Confessions of a Murder Suspect Read online

  “I did, actually,” I said truthfully.

  “Then you know that if a rabbit runs across the road, an hour later a hare hound can still smell that the hare has been there. Cap Caputo’s like that. If there’s a trail, he’ll find it.”

  “Thanks for sharing. When will we get the autopsy report?” I asked.

  Caputo was coming down the stairs and overheard me.

  “There’s no ‘we,’ Tammy. We’re the cops. You’re a suspect. Prime suspect, in my opinion.”

  “You may call me Tandy. You may call me Ms. Angel. But please don’t ever talk down to me again.”

  “Or what?”

  “Don’t bother testing me, Sergeant,” I warned. “Angels always, always ace their tests.”

  “All the more reason you make an ideal suspect. As far as I can tell, Angel is a pretty ironic name for this family.”

  “We don’t particularly relate to the spirits, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You know what I mean. You guys don’t exactly wear halos.”

  “Neither do the thirty-four other Angels in the Manhattan white pages. Halos are so last season, anyway.”

  My attempt to sound like a normal teenager went over well. He smirked.

  “Cute, kid. We’re leaving now, but don’t skip town. We’ll be seeing all of you Angels again very soon. Especially you, Miss Indian Cooking Stove. Especially you.”

  18

  The police and CSI techs finally pulled down the crime-scene tape at the top of the stairs and left our home, taking with them my parents’ computer hard drives and notebooks, as well as cardboard file boxes filled with objects from my parents’ bedroom.

  A wave of inexplicable anger washed over me, which I immediately quelled. If only I had someone I could commiserate with about this invasion of privacy, about the way everyone was treating us like murderers instead of grieving children.

  But I had no friends to call. I hadn’t even thought about what it would be like to go back to school after everything that had happened, and I didn’t trust anyone there, anyway. Since the murders, Harry and Hugo had been spending most of their time in their rooms. I was a loner, like they were, but I had never before felt loneliness quite like this.

  I went to the semicircular bay window behind the piano and looked down onto Seventy-second Street to watch the police load up their vans with my parents’ belongings. It was unlikely I would ever see these things again; I was certain they were doomed to languish in storage in some dark police facility.

  A herd of reporters stampeded toward Hayes and Caputo, and then followed the cop cars and crime-scene vans on foot, shouting for attention as the police vehicles took off toward the precinct on West Eighty-second.

  The band of reporters reassembled at the front gate, and I watched the attractive newscasters flipping their hair and fastening microphones to their collars, using the backdrop of the Dakota for their on-air reports.

  I tried to imagine what Maud would have thought of all this, if she’d ever imagined her death at all. Surely she would have chosen something dignified at the age of ninety or so—maybe a quick cerebral hemorrhage after a full day of work. She wouldn’t have wanted the Post, the Daily News, Fox News, and Entertainment Tonight fluttering around the building, picking at the details of her life. As much as she revered success, she detested the mass forms of communication that reported on the successful. Call it yet another contradiction that my parents embodied.

  I went across the hall to our home theater, with its plush velvet seats lined up in front of a gargantuan screen that doubled as a television when we weren’t watching movies (strictly educational films, of course). I clicked to a news station, and a reporter that I had actually just seen from the window was now looking out at me from the TV screen, saying:

  “With his brother, Peter, Malcolm Angel owned Angel Pharma, a multinational drug company. Maud Angel was founder and CEO of a successful hedge fund, Leading Hedge, which has come under SEC scrutiny in the last few weeks.

  “Still, the Angels died at the pinnacle of success. Their motto was ‘yes we can,’ long before Barack Obama campaigned with that slogan.

  “The Angels leave four children ranging in age from ten to twenty-four. The oldest is the celebrated athlete Matthew Angel, who plays for the New York Giants. All four children are known to be high achievers—or, as some say, overachievers.

  “But that figures into the Angel family reputation. Malcolm and Maud Angel were referred to in their social circle as ‘Tiger Mom and Tiger Dad.’ And now the tigers are dead.

