The Murder of an Angel Read online

  “So I want to finish by saying please accept my apology for hitting you, C.P. I mean that sincerely. But until you apologize to my sister, I advise you to stay out of the Angels’ way. If you see us in the hallway, keep your eyes off us. If you see us in class, don’t speak to us. And if we’re coming up the stairs, I strongly suggest that you don’t come down.

  “May God bless all the students and faculty of this great school and all the people they love and who love them. Amen.”

  “Amen” in unison rolled forward from all the rows behind me. And then the most remarkable thing happened. Almost everyone jumped to their feet and applauded, and some even whistled and stamped as Hugo came down from the pulpit.

  I grabbed his arm and squeezed it. He grinned and continued up the aisle. I almost expected him to start slapping hands, for people to throw flowers.

  It was a true triumph. My little brother, a super kid in every way, had defended my honor and his.

  Instinctively, I turned toward C.P. She stood there, glaring, still as a stone, her expression a combination of rage and disbelief. And then I lost sight of her as the boisterous kids spilled out into the aisle.

  But I saw enough to know that she was mad, all right. And knowing her as I do, I could tell she wouldn’t let this public takedown go unanswered.

  Not a chance.

  After the dismissal bell rang, I took a cab to a gray stone building on William Street in downtown Manhattan where our family friend and lawyer, Philippe Montaigne, has his office.

  Phil is one of the good guys, but he is also Uncle Peter’s lawyer, and so not above suspicion.

  I took the elevator to his suite on the twentieth floor and announced myself to the young woman at the desk. She phoned Phil, and within ninety seconds, he came through the inner door and held out his arms to me.

  Phil is a very handsome man. He always looks crisp and smooth in dark suits, his thinning hair shaved short and his skin a warm Caribbean bronze.

  Philippe filled a mug for me at the coffee urn and took me into his airy modern office. I sat down in a chair across from his desk, dropped my bag to the floor, and turned my fierce attention on him.

  “What’s so urgent, Tandy?” he said, getting right to it.

  “I have to talk with you about Angel Pharma.”

  “Okay. I’m listening.”

  “I saw things when I was in France that prove Angel Pharmaceuticals is a criminal enterprise.”

  “That’s quite an assertion, Tandy. What happened in France?” Phil asked me.

  I told our dear family friend the parts of the Paris sojourn that had to do with Angel Pharma. I briefed him about my grandmother’s scientific mind, and that she had arrived at formulas to boost intelligence and strength. “But she abandoned these recipes when the animal trials showed her that the effects could be remarkable—but fatal,” I explained.

  I named names. I cited examples. I told Phil that I had found documents that linked my father and my uncle Peter to the recovery of these formulas for “smart” drugs that had carried lethal side effects. I knew of three boys in France who had died from taking the pills, and I didn’t doubt there were countless others.

  “You have the documents proving this?”

  And that was when my agitation overwhelmed my happiness at seeing Phil. He was only asking me a simple question, but it felt like a challenge. I hesitated before speaking again, using a moment to collect my thoughts and calm myself a little.

  I took a breath before saying, “The documents were destroyed when Gram Hilda’s house was set on fire. But I have anecdotal evidence. Good evidence.

  “Phil, my brothers and I took these drugs our whole lives. You might say we benefited from them; it’s true that we test very high in intelligence and physical skills. But based on what happened to other test subjects, we could be dying.

  “Meanwhile, Peter Angel is still exporting pretty pills with poetic names as candied vitamins. It’s immoral, unethical, and has got to be illegal. Phil, you believe me, don’t you?”

  My anger had been surging as I spoke. I hadn’t quite managed to keep it out of my voice.

  “Tandy, Tandy, please calm down,” said Phil. I saw concern in his face, and I trusted his sincerity. But I couldn’t calm down. I felt frantic and frustrated and afraid that he wouldn’t take me seriously.

  “Your doctors have given you full batteries of tests, and you’re in the top one percent of perfect health,” he said.

