I've Got You Under My Skin

53

Nina was the second one who listened to her cassette. When she came back to the table her expression was almost triumphant. “This is more for you than it is for me,” she told her mother. “Why don’t you go in there and dwell on every word? And when you do, I don’t think you’ll be sobbing so much to Rob Powell that Betsy was your closest and dearest friend.”

“What are you talking about?” Muriel snapped as she stood up and pushed back her chair.

“The cassette player is in the center drawer of the vanity in the hall bathroom,” Nina said. “You should be able to find it.”

The contented expression Muriel had been wearing turned into one of uncertainty and worry. Without answering her daughter, she hurried to the hallway. A few minutes later the slamming of the bathroom door signaled her imminent return.

When she came out her face was set in hard angry lines. Her head jerked in Nina’s direction. “Come outside,” she said.

“Well? What do you want?” Nina demanded as soon as the door to the patio closed behind them.

“What do I want?” Muriel hissed. “What do I want? Are you crazy? Did you listen to that tape? It makes me sound terrible. And Rob asked me to have dinner tonight. Everything is going so well, the way it was before…”

“Before I ruined everything for you by introducing Rob Powell to Betsy when you were practically engaged to him,” Nina finished for her.

Muriel’s expression became hard and calculating. “Do you think Rob has heard those tapes?”

“I don’t know. I would guess he has, but that’s just a guess. The chauffeur may be blackmailing us as his own little game and not telling Rob.”

“Then give him the fifty thousand dollars.”

Nina stared at her mother. “You have got to be joking! Rob Powell is making a fool out of you with this sudden attention. If he’d wanted you, why didn’t he call you twenty years ago when Betsy died?”

“Pay that chauffeur,” Muriel said flatly. “Otherwise I will tell Rob and the police that you confessed to me you killed Betsy to give me another chance at Rob. I’ll say that you thought I’d be very generous to you when I became Mrs. Robert Nicholas Powell.”

“You would do that?” Nina asked, white-lipped.

“Why not? It’s true, isn’t it?” Muriel sneered. “And don’t forget that Rob’s million-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Betsy’s murderer can always be my consolation prize if you’re right about his interest in me not being genuine. He posted that reward twenty years ago and it’s never been withdrawn.”

After she’d seen Alison rush outside and Muriel ordered Nina to go with her to the patio, Regina knew she had to listen to her own tape.

On the way to hear it, she thought, Josh must be the one to have that letter. The cassette player was on top of the vanity. She inserted the tape, then numb with fear, pressed the button. The sound of her conversation with her son, Zach, was crystal clear, even though he was calling from England.

It’s as bad as it can get, Regina thought wildly. Now what happens if I don’t admit that I saved Daddy’s suicide note? Josh can produce it at any time. Then I could be arrested for lying to the cops when they questioned me for hours on end. He’d have both the tape and the letter to show as evidence.

Knowing she had no choice but to pay Josh whatever he was demanding, she went back to the table and pushed away her coffee, which was cold now.

Sour-faced as always, Jane promptly appeared with a fresh pot of coffee and a new cup. Regina watched as the steaming cup of coffee replaced the one she had ignored.

As Regina began to sip, the familiar nightmare replayed itself in her head. Riding her bike in the driveway of the beautiful home with the priceless view of Long Island that she had lived in for fifteen years. Tapping the switch that raised the garage door. Seeing her father’s body as it swayed in the breeze that rushed in from the Sound. His jaw had slackened, his eyes were staring, his tongue was protruding. A paper was pinned to his jacket. One hand was clenched around the rope. At the last moment had he changed his mind about dying?

Regina remembered how she had felt numb and emotionless, how she had reached up for the note, unpinned it as his body moved under her touch, read it, and, shocked, stuffed it in her pocket.

In it, her father had written that he had been having an affair with Betsy and bitterly regretted it.

Betsy had told him that the hedge fund Rob had begun was about to explode in value and to invest everything he could in it. Even then, at age fifteen, Regina was sure Betsy was doing that at Powell’s direction.

I couldn’t let my mother see that note, Regina thought now. It would have broken her heart, and I knew her heart would be broken enough by Daddy’s death. And my mother despised Betsy Powell. She knew what a phony she was.

Now someone had that note. It almost had to be Josh, who was hanging around all day helping Jane. What can I do? she asked herself. What can I do?

At that moment Josh came into the room, a tray in his hands, to clear the table. He looked around to be sure they were alone.

“When can we talk, Regina?” he asked. “And I must tell you, you should have taken your son’s advice to burn your father’s suicide note. I’ve been thinking it over. No one has a stronger motive for killing Betsy Powell than you do. Don’t you agree? And don’t you think that the quarter of a million dollars you’re getting from Mr. Rob is little enough to assure that no one will ever see the note or hear the tape?”

She could not reply. Her face was frozen in a look of horror and self-reproach, and her eyes looked beyond Josh to something else-her father’s neatly dressed body, swaying from the rope around his neck.