Confessions of a Murder Suspect (6 page)

Uncle Peter conferred with Hayes and Caputo, and I heard him say that he had hosted a dinner party at his apartment from eight
PM
until only moments ago, and that he had eighteen guests who could vouch for his whereabouts.

As Hayes took down names and phone numbers, I brought Philippe up to the minute on everything I knew.

“All right. Now, don’t talk to the police again unless I’m with you, Tandy.”

“We only said that we were sleeping when it happened.”

“That’s fine,” said Philippe. “Keep in mind that the police are allowed to lie. They can say anything to you. Set any kind of trap.”

“Gotcha,” I said.

“Good. And don’t worry.”

But it looked as if our fifteen-hundred-dollars-an-hour attorney was worried himself. I could tell he was wondering what would happen to us, the superfreak Angel kids, without the protection of our gargoyle parents.

Philippe approached the cops and I followed right behind him. “Is anyone here under arrest?” he asked.

“Not yet,” said Caputo. “But we haven’t excluded anyone as a suspect, either.”

“Tandoori, Harrison, and Hugo are all minors. You had no right to interrogate them without a parent or guardian
ad litem
present.”

“Their parents had checked out, for Christ’s sake,” Caputo said. “They could be witnesses to a double homicide. You think I should have made them hot chocolate and told them to watch cartoons? We had dead people here.”

Phil ignored him and kept going.

“I’m going to file a complaint with the chief of Ds in the morning. Right now, I’m advising my clients not to speak with you unless you charge them, and even then only if I’m present. I’m also advising them all to go to bed. That includes Matthew, if he wants to stay, and Samantha Peck, too.”

Caputo said, “The Angels’ bedroom is a crime scene. We’re leaving uniformed officers at the top of the stairs. I wouldn’t mess with us if I were you, counselor. Be advised of
that
.”

And with that, Caputo and Hayes finally left our apartment.

Uncle Peter stood in the center of the room, watching and saying nothing. He hadn’t hugged me, or asked where my three brothers were so he could go to see them. He’s made no secret of the fact that he doesn’t like children.

He especially doesn’t like us.

Why, you might ask?

Because
, he has said,
I know you.

He looked around the apartment as if he were sizing it up for sale. I knew for a fact that the apartment could fetch twenty million, and that was without the art and the furnishings. Uncle Peter would probably get my father’s half of Angel Pharma, but would he inherit our apartment as well?

Uncle Peter said to me, “I’m moving into the guest room
for now. After the reading of the will, we’ll see what the future will bring to the Angel family.”

My jaw dropped. We didn’t
have
a “guest room.” And that could only mean one thing.

I watched as Uncle Peter went into the bedroom right next to mine. Oh, man, I could
not
believe it. If my parents had been alive, they might have killed Peter for using Katherine’s room.

And I’m not exactly using
kill
as a figure of speech here.

CONFESSION

I saw Maud cry once.

I know you probably don’t believe that’s possible, but it’s true. I need to prove to you that my parents really were human. That they could feel pain.

I can’t place the memory specifically in time; I imagine this is one of those traumatic moments that Dr. Keyes worked so hard to help me forget, but somehow it still lingers.

I remember that I’d come home early that day because lacrosse practice had been canceled unexpectedly. So I know it was before the accident with Robert that landed me in the hospital with fifty stitches.

As I entered the apartment, I heard a strange, strangled noise coming from the direction of Maud’s study.

Others might have sprinted toward the sound to make sure there was no foul play, or maybe called out, asking if everyone was all right. But I think I’m a born investigator. When I hear something unusual, it’s my nature to get quiet and observe, to study. So I took my shoes off, the Angel family rule, and padded quietly down the hall.

When I reached the door to the study, which was cracked open, I heard Samantha’s voice. “Of course you had to do it. A mother’s role is to prepare and protect her child. Period. You knew what he would do to her.”

There was brief silence, then a gasp, then a wail. “We did something much worse, Samantha.” It was Maud’s voice, twisted with emotion. “What we did… the consequences are final. I have never failed so spectacularly in my life.”

“You didn’t fail. The person who you hired to do the job failed.”

“I shouldn’t have trusted him.”

“But it was an accident.”

“Accidents are the very definition of failure. Pure, complete failure.”

“Maud, the past can’t be changed. You can only let yourself think of the future. Of what’s next. Let’s discuss what can be done to… clean up. Let’s discuss how I can help.”