  My God, I wanted to scream bloody hell. I clenched my fists and bit my lip, and I felt sweat dripping into my eyes.

  Phil said reasonably, “And to your main point, Tandy, you understand, you can’t close down a corporation with undocumented anecdotes that are legally ancient and took place in another country.”

  Lights flashed in front of my eyes, and I found it hard to breathe. I grabbed the edge of the desk and tried to plant my suddenly weightless feet on the floor.

  What was wrong with me?

  Was it my newfound righteous anger blazing along my neural pathways that was making me feel this light-headed? Was my anger actually running the rest of me?

  Or was I having symptoms of an early, pill-induced fatal illness? I tried to swallow. I licked my dry lips, and I stood up straight.

  “I don’t care about what we can’t do, dammit!” I shouted, leaning over the desk to get right in his face. “Do not try to pacify me. No one is tracking these drugs. No one knows what is becoming of the people taking them. I can’t sit by and let this happen.

  “And neither should you.”

  I smiled into his shocked face and sat down. “Now, where do we begin?”

  At night, when I’m alone in bed and I finally allow the cold loneliness to steal over me, my thoughts always, always turn to James.

  Our feelings had been so strong, they had broken through my pill-induced emotional coma and had overcome the unbelievable obstacles our parents had piled between us.

  It was just a few months ago that I had reunited with James in, appropriately, the most romantic city in the world. We’d spent a magical evening exploring Paris together, giddily drunk on wine and love. Later, in a tiny and shabby Parisian hotel, James and I had finally, fully, become one. It was the most incredible night of my life.

  The next day would be the most devastating.

  By the time I woke up, James was gone. His cowardly good-bye note made me question everything and answered nothing. And the next time I saw James, he had just slept with my best friend.

  Less than an hour after I had bitch-slapped C.P. and slammed the door in James’s face, his horrible and extremely powerful father was dead, just after he had shot my driver in the head. His car had crashed into a tree while trying to run mine off the road.

  Soon after Royal Rampling’s death, my uncle Peter bought back the controlling shares of Angel Pharmaceuticals from Rampling’s estate. I knew it had to have been done with James’s blessing. He had hated his father but had already admitted that he had no intention of giving up his father’s money, even for me.

  When I think about that, my brain seizes up in a blind, wordless fury.

  But despite all the ways that James had used and betrayed me, I confess that a loathsome little part of my heart wouldn’t stop longing for him.

  I daydreamed about his smile. The way he loved to stroke my hair. His casual references to our future together. Every single time he told me he loved me.

  And in the safety of darkness, like now, I can’t stop myself from recalling—in excruciating detail—everything we had done that night in Paris.

  And despising myself for every aching thrill I felt.

  I coped with my first chaotic week at school, avoiding C.P. by keeping to the outer passageways of the school between classes and studying in the isolated choir loft. I even got praise from Dr. Oppenheimer for a succinct description of chaos theory.

  But underneath the appearance of normality, I hadn’t forgotten my new mission in life.

  I burne
d with it.

  On Friday, the school day ended at last, and Leo was waiting for me at the curb. I got into the car and turned my thoughts to the meeting ahead, and after fifteen minutes of stop-and-go traffic on Forty-Second Street, Leo dropped me off in front of the iconic Chrysler Building.

  By then, my mind was totally focused. I went through a revolving door that released me into the building’s marbled lobby and found Philippe Montaigne staring up at the gorgeous Art Deco murals on the thirty-foot ceilings.

  I tapped my lawyer on the shoulder. We hugged, then grabbed an open elevator. As the car rose toward the nineteenth floor, Phil said, “Let me do the talking.”

  “I’ll do my best, but I’m under a lot of pressure, Phil,” I said. “You could say that my purpose in life is about to culminate here and now.”

  “Please, for your own sake, keep your expectations in check, Tandy.”

