I've Got You Under My Skin

40

Regina’s hands were trembling so violently that she could hardly pull the T-shirt over her head. Laurie Moran had told them to dress simply. She had had replicas made of the outfits they had been wearing when the police arrived after Betsy’s body was found. They had handed over their pajamas for evidence and been asked to wait in the den until they could be questioned.

Regina had been wearing a long-sleeved red T-shirt and jeans. The thought of wearing a similar outfit now was upsetting. She felt as if all the protective layers she had built around herself over twenty years were being peeled away.

Just thinking about that outfit made her remember how they had all sat huddled together, not allowed to go into the kitchen even to get a cup of coffee or a piece of toast. Jane, too, had been in the den with them, despite pleading to be allowed to go in the ambulance with Mr. Powell to the hospital.

Who had taken her father’s suicide note from her pocketbook? And what would that person do with it?

If the police found it, they could arrest her for taking the letter from her father’s body. She knew they always suspected that if he’d written a note, she’d taken it. She had lied over and over to them when they were investigating his death. Whoever had the note now could provide the police with everything they needed to indict her for Betsy’s murder.

Regina’s eyes filled with tears.

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.

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.