I've Got You Under My Skin

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.

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.