  Before I could say, “Me? Never,” the elevator doors slid open into a spacious reception area and we were shown to a glassed-in conference room, where six gray-haired, gray-suited lawyers and my paunchy, ginger-haired uncle Peter sat around a marble conference table.

  I could see Peter’s pink little eyes behind his glasses. Because of his porky looks, we kids had called him Uncle Pig most of our lives.

  Maybe that was one of the reasons he hated us. But it wasn’t the only one. Once, when I was younger, I had even asked him.

  “Because the whole snotty pack of you are revolting. Especially you.”

  Now he smiled broadly upon seeing me. He was putting on a show. “How are we feeling, Tandoori? All better now? All your marbles accounted for? Got new bulbs in your chandelier?”

  “I’m fine, Uncle Peter. And how is your worldwide reputation for limitless corruption and deplorable greed faring?” I smiled venomously as I took the seat opposite my uncle, with Phil to my right.

  Peter sarcastically introduced me around as his brother Malcolm’s daughter. “Tandoori is named for an Indian cooking oven.”

  When the snickers and introductions had ceased, Phil said, “My client is the victim of Angel Pharmaceuticals products. We’re here to serve notice that if your vitamin division is not voluntarily closed down until independent scientists can study your product line, we will notify the FDA, the FBI, the IRS, and Interpol regarding the questionable ingredients in those so-called vitamins.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence, which I enjoyed. We’d caught Angel Pharma napping. I was prepared for anything, or so I thought, until all the lawyers started barking like hyenas.

  “If I may address my niece,” said Uncle Pig.

  Phil said, “Address me, Peter.”

  Ignoring him, Peter stood up, walked around to my side of the table, and stabbed the air with his forefinger, this close to my nose.

  Reflexively, I rolled my chair back.

  Peter’s spittle sprayed my face as he hissed. “Because of those pills, you’re as healthy as a cow and more intelligent than you were ever meant to be. And in all these years, you’ve never shown a smidgen of gratitude for your extraordinary life, you little shit.”

  From the murderous look in his eyes, it was clear he was more than willing to end my extraordinary life right then and there.

  I was stunned by Peter’s vehemence and audacity. It was as if he had actually taken a sledgehammer to my heart.

  I fumbled for a comeback and was coming up with nothing when luckily Phil picked up where Peter had left me for dead.

  Phil said, “We can prove that children who were given those so-called vitamins aged rapidly and died before their twentieth birthdays. My client is seventeen.”

  “Please provide evidence of this fairy tale,” Peter said. “I wager that you cannot, because it is one hundred percent pure bull crap, not to mention outrageously libelous. Allow me to confer with my lawyers.”

  The hyenas barked some more, saying sarcastically how scared they were of what I could do to the company. They thought they were hilarious but obviously were not funny at all.

  Phil went on, “As I was saying, Peter, we can do this the easy way. You agree to discontinue all shipments of your products until independent scientists we approve have analyzed the ingredients. Or we will notify the agencies I mentioned, and my client and her brothers will sue for damages. They will sue you, Peter, personally.”

  “We’re not discontinuing a damned thing, so do your worst,” Peter spat. “In fact, we have a boatload heading for Shanghai tomorrow morning. As for you, you little snot,” he said, turning to me, “you’ve got nothing on me. I can’t wait to wipe the courtroom floor with your nasty little face.”

  I’d been seething since Uncle Pig became my guardian. I’d kept myself under control for most of the last year, but now the dam that had been holding back my fury burst wide open.

  I stood up with my backpack and unzipped it. A flood of candy-colored pills poured out across the conference table, causing the lawyers to recoil in surprise.

  The pills were beautiful, not just because they were of every shape and color. They were beautiful because they were evidence, and because every single one of them was stamped with the name and logo of Angel Pharmaceuticals.

  “I’ve got nothing on you?” I said into Peter’s startled face. “I’ve got everything, Uncle. I can’t wait to bring this evidence to court so the whole world will know that you’re a soulless maniac who has caused irreparable damage to your own flesh and blood.

