Confessions of a Murder Suspect (5 page)

My parents had shown the ambassador to the elevator, and when I last saw them, in the study an hour later, they were in perfect form. Maud was poised elegantly on the edge of her favorite leather chair, and I saw that she had changed out of her silk pantsuit and into one of her favorite embroidered Tunisian tunics. My father was sitting in his own leather chair, sipping his customary glass of scotch. Neither of them looked even the slightest bit agitated.

In answer to Caputo’s question, Samantha, who had taken over Hugo’s seat in the Pork Chair, said, “I saw them last. Maud texted me about some documents in need of signatures, so I reported to her at eleven thirty.” Her voice wobbled the smallest bit when she said Maud’s name, but hearing her familiar, gentle voice calmed me slightly.

“How did she seem to you?”

“Perfectly Maud,” said Samantha.

“What does that mean?” Caputo followed up. He wasn’t about to use his imagination.

Samantha brushed a loose lock of sandy hair out of her eyes and stared at Caputo. “It means exactly that.
Perfect.
Not a hair out of place, not a worry line to be found. Calm. Collected. Ready to take on whatever came next.”

Caputo dismissed this and barreled ahead. “Who stands to profit from the deaths of these people?”

Samantha deflected the question. “Please remember that I’m having a hard time right now,” she said, the wobble returning to her voice. “I loved
these people
and am still in shock that they’ve been ripped from our lives forever.”

I thought I understood what Caputo was doing. When murder suspects are stressed, they sometimes make mistakes and tell the cops a story that might later become evidence against them.

Caputo asked again, “Miss Peck. Who stood to profit from the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Angel?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Can’t say or won’t say?”

“I don’t
know
,” Samantha said. “I can’t imagine someone could want them dead. They may have had some… unorthodox quirks, but they were good people.”

Between coughing fits, Caputo grilled her on her whereabouts that evening and got information on the friend Samantha had gone to dinner with at Carmine’s Trattoria on the West Side. He asked about her relationships with all of us, to which she responded succinctly that while Maud was her employer, each of us kids was like family to her. She had been a part of our lives for years, initially as the photographer who took our family portraits—she’d taken hundreds of beautiful photographs of the family over the years, many of which were hung around the apartment, equal to the Leibovitz portraits we owned—and then, after proving her ability to be totally discreet and loyal, as Maud’s personal secretary. I couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t with us, and as she told Caputo, she would do anything for us.

When Caputo was finished jotting down everything Samantha had to say, he turned his narrow, peevish eyes to Harry.

Harry was openmouthed and breathing thickly, leaning against me, sitting as close as if we were still nestled together in the womb.

“How come you’re the only Angel kid who seems upset?” Caputo said to Harry.

“I’m… damaged,” he said, quoting what Malcolm had said to him many times. “My emotions are getting the best of me. I’m sorry.”

“Do you want to tell me something, Harrington?” Caputo said, putting his face inches from Harry’s nose. “What do you want to tell me?”

“What do you want me to say? I hurt all over,” Harry cried, “inside and out. This is absolutely the worst thing that has ever happened to me!” I put my arms around Harry and he burst into tears against my chest.

Nice-guy Hayes took it upon himself to step in with a smile and a “there, there” for Harry. I could tell without a doubt that he was about to give us the good-cop routine.

And I would be ready for it.

9

“
Do you want to go to your room,
Harry?” Hayes asked. Harry nodded vigorously. “Go ahead. I’ll stop in and talk to you privately in a few minutes.”

Harry shot out of his seat and ran to his room, bawling like a baby. Caputo looked dumbfounded, like he’d never seen a teenager cry before. Which was strange, because just minutes earlier he had been acting like we were all murderers for
not
crying our eyes out.

After a moment passed, Detective Hayes sat next to me on the red leather sofa. “Tandy, tell me your movements of the last six hours. We have to do a complete report, you understand. It’s necessary for us to know where everyone was when your folks were killed.”

“They weren’t
folks
,” I said. “Trust me on that.”

I sketched the details of my evening for the detective, telling him about my homework and the time I’d spent doing research on the effects of radiation on shellfish in the Pacific. I talked about dinner, but mostly just to say that my father, an expert cook, had made the meal himself. I had watched. He had been teaching me how to cook, although I had yet to be allowed to touch anything he was going to serve. “Watch me and learn my movements to perfection so that when you first attempt to do it, you can’t fail,” he’d said.

