The Murder of an Angel Read online

When I woke up in the morning, I hadn’t moved at all. The phone was exactly where I had placed it.

  Katherine hadn’t called me back.

  When I was little, I adored my sister, Katherine, more than anyone else in the world. She was gentle and kind—two qualities sorely lacking in my parents—and she was the one I ran to when I needed comforting. I wanted to be just like her, in every way.

  Then we found out she’d been killed in an accident abroad.

  And it was all because of Peter.

  He was our uncle, older than our father. But somehow, he had developed a sick obsession with my sister—his niece—when she was just a child. He had openly hated the rest of us but indulged Katherine by buying her gifts, taking her out for treats, making her sit on his lap. God knows what else.

  In the basement of Gram Hilda’s house, I discovered repulsive love letters my uncle had written to my sister when she was still a teenager. I imagine she felt helpless to stop him, with our parents not exactly being the supportive type.

  So when the opportunity presented itself, she took the only way out.

  When Katherine was sixteen, my parents gave her a trip to South Africa as a special reward for being accepted at MIT. Ever the genius, she successfully faked her own death and went into hiding, never making it known to us that she was still alive for fear that Peter would find her. Even now, years later, she couldn’t reveal herself because she was terrified of what he would do to her.

  My beautiful, smart, promising sister—now a refugee from her own family.

  So if you want to know the real reason for my crusade to burn Angel Pharma to the ground, it’s simple.

  Peter Angel.

  I want to destroy him for what he did to my sister, my family. Without the money and the prestige that the company affords him, he would be less than nothing. Financially, socially, and professionally, he might as well be dead.

  Speaking of dead, you might be wondering why I need to go through the trouble of annihilating Peter through his company, when, for a certain sum of money, I could go the more direct route.

  Believe me, friend. It’s under careful consideration.

  The Supreme Court of New York is in a 1920s granite-faced, classical-Roman-style building with a carved pediment and soaring columns standing in the heart of lower Manhattan.

  At almost nine o’clock on a Monday morning, as light snow fluttered down on Centre Street, Philippe and his second chair, Drake DiBella, along with my brothers and me, climbed the wide steps to the entrance of the courthouse building.

  It was, in the truest sense of the word, awesome.

  It would be an enormous thing for four kids to take on their parents in a court of law, but this was way more than that. We were taking on our uncle and, by extension, a major corporation. My brothers and I were ready.

  I missed Jacob’s strong presence, but he was in Paris, fighting to retain Matty’s inheritance. Despite our uncle’s absence, I felt good. My righteous anger warmed me with steady heat. I was ready for vindication and justice at last.

  We climbed an impressive marble staircase to a hallway where uniformed officers opened the doors to courtroom 928. The room where so much would be decided today was imposing and austere. It was paneled in dark wood to shoulder height, with stark, white-painted plaster above the panels, tall windows on one wall, and pendant lights hanging from the ceiling like frozen teardrops.

  Only a few dozen people sat in the gallery. The six of us walked up the aisle and through the gate. Chairs scraped as we took our seats at the plaintiff’s counsel table.

  We had just taken our places when laughter and loud talking rolled up from the back of the room. I recognized Uncle Pig’s grunts and the responding barks and yaps of his legal team.

  Team Pig went to the counsel table across the aisle from ours. They couldn’t have appeared more self-assured. It was as if once this bothersome little proceeding was over they would each get into their private jets and take off to Saint Thomas or Ibiza.

  Actually, I might have looked a little smug myself.

  We were in the right. We had been criminally used without our knowledge or consent in order to test drugs for commercial purposes. These drugs had altered our brains and actually turned us into freaks.

  Since our meeting with Peter’s lawyers two weeks ago, Philippe had filed a complaint with the courts and Peter’s horrid legal team had moved to dismiss it.

  Now the judge would make his decision.

  I’d done some research, of course. Judge George Campbell had a reputation for fairness, but that meant he was also known to deep-six frivolous lawsuits. I hoped when he’d listened to both sides, he would do the right thing.

  As if the judge had heard my thoughts, he came through a narrow door right behind his bench. He was tall, lanky, and in his midsixties. He had a bit of a smile as he sat down and rolled his chair into position.

  The bailiff called the court to order and announced that this was the case of Matthew, Tandoori, Harrison, and Hugo Angel versus Peter Angel and Angel Pharmaceuticals.

  Judge Campbell looked down at the papers in front of him, and then he looked up at us. The room seemed to swim as the judge’s warm brown eyes connected with mine. I suddenly worried that our claim of abuse might have suffered when translated into legalese.

  The judge adjusted his glasses and said, “I’ve read the complaint filed by the plaintiffs and the motion to dismiss made by the defendants. The court understands that the plaintiffs are aggrieved that their permission wasn’t sought before ingesting these performance-enhancing drugs. They were children, and all but one are still children. It would have been prudent and morally correct to wait until they were old enough to agree to take nonessential supplements.”

  I relaxed my jaw muscles and unclenched my fists. The judge understood how we’d been betrayed and harmed and that Angel Pharmaceuticals had to be stopped.

  He turned back to the document in front of him.

