“You think you could,” Alex corrected. “Now, tell me what you thought of Robert Powell’s speech at lunch. I’m telling you right now that I think he’s bluffing, but if one of the people at that table did murder Betsy Powell, he or she may believe his threat. He’s playing a dangerous game.”
Nina looked in the mirror as Meg clipped the vinyl sheet around her neck.
“Now, Meg,” she cautioned, “this morning you were told to make us look like rag dolls.”
“I was told to make you resemble the way you looked the morning Betsy’s body was discovered,” Meg said matter-of-factly. “Even then you looked better than anyone else.”
“I looked passable, but for this interview I want you to make me look a little like her.” Nina held up a picture of Grant with his late wife, Kathryn.
Meg studied it carefully. “You resemble her,” she observed.
“I want to resemble her,” Nina said flatly.
She had googled everything she could find on the subject of Grant Richmond. For a major producer, he led a quiet behind-the-scenes life. He had married at twenty-six. His wife had been twenty-one.
They had been married for thirty years before she died two years ago of heart failure from a lifelong condition.
No children, and not a whiff of scandal about them.
So Grant had been a one-woman man, and he had been alone for two years. By now he was probably lonely.
He was pushing sixty.
Nina held up her camera and looked at a second picture. “Who does this look like?” she demanded.
Meg studied it carefully. “This is the same lady, Nina. Is she a relative?”
Nina nodded in satisfaction. It’s not just that I’m a good dancer, she thought. I resemble his wife.
“Look, Meg,” she said. “She’s not a relative, but I want to look like her when you do the makeup.”
“Then I can’t put that heavy liner and shadow on you.”
“That’s fine with me.”
A half hour later Meg said, “That’s it.”
Nina looked in the mirror. “I could be her sister,” she said. “Perfect.”
“My turn, Nina, it’s getting late,” Courtney said briskly.
“I know.” Nina moved into Courtney’s chair. Holding the picture, she said, “She had short hair. I don’t want to cut mine.”
“Don’t,” Courtney said. “I’ll put it up in a twist; same effect.”
Five minutes later, Jerry knocked on the door of the van. When he came inside, he was startled by the change in Nina’s appearance.
“Ready, Nina?” he asked.
“Yes, I am.” She gave herself a final look in the mirror before she got up. “These two are miracle workers,” she said. “Don’t you agree, Jerry?”
“Yes, I do,” he said honestly. “By that I mean for giving you a different look, not a better one,” he added hastily.
Nina laughed. “Good you added those last few words.”
As they left the van, Jerry compared the graduates. He liked Nina best. The others seemed to be trapped in their own shells. For women who had been close friends until they were twenty-one, they seemed to have very little to say to each other. When they were on the patio in between shoots, they all grabbed for a book or their smartphones from their purses.
Nina did, too, except when Muriel insisted on talking. She always paid attention when Muriel gushed about what a wonderful man Robert Powell was, and how Betsy had been her dearest friend.
It’s as if Muriel is always hoping that Powell can hear her, Jerry thought. She’s overplaying her role. I’ve been around enough film sets to know that.
He and Nina were walking past the pool. “I wouldn’t mind taking a swim on a day like this,” he commented. “How about you?”
“I’d like to be taking a swim in the pool at my condo. I do that every day, or evening if I work late,” Nina said.
What am I going to say? she was asking herself. What kind of questions are they going to ask me? What’s going to happen tomorrow when Robert Powell shows us the door? Would my own mother use that moment to swear that I confessed to killing Betsy to her and claim the reward?
You bet she would!
I won’t let it happen.
Jerry did not attempt to keep up the conversation. Unlike Regina, Nina did not seem nervous, but he was sure she was preparing herself for the interview.
But then she suddenly said, “There’s Creepy Crawly again.” She pointed to Bruno, who was at the far end of the grounds behind the house. “What’s he doing? Chasing bugs on the plants?”
Jerry laughed. “Mr. Powell is a perfectionist. He wants every shot of the grounds to display them in their normal pristine condition. Yesterday when we were taking pictures of the four of you in different locations back here, he looked shocked when the equipment made tracks in the grass. Then, as you saw, Creepy Crawly, as you call him, came running to the rescue.”
“Oh, God, do I remember that he was a perfectionist!” Nina exclaimed. That last night when we were all going back and forth from the den to the patio and Regina put out her last cigarette, she deliberately missed the ashtray on the table and ground it out on the tabletop. I don’t think anyone else saw her.
Should I tell that story when I’m interviewed?
Again the patio and kitchen were empty.
Grant will be watching when this is on television, Nina told herself as she and Jerry walked down the hallway to the den. I certainly have the least reason to have killed Betsy. No sane person would think that I did it. The fact that my mother blames me for introducing them would never be a strong enough motive for murder.
She stood for a moment at the door of the den. Well, this is it, she thought. Alex and Laurie were waiting for her. I wonder what the others were feeling when they walked in here? Nina asked herself. Could they possibly have been as terrified as I am now?
Come on, I’m an actress. I can carry this off. She gave a brief smile and, with an air of confidence, took the seat opposite Alex.
“Nina Craig was the final graduate being celebrated on the tragic night of the Graduation Gala,” Alex began. “Nina, thank you for being with us today.”
Her mouth too dry to speak, Nina nodded.
His voice friendly, his smile warm, Alex asked, “What does it feel like to be here again in Salem Ridge, reunited with your old friends after twenty years?”
Be honest whenever you can, Nina warned herself. “It’s awkward, even strange. We all know why we’re here.”
“And why is that, Nina?”
“To try to prove that none of us murdered Betsy Powell,” she said. “And that she was killed by a stranger who came in. On the other hand, we all know that you’re hoping that one of us will blurt out a confession or give herself away. I certainly think that’s what Robert Powell is hoping. And, of course, in a way I can’t blame him.”
“How does that make you feel, Nina?”
“Angry. Defensive. But I think we all have been feeling like that for the last twenty years, so it’s nothing new. I’ve certainly learned the hard way that you can get used to anything.”
Listening and observing, Laurie found it hard to conceal her surprise. Nina Craig was not responding to Alex’s questions the way she had expected at all. Somehow, she had expected a more belligerent response from her. After all, Nina had the least reason of all of them to have suffocated Betsy, but her attitude now was one of regret, even when she confessed to anger. And she looks different, too, Laurie thought. Softer. What’s the reason she had her hair styled in an upsweep? With all the research we’ve done on her, I’ve never seen one picture without the flowing locks. She’s playing a game, but what is it?
Nina was taking Alex through her childhood.
“Alex, as you obviously know, my mother, Muriel Craig, is an actress. I was kind of born in a trunk. We moved all over in those days.”