The Private School Murders Read online

  Do you think he did it?

  Phil was handsome as always, shaved head, expensive tailoring, tidy with a capital T, an urban lawyer in command. My brother was wearing a suit that looked loose on him, and his expression sagged.

  He didn’t see us, but I hoped he could feel that his siblings had his back.

  A lot of business was conducted in the next hour. Chubby-cheeked Judge Bradley Mudge addressed the people in the gallery. He told us the rules of order, and when the jury came in, he spent a long time instructing them on trial procedure.

  I studied the faces and body language of the jurors and alternates. The people who would decide my brother’s fate looked like a bunch of average Joes and Janes, none any more remarkable than the last.

  But then I snuck another look at the prosecutor whose job it was to keep Matthew in jail, and goose bumps chilled my skin.

  That woman was scary.

  18

  I craned my head to get a good look at prosecutor Nadine Raphael. She was almost six feet tall, with a powerful build, like an Olympic swimmer. Her broad shoulders and narrow hips were encased in a tight red Armani suit, and her black hair was short and swept back, tucked behind her ears, highlighting her beautiful, angular face. She could have been a modern-day Greek goddess—the severe and statuesque Pallas Athena, to be exact.

  Ms. Raphael stepped out from behind the prosecution table and click-clacked smartly to the lectern in the center of the courtroom. About two hundred pairs of eyes followed.

  She said hello to the jury, held up a photograph, and launched her opening statement. I glanced at Harry and held my breath.

  “This is one of the victims in this case, Tamara Gee. A sweet young woman of twenty-four, generous, funny, and if she looks familiar to you, maybe you’ve seen her on television or in the movies. But I don’t want to focus on her career.”

  Sure you don’t, I thought. Reminding everyone of how universally beloved Tamara was won’t help your case at all.

  “Tamara was a real person, a citizen of this city, an exemplary soul, and an expectant mother of the other victim in this trial. That victim was her unborn child. A child she called Trevor. A boy who never drew a single breath or opened his eyes. He died inside his mother’s body.

  “Until three months ago, Tamara lived with the defendant in the Village, in a nice apartment in an old building with an Italian restaurant downstairs.

  “She liked to read mysteries until late at night, wake up early, and go for a run on the empty streets of Tribeca. And she was in love with Matthew Angel.”

  My mouth went dry. This woman was good at her job.

  “Not surprising. Matthew is one of the most eligible bachelors in the country. But I’m not here to praise Matthew Angel. Let’s just say that Tamara loved him and trusted him and was dreaming of the future, when she would have their baby.

  “Sometime on the night of October twenty-second, or in the early-morning hours that followed, Matthew came home and went to bed with Tamara. According to his statement to the police, Matthew had been drinking. Had he also been brooding, harboring anger as well? Was he enraged that the baby Tamara carried might be his brother, not his son?”

  Harry’s grip on my hand tightened. I gripped him right back.

  “We don’t know what was in Matthew’s mind. We only know that on the morning of October twenty-third, Mandy Shine, the housekeeper employed by Matthew and Tamara, knocked on the door, and when no one came to answer it, she went into the apartment, as was her custom.

  “What she saw that morning caused her to run screaming into the street, prompting the doorman to investigate and immediately call the police.”

  Nadine Raphael spun on her designer heels, returned to the prosecution table, and exchanged the glamour photo of Tamara for another one. I tried to see it, but the prosecutor held it against her body.

  Then she said, “This, ladies and gentlemen, is what Ms. Shine saw.”

  Nadine held up a horrible bloody picture of Tamara Gee lying faceup on a big white bed, a sheet covering her baby bump. Bright red blood was sprayed and spattered on every surface of the room, contrasting Tamara’s pale skin and blond hair. I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling faint.

  Jurors gasped at the sight of the grotesque tableau. The foreman, a large sunburned man, covered his eyes with the palms of his big rough hands. The brassy-blond woman sitting next to him doubled over and groaned. Another juror, a woman about Tamara’s age, covered her mouth with her fingertips as tears filled her eyes.