  “You had full knowledge that these pills are dangerous and even lethal but freely gave them to us anyway. For all I know, you may have already killed us.”

  Pills continued to cascade off the long marble table and onto the floor as I walked briskly out of the conference room with Philippe right behind me. I fixed my expression into a mask of supreme indifference. But in truth, I was scared and furious. My heart was like a fire hose pumping hot, adrenalized blood through my veins.

  Phil pushed the button for the elevator and said, “Think about this carefully, Tandy. Going head-to-head with Peter when he is fighting for his life is going to be a nuclear war. Everyone is going to get dragged through the mud. Are you sure you want me to proceed with this action?”

  Phil looked very concerned. And I understood what he was telling me. Before the case was over, injuries would be inflicted on both sides, and not just to me. My brothers would go through the grinder as well.

  But I had a firm belief that right was might and that we would beat Peter and shut down his corrupt, child-killing drug factory. It was a fight worth fighting.

  “The company may try to negotiate,” Phil told me as Leo opened the car door for me. “He doesn’t want the FDA poking into his laboratory, that’s for sure.”

  “You know Peter. You think he’ll negotiate?”

  “Not a chance,” he admitted.

  “He may try to shut me up permanently,” I said. “There have been several attempts on my life in the last year, like the fire that torched Gram Hilda’s house in Paris. But I’m willing to risk everything to have Angel Pharma shut down, so help me God.”

  “A good reason to keep your head down. On the other hand, you could win tens of millions in damages.”

  I barely heard what he was telling me. I said, “Phil, I’m officially authorizing you to file a complaint against Angel Pharmaceuticals. As soon as possible.”

  As we left the building, I said good-bye to my lawyer and put on my shades. After Leo locked me inside our bulletproof car, we headed uptown, and I thought about the elements of our case.

  Charts had once existed of the Angel kids’ drug protocols. There were memos and documents and reports, cartons of them. And there were inquiries from other governments that saw the military potential of Angel Pharma’s products, thanks to the mind-boggling results from physical examinations done on Matty and Hugo.

  Unfortunately, this rich stash of incriminating evidence had burned up in the fire in Paris, but Hugo, Harry, Matty, and I were alive. And we could testify to the effect
s of Angel Pharma’s so-called vitamins on us—if we lived that long.

  I was abruptly brought back into the moment when the car stopped in the familiar semicircular driveway.

  I asked, “Leo, do you have a license to carry?”

  “Yes. I’m armed at all times: gun, knife, and hands. I’m a master of MMA.”

  “Good.”

  “I also have eyes in the back of my head.”

  He took off his cap, and two piercing blue eyes that were tattooed on the back of his shaved scalp stared me down.

  Leo’s reflection winked at me in the rearview mirror. I laughed and said, “I’ll be down in forty-five minutes.”

  Leo opened the car door for me, and I marched up the steps and through the front doors of Waterside.

  I took a chair in the anteroom of Dr. Robosson’s office. I crossed my legs and pulled on my hair as the standard “Be Happy” music played through the speakers and the familiar fragrances of lilac and lemon balm came through the ventilators. Nothing had changed a bit in the week since I’d left Waterside.

  But I felt different.

  I no longer resided here and was neither confined nor protected by the high granite walls and the hundreds of caregivers at this place.

  I was thinking of my lounge chair in the solarium overlooking the river when voices came through the door: Dr. Robosson’s warm tones, interspersed with a man’s gravelly “Good-bye. See you tomorrow, Doctor R.”

  The door swung open. A hunched, barefoot man in a terry-cloth robe shuffled out, and Dr. Robosson invited me in.

  She was wearing a rosy pink suit and smiled broadly as I went to the chair across from her larger one. She closed the door, and when she was seated, she gave me a long look—what I call an eyeball diagnosis. Then she said, “How have you been, Tandy?”