Confessions of a Murder Suspect Read online

  I had always wondered what that would feel like. To love. Passionately. And in hours-long phone conversations and e-mail exchanges, I would ask Katherine to describe it. I wanted to know every little detail. I guess most people would say that what she told me was TMI, but I needed it. It was deeply fascinating to me.

  Then, one horrible day, Dominick was driving a motorcycle, Katherine seated behind him with her arms around his waist. Suddenly he stopped, for no apparent reason. A bus rear-ended the bike, and my sister was thrown into the air. She was crushed under a speeding van coming from the opposite direction. Crushed, gone, extinct.

  I have never really forgiven my parents for letting Katherine fly off on that fatal last Gongo. As smart as they were, they should have known her better, should have seen through her bravado and been less dazzled by her success.

  Or maybe I should have told them what she was really like, that she was a wild child.

  I have been haunted by the vision of my wonderful sister lying dead in the street every day since she died, just as I was that night in my prison cell.

  Until that morbid image was hijacked by the sounds of hooting and banging on the iron bars of the jail.

  It was just too much.

  Tears welled in my eyes again and I bit down on my lip until it bled. There I was, trapped in that horrible place. A prime suspect in a double homicide. But I couldn’t let my circumstances defeat me. My mind was still free, wasn’t it?

  I swore to myself, to my dead parents, and to my dear sister that if I had to, I would spend the rest of my life working to clear the Angel name.

  I would find out who killed my mother and father.

  And I would make whoever it was pay dearly.

  42

  My incarceration was, in some ways, a disconcerting metaphor for my whole life. I’d been raised in one of the most luxurious homes in Manhattan, and yet somehow I was seeing myself in the caged women surrounding me. There were even a few younger girls, like me, banging on the bars, screaming for dinner.

  A guard in a green uniform came down the narrow tier pushing a food cart, shoving white-bread sandwiches through the slots in the iron bars.

  When she got to me, she said, “How’re you holding up?”

  “Never better,” I said.

  “Court’s over for the day. So take it easy. Try to sleep.”

  I ate my crap-cheese-and-mystery-meat sandwich and then lay down on my board. I wondered exactly which pill from Malcolm’s pastel-colored assortment had produced the stumplike sleep that now eluded me.

  I had a moment of desperate craving for those pills.

  I swung wildly between being overwhelmed with emotion—and actually sort of liking the catharsis of it—and feeling like the pain of my situation was too much to bear.

  A wave of self-pity hit me, and I wished more than anything that I were back in my room, watching the prisms in my windows bend the light into rainbows, listening to my parents move around in their suite upstairs.

  A pill could make this all go away, I thought. Like magic.

  I bit my hand so that I wouldn’t cry and forced myself into an exercise I’d learned from Dr. Keyes that I thought might actually help me—the one she called FOF, or Focus on the Facts.

  I concentrated and thought of everyone who lived in the Dakota, calling to mind the names and faces of every resident on every floor. I reviewed every insult I could remember, every grudge, and considered who among our neighbors might be a stealthy killer with a key.

  I also considered each of my siblings as the possible murderer. I even wondered if I was the guilty party.

  Was I a sleepwalking homicidal maniac? Could I have killed my parents and kept the terrible secret from myself? I’d been trained in burying trauma. Could I have poisoned them? What did I stand to gain? Or was it revenge?

  Not revenge for having to do a Big Chop while standing on my head. I mean revenge for something else, something much bigger, something that maybe I don’t remember.

  Quick as lightning, a face flashed before my eyes. A boy’s face. It gave me a warm feeling, then a painful one, then an angry one. Then it disappeared as fast as it came.

  FOF, Tandy. I blinked three times just to make sure the face was really gone. Focus on the Facts.

  And that boy, that face, that thing—it was just a ghost.

  Or a demon.