  “The police have no comment, but if you’re just joining us, Inside News has learned that the Angels’ deaths have been termed ‘suspicious.’ We’ll be bringing you further news on this story as it unfolds. Stay tuned to this station….”

  No. I’d had way too much of the news already.

  I turned off the TV and wandered out of the theater. The apartment was still cloaked in an eerie silence. Matthew and Hugo were in Hugo’s room. Samantha’s door was closed. And my twin typically sleeps late on Saturdays. That day, I thought, Harry might not get out of bed at all.

  If I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend it was a normal weekend at the Angel house, with Malcolm and Maud off at work, putting in overtime. And I wondered: What would a normal family be doing less than twenty-four hours after discovering their parents had been murdered?

  I suppose they’d be together, for one. There would still be a lot of tears, runny noses, wailing, and grinding of teeth. Lots of visitors coming over making sure everyone was okay, bringing food and things to make sure the grieving family members didn’t have to worry about feeding themselves. Does that sound about right?

  I wouldn’t know. All I know is that we will never be normal. Because I wasn’t thinking about any of that. Here’s what I was thinking:

  It was a perfect time to search the house—especially my parents’ room. The scene of the crime.

  19

  I have to admit that by that point I had already become obsessed with solving my parents’ murders. I should also confess that I’m a bit obsessive-compulsive anyway.

  I took a self-guided tour of the downstairs rooms just to make sure that no stone had been left unturned, that no obvious forced entry had been missed. I thoroughly checked the family rooms: living room, hallways, library, and kitchen. I double-checked the laundry room and the back door and the elevator. I saw no nicks or breaks in the door frames, no scratches on the locks. I saw nothing out of place. Disappointing.

  Everywhere I looked, I saw Angel family perfection.

  I took to the stairs and noticed right away that I was finding it a little difficult to breathe. This was my parents’ suffocating world, after all. But I was having an uncharacteristically emotional reaction to it.

  Halfway up, I passed Mercurio, the larger-than-life sculpture of a merman hanging from his tail by a chain and a hook screwed into the ceiling. “Blood” was dripping down his chest, and there was a look of pure anguish on his face. Fitting.

  Mercurio was another of Hugo’s Grande Gongo “prizes,” and another parental indulgence with a message: Life is serious. You win or you lose, and winning is a lot better.

  My father had told us about the actual, real-life Grande Gongo, a cutting-edge container ship docked in Korea and flying the Italian flag. He’d said that the Grande Gongo was an “an intrepid craft on a mission—with no boundaries.” And that was how he thought of his children.

  Certificates of excellence had been hung on the stairwell wall, alongside mottos that my father had found important enough to frame. The one he never let us forget was written by a poet and priest who had died almost four centuries ago:

  ONE FATHER IS MORE THAN A HUNDRED SCHOOLMASTERS.—GEORGE HERBERT

  There was another framed item that I rarely passed without stopping to read it again. It was an envelope and letter from Hilda Angel—my father’s mother—who died just before Malcolm and Maud were married.

  Apparently, G
ram Hilda had not approved of the marriage.

  She had scrawled on the back of the envelope, “Do not open until my will has been read.”

  After the reading of her will, the letter was opened. It was in my grandmother’s handwriting, and it was signed and notarized. Even the notary’s signature had been notarized. It read:

  “I am leaving Malcolm and Maud $100, because I feel that is all that they deserve.”

  Rather than feeling insulted, my parents had used Hilda’s disapproval to fuel their financial aspirations. They had made millions and millions since Gram Hilda had disinherited them. Her letter was a Big Chop that was also a stupendous motivator.

  I climbed to the top of the staircase, put my hand on the newel, and stepped into the second-floor hallway. My parents’ killer had stood where I was standing now.

  I shivered.

  What had he been thinking as he primed himself for the kill?