“Malcolm is taking care of that part. The person who did this will be taken care of. Permanently.”

Permanently taken care of?
Fired
, I reassured myself.
That must be what she means.

The person who did… what? Were they talking about someone working for the hedge fund? Or the man driving the vehicle that had killed Katherine?

Or the boy who had tried to steal their precious Tandoori away from them?

The boy I think I loved… once?

I’m so sorry, reader. I can’t go on thinking about that right now.

11

Our apartment suddenly felt completely empty.

The police were gone, except for the oversized and overweight patrolman putting great stress on an antique armchair outside our parents’ room.

The CSIs were gone.

Hugo had, for obvious reasons, not been able to sleep, and had followed Matty back to the living room. He was now quietly feeding squid-burger to the sharks while Matty paced. Harry had also returned from his room and was sitting at the piano with his head in his hands.

Philippe Montaigne was gone, and Uncle Peter had shut himself up in Katherine’s room and locked the door. Shortly after the sounds of furniture being moved had
ceased, the bar of light showing under the door had also gone out.

And, of course, our parents were gone. They’d left a gigantic vacuum. I never realized until that moment how much they’d filled this apartment. Our world. With all the silence around us, I wondered for a moment if they had been the Angel family’s entire life force.

Matthew shattered the silence by whistling loudly, shrilly, and long.

“Attention, everyone,” he shouted, putting on his sunglasses. “It’s time for a family meeting, and Samantha is invited to attend.”

Matty had our attention. Harry sat up at the Pegasus, his fingers on the keys. Samantha and I shared the sofa, and Hugo lay on the carpet with a couple of forty-pound weights in his hands. He curled them to his chest as his idol and mentor talked.

“Here’s the thing, sports fans, and you, too, Tandy. United we stand. Divided we fall. Don’t talk to the police without Philippe. Don’t speculate on what could have happened, or why. That only muddies the waters. Let the police do their work. We stand on the sidelines.” He slid his sunglasses down his nose and looked around the room at us. “Anybody have anything to add to this?”

Well, yeah.
I
did.

“Matty, it’s obvious that we’re all suspects,” I said. “The police didn’t believe our alibis, and why should they? No one else had access to the apartment. The doors lock automatically. The elevator requires a key. It’s pretty clear to them that one of us murdered Maud and Malcolm.”

“That’s what I’m talking about, Tandy, that’s the exact thing. They don’t know if it was one of us. Maybe you gave a key to a boyfriend—”

“You know I don’t have a boyfriend.” That was cruel on Matty’s part. He knew we did not speak about boyfriends in this house. At least mine… Because they weren’t allowed.

This, dear friend, was the paradox of my life. Even though I’d traveled the world—more than once—you might say I didn’t get out much. At all.

Matty was still talking. “Or maybe Sal hired a hit man.”

“Our
doorman
Sal? Are you crazy, Matthew? Why would Sal do that? Malcolm liked Sal. He gave him free chill pills. I’m sure the cops will give him a good turn on the spit, but
you
have more of a motive to kill our parents than Sal has. Why are you so quick to shut us up?”

Matthew pushed his sunglasses to the top of his bird’s nest of hair. He gave me the double-barreled blue-eyed all-American stare. Now the gloves were coming off.

Yes
, I thought.
Everyone
should
defend themselves in the safety of the living room now, because sooner or later, we will have to do it for real.

“Don’t look at
me
, Tandoori,” Matthew said. “Even if I am fast enough to circle the block before the smell catches up with my fart, I
still
wasn’t here last night, and I
still
haven’t even visited this insane asylum since Christmas.”

Harry was running his fingers over the piano keys in a dramatic thrumming riff, either Chopin or Liszt—I wasn’t sure which.

Then he stopped playing and said to Matthew, “Who even knows if that’s true, Matty? You could have used the service elevator, and you could still have a key. No one would have known you were here. And,
Hugo
—your room is right at the foot of the stairs. You had easy access to the penthouse.”

Hugo put down the weights and jackknifed to his feet.

“I’m just a
kid
! I couldn’t kill my own parents. What am I supposed to do without them? Get a job? I’m four-foot-eight. I’m in the fifth grade.”

Then he spun on his heels and pointed his huge index finger at me.

“Tandy’s got motive, too. She’s the one who got the last Big Chop.”