  CONFESSION

  I’m sure it was the good doctor who made me forget the identifying details of that face. She must be the only one who understands why I can’t seem to linger on its beauty long enough to really remember the person it belongs to. Why I can’t study it long enough to understand the pain and anger I associate with it.

  It took months of therapy, which Malcolm and Maud preferred to call “coaching,” to get me to bury what started at the party that night, as well as everything that happened afterward—like, for instance, being institutionalized. If I hadn’t been thrown in prison, I might never have remembered that.

  Some days I worshipped Dr. Keyes for giving me sanity. Peace. And that very phlegmatic conscience. And sometimes I hated Dr. Keyes for it—as much as I was able to hate, anyway.

  Allowing myself to feel pain would have been the one way to keep the boy behind the face alive in my heart.

  I knew my transformation was complete when Dr. Keyes asked, “How are you feeling today, Tandy?” and I responded, “I’m not.”

  Freedom.

  And by the way, my freedom wasn’t exactly free. It cost about $250 an hour.

  43

  I must have finally fallen asleep, because I was totally confused when I woke up to the blare of a public-address system.

  It was morning. And I was still in jail.

  I sat up and scrubbed my face with my hands, then stretched my eyes wide open a couple of times.

  Soon, Philippe would be coming to take me to my arraignment. I would face a judge, and I would be asked to say whether I was guilty or not, and the judge would determine if I would be tried for the murder of my parents.

  I was taken to an interview room after breakfast—scrambled powdered eggs—had been served. Philippe arrived and greeted me with a shaky smile on his usually confident and handsome face.

  He said, “The police have nothing on you, except that you were home when your parents were killed. The prints on the bottle are smudged, and the toxin is an unknown chemical that doesn’t show up in the poison database.”

  “Are you getting me out of here, Philippe?”

  “I talked to the DA. He doesn’t like the obstruction charge. He thinks you could be found not guilty, and he’d rather try you for murder if the cops can put together a convincing case. So the DA told the cops to let you go.”

  I could hardly breathe. I said, “And my brothers?”

  “They’re being released, too, but I have to warn you, Tandy: The police won’t give up. In fact, they’re going to focus almost exclusively on those of you who were inside the apartment when your parents were killed.”

  44

  I changed into the clothes Philippe had brought me, and then I was officially released. I was desperate to go home, but it wouldn’t be easy to cut and run.

  Philippe took me out through the correctional center’s back door, and a roar went up from the mob of reporters who had gathered on the street. They were jamming the sidewalk right up to the face of the jail.

  “Tandoori Angel!”

  “Tandy, over here!”

  “Look at me, Tandy!”

  “Did you kill your parents? Did you kill them?”

  The shouting hurt. It was a strange, uncomfortable sensation. A few days earlier, I’m sure I could have walked through this crowd hardly noticing the jeers, let alone feeling them. My parents had been dead for just three days, and now it felt like I was being assaulted with rocks.

  Philippe put his hand at my back as a gigantic bouquet of microphones was shoved up to my face. I tried to make the statement Phil had coached me to say.

  �
�I had nothing to do with my parents’ deaths—”

  My voice sounded like it belonged to a stranger as it echoed and bounced off the surrounding buildings. And before I could finish my prepared statement, I was pelted again with more fierce questions from rude people.

  I got mad then. Hugo kind of mad. Matthew kind of mad. Kick-the-bejeesus-out-of-Robert kind of mad. I strangled the microphone in my grip.

  “HEY!” I shouted with a sharpness I didn’t recognize. The boom of my voice and the squeal of feedback washed over the reporters. A few of them put their hands over their ears, but they all gave me their full and quiet attention.

  “I’m one of the victims!” I continued. “Do you get that? My parents are dead. If I were your child, would you act like this? I suppose you would, actually. You’re all spineless. Rude. Barbarians. And of course you can quote me on that. Quote away.”

  The brief silence that followed my outburst was shattered as all of the reporters began shouting at once. Philippe took the microphone from me and spoke to the mob.

