Laurie marshaled her pitch to him, but before she started she waited for Jane’s somewhat forbidding figure to turn and leave the room.
“I’m going to make this easy for you,” Robert Powell said unexpectedly. “A problem has come up. I don’t have to be particularly astute or a deep thinker to guess that it’s about money. One of the four girls-women now-doesn’t think we’re paying enough to coax them to expose themselves to public scrutiny.”
Laurie hesitated for the length of a few seconds, then said, “That’s right.”
Powell smiled. “Let me guess which one. It wouldn’t be Claire. She has refused to let me help her since Betsy died. When she learns I have left her a substantial amount of money in my will it will not impress her. When the time comes, she might even give the money to charity.
“We were very close, but Claire was very close to her mother, too. The fact that Betsy died was overwhelming for Claire. Somehow it became my fault, not that she thought I had killed her mother, mind you. Angry as she was, she knew that was impossible, but I think that in her mind, she was begrudging me the time I had alone with Betsy.” For a long moment he looked past Laurie.
“My guess,” he added slowly, “is that Nina Craig is the one holding us up for more money. In that way she’s very much like her mother. I actually dated Muriel Craig for a time. A very attractive woman, but with a touch of ruthlessness in her character. I didn’t stop seeing her only because I’d met Betsy. It would have happened anyhow. It was just a coincidence that it happened at approximately the same time.”
Jane carried in the tea tray, interrupting his reverie. She set it on the coffee table between the couch and Robert Powell’s chair. “Shall I pour, Mr. Powell?” she asked. She was already holding the teapot and pouring it into Laurie’s cup.
Robert Powell raised his eyebrows and cast an amused glance at Laurie. After Jane had offered cream or lemon and sugar or sweetener, and then left the room, he said, “As you can see, Jane asked a rhetorical question. She does that all the time.”
Laurie realized she had skipped lunch and was starved. She made herself take only a nibble of the quarter-sized crustless salmon sandwich. Her first instinct was to pop it into her mouth whole and reach for another one.
But even as she made herself eat slowly, daintily, she had the feeling that Robert Powell was toying with her. Did he really guess that Nina Craig was the one looking for more money, or had Nina contacted him personally?
And did he know how much she was going to demand?
“Am I right about Nina?” Powell asked as he crossed his legs and began to sip his tea.
“Yes,” Laurie said.
“How much does she want for all the graduates?”
“Two hundred fifty thousand dollars net each.”
“She’s even greedier than I remembered,” Powell murmured. “So like her dear mother.” The amused tone left his voice. “Tell her I’ll pay it.”
The abrupt change in his expression and tone shocked Laurie.
“Ms. Moran,” he explained, “you need to understand something: like the four girls at the Gala, I have lived with the cloud of suspicion hanging over me for a long time. Today people are living to be one hundred, but many more don’t live past eighty or eighty-five. Before I die, I want to have a chance for a wide audience to see the girls and me, and perhaps understand how big this house is, and how many people were in and out that night. How it could have been an intruder. As you know, we have extensive films of the party.”
“I do know that,” Laurie said. “I think I’ve read everything written about the case.”
“Well, then, you can understand that except for some generous donations to charity and the schools Betsy, Claire, and I attended, I have a great deal of money to spend before I die, so the amount Nina is holding out for is quite insignificant.
“But do me a favor. When you write to say we accept the conditions of their appearance, please tell Nina that I hope her mother is planning to come east with her. It would be a pleasure to see her again.”
He anticipated Laurie’s protest. “Of course, I don’t mean for her to stay as a guest in my home. I will reserve a room for her at the St. Regis.”
He’s going along with it. Laurie did not expect the tsunami of relief that swept over her. The possibility of the program had unexpectedly gathered momentum, and if Powell had flatly turned down Nina Craig’s demand, the show could easily have been doomed, and her job along with it. Two failed series, then a rejected proposal, after intense media interest, would easily have meant her dismissal.
Brett Young did not tolerate failure.
She started to thank Powell, then realized he was looking past her out onto the patio beyond the glass doors of his den. Her eyes followed to see what he was looking at that had caused the sudden expression of disapproval.
She saw a landscaper standing on the patio outside the den, edging the grass around it with a clipper.
Powell looked from the man to Laurie. “Sorry,” he said, “but I find it annoying that they’re working this late. I’ve made it clear that I want any work on the property completed by noon. If I have guests coming, I don’t want those big trucks in the driveway.”
Outside, Blue Eyes saw that Powell was looking at him. He finished clipping the last section around the patio and, without looking, carried his gardening equipment quickly back to the truck. It was his first day on the job for Perfect Estates. If Powell complained about him being there so late, Blue Eyes would say he stayed after hours to impress his new boss.
The Graduation girls won’t be the only ones here when they are filming that show, he thought. I’ll be here, too.
What a perfect scenario for him to take out Laurie Moran.
He had already prepared the sign he wanted to put on her body.
GOT GREG
TIMMY’S NEXT
In June, preproduction for the “Graduation Gala” went into high gear. Laurie had already obtained all available film footage taken of the party, but then Robert Powell willingly turned over the extra footage other guests had captured that night.
It was like watching Cinderella’s night at the ball. Only there were four Cinderellas, Laurie mused as she ran tape after tape.
After Betsy died, George Curtis, a member of the Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, had brought to the police the footage he had taken that evening. But it was mostly a duplicate of what the police already had. The tape was copied and given to Robert Powell, who had requested it. “It’s very similar to what I’ve already given you,” he had told the detective in charge of the investigation, “but there are some scenes of Betsy and me that are particularly precious to me.” He had pictures made of several of the frames in which he and Betsy had been together-one of them looking at each other, another of them dancing on the patio, another toasting the graduates.
“These films sure give us a look into the party,” Laurie commented to Grace and Jerry as she played the copies over and over in the screening room of the office, trying to decide which scenes she wanted to include.
I start with the body being discovered and the cops arriving, she thought. That was at 8 A.M. Powell went in to wake up Betsy. He was carrying a cup of coffee for her. He always brought her wake-up cup at that time, even if she had had a late night.
Jane rushed in, screaming Betsy’s name, and yelling for the others to dial 911.
We’ll end the first segment with Betsy and Powell toasting the graduates. We’ll have the narrator say, “At that moment, beautiful Betsy Bonner Powell had only four hours to live,” Laurie decided.