I've Got You Under My Skin

61

Alison went into the den, outwardly calm but inwardly frantic with worry.

I was in Betsy’s room that night, was the uppermost thought in her mind.

She tried to remember Rod’s reassurances, but, oddly, all she could think of was that she had told him he couldn’t know what it was like to want something so badly and lose it.

He couldn’t? she asked herself.

She remembered the blazing headlines when he was signed by the Giants. The speculation about his brilliant future.

All the time she had spent studying, he had spent practicing football.

From kindergarten on, Rod had always been there for her.

But I was planning to marry a scientist, she thought. We’d be the new Dr. and Madame Curie. “Dr. and Dr.” Curie, she corrected herself.

The arrogance of me. And Rod accepted it. He proposed to me and I accepted because of his promise to send me to medical school.

While he was so sick, I did manage to become a pharmacist, but I couldn’t leave him. Underneath, I’ve always begrudged him the fact that I felt obligated to stay.

And even now, I’m thinking that if I had come here alone, I wouldn’t have been talking in the car. No recording would exist.

“Come right in, Alison,” Laurie Moran invited.

Alex Buckley stood up.

My God, he’s tall, Alison thought as she took the seat across the table from him. Her body felt so rigid that she worried some part of her would break like glass if she moved too quickly.

“Alison, thank you so much for being with us on this program,” Alex began. “It’s been twenty years since the Graduation Gala and Betsy’s Powell’s death. Why did you agree to be on this program?”

The question was friendly. Rod had warned her against letting her guard down. Alison chose her words carefully now. “Do you know, or can you imagine, what it’s like to be under suspicion of killing someone for twenty years?”

“No, I don’t, and I couldn’t even imagine it. As I’m a criminal defense lawyer, I have seen persons of interest live with an ax swinging over their head until a jury declared them not guilty.”

“Until a jury declared them not guilty,” Alison repeated, and he could hear the bitterness in her voice. “But don’t you see? That’s the problem. No one has formally accused any one of us, and so we are all treated as if we were guilty.”

“You still feel that way?”

“How could I not? This last year alone there were two major articles in syndicated newspapers about the case. I can always tell when a new one comes out. Someone comes into the pharmacy and buys something insignificant like toothpaste and looks at me as though I were a bug under a microscope.”

“Alison, that’s an interesting comparison. Have you been feeling like a bug under a microscope all these years? You had hoped to earn a medical degree, didn’t you?”

Be careful, Alison warned herself. “Yes, I did.”

“You had every expectation of being awarded a scholarship, isn’t that true?”

“I was in contention,” Alison said evenly. “I came in second. It happens.”

“Alison, I’ve done some research. Isn’t it a fact that just before your graduation, Robert Powell pledged some ten million dollars to your college for a new dormitory to be named ‘The Robert and Betsy Powell House’?”

“I know he did.”

“Is it true that the recipient of the scholarship was the daughter of a friend of Betsy Powell’s?”

Alison, you’re bitter. You can’t let the bitterness show.

It was as though Rod were shouting in her ear.

“Of course I was disappointed. I earned that scholarship and everyone knew it. Throwing it to Vivian Fields was Betsy’s way of getting into the club Vivian’s mother ran.

“But you see, all regret stopped right there. Rod had just signed a big contract with the Giants, and the first thing he did was to propose to me. We were engaged, and his wedding present to me was going to be sending me to medical school.”

“Then why didn’t you invite Rod to the Gala, if you were engaged to him?”

Alison attempted a smile. “Actually, it was just prior to our engagement. Rod thought I was very foolish to go to the Gala after what Betsy pulled on me.”

It sounds all right, she thought. I didn’t invite him because I wasn’t in love with him. But then when he signed with the Giants and promised to send me to school, I agreed to marry him… She fought to keep control of herself.

Alex Buckley’s eyes bored into her. “Alison, I would like you to close your eyes and visualize the moment you walked into Betsy’s room after you heard Jane screaming.”

His tone was almost hypnotic. Obediently, Alison closed her eyes.

She was in Betsy’s room. She stepped on the earring, and that startled her. She heard a door open and slipped into the closet behind her. She saw someone come in and take the other pillow from Betsy’s bed. Then that shadowy figure leaned over Betsy.

Through a crack in the door she watched as Betsy’s body twisted and turned as the pillow suffocated her. Her muted groans were quickly stifled.

Then the figure slipped away. Was I dreaming, Alison asked herself, or did I really see a face?

She didn’t know. Her eyes snapped open.

Alex Buckley saw the startled look on her face. “What is it, Alison?” he asked quickly. “You look frightened.”

Alison burst out: “I can’t stand this anymore! I absolutely can’t stand it. I don’t care what people think about me. Let them wonder if I killed Betsy. I did not, but I will tell you this: when I ran into that room and saw she was dead, I was glad! And so were the others. Betsy Powell was evil and vain and a whore, and I hope she’s rotting in hell.”