  20

  I walked down the long hallway leading to my parents’ suite, intending to pass through their bedroom doorway as I’d done so many times before. But when I got to the threshold, I found that I couldn’t force myself to cross it. It was as if a thick glass wall had formed in the doorway and I couldn’t get past it.

  I stared through the imaginary glass and saw that their room had been officially trashed since I’d last been in there.

  After the crime-scene techs had taken photos and fingerprints, they’d torn the room apart. Every single drawer had been emptied, clothes had been shoved aside in the closets, and carpets had been rolled up. The Aronstein flag painting was down and leaning against the wall, and my parents’ four-poster bed had been stripped bare.

  I had to face reality: The crime scene had been destroyed by the police, and there could be no useful evidence whatsoever still inside.

  As I stared into the room, I flashed back to seeing Malcolm and Maud dead on their bed, that split-second glimpse of them locked and frozen in their death struggles. Like Robert and Mercurio, they had looked lifelike, but not alive.

  The horror of it caught up with me again. I may live a very sheltered life, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t experienced a few unspeakable things. I’ve just managed to block them out.

  But not this one. Not yet. It was too fresh.

  I was struck by a wave of nausea and had to immediately cover my face with my hands and concentrate on my breathing. My eardrums pounded as blood pulsed through my brain, calling to mind that roller-coaster ride with Harry so many years before.

  When I took my hands away and looked again at the room, I forced myself to concentrate as hard as I ever have in my life. I looked at each object and tried to compare it to my earlier flash inventory of my parents’ possessions.

  But here’s the thing: I couldn’t possibly know what the police had taken—or what might have been taken by an intruder the night of the murders.

  I visualized my parents during their last hours alive, both in bed, wearing their reading glasses, books in their laps. I put myself outside their door. They looked up as I came in.

  Anything wrong, Tandoori?

  Father. Who killed you and Mother?

  In my mind’s eye, their faces were simply frozen in a look that I couldn’t read. A look I’d never seen on their faces before that night.

  A minute or two later, I left the master bedroom suite in a daze and went back downstairs—where I ran directly into Uncle Peter. He was carrying a glass of red juice in his hand. Maybe it was the morbid effect of living in a crime scene, but I imagined him drinking blood.

  Which wouldn’t really surprise me, actually. The guy was a vampire of a different sort. Sucked the life out of people. Heeded only his own survival instinct. I hate him for reasons that run so deep my conscious mind hardly has access to them.

  “Watch it, Tandy.”

  I was almost glad to see him, but not for long. He was headed toward “his” room, had his hand on the door as he said to me, “I’m going to be using this room as my office, so please keep in mind: Noli intrare. No admittance. It’s a new rule.”

  “What did you do to Katherine’s room?”

  “Out. Out. Noli perturbare. Do not disturb!”

  And then my uncle Peter closed the door in my face. Can you see why I dislike him so immensely?

  That’s why it disturbed me so much to see him in Katherine’s room. She and I had been extremely close, and I had spent many weekend mornings in my big sister’s bed, with its pink crown of a headboard, gazing at the Marilyn Minter painting of lips and pearls on the opposite wall. I could tell her anything, and I learned more from her about the world outside our apartment than I ever did from my rigorous lessons with Malcolm and Maud.

  I was particularly interested in her many stories about dating—secretly, of course. I asked a lot of questions, made a lot of mental notes. I even wrote a few things down. And Katherine was very free with her information. I think she felt bad for me and my lack of experience with what she called “the real world.”

  My sister was brilliant and charming and a beauty, just like my mother had been. To the rest of the world, Katherine appeared smart, curious, calm, together. But she was very different on the inside. She was able to feel real passion about things, about people. I really looked up to her. Everyone loved her.

  Then she won the Grande Gongo—and it turned out to be the biggest chop of all.

  It ended with Katherine’s death.

