Confessions of a Murder Suspect (37 page)

“She didn’t want you children to know, Tandy. You know how important it was to your parents that you be strong, no matter what. I imagine Maud visited the hospital under the guise of work appointments, or while you were in school.”

“It’s not like we were ever allowed in their bathroom,” Harry added. “She could have easily hidden her meds from us.”

“As if anyone would have thought a bunch of pill bottles lying around was anything weird in our house,” Hugo remarked, as astute as ever.

“She was a woman of many secrets,” I murmured, remembering Samantha’s words, vowing to find out more about what she knew, later.

Phil nodded. “I know how hard this is, but there’s more I have to tell you. The SEC had filed a formal charge against Maud. She promoted Angel Pharma’s stock and got all of her clients to buy in, but the company was crashing.

“She would have been indicted, for insider trading and for fraud. She wouldn’t have lived long enough to be convicted, but she would have had to endure her last months in a hospital jail pending trial. She couldn’t do that.”

I pictured my mother chained to a rock. I saw the cancer tearing at her guts every day.

“And my father? What was he thinking?”

“Malcolm was going to file for bankruptcy,” Philippe told me. “He didn’t have a penny that wasn’t borrowed. Everything your father owned was tied up in the company. But, most of all, he didn’t want to live under any circumstances without your mother. What would his life have been like?”

Harry’s eyes, so sad that morning, were now blazing. “You kept all of this from us? Even after our parents were dead? Even when this could have helped solve the case?”

“I only found out about your mother’s illness yesterday, from the hospital—I was notified of some outstanding medical bills. Malcolm’s plans to file for bankruptcy would have been addressed as we settled the estate. But the part about your father not wanting to live without your mother… well, he told me that himself. I only wish I had realized that he meant he was truly considering ending his life when hers ended. I would have tried to stop him.”

I shook my head. I kept shaking it, a wordless
no
,
no
,
no
, until I became aware that Philippe had taken my hand and was saying my name.

“What will happen to us?” I asked him.

“I don’t know. Your grandmother, Hilda Angel, didn’t leave anything to your father, but she put what she had into a trust for any grandchildren who might be born later on. I don’t think that the government will be able to take your inheritance from you, if there is one, but I won’t have details until your parents’ estates are settled.”

At that moment, I hated my parents. I couldn’t help it.

My parents had left us to pull our lives together without them. They had died penniless and with debts that would have to be satisfied. Would we even have a place to live?

And what’s worse, Malcolm and Maud Angel had cheated and lied, and their selfishness had hurt a lot of people. They weren’t just flawed, they were corrupt. And they corrupted their children because of their need for perfection. What could our parents have said in any “papers” that would comfort us now?

I went into the chapel desperately seeking good things to say about my parents. I tried to turn my mind back to the strength they’d given me.

I needed to bring healing words to my brothers. And to myself.

85

The lights were low
in the simple little chapel. There were lilies in urns on either side of the podium, and the two caskets were below me—two dark wood coffins with sprays of white flowers lying across them. A large photo of my parents together stood on an easel to my left. They looked happy and optimistic in the picture, which had been taken twenty-five years ago.

Sadly, I wouldn’t be able to lean on my big brother for support, since Matthew was still in jail and I wasn’t even allowed to talk to him. So it was just Harry, Hugo, Samantha, and Philippe who looked up at me from the front row. They were counting on me to say the right things.

I didn’t know if it was possible.

“Malcolm and Maud were good parents,” I began. “They loved us in their own way.”

My voice cracked and splintered. I tried to speak, but my broken little voice disappeared into the overwhelming sadness of my hollow words echoing in the small and nearly empty room.

I tried to rein in my grief and start again with sweeter memories in my mind.

I thought about the birthday cake my father had let me help him bake for Maud’s birthday, and the way my mother had taught me how to dress and act. I remembered how effusive Maud had been when she described the great things I would do someday, including running the family business.

“They were tough on us, and, they held us to a high standard, because they loved us. They wanted us to do great things.…”

“Because they
loved
us,” Harry chimed in from the front row of the chapel. Tears were streaming down his face. “I know they did. They
had
to.”

“They didn’t tell us in actual words.…”

“But they
did
love us,” said Hugo, punching a fist into his other hand.

“They truly, truly loved you,” said Samantha.

“They told me how much they loved you, many times,” Phil said.

Really?

Where was all this certainty coming from?
I
wasn’t sure. But it felt like the right thing to say. And I wanted so badly for it to be true. No matter what they’d done to me, I still loved them.

I think we all needed to believe that they loved us.

Suddenly, I was crying too hard to speak. I heard the creak of door hinges and looked up to see Uncle Peter entering at the front of the chapel. He looked like he’d been raised from the dead to attend this service.

I cleared my throat, dabbed at my nose with a tissue, and put up a hand to show that I had more to say.

I looked at my note cards so that I could read a quote. “Anne Frank wrote, ‘How true Daddy’s words were when he said: all children must look after their own upbringing. Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.’

“This is how Malcolm and Maud felt about us,” I said. “They trusted that we could shape our lives from this point on. That we could make our way.”

Quoting what my mother had said only moments before she died just about killed me. I fell apart, blubbering and sobbing again.

Harry stood and spoke over my sobs. “Our parents
believed in working hard, and they taught us to earn everything we ever got. And now we finally understand that… that they did everything they did for us. It was
all
for us, right?” Harry looked around desperately. I nodded through my tears. He let out a huge sigh and covered his eyes with his hands. His shoulders shook and settled. He spoke again, adding, “Maud used to say, ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead.’ Sleep well now, Mother and Father.” And he sat down.

Hugo shot to his feet and flung himself across Malcolm’s coffin. He said, “Father, I forgive you for the biggest chop ever, ever, ever. I forgive
both
of you. Be good. No fighting. Buckle up and have a safe trip. We’ll always love and miss you.”

86

Two days later,
we had all the windows open in our apartment in the Dakota.

Harry had turned up his music—not classical this time—so that it came over the intercom in every room, really loud. The charging drumbeat and the bright guitar riffs cleansed the air and made me almost want to dance.

Hugo was taking his baseball bat to the furniture in his room, which had been designed with some ordinary rich kid in mind—three big vintage toy cars with pedals, a make-believe rocket ship on a spring, and first-edition antique books that had never even been opened. All reminders of Angel wealth and perfection were quickly being decimated.

There was a lot of food on the dining room table: chips and dips and Ding Dongs—junk my parents would have forbidden. But Malcolm and Maud had left us to soldier on without them. And this laugh-out-loud time was a beautiful start. We felt like actual kids.

We were having a party. Our party. Just for us. We were finally grieving, in our own special way, as only Angels can.

I took a bottle of soda with me into my parents’ room. Their valuables would be sold or auctioned off: the Aronstein flag, the South Sea pearls and the emerald ring, Mercurio and Robert, the Pegasus piano, the Pork Chair and the UFO light fixture.

Before it was too late, I wanted to go through my parents’ less valuable things and find keepsakes for all of us.

I put on the jacket that had belonged to my mother by way of Madonna. I hoped I’d be able to keep it.

No, I was
definitely
going to keep it!

Harry came into the closet and sat down next to me.

“I’ve got Malcolm’s watch,” I said. “You want that?”

“Okay.”

“I saved a couple of things for Matthew and Hugo. Pictures. The wedding rings.”

“I’m the one who called the cops,” Harry said.

“What do you mean?”

“That morning. Right after I found Malcolm and Maud dead. I thought one of us had done it. Still, I had to call the cops.”