  “The defendant has no credible defense, ladies and gentlemen. He told the police that he had an ironclad alibi, that he’d been out drinking and playing poker all night long with friends, that when he got home in the small hours of the morning, he undressed and went to bed in the dark. That he didn’t know Tamara was dead until he awoke the next morning to find her next to him, at which point he panicked and fled the scene. Why didn’t he call the police? Why didn’t he immediately seek justice for the love of his life?”

  It was a good question. The very question I’d asked Matthew myself.

  “Since that day, Matthew’s alibi for the night in question has fallen apart. There will be no witnesses to tell you that Matthew Angel was out drinking or playing poker at the time when Tamara and their baby were killed.

  “Here are the facts: Matthew Angel is a violent career athlete who believed that his girlfriend had been unfaithful with his own father. In fact, postmortem DNA tests have proved that the child was Matthew Angel’s.

  “But Matthew didn’t know that on the night Tamara was killed. And this is what happens when Matthew Angel gets mad,” Nadine Raphael said, rattling the photograph in front of the jury. “He kills the woman who loved him and the baby they made together.”

  I brought my fist to my lips and bit down hard to keep from crying out. He couldn’t have done it! I wanted to scream.

  “We will prove our case beyond a shadow of doubt. And we will ask you to find Matthew Angel guilty of two savage murders.”

  19

  Hugo took in a big breath, completely filling his lungs. Seeing that he was about to yell, I clapped my hand over his mouth and held on.

  I whispered into his ear, “If you as much as squeak, we will be thrown out of here. Blink once if you understand.”

  He blinked, and when he exhaled entirely, I let him go.

  Judge Mudge peered down from the bench and said, “Mr. Montaigne. Are you ready to give your opening statement?”

  Philippe said, “Yes, Your Honor.”

  I grabbed Harry’s and Hugo’s hands again. Phil stepped out into the aisle, and as he buttoned his gray jacket and walked up to the lectern, I felt a sudden rush of love for him. He was working to defend Matty knowing full well that whether he won or lost, he would likely not be paid a nickel for his time.

  Matty did have his own money, separate from the lien against my parents’ estate, but the Gee family had filed a civil lawsuit against him for wrongful death. Who knew if he’d have anything left once that was settled.

  I shot a look at Harry, who put his arm around me and said softly, “Courage.” I nodded and swallowed hard as Phil greeted the jury.

  “Tamara Gee was a wonderful young woman, and Matthew Angel loved her very much,” Phil began. “Even though Tamara told the press that she was having an affair with Malcolm Angel, Matthew’s father, and that the baby she was expecting was not his, Matthew loved her.

  “He loved her so much that whether or not the baby was his, he still wanted to marry her, still bought her a ten-carat heart-shaped diamond ring a week before her death. He still phoned her when he wasn’t with her, and she still phoned him. We will introduce evidence to prove this. But for now, I want to tell you what happened the night in question, the night Tamara was murdered by an unknown killer for reasons we don’t know.

  “On that night, Matthew played poker with four of his friends, as he told the police, but he left earlier than he originally recalled, and instead of g
oing home, as he first claimed, Matthew went out to a bar. He got, in his words, ‘stinking drunk,’ and sometime in the early hours, he came home. He didn’t lock the door.

  “He got undressed in the bathroom, then got into bed with Tamara. He never turned on the lights and he never kissed her good night. He passed out.

  “The next morning, Matthew awoke and found Tamara, the love of his life and the mother of his unborn child, dead. At that point, Matthew Angel went into shock. He went into denial. He left the house and the gruesome scene the prosecution has just subjected all of you to, hoping against irrational hope that it wasn’t true. That he hadn’t seen what he had seen. Later that day, at home and surrounded by his loving family, he was arrested and charged with murder.

  “The investigation stopped right there, ladies and gentlemen. But there are other possibilities. Was Tamara already dead when Matthew got into bed with her? Or was she killed while he was lying beside her, passed out drunk?

