I've Got You Under My Skin

47

Because his office was next to the den, where all the activity was taking place, Robert Powell chose to go back upstairs to the bedroom suite he had shared with Betsy for the nine years of their marriage. At his curt request Jane followed him with a fresh pot of coffee. Then, sensing his irritable mood, she closed the door to his bedroom so she could make up the room quickly and quietly. She skipped her usual vacuuming because she knew the sound of it would annoy him. Then she left by the bedroom door to go downstairs.

Robert was wondering once again whether he had made a drastic mistake by inviting these girls-women, he corrected himself sarcastically-to reenact what had happened twenty years ago. Had his doctor’s prognosis been the reason for it? Or was it because of a perverse need to see them again, to toy with them as Betsy had toyed with them all those years ago? Had he absorbed so much of Betsy’s personality that he no longer had anything left of his own, even twenty years later? Each graduate had a reason to kill Betsy, he knew that. It would be interesting to see if one of them broke down under Alex Buckley’s questioning. He was sure Buckley was capable of detecting prepared answers.

Powell would bet that all the graduates had carefully practiced what they would say in their one-on-one interview with Buckley. He was sure they would start with their first impressions of what they saw when they ran into Betsy’s room after hearing him shout.

It seemed like only yesterday that he had walked into her bedroom carrying the cup of coffee that she had always insisted be red-hot “to get the flavor through the coffee beans.”

Rob looked down at the angry scars on his hands that had resulted from walking into Betsy’s room and seeing the pillow covering her face. Betsy’s long blond hair had spilled out from under it, her hands still clutching the pillow’s edges. She had obviously been struggling to push the pillow away from her face.

He remembered shrieking her name and trying to keep the coffee cup from spilling before his knees buckled under him. He remembered Jane leaning over him and attempting some clumsy CPR while the girls stood around the bed like ghostly wraiths. The next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital, conscious of nothing but the pain in his hands, and calling out for Betsy.

Robert Powell leaned back in his chair. It was time to go downstairs and make some business calls. But he hesitated for a moment as he stopped to reflect on what Claire would be telling Buckley.

He realized that what had been amusing to him was no longer amusing. All he wanted now was to have these women out of this house and to resume what little time was left of his quiet and pleasant life.

Alex looked at Claire Bonner across the table from him in the den. Claire had once again resisted Meg Miller’s suggestion to touch up her lashes and eyebrows. Now, as Alex looked at her, he found it incongruous to compare her with the beautiful woman who had walked into this house yesterday.

It was easy to see what had made the difference. Claire’s long lashes and well-shaped eyebrows were very pale, as was her complexion. She wore no lip coloring, and he could swear that she had washed the gold highlights out of her hair. I’ll find out what she’s up to, he thought and smiled encouragingly at her when Laurie said, “Action,” and the camera’s red light went on.

“I’m here in the home of Wall Street financier Robert Nicholas Powell,” he began, “whose beautiful wife, Betsy Bonner Powell, was murdered twenty years ago following a Graduation Gala for Betsy’s daughter, Claire, and Claire’s three closest friends and fellow graduates. Claire Bonner is with me now. Claire, I know this has to be extraordinarily difficult for all of you to be here today. Why did you agree to come on the program?”

“Because the other girls and I, and to a lesser degree my stepfather and the housekeeper, have been under suspicion as ‘persons of interest’ in Betsy’s death, which is the new way of saying it, for the last twenty years,” Claire declared passionately. “Can you have any idea of what it’s like to be in a supermarket and see your own picture on the cover of some trashy magazine with the question ‘Was she jealous of her beautiful mother’?”

“No, I can’t,” Alex replied quietly.

“Or maybe there would be a picture of the four of us lined up, as if we had had mug shots taken of us by the police. That’s why we’re here today, to make the public realize how unfairly we four young women, who were traumatized beyond belief and bullied by the police, have been treated. That’s why I’m here now, Mr. Buckley.”

“And I assume that’s why the other girls are here, too,” Alex Buckley said. “Have you done much catching up with them?”

“We actually haven’t had very much time to visit,” Claire said. “I know it’s because you people didn’t want us to put our stories together. Well, let me tell you something: we have not boned up on each other’s stories, and I think you will find that out. They’ll be pretty much the same because we were together at the moment when everything was happening.”

“Claire, before we discuss your mother’s death, I’d like to go back in time a little. Why don’t we start with your mother’s meeting with Robert Powell? I understand you had only lived in Salem Ridge a short while. Is that right?”