  “The court finds, however,” said the judge, “that even assuming that all the allegations made by the plaintiffs are true, they have not suffered any damages. I’m looking here at four remarkable young people, all of whom are A-plus students, creative in their endeavors and exceedingly capable intellectually. One, in fact, is a celebrated athlete, while another is an acclaimed musical prodigy. I find no scientific evidence to support their claims.”

  What? What was he saying? It felt as if the floor had tipped sideways, that I was about to pass out.

  I grabbed Harry’s arm. And although the judge’s voice sounded warped and muffled, I forced myself to hear.

  Judge Campbell said, “For that reason, the defendant’s motion to dismiss is granted—with prejudice.”

  He removed his glasses and looked straight at me, the warmth gone from his eyes. “That means, children, that you are barred from refiling your claim against the defendants. Permanently.”

  I was in complete shock.

  I wasn’t even sure I’d really heard what Judge Campbell had said. Did he say we had lost and Peter had won? It was inconceivable.

  The judge stood up and headed toward the door behind the bench. He was leaving?

  No. This was not happening.

  I shot to my feet and called out, “Judge Campbell, please. You’re missing the point, Your Honor. Those pills were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The pills turned us into freaks!”

  The judge half turned toward me, and he was scowling.

  “You’ve had your day in court, young lady. I’ve made a decision. If you don’t understand, ask your lawyer to explain. Good-bye. And good luck.”

  Hugo was trapped between the counsel table and the bar behind him. He picked up his chair and hurled it so that he could get out, screaming, “Judge, listen to her!”

  But the judge had slipped through his back door and was gone. I stared for an interminable minute at his empty chair. Then I turned to Phil and shouted at him, “What happened? What the hell just happened?”

  Phil put one hand on my shoulder and the other on Hugo’s head and said, “It was a summary judgment, Tandoori. It’s final. Do you understand the term with prejudice? It means we are prohibited from refiling the claim, as he said.”

  I shouted, “Then you have to file a different complaint! Or come at it from another angle. We can’t just let this go.”

  “We lost, Tandy,” Phil said. “This was always going to be down to either a yes or a no. Win or lose. We gave it our best, and the evidence was insufficient. We’re done.”

  I was shaking my head No, no, no. I had risked so much by going up against Peter, and I had been so sure that the judge would see how my brothers and I had been used and abused. I just couldn’t accept the finality of the judge’s decision.

  But there was no doubt in Uncle Peter’s mind.

  He crossed the aisle in two steps and leaned across Philippe to say to me, “Happy now, snot-face? Case closed. You can’t win them all, Philippe.”

  Peter strode up the aisle with his entourage in tow, the sound of his laughter echoing throughout the chamber. I was awash in humiliation.

  Why didn’t the judge understand what had been done to us?

  And then Matty’s gigantic face was in front of me.

  Matty said, “Sorry, kiddo. We all feel as bad as you do, but it’s time to go home.”

  Harry was urging me to move and Phil was holding out his hand to me, but I snapped again.

  I screamed at Phil, “This is wrong! The judge made his decision, and he can unmake it.”

  Police officers were heading toward us. This was more humiliation than even I could stand. I followed Phil up the aisle, through the double courtroom doors, and across the wide mezzanine to the stairs.

  Phil’s long legs were carrying him quickly down the staircase, and I kept calling him as I trotted to keep up.

  He stopped short when we reached the ground level. Now that I was looking directly into his face, I saw how upset he was. It finally hit me that he’d just lost a case, and he cared about that. And he cared about me.

  Crowds of people streamed around us as we stood on the center medallion in the vast marble floor. Phil said, “There are thousands of lawyers in New York who are looking for work, Tandy, and you can hire any one of them. But I’m telling you that this horse is dead. It doesn’t matter how much you beat it, or yell at me.

  “If you were my daughter, I would tell you the same thing. It’s time to quit. I know it hurts—”

  “You think?”

  “—but we didn’t have a provable case.”

  He went for the courthouse’s main doors with the pack of us following behind him. Outside, snow was falling more thickly than before, and it had a crazy effect on me, like static in my mind.

  I watched Phil and his deputy walk swiftly toward a pearl-gray town car. They looked like people in a 1940s black-and-white film. All that was missing were umbrellas turning inside out and hats blowing down the street.

  I heard Matty calling me, and I turned to see that my brothers were at the car and Leo was holding open the back door. I must have looked wild.

  “You having a heart attack, Ms. Tandy?” Leo asked me.

  “No. But thanks for asking.”

  I flung myself into the car, and my brothers piled in after me. Matty took the jump seat facing us.

  I’m sure they all saw the blood in my eyes when I said, “This isn’t over. Whatever Phil says, whatever the courts decide, I will make Peter pay.”

  I sat between Hugo and Harry in the back of our bulletproof car. Harry was plugged into his music, Hugo was telling Matty how many pounds he could press, and I was mulling over the bloody beating we’d just taken in courtroom 928.

  I wasn’t raised to lose.

  Maud and Malcolm Angel were parental terrorists. They rewarded success with fantastic gifts called Grande Gongos and penalized failure with memorable punishments known as Big Chops.