  “To this day, the police believe that the defendant killed Tamara Gee and her unborn child, but here’s the dirty little secret.”

  Phil paused for effect, and when I thought I would go crazy from waiting, he walked to the jury box and put his hands on the railing. “The dirty little secret, folks, is that while Tamara was stabbed by a sharp object fifteen times, there was no murder weapon in the apartment.

  “No murder weapon was found.”

  Point, Phil! He was every bit as dramatic as Nadine, but he didn’t have to rely on shocking, grisly photos to stir up the jury. Phil had facts.

  “There were no knives missing from the apartment, no knife in the apartment to match the victim’s stab wounds, no evidence that Matthew had purchased any such knife. There is no proof that Matthew Angel had the means to commit this crime. There are no eyewitnesses to report having seen Matthew Angel commit this crime. Every single piece of evidence the prosecution will submit to you is circumstantial.

  “What is true is that this is a classic case of the police rushing to judgment against a bigger-than-life individual without sufficient evidence. We suggest this: Someone came in and killed Tamara before or after Matthew came home, and he took his weapon with him.

  “And what that means is that the real killer is alive and well, roaming the streets of New York City.

  “Matthew Angel is guilty of getting drunk.

  “But he’s not guilty of murder.”

  20

  After Philippe’s opening, I pulled my hands up into my sleeves and wiped at my cheeks. Phil was on. If he ran the rest of this case with the same passion he’d brought to that opening, he’d win, no question.

  Then the prosecutor called her first witness.

  The housekeeper answered the questions while looking straight into Matthew’s eyes, which was pretty damn brave. It also made it look like she didn’t feel guilty at all about her testimony—that she believed every word she was saying.

  So my heart sank to the floor when she said, “I believe Matthew killed Tamara.”

  Phil jumped up with an objection that was sustained, but the damage was done. The jury members were already shooting one another wide-eyed looks.

  Then Detective Ryan Hayes described Matthew’s defiance when he and Caputo had come to the Dakota to arrest him. He said that Matthew hadn’t cried. That he hadn’t asked questions. That he had seemed unaffected by Tamara’s death.

  Well, in my humble opinion, Matthew was being judged by people who didn’t know that he had been innocently taking Angel Pharmaceutical’s special emotion-killing drugs for years.

  Was it possible that the pills had not only numbed Matthew but had turned him into a cold-blooded killer? With the exception of Harry, everyone in the family had been labeled a sociopath at some time or other. If Matty hadn’t been taking those pills, he might have reacted normally. He might not even be on trial for murder right now if he’d had the simple, God-given ability to show grief.

  What had our parents done to us?

  When court was adjourned for the day, I left Hugo with Harry and ran up the aisle against the tide of spectators and reporters heading for the hall to join the media circus undoubtedly already waiting outside. I reached Matthew and grabbed his hand. He spun around even as a guard was coming to escort him out of the courtroom.

  “I just wanted to tell you we’re here,” I said.

  He looked into my swollen eyes and tried for a bolstering expression. “Everything is going to be okay, Tandy.”

  I nodded as if I believed him, but, friend, I knew he was wrong. I just didn’t know if he was lying to me or to himself. And then I heard shouting: “Matty, Matty!”

  Hugo had broken away from Harry and was running toward Matthew, but he never reached him. Before he could throw himself over the barrier and into our big brother’s arms, Matthew was dragged away by the guard.

  “Don’t worry, Hugo!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Hear me? I’ll be home soon.”

  Hugo’s chest heaved like he was about to start hyperventilating. All around us, people stared, and not in a kind or sympathetic way. I think the court artist was even starting to sketch us.

  “Come on, you guys,” Harry said, putting his arms around our shoulders. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Of course, the press was waiting for us in a huge jumble in the hallway.

  “Tandy! What did you think of the opening statements?”

