Confessions of a Murder Suspect (10 page)

Apparently, Gram 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