  “My client is innocent. The charges against the Angel children and Ms. Peck have been dropped. The entire family is cooperating fully with the police. We have no further comment at this time.”

  A pair of uniformed cops appeared beside me. One of them said, “This way, Miss Angel. Come this way.” He actually seemed sort of nice as he reached out to take my arm and lead me inside, but I felt a little out of control and had to force myself not to push him away.

  I did not want anyone to touch me. I just wanted to be with my family. What was left of it, anyway.

  A dozen or so policemen linked arms and made a path for Philippe and me that would take us back into the relative safety of Central Booking. As I passed through the gauntlet, someone pinched my arm, hard. I yelped and turned in time to see a white-haired cop give me a cold smile.

  He didn’t have to say it. He thought I was a killer.

  I glared at him so hard and felt so angry that I wondered if I might transform into a tiger or a werewolf, just like in those stupid movies. My mouth was as dry as cotton and my vision was starting to blur.

  So this is what fury is like.

  Philippe and I were swept through a series of doors to where Phil’s car and driver waited between a Vietnamese take-out restaurant and a bail bondsman’s storefront. I got into the backseat and rested my head against the window, trembling, overcome with weakness.

  You’re experiencing withdrawal, Tandy, that voice in my head said. Face it: Your parents had you addicted to drugs.

  45

  I think I lost consciousness then and didn’t fully regain it until the car stopped in front of the Dakota.

  Where we were met by more reporters.

  Phil and his driver escorted me quickly through the crowd at the gates, inside the building, and into the elevator. Phil kept saying, over and over, “Don’t let them rattle you, Tandy. You’re going to be okay.”

  “Promise?”

  Uncle Peter opened the front door to us, his face a mask of disapproval. I went into the living room but didn’t see any sign of my brothers.

  I was home. But home had never felt like this.

  “Matthew is downtown with his slutty actress girl-friend,” my uncle said. “Samantha is out looking for a rental apartment—and good luck to her. Harry is in bed. Hugo kicked a social worker in the shin. That was a mistake. He’s currently buried under a few layers of bureaucracy.”

  My little brother was lost in the system? I wasn’t worried that he might be scared, because Hugo isn’t afraid of anything. But Hugo wouldn’t recognize a dangerous situation if it sprouted claws and fangs and spewed fire through its nose.

  Hugo would laugh out loud. And that scared me.

  I went to his room and stood in the doorway, looking in at the broken bed, the unused toys, the stuffed pony and other relics of the childhood my little brother never really had.

  I had to know if Hugo had anything to do with our parents’ deaths. I just couldn’t rule him out, and I needed to rule somebody out soon.

  His computer was open on his desk, and I knew his password. I hadn’t been sneaky; Hugo had told me what it was.

  I touched the mouse and the computer jumped to life. I punched in Ginats, which is how Hugo spells Giants. Hugo has an IQ in the 160s, but he either can’t or won’t follow the rules of spelling.

  I clicked open the file marked “H” and began to read my little brother’s private journal. His early entries were bland and blameless, but as I scrolled down to the more recent entries, I found many mentions of our parents.

  Hugo always called them “Malkim ’n’ Mud.”

  Tues. 4th. Malkim was ugly 2day. He had a big welt under his eye and a sour look. It was the real Malkim. No fool. He’z an ugly person + he’z not as smrty as he thinx.

  In similar entries about “Mud,” Hugo described her as “batty” and “meen.” It was clear that Hugo was sitting on a volcano of anger. I scrolled through his journal until I came to his entries for the previous summer.

  Hugo had been only nine, but our parents’ expectations were, of course, that he would bring home academic honors and that he wouldn’t misbehave.

  Despite warnings and Big Chops, Hugo consistently started fights with his classmates; he actually knocked out a total of three teeth, and was unabashedly proud of his right uppercut. He regularly muffed his homework and otherwise torpedoed his grades in courses he could have easily aced.

  Last summer had been a bad one for Hugo.