I was about to give Detective Hayes the ambassador’s name and number when his phone rang and he excused himself. When he returned, he asked me, “And how did your parents seem at dinner?”

I had thought Maud seemed a little off, maybe preoccupied, but I didn’t say so. I also skipped over any mention of the ambassador, and I felt fine about the omission. I’d been in the same room with the ambassador every minute that he was in our house, and besides, that overstuffed, freeloading bureaucrat was too self-involved to ever commit murder.

I had just made a mistake I would pay for later.

“The food was excellent, as usual, and we all had a good time at dinner,” I told Hayes. “I said good night to them before I went to bed at eleven.”

“Your bedroom is right under theirs,” Hayes said. “Did you hear any strange sounds, anything we should know about, Tandy?”

He was working me softly, trying to get to me to open up, but I had nothing for him. I had nothing for my own investigation, either.

I said, “I was asleep by eleven fifteen. And I sleep like a stump.”

“How does a stump sleep?” Hayes asked with a smile.

He was patronizing me. To be fair, sometimes I look younger than I am. I’ve got small bones and features. I rarely use makeup. Girls’ size-eight clothing fits me. As a result, people often underestimate me—which is how I like it.

“I sleep deeply,” I said, “but my brain works overtime, organizing everything I’ve learned during the day,” I told him. “I do some very good work in my sleep.”

Hayes said, “All right, Tandy. Duly noted.
Works in her sleep.
”

He had run out of questions for me, but I had a few questions for him. And as long as he answered them, I didn’t care if he patted me on the head while he did it. It takes a lot to set me off; I’ve been thoroughly trained to control my emotions.

“As far as I could tell, Detective Hayes, no gun or other
murder weapon was found. There was also no forced entry into the apartment. Valuables are still in my parents’ room: a two-hundred-thousand-dollar work of art and several pieces of jewelry. This wasn’t a robbery, correct?” I said. “So what is your theory of the crime?”

Sergeant Caputo had been watching Hayes interrogate me, and he was not amused. He certainly didn’t want to cede control to a teenage girl wearing dinosaur pajamas.

Caputo bent so close to me, I could count the hairs in his unibrow, and the ones curling out of his nose, too.

“Tessie, I think you know a lot more about what happened to your parents than you want to say. Help us understand what happened here. Take a deep breath and tell us what you know. The truth feels really good when you just let it go.”

I pulled back and said, “I
told
you the truth. I was sleeping. Like a stump. And I didn’t wake up until I heard sirens. After that, you were pounding on the door.”

I flashed what Harry calls my Anne Hathaway smile at the cops and said, “Thank you for your help in our time of need.”

“Are we being dismissed?” asked Detective Hayes.

“Ah, finally, the right question,” I replied.

“And the answer to that question is no,” Caputo said.
“We’ll go when we’re done, and for your information, Child Protective Services is on the way.”

Samantha jumped up then. “Mr. and Mrs. Angel elected Peter Angel to be the children’s guardian in case of an emergency. Peter just texted me to say that he’ll be here shortly.”

Uncle Peter? Despite the fact that he was now our closest living relative, he was the last person I wanted to see—a busybody who had once proved to me he was not to be trusted. But that’s a story for another time.

10

Have you noticed
that time seems to slow down unbelievably during any emergency situation? Maybe not. I’m sorry to say this isn’t the first emergency situation I’ve ever been in. So I knew this feeling of eternity all too well.

Though it felt like an hour, only about ten minutes passed before I found myself opening the front door to Uncle Peter, who stalked in like he owned the place. He was wearing a rumpled plaid suit, and his wispy hair had been finger-combed and wouldn’t lie down. It looked to me like he’d been drinking.

He didn’t quite meet my eyes when he said, “This is sad, Tandy. I’m sorry to hear the news.”

I thought I could get more sympathy from a stranger on the street, but never mind. Peter was an Angel, after all.

“It’s sad, all right,” I said to my uncle, successfully quelling the wave of grief that surged up from my heart.

Directly behind him stood Philippe Montaigne, our family’s attorney. We’d known Phil since we were young; he was actually Hugo’s godfather.

He looked handsome and impeccable, even at three in the morning. His hair was shaved close to his scalp, and he smelled of Vetiver. His jacket was Armani, and he wore a white shirt that was open at the neck and hanging out over his dark trousers.

He held out his arms to me and I went to him for a hug. He said, “I’m sorry, Tandy. So very sorry. Are you all right? Do you know what happened?”

I whispered against his cheek, “No. And the police are clueless, Phil.”