“Yes, it is. I had graduated from grammar school in June, and my mother wanted to move up to Westchester County. Quite frankly, I know she wanted to meet a rich man. She found a rental in a two-family house, and I can assure you there aren’t many two-family houses in Salem Ridge.

“I started my freshman year in high school that September, and that’s when I became friends with Nina and Alison and Regina. My birthday is in October, and Mother splurged and took me to La Boehm in Bedford. Nina Craig and her mother were there. Nina spotted us, and asked us to come over and meet her mother. Of course we also met Robert Powell, who was at the table. I guess it was love at first sight for both of them, my mother and Robert. I do know that Nina’s mother has never gotten over the fact that ‘Betsy stole Rob from me when we were on the verge of becoming engaged,’ as she put it.”

“Your own father had abandoned you and your mother when you were only an infant. How did your mother manage to look after you and still work full-time?”

“My grandmother was alive until I was three years old.” Tears began to shine in Claire’s eyes as she mentioned her grandmother. “Then there was a series of babysitters, one after the other. If they failed to show up, Mother would bring me to the theatre and I’d sleep in an empty chair, or sometimes it would be in an empty dressing room if the play had a small cast. One way or the other we managed. But then Mother met Robert Powell, and of course everything changed.”

“You and your mother had been very close, I gather? Were you ever jealous of the fact that Robert Powell came so suddenly into your life and claimed so much of your mother’s time and attention?”

“I wanted her to be happy. He was obviously a very rich man. After the dinky little apartments we’d lived in all my life, it seemed like heaven to move into this beautiful house.”

“Seemed like heaven?” Alex asked quickly.

“Was heaven,” Claire corrected herself.

“That was quite a year for you, Claire, moving into a new area, starting high school, then your mother’s wedding and moving into this house.”

“It was all quite a change,” Claire said with a faint smile. If you only knew, she thought. If you only knew!

“Claire, were you close to Robert Powell?”

Claire looked straight into Alex’s eyes. “Right from the beginning,” she said. Oh, I was close to him all right, she thought, remembering how she listened for the sound of her bedroom door opening.

Alex Buckley knew that behind Claire’s smooth answers there was a land mine of smoldering anger she was trying to conceal. It wasn’t all sweetness and light in this house, he thought as he decided to change his questioning. “Claire, let’s talk about the Gala. What kind of night was it? How many people were here? We have that information, of course, but I’d like to hear it from your perspective.”

Alex had foreseen that Claire would begin answering him in carefully rehearsed sentences. “It was a perfect night,” she said. “It was an absolutely balmy evening, about seventy-six degrees, I think. There was a band on the patio, and a dance floor. There were stations everywhere with all kinds of food. Near the pool a table was beautifully decorated. The centerpiece was a sheet cake with all of our names on it and the symbols of the four colleges we went to in their school colors.”

“You chose to commute to Vassar, didn’t you, Claire?”

Again Alex saw a look in Claire’s eyes that he could not identify. What was it? Anger, disappointment, or both? He took a shot at what he surmised. “Claire, were you disappointed that you didn’t go away to college as your other friends did?”

“Vassar is a wonderful college. I may have missed out on a part of the college experience by commuting instead of boarding, but my mother and I were so close that I was happy to stay home.”

Claire’s smile was more of a sneer, but then she recovered herself. “We all had a wonderful time at the party,” she said. “Then, as you know, the other girls slept over. When everyone was gone we put on our pajamas and robes, went to the den, and drank wine. Lots of wine. We gossiped about the party, as girls do.”

“Were your mother and Mr. Powell with you in the den?”

“Rob said good night to us right after the last guests left. My mother sat with us for a few minutes, but then she said, ‘I want to get comfortable, the way you all are.’ She went upstairs and came back down in her nightgown and robe.”

“Did she stay long?”

For a moment there was a real smile on Claire’s lips and in her eyes. “My mother wasn’t a drunk, never think that, but she did love to have a couple of glasses of wine in the evening. She had about three glasses that night before she went upstairs. She hugged and kissed us good night, which is why we all had DNA from her hair on our pajamas or robes the next morning.”

“The other girls were very fond of your mother, weren’t they?”

“I think they were in awe of her.”