  21

  When I walked in on Harry in his bedroom, I saw that tears streaked the sides of his face. He was awake, lying spread-eagle in his big platform bed, looking up at the trompe l’oeil painting of a domed and gilded ceiling that was open at the center to a pink sky. Angels peered over the rim and looked down on him. Seven Angels, to be exact—one for each member of our family. He’d painted them himself. How strange that Malcolm and Maud were staring down at him right now….

  I sat on the side of the bed. “I brought you some lunch, okay?”

  “I can’t eat.”

  “It’s very nice, Harry. I tasted it. No poison, I promise. Chicken with orzo and a touch of cilantro. Malcolm made it. I just found it in the fridge.”

  “Maybe we should freeze it. A keepsake. A memory.”

  “You know he wasn’t sentimental like that. He would want you to eat it now.”

  Harry sat up and rubbed at his eyes with his palms. Then he leaned back against the bed and ate the soup. Some of it, anyway.

  “Come on, bro. You have to eat. Buck up.”

  That was what our parents used to say. I wished I hadn’t said it.

  “I’ll tell you what’s killing me, Tandy.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “They never loved me.”

  “Come on. They were different, that’s all—”

  “One day I was going to prove myself to them. I never had the chance to do it before they died. They died thinking I was useless.”

  “They loved you,” I said, hoping that Harry could find a shred of conviction in my voice. “They withheld praise. From all of us. You know that. It stunk, but it’s how they raised us.”

  “Painting is for sissies. Piano is for wimps. Singing is for girly-men. I’m quoting them now.”

  “Did you actually believe them when they said that, Harry? They bought art and went to the opera. They let you paint and sing and play.”

  Harry paused, pondering yet another of Malcolm and Maud’s puzzling contradictions. He finally shook his head.

  “Remember when I played Carnegie Hall?”

  “The first time? When you were ten and the youngest piano soloist at Carnegie Hall ever? You were amazing. I’ll never forget that day, Harry. The audience rose to their feet, and must have applauded for at least five minutes. They totally adored you, and it was an audience that knew what they were listening to.”

  “Malcolm came late. Maud left early.”

  “But they had a party for you, remember?”

  “I was ten. The guests were their
age. Don’t make excuses for them. I have to come to grips with this now and forever.”

  I took the soup bowl out of his hands and put it on the floor, then got into bed beside him. He rolled toward me and cried on my shoulder. It really hurt to hear Harry cry.

  But I had to ask him. I had to. He was very creative, and I was pretty sure he could come up with a way to do the impossible and never get caught.

  “Did you kill them, Harry?”

  He drew back and looked at me, his eyes switching back and forth across my face.

  “No,” he finally said. “I didn’t kill them, Tandy. Did you?”

  It’s one thing to ask someone if they’re guilty. It’s another to be asked. I was nonplussed.

  “Because, Tandy,” Harry went on, “I know what they took from you. I know we don’t talk about it—about him. About the incident. But I’ll never forget. How much it hurt. Both of us.”

  I just stared at him.

  “Have you forgotten, Tandy?” he asked. “Have you?”

  CONFESSION

  My brother. Sweet, gentle, weepy Harry. I swear he wouldn’t knowingly do anything to hurt anybody. The real Harry wouldn’t hurt a fly. Not even a hideous cockroach. When he was a little boy, he actually caught bugs in his hand and set them free on the fire escape—when Maud wasn’t looking.

  So how do I explain the one time in his life Harry hurt someone? The day when my twin betrayed the person who loves him the most? Sometimes I’m so glad I’ve been given the gift of control over my emotions, because I just can’t even imagine how much it would have hurt me otherwise.

  Harry never came to the hospital after my… incident. The most traumatic experience of my life. Malcolm and Maud wouldn’t really say why.

  “He’s busy practicing” was Maud’s weak explanation.

  “He’s never been good around blood or needles, you know that,” Malcolm said, with a touch of disdain.

  Hugo was the one who told me the truth—as usual. He was too young to lie about something like that. “Harry didn’t come because he said you deserved it,” he reported innocently. “Why, Tandy? Why did you deserve it?”