  For getting the lowest-possible grades and barely passing the fourth grade, Hugo was awarded a world-class Big Chop—and was sent far away from home.

  46

  After Hugo was shipped out for his draconian punishment, I interrogated Maud, and she finally relented and told me about Camp Kokopoki. After Hugo came home, he filled in the gaps between what Maud had said and the truth.

  The camp was situated in the dead center of Maui, between ranches and rain forests, at the blackened base of a volcano. It was an army-style boot camp for out-of-control kids with a punishing regimen of predawn six-mile runs, grueling calisthenics, tasteless food, and big, bullying boys. And there were no phones, TVs, books, or iPads—none of the comforts that most of us take for granted these days.

  When he wasn’t doing paramilitary drills, Hugo was attached to a farm detail, where he worked among prickly pineapple plants, weeding and harvesting in the broiling heat of the Hawaiian sun. He cut his hands, got a scalding sunburn, and acquired colonies of blisters.

  Have I mentioned that he was only nine?

  Our parents knew what Hugo would go through there, and they approved. They wanted him to learn about the rule of law and to appreciate the soft life he had in New York City. I wonder if they ever considered that forced obedience just might make Hugo murderous….

  I scrolled to Hugo’s first journal entry—made when he got home from Maui. He had written:

  I hate Malkim and Mud. I want them to dye.

  They would totally deserve it.

  I had to read the sentence a few times to make sure that I’d read it right, and when I did a search for the words dye, dyed, and dead, I found that Hugo had wished for our parents’ deaths several times:

  I wouldn’t care if they dyed.

  They should be dead.

  Malkim and Mud are monsters, human monsters. Dye monsters, dye.

  I took a deep breath. After reading Hugo’s journal, it wasn’t so hard for me to imagine him mixing up a poison and giving it to our parents to drink before bed. They might have humored him, thinking they were making peace with their little boy.

  I wanted to see him. To look into his eyes. To ask him to tell me that he hadn’t killed Malkim ’n’ Mud.

  If he told me he was innocent, would I believe him?

  CONFESSION

  You probably wonder how I could even consider a ten-year-old boy as a possible suspect, don’t you?

  Maybe you’ve never seen a six-year-old gle
efully hack at a teddy bear with a butcher knife.

  Boys will be boys, you say? You think Hugo was just playing a game of knights and ninjas?

  Unlikely. If Hugo were playing knights, he’d be wearing the complete set of armor (made out of tin) that Malcolm had custom-made by the costume shop at the Metropolitan Opera. If he were playing ninja, he’d be wearing his junior-sized balaclava and using his replica samurai sword.

  Instead, he was a hundred percent Hugo, Spider-Man pj’s and all. He slashed and sawed at the teddy bear he and Maud had just built together at the Build-A-Bear Workshop for his birthday. He called the bear Malcolm.

  And he laughed and laughed and laughed.

  He was already a sociopath, and he was just out of kinder-garten.

  I didn’t think much of it at the time. It was the family way.

  47

  Could you ever spy on your own family the way I spied on mine? Could you, if you thought somebody in your house was a murderer? Don’t be too sure about how you’d react to things you haven’t actually experienced. You might be a little surprised by what you’re capable of.

  I was closing down Hugo’s computer when the intercom screeched and Harry’s voice filled all nine thousand square feet of our apartment.

  “Calling Tandy. Calling Tandy. Are you home? Meet me in the kitchen, stat.”

  Harry sounded borderline hysterical. I am not kidding.

  The kitchen was like a mile from Hugo’s room, but I ran, slid into the kitchen on socked feet, and found Harry staring at the small under-cabinet television set.

  “Look at this,” he said, hitting the rewind button on our DVR.

  “Well, hello to you, too, Harry. Glad you made it out of jail. I’m just fine. Thanks for asking.”

  “Of course you’re fine, Tandy. You’re always fine,” he replied. He paused, then said, “I’m glad you’re home. Now look!”