  “Does it bother you that your brother didn’t seem to care that his girlfriend was brutally murdered?”

  “Why aren’t you kids in school?”

  Obviously, I ignored them, and smirked when I saw Hugo shoot them his famous middle-finger salute right before Harry bundled us all into the elevator. When we reached the lobby, the crowds of courthouse employees leaving the building unthinkingly surrounded us and we flowed anonymously out to the street.

  I took a deep breath of the cool, fresh air, thinking it would calm me, but instead my stomach suddenly heaved. I looked around, desperate, and puked right there in the gutter.

  “Tandy? Are you okay?” Hugo asked, alarmed.

  I managed to nod as Harry helped me up.

  A woman with a large croc handbag handed me a wad of tissues and said, “Shall I call someone?”

  “Thanks, but I’m okay,” I replied miserably, taking a deep, shaky breath.

  “We’re fine,” said Harry, his voice breaking.

  Yeah, right. I wondered if we’d ever be fine again.

  21

  Jacob Perlman was waiting for us on the red leather sofa in the living room. Along with his standard khaki shirt and pants, he was wearing his fierce no-nonsense look, and I had an idea why.

  “Uh-oh,” I said, coming into the room.

  “Sit down, Tandy. All of you.”

  We arrayed ourselves around the coffee table that used to be a shark tank and was now just an empty five-by-five glass container with some dead algae clinging to the walls.

  “Raise your hand if you went to school today.”

  He looked at us. The boys looked away.

  “We went to court,” I volunteered. “Matthew’s trial started today.”

  “I’m aware of that. Now.” Jacob crossed his arms over his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You might have said no,” Harry said. “We didn’t want to fight with you about it, and we especially didn’t want to be overruled.”

  “I haven’t seen my brother in a month,” Hugo said passionately. “I had to see him. I don’t care what you do to me. I’d skip school and do it again.”

  “So you lied by omission,” Jacob said. “We talked about this.”

  I leaned forward in my seat. “But I—”

  Jacob held up one finger to silence me. It worked. “When you didn’t go to school, Mr. Thibodaux was concerned.”

  “Ugh,” said Hugo.

  “You’re surprised, Hugo?” Jacob asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Hugo hung his head. “No, sir.”

  “Mr. Thibodaux call
ed me.”

  “Oh, man,” said Harry.

  “I take it you know where this is going?” Jacob said. “Well, I’ll tell you, anyway. I called each of you. None of you answered. I tried again. Still nothing. And then, since your phones are supposed to be on at all times and you’re always to answer when I call, I worried that something might have happened to you. So I called the police.”

  “We turned off our phones when we went into the courthouse,” I explained. “You knew Matty’s trial was today. Why not look for us there? We weren’t missing nearly long enough for the police to begin a search.”

  “Given recent events, in particular the murder of a young woman across the street from this building, I didn’t have time to hope you were fine and go down to the courthouse to check. Sergeant Caputo and I were extremely worried. Normally, he would wait forty-eight hours, but you kids are special friends of the Twentieth Precinct.

  “The police canvassed this building. Several officers searched for you around your school. A squad of uniformed officers went looking for your dead bodies in Central Park.”

  Hugo said in a small voice, “Do you think maybe you overreacted a little bit? I mean, we went to court. Everyone should have known that. He’s our brother. The trial is major news. Caputo’s partner was even there. Testifying against Matty.”

  “You could have flipped on the news and seen our faces splayed all over it,” Harry added.

  “You disobeyed,” Jacob said firmly. “You didn’t tell me where you were. That is a big deal.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “We’re not used to reporting in yet, Jacob. We never had to before.”

  Jacob went on as if I hadn’t spoken. He kept his voice even, which was almost scarier than if he’d gone crazy.

  “The search was finally called off when, as you say, Harry, one of the officers saw your faces splayed all over the news. But not before thousands of tax dollars were spent and you aged me about ten years. You owe an apology to the NYPD and to Mr. Thibodaux. I don’t want your apology. I want obedience.