I've Got You Under My Skin

1

Laurie Moran looked out the window of her office on the twenty-fifth floor of 15 Rockefeller Center. Her view was of the skating rink in the middle of that famous Manhattan complex. It was a sunny but cold March day, and from her vantage point she could see beginners there, wobbling unsteadily on their skates, and in sharp contrast others who moved across the ice with the grace of ballet dancers.

Timmy, her eight-year-old son, loved ice hockey and planned to be good enough to play with the New York Rangers by the time he was twenty-one. Laurie smiled as her mind filled with the image of Timmy’s face, his expressive brown eyes sparkling with delight as he imagined himself in the position of goalie in future Rangers games. He’ll be the image of Greg by then, Laurie thought, but quickly gave herself a mental shake and turned her attention to the file on her desk.

Thirty-six years old, with shoulder-length hair the color of honey, hazel eyes more green than brown, a slim build, and classic features untouched by makeup, Laurie was the kind of woman people turned to take a second look at when she passed by. “Classy and good-looking” was a typical description of her.

An award-winning producer at Fisher Blake Studios, Laurie was about to launch a new cable series, one that she had had in mind even before Greg died. Then she had put it away-she felt people might think she had conceived it because of his unsolved murder.

The premise involved reenacting unsolved crimes, but instead of using actors, gathering the friends and relatives of the victims to hear from their lips their version of what had happened when the crime occurred. Whenever possible, the actual setting of the crime would be used. It was a risky venture-with great potential for success and also for chaos.

She had just come from a meeting with her boss, Brett Young, who had reminded her that she’d sworn she would never touch another reality show. “Your last two were expensive flops, Laurie,” he said. “We can’t afford another one.” Then he pointedly added, “Neither can you.”

Now as Laurie sipped the coffee she had carried in with her from the two o’clock meeting, she thought of the passionate argument she had used to persuade him. “Brett, before you remind me again how sick you are of reality series, I promise you this one will be different. We’ll call it Under Suspicion. On page two of the folder I gave you is a long list of unsolved criminal cases and others supposedly solved where there is a real possibility the wrong person went to prison.”

Laurie glanced around her office. The glance reinforced her determination not to lose it. It was large enough to have a couch under the windows and a long bookcase that showcased memorabilia, awards she had won, and family pictures, mostly of Timmy and her father. She had long ago decided that her pictures of Greg belonged at home in her bedroom, not here where they would inevitably bring to everyone’s mind the fact that she was a widow, and her husband’s murder had never been solved.

“The Lindbergh kidnapping is the first on your list. That happened about eighty years ago. You’re not planning to reenact that, are you?” Brett had asked.

Laurie told him it was an example of a crime that people talked about for generations because of its horror, but also because there were still so many lingering questions about the case. Bruno Hauptmann, an immigrant from Germany who was executed for kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, was almost certainly the one who made the ladder that went to the baby’s bedroom. But how did he know the nanny went to dinner every night and left the baby alone for forty-five minutes at exactly that time? How did Hauptmann know that-or who told him?

Then she told Brett about the unsolved murder of one of the identical twin daughters of Senator Charles H. Percy. It happened at the beginning of his first campaign for the Senate in 1966. He was elected, but the crime was never solved, and the questions remained: was the sister who was murdered the intended victim? And why didn’t the dog bark if a stranger had entered the house?

Now Laurie leaned back in her chair. She had told Brett the point is that when you start to mention cases like this, everyone has a theory about it. “We’ll do a reality show about crimes that are anywhere from twenty to thirty years old, where we can get the point of view of the people who were closest to the victim, and I have the perfect case for the first show: the Graduation Gala,” she’d said.

That’s when Brett really got interested, Laurie thought. Living in Westchester County, he knew all about it: Twenty years ago, four young women who grew up together in Salem Ridge graduated from four different colleges. The stepfather of one of them, Robert Nicholas Powell, gave what he called a “Graduation Gala” to honor all four girls. Three hundred guests, black tie, champagne and caviar, fireworks, you name it. After the party, his stepdaughter and the other three graduates stayed overnight. In the morning, Powell’s wife, Betsy Bonner Powell, a popular, glamorous forty-two-year-old socialite, was found suffocated in her bed. The crime was never solved. Rob, as Powell was known, was now seventy-eight years old, in excellent physical and mental shape, and still living in the house.

Powell never remarried, Laurie thought. He had recently given an interview on The O’Reilly Factor in which he said he would do anything to clear up the mystery of his wife’s death, and he knew that his stepdaughter and her friends all felt the same way. They all believed that until the truth came out, people would wonder if one of them was the murderer who took Betsy’s life.

That’s when I got the go-ahead from Brett to contact Powell and the four graduates to see if they would participate, Laurie thought exultantly.

It was time to share the good news with Grace and Jerry. She picked up her phone and told her two assistants to come in. A moment later the door of her office flew open.

Grace Garcia, her twenty-five-year-old administrative assistant, was wearing a short red wool dress over cotton leggings and high-button boots. Her waist-length black hair was twisted up and clamped with a comb. Tendrils that had escaped from the comb framed her heart-shaped face. Heavy but expertly applied mascara accentuated her lively dark eyes.

Jerry Klein was one step behind Grace. Long and lanky, he settled into one of the chairs at Laurie’s desk. As usual, he was wearing a turtleneck and a cardigan sweater. It was his claim that he intended to make his one dark blue suit and his one tuxedo last for twenty years. Laurie had no doubt that he would succeed. Now twenty-six, he had joined the company as a summer intern three years earlier. He had turned out to be an indispensable production assistant.

“I won’t keep you in suspense,” Laurie announced. “Brett gave us the go-ahead.”

“I knew he would!” Grace exclaimed.

“I knew he had from the expression on your face when you got off the elevator,” Jerry insisted.

“No you didn’t. I have a poker face,” Laurie told him. “All right, the first order of business is for me to contact Robert Powell. If I get the go-ahead from him, from what I saw in that interview he gave, his stepdaughter and her three friends will very likely go along with us.”

“Especially since they’ll get paid very well to cooperate, and not one of them has any real money,” Jerry said, his voice thoughtful as he recalled the background information he had gathered for the potential series. “Betsy’s daughter, Claire Bonner, is a social worker in Chicago. She never married. Nina Craig is divorced, lives in Hollywood, makes a living as an extra in films. Alison Schaefer is a pharmacist in a small drugstore in Cleveland. Her husband is on crutches. He was the victim of a hit-and-run driver twenty years ago. Regina Callari moved to St. Augustine, Florida. She has a small real estate agency. Divorced, one child in college.”

“The stakes are high,” Laurie cautioned. “Brett has already reminded me that the last two series were flops.”

“Did he mention that your first two are still running?” Grace asked, indignant.

“No, he didn’t, and he won’t. And I feel in my bones that we have a potential winner with this one. If Robert Powell goes along with us, I almost bet the others will as well,” Laurie said, then added fervently, “At least I hope and pray that they will.”