.

“Did you see how that housekeeper acted as if we were a bunch of intruders?”

“Mom, I remember her from the time when we were growing up. Jane always looked as if she disapproved of everyone except Betsy.” Nina hesitated, then added sarcastically, “I mean ‘Mrs. Powell.’ That’s what Jane was forced to call her, even though they’d worked together for years.”

“Well, I certainly would have made her call me ‘Mrs. Powell’ instead of Muriel,” her mother snapped. “If I had married Rob.”

“I’m going to my room. I’ll have dinner served there,” Nina replied, rolling her eyes to heaven. As she walked rapidly away from Muriel, she thought, the greatest gift you ever received was that Betsy was out of your way, but even though you called Rob Powell any number of times after she died, he didn’t want to see you again. And now it’s obvious to me that he’s just toying with you.

Will you ever learn?

From I’VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN by Mary Higgins Clark. Copyright © 2014 by Mary Higgins Clark. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, LLC.