Alex knew that what Claire didn’t say was that each of the girls had a reason to hate Betsy Powell. Nina, because her mother tortured her about having introduced Robert to Betsy. Regina, because her father had lost all his money in one of Robert Powell’s investments. Alison, because she had lost out on a scholarship that she should have won but Betsy Bonner directed elsewhere. Robert Powell had donated a load of money to Alison’s college. That donation was not forgotten when the graduate scholarship was awarded to the daughter of a woman who chaired a club Betsy was desperate to join.

“After your mother said good night to all of you, did you see her again?”

“Do you mean did I see her again alive?” Claire did not wait for an answer. “My last memory of seeing my mother alive was when she turned and smiled and blew a kiss to all of us. Of course it’s a vivid memory. She was a very beautiful woman. She always wore beautiful matching nightgowns and robes. That night she was wearing a pale-blue satin set, edged in ivory lace. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, and she seemed so happy about how successful the party had been. The next time I saw her, either Rob or Jane had taken the pillow off of her face. Her eyes were wide open and staring. One hand was still clutching the pillow. I know she must have been sleepy because of all of the wine she had drunk, but I always had the feeling she put up a fight.”

Alex listened as Claire spoke in a voice that seemed to be suddenly without emotion. Her hands were now clasped together, and her face had turned even paler than it had been.

“How did you know that something was terribly wrong?” Alex asked quietly.

“I heard the most terrifying shriek coming from my mother’s room. I later learned that it was Rob, who was bringing my mother her usual cup of morning coffee. I think all of us girls were in a heavy sleep-we had talked and drunk until three A.M. We all got to the room at about the same time. Jane must have heard Robert’s shout. She got to my mother’s room first. She was on her knees bending over Robert, who had collapsed and was writhing in pain. I guess he must have rushed to grab the pillow away from my mother’s face, and the hot coffee had spilled all over his hands. The pillow was to the side of my mother’s head and had coffee stains on it.”

Alex saw that Claire’s expression suddenly turned cold. It was a startling difference from the way she had reacted to his questions about her grandmother.

“Then what happened, Claire?” he asked.

“I think it was Alison who picked up the phone and dialed 911. She shouted something like ‘We need an ambulance and the police! Betsy Bonner Powell is dead! I think she’s been murdered!’ ”

“What did you do while you waited for them?”

“I don’t think it was more than three minutes later that both the ambulance and the police arrived. Then it was chaos. We were literally chased out of her room. I remember the police chief ordering us to go back to our bedrooms and change our clothes. He had the nerve to say that he could see what we were wearing and we shouldn’t try to switch what we had slept in. Later we realized that those clothes would be tested for DNA as potential evidence.”

“So you changed into jeans and T-shirts similar to the ones you were photographed in this morning?”

“Yes. When we had changed we were escorted downstairs here to the den and told to wait until the police questioned us. They wouldn’t even allow us to go to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.”

“You’re still very angry about that, aren’t you, Claire?”

“Yes, I am,” she said, her voice trembling with rage. “Think about it. We were all barely twenty-one. Looking back, I realize that even though we thought we were all grown up, having just graduated from college, in reality we were just frightened kids. The interrogation they put all of us through that day, and for weeks afterward, was a travesty of justice. They called us in to the police station over and over again. That’s the reason that the press began to refer to us as ‘suspects.’ ”

“Who do you think killed your mother, Claire?”

“There were three hundred people at that party. Some of them we can’t identify from the photos and film we have of that night. People were going in and out of the house to use the bathrooms. Jane had put a rope across the landing at the bottom of the staircase, but anyone could have sneaked up the stairs. My mother was wearing her emeralds that night. Anyone could have picked out her bedroom and even hidden in one of those walk-in closets. I think someone waited until he thought she would be in a deep sleep, then picked up the emeralds from her dressing table. Who knows if she started stirring and he panicked and tried to put them back? One emerald earring was found on the floor. I believe she woke up. Whoever was in that room tried to keep her from calling for help the only way that was available to him.”

“And that person, you believe, is your mother’s murderer?”

“Yes, I do. And remember, we had left the patio door open. The four of us were smokers, and my stepfather absolutely forbade smoking in the house.”

“Is that why you resent the media coverage of your mother’s death?”

“That is why I am telling you that none of us here-not Rob, nor Jane, nor Nina, Regina, or Alison-had a thing to do with my mother’s death. And obviously neither did I.” Claire’s voice became shrill. “And neither did I!”

“Thank you, Claire, for sharing your memory of that terrible day when you lost the mother you loved so dearly.”

Alex reached across the table to shake Claire’s hand.

It was drenched in perspiration.