  None of us had been spared, and none of us had been told that we were loved. Ever.

  Why were we such remarkably unusual children?

  Was it nature, nurture, or pharmaceutical enhancement?

  The answer is yes. All three.

  What made our parents different from other tiger moms and dads was that they practiced what they preached. Malcolm excelled at one thing—running Angel Pharmaceuticals, which he did all night and all day. Maud walked the razor’s edge of high finance, and that stressful work made her largely unforgiving. Her motto was “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

  If my parents had still been alive and we’d lost a case of this import, we would all have been Chopped. Big-time.

  Trust me, it would have been bad.

  I was very quiet as we drove uptown. I was a product of my parents after all. I was coming up with an action plan.

  Once home, I nuked a burrito and took it upstairs, where I locked myself into the sanctuary of my soft blue bedroom and settled myself down to do research of an urgent kind.

  First, I made a list of all the important news outlets and created a spreadsheet with phone numbers and e-mail addresses. I ranked each name on my list according to how willing they might be to run with a juicy scandal.

  When my list was solid, I composed a press release that I could personalize to individuals but that was universal enough to go to all the journalists and pundits on my list. It was a script I could read, and I could also send it by e-mail.

  This is what I wrote to Dr. Norton Abel, senior science reporter at the New York Times.

  Dear Dr. Abel:

  I have read your articles on psychotropic drugs, and I believe you will be interested in my firsthand account of abuses by a major pharmaceutical company that manufactures powerful drugs disguised as “vitamins.”

  These drugs were designed to turn ordinary children into geniuses with superior strength and exceptional intellect, but under some circumstances, these pills have caused mental defects and even premature death.

  Since this pharmaceutical giant cannot get approval from the FDA, they are marketing these pills overseas, where they are allowed to promote these drugs for use by children without restriction.

  Dr. Abel, this is not a joke. I have taken these pills most of my life, and so have my siblings. I’ve met parents whose children have taken the same pills and have died.

  You know of me and my family and our relationship to this corrupt corporation. Please contact me at your earliest convenience so that I may tell you the whole wretched story.

  Yours truly,

  Tandoori Angel

  I called Dr. Abel at the Times, and when his assistant said he was out of town, I sent him the e-mail. Then I rewrote the opening and contacted renowned TV doctors Sanjay Gupta, Nancy Snyderman, and Mehmet Oz.

  So far, no one had taken my calls, but it was still early in the day. I rewrote the pitch, underscoring the criminal child abuse that my brothers and I had been subjected to, and I called Nancy Grace at HLN.

  Child abuse usually made her furious, but again, I was told she wasn’t available. I sent her an e-mail, and then I had a brainstorm. I phoned Chloe Rhodes, a reporter at the New York Daily News, who had just written that horrible story about Matty’s car accident.

  Surely she would want an inside scoop on the Angels.

  I called. She picked up, and after one full hour on the phone, we were like friends. Rhodes said she’d call me back in an hour—and she did.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t sell the story to my editor. Without documentation, we could be sued, Tandy.”

  It was a huge setback, but I didn’t have time to whine. I sent a flight of personalized e-mails to West Coast entertainment shows and gossip magazines.

  To my profound disbelief, no news service or supermarket tabloid responded. Not one soul in the entire media world even wanted to interview me. How could this be true?

  Then I finally got it.

  Anyone who called Peter Angel to confirm my story and get his side of it was told that I was insane, that I had been institutionalized and defeated in court.

  Oh my God. What had I done?

  I had been so confident that the truth would win out that I had missed one point entirely. The pundits and reporters I had called had smelled blood, all right. My blood.

  Why go against the gigantic Angel Pharmaceuticals with only my unsubstantiated word, when they could write about my mental breakdown—which was demonstrably a fact? I’d killed my own credibility. No one would believe anything I said ever again. Anything any of us said again.

  That hurt too much.

  I went down to the kitchen and drank probably too much of a bottle of merlot while standing at the sink. After that, I staggered up the spiral staircase to my room. I wrote DO NOT DISTURB in big black letters on yellow paper and taped it to my door.

  Then I fell across my bed and passed out.

  I was savagely awoken the next morning by Hugo jumping up and down on my bed, announcing, “Tandy, you have to get dressed. Sam’s mother died.”

  “Sam’s what?”

  It felt like someone was hammering nails into my skull, and Hugo’s bouncing was making me sick. It took many splintered sunlit moments to get what he was telling me.

  “Stop jumping!”

  He threw himself down on top of me.

  “We’re going to the funeral, Tandy. Matty said so. He chartered a plane.”

  Samantha Peck had been my mom’s personal assistant. She lived with us for several years and had been a great friend to us all. We didn’t know until after Maud died that Sam was my mother’s lover. After my parents’ funeral, Sam moved out and Uncle Pig moved in, just when we needed her the most and needed him the least.

  “What happened to Sam’s mom?” I asked.

  Hugo shrugged. “I think it was old age. Listen, get dressed. We have to leave.”

  Ninety minutes later, my three brothers and I were locked and loaded into a small single-engine Pilatus aircraft taking off from New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport, heading north to